Day 21. Unexpected, Unplanned

“Feeling Blue” 6×6, oil on canvas, [creativ_button url=”http://www.dailypaintworks.com/fineart/denise-hopkins/feeling-blue/535634″ icon=”” label=”Buy Now” colour=”blue” colour_custom=”” size=”medium” edge=”straight” target=”_self”]

This whole thing started with the idea of standing your ground. I don’t really think painting is particularly brave, but continuing to paint, even after the whole idea (stories ran out) kind of collapsed, certainly requires an element of fortitude. Well, I’m going to go ahead a give myself moderate props for that.

But even more “courageous” has been that on November 1 Thanksgiving still seemed months away, and it did not even occur to me that my four year old would have an entire week off of school during this thirty day challenge. The weekends are hard enough. He doesn’t nap the way he used to and although more screen time would be a quick fix to giving me some more work time, I worry about it’s lingering effects. Too much television, even good ole educational PBS shows, turns my energetic angel into a maniac monster.

Anyway, we’ve had to look for things to do while he’s off of school. Miraculously, this morning I got in a couple hours of painting while he, get this, quietly cut an entire legal pad into varies sized shapes of paper and then taped them together to make dinosaurs. This isn’t a brag. It’s more shock. Mornings never go like this. Never.

So we headed across the lake for city park, something I’d been promising him. When we got to the toll booth for the causeway, I was waved through. The woman in the car in front of me had paid my three dollar toll. What? In all my trips across the lake, that has never happened before.

Before I break out into ” Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay, My, oh my, what a wonderful day” (Get it? “Mr. Bluebird’s on my shoulder?), let me just tell you that I’ve been writing this post while attempting to get a four year to stop putting markers on the couch, pick all the little pieces of paper still littering the floor like confetti, and to stop, I repeat stop, touching my computer.

But, I don’t know. If I can paint during Thanksgiving break, well, I guess I’m a bonafide painter.