motivation

So hard to find inspiration lately. we have had several hard freezes already this winter, and it is just January! This is the second year in a row that we have had very cold weather in November and December. I live in South-Central Florida, about 2 hours south of Orlando.

We usually get a hard freeze or two in Jan. or Feb., and then that is about it, if we get any freezing weather at all. This winter has been cold, staying in the forties and fifties most mornings, and some mornings in the thirties and even the upper twenties......Needless to say, everything is dead around here!

Not too big of a deal, I know, but for me, as an artist, it has been very hard to get back to painting. I haven't been out in the field much, I haven't been taking nature walks, I haven't even wanted to sneak out of bed early like usual, to get a jump on the day with painting a new idea, or finishing up the details on one I have resolved.....

Not sure what happened to my passion for it all, but I am trying to find things to get me motivated again. A trip to the gallery in town, ordering some new supplies, attending some charity functions and donating to the cause.....

Please let me know if you have some suggestions!

Freezing in Florida!

Yesterday morning I looked out my kitchen window, and to my surprise there were 4 men in a small boat huddled up with fishing poles in hand on the canal. It was 30 degrees out! I got my binoculars to see what kind of brains it took to go out at sunrise in freezing weather! These guys had on big heavy coats, winter hats, gloves, leg warmers . . . I laughed. I thought " it must be pretty bad at home or these guys have no common sense at all." The fish live out there all day, you do not have to go early in the morning to catch them. We catch them at noon, or late in the afternoon . . . These poor guys, 4 of them, not one or two as you might commonly see, 4 freezing guys hunched over with coffee thermoses and fishing poles (and no room to move around), sat out there in one spot for five hours! Most fishermen keep moving, they go up and down the sides of the canal and keep finding new places to catch fish. I never saw them pull up anything! Every time I looked out the window I just laughed again. You know they went home to tell a miserable tale!

We have had cold spells, once it even got in the lower twenties, ice and all! It was Christmas eve and Christmas day and everyone hoped for snow. The power company had to shut down every hour for 20 minutes or so to keep up with the demand for heat. That was back in 1989!

This past October, yes I said October, we had the first round of frost warnings, and again in November, for most of the month off and on it was in the forties most mornings. Sometimes the thirties. The week before Thanksgiving we had frost and freeze warnings again. It warmed up some for Christmas and New Years, This past week it has been in the forties most mornings. Now it is very cold, upper twenties this morning, thirty degrees yesterday morning and tomorrow it is to be in the upper thirties! For Florida this is just way colder for way longer than usual.

Not complaining, just wondering what happened to the global warming I keep hearing about???!!!!