12C sunny now after a morning with showers, strong wind.

@River, earplugs could help?
Or earphones and listening to a great podcast.


OT - drinking coffee and trying to get my brain to wake up while enjoying the bright sunlight :D

Summer went by fast this year?
Not sure if it just feels that way or if has to do with the short period of good weather.

Over here we had 3 - 3,5 weeks of great summer weather in June, then it was basically crap with a few good days in a row in August and September.
But in July I could already sense a shift in the air, in energy, and I could feel that summer was over. If we were to get nice days it'd be an extra, like late summer/early autumn, but the real summer feel had gone. But it was just July? Should be the height of summer.
As if it had burnt that up during those 3 good weeks in June?
Someone else said they could sense the same in the air.
Really weird.
Is my memory false when I recall summer lasting for months on end? Starting around my birthday mid-May, June, July, August, often a glorious September?
Now people say it's been a great summer when all we had were a few weeks of great weather?

Then sunset shifting... that seems to have gone amazingly fast too this year? I've never experienced it this way.
Like one day sunset was at 10, the next at 9, day after at 8, and the day after that at 7 (now).

What the heck happened this year to make it go this fast?
Two weeks from now the clock's going back, accelerating the whole thing even more.

14C sunny, quite a lot of wind

Happy to see the sun as yesterday was horribly gray & dull & wet.
Temps are seriously dipping now...

17C showers, not much wind
Really gray and dull and quite dark inside to the point you'd almost switch on the light.

22C Sunny even though there are clouds, strong wind.

Indeed!
I've always spent quite some time in nature, as a child mostly with my dad.
Painting made me look at trees and plants in yet another way. Especially when I was learning from watching Bob Ross' tv shows.
He too loved nature and the way he talked about it, not seeing masses of green, but looking at each and every individual bush, tree, branch etc. etc., not to mention the various colours.

Normally I just use sap green and mixture of that with yellow and/or white for highlights. Meaning there's little variation, all are always warm greens while in real life there's also cool greens that are more bluish.
I never gave that much thought. To me greenery in a painting was usually just a backdrop for something that I found far more interesting to focus on.

In this one I went about it differently. In this scenery I did use a ton of different greens. Unfortunately you cannot tell from a photo, although it may add to the overall impression.

Wow, that's impressive! I did have to look it up to see whether it was maize or not.
The only ones I've ever known are the ones we made as kids, hidden inside large fields. Until the farmer found out and caught us in the act one time... He was utterly creepy when not angry and that time he was livid! Scared the living daylights out of us.

A maze like the one in Minnesota is much safer in that sense, haha.

Busy with before-winter chores. Today it was mowing big part of the lawn though. Thinking of sealing the glazing bead of the garage window.
First coffee, then a stroll through the garden with my kitten (she's only allowed out in a harness until she's older & spayed).

23C sunny with a few white feathery clouds. Not much wind.
Glorious late summer weather!!

Thank you, Dramatic!

Thank goodness not that dizzy anymore, but ear infection doesn't seem to want to go, even though yesterday ENT said it looked a lot better. I hadn't had a runny ear for 2 nights.
I felt much better, but in spite of that had a runny ear again this morning... dammit!

Might have to make another appt for next week. He said he'd do a culture if it got runny again.

some 21C reasonable amount of sun, not much wind.

The last couple of days have been good as well, but with more sun. Sun's still hot!

Thank you!

Not painted more yet as I had some work to do outdoors when the weather picked up and then I got too ill from the ear infection.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny - 2023 - 6,7 IMDB rating

Enjoyed it tremendously! I'd rate it much higher, a 9 or 10.
2,5 hours of really good entertainment.

A couple of sessions further, a helluva lot more work done, much with just a liner brush for fine detail.

Obviously not finished yet.

20C sun, not much wind. A wonderful late summer's day!

Not better yet, but better than yesterday. My head was close to spinning since Friday night, I was dizzy as heck, nauseous because of it and couldn't do anything.
Had to see the emergency doctor yesterday, couldn't find anyone to get me there, so I had to drive myself in order to finally get oral antibiotics for my ear infection.
I normally never drive when dizzy, too dangerous, but had no choice.
Then later on had under temp, 1C below my normal, I was shivering like crazy & feeling horrible. Phoned the emergency doc again. Nothing to worry about.
I put the heating on for the first time, got under a blanket, put on my warmest sweater and a shawl and after some 2 hrs my temp was normal again.

Getting fed up with this ear infection. I feel they should've given me oral antibiotics much sooner as it's been boing on for so long.
But I finally got that now! Fingers crossed.

Glorious weather outdoors, but unfortunately I'm not going anywhere.

Thinking... the spiritual forums I was on has suddenly disappeared. "contact webmaster" email bounces too.
There had been no announcement, just from one day to the next, gone. Seriously weird. It was a very active forum.
Some 2 years ago they wanted to close up shop because of cost, then many members paid a lot of money to keep it up and running and they said it would tide them over for possible 5 yrs.
Now it's gone?
Weird shizzel...

Thank you for all your reactions.
And great info on the grand jury. I never really knew what that was about!

So it doesn't have to happen that a jury doesn't give a toss, but it does and can happen.
And in a way logical as it's one thing to say you're proud to do your duty and serve your country, but there's still the practical side to things: your personal life.

QUESTION:
What if you for instance are the caretaker of an elderly parent?
Are there reason that excuse you from jury duty?

19C sunny and very windy start, then overcast, showers, stormy gusts for the rest of the day & evening.