In Memory of Sitting at the Kiddie Table!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!1 I had to post this pic of my siblings, cousins and I at our Grandparents house...way back when. In memory of sitting at the kiddie table! Thanks for all the good laughs and times!

Happy 4th. Weekend!!

Going to spend the day with the family in Catonsville and do the 4th. on the 3rd. cause that's how Catonsville rolls. Gonna eat crabs, watch the parade with my favorite Boumi temple guys and then back for more eats and the fireworks! To commemorate this day..here's a pic of my sister and I on the 4th in the same backyard that we're going to spend today! Loving my dad and pop pop pics here too!

Darling Clementine..getting closer to my bib!

I have posted this picture, way back, of my cousin cathi and I at Christmas, I believe under my Aunt Anna's Xmas tree, and I am obsessed with the bib that I have on. When I think about happy times, and I had many happy times as a kid, I think of an aesthetic of products that (we're talking mid to late 60's, early 70's) completely represent that happiness to me.

IN my browsing of sites this evening, I found a shop, darling Clementine that comes very close to this aesthetic that I have learned to love since being a kid. I love these canvas bags as well as the camping card set. The card set Marionette comes closest to the lion on my bib and the monkey's on the box next to me. I still haven't figured out what that is. Anyone know, please let me know.
Out of Oslo, Ingrid Reithaug & Tonje Holand are the illustrators and designers of these wonderful products that bring a fun sense of spirit and nostalgia to the table. Visit their etsy shop here and their web site here.

saying howdy! summer vacations photo's

Remember those special trips during your summer vacations? I hope they are not going extinct due to the roaring gas prices. I remember going out west and my dad being winded by the $.65 a gallon...hey where is the cents key! I guess that is extinct too! Did we ever a cents key? feeling too lazy to font find it. I love Patrick so much...he will always make us go away every summer. Even if its ocean shitty...we will always go on some sort of summer vacation. Even with our piggy bank very dry, we found a way to go to Whistler this summer. A great summer it was. here are more summer vacations photo's from my past! Such happy memories....when I wasn't doped up on Dramamine!

back to school....remember those great days of summer

i've just spent my third day of the first day back to school. it's teacher meeting week and get your classroom in order and get ready for the kiddies week! Today was a great professional development day with other art teachers....and you try, real hard, not to make a smart ass remark to every stupid question posed . it scares me, sometimes, how disconnected some teachers are in this country. they give us teachers a bad rap and they need to get out and find another career. yes , it isn't right when smoke is screaming out of your kiln.....no the mouse cord does not connect to the Ethernet connection in the wall....this is not how you get the internet to work....your phone will not get a dial tone if you plug it into the Ethernet plug. ugh;( i really wish i could use the f-word professionally. anywho, tomorrow we build more studio walls for my increasing AP class.I am very excited about my Advance Placement kids this year!
i am off my intention for this blog entry ..i wanted to find a good last day of summer pic....i love this one. we use to go play at the German orphanage in Catonsville as kids and there was this amazing swing that could swing a ton of kids at one time. It had a center pole as its axis and a round bench that we all sat on with a pole you held on to and it would swing around as well as side to side! I loved this playground ride that I'm sure has been destroyed and knighted dangerous! Along with many a merry-go-round and sea saw! Today's playground's may be safe...but not quite as fun! I'm the one in the pink dress!

bday...going back to '69

Happy Father's Day

here's to those great bbq's in the backyard! love ya dad!

Monday Memories.....a hot hot summer

They're calling for temps over 100 degrees today. Its been hot as hell this past weekend. We tried to see how long we could go before putting the window AC units in and we lasted till Sunday afternoon. We got out of school 3 hours early! That was a big plus. So I thought I would come home and get started on one of my big projects for the summer. I have all of our family slides to scan in and make up some books and post on my flicker account. Thought I would get my family to start posting on a family flicker account. I loved it when Dad would get out the slide projector and show slides. The lights would go down, the blue light of the projector would shine, and we would all pray that each slide would easily go through towards the projected slot with the big delight of the past being shined up for all to see and smile and laugh and remember. Not fun when the slide got stuck in the projector and Dad's temper would flair up. I think Dad's career in guidance counseling devoted all of his patience to humans, and not for mechanical equipment. So I thought, on this steaming hot day, in which I am so tempted to hook up the sprinkler and run through...I present my memories of cool water! Most of these are from 1969...except for the one of my sister, Denise and I and Allison at the pool which is more like '72 and the one of Denise and I at Jenny Lake, in the Grand Tetons.. which was '75.

my inspiration

i love this picture of my nanny.....she has been my inspiration for all of the aprons I make, the pillows, the bags, the cooking I attempt to improve upon....my grandmother, so beautiful in her apron doing her yard work!

happy 44

sorry i haven't posted in a bit. its been the end of school, leave for Williamsburg, come home entertain family guests, off to the Eastern shore, back to school for 2 EYE days, then busy in the sweat shop. i've also been scanning the family slides and i found my two favorite birthday pictures from the past. my hair was so white!!!! i was my pop's blondie. you can see him and my other great grandfather in the one picture. i love the dress my mom is wearing in the other picture. i love that neck line as well as that shade of green. i love that everyone was so dressed up to sit in the back yard. i think we kept our dresses on for the first five minutes before they came off.
birthdays at 44 are going to the Y to have the turnstile sing you Happy Birthday and dinner out with my guy!

feelin' like summer

so i've been working in the sweat shop, bought a new oscillating floor fan which helped a tad by moving hot air around while my exhaust fan attempted to push the hot air out….i think I’m going to be working a lot at night this summer! Trying to wait until I just can’t take it before the AC gets put in the window. Anyway, worked on some new products, watch for new post soon, and started to scan our family slides that I finally got from my brother Scott. I wanted to post these three….my sister and I are cooling off in my Maumau’s backyard in Hagerstown; Loving the bib I got on for Christmas at my Aunt Anna’s house with my cousin Cathi and loving that wrapping paper from the sixties while looking at my sister’s goods from Santa!

Just checking in

Life sure does get busy when you're watching the days. I got the depressing "back to school" letter on Friday. Not really ready to go back. This summer was incredible with lots of clean air, mountains and just plain old space! Living in Baltimore makes one forget about what space looks like, or actually feels like. Utah is 85% unused land. You can see so far. And Canada...so clean! Patrick has a great run down on our trip. His computer however has taken ill and is away for a bit. But keep posted, it will be up soon. He also has all of our good pics.
So in the meantime I thought I would post some pictures of my family vacation from 1976 or '75. Not sure...but it was this great trip in which we took friends of the family's pop-up camper and car and took a month to see the WEST. We started with the Badlands, Mount Rushmore, went all though Colorado, Yellowstone, the Grand Teton and Jacksonhole, WY, then down to the Grand Canyon, Salt Lake City and then through the Dessert to San Francisco. We flew home and then our friends flew to San Fran and brought the camper home. I can only imagine what that trip would cost today! So I got to re-visit the outside of the Mormon visitor center in Salt Lake this year on the way to the airport.
And now I am down to one week left before its back to full time work. The paintings are going well. To interpret Photoshop rendering in paint is a new challenge for me. They are changing and evolving. The invites have been sent out. Still needing some addresses. So if you didn't get one give me a holler.
Sleep Sleep Time

Remember when?

So it’s been a couple of days now since my 43rd. birthday. Nothing too memorable, except I broke my rule of riding my bike down some insane hill or mountaintop on my birthday. I made this rule up on my 40th. Birthday. I first rode my bike down Federal hill on the big 40. Then we were in Whistler for 41, and 42, so that was easy making my rule stick. This year, not the case. First of all, any hill or mountaintop in my range would have been soaking wet. And I just didn’t feel like getting wet anymore after a very long weekend at White Tail. So, what is one to do? I went to the YMCA where to my surprise, I had my first machine birthday greeting. When I pulled my card through the entrance gate, the turnstile belted in a deep voice: ”Happy Birthday”!
So this really got me thinking about the whole meaning of birthdays and celebrations and how they have change, as one gets older. No more family gatherings showering me with presents and birthday cake. I found some old pictures of birthday past. My mother, a retired Elementary school teacher, use to throw the best parties. She made the hats and the games. I remember this one game where each person was blindfolded and had to follow a string that came from a poster of an octopus, that mother drew in her best elementary teacher drawing skills. You followed the string to the end, and some where close to the end of the string was a present! You had to grope around the ground until you found the wrapped gift. I believe in the one picture you can see her with me grasping her arm, as we play pin- the tail-on- the -donkey. I think this was my sister’s party, not mine, But I love this photo. How dressed up we got to grope around in the dirt! The other pictures are of my 9th. And 10th. Birthdays and one of my bday cakes. Cakes then had ceramic figurines that you could have for life to remember your special day. During these two birthdays, I received gifts that were two of my favorite. The only thing they had in common were the orange red plastic material that they were both made of. My grandmother is holding the one on her lap. A transistor radio the form of a sphere. It had a chain with a ring on it in which one could hold on to as one gets up on top of the monkey bars at school. A favorite pass time of the cool girls of the fifth grade at Catonsville Elementary School. This present is what got me in to the cool group! The other present is the one that I am holding. It was called The Bird, and it was simply a plastic bird that hung from a spring. We use to have it hanging from our light that my sister and I had in our shared attic room. I think it really hurt when it hit you in the head.
Yes, those were the birthday that I am so lucky to have had. Now, they are just as good, just different. I now get cards from Title companies, Victoria Secrets, Banana Republic as well as my tax guy. Dad took Patrick and I out to a very fancy and expensive dinner. They actually honor me with a personalized menu! Patrick gave me absolutely awesome gifts! And my mom, she got her knee replaced on my birthday. She reminince on her two hospital experiences of June 28. At lease the knee won’t be keeping her up at night crying! Let’s hope not.

Here I am

Here is my first post on my own blog.
This is my favorite pic of my Dad and I circa. 1965 or'66. Most of my life has been the attempt to be in this place again:
no worries
just being around my favorite people
in my favorite places
eating my favorite goddies.
happy to say that after many many years of searchng for this feeling
i have finally found just that

i want to use this blog to talk about just that
how i found bliss

i am a painter
new crafts person
and art teacher

new wife ( for the second time) to an amazing man
have a great new house
two great cats..chuckie and louie

and i am on my summer vaction as i write
feeling just i do in this pic