Dear Mother Nature, .....

Let's talk about the weather outside.  I have been meticulously watching the last little patch of snow out in the field.  Yesterday it was down to the size of a loaf of bread.  Ish.  It rained all night, so I was sure my plan of waiting until this morning to take a picture of the last wee bit of snow would be a failure.  And when I say it rained all night, I mean it rained all night.  Raining when I went to bed at 11:30.  Still raining when I got up to pee at 4:00.  Still raining at 6:30 when I had to grab some paper towels to clean up all the drips from the leak in my roof.  And this morning, here is what I found:

Poo.  It was a white-out on my way to work.

Now let's talk about the weather inside.  I turned my heat totally off right before Easter.  It seemed like a good idea at the time, considering my heat source is a million year old electric baseboard heater and it was bankrupting me.  When it gets way too cold inside I turn on a portable heater.  I tell Roxie I'm turning on the fire.  It works pretty well, and is way more economical than the baseboard heater, although I still have to wear two layers of fleece and huddle under a blanket on the couch with Roxie.  But last night I decided to not turn on the fire.  I painted a bit, washed some dishes, cooked dinner, futzed around - trying to keep the old blood moving.  Here's what happened when I sat down to eat dinner and read for a minute:

See those fun weird colors on my fingers?  Nope, it's not paint.  I'd like you all to meet my good friend Maurice Raynaud.  He's a dead guy.  He was a French physician and Raynaud's Phenomenon (or Disease, or Syndrome) is named after him.  When I get wicked cold, my blood vessels constrict and blood flow is severely reduced to my fingers and to the bottom of my feet.  In that top picture - my right hand - the purple is what my fingers look like when my circulation is improving.  The white fingers - like in the bottom picture - are when I've got just a wee bit of circulation happening.  I soaked my hands in a bucket of hot water (oh for the luxury of a bathtub) and it helped.  Long story longer, that's how cold it was in my living room.  So on went the fire.  Plus, I'm getting tired of my paintings cracking as they dry.  I'm seriously thinking about sticking one in my toaster over on low, just to see what happens.  Silver lining of painting in the kitchen, eh?  Double duty toaster oven!

So here's a new painting, old theme:

The canvas you can see behind my strangely-colored fingers is still in the works.  It started out as one thing but I didn't like how it was turning out.  So I dripped a bunch of white paint on it, let it dry for a few minutes, then smeared it around.  That didn't help.  Third time's the charm, but it will still end up as something totally different from the original idea.  I will have to start from scratch for that one.

It's been a great day at work today.  Art sales, and framing orders, and people picking up their stuff (and paying their bills) and we are making seriously good progress on the cleaning project upstairs, which is important because the building is going on the market beginning of the week.  Plus, I'm going to win the lottery tonight.  Just sayin'.