we need rain!

It's been awhile since we've had some rain, which is unusual for us. the grass is brown and my lovely garden is shriveling away; which makes me quite sad. thankfully, my tiger lilies seem to be doing fine and have started opening up. i so look forward to them every year as they smell so wonderful! and i love the process of how they start to bloom. little by little, like they are teasing, slowly they begin to open up and then next thing you know, poof! they are completely open and ready to be admired.

now everyone do your rain dance for me and send some my way!

also, I was recently asked to do a Q&A artist interview with Suzanne of Blue Sand Studio. You can read it here. And starting next week, i will be the guest curator on Crescendo.com! I will tell my story of "art saves".

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p.s. here is a picture of me outside doing my rain dance

quiet

tuck has been quite sick. it's been 12 days now. 12 days of coughing, sneezing, suctioning, stress, fear, angst, heat, exhaustion. it's just an upper respiratory thing brought on by seasonal allergies that has gotten out of control. the air quality index around here as been alarming high and he just can not tolerate whatever it is that is outside right now. i use to joke that he was on lock down; but seriously that kid is not going outside until the weather improves. he has no fever, but an uncontrollable cough. try coughing 12 days straight in a row with very little relief. try listening to it as a parent and not be able to stop it. he cannot take any sort of codeine to quell the cough. finally yesterday, as a last result, i opted to put him on steroids since the cough is more inflammatory. today, so far, we have very little coughing. on the downside, the steroids will affect him and give him that "roid rage" as i like to call it. with tuck it will manifest itself through his body tone, which will get tight and rigid.
my friend, kim, is here visiting so i am dividing my time between showing her around, going to flea markets, etc. all at the same time as trying to maintain control of the fearful feelings i have when he is sick. it's very hard to put on a brave face and she was sweet and asked my to stop trying to be so brave. i appreciate that.
today we are going to do some art and we all know how therapeutic that is.

Fall 2009

here's what Fall typically looks like around our house - one word: LEAVES! we are surrounded by 40 foot oak trees in front, on each side and in the back yard. we have piles and piles of leaves and then there are leaves on those piles! right now they are all wet and many leaves came down after our last storm (but trust me, there are many more yet to come down!) my neighbors tend to blow their leaves everyday where as jeff likes to wait til they are almost all down and do them in one day. they get blown to the street, where the township comes by and sucks them up and then turns them into mulch.

rain, rain go away

this is our new pool. who'd like to join me in a swim?

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and of course the rain meant, "fun with Little People"

paddleboat ride

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oops we fell in (we were clowing around)

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lazy river Little People

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shooting the rapids "Little People" style

Disinegration project

Seth Apter, from The Altered Page, is doing a project involving nature and paper. the project involves taking paper of some sort and leaving outside for a length of time to see how it changes from the elements. i created a pretty little paper and fiber collage and hung it from some rusty wire (first photo) and then wrapped it in some cheesecloth and hung it outside (2nd photo). i added diamond glaze over the focal image as i decided i'd like that to remain intact (if possible!). the rest i will leave up to mother nature to see what happens. i have a little problem with worrying about pretty things getting ruined - so this was also an exercise in "letting go" - this is why i decided to create something pretty and then leave it outside - a risk, i know! what will happen to it? will it get ruined? we shall see. i'm leaning towards it still looking really cool when i finally bring it in. we get lots of rain here, ocean air, high winds, occasional snow. maybe it will blow into the mud and i won't notice it for days. stay tuned...............