Karen's Muse and Musings

I made this house for a swap with my Oh My Gothic group. Last year, we traded arches, but this year we're doing houses. This one is for Cat. Here's the reverse side.

I Love Michigan!

Last weekend I visited my friend, Joanne Thieme Huffman, in Portage, Michigan. She is such a gracious hostess and treated me royally. Another dear friend, Catherine Warner (sadly blogless), lives close by in Kalamazoo, so she joined us for most of the weekend's activities which consisted of the best life has to offer — friends, food and ART!

Here's Joanne standing in front of her beautiful artwork which features her daughter, Becky.

On my first night there, we ate at Martini's. That's Catherine and me.

On Friday Joanne and Catherine took me on a scenic tour of Lake Michigan. We visited several quaint and lovely towns. Here we are all happy after a terrific lunch at Clementine's in South Haven.

Isn't this a cool chair? The back is made of golf clubs, and it was surprisingly comfortable. They also had chairs made of old skis.

We walked out the pier to the lighthouse. This was my first visit to one of the great lakes. Lake Michigan was impressive as was the beauty of everything I saw around there. The weather treated us well. It was cloudy that day, but no rain, and the other days I was there were sunny and beautiful. Much better than here in Atlanta where we've had rain, rain and more rain.

The lighthouse up close and personal.

Saturday morning Catherine took me to the fabulous farmer's market in Kalamazoo. Then Joanne hosted an art play day with several of my online friends who live in the area. Jeanie Croope drove down from Lansing to join us. That's her on the right in the above photo. Doesn't the table look lovely? Joanne made a scrumptious curried rice salad, and that long tray of gorgeous veggies was prepared by Catherine.

Brittney Young was there making envelopes. She must have made 50 from different beautiful papers.

Garage sale and flea market guru, Beth Bricker, came in AFTER hitting 3 sales. (That's Beth with the blonde hair in the center of the photo.) Of course, we all had to go out to her car to see what treasures she found, and we weren't disppointed.

I was delighted to meet Nellie Wortman in person. She looks pretty happy here, don't you think? She said that was water in that cup, but I wonder?!

That brings us sadly to my last day there. Catherine graciously prepared a brunch for Joanne, Jeanie and me. Catherine asked me to make mint juleps. I guess she figured since I was from the South, I should know how, and fortunately I did. First, you have to muddle fresh mint leaves with sugar.

Then you add ice and, of course, bourbon, preferably a really good one.

Good friends and yummy mint juleps!

Catherine prepared her scrumptious Orgasmic Eggs — fresh spinach, poached eggs, and diced tomatoes. Really, really delectable!

And that's beautiful Catherine standing by her delicious brunch. Sadly, the time came when I had to leave. Joanne had to drive from Portage to Detroit on Thursday to pick me up, and it took her 3-1/2 hours due to road construction, so it was very nice of Jeanie to offer to drive me back to the airport on Sunday.

I snapped this photo of the always smiling Jeanie as we drove along. No delays that day, so I arrived at the airport in plenty of time to catch my plane back to Atlanta, where it was raining, of course.

Calling All Angels

These are a few spreads from an altered children's board book I just completed.

A Bird in the Hand

Les Petit Dolls with Suzi Blu continues to be so much fun, and this piece may be my favorite yet. I drew the girl with the bird, and then as I was looking for text in one of my bird books, I found these words, "What Bird Is That?" — perfect, I thought.

Speaking of birds, I added a ground feeder to my collection of bird feeders in the backyard. The nice man at Wild Birds Unlimited told me that it would attract indigo buntings who are migrating through our area. So, I sat it up and added the recommended bird seed. A little while later I look out the window hoping to see a swarm of brilliant blue birds. No birds, but my cat Annabelle was there, slyly positioned by the planter, and I think she was saying, "Come here, my pretties!"