beetlegrass

Christmas Card 1995 & 1996

I wrote about 1995's Christmas card a couple of years back -- rather than re-post everything, you can find follow the link to see that year's red & white themed greeting.

1996 was significant for me, personally, because it was the year that I bought my first home. It was a sweet Cape Cod style with a dormered-out roof in Stratford, CT. It was a young house, so it was quite kind to me as a new homeowner. I learned about maintenance, but the best part of all was being able to decorate like I had been yearning to do.

Not surprisingly, then, that year's Christmas card took on a HOME bent, with a title of "Oh, there's no place like (a) HOME for the Holidays!"

The card was color-copied on a 11x17" sheet, front & back. Was able to get two cards per sheet of paper. Accordion-folded to fit in an envelope for mailing.

You can click on these images to see them larger. 

The house, above right, was my cartoon-y version of what my then-home looked like. Later on, I painted the shutters purple. And added a red rusty metal heart to the mailbox. When I drove past the house last year, these things were still there. Funny. Wouldn't've thought that anyone would've kept purple shutters.

© Megan E. Jeffery.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Gang, Gang, the Hail's All Here (& other dumb hail puns)

Chicken Little here, coming to you LIVE to fill you in on all the late-breakiest, up-to-date-iest weather conditions here in SouthEastern Massachusetts. Today, for the second Tuesday in a row, we had HAIL!

Here are some pix of the outcome, taken of Chicken Little's very own deck while the storm was in full throttle, hence the need to shoot through glass & screen doors. Not optimal photo-taking conditions, but Chicken Little gets all paranoid that the sky is going to fall on her head, so we humored her by staying indoors.

Not quite GOLF BALL size, but we've got big plans for expansion... maybe next Tuesday...

IM coMIx (fun with fonzie)

 

This work is © Megan E. Jeffery. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

So I'm coloring up this little Instant Message conversation that includes HAIL as one of its subjects, right?
All of a sudden, the sky turns dark and it starts HAILING with a vengeance, so I took pix of the aftermath, above. The storm didn't last too long, but, boy, was it ferocious there for a little bit! My studio has a tin roof, so it sounded like the end of the world as we know it, but I feel fine.

The Newest Addition to Our Happy Little Home

On the List of This Week's Accomplishments:

1. Unloaded the dishwasher AND...
2. Put the dishes AWAY.

Near ... Far ...

While I continue to wait for the return of my repaired printer/scanner and camera, here's another illustration that's been residing in my computer. You can click to see a larger view.

Yesterday would have been an excellent day to have my camera BECAUSE:

A PEACOCK strutted through my yard!!!
As some of you may know, I don't live in Burma east to Java, so to see a bird native to warmer climes like faraway INDIA, walking in my Seekonk, Massachusetts yard, had me a "little surprised". To put it mildly.

I yelled out to my neighbor who was doing yardwork, "THERE'S a PEACOCK!!!" and he went and got his camera. The peacock stuck around for awhile, and then crossed the road as folks were driving home from work. Can't imagine what they thought when they saw him!

Q. Why did the peacock cross the road?
A. Make up your own punchline.

I heard the peacock squawking in the woods this morning @ 6:30 am. Hope he's not too cold or lonely.

I made up a tongue twister.
Say this ten times fast:

Seekonk Peacock.

This illustration is copyrighted. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

My Mascot

I get a lot of these ladies in my house -- do you suppose it's because they know how welcome they are?
Then there is the old wives' tale that ladybugs visit houses that are clean.
Hmmm...
Well, I did vacuum last week.
This ladybug was haulin' butt, hence the blurry motion lines.

With Icing & a Cherry On Top

It was icy this morning!
Here's my cherry tree that resides by my deck:

Later, the sun made the melting go so fast, that it sounded like it was raining hard, but it wasn't actively precipitating.

This photo below is unretouched; I just cropped it. That's how blue the sky was this morn.

Don't these pictures just make you SO COLD?
Don't they make your fingers long for something WARM to put on them?!?
Well, have I got an idea for you! (Here comes the hard sell...)
Warm woolen finger puppets, tied up with string, these could be a few of your favorite things!
OK, they're not tied up with string.
But they ARE woolen.

Because the SUN was so cooperative today, and I could take photos, have just loaded 16 more finger puppets into my etsy shop:

• frog
• cat
• bear
• 3 businessmen
• 2 chefs/bakers
• elephant ballerina
• 3 Pugs
• 4 elves

So, check that out if you've a mind to, and a big THANKS to those who've already purchased stuff!

The images seen here are © Megan E. Jeffery, 2007. All rights reserved.

White Kitty: Mighty Hunter

In a never-ending attempt to bring you the latest, the greatest, the most up-to-date info on the animals that visit or live on my pricker-inundated (see them there, poking thru the railing?) property, here is one of the 3 (?) cats that make frequent rounds to my palatial estate.

White Kitty, as I call him (her?), was captured photographically (thru the window screen so as not to scare him away) in what was a RARE moment of repose. This cat is a Mouser of the First Order.

Whenever I see him, I say aloud, "White Kitty. Mighty Hunter."
When I see the Calico Kitty, I say, "Calico Kitty. Mighty Hunter."
And when I see the Gray Kitty, I say, "Gray Kitty. Mighty Hunter."

I say this because I admire and appreciate their skills and because I like to hear myself talk.

Often I have been rewarded visually when these cats, trotting off, pause to turn their heads to show me the fat rodent (bloated from eating the ball fringe off the lampshades in the basement?) hanging from their jaws.

Upon seeing this, I call after them, "There's more where that came from! Tell your friends!"

The only thing I don't like: when they drop their "meal" in the grass and I find it seconds before it's too late while lawn-mowing. Dat's icky.

Then I have to mark that area to remind myself, "Don't goosh into the dead thing."

Between avoiding dead things, avoiding feral poop, and avoiding the home of the Shoe-Dwelling Bee, mowing the lawn has become a real life game of Minesweeper.

Right Outside My Studio Window...

... someone is sitting on eggs.

Snap, Crackle, PLOP.

More News to report from Chicken Little Central...

 

Storms yesterday took the top chunk off of the tree you see here on the right. More toothpicks for me!