A day with my friend Dana

Yesterday I spent the day with my art friend Dana. For those of you new to my blog, her MIL died on Dec. 31. Dana and her husband own the house she lived in and will soon be moving there.

This is the view across the street from Dana's new home. The snow geese have taken over the pond for the winter. They love Wichita rivers, private ponds, and bodies of water because unsuspecting people decided to feed them one year and the geese decided to stay and get fat. About 10 years later, they won't leave. Why fly south when they can find food here? Although they were adorable the first couple of years (and NO, I never fed them), they are now a menace, as anyone who has had to walk through their slippery poo will tell you.

Once we got to Dana's new home, we were reminded of how a life can be interrupted. Dana and I agreed that this should be the first thing to go. So we turned on the lights, celebrated the tree one last time, and spent the next hour or so locating saved containers, and packing up everything Christmas around the tree.

After the tree had been stripped of decorations and lights, we took a well deserved break before tackling the decorations everywhere around the house, including the ornament on the wall in the upper right of this photo. Dana and I carefully collected some art fodder from the Christmas things, wrapped and stored a few special ornaments from Dana's husband's childhood, then packed everything else up to sell.

Before we left around 6:00 pm, I took a photo of one of the many, many walls where we will soon be stripping wallpaper. You can tell this was done professionally, so we're hoping the stripping will be easier than if the previous homeowners had done it theirselves.

And because I didn't have time to copy photos from an old technique, I decided to share the inside cover of my hands AB which helps reinforce the pages. The background is made from paper towels found at service stations used to clean your car windows. They are light beige and take water without breaking down like paper towels will. I colored them with a few pastel watercolors, then added various magazine images.

I seem to be on a Liz/Elizabeth link kick. Today's blog is by my dear friend Elizabeth Golden. Many of you probably know Elizabeth. Her art is always stunning, never disappointing. I know you'll love it and find it as inspiring as I do.