Wow! I guess I was taking a blogging break without even knowing it. My last entry says it was the last day of school. My goodness. A lot has gone on since then. The house has had a revolving door on it. We have had visitors from out of state, in-state, and from around the corner. My daughter came home from California and is living here until she figures out where she will be working next. Living here is a relative word, since she has been out of state herself a bit since June. She did a 10 or 12 day trip to Haiti, where she worked along side some pretty wonderful, and intelligent, doctors and nurses, who came from all over the world. I think I mentioned something about her trip in my last post. Her plans are to visit San Diego once again in a week or so.

My older daughter visited-and she too went out of state for a weekend wedding, but then her boyfriend came for his visit, and would you believe, we are in the process of planning a wedding? This is to take place in Oct. of 2011. We are excited of course, and I will be going to AZ this Oct. to look at dresses with her. We have to work around our schedules for these trips. Yesterday we realized there might be a glitch in getting the license because of the rules in NJ and their schedules, but I am sure we will figure that out.

This photo was taken at Grandma's house just moments after he proposed on the beach.

They cleaned up, then we went back to the beach to snap some photos.

School begins soon for my sons, and for me. I haven't done much creativity-wise this summer, but I did make these two cards...
One for my sister-in-law,

and another for my daughter.
I see now that I was a little rushed in taking this photo.

After a long HOT summer, during which areas of our lawn dried to straw and our gorgeous hydrangea dried out too early, we are having rain. Like all the water that we should have had throughout the summer had been stored in the sky, and is coming down all at once kind of rain. I have been indoors so much lately, that anything I had to do in the house, is done, and I have finally felt like I am ready to get back into my little room. I spent some time there yesterday, just painting papers. I started with the papers in one direction, then turned the board around and continued painting with them in this direction.


Back in the early part of July, I had taken a photo at the beach of three girls walking up from the water, holding these brightly colored swim tubes. I had thought it would be a fun picture to paint, so just for fun, yesterday, when I realized I had done a page in blue, I laid that out in acrylic on the watercolor paper. I worked on it sideways- just as you are seeing it. In case you can’t see it, it is the painting on the right!
I just threw the paint down. Doesn’t it look that way?? I may try to work that into a “real” painting. My vision for it is to have a free and loose feel- that will be a challenge for me as I tend to be tight with my paintings. I don’t know what will become of these painted papers, but it felt good to be sloshing the paints around.

My walks have become an everyday occurrence. I am walking about 3-4 miles per day. It’s a bit disturbing in foul weather though. I don’t like being out if there is the chance of lightning. Sometimes I take my camera and photograph the gardens I pass. It is amazing what I have seen in this town that I have lived in for over 25 years, since beginning these walks.

I can never resist a sky shot.

Now here is a deer walking in front of my neighbor's house, across the street from me.

He is headed down my driveway.

Can't resist this dizzy pattern,

caused by this fence.

How is this for a house?Pink, pink, and more pink. See the lamp post, and the flowers?

And here is a bee, busy at work.

I loved the soft colors of this house, and the simple symmetry.

I hear the sounds of someone stirring upstairs, which means my concentration will be soon broken, and I believe there has been a break in the weather for the moment, so I should probably end here and prepare for my walk.

It has been a pleasure chatting, and I plan on visiting you soon.

jenny