WHERE I'VE BEEN...

I'm back. It has only been a week since my last post, but that's not my norm, so some of you have asked where I've been. When I say some, I mean  my MIL, mostly. She's my number one blog fan and not entirely unbiased. So where have I been? I can only say that when I lost Lily, I seemed to have lost my mojo. Dragging around a heavy heart doesn't leave much energy for anything else.
I haven't been completely idle. I've been working on some small mixed-media pieces. I'll share a couple, but others turned out a little on the scary side. Apparently, if I paint when I'm feeling gloomy, my characters look like extras from Shaun of the Dead.

I had no intention with these. Simply created backgrounds and then looked for the characters within.
My Mr. C. has also been trying really hard to cheer me up. We've been shopping for our upcoming trip (London, whee!) and Saturday evening we drove over to Dover and had a really excellent dinner at Michele's. A bonus extra...our waitress also has horses, so we had some horse chat with our dessert!

Chilean sea bass with a pine nut crust.

Rockfish stuffed with crab.

And this bit of heaven...Chocolate Lava Cake with raspberry gelato. I usually go for the "fruity" desserts but I would definitely order this again!

Don't want to talk your ears off, so I'll just finish by showing a few more signs of spring around our place.

Pruned these Knockout roses ruthlessly just 2 weeks ago, and now they've exploded!

Azalea.

Hosta.

That's all for now. For those who care (you know who you are, my dear MIL), I'll try not to stay away for a whole week again. Check back often as I have a really fascinating post planned about the horses shedding their winter coats (good stuff!!). Also, lots of cake pics upcoming because therapeutic riding starts this week and I always bake for our riders and volunteers.
Hope things are coming up roses at your place! XO

P.S. A big heartfelt thank-you to all the kind souls who sent hugs and sympathy after the loss of our sweet Lily!!