Can you believe it has been an entire year since we got a new front door and painted it red?  Our official “before” photo of the front of our house, taken last spring, looks like this:

And for the last year, this picture has been our “currently” with nothing more than the front door changed:

Well, hold onto your seats because we have an update for you!  Okay, not really.  But considering an entire year has passed and all we have done was maintain what was already there (mowing the lawn, weeding, trimming the hedges) I thought I had better snap another photo to see what Mother Nature can do by herself.

Although the sky is a lot less blue and a lot more hazy due to all the wildfires we are having, the haze made for a much better photo! Since last year, all of the bushes have grown and gotten thicker and even the tree in our front yard looks more substantial.  The hedges to the right of the carport have grown to the point where we can’t even reach them on a ladder (that was last Saturday’s chore), so we are kinda regretting letting those get so big.   Oops!  Other than that, I am learning to be patient with the whole landscaping thing.  It takes time for a yard to mature and it’s kind so interesting to look back and see where we have come from and wonder what things will look like next year.  Hopefully (!), we’ll have a little more progress.

In the meantime, I’ll be in my studio working on the real reason I needed a new photo:

I’ll share with you that finished painting early next week, along with 6 new 24″x30″ abstracts that will be going live on Monday for sale.  6!!  Can you tell I have been enjoying my new studio?