Shoe Show.......

I would like to share some images of paintings my 7th graders did. These are 15" x 21" in size and are painted in tempera paint.

We photographed their shoes in a background that they created using fabric, tissue paper or construction paper. I printed the photos and then we enlarged the picture using a grid method.

We had practiced many painting techniques prior their executing their final painting. 

Masterpieces, I think.

Happy Birthday CAM.....

Remember this? 1973. 'WE' were painting up in Newagen.....yeah, even YOU!!

We've had a lot of fun, haven't we?

Hope you're still having fun.....

Happy Birthday to an awesome sister-in-law!

Diner for dieters....

There's a little diner in Portland. Might be a good place to go for a quick bite....

'cept for one thing....

Waitress: "Hi. My name is Darcy and I will be your waitress. What can I get for you today?"

You: "Hi, ok, I'd think I'd like a BLT on whole wheat and an iced tea, no sugar."

Waitress: "Oh dear, Oh no, I'm sorry, didn't you seen the sign on the door?......

"No food or drink allowed.  Is there anything else I could get for you?"

The Olympic Games.....a retrospective....

I love the whole idea about the Winter Olympics. There’s an aura to it that I find appealing, including the gut drumming song that accompanies each opening segment on TV. 

And, of course, the games.

OK. Most of them I get. Ice skating (ice dancing, figure skating, racing, .....), skiing (nordic, cross country, jumping....), the fairly new snowboarding (whatever...too new to me to interpret), and ice hockey.

No prob.

However.....

Please. Come on. 

For example....

....the Luge?

Lying on a little sled, face up, feet first careening down an icy track at 87 miles an hour while clad in spandex? 

And then, AND THEN .....there’s the DOUBLE luge!???  Two men lying on top of each other on same sled, in the same slippery spandex with no seatbelts! WHAT is holding the second man in place on top of the first?? I shudder to think. 

(yeah, I know, women do it, too, but they’re probably cushier.) 

sigh....

And then the Biathlon. 

(The following is a re-enactment of the founders deciding what this event should be in  the 1924 Winter Olympics .)

Olympics President: “OK, we know we need to use ice or snow in this event, but what should we do?”

Olympics trustee: “Pour raspberry syrup on the snow, eat it, and call it a day?”

Olympics President: “No. Come on. This is serious. These are the Olympics, you know, Athens and all....just in the winter.”

Olympics trustee: “I know. (thinking)  Well.....(more thinking).....maybe they can SKI!”

Olympics janitor: “Brilliant! Now let’s go out to lunch.”

Olympics President: “No, no. Wait. I think we need more than that. Something to......”

Olympics trustee: “I know. I know! Let’s have them carry rifles on their backs while cross country skiing mile after mile and then have them stop every so often to lie down on the snow and shoot at a target, get up and ski some more! Let’s make it a race!!!”

Olympics President: “I. SAID.THIS. IS. SERIOUS! That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

True story.

And then there’s Curling......

Don’t even get me started on that!

Sidebar:  You know about Dubai? In the Middle East? The place that is LOADED with money?

THEY have an indoor skiing facility. Look for yourself......

They should apply for the Olympics. 

New painting....

After one week of school vacation, I have a painting of Monument Square in Portland, Maine.

It's not too big, about 17" x 11". Tempera Paint.

Getting high......

Last night, our local news decided to show videos of runway models falling down. Apparently a slow news night, the co-anchors got quite a kick out of watching these waifs tumble to the ground. Considering most of them don't weigh enough for gravity to kick in, I suppose this really was a news worthy event. 

Here is a video showing what they were so amused about....

With my sharp eye, I noticed that some of the issues were with the chosen footwear.

For example:

The Guinness Book of World Records documents the weirdos/ weirdo things of this world.  It's not so easy to get a slot in that book. These high, high, high heels have made the cut.

My niece is a dancer, sometimes performs ballet. I suppose these would be her formalwear.

These are kinda cute.

These would be excellent for camping. That's about the only time I find I don't have access to a bottle opener. I never remember to pack it. (toilet paper-check. bug spray-check. bottle opener-oops!) (Oh wait, I have my heels on!)

Come to think of it, these might come in handy for camping as well! Never know when varmints will raid your cooler.

Usually when you see a photo of a baby, the response is, "awwww".  I saw this photo, and I'm sorry to say, I said, "ewwwww".

Ummm.....well.....ah.......love his man-bag.

The reason I chose this topic was because yesterday I experienced an almost disastrous fall because of my footwear and if it wasn't for a wall, I would have fallen right over. The culprit?

These......

Don't even ask.......

My first cookbook....

When I was in the 7th grade a hundred years ago, my mom bought me this cookbook from the TAB book club in my Junior High. (No 'Middle School' jargon, we were the Junior HIGH!)

I still use some of the recipes to this day. 

The recipes were great, but my favorite things were the photographs and the illustrations. I had the children illustrated in the book memorized and they came to life for me upon perusing the pages hundreds of times. 

One of my favorite is the recipe for Apple Crisp. Since an apple a day keeps the doctor away, this is a wise choice for today's health conscious population. (Disregard the butter...)

I should have taken a photo of this luscious concoction in a bowl with coffee ice cream, which is the way we served it, but it's hard to take a photo at the moment when you are shoveling this into your mouth.

Note: I add raisins to the apples and walnuts to the topping....I like a good crunch.

Happy Valentine's Day.....

The best of Valentine's Day to all the lovers out there. 
Roses from my Birdman. I love you.

Its a Mall world after all........

Nude Descending a Staircase -  Marcel Duchamp

A type of walking.....

Walking. How we manage to move and keep balanced on only two feet is unexplicable to me. I have been making various types of 3-D ‘art’ in my life and I know how hard it is to get something that only has 2 ‘feet’ or ‘legs’ to stand up. It has to have perfect balance. And I mean, perfect balance.

I do not have perfect balance, but I do manage not to fall over 99.8 percent of the time. (the other .2 percent of the time is none of your business.)

So Mr. Downeastdoingstuff, recovering from open heart surgery, needs to walk. Walking is good for his heart. It’s good for lots of stuff, but there are only so many times he can walk from one end of the house and back again to get a good workout.

So off to the Maine Mall we go. To walk. Before hours. They actually open at 6:00 am for walkers!

He still is having a bit of trouble with fluid in his innards and sometimes he experiences what appears to be hyperventilation because of that. (He’s on some new meds for that...hopefully he won’t have to experience possible deflation again by having a hole punched into him with the biggest needle ever made.) Walking from the car in the subfreezing temps to the mall caused a little episode of this, but he quickly recovered.

“Are you OK?” (A question I have asked him about every 5 minutes since the surgery. Heck, I asked that question every 5 minutes even before the surgery.)

“Yeah, I’m fine” said Mr. DEDS as he was sitting on the curb trying to breathe. “Let’s go.”

So in we go. None of the stores are open yet so I don’t even recognize the place. Who knew the Mall had halls!

I read somewhere that if you walk around the perimeter of the mall, into every nook and cranny, it’s about a mile.

So here we go, walking at a pretty good pace, into every nook and cranny. ) (OK, so maybe we missed a cranny or two...)

All the way around....non-stop. Us and a bunch of other athletes doing the same thing.

When we got back to our starting point we sat down on a couch to rest. I had picked up a local community newspaper along the way and started reading a story. I barely got through one paragraph when he said, 

“OK. Let’s go.”

“OK”, I replied, ready to put on my mittens and bundle up my scarf.

“No. Let’s do it again.”

“What?”, I gasped.

“Let’s do it again.”

So off we went and did it again. Two miles (ish).

Not bad for our first marathon, doncha think?

Two new little paintings.....

Both of these are from photos Mr. Downeastdoingstuff took and was kind enough to let me use.

This is only 4 1/2"x7". (tempera)

This is an 8"x10". (tempera)

They're OK.....

That'll be Seventy Five dollars, please....

So on Monday morning, I open the fridge to get out my cottage cheese and notice that it is rather balmy in there.

I examine the icetray in the freezer and see that global warming has finally hit my icebox.

My refrigerator is silent.

It has died.

I am panic stricken because I now have a fridge full of perfectly good food that I have to do something with. I realize that I have very little time left to make breakfast, get dressed, pack my lunch, check blogs and head off to school. 

Fortunately we have an unheated summer porch right off of the kitchen, so I empty out every dang piece of food and jars of condiments (many) and heave them it out onto the porch.

(What's the shelf life of fish sauce ? ) (Several years, I hope.) (What IS fish sauce?)

I inform Mr. Downeastdoingstuff, who is still recuperating in bed at the moment, that: 

"The refrigerator is dead."

"What????" (I think he only heard the word 'dead'.)

"The fridge has died. I put all the food out onto the porch. Call the repairman. I have to go."

"OK" +  "(unheard comment under his breath)"

Text message later in the day informs me that soonest the repairman can come would be on Wednesday....... two days later!! 

So the temperature on the porch is cold enough for most food, too cold for veggies and not cold enough for ice cream and ice cream sandwiches. But it'll have to do.

Wednesday, the repair man arrives.

He opens up the bottom freezer, turns a knob (that I have never laid eyes on, even while cleaning it), and the dagnabbit thing starts up.

$75 please.

Apparently cramming an ice cream container into an already jam-packed freezer may or may not turn  off the entire refrigerator . Beware.

Going out to breakfast !!!!

It's 10 degrees out and Mr. DEDS wants to attempt to go out to breakfast somewhere! And to take pics for his blog!

Update on how we do when we get back....

(gulp)

UPDATE:

OK.....we're back.

Upon leaving the house, Mr. Downeastdoingstuff says, "Let's see how the lake looks first." (That was his first thought.)

So, off we go to Sebago Lake. Sebago Lake has a nice boat launch that is used in the winter for the ice fishermen. (ICE FISHERMEN n. 1. A lifeform, from unknown origin, that has lost its mind and labors under the illusion that fishing, especially  when it's 10 degrees outside, is fun.)

Now, Mr. DEDS hasn't been out very much since his heart repair and need to be careful. He still has some anxiety/hyperventilation issues that he needs to conquer. So, cognizant of this, I pull the car up to the ice as close as physically possible so that he could just open the door, step outside, and take a shot.

Yes?

NO!!

Off he goes......slow but steady.....out toward the ice. Just a little at first, and then a little more.

Next thing I know he's ON the glassy ice in his Sperry Rand topsider boat shoes, shuffling along.

And he keeps going....

Meanwhile, I'm in the car freaking out. I've seen him lose his breath just opening a bag of prunes. (That's another story...) As recent as last night!

I unbuckle my seatbelt just in case I need to make a dash for him. My hand is on the door handle ala Meryl Streep in Bridges of Madison County in a white knuckled grip.

I have issues with lake ice under normal conditions. I do not believe that it can hold a lot of weight. I KNOW that if I, Elenka, ever step out onto a frozen body of water, EVEN if there are trucks, snowmobiles, ice shacks, overweight fishermen and elephants on it, the additional weight that my body would put on the ice would be the straw that breaks the camel's back. So I don't even try.

But there goes my delicate, newly repaired husband, getting smaller and smaller in the grey distance.

I just about called the psychiatric version of 911.......for myself. I was that freaked out.

Would YOU walk out onto this......EVER??? Even in perfect health?  Not me.

Oh yeah, we did go out for breakfast, to the Front Room. It was very nice.

Then after that, I chauffeured him around town, down obscure streets along the docks, dodging wharf cats and high tide puddles. All for the cause of his blog. 

Another adventure under our belts.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SWEET LITTLE SISTER......

He's drained....

"Mr. Doingstuff, we couldn't find the really big, gargantuan needle, so we're going to have to use this one. We'll just do it a couple of times."

Mr. Downeastdoingstuff is now one Liter lighter.

1 Liter = 1.05668821  Quarts (US)

That's how much fluid was sucked out of dear hubby's chest cavity.

1 Liter of stuff pressing against his delicate, pink little lung.

No wonder he couldn't breathe!!

Now he's probably going to start talking foolish again. 

We can't have everything.

OUCH !

It's three weeks today since Mr. Downeastdoingstuff's surgery. He's doing pretty well. There's just a concern with him being able to breathe. Now, I'm no nurse (well documented), but even without medical training,  I know that one should be able to breathe. I think it's a right or something. His issue is that he never knows, when he gets up from a sitting position, how far he will get without doubling over to catch his breath. Sometimes he's fine. Sometimes he's not. He would never know when the issue would arise.

It became quite annoying, to say the least, and rather inconvenient. 

Another glitch that came up was he developed a condition called Thrush. In his mouth. It may have been from all the plumbing that was in his mouth after the surgery. I assumed they would disinfect those things, but maybe not. The economy is bad everywhere.

So, for those of you that don't know, Thrush is when everything in your mouth and throat is bright red (sometimes white) and feels like someone ran coarse sandpaper all over the inside of your mouth for about 20 minutes with an orbital sander. It makes it rather difficult to eat, even the magic medicine (at least for me) Ice Cream.

So, Mr. DEDS was losing weight everyday. Some of that weight loss was welcome, although he was rather svelte before, in my eyes, but I wouldn't think, health-wise, that this was the right time for a diet. 

So another new medicine was administered and that problem is improving. I am just drinking my wine to make sure I am in good shape to dish out the ice cream when he's ready.

So, back to the breathing stuff. It appears he has fluid in one of his lungs. It is not his heart.

We had our first appointment with the surgeon yesterday and he diagnosed this current ailment.  He said his heart sounded terrific, his low blood pressure is the way it's supposed to be right now and the weight loss is good. But the fluid has to go.

How?

Tomorrow the doctor is going to take an enormous, gigantic, gargantuan needle and poke it in between a couple of ribs and suck the offending liquid out. No prob.

Of course, this was the same doctor that thought the heart surgery itself was no prob.

We all have our things, I guess.

And thank God for that.

                                                        Really big needle.

New painting....

Last July, Susan, on her blog, posted a picture of this scene she took in an area near her home in Nova Scotia. (Lucky Susan, no?) I loved the photograph so much, I asked her permission to paint it.....and she said YES. Took me a while to get started, but now, finally, it's done.

(I did move the ship/boat a little for composition purposes.) The paint used is tempera and the size is 29" x 21". I really loved working on it. 

(You can click on it to enlarge it.)

Thanks so much Susan!!!!!!!!

Note: Mr. Downeastdoingstuff photographed it for me. He is improving baby steps at a time. Seems to find it hard to fill his day, now that I, his major source of pathetic entertainment, am back at work. It's very hard to do anything. His mind wants to do things that his body is not ready to do. But he'll get there, right Don??

My top Eleven list....

Top eleven things to know if you suck as a nurse but are relegated to be a nurse anyway, kicking and screaming:

#11. Do not leave the hospital until you twice interrogate every single doctor, nurse and candystripper you see  about what you should do with the heart patient at home.

#10. Have stuff ready for the heart patient to do, ie. laptop, books, magazines, camera,

tissues, spirometer and TV, so he doesn't bug you all day. (because he WILL!)

#9. Get a Netflix subscription. (In this case a gift from a dear friend!) Put 400 movies into the movie queue.

#8. Drink wine.

#7. Put all pills into a teeny-weeny, small plastic cup before administering to the heart patient, so they all get swallowed. (This doesn't explain the pink pill that was found on the couch today.)

#6. Tell heart patient you are going to the Post Office (in our case) to get all his new get well cards because you know how good it makes him feel to open them. (**Mostly it gets you out of the house so you don't have to listen to all the weird grunts and groans for a while....)

#5. Move out of your own pillow top bed with the heated mattress pad for the foreseeable future and onto the couch in the next room. Plan on it. Live with it.

#4. Keep a detailed  chart of when all the medicines were given. (Take a few yourself.)

#3. Drink wine.

#2. Plan to get right up again every single time you sit down to get, move, find or throw out something.

#1. Two tablets of Senecol followed by 10 dried prunes in the morning make for an interesting day.

First outing....Walmart! (parking lot)

There are many souvenirs of our adventure last week. This handy-dandy drinking cup from the hospital, which was invaluable when he was there. It's losing it's novelty here at home, but we have other cups....

The flowers behind the cup settling in next to the Christmas Poinsettia.

Many cards and food from family and friends.

THIS ring was around my neck. If Mr. Downeastdoingstuff couldn't wear it, (for the first time since we were married) then I was going to wear it. And I did. Along with the heart locket he gave me a long time ago. (which houses a photo of my son when he was little, and it used to have a picture of Mr. Downeastdoingstuff at one time, but he fell out....)

Today he got to put it back on. So now when he hugs the heart pillow the hospital gave him to use when coughing or sneezing, the ring is in its rightful place. Amen.