Bear was our 4th Anniversary Present. He was 10 months old when we brought him home from the Animal Shelter, having been brought in by his previous owners just an hour before. We tried for awhile to change his name to something cute or clever, but Bear was just his name, there was nothing we could do. He looks like a teddy bear, doesn’t he? He likes hugs and cuddles and sitting in your lap, or at least as close as he can get to your lap, so I guess he really is a teddy bear.

Sometimes you have to take your creative moments when you find them. I just happened to glance to my left at my desk, which has papers scattered about every where else, and noticed this serendipitous little display. I love these colors.

This is why I have been silent for the past couple weeks. I’m completely addicted and the husband is my enabler. I am now a certified dork.

I haven’t spent much time in my creative space (studio/guesthouse/craft closet) lately. How long has it been, you may be asking. Let me give you an illustration:

Do you see that orange thing on the ground? What is it? If you guessed a pumpkin, you’d be half right:

Give me a break, it’s been raining every weekend since December. I can’t go out in that kind of weather to pick up rotting pumpkins.

I use this little walled off area (used by the previous owners to grow, uh, hemp or something) to make stuff that’s not knitted or sewn or electronic. I wasn’t cleaning up after myself for awhile, and things have been piling up:

I actually managed to clear off a little space on the top of the desk, so I can try to do some painting. The floor, however, is scaring me. I’m setting a goal right now to have this mess cleaned up by my birthday, which is the end of March. I’ll post the after pictures then.

For a special weekend treat the husband decided to introduce me to a bit of his heritage. That’s right, after six years of marriage, he felt that I was ready to learn about the Pot Of Beans. Apparently his mother, and his grandmother before her, always made enormous Pots Of Beans, every week of every month of every year. A special treat was when there was freshly baked cornbread to eat with the Beans From The Pot.

So, Saturday morning he got started on the Pot Of Beans, by filling our enormous soup pot with water and, uh, beans. It sat on the counter all day and all night, not to be disturbed, except for the occasional Changing Of The Water. On Sunday morning he put the beans on to cook, along with some bacon ends. I’m not sure what other magical things he did to the Pot Of Beans, but soon the house was filled with the not-so-delicate scent of beans and bacon. Intrigued, I decided to lift the lid and investigate. That is when I discovered that this was one Big Pot Of Beans. "Um, honey," I asked, tentatively, "Exactly how many beans did you put in here?" "Just one bag," he answered. "But how big was the bag?" "Just 3 pounds."

One thing you should know about my husband, when he decides to do something, he really Decides To Do Something. If he is going to make a Pot Of Beans, he isn’t going to get those wimpy one pound bags of beans like everyone else, he’s going to get the Biggest Bag Of Beans in the whole store. There was this one time when I told him that I’d like to have some Lily of the Valley growing in our garden, so he kindly ordered me some Lily of the Valley pips. I was thinking a few scattered under our lilacs, and maybe some under the big oak in the middle of the driveway, a hundred or so should do it. Then they arrived, and he had ordered 500. We never did get all those darn things planted.

Anyway, we’ve been eating beans, straight from the pot, beans with barbeque sauce, mashed up refried beans. And I even made some cornbread.

1. I want to learn how to silkscreen.

2. I will be teaching myself how to use Illustrator this month. I have an older version, but that’s okay.

3. I got a promotion at work and today I’m being taken here for lunch.

4. It was also bonus time, so I got myself a little treat. I needed immediate gratification, and that free iPod thing is taking too long.

5. A Month of Softies is up, and there are some really great cats! My favorites are this one and this one and this one, and a whole bunch of others.