Back from North Carolina

My husband, Tim, and I in the Sarah P. Duke Garden on the Duke University campus in Durham, North Carolina

We just returned from a great trip to visit our friends down in the Raleigh, North Carolina area. The weather was a bit on the chilly side (I was hoping for shorts weather, but it wasn't quite the season yet). Nonetheless, we had a wonderful time visiting with our friends and even our dog, Annie, managed to get along with their dogs. Annie had *huge* dog aggression issues when we first adopted her in 2002, but she's doing better with each passing year. And we all re-charged our batteries in the North Carolina sunshine, so it was a relaxing trip. We didn't even encounter a single traffic slowdown through the DC metro area. Always a plus.

I'm looking forward the next month because I have no trips planned. It will be a quiet time for me to hunker down in my studio and get some new pieces completed as I build my inventory of paintings for the summer art show season as well as for my galleries and other exhibition opportunities. Things get crazy with my schedule beginning in mid-April, but until then I'm going to enjoy the peace and quiet. I'm also going to keep my fingers crossed for some warmer weather so that I can get outdoors and paint a bit, too.