In Which Much Gets Done

So today ended up being relatively productive. 

Joanna came over this morning and I did a tiny bit of cleaning and then headed out to run errands and play.  Mostly I played.  Because hey, it's still technically Christmas vacation, right?  Then after she left and Connor had his quiet time we went out to the hair salon and the little guy got his hair cut, thereby instantly rendering him eighty gabillion years older.  At least his hair isn't in his eyes anymore, though, and he is no longer dangerously close to sporting a mullet.  Here's a ridiculous picture of us post-Connor's haircut so you can see how it looks; me making a crazy, slightly squinty-eyed face, Gobo looking extremely traumatized and Connor looking kind of put-upon and embarrassed for us all. 

At least his hair looks good.

I also commissioned a painting today, which I'm pretty excited about.  While we have a lot of Asian-influenced artwork in our house we don't have anything that's specifically Thai related.  That's something I'd like to change before Ellen gets here.  We don't need to cover our house in elephants and Khon masks or anything, but I do think it's important that we show we're proud of Ellen's culture and heritage.  And also I think Thai-influenced artwork is beautiful in its own right, so I'd want it in our house anyway.  While I'm sure we'll probably pick up some artwork in Thailand when we travel, I'd like a piece or two already up in the house before we go. 

In particular I've been looking for portraits of Thai women.  I love paintings of strong, interesting women that tell a story, but I hadn't been able to find any I liked that weren't way, way out of my price range. 

For that matter, it's kind of difficult to find interesting paintings of Asian women period.  Oh, I can find all kinds of paintings depicting the exotic, submissive, delicate-flower stereotype, but that's not exactly the kind of thing I want hanging up in my house, you know?  Ellen will have enough problems with that stereotype outside the house: no need to perpetuate it inside our walls.  I turned to Etsy, my favorite place in the universe for amazingly affordable, incredibly gorgeous art, to solve my problem. 

So the incredibly talented Renee Nault, whose paintings I absolutely adore, will be taking on my commission.  I can't wait to see what she comes up with!  You should go check out her artwork.  Seriously.  It's beautiful stuff. 

Anyway, I'll continue to slowly build my collection of Thai-influenced artwork over the next few months.  It'll give me another way to feel connected to her as we continue our long wait to bring her home!

~Jess