Remember the days of dares and double dares? Our's were at the swimming pool. Who as a kid, would be dared to dive off the diving board on that first cold day before summer? Or, who could hold their breath under water the longest? Ahh, the good old days...

I have been so busy these past two weeks that I haven't been able to post for Illustration Friday. With work to finish and spring fever in the air, I hardly have the time to keep up with everything.

I love this time of year. Each year, I map out my gardens, what to plant and where. Weekly (sometimes even daily) I will visit all the local nurseries browsing to see what is available and bring home as much as I can before the last frost warning. This past Saturday morning it poured rain but luckily K and I had already been to the nurseries the previous weekend and had first picks of our favorite flowers.







Today we dug a new flower bed (quite large) and planted our river birch. I can hardly wait to make the daily trips to bring home plants to fill the flower bed with. Of course, we have one major issue. Our 13 year old black lab loves to lie on newly planted flowers or relieve himself on them. We have to devise fencing that still looks attractive and we can see through, to surround the fragile plants which is tricky. He is so big and powerful that he knocks just about anything over.

Remember the "crowded" illustration that I posted earlier that was only partly finished? Well, I am happy to say it is finally completed. If you would like to see a larger, detailed image of it, just click on the picture below.

I am guilty. I am submitting last week's illustration for "travel" again as I only posted it 4 hours before the theme changed to "alone" for this week's Illustration Friday. Not to mention Blogger was down from 6pm until at least midnight!

My spin on "alone" is simply this: The people in the illustration think they are alone, but are they really? Please click on the camel to view the complete illustration.

Are we ever really alone except for in our own homes? In public, just when you think you are alone, someone is looking over your shoulder and you are totally unaware of it. Crimes and threats of devastating effects are out of control around the world. With the new age of technology we are a monitored country whether we like it or not. Every where you go, whether you know it (like it or not), you are being filmed, photographed, monitored, and inspected, your information is copied, scanned and stored in huge data bases that can be pulled up at a moment's notice for many different reasons.

I have just now finished my "travel" piece for Illustration Friday. Hurray! Please click on the smaller illustration below to view the complete illustration. It is just too big to fit in the journal column.

I had a lot of fun doing this illustration and made numerous revisions. My new mantra is "take the road less traveled." I think it must be the thing women do at my age (very young :). We decide it is time to reinvent ourselves and we are not afraid to take chances. What have we got to lose? Our dignity or self preservation? No. We are self-assured, career driven, risk takers. I am all for discovering new things about myself and pushing myself to continually think outside the box. Now this does not mean that I don't have days where I question what is my purpose, where am I going or what do I want to do in my life. I question those things all the time. They are the reasons I take risks and try new things, especially when it comes to being creative, because I have nothing to lose and everything to gain. So go ahead, push yourself to do something you wouldn't normally do. If you feel success in your endeavor then you will feel empowered to cross the next hurdle with confidence and find youself taking the road less traveled.

I must admit I am taking a shortcut this week with Illustration Friday's "travel". I have posted an illustration I did for "flight" which seems just as appropriate for "travel". If I have more time this week I will develop the other concepts I have. Please click on the smaller version below to view the full illustration.