In other words, it’s the first day of school! Moms across Maine are celebrating today. Jan and I are extending that to tomorrow when we are finally going to meet for coffee in downtown Camden at Zoot–we’ve been trying to get together since school let out. Hah!

Of course, since it is the first day of school, there are the requisite back-to-school photos. First, Joshua was up at 6 to be at school by 7:15 (starts at 7:35) to go off to Camp Kieve for four-plus days (they come home Saturday), an 8th grade ritual. How did he get to be in 8th grade already? Anyway, here he is:

Then, Eli’s school starts an hour later (he’s in 4th this year…next year for 5th on he’ll be up early, too!). While I was dropping off Joshua, his sleeping bag, and box of bandages and meds for the week, Eli got up and dressed. At 7:52, out we went to the bus, with the dog-beasts in tow. Eli, of course, had to hold (Pig)widgeon for his pics:

And here is Widgeon doing his Stitch impersonation (as in Lilo and Stitch….there is no way the animators for that movie didn’t have a pug.. I mean color him blue and add a couple extra legs and he’s Stitch!):

While out, I snapped a picture of something that isn’t too rare this year:

Yes, it seems fall is coming early. I have high hopes, since they say the best fall colors come from warm days and nippy nights, and that is what we are having. We still have the fan on in the room, but are sleeping under sheet, quilt and duvet.

And then you find odd stuff in the notch of the trees when you go to snap a close up of the reddest low-down leaf around:

Gee….wonder how that got there?

And if you don’t hear from me for a couple of days…guess why? I’ll be in my STUDIO! What a miracle! Time for art (and in this specific instance, getting my journal quilt done before it is due!). WOOOOOHOOOOO!

Toodles, and I’ll be back….eventually <grin!!!!!>

OK…. you take beauty where you find it.  Last night it was spam in  my e-mail in-box:

and preening, dancing on the basepaths,
XIV. Franz Josef Land: The Amazing Drift of the Tegetthoff  The surge of swirling wind defines
Your red cheeks radiant against the wind, The edge of that other square cut from the right
Yes. You’d want that said, (if you Glimmering of light:
Homeward into the howling woods, although  Only a fox whose den I cannot find

A google of “The Amazing Drift of the Tegetthoff” brought me to this Wikipedia entry on “spamdom”, which it defines as real words / phrases used to fool spam-catchers so as to allow the spam “sales pitch” (for Adobe, viagra, whatever) to get through.   Who cares….   It could be interesting to do a quilt challenge to illustrate a particularly beatiful bit of spamdom……

Can’t you just see a young buck, prancing on a light dusting of early winter snow, the moonlight streaming down through the bare birchtree branches, glinting off the crust of ice….white lines quilted and swirled in among the trunks of the trees howling the winter in (to steal a line from a favorite song by Makem and Clancy, written by Michael Peter Smith called “The Dutchman“.   Here are the lyrics.  You can hear clips at either Amazon or iTunes).

Anyway…just another bit of flotsam from my life…..

Just a quick note to let you all know I haven’t dropped off the face of the earth! It has been busy here… Paul is recovering from rotator cuff (shoulder…torn tendons) surgery. Days are pretty good, nights off-and-on…. some good, others not so great. Joshua is doing quite well with his leg, and the plastic surgeon said on Monday that he doesn’t need to see him again. We are to keep the dressings on for a while longer, then the rest is just growing bone, healing and recovering muscle. Joshua is making up for having lost all that weight in the hospital (I’m guessing maybe 15 pounds in ten days?) by eating us out of house and home.

Today I take Eli to Freeport, home of LL Bean, for school clothes shopping, then this afternoon a first for us: Lobster! Kristina, Joshua’s girlfriend, is from a lobstering family and works on the boat once or twice a week. Yesterday, she treated us to four, so we now have a moving bag inside the fridge… I’ll take pics! Time to run…gotta get on the road (Bean is about 80 minutes from here, and we need to be home early enough to fix and eat lobster before Eli’s soccer practice at 6….).

Quilty stuff eventually, Cheers, Sarah

On Monday, before we knew Joshua would be coming home, I had a quiet moment. Eli was off to camp and I was all alone in the house (a RARE occurrence). There was a ripe mango in the fridge. Not for long…. when I set my things down to eat and read e-mails, I thought this looked so lovely:

So that is my morning beauty break…. Joshua is improving daily, though he has a long way to go. Having friends over all day nearly wore him out yesterday, but he was so happy having first Taylor, then Kristina. And my Coastal Quilter friend Leigh Smith made us the most incredible dinner (which lasted for two!) of homemade lasagna, Italian bread, ice cream, and even some red wine (with two straws, which Paul had joked we would need since we were too tired to pour a glass), and a heavenly smelling candle! I should have taken pictures, but instead we inhaled the dinner. Gotta get her recipe!

Just a brief note today…. somewhere in catching up on various blogs I came across this link for a man who does graphic designs, book covers, posters and websites.  Honestly, the site is not very intuitive.  You have to wait for a flash opening, then a skinny line with no words or any other hints pops up.  Click on the middle of it, and the line will blink, and then you can mouse over the color bars to see Covers, Books, Web, Type, Posters and Contact.  Little circles will appear on either side of the color bar.  If you click on THOSE you will be rewarded for navigating this not-so-helpful site design with a feast of glorious, and very different designs.

I love this book cover, and this one.   Hmmm…OK, those links may take you to the same page.  Click on the third and fifth dots to the right of the vertical color band!  And the first poster I would order if he still had it…. try clicking here, it is the top dot:  here .

I’m screamingly busy working on my book, so hope to have more quilty and art-y content anon.