No, but I am leaving for Florida tomorrow. I haven't had time to paint anything lately. I just got home from helping Jay plant hundreds of annuals for one of his landscaping clients. He had a recital for his students on Sunday and I always help him with that. Still haven't gotten all of the tomato and pepper plants in the garden yet and there are a few annual flowers that are still on hold and need to be planted. Jay found a frog on some plants he ordered. Turns out it's a tree frog and you just can't let it loose in the pond...it's tropical and will not survive the winter. It took almost an entire day to find and put together the penthouse that this frog now lives in. Of course he hides all of the time, so we never see him! Anyway, I'll return on Monday, but don't know when I'll get back here to report on my trip. Jay's niece got married and we're going to her reception and I've decided to swing by and see my brother and attend my niece Lauren's graduation. Jay will join me in Fort Meyers on Friday and we'll drive to Dunedin where the reception is and spend the weekend at Honeymoon Beach. I know it's going to be intense. This won't be a vacation, but I'm going to do my best to get some down time. I'm taking my camera, so we'll see what I can capture to share with you. Have a great Memorial Day.

So much to do now that the warm weather is here and I've been feeling well enough to be getting a lot of it accomplished. Thank you God.

Last Friday was the end of our Purpose Driven Life meetings, but just for the summer. I'll miss the girls too much so we promised to get together for some cookouts.

On Thursday I went to Maryland to see Gabriel's school program. It was great. All

of the children are so cute and very enthusiastic. I really enjoyed it and was very proud of Gabriel. My favorite part was when they all sang "I've Been Redeemed" with all of the hand motions and body movement.

Saturday we went to Savonna Restaurant in Gulph Mills. Wow, was it great! I can't say enough good things about the food. Toward the end of our dinner, by coincidence, they seated my sister Amy and our good friend Barbara Ellison right next to us. It was Barbara's birthday and she looks like she's 35. Not a wrinkle on this woman. She's incredible. Amy was taking her out for dinner. We were there until midnight, enjoying the food and each other's company.

Mother's Day was a bad allergy day, but we went out and got some food to prepare for dinner and somehow I wound up cooking. I made an old favorite, "Fettuccine ala Jeanie". It's chicken dusted in flour, herbs and fried in olive oil, sprinkled with pink sea salt and then combined with wild mushrooms, olives, shallots, garlic and herbs, that have been caramelized and finished with heavy cream, then everything is put over fettuccine. I made a tomato salad to go with it, which brings us to the painting di giorno above, but we'll get back to that shortly. For dessert I made a strawberry-rhubarb custard pie and got to use the green eggs and quail eggs in it. Best I ever made. Let me give you a little tip, Pillsbury makes a pie crust dough that you will find in the refrigerated section of the supermarket. Unless you need a specialty crust for a pie, you can't tell the difference from home-made when you use Pillsbury's, especially if you brush the crust with heavy cream before you bake it. My mother-in-law who baked perfect pies let me in on her secret many years ago and she was right. Don't waste your time making pie crust from scratch, Pillsbury's is really excellent.

The cooking was worth it because all of the food was even better the next day.

So back to the painting. If you have ever had "Ugli" tomatoes (they're labeled as such), I feel that you'll agree that they may be ugly, but they are also delicious. They're hard to find, so when I saw them in the produce section, not only did I know that we were having a tomato salad for dinner, but also that I wanted to paint one. I saved the biggest one for the painting. I planned on putting a green egg on the tomato. Even though the tomato was huge, the egg was too big, so I used a quail egg. It cradled in perfectly. The tomato was very challenging to paint. Lots of nuances, colors, soft highlights and reflected light bouncing around all over the tomato. Henri's feather wanted to drift in, so here we have "Green with Envy, Araucana Eggs Witness Cozy, Cradled Quail Egg in an Ugli Tomato". 14"x11", oil on gallery-wrapped linen, $350., framed. Tomorrow I will have a tomato sandwich for lunch.

BTW, yes, Jay did play "Soul Eyes" for me for Mother's Day and several other times so far this week.

Good night.

I can see now that when I take photos of paintings I'll need to save them in a couple of different places in different ways. In any case here is

"Conversation About Henri's Feathers", 36"x30", oil on Belgian, oil-primed linen, $1,250.sold. thank you Cine.

The brown and pink eggs are store bought the green and bluish ones are from my Ameraucana hens and of course there are the quail eggs. The feathers that they're all discussing that are floating around, are from Henri' the rooster that I mentioned before. I saved about seven of his feathers from when he lived here.

I thought that I was the only one that perceived the eggs in some of my paintings as interacting,but I was wrong. When Jay Sr. looked at this painting, he also thought of it as a conversation. Maybe it's the way I positioned the eggs. I initially just wanted eggs in this painting, but it was too bottom heavy. Although the feathers are light, they have enough presence to balance it out and lead your eye around the painting. I just realized that there are nine eggs in this painting. Something that I didn't plan. Nine is the perfect number.

Gotta go, I'm leaving for Maryland now to see Gabriel's recital.

This painting is different from the one I wanted to post. This one is a painting di giorno. SOLD I wanted to post the big egg painting, but, you guessed it, it wouldn't upload. The problem is that I haven't titled this one yet. The object on the left is a stone that my nephew Pat brought back for me from a beach in Maine. It reminded him of the quail eggs. It reminds me of them too. So the quail eggs are in a discussion about the stone. The big egg on the left is telling the egg on the right something about it, but I can't decide what that is. Maybe it's an introduction. I don't know. The titles I'm thinking of are all too long. I'll figure it out eventually. I'll try again tomorrow to post the big painting. I took it to the Three Little Pigs today to hang it in the exhibit. The room that it's in is great. Wonderful light and a fireplace. We finally got the date set for the artist's reception. It's going to be on Friday, June 22nd, 2007 from 7PM to 10PM. Please come out for the party. I plan on having it catered by the Three Little Pigs, so an RSVP would be most appreciated to give them an idea of a headcount. Feel free to bring friends and family. RSVP to me, via email: mamarazzi2@aol.com. The website for the Three Little Pigs is http://www.threelittlepigswc.com/. Please contact me for further info or help. I doubt that I'll get to painting tomorrow. I'll be heading down to Maryland to see my grandson Gabriel perform in his Spring Recital. I can't wait for that. I'm sure I won't get home until late. Jay is at the piano playing something that sounds familiar, but I can't say what it is. Maybe classical? Beethoven? I'd better go check.

Tonight I finished the BIG egg painting. It's 30"x36". It was difficult. I suppose I should have worked my way up in canvas size instead of jumping from small to huge. Now that it's finished and I'm happy with it, I'm glad that I did it this way. For me I like to jump right in and keep things interesting and challenging. I'll photograph it outside tomorrow and post it tomorrow night. Our Mother's Day celebration was so much fun. The weather was gorgeous. I barely got to take any photos of the grandchildren and little cousins. They had more fun than I did. The piano was the big hit of the day along with Pop Pop the piano man. Danielle, Gabrielle, Isabella and Josie just could not have been any cuter. They loved the chickens and the bunnies. Gabriel and Jonah found and collected the chicken and quail eggs. Lucio found a quail egg as well. Danny and Jay Jr. did the cooking and Celeste and Nicky's wife Leanne (thank God) did the clean up. Jeanie and Krista brought desserts and appetizers. Derek brought beautiful roses. I got really wonderful gifts, we had amazing food, outstanding music from the baby girls and Jay Sr, and my family and their families were here. What more could you ask for? You're right, nothing. I am more than grateful and once again know how blessed I am. The silent auction benefit is moving right along. Two of the photos have been sold at full price and $20. more than full price! More cash donations have come in and more work is being donated. Other items are being bid on also. It's exciting to see it happening. Danny just fixed a margarita for me to celebrate the finished painting. I'm going to put the chickens to bed, put my feet up and enjoy it. You have a great remainder of the night too.

The silent art auction for the Komorowskis made the front page of the local newspaper today. How great is that? It also was posted in the online newsletter, http://www.inwayne.com If you would like to read it, sign up for the newsletter when you click on the link above and you'll get it in your email. I hope the press brings a little more action because there's not a whole lot going on. I have had cash donations though, which is ultimately what it's all about I guess. The photo above is at Chanticleer. I know I won't have time to do more paintings di giorno until next week. We're having a family get together over the weekend for a pre-mother's day. None of the kids will be around on the real Mother's Day, so we'll just do it when they can. My nephew and his girlfriend, cousins and their children will be here too, so my plan is to take lots of photos of four toddler girls and three little boys all running around my yard. The weather is supposed to be perfect. Anyway, I worked outside all day and will be shopping and getting everything ready for the fun. Back to the photo. It's another one of those clever, wonderful, whimsical arrangements so typical of Chanticleer. As you can see, it's a sofa and two chairs made of carved rock. On the arm of the sofa there is a stone remote control with semi-precious stone buttons. All of it is a little larger than life. Very cool on a hot day, especially with the huge canopy of the trees above. Now on to the question my Aunt asked me about my fascination with eggs. Truthfully, I don't know why. I've thought about it and that's as honest as I can be. I asked my psychologist friend Gill and she said that she felt it was because of the big changes in my life. It did coincide with with my father's death, that's probably it, but that's also when the quail started laying eggs. I thought they were so beautiful. Each one so unique, like a finger print. I just really made a connection with them. I couldn't wait to paint them. Each one was different everyday. Then I switched gears and did the lemons. That was really fun, but I missed the eggs and couldn't wait to paint them, so I started to include the eggs in the lemon paintings. When the limoncello paintings were finished, (oh, don't worry--there will be more of them) no exaggeration, I truly felt real comfort when I started the egg paintings again. I do see all of the obvious symbolism in them and I think that it may make the attraction even stronger, but that never occurred to me when I started painting them. To me they are works of art in and of themselves that I think, we take for granted. It gives me so much pleasure to be able to be able to sculpt their form with paint. Maybe it's because I like chickens so much. I had a rooster last summer that had a huge impact on me, Henri--but he's another story for another day.

A while back I mentioned a better lady in the water. Since my exhibit was hung today at the Three Little Pigs Cafe' in West Chester ("Sweet Erica Brown" met me there and hung the entire show herself --THANK YOU so much Erica), I didn't finish my big painting of eggs. A perfect opportunity for a photo. You're looking into a pond at Chanticleer. Almost dead center is the top of the head of the girl in the water-almost level with the top of her head, extending to the left is her right arm, which is bent over her right leg. Her left leg is extended and right leg is bent. Her left shoulder lines up with her head. You can see her left hand. Can you see her?

My Aunt Jeannie emailed me this morning and asked me to explain my fascination with eggs. I think that's a good topic for tomorrow.

The hummingbirds are back if you haven't seen them. I saw the first one on Saturday. There's a male that comes here all day long. The female must be on the nest. Spring is now complete along with my allergies acting up again. So due to another bout with vertigo, I'm going to bed.

Here is the finished painting titled "Don't Talk to Strangers", complete with freckles, speckles and reflections. It's interesting to me that the egg reflections on the table are the same shape. I haven't figured that out yet. It doesn't make sense to me because it doesn't appear correct, but they look that way every time. This painting is 10" x 8", oil on deep, gallery wrapped canvas and it's also $250. framed. SOLD It will go in the exhibit tomorrow. You may have noticed that the Valentine's Day Sale is finally over ;) Noah worked on all of it over the weekend. Thanx Noah. Well, I've gotta get going. I'm still working on one more big painting for tomorrow. It's of eggs. The Auracana ones, along with some brown and pink chicken eggs and of course quail eggs.