Happy Thanksgiving

Wishing you the brilliant colors of Autumn
the brilliance gleam of smiles
the spirit of love to surround you
and all things yummy to eat!

Blessed Be!

The Wheel Turns...

We have come to the end of a season. For me, Summer is fully "put away" when the leaf raking is done. Although there are a few straggly bits to take care of (noteably, the hedge where leaves blow from neighbors, and down the street..always a maintenance issue), the yard is essentially put to bed for the season. Compost bins are full and working overtime to produce beautiful soil for next season...the wheel isn't just turning just now, it's in full whirl! Above, the brook after a "cleansing" rain...

Another kind of wheel...the first apple pie of the Holiday Season! Yet to do are 3 more for Thanksgiving (apple), then a pumpkin pie, and finally, a chocolate mousse pie. That's today and tomorrows work. KC declared this "the best looking pie you've ever done, Mom," which is all the praise anyone could hope for! Blue ribbons have nothing on the adoration of your own kids!

It's so hard to see in this photo...but where the shadow of the house is...is an outline of the house in frost! It was so kewl to see! Didn't photograph all that well, but it was neat watching the shadow move with the sun, and seeing the frost *poof* into vapor as you were watching! Note the lawn is virtually leaf-free.

All is well in our corner of the world. Watching the spinning of the season wheel...the last geese stitching across the sky, the fast approaching gloaming early each afternoon, the deep darkness of nightfall, making 6 p.m. feel like 9 p.m.! When it's dark, this moonsinger feels like it's bedtime! Oh, how I envy those farmers of old....in this day and age, our rhythms follow those of necessity...the "gotta get dones"....even when our spirit cries for rest....Ahhh, well, there's always snowshoeing to look forward to!

It's...it's....it's...

More Powerful than a super Bug...
Faster than a fat momma pig....
and Able to Leap Small Children in a single Bound....

It's SUPER MOONSINGER!!!

This is what Moonsinger looks like after the H1N1 has knocked her on her ass and finally gotten back up:


A smile. Make up. Eyes still a bit blurry, but hey, they're blue, and not reddened, runny or closed. Progress on the forward road, my friends.

I have survived the Aporkalypse!!

Thank goddess you can't see all the gray roots in this shot! (prob'ly why I chose this one, eh? LOL!)

Before and After 10/24 + 10/31

From October into November in one fell swoop!

Home Improvements and Women Power!

Yanno.....sigh...someday I'll figure out how to load these the right way! So --TADA! The finished ceiling!

The...it's nearly done ceiling!

The...Oh, it's-not-as-hard-as-I-thought first steps...

The deconstruction mid-phase....

Time to take out all those staples and nails.... okay, so you have the scene, backwards of course, of the 6 hour project. We had about an hours lag when waiting for the electrician friend to come by and take down the 3 light fixtures, and filled that hour with house chores...the inevitable, inescapable laundry, both starting a new load and folding a done load, and putting said load away. By the time that chore was done and a cuppa was consumed, our handy electrical neighbor was over and uninstalling the lights. We made short work of getting the tiles under the lights removed, and started the install around 10 a.m. By 3 p.m. the job was complete. And with just 2 five minute breaks.......one to pee/change the wash to the dryer, (I know TMI!!) and another to wolf down some chicken (thank goodness for purdue done it).

We did first stage of clean up while waiting for the neighbor to return to reinstall lights...he was amazed that two women ( not to mention OLD BROADS,, LOL!!) could put up the ceiling so quickly. And it looks decent. Not contractor perfect (straight lines) because our house is so old that there are no straight lines anyway. And....So. Much. Better. than the deeply bowed ceiling that existed before. Bright and new and tight.

Yay us!

The Staff Shirt

One year of Art KC age 4-5

One of my favorite KC artworks is the one above. He used computer paper that had a rainbow arching over the left top corner, and he "saw" a scene in it. I remember we had one heck of an arguement about him "using" (aka "stealing"!) Mom's computer paper. But when he showed me the picture that was trying to get out if it...well...the stormy clouds, the lightning bolts, the giant raindrops....all the images crowding in his head from weeks of stormy weather this spring. This helped me be aware that I sometimes need to listen better as a Mom....

An early age 4 pic KC made for Mom. He knows how much I love the New England Patriots, so he made this picture of Tom Brady (the quarterback, in case you're not a football fan!)...his numbers are reversed, but he did a great job! He was a young 4 at the time, and I was just amazed that he was writing numbers at all! He also did a pic of Tedy Bruschi, reversing his number as well (54)...

I don't know when he decided to frame, and outline his work, but the flower just pops. The electric blue doesn't translate as well on the monitor as it does IRL, but trust me, it's gorgeous! Note the "knobs" at the corners to connect the frame!

Ocean themes abounded this summer, especially after camping at Old Orchard Beach in Maine, twice. This whale was drawn with dry watercolor crayons, and then "bled" with water. He liked the blurry effect it created, so it looked just like a wave misting as it broke.

And finally, his first attempt at free drawing stars. He had such a time learning this, and he's getting better all the time. I've never met a more determined kid! He practiced doing these for at least an hour. He gave me the picture so that "You'll aways have stars, Mom!" I call him our Star Child, for he was blessed by the light of a full moon and beautifully shining stars, just a week or so after he came home to us, and this celestial theme is one that he and I are deeply connected to.

Proud Momma!

PS. I hate taking down artwork and putting it away, but blogging it has helped. Now my workroom walls are clean and bare, ready for another winters artworks to adorn them! This year Lissa is more excited about creating, so I'll have artwork from two littles to post about next time!

And so it goes...

The view from the front porch to the trees across the street

and what you can't see is the photographer,

happily resting her elbows on 100 bags of wood pellets, which arrived on Tuesday, 3 days before the first snowfall, Friday. Also, these pics were taken just before the snow started falling on Sunday.

So here it is, Monday October 19th and we've had our 2nd snowfall of the season. Already. Okay,not enough to measure, unless you were at Foxboro stadium yesterday (GO PATS-- WOO HOO!) where it was snowing sideways, but really, two n'oreasters in 2 days?

So....A summer that rarely if ever made it out of the 7o's, winter arrives in October. Tell me this....if there is global warming...where the hell is the warmth? Because it's FREEZING in New England !

Gotthose good pics above of the foliage around here before the winds came up and tore many leaves down. Now if only they (the winds) would come back and blow them into the neighbors yard. Hee.