Another Summer Begins

Here it is, Memorial Day Weekend, the traditional beginning of summer. Our family gathers at the Cape Cod summer cottage to sweep up the dead insects that have piled up during the winter. The water is turned back on, the hot water heater fired up, food returned to the shelves, the tall grass in the yard is mowed, screens replace windows on the porch. This year there was a long To Do list, but it was still nice to get together and escape from normal life.

Thanks to the slow economy, I don't have to go to work tomorrow, so I get to stay an extra night and avoid the traffic backing up from the bridges over Cape Cod Canal. This year we have internet at the cottage, so I can blog while I'm here....that's nice, but maybe I'd rather be doing a jigsaw puzzle or playing cards. Things change.

When my Mom was growing up in New Jersey, her parents used to pull them out of school Memorial Day Weekend (2 or 3 weeks before the end of the school year) to go to Cape Cod and plant the vegetable garden. Although my grandparents were not wealthy, they did not allow their children to work for money until they finished high school. Perhaps because my grandfather had to leave school to work at 14, after his father died. Although they put in a lot of hours in the garden, and helped to can vegetables to last through the winter, they had a whole summer of hanging out on the beach, digging clams, reading books, playing cards, climbing trees, and eating wild berries. My grandfather could take the train up on the weekends. The trains are gone now, and the tracks are paved for the Cape Cod Rail Trail.


Before I left home I took some photos of all the flowers blooming in my yard. Here are a few of them in a collage which clearly demonstrates my pathetic grasp of Photoshop.

I planted the Columbines, Ajuga, Anemones, Myrtle, and Bleeding Heart. The Johnny Jump-ups are coming up in the lawn from the ones I planted last year.

The Jack-in-the-Pulpit just popped up on its own, right in my flower garden! I find them scattered around the yard here and there, along with clumps of tiny Bluets. The Rhododendrons and Azaleas are old, some look to be at least 40 years. The 2 pink dogwood trees looked sickly when we bought the house 4 years ago, but with some tender loving care they seem to be holding their own, and look lovely this year.

Cover Girl

At my age? OK, it’s not me, but my tapestry in the spotlight.

“Chaotic Fragments Part 2” was selected for the American Tapestry Alliance’s newest juried show “Connections: Small Tapestry International.”

Then they decided to use a detail of it for the cover of the catalog, what a thrill!

It's a charming catalog, smaller than ATA’s Biennial catalogs, which makes perfect sense, since the tapestries are all 100 square inches or less.

We were asked to keep our artist statements to 50 words or under, which was a lot of fun.

Here is mine:

A 27 year old oil painting of my messy studio table. Color copies, scissors, black colored pencil, hours of gazing and tinkering. In a flash the fallen cone of wool morphed into a Black Hole; I had finally found Chaos.

My husband, Kim, and I flew out to California on Thursday, and stayed with our daughter and son-in-law, Zoe and Jason, near San Jose.

We hiked in the Sunol Regional Wilderness, and the weather was absolutely perfect. High 70s, slightly breezy and very dry. After we hiked a while, Zoe and Kim took a run, and I walked back to the gates alone. Then I read the information board, where I was informed that when walking alone, because of the Mountain Lions, I should have been talking and singing! YIKES!

We visited with Kim’s mother, his brothers, sisters-in-law, nephews, niece, dog, and our new grandkittens, Maia and Ewok. (Can you guess which one is Ewok?)

On Sunday I attended the opening reception at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles, along with Zoe and Jason, but alas, not Kim, who had forgotten, when we planned the trip, that he was the keynote speaker at a meeting in Washington DC on Monday morning!

The reception was great. The museum is lovely, the exhibit is really inspiring, and I got to see old tapestry friends, and met some new ones too. Fellow tapestry blogger, and Connections Committee Chair Kathy Spoering was there to see the results of all her hard work. Great job Kathy! It was great to see you again in person.

Five of us made comments about our tapestries, which helped to provide insight into the artists, their creative processes and their work.

To top off the weekend, Zoe and Jason treated me to a delightful Mother’s Day dinner in Palo Alto on Sunday night. As a parting gift, here’s a link to their Cookie Blog. I can personally vouch for the deliciousness of the Pumpkin Muffin Tops with Butterscotch Chips. YUM!