Moving Sale !



If you live anywhere near Maplewood, please come to our moving sale Friday and Saturday, July 9th and 10th. We are moving to Massachusetts and we have to get rid of a lot of stuff.

Recluctantly, we are selling most of our collection of art by Maplewood artist Jane Oliver. She was featured in the “Best of Watercolor” book series published by Rockport Publishers and was a two-time winner of the New Jersey Watercolor Society Silver Medal of Honor. She was featured in an article titled Master Painters of the World in the magazine “International Artist” (August 2002). She was a cover artist for the Los Angeles Times Sunday magazine “This Week” in the 1950′s.

Most of these are watercolor paintings: a few are other media such and prints or acrylics. Not only are they beautiful images, they are way to celebrate an amazing local artist of the recent past and the great town of Maplewood.

In addition to the paintings, we have household, kitchen and dining items, giftware, raku art pottery, sports and camping equipment, books, and toys.

Here are pictures of some of the artwork for sale. Please come to the sale, and please pass the word along if you think someone else might be interested. (If viewing on a slow Internet connection, please be patient; there are a lot of images.)


28 x 22 inches

23 x 17 inches

18 x 23 inches

19 x 24 inches

10 x 13 inches

13 x 16 inches

27 x 20 inches

23 x 18 inches

14 x 18 inches

14 x 16 inches

14 x 16 inches

24 x 20 inches

11 x 19 inches

6 x 14 inches

19 x 27 inches


New website – please visit!

Well, we have a new website up. I’ll still be using this one for family stuff, but J. and I have a new one at The Finish Line. We are selling some art we collected from a local Maplewood artist – we still love it all, but there is only so much you can hang on your walls at one time.

I’ll also be selling some hand knits (and I hope in the future, hand woven items). My knitting blog is moving over there, too. Please go check it out, and if you know of anyone who might like to buy some paintings, let them know about the website! We appreciate it.

Rest in Peace

You were a good companion. You were with me during almost all of the good times – family vacations, birthdays, holidays, soccer games, concerts, the first days of school. I couldn’t have blogged without you. You didn’t even belong to me, but Jill always let you share yourself with me. You weren’t the fanciest, or the newest, but you always did a good job. You traveled all the way to China and back, but couldn’t handle a trip across the street. [That may have been due to being hit by the car(s), of course.]

I will miss you. Thank you, Adidas, for lending me your camera so I could take this picture:


(And if anyone knows of an inexpensive used Canon for sale, please let me know.)

Anybody seen January?

I’m looking for January. I knew where it was, then turned around and now it is missing. Part of Februrary, too. If anyone sees January, please call 1-800-555….oh, never mind. I’ll just stick with the part of February I have left.

Luckily, we are going to have an early spring, since Essex Ed the groundhog did not see his shadow last week.

Sorcery and Cecelia, or the Exploding Coffee Pot

You know that coffee is close to a religion in our house. Yesterday, we were not even in the kitchen, and we hear this “popping” noise. R. went in and noticed coffee all over the place. Our coffee pot EXPLODED! It’s one of those carafe-type things – the coffee maker drips the coffee into the carafe and it keeps it warm. It’s glass lined, under vacuum – or at least it was under vacuum until yesterday when there must have been a pressure change, or some defect finally gave way, and bam.
These are the cracked-up insides of the pot (with and without flash):



BTW if you’re curious about the title of the post, check out the excellent YA book, Sorcery and Cecilia, or, the Enchanted Chocolate Pot by Wrede & Stevermer.

Knoebel Park, Elysburg PA (Part 1)

We had a spare day this summer (I know, it’s hard to believe, isn’t it?). Spragoon reminded us that we’d never been to an amusement park. These kids are sorely deprived. Anyway, we called our good friends Paul and Steve and asked them if they’d like to go to a Pennsylvania amusement park. They suggested Knoebel’s. I don’t know how missed knowing about this place. For mixed groups of ride goers and non-ride goers like us, it is awesome! Free admission, and lots of shade! Two great features for the 3 non-ride goers in the group. Also, they have Pickle on a Stick. What more can you want? (This is not a paid ad, BTW – I just had a great day there).

Warning for those of you on dial-up, this post has 16 pictures. I tried to make them all pretty small, and I’ll put the movies in part 2.

This is the first of the 2 wooden roller coasters they rode – the Phoenix. Steve and Spragoon are in the first car.

This is another shot of the Phoenix (but not when Spragoon and Steve were riding it in).

Waiting on line for the first and smaller of the 2 water slides:

Do these guys look like they know what’s coming up around the bend?

Coming down…..

Here they are — they survived the drop!


The Round-up. Spragoon is the nauseated-looking one in the “V” of the tree. Notice that no adults are on this ride! ! ! ! I couldn’t even watch it without feeling sick to my stomach.

Here they are, coming out of the Haunted Mansion:


This ride is called the Flyer – Spragoon was steering, and Adidas accused Spragoon of trying to kill him on this ride:

Here we are coming down the BIG water ride. This is the only ride I went on (That’s Paul’s back on the left):

And a close-up of us. Are we wet or what?

Spragoon jumping off the 2-meter board:

and Adidas:

What is a day at the park without purple cotton candy?

And here is the crew (except me and Steve):

And the crew with Steve:

Knoebel Park, Elysburg PA (Part 2)

Part 2 of our day at Knoebel park. The videos I took didn’t come out very well, but here are 4 very short ones of the boys in the pool.

R. on the 6-meter board (8 seconds):

C. on the 6-meter board (8 seconds):

R. on the Water Slide (6 seconds):

C. on the Water Slide (5 seconds):


And, here’s a fun video I found on You-Tube (3:33 minutes):


Although I disagree that the carousel is the best carousel ever – my favorite is the one at Disney World, because it was formerly at Olympic Park in Maplewood NJ.

Aspiring Photographer

C. has been taking pictures of animals this summer. This, I think, is his best one yet.

I cropped the birdfeeder out of the picture.

Here is a goldfinch in a tree in our backyard:

And here is another chickadee picture – it’s got a seed in its mouth.

Kids. Hrmph.

Kids. You try to raise them to be independent and self-confident, and what do they do?

They (sometimes) become independent and self-confident. Picture of Spragoon, riding off to 2 weeks of summer camp. Without us even driving him there. Sigh.
Gosh, I love that kid. I miss him.