(first published June 13, 2008, edited 10/1/18). I am re-releasing these blog posts to communicate how I traveled the journey to artist...mistakes I made, things I tried, money spent, hours reading and resarching. I have boiled all this down into a simple formula for you to Restore Your Soul | Jumpstart Your Creativity.

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I was so pooped after Les left...my few extra days were spent recuping. Durinda Cheek arrived the same day, so I got to connect with another stateside artist/teacher. Her group was to arrive on Friday...a great idea having the group leader come a few days early to de-stress and get their 'legs'. Anyway, Durinda and I walked around the village...my 4th trip to Fontaine-Fourches and my first WALK around the village! We had a great time hanging our cameras through fences to get perfect shots...good thing none of these had big bad dogs, or that we didn't drop our cameras on the locked side! I'm sure the Mairie (city hall) was called about the crazy Americans.

I had a 27 hour door to door travel to face. Left La Bonne Etoile at 5:30 on Thurs am (11pm wed here) even though my flight did not leave until 12:45.

Great flight on Northwest, but since it is daylight all the way home, I opted to watch 3 movies! Talk about brain dead...and I ate every time they put something in front of me. I swear the airlines fill you with carbs to keep everyone dazed!

SEVEN hour layover in Minneapolis after customs (which was the best customs airport I've ever gone through)...storms delayed our flight another 2 hours. I was so glad I didn't have to find a place to stay another night. got home at 2:30am Friday. It was so good to see ranDEE waiting for me. This was the trip he started laughing…my shirt was missing a button and buttoned wrong. I had a bright yellow palm print on my butt and a glazed look!

I was beyond tired. Thankfully luggage usually comes in the next morning so they deliver it...

Saturday morning we had a house guest, Kippy's son Michael, who came for a few days at the ROSS retreat to talk business with Randy. We had a fine time...he looks so much like Kippy that every time he looked up it was startling! Luckily he needed some couch time, so we spent sat afternoon napping and laptopping.

This week has been busy. I feel the need to curtail some of my extracurricular (art-related) volunteer work because it takes up as much time as a real job! Have to get back in the studio. Last night was an artists' appreciation party at Poor Richard's Art and I volunteered to do a demo portrait with Clarice! Now we're talking PRESSURE! Les and Kippy will be proud of me (but I intend to practice on her first).

Yesterday a real good friend of ours, Joe May, transitioned from physical life after an on and off again battle with throat cancer. The wake is planned for saturday in Fort Worth, TX (about 6 hours drive), but we are going to wait until the dust settles (that's maybe a poor choice of words) and go down to be with Echo. After all the family goes home...it gets quiet...then we can step in. See ya, Joe! Hope you are enjoying a great big juicy rare steak since you haven't had one in 7 years!

xxoo

PS: My Facebook Page is Vicki Ross Art, and my private Facebook Group is Axully Art. All free! Join a group of like-minded folks! You can order anything from Amazon by clicking the Amazon picture in the upper left column. I will get a small commission :)

You got this! Be sure to get my free "Axully Art Roadmap" and learn how I did it. Age 51, empty nest...hell, NO NEST to empty...daughter didn't make it out of our house fire on Christmas morning...and my entire life exploded. Art became my focus, my salvation, my burning desire to learn. Along the way, I discovered that the act of painting gave me peace.

Peace where I could heal. Peace I could laugh again.