Happiness is a new painting

About ten days ago, a handsome man came by our house selling oil paintings. The fact that he was handsome is irrelevant to the event, I’m just stressing it as I haven’t seen many handsome men around. I’ve come to the conclusion that all handsome Australian men are instantly picked up and shipped to the USA as actors and musicians/judges on American Idol. It turned out that the handsome artist was not Australian. Anyway, he was selling his and his fellow-artists paintings and he had some wonderful pieces in the portfolio. We bought paintings from a similar group of painters some  years ago when we were in Sweden for the summer. The prices are always reasonable and the paintings are always unique. We already have many paintings, too many if you look at how many we keep in our storage. But I don’t want to sell or give away any, they are all unique pieces. The most treasured paintings we have were framed in a framing shop and made by very young artists, namely our daughters when they were in kindergarten. I love art. I love handbags too but I realize that handbags are generally not considered as a minor investment although it should with regards to the prices for designer handbags. We bought three paintings from him, bargained of course and got a good price. 

As the paintings are just canvases, we had to have them mounted. The price for mounting at a framing shop was double what we paid for the paintings so we decided to go with the ”do-it-yourself” spirit that is prevailing in Australia as well as in many other countries. I went to a craft shop and got white canvases mounted on a wooden frame. On the way to the car, a young man ran into my left arm where I was carrying the frames and I managed to twist my arm. The young man kept running, followed by a three security guards and a woman screaming ”he stole something, stop him!”. Next stop was Bunnings, the Australian version of Bauhaus and Home Depot to get a stapler gun. As we went in, we met the police who was escorting a man in handcuffs. That Sunday must have been the Festival of Thieves as we saw two delinquents within five minutes. We got the stapler gun and have now managed to mount the canvases all by ourselves. 

Guess what? It feels really good being able to do things by myself and not always hiring people to do it for me. My appetite is whetted! I bought a sewing machine with the intention to mend, alter and perhaps even sew some garments. Wish me luck! Based on my previous encounters with sewing machines, I sure need plenty of it.