#96 Lazy day...

Jake is flaked out at my feet where I'm sitting on the porch (how did I ever live without this porch?) sipping tea and listening to Norah Jones singing away on my new (silver)  iPod that's playing through the Ion Block Rocker we got for playing music outside for the wedding reception. When I was inside this morning it was playing through our new (silver)  Bose Sound Docker. We finally treated ourselves after years and years of having really, really bad music systems. It's been a good 25 years since I heard music as it was intended...I'm making up for lost time today! Aaaaaaah....

I love lazy days like this...I managed to brush my teeth but I haven't made the bed or done any dishes. I had pecan-raisin toast for breakfast (on the porch) and two (yes two!) Drumsticks (vanilla caramel) for lunch. I wanted three but I'm exercising: Control.

My only really accomplishment today has been to get a start on prewashing/shrinking all the fabric for the sofa slipcovers. No, they never got made in spite of all my good intentions months and months ago. My goal is to get them cut and sewn by this time next week and to have them on for the bridal shower my sister and Emily are giving Megan next month. I'll take them off right after and keep them pristine until the wedding; after The Big Day they'll stay on. White slipcovers with a big, black, shedding pooch - I wonder how many of those sticky roller things I'll be going through? I don't care how many...the red sofas are looking faded and grim and need some sprucing up!

Hope your day is as lazy as mine. If not, stop what you're doing, put on your favorite tunes, sit in a big ol' comfy chair with your feet up in  and sip a good cup of tea...pure bliss!

-karen anne

#95 My Lovelies...

My Fairy Roses

My Sweeties

(Taken at Megan's bridal shower in Rochester - thanks, Sylvie!)

-karen anne

#94 Let Summer Begin!

At long last, the porch and the back of the house have been painted and we can enjoy the fruits of our labor! I'm soooo happy and have already had the first lemonade of the summer; the porch is the perfect place to sip! I think the best thing we did was have fans installed - the breeze they kick up cools everything off and keeps the bugs at bay, too. Anyway, here you are:

 

 I'm really amazed how much the real thing looks like the drawing I did for the contractor in March 2010:

Will this be the perfect place for Megan and Andrew's wedding reception or what?!?

-karen anne

#93 I love this...

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”
~Antoine De Saint Exupery

Sea Dream. Digital drawing. 2011. Karen Anne Glick

 -karen anne

#92 The front fence...

Things have changed out front!

The front fence used to be plain, but now it sports three black lattices with Elsa Spath clematis (they promise to be lovely and huge and deep purple) just starting to grow up them, and three Sky Pencil hollies that will grow to about 5 or six feet - the fence is 6' tall. I applied a fresh coat of Sherwin Williams Shade Tree opaque stain before we planted everything:

This fall I'll plant some purple tulips all along the bed, and next spring I'll plant iris or Stella d' oro lillies on top...or however you're supposed to do that - I need to do some research!

-karen anne

#91 Working through ideas...

As I go about my days which right now are filled with the garden, wedding details (the gown!), adjusting to both kids moving away, and all the regular things that keep our lives humming, I've been thinking about the show I'll have next summer and working through some ideas. After the wedding I'd like to experiment with combining images I create on the computer with collage, embossing/debossing, and sewing (hand and machine). This image that I created tonight (which started out as the rose I posted in the last post!) would lend itself well to what I have in mind:

 

I like working on ideas while I do other things - somehow that quiet simmering that goes on when you're not fully aware sets a bit of magic in motion. 

 Do you work through ideas this way, too?

-karen anne