Monday painting: leather jacket

Sorry for the disappearing post, rss-feeders. I got myself locked out of the house, emptied a handful of pens from a jelly jar in my studio, and was sitting on the back porch drinking a jarful of porter from the basement kegerator when I got bad news about my broken-down truck, leading me to violate two blog rules: no posting after a beer and no ranting about family members. The kids enjoyed the trip to the impound lot, and my truck is back in the driveway. Dead. But not set on fire on the side of the road, at least.

So I was really ready to have some time to myself on Monday. Finished one painting, framed another, packed one up to be mailed, addressed some Christmas cards, and baked a bunch of rugelach and gingerbread.  

Leif's jacket:

Framed:

I swear it looked a lot bigger than that while I was painting it. If I had to do it again, I'd remember to make the leaves and stems GREEN, and not the all-black of the plastic Halloween bouquets I got from Walmart. Had a bit of tunnel vision while getting through all those damn petals.

The rugelach was really ugly, but it tasted good, and that's what counts when you bake something for the first time. I'm checking off new recipes to try. Next up is chocolate babka. One of our family mottoes is: you have to do the work to make the magic. Even it means taking the holiday by the neck and shaking the happiness out of it. Someone else will pick up the good feelings, even if you're not able to.