Mid-week

   Hi everyone. Happy middle of the week to you. It's going to be a hot one in my area again today, and I'm guessing since it's my morning to work at the boat ramp that it could get busy. I had such a delightfully quiet Monday this week (only 2 boats) so it's payback time. Grin. 😏

   Monday's weather at the boat ramp was warm  with a mix of sun and clouds, and the early morning view when the clouds were thick  was beautiful.

   Today I have a page from my little summer journal that celebrates the beauty of the summer garden.

    I recently bought a new Janet Klein girl set (like I needed another stamp-grin 😄) because she is cute, and I especially loved this quote.

   My summer journal is made from colored cardstock. The 12x12 paper pieces are cut into 2, sometimes evenly and sometimes not. This page is on some green paper that I stenciled with this robin's egg blue that I've been using a lot lately. In the stencil there were some flowers that I outlined with paint pens. I also added 2 geranium images from 49 and Market that I had in my stash. Then I stamped, colored and fussy cut the girl. I also stamped and cut around the quote to have that pop more off the page. I finished using one of the fabric sun stickers of a sheet by Studio Calico that I had. I used the yellow paint pen to color it in.

    I'll be  linking up this page to Halle's Botanical challenge at Art Journal Journey.

    That's all for me today. On these mornings that I work I don't get around to commenting until usually evening, so please excuse my tardy responding.

T Stands for Summery Things

      Hi everyone. It's another week, and it's already the last week of May. Wow!

     I'm posting Monday night, and  in the US the last Monday in May is known as Memorial Day,  The holiday is for honoring military personnel who lost their lives in the line of duty. On a lighter and less official  note, here in my area it is also the start to the summer "season", but obviously not meteorological nor astronomical summer.  

      This year for the summer "season" I decided to go back to my lake job for a couple of weekday mornings. I did this job for several summers, and then I took a  10 year hiatus before returning last summer. What do I do? Well I hang out at the state boat ramp at the big lake in my town, and I check boats that are putting in or are being pulled out of the water for any invasive species that might be on the boat or on the boat trailer. 

       Besides having a lot of reading time between boats,  I get to sit by the water and look at the view. However today it was misty and  cold so I sat in my car between boats for my 5 hour shift. But being the end of the holiday weekend it was surprisingly busy with lots of fishing people as well as some people pulling out their boats after the holiday weekend. Here's a couple photos from one morning  last week when some fog was burning off.

One other thing  I was busy with  last week (when it wasn't 90 degrees) was the garden. My plants have gotten huge in the last couple of weeks especially when the warm weather arrived,  and one of my azalea's is looking amazing right now.

     This plant started out as a tiny little sapling that was growing from an azalea that my Dad had in my childhood yard, and he gave it to me to plant.  Now all these 30-ish years later, it is a beauty.

    This past Saturday the hubby and I, along with one of my sister-in-laws and her husband, spent the day doing some outside clean up at my mother-in-law's house on the lake. One thing that we got done was putting the dock in for the summer.  After it was in and all the other projects were done, I actually ventured in for my first swim of the season.

Mr. Pete loves to swim with me, so having the dock in made his day. 

     Since it is T day over at Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog again, I need to share a drink. The other morning, before we went and did our all day clean up at my mother-in-law's house, my husband and I stopped for breakfast at our favorite hole in the wall restaurant.

     We figured we wouldn't be having lunch, so I went for some blueberry pancakes with sausage, and my husband had the hungry man's special. His piece of prime rib was SO big I ended up having a few bites and even the dogs had a few bites that he took home  in a doggy bag. Needless to say they really enjoyed that treat. ❤ And I needed a caffeine jolt and something cold to wake me up, so it was a Diet Coke for me to drink. 

     That's all for me today. I hope you have a super T day and week ahead. 

T Stands for Lakeside Mornings

 Hi everyone. It's time for T again. Happy September to those  of you who I only "see" for T day. And to all my blog friends from the US and Canada,  I hope you had a great Labor Day long weekend that has just wrapped  up.

Today (as I am writing this on Monday night) was my last day of my summer Lake Hosting job. You might remember I've mentioned my summer job and showed photos a couple of other T days. I am ready to  be "unemployed" again 😏, but I will  go back next summer if it works out.  

Last week on Monday and Tuesday mornings at the lake we had a lot of fog, and that fog made some dramatic photos. Let me share a few with you.

The spider webs on the ramp's boat dock were much more visible.

And no spider either.

The fog moved (like Carl Sandberg's poem states) on little cat feet. One moment it was so thick you could barely see.

Later the sun tried to burn through the clouds, and that took quite a while. If anyone saw me in my fleece shirt, sweatshirt as well as being wrapped in a blanket, they would probably think I was camping there. The dampness was really chilly.

The sun was trying to burn it's way through.

And then the fog would thicken up again.

It took a bit, but eventually the sun burned through the clouds and the day brightened. 

Since it is time for T and I need a drink photo, I staged this view later in the morning when the sun and most of the clouds had cleared up.  Here's my drink ticket for T this week at Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog.

Some of you may have read on my blog the other day that Miss Maddie had an accident on Friday while jumping out of the boat. In the process she tore a small hole in her bladder and took some water into her lungs. To avoid surgery to fix the hole in her bladder, she's been catheterized (don't want any more urine to leak into her body cavity) and sedated at the doggie hospital. The point is to get the bladder hole to heal without having to do surgery. 

And we have good news. Things are improving! In fact, hopefully she'll be home tomorrow (Tuesday). The hole has healed, or much of it has. The regular veterinarians just want to have the  veterinary surgeon, who has been away on vacation but  due back on Tuesday,  to take a look at Miss Maddie. If she thinks all looks good, then Maddie will be home by the time T day ends. 😀

That's all for me. Have a great T day and week ahead.

T Stands for Views of the Sky

Hi everyone. Happy T day once again. 

Last week flew by, and other than Friday, in New Hampshire we had some lovely weather. We finally had a week where the days-long rain periods were gone. It was great to see the sun, and I even had 2 days with nothing on my agenda so I could putter outside in the gardens. Here in New Hampshire we don't normally get the long period of very high humidity we had for almost all of July, and my gardens are/were sorely in need of some TLC. My fingers are crossed that August's weather gives ALL of us less high heat/high humidity days and more wonderfully cool  nights for sleeping. What a crazy summer it's been weather-wise at least.

You might remember me mentioning that I'm working a couple of mornings a week this summer. I'm a Lake Host, and I check boats and boat trailers for any aquatic visitors that might be clinging to them. These visitors are not native plants and animals. They can become invasive, taking over and squeezing out the native species if they get into a waterbody.  In my area it is most likely from 1 of 2 plants called either invasive Eurasian or Variable milfoil, but there are some other species I have to keep my eyes open for also.

State law says that it is illegal for boats to transport any invasive species, but I've still found 2 potential milfoil samples so far. They get sent off to the state for final verification. 

I work at the state boat ramp at this beautiful lake in my town. It is a clean lake, both for water quality and for unwanted growth. And it is a really beautiful place to plop a chair and enjoy the view too.  Many mornings the view is really interesting. I thought for T this week I'd share some photos I've taken during the last few weeks.

I hope you like these lake views. 😉 

These final shots are from last Monday, July 31st. You can tell it was chilly that morning with all the smoke rising off the water.

When I go for my shift (which is 5 hours) on Monday and Tuesday mornings, I use one of my "tea" infusers and fill my jug with some cold water. There is no running water at this boat ramp and only a couple of porta potties which can get a bit disgusting, but are better than nothing.

This is my drink and my ticket for T this week over at Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog.

That's what's going on with me.  Have a great T day and week ahead.

How to Do Art at the Lake

Cool morning sun Saturday at the Lake when I went to work checking for invasive species on boats coming in or out of the state boat ramp.

With a 5 hour shift, I finished reading my book

Which was almost finished- just 50 pages left which I devoured.

And I just started my next book.

And I visited with my sweet hubby who brought me breakfast 

Here he is with the fugitive- our dog- who wasn't hooked (the sweet hubby's calling when he insisted the dog would stay by us) and the dog wandered off-all they way through someone's yard into the town beach. I sent Dave to retrieve him since 1) it was his idea not to hook the dog and 2) I was working and waiting for a boat.

And then I painted pages for my artwork.

Look.

and

and one more out of my bunch

I will cut these up for embellishments or for backgrounds or something.

Had to do all of these on my lap, as I was sitting in a lawn chair.

And I had to put them down when boats appeared- and

a lot seemed to-of course, because I was painting.

I finally remembered to pack a pad of watercolor paper and some paints.

I've had this set forever as well as the water brushes. They are the coolest inventions for painting away from a cup of water. Plus at the lake I could just walk over and fill them up in the lake. 

I am so clever sometimes!

HA! HA! HA!

Have a fab rest of your day!

Almost Live at the Lake

I worked at a my favorite lake this morning-checking boats for weeds.

Here's some photos I snapped on my phone.

You can see it was a beautiful morning- bright skies, warm sun, refreshing breeze.

Read a lot of my latest book too.

And one last thing!

Go Bruins!!!!

See you another day.