B's "Starry Night"

All three boys are taking art classes at Class Day. T worked on some abstract art, and J is studying texture and color. B, however, is obviously learning about Van Gogh, as he brought home his collage version of "Starry Night" today. I think it's a very good job for a second-grader.

I just wish that I was artistic like my own kids -- my brother was a fine arts major, and my mother paints some, and my grandmother was quite talented. Plus all of Keith's side of the family are artists, so our kids come by it genetically. It just skipped me.

Walking to the P.O.

B and I have been walking over to the post office each day to get the mail. It's a short walk, but enough for me with my physical limitations. The past few days have been absolutely stunning, and walking across the meadow to the post office has been pure joy in such beautiful sunshine. Aaaah, I just *knew* I loved Southern California living....

Self-Portrait in the Sun

Late this afternoon after finishing school with my kids, I sat on the porch to grade essays in the warm February sunshine. It isn't often that the weather is warm enough in the mountains this time of year to remove my sweater, so I took full advantage of the beautiful weather. Aaaaahhhh, warmth to my very bones!

Unexpected Laundry

T managed to squeeze black acrylic paint onto his good jeans. Ugh! So after much scrubbing with stain remover, I took it to my laundry room on the front porch, a place I am not usually inhabiting on Mondays. But I do adore my front-loading washer. I'll have to go check to see if it did the job on the jeans, or if they're now relegated to the "play" category....

New Porch Plaque

I finally hung the plaque my brother gave us for Christmas. I love having it hanging on my porch, between the front door and the laundry room door. Very appropriate reminder for a Sunday, right?

"It's a Beautiful Day...

... Don't let it get away."

I sat on the porch steps, enjoying the warmth of the sun on my face while rereading Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston for our Logos discussion tomorrow after church. It was a truly gorgeous day after much rain over the first half of the week. And guess what? The clouds heralded yet another storm, and it's raining tonight as I type. Such a lovely day was not long-lived, but all the more precious while it lasted.

Tools of the Trade...

This is part of my desk where I've been spending the vast majority of my time this week. Please note my signature sepia ink, mahogany pen, and other inks and feathered quills in the background. If I have to work, at least I can work with beautiful things that somehow bring me almost as much satisfaction as the work itself.

Proof of a Busy Week

My last few weeks have been crazy-busy, and this week more so than most. My rather full desk diary is proof.

Storm Watch

Well, the local old timers have been spot-on in their forecast for this winter: cold, wet, lots of storms, good amount of snow. Last week we had a blizzard; this week promises another cold storm that's arriving tonight. The wind outside is quite fierce -- it nearly took the front door knob right out of my hand when I came home after the Lenten study tonight. After several years of drought, we greet every raindrop with gratitude, hoping that the copious precipitation will help to save many of the dying oaks in our town. Welcome, rain! Welcome, snow!

Impressionist Project -- Discovering the Child Within

Tonight our monthly art council meeting was child's play ... literally. Myrna Mora, the art council's youth coordinator and art docent at the local elementary school, allowed us to "discover the child within." As the children at our local school study Monet and complete art projects based on his works, so we adults also got to create Impressionist flower pots. While we painted a white base coat on the three-inch terra cotta pots, Myrna told us about what the children are learning about Monet as a result of the art docent program, and we also discussed our kids' program this past summer, "A Taste of Art." Myrna's project also provides a beginning point for the annual art contest our art council holds each spring for all students in grades K-6 which we will be working on from now until late May.

We all had fun painting our pots using these little squishy toy thingies rather than paint brushes. Monet never mixed paint on his palette but rather dabbed different pure colors next to each other to create the image of color mixing which we recreated by dabbing paint on with the little "squishies." So we had fun creating art as well as gaining insight into the art docent programs in the local elementary school which in the past few years has focused on a certain artist each year: Van Gogh, Picasso, Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, and now Monet. (I helped teach the Picasso when J was in school that year.) With our district being the most under-funded in the entire state of California, the community has to come together in order to offer art to the back country kids, something both the art docent program and the art council are determined to accomplish.

My Day's Project

I spent several hours today preparing this exhibit on our creative arts council's summer art program for tomorrow night's Art Council Meeting that will focus on our kids' programs. Myrna, our youth coordinator, will be speaking about our upcoming art contest, our art camps this summer, and the current art docent programs in our town's elementary school in which the kids have been studying Monet. We'll cap off the evening with an art project for all the council members: three-inch terra cotta pots to be painted in the Impressionst style. With the help of Keith (for printing many photos) and T (drawing the art supplies), I got this project finished in a couple of hours today. Whew ... done!

Sunday: The Remains of the Blizzard....

To many of you who live in snow country, a bit of snow on the hand is no big deal; in fact, you're probably mighty tired of the white stuff by now. But in San Diego County, snow is a treat. An event. Bundling themselves and their kids as best they can considering no one here owns winter clothing (I've seen many a flatlander playing in the snow wearing only shorts, tank tops, and flip flops or Birks), city dwellers flock up the mountain in their 4X4's and SUV's, loading snow to take home into every vehicular orifice after much sledding and many wicked snowball fights, usually leaving their trash behind them after trespassing onto private land.

The snow from the freak Valentine's Day Blizzard is light and powdery, unlike most of our snow that is usually very wet and schlumpy. So here's a sample of the freak snow that fell on Thursday, causing much havoc on the freeway and Red Cross shelters to be hurriedly erected to house hundreds of stranded motorists overnight, something that hasn't happened since the interstate was built in the late 1960's. Snow looks so innocent and sparkly -- how can this beautiful stuff cause so much trouble?

The First Cuts

Keith made the first cuts for the stained glass window today. He created this wondeful jig to help in cutting straight glass pieces. A metal ruler is on the right side to measure the width of the glass to be cut, and a strip of metal on springs is pressed down on top of the glass (a cushion underneath prevents scratching of the glass) so that the glass can be sliced into perfectly straight pieces that will require less grinding as well as less cutting time. Metal framing keeps the glass in place no matter how hard he has to press. Then he can pick up the glass, use pliers to separate off the cut piece, and then he adds them to the row of border pieces for the window. He's a genius, my husband!

Friday: Life's a Beach

As long as we were stuck at the beach, unable to drive home because of snowy and icy roads blocked by stranded and crashed cars, we decided to go on a walk along the boardwalk in Pacific Beach. So while the snowplows growled and rumbled up in the mountains, we enjoyed scenes like this after the storm:



This view looks south; on the left you can see the Pacific Beach Pier on a glorious day after a rare San Diego County blizzard in the inland mountains.



This view looks northward, catching the lifeguard tower flag and the many homes crouched on top of the Bird Rock area, just south of La Jolla. Such a beautiful day made it difficult for us to think of driving home to snow in a few hours.

I have additional beach shots on my 365 Extras Blog if you're interested.

We ended up coming home to very little snow -- most of it had melted as temperatures climbed into the mid-50s. It was difficult to believe that temps had plummeted to 16 degrees overnight.

Thursday: Valentine's Day Storm

Right about the time I was taking this photo in the van as Keith ran into the bank, a blizzard was taking place in the mountains, shutting down the main east-west interstate on which we drive into and out of town. The weather gurus all claimed that the rain would clear by 10 AM and we'd have a sunny afternoon, but this photo was taken around 4:15 PM, and snow flurries were falling on some of the higher elevations around the inland valleys, something that hasn't happened in at least twenty years....



Meanwhile, the kids and their cousins were enjoying a special Valentine's Day dinner at my parents' home, all decorated beautifully for the occasion. Our entire family ended up staying the night at my parents' as the interstate was closed for almost twenty hours and we couldn't get home. For the full story, see my post on Meditative Meanderings.

Wednesday: UFO Clouds

As I was walking back from getting the mail from the post office on Wednesday afternoon, I noticed this strange set of clouds that looked rather as if a flying saucer was hovering over the valley. Of course I had to take some photos, and then as students arrived for tutoring in the afternoon, I heard, "Did you see those weird clouds?" They are not unheard of, as once Keith took some shots of these flat clouds five and six layers thick; they looked like a stack of pancakes. At the Lenten study, Hap told me how they are formed with very cold air. I suppose that we should have seen them as a precursor to the blizzard that occurred the next afternoon....

A Day in the Life....

I snapped this photo without really thinking as I passed through our living room. E is on the sofa with the dog as she plays her DS, and B is on the floor playing X-Box. T was in the green recliner also playing X-Box, saw me with the camera, and ducked behind B so I wouldn't include him in the photo. (If you click on the photo, you can see his green shirt behind B. Hiding from photos -- it's a 12-year-old-boy thing, right?) Anyway, it's just an ordinary lunch break in our ordinary life, and I wanted to share it with you all.

Dontcha Love Our Kitchen Carpet?????

I was trying to describe our kitchen carpet to one of my Yahoo groups, and it seems easier just to post a photo of the lovely stuff. I included my foot so you can get an idea of the size of the print (and definitely NOT to show off my old pedicure). Yep, this carpet not only covers our entire kitchen floor (and it's a BIG kitchen!) but is also under the living room and hall carpeting as well. The best part: it hides the dirt beautifully. The bad parts: 1) it's ugly, 2) it hides everything so if something is dropped, it's rarely found until it's stepped upon (not a good thing with stray blueberries!), and 3) it's GLUED down onto the wooden floor beneath. Yep, somewhere under all this ugliness is a wooden floor -- my favorite kind! I personally would like to hang the person who decided to glue down this, um, INTERESTING carpeting by their toenails. Or even worse, make them live with it once again....

Keith at Work

Keith now has his workshop done -- all ready now to start the stained glass project for Dr. Adema. All his glass is washed and organized, all of his tools are at the ready, and he's making lists of glass colors needed, how much of each shade, etc. Should the glass be clear or opaque? He needs to figure out this stuff before starting to cut and put together the puzzle that will become this lovely stained glass window. His shop is out in the yard, so he's away from the house where he can enjoy the (relative) quiet and concentrate on his creative work.

Mini-Retreat

Sheri and I headed over to the Bible Camp this afternoon for a mini-retreat. We sat under the pines chatting to catch-up as we haven't had a good talk since before Christmas. Soon the sun disappeared behind the building and we were feeling a bit chilled even with jackets on, plus the campers this weekend were some wild college students from Point Loma Nazarene University (my alma mater and former employer as I used to teach there). So for warmth and quiet, we hiked up the hill to the 1970's-styled chapel which overlooks the grounds while also peering up into a nice bunch of pines. We made ourselves as comfortable as we could in the back pews and wrote in our journals, prayed, read our Bibles or other devotional books, and enjoyed relative peace as now the yells of the college students were mostly muffled. This was our view late in the afternoon. Very peaceful.

Cool Frames...

B and I stopped by a really cool store in downtown La Mesa called Mostly Mission. I love the Craftsman style and was drawn by the beautiful furniture just outside the door. Inside the store was some of the most gorgeous stained glass lampshades and photo frames plus great Craftsman furniture. I was impressed with the picture frames especially, and asked the owner if I could take a few photos myself. The kids are wanting to do some stained glass work themselves now that Keith has his stained glass shop organized and ready to work on a huge window project, and making frames similar to these will be a great project for them (and a good way to use up glass scraps!).

Adding It All Up...

I spent this evening (after the Survivor premiere, of course) flipping through my school planner, computing grades and tracking assignments. Our school requires quarterly grades for students up to ninth grade and semester grades for high school students. So with the end of the semester two weeks ago, I had to write down what each of the boys accomplished in each subject, add test and quiz scores, and assign a grade in each subject to each child, plus check off days attended and assign citizenship grades as well. I got the boys done tonight and will do E's grades when we get home tomorrow afternoon. I must get the grades postmarked by tomorrow or we'll be fined by the school. So I spent much time with this planner this evening....

Ash Wednesday

After the Imposition of Ashes.

And thus Lent begins....

(A B&W version can be seen at my regular blog, along with an explanation of Ash Wednesday and Lent)

Shrove Tuesday, Fat Tuesday

Instead of eating pancakes for dinner as is the traditional Shrove Tuesday/Fat Tuesday celebration, I brought home donuts to have with lunch. We extrememly rarely eat donuts, but they're definitely fatty enough to qualify as a "last hurrah" before Lent begins tomorrow. Right?

Waking Up to Snow! This Morning!

We woke up to a layer of snow this morning -- totally unexpected, too. I didn't know we had snow until I heard the kids playing outside before 8 AM which made me peek out my bathroom blinds to see the inch or so of snow! In our area of Southern California, we only get a few snowfalls each winter, and sometimes none at all. So snow is a major deal. I'm too scheduled a homeschool teacher to give them a snow day, but we did start school at 10:30 rather than the standard 9 AM so the kids could enjoy the snow before it melted. It was almost totally gone by 3 PM.



The kids decided to walk the dog across the meadow and over to the park. Dash loves the snow as much as they do. I took this from our driveway with the kids a couple hundred feet away; I'm thrilled it came out this clear ar that distance. (The building behind the kids is Major's Diner, the 1950s hangout for locals and tourists alike.)



T built a baby snowman on my car's roof. It's so dang cute!

Sunday: Bridal Shower vs. Superbowl

Decisions, decisions. Attend a bridal shower for a young woman I've known for 15 years? Or watch the Superbowl? I actually enjoyed the best of both worlds: I even stayed late enough to watch Maegan open all her gifts and still got home in time to watch that exciting fourth quarter!



Maegan's and Kevin's cake -- custom baked by Debbie, one of our Bible study leaders -- and it was just as delicious as it looks.



Maegan poses by the cake before cutting it.

Icy Day....

The puddle left from the last rainstorm is frozen over this morning, and tonight another cold winter storm is on its way. The old timers have been right on the money this winter: colder and wetter than usual.

Friday: Making Enchiladas

Keith prepares to make his famous enchiladas with his recipe from the Food Network. Deeeeeelicious! We must have fresh cilantro, too, of course....

Thursday: Morning Office

First thing in the morning, I head downstairs, light the beautiful mosaic candleholder my friend Sheri gave me for Christmas 2006, and pull out my 1928 Book of Common Prayer. I bought the ccross in the USD gift store just before I sopke at our women's retreat, so it's a reminder to me not only of Christ but of my first speaking engagement. The sun streams in through the east-facing window on my left as I pray the Psalms each morning. Lovely!