Thursday Art Date: Motion and Movement

Hello Friends!! 😊😊

Welcome to Thursday's Art Date, today our theme is Motion and Movement. I've been on the move like crazy lately...there is just so much to do now that winter seems to be over! Here is the Roadrunner (in ink and graphite) doing what he does best as the song goes... 🎶 "...'cause runnin' down the road's his idea of havin' fun! (beep beep!)" 🎶  😊

 

 Here is a video titled "Wile E. Coyote's Best Moments for your viewing pleasure!

Movement...well, I tried a self-portrait with charcoals. My reference photo was taken last summer as the wind blew my hair. I thought I'd try to capture that motion! 

And that's really all I had time for! It feels weird that I only did two pieces for this theme!!! Let's check out some food I made in the last week! By the way friends, let me know which cuisines you love and what your favourite dishes are - I love food inspiration! 😊

Pizza poutine: I'm a poutine-nut. I will try anything with fries, some kind of sauce and melted cheese. I'm trying to be creative with poutines lately. This was really delicious! On top of the fries, I layered 4 cheeses (Mozz, Parm, Cheddar, Goat), then poured hot homemade pizza sauce on top with a sprinkle of oregano. MMMM!

Cheese fondue poutine: Well, this one was a stretch lol...but it worked! We usually have some kind of cheese fondue each month, but this time I poured my Smoked Cheddar and Apple Cider Fondue over the fries and topped it with apples and the cubed bread. The bread was overkill, but the apples worked so well. Another poutine triumph!

Have you ever had/made a stromboli? It's basically a pizza rolled up and baked. You take your favourite pizza dough, roll it out into a rectangle, add your toppings, then roll it up and bake it at 400 F for about 20 minutes or so. It's so good. I brushed garlic butter on the dough and added Goat cheese, Mozzarella and fresh tomatoes with a little basil and oregano. Deliziosa! 😊 

I made two so we'd have leftovers. The first night we had it with a spinach salad and some pasta with Balsamic vinegar/olive oil and Parm drizzled on top with fresh tomatoes.

The second night we had it with fries.

Comfort meal: Potatoes gratin with spinach salad.

Spaghetti with garlic bread!

I went cake-baking-crazy one day! I made a lemon sponge cake with lemon buttercream frosting. And I had more of those nice strawberries, so I made another strawberry shortcake.

Now let's digest with some pet photos! :) Here's the apple of my eye...Jack. He was giving me his opinion about food as I snapped this photo! 😊

Oscar and Charlie - best friends. 😊

That's all for now folks! Please check out the link gadget below to see more "Motion and Movement" artwork!

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April 1st (NO foolin'!!!): Next Thursday's theme is Doorways and Alleys. Click on the link for ideas and inspiration! Remember it's all about creating. You can showcase your paintings, drawings, photography, sculpting, baking, poetry...whatever you like! 🎨

Thursday Art Date With Rain. Click on the link for a description of the art date as well as a list of upcoming themes.

Don't forget to add the URL link to your post (not your blog) to the link gadget below to share your wonderful creations! Please revisit to make sure you don't miss those who join in a little late! Also, if anyone adds a link that has nothing to do with the art date theme, it will be removed! The link gadget expires Friday at midnight (EST).

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Thursday Art Date: Diagonal

Hello Friends!! 😊😊

Welcome to Thursday's Art Date, today our theme is Diagonal. Tweety Bird put on his snazziest rain gear to go for a walk in the rain. 😊 His plaid pattern is filled with diagonal lines, as is the rain falling! 

Here is my charcoal Sylvester Stallone from the movie Copland. Have you seen it? It's spectacular. Sly gained a lot of weight for this role by "eating a steady diet of giant pancakes served at a local pancake house." (IMDB) He played a bit of a deadbeat sheriff who eventually has to confront the mob. It's set in the 1970's and has such a great plot. It's also starring Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, Robert Patrick and Michael Rapaport.

Ray Liotta is also in Copland. I love this guy...he's an amazing actor. Did you know that he cries in most of his movies? I don't know if this is trivia or not, but I've noticed it! He's good at it too! 😊 But boy, was he hard to draw!!! The reason I chose to draw these two portraits this week is because there is a scene in the movie where Ray's character talks about the "Diagonal Rule" of perpetual motion for chasing criminals in cars..."Red light, don't fight, make a right." This always stuck with me!

I highly recommend this movie if you like drama thrillers with suspense. Above is the official trailer.

On the food front, I don't have much to share this week, but there will be plenty for next week's post!! I've been eating a lot of leftovers and salads...and lots of Blueberry Muffins too!

I have given up (for now) on my bird cam because it's eating up batteries SO FAST...it only lasts a week. Each trail cam takes 8 batteries, so it's not quite in the budget now! Here is a photo of some Evening Grosbeaks at the feeder barrel. They LOVE sunflower seeds!

And here is a neat shot of them in the Birch trees!

I brought Marlene back to the vet last week...she has advanced kidney failure. 😢 There is not much to do for her except keep her on the renal diet and give her probiotics. She is responding well and I'm enjoying every moment. It's not too grim...at least I don't think so. My late pug Winston was diagnosed with kidney failure back in 2004 and I was told he had about 3 weeks to live. I changed his diet and gave him probiotics and he lived until 2011, so my chin is up for Marlene!

On the way home, I stopped by one of the local farms to take photos of the deer. They are so pretty...this is a cabbage farm and they are cleaning it up for the farmers!

I never see any bucks! Deer always remind me a bit of Marlene, I think she has deer ears! 😊

That's all for now folks! Please check out the link gadget below to see more "Diagonal" artwork!

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Jack, cleaning Oscar's ears!

March 25th: Next Thursday's theme is Motion and Movement. Click on the link for ideas and inspiration! Remember it's all about creating. You can showcase your paintings, drawings, photography, sculpting, baking, poetry...whatever you like! 🎨

Thursday Art Date With Rain. Click on the link for a description of the art date as well as a list of upcoming themes.

Don't forget to add the URL link to your post (not your blog) to the link gadget below to share your wonderful creations! Please revisit to make sure you don't miss those who join in a little late! Also, if anyone adds a link that has nothing to do with the art date theme, it will be removed! The link gadget expires Friday at midnight (EST).

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Thursday Art Date: Space

Hello Friends!! 😊 (I'm so sorry I have not visited your blogs this last week my friends, my time has been consumed with Marlene...I WILL VISIT YOU ALL THIS WEEKEND!!!)

Welcome to Thursday's Art Date, today our theme is Space. I've been doing a lot of art lately. A good friend told me that doing things with my hands releases the mind, so I've been producing LOTS of art (and lots of thoughts!) Bugs donned his lab coat and telescope to check out what was going on in space...he is about to discover the Daffy Constellation - whether he likes it or not!

Marlene is improving!!!!!!!! 😂😂 If you kept her in your thoughts, prayers and heart, I can't thank you enough. Your comments on my last post were so heartfelt and genuine, thank you so much!💗

Leanna: I am praying that your Lucy gets better soon. It took Marlene 4 full days for the Vestibular symptoms to calm down.  💗💗💗

Her eyes stopped darting, she can walk pretty much alone now (a little wobbly) and she seems more interested in life. She is still incontinent but has finally started to poop!!! To pet owners, this is always a cause for excitement if they haven't in a while lol...I have to force feed her, which is a challenge because she still won't eat on her own, but she takes some food from my hands now and then so there is a wee bit of interest. I'm hoping and praying she continues to improve! Today I am bringing her back to the vet for a follow up analysis to see how far her kidney disease has progressed and hopefully to confirm that her liver damage is not progressing. Wish us luck!!

Here are Leo, Jack and Charlie cleaning up Marlene's bib!

Turn up the volume for this 18-second video! I was going to the back of the house to fill the bird feeders just past 8am when I heard a pack of coyotes howling and yipping. They were likely just at the back of my property across the river. It can be an intimidating sound for sure! 

Okay back to space...I tried my hand at Luke Skywalker in ink and graphite. I loved the first two Star Wars movies (1977 and 1980) very much and though I tried to watch the modern ones, they are not for me! In fact, Star Wars was one of the first movies I ever saw in theaters. My grandfather took me and we waited in a super long line that day to see it. Great memory!

A favourite actor of mine is Sam Neill. Here he is in charcoals. Oh he's great! He's probably best known for his role in the Jurassic Park movies. He also played Merlin in the tv mini-series. But he's done a slew of movies, including one set in space called Event Horizon. I don't recommend you watch it if you scare easily as it is suspenseful and a wee bit disturbing. (Right up your alley Nicole!)

But if you want to look at the official trailer, here it is! 

The last week has been so stressful and I really haven't done much but care-take for Marlene and try to keep my emotions from spilling over. I feel so emotionally drained though. My dogs are my heart and I can't express how devastated and desperate I feel when one of them suffers.

I did manage to make a few poutines though with different gravies...a red wine gravy and a chicken gravy.

...and a strawberry shortcake because I (miraculously) found fresh, juicy, sweet local strawberries at the grocery store! 

I'm very set in my ways when it comes to pizza, but decided to try something new. This is my "CLT" pizza (Cheddar, lettuce, tomato) with a little swirl of bbq sauce! It was delicious! I'm a fan of pairing pasta with pizza, so I made some spaghettini with Alfredo sauce to go with it!!! 😋😋

Well, that's all for this week folks! I'm spent! Please check out the link gadget below to see more "Space" artwork!

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Duck on Diagonal Wires

March 18th: Next Thursday's theme is Diagonal. Click on the link for ideas and inspiration! Remember it's all about creating. You can showcase your paintings, drawings, photography, sculpting, baking, poetry...whatever you like! 🎨

Thursday Art Date With Rain. Click on the link for a description of the art date as well as a list of upcoming themes.

Don't forget to add the URL link to your post (not your blog) to the link gadget below to share your wonderful creations! Please revisit to make sure you don't miss those who join in a little late! Also, if anyone adds a link that has nothing to do with the art date theme, it will be removed! The link gadget expires Friday at midnight (EST).

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Marlene

Hi Everyone,

Hope you're all doing well. I'm writing a post today about Marlene. She's our husky mix who we rescued from a bad situation back in October of 2015. We don't know how old she is, a rough estimate is 14 or 15.

I always like to share when our animals are sick, and what we do to remedy them. I think that it helps others out there who might be dealing with the same thing. I've learned a lot from reading other people's pet stories!

Last Wednesday, she suddenly couldn't walk. She kept falling over. Lately she'd become incontinent and started to lose her appetite. Now she was refusing to eat anything and wouldn't even drink her water.

We brought her to the vet on Thursday. They ran some blood tests and discovered she has kidney disease and liver damage. They also diagnosed her with Vestibular Disease - a canine/feline version of vertigo. She was prescribed anti-nausea pills and we decided that getting her eating again would be the first hurdle. They had to give her fluids to rehydrate her and we got some kidney-formula wet food to help support her kidneys a little better. The liver damage is likely caused by the fact that the kidneys aren't working properly and excreting toxins. The liver is having a hard time processing those toxins - especially since Marlene is refusing to eat.

She was also diagnosed with degenerative myelopathy (a disease affecting the spinal cord, resulting in weakness/paralysis of the hind legs); and dementia - but we already knew this by her behaviour because my late pug Winston also suffered from that - and I saw the same symptoms in Marlene.

Vestibular Disease is characterized by eye darting, head tilting, falling over to the side where she tilts her head, wobbliness, dizziness, nausea and incontinence. The symptoms are frighteningly similar to those of a stroke. In the video above you can see her eyes darting. The poor girl was living in a spinning world for 4 days. I had vertigo in my teenage years and it was unbearable. Vestibular Disease can be caused by several things: brain damage or brain disease, inner ear infection, head trauma, toxins or just old age. There is no prescription to cure it unless there is an infection which would be treated with antibiotics. It is supposed to go away after 24-48 hours. If it doesn't go away in that time frame, the diagnosis is not good because it has to do with brain disease. Marlene has no infections.

It's been a 24/7 duty to take care of her, which is hard, but I love her so much so of course I will take care of her the best I can. Her dementia seemed to be getting worse too, as she didn't appear to recognize us or the other pets. She seemed lost. 😟 We were losing hope when it became the fourth day where she didn't eat anything. I called the vet and they suggested blending the food with water and "force feeding" her. I had a large syringe in my medicine cabinet so as Alex was holding her mouth open, I was feeding her. Just like a baby, she wore a bib and tried to spit it all out, but finally she was eating.

This morning, her eyes stopped darting and she's able to walk on her own, but she still tilts her head and wobbles, so we need to walk on the left side of her. She is showing some signs of knowing us again, she came over to me to lie down next to me by my desk.

The biggest challenge at this point is to get her eating on her own. We tried everything imaginable...beef, liver, chicken, pork...potatoes, cheese, carrots, toast, rice, cat food, baby food, McDonalds French fries and even Capt' Crunch cereal! We even tried to give her lollypops, that used to be her favourite treat! She turns her nose at everything. But she is drinking water on her own - a good sign!

If by Monday she is refusing to eat on her own, Alex and I will have some big decisions to make. Would you please keep her in your thoughts my friends? I won't be participating in my usual blog hops/blog parties until things settle a little around here. I hope you all understand! I will still host the Thursday Art Date, but may not be posting too much there, though I think that I need to continue to do some art because it will bring me some joy and get my mind off my troubles!

Thursday Art Date: Creases

Hello Friends!! 😊😊 

Welcome to Thursday's Art Date, today our theme is Creases. Bugs Bunny gussied himself up to portray a happy housewife, ironing away the creases in her husband's shirt. If you're a Bugs fan, can you count the number of times Bugs Bunny was portrayed in drag? I can't! But RuPaul (the world's most famous drag queen) is quoted as saying "Bugs Bunny was my first introduction to drag!"

Creases in faces, creases in jackets...creases in the plan...this is my ink and graphite sketch of a scene from my favourite Woody Allen movie "Crimes and Misdemeanors". It's brilliantly acted by Martin Landau and Jerry Orbach. It's a mix of comedy and drama, and is very suspenseful at times. It also stars (of course) Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, Angelica Huston, Sam Waterston and Alan Alda.

Here is the official trailer.

Another fine actor who has many creases in his face is Sir Anthony Hopkins...he has done too many amazing films to list here, but I think (for me anyway) his most memorable movie is The Silence Of The Lambs, playing Hannibal Lecter (also starring an amazing Jodie Foster). He's just so creepy in that movie!! This is my ink and graphite drawing of him.

Here is the official trailer  of The Silence Of The Lambs.

I had fun doing a Prismacolor Pencil drawing of a sea turtle. These beautiful creatures have many creases in their skin. I've never seen one in person, but I think they are just stunning!

I love these Evening Grosbeaks...they are beautiful!

The following photos are a tribute to my absolutely favourite bird, the Mourning Dove. I feel blessed to have them at my feeder and on my "bird cam"!!

Asparagus and Cheddar Quiche/ Pizza Night: #1 Bianca - olive oil, parm and oregano; #2 Margareta - tomatoes, parm and mozz, delicious with a spinach salad.

Penne with a light Rosé sauce (a parm cheese sauce with a wee bit of tomato paste), garlic bread...and for dessert - Strawberry Tiramisu! Yummy!

I'm linking up with these wonderful bloggers today, or at least trying (!!), please visit them for some really interesting posts! And why not join in on the link parties? You can meet some really nice people!! 😊

Friday March 5th : Paint Party Friday

Saturday March 6th: Eileen's Saturday's Critters

Monday March 8th: Angie's Mosaic Mondays

That's all for now folks! Please check out the link gadget below to see more "Creases" artwork!

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I took this photo on August 12th, 2020 of the night sky...I LOVE to stargaze!!

March 11th: Next Thursday's theme is Space. Click on the link for ideas and inspiration! Remember it's all about creating. You can showcase your paintings, drawings, photography, sculpting, baking, poetry...whatever you like! 🎨

Thursday Art Date With Rain. Click on the link for a description of the art date as well as a list of upcoming themes.

Don't forget to add the URL link to your post (not your blog) to the link gadget below to share your wonderful creations! Please revisit to make sure you don't miss those who join in a little late! Also, if anyone adds a link that has nothing to do with the art date theme, it will be removed! The link gadget expires Friday at midnight (EST).

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