I am working on five, count 'em, five paintings. One is another vineyard series painting. A second is a new Monterey Peninsula (CA) painting of a road going through a thick copse of cypress and pines that looks like a tunnel, another is Hobbie's portrait, another is a seaside copse of Monterey Cypress along a wood-fenced path, and the fifth one is a small study.

Since I broke into the Columbus "big-city" art market my sales have been good. I am getting more for the artwork. In fact, I am getting between 400 and 500 now for paintings that a year ago would have been priced between 250 and 350.

One of the large ones I mentioned above is going to be priced at 600, a first for me.

The difficulty now is finding time. I have so many calls on my time. Most of those are due to the Art Guild, which is all volunteer. I am the Gallery Curator and I also teach there. I am responsible for many things and they seem to pile up more and more. As a board member I have to stretch beyond just hanging artwork and making sure the doors get locked. Last Monday the President could not attend the board and general meetings, and I was picked to conduct both.

Last night the arthritis started to bother me so I made chili. I used my bag of ground turkey and sausage (with bread crumbs, peppers and onions), fried it up and added my 2010 chili sauce and some various beans. I gave it extra Tabasco, and in an hour after eating the arthritis was in the background. If you don't know the effect of Capsaicin on arthritis, read up on it and go get some chili peppers to put in your food. It also is an aid in fighting psoriasis.