Operating at 60%

I'm operating at about 60% today. I'm still pretty under the weather and woke up with a really low-grade fever, but I took some Alka-Seltzer cold medicine and decided I was going to push myself and get out of the house for a little while anyway. We stopped and had breakfast, then ran to Lowe's because I wanted to look at mums. Unfortunately, mums in Florida always seem to look like they have personally been through something traumatic, so I think I'm skipping them this year. 😂 I grabbed a couple of other plants instead and somehow came home with another porch goose because they had one marked down.

I pulled my original goose out of the flower bed and put the two of them together on the porch, and honestly, they are much cuter as a pair. I already had two Halloween outfits ordered because I couldn't decide which one I wanted, so now that problem has solved itself. One boy, one girl. Gary said we should name them Josef and Marie, which sounds suspiciously like Joseph and Mary, and I laughed way harder than I probably should have. 😂 My sister-in-law recently added me to a porch goose group, which is apparently all it took to turn this into a full-blown situation. I've had my original goose forever and, if I'm being honest, I have never even dressed him. Poor thing has just been sitting on his little piece of concrete in the flower bed living a completely undecorated life. That changes now. I already told Gary that at Christmas I want to dress Josef and Marie like elves and move them around the house and porch like Elf on the Shelf. Who needs an elf on the shelf when you can have a goose on the loose?

I also got a few of my tiny paintings framed and listed today. I actually painted them last night, but today I finished getting everything together. I'm not sure how many more of the miniature ones I'm going to make. They're fun, and I am selling some of them, but I've also started getting requests from friends asking me to paint very specific things in miniature form. I'm incredibly thankful that people like my work enough to ask me to make things for them, but sometimes I think people forget just how tiny these paintings actually are. The frames are around 2.3 inches, but the actual watercolor area is closer to 1.7 inches. They are TINY. Painting anything with much detail at that size is harder than it looks.

One friend wants a miniature magnolia, and another wants me to use some sunset photographs she has taken as inspiration. I said yes, and I'll absolutely do my best with both. But part of what I love so much about making art is having the freedom to decide what I want to paint. Sometimes I want to challenge myself and spend hours on something detailed. Other times I want to paint something simple because I just want to relax. Sometimes I have an idea stuck in my head and I need to get it onto paper before I can think about anything else. That freedom is a huge part of why art is therapeutic for me.

Long before it became something I could sell, it was something I did because I needed it. It gives my brain somewhere to go. It lets me practice, experiment and hopefully keep getting better. So I hope people will also buy the little paintings that come straight out of my own imagination because those are the things I simply wanted to make.

I understand the other side of it too, though. When people buy art for their homes, they usually have something very specific in mind. I'm doing the exact same thing right now. I want a fish painting for my hallway, and I already know exactly what I want it to look like. Bright, colorful and a little unexpected. Could I paint one myself? Absolutely. But I don't want to. I want another artist's work on my wall. I like having different artists represented throughout my home because everybody's style is different. I love an eclectic house. I don't want everything to match or look like it came from the same place. So I completely understand why somebody might see my work and think, "I love her style, but I want her to paint this specific thing." That's part of art too.

Tonight, though, I'm hoping to sit down, put my earbuds in and paint absolutely nothing specific. I want to just let loose and see where my mind goes and where my hands take me. And thankfully, I have the kind of husband who makes it possible for me to do that. I've been sick for the last few days, and when I got up this morning the house was so clean, mostly because of Gary. He had been off for a couple of days and apparently just spent part of that time watching football and quietly doing whatever needed to be done.

He does most of our laundry now, I cook and he usually cleans the kitchen, and the kids help too. We've just fallen into a really good system where everybody pitches in. I'm a stay-at-home mom, but that has never meant I'm everybody's housemaid, and thankfully nobody in this house treats me like one. I'm very blessed to have a husband who sees what needs to be done and just does it.

So tonight I'm going to take advantage of my clean house, my helpful family and whatever energy this cold medicine has temporarily gifted me. 😂 I'm putting in my earbuds, pulling out my paints and making whatever I feel like making.

I hope you guys have a fantastic Wednesday. Be happy. Life is good. Count your blessings.