Artist Spotlight

At this point in my life, not much is happening.  I like to put posts on here, but I hardly ever have anything to say.  Most other people blog about their children or work or things like that, but since I don't have children and no one wants to hear pitiful stories about my job, I decided I'd talk about something that I love: art.  Specifically, the artists that create the art.  I love to think about what famous people are like.  I would talk about my favorite artist first, but I have so many favorites that I didn't know where to start.  So I decided to start with the artist who's painting I actually have a reproduction of - Claude Monet. 

I know you never would have guessed, but Monet is French!  Born in Paris in mid-19th Century, he was never one of the starving artists that you hear so much about.  His family was fairly well off and sent him to a private school where he often got in trouble for breaking rules and being somewhat of a rebel.  When he was 15, he was selling caricatures on the streets (which his well-to-do parents did not approve of).  Shortly after Monet's first art show, his mother died and his aunt took over the encouragement of this young man's artistic drive.  Monet studied with many great Impressionists of the time, but he didn't truly find inspiration till he found the works of none other than Edouard Manet.  Manet used a similar style to the one that Monet came to be so famous for.   Both artists painted "en plein air" which basically means they painted outdoors.  This was a big step in art and could only have been made possible by the invention of tubes (like the tubes toothpaste now comes in).

Monet was so particular about the lighting of his pieces, that he would wait until the sun was at a particular spot in the sky and it was even said that he had a ditch dug and himself suspended in the air to make sure he had the perfect angle for his painting.  I think stories like that are so interesting.  Monet became most famous after his painting "Impression: Sunrise", but the reproduction I have (and actually saw in person!) is of "Venice, The Grand Canal". 

Impression: Sunrise

Venice, The Grand Canal

I know most people wouldn't find this very interesting and I don't have many chances to talk about it with people, but I could talk art all day.  I think the thing that grabs me most about the Venice piece is the colors.  They are so peaceful and serene.  This painting isn't about the subject or about the brush strokes, to me it's all about the feeling.  What you go through when you look at it. 

Well, I hope this wasn't too boring to read and if you made it this far, congratulations!  I'll just end by saying that I love this kind of stuff, no matter what other people say.

Memories

This past month or so I've been putting together our famliy calender (it's almost finished everyone, so just hold your horses) and it's made me realize how much fun I have with my family.  There have been some really great times.  There have also been some not so great times, but that's beside the point....  It's made me realize how important making family memories are.  They are so precious to me.   I hope I can make as good of memories with my future children.  Here are some of the things that make me laugh when I think about them:

-All of Dad's ideas about trying to catch mice.
-Actually, a lot of Dad's ideas in general (like trying to get into his locked car by using a baseball bat, never going to forget that one!)
-All of Andy's Baseball tournaments where we would sit clear in the outfield and have our own party
-When Oscar was little and a little Houdini
-Burns getting his foot broken and David wrapped it too tight and he became Thumper
-The summer when Joni, Andy, and I were all home and didn't have any more than part time jobs so we would take Oscar everywhere with us.
-Ditcher Time where my sisters, mom, and I go out to lunch and always make some kind of a scene
-Going to David's parents house and having to be careful about not saying we were going to murder each other
-On the way to David's parents house, getting stuck at a truck stop in the middle of nowhere and talking to a very....interesting....truck driver
-Having Sunday dinners together and getting to talk to everyone.

I think I'm going to like raising my own kids and being able to do weird, funny stuff with them too.  I think between David and I, our kids don't really have a chance of being normal, but like I always tell David when he brings that up, at least they'll be funny!

Just Keep Swimming

I know many people know how I feel right now.  Newly graduated, stuck in Rexburg for the next little while, and out of work (kind of).  I do have a part time job, but they don't have enough hours for everyone so I'm only getting about 20 hours a week.  Also, my boss thought I was going to quit (even though both David and I told him I was staying) so he hired someone else to work during the day (which is the shift I wanted) and so I have to work almost every night.  It's a lot of fun when David's at school all day, I'm at work all night, and we only get to see each other for about 2 hours in between.  It sucks.  It's enough to pay the bills, but not by much.  I've been looking for any job I can get that would offer me full time, but in this city it's nearly impossible.  Especially if you want any type of benefits or want to earn even $9 or $10 an hour.  There are so many college kids here that will take any minimum wage job, that hardly anyone is willing to pay much more.  It's frustrating to call all these people and fill out all these applications to have nothing work out.  But I'm hopeful.  When my sister was trying to get a job in nursing, I remember her saying once "They can't keep me out forever!"  I think I'm going to try to keep that attitude.  Just keep working at it until something finally works out.

In the meantime, David and I have tried to do all we can to cut back on expenses.  David decided that each of us can only eat out once a week.  This isn't too hard for me because we would normally eat out at night and I work almost every night so that pretty much takes away that temptation.  I do go out to eat with my sisters and mom every week, so that's my one time out.  If I find a day job, I don't think I'll be able to go to that any more, which bums me out a little bit.  Instead of eating out, David has to endure my cooking.  While we were at David's house his dad kept telling me all the easy recipes and telling me I need to learn sometime (which I wasn't quite sure how to feel about him telling me that).  I was never that much into cooking.  I love to bake.  I'm a sweets person.  I love sugar.  Cooking is much more salty.  But I'm doing my best. 

Also, we try to keep the heat off or on low as much as we can.  This isn't too hard because sometimes having the heat on doesn't make our apartment any warmer than when it's off.  Gotta love apartments. 

We also try to shop at Sam's Club as much as we can and buy in bulk.  It saves us a lot of money in the long run because usually we only go grocery shopping every other week and we just hold off on things we need until we can make time to go down there.

We also spent some money on a couple of chickens.  Like whole chickens.  Frozen.  They were a lot cheaper than getting chicken cuts so that saved us money, but I had no idea what we were supposed to do with 2 frozen chickens.  That night, David had his friend Paul over and they divided the chickens up into breasts, legs, and other stuff that they made a broth from.  The broth was really good and we used it in some homemade chicken noodle soup.  And last night, I had to de-bone and de-skin the breasts so we could have some crockpot chicken.  It was pretty gross.  I'm just glad we had good knives so that the process went pretty fast.  I take after my mom in that I hate touching raw meat.  David had the chicken while I was at work and he said it was pretty good so I guess I didn't mess that up!  David said it's pretty hard to mess chicken up, but I know I'll find a way.

Well, that's pretty much my life right now.  While I'm at home all day I look for jobs, clean, do laundry, and try to figure out what David can have for dinner.  It's not very exciting.  I'm already getting bored and it hasn't even been a week since David started school.  I need a job.