As you can see, March is really a big month for our family. Many important birthdays to celebrate. The past two weeks, since Isabella's 3rd birthday on the 16th have included--in chronological order--the following birthdays; my daughter Krista, who turned 35 on the 22nd, my husband Jay, who was 57 on the 26th, along with my little cousin Gabriella, who turned 3 on the 26th also, and today my daughter Jeanie is 29. Whew, they're getting old. Happy birthday to all!We'll be celebrating Jay Sr.'s birthday this weekend at Les Halles in NYC. Can't wait for that, or finally, for our belated Valentine's Day dinner on Saturday at Vetri.

I'm so happy to welcome Ann as a collector of my work. After you have two or more of my paintings, you're officially a collector. Thank you so much Ann! Our visit was so nice.

Easter was a treat with a full house for dinner. The Easter bread and spidzod were good and we now have plenty of limon/blood orangecello to last for a long time. Nicky brought his blood orangecello that was beautiful to look at and taste. Very smooth and flowery.Jay and Celeste really worked hard to put out a fabulous dinner of roasted lamb, pork and potatoes, along with ratatouille, polenta and gravies. Jeanie brought the desserts, Krista brought the appetizer, Nicky brought the homemade wine, Danny Kane brought the champagne, my brother brought the Remy, I am adding this later than this post because I didn't mention that Joe Frost and Ashley brought the bread, (I was distracted by the beautiful heather plant) so you know it was something else and almost everyone brought beautiful plants and flowers. Everything was just outstanding. We ate, drank, talked, laughed, had an Easter egg hunt, played cards and generally just had a great time.Finally, my daily painting is a welcome to spring. It was raining and chilly today, but my quail finally started laying eggs again on Saturday. Here, in this painting is the first one of the season, along with a quail feather and a crocus. I was able to adjust the color of the image. Now it's more accurate.

"Welcome Spring 2008", oil on gessobord, 6"x6", $50. framed. Sold...thank you Peter.

Happy birthday to Super Bella!

Isabella turned three years old yesterday, so we drove to Maryland for her birthday party. It was wonderful. Jeanie made a terrific meal and desserts, as usual. Isabella knew it was her special day and was ready for it. Just precious.We drove back and met Danny, Jay Jr., Celeste and Jeanne and Dan Welch at Georges'. The Welches are awesome people. It always does my heart good to see them.I don't see how I can get painting time in this week. But I'm so happy to say that I can't because my brother Pat is coming to town to stay for Easter and I'm going to have an extremely full house, especially for Easter Sunday dinner. In addition, I'll need to clean, shop and then make the Easter bread and spidzod...I have no idea how to really spell that and I can't find anyone who does. I tried to google it, but that didn't work either. It's like so many other Italian words, the spelling isn't even close to the way the word sounds, e.g.: pasta y fagioli, soppresata, aceto, etc. It's probably our dialect. If you know, please clue me in. Anyway, it's a dish of veal cubes stewed in a tomato sauce. I poach eggs in it and we eat it with Easter bread for breakfast on Easter morning. My father didn't do the poached eggs with his. He ate it with the traditional hard-boiled egg. I will also make little men (bigger than gingerbread men) out of the bread dough with a hard-boiled egg on their belly. The grandchildren will have one baked for each of them. My shortcut will be, that with the Ameraucana eggs, I won't have to dye them, since they're already green or blue.

Then there's the homemade limoncello and blood orangecello to finish and bottle. I'm going to try to get out of making the holiday soup, unless my brother really wants it. So that's my story.Happy Easter.

Danny's knees are healing and Jay's mouth is still tender, but they're on the mend.

Getting ready for the art show coming up at Church of the Saviour. That and having the whole gang here for Easter is already crunching my time, but today was beautiful, warm and sunny, so I worked outside in addition to everything else. My remaining Penedesenca hen has been getting picked on by the Ameraucanas, so I started playing a switching game with her and them to get them to stop. I put her in the garden, which is a big space, with just one of the Ameracaunas. That worked, since they're so social, so today I put all of them together. It was OK, but she (the Penedesenca hen) is so nervetic that she jumps at every little movement they make, which breaks my heart. I decided to try her with the chicks, supervised, and put her with the little Welsummer and Marans six weeks old chicks. They're pretty much feathered out. She was so happy when I put her in with them, she started clucking like a mother hen. So now we're all happy.Jay bought three flats of pansies for me, which he usually does for Easter. I got all of them in the window boxes and a few planters. They're beautiful.

My daily painting is of an heirloom pear, Meyer lemon and my old flicker feather. When I was arranging this composition, I knew I had to include the pear before it went bad like the other two Jay bought with it. I played around with an egg and the lemon, back and forth. The lemon enhanced the pear, but I felt it needed something else. The feather did it for me.

"Meyer Lemon, Heirloom Pear and Flicker Feather", 6"x4", watercolor, $25., framed.sold

Have a great weekend.

The grandchildren sadly....for all of us...left Sunday night. It was really quiet around here except for Monday morning when Danny fell running on the stairs and sprained both knees and tore some ligaments. So we spent Monday in the emergency room. At the same time Jay Sr. was having a tooth extracted. They're both OK, but whew! Danny's still supposed to be bedridden, but he's incorrigible. Jay Sr. is a much better patient.

In any case, I'm back to painting. The daily painting is of an Ameraucana egg that I broke immediately upon completing the painting.

I got the antique enamelware egg cup on eBay. I love it with these eggs. More tomorrow, gotta go...Danny's calling me.

I'm back sooner than I thought. The painting of the day is on Ampersand's Claybord. It's the first watercolor I've done on this surface. I do and don't like it. It looks dull to me and it's difficult to get good highlights, even when they're reserved. I think acrylic would be better suited for it. I'll varnish this one. I believe that will enhance the colors and clarity."Antique Enamelware Egg Cup and Ameraucana Egg", 5"x7", watercolor on Claybord, $35., framed.SOLD

I tried posting earlier but couldn't get through. This painting of a Meyer lemon and grape happened because I took the grandchildren to Costco yesterday and bought grapes. When I washed them there was a grape with a tendril of a vine still attached. Now I have some unusual dark pears that I had planned on painting today with a lemon, but if you've seen the first "Shrek" movie on DVD where the characters are jumping up and down saying "pick me, pick me", that's what this grape seemed to be saying, so I did. This week in watercolors has taught me a lot. I'm pleased that I didn't have to cheat once and use any white paint. I feel as though I effectively reserved the whites. In all of my still lifes and almost all of my paintings, except for portraits, or work that needs to be exact, I never do preliminary sketches, on the canvas, or paper. I like that exercise and challenge, therefore, as usual, I didn't do any drawing with these watercolors. Having never painting a grape, lemon or plum in transparent watercolor, I'm fairly satisfied with today's and this week's work. "Grape and Meyer Lemon", 6"x4", watercolor, $25., framed.SOLD-thanx Penny & David.

Enjoy your weekend.

Sorry I didn't post yesterday. Jeanie, Derek and the kids arrived right in the middle of my painting and I had to stop. The kids are here for the rest of the week/end, which is a joy. Jeanie and Derek are in the Bahamas.

Happy Birthday to David Bird...yesterday andcongratulations to my Aunt Jeannie, in celebration of Women's History Month, for being nominatedWoman of the Year for the DSCP Federal Women's Program.Her category, is Supervisor/ Manager. Wow, what a huge deal this is! Aditi Roy from NBC 10 News Team will be the keynote speaker at the awards luncheon. Best of luck with this Aunt Jean, the nomination is great, but you deserve the award. It would certainly be the apropos way to cap off your retirement party the next day.The last plum appears above. It was interesting to watch the color of their ripeness develop and intensify over the past few days. The green totally disappeared by today.

"Red and Yellow Plum", 6"x4", watercolor, $25., framed.SOLD--thanx David.

I am really having fun with these watercolors. They're really a stretch for me, but I know that's always a good thing. To be truthful, I wouldn't be doing them if I hadn't run out of the little canvases and gessobord. I promised myself that I wouldn't buy anymore canvases of any size (unless commissioned) because I have so many, in so many sizes and I have to use them up. Anyway, I ate one of the plums last night when I was finished. They're really good. Here are two of them that were in a setup of three, but the two of them seemed like they were having a very serious private discussion and wanted to be alone in the composition so we have "Very Serious Red and Yellow Plums", 6"x4", watercolor, $25., framed. sold

Before I go tonight, I wanted to send my gratitude to David in Glasgow, UK, for his purchase of two "Yellow Dahlia" prints. Also to Penny Bird, my very dear, old friend and collector--wait, I should clarify that, the friendship is old, not Penny-- who bought "White Rose, It Is What It Is". And finally to a new collector, Chris from New Mexico, who already feels like a friend of many years, for her purchase of two paintings, "For the Love of Lemons" which I just finished last week and "Art Glass and Quail Eggs with Milk Glass Stone". Karen I sent her three lemons since she's never had a Meyer Lemon. I am very grateful to all of you and truly appreciate your support. THANK YOU!

Jay Sr. got these plums for me today. So different. I've got to dash, but will be back tomorrow."RED AND YELLOW PLUMS", 6"x4", watercolor, $25. framed.SOLD