pomegranatesandpaper

Love and Lovelies

I love these girls. And this girl, too.

 

They make these beauties. And so many more things that are luscious,  nubby, beaded, quilted, painted, printed, transferred, and spanking gorgeous.

 

 Even the tray of neeedlework supplies casually left on a bench left me drooling.

 

 

So much love that weekend. So much friendship, good food, gifties, talent, laughter, and surprise.

 

 

 The entire weekend I never saw Linda without a smile on her face, but you somehow I managed to take her picture without one.  Our class was held in Tracy's sunny yellow studio that was filled with colorful fabrics and yarns, huge working tables, lots of light, and artwork everywhere you looked.

 

 

Who wouldn't want to start their birthday weekend with homemade yogurt, fresh fruit, and warm muffins.

 

 

Who would ever want to go home?

 

 

And of course, all that fabric, all that yarn, the beads, the charms, the felted balls, and the friends! And when have I ever had a lunch like this on a Saturday afternoon??

 

 

Of course, there was that awkward initial period when we first got there and everyone was on company manners until we all got over our initial shyness and natural inclination to remain silent.

 

As if.

 

 

 

I would like to post pictures for you of every room in this amazing house and show you close ups of everything from the pillows on the sofa photographed above, the coffee table filled with "blocks" of art, the rainbow of colors that blended from room to room, and the assemblages and shadow boxes and collages and handmade dolls and felted pieces and quilted pieces and charms and works in progress and piles of books and magazines, but after all, it is their home, not a museum.

 

 

 

Instead, I'll show you the gelatin molds that we used for monoprinting.

 

 

 

As well as Kathy's adorable print of Dixie along with her adorable smile.

 

 

And Betti's darling birdie that she brought to show us dressed in her Valentine costume.

On top of all this whimsy, art, creativity, friendship, and food, there was  the beauty of women who had no responsibilities for three days other than choosing what color paint and which piece of fabric to sew where.

 

 

 Oh, and a birthday surprise!

 

 

But best of all, these wild and crazy girls.

 

 

And we haven't even gotten to the bees, the bunnies, and the chicks.  That will have to  wait until The Artgirlz: Summer Edition.  Thank you Tracy, Sue, and Linda for THE best art retreat I've ever been to!

 

 

Beginnings

 

I hope you all enjoyed my photo interlude yesterday. I know I cannot be the only one who is desperate for the end of grey, of dreary, of mushiness. We have a word for this state in Italian: Mushata. I guarantee that it is a made up word or I am only spelling it phonetically. But when we were young and we were sullen or pouty and just really quiet and upset, my mother and her mother would say we were, "mushata". I don't know if it was their "Italish" expression or a true Italian/Sicilan word, but it certainly was perfectly apt.

To shake off my mushata, I am off tonight to join a fitness center. I haven't exdrcised much at all in about five years. I wrecked my right knee when we were moving from Memphis to New York. Too much packing and dragging and running up and down stairs, after I'd previously hurt it in a "low impact" aerobics class when I twisted it and fell to the floorseeing stars.

The poor knee grew increasingly worse but no doctor would offer much resolution because of my weight. I had an arthroscopy five years ago, but the surgeon told me that he didn't do much and I needed a new knee.

It was the impetus for having gastric bypass surgery, which  saved the "good" knee and kept the bad one mobile for a little longer. Last summer, however, my niece and I rented bikes. There's a gorgeous bike trail that runs through our town on the Cape and I was so excited to go.  Thing was, when we took off down the trail and I tried to pedal, I found out that my right knee had so little range of motion that pedalling was impossible. So unless we only went downhill, I had to jump off the bike and take the walk of shame back up the hill and return the bike. It was a sad day.

Since then, I've been making up my mind to have this surgery. I'm not a chicken when it comes to surgery, having had 3 C-sections and 3 other major operations. On the other hand, I'm not a fool when it comes to surgery, having had 3 C-sections and 3 other major operations. So it  took me a little time to get up the energy, the strength, and the dagummit, I'm-sick-of- limping resolve.

In order to recupe quickly, my doc advised that  I start working out to get more (any) upper body strength  strengthen the thighs.  What is more pathetic than a middle aged woman dragging her sorry butt across a rehab center on crutches that she can barely manage? I'm a little nervous about it- the trainer on the phone sounded very young and I'd much rather stay home and watch TV... but I'm going!

I admit to having a little panic attack yesterday when the OR scheduler called me to set up dates and times and autologous blood donations. Mr. Pom told me to keep my eye on the prize and just soldier onward.

So in April, I'll be getting a lovely artificial knee that will allow me to buy one of those really cool vintage-style old lady bikes with a basket and a bell. I cannot wait to ride down my driveway and to the beach! Or the bookstore! And to grab a drink at the Sparrow and ride all the way to the farm stand on the bike trail.

Spring, you can't come fast enough!

Just Because

It is Wednesday and I feel like I have worked 30 days in a row. I am tired, exhausted, cranky, run down, stressed out, and completely spent.

So.....

 

 

 

 

 

(photographer: unknown at this time, but a professional, not me!*)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Exactly.

I feel so much better

 

__________________________

*Post-edit: I was admiring my photo of the lobster roll and thinking to myself, wow, I took a really great pic! Looks like it was done by a food stylist! And now I realize ...it was. Don't remember where I got it from, but it clearly is a professional pic. My apologies to whomever took it!

A Bite of Spring

I ate it up in a gulp, the pre-season spring day, though I was only in the sunshine for the drive home on Friday. It was warm and sunny and the buds on the branches swelled and the snow receded to grimy drifts against the curbs. Saturday, the wind blew away Spring with a shriek, sending tree limbs splintering onto the roads and garbage cans careening down streets. Even our heavy gas barbecue was pushed against the fence and Mr. Pom reports that one wheel sunk into the mud and is now frozen in place.

We have a large, copper chimney cap and it sounds like a kettle drum when the winds are up, spooking the dogs, especially Cucciolo, who despite his 90 pounds is no more than a two and half year old baby who tried to climb onto my lap when the percussion became too much. Sunday is seasonally cold, whatever that means this year; it is 23 degrees and the dog park is impassable, with flash frozen snow melt glaring in the sun and providing a sure-fire trip to disaster. We opt instead for the park along the Sound, knowing that most of the snow will be gone and better to brave the off sea wind than the slip and slide of the dog park.

I, of course, have to be coaxed, cajoled, then ordered out of the car to join them.  The walk is quite splendid once we get going. If we ignore the cold, the sun is as bright as July and we have glistening water to ourselves. The new snout collars are working their miarcle and we are able to walk without being tugged, dragged, and generally exasperated into our usual walk-the-dogs state. The collars and the one-hour of dog training tune up was worth every penny (despite the six months of dog training two years ago that was, generally, worthless). We are able to pass other dogs and a double-stroller with joggers without either dog altering their "heel" gait. A far cry from three weeks ago when my neighbor down the street was faced with a charging labrador who had gotten away from his owner, the crazed woman screaming at him on the sidewalk two doors down.

Now they are sleeping, having given up on expecting any tidbits from my egg, tomato, mozzarella, and arugula breakfast,  despite the intensity of their gazes as they move their eyes from head to mouth as I eat. Really, science should harness the energy and focus of the labrador-viewing-food stare and use it for crowd control or to overthrow dictatorships, or something.

The rest of this fine day, I intend to paint, paint, paint. I am resisting the lure of all the new spring decorating mags, but I took a peek while at Starbucks. There is an outrageously gorgeous latest edition of House Beautiful that is dedicated to PINK, probably a tint of my favorite color in the world. On the cover of Country Homes is a lavender room with rose-colored draperies and upholstery. And there's a new Country Gardens that has set me  dreaming of what to plant in Cape Cod.

But before I rush downstairs and get the rollers out to paint the dining room canteloupe and rush out to the fabric store to buy the red and white checked fabric I saw for a slipcover for the couch, or take my 50-pound roll of Kraft paper and start adhering it to the walls of the foyer, I am going to finish my mini cupcake canvases and begin a watercolor. I will continue listening to Rebecca with some trepidation as I am up to the preparation for the Manderly Ball and since I've read it and seen it a million times before, I know what disaster awaits (oh, Max!). Interestingly, this time around at my mature middle age,  I am finding our heroine a bit grating on my nerves. (We are told her name, so I have to be impersonal). She is quite the timid little thing, to the point of wanting to shake her when  it wears thin to the point of weariness. I keep reminding myself that she is only 21.

Thank you all for your supportive comments yesterday. I wasn't really asking for cheers, but just explaining how things go these days, but they were a joy to receive. And yes, I did go to an amazing art retreat last weekend and I will upload the pics tonight and post about it at the beginning of the week.

Right now, I need to close the laptop and take advantage of napping pets. Into the studio I go! Where will you go today? Make it a creative stop, whatever your bliss.

 

 

 

 

I Really Do Blog Here

Hmm. I seem to have fallen out of the habit. I didn't mean to. It started, perhaps, a year or two ago? I ran out of steam. Stories. Stories I could tell. My children were well past the ages when I could recount their antics, skirmishes, or conflicts. Cause y'know, there's The Golden Mommy Blogging Rule:

Thou Shalt Not Blog About Children Who Are Old Enough to Blog About You.

Seriously.

I have enough issues with their FB'ing; I can't imagine if I had to start policing their blogging.

Then there's the Work Issues. First off, I am no fool. I have enough work stories to fill a thousand blogs. But if I am ever to lose my job, the one that keeps children's tuition bills paid and weddings and mortgages and car loans, it won't be for blogging about ....well, I can't even say except to say, it won't be about work.

And were I not to write about my colleagues and instead write about my cases, well, then I would lose my job and my license, so that's off the list.

Plus, I don't go to court too much anymore so all those stories about judges being stuck in elevators and crazy adversaries and insane clerks are fewer and fewer to choose from.

So: no kid stories; no work stories.

My house? Oh, it's falling down around our ears. Really, it looks like we rent week to week. The plastic "temporary" blinds in the bedroom are going on 11 years. The cruddy kitchen is apple green but appalling in every way except the new stove and no, we still haven't enclosed the porch, fixed the back steps, or landscaped the back yard. The front yard is quite nice, when the moutains of snow are gone, and guess what - we found the Christmas tree! It was hiding in a bank of snow taller than I am and today's 67 degrees, finally allowed it to emerge like a mummified prehistoric creature from a melting glacier.

What CAN I tell you?

That I do miss you all. That I wish I my job was less sucking the creative life out of me. That I seriously want to spend the weekend sewing. That I need lots and lots of new fabrics. That Mr. Pom and I are enjoying a renaissance of our marriage.That I wish all my sisters and my Mom and I could go away for a week and play Scrabble and journal and walk on the beach together. That I am ADORING the  audiobook of Rebecca narrated by Anna Massey as recommended by Beth. That I have rediscovered music in such an intense way this past year; that I play in succession over and over again for the last few months Mumford & Sons; The Decemberists; Josh Ritter; and The Avett Brothers. That when The Avett Brothers and Mumford & Sons played on The Grammies, I felt like I was 18 again and falling deep into a Laura Nyro album.  That Gentle Leaders dog collars have saved me from having to give away my beloved labradors.  That we are itching to reopen The Cottage and spend a week clearing the backyard. That I need to talk to you all and write for you and give you the measure of my days.

 

 

Taking Off

Going to Rhode Island with my art girl, Kathy, and we are going to spend three days with Tracy Stilwell and Linda Willis and some other fabulous arty girls! It is a much needed girl and art weekend and very welcome after long work weeks!

 

I'll be back with lots of photos and stories.

Flashmob Alitalia

 

A delightful moment courtesy of The Empress and the Mah Jongg ladies:

 

Art Is Update

 

 

On this very icy, sleety, slushy day, I am blessed that my office decided to close. I have the outrageous luxury of working on my cases from my bed! Not exactly my chosen activity to do in bed, but it sure is nice to be sitting under an electric blanket and reviewing files, instead of scraping off my car, driving  up north where its worse to office in  my sweet little Mini that does not like deep snow, and then worrying about getting home.

 

 

Anyone who says that the internet is NOT a good thing, needs to have the opportunity just once to work at home and be able to access every bit of information you need as if you were at your desk!

 

 

Before I get too involved in my "real life", I wanted to let you all know of an update to my Art Is "Violetta" class (as throughout this post!).

 

 

For scheduling issues, I've decided to cut it from a 3 day to a 2 day class.

In Danbury, I am teaching now only on Sunday and Monday, and I hope this accomodates students who are observing the Jewish holidays. In Petaluma, I will be teaching only on Saturday and Sunday.

 

 

So if you are reluctant to sign up for a 3 day class because there are so many classes to chose from, you now have more options.  The website will be updated soon but if you are interested, shoot me an email or leave a comment.

 

Wherever you live, whatever the weather, enjoy the fact that the Groundhog did not see his shadow. Yay, spring!!