My book partner told me today that the publisher is pushing our production schedule up by two weeks. Which means I need a clone. Or a time machine. I raced home from work and had to begin writing the text for the book. I had grandiose ideas of doing it all, but I only managed to get half done before this absolute exhaustion paired with fried brain from the third night of 90 plus degree temps in my apartment made me cry mercy. I have to do double time on the commission tomorrow because I need Saturday to varnish it and for it to dry. I HAVE to have the text all finished by Sunday. Period. I can't physically get the paintings done by then, so they will simply have to be a week late. Looks like I have a few more late nights ahead of me. But the one good thing is that the heat isn't so bad tonite, because I am just to tired to notice.

Tell me again how great the life of an artist is. Cause I seem to keep forgetting this week.

Hey! Guess what? i locked my keys in my running car today at work. Thank you security cops at work! You might not be the sharpest tacks in the box, but give you a half hour and you got me an onlocked car and done saved me $50 bucks. Then i got home from work and found out my air conditioner is broke. Until Friday. FRI. DAY. As in, I will be lving in 90 degree heat, painting the rest of the day and evening and tomorrow night as well, in an infreno. Y'all, it is HOT IN HERE. Like crazy hot. And don't go on telling me about how people way back when used to have nothing so nice as airconditioning and they wor long sleeves in the summer just so the misquitos wouldn't eat them. I am a 2007 girl, and I like me some cool air. (and can you imagine the smells back then? ick....)

Besides that it's 1:25am and I am doing well. Boyfriend is out of town for two days and i am all on my ownsome until I get the kidlets on Friday afternoon. I was a wee bit cranky before he left from the heat and he moved fast enough to dodge the paint bottle at his head as he told me he was glad his car had great air conditioning and that the hotel probably did too. So it is just me and the panting dogs who agree with me that it is too damn hot. They are INDOOR, spoiled rotten dogs and want to know "WTF lady, I thought you could pay your bills now???" Moving on....

I just have one more coat of green paint to do and I can go to bed. I just varnished two small painting that I need to mail off for a fundraiser event in Dallas and sent off some logo comps to a client. The pt job at the college is going well. I hope to get my ID card tomorrow which gives me one of the biggest perks of this job besides regular money: a free gym! The days here are getting hot and running is not fun at all. I am trying really hard to keep up with my exercise, but it is so hard. But I just flat out refuse to not take care of my body. That and even though BBE promises he would still love me if I became super morbidly obese, I still think he might spit if I tipped the scale at 500 or so. I need the energy, so I need to take care of me. Monday I have yearly girl stuff check up which I have not had in waaay too long. Thank you Planned Parenthood for affordable medicine! I figure if I find out I have some horrible, rare disease, I go buy my insurance and act truly shocked and awed when they decalre that I have Sars... Sars? Guess what? On my way to work there is a restaurant i pass and it is named SARS. Are you kidding me???? Whose snaffoo was THAT?! Anyhoo, my mind is rambling, I went to bed at 3am last night and got up at 7am. I guess I am punchy. I figure I can keep up this pace until Sunday. That is the day I deliver the painting. I rented a truck today to deliver it. Don't even GET me started on how difficult it seems to get a van. That, or the universe is trying to tell me loud and clear it DOES NOT want me driving around in a cargo van on Sunday. But the bonus part of having the truck for the day is that I am going to plunder? pilfer? steal? furniture from my boyfriend's house. He has been pretty much living here since February and one teeny tiny dresser for all our clothes is just about to drive me stark raving mad. He is a laundry fantatic (which is very good cause read a few posts back - I AM NOT) and he is so amazing cause he does not just enjoy the doing it part, he enjoys the folding - and get this ladies - PUTTING IT ALL AWAY. Yeah, I KNOW! Me? I can live happily from laundry basket to laundry basket, but him? Nope. That crazy guy loves to put it away as fast as it can come out of that piping hot dryer. He says that way no ironing is needed. I asked him what an iron is.


Anyhoo, with this wonderful putting away into the two teeny tiny drawers that we each have been alloted, means not much room. But you never did see a man stuff clothes so tightly and efficiently as he. Until I could no longer open my drawer. And then in a loving, sweet, kind tone I asked him to PLEASE STOP PUTTING MY CLOTHES AWAY. You see I was scraping my hands trying to push clothes down and clothes the drawer and I really could not tell what was in there, not to mention you had to be a bodybuilder just to get the damn thing open. Not that I don't appreciate it, sweetheart. So anyway, it means I have piles and piles and piles of clothes all about the bedroom. All neatly folded mind you, but it just always feels cluttered. And while admittedly, clutter is not the worst thing in the world to me, I do on occassion get a fly up my, um, well, and decide I NEED a pefectly clean house (ok, only a few times a year, but still!) So "I need ANOTHER DRESSER," she said sweetly. And the one in your house, just sitting there holding nothing? Yeah. It's MINE now. And I got me a truck to get it. And I'm thinking the coffemaker and microwave will be my donations to the shockingly empty break room at work and the giant tv** will make next season's Grey's Anatomy SO MUCH BETTER. So shopping. For free. On Sunday. Yay!

And to leave you with what it looks like to be painting until late at night in an inferno....






**Yes, honey I know you already told me the tv is way too big and we can't get it this Sunday. I was using artistic license for the story. Now shush, you.

it is 2:07 am. I just finished up a pug on the big, giant commission that is due Sunday. (I ended up moving it tied to the top of my friend's minivan to get it here cause there is just no way to be painting at my studio. And the lovliest thing happened during the night last night. My air conditioner broke. I thought I must have had the plague or something when I woke up drenched this morning in what I thought was a broken fever sweat. HA! To BE so lucky. It is 91 degrees in here. I am sweating from standing and painting. I had a fan on me, but the fan was drying out the paint on the canvas too fast. It is crazy, brain-melting hot in here and I wish I could remember that Shel Silverstein poem - you know the one - but my brain is half melted out of my head. I'd be very tired, if I wasn't so hot. This commission will be the background for my portrait on my bio page in the book. I think i will be a week late on my deliverables. But I will still have been very close to my original estimate. That is good, right? Ok, I think i am done for the day. My melty brain is not working so well. I am going to go make coffee and set the timer so that it is all ready when my alarm goes off in 4 and a half hours. Um, did I tell you it is So. Damn. Hot. In. Here??? Cause it is. Really, really hot. And one day, when I am painting at my beach house and I think back on this moment, the kind of moments that you realize you are willing to do anything it takes for your dream to come true, ya know what I am going to think? That it is So. Damn. Hot. In. Here......

Underwater handstand races, marco polo, cannonballs, pencil dives, who can hold their breath the longest, volleyball where no one keeps score, kiids screaming with joy instead of irritation at thier sibling, getting exercise when they don't even realize it cause to them it's nothing but fun. More reasons why I love this season the best. Here are a few pics of the people I adore most on this earth. The two that make me determined to live my life HOW I WANT to live it, cause there is nothing more in this world I want than the same for them. Noah and Sophie, you are my heart, my soul, my loves.