Perceptions

When we mention we moved to Muncie from Colorado we get a lightning response, "WHY!!? Why would you leave such a beautiful place and come here?" Oh yeah, we miss the mountains and Colorado is definitely a beautiful vacation spot. I can understand the confusion.

As you can tell, I paint a lot of flowers. I love rich, juicy color and flowers offer endless variations and subtlety. Now, Colorado is a desert state. We have a photo of Kristie's mom on a horse in the middle of endless prairie grass appoximately where they built Academy Blvd. - that is what used to be the bulk of Colorado Springs. Every tree and plant is dependent on constant watering and care. I called a Muncie realtor before we moved and asked about putting in a sprinkler system - "why would you want to do that?" He was serious. In Colorado everyone has sprinklers or a dead lawn. Here we just let Mother Nature take care of all that.

Our first spring we walked over to introduce ourselves to our neighbors on their porch. They had lived in that same house for more than thirty years. Kristie looked around at all the trees in bloom and asked "is it always this beautiful in the spring?" The sweet older lady looked around and replied "well I'll be, it is beautiful isn't it, I never noticed before." Don't let all the beauty around you slip by unnoticed. Take a walk and enjoy spring's gifts.

I painted this to prove the point. This is a few blocks from our home.