Regan

For those who have been checking for an update on little Regan, word is that he is doing well. He continues to fight each day to make improvements. MaryLou and Michael ask that we continue to pray for him. Thanks for your support

On My Porch

I love sitting on the front porch in the late afternoon, as the sun sinks lower in the sky, and watching all the activity at my bird feeder. It is wild to see how many birds come. Now I am not getting any amazing birds, nothing that would make the Audubon Society take notice but that is OK with me..I am not into celebrities anyway. I am not sure why this one bird wouldn't go onto the feeder or onto the ground below the feeder but she ust sat on a branch while her partner would fly to the feeder, get a seed and bring it back to her and feed her. It was such a loving act. We should all have someone to take care of us so well.

Regan

Today my sister in law gave birth to my newest nephew, Regan. He was born close to 3 months early and weighs only 1.4 pounds. Please keep Regan and MaryLou in your prayers that they will be home soon.

Welcome to the world little Regan, We love you!!

My bathroom

My NJ Scrapper friends wanted to see what my powder room looks like. When Jay and were redoing our home I wanted to have fn with the little powder room in the house. Because we have a farm house that was built in the 1830s I thought it would be fun to make my own little barn. I had two wonderful artists- my friend Kathy and her friend Marge come and create an entire mural in the bathroom. The entire room is painted so well that often people come out of it saying they had to touch the walls to believe that they were not stone and barnwood. I asked them to add a lot of little surprises so that each time you use that room there is something new for you to see.

details

Because of my fondness for roosters I thought it would be fun to have a chicken coop in the "barn" here are some of the girls and a friendly mouse

I wanted to have a heart with our initials carved into it

The room that this bathroom comes off of has a wall paper border of farm scenes. I had the Marge and Kathy paint part of the scene from that paper so that it looks like you are seeing it from a window in the barn

Details

Here are some details of animals on the walls

My Dad

With having celebrated Fathers' Day this week, a scrapbooking group list I particapate with asked us to share pictures of our dad. This is the photo I shared as it is a favorite picture of mine. Here is the story behind the shot....

I was traveling in Peru with my father and sister Lois. Our group was in the Amazon Rain Forest of Peru and were visiting a small village on the river. This woman Maria came out to greet our boat , bringing her 2 pets with her. One was a parrot and the other, a three toed tree sloth. We were all invited to hold each of the animals, the sloth being the most popular. Holding him was like getting a hug from a live teddy bear. As the sloth was being passed around my father came up to me and asked me to get a photograph of him when he got his hug. "Of Course," I replied. Then someone went to pass him the sloth and he said, "Not with him!" And then my dad proceded to grab Maria and hug her, laughing harder than I have ever seen him laugh. When I see this picture it reminds me of a moment when my dad showed us another side of himself I had not seen before, his silly joking side. Of all the amazing things I saw on that trip This was truly my favorite moment.

Happy Fathers' Day Dad, I love you.


PS..Thanks go to Shelby for figuring out how to use our scanner so that I could post this picture.Thank God for smart kids.

Inside and out

Here you can see the mud room. Jay is planning on making me a bench for the area but until then I just put a big old chair to fill the space.

This is the view of our house from the base of the front lawn. Jay has landscaped it beautifully and I just love pulling up to our finished house.

The bathroom

Jay hates the color of this bathroom but hey, its my room and I love the bright color. I used subway and hexagon tiles and old style fixtures. And of course a little artwork finishes it up. No mirror but I have my priorities straight..photos yes...mirror- that will come.

more room

The first couple of pictures I posted were of the main croopping space- my tables and paper storage. Here is another storage area and my photo gallery...I love having a place to hang some of the hundreds of pictures I take.

My cropping room

I have been remiss in posting photos of my "play" room. Last year I posted a lot of photos of the building scene but forgot to show the finished space. SO..here is my dream room. There is plenty of space to hold all my stuff and lots of room to grow. I am still working on getting everything organized but here you go...

Neighborhood drama

This past weekend I was sitting on my porch reading when I smelled a barbeque going. "Boy, where was my invite?" I wondered. Then the fire chief goes flying past my house. And then there goes the cop car. "Hummmm.... maybe that wasn't a barbeque?" Next come 2 fire engines. Gee, where is Kyle when you need him? With all his radios, I always know what is going on but no, today he was at school. I ran in and told Jay and Shelby about the trucks and they ran down the block. I, of course, ran and got my camera first. Thankfully it was only a neighbor's shed that was up in flames...nothing major was lost. But a bit of excitement was had by the whole neighborhood.

Mothers' Day

I had the best Mothers' Day this year. After church my whole family came with me to the NY Botanical Gardens (along with 8 million or so other people) to walk around and spend time together. I also warned them I was bringing my camera and tripod and that they would just have to suck it up..it was my day. Here is a family shot, maybe this year's Christmas photo. The other picture is a shot I took while zooming in my lens..fun stuff

Arlington National Cemetery

Ok..I think I have this figured out,when Picasa changed formats I started having problems posting my blog. I spend time writing and then go to post and it all disappears. But I think it will work if I stop trying to add so many photos in one entry so here goes...down to 2....


A couple of weeks ago I drove down to Virginia with my dad and oldest sister to visit T and her girls. They are entirely too adorable. The main reason we headed down there was that on Monday of last week my dad's friend, John, was being buried at arlington National Cemetery. John had been a prisioner of war during WWII and was able to have a gravesite in DC. I had never beed to a true miitary funeral before and was so moved by the whole tradition. Now I have never been much for burials and all but this was such a moving final acknowledgement of a man who sacrificed much for our country. These photos are from an earlier burial that we saw while waiting to meet up with John's family and I cried through the whole service..I was so moved. I am so proud to see how w!!ell our military takes care of their own. God Bless America!!

Pongo and Perdita

Now I know that to most people Pongo and Perdita are a pair of dogs from Disney but to me they will always be this pair of ducks. Every year, just about at this time (early spring) a pair of ducks show up each morning at our pond. They are the sweetest couple, swimming around in this little pool of water when there are so many true ponds and lakes all around us. But each year these two come back for a little alone time at our pond. They don't stay long, just a couple hours a day for around 2 or 3 weeks, but I have come to love seeing them. Somewhere along the way I started calling the Pongo and Perdita (maybe 3 years ago) and so that is how they are known to us. Most days Perdy swims around with Pongo watching out for her (they seem to be aware that there is a camera crazy female living in the house.) They are my true first sign of spring and I look forward to seeing them each year... now if only we could teach them to poop in the neighbor's yard!

I'm BAAAAACK!!!

Ok, I have been a Lazy Blogger. I haven't even thought about my blog in a while. Then this morning I read a great blog and then I went out to the Celery Farm and I feel renewed. so I am back, just like the pair of ducks in my pond, just like the birds in my trees and just like the plants that are starting to bud. I have missed being outside and walking at the farm. This morning the birds were singing so loudly I almost wished I could have turned down the volume. I was struck by the different calls and wondered why a bird as pretty as the cardinal has such a lousy little Peep instead of a beautiful song. I heard a red wing black bird make a call I had not heard before.. I think he was cat calling a pretty little finch a tree over. The ground was muddy, the air was cool and I was so happy. So here are a couple of my first views of spring.

Yeah, I am still alive

I wish I could write that I have been somewhere incredible and that is why I have not been blogging but the truth is I am just a victim of the winter blues. Every year about this time I start wishing I was a bear and able to hibernate for a few months. I want to sleep late, I want to go to bed early, I want to take naps.... all in all I just want to sleep. But I am not a bear and my family is taking issue with my continual sleeping so up I get, Laundry I do and I just wish it was spring already. Did the groundhog see his shadow??

That said this past week the gourmet club meeting was at my house (and Lora's) and we did cooking with chocolate in honor of Valentines' day. The menu was excellent- baby greens with a citrus dressing (cocoa nibs get sprinkled on top,) Medallions of beef with Rosemary sauce (cocoa is in the sauce,) Roasted butternut squash ravioli with a brown butter and bittersweet chocolate sauce ( Big yum!) and 2 desserts- white chocolate raspberry sauce over raspberries, and chocolate nibs napoleons. Oh and chocolate martinis too. The food was great and I love cooking with the women on Thursdays. This is the closest that I get to the communal feeling of life in Assasetre. Now I am longing to get back to Ghana...maybe I can sleep the entire flight there? LOL

getting caught up

OK, Here it is the 20th of January and I have not gotten out of November and Ghana, so Goodbye Africa and Hello Christmas. Christmas this year was a little tough. Just like my blog I was definitely still in a Ghanaian state of mind and buying gifts for people who really don't need anything was dificult. A lot of charitable donations were made this year in people's honor rather than handing them a scarf or new pair of socks and underware. Decorating the tree was a family event as you can see below, I the one behind the camera so you know I was there. The big discussion is icicles or no icicles- Jay is a tinsel man whlie the rest of us are not. Secretly I was glad he could find no tinsel on his shopping trip but later found and bought 5 boxes of them that he never runs out of the stuff. If some tinsel on the tree makes this man happy so be it, I don't mind vacuuming it up for the next 3 months ;)


Jay makes sure the lights are evenly spaced on the tree.

Kyle is happy that this line of lights was working... we definitely need to go out next year and get some more lights. We prefer the old fashioned big bulbs and we have more that don't work now than ones that do.

Shelby makes like a reindeer, or maybe it was a moose.

One reason

This photograph is just one of the reasons why I travel. On my second day in the village James and I went out for a walk. There was a lot of excitement from the people as we walked around... visitors are rare. My camera stood out and the calls of, "White Lady, White Lady, Photo, Photo," began. As we passed the small market one woman came up to me and the kids told me she wanted me to photograph her with her mother and her children. after I took the shot I turned my camera around and showed them the image I captured. This was the first time the older woman had seen her image this way and was very excited. I only wish I had a second camera around to have caught her reaction.. It was priceless. That's OK though because I will always remember itand that's what really matters. It is those small moment connections with people that I love. Sharing something new, or maybe something old with people, a realization of how we are all the same no matter where we are from is worth the money and time spent and the discomfort that sometimes accompanies travel. I pray that there will be many more opportunities waiting for me.

More kids

How beautiful is this little boy? I just love his eyes. He was around a lot while I was in the village but never spoke to me. I wish I was good at learning languages but that is definitely not a gift given to me. I just thought this kid is one of the most beautiful children I have ever seen.
And this little boy always was looking at me as if I was a science experiment. He had this way of tilting his head as he looked at me and I wish I could have known what he was thinking. Maybe I am better off not knowing though.