A Day At The Beach

When you told me that you wanted to take today off, and go to the beach, I was more than a bit surprised. You don't like the beach very much. You're not a huge fan of the heat, or being in the sun, and you burn like a marshmallow in a campfire. You're idea of fun at the beach is going at night, and spending several hours walking the strip and hanging out in the arcade. Now that we are responsible adults with jobs, I didn't think that was quite what you had in mind. When I pressed you for a reason, you simply told me you wanted fried clams for your birthday dinner, and where better to go, but the beach.

Summer Snapshots

or, Some Things I Got Done on What Might Be The Only Week I Had Off all Summer

1. I have had this slate sitting on my craft desk for months now. I found it out in the barn either last summer or last fall, and asked The Boy™ if he could drill a hole that matched a hole already in the slate so that I could paint a sign and hang it on our new lamp pole. (I told you, it's been a while) He agreed, and did just that and then it sat on my desk. In the spring, I took a trip to the store and bought a few things of craft paint meant to be used on outdoor things, and some leather strapping to hang it up. After that, I sketched out the lettering for how I wanted our name to look, and hit a road block. What did I want to paint on the sign? My slate sat some more, and every once in a while I'd sit and look at it and think, and came up with nothing. The other day I decided I was going to do the lettering, and either be inspired to paint something, or just hang it with our name and call it done. I was tired of the slate on my desk. I think it came out pretty good, even if it wasn't quite what I envisioned.

A Rustic Bench

A while back ago I was pointed in the direction of a wonderful blog called Knock Off Wood. Anna, the owner of the blog, lives in Alaska and writes plans to make knock off's of top name furniture for pennies on the dollar. Working in education never made anyone rich, so of course this idea appealed to me on a large level. The last time we constructed something that wasn't shelves for our house, was the kids sandbox and playhouse back in 2002, and I didn't do any of the saw work. Still, I am determined to build shelves for my craft room, so I can move the rest of my stuff in there and get going on the office, so I decided I needed to start with something smaller and learn.

Dying Yarn Naturally

On the day of my birthday, my friend Jan and I attended the MA Sheep and Wool Festival at the Cummington Fairgrounds. We had a great time visiting the vendors, checking out the animals and watching the sheep dog trials. While we were there, we saw a poster, and talked to a woman about a natural dying workshop she was having at her farm in Fitzwilliam, which is the next town over from here. A woman from Green Mountain Spinnery, who was worked there for 25 years, was going to come down and teach the workshop. It was fairly cheap, and you were going to get a hat pattern that she designed to be used with the yarn, and enough dyed yarn to make it. I thought I might like to go, but it was the weekend after school got out and I wasn't sure what was going on yet. *photo from festival

A Month Of My Life... Gone In a Blink

I took this photo on June 2nd, around 5:40am right as the sun was starting to burn off the fog around the Mountain. The best part about daylight savings, and late spring and summer, is that the sun comes up earlier and motivates me to get out of bed. I am a morning person, but when it's dark and cold, I have zero motivation to get up.
This past month has been a whirlwind of school events and meetings and band functions and busy weekends and I am so glad school ended yesterday. Now we can slow down, even if it's only for one month. At the end of July, Ms. Thang goes off to camp, and Mr. Man goes off to play in the Shrine Maple Sugar Bowl Allstar Band for the big game and then after that we only have a few short weeks until school starts. In those weeks there is band camp, and back to school shopping and yaddah, yaddah, yaddah. Right now, we have a month of nothing planned.