The View From Here: President's Day Snow

It snowed yet again around here, this time on President's Day:

Later on, after the sun came out, I noticed the tomatoes I had put on the windowsill to ripen. The way the tomatoes were arranged just resonated with me, so I photographed it:

Perhaps I may create a sketch of them from the photo; we ate two of the tomatoes already.

More church crafts

Two more recent church craft projects:

Moses, in a nutshell.

The Red Sea, parted. The yellow part with the shells is the dry sandy riverbed; the wave with the fish in it is the Red Sea parted.

The View From Here: NJ Blustery Day

On Friday it was nice and warm; on Saturday temps dropped down into the 20s & 30s, with wind gusts up to 50mph. Great day for flying a kite, so we went to the park and did just that:

You can hear how windy it is on these videos:

Great day for taking a couple of pictures too:

Couldn't take any more; running out of space on the ol' camera.

The View From Here: Sunset on Friday

Church Crafts

Here are some church crafts that I worked on recently (from the Kids Quest curriculum):

Joseph's Hat (something he might have worn in Egypt)

Zaccheus climbing the tree; A necklace Joseph might have worn in Egypt:

The burning bush Moses saw:

100 Days

My daughter's school just celebrated 100 days of school. I'm not sure why, but they asked parents to work with their kids on a project that they could wear and also a project on paper. I helped her with both. Below is the outfit I helped her make:

She added the glitter at the bottom, I added the felt and sequins at the top. You had to have 100 items on the shirt, so I sewed 100 sequins by hand onto the number 100. This was taken after she wore the shirt, and it had more glitter on the bottom when we first worked on it:

Here is the back:

I cut her name out of felt and sewed it onto the shirt, then added a few sequins for the i-dot.

To be honest I didn't see what the big deal was about celebrating 100 days of school; we never did it when I was growing up. But once I finished the project, I thought about what I want to do for next year.

Did You Watch The Super Bowl?

Well, I didn’t watch it, but I did watch some of the ultra-cute Puppy Bowl on Animal Planet http://animal.discovery.com/tv/puppy-bowl/! Irresistible! So cute to see puppies running around and playing! And who wouldn’t be delighted by the kitten’s half time show? OK, so I watched more than a few minutes of it, but I look forward to seeing it each year.

The View From Here: Oh, Deer!

All the snow has begun to melt at last,

and the deer are nibbling whatever tender morsels they can find:

NJ Winter Sunsets

A few sunset pictures I took recently using a cell phone camera. I touched them up a little bit in a photo editing program. No, I wasn't driving when I took the pictures!

The View From Here

Ice Storm 2011

a "Shrub" cake:

Top of shrubcake:

Sunset on an icy and dangerous day:

African American Art

It’s Black History Month! Celebrate with my African American Art for $20! Click here: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150406047665

Reflections on Black History Month

It’s Black History Month once again. Now that America has a black president, people are debating whether or not we still need Black History Month. My opinion: yes we do, more than ever. Why? Because there are still plenty of people in this country who know very little about the accomplishments of black people aside from George Washington Carver, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King Jr. Our history is rich with examples of inventors, scientists, artists, explorers, etc. Many inventions we take for granted today were the brainchildren of forgotten African Americans from yesteryear. And there are still many trailblazers living today that we can and should recognize for their role as living history. The African American contribution to history should be recognized, and continuing the tradition of Black History Month will help us to do so.