It was almost three years ago when I got a voicemail message from someone who was looking for an art class, an art group – a regular place to paint. She’d just moved up to Marin from Huntington Beach, in the LA area, where she had a watercolor group that she’d been...

The candy hearts done, I'm back on a painting I started for the Saturday class on painting water in November. And I’ve got plenty of this self-criticism going on. With some parts of paintings it’s noisier inside than others. For me, it’s organic textures like the...

Just about done. I need to tweak some of the lettering here and there. I'm calling it simply "Dream" The very first time I painted in watercolor, I painted from life. It was a blue Dutch iris in that first Saturday class, I took with my mom. From there, I painted a...

Nearly every Sunday, my folks host a dinner for us – their four kids and our families. My dad plans and cooks – with help from us. And lately, my mom has been making homemade bread and rolls - there’s hardly a better smell, than that of yeast bread baking in the oven....

A small painting I started so I could attend to my painting commitment while I traveled. This is the result of four painting sessions - two of them in airports! Somewhere along the way – a really, really long time ago - an idea got ahold of me that the most important...

Using my left brain to make the "hearts", seeing the interesting shapes with my right. There are a couple of themes that have taken ahold of this life of mine – one of them is a seemingly insatiable curiosity, about how we work as humans, why we do what we do, how our...

A new painting in progress. Showing up for my work. Last night while I was painting, I was having a conversation with my dear friend, Vicki. At one point, she said “You show up. You show up for your family, for your friends, for your students, you show up in your...

Over the weekend I finished a painting, I started two and a half years ago. The finished painting is so far from what I’d imagined and what the original photograph inspired, so I thought I’d share its progress with you. I had no conception of this as the finished...

One reason I've not been painting - I've been puzzling! This one is of one of my paintings - Paris - fun to be re-working my own artwork! A year ago, at the end of my last post of the year, I wrote this: “Tomorrow is the last day of 2014. Though it’s rather arbitrary,...

I'm married to "Mr. Christmas." He does an amazing job on the lights - just one of the ways he lights my life. I wrote a story several years ago, as a contribution to a friend’s site: tellourlifestories.com. It was about a Christmas that was unlike any of the others...

The hydrangea leaf in the middle of this painting was hard for me - out of that came a wonderful day. We had the last of our “Special Saturdays” this past weekend. Ten artists joined my mom and me, to take a careful look at leaves – and how we might paint them. And we...

I’m being faithful to the process of this painting and the rhythm of my life – not much progress and I WILL finish it! I have a relatively new dear friend. She and her family live on the next street over. Bo and I walk by their house, when we go up the hill for our...

Lustina - I painted this in part while listening to Sue Monk Kidd's "The Invention of Wings" I love stories and I am compelled to expand my consciousness – which means I love books. But since becoming a watercolorist and artist, I don’t read actual, paper books like I...

"Susie's (not my) painting in progress. Amazing, huh?" The week before last, in our Thursday group, Susie was asking me about the painting she was working on. It’s this one here, of a bowl of candies. She was wondering whether she’d gotten the nooks and crannies,...

Ellen took this of me on our last night in Paris. First a note: This took me a long time to write. It felt like there wasn’t anything else I could write about today and be real. And yet, I feared saying something, in some way, that would offend someone. If I did, I...

Brenda and me in the mid 90's I spent several hours on Saturday with my dear friend Brenda. We started our time together over the phone squabbling. It struck me that this was the sign of a really deep, long-standing friendship. It was silly - and pointless – who said...

When my husband Joe moved in with me, in my little house in San Anselmo 17 years ago, he brought with him his portable Jacuzzi spa. As Marin-cliché as this is, there has always been a hot tub in our backyard since. They are just one of the great things (along with, of...

I can "see" his love in how his hands are touching me. Last week my parents came for dinner on my mom’s birthday. My dad had not heard or read my post – my birthday ode to her, so I played the recording for us all to hear. After it played, I had the feeling that the...

Mama was a cute baby and she loves this picture of herself at age 4. On this day in 1938, Dragica Nizetich had her third baby – the first one to be born in a hospital – her first two were born at home. They named her Amelia Carla Nizetich and called her “Melia,”...

Sunset from Pont Neuf our last night as a group in Paris When I left you it was last Monday, I was writing last week’s post in bed in the apartment in Paris, where I stayed for a week and a half. A Monday later and I’m writing in a plane somewhere over the ice sheets...

I’ll resume recording posts when I return from Paris. Thanks. It’s Monday (yesterday) afternoon and I’m sitting on my bed in an apartment in Paris. I’ve just woken from a nap and as I look out the bedroom window, the rainwater is running down the grey slate on the...

Yesterday morning's "super moon" shining brightly at the start of the day - and my "new year" One of the songs in the “My Favorites” playlist in my iTunes, is “Seasons of Love” from the Broadway musical “Rent.” It starts out “five hundred twenty five thousand six...

Our "baby dog" loves to rest on his mom's bed I’ve hit another patch where I’m not sleeping through the night, which has me so appreciate how important it is to sleep well. I woke up groggy, and instead of getting up to write as I do on Tuesday mornings, I have been...

A photo I bought because it, in a small way, evokes my waking dream. I have a recurring waking dream, a fantasy, I guess. It came to me in a contemplative moment, something like 10 or 15 years ago. It downloaded as a fully formed experience in my mind and even in my...

The painting "Still" that found its home this weekend. I have just spent three days at the Sausalito Art Festival, showing and selling my artwork. This is the eighth year in a row that I’ve been invited to show at this festival – one of the top outdoor art shows in...

Donna and me at my 50th birthday. When I was 25 and making plans to marry my first husband, my mom asked me to go see a therapist named Donna. She wanted Donna to talk me out of marrying him. I was marrying an alcoholic and my mom was – understandably - pretty much...

I worked my way through the hydrangea last night - on to the rose! I need to finish soon! I subscribe to a magazine called “The Intelligent Optimist.” It’s filled with all kinds of good news, that fuels my hope for the future of the planet and humanity. They are not...

My painting on the deck in Tahoe - on my morning of joy. One of my childhood friends was Jeanine, and her dad played John Denver’s music a lot. I’m remembering being in their high-ceilinged living room hearing all those songs – Sunshine on my Shoulders, Thank God I’m...

Resting on the surface Memory is a funny thing. There are random moments from my life that seem hardly “memorable”, that I will never forget. Like the day so many years ago – I was laying on my belly on the living room carpet, at my dearest friend Brenda’s house. It...

Lake Tahoe, Sugar Pine Beach [I’m still on vacation with Joe and Bo in Tahoe. I’ll resume recording next week.] It’s early morning – a time of day that I’m meant for. We are up in Lake Tahoe for our annual vacation with Anne and Gary, Joe’s sister and brother-in-law,...

Read this post: [I’m on vacation with Joe and Bo in Tahoe. As I write this, I’m sitting on the deck facing the sunrise and it’s just beautiful! I want to go on our morning hike, so there’s no recording today! I’ll resume when I’m back the second week of August.] On...

This December it will have been eight years since my spiritual God Mother, Donna and I went to a day-long event at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, being given by the Buddhist meditation teacher Sylvia Boorstein and Sister Mary Neill - two spiritual teachers from...

Making a commitment to write every week has taken a leap of faith. I so feared that I’d peter out, leaving my abandoned online journal as evidence for all the world to see that I’m not able to stick with things. And, I keep worrying I’ll run out of things to write...

This past weekend was our annual summertime county fair. The Marin County Fair has a very fine Fine Art Exhibition – people involved in putting it on say it’s the best in the state – or even the country. I have no idea how true this is, but I do know it’s always an...

"Faith" - Uncle Bill's roses I did the San Anselmo Art and Wine festival this past weekend. It’s where I showed my work for the first time at a street festival in 2007 – this is my ninth year running. On Sunday morning, I was walking down Magnolia Avenue to my booth...

My 25-year old self. Young, lovely and on her way. Recording of post coming soon. I was married for the first time when I was 25. My college boyfriend and I asked my dad’s oldest friend, Jerry Lucey to perform our ceremony. He was incredibly well-read, could recite...

I was a happy baby too! When I was a baby I was really sick – I had a heart defect. When we are in utero, there is a shunt in the circulatory system that surrounds our hearts that is supposed to close shortly after we’re born. For unknown reasons, mine didn’t. This...

Hiding under the bed... It was the summer of 2003. Joe and I had spent the weekend at a little beach house at Stinson Beach – on the coast of Marin County near where we live. He went home to work on Monday and I stayed two more days by myself. It was a tender time -...

[I wrote this post while on an airplane to Kauai over the weekend. I’m posting it from here, while listening to the Hawaiian birds and feeling the balmy air on my skin.  I am taking a break from recording an audio version while on vacation.  I’ll resume when I’m...

Velda's palette after painting a recent Friday group. It was a painting in itself! It’s no secret to any of you that I am pretty much obsessed by color.  Looking back it started pretty early.  Like probably most of us, growing up I had coloring books and Crayola...

In the past week I’ve been clearing out.  Yesterday I went through the drawers at my husband’s contracting office of “my” files that were stored there.  I went through all the colored (!) folders and tossed two drawers-full of paper I’ll never need or use again.  This...

I’ve been following Kelly Flanagan’s weekly posts. He’s a dad, husband and therapist in the Midwest and he writes insightfully and inspiringly about marriage, family and life in general in his blog:  Untangled:  tell a redemptive story of your life. now.  Last...

Yesterday morning, on the way to my in-laws to take them some Easter dinner leftovers, I was listening to KQED, San Francisco’s NPR radio station.  Weekday mornings they broadcast Forum, a locally produced interview/call-in show. The guests are always interesting,...

I have been work-ing on my painting. Almost done! Families have cultures. My family’s culture surrounds two things:  food/cooking and work/being productive.  My dad was a high school teacher, and before my mom went to work full time when I was about junior high age,...

Bo, up near the top of the hill on our morning walk today.  The San Francisco skyline is barely visible in the center at the horizon. As any of you who have been reading these posts for a while knows, most weekday mornings I take our dog Bo up the hill that is on the...

Niz and Jim - Mom and Dad - in the summer of 1959 A week ago Friday, my mom and dad were married 55 years.  They met in 1959, when my mom did a summer school session at Cal Berkeley. Sissy, one of her sorority sisters from Long Beach State had married one of my dad’s...

Lunch on the Terrace - a wonderful home-made lunch I had with my mom and dad in France years ago:  salade nicoise, baguette, wine we bought the day before at the winery and my favorite comté cheese - yum! This morning is day 21 of a 30 day program eating only whole...

The "harvest" from our rosebushes a few springs ago. I love roses, I love to grow roses. When they are in bloom, I love to have cut roses all around the house – you know I love to paint them. I. Just. Love. Roses! I don’t care that they are thorny and need to be...

Mickey, in our Friday group, working on her painting of waterbirds at a special day last fall at Pam's house. Over the weekend I had a conversation with a watercolor student who had emailed me. She wanted to participate in a weekend workshop and was concerned that she...

In response to last week’s post, my dear friend Dr. Victoria Bentley send me a beautiful reflection which included this: The end of your blog made me think about how the inherent tension in things-- between yin and yang, positive and negative poles, night and day,...

When I first started to write these posts three months ago, fearing I’d need ideas to write each week, I hunted around in my computer for things I’d already written and I ran across this in an email I’d sent to my friend Vicki about a year ago: My success and...

In 1998, when the movie “Saving Private Ryan” came out, Joe and I went to see it in the theater.  It was getting rave reviews, it was Spielberg, a great cast – everyone was seeing it, so we did too.  About ten minutes into the beach-landing scene I found myself...

Joe and I have had three black Labradors – all boys.  Well the first one, Bud, was really Joe’s dog. He was nine when Joe and I started dating - when I lived in a house that had white carpet and a white sofa.  It was my girly-girl house.  My dad called it my little...

This past week my coach, Lissa Boles, suggested I share with you why I now write a journal post every week.   In thinking about this, I reflected on how, as much as I love to write and am told how much people appreciate it, it was SO not that way for much of my life. ...

I am part of a coaching group.  We are a remarkable group of women who are bringing our purposeful work into the world, with the support of each other and our gifted teacher and mentor, Lissa Boles.  One of my sister-coachees, Lyn offered to me a self-study experience...

When I was in college, I worked summers setting tile - on kitchen counters, around bathtubs, floors, even the stalls of an office building restroom.  My biggest job was laying heavy 12”x12” pavers on the floors of a home in Paradise Cay in Tiburon.  It took many days...

My dad took over cooking our family dinners when I was in junior high. My mom started two businesses and he was teaching at a special high school, where the kids had a shorter than normal day.  He found himself with more time and picked up cooking dinner.   He shopped...

I wish I could go back to my 13 year old self to ask her why she decided, as a high school freshman, to take French.  I don’t remember if it was a lark, or if there was something deeper.  In any case, my teacher, Monsieur Terando sparked in me a love of languages,...

Walking through our neighborhood for the past 13 years with our black Labradors, I’ve gotten to know many of our neighbors – especially the other doggy people.  It’s lovely how our pups connect us.  The other morning, as Bo and I were bounding back down...

The first “Life in Full Color” retreat was just this past weekend. I’m still so filled with it that I’m not sure all there is to share of it. I’m still like a fish in the ocean – not conscious of the fact that there’s anything besides water to live in. Eight of us...

Yesterday morning, as Bo and I took off for our hike up the hill, I saw a little darkish ball of something on the sidewalk in front of the house.  I got closer – not letting Bo get to it – and saw that it was a little bird (I looked it up online and think it was a...

I’ve been waking these days somewhere between 3 and 4am.  It seems that all this menopausal body can sleep right now is about 5 or 6 hours.  I stay in bed and rest - not one for getting up to read.  I figure that if I’m at least resting my body and...

A week ago this morning, at 1:30 am, a huge limb from our ancient coast live oak tree (they say it could be anywhere from 150-300 years old) fell on our house, kicking off a chain of events that nearly completely took over my psyche. This tree is 8 feet in diameter,...