What Was Grammy-Nanny Thinking?

It's a little disconcerting when you come home after a snow day when the family has been a little stir crazy with cabin fever and this is the page that is up on the computer when you pull it up. Not, necessarily a bad idea...I'm just sayin'!

I Want to Ask a Question

120509 035, originally uploaded by Kikigill.

The other day, the same day as the great pup tent experiment, I came into the room to find Liam attempting to shove this Rare Earth 45 into a CD player annoucing, "I want to play some music!"

My question is this: how did he know that this was an archaic form of music media?

This picture brings me right back to a party my parents had when I was Elena's age and this was one of my hand-me-down records. The Wallin kids and I turned off the lights and played "cool" music on my little record player. This one, Black and White by Three Dog Night and Papa Was a Rolling Stone by the Temptations. There was that little, swastika-shaped yellow piece of plastic that fit into the center hole so it could be played on the tiny spindle. In retrospect, we were COOL, I think, as five-year-olds go!

Tis the Season for....Obsession

120509 028, originally uploaded by Kikigill.

Every year as the holiday season encroaches, I start my ornaments. This year it's felting. Felting acorns, little flowers, fiddlehead ferns in pots, fawns, dogs, cupcakes, and, of course, fried eggs!

Yesterday We Tried Something New

120509 041, originally uploaded by Kikigill.

I was trying to head off the game of "beaver dam" by setting up the pup tent, INSIDE. I had delusions of happy children playing neatly in the tent for days on end. An inspiring fort, with just enough rule breaking to be interesting, I had hoped it would rivet them to the playroom, buying me time to read and do my felting projects. Not so, I'm afraid.

First of all, the interest in the tent lasted only about as long as any other toy...forty minutes or so. Secondly, the tent, being in essence a giant receptacle, inspired what can only be called an unsorting game. A collection of all the toys of the playroom, the winter clothing housed up there and pieces of paper trash from near and far gathered inside the tent. This game was WORSE than beaver dam.

Couple that with my sense of false security thinking I had stumbled on the perfect entertainment...and you have disaster. Turns out we had upturned game boards, dumped out bins and, the piece de resistance, the twin bed sheet on the bed up there decorated Pollack-style with green marker. What is that saying about the word assume...

Sunday Dinners

Looking in from the outside, there sits the family eating Sunday dinner at my aunt Pat's. For years and years, all my childhood (when we lived in the NY area), we had Sunday dinners at Grandma and Grandpa's. I remember bringing our new puppy to show them. Celebrating birthdays...and fresh hams...where I could pick the fat squares off the top while Grandpa carved the meat. Like this:

Halloween...Elena the Zebra

Camisole with a No-Pantyline Promise??

Explain to me how a cami would leave a panty-line anyway...

From the Cutting Room Floor...Brooklyn Trip

More pictures that were taken and never blogged below...

There's just something about the light in Brooklyn:










A little tired on the way home:

I Am Abandoning Ship

I made it to day 290 in my 365 project. I still take a picture a day, but have been so falling behind in my blogging about each picture, that I am putting an end to the guilt I feel. This does not mean I won't blog and this does not mean I will not post pictures. I will do both. It just means I am not beholden to telling you stories from damn near two months ago. Here are some of the pictures I have taken in the last two months that would have been blogs with captions underneath summarizing what I was going to write about...then I can move on from the guilt and get back to my good old-fashioned blog.

Mom and Dad's anniversary...40 years:


Tree Me! The arrival of the Christmas trees at Youngs the day before Thanksgiving. We put ours up the weekend after:


Flipping Off...this is a tree at our church. I cannot tell if it is a manufactured "sculpture" that is made to look like a hand giving the finger, or some sort of fungus that grew that way...


Uno! The WKC winner from last year memorialized in plush:


Gluten-Free candy cookies made with all the leftover Halloween mini-bars:


These eggs were from our friends' chickens! Aren't they beautiful!


"Blessed are the cracked, for they let in the light."








Running down Pin Pack, returning from the Casey Lane hike...I loved how they are in matching form:




A sign I spotted on my walk which made me think of times gone by:


Look at this dandy fellow:


Have you ever really stopped to look at how creepy this sign is? Perhaps the sign itself is effective as a deterrent to prowlers!


Let the felting begin! Felted acorns:


Squirrel nests...this one's for you, Robin and Tiff!


Sparkling stream, bubbling like seltzer in the morning sun:


This was going to be a good blog! When Liam went Brooklyn with his godfather, Doug, Doug came back announcing that it was very interesting to see Halloween decor through a 3-year-old's eyes. In Brooklyn, the big thing is to hang giant spider webs of stretchy polyester that reach from first to second story of your brownstone. Liam eyed then all trepidatiously and Doug said he could almost hear him thinking, "Um...how about this big 'pider problem you all have in Brooklyn? Can't you do something about it?"


Two Thumbs Up for The Bissell House, new restaurant in the Ridge:


Long-limbed Italian greyhound, Milo...belonging to a friend.


Goodwill find as I was setting up a 60's table for Mom's birthday party:


Business meeting in New York City completed, waiting for my car at the parking garage...killing time:


Looking East and West at the same time:


Um...maybe Scientology IS the path to Heaven? ;)


Times Square security camera:


The 80's called and they want their flourescent, splatter paint embellishment BACK:


When you get change from the Metro-North train machines, you get gold coins...And I love them...


Liam does too:


A Church Glows in Brooklyn:

OCTOBER 17th: New Obsession

Cooking Calendar Spine, originally uploaded by Kikigill.

What do I need when the days get shorter and the weather colder? A new obsession, of course. In November and December, it will Christmas readying, but in October, it's books. I have started haunting book sales to find little gems, like this cookbook from the 60's. I bought $45.00 worth of books at the Ridgefield book sale and sold 8 books on ebay for over $150.00. CHA-CHING! I'm sold...and a new obsession is born.