The Good, The Bad and ... The Questionable

I've been listening to Anne Murray's Christmas CD today, and I'm not embarrassed to admit it.  Roxie is so tired of hearing George Winston's "December" she gets up and leaves the room when I turn it on - I've been playing it non-stop since early November.  So we've moved on to Anne Murray.  Give it a whirl.  It's got all the classics.

Strange things have been happening around here the past couple of days (Anne Murray notwithstanding).  I bought a Christmas tree today.  Yes, it's a 3-foot tall faux tree, but it's the first tree I've had in about six years.

I have decorated the tree with a strand of wee tiny mirrored balls, and I hung some other lights in my kitchen.  It's downright festive in here.

And now, a strange thing:

I know.  It defies explanation.  Truly.  Enough said.

This next one also defies explanation.  I was going to send a picture of it to my cousin Andrew and tell him it's the study for his commission.  Can you picture this, bigger than its current 28" height, hanging behind an attorney's desk?  Heh heh.  Awesome.

I need to figure out how to loosen this up a little.  I'm not so good with tight paintings.  And he's not standing up in the picture because his varnish is fresh.  Speaking of which, I did two new things today.  First, I had a senior moment and picked up a painting to look at more closely, forgetting I had JUST ONE MINUTE AGO varnished it.  Poo.  Second, I dropped a painting FACE DOWN on the counter.  While I was painting it.  Double poo.  It happened with these guys, my faves of the weekend:

They live quite nicely together like this:

Sheepsies.  Poodle has a stuffed toy I named sheepsies.  It's a ... sheep.  It is flat and looks like it should hold a hot water bottle.  I got it for her when she was a baby to keep her company in the car.  Remarkably, it is still in one piece, with all four footie squeakers intact.  We were playing with it today, in fact.  Before we crashed on the couch.