Watercolor Journals - Humongus

One of the reasons I love working on these paintings is the concurrent daydreaming.  My mind seems to wander to wonderful places.  The choice of a peach colored hibiscus for a couple who were going to be celebrating a special anniversary in Hawaii, was sentimental for me, because we had a number of these in our own backyard.  Before the days of the internet, Gary, had stacks of catalogs, and used to mail order for unusual plants.  He had one hibiscus that was as big as a dinner plate.  These blossoms didn't last very long and couldn't be tucked over your ear, but WOW!  And the cool thing is the plant would die back down to nothing in the winter.  All that was left was bare dried up stems.  Then every summer up it came, with the huge blossoms!  
I couldn't resist including a couple of examples from his garden...

Practical Joking 101 - Templeton

For those of you who are "humor challenged," fresh out of ideas for practical jokes, or just want to have a good laugh, keep an eye out for "Practical Joking 101."  Lately, I've been reminded of some of Gary's antics.  I decided to include some of them here on the blog.

Kathy wrote:  Hi Laurie, I read your post and the line about Gary having a practical joke up his sleeve made me remember the time I called him to come rescue me. Ric was out of town or something and I was 8 months pregnant with Jordan. While reading "Charlotte's Web" with Templeton the rat, I found a real rat at my feet! My 3 cats killed it but wouldn't take it outside. So I called Gary for help. So Gary and the girls came over and were laughing at me because by this time I was sitting on the top of the couch. So Gary picks up the rat by the tail, walks into my kitchen (and I can't see him by this time) and turns on the garbage disposal, and says, "Is this OK?" I vowed to call someone else the next time I was in trouble!  By the way, he didn't really put it down the garbage disposal!

  TIP:  It's not what you ACTUALLY did, it's what they THINK you did.