The Finished Cat painting

Not a whole lot different than the one I posted before, but I brightened everything up a lot and made a few small changes.  I like it.  It looks like a happy kitten, who's thinking about mischief (aren't they all???)

Now I've got two more commissioned paintings coming up, so I'll be working on them for the next month.  Still trying to keep my commissions at no more than two per month so I have time to enjoy life. 

And spring is coming!!!  I can feel it!  Here in Oregon, it's v-e-r-y slow in arriving, but there are signs:  trees starting to bloom, bulb flowers in full bloom, a few days of real sunshine every so often, people out and about more and more, my thoughts turning to travel again (although, unless things change, my France trip isn't happening until September -- and as I think I've mentioned before, its length keeps getting shorter and shorter due to a certain little one who is too young just yet to go with me without both of us being miserable), just all kinds of signs that spring is, well, springing!!

I must close with:  An early springtime many years ago, my aunt was leaving her job at a neat old hotel (now destroyed, I'm sad to say) in Pensacola, Florida, called Hotel San Carlos.  She was standing at a street corner when an obviously a-bit-inebriated man approached her with a big smile.  She was a bit nervous, but then he said that he wanted to recite a poem for her.  Here it is:  "Spring is sprung, grass is riz, I wonder where them flowers is."  That's it!

We have enjoyed reciting it every springtime since then -- along with e. e. cummings "In Just Spring," of course!!!  One of my favorites!  Here it is if, one, you're not familiar with it or, two, you just want to have a warm, fuzzy remembrance:  http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/176657.