Where Have I Been All This Time?
So you are probably wondering where I have been? Maybe? If not that’s cool I wouldn’t mind if you didn’t. After all I am sure I am not the only one in your busy lives. Life goes on regardless of what I decide to do or where I decide to go. It’s been a while since I have posted anything on hive. Time goes by so quickly sometimes. I decided to take a little time off for myself, and low and behold an entire month passed in the blink of an eye.
Many of you may already know that my wife and I contracted the Delta variant of Covid around Thanksgiving. It seems to be lingering a lot longer than one would expect, but then again through this whole mess I never know what to expect anymore. We have friends who have been vaccinated and are in the hospital. Others have not been vaccinated and are in the hospital or have no symptoms. And we also have a friend who received the vaccination and now is on a kidney transplant list. You just never know what your cards hold, but you have to do what is right for you and what feels right in your heart and in your mind.
My wife seems to have a persistent cough that hasn’t gone away in over a month, while I am slowly getting my taste and smell back. I do notice that I become more winded when performing routine tasks, but nothing over bearing or life altering. Overall we fared well and are on the track back to normal every day old age kind stuff. LOL. You know.. The aches and pains of being over the age of 40.
That was one reason why I decided to take some time to myself. Another reason was a bit of winter depression and there being so much to do before the holidays. Also, my work schedule has become quite hectic given it’s the end of the year and there’s a lot to do as far as taxes, payroll, employee reviews, yada yada. It all seems to come to ahead at the end of the year for us. It’s a good time to focus on those things. And let’s be honest they do pay the bills and put food on the table, so they cannot be ignored.
Anyhow, Someone has to work to make enough money to buy Molly her Ice Cream!!!
Our Christmas was quiet, but nice. The new year ring in without incident. We were blessed this year and enjoyed the time spent with family and friends at the end of it. I wish I could have all my family and all my friends in one place at one time, but that is nearly impossible. Sometimes just reaching out to them on occasion to find out how they are and what is new in their life, becomes a challenge given the every day ins and outs of our own lives.
Although Santa Claus decided not to bring many gifts to our home this year, I did get to hang out with him at least once. I know he looks a little plastic like but this is the real deal! Ha ha Ha.
Molly on the other hand did not find all the decorations and commotion around the house enjoyable. She spent most of the time shaking and pacing back-and-forth. I was able to give her extra medication so that her bodily functions would continue as normal. We tend to give her extra meds when we know stressful events are coming. This helps limit the symptoms of her Addison’s disease.
Christmas Eve was a stressful event for Molly, so by the time Christmas Day rolled around she was pooped. She spent most of the day sleeping in her soft little bed while we lounged around in our pajamas. I can’t blame her one bit! That bed really looks comfortable anyhow.
There may have been an occasion or two where she needed some personal one on one time with her dad and mom. Like any good parent would do, we took some time and assured her all was OK in her little world. It’s nice to have some downtime to just sit with your family and relax. I took a page out of Molly‘s notebook by not thinking too much, worrying too much, doing too much, and just plain old try to relax. It felt good.
I did take a little bit of time around the new year to paint. I’ll create a couple of posts about it in the coming days, but I’ll let you see the finished paintings now. These are two watercolor paintings with a little bit of oil paint on top. Sometimes I like to create a base watercolor then apply some oil paint as highlights and touchups. They are small paintings that don’t take much time to complete at all. I only spent about 30 to 45 minutes on each painting. I have to say it felt pretty good to have painted some thing since it’s been sometime since I’ve done so. The time put aside to create some thing, is almost inspiring by itself. Actually finishing them and creating a painting is just icing on the cake.
Both paintings share a common theme. Both paintings are beachy and have a Caribbean feel to them. Both of them also have sailboats sailing through the Veridian colored waters. Painting scenes like these are the next best thing to actually taking a vacation. The colors are warm and bright and remind me of all those neat vacations we were able to take throughout the years. Covid needs to go away so I can freely move about the world once more.
In this first painting I decided to paint the edges a dark blue color. I painted the horizon very low on the painting, including a sailboat and the idea of a shoreline. The water and sky are very simple allowing the painting to be completed in a short period of time.
The second painting has a white border around the edge. I accomplish this by placing tape around the entire edge of the watercolor paper. It helps to hold the piece down but also creates and little border. In this painting I decided not to include any land, but I did paint more than one sailboat. I also tried to make an impression that there was a wave breaking at the very bottom of the painting. This gives a representation that the viewer is standing on the beach looking out at the ocean and sailboats.
More on these paintings in a later post.
Molly and I spent a little time outside roaming the yard and enjoying some unseasonably warm weather. So warm in fact that some dandelions decided to bloom! And of course I took pictures of them.
Molly wanted her photograph taken as well, so I obliged. Oh wait a minute… Maybe she just was curious about what I was doing so low to the ground. I guess I took that as an invitation to take a photograph of her. She wasn’t so interested in the photograph anymore and kept turning her head or looking away. That’s her style after all, so I shouldn’t be too frustrated with it. She still cute regardless of her pose choices.
At the end of my time off for New Year’s, a winter storm was brewing and moving up the East Coast. The storm ended up lying a thick blanket of snow for miles around. We ended up with approximately 8 inches of the white stuff! My back is still bothering me so I enlisted the help of my niece and nephew who without hesitation came over to help out there uncle. I appreciate their willingness to help. They look like they had a lot of fun doing it as well. I was surprised when my niece said yes to wanting to learn how to use the snow blower. She did a great job and it was a real pro at handling it by the end of the driveway was cleared. It just tickles me to death when kids are willing to learn and not scared of equipment or the potential complexity of operating it.
As night fell, and the storm moved up the coast, A beautiful sunset was trailing in behind it. Here are a couple of photographs that I was able to capture. The sky started off as a shade of yellow which soon turned pink and red.
The shot below was rather odd. The camera decided to do some funky altering to the settings and the snow came out slightly purple and the cloud slightly blue. I enhance these slightly and came up with this rendition of the first winter sunset of 2022! I just like the cold and snow but you can’t complain too much when faced with a scene like this. They don’t come along very often, so I’m going to enjoy it while it lasts.
After A day off to deal with the snow, it was back to work as usual. The drive-in was crunchy and slick this morning, but the view (again) was beautiful. There was a slight pinkish color to the clouds as the sun came up this morning. Soon the morning clouds gave way to full sun, which began to melt some of what nature had laid down the night before.
Sometimes nature is really wonderful, beautiful, and even spectacular. But sometimes a little time off to reset the old brain, isn’t bad either.
“Ah! There is nothing like staying at home, for real comfort.”
― Jane Austen
Thank you for swinging by my blog and checking out the post. Have a great day!
All words, pictures and art pieces are the sole property of B D Miller Gallery, unless otherwise noted and credited, and are not to be reproduced or copied without the prior written consent of B D Miller Gallery.
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First of all I'm happy to read you again. Sorry about your friends and I hope the both of you recover completely soon! Taking some time off comes natural and is needed. As long as you come back it is fine. I missed precious Molly and your style. Btw, we have the same weather, besides the snow, and daytime. For your convenience, here's the link ;) https://peakd.com/hive-152889/@bulldog-joy/hive-got-a-lilac-night-now-you-have-a-lilac-morning
Merry Xmas and a happy new year! 🤗
HOLY COW you got some awesome sunset shots! I'm 100% jealous 😍 I'm back but not everyday. I just don't have the time right now. I really need to shorten my posts a little and focus less on that and more on reading. We'll see.. It's a challenge but I'll try my best. Thank you for the compliments! They help my motivation for sure!!! 😁
Lol, my shots are your shots, no need to be jealous. 🤗 Reading is key for a functional platform I think. I mean not everyone and everything but if there are only producers and no consumers the thing will not be healthy. Hive can be time consuming, for sure. Quality content like yours is a big plus but takes time to produce. Commenting and replies take time. So is reading. I like good content posts with around 300 to 500 words, even though that doesn't mean longer ones are out. It is just a comfortable length I think. But each one of us has its own mind so go with whatever makes you happy :).
Absolutely! A little time off isn't a bad thing at all. In fact, it will do you a world of good. 😊 Now, welcome back!. 😊
Sorry to hear that you and your wife were both infected with the Delta Variant. I have heard that the side effects could last a while. I wish you a speedy, full recovery. Take care!
Thank you for the welcome back! These symptoms do linger a while for sure. Looking forward to being done with them asap. hehe. 😁
😊 Take care!
Sorry to hear that you have been not quite 100%. I know that Covid has been causing a lot of grief for a lot of people. My niece got it a while ago and because of it they actually found a heart defect that they were able to fix before it caused problems. I guess that is one good thing that came out of it. You have more snow than us so far! I can still see the grass sticking up through our light blanket. It is a bit disappointing. I hope this isn't some global warming thing and everyone "south" of us is going to start getting more snow than us now...
Sometimes one has to look real hard, but there is almost always a silver lining.
Looks like the weather people are forecasting another storm for us tonight into Friday. Maybe another 4-8".. fun fun. If it wasn't for all the re-routing of our service vehicles, I wouldn't care. It's a lot of work. lol. so that's life for ya! 😆
Wow, talk about getting hammered. We just got a little bit here the other night, but I don't expect we will get much more and it really wasn't too much in the way of accumulation.
Glad to here you are all on the mend. Weather has been a bear here for the month of December and Jan. Right now real cold, but not as bad as Thanksgiving time, but it sure feels a lot colder with the little bits of wind we have had. I think Molly likes having her profile shots taken.
Some nice sunset shots and the purple snow one looks great.
Happy New Year.
That last snow storm you got (about a month or so ago??) was a good one. Looked like you got a hefty amount. I thought for sure this year was going to be a big one for ya.. Looks like we are getting your white stuff instead. They are calling for another storm tonight into Friday. One never knows how much we will get with these Nor'easters.
Thanks for checking in and taking a look at the photos 😁
Happy New Year to you as well!
It was surprising to only get the two snow dumps that required plowing, and then the supper warm up over the holidays. But back to cold, we should have a wind event and then another warm up for a few days. I am not looking forward to the sub zero teen numbers.
Nooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!! Tooooooo Cooooooold
At least it has not hit the minus teens yet like it did during the Thanksgiving time frame. The warm up they mentioned for Friday i now pushed to Monday, but it is Alaska and things change fast sometimes weather wise.
Sorry to here you have been ill; you might want to try quercetin to help with the lingering spike protein woes; herbal teas with citrus peel may also help if you can't find the quercetin. Also supplement with C, Zn, and D(perhaps part of the reason you are blue.) Melatonin at bed time.
Some amazing shots, for sure. Hope you are feeling A-one soon.
Great Ideas! Thank you! I was actually reading a few things about this the other day. Thank you for the concern and compassion. I too hope to be out of this slump and back to tip-top soon. I am sure I will.. just need some sun to help it along. Warmer weather would be nice too! 😊
I am currently sitting under a dump of white stuff ... lol ... so no luck on my end:)
Nice pictures.. I love nature too and that cute pet I wish is mine 😇
hehe.. Not going to be giving up Molly, but I bet you could find one near where you live 😁. She is a Shih Tzu.. They are great dogs, but like most pets.. they cost a bit of money to take care of. Thank you for stopping by and for the compliments!
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Thank you poshy 😆
great pictures
Thank you! 😁