Home Alone....

The DH was scheduled to go to the UK for a family visit/train gala trip.....I had elected to stay home with "the kids", our dogs, while he was away.  His Mum passed away about 10 days before he was scheduled to leave....so with a bit of scrambling he was able to change his flight out to get there a week early, take care of family business, do some railway stuff and come home on the original schedule.  So instead of 2 weeks, I have had 3 weeks of "Home Alone".

It's been really good......I've been lunching with friends.  I've reconnected with a couple of people that I kept meaning to but just never got around to getting in contact with....and I've been contemplating life in general, my life specifically - decisions on where I want to go, what I want to do, how I want to proceed in life....with my hobbies of knitting and painting.....

Having just had my 59th birthday and being in my 60th year.....I've decided to use my lovely hand made watercolour journal to document "my 60th year".  I've already started.......these will be quick little vignette type paintings....to catch the essence of big and small events of my 60th year.  I'm happy with that decision.

While DH was away, I expected to get a lot of knitting and a lot of painting done - I haven't been knitting, and I haven't been painting.....

Way back when I first started knitting......I enjoyed knitting, but didn't finish anything....the shine would wear off of the project way before the end......until I "discovered" fair isle knitting.....that was when my knitting really took off.....and I usually (not always) finish my projects now and I enjoy my knitting more - even when not knitting fair isle.....but fair isle was the spark that ignited my love of knitting.

With all of the Watercolour workshops I've been taking.....I've been painting landscapes, trees, flowers, skies, water....I've been all over the place....learning techniques but never spending enough time on any one subject to really get to know it. What I needed to find is my "fair isle" of watercolour painting....

Why not combine my interest in watercolour painting with my love of dogs?  

What an epiphany!

I LOVE DOGS!   

So today starts my 12 month exploration of paintings dogs........I'm so excited!  

Of course my own dogs (both present and past) will be my first subjects......

I think I'll start with Montie first.....a Bernese Mountain Dog.....such a sweet boy.....

I still miss him.....sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have two Westies and a Bernese together........hmmmm......