Yesterday I was blessed to spend the afternoon in a house where I've done quite a bit of decorative painting. The original purpose of my visit was to discuss colors for our next project in the master bath. But of course when I enter this house I never want to leave, so I lingered and my client and I had a really nice visit. A continuing lesson for me is this: When you slow down and listen, and take time to engage, wow you can learn some stuff. I might not get as much done, but I think it's making me a better person.

In our most recent project, the client had the walls wallpapered, and I transformed the regular old sheetrock columns to complement the wallpaper (but not match exactly) using FE Metallic Bronze Setcoat & Brown Suede Lusterstone. The baseboards and windowsills were also painted with FE MetalGlow in New Penny Gold.

Decorative painting makes me a decent amount of money, but that pales in comparison to the friends and mentors the business has brought to me. That's the blessing part of it. I hope somewhere out there in all my jobs there will be a person that needs something I have so I can return the favor.

This Lusterstone powder room was one of the first jobs I took after recovering

from twin birth ... This is Lusterstone in Tequila Sunrise, Cantaloupe & Green Onyx.

When I first met the really smart woman of this house probably eight or nine years ago, I was told by the interior designer who hired me that the homeowner was "the sweetest woman you'll ever meet." Sweet? I don't know that I would use that word now that I have known her all these years. She is kind, and gentle and very, very wise. But I'm not into sugar these days and neither is she. She's much more than sweet.

My first job in this house was this kitchen remodel.

So anyway, I spent the afternoon doing what I once would have thought was frittering. Now I know it was time well-spent. What's really exciting is our next adventure, which will involve freeing my client from flowery wallpaper and transforming the walls in the master bath with a rich combination of Lusterstone in Bordeaux (a pinky red) and maybe Champagne Mist all mixed together. It's going to be fabulous. And I promise to show pictures just as soon as we're finished.

And the moral of the story is...

Like my Papa always said: There's a lid for every pot.

hahahahahahahahaha

The texting and facebook and myspace world is getting on my nerves.

Can anybody just write hahahahaha anymore? Must we lol? What if I want to snicker quietly to myself (which I do quite alot)?

And just when lol was really bugging me, now I have to see lmao. How ridiculous is that? Could I be any older and grouchy? But seriously it's really stupid to write on your facebook comment "Oh Mary you are so funny... remember that time in high school? ... lmao!!@!

What is happening to our world? I tend to blow everything out of proportion, I know, but really, this could signal the end of refined culture and our whole world going to hell in a hand basket.

Oh but wait! It gets worse. Now we have lmfao.

No offense any of you dear, dear people I love who use lol, lmao, and lmfao. I still love you but you're getting on my nerves.

A glimpse into my inner turmoil and/or twisted idiocy

Anyone who's had the misfortune of being withing talking distance of me in the last few weeks knows my cloud job totally traumatized me. It was an awesome opportunity, really overwhelming, and just a big damn job.

This scissor lift saved my life

In preparation, I even took a class with Nicola Vigini to refresh and refine my skills, and make sure I did the job justice. And also, I needed to figure out the most efficient way to accomplish this job on a really tight schedule. Let's just say Nicola makes it look easy. It was waaaaay harder than I expected. Still, I finished the job and got paid. So why am I still freaking out about it? How many times can I use I in that paragraph for God's sake?

It did not turn out the way I imagined it in my mind. At least to me. The client was happy. The builder was practically sweeping me out the door and loading my truck for me. Now, everywhere I go there are clouds. You know, like in the sky. But that's not all: I see them on every TV show, pieces of junk mail, in the grocery store. They're everywhere, damn clouds. And I'll never get away from them. They're pretty much part of my atmosphere. Yours too, probably.

They didn't photograph exactly great either.

Being an artist is not all fun and games. You have a vision of what you want to accomplish, and sometimes you don't get it to turn out just the way it looked in your head. Sometimes the builder says you have to finish today so the lighting can be installed and the floor can be grouted. Stupid details like that. I would have farted around perfecting that damn entry way for another week. I might even have screwed it up somehow. But still, I wanted it to be perfect.


My smart friend Wendy says I'm just suffering from my own unreasonable expectations. I met the client's expectations, so get over it and move on. Easy for her to say. She's my friend that forced me to knit. She taught me to knit left handed, like her. I'm right handed. She knits all sorts of pretty scarfs and baby blankets. At our last Knit Night at Chiro Java, after I had been working on the same sofa throw for at least one and a half years, I tore out every stitch of it and rolled up all that fabulous baby alpaca yarn into balls. It was just too hideous.



In this case, there's really no arguing with me that this was one hideous throw. It's a pretty damn hideous picture of me, too, come to think of it. All the other knitters at the table were about to wet their pants laughing at me and my hideous creation.


So I guess the lesson I'm supposed to be working on has something to do with perfection. And until I figure out what the lesson is and conquer this obstacle, I will not be satisfied, dammit.

They don't teach common sense in college...

So I got this big job painting clouds in the entry of a "destination gas station," which promises to be the Buckees for the Corpus bound. Basically the jobsite included me, some electricians and about 30 guys we'll presume are Newcomers from South of the Border all busy pouring concrete, setting tile & installing rock on some pretty serious deadlines, all taking our turn at the porta-potties and water-hose wash station.

For the first three days of the job, I wondered to myself, what am I going to pack for lunch? Here's how my inner conversation with myself went, as I stood in front of the refrigerator each morning: "What can I take for lunch? These yummy beans? They're my favorite meal, afer all. This Lean Cuisine? No, I can't take that, they need to be heated. Where would I heat it up? The competitors next door aren't going to let me use their microwave. There's no love lost there, especially since their sign says they're 'American-owned' just because the owner of my station was from some other country at some point. Whatever. I suppose I could drive across the freeway and use the micro at the owner's other station across the way. That's a hassle. ... Oh screw it, I'll take a sandwich."

So day after day, I ate a cold sandwich. It was tasty: on my fancy Ezekial bread, turkey, lettuce, mayo, mustard and horseradish. And then one day, while I was eating my ok, but not mind-blowing cold sandwich purely for sustenance and not enjoyment, one of the Newcomers on my jobsite came walking up carrying something large and white. I initially thought it was a box.

No, it was a microwave.

What the hell! The Newcomer carrying the microwave unplugged something important they were using like a drill and plugged in the microwave! And then he and all his Newcomer friends proceeded to gather round and heat up tasty lunches of carne guisada and tacos. All while I sat there eating a cold sandwich, wishing I had my beans.

In case you're wondering, the moral of the story is yet to come. And here it is: Any time you or anyone you know feels compelled to think you are smarter than a Newcomer just because you can speak English and you were fortunate enough to be born on the right side of the Rio Grande, please take a moment to recall Miss Smarty Pants Sami with the college education, sitting there in her high-dollar SUV, wasting gas with the air conditioner on, eating a cold sandwich while the Newcomers ate tasty warm lunches they heated up in their portable microwave.

And that's all I have to say about that.