a week gone by

well, re-reading my last post i must say things have changed alot! i am walking around, okay not far or anything, just into my garden and around the house but still! it's a huge improvement compared to last week!!

the stitches are out and that too is a big relief! what a difference it makes, especially for sitting, still hurts to sit but less every day!

i am pleased, for the first time i think this op was a good idea! , my foot is straight again, before my left foot twisted outwards and it was really painful along with the Suddeck that is in that foot anyway.

Suddeck is giving me alot more bother because of the pain signals going to my back but i'm coping with that, i'm okay.

boredom is my biggest problem, i miss painting and fiddeling around in my studio :((

i did do a little drawing, you know, lying around the whole day made me think of Frida Kahlo lol so i tried to draw while laying on my side! hard to do i tell you! an adventure seeing the rest of my day i watch tv grrrr i now know when to plant tulips, paint rooms, decorate, remove stains from dirty carpets,.... daytime tv sucks!!!

here's my Frida folk art doll :))

she's just in my Rehab Moleskine Sketchbook

not too bad concidering my circumstances!

Wednesday i'm off to see Paolo Nutini!

it'll be a trip! it's about an hour's drive, i'm not driving of course, a friend is taking me :)

we will have to stop a few times to let me walk around for 10minutes because i'm not allowed to sit so long in the car on one end, so we need to leave pretty early

and i'll be in a wheelchair at the concert.

i tried it yesyerday going to Ikea and it was okay, not much pain, but it's not about the pain, it's about the healing around the new titanium disc!

i'll be careful and won't start dancing or anything! i'm so happy to be going and i got the all clear from the doc just for the one time he said! after that a few days complete bedrest again.

i can live with that :))

i know alot of you want to know how i'm doing, i hope i haven't bored any other readers

i promise there will be more artsy stuff to show soon :))

hang in there with me if you can.

love & peace

tanya xx

making the most of it!

hey peeps, where to start? well, havent been making much art though i am in the middle of a painting at the moment, a beautiful angel inspired by my friend MP, she will also be the new owner of this painting and i showed her a half finished version of it today and she is in love with it and recognized herself in it so my mission is accomplished and that makes me happy :)

here the half finished angel

what else? well i'm making most of my month July seeing August will be one of getting back on my feet after the surgery!

talking of that! last week i found out there has been a change of plan!!! instead of just removing part of the damaged disc they are now going to take the disc away! and replace it with a titanium one wich also means i get metal plates and screws & bolts!

oweeee i wasn't expecting that and can't say i'm too happy either but that's where i stand so as usual i will go through whatever is on my path.

i plan on making my hospital stay as bright as possible! so i will be pretty in pink :)

i got all pink pj's, a pink dressing gown, slippers, undies, all pink of course! i'm taking my pink laptop, i've got pink towels and plan on getting a pink throw for my hospital bed :)) hey! might just brighten up the place while i'm there and it kind of takes my mind of the actual event.

but! before the 4 of August i still have a few plans :))

thursday: park concert with kids & friends

friday: my friend kaat is coming to catch up after her holiday and in the evening i am going to a trailer trash party bash! a birthday party under a bridge lol! and we have to dress the part too! i got some cool 'trashy' clothes last week and am looking forward to dressing up and seeing all my friend's clothes too

saturday: another birthday party but with normal clothes ;)

Sunday: going out for dinner with my friend kelly

Monday: going out for the day with my friend peter

Tuesday: hum i'd best stay home on tuesday :)) pack my bag and pay all the bills before i head of to hospital on wednesday

so you see, i'm keeping myself busy!!

and now off to bed! half past midnight & beauty sleep is calling :))

if i don't drop by before the op i wish you all sunshine filled days, cool nights and good health

love & peace, tanya xox

time flies!!

it has been ages since i have written on my blog, i can't say it's because i haven't had the time :) and it's not because i haven't got anything to say or to show... just call me lazy lol!!!



seriously, i've just been taking a break, two sunshine filled weeks in Spain with my friend Sue and her husband Colin, and adventure at times! starting with Sue having a flat tyre on the way to the airport to pick me up! luckily i had a friendly man sitting next to me on the plane, we had been chatting the whole flight, he heard about me having to wait a few hours so he suggested i hitch a ride with him and his two teenagers :)) lucky me! Sue got home hours!!!! later.



then i did my back in! totally! just by leaning over the bathtub to rince my hair, omg!!! i thought i would have to call the inssurance to let me go home! but it subsided a little, enough to still enjoy my holiday, on crutch most of the time but hey!?



We visited Valencia, i loved that! i'll show some pics in my next post, i have my foot up at the moment and don't want to get up to get the SD card from my camera :))



oh and of course i had a few paints and brushes with me so i made a little painting for Sue, pic is still on my camera so that's for the next post

some pics i do have:

this is the angel i painted for Diane Radichat in Seattle

(we were at Ranger together)

Tanya & Sue having cocktails :)

my gekko tatoo

me getting the tatoo!!! painful??? well no!!! i was faking! it's only henna lol!

i'm kind of tired!! went to a park concert last night, always fun because most of my friends are there too and in the Summer there is a concert every Thursday! so next week i'm taking the kiddies, there is so much for them to do there, it'll be fun!

today i picked the kiddies up from their two week stay at their dad, so glad to have them home again :))

tomorrow we are going to ROCK HERK, a rock festival not too far from here, loads of my friends are going too so it'll be great!!

Wednesday i'm off to my friend Esther's birthday BBQ

lol no wonder i'm tired huh?? but Summer is good for meeting up with friends and having loads of fun i think! pain or no pain :)) no use lying around all the time huh!

i have a few commisioned paintings to start but for now i'm going to just keep my feet up and have a rest with a good book

till next time :)

love & peace

tanya xx

Prince Charming...

Prince Charming, as i see him... not that i am in any way waiting on a Prince Charming lol, i just thought it would be cool to give him a go since i am doing another Suzi class :)) and need to practice side view faces! so here is my first ever, i 'm not drawn to side views so much because i get less eye to play with and for me it's all about the eyes in my faces but having tried this i probably will do a few more and then practice some 3/4 views too, always something new to learn and that is what i love about drawing and painting!and then there i this painting 'Passion' commisioned by my friend Esther, a beautiful redhead herself so she loves my girls & angels

this one is no angel, seeing the text she wanted put on was a touch sassy lol i figured it was best to make her a goddess instead :))

ok, short post, the weather is way too nice to be sitting in and the sun too bright to take the laptop out lol

so have a brilliant day & whatever you are up too, i hope you are having fun!!

talk soon!

love & peace

tanya xx

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful mums.

My mother's day so far has consisted of sleeping in because the littlies are at their dad, it is his weekend to have them so i will see them later today when i pick them up.

So sleeping in was my luxury though i would have prefered to have kiddies jumping on my bed bringing me burned toast and weak coffee and dandilions from the garden :)

however my 20y old son did make me (half burned) toast and scrambled eggs and brought it out into the garden without even a mumble of happy mother's day haha and then went off inside to watch a recorded film from last night... typical my son lol!

so again peace and quiet...

except for my little buddy blackbird who i have named George :)

my sweet son did give me a gift certificate for new sunglasses so yesterday we had a nice day in the city, choosing some pretty cool sunglasses that i will have by the end of next week, lunch out in the sun, well not so much sun but it was nice enough.

I'm not one for expecting gifts for Mother's day, whenever my kids used to aks what i wanted i always replied that it would be fantastic if they would for one day not fight or make a mess and make me a cup of tea without me asking for it... i always got the tea!

motherhood is quiet a ride, one that i have learned lots from, with five kids there is a lesson every day! my hardest lesson has been to let go... my teenage daughter taught me how to do that, in not such a soft way (some of you will remember she ran away from home in feb 2009 and is now living with her father) it hurt like hell and on some days it still does... but i have learned to let it go as much as i can, she is nearly adult now, 18 in June.

My own mother died last year in September and that too was a hard thing to deal with in different ways than most of you would expect.

She died at the age of 59 after a seven year struggle with Alhzeimers

we never had a connection, i only met her for the first time as a teenager so it was not the average mourning journey i went through...

this morning sitting out in the garden, for the very first time in my life i felt she might just be watching over me after all and it made me cry and then i started to miss my runaway teen and that made me cry and then George started singing and that made me smile and cry... and then the song hallelujah came on my ipod and ok... you get the picture.

****************

i went to a really cool party on Friday night.... oh i got home at 3.30am after playing taxi for a sad soul who's car had broke down ;)

i met so many cool, beautiful, crazy people, we laughed so much and omg you don't want to knows ome of the convo's we had, hilarious believe me!!

so happy Esther invited me :))

and i made her a little present because the very first time we met she fell in love with my framed collage necklace and insantly dived into my cleavage lol... she is like that!

(here is what i made for her, not so good pics but it is hard with the glass that reflects)

she pretty much squeeled with delight and we immediatly fitted the chain to fit and then she had to change her earrings because they didn't match lol ... and every one just had to admire it! she gave them no choice lol!!

ah well i'm going to let you all have a wonderful day and i'm going to continue to relax out in the sun, today the sun seems to have come back to play and i am not complaining!!!

love & peace

tanya xx

beautiful times

isn't it just wonderful when Spring makes it's enterance? not that i ever complained about Winter, not like 99% of the people i know lol, i don't mind Winter, i love snow, ok, driving in snow and on icey roads not so much but it's part of it and can't be changed ... so why complain?

anyway, Winter seems to behind us and Spring has made it's enterance, i see purple sticking up out of the soil, the goldfish in the pond are pretty active and before long there will be thousands of tadpoles appearing.

Even my doggy knows it's Spring, he ran away last week, off to find himself a woman jack russell lol! he had no luck!!!! i found him first and my neighbour found the new tiny gap he managed to find to escape the garden ... it's fixed!

My last two orchids are in bloom again, last year i must have brought home an orchid with a desease, (white sticky fluffy bugs!!!) i did all i could to save my 18 orchids but sadly i only managed to save two and yes!!!! they are blooming, i am over the moon! like a proud mommy :)

i've been painting:

this one is on canvas, i hardly ever work on canvas because i need to work gentle and i'm not such a gentle worker :) i love to rub, scratch, scrub,... not so gentle!

This one is called Alice's Angel and was inspired by what other that Alice in Wonderland! i went to see the film in 3D, i hate those stupid little glasses over my own glasses, they just don't fit!!

but the film i liked very much! i loved this version, Tim Burton doesn't usually appeal to me that much but Alice was great!

The saying on it i already used before but i like it and i like opening doors and windows...

now i am working on a really small piece 6X12inch and there are plans to make her big!!! i will show and tell once it is done.

my foot is bad! terrible even, i wish wish wish i could say otherwise! i dream of the day i can tell you all my foot is healed and i can jump and dance like the crazy lunatic i am ...

but due to the beautiful L4 L5 hernia i have the nerves to my left leg and foot are even worse off than they already were, i mean come onnnnnn!!!! f*!!!!

i hope the epidural treatment next week helps some.

my left foot is now starting to turn inwards, the muscles aren't getting the correct information and are giving up on me :(( no matter how hard i try my foot will not stay flat, doc says if it gets any worse i will have to wear a brace to correct my foot position, this really made me want to cry...

but!!!! life is beautiful, there is more to it than my stupid foot!!!

i am enjoying all that can and have loads to be grateful for.

on the bright side: due to the pain i haven't been able to eat well so i am losing weight!

hey!!! losing weight is a good thing :))

see always a silver lining!!! always!!!!!

have a great day! i' m off to paint and sing, i can't dance but i can softly headbang to Metallica wohaha!!! Spring is in the air!!!

all my doors are open!!

xxx

love & peace

art is healing

My mother passed away yesterday.

a short and hard statement and the reality of life and death.

her suffering has come to an end and for that i am relieved for her

my dreams of ever having a mum have passed away along with her.

where does that leave me? i really do not know at this point in time.

and the totally sad thing is that the family is so divided by all this, my eldest brother is not coping with the way i am coping with it, my second brother showed up after 17 years of not knowing where he was an expected way too much of me, my youngest brother seems to be the wisest of the three of them and can at least talk calmly and with thought. i guess grief does weird things to people so i am trying my best not to take offence and to understand that they are simply not being themselves.

it is making the whole ordeal very stressful and more painful than it already is.

you know what? you get to know who your true friends are in times like these and that is heart warming and helps more than i will ever be able to put into words.

but i breathe, i look at my kids and i breathe, my Estée came into the kitchen this evening, i was peeling potatoes for dinner, she stood there blinking her eyes at me and i asked what she was doing, i am showing you my love she said! ohhhh do i even have to tell you that i had to fight back tears??? i am so glad to be a mum! makes me even sadder that my mother never took that opportunity, such a waste. but okay, it is past, tanya it is past!

yesterday my two youngest kids ran the cross country school run,

i am not saying they won prizes but i was proud of their effort and everyone got a medal and my little girl was over the moon with hers! and of course she was not going to run in a plain white t-shirt! tssss what was i thinking! pink necklace and purple top made it a stylish event.

i realize just how blessed i am in this life even though i did not have the conventional youth growing up with a mum and dad, happy family and all that... i still am a whole person and i am happy with who i am and i do not care if there are some people (family) who would like to see me be different and more like them.

i am me and i am proud of that, i have kind of realized that in this whole ordeal.

i am a true believer of every cloud having a silver lining and here my youngest brother has turned out to be the silver lining! so little bro, if you read this, know that i appreciate all your kind words and the respect you have shown me and know that the feeling is mutual!

art... i have been drawing, here is just one of my girls, the background is not finished but there is no rush; her face is far from symmetrical but you know what? i like her, she has wisdom to her

wishing you all a lovely weekend, enjoy your family and loved ones

love is life!!! xxxx

A Thousand Splendid Suns

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini was the inspiration for this painting

painting Goddesses

some pics of what i have been up to in Suzi's goddess & poet class

of course most of the products used are Ranger but i am loving the golden fluid Acrylics too!

see i can post twice in one week! lol

checking in

oh dear i haven't really taken time to blog! and i recieved a lovely award from Sanda but still need to put it on here and choose some wonderful blogs to pass it on to, but not today, i am so tired :)

The kids are home for the holidays so i'm spending lots of time with them, making art at night most of the time but missing out on a bit of sleep lol

i painted this Queen yesterday and sat up till late embossing her dress and crown from Ten seconds Studio metal, i love that stuff, i used Claudine Hellmuth paints and Tim's stamps for the background and then added Grungeboard wings.

voila! my shortest post ever! and now i might take a little cat nap ... lol

have a great week!!!! do some fun things!!! ( you now know i probably won't be blogging till next week haha!)

xox

my pretty girl

just checking in, letting you all know i'm not lettng myself go with this whole dystrophy thingy!!! actually, now that i know what it is i feel a little better in a strange way, even though the doc says it is the worst outcome of the options he had in mind, still, knowing is way better than feeling like a complete whimp with unknown pains and aches and stuff, you know?

i'm taking meds for the osteoporosis part, i'm doing new painless exercices to strengthen my muscles, i get cool massages to drain fluid from my foot and leg, we are tackling this thing!!! lol

so anyway, one of my chicks from class came to play on Tuesday, she had a little book to finish, we had lots of laughs and a nice chat. i need to have chicks around more often!!!

here is her finished book, she loves it and so she should, she made a really beautiful trip down memory lane. totally handmade, bound with bind-it-all, her first little book! cool huh!

Yesterday i finally got to finish this little girl, i started her a while back, i can tell cos my mouths are changing now so i'm not totally happy with this one anymore but never the less, i finished her, and i like her! 12x24 inches, my favourite size to paint on.

i added a little metal embossed heart, ten second studios metal, i love it! getting myself really into this metal embossing and thought it would be cool to use in my mixed media paintings!

the cool thing about mixed media is that there are no rules or limitations! just fun and experimenting and mixing and letting things go wrong sometimes and still loving it! my kind of art!

my pretty girl is ready to take on the world and even though it hurts sometimes it still feels good!

bit of a message to myself in this one so i am keeping her close.

( the words are cut out of a pretty sassy mag that i 'borrowed' from my son's desk haha! shhhh don't tell him!)

at the moment i'm working on a little project with sticky back canvas, i'll show when finished, if i decide i like it haha!

it's just fun to be playing a bit more again, letting go, all part of the letting go.

so, off to my paints, coffee and ipod docked into the speaker system to let my favourite music fill the room, make me move a bit ( there are still parts of me that move smoothly lol)

a bit of Green Day, Foo Fighters and Red Hor Chili Peppers will do the trick!!!

love you all, thanks for the caring comments on my blog! xox

hope you will all have a day as wonderful as the one i'm having!

xox tanya