Author: Erika Pace

After I drop the kids off at school, the dog and I always go for our morning walk. There is an oak tree on our walk that produces A LOT of acorns and I picked one up this morning to draw. Shortly after that, the dog was rolling in someone’s dewey lawn and she must have gotten something really repulsive in her mouth or perhaps she got bitten by a bug because she started to immediately foam at the mouth. Like excessive amounts of drool and foam. We got home, she ate ice cubes, drank some water and is now totally fine. But I was stressed. The incident created enough worry to probably take a day off my life. Here’s the acorn….

I am two days behind so I hope to play some catch up today, on the first day of Fall, the Autumnal Equinox. My Dad sent me a photo of this leaf he found up at the lake. It has been eaten by some sort of bug and what remains looks like this… an intricate lace pattern. Looking forward to all the leaves that will be gracing us with their presence this season.

Today I was at the barn where my daughter has her horseback riding lesson and I realized that I had never drawn a saddle. These things are truly beautiful. One was just sitting there waiting to be put away or put on a horse and I snagged a picture so I could draw it later. The best part of watching the kids ride is when they take the tack off the horse to put it all away and then clean it! There is leather conditioner that they spray on the saddles and bridle to keep it all in good condition. Can’t get a kid to clean their room…. but ask them to clean their tack and they will stay 30 minutes past their lesson time to do it.

I have two cheese slicers and this one is the prettiest because of its wooden handle. I’m ashamed to admit that my cheese slicer doesn’t see much action anymore. It only comes out of the drawer for special occasions when fancy cheeses are invited to the party. But on a daily basis, I tend to buy cheese in pre-sliced packages. I should re-evaluate my whole cheese strategy now that I think about it….

Have you heard about Labubu’s? They are apparently all the rage with kids under 15 and I had never seen one in person…. until yesterday. My son’s violin teacher was given one by a student and it was clipped to her violin case. I asked to take a picture because I thought it would be fun for the blog. This particular doll is light pink and is holding a red can of Coca-Cola. My Dad listened to a piece on NPR about these dolls…. so Dad, this is for you!

This is a scrunchie – an elastic hair tie covered in loose fabric that is used to hold a ponytail in place. We don’t use them much around here but I did find one in my daughter’s room. As I was drawing this, I couldn’t help thinking that it looks very organ like… maybe part of the intestines? It also didn’t help that this particular scrunchie is a peachy pink color. Now you can’t unsee a colon, can you?

I have an issue with my gait. After just 18 months of wearing my Arizona Birkenstocks, I have worn a hole through the footbed on the left sandal, only the left. My second toe is literally touching pavement when I walk. So it is time to retire them. I opted for the Boston Birkenstock this time around and according to my kids, these are super popular right now. I wasn’t going for popular, just something that might require less toe clenching.

What I love about our paint roller is that every painting event is memorialized on this tool. I can see the light pewter, the revere pewter, the hale navy and the lemon ice. They merge together to create a splatter paint history of our DIY home projects. I hope to hang on to this for another 25 years.

This is the famous J. Crew Bauble necklace from the early 2000’s. Who had one? This was when “statement necklaces” were all the rage. I had three of them – yellow, red and black…. and…. I’m not ashamed to admit that the ones I had were knock offs from a chain jewelry store because I couldn’t afford the J. Crew ones. I had to dig through my daughter’s drawer to find one because they are now part of her costume jewelry collection. The fate of this bauble necklace is a statement in itself.