Worker Bunny

No, not this type ...

This is Worker Bunny...

She was made for me by a young woman who worked for me when I had my office in Brooklyn. She was going to school and babysitting regularly for 3 children and working for me - and making things for craft fairs. She said that before meeting me she didn't think anyone worked as many hours as she did. The business was doing so well that sometimes I would sleep at the office to take calls from Europe and Asia and to meet deadlines.

And so Worker Bunny was born ...

Since moving to NJ Worker Bunny has been living in the basement office. Yesterday she got a bath in the delicate cycle and moved upstairs.

Work on clearing out the basement has progressed. The kid across the street is helping me and I have gotten better and better at letting go of things. I will admit that there have been moments - it's hard to close down a business that you worked so hard to build.

But at least Worker Bunny gets a well earned rest.

Hope Talks About The Rain

Hi everyone! Hope here. Nana said it was good to share so I'm here to share my thoughts about all the rain that has been falling on our house.

Last night I was watching Moose A Moose with Nana ...



It was so cozy.

This morning I woke up and had a wonderful breakfast. I love yogurt.

After breakfast and play mat time I had a nice nap.

And then the day got complicated ...



I heard Nana and Mommy in the carport. They were talking about water and rain and floods and basements. I know they heard me calling. It took forever for someone to come.



Finally! Nana came to get me. She was soaking wet.

We went to the side door and there was my Mommy ...



We are calling this photo 'Mommy Saves The Basement'.

She set up the big pump and the long blue hose and she made the water run away.

I was thinking about how last week I was in the yard ...



and there was sun, with no water.

And I went to the park ...



and there was sun, with no water.

Mommy says Daddy is coming home from work early because the pump is very heavy and we need to run more blue hose and Mommy isn't that big and Nana's cane went all the way down in the mud and she almost fell down.

It's a lot to deal with ...



I know I look worried but I'm really just wondering when I can go to the park again.

I know that Mommy and Nana are saving the basement.

Because Girls Rock!

Ruby Tuesday: My Desk

Mary asked us to show 'a bit of red' this week.

I noticed there are bits of red on my desk.

Happy Ruby Tuesday. Check out more HERE

Creative Photo 13/Week-2 & Sky Watch

I really hope it's OK to double post LOL

I get very worried about arbitrary rules at times.

I couldn't decide which I wanted to post and they're both connected through nature so here they are.

A storm was rolling over my house on its way to the Bay.


I was hobbling around the yard shooting stuff out of boredom and frustration. I cropped this one and sharpened it a bit. I wish I had realized what I had, I would have taken the leaves out of the stump. They take away from this looking (to me) like another planet.

UPDATE: I tried recreating the shot this morning, same time as when I originally took it, same weather, same light. It didn't happen. The blue is not there. The ridges don't look as pronounced. It just didn't happen. Which has made this shot more special to me. I have decided another world does indeed exist in my yard. My sweet girls Knight & Jo will know what this means. Jo - the portal is clearly open. Knight - just take the railroad, you're closer. I'll pick you up at the station!



HAPPY SKY WATCH All
and
Hey! BE CREATIVE .

SpiderMan Is That You?

Anyone remember the old Saturday Night Live sketch that went like this:

First Guy: What is it?
Second Guy: I don't know! What do you think it is?
First Guy: I don't know but don't touch it!

So I was out watering the plants and I looked up into the tree that sits on my neighbor's property but hangs over my yard. My pal Harry the Squirrel is usually up there at sunset and I make sure to throw him extra food.

Well No Harry - but look what I did find.


The glowy white orb (I'm so dramatic) in the midst of the greenest part of the tree.


first close-up


I left the sunset lighting alone but I softened the sky directly behind the web to get rid of added glare.


This was as close as I could get and still keep clarity, look at all the stuff in there - leaves and those little dry things we called 'itchy balls' as kids.


I wonder of that is the start of THIS

Creative Photography: Hanging On

I've always noticed how the gate leading to my back yard will be soaking wet for hours after a storm but I never really looked. This is what I love about photography - it encourages looking.

We had a huge storm here Sunday. Thunder and lightening - and wind and power outages. Oh My!

When it calmed down I went outside to check on things and took my camera. I was just about to grab the gate by its upper beam when I looked at the row of raindrops and saw them for the first time.

I gingerly pushed the gate to the side of the house so it would be against a plain background and then took a million shots. This is the only one I liked. I blurred it around Mama Raindrop and then I softened the stark white of the house.

I love how she's hanging on.

Please visit CREATIVE PHOTOGRAPHY - every week new people enter and the art just gets more and more wonderful. And consider grabbing a camera and looking at things differently yourself. It's like two therapy sessions and it's free.

Project Black: Stayin' In the Shower All Day!

I just plain hate hot weather! The sun and humidity make me less than my usual perky self.

I wanted to do another one or two PROJECT BLACK posts before it was over. I took these bathroom shots the same day as the kitchen and then other stuff bumped them.

I did NOT style my bathroom before I shot it. A friend accused me of that when I asked her to help me weed 20+ photos down to these 4. I'm just neat. Plus this is the first bathroom I have ever had that is mine, mine, mine and just mine! It's small but it's mine.

In case you're wondering - the bathroom is mine! I don't share it with anyone. Well Siren sleeps on the bathmat sometimes but that's OK. He doesn't leave the seat up and he doesn't shed in the shower.

I'm hoping to catch up with all the other PB'ers later today.

Project Black: The Kitchen

The next stop on my PROJECT BLACK home tour picks up at the side door.

We're greeted by Kitty Klock, a gift from my nephew.





This is the far side of the kitchen complete with brand new fridge - it was delivered Friday. The box by the doorway is waiting to be kicked into the basement so I can spend Sunday working on it - arghhh



Little green magnet man appears to like his new home



This is the other side of the kitchen



Here's the range. I like the reflection and the bits of color.



Another cat accessory, a spoon rest. He had a partner who I suspect was killed in a tragic dishwashing accident although no one has confessed yet.



My DIL loves knives and orange and loves Rachael Ray (insert your own joke) so I got her this set for Christmas. The microwave is also brand new. Apparently the old microwave had a suicide pact with the old fridge.



More knives under the microwave. I tend to stay out of the kitchen when I'm in a bad mood. Oy!



The uh very ripe bananas are for banana bread and a puree that my DIL makes. I was playing around with light and shadow to compensate for the glare from the window and liked the way this came out. I call it "Bananas in the Fog".



I just got the black dish drainer because it stays clean longer. The towel under it is some weird super water absorber thingie from QVC. My son and his wife bitch about not having a dishwasher which I find hilarious since I wash the dishes 99.9% of the time.



We're back at the side door again. This shot is titled "Nothing is Simple". The lamp post is supposed to come on based on the timer but it doesn't so I gave up and just turn it on at sunset. The carport switch MUST stay in the on position for the motion sensor to work. If you turn it off because you can't freakin' read and pay attention (they shall remain nameless!) then it has to be set again. This involves my son on a ladder fiddlin' with tiny tiny knobs while I walk up and down the driveway saying - "does it come on yet?, does it come on yet?".



At night Kitty is visible from outside. He was up there for years before I ever realized that. A friend's little granddaughter freaked out one night and was screaming "black cat on the ceiling!!" and "that cat will get me!!". She refused to come inside until we figured out what she was seeing. She now comes in using the front door.



So there ya have it. Believe it or not I took 53 shots of the kitchen yesterday. These were (I hope) the most interesting to look at, they were the most Project Black'ish.

Make sure to check out all the other PROJECT BLACK participants.

Project Black: Jack Wants To Go Home

One of my adopted blog daughters LEIGHANN gave me the idea to travel through my house, in some kind of order - although I suck at order, shooting PROJECT BLACK while giving a little tour.

I know I enjoy seeing more of where my blog friends live so I hope you do to.

I was going to leave the back yard and go directly to the front but I was interrupted by a visitor. These are shots taken on my “patio” (slab of concrete) which leads to the side door and the carport.

The furry cutie is Jack – granddog to the folks right next door. He spends his days with PopPop while his parents are at work and often comes to visit me. He won’t admit it but he really just wants to poop in my grass and leave.

After poop-fest is over he stares at the fence, giving me his signature sideways look and then wills the gate to open.

Tomorrow is Wordzzle and then on Sunday we will hopefully make it inside the house where the AC is cranking.

Project Black: Back Yard

ANNA has started the new color project and it is BLACK! My second favorite color after purple.

This was taken in my backyard. I was facing toward the front of the house. When we bought the house 5 years ago it was all white, no shutters, no trim and the siding was filthy - yellow and moldy. Once we cleaned it up the whiteness was killing me so we added black trim and shutters and we replaced the rusted steel fence with black slats.

The little building to the left is the brand new shed. A tiny white house with black shutters where all my son's magical machines and tools live a happy life. We also put down black and gray rock around the shed since this part of the yard tends to flood.

I'll take some shots of the front for the next PROJECT BLACK post. Hope you visit all the others.

Creative Photography: Ice Ice Baby

I don’t know how creative my photography is in this shot. I will say that I had to lie down on the ground to get the best effect and getting back up sure felt creative.

This was taken this past winter. It had been freezing cold for days and then overnight the temperature rose into the 50s and it rained and rained. That spout thing was dripping like crazy all day.

Then – just as suddenly – the sun came out and the temps dipped. Dipped into - oh my god my skin is coming off - cold. The constant drip turned to a hesitant splat. And with each little splat that icicle got taller and taller, reaching back up toward the spout as if it wanted to climb back in there and warm up.

I’ve seen icicles hanging down but this guy was hanging up. And I thought he was the coolest thing. There’s a second little one which I think came from a drip off the pool cover, and the little guy is checking out his reflection in the pool base.

Please take a moment to check out all the Creative Photography entries. You won’t be disappointed.

Project Looking Through: Then and Now

I'm really enjoying this project. I get to share some photos, stay in touch but still keep as many active brain cells as possible focused on work.

This first photo was taken when we were looking at the house we now live in. It is the hallway of 'my side' of the house we converted into a kind of, well not really, but better than nothing Mother/Daughter (why not son?).





Once we bought the house we closed up the arch by the stairway that leads to my son's second floor. We also put new doors on all the rooms and spiffed up the walls and floor. As much as I love photos and art I decided to leave the walls bare since the hall is so narrow. I like to feel as roomy as possible.

The second photo is taken pointing in the same direction - the room Mia is standing in is my bedroom. I'm taking the photo from 'Siren's Special Screen Door' so you're not getting the whole hallway feel but all you're missing is walls. That pile of clothes is stuff I wore while Siren and then Mia sat with me. I was trying to get both of them to like all our smells. And yes, those are my shoes. My feet are big but as I told Leighann, they help me hold up my big boobs.





So in essence you're looking through my hallway then and now.

Tomorrow is Wordzzle and I'm going to try and be creative. I have given up on this month's PFC. My head and eyes hurt too much from data entry and spreadsheets. Plus I want to relax a bit over the weekend by reading all the others.

Happy Friday Night kids!

To see more Project Looking Through please visit Mark

Heads or Tails Tuesday: The Scary Room

Before buying this house I lived in apartments all my life. Somebody else is responsible for water and heat and wires.

The room I'm going to share with you is, according to my daughter-in-law, the laundry room, my son calls it - "down where I have my tools" - or - "where the beer is" - or - "did you bring up any --- from there".

I call it 'The Scary Room' - I'm not afraid of it anymore, that disappeared the first time I plugged the leak, turned off the gas, and pumped the pump. It's name stuck out of love and admiration for the fragile maze of incomprehensible workings that make a building a home.





The door to the scary room - right by my desk, that way I can always hear the moaning, screeching, clacking of whatever is about to cost thousands to repair.




Looks pretty benign when you first enter.




These machines I can manage - funny how others in the house have difficulty - wonder if it's a hormone thing?




Even the washer/dryer have demons - you must be able to turn this little red dial at the first scent of gas. Again - I appear to be the only person who has a sense of smell.




the water from the washer pumps into the pump that ...




... pumps into the hole, that generates the pool that flows back up the pipe that lives in the house that morons built.




give you one guess why the pump that pumps needs a special alarm!?
and my bedroom is right above - how convenient (for everyone else)




although I enjoy having a window while folding (balling up) sheets - the real reason we put it in was to have a way to pump out the water when the pumps that pump the pumps stop pumping




the hanger is my handiwork - 3 men stood around scratching their balls trying to decide how to keep thing #1 from falling off of thing #2. I got the hanger, got the wire cutters and viola! - they said they'd be back with clamps - that was 3 years ago.




blue and red flames in here are a good thing - until you have to put your hand in there to flip the thingie




you're gazing at my trip to San Francisco! any and all black pipes you see were ALL replaced at once since they decided to sprout holes together. synchronized flooding!
Oh well - California will still be there, or not if you believe in global warming.
Meet ya on the beach in Vegas?




Water that is invited into the house can be controlled here.




I have no clue what these things do but I think they're pretty and I think it's really cool that I own concrete.




scary stuff that is as old as dirt




I believe the Internet runs through here




and ... when all else fails I can open this little door, climb under the stairs and rock back and forth chanting "me precious, me precious"
or ... it's a great place to smoke a joint when the freakin' kids are home

Hope you like my scary room. There's a lovely house attached to it - if you're interested you can buy it for a lot less than we paid for it as long as you don't mind waiting until the economy is better so that we can afford to leave it. Perhaps your grandkids are interested?

To join Heads or Tails Tuesday or to check out others go to Skittle’s Place