Rant at FSN Sports, Time-Warner, Baseball note

I try not to rant on my blog. I have slipped a couple of times. This is soooo necessary. The baseball game tonight between the Horns and the Texas Aggies had been scheduled to be televised on FSN since the first of the season or whenever they make their schedules. Someone, read idiot, decided to move the baseball game and show the Spurs/Phoenix Suns game on FSN. Never mind that ESPN had the game scheduled for ages and was showing it at the same exact time. Time Warner in their money grabbing ways moved the baseball game to a digital channel. That leaves a huge number of UT and Aggie baseball fans with no game. I listen on Yahoo Sports, which I have to pay for, as I cannot hear it on the radio here, only 40 miles away. Luckily I turned the Internet on for the pregame show or I would have missed the game. I wonder how many people watched the basketball game on FSN. Most pro basketball fans had already planned to watch ESPN I am sure. Of course you cannot call or complain to anyone .. you get automated messages and offices that are closed. No good e-mail contacts either. Wait until tomorrow!!!! Ah, tomorrow is Saturday, business offices closed. Oh well.

Oh, by the way, the Longhorns won, 6 - 4. Check it out on the official page and the nitty gritty of it all on Joanna's page.

I just looked and the Spurs won .. sorry Jennie. Tough loss for you and the Suns.

Your in the Spotlight

You didn't know I paint on glass.
This is "Pair-ots", reverse painted on glass for my granddaughter. I did it several years ago.

Lesly, artist friend, was nice enough to play in our tagging game so I am playing in hers, Your In the Spotlight. It is a little different. Check Christy's Coffee Break for the rules. Anyone can play if you want. You can answer as many of the questions as you want and tag 5 friends.

And....if you are one of my five friends, consider yourself TAGGED. Go ahead, check it out, and answer the questions and let me know if you do. :)

Here are the questions I chose to answer (there are more to choose from):

1. What makes your blog unique?
I don't think there are many art blogs that deal with baseball and golf as sub items.

2. When did you start blogging?
I started blogging (is that a real verb?) in June 2006, it says February 2006 in my profile for some reason. I read that and thought, "Wow, I can't believe I have been blogging for over a year without celebrating." I can't believe how much time I consume with this pass time, both reading and writing. Arghhhhh.

3. Is this your first meme?
The second ... and last, right?

4. What's your favorite childhood memory?
One of my favorites is riding my horse with my cousin and playing in some old wrecked, rusted out cars in a field. Take white bread, green chili and mayonnaise sandwiches and be gone all day.

5. What is your best quality?
I'm a responsible person, which makes me loyal and caring.

6. What is your worst quality?
I can't make a quick decision, I'm wishy washy. I couldn't decide which questions to answer. I was going to answer them all, but didn't want to get into morals. :) I didn't know who to tag, so I tagged everybody that reads my blog. Thanks.

Note, I can't put a picture on here so lets see if it will post. Drat.

Sketches for the Hunt, Photo Mean Gene

I hadn't started this Scavenger Hunt #40. I've been busy, ill, you name it. Marie-Dom has been slack as well. We are both doing some sketching, trying to inspire each other. She suggested the umbrella and radio trying to get us started. (as I made this link, I see she drew some beautiful umbrellas, go look on her link) Being my lazy self, I didn't want to look for an umbrella so here is my



#1 Bird I sketched the feeder in the back yard visited by a cardinal and a Carolina Chickadee, #2 Vase, A pottery vase given to me by Joanna many years ago with bluebonnets on it. It holds artificial bluebonnets so I left them in the vase.



#3 Newspaper, several artists sketched the Sunday paper, so I dug ours out and sketched it, too. (Not as lazy..)


#4 and #5 Pitcher and Radio, the pitcher is heavy ceramic sort of gray with blue flowers, the radio is the only small radio in the house, sort of a boom-box, sits on the kitchen table. These all took about an hour with my ZIG Millennium pen in the Canson, tear out sketchbook, 5.5 x 8.5 inches.

Thanks Marie-Dom, (Fleur on wetcanvas.com), for getting me started!


I forgot to post this photo from the gas station on HWY 71 where Regina stopped for gas on our plein air day out. She noticed the burger sign right away. One of Gene's old friends, DM, in Maine calls him, "Mean Gene". We did not try the burgers!

Bunkhouse Gallery Spring Show and Plein Air day

If you don't have a thing to do and want to have a fine time looking at art, having a picnic, sit under the trees and listen to music, then head on out to

The Bunkhouse Gallery, 573 Old Spicewood rd., Cypress Mill, Texas 78663.
14th Semi-Annual Exhibition and Sale
May 19 & 20
Saturday, May 19, 10:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. with the Artist's Reception at 2:00 p.m.

Sunday, May 20, from 10:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Special Guest Artist Rick Hodgins
Featuring Dena Wenmohs, The Bunkhouse gang including Mary Barnes, Joanne DeShong, Jo Petersen, Susan Rodolf, Sandy Talen, Linda Wells and many more talented artists. (with the addition of Jo Castillo and Regina Calton Burchett)

Info here at wenmohsranch.com e-mail Dena or call 830 825-3465
or artandwine.org where you can see some other galleries and vineyards on the tour. Make a day of it!

Dena says to bring a picnic lunch and plan to listen to music and look at the art, sit under the trees, listen to music and buy some art. :) There will be refreshments for the reception. From Austin, go out HWY71 and turn left on Hamilton Pool Rd., go 21.2 miles until stop sign at 962 and 962 Spur, turn right. Take the first right at Old Spicewood rd. (C302) and take the second left to The Bunkhouse.

It is a beautiful location. Regina and I took our 8 pastel paintings out on Monday. I'm showing

Salsa Stuff, Pastel, 9 x 12 inches, white frame

Little Green Apples, 8 x 10 inches, Black Gallery Frame


On the Edge, Pastel, 8 x 10 inches


Lookin' for Rain on the Flats, Pastel, 18 x 24 inches

Regina took Bend in the Colorado River, Pair of Pears, The Waiting Barn and Texas October Sky. You can take a look at her work, all pastels, on her page.

Wildflowers near the Bunkhouse

The drive is beautiful and not that far. Worth going just for the views. We went from there to Marble Falls for lunch at the famous Blue Bonnet Cafe, famous for their homemade pies. Then to the local art gallery,

Highland Arts Guild
318 Main St
Marble Falls, TX 78654-5715
(830) 693-7324

and then stopped to do some plein air at Pace Bend Park. We found a camp ground with a table in the shade so we set up our pastels, easels and other items and got to work. We painted off in the same direction but you can see a difference in our styles.

The view we were painting.

Jo's under painting, watercolor

Jo's start with assorted soft pastels

Jo's near finish.

Jo's at the end of the day. Will it be the finished product? We shall see.

Regina's under painting, watercolor.

Regina's, a little further along

Regina, putting on the final touches, also working in soft pastels.

After painting we just chilled out for a bit, then stopped for a latte on the way back to Regina's. What a great day, we were gone from 8:00 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Wish we could do it more often. Thanks, Regina.

Tagging correction, amendment, whatever.....

The Last Team
Roping in Magdalena
Pastel, 16 x 20 inches

Well, little did I know that I don't know much about myself either, or something like that. I have a cold that I have had for a week and my cognitive powers are stale. See there. That is probably an incorrect sentence.

What I'm speaking of here about not knowing myself is that Joanna decided to add a couple of her recollections as well. I think those were tooooo far back for this blog. Ha. About the nicknames of my brothers, I go by Jo and my name is Karen Jo, it was said my Dad wanted another boy to be a real "cowboy" as my brothers had drifted off in other directions. This has been confusing over the years being married to Gene. My roommate Gen, would tell folks, "Gene and Jo are coming to visit and I used to live with Jo." What people hear is, "Jean and Joe are coming to visit and I used to live with Joe." Then they immediately think how weird that her old boyfriend is coming to visit with she and Charlie. Ahhhh. I was known as Karen at my first real job. Goofy as there were two other Karens in an office of nine reservation agents. I transferred to the sales office and went back to Jo, but the Sales Manager was Joe and he did not like people calling for Joe and being asked, "Which Joe/Jo? So it was back to Karen. I had two identities. One at work and one at home. Pretty nifty in the end, as I didn't bring work stuff home with me!

Anyway, as I said before I had a lovely Mother's Day. Thanks again, Joanna, for lunch and both she and Jennie coming out to visit and go to lunch. Lots of calls, ending with a call from David just before he retired for the night about 11:00 p.m. (midnight for him). Lea even called me during her busy mothers day.

I had a great artful day yesterday, but do not feel up to editing photos, etc. I went on an art excursion with Regina. Delivering artwork and then painting a little plein air. 8:00 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., isn't that great? Maybe I will get that all down this evening. Now it is back to sleep....

Happy Mother's Day

I had a great day. I received a bear for my day from Gene. He said he couldn't find an ugly one to go with my other stuffed toys. It is, well, different. A white bear that glows different colors. Joanna, Jennie and I decided that it was weird so that it could be classified ugly. Thanks Gene, a first for me. By the way, you squeeze its paw to turn it on, it shuts off in a few minutes.

Daddy's Grille was open, unusual for Sunday. He said he was helping the moms to have a good day. Joanna took Jennie and I to lunch there. Very nice. Pretty busy, even though it was around 2:00 p.m.

So no sketching. I did put a mark or two on the Magdalena painting when I walked by a couple of times. :)

Now to get ready for tomorrow. Regina and I are taking some paintings to the Wenmohs Ranch for a show for the Texas Hill Country Wine Festival. It is near Marble Falls, so guess we will lunch there and find a place to paint some hill country vistas. Check back tomorrow night to see what we can find to paint.

I will also have info on the show and the paintings we will be showing. We are taking a work shop in the fall there, with Bob Rohm, and I will let you know more about that as well.

For a little humor for the day, you may want to check out Lesly Finn's blog for Friday.

Hope all the mothers and families had a great time today, too!