Should I try the wild mushroom, or no?

Last weekend B-Rad and ManChild went to Chicago for a family wedding while I held down the farm. (We really need an adult stay-on-the-farm-sitter so we can go to these things together!) They both got new suits and ManChild chose a red bow tie to go with his! I was just dying with the cuteness! So, I'm going about my weekend and B-Rad shoots me this picture. Of course they bought the sunglasses because, the cuteness continues:

He's so grownup! What happened to my baby who used to want to go trick or treating in whatever kick-ass costume he had chosen but insisted on fairy wings too?

Darth Vader and purple fairy wings, he was 5:

And in 2013 he was a ninja with wings:

Speaking of the past, at this time 2 years ago the fires in Colorado were raging way to close to home and we saw a lot of sunsets that looked like this:

Mom had just been diagnosed in September of 2020 and we had made a very quick decision (after 18 years and buying a farm) to move back to NC to be close to family—we were in the beginning stages of thinning things out so we could put our house on the market. While painters came in and painted the whole interior "Agreeable Grey," I was packing, packing, packing. This is my upstairs kitchen. I so miss having an entire apartment above our house that I could work out of:

I don't miss that packing! Although I do have to say, giving away bags and bags of goodies to Goodwill feels really good! Maybe someday soon I'll start tackling the bonus room of things that have never been unpacked.

•••

My mom is officially in hospice as of this week. She finished her radiation and so far, not a lot of change, if any in the pain. They have moved her to morphine to control the pain in her back (besides the cancer, she also has degenerative disc disease) so she sleeps a lot more. She's unhappy about that but the pain is so bad that she feels it's her only option. This wasn't the way anyone wanted this to be—but is it ever?

My aunt and I are swapping days so we each have every other day to get our own personal and family needs taken care of while still spending as much time over there as possible. Hospice will be coming twice a week for an hour. My dad is still the primary caregiver but we hope that with some extra help from Katy and me that it will take some of the load off of him.

A couple of my favorite pics of my mom! This one was from my wedding to B-Rad 22 years ago. I was 30 and and my mom was 53, the age I am now:

And this one of my mom and brother:

•••

That huge 5' tall horse painting is coming along and I was thisclose to showing you a close up recent work in progress shot but decided you could see a far away shot instead lol. I'm getting pretty excited about it, I'm about two-thirds finished. It's funny how I go along, painting away, just seeing how I'm imagining it in my head only. Then one day, it just "appears." That's what happened this week. It's been slow going with all that's been going on but on Wednesday I got to paint for about an hour and suddenly THERE HE WAS. I could feel this horse's presence in the room instead of just brush strokes on the canvas. Love it when I get to that point!

When my brother was in town over the weekend we decided to move my art studio into this "interesting space" in the front of the house by the front door. The dining room is to the right and the living room is behind me. We've had some chairs in this space, a puzzle table but nothing has ever really suited me. It's a funny spot. It's good size too but not the right layout to be a part of the living room. The previous owners had a baby grand piano in it and that was pretty. My brother and I were talking about the possibility of moving my studio to it. Since I've been painting larger I feel like I'm stuffed into my closet studio so we rearranged:

ManChild is disturbed by messy art things being in among our living spaces but I have to say, I LOVE IT!

•••

When I first saw the Polar Bear after her wander through the woods, I thought they were porcupine quills, then just broken pine needle bits but then I found that they were some sort of weed seed, very hard and quickly working their way down into her thick fur! Took some doing but I got them all out:

I Love Lucy and her daily tug and shake sessions:

A walk in the fall forest:

•••

Well, it's pretty official, this is very, very likely "Lion's Mane" which apparently helps with dementia, focus, anxiety and depression, cancer, and when cooked in butter, tastes like a cross between lobster and crab. Do I dare try it?

And how fitting that I happened to come upon this meme this week:

I can't get enough of the glorious Pampas Grass!

And my brother took this one:

Or the sweet little weed flowers:

And the cool, misty mornings are a miracle after the summer's heat:

The Sweet Gum trees are putting on a show, at least those in the sunlight. Their leaves look like someone created a watercolor painting:

I love the contrast:

The Camellias off the back porch are blooming up a storm. They like to bloom in the fall/winter:

THE MEMES THAT MADE ME LAUGH THIS WEEK:

I can't tell you for how long ManChild called it "shoeshi..."

This is true! Right? I don't care, it's true for me:

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