'Tis the season.... let's all be merry and bright!

I wish I could say this was my house but... I do have a nicely decorated tree.

We recently moved from a little 2 bedroom apartment to a nice house with 3 bedrooms and a basement! We're so excited to be living in our little house for the holiday! We are all adjusting to living in New Jersey and school has been going well for the kids. We got a little snow last week and I know the kids are looking forward to the possibility of a white Christmas.  

 

Speaking of Christmas, I thought I'd post here about the winter holidays that pre-date the commercialized Christmas of today. Not many people think beyond the modern version of Christmas, or the "original" meaning of Christmas ("celebration of Christ"). But many of the country people celebrated the shortest day of the year with a Festival of Light, decorating a tree as the symbol of the Great Tree of Life. This is also where the song the 12 Days of Christmas come from as the Yule log would burn for 12 days. People would gather together with family and friends...

eat, drink, dance and sing.

 

 

No matter what holiday you celebrate this season... be it Yule, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, Tekufat Tevet, Saturnalia...

 

 

I'm wishing you all a wonderful Holiday this year!

(if you can get through the anxiety of the family gatherings!)

Tomorrow would be my Grandmother's 97th birthday... I miss her.
She was born in 1919, 10th of 10 children, Helen Elizabeth Sayre in Columbus, OH. I have to say I didn't know a lot about her but the things I did know are that she was an artist, she had been a nurse before my mother was born, and while she was away in college, her mother died of pneumonia and her boyfriend died. She liked football.... I never expected that, I found out a few years ago.
I remember staying with her when I was young, I'd go exploring through the woods behind her house... I'd be gone all day. She had a big bell she'd ring if I wasn't home by dark, and we'd sit around the dinner table, Grandma, Grandpa and me.

Grandpa would go to bed early and Grandma and I would stay up on Saturday night and watch TV together, after the Muppet Show, we'd watch The Carol Burnett Show and The Love Boat and Fantasy Island. We'd stay up and eat popcorn and laugh. When it was time for bed, we'd go downstairs and she'd go in her art room and work on a painting, she was always working on something. I am fortunate enough to have several of her paintings gracing my walls.

August 2016....
Over 2 years has passed and I'm finally getting back to this blog.
So much has happened in that time span, I will only share some of it...

In 2014-2015 I partnered with Marc Anthony and The Green Palette and we did some creative and artistic work together.

OHM pallet

Paisley Pallet

FANGS! Monster t-shirt (recycled t-shirt and fleece appliqued monster)

https://www.facebook.com/TheGreenPalette

 



I've since moved on to full-time work for Artistic Tile in White Plains, NY. They are a specialty tile company and my love of design and my artistic bent serve me well in this career. I've been working there since September 2015 and enjoy helping people bring art and beauty into their homes.

 



 

Also, I separated from my husband last year and moved to NJ with my two children. I'm now divorced and we're all doing the best we can to keep things as positive as possible for the kids. Summer break has been different for the kids since I'm working full time. This year they went to summer day camp and had a sitter pick them up and watch them until I got home. Our complex has a pool so the kids have spent a lot of time in and out of the pool, and enjoying the trips to the beach with their dad. I was able to take an extra day off and take them to Wildwood this summer. Unfortunately, the day we were there a lot of jelly fish were in the water and made everyone itchy. But we spent a lot of time walking the boardwalk and playing in the arcades instead.

 

 

Now, near the close of the summer, they're both at overnight camp at Frost Valley YMCA. My girl loves horses, so I put her in the special camp, Mustang Village, where she gets to ride every day and care for her horse.

My son, not so interested in horses, is in the regular camp with boys his own age and plenty of fun activities to keep him busy for two weeks. Although I miss them, I know this is a very special time for them and I hope to see even small changes in them when they return.