It's All About Soup ~ Look There's a Chicken ~ Art Journal Pages

7" x 10" Watercolor sketch of some diet soup ingredients for the Artist Food Network Blog. There you will find the recipe if you want a low calorie soup recipe. This is not a new recipe but one that goes under many names such as the cabbage soup diet and I don't play by the rules either. I'm a diet cheater as if I get a chance to go to I Hop for pancakes or Hoffbrau for a steak, I'm outta here. I'm not recommending it but just saying this is what I'm doing and I've lost a few this week but it's more a "supplemental soup" than being very strict on the program. There has to be a goodbye to December's chocolate and pizza festival and I don't want to be this fluffy in 6 months.

Journal Page 56

Cleaned out another spot. Family Christmas Party and there is always food. Something new in my journal as I wanted each person there to "sign my book". What fun to look back and see that Gracie was making a backward 5 and she chose to write Gracie instead of Grace. I decided to draw my gifts instead of name them.

Journal Page 57

More gifts, more drawing and another reason I'm enjoying keeping an art journal for drawing practice and taking a closer look at objects and there is a great benefit in jogging a foggy memory. Don't you like the ornament with the woman clasping a book to her chest? It's very suitable for an ex-librarian and a lover of art books and yes, the rear view mirror chimes are hanging in my car accenting the left over Colorado french fries from our speedy trip the 14th.

Journal Page 58

I took the advice written on a gift from the previous page, a bracelet that said " Seize the day and make the most of your life." I seized it to journal and blog and stay in my bathrobe. I made a pocket from an envelope to secure the Christmas letter and attached the card on front.

Journal Page 59

Party time is over and time to reflect on the possibility of losing weight and limiting it to one English pea a day, doing some Google searches and looking at diet books, taking off to Walmart to buy some healthy groceries and finding a book I wanted to read, "23 Minutes in Hell", so I went to Luby's bought soup and came home and read the book and made soup on Sunday. The book is written by Bill Wiese and is a sobering book and more gripping than making soup.

Finally on Monday I got to go paint with 5 Canvas by Canvas members and it was mostly talking over each other and interrupted conversations when we began to say "Look there's a chicken" after I repeated the Bob Burridge joke from the Corpus Workshop. Bob was delivering a lecture on color in the 2nd story art center, surrounded by glass windows overlooking the bay when he blurted out, "Look at that orange barge on the blue horizon" then laughed and said, "I don't have ADD" and "They said I have ADD - they just don't understand OHHH, there's a chicken" and boy, oh, boy can I relate to this statement after not seeing girlfriends for several weeks and we're all a little ADD when we reconnect.

We decided that we needed to go check out Brad Pitt in the Benjamin Button movie but first an I Hop fix. One of my CBC friends described the movie as from "Depends to Pampers". After two days of fun, then computer problems, a grandson fix and I paid him in food and gas money. Vista and I do not have a good relationship.

Journal Page 60

There is "Change" in store for 2009 and we will continue to reach forward to what lies ahead. No resolutions but thoughts about trying to get my house under control, taking care of buisiness, painting more and walking (just remember to carry my id!!), and listen to my dowloaded Thru the Bible series while I walk.. Just for Today.

May you have a blessed New Year.