May 2009 Archives

The trees still have some of spring's lightness about them. Today was breezy and cool - hard to imagine that June begins tomorrow.

Teddy bear on a shelf in our niece's room. (Sorry about the photo quality - brought the wrong camera with me for the weekend.)

My daughter gathered a bowlful of blossoms and brought them inside so she could revel in the taste of nectar. The air in our living room now has an edge of the tropics about it.

Nearly left behind in lots of places. Still with us.

One blackberry remains, at the bottom of a bowl.

View from the car along interstate highway 80, near Bellefonte, Pennsylvania. (And now we're home again, and I can fix the binding on this sketchbook... tomorrow.)

Sealed for our protection.

We were traveling back from the school Baccalaureate service, and so missed the squall. By the time we were on the coast again, all was calm. Kids went exploring and returned after two hours to report that our youngest had climbed Squam rock--not an easy feat. Tomorrow we are off early for Prize Day (graduation) and we'll head west toward home from there, afterwards. So tonight is our last time by the ocean until July. I'm trying to absorb enough horizon and wave sounds to keep me going until then.

We are visiting family for the holiday weekend - and I had some time today to look at the horizon. I drew this with pen and ink, wanting to see what I could do with lines. Then I got a piece of paper and drew another view - with brush and ink and wash.

As seen along Route 128 in Massachusetts, over the treetops at around 8:15 tonight. We had a long day in the car, but with great landscapes and rambling conversations, and then family and ocean at the end of the road.

Sleepily wondering if painting my toenails here will transfer the color to them in real life.

We've been doing a lot of reading aloud this week - mostly Swallows and Amazons, which my daughter is just discovering.

No paper trail for our electronic voting machines, but they do give you a tiny receipt to show that you voted. The weather was fine, and today there was very very low turnout. I was the 38th person to vote at my precinct - which means about 10% of eligible voters got to the polls.

A corner of the little TV in our living room. Now that analog broadcasts have mostly gone away, this plays tapes.

Maybe it's because of the way today started, or maybe it's the new season - I was thinking about small beginnings all day.

I was going to grill this last night, but I forgot to bring it outside.

These have yellow handles.

These have red handles, so I painted the page red to remind myself.

I love the natural range of colors in these stones - from almost clear through blue-greens to dark amethyst.

This was the set for Mr. O'Reilly's office at the steel mill in tonight's premiere performance of Speak American at City Theatre. (They offered me tickets as a blogger...) I particularly liked the set, and the way multimedia was used, with archival newsreels and still photography projected onto factory-style windows on either side of the stage.

Just at the edge of so many things tonight.

Empty bottle of fizzy limeade. Not quite sour enough for my taste, so I let others finish it.

Thai basil plant - a mother's day present. Hope everyone had a wonderful day - I slept late, finished (re)reading a mystery novel, made progress on my robotics project, spoke with lots of family, and collaborated on supper-making...

Straw hat. Not sure when this hat came downstairs - I know I didn't wear it today.

The moon was full last night, and sometime around three in the morning, the sky cleared so that we could see it between the trees. I had my field box with me, so I made a small painting. (5 x 7, acrylic on canvas board.)

Orange wheelbarrow full of wood scraps. Senior clay students will stay up through the night stoking a wood-fired outdoor kiln. I have a couple of clay tiles being fired, but mostly am just here as a spare adult. And I love watching the fire in the middle of the night.

Bought for tomorrow's picnic supper, but of course we had to make sure they're ripe enough by testing them tonight.

Most of the print is worn off the bottle. Sunscreen from last summer.

For many years these were known as "Bless yous" at our house, as one child took hold of the joke and kept it going with tenacity, persistence, and great force of will.

They droop, but I still love to look at the color...

Bagels are fun to look at, since they are shinier than many other kinds of bread - light doesn't reflect in the same way off an English muffin, for instance.

Is it a duck walking on to the screen, or a rabbit walking away? Thinking about possibilities as I notice that today's date can be read, "I MAY."