DEE SEM BURR!!!! It’s here. The last month of the year. 2013 you went by so fast! I’m hoping for lots of painting this month, and maybe some knitting, and hopefully lots of reading by the fire. There’s this annoying “Spare the Air” campaign here in Sacramento that prohibits burning when the air quality reaches a certain level of bad. What a drag! We have central heat but boy there’s nothing quite like a little fire burning in the fireplace to warm one’s soul and make the 5pm darkness appealing. Tomorrow we get to burn, which actually is today so I could right now walk out and start a little fire, but I’m so tired from staring at the computer for hours making this background and so sore from playing flag football two days ago that I think instead I’ll just crawl into bed. I might not even brush my teeth. Or maybe I just won’t floss. I heard somewhere that cavities have almost nothing to do with flossing or brushing and everything to do with the nutrients in your diet. If this is true I want all of those late-night moments back where I pried myself out of bed and groggily, unhappily, marched myself to the bathroom to care for my precious little teeth. Maybe it built character?

Ok here’s this month’s background:



This is made from a photo of the Arboretum at UC Davis, a truly special and beautiful stretch of gardens that runs along Puta creek through campus. This is the big duck pond near the west end. I sampled colors from the photo and painted this picture in Photoshop.

Click one of the following links to use it for your background: 2880×1800 2560×1600, 1920×1200, 1680×1050, 1440×900, 1280×800.

I hope you all have a wonderful month!