A drastic change and a lonely third

      Once upon a time, there was a little girl who was a third, even though she was the first and all alone.  Then there were two brothers and she felt like a third, unless they got tired of playing house and went to play army instead.  And then she just felt left out.  (She should have gone and played army nurse with them :)  But then two more little girls came along and she was another kind of third.  An older third; a different kind of example third; a pink third.
The three pink thirds had a lot of fun living under one roof trading books, plotting stories, trading recipes, tweaking fashion ideas, planning photo shoots, sharing giggles and hugs, and reality checks when necessary.  And then the phone rang, and the first third started to pack her bags for an adventure - an adventure that didn't include the other thirds.  Her heart was pretty sad as she stuffed two suitcases full of clothes and bits of home, and wished very much there was room for the other thirds.  She boarded a plane all by herself and flew to the land of Hot and Dry.  She arrived at a house in the middle of a HUGE city, parked her bags in a new room and when the first day of her adventure was over she wished very much there had been room in her bags for her pillow.  On the second day of her adventure, a very sweet note, tucked in between packed clothes when she wasn't looking, made her feel a little less lonely and she was very cheerful as she started to unpack her bits of home and settle in.  But when bedtime came, the lack of her soft squishy pillow was dwarfed by the lack of her fellow comrades in pink.  Bad dreams didn't help the situation.
The third day of her adventure was long, windy and loud.  And she can't help thinking that it would feel more like an adventure if she wasn't so lonely.

Don 't worry.    Good sleep - and a phone call or two home - will put things back into perspective.  This is a long-winded way of saying that posts are now being written on two ends of the country.  The Soldier called two weeks ago to ask if I would be willing to fly out and help Sorelle for a while.  It was something I'd been thinking about during the trip to see him when he was home on leave (on the trip that we sort of didn't mention in February - sorry!), but it got mentally shelved for multiple reasons when we got home.  When he called I felt like God was tapping my shoulder saying, "Hey!  This was important.  Keep up with Me."  We talked about it as a family and decided I should go.  Being self employed I was able to pretty much drop everything and leave - and I am so grateful my clients were so gracious when I told them I'd be leaving.  (Thank you!)
I have no idea how long I'll be here, so if all of a sudden small details don't add up and it sounds like posts are being written on opposite ends of the country . . . . they are.  :) 
Trying to see the nice side of this temporary move, I have to admit that the temperature outside is very nice and warm.  I've enjoyed seeing green grass and roses blooming on street corners - although I do feel a little like I've completely skipped spring.  (Which is one of my favorite seasons.)  And come Monday I'll be nanny-ing the 10 month old nephew while Sorelle works.   Woohooo!! Trading music lessons, 400 page books that can be read at leisure and random cooking experiments for diapers, bottles and baby food 'art' (aka, smears down the front of the baby and anything he can reach) might not seem like a brilliant trade, but I'm pretty excited.  :)
  So you can see that this adventure is a broad mix of emotions right now.  I have a feeling that God is going to be teaching me a lot, if I remember to stand back and let Him work.  For now I need to remember to concentrate on Today . . . . which at the moment involves cleaning the half-unpacked mess off my bed so I can sleep.



Still a lonely pink third,
Irish Rose

Sketching Progress

Hi all, I do apologize profusely for disappearing off the face of blog-dom:) (Apparently when writer's block hits in one area it covers them all.)
  Anyway, I thought I might bring you all up to speed on my 365 Day Sketching Challenge.
  Three months in and I am a handful of sketches behind, but I have completed 89 of them to date! Yay! Of those two of them have been suggestions from my jar.

 This is Sketch Prompt #1 - A doe and fawn in the woods.

Now, seeing as I didn't have any reference photos (I did peek at one near the end because the doe's head looked more like a dog than a deer:) please don't look too closely because I don't do deer, and I'm positive there are a lot of things that aren't accurate, so all of you who hunt, or who have brothers that hunt, will be able to pick out all the inconsistencies right away.

Thank you K.J. for the suggestion:)

You know you've been watching too much FoodNetwork when this comes out as your daily sketch.

Not only does it make me hungry -

But it seems it is a source of inspiration as well!

*Note: It looks really crooked because I took the picture weird.

 This bird is the product of one of my Random Line sketches. Seriously, when I can't think of anything to draw I'll swipe a couple random lines across my paper, then proceed to see what I can make them morph into.
(For some odd reason most of them turn out to be birds, can't quite figure out why. . . .)
Most of the time it is a really fun, relaxing way to do a sketch. . . unless of course I try to get too technical with it and end up with something that looks like some sort of weird modern art.

That brings us all up to date on progress so far, though I did manage to do a fairly decent hand sketch last week (hands are hard!) and an angry dragon! (Yes. . . that's another story entirely:)
Until next time, I hope you all have a wonderful week!