It's 75 degrees on November 25th

Yep, I'm in Florida. We got in late Monday night after driving the Colonel to my mother's house in Lynchburg on Sunday. We didn't stay overnight because we knew we had a long drive ahead of us, we had dinner with my folks and celebrated my brother Blake's 18th birthday and spent a grand total of 2 hours in the burg. It was enough for the Giant to see where I grew up, albeit in the dark.

We've been taking it easy here, I got a lot of stuff done for the business side of being an artist. I made a new business card for the portrait business, wrapped up some loose ends from Philadelphia, contacted some galleries, and made a new resume. I read a book that I've been trying to get through (it's on the thrilling subject of how to make an art career work, which needless to say was probably written during a better economy) The Giant works from home anyway, so he's been busy with his laptop as well.

And now I'm bored. I'm thinking about making him take me to a craft store and I'm going to buy some knitting needles and yarn or something for me to keep my hands busy. I have a sketchbook, but I don't really want to do anything that involves mess, and I've grown away from graphite and towards the messier charcoal for drawing. That'll have to wait til I get back to Charlotte.

We're in a really pretty part of Florida, it's a little outside of Orlando. His parents live in the historic section of Sanford, which has all these cute little bungalow houses built around World War I. It reminds me a bit of Medford, New Jersey - but with palm trees. A little like Sedgefield/Dilworth neighborhoods of Charlotte (like where the lovely Holbrook family resides), and I suspect that many of the houses were the Sears Modern Homes houses, which were, of all things, sold through the Sears catalog in the beginning of the 20th Century. It's hard to imagine that with all our modern conveniences, we don't have anything like those anymore - where you would pick out your house in the Sears catalog and it would be built on your land, with strong, thick walls, open floor plans, and great construction. Where did we go wrong? I remember reading an article about those homes some years back and was fascinated by it - that you could mail-order a whole kit, lumber, bricks and all, and you yourself (or your contractor) could build the American Dream. For those of you who are like me - who aren't fond of McMansions, who sheds a few tears when they chop down trees to build a crappy strip-mall and who might have read the Fountainhead a few too many times - it's something to think about preserving.

But I digress.

Sanford is really pretty, and we've enjoyed our stay here. They've done a really great job of improving their neighborhood and keeping the original integrity and beauty of the area. I'm a little stir-crazy today, but I'm sure I'll find something to do in no time flat.

The photo is obviously my card for the portrait side of things. You'll notice a certain friend of ours, though I can't take total credit for this - a graphic designer friend of mine from way back at the Lamar Dodd school suggested that exact image and I figured his expertise was much better than mine right now. Meghan, I have some mock ups of it if you'd like to frame them or put them in a scrapbook or something. When I was a kid I was in a local newspaper ad for a clothing store and I always have liked that my mom saved them for me.