Friday and the sun is shining!

Today's weather is forecasted to be BEAUTIFUL with sunny skies and 70 degrees!! It has not been this warm this year AT ALL. So I am planning to enjoy this weather while it lasts.

Here is my grouting progress on Wednesday evening as I grouted while watching the News Hour on PBS. In reverse order, you see the almost finished product, then covered in grout and finially, what the tea lights looked like before I started grouting.

Tomorow I have a show at the Larsmont School. This is a very charming one-roomed school house. I think this show will be so fun!

Monday and I am back at work.

It makes me so excited to say that I'll be back at work today, no matter what today brings, it makes me so happy!

I was just able to mosaic a bit yesterday on my long neglected bowl. I started to rim the edge, which is sort of hard as I am trying to put pieces on a curve. I need these pieces to be quite small so there is a far amount of cutting involved. You can see the glue is still quite wet by it's white appearance.

It is Wednesday and I have a JOB!!

Yesterday was my first day, having been hired the day before! What can I say, but this is the way of education - at least as far as my jobs have been. My job is a part time, 20 hours a week, M - Th. TEMPORARY summer school position. I will be teaching students from ages 6 - 14!! Oh my gosh, if I think of this I will get quite anxious as this age spread is HUGE.

Yesterday I got my room somewhat together, rearranging furniture, putting up some posters, etc. The most exciting part of my day was going down to the District's curriculum room. A huge room packed to the ceiling with bookshelves PACKED with books, manipulatives, transparencies, calculators, etc. I was like a kid in a candy store!

Today I'll try to take some photos so that you can see what this room is like.

Here is a picture of my latest FINISHED mosaic. It is a cylindrical piece with 4 hearts decorating the outside in honor of Frieda Kahlo. I actually don't think that she ever did any hearts, but when I think of my flaming hearts, my hearts with the ever so small triangles surrounding them, I always think of Frieda Kahlo, who said at the end of her life that she hoped she'd never return.

Each of the four hearts varies slightly. The "background" of the hearts is done is a murky brownish purple.

It is a gloriously sunny Sunday and I will be trying out our new weed wacker.

Talk about a cheap date! (Although the weed wacker did cost more than I make in a day and a half of substitute teaching.)

Our yard need so much work. It is embarrassing to me. So the weed wacker will help immensely. Of course I have all sorts of summer time plans, but with just me doing the yard work, I am a bit skeptical. How much work can an overweight out-of-shape 50+ woman do on 10 acres? Only as much as I can. So I think I will only get a few of my "plans" accomplished and I will feel pretty spunky about this!

Here are just a few photos of what I have been up to lately. One is of two tealights, ready to grout. Then there is a bird house that I began YEARS ago. Each side is different - all involving spirituality. ANd then a vase with our lilacs in it! Love the smell of lilacs.

A Dark and Cold Friday, not that I am complaining, well perhaps a little! But I am so glad that the heat missed us.

Our weather is questionable this morning. Very dark, and there is a good chance that it will rain. However, I am so glad that the heat, that had taken half of the state of Minnesota, missed us. I sure don't need this heat and I don't know anyone who does. You see in Minnesota, when it gets hot it gets incredibly humid as well. Which is why everything outside grows like crazy! Making it hard for me to keep up with weeding, mulching, etc.

This is what I worked on yesterday. I am so excited to finish something!

The cylinder container with the hearts has a murky purple brown background. In addition I began and completed two small tealights is delightful spring colors. This was so fun for me to do. I had just come in from outside where my time was spent weeding and mulching. I think the colors I used reflex this garden work.

I made progress on the wooden bowl. However it goes slowly as I have to prop up the bowl and place 1/2 a dozen pieces of the glass on the bowl, wait for this to try, then re-prop it and the process starts again. (I decided to go with a slightly lighter shade of a similar color on the outside.)

It is Thursday and I am free of substitute teaching until September, I think...

Yesterday was my first official day off of subtitute teaching ... and after Monday and Tuesday I am so glad. The students I was working with were NOT behaving well.

This is the very small amount of mosaic work that I managed to squeeze in between working on our ever increasing weedful garden and vacuuming our extremely dusty floors.

Remember that beautiful bowl that I was trying to complete for my gallery show? This is the outside. The other photo is of a clear glass cyclinder that has four hearts with tiny triangles surrounding it. This takes forever and a day to cut and place, but it is almost done. Yes!

A wonderfully sunny Saturday!

I think that we finally have summer. (At least the bugs think that we have - I am covered with big bites that are itching me.)

These are the few pictures that I took at my Snoodles Gallery Opening. I forgot to take photos until we were on our way out the door. So no people pictures unfortunately, just art.

An extremely WINDY Wednesday today.

I was able to grout outside yesterday in spite of the flies biting my ankles, constantly. Most unpleasant. I decided to grout both the black background and the white faces. I have still a bit of cleaning up to do, get the hanging appartus put in, etc. But for the most part American Gothic in the Garden is done. Tomorrow is my gallery show and I was not able to get the spiral bowl done. Sigh.

You can see from the photos all of the masking tape that I used to cover up the faces as well as the sides of this 100+ window frame.

Thanks to everyone who gave me feedback on American Gothic. It makes such a difference to know what others think of what I do. THANK YOU.

Unfortunately, I did not take any completed photos. What a goof I am! So I will need to do this and show you tomorrow.