Pics from photo walk

Templeton, Brendan and I went to the Hermitage "beach" and took some pictures in the fog, here are some of mine:

A floating feather

Ducks in the fog

Tree roots

Shells within a shell

Birthday trip to zoo

There are red pandas above us in the tree--I swear

Sleepy red panda

Sleepy lions

Elephant cleaning himself with dirt

Dad and child napping

Plastic toy for meerkat to play with, reminded me of Sal

Meerkats are funny!

BOOKS GALORE 2009

So this holiday season..between my birthday and Christmas, we got a lot of books!

Plus 4 magazine subscriptions:

Thrasher

Transworld Skateboarding

Smithsonian

ABC Soaps in Depth

(nice variety!!)

happy bday mom

sal at the emergency vet...poor guy

**Update: He's hanging in there. Looks like a stomach bug, or something he ate from the Christmas tree. Keep your fingers crossed he's ok

A gift from Rwanda

The other day, I was watching the Today show and they were sharing a story about how Macy's has teamed up with the women of Rwanda in selling their hand woven products. So many of the woman lost their husbands in the genocide of 1994, and found themselves abandoned--the country now 70% women. They started meeting underneath trees and were weaving baskets to build a sense of community, sitting next to women whose husband may have killed their neighbors husband. They got past that and banded together.
An American went over their in 2002 representing the United Nations and was struck by the story and the beauty of the baskets. She helped form a relationship with Macy's to sell their baskets, and the women could use the proceeds to survive.
I thought this story was beautiful, especially for Macy's to support these women. So I went online and bought one myself in support. Mine came in the mail today, and the thought of helping the women over there is probably one of the best Christmas gifts for me.
Here is a link for more information, you should get one too. It is very sturdy, a large size, and gorgeous!
http://www.macys.com/campaign/rwanda/index.jsp

I would also recommend watching the movie Hotel Rwanda. I watched that years ago and it really opened up my eyes to our ignorance to what happens across the globe.


Merry Christmas!

Getting creative--or tryin'

Templeton and I traditionally decorate Christmas ornaments, below are this year's. The first 2 are Templeton's, the last 3 are mine. He wrapped tape around the glass ball and painted the space, then took of the tape. The 2nd one, he sprayed spray paint inside the ball for a snowy effect then painted the tree. I painted ol' Santa, did the spray paint inside the ball then painted snowflakes on it. The last one I put green acrylic paint on the inside, the wrapped glitter ribbon all around the ball adhering it with glue.



Also, a little peek at some screenprinting Temp and I working on. Final products coming soon. This is Sal trying to get in the suitcase (one of his favorite spots) while we were exposing our screen.

Christmas kitten

i love my secret santa at school!

Christmas Decorating 2009

my cute nephew

Good find! Dental cabinet

Dental cabinet filled with old dental charts, inked papers, inks, etc. but best of all the cabinet itself! We found it at an estate sale off of Granby. Temp looked it up online. It's worth $600 and we got it for $86.

We obviously have to clean it up a little, but we're going to use it for art supplies and paper storage.

Be grateful free for free music!

A quick freebie mention: Amazon.com is currently giving away $3 worth of MP3’s until November 30th. That amounts essentially to three free songs. Just click to this page, follow a few easy steps (including using the code code MP34FREE), and you’ll be on your way.

Thanks Temp!!

en route to nj...sal is excited...i swear!

Last day of tree!

I thought this was pretty in our bathroom window...leaves pressed from branches on the glass.

good morning tree

A tree fell on our house today =o(

200 year old tree from our neighbor's backyard decided to fall on our house today....
Temp and I were in our garage at the time. I heard branches falling quickly on the garage roof. I told Temp while he was in the basement trying to gather things from the flooding that I was concerned because it was happening so often.
I went to open the door to the outside to check out the scene, and I watched the 200 year old tree from the window crash on our house.
If I had been out there 1 minute sooner, I would have been crushed by the tree.
In the end, 2 of our nice trees were knocked down by this one tree. No one was hurt, and the damage is not as bad as it could have been. We feel very fortunate. Now waiting to hear from the insurance claims adjuster.
I have to say, I have never freaked out so much in my life as I did just 3 hours ago.



2 hours later I found this branch protruding our newly renovated bathroom, we also have a hole in garage roof as well that's about 10" in diameter.

noreaster walk

2 streets down from us! about a foot deep
pretty windy!

Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor hail shall keep the postmen from their appointed rounds

With the Canon

nor'easter 09-cell phone

sal and i sitting in the window seat watching the nor'easter

Weekend in North Carolina

Some of my favorite pics with niece and nephew...more to come on flickr.

temp's backyard

winston-salem,nc

Carving pumpkins with the Clacks

The first one is Temp's, he did a shaved skeleton, also shown below. I did a cartoon version of Salvador our cat. Matt and Emily did the Newlydeads, because they are newlyweds!! Fun times!