My Nerd Set: This one's for you, Karen.

I walked in the other night to find the two older boys watching IEEE convention movies of robots with Andy.
"Does that have a motion sensor, Dad?"
"No, Gid, that one has a light sensor."

And a bath after painting:
"Hey, Dad, why did you get the water so hot?"
"It helps get the paint off easier."
"Why?"
"Temperature is a catalyst for chemical reactions."
"Oh."

I love them so.

Perfect is not going too far (but perhaps I am?)

There come certain things into a woman's life that she knows she'd be selfish not to share. There are also certain things so good one simply cannot keep them to oneself. There are things in the life of a woman in her third trimester of pregnancy that weigh heavily on her emotional and physical well-being. It is in light of these truths that I say:

WELCOME, Hanes Perfect Panty! Welcome into my life! I was skeptical at first but you've proven yourself to me and I LOVE YOU!!! You've changed me. You've made me a better person. Thank you. Thank you, Hanes.

Editors note: for those interested in making a contribution to the mental well-being of the Perkins household let it be known this particular desperate and overly-pregnant woman wears a size 8/9 Perfect Panty and is not choosy about color.

Video of the Ultimate Bike Set Up

The last few days I've been battling the stomach bug from hell. Sometime earlier this week (Tuesday night?) Ike threw up then seemed much happier. We put him to sleep on our bedroom floor. When I woke later that night throwing up I grabbed the large soup pan we'd given him. He bolted upright saying, "MOM! What?!!? What?!??" When he woke up more and realized I was throwing up in his pan he switched to, "Hey! That's mine! Give that back!!! Give that back!!!" Um, yeah. You take it back full of Mom's puke. So my throwing up didn't stop for over thirty hours. I couldn't keep down anything. I mean not a sip of Sprite and a Tylenol. I was a bit worried for a while cause the vomiting produced some longish, pretty uncomfortable contractions. Andy stayed home from work (a couple days? - I have no idea) and took care of me and the kids. Oh, that man's as awesome as they come. After a couple days I was able to keep down Gatorade and apple sauce. Yesterday I went downstairs and watched a movie. Man, I felt like I'd been in a car wreck. My muscles were so sore from throwing up! It's quite the workout. I am going to live, folks, which I wasn't even sure I wanted for a while there. Today I went for a short walk with Arlo. But I had no less than four pretty good contractions within three or four blocks of walking, one so strong I had to stop. That's not good. They stop if I sit or lay so right now I'm concentrating on getting re-hydrated and taking it easy. I mean, check out that ticker to the right; I'm not even 29 weeks yet. So, in the spirit of sitting on my bum I saw the boys off as they took off on a bike ride a few minutes ago. My heart swelled with contentment and overwhelmed gratitude at how good my life is. I'm in a busy, tiring stage of life right now but it's so precious and so short. Oh, I love my house full of testosterone! I love sitting and watching the boys all wrestle (yes, I love joining in, too). I love all the cars and trains everywhere in my house. It's such a joy being Mama to three boys. It'll be fun to see what we're given next. It'll be cool if we have a girl but I'm so going to embrace the joy of our situation if God gives us another cool little boy. What fun!

I grow old. . . I grow old. . .

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
by T.S.Eliot

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question . . .
Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

Happy Birthday Baby

I'm a little torn up about my oldest baby turning five today. *sniff, sniff*
That's all for now. Maybe we'll get pictures of yesterday's party up before the day's out.

I love you, Gid!

Shades of Friends

Jerome: "I have brown friends and white friends."

Gideon: "I have the Browns and the Ibachs."

European Robin Triad

I've had several of you ask about these little guys so if you're interested you might want to hop over to my etsy shop and get your hands on these while they last (though as I said they won't be shipped until the first of July)! I'm pricing them affordably, extremely so if you order all three together. The pictures seem to be getting worse and worse but the birds are still adorable, especially together.

I realized I had no pictures of these late the night before they were to be turned in for a show so the pictures are of even poorer quality than usual.
Clockwise from top: 8"x10", 5"x7", & 4"x4"

My House is Tornado Proof

Only because a tornado could do no further damage.

I've been working on making the Labor piece into a triad and have a deadline of tomorrow morning when I'm showing it to the interested midwives. I've been working on those and Andy's had a crazy week at work, making brief appearances at home to prove he indeed has a place to sleep. The house (which, let's be honest, is never in what one would call a completely sanitary state) is showing the effects of our busyness. As I walk through the house I wish both my eyes and my nose could be turned off at will and it brings me down, threatens to crush me. BUT - my dear friend Shannell is coming into town for the week and I am excited! A-aaand I've found an initial subject for the human trafficking pieces I've been longing to do!!! She's a member of our church and has an amazing story; her father sold her. She's an extraordinary woman with just a clinging faith to God and has agreed to let me paint her. Yesterday at church Tri talked about Isaiah 43 & 61 and all the sudden I was flooded w/all these phrases to use with the work: "beauty from ashes. . . behold a new thing. . .looking ahead. . . I have saved. . . you are honored. . . you are precious. . . you will not be burned. . ." Man, just read through Is.43 and try not to get excited! I'm so pumped but now I need to find a good photographer in the Boise area to take initial pics for me to work from. I'm telling you, Willa, you can write the plane tickets off as a business expense.

Beauty, Beauty Everywhere

Wow.

Click the picture to check out flyingsunfish's other cool collages.

Really Finished Now

I took my lovely Katie's advice and added some more yellow to my last Exalt piece. I like it better like this. Not only so, but I did a small version of my star bird, one I'm pretty thrilled with. The new one's 5"x7". I'm again following my dear Katie's example and I'll be making more of these smaller affordable pieces. Gideon's the one who wanted me to do the robins and he's thrilled at the idea of lots of tiny new ones. Both of these paintings are at my new etsy shop if you're interested, though they're involved in a show about to start so won't be available for shipping until this summer.

Exalt 2 (11"x14") Really finished this time.



European Robin (5"x7")