beetlegrass

Carving Pumpkins in a Whole New Way

A bit of snow in my corner of the world the other night. Some downed branches, but power stayed on and that's a good thing!

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

Philosophies/Strategies Regarding Snow Shoveling

 

1. When lifting particularly wet/heavy snow, be sure to bend at the knee. If you can bend at mid-thigh, then you have a strange & wonderful talent that you are now duty-bound to share with the World.

2. If you are a Jeffery, and have what we euphemistically refer to as a "very efficient cooling system" (i.e., we sweat like hogs the moment we engage in any form of physical activity), it may become necessary to go inside 1/2way through shoveling to change into dry clothes, before the sweat freezes and makes you uncomfy. If, however, you are STILL a Jeffery, and are already WEARING all your clothes (because of being 3 parts freakshow to 1 part clothes-shopping-phobic), you may not HAVE other clothes to change into. In this case, you have 2 options: A. Throw everything into the dryer and wait to finish  shoveling 'til later (REALLY unacceptable to a Jeffery), OR: B. Soldier on through 'til the job is done, wetness be damned.

3. If you don't like shoveling snow, here are some alternatives:

A. Move someplace where it doesn't snow, duh. B. Marry someone who doesn't mind shoveling. Or give birth to Future Shovelers. (Doesn't matter if THEY mind or not; they're gonna do it.) C. Pay someone else to do it. D. Work from home; wait until spring to leave the premises.

4. Clearing flat roofs of snow is only a good idea if you are coordinated enough to do so, and you have someone standing by, finger poised and ready to dial 9-1-1. For the rest of us, the certainty of a tragic mishap far outweighs the relative benefit of having rooms with ceilings.

5. Nose dripping WILL occur. And that, dear children, is why God made mittens.

6. While shoveling, I find myself thinking about subjects both profound (Eskimos' many words for various types of snow), to the mundane (whether or not my sister got a new battery for her watch). I have no explanation for why it is that I do this, other than to say: "I am both intellectual AND boring."

7. Shoveling after a blizzard, I recommend a hot bath with Epsom salts, then applying Icy/Hot to whatever parts of your bod are likely to feel the pain later. For me, this = forearms. For you, it might be other parts. As long as these don't include your eyeballs and the insides of your nostrils, the sky's the limit.

Photo and writing are the work of Megan E. Jeffery. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Merry Christmas!

 

Breakfast table, set with some Flea Market treasures that I've showed in the past -- the tablecloth ($1 find from this past summer), and the Tom & Jerry glasses (smaller of the 2), which will hold the all-important EGGNOG.

Happy Holidays to you & yours!

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

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.