10 January …

These past few weeks have been (insert your choice of adjective here and you are probably correct) …

Kamille and Paul were here for Christmas Day and then they flew east to be with the Plociniks in Baltimore.  They got back home last Thursday and normal school/work routine resumed last monday. 

I have etched out a role (however temporary) for myself as cook and bottle washer.  Mark has enough to do and fret about, so I make breakfast and their dinner.  They eat at 1700 and I have my big meal at noon, so I get for my dinner what they have the night before.  I plan it that way and it seems to be working.

Positive side effect is that I once again feel that I have a role, if not yet a purpose.  

Another current step is getting back into the radio club.  It is time for election of officers and I’ve been nominated to run as Presiding Officer again.  I think I will.  Not that my technical knowledge is great, but I do know how to run a meeting.

And I’m working on getting back into genealogy.  The friend who used to fill photo requests for the local cemetery has moved to Idaho and the requests are piling up.  Once the weather clears, I plan to tackle that.  A morning outdoors followed by lunch sounds okay.

~~~

We’ve been having rain on and off.

This morning we have fog and a slight sprinkling of snow. 

This winter is nothing like last year (in oh so many ways) …  at least not so far.

~~~

Late last year the oil painted animation film “Loving Vincent” was released.  George and I were both impressed.  It is a miracle … each frame hand-painted in the style of Van Gogh.

As a result, I decided to explore the lesser know works of Van Gogh as my art project this coming year.  

I begin with a work titled “Self-portrait with Pallette”. 

All in all, Van Gogh painted 36 self-portraits.  This one was painted in 1889 when he was 36, the year before his death.  He painted himself when he was unable to pay someone to sit for him, which was often.  This was painted after he cut off the lower part of his left ear but since he was painting what he saw in a mirror, it is actually his right ear we see in this painting.

The colours are what grabbed me … the many blues, the contrast with the ginger hair and beard, the death-like shadows on the flesh, the eyes, the blue halo …

So … what do you think?

~~~

There are still unexpected knocks-upside-the-jaw which leave me in tears, but there are also glimpses of sun …  

Omni fine initium novum.

So … ‘til next week …