MERRY CHRISTMAS from our house to yours! This year’s painting and variety show was filmed in our new (to us) home instead of in a fake set. I hope you enjoy your time with us, and you are invited to sing along to favorite Christmas carols and beloved hymns. Please share with your family, friends, and social connections. God bless you, one and all!
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See oil painting “Easter Lily” from blank canvas to finish
This video is a segment from the Easter Show 2022. It shows live painting in real time and then the footage is sped up via time lapse (to shorten the video time). This painting is currently still wet on my easel. It will take several more days or weeks to set completely. You can see me looking down as a I paint. I’m looking at a lily to get the general shape of it. From there I can just go with the flow, but I like to get the botanical aspects right so that the flower is identifiable as an Easter Lily.
Personal update: After yesterday’s depressing house hunting experience in which we looked at a house that was nothing like its online photos, and was instead a house of horrors that would take a lot of money to make livable, today’s experience was amazing! We put an offer on the house we saw, so we’re back to hoping and praying that we get it. May we win this time! I’ll tell you more about this later. It’s been another whirlwind day. We have less than three weeks to get an offer signed to be able to close before we are forced to vacate. It’s nerve wracking, but Faith over Fear, right? Oh how I hope we get this one!!! We have a wonderful real estate agent who is helping us every step of the way. We are giving it our all, our best fight.
If you missed last year’s Easter Show, here it is. It’s quite different from the 2022 show in many ways, but yet the general format is the same: painting and singing. This one has a story that runs via captions, and it’s more about family and tradition than this year’s deeply spiritual show. If you’ve not yet seen it, I hope that you do. It’s a much needed respite from the dystopia of our time.
On a personal note: The update from yesterday- we did not get the house. They accepted another offer. So, we’re back to looking. We are now down to three weeks to find a house and get an offer accepted in time to close before we must vacate. The housing crisis is real, folks. The rental market is even worse. Way too many folks needing houses for the few available and they are price gouging. Renters are even in bidding wars, offering to pay more than the asking rental price to get in ahead of someone else. Hopefully we’ll be able to buy a house, as that seems the better route even though we were planning on doing that next year and are having to move Heaven and Earth to make this happen now. Prayers appreciated.
Moving update: still no word on whether or not our offer on the house will be accepted. Waiting on pins and needles! Meanwhile our move out date looms ever closer and it’s feeling scary. Faith over fear. It will all work out, because it has to!
On this Palm Sunday, may you feel encouragement for the week ahead and the hope that Easter and spring instills.
Today we put down an offer on a house- alongside at least six other competing offers! We don’t know how things will go for us, but we are expectant and hopeful, excited, and willing to put our hearts out there. The deadline for us to vacate looms, so the pressure is rising. Yet, we know it will all work out somehow. There is a future for us, a place prepared for us- may each of us believe this physically and spiritually.
Did you see my announcement yesterday about my Easter show? I launched it here on the site. I’ll be uploading it to YouTube, BitChute and possibly other platforms. I also plan to create short clips of each segment for easy sharing of favorite parts of the show. The full length Easter show is here.
HERE IT IS! Launching my new Easter Painting Show now, to give you time to share this special video with your family, friends, and social media. If you feel this show has value, please consider making a donation toward my future work. Every little bit helps, as I am self funded. Thank you, and I hope that you feel hopeful and encouraged after watching this.
I finished the final taping segment for my Easter show today! When the video is finished I will launch the show, giving you time to share it with family and friends ahead of (and on) Easter weekend. I hope you will find the show entertaining and joyful, yet powerful and inspiring. View my previous shows here.
I’ve used this same painting for a very similar blog post called “Letting Go”. In that post I said these wise words “We may not have control over time, and future events, but we always have a spiritual choice about how we respond to change.” Ha! I better take my own advice to heart, lest I be a hypocrite. The past couple of days I was in a sour sullen snit about the shocking news of learning that we have to move in about two months, when we intended to continue renting this house until after my husband’s graduation (he’d gone back to school after losing his job when the company he worked for moved out of the country, and he’s nearly done- graduates in June- but too late to get us out from under this predicament).
Today I pushed myself to start the taping of the Easter show even though that was the last thing I wanted to do, as I need to start packing! But I’d already committed to doing the show and had invested in it. Yesterday I finished making my dress and I finished the set design this afternoon. Taping has begun! The first segment is done- and it went much better than I thought it would. No matter what’s going on in our lives, we have to choose whether or not to let those temporary circumstances paralyze, discourage, or destroy our purpose. I could have canceled the show, but that would have been wrong.
Letting go of worry, anxiety, dread, fear, resentment, bitterness, despair, and anger is a perpetual experience. Life will never be perfect and if we allow our human condition to stop us from acting on our plans, we will leave things unsaid, inspirations never created, places never traveled, and destinies never reached. So, we must plow through and do the things our heart is stirred to do, even when we don’t feel like it. “Fake it ’till you make it” is real. Not only will we get to where we want to be if we keep doing it, regardless of how close to the bottom we are when we start, but we’ll also become joyful if we fake feeling joy.
Today’s work on the Easter show included dressing up in an outrageously festive gown and singing songs that are truly joyful. I may have started out faking the joy, but shortly after I forced myself to be joyful, I really was! I had a happy time today. I am glad I gave up my stubborn attitude and chose to let go.
My stressful circumstances will change, with or without my cooperative attitude. I can stomp my feet and tantrum my way through this ordeal, or I can aim for high energy to work at a smooth transition. I can look for positive serendipitous events that fall neatly into place. If I look for these things, I will find them. If I work for a smooth transition, I am likely to have one. Change is often difficult. We can hate every minute of it and be no better off. Or, we can rise to the challenge and fake joyfulness until we feel the joy.
If you missed my St. Patrick’s Day show last year, or would just like to see it again- here it is! Live painting (well, recorded obviously, but painting in real time instead of time lapse), silliness, singing, and surprises. HAPPY St. PATRICK’S DAY!
