Six months since my last entry. I always taught our 6 children that they should never feel pressured to make excuses. Reasons, okay, but excuses are lame. Just admit, “I didn’t do it, make it, remember it, whatever.”
My only reason for not sitting down to my computer would be a feeble excuse: I don’t like to have to stay indoors in the summer. Well that doesn’t fly: 1) I could take my laptop outdoors; 2) I could blog on my I-pad; 3) Even in the summer there is some indoor weather in Wisconsin; and 4) Summer of 2017 is long gone.
All such flim-flam aside, here I am: getting ready to celebrate the miraculous birth of our Lord with a wonderful big family. (There are momentarily 53 of us, and number 54 is due today to come out, to meet the tribe. She is our 19th great-grandchild, already named as of her 1st ultra-sound—“Margaret Rose” after her 2 paternal great-grandmas, of them being “moi”. How wonderful is THAT!)
And here is some art, “Autumn Garden at Night”. ⇑ The piece is gouache on a gallerywrap canvas, and it comes with poignant memories. Beginning last March, our precious Pembroke Welsh Corgi, Dylan, started to decline. He need to be taken out many times in a 24 hour period, so—like Robert Frost—I became very “acquainted with the night”.
March, April, and May nights were blustery, damp, and cold—but summer and early autumn were lovely. Dylan and I, attached at the hip since Joe and I brought him home from a farm in Iowa in early 2004, had countless precious nocturnal jaunts in our quiet courtyard lit by the patio light and the rosy solar lights in my gardens. Hence the above rendering.
Our Denver son, Karl, would like this painting and it will be his as soon as I find a way to get it to him, hopefully barring UPS or Priority Mail. But I am happy to have the picture in my computer, and on prints which I can share. Dylan died peacefully in my arms on October 16th. I think he had that famous corgi smile on his face right up to his last sigh.
Meanwhile, I worship a Living Savior and praise Him for LIFE—for people to love and “all creatures great and small”. May God bless you and your families with a beautiful holiday season—wherever, and whomever you are.
Margaret L. Been — 12/18/17
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The Messy Palette . . . 