Of Paintings and Postings...........

Today we had 8 x 10 prints of these, the "Happy Apples" and "The Penny", made for sale to add to the fundraising efforts ............ We are selling them for $20 each, including shipping in USA & Canada - proceeds to go to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and the Small Cell Lung Cancer Association in Alberta Canada . If you are interested in buying either of these paintings, please email me and I will get back to you with the details.

Please watch for our new site: www.PenniesForCancer.com which will be coming soon! :-)

The stories behind the paintings:
Happy Apples - the painting on the left. This is a painting I did a week after Steven was diagnosed with CML. My good friend, the Teach, insisted that it would be good for me to paint - and she was right! Many good things come out of what initially appears to be a dark place - the barrel. The date, on the inside of the barrel is the date of the CML diagnoses, the graffitti on the side of the barrel denotes the tears, the joy, the hopes that we have for his long term health and happiness.
The Penny - This painting was done with my friend Penny in mind and heart. She is a cancer patient too who is fighting to get as much out of life as possible, is an incredible lady, a wonderful friend, a great inspiration to me. The almost-hidden smiles in odd places tell of the strange and unusual places we find joy, the big smile is simply for Penny, for her courage, strength and tenacity, the spider is because there is always a 'bug' in life - that's just the way it is, and the penny in the blue bowl is that crazy, whacky, wonderful and brave lady - Penny!

I am hoping to add a third painting to this series....... not sure what it will be yet, but I know that it will be something that will make someone either laugh or just shake their head and keep their thoughts to themselves! It's really so much fun - especially the looks and laughs from the rest of the group when I add that first bug or smile to an otherwise semi-ok painting. They are all getting to know that I am going to "mess up" the painting and some others in the group are adding bugs to thier paintings too! Sorry Teach! Thats what its all about - enjoy, be different and then laugh at yourself and enjoy the laughter of everyone else too.

I posted the fundraising trip plans on three Leukemia boards or new groups today. Its kinda scary putting it all out there, but it makes us more determined to make this a raving success. If any of you have any ideas of how to help make this really good, please let me know! We can do with all suggestions. Follow the RoadRunnersUSA link at the left of this page to get to that site.

What a journey this is turning out to be! Steven is great, busy with the motor-swop in his 240z and has a wonderful support group. My family and friends are fantastic and Frank is just wonderful with all of this - egging me on with a spark in his eye, wondering what I am going to do next. He cannot wait for us to be out on the road again and we go and sit in the motorhome for a little bit every now and again - it feels soooooooooooo good.........and we are slowly adding things to her cupboards so that we will be fully packed and ready to go in a couple of months.

Life really is amazingly wonderful - it has become so much fuller and deeper since this all happened to Steven.

The Road Runners USA site will take some time to get up and running. There are some things to sort out and then that one will be the main fundraising and trip information site, leaving this one for Steven updates and general stuff. I hope it does not take too long........ but you can follow its progress from the link on the left.

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