It's a Bit Warm Here . . .

I picked up my mother and we arrived in Desert Hot Springs September 1. 

After a very stressful week together, 

I took her back home to Hanford on Thursday.  

I think a psychologist could make a million trying to sort out this relationship.

 Part of the strain for me is what could be 

early stages of dementia on mom's part. 

I'm constantly in a state of MCS flare because she smokes like a smokestack, 

and so my nerves are frazzled to begin with. 

She is hard of hearing and refuses to wear hearing aids.

Having to repeat what I say 5 times, 

and having her ask the same questions over and over, 

paired with her EXTREMELY negative attitude,

 wears me down even further. 

I think a person needs the patience of Job to deal with this situation, 

and I just don't have it. 

I try to steer her thoughts in a positive direction, 

telling her how lucky we are to be alive, 

how wonderful it is to be able to see, hear, smell, taste, and walk, 

how beautiful the desert is, 

and she just complains and complains, and complains some more.  

She hates her life, everybody, and everything. 

She hates Hanford.

She hates the desert, and says it's ugly.

She won't go to her church because she doesn't like the preacher.

She hates her beautiful 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom house.

She doesn't have a good word to say about anything or anybody. 

It's disheartening and exhausting.

I feel like I'm with a psychic vampire! 

Friday morning, I drove back to Desert Hot Springs and unloaded the van. 

Joe has kindly offered to let me split the HOA fees with him

for the season.

This will be my home base for the winter. 

As you can see by today's weather report, it's a bit warm here!

But I don't care!

I'm alone and I'm loving it!

I have PEACE and quiet and my art supplies!

Working on a new watercolor

I'm comfortable inside with a nice swamp cooler running. 

I've been sorting through my supplies,

and having fun!

I've been wanting to make color charts

for my paints and pencils,

so I spent the last couple of days 

working on charts.

I bought a set of Derwin Inktense Pencils. I love them because you can layer them after they dry and make them more intense without lifting any of the pigment.

Coliro Pearl Color Watercolors

Too bad you can't see the shimmer in this photo. 

These pearl watercolors are shiny and beautiful!

I can't wait to use them!

Derwent Coloursoft Pencils

I also wanted to do a color chart for my Derwent Coloursoft Pencils.

It took 3 pages to do all 72 pencils,

but now I can see at a glance what colors I need.

Prismacolor Pencils

I love being able to see the difference between the Derwent

and the Prismacolor pencils at a glance!

I started a new Anna Mason lesson.

I'm going to watercolor this hand 

because I want to learn to do skin tones

so I can paint portraits of my grandchildren.

I love Anna Mason's technique of layering the pigment.

 I used this technique to paint these portraits 

of my "grand-dog" Data

and my "grand-cat" Jax.

Data Doggie

Jax the  Cat

I tend to flit from project to project,

so when I'm weary of painting,

I've been working on this poncho

for the chilly Quartzsite evenings.

I love the colors,

they match my hair!

Anyway, that's it for now.

I'm hunkering down here for a few weeks

until the heat spell breaks.

I hope to see all of you at the RTR this season.

Have a great rest of summer and

Happy Trails!

Annie

I've been looking at mobile home parks, thinking I might buy a small place this winter. We'll see how it goes. I'm loving van life, but feeling the need to have a home large enough to store the things I love and am not willing to part with yet, and a place to hunker down when I'm