Back again!

Oh my goodness - 3 weeks since my last post?  It's not as if nothing has happened.  We went to CT for a weekend to celebrate Zane's eighth birthday. A treasure hunt proved very successful as the kids found hats, compasses, and goodies in a big trunk Mandi had found. Now we have ages 5, 6, 8 and 8.

Look at these cute guys!  It's a shame that the camera just doesn't show the details.  The bead work and embroidery is extraordinary and I have to find out how to do a doll face like Monika - the face on her little earth gnome on the right is just darling.  I want to be able to do that too :)

Gypsy is back in the water and we finally took her out to Middle Brewster Island and stayed overnight a couple of weeks ago.  We stopped for lunch at Lovell's Island and Derek took a quick nap.  He has been working hard on the boat and the table top has been redone with a new blue formica.  The counter matches and he has used a new beautiful warm rose wood, Paducet? as trim.  It looks stunning.

Middle Brewster has a great big sand cliff.  When we first came to Boston you could walk along the top but now it's forbidden as the cliff is gradually falling into the sea.  All the seagulls gather here and if you look carefully at this picture you will see that what looks like white stones is actually gulls clinging to the cliffside.  They made a wonderful racket during the day and at night you can hear them chatting to one and other.

There goes the sun, setting over Boston.  It was a beautiful clear night and we sat and watched the firework displays all along the coast .  There must have been 5 towns at one point sending up fireworks.  Good fun.







Off in the distance we can see Graves Light and right behind our mooring at Middle Brewster is Boston Light.  At night we have a great display of the lights zooming by as they warn off shipping.  Boston Light by the way is the only lighthouse in the USA that is still manned.  All the others are run by computers I suppose.




We are holding a Prayer Flag swap at Milliande's Art Community for Women.  I am running this swap and I made up a quick flag to show the people in the Paper Doll group how easy they are to make.  Most of this is glued with a glue stick :)










Because I am helping with the Paper Doll group I tried my hand at a mermaid.  I love the water color pencils I used.  They are called Inktense and are great to work with.

July 4th and all that

What a great weekend we have had.  Now we are all exhausted, even the little ones! Saturday the Town of Duxbury had it's traditional bonfire on the beach.  It's a spit of land that curves out 2 miles into the sea.  You drive up one side and park the other - it's only 80ft wide a beautiful sandy beach.  The kids had a ball!

Granddad had a nice nap!


And when it got chilly Vicky and Jay got silly.

 Here it is 8:30 pm and the crowd is ready for the bonfire.  You can see it for miles.

On Sunday we went to the Yacht Club and spent the night on the boat.  The club is in Weymouth and they had their firework display for the 4th.  We had front row seats and the joy of it all - when the fireworks were over we crawled into bed.  No
lines of traffic to go through on the way home.

On Monday we went to a friend's cottage on the lake and had a cookout and more fireworks.  Dave has taken courses in firework handling and he set up a barge and with a little help from Jay and their Dads they gave us a wonderful show.

You can see what a lovely location it is.  The beach area is right next door  and they set up a bouncing house for the kids, and a dunk tank.  There were about 200 people there so it was quite a party.

Isabel is the sleepy head this time - after swimming for 4 hours! She slept for a good 2 hours and was awake for the fireworks so that worked well. She is wrapped in her security blanket - a piece of material I bought to make PJ's for Dominic when he was into Winnie the Pooh.
Now it's Isabel's Tiger Pooh and wearing very thin!







Here is the barge full of fireworks ready to go.

So it was a busy, busy weekend. However,  I did manage to get a bit of work done in my Journal

Zentangle

Dreamer

This collage was rather fun.  I used my new Inktense watercolor pencils.  They are great on the boat where I don't have a lot of room for
regular paints.

Gloomy weather approaches

Tomorrow's weather cast is for thunder storms and rain.  Reminds me of Macbeth's three witches chanting,
     "When shall we three meet again,
       In thunder, lightning or in rain?"
I did a quick sketch or how the scene appears in my mind.  For some reason I always see them raising out of a cauldron.  Odd that. I think it comes from the line "Fair is foul, and foul is fair, Hover through the filthy air!"

Well Miss Barnes, wherever you are, I can still remember some of my Macbeth after 50 years. Well taught you! Thank you!

Our second Journal Page prompt for June was titled the 7 Deadly Sins.  Just in case anyone is in doubt I chose Lust!  I have finally finished it but I think I will need to do a little discreet covering of the nipples before it goes anywhere near Miliande's censor! :)  Thank heaven for the little stick on jewels you can buy, I have a sheet of heart shaped ones that will do the trick.

Miles is the local cat.  He visits the neighborbood, sleeps in the neighbors garage, eats here and there, and is friends with the whole street.  He actually belongs to a family 3 street over but they can't keep him home.  This morning it was misty and drizzling and he felt like taking a nap so he crawled into Derek's van. He was sound asleep on the dashboard until I opened the door to take a snap. After being disturbed be just gave me the evil eye and went back to sleep!

Genie in the bottle

Two days past the equinox and it has poured with rain on both of them!  Woe to us - kids out of school and stuck in the house, wet dog, soggy shoes, and damp towels.

Isabel is happy as a Linty however, rain or no rain she rides her bike.  Yesterday she mastered the art of riding with no training wheels so our VERY big girl is all smiles.

Dominic has found something to amuse himself with too.  Nice bright eye, nice pink tongue.  Good and healthy!

Today I finished the Journal Page swap for the Genie.  The quote is,  "If I had one wish it would be..."

I found that to be rather hard to answer. 

 I really need a million wishes to restock the oceans and fix the forests, stop Global warming, end the wars, etc., etc., etc.  So I suppose my answer should have been a million but I don't know how to illustate that!

SOLSTICE GREETINGS

Solstice and the sun is shining, a glorious Summer's day.  Gypsy splashed in yesterday and is floating happily on the mooring.  Life is good.  All my art goods are "in process" so I thought I would celebrate with a little Summertime album.

I have no idea what this tree is called but it is beautiful with white clusters of leaves instead of the usual flowers.  As Summer goes on the tree will turn completely green.

I am afraid we have lost this one.  It only has a few leaves on one branch and a lot of dead wood by the looks of it.  Derek is giving it another week before he makes any trimming decisions.  I hope it perks up - It was lovely last year.

Just look at this large patch of clover in the middle of the lawn!  I think clover and dandylions are quite lovely but the sentiment is not shared by the gardener. Why can't weeds be flowers too?  I  keep remembering my father's patch of golden rod he carefully tended year to year.  Here it's a weed!



And here is my little tree god.  I coaxed
 him out of a pieice of driftwood we
found on the beach one day with a hammer
and chisel.  You are not supposed to
remove any wood but I took a chance - I
couldn't let this little god be thrown out
with the other beach trash!

The alligator isn't real by the way  :) . We love different
garden ornaments.  No gnomes!

The Bohdisat sits outside the back porch
all year long. The dragon is on the front porch.  I am not sure why he seems to be glowing.  Maybe I was too near his gold!

          Happy Solstice everyone!

Launching soon

In New England the Winters are rather hard and boats are pulled up onto the hard for the cold seasons.  Now that Spring has sprung and is almost gone Derek is hard at work prettying "Gypsy".  Our little boat is the joy of our lives in the Summer and over the years Derek has turned her from a hoyden into a really pretty lady.  Unfortunately this means I don't see him for weeks on end except to feed him and watch him sleep!  He works so hard on the boat he is exhausted by the time night rolls around.  Now he is under the gun as we have a launch date - Monday June 20th, and the tides will be just right at 3pm so "Gypsy" had better be ready to float.

Here is a quick sketch of the "in progress" :)