Container Gardens 2011

Every year I plant small containers for the steps in the front and back of my house. Here is this year's edition!

Back Deck






Fairy Garden


Front Steps

Is Saying "TGIF" Too Cliche?

Usually Fridays aren't super-special for me. Weekends are nice, but teaching is a career where weekends aren't actually time off. They are time to grade papers and plan lessons, and maybe get a few extra hours of sleep, but there's always something work-related to be done. This weekend, there is not. Not really, anyway. I've got to plan for next week, and write up an assignment for a paper my students are supposed to be working on, but other than that, I've very little to do, and it's a lovely feeling. I've been in crafter-mode for most of the last week, and I want to keep going with that. Plus, this weekend is Beltane, and I want to be free to celebrate. I bought a new altar cloth a few days ago, and I am going to make some time on Sunday to have a fire in the evening.

The sun is finally shining, and I feel so much more energized than I have in a while. I want to open all the windows in my house and let SPRING in. I want to clean things! The office needs my attention, and the garden is waiting. I've got so many small things to work on, and still a big craft project that I want to put together. Also, I want to go antiquing. This probably won't happen, since A) I don't need anything, and B) no one here will go with me, but it's still a nice thought. I like looking at old, pretty things, and imagining new lives for them. The only thing I can think of that I could claim to need are bookshelves, and maybe a new desk for the office. The old one is in pretty sad condition, but replacing it needs to be negotiated. Perhaps I will go bookshelf-hunting...

Another Finished Project!

I finished another project today. Beginning to end, this one took me all of 45 minutes.



The piece is called Change.

I used a one-and-a-half-inch square frame pendant for this little book. The paper is from JoAnn Fabrics, and the butterflies are actuallu part of a sticker border from the scrapbooking supplies at Michael's. Then I stamped each page in gold in with a letter: C-H-A-N-G-E, and went over the ink with a black Sharpie. The three little crystals on the front are Swarovski, which were a gift someone brought me from Italy. The lyrics on the page also tie into the theme of change; they say, "Silver and gold. Silver and gold. Darling I'm growing, growing old."

Another Missed Monday

This is the second week in a row that I've skipped my Monday posting. Honestly, I just didn't think about it. I mostly spent the day trying to get papers graded, as I did no work over break. Today is much the same, grading papers and trying to start organizing my room for the end of the year. The amount of paper that I need to sort through is overwhelming. A lot of it I can probably throw away, but I have yet to come up with a good system for storing extra copies of worksheets and assignments that aren't digital. Maybe I can just toss them all, since I have digital copies, but it seems wasteful to get rid of blank worksheets.

This post is definitely a case of posting because I'm "supposed to" post on Monday. Such is life, but I think the discipline of writing, even though I don't have a lot I want to talk about, is important.

Closer Look

Finished assemblage!

A List of Projects is a List of Dreams

One of the things I love about being an artist is that there's really never an end to making things. Even if one project isn't taking my attention, something else is. There are a lot of projects currently in the works including my Yes I Am photo project, my New Orleans vacation assemblage, and my coconut shell mobile.

Then there are the half-abandoned projects, like the numerous half-completed counted cross stitch pieces I have sitting around. The pile of books I started reading that I want to go back to. The home improvement ideas that range from "almost done" to "just a sketch on paper". The stories I've started writing and never finished.

And then there's the list of Things I'd Like To Do Some Day. The list is always evolving. Sometimes I add things, sometimes I outgrow ideas and I remove them. There are no rules for this list. This is the list that keeps me going. Some ideas are fully formed, but just not ready to begin. Other ideas are nothing more than wisps. A color. A texture. A word. A line of a song. Sometimes I think about all the things I'd like to do and it seems so overwhelming. There's no way I'm going to get all these things done in my lifetime. But that's ok. That's not the point. The point is that these projects are dreams, and my dreams are what keeps me going.

Last Day

Today is my last day in Boston, and it has come too soon in some ways, and not soon enough in others. I miss my house - my gardens, my pets, and my craft work are waiting for me to come back to them. I've got papers to grade and lessons to prepare for teaching days next week. It's weird to think that I have to go back to school on Monday. This is "testing week", which means that there will be a practice test, plus two days of exams, plus the seniors have one of their events, which I'm helping to chaperone. It'll be a busy week, but I won't have a lot of days of classes.

Today's romp was along Newbury St. in Boston, and a little bit around whatever they call their version of Little Italy here. I was hoping to score some really good finds at The Closet on Newbury St., but the two items I tried on didn't work out. The jacket I liked looked much better on the rack than it did on me (pity, really, it was Armani black label), and the skirt I tried on didn't fit. I did end up getting a couple things from another store - a lovely green pashama scarf and a not-teal-but-not-mint-green colored hoodie that says "Boston Massachusetts" on it. I'd hoped to have more time to poke around, but between the wind and the lack of public washrooms, coming back to where I'm staying and relaxing for a bit before dinner sounded like a good idea.

And now, it is time for that dinner!