London Here We Come!

I'm sitting here in the Halifax airport on a layover, using Lauren's little Acer Aspire. By morning we'll be navigating London's Tube and by evening we'll be at Shakespeare's Globe theater seeing "As You Like It." The itinerary is: London, Bath, Bristol, Oxford and return to London. Lots to see and do. I brought both my video camera and my regular Canon and hope to have some great things to post when we return!

Fast forward to summer??

My camera died about a month ago but I have a new one now - yay!
Today it is in the 70's and over the weekend it will be in the mid 80's! I guess it is "fast forward" to summer, for a few days anyway.

Here are a few shots of the Sweetside Garden at present.

The magnolia has been in full bloom for over a week now. It fills the neighborhood with it's delicious scent.









































Mia is enjoying being outside in the garden with me.

The patio awaits it's brick surface. Sooooon?























Last Friday I cleaned out the stream and pond and we re-installed the pump so it is before May 1 and the stream is running again. The birds love it.










































The pitcher plants are waking up in their little bog area.



















The fence made it through it's first winter just fine.
















The tulips and lilacs are budded and both should be in full bloom soon with all this warm weather.

Mia Arrived!

Our new puppy arrived from A Place to Bark today and we are smitten! What a sweet girl she is. She was born in September to one of the hundreds of dogs they rescued last year, Gidget. Gidget looked mostly like a Boston Terrier as I recall but this cutie looks like she has Sheltie in her... maybe? She's already made herself right at home, prancing around from room to room, window to window....tossing the toys up in the air and chasing after them. The 3 cats and our beagle, Chloe all seem fine with her arrival. She's going to be a lot of fun, that's for sure.It is difficult work day in and day out, that Bernie and Jeff do at their rescue but this is the third dog our family has brought north from their place and each one is just amazing. Thnak you, Bernie & Jeff and all your helpers.

POP! of Orange

I love the color orange! I find it overpowering in large amounts but there are little sparks of it in my dining and living room. So after scanning eBay on and off for months watching for a swag light to hang in my bay window when I spotted this orange glass one I placed my highest bid" and held my breath. At the end of the auction, it was mine! It arrived about a week ago and though I loved the orange globe immediately, the wiring needed to be replaced.


So last Friday, when my work week had ended, I scurried over the bridge to Northampton and paid a visit to Sabin's buying 14' of old-school brown fabric covered wire and a new replacement socket.











It wasn't until after I arrived back home that I decided the chain that came with the light was too rusty to use in my living room (it will likely be re-utilized in my garden).



So I had to run out to the nearby big box store for 14' of lamp chain. The silver lining to that trip was that the store had glass pull chain fobs with an amber colored swirl twining around clear glass. It looks as if it was made just for my light so it went into the cart as well.


Then, over the weekend I spent about an hour re-wiring the light. First, I had to get all the little parts that support the large hanging globe onto the wire in the correct order. I'm to embarrassed to tell you how many times I had to re-d o this step. I knew how it went but each time there was one piece or another out of place.






Anyway, finally it was all in line and I wired up the new socket.























The expert at Sabin's had showed & told me, "The plain encased wire is 'power' & goes to the brass screw." I kept repeating that in my head lest I hook up the wires incorrectly. After that was done, I threaded the wire through the chain links and wired up the plug.






Once I mounted a sturdy hook firmly in the ceiling and.... Wa La!




Before & After -




I love the effect both day and night! In the filtered sunlight it adds a some pop to the large expanse of glass and at night it gives that entire end of the living room a warm glow.

A Spot of Purple

I've been painting most items white or very light green, blue or yellow this winter but recently I had the urge to do a couple of small pieces for my living room in dark purple.




So, "Nairobi Dusk" now adds some pop.




A small table -- a Craig's List find.... had been in sad, sad shape is now embellished with swirls and holds a silver plated tray.





Across the room, a detailed little shelf done up in purple holds a well tarnished silver plated tea pot. These two items "followed me home" from my favorite local shop for special finds, The Trading Post.

Our Atelier Unfolds

Our new atelier (workshop) is unfolding!
Our 22 year old son has now moved out on his own (about a half mile away) leaving behind a nice space he had fixed up in our walk-out basement.










It sat for empty for a bit as we adjusted to the empty nest but in recent weeks I have begun to transform it into a creative workshop area.... our "atelier."












I am making the nice space he had renovated into the art & sewing area and transforming the still unfinished section into a space with various works stations for carpentry, wood working, painting, even metal work perhaps???


For those of you who love before pictures...the top 4 are a few taken just as he began to renovate it (2+ years ago)... and the bottom 3 are "now" as I make the inevitable mess that comes with it's current transformation. Hopefully there will soon be some "after" pictures showing some emerging order to the chaos.

Some new acquisitions

We've been laying the ground work for setting up the new art and project studio space on the lower level of the house; our "Atelier" maybe?

There are several balls in the air for this project from tiling the little bathroom to switching the carpentry area and art areas around, creating more storage and getting a lot of junk out of there! Lots of it was "planned' for January break but since I taught and B went to TN, well, not much happened. So I am working on it in bits and pieces, resigned to the fact that some aspects of it will likely have to wait until June when the semester is over. But then, May and June are the height of the gardening season so I am really trying to make headway during the winter months.

This week I acquired some fun pieces for the art area.





One is this great tabouret I bought from a local artist who is moving to Australia (lucky!!). He built this himself a number of years ago and has obviously used it well. I love the fact that the pigments and medium cover much of the horizontal surfaces. Perhaps some inspiration has been passed along with the piece. There are several great drawers for storage too.

Another section of the studio will be a sewing station. On Saturday I was over in the Berkshires and found this great wood storage cupboard that will help me keep thread and other do-dads organized. Oh...and....it came half filled already! I haven't decided if I'll paint it. Likely I will, since it isn't really nice wood and I want to integrate color into the space.

There are a few other additions too but the Super Bowl is on so, I'll share more another day.