On the Lighter Side:

I just thought I would drop this in here.  Kish, my 17 year old must have walked thru a field that was germinating and with the floods and humidity down here in Texas, I guess the conditions were just right for (what my 18 year old son, Jesse calls) a chiashoe!  Click on the shoes to get an enlarged view.

For Mother's Day I got a digital pad (Calcomp).  I certainly don't want any accolades because the picture is quite juvenile, but just to show what you can do, I drew the flower (duh!), and the tree, sun, "little" birds.  Then I imported it into paintshop pro and added the hawk tubes; I put the vine tubes on the tree as leaves; bluebonnet tubes on the ground and some rocks.  It is alot of fun if you have some time to waste.  Most of the tubes were from people in the paintshop pro forum.  The bluebonnet tubes were mine; you can get them on my tubes page.

It does get hot enough in Texas to fry an egg on the sidewalk.  This was a candle that I had on my patio in the shade.