Blogging is the last thing I should be doing right now…

But in between tennis drill and the next chore on the list, I stopped by the mailbox. Haven’t been all week, and the box was crammed full. There’s the usual overload of flyers and junk mail, then a box from Amazon containing the book Payton has been waiting for, and way in the back of the box, a lovely surprise for me. 

I love getting surprises in the mail. 

I’m especially in love with the “Air Mail” sticker. Something about that “Par avion” seems so exotic and speaks of faraway lands interspersing with the everyday aspects of my home life.

Even the return address sticker is beautiful and exotic.The package was so pretty I waited a while to open it. And y’all know I hate waiting. 

The “Petit Paquet” label was so cute and charming that it deserved its own photo. Thank you, Maria, for such a lovely surprise in my mailbox.

After a sufficient waiting period (5 minutes or so, which is a long time for someone as impatient as me), I tore into the package. What a cute little box I found inside. 

I would have been perfectly happy to have a “build your own rocking rabbit” but what was inside the cute little box was even better.

It’s the artwork I ordered from Maria Pace-Wynters.

Oh. My.

It’s even more beautiful in person, and her blogsite blows me away every time I look at it.

I had to just stand there and stare at the cellophane-wrapped pieces for a minute.

And then I tore into them.

Couldn’t get them open fast enough, so I could behold their beauty and revel in the explosion of color.

I came across Maria’s artwork randomly, as I searched google images for an adornment for this post, a while back.

I promptly fell in love with her art. The colors. The composition. The little girls. The foliage. The dreamy quality. I could go on and on, but I’m gonna let the art speak for itself.

The smile on this little girl’s face is such a good antidote to the doldrums, the bad days, the things that go bump in the night. I sure wish I’d been gazing upon that face Wednesday after my terrible, horrible, really bad, no-good day (more on that later, once the stink of that day is fully gone and I can write about it without cussing too much).

Macy picked this one out, for her new room. Well, it’s the same room but we are going to re-do it. Give it a makeover because she refers to it as her nursery. Now that she’s all grown up and doesn’t need lilac walls and a lime-green ceiling, she’s trending toward a bolder wall color, like the vibrant blue of the birds in this pieces. She also really loved the “body art” (yes, she used that term, and she knows who Kat Von D is, so I’m scared, really scared). Nothing against Kat or the inked population, just seems a little freaky for my girl to be so well-versed at such a young age. 

I really did have every intention of putting this print on Macy’s wall, once we lose the baby paint and get the big-girl stuff on, but then I noticed how lovely it looks against the goldenrod paint of my dining room.

Oh, and it looks even better against the fireweed paint in my kitchen.

Come to think of it, they all look great in the kitchen.

I love how the girl’s red hair is set off by the red paint.

Oh, hers too!

But wait, they look pretty great against the olive green of my office, too.

I think I’m gonna need some more artwork.