Monday, February 21, 2011

Slow Days


This is the time of year when work slows down.  I've just enough to keep afloat, but not so much that there isn't time for other things.

One thing I have done is to sort through one of my bookcases.  I've pulled out some volumes that are not 'keepers' and fit in some others that had been stored in wrong places such as under my TV in my bedroom.  I also store some of my piano music in this bookcase and I pulled out my copy of Carolina Moon.  It has inspired me to start practicing again...another thing to do during work slow-down.  I was amazed that I could play this piece with little hesitation after so many years away from it.

Anyway, as you can see there is not much organization to the bookshelves.  I tried at the beginning to keep things classified, but in just more than eight years, well, it's suffered.  I don't intend on getting overly zealous about sorting it all out.  As you can see, there is a large Statue of Liberty 'preserved' puzzle (it has NY scenes all over it) that stands in the corner overlapping the bookcase.  On the bottom shelf, in with the piano music, I found a book I had purchased at the Ringling Museum in Sarasota, FL.  It's a book of black and white photographs of behind the scenes at the circus.  That's where my name jumped off the page at me.  I had never noticed it before.  I scanned it and then played with it for a while.  Then put it at the top of this post.

Extra time on my hands.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

I Surprise Myself (sometimes)

My afternoon tuning called to reschedule.  The family is all sick.  That left me with an afternoon open to possibilities.

So, what did I fill it with?

Wellllllllll...I vacuumed, dusted, tidied, organized, shredded old paperwork, went to the bank, paid bills, returned a couple phone calls, AND....

I worked on my Manning presentation.  Yes, I, the non-public speaker, will be giving a presentation for the historical society (and anyone else around that may be interested) on William N. Manning, organ builder of Rockport.  Originally planned as an article (still not completed) for the Reed Organ Society Quarterly, I goofed and agreed (in an obviously weak moment) to give a 'talk'.  It's scheduled, I think, for November.  Plenty of planning time as I'm hoping to make it a multi-media presentation - PowerPoint presentation, lecture, and recorded music written by Manning and the majority performed on a Manning organ.

Today I started organizing the visuals.  All got scanned into my computer that weren't already there.  Then I successfully copied them to a CD.  Really, this is an accomplishment as I don't do that kind of thing often enough to remember how it's done.  Then..........I took the CD and found the DVD reader on my second hand (third hand in reality) laptop that I nearly never use.  The laptop has PowerPoint installed on it, my desktop doesn't.  I popped that CD in there and much to my amazement the thing worked! Now I'll be able to create my program, copy it to a Flash drive and use the library's projection equipment.

I feel so brilliant!   (no laughing out there)

Monday, February 14, 2011

Valentine's Day

A very brief explanation...

Back in the 1950's my mom and dad invited their best friend couple to come and live with them while the best friends were looking for an apartment.  My dad and Earle worked together at Western Electric.  Mom and Priscilla had been friends since high school.

While living together at my parent's house, Valentine's Day rolled around and Mom and Pris baked a heart shaped cake while Dad and Earle were at work.  They were thrilled with it and could hardly wait for their husbands to get home.

This poem was written [by Mom (and me)] as a remembrance for Priscilla and Earle's 50th wedding anniversary book.
(Please excuse the punctuation errors and various other glitches...our typist at the time was volunteered for the job and kind of messed up a bit.)    


Friday, February 11, 2011

The Exhibitionist

Not what you think.
This morning a friend emailed and a part of her email exclaimed, "FRONT PAGE!"  Well of course I had to check it out.  Sure enough, there on the front page of our local, weekly, free newspaper was a photo as part of a story about the elementary school's new science center.  And in that photo...
It soars again!
The photo above is copyrighted material (Beacon) and is shown here for personal use only

And that was just the start of a pretty swell day. 

Mid day was consumed with tuning jobs and late day demanded my attendance at the Rockport Art Association Contributing Members opening.  Once again I'm showing an oil painting.
Beyond the Oaks

And a photograph.
American Spirit

The three gals showed up just after five o'clock to check out the exhibit and to nibble on finger food.  While standing around chatting, we were approached by a photographer who inquired about being photographed for Cape Ann Magazine.  We hesitated and then a thought came to me.  "Sure, we'd be glad to as long as the photo is taken in front of my painting."  'A' didn't want to, but mom and I did the photo thing and the photographer jotted down our names AND the title of the painting. 

Just maybe a bit of publicity, huh?

Monday, February 07, 2011

It's Not Political

It's just that one thing led to another...

First, if you remember, there was Dexter the snowman.  Dexter began to suffer mightily when wind and snow changed to wind and rain.  So much so that poor Dexter lost his head.  Then he took a hit to his midsection.
Dexter looking a bit doggy

After being emailed some clever Calvin and Hobbes snowmen cartoons (thanks with a big smile), my thoughts turned to salvaging what I could of Dexter.
"I'm sinking"

Then I thought a bit more and gave up real work for the morning to create this...
As Lady Liberty

I'm sure some will read all sorts of stuff into my current snow display.

(Before y'all jump on what you think is an error on my part...there ARE seven points on the crown.  Ya just can't see the one all the way around to the left side.)

Sunday, February 06, 2011

Three Words

 No More Snow.
partially dug out back drive
                                                                            

Just some pictures from the past week or so...

the deck - fence is 6 feet tall

Oh, have I mentioned ice?  We've got that, too.  This is my back drive.  At least what I shoveled of it.  Today it is a cascade of thick ice.  Two and a half inches thick in some places.  Yes, I measured it while I was out chopping some of it up.
this morning's icy mess

I sure hope that groundhog wasn't just snow blind when he didn't see his shadow.  I'm ready for some seriously warm weather!

Some things do make for pretty pictures though.