Wednesday, April 30, 2008

After Jazzmouth in Portsmouth, NH

Sunday, Scott and I attended Portsmouth's annual jazz and poetry festival. You can read all about it on Rock, Water and Light, but here are my pictures from the day. We spent the afternoon with Mom, Dad and their friend Barbara.




We have a history with Purple Houses in our family - we love them! So I had to make sure to capture this lovely one in Portsmouth, by the wharf. It's a royal grape color and oh, it makes my heart sing.

We've done several interesting cultural events with Mom and Dad this year, and I have really been enjoying it. We are gradually getting to know the greater local writing crowd (particularly poets) and the blue-hair crowd (through events like travelogue film nights at Concord's historic theater, The Audi). This is a great area to live. Scott is not convinced it has everything we need yet, but I am working on him. :)
~Allison

Two Minutes to Feeling Better

Here's something special, which I dearly needed after a long, arduously emotional day (thanks, Fran). Enjoy this two-minute video and pass it on if you want.

Appreciation Video


Things are already looking up.

~Allison

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Having a Cute Attack

Okay, how freaking cute are these?? I couldn't resist.

From our friends at the WWW...




Do you think that last picture's for real??
~Allison

Monday, April 28, 2008

Tulips, Flower Lovers

Scott has posted some beautiful pictures of Spring flowers, for you to enjoy. Check them out at Rock, Water and Light.

Happy Monday!
~Allison

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Blue Sky of Spring




Some blue sky pictures from yesterday, to contrast all those crazy ice and snow pics. It's Spring in New Hampshire and there is new green grass, and little green buds on the trees, and white puff clouds to prove it. Yesterday was a really beautiful sky day.
~Allison

p.s. taken with my celly at lunch

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Spring Potting and Earth Day

Yesterday was Earth Day and today was Administrative Professionals Day. Two wonderful reasons to do some spring repotting and buy some new flowers and plants. I allowed myself to go to my biggest weakness (after Target of course): Agway. "But just for a minute." They have the most beautiful, healthy, and inspiring plants. I got a few special plants and a tiny clay pot and tray. And some sphagnum moss to repot my orchid which has been bursting at the seams for some time.

Since no one at work appreciated me on Admins' Day (losers), and in honor of how I appreciate the fact that I go to work and bring home a paycheck every two weeks, and to celebrate Earth Day (spring, new life, birth, rebirth, growth), I did some potting. For those of you who don't know me well, I do NOT have what you'd call a "green thumb." I can kill with the best of 'em. But in the last few years, I have made great strides in my goal to someday be the gardening type. I have three plants that are still alive and everything! Plus two at work that couldn't be happier! (Miraculous, all of it.)

While accessing my deep roots from a gardening and earth tilling family, I found that one of my greatest joys is repotting. And the fact that you can't just do it anytime you feel like it. You have to wait. A while. And then, when the time is right, do it just so; there's a lot of prayer and grace involved - mercy, if you will - and miracles, like when they survive the process and grow into their new pots. It's deeply satisfying, and quite easy overall, if you pay attention.




So here are the little darlings. I love them so. Please forgive the fuzzy shots - it was getting dark already, so the exposures were too long.




This one: what a darling, the Ultima Morpho Pansy. I bought a six-pack and split four for me to take to work (shown here) and two for a tiny pot for Scott's work desk, to remind him of happiness. They smell so sweetly too.



This picture is rather pathetic, but in person, wow: a Moses in the Cradle with green on top of the leaves and purple underneath (delicate, beautiful, at once relaxed and stunning), and two newly implanted bits of Christmas cactus. Which I rooted in water, from a cutting. (!!!! You may remember pot after pot of dead sticks which I would not let go of b/c I could see just the tiniest hint of green on one edge.)



And this is my favorite: the Jacob's Ladder (all very Biblical today, hmmm). It grows in shade! Our house gets hardly any sun, so the fact that a strikingly beautiful plant wants shade is marvelous. I'm so excited! Supposedly it gets white flowers, but who cares! It's perfect already. It's by the front door.




This precious little one holds the two pansies for Scott. I hope they bloom a lot for him.




And there's my newly transplanted and hopefully not traumatized orchid - the Dendrobium. Robin says it won't flower again, but I love the plant itself and there are two new babies in the sphagnum moss undergrowth. Keep your fingers crossed it survives - I have never done so much research on repotting a plant. They are so reputably fragile and persnickety. But I have a good feeling she will take it like a pro.




Well, I can't for the life of me [read: too tired] figure out how to get the text to go under the picture instead of beside it - annoying. Other things I did to celebrate Earth Day: at the grocery store, bought organic a few times where I normally would've gotten the cheaper version; bought and tried the new Clorox Green Works cleaning solution, which seems to work fine; got my oatmeal in bulk (which was way cheaper); recycled stuff; saved a plastic strawberry carton and used it to hold odds and ends in the junk drawer; took some pics of Spring in NH; used the windows instead of the car's A/C; unplugged the appliances that would be least annoying if found unplugged; read some vegetarian recipes and got excited about veggies; contemplated making my own granola; decided to recycle an old campy shirt into a summery pillow slipcover; went barefoot. Did you do anything to celebrate?

(BTW, my Agway purchases were so cheap all totaled up! I love Agway. Just today I read a novel by a woman who said finding a great bargain is one of the best feelings in the world and makes life worth living. I thought, "Well, that's a tad dramatic." Until walking out of Agway! And then I knew just what she meant!) :)

Scott joked today about happiness, "It's overrated." And I, cynical I, replied, "No really, it IS all it's cracked up to be!" I feel happy today and I'm loving it.

Thanks for reading!
~Ally

Saturday, April 19, 2008

Reality



This cartoon posted specially for my mom friends. From Shoeboxblog. And check out their Friday, April 18 video - it's funny!

~Ally

Friday, April 18, 2008

I am Officially Old

How do I know this, you ask? Well, I am home sick. And have been watching episodes of Kate and Ally. And then started a Danielle Steele movie on the Hallmark channel (dear god). And worst of all...am now so old that I find middle-aged John Ritter (yes, Jack from Three's Company) oddly attractive. I have hit rock bottom. Or have I?

Oy vey.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Food Matters Video

Here's a link to an interesting new video coming out called Food Matters. You can watch the trailer or check out their website. The video relates to the maxim: "You are what you eat."

It'll be interesting to see the final product.
~Allison

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

IKEA trivia


I'm borrowing this one from How About Orange - it's an IKEA game in which you see if you can match the Swedish name to their product. Every time you complete a game, it will give you a new one to try. I got 8 out of 10 twice, and according to IKEA, I am a "Swedish furniture god." ha ha ha

Try it...you know you want to.

Very Exciting Development

(a little photography pun there...)
Scott's first ever "show" has gone up in public! Check out the details at Rock, Water and Light. And, he has sold his first print! V exciting. It was an enhanced version of the red tree from last fall. We are proud and happy. Good things to come.
~Ally

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Because how could I not?

I just couldn't help myself. These are from Shoeboxblog


Wednesday, April 9, 2008

My Past? Some Say...(soothsay?)

In a Past Life



You Were: An Arrogant Fortune Teller.

Where You Lived: North Canada.

How You Died: In Childbirth.

Well, they might be right. I do love telling people what to do and telling them deep things about themselves - "seeing into them." They came up with this based on one question: type in your current profession. Ha ha. Now I am an Administrative Assistant - that's some bad karmic retribution there! Now I have arrogant idiots telling me what to do all day! Maybe in the next life things will even out...
~Allison

Monday, April 7, 2008

Beautiful Sky Saturday

Pictures from a wonderful day trip we took to the New Hampshire coast, down to Salisbury Beach State Park and then into Massachusetts, through Newburyport to Plum Island and the adjacent bird refuge (Parker River National Wildlife Refuge). It's a great place for bird watchers. Saturday, God offered a breathtaking sky. Scott's pictures are perfect, but mine are...well, mine. Hope you enjoy.









My friend Mr. Sharp once told me that if I could find a man who would watch the entire sunset with me, then I should marry him. "Anyone can watch a sunrise," he said, knowing full well I would never get out of bed for such a thing. It really was a beautiful day.
~Allison

Night Sky

I just let Tip out for the final hurrah, and the sky is dark, but the few remaining bits of snow on the ground are illuminated. This must be from the clouds, because the moon is almost at its darkest point this month. I could see The Big Dipper sparkling in the night sky. The trees were lit from below - maybe the condo lights - and their bare grey branches reached up, up above. It's a beautiful night, one for making dreams and saying wishes if you have any that need to be spoken aloud. Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight, wish I may, wish I might, have one wish I wish tonight: a baby to call our own.

*

~Ally

Friday, April 4, 2008

Wah

I want Spring. I want to go to the ocean and put my feet in. I want to roll up the bottom of my pants legs and get some dirt in my toes, smell earth and wet pavement (I love that smell), see new tiny flowers blooming. The tiny ones are the best.

Will it ever stop snowing?

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

I Think I'm Becoming a Foodee

...since I couldn't resist trying my hand at some cupcakes. Delish! Oh, these pics don't give it justice...but that's lavender colored icing - so lovely.



And then there are my other Cupcakes...Scott and Tip xo


~Ally

Cupcake Week (genius!)

A few of my favorites from Martha Stewart's Cutest Cupcake Contest, which is still going on, for all of you creative baker types...
by Dizzysu

by Christinemroche

by Abbeyroad79

by Madison98

by Zalita

by Lizzy1984

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Fool's Day

Well, this pretty much speaks for itself. Sally Kern (R-House Rep in Oklahoma), you should be ashamed of yourself.


Nutmeg from Simply Nutmeg, one of the blogs I read, offers a good response and her kids do too.


~Al

p.s. I wonder if ignorance is one of the seven deadly sins...

We love Ocean Spray


This is my friend Marion, with the two Ocean Spray guys, Henry and Justin, from the commercial. I met Marion in our days temping at Procter & Gamble. Now she works at Ocean Spray and loves it there! They are currently celebrating cranberries at her office. Fun!

(am a big fan of craisins myself...)
~Ally

Alligator-ishious

from Shoeboxblog

Five More Reasons Not to Buy an Alligator
by Dan

1) Having to constantly explain difference with crocodile.

2) Never-ending lawsuit with preppy golf apparel company still dragging through courts.

3) Any and all neighborhood pet disappearances suddenly your problem.

4) Tension around wallets, belts, etc.

5) Two words: cat jealousy.

~
heh heh, oh and this from Shoeboxblog too (make sure you visit the link):


"A snake exploded after trying to swallow an alligator, in further proof that nature is stupid."