Summer Winds and A New Blogger is Born....

Well, the 4th of July has come and gone and well, the  heat has gotten to us all!  We spent a very quiet holiday due to the hot temperaturs and a lot ot the things we would have ordinarily done just did not happen.  I sat out the Parade this year due to the heat and decided intsead to sit on our shady wrap around front porch ad watch the throngs walk by heading to the end of our street.  Stafford and Amber went with their chairs and cold water bottles and the mandatory "candy bag" to stash all of the goodies that are thrown from the floats!   They came home totally ready for a swim in the pool and that is where we all stayed for quite a while.  Staff barbequed hot dogs for lunch.  Even the Great Danes  succombed to the temptation to get wet.

The only event that Staff and Amber went to in the afternoon were the downhill races that take place at the top of our street near the golf course.  Some of Amber's classmates were racing and they wanted to cheer them on.  The ice cream truck was very busy!  With red faces, they arrived home for late afternoon swimming! 

Our tiny town used to have a wonderful fireworks display at our park.  That fun tradition had to be taken out of the festivities as the throngs of visitors to the park caused a safety issue when emergency vehicles could not get through the streets.  It was so much fun to all gather at the park with our blankets and lie down and gaze at the stars waiing for the fireworks.  It makes me sad that Amber will not experience that.

And now, drum roll please, Amber has decided that she would like to start her own "blog".  She is calling it "To The Moon and Back" in honor of the phrase we say to each other each night before we go to sleep.  I think it will be fun for her and give her a chance to express her thoughts.   She should be up and running in the next few days.  I'll post about that when she is ready to "publish".

I'm off to do a few things in my little studio.  I've spent a few days getting things back to normal after discovering that there was still some leak issues in the roof above my little room.  All is repaired now so I can get back to creating.....a pastime I so love.

Good night everyone!

4th Of July Eve....Anticipation!

The house is quiet and it's getting late.  I can hear firecrackers in the distance.  Tomorrow, our town will swell with people to see our wonderful parade.  We are lucky as we only have to walk to the end of our street which is Main Street to view the parade. We have been doing that for about 30 years.  We walk around the town prior to to the parade then take our seats.  The children ready their candy buckets to catch the prized candy that is thrown from the floats.  Fire trucks from neighboring towns as well as our own sound their sirens.  There is also the occasional Dalmation riding on the truck.  There are bands, Mummers, and floats that are made by the local families.  It is all so much fun. 

Once the parade is over, we walk back to our home and sit on our front porch and wave and greet the people who walk by on their way to their cars and homes.  We ususally sip iced tea or lemonade and have homemade blueberry muffins.  The recipe for the muffins came from Jordan Marsh Department store.  They are wonderful, with huge muffin tops and crystalized sugar for crunch....Yum!

Once everyone is refreshed, it is a short walk to the park for the children's games, hot dogs, pony rides, water ice and, of course, the Pet Show.  More about that in tomorrows post!

The heat in the past few days will get even worse tomorrow so some of the activities might be interupted with a quick trip back to the house for a swim. 

I better get to bed so I'll be up and ready for all of the festivities!  Happy 4h everyone!

Revisiting An Old Friend...My Blog

I can't believe that is has been so long since I have visited my blog. Time has gotten away from me and I am determined to get back to "blogging". It is an escape for me really, a way to put into words the day to day happenings in my life. It is also a diary of sorts. I've been away from so many things that I love to do on a daily basis. I love to escape to my tiny studio to create my artwork. Last Spring we had some damage to our roof during those terrible Spring Storms here in the Mid-Atlantic region. My studio suffered some damage which my wonderful husband repaired. We are so very lucky that he is in the construction industry and has built homes for so many years. If he were not a builder we would not be able to have our sweet Victorian home. But, I digress! We had to move all of my creative cubbies, etc. It was a big job! I did not feel like creating with all of the mess so I focused my time on other things. My husband tels me I have more things in my studio than I could ever possibly use in a lifetime! I don't think the dear man realizes that one can never have too many wonderful things to create with. He tolerates my "collections" because he knows they make me happy and provide an escape for me whenever I need a little creative diversion! During this time of the storms and damage, we lost one of our beloved Great Danes, Zeus. He was a magnificent fellow! He was a Fawn Dane with the most gorgeous eyes! Then, only a few short momths later, in the late Spring, we lost our dear Mantle Dane, Theo, and my beloved deaf Dane, Keller. There is a photo of Keller here...the handsome boy with the blue eyes. They were all getting to be senior citizens and they all had separate health issues. We miss them terribly. It is so very hard to say good-bye to these beloved companions. We still have our deaf girl, Maggie and our vision impaired Major Tolliver of Calmar, both rescues. Just a few weeks after losing our Keller in March, we found out about a sweet Harlequin Great Dane puppy who has Sub-Aortic Stenosis, a serious heart condition that will shorten her life expectancy. She needed a home for as long as she might live and we decided that we wanted to love her. We brought her here to live with us. She is all puppy and into everything! We named her Zoe which is a Greek word that means "Life". We pray each day that she will beat the odds with medication and a lot of love. We are raising our dear little grandaughter who is now ten years old and will start the fifth grade in Septemeber. I can't beleive she is growing up so quickly! She has been with us since she was four weeks old, except for a brief period when she was six months old. She is the light of our lives and keeps us young and sometimes more active than we might like to be. I've also struggled with health issues for the past two years but keep moving forward. My art and the process of creating helps my recovery in more ways than I can say. I so hope I pass on to our grandaughter the love of "pretty things" and art. I hope she will always have a little sparkle in her life. So, as of late, now that the summer has arrived, we spend our days enjoying a swim, sitting on our screened porch, watching the Danes frollick in the back yard. We enjoyed watching a family of birds and their babies in the bird house that my husband built many years ago. They return every year and it is always a highlight of our early summer. In the evenings we have quiet time reading the books we love. I'm trying very hard to make the time to create with my little grandaughter. I also steal away to my studio late at night to create a bit. It is a special time for us. Weekends have been spent with my dear husband getting things done around the house. We have lived here for almost 30 years and what was once our restoration now needs "tender loving care" once again. The landscaping needs to be freshened up and the beds need fresh plantings. A new fence is going up and an arbor will be built. It seems there is always something that needs to be done! And so, I've realized that I need to "journal" and keep my blog or my "diary" close by. I have a friend who tells me I should have been a writer and I think she may be right. She knows who she is...she is the one who lives too far away and we have a date for coffee somewhere down the road! I'm going to try to set aside a little time each day to visit here on my blog as if it were a secret place. I'm determined to become a better photographer, too! I bought a new camera which I am trying to figure out so that I can post better photos of our lives and the people and things we love. This week is the 4th of July. Here in our tiny town that is a huge event! There is a parade, lots of festivities at our park and sailing on the Delaware River! There will be barbeques, swimming and just enjoying our town. It is a place where people who grew up here and have long sinced moved away, come back to remember a special time. Our town is a magical place. I always feel, when I come home from being away, that I am stepping back in time and that is exactly what I love about this place. I wish everyone a wonderful holiday and remember how blessed we are to live in this country, protected each and every day by the wonderful and brave men and women of our armed forces! Happy Fourth of July everyone! I will be back again very soon! I feel such a sense of accomplishment at having made my first blog entry in two years! I hope you will come back to visit with me again and again.....

Birthday Collage for My Mom.....

Lots of old photos of Stadium and things that mean a lot to her....My Mom is a cancer survivor and I made a beautiful pink ribbon adornment for the collage....

Memories from Stadium High and Out of Africa....sort of....

Mid-Summer Nights Musings.....

It occurs to me that summer is passing so quickly and soon my leisurely mornings of sipping coffee in my little studio or lingering on the back screened porch listening to the birds and watching our Great Danes frolick in the back yard, will give way to reality and the rush of getting out the door on time for the school days!  I've been thinking about some of the projects that I have done in the past, and how my style has evolved.  I am an old soul at heart.  I love to include so much of the wonderful things of our pasts in my art.  I'm love going through my collection of old papers, buttons, laces, and ephemera.  My mind wanders to contemplate what the owners of such wonderful objects did during their days.  I think I would have been perfectly at home living in those days. 

I recently did some collage works for my Mom and Dad to help celebrate milestone birthdays.  My Mom attended high school in the Seattle area in a wonderful old building called Stadium High School.  It is an historic site now and has been the focus of several movies.  I created a collage to give her a beautiful reminder of that time.  Another friend recently traveled to Africa on the trip of a lifetime.  I made her a special book to hold her most treasured photos.  She went on Safari and photographed the most amazing sites.  Not only did these projects mean a lot to my Mom and Dad and my dear Friend, but they also gave me so much pleasure to create.

The Return of The Nanny Bee after a Long Absence

It seems like forever since I have posted to my Blog.  I've really missed sharing my thoughts and projects.  Health issues and just "life" kept me away, but I'm happy to say that I am on the mend and eager to get back to creating and sharing with all of you.  The summer is flying by as it always does.  We have been enjoying the more leisurely days, even if the heat has been slowing us down a bit. 

We had special visitors to our lovely front porch this summer.  It has always been a tradition for us to place large ferns on our wrap around Victorian porch.  It is always the official beginning of summer when we get the ferns up.  A sweet little Robin was attracted to build her nest in one of the ferns and we have had a front row seat to the eggs and their hatching!  It has been so much fun to watch Mama Robin raise her babies.  This past Tuesday, in the early evening, we watched as the last baby flew away.  We so hope that they will return again next Summer.  We miss all of the activity, but I have a beautiful little bird's nest as a keepsake of this sweet little family.

In the past few months, I have been creating a bit and I wanted to share a coupld of those projects with you.  One of them is a tag that I created for the April Tag swap with Arlene at MyButterflyKisses12 on You Tube.  The other is a collage that I made for Arlene to thank her for hosting the swap.  I had so much fun participating in it!  Huge thanks to Arlene for all of her inspiration and the little push I needed to get back to my "creative journey".  I hope t share more projects with you along that journey.  I hope you enjoy!