How the hell did I do that?

The above, Asian Influences, is one of my favorite pieces.  It sold a few years ago, so I can't study it directly. I spent long weeks on this piece and when I thought it done, I showed it to Danni Dawson.  I asked what else I should do to it.  She looked at me as if I had shown her a mud pie.  Her advice, "Refine it," led to more long weeks.  I doubt I could paint it again as well.  Visual memory is tricky, especially when the rest of the memory is a sieve.  I would surely be lost without my little green sketchbooks, eight years of  color combinations, techniques, and advice from teachers, friends, books, videos, workshops and whatever I had discovered on my own.  What if there were a fire?  So, I gathered my eight years of notebooks and copied the highlights on to my computer.  I backed it up on a disk and to an external hard drive. All of which would melt in a fire.  So, I emailed a copy to myself so it would always be available. All hail the ethernet!