Art Is His Life...My 17 Year Old

My Son turned 17 yesterday....and if I could say one thing about his life it is that he has always loved art.

I can't believe how fast he has grown up.  Here is a photo of him with his tiger Hobbes, because his second love in life was cartoons, especially Calvin and Hobbes which he started reading in 2nd grade.

Here he is with his first set of crayons.  He has always loved to draw.

In Kindergarten he drew this at Christmas time...I always thought it would make a good Christmas card...

He is studying on his own the art of  HAYAO MIYAZAKI.....This picture he drew is of  his characters if they were in the movie "Howl's Moving Castle."  My son is waiting for his birthday gift of another Miyazaki art book.

One of my favorite things that he has started is making cartoons about his life.

I love to read his comic life book!

He also plays the Violin and sings....It's fun to live with this artist.  I've enjoyed watching him grow and develop some great talents.  He also has his own You-Tube site where he posts animations and he is always doing art competitions on-line too.  I look forward to seeing what he does in his adult life.

I Am Grateful.......My choice is to find things to be thankful for when a trial comes......

" One of life's Gifts is that each of us, no matter how tired and downtrodden, finds reasons for thankfulness.... J.Robert Moskin ."
I am going to try again to share what I'm grateful for and quotes about gratitude this year...I realized that I didn't do so well last year.  I have a book that I write in every day about what I'm thankful for. 

Last night on my drive home from my daughters Karate class my car started to act funny.  I'm thankful I recognized that It was not running right and found a safe place to park it.  I'm thankful that my husband is a master auto mechanic and can fix it.  I'm thankful that I got to work that morning and home in rush hour traffic.  I'm thankful I have the weekend off, so that we don't have to worry about getting me to work and fixing the car.

I could be upset at the fact that I'm stuck home and I had plans for today, but really I just changed my plans, and I'm thankful my husband got up extra early and went to work so that he could then come home this afternoon and drive me to work, and then fix the car. The part for the car will cost but I guess that just gives more points towards free plane tickets to the east coast this summer....  I will be glad when we go a few months without car issues....But today I'll find things to be thankful for instead of being upset....

So today I'll clean, and work on projects and find things to be thankful for.....I have so many blessings and counting them makes life so much more peaceful.  I'm thankful that even in a small trial I can see all the blessings....
Have a wonderful weekend.

# Throw Back Thursday....My Garden...Where it all began in New Jersey......

I have been sorting through all my flower photo's the past few weeks and thought about where my love of gardening and flower photography began.  At our house in New Jersey in a very small box garden.  I enjoyed planting things and seeing what would grow.

I enjoyed taking photo's of what grew and making scrap book pages.  I grew giant Sun Flowers which I was told were Marigolds, I left Pumpkins in and ended up with a giant pumpkin plant that grew out of the box and across the lawn.  One year I grew watermelon.  I told my neighbors I knew nothing about gardening.  And every year had great success...They all said I had a green thumb. 

It was fun watching my children as they explored the flowers in the garden.

It was really hard to leave that garden behind....I put so many years of experimenting into it.... Now I barely have time to garden....But perhaps this summer I'll get a little more time to play with seeds, and plants.. and take some photo's too...And if I can't garden then I'll at least visit gardens....
Happy Thursday.
G.G.