Check out my new baby!!!

Isn't she purty??? Ok, so there are a few fingerprints on her, but that's cuz I've actually been playing her. (not very well, mind you, but not very bad, either ;-) ) It's kind of frightening how we've got a mini-music room going on there in the corner of that room. :-D

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!

Stay tuned for pics from later tonight. I just wanted to wish everyone a HAPPY HALLOWEEN :-D Yours truly is dressed as Tonks again. Hey, why waste the fun of having a ready-made Tonks outfit from the HP Book Release party this year ;-)

C and I have just finished carving our pumpkins and have gotten the kids' pumpkins ready for them for when they get home from school so that all they have to do is carve them. C's looks super scary (he's totally master pumpkin carver dude). Mine looks sort of like Disney's version of the headless horseman pumpkin head hehehe

Update on My Stupid "Thyroid"

I just finished having an RAI-131 Body Scan yesterday and am FINALLY back on my meds after having been off of them for over 2.5 weeks!!!! YEAH! I also get to FINALLY eat somewhat normal again after having been on the Low Iodine-omg-i-hate-that-dang-thing diet for 1.5 weeks.

Currently my body is readjusting to being back on my Levoxyl. Unfortunately, this means, I'm still pretty "Staypuff Marshmallow Girl" faced still. There's a really weird metallic yucky after taste to everything I eat and some nausea. On one hand. Ugh. On the other hand, I suppose at least that's kept me from gaining weight (haha). My body still is in massive hypothyroid mode so I'm feeling seriously slow motion and fatigued. Oh yeah, and my voice. It's kind of hard to talk and it's sounding a bit like I've got laryngitis. Yeah me. haha

Up side...well, I figure I'll be feeling better in the next couple of days. Hopefully tomorrow I'm on the road to being more like myself.

HOWEVER...THE AWESOME NEWS:
As far as can be seen, the scan shows that while there are still the residual cells remaining in what my doctor calls the 'thyroid bed' (the area where my thyroid used to hang out) none of them look like they've grown. BEST PART...none of them look cancerous. YEAHHHH!!!!!!! I'm pretty stoked about that. Seriously, I don't need any more stinking radiation therapy thank ya very much.

Anyways, that's the scoop on my current situation. Once I feel better, hopefully I'll get back to painting. I've been in such a fugue even before being off my thyroid meds. It's like some weird depression thing. Not sure. I just have to break out of it, I guess. I mean, I HAVE been pretty productive w/ my Henna art...I created a few new designs, revamped my table/booth decor, signs and books. I've also been insanely busy with that whole aspect of my business. I still have to re-work my Henna Website and then slowly move on to working on the artwork side of it.

Hmmm...I guess I have been busy. I just feel bad that I haven't been painting a whole lot.

The Hazards of Having Your Artwork on YOUR Website

I'm on a forum for Henna Artists called Henna Tribe. On Saturday night, after working FOUR hours straight doing henna for a Bar Mitzvah and a long TWO hour drive home (construction on the freeway at midnight...ugh) I came home to an email from one of them informing me that someone on myspace had stolen my photos. She was apparently using them as HER OWN!!! This idiot not only had FOUR of my images, but had literally just linked them to my site. Not only is this illegal because it is MY work, but she's stealing bandwith by doing this!

So there I was at 1am renaming the stolen images, re-coding html on the pages that were affected, and re-uploading.

HAH! I thought. Now all you'll see is 4 broken red X's on her myspace. (I also sent her a nasty cease and desist email warning her of legal action...no response yet). That part gave me great satisfaction. However...

I woke up Sunday morning to check my work again...turns out she also has punked one of my client images and reuploaded it into her 'pics' section as HER OWN again!!! This time, I've emailed Myspace w/ a detailed description of what's going on and also that at least 5 other professional Henna Artists have had their work 'stolen' by this person. Hopefully they do something about it soon. This just rankles me to the Nth degree.

I'm so mad I could spit!!!

BUT...
I'm EVIL...EVIL I tell you!
Remember how she's just linked STRAIGHT to my site? Well, guess what? Since it's LINKED to MY site, I can upload new images w/ the same file name. Check out her page now:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=163134545

Moral of this lesson:
Do not mess w/ us Henna Artists...especially someone who knows even the slightest bit of html coding. bwahahahaha!!!!

Let's see how long it takes her to figure this out. According to the page, she hasn'tlogged on since 7/28. OH I am an EVIL LITTLE MONKEY bwhahahaa

Sister Roadtrips are FUN!!!!!

Thought I'd share our sister trip with y'all. We had such a great time! We listened to CD's on the long drive up and just talked and talked and TALKED. When we finally got up to San Francisco, just as we're standing in front of our cousin's place, guess who called...MISTER SISTER hehe

My cousin's place is really neat and I love their dog. I wish I'd gotten a pic of her for you because she's the raddest dog. Anyways, for the rest of the afternoon/evening, we explored the area around my cousin's apt. We didn't make it to Haight Street like we wanted, but it didn't matter. We were having such a great time hanging w/ our cousin, her yahoo, our other cousin who drove over from Fairfield and some of our friends.

This is us outside this little hole in the wall where we had strawberry margaritas, yummy salsa and guacamole.


The next morning, my cousin and her husband made us an incredible breakfast. It was so yummy, it was hard to believe it was pretty much all healthy. They had strawberries, blackberries, blueberries (but not snozzberries. :-D ), bacon, turkey bacon, vegan bacon (for their friend), maple yogurt (so DEEELISH!), homemade granola and blueberry coffeecake (courtesy of my talented cousin-in-law...he's quite the cook).

We hung out around the kitchen table casually munching berries, etc and before we knew it, it was time to head out to Carmel...

The drive down to Carmel was pretty uneventful, but a beautiful drive. There was this crazy dude,though, who was yelling "F-You!" and flipping me off. I'm not sure what happened there to cause that. Pretty much all the way from SF to San Jose, I was staying in my own lane while it was trafficky and paying attention to people weaving in and out in front of me. The dude's car had been in the "fast lane" the whole time, no blinker, so it wasn't like I wasn't letting him in. I know I didn't cut him off because I was being crazy careful since I don't know that area so well. Makes you go hmmmm...

Anyways, getting into the Carmel area was just gorgeous. The scenery all around us made the drive very quick. Before we knew it, we were at the Condo that the lady was lending us for the night. She has awesome taste in decorating. Everywhere you turned there was some really neat piece of furniture that was artwork all by itself. THis was my FAVORITE piece that she had hanging in her living room. I love the "Muses", but this was very unique to me:


After we settled in and she showed us around, she left to go finish getting the reception room decorated w/ the other parents. I think I mentioned that we were in Carmel to do henna for an after prom event for the high school out there? Anyways, Lu and I went out for a walk and stumbled upon an art fair in the park. Beautiful sculptures and paintings.

We ended up talking a long walk afterwards to explore Carmel. Everything was totally in walking distance so we spent a couple of hours doing this. I'm not kidding you, every other shop is AN ART GALLERY. I can tell you, I was in 7th heaven. At one point we found a bookstore that had a garden attached to it. I'd been thinking in my head, wouldn't it be cool to find a metaphysical store or a garden shop. That's exactly what this was! Attached to the shop was "The Secret Garden" in which I found a statue of St. Francis of Assissi. I've been looking for the perfect one for my garden for months and WE FOUND HIM IN THE SECRET GARDEN!!! Y'all, he's just the happiest St. Francis I've ever seen and he is now currently residing in my herb garden w/ Quan Yin

Fast forward to Midnight. That's when our gig started. We'd had a quick rest at the condo, the one mom/owner came back for us to lead us up to the event. Thank goodness she did because there were so many twists and turns it was scary! THe event was from midnight to 3am and can I just tell you how thougthful and considerate those kids were? Just about every single one of them thanked us for being there and for going out of our way on our sister weekend to do this for them. One of the kids even brought us snackies because she wanted to make sure we were comfortable. So sweet! By the end of the night we were tired, but happy so once we got back to our place, we pretty much passed out on the bed. hehehe

THe next day was the long drive home. Believe it or not, after that late night, we still woke up at 8am to a beautiful, crisp morning. Lu and I walked around the corner to this French coffeeshop to get some coffee and a chocolate croissant (how can you NOT at a French cafe like that?) From there we headed out. Our route took us past wine country, so of course, we HAD to stop. Can you blame us? hehehe We stopped at the Robert Hall Winery, took a little tour of the wine cavern, did a little wine tasting and had lunch out there. Yes, we each bought a couple of bottles of wine. How can you not when it's so tasty??? Incidentally, get the names for their grape crushing machines. There's 2 of them and their names are....LUCY AND ETHEL! (in honor of Lucy's fiasco in an Italian winery. )

Here we are in the courtyard:



Here are some views from the bell tower:


THey had a live band down in this courtyard while we were eating lunch:


And last but not least, as we drove out towards the I-5 which would take us on the last leg home, we found the "James Dean Memorial" at this one Junction. Further down was the gas station that was his last stop before he was killed in a crash. It has this HUGE sign/painting out front:


Seriously, we weren't even sure the shop was open till we got out of the car to take the pic. We were both bad and bought Almond Roca and Almond bark while we were there.

I logged on 914 miles all around, had long conversations w/ my sis, ate yummy food and saw beautiful scenery. I'm home now, tired still, but smiling because of the great fun we had :D

I've finally finished it...

Whew! I finally updated my website more. I realize there's a bit more tweaking to do, but the most important thing is that I've added a whole lot more pics of my henna work. There's quite a few more additions that need to be done to my "Soulmate Paintings", but being that this is what we call "Henna Season", I really had to get on top of the henna side of things.

Speaking of which, I'm worried about my Henna Supplier (http://www.lifeart.cc). Janet lives w/ her daughter on Catalina Island, which has been evacuated because of a raging fire on the island. It's encroaching on the area where she lives. If you've ever talked to her, you'd know she's an incredibly sweet person. I'm sending out "stay safe" vibes to her and her girl today. Actually, also, to the other residents and safety personnel involved.

Paintings...well, I've got at least 7 more pieces I need to add to my "Soulmates" section. They're small, but they're nice. I've also got 2 online stores going on through Spreadshirt.com (http://lernie.spreadshirt.com) and Cafepress.com (http://www.cafepress.com/lernie). I'll be changing up the pics on some of the merchandise at a later date. For now, the images are the "Trio" of my favorite Soulmate Paintings and one is the image I used for my show postcard at Hair West.

Hope everyone's having a great Friday :-D
Cheers!
LB

We lost another good soul...

I'm a part of a message board for Ya-Ya's (based on books by Rebecca Wells). It's mostly comprised of women with a few men who understand the idea of the sisterhood bond.

There are a lot of great women on this board. I've met a few in person. A couple have become really good friends...kindred spirits...very much 'Ya-Yas'. Mamabear is a Ya-Ya that I never had the pleasure of meeting in person. However, many of her posts were wise. Many of them were pretty humorous. She seemed like a very sweet and caring person...a very strong woman. Yesterday, we lost her to a long battle with cancer. Paula outlived all her physicians predictions and lived life to the fullest. I know her family will miss her dearly, as well as the 'family' on the board. There's a lot of grieving going on there today.

I'm kind of babbling right now. I wish people didn't have to go through the pain of dealing with cancer. It's affected my cousin (who thankfully won her battle), Paula, Trace, Gritsy's sister, my 'THyroid sisters'...just so many good people. Sure, I had Thyroid cancer, but really, my battle wasn't as tough as the others. Yes, I have to keep a check on things, but really, when I think about it, I'm alright. I KNOW I'll be alright. Hey, at least I didn't have to go through Radiation Therapy or Chemo. The treatments I had, though pretty danged uncomfortable, were less invasive than the others.

We'll miss you, Paula. There's a new angel in heaven now. I'm glad you're not in pain anymore...
--LB

Be AMAZED!!!!

First and foremost, before I even get anywhere into a mad novel of sorts, I have to post about my upcoming solo artshow at Hair West. That's the postcard to the left. <------

For more info on that, check out my Events page @ http://www.lernie.com/events.html.

I'm working on a few small pieces to put in the show, and a couple of new newer pieces will be there, too.

************************

Ok, now on to other current stuff. For those of you Thyroid Sisters/Bros out there, latest update: So far the Doc is keeping me on my same dosage of Levoxyl. It's still a huge pain because I have to keep track of what dose is on what day since she's got me alternating my dosages. One day is 112 mcg and the next is 125 mcg. I'm not looking forward to the end of the year, however, as she is planning on taking me off my meds, YET AGAIN, so I can have ANOTHER RAI-123 Scan test. YUCK!!!

Anyone who's been off their thyroid meds, esp. those of you who have NO thyroid left will commiserate on this with me. It's like you go into this incredibly deep depression and feel like you literally have a 200 lb. weight laying on top of you. It totally bites. At any rate, the scan test is to make sure that there are no active Thyroid Cancer cells running amuck inside my body. I don't think there are, but best not mess with anything and take the stupid test.

I saw the weirdest thing this weekend. Chalk it up to people are freakin' CRAZY!!! My kids and I had gone down to Temecula with my sister and her kids to watch a musical that one of her students was in. On the way back to her place, driving down the I-15 to Elsinore, there was an unusual amount of traffic. We're saying unusual because there's NEVER any traffic in this particular area. We both gathered there might've been some sort of accident.

As we neared the area where everything was at a stand still because traffic is trying to maneuver around these stopped cars, we begin to slowly drive past partly because of looky-loos. As we do so, we see this car stopped in the emergency lane beside the FAST LANE. This isn't the strange part. The strange part is that there is this woman who appeared to be in her 30's standing in the FAST LANE totally bitching out the dude in the driver's seat. She's also waving her hands at traffic who are stopped in front of her as if to say "GO ON! GO AHEAD AND HIT ME! KILL ME NOW!" then her waving back at the driver in what must've been her car "THAT'S WHAT YOU WANT ISN'T IT???"

Bear in mind, it was one of those strange things that makes you want to rub your eyes and ask, "Did you just see what I saw?" Everything was completely slow-motion. I think all of us drivers were worried this crazed woman was going to start darting across the other lanes of traffic. Truly, it makes you wonder what got into that person that she felt the need to do such an insane thing. I've been perusing the news wondering what happened to that couple. Hopefully the driver was able to coax the woman back into the car without her getting hurt.

I had the best Birthday :-D

Yesterday was my birthday and it was a blast! Chris and the kids took me to the Descano Gardens in Flintridge. I'd heard great things about these gardens so I really wanted to go. Chris could not have ordered a more perfect morning to take me there. Just take a gander of what we saw while hiking around. Bear in mind that these are only a few of the 70 pics I took out there :-D

Funniest part was that there was this mini-train that you could take around this small section of the gardens. You sort of sit on it like you would on say, Disneyland's Matterhorn Bobsled and ride it around. It made me feel like a little kid, but we all had a great time


I love Huntington Library and it's gardens, but I must admit, I like the not quite as formal feeling you get from the Descano Gardens. It almost feels like you're hiking around in nature as opposed to a formal garden area. It's just gorgeous out there!

We hung out for an hour or so just meandering around the grounds and taking in the scenery around us. We were amazed at how many camellias there were in the gardens. Then we realized why when Chris read in the guide that Mr. Boddy, who owned the LA Daily News, also used to supply Camellias to the local florists.

I'm seeing a few ideas in my head for new paintings. Maybe I'll paint some new landscapes from some of the photos I took.

Later on Chris cooked a small feast for my birthday dinner. My sister and her family came over and so did my parents. It was mellow but nice. We even got the guys to watch "Under the Tuscan Sun" (partially in honor of the fact that my sis and her family are all going to Tuscany for part of my Brother-In-Law's landscape architect degree). Sure, it's considered a 'chick-flick', but how can you not love the incredible scenery???

Oh and you have to see this 'cookie cake' that my girls made for my bday. It was SO YUMMY!!!! heheeh

It's My Birthday Weekend...YEAH!!!

You're never too old to enjoy your birthday. Mine's tomorrow. I can't wait. We're going to these gardens that I've heard so much about...Descano Gardens. I'm bringing my camera because you never know what you'll see on an adventure to a new place. Maybe something will inspire me there.

Also, I recently found out that I'm going to have a solo show in Newport Beach. It's actually at a hair salon out there. It occurs to me that my solo shows have always been in somewhat unique venues. I've been in restaurants, coffeehouses, hair salons...I've even had work show in a rehab center of all places (no, I wasn't in rehab, but the curator of the show was using the wall space for shows. hehe)

This is going to be fun, though. The atmosphere at "Hair West" is very artsy. It's colorful, and while it's a small venue, I think it'll be a nice place to feature my art for a month. Exposure is what it's all about, folks. I paint because I love to paint, but sometimes it's nice to share it with the world. If someone decides to buy, that's a nice perk ;-) I'll post the invite when I have a chance.

Now THAT'S Love!!!

I love stories like this. (Prehistoric Romeo and Juliet)

"Buried between 5,000 and 6,000 years ago, the prehistoric pair are believed to have been a man and a woman and are thought to have died young, because their teeth were found intact, said Elena Menotti, the archaeologist who led the dig...The two bodies, which cuddle closely while facing each other on their sides, were probably buried at the same time, an indication of a possible sudden and tragic death, Bondioli said."

Stuff like that is what inspires me. Well, not the tragic death part, but 'lovers held in a passionate embrace for all eternity'. Stop looking at me like that. So, I'm sappy. And hey, that line is from one of my solo show postcards, so HAH! :-P

Anyways, doesn't it make you wonder what the true story was behind this couple?

Cool Vid Clip and some News

You know, this blog thing is pretty cool. I'm just updating as I go along and I can post new stuff happening along the way w/ a simple point, click, type, hit return. Sweet!

Today I saw this vid clip of this amazing 12 yr old artist (http://tinyurl.com/yxewot). The detail in her paintings are just incredible...far surpasses any detail I can get in my landscapes. She captures light, emotion and movement so well in her work, I'm just floored. There's a great spirituality that comes out in each of her pieces that you feel a sense of peace and serenity. I just wanted to share that w/ anyone who's reading this blog of mine.

Great update for yours truly. I've got a group show scheduled up in Eagle Rock. The opening night is set for next Saturday, Feb. 10. Check out the Evite below. Yeah, my name isn't on there. It's my fault, I got my info in a little late, but they still took me in. I'll have 3 pieces in the show so I'm stoked about it.

I've got a couple of pieces being juried for another Women's show, too, but they're still judging all the artwork submitted. I'm hoping I get into that one, too. Cross your fingers for me!

Other than that, I've just been working on a few sketches for some funky ideas that have been running through my head. I've got this theme about masks that I'd like to work on. It's sort of up in the air right now, but the main thing I have to do is a plaster cast of my face. It's going to be fun, but super messy, I know. If I'm bold enough, I may document the whole process w/ my digital camera.

That's it for now. Signing off.

Wonder Women

I was reading through the OC Register online this morning when I came across an article called "Wonder Women". It brought a smile to my face because it was about a girl named Dusty Hogan(now 31) who had faced a battle w/ Thyroid Cancer since she was a child. What caught my eye was the title of the article because, well, as previously stated, I'm a total geek and have loved Wonder Woman since I was a kid (not just the show, but the comic books, etc.).

Anyways, it talks about this little girl who was always so tired, had dark circles under her eyes...a little girl who should have been full of energy. One morning Dusty woke up w/ a lump on her neck. Tests showed she had Thyroid Cancer. She was only 6 yrs old. One of her dreams was to meet Wonder Woman so the Make A Wish Foundation put her in touch w/ Lynda Carter.

In my book, celebs are just regular people like you and me. I'm not one to chase down a star if I see one (and I've seen a few). Sure it's cool to meet someone you admire from a show or movie, but really when you get down to it, they're just people. However, in this instance, it was refreshing to see that this major actress took the time out to make a little girl's wish come true. It seemed like a boost for the kid not to give up. Lynda Carter sounds so down to earth in the article. It's nice to know that in a time where most celebs have so much negative press, there are still others out there who genuinely want to help those less fortunate. I sort of wish I could see MORE articles like this one http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/news/local/amread/article_1551288.php.

Anyways, the best part of the article was that even though that poor kid went through YEARS of surgeries and treatments, she finally went into remission when she was 16 yrs old. Let me tell you, I felt like such a whiner after I read what she'd gone through. Ok, yeah, I've been dealing with junk for the last 16 yrs of my life, but I was at least an adult when I had all those surgeries and treatments. She was just a small child. I guess this is just another reminder to live life to the fullest. Brave people like Dusty remind me to do so.

It's the New Year and my very FIRST post here

Well check me out. I've succumbed to the blogger-fever. I thought I'd try something a little new this year for posting thoughts that run rampant through my wee-brain. This has got to be a lot easier than the way I was doing it on my website (you know, messing w/ codes and all that junk).

So this year, we're hoping you don't have to hear way too much about me and my Thyroid Issues (for more on that, click on those links to the side for past 'issues'...haha...my husband lovingly says I don't just have 'issues', I have a WHOLE subscription.) Currently they've kind of got me levelled out w/ my thyroid meds so I'm not getting quite as many killer headaches and the mood swings are few and far between. My endocrynologist was talking about giving me one of those crappy RAI-123 tests again later on in the year. I know I HAVE to do that, but I HATE to do that because they take me off my meds and then my hormones and body just go haywire. That's a whole other Oprah. Let's not go there just now.

Painting-wise, I've been in a fugue. Don't know what that's all about. I've got some new ideas that are slowly taking shape. They're all up here (as I tap my head), I just have to do more than sketch them out. The execution of the ideas is what needs to happen. I want to try something more 3D. When that happens, I promise I'll post about it. For now, though, I've entered a couple of juried shows and am just waiting to hear from.

Oh yeah, I know it's only Monday, but I'm SO looking forward to this weekend coming up. It's our 17th Anniversary!!! Yeah! It doesn't seem like we've been married that long until we realize the number. I'm lucky to have Chris...ok,I've got goofy-grin syndrome...this means I'm going to get sappy if I don't stop myself. So I will. hehe