I’ve been wanting for ages to get a new blog design, but I can’t afford anything really good right now. So I’ve entered a giveaway over at So Chic Design. If you want to try your luck, go on over!

I thought it was high time for a picture post detailing my hot new apartment! So strap on those seatbelts and join me for a guided tour through my palace!

First up, it’s me! And my car! My old car was named Cecil (pronounced Sea-sull), which annoyed Ross since he is British and reckoned it should be pronounced Sess-ill. But even he learned to love Cecil and his mighty heart. Sadly I lost Cecil many a year ago, but in the tradition of naming my cars with British boy names, pronounced American girl ways, I have named my new Geo Prizm Cedric. It is pronounced Sea-drick rather than Said-rick. And he and I get along just fine.  This is us visiting my granny’s house. My mom took the picture, as she couldn’t fathom me in a dress, and she wanted the image to be saved for posterity.

I live in a gigantic red house on the corner of Canton Street and Pennsylvania Avenue East.  I can see this sign from my living room and bedroom windows.  I’ve always wanted a corner house… but I didn’t reckon on the high levels of traffic noise that accompany living on the main road in a small town.  D’oh!

To get in my apartment, there are two entrances. Unfortunately I only have a key for ONE entrance. This entrance involves climbing 20 steep and rickety wooden steps, crossing a bridge and going into a small foyer. In this foyer, there are two doors to choose from: Bruce, my upstairs neighbour’s door is on the right. Mine is on the left. When you open my door, this is what you see.

Just inside my door, sitting directly to the left is the door to my bathroom. This is what you see when you look in. It’s old fashioned without being antique. At least I have some pretty linoleum! I’ve done it all up in pretty purples and pinks. It makes it look somewhat nice.

My sink is constantly dripping, which makes me feel terrible for wasting so much water. I got it to stop trickling finally, but it still drips incessantly. There’s a huge mirror above the sink, and two lovely lights either side which help illuminate my many flaws. I don’t use them unless I have to! You can also see that the left side plugs have at some point been ripped out of the wall. I’ve pushed them in as far as I can, but there’s no way to screw it back in properly. Dangerous in a bathroom, I’d think!!

I bought and built an over toilet toiletry cupboard, which is a lifesaver. Ross used to get so angry with me in England, as my toiletries took over the whole bathroom. Now they are nicely contained in an organised space, which makes me happy, and I’m sure that he’ll appreciate it when he visits.  My toilet actually sits in an alcove behind the toilet, which is great for privacy. Unless of course you forget to close the drapes and come face to face with a window cleaner just as you sit down to pee before your shower… naked. o_O

Outside my bathroom window, this is the view. Immediately in front is a lovely, spacious balcony, which someone in their infinite wisdom put a railing all around so there’s no way to get on it!  Beyond that, you can see the rickety wooded stairs I spoke of earlier. In the background is Canton Street.

Now let’s leave the bathroom and turn left again. Directly across from the front door is the door to my kitchen. This is the view from the hallway. Spacious!

To the left of the kitchen door is my counter, sink and stove. As you can see, there is NO counter space. None! My draining board takes up the tiny space on the right, and my coffee pot and peripherals take up the left. My cupboards are terribly, tragically ugly. They are dirty inside, and I spent a whole day cleaning them and laying shelf paper just so I felt comfortable putting my dishes inside.

I love my stove. It’s been years since I had a gas range, and it makes life a million times easier. Not that I’ve actually cooked anything since I moved here…  You’ll notice a tea kettle on the stove, a purchase which I’ve had cause to make use of SEVERAL times now in my quest for late night tea and hot chocolate. :)  My kitchen decor is Apples and Coffee. I’m a trip like that. ;)

My bin, a small unit which houses my microwave, and my fridge/freezer. There’s a crock pot on top of the fridge, which I’m going to use tomorrow when my parents come around for dinner. Yee haw! Oh, that reminds me… I must go take out the pork roast… Will return shortly…

Ah. That could be strange… what I thought was a pork roast when I bought it turned out to be “Pork Shoulder Steaks.”  Umm… oh well. They’ll probably work in a crock pot too, right?

This is a difficult picture to see, as the light from the windows made the kitchen look really dark on camera. But this is my dining table. It’s fairly large, but it looks minute next to everything else. As you can see, my curtains are full of apples. And there are two coffee prints between the windows.

My mother also went and bought me a teapot when I first arrived. So now I can make proper tea when she comes to visit. She always loves that I make it the English way rather than the American way.

This is by far my favourite purchase. Since I had no counter space, I went out and bought a butcher block island with two drawers that open either side. It is beautiful. I usually wouldn’t go for Martha Stewart, but this was just gorgeous. Amazingly when I went to buy it, it was $249.99. But when I got to the register, it rang up on sale for $24.99!! Go KMart!

I also have a spacious kitchen pantry. I use it to house my mop and broom, and a lot of food. Well… okay, not a LOT of food. But SOME food. I’m sure I’ll add to it eventually. :)

Coming out of the kitchen now, you’ll see that I have a set of carpeted stairs off the hallway. There’s a window at the landing, and there’s also a large mirror built into the wall (though you can’t see it here). At the bottom of the stairs is a medium-sized foyer, which I use for storage. You can see my vacuum handle sticking up behind the banister! ;)  The door is my front door, and the wall to the left is the back wall of the downstairs neighbour’s living room.  Beyond the front door is a HUGE sun porch, which is used by me and my downstairs neighbour.  Since neither of us has keys to the front door (the one which leads out from the porch), we both come in the back way, and as such, I only open this door to go out and check my mail.

The final picture is of my hallway from the landing. There’s some framed art on the walls, and my three pair of shoes are lined up against the wall.  The door to the left is the kitchen, and to the right is the living room.

And to anyone who thought I was joking about having numbered rooms, I kid you not. Room 2 is the parlour, and Room 3 is my bedroom.

Looking in at my living room from the door. It’s got a minty green paint on the walls, and the wooden floors look a little better with my large area rug.  It gets quite sunshiny in here due to two large windows. And the ceiling fan allows heat and/or cool air to permeate the room.

My couch is my pride and joy. I can lay down on it, and head to toe doesn’t reach the ends. :) I’m 5′8, so that’s pretty good size. It’s green velvet, and it is AWESOME. Those end tables were a steal, too. I bought them from Goodwill, and it was $1.38 for the pair!  The painting above the couch was painted by my mother about 25 years ago!

The second picture is my desk (where I’m sitting now!). It is metal with a glass top. I bought it from Wal Mart for $99. I also have my candy apple red laptop, my phone and various computer peripherals like my printer. To the left, in the corner, is my living room closet. It’s pretty deep, but it has the most hideous wall paper inside.

Didn’t I tell you??  It’s straight out of the 70s, and it is all sorts of hideous. Right now nothing is inside of it, as this is where I found all the Jehovah’s Witness stuff (which, when I looked at closely had detailed maps of the town, including people’s names, pets, and all of the entrances into their houses! I also found about 100 sonogram pictures with different people’s names on them!!!!). I’m trying to air it out, and I’m sure I’ll use it eventually.

And this is my little TV. I think it’s 36 inches. You can see my cable box, DVD player and various DVDs.  The DVDs on the left are borrowed, and the ones on the right were bought.

Leaving the living room, you will find a bookshelf.  Behind the book shelf is a door. The door leads to the upstairs apartment, and it is locked from the OTHER side. That scares the bejesus out of me. So I decided to put the shelf in front of it so that if anyone gets any ideas about entering my apartment, they’ll find it that much more difficult. :) The shelf houses mostly pictures and art supplies. The third shelf down is full of my tarot card collection. I have about 30 decks.

Then, beside the shelf and next to the living room, you can see my bedroom. It’s fairly spacious, and I really like the two large windows. The bed and bedspread was donated by my parents, but I’m going to have to buy a new one soon… It’s kind of saggy and my back is hurting a lot. Ah well.

A different view of my bed, where my teddy bear, Not Quite, sits on a throne of pillows. :D  I have a small bedside table, which houses a lamp, some books, an alarm clock and a framed photo of Ross and me.  My curtains in no way match the room but I love them anyway.

The second picture is really dark, even though I had the bedroom light on. You can see my posh dresser and the second window. The door on the right is my closet. This is where I found a shotgun when I moved in. o_O

At night, when I am in bed, I don’t bother to close my bedroom door, even though it has a deadbolt on it. I prefer to be able to see any would-be attackers coming. This is the view of the hallway from the bedroom.  You can see it’s actually quite wide.

If you’re in a hurry, door number 4 is the exit.

So that’s it. My lovely little home, which is a lonely place to be at the moment. I need a warm body to snuggle up to. The bear just doesn’t work. Perhaps a feline companion is in order… though I think I would best wait until I get a job before I risk the damages a tiny critter could cause.

Ah well. Such is life.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this stroll through my residence. Come visit. The couch is insanely comfy!

Okay, so I’ve been promising a big update for a while now, so I think it’s about time.

So I left the UK on the third of September and traveled for 21.5 hours to reach the house of my childhood. Anticipating my arrival, my wonderful parents had done me the courtesy of setting up the spare room for me so that I could get a good night’s sleep. Sadly, that first day, I only managed a few hours before awaking and promptly getting ill.

The next few days I concentrated on buying a car. I quickly found myself a lovely turquoise Geo Prism from 1995, which cost me just under $3,000 including taxes, registration and license plates. Happily kitted out in a swish new ride, I began attending job interviews and sending my resume out to as many places as possible. The bites I was getting all turned out to be sales jobs, which for me isn’t so great, since I hate sales jobs. But money is money, and I was running low, so I eventually accepted a position at the local newspaper as a travelling ad salesperson. BIG MISTAKE.

I also in the last two weeks found that my brother’s girlfriend (a girl I actually graduated high school with!) knew that the second floor apartment in her building was on the market to be rented. So I called her landlord and set up a viewing. Though the place is very old fashioned (dark wood floors, dark wood doors, and mint green paint!), I thought it had character. It is comprised of three rooms, a large kitchen, a large living room, and a large bedroom, as well as a lovely set of stairs leading down to a medium sized foyer, which THEN leads to a very large enclosed front porch.   I took it immediately, and though the rent is fairly steep for the area, I think I got a good deal.

I picked up the keys at the end of last week, and I decided to spend my Saturday moving into it. I had a wedding shower to attend in the early afternoon, but my little brother was perfectly happy to help me carry what MINIMAL furniture I had later in the day. For the record, I had a bed.  And that is all.

I enjoyed the wedding shower very much, and I was super excited to see 5 of my very best friends from high school (including the girl who’s shower it was). We all reminisced and re-bonded, and it was soon clear that we NEEDED to hang out more. The weather on the day was terrible. Rain poured all day long, and I realised after a couple of hours that I wouldn’t be able to move after all, so I called my brother to cancel.

Without any plans any longer, I was invited (along with the rest of the gang) to come up to Salamanca in New York and go to the Seneca casino with my friends. I was going to be one of the designated drivers, but sadly we quickly realised that one of my headlights was out. D’oh! Instead, we took two cars up there, and upon arrival, I took $40 that I’d got for babysitting my neice and step-nephew and invested it in the slot machines.

In the first machine I tried, I won $8. Another roll, another $8. The third roll, I won $10. It continued like this until I eventually got greedy and wound up with close to $5 left!

As we were all hungry, we went upstairs to one of the fine dining restaurants and had some food. The six of us chatted and were quite happy to be together again, and for the third time of the evening, I suggested that we should make a casino pact - if any of us won big, we should split the winnings six ways. If I’m being honest, I didn’t REALLY mean that we should split it. I simply didn’t believe that any of us would win any big money! And everyone laughed and told me they wouldn’t be sharing any winnings with me.

So imagine my surprise after dinner when we went back down to the casino. Brookie, Alicia, Ryan and Amanda all wanted to go play the poker tables, which had a minimum bet of $10.  Wendy and I decided to go by ourselves over to the non-smoking room of the casino and find the penny machines. We did a circuit to see what machines were on offer. Wendy wanted the 1 cent machines, but I found a 5 cent machine which I deemed “feels lucky.” So Wendy begrudgingly sat down next to me and put her money in a machine.

I had little money left, but I figured I could make it go up again if I played the Max Bet. So I pulled the lever, and I lost. I pulled again, and I was down to 76 cents. I shrugged my shoulders and pulled one last time. This time it was a win.

A big win.

A $5,000 win.

I didn’t believe it at first. The machine tells you how many POINTS you win, and it said 100,000. Wendy said you divide the points by the bet (5 cents) and it gives you how much you won. She said, “Katie, I think you just won the Jackpot. $5,000.”

“No way. It is probably just $50.”

The money continued to go up…

“Okay… maybe it’s $500…”

Up some more.

“Wendy, I think I just won a LOT of money.”

“Katie,” she said. “You won the JACKPOT.”

“Wendy,” I said. “I won the Jackpot!”

By this point, the lights were flashing and people were coming up to me congratulating me. A message popped up on the screen telling me to call for an attendant to come give me my payout. So I hit the service button and waited. No one came. The rules in the casino are clearly posted everywhere: If the machine breaks, you don’t win the money. I tried to send Wendy to go find someone, but she was afraid to leave me alone in case someone tried to steal my win.

So we tried calling Brookie and the rest of the gang… but we got no answer. So I called my dad. I wanted to tell someone.

“I could hardly hear him over the noise of the casino, but I said, “Daddy. I just won $5,000.”

He was quiet for a few seconds and then very calmly said, “Well that’s good. Congratulations.”

“I just thought I’d let you know.”

“Well good. Be careful driving home.”

I love my dad.

Anyway, eventually the attendant came over to take my information. There was slight concern because my drivers license is in my married name, my social security card is in my maiden name, and the form I filled out had my NEW address on it, while my license had my parents address on it. So we had to get a few things straight. The man finally told me to wait there while he went and got my money for me.

As he went away, Wendy and I spied Brookie and the gang walking in to the room. I began waving frantically, and Wendy ran over to them and told them the news. With disbelief, they all came running over. Seeing that we spoke the truth, they began congratulating me excitedly, and Amanda grabbed the machine next to mine and began funneling money into it.

A few minutes later a gaggle of casino reps came over and made a big show of counting me out the money in cash, and I got all my friends to stand with me while they took our picture for their “Recent Winners” slide show.

(L-R: Ryan, Amanda, Me, Wendy, Brookie, Alicia)

After that, everyone realised that the odds of another in our group winning big was slim to none. So we decided to go home. I gave each of my friends $50 as a thank you for a great night.

Amazingly, this money came at the exact right time for me. Having to move into my house within days, I was finally able to buy myself some furniture for my new abode.

So I am the proud new owner of a flatscreen tv and dvd player, a GORGEOUS green velvet couch, a laptop computer, a table and chairs, a mahogany dresser, a Martha Stewart kitchen island and loads of decorations.

Yee haw!

On Tuesday night, I spent my first night alone in the new place. It was scary, but good good fun. I was able to get my phone and internet connected very quickly, and though I don’t yet have cable, I am very happy with my current setup.

This last week has been the luckiest of my life. Besides winning the money, EVERYTHING that I bought for my house came up either on sale or FREE.

And that job that I accepted as a salesperson?  With my rent paid for the next few months, I no longer have to take it. I am now free to find a job I’ll actually love. AND I can afford to have my husband fly out to see me in November for Thanksgiving and our 5 year wedding anniversary.

God works in mysterious ways. And I know there is SOME power out there right now doing everything to help me out.

I was looking at cute overload today when I ran across the most scrumbly bento ever! How on earth could anyone actually be expected to EAT when your food is so amazingly lovely??

Today is the 30th birthday of the man I love most in the whole world.

He is beautiful.

He is articulate.

He is a good provider.

And…

he is a very “special boy.”

So if you see Ross Williams today…

wish him a Happy 30th Birthday.

And be sure to compliment his cowboy boots.

So I spend a great deal of my online time reading up on random people/events on wikipedia. I realise that this makes me potentially one of the saddest individuals to ever live, but at the same time, I have an inherent love of learning which forces me to constantly fill my head with useless knowledge which will only possibly one day win me £50 in a pub quiz.

That said, now and then I come across something of interest and feel that it’s necessary to share.

Yesterday, I subconsciously took in a television advert which was playing in the background. I don’t know what it was for, but it advertised the fact that it was hosted by Niki Taylor. The first thought that came into my distracted brain was the fact that my little brother used to be absolutely in love with her. When he was 9 or 10, he even wrote her a letter to say how much he loved her and telling her that he couldn’t wait to grow up so he could marry her.  It was so cute and sweet that my mother couldn’t bear to send it out, so she kept it in her hope chest.  The second thought that came to my head was, “gosh, she must be old by now.” And the final thought was, “Oh yah… her little sister died.”

So these thoughts stayed on my mind for a while, and when I eventually retired to my computer for the evening, I decided to wikipedia Niki Taylor and her sister, Krissy. I was a bit curious about how she’d died, as I was quite young when it happened and couldn’t remember. For those interested, it was a heart disease they didn’t know she’d had. That said, the wikipedia article was HUGELY skewed, saying that she’d died of a cocaine overdose, without any proof of it. I wound up editing the article so that it said she “MAY” have overdosed, and that her family MIGHT have covered it up. It really was quite unobjective previously.

ANYWAY, I also learned that even though Niki Taylor has been around for dog’s years, she’s actually ONLY 33! Crazy.  But the thing that got me thinking (again) was the fact that the article mentions that Niki reckons she’s the youngest ever model to appear on the cover of Vogue, even though it is well known that that honour goes to Brooke Shields, who was 14 at the time of her cover.

So armed with the knowledge of the youngest Vogue cover model, I started wondering who the FIRST Vogue cover model was… And I went on an expedition to find out.

Imagine my surprise when I found that the first Vogue cover looked like this:

Erm. Odd. Somehow I don’t think a marionette is going to count as a supermodel. The earliest issue I can find with a PERSON on the cover is this one:

though I’m not sure if it’s a photo or a painting! Notice the date of July 20th, 1932. That’s 16 years after the first issue came out!! Granted, from what I can see, it didn’t start out as a monthly book. In 1916, there were three covers only (September and apparently 2 Decembers).

Anyway, I found a site which has all the covers (well… MOST of the covers anyway, as I don’t think it’s got more recent ones). It goes up to issue 301, though I don’t know how long ago that was.  Check it out if you’re interested. I, myself, am spent. :)

Being an American living in the UK makes certain things harder for a girl. One of those things is actually remembering Mother’s Day. In the UK, it happens in March, while in America it’s May! So to cover my bases, I always call my mom on BOTH days to ensure she knows I care.

Today is the second Mother’s Day best wishes I send out this year.

I love you mommy! :)

I’ve recently revamped my home office/studio to make it a much more zen place to be. As such, I thought I’d post pictures of it here, for posterity if not for interest. ;)

The first picture is the wall to the left of the doorway when you enter the room. These pictures are behind the door when it is open. The artist is Lindy Van Den Bosch. I commissioned the pictures of the elements from her for use in my Book of Shadows. But eventually I just put them on my walls, as I liked them better. The other two paintings were gifts from the artist.

Picture two is of my aromatherapy nook. I have tons of oils, candles and incense, which I love to mix according to my mood. :) The fairy art you see is my own work, waiting to be sold. ;) The pink thing to the left is a four drawer plastic bin which is full of art supplies. You can also see my Book of Shadows on top of the pink bin, as I had left it out when I took the picture. And my big orange purse was a gift from my dad in the Spring of 2007.

The third photo is of my desk/workstation. The two framed prints are from John William Waterhouse. There’s also a pretty matted print between them, but I don’t know who the aritst is. On the left Waterhouse print are four photos of me and various family members. Below them is a greeting card featurin the art of Nedda Shishegar. There is also a picture of my neice, Megan and a business card for Divine Inspirations, a local psychic. The three necklaces hanging there are crystal necklaces (rose quartz, quartz and amethyst).

This first picture is of my window next to my desk. I used two pretty Indian scarves as a window treatment. On the windowsill are two candle holders, a wooden mushroom sculpture I bought in Reading, and two small “fantasy” scented candles. Behind them, you will notice three small art prints from Dawn Obrecht. To the left of the window is an original painting sent to me by Erin of Oh Honestly, Erin.

The second picture features the shelf to the left of the window. This features my bottle collection and various tools for pagan ritual. From left to right: TOP SHELF: Bottle collection, some of which holds water from the Upwey Wishing Well in Dorset, and some of which holds water from Chalice Well in Glastonbury. SECOND SHELF: A small pewter cauldron, my athame and boline, my handcarved wand, a large crystal ball, two chalices (one silver, one brass), two small clay jugs (one holding salt, one holding water), a larger brass cauldron and a wooden candlestick. THIRD SHELF: Two wooden boxes containing my crystal collection, several crystal eggs, crystal candleholders and plain crystals, a palmistry hand, a phrenology head, and a jug of powerful stones behind them. BOTTOM SHELF: a bag of tea candles, a box of further tea candles, a soapstone mortar and pestle, a small brass urn full of dried roses, a bell, a bottle of rose quartz, a wooden box with stuff in it, and an aromatherapy candle on its size. :)

The final photo is merely a closeup of my bottle collection. You can see the water in some of them. :)

The first photo is of the next shelf over, to the right of the window. The art above it is my own work titled, Winter Witch (a self portrait). Above that is a small Green Man, which I bought in Glastonbury. This shelf features a lot of my fairy and fantasy figurines. The rest of the pictures are all close-ups of various bits.

For reference, the framed painting on the second shelf is by Maria Van Bruggen, sent to me as a gift at Christmas in 2006.

The bottom shelf simply has some old candles, oil burners and broken figurines.

Another shelf, full of books on art, witchcraft, food and fiction. There is also a can I collect loose change in, some art supplies and old journals.

In the second photo, you see what is atop the shelf. These are all figurines which have been given to me at Christmas. The tallest is about 15 inches high. The fairy with a flower is actually a candle holder. This is the only one not given to me by my husband. It was instead given by his Auntie Sylvia, as she knows I love fairies.

My bookshelves have been located in my window alcove for months. It is a silly place for them, as it blocks out much of the natural light in my room, but they fit so well!! After this picture was taken, I actually removed the books and shelves to the guest room so that I now have a nice bit of sunshine coming in.

Second photo is of my yarn bin, where I keep my yarn and various projects I’m working on. Fun! Right now there are two manikins in there, begging for clothes. ;)

To the right of the bookshelves is a beautiful painting of me, which was commissioned from Nedda Shishegar. She’s made me much prettier than I actually am, but who am I to complain??

Beneath the shelves is more of my “stuff.” The three drawer bureau has herbs in it! I love herbology, and it’s chock full of poisons and potions. Including some very nice salvia divinorum, which is nice to have in summer months, out under the stars! There’s a small pink bin beside this, which features various ephemera for scrapbooking. Atop the bureau is a makeshift hamper for my dirty garments.

And since my room has hideous 1970s carpet, I have a pretty area rug to cover it.

Finally, to make a full circuit of the room, we come to the wall on the right of the door. I have two large double wardrobes, which are separated by my dresser. The brown cupboard on top of this houses makeup and other such girly things as perfumes, lotions, hair product, etc. A vanity mirror allows me to put on my makeup. Behind the mirror are two overflowing jewellry boxes.

And that’s it. My room in pictures. To see the full set, you can also visit my flickr set.

This past weekend, we had a guest down. Our friend Iain was visiting so that he and Ross could go to the O2 arena in London and watch the WWE tapings there on Monday and Tuesday nights.

On Monday, their seats were pretty decent, but they didn’t really get on camera. However, on Tuesday night, they were in the third row, to the right of the ring. And as a result, they were on TV a LOT for the ECW and Smackdown tapings.

While watching the ECW playback yesterday, we found it very funny to notice a specific segment. During the Divas Dance Off, the audience was encouraged to cheer for their favourite. Of course, it was always going to be Kelly Kelly who won, so the cameras fixed on various audience members to show reactions.

As soon as Tazz asked for cheers for Kelly, the camera immediately went to a crowd shot which showed a load of screaming fans and two very non-plussed fellas drinking beer.

Yes, that’s my husband with the beard, and that’s Iain next to him.

Tonight we’re going to watch Smackdown to see what else the camera caught. I would encourage all of you to do the same, as… well… this could be Ross’s 15 minutes of fame. ;)

I’m not sure I mentioned it, but recently my father retired after 20 years with the US Border Patrol. He’s now moved back in to the family home with my mama, and he seems to be keeping himself busy with various chores and sitting on the front porch in his rocking chair.

I’m not sure why, but I felt the need to commemorate his retirement with a portrait. I had thought I’d do a quick sketch or a coloured pencil portrait, but in the end, I decided to try my hand at acrylics!

I have used acrylics only once before, on a painting which came out pretty messy. But I had some spare canvas textured paper sitting around, and I thought, “Why not?”

The result is a very LARGE (as in, the head in the painting is about the same size as his ACTUAL head) portrait, which you can see below. I’ve no idea whether he’ll like it or not, but he’s pretty decent at making wooden frames, and I figured that this was something he could make into a project.

I look forward to the day when I can do one of my mother. But as she’s recently gone through a pretty drastic physical metamorphosis, I don’t feel confident painting her until I’ve seen her in person!

Anyway, for your viewing pleasure, a painting which I simply call: My Daddy.

This will be sent to him as soon as I have two pennies to rub together.

When she comes
With the ghost of a smile
And she runs
Through his eyes for a while
Days turn
There’s empty ground somewhere
Bring the gods
Line them up one by one
Turn the coin
Sound the fife and the drum
Rake it down
Till kingdom comes back here

There’s a rise, there’s a fall
Where the light hits the wall
Spins a Shadow
There’s a rise, there’s a fall
Where the light hits the wall
Spins a…

Cut him down
From that old poplar tree
Break the cord
But he’s looking at me
There’s a cold wind
Blowing down through the meadow
He’s the dark
Where the day has been bleeding
The ink
This place has been needing
You close the door
But it still casts a Shadow

There’s a rise, there’s a fall
Where the light hits the wall
Spins a Shadow
There’s a rise, there’s a fall
Where the light hits the wall
Spins a…

Even gods do
Even gods
(There’s a rise, there’s a fall)
Even gods do
Even gods
(There’s a rise)
There’s a rise, there’s a fall
Where the light hits the wall
Spins a Shadow
There’s a rise, there’s a fall
Where the light hits the wall
Spins a…

Thea Gilmore - Even Gods Do

Collective Soul - The World I Know

Has our conscience shown?
Has the sweet breeze blown?
Has all the kindness gone?
Hope still lingers on.
I drink myself of newfound pity
Sitting alone in new york city
And I dont know why.

Are we listening to hyms of offering?
Have we eyes to see that love is gathering?
All the words that Ive been reading
Have now started the act of bleeding into one.

So I walk up on high
And I step to the edge
To see my world below.
And I laugh at myself
As the years roll down.
cause its the world I know.
Its the world I know.