Happy last day of August friends! How did that happen? This month completely flew by… but at the same time it seemed to take forever if that makes sense?! I started back to school for my 23rd year of teaching high school art on August 6th so this entire month has been nonstop getting back into a routine, learning over a hundred new student names, teaching new art skills and basically going nonstop! I am exhausted, but in a good way!

I hope your month was great and you have an amazing beginning to your September. I personally am so excited for fall, I have been burning my fall candles whenever I want to feel cozy and bought my first pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks last week after school. Today, I even bought my first mum of the season! Just a cute one to put into my porch until it cools down a bit and I can buy a bunch more. Seeing all of the mums at our local market made me so happy. The first signs of fall in my hometown, I knew I just had to have one!

Mums at the local market made me so happy. I picked up my first one today and can’t wait to come back for more and especially pumpkins!

Other than getting excited for fall, I have been painting daily and going to the island as much as I can on weekends. It gets exhausting commuting back and forth each weekend, so I will probably take a couple of weekends off in September to relax a bit and stay back in town. My favorite part of being on the island is seeing the beautiful gardens, watching sailboats out on the lake and spending time with my family and friends out on the island. At our island house, we are working on a couple of home projects such as a cool coffee bar in our kitchen and getting our bedrooms painted. There just does not seem to be enough time! I will share those as soon as we finish, hopefully soon!

Our coffee bar slowly coming along. We are now painting it a beautiful blue and of course need to add tile, a counter top, hardware and shelves. My husband is incredible and I can’t wait until he finishes it!

**Coffee on my deck is one of my favorite things to do to relax on the weekends. I could do this all day if I could.**

I also would love to share a couple of my daily sketchbooks with you inspired by my life on the island. Here are some of my favorites recently:

**Pink Surprise Lilies Along the Shore**

I honestly have enjoyed painting these little sketches. They just make me so happy and I love that I am able to document my time on the island through my paintings. I am also working on a large 30 x 40 blue hydrangeas commission and that has been so fun to do as well. It is fun to mix and match between sizes.

Thanks so much for stopping by and checking out what is happening in my little corner of the internet. I will be back in September with another post! Now I am off to watch some Gilmore Girls, light my cozy fall candle, make a cup of tea and get some work done for school!

Michelle