No Glitter but still creating





Sunday morning has ended (it is now midday) and I must say we have all been slightly creative. Lasagna, Rice Pudding, Butterscotch pudding, Chicken/Blue Cheese rolls and Honey Cornflake Biscuits. I am packing my bag for my sleep over on Monday night with the Goddess in readiness for Tuesday's Art Is...Brimfield Trip! Whist I was being creative, I looked down the hall to find that Max had creatively pushed the flyscreen up on the porch window and he had seemed to have grown 6 inches.


Closer inspection shows there are no flies on this boy!

Flossy is busy composing and learning to play some of her favorite Jonas songs. I had to take this photo because she looked so pretty with Jen Pag's flowers on the piano.

No photos of the Engineer...he is at work. But I just spoke to him and he was ready to tuck into one of those chicken blue cheese lettuce rolls (I made him three). He is enjoying a quiet Sunday at work and attempting to get something done. Tomorrow he is home (it is Labor Day weekend here) and he will be decluttering the camping gear!

School starts next week. I can not believe summer is nearing an end. Where did it go? Life seems to be speeding along at a great rate but I will enjoy slowing down on Tuesday when I spend the day with some of our Art Is...You teachers - Pamela Huntington, Janette Schuster and of course Ellen.

Enjoy what is left of your day - I am grabbing my tea, my Somerset Magazine (to check out the wonderful work of our Taryn Reece) and my Cloth Paper Scissors which requires reading the back page first so I can connect with Mrs Pom.

The Great Escape



Icy cool water, blue skies, bright sunshine, wonderful pine trees and rocky landscapes plus fresh blueberries, hot buttery lobsters, smores over a campfire - another wonderful 10 days away experiencing "america"and in particular the wonderful state of Maine. Friendly people who went out of their way to talk to us - it was refreshing. Cooking over the camp fire was mostly relaxing when Maxie Man was off chasing a dog, a ball or a firefly. We were able to connect with our wonderful friends and Max's Godmother and we ended the week back at Camp Legare celebrating the Electrician's birthday. It was a lovely happy day. Everyone happy, Kids playing, Grandma making sure everyone tried her treats, TV on noggin, Ipods on Jonas, ladder out of the pool, nothing broke, nobody got bitten by wasps, the boyos solving the world's problems. All we were missing was our baseball champ and his lovely friend. For me and Ellen it was a day where we realized a family is made up in so many ways.

JB @ MSG

We Got Foamed By Nick Jonas at MSG

Monday Night - Three rows from the front - making eye contact with Joe and Kevin - getting foamed by Nick....Joy!

Ikea, Tempered Glass and unique uses for coffee tables

Dear Ikea,
Please think about wrapping your glass in something more than brown paper when packaging it with an ultraheavy coffee table kit.
Love Customer

Dear Graduate,
Please tell me what type of glass this is, why it broke, where it broke and can you put it back together.
Love The Engineer
Dear Home Handyman,
Tempered glass is designed to break into small pieces - "the rationale being that while you still get cut, the cut is not big enough to take your arm off" (as quoted by the Engineer)
Love The Engineer (who had to have his wife take the small pieces of glass out of his feet!)



Dear Ikea, Thank you for ensuring the drawers in the new coffee table are versatile and strong enough to hold any treasure that you may have.

Love Customer


Who's Got that Sunday Feeling?


The crickets are once again out in full force, the car has been washed and vacuumed. Rose is tidying her room and discovering the ancient fossiles in her back pack. I have been busy doing Art is prep.

Had a great day yesterday at Ikea - gosh I love that place. Maximan has a lovely Godbrother Patrick and we helped his mum pick out new furniture and prints to change his room from Americana (which I love) to Broadway/Times Square. Neil is heading over there this afternoon to finish putting all the furniture together with the promise of cinnamon buns at the end of the session...he is so predictable.

Via Creative Blog today I found 4:53am and from there found Crafty Crow and and from there found Chasing Cheerios (check it out Aunty Sa). I particular like this post on Toddler Activities. Then she led me to OnelittleTwolittle and she led me to TotBooks - I wish they would home school me!! So many great ideas. Now to find the time!

Looking for time brought me to counting down the days:

56 Days until Mum gets here

60 Days until ART IS...YOU - THE Eastcoast Art Retreat

120 Days until we have our Christmas Holiday back HOME!!!

3.5 hours until Max wakes up and peace ends.

Sesame Wednesday

Where I thought I had "done" the Wiggles, Teletubbies (Max speaks the same language) and all other sundry children's shows....I am now back in the thick of it and I don't know if it is because I am older and wiser (LOL) ... but I have come to really enjoy the Bert and Ernie sequences on Sesame! So I have decided to share a treasure each Wednesday. Most of them come from the early Jim Henson days and all of them have a simplicitic little message.


Imagination

Written by Joe Raposo sung by Ernie (Jim Henson)

Here in the middle of imagination
Right in the middle of my head,
I close my eyes and my home isn't home,
And my bed isn't really my bed.

I look inside and discover things,
That are sometimes strange and new,
And the most remarkable thoughts I think,
Have a way of being true.

Here in the middle of imagination
Right in the middle of my mind,
I close my eyes and the night isn't dark
And the things that I lose, I find.
Time stands still and the night is clear,
And the wind is warm and fair,
And the nicest place is the middle of imagination
When ... I'm ... there ...

Living here has given me the opportunity to expand on my imagination (it has always been pretty good...I still think the boogie man is under the bed) and this opportunity has been given to me by the wonderful women I have met through art.

Women who use their imagination every single day to create something special which will capture somebody else's imagination so much so that they in turn take it home to enjoy. Am I making sense? I have an entire area in my home dedicated to many women who have touched my "american" life - their imaginations all gathered in one place for me to enjoy.

Could internationally acclaimed sculptor Henry Moore, ever imagine that his largest outdoor exhibition ever presented in a single venue in America, set against the Bronx Botanical Garden’s sweeping 250-acre landscape and spring blooms.....

...being a wonderful resting place

.... or climbing space?

And what about this new glass staircase in the middle of NYC. Unique in its design, working with existing elements of a floor to ceiling fish tank...

Allowing for meetings to take place directly underneath it so as to utilize all available building space... This was from somebody's imagination and I can proudly say that the Engineer took this person's imagination and made it a reality!



He also made sure that the glass was created in a non see-through way so that employees (of the skirt/dress kind) did not have to go out and buy pants!!!

Most things that we have in our lives comes from the imagination, so really we have a little bit of Ernie and Bert in all of us!

The White Gazette

One of our expat friends has three young kids (9, 7, 5) and to entertain them this summer, they are creating a mini newsletter each week. So Flossy decided she would do the entertainment report and I found this on the email! Now why can't the english essays be as descriptive and as easily forth coming?


Dear Reporters, I have an article that I hope can be used in your upcoming newspaper:

Jonas Brothers Concert Review

(HERSHEY)- Total darkness surrounds more than 30,000 fans of the Jonas Brothers. All are chanting "JONAS, JONAS" the excitement is increasing and people can't wait for them to come on stage. Suddenly, out of the ground we see three very familiar heads and hear a very familiar tune. Nick, Joe and Kevin, rise up playing a great song "That's Just the Way We Roll." When you thought the screaming couldn't get louder, it does. Throughout the show are wonderful lights and bangs, great songs both new and old, and even some tricks. In a song called "Goodnight and Goodbye," Nick Jonas performs some extraordinary stunts while singing. Cartwheels, flips and jumps attract even more screaming. Later it slows down when Nick plays an emotional song he wrote about his Type 1 Diabetes, "A Little Bit Longer" The Jonas Brothers wrap up the spectacular concert with two favorites, "When You Look Me in the Eyes" and "S.O.S." The Jonas Brothers latest album, "A Little Bit Longer" hits music shelves August 12th. I can predict that it will be a hit with millions. The Burnin' Up Tour has definitely been their best so far. I know I'm not alone when I say I can't wait to see more of these very talented band of brothers.
I am in love with my day today! A beautiful, not too hot, sunny day in NYC. This morning we opened the windows and we could hear the crickets singing and the lawn mowers purring...if I closed my eyes I could truly think I was back home for those are two sounds that I associate with my younger years. Although it wouldn't have been crickets but cicadas!

What a full week we have had. Max has had the joyous Foot n Mouth disease. I know we have all joked on occasion of having this disease but I promise you the verbal kind vs the skin kind is no comparison. He has been cranky, with fever, sore feet and sore mouth. As the weekend draws to an end, he seems to be responding to the creams and medicine so we hope tomorrow he will get the all clear to return to his preschool.

It took Rose just as many days to recover her voice from her big JB Concert and she spent her days downloading the chords of the new songs and teaching herself on the piano. Next week she heads back to school as a junior counsellor at MATH CAMP! This is just a morning thing so it will be back to the piano in the afternoon I am sure.

Neil had a wake up call to life this week when he read of the sad crash of a charter plane that was filled with like minded individuals off to a glass factory. Having just enjoyed a wonderful trip to Venice, he realized how close to home this could have been. Of course that doesn't stop him accepting the next trip back to Venice in September...I just need to make sure the life insurance is up to date!!! Speaking of Venice, he shared some of his photos with me this weekend and I can see why he would like to go back.

This is the town he stayed in....no wonder he can't wait for September.



This is one of the wonderful windows he fell in love with.


Only engineers could possibly play foosball in surroundings such as these!


Speaking of Engineers....they really do all look alike!


This is what we came all the way to Venice to see! Glass tested by wind turbine...amongst other things.

While Neil got back to the real world of engineering and going to see Jon Stewart's Late Show, I was getting things ready for Day with Dolls - 60 women from NJ, NY, CT, PA all gathering in Mount Vernon (5 minutes away) to create together and share past creations! It was a wonderful day yesterday and the air was filled with the smell of creativity.

Of course this day would not be complete without sharing it with the Goddess who brought with her Z2, Jman and little Red. Of course the Goddess arrives with treasures from Brimfield and the most magnificent banner that she had made.

So whilst the Goddess devoured the latest Somerset workshop and the huge Oriental Trading catalogue, I took the kids (minus Max who was asleep) off to see Walle the movie. With a bucket load of Nathan's fries and chicken in their laps, I departed to have my hair cut and pick up a salad for me and the Goddess. They had a lovely sleep over all piled into beds around the house and managed to sleep through the 6am rising of Max!

Neil then had the wonderful "task" of babysitting five children and as it stormed badly, they ended up playing polly pockets - Little Red and Max had a ball, watching a movie on TV and eating lovely Hot Pockets. Later it was up to Dunkin Donuts for treats, back home for ball games, sand box and more movies.

When I got home, two lovely books had arrived:


Both beautifully written, with pictures that tell the story. Please take a peak at their sites, order their books. You will not be sorry that you did. They are all that they present and more.


We are so lucky to have the phenomenal Janette teach at Art Is...You in October.

So it is now 4:39 on Sunday in New York. I can hear Elmo singing, Rose playing the piano and the whipper snipper outside ...we only have enough lawn to warrant a whipper snipper! I have done the banking, the washing, wiped the blades of the fan in the kitchen (yuk), made curry mince and pasta for dinner (yum) and hung my Cherished banner.

Neil has reported in that he and Max are off to the park - I ask can he take Flossy....so I now have a little more space in time to write to my beautiful neice Big Kel who celebrated her birthday this week and send a fax to my Nanny who is still in hospital.

The coming week brings the usual commitments and will end with Flossy off to another JB concert with her girlfriend. Neil is driving them over to the Long Island concert, then whilst they scream and sing, he will go to Borders for coffee and reading....

Enjoy your week.

Sal x

This week we remember Aunty Ruth and her musical talents - she was Miss Ruth the accompanist on Romper Room, Aunt to my husband, Sister to Grampi...a quirky, loving lady who was forever making sure we all had enough to eat.