Only in Colorado…I just went out to shovel yesterday’s few inches of snow, still wearing my light pajamas and a light sweater – no gloves. It was only 5 degrees F, but the sun was out and I was never cold!

Okay, now for the Best and Worst of my driving experience in Ireland — you decided which is which. (At the end of this post is a picture of the current painting I’m working on – horses from Ireland.)

It’s always best if my husband is the navigator/map person on our trips, so I became the designated driver (DD) for the week. Steve would have gladly spelled me from time to time, and Katy certainly was willing to drive, but we discovered that it would have doubled our already ridiculously expensive car-rental rate to add a second driver!!

It was so strange walking to the right side of the car to get in to drive:

I had to learn (fast) how to shift with my left hand. Not only that, but I had to look in all the wrong places now for my mirrors. My rear-view mirror was now to the left, and my side-view mirror was now on my right.

The accident rate has dropped dramatically in Ireland, they say, ever since they added a little sticker to the windshield in front of the driver, telling us to “Drive on Left.”

Having never driven on the left side of the road before, I needed all the help I could get. Steve was my left-side eyes and was constantly telling me if I was too close to something, like a parked car (the roads were extremely narrow and were often shared with semis and RVs!). Many cars we saw were all scraped up on the left side, or their mirrors were broken off!

Katy was my rear-view eyes. She alerted me once (shrilly, thankfully) just before I backed into a castle!

But without my trusty Backseat Drivers to keep me awake during our many lo-0-0-0ng excursions, I could never have done it. (Except when they were BOTH asleep!)

Present: After snatching a few minutes here, a few minutes there to work on this painting, I have observed it for awhile now and know exactly where I want to end up after my next stint with it.

Lately, I have been spending my time reworking many of my paintings. Hey, if they haven’t sold yet, then I can keep improving them whenever I get the urge. I have been getting the urge.

Change of plans. I just can’t get interested in writing a travelogue (if you haven’t noticed) of the trip we took to Ireland a few months ago. But I have promised several people that I would, including myself.

So, I told friends in my Salon group that I was planning instead to do a “Best Of” sort of thing. One of the artists added, “And worst!” Now, that fits much better with my writing style! (Thanks, Pixie.) So here goes.

This is the closest I will get to a travelogue. Your geography lesson for the day: MAP OF IRELAND

Our itinerary was very easy:

We started in Dublin, on the east side of the island, and did a counter-clockwise loop around the island, ending back in Dublin. We did not make it to Northern Ireland or Donegal (where singer Enya is from) – just not enough time.

We stayed just outside of Dublin, in Howth (rhymes with “both”, but they say it more like “Hoat”).

Then west to Shannonbridge, where my husband’s ancestors are from.

Then the rest of the way west to Galway, Connemara, and the Aran Islands.

Then Kenmare and the Ring of Kerry.

We did not see nor kiss the Blarney Stone – it wasn’t high on our list, but especially not at 10 Euros (1 Euro=$1.365) per person!

Then over to Waterford to visit Curraghmore Castle and our painting friends.

1 night in Kilkenny, perfectly timed, unbeknownst to us, for their busiest weekend of the year.

Then back to Dublin/Howth.

I will start in tomorrow with pictures demonstrating the Best and the Worst of my Ireland trip!

After a rejuvinating week in Sedona, Arizona, I’m as gung ho as ever about my new love interest – landscape painting. Who would’ve thought? Two months ago I would have said that you were crazy if you had even suggested that I would be painting, let alone liking, landscapes.

I have always laughed when people asked me what I paint, and their first offering is always “landscapes?” No, I do everything BUT landscapes.I decided to take the class at ACC for that very reason. But I never in a million, zillion, double quadrillion years would have guessed that I’d like it! It blows me away.

Well, my 2009 calendars are ready – before December this year! What a concept. Marketing it will have to be squeezed in between all of my homework assignments, painting, and getting caught up with my office work. Onward and upward…

The week went by much too quickly, but Julia Cameron would be proud of me. I definitely filled my artistic well. Big time!

We finally went to the Hilo side of the island, and I got my palm tree fix.

The botanic gardens, just north of there, were amazing! We were offered umbrellas as we entered, but I declined. After all, we already had one umbrella and two rain ponchos. And I had looked up and had seen no threat of rain. Oh, that’s right, we were in a rain forest…

About a half hour into our tour, the skies broke loose and dumped on us – really dumped! It was like standing in the shower for a half hour. The bottom part of my capris were drenched, and I had brought no extra clothes to change into. Luckily, my husband had brought his swim trunks, so he changed into those and gave me his shorts to wear back to the hotel.

The payoff was seeing all the gorgeous flowers:

Have you ever seen a pineapple growing? Here’s a baby one – looks like a practical joke!

Here’s a more grown-up pineapple:

If you’re on the Big Island, you have to go to the coffee plantations–this is Kona coffee-ville! I’ve been on this island twice before but have never visited a coffee plantation, so this third time was the charm. Here’s a coffee tree with berries.

When you squish the berries open, there’s a coffee bean inside. If the bean is in two pieces, that’s a normal coffee bean. If there’s only one bean inside it’s called a peaberry. That’s the most prized.

One of the plantations, Mountain Thunder, was an organic coffee plantation. They use geese and sheep to control pests, and the happy byproduct is the animals’ generous contributions of natural fertilizer. This organic coffee is winning awards for taste, and the coffee tastes even better in their fabulous red coffee mugs!

I went to a seahorse farm this morning. A seahorse farm! Seahorses are an endangered species for a couple of reasons. For one thing, people take them from the wild to keep as pets in their aquariums. Unfortunately, the little guys don’t adapt to that life very well and die soon after. And then there are the Chinese, who have a huge appetite for seahorses and use them for medicinal purposes. Seahorse farm to the rescue!

This cracked me up. Hawaiian graffiti – pieces of white coral placed on the lava:

As we are driving to town, the lava on both sides of the road is covered with “graffiti.”

We left the Colorado winter, only to find that it’s winter in Hawaii, too! There’s snow on both of the main volcanoes, Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. Look real hard and you can see the snow-capped Mauna Loa in the distance, over the building:

And between the palm trees (with two little white clouds above it):

Let me be your tour guide this week. I’m on Hawaii, otherwise known as the “Big Island.” This is the newest of the Hawaiian Islands, so it is still very rugged with exposed lava. We’re on the Kona side, which is pretty barren. Not one palm tree, except around the resorts or homes.