Weekend Post

Hi everyone. Happy weekend.

The heat is on here. It is definitely summer and is really summer too. Happy Solstice to you. For those of your in the Northern Hemisphere enjoy this long day of light. And for those of you in the Southern Hemisphere, happy winter.

And Happy Father's Day for anyone who is a dad. This weekend has lots of Father's Day celebrations in my house. My daughter surprised us by coming home for the weekend. And my husband  took yesterday/ Friday off and we went out for a boat ride-our first  of the season. I have photos on my camera but I need to unload them to share. I think tomorrow we are going again for actual Father's Day and so my daughter can go along also.

So if I don't get to comment on your blog, I will be by.

But first, it's strawberry season here in New Hampshire (well just the start of it), and Thursday morning I went to pick some.

I think the farm was very smart the way they handled it.  You needed to sign up for an appointment (which they limited numbers), and then you had an hour to pick. You also needed to wear masks and sanitize your hands before entering the field. The picking was OK, as lots of berries were still not ripe, but people were very courteous  about space.

 Here's a rather unattractive photo of me in my mask.

And the other night the school had a staff drive in movie. They showed School of Rock; we all knew it would be a school themed film. If you haven't seen it, it stars Jack Black who is a slightly shady school substitute who gets his class together to form a band and be in the battle of the bands competition. I had only seen the end of the movie of TV once, and we had fun watching it.

 They also did a retiree roast that night, and 2 of my friends wrote my roast, which was very very funny.

Here it is if you are interested, but don't feel you have to. I'm including it because someone or somebodies out there will then ask me about it. I thought it really summed me up as people at work know me.

And the raccoon at the bottom goes back to a girls camping trip a few years ago where a friend and I had a couple try to break into our tent one night. It's a bit of a story and has been a good laugh ever since. She then wanted to add it to my roast.

And lastly, here's my art for today. Here's a spread from my high school memory book I making with some of my staff IDs. 

And some monsters which some of my microbiology kids made as game pieces for a project last fall. I think it is also interesting how (at least I think) I look younger as I get older.  I hope that continues-ha-ha-ha- but somehow don't think that is going happen.

Have a great weekend. 

Happy Weekend

Hi everyone. The weekend has arrived.  The weather sounds like it might be a bit 'sketchy' this weekend with rain, storms and cooler but muggy temperatures. I guess we will have to see what we actually gets.

But one thing I did do this week was finish painting my bathroom shelves which I showed you back in Tuesday's post. And today my husband put them back up, and here they are.

The white baskets are what I've had on the shelves, but they look much better on the white shelves than when those shelves were stained dark brown. And now the shelves really lighten up the room.

It was worth my time to paint them and freshen up the bathroom. (Not to be confused with the bathroom we took the tub out of. This is my downstairs full bath. The tiny bathroom where the tub was is upstairs where the bedrooms are. That bathroom needs new fixtures and a make over.)

And here's a few more collage pages from my Dakota journal. 

I love the eyes on Smokey Bear (the top spread), and there are also eyes on the gentleman right above so I am going to link up to Gill's challenge at ARt Journal Journey.

Wishing everyone a good weekend, and thanks for stopping by to visit my blog.

Summer Wrap Up Part 1

Labor Day Weekend is a good time to look back as well as look forward. Hope everyone's weekend is enjoyable so far. And since this is the wrap up of the summer season,  it seems a good time for a summer photo wrap up and review.

At least part 1.

Beautiful sunshine-and this year we had a real beautiful summer!

An occasional storm so you appreciate all the sunshine!

Haunted lighthouses-I still haven't seen the ghost they supposedly heard on Ghost Hunters here at the Portsmouth Lighthouse/Fort Constitution.

Days on or near the water for me!

An absolutely beautiful vacation adventure

Reading good books while working at the lake checking boats for weeds!

More vacation show stopping scenery!

Beautiful roses in my garden.

And a garden I wish I had. Especially this year with not a lot of rain.

Clasic views-from our road trip to St. Gaudens in western New Hampshire.

Ditto!

Interesting furry little creatures come out

Yummy yummy summer dishes to eat

Fun days swimming and laughing

Beautiful Maine views at the Point of Land

Kayaking views

And a river in Montana-don't want to go these falls. They were crazy!

So enjoy what's left to your weekend!

Long Weekend

This was one pretty sunset Friday night. We had gone fishing in Massachusetts and were off Plum Island when I snapped this photo. I took lots of other photos but they are still on my camera and not on the computer yet.

Here's another couple of pages from my summer scrap journal.

The little fishy man is on the bottom left of the ocean view photo page, as seen above.

Nope, not yesterday. Neither Dave nor I caught a single fish. But Bob, our brother-in-law, caught 3 little fish, 2 stripers and a bluefish. But they were definitely not keepers.

Ignore the shadows of the rings in this binder.

I love the Fred Mullett fish stamps that I used on the background.

I also used the measuring tape paper tape because when you go fishing, size does matter.

This striped bass was not a keeper. Too small.

These was back in July.

So was this one.

Here's Bob. One time he and his wife Laurie went with us he caught the only striped bass.

Back in July.

This fish was also not a keeper.

So I hope everyone is having an A+ weekend.

It is flying by, as usual.

I did get some studio time yesterday, am working very hard to finish the altered book I started at my class last Saturday with Julie Fei-Fan Balzar. I also hung some pictures and went up to my mother-in-law's place on the lake. I could have worked a lot longer in the studio, but this summery kind of weather isn't going to last for all that many more weeks at this point of the year so you got to get out and enjoy it while you still can.

So get out and enjoy your summery weather if you can.

10 Things Friday

1- What a BUSY week. And it is flying by. What with the holiday, Dave taking some time off and working at the lake. Plus a very busy social schedule also-Love it. 

2- So last week I challenged myself to do 2 cleaning projects. I did get 1 completed- I organized the basement kitchen overflow closet. And I did do a bit of other cleaning up of clutter, but haven't yet gotten to the other things on the last.

3-It is vacation and I do need some down time! Why do I even challenge myself when I know (and said in the last 10 things Friday) that I doubted it would happen?

4-So I have accomplished some things this week though-even with everything else happening, and they are

a-lots of reading

b-worked on my summer scrap-journal

c-have been working 20 hours this week at the boat ramp

d-a small amount of gardening

e-maybe I can still squeeze in doing my cabinet in the upstairs bathroom (?)

f-made some food for the 4th of July cookout at my mother-in-laws

g- made my lemonade pie which didn't solidify like it was suppose to

5-I am having a blast this summer!
Did I mention that already?

6- So Dave took off Tuesday off and we went for an early morning kayak. He is taking today off and we are going out in the boat with my sister-in-law and her husband.

Next week he has a second interview with the company who interviewed him last week. Yahoo! It is movement forward.

7- I need to get past this waking up between 5-6 a.m. I do go back to sleep, some days, but man, I am on summer vacation. I don't need to wake up that early.  I have been staying up later at night though- actually getting some evening time. Must be the long days!

8- So last night we went to North Conway to Moat Mountain Brewery for a little road trip with some of Dave's family. Today we are going boating. Tomorrow I work the lake-hopefully the rest of the day will be slow and then we might go boating with some friends on the big lake-Lake Winnepeesaukee  (? spelling- after living in this area since 1987 I still can't spell that word). Next week I am definitely hoping for just a little quieter week.

But not too quiet.

Can you tell I am at that point where I am having fun and just trying to give totally into summer but desperately craving some down studio time too. I did have hopes of getting a bunch of projects done. 

I guess what I really need is 2 days of nothing during the week and then some days with some fun activities.

9-Next week  I must finish up my travel journal because we leave for our vacation to Glacier National Park and the Canadian Rockies in less than 2 weeks. Can not wait!

10-So let's see where I get to next week. I will challenge myself to get two more cleaning projects done- and maybe even start painting my bedroom! If I could do that-that would be a huge accomplishment.

But as I have said 100 times already-

it is summer and I still have weeks off so I will get done what I manage to get done.
And I should go visit Mom next week.
I need to go to the cell phone store next week and get a month's work of service to Canada so I can check on my daughter who will be home.
And work only 12 hours-much much better
and have some fun
and some fun studio time
and whatever else I stumble over/

I leave you with a silly photo of my daughter and the lobster statue at the boatyard where we keep our boat.

Happy Friday!

Happy Independence Day

Today is a big holiday in the US- the 4th of July or Independence Day. Last night I spent some time making brownies and a pasta salad for the big family cookout at my Mother-in-Laws this afternoon. I will be arriving a bit late since I will be working a 3 hour shift at the lake, but that's OK. Of course we are a bit showery right now so if the weather doesn't clear that can change everything.

And tonight we have fireworks in Wolfeboro- I hear Romney is walking in the parade there too since he has a summer house in the town. I can image there will be reporters everywhere.

Or maybe not.

But I am not a very political gal.

So yesterday morning was GORGEOUS! Dave and I went kayaking on the Merrymeeting Marsh and it was fantastic. Kayaking is the perfect summer activity. I saw some herons, ducks, lots of turtles...and we only passed 2 people when we were almost back to the ramp.

I had hoped to make something arty with a 4th of July theme, but that didn't happen. No art today, but I will be back with more some other time.

Enjoy your holiday if you are celebrating, and thanks for stopping by.

Weekend Wind Down

The weekend is in wrap up mode today. I need to clean and Katie has her last shift at the lake for the season-kind of sad about that part because it means we are really wrapping up some of the best parts of summer. Surprisingly, there is a lot of color already starting in the leaves...fall is starting to show its face...but today we are still pretty warm and humid and not the best of days on the sun end...but that's ok. Yesterday we had a great boating day, and my weekend has been FANTASTIC. No complaints. It didn't even seem to blow right by either.

So as I have done the past couple of mornings, here's that same photo just "tweeked" differently on photoshop. This looks more like a minilmalist painting of a sunset...though it is early morning. Not sure which of the 3 is my favorite; How about you?

So here's a silly card I made the other day- I love this giraffe!!!! I'm not sure who made this stamp, but it was in a set I got off of eBay full of older used stamps.  I stamped it in black on white paper, colored with Copics and dusted the white background with blue ink. Then I used a Sizzix oval frame die twice, once to cut out the giraffe (but didn't use the frame part) and then again on white paper and this time I used the frame. Before I glued it down I distressed it. I then added yellow Viva dots on the scallops and added this great saying from Cornish Heritage Farms.

So to sort of quote this card, whatever is on your day's agenda...even if it's just chilling...make it a good one!