Happy Valentine’s Day

For some reason, I got a chuckle this morning out of the name of the program I use to do my blog entries. It’s called “Live Writer”. I thought to myself, how good it is not to be a dead writer… dumb I know, but then I think the name of the program is pretty lame.

That is neither here nor there. I just wanted to wish you a Happy Valentine’s Day and thank you for reading my blog. I know there are lot of legends associated with today, but one thing that is certain, it is a day for writing notes expressing your affection or love for friends and family. Although we have often turned the day into a time of expressions of “eros” or erotic love, I have the impression that the day was more a time of “philia”, or fraternal love. We seemed to have lost that connotation  and that’s too bad, for the eroticizing of our culture is sick. They have taken Abraham Lincoln’s beautiful correspondence with his friends and said it is proof he was a homosexual. We can no longer say we love our friends or express this affection physically without someone pointing a finger of suspicion. I wish we could still buy our little punch out valentine’s and innocently distribute them among those we care for, just to say you are special!

On Valentine’s Day, we think of people
who have cheered and encouraged us,
who go out of their way
to be kind and caring,
who have enriched our lives
just by being themselves.
You are such a person.
I’m so happy you’re my friend
Happy Valentine’s Day!

By Joanna Fuchs

Since our weather has cooled down some (I actually was able to turn off the air conditioning), I have felt more like working on the pastel portrait of my favorite valentine, who is taking me out to the Outback for lunch today. I made some progress over the last two days, but still have a long way to go. Man, is this time consuming. Whatever any artist charges is not enough, trust me. It’s hard work! Enduring the critics is hard too. My “model” says he looks too old, his nose is too big (is not – I measured), his eyes are wrong (which is true, but I give up after 4 attempts to get them right), and his hair is the wrong color (haven’t finished yet). He did like his beard. Wow! Fortunately I don’t have to make my living doing portraits. I need to finish him up, as soon we are starting painting lessons, with acrylics, so I need to put my pastel “studio” away. Who knows, some day I may have a room just to be my studio. Wouldn’t that be great?