Track 1 Train 2311- Digital Art By Baltimore Artist

This digital art was inspired by a visit to Manhattan College this summer. My oldest daughter spent a week there at a high school leadership intensive for students interested in the areas of Digital Media and Film. While my my husband and I were waiting to collect her things to bring her home, I took a small walk around the outside of the campus. This is the result.

Mark your calendars for November 19, 2016! I am proud to announce Craig "Jake" Jachens, a local wildlife photographer, and I will be hosting a Havre de Grace Photo Walk and Intro to Composition Workshop from 8:30AM-12:00PM. We will be going over a few basic composition suggestions to better your photography and then leading a walk around the beautiful Havre de Grace area helping and guiding you along the way to get the best shots you can get! The advertising isn't out yet, but mark your calendars now! As more information is available, I will be pass it along.

Hope everyone had a fantastic Labor Day. I am dealing with some relapsing health issues right now, so I am taking it nice and easy trying to baby myself back into feeling well. If you are a praying type, please whisper a few words for my increased health. I would greatly appreciate it.  Love to all...

xo

Busy Busy Busy

So much has been happening around here!  Aren't the days of summer supposed to be laid back and restful? Not so much around These Nine Acres. We have been busier than ever here for the last few weeks.  At times I feel like, despite being in a rural, quiet area, I am caught in the rat race of life!

So, to catch you up...we began homeschooling on Monday.  It is going really well...the first day was a bit rough with the kids testing to see how serious I was going to be about how this whole thing was going to work.  I had to squash a few behaviors right away, but once they understood the parameters and the expectations, they fell in line quite nicely.  The twins seem to be enjoying the structure and they have told everyone that will listen that they are happy. The curriculum is a pleasant mix of direct instruction, self guided instruction, and computer integrated learning.  I've had fun implementing it and now that I have been with the kids for a few days, I can make better decisions about pacing.

I've also learned a lot about myself.  I am not too hard on myself (which I have been in the past) and have learned to take it day by day instead of stressing out how much we achieve. One of my major reasons for homeschooling was to make sure the kids achieve mastery of skills, so if they already know something, we move through it and if they don't get a concept, we can slow down and spend more time on it. My goal is not to follow a strict pacing, but to follow their cue on what they need. Even though I bought a curriculum to use for the core subjects, I have adapted it to fit my family's needs and teaching/learning style.  Everyday we do math and language arts (grammar, spelling, reading, phonics, writing) and then we have units in technology, art, music, science, health, and social studies that we alternate in units. It seems to be exciting and motivating for the kids.

On top of homeschooling, I've been swamped taking care of a little bitty sick baby kitten. She was picked up by my husband and the kids late on Saturday night on the side of the road during a horrible storm. She was only one pound, soaking wet, injured, sick, undernourished, and near death from hypothermia. Being so small and soaking wet in the rain with nowhere to hide, she couldn't keep her own body temperature stable. So, my family brought me home a very needy kitten who is considered a critical care patient. Several trips to the vet, long days of trying to nurse her back to health (think syringe feeding her, wiping her sore diarrhea hiney, and giving her meds), and trying to keep her away from the other animals of my house, I am just about toast! I feel like I have a newborn again!

We now think she will survive (for a few days we didn't know if she would make it) but now the question is if her injuries will be permanent.  She has a badly injured and infected eye (which was literally popping out of her head when she was found) which is looking better but still not certain on long term prognosis as far as her sight is concerned. She still has a rather serious upper respiratory infection and a very upset tummy with severe diarrhea.  So, there is lots of TLC, rubber gloves, washing dirty towels, etc. going on around here in addition to the homeschooling.

My oldest daughter, who is usually the animal nurse, is away being a counselor for younger kids at a 4H camp, so all the nursing duties are on my shoulders (the younger kids want to help but she is just too fragile right now for inexperienced hands).  My husband helps with the meds, but otherwise, I am the 24 hour critical care nurse, lol!  Maybe when she is not so critical we will actually name her and take pictures to show everyone.  (If I can get a good one, I will put a picture up on Facebook).

In addition to all of that, construction continues on my house/office/studio space.  Baby steps! Siding is going up now and hopefully the drywall will be scheduled to go in soon.  It would make a huge difference in our homeschool routine to have a separate space from the kitchen to set up in!

In perfect Murphy's Law fashion, our AC unit for the house is going haywire and I have no AC in the house right now.  Hopefully this can be remedied soon because I will be honest...I like to be 72 degrees...not hotter and not cooler.  Not because I am a drama queen and need things perfect, but because since I contracted Lyme I have been unable to handle temperature swings too far from 72 degrees before becoming very uncomfortable.  So, hopefully the heating and air guy will have some answers for me this evening!

I've barely been able to breathe since Sunday, so tonight I am taking some time to get back to some art!  I need some quiet time with just me and my imagination!

Hope everyone is having a lovely week.  I will check in again soon!  xo

*Pictures are from New York City (bet you guessed that ;)

Dejavu

As I've mentioned before, I am a people watcher, which is why my true love in the photography genre is street photography.  Recently, on our trip to New York, I found myself on the street outside a wonderful little restaurant called Serendipity 3 (see below).  We had 9:00 PM reservations to try out their famous desert menu (my one splurge while in New York) but we arrived about a half an hour early, not being sure of how long it would take in a cab to get there.  I never mind arriving to places early, although I can't stand being late, because I can always people watch.  There was a crowd gathered outside the restaurant, all trying to get in, as it were, and it was a perfect scenario for me and my iPhone.  As I walked up and down the row of stores (I happen to love glass window fronts too), I happened upon this scene and it really captured my attention.

I loved that the store's name was Dejavu and that the woman was sitting there, in front of the window of a closed store, just gazing at the display.  Her body position and head tilt really spoke to me and I imagined that she was daydreaming about the outfits in the store, perhaps reminiscing about a younger time in her life when those outfits would have been more practical.  The lighting coming from the window set such a great mood and I couldn't resist stepping back and capturing this scene.

Today is a wonderful day because I am beginning our homeschool journey with my twin second graders. They are excited, as am I, and I can't wait to find our rhythm and groove in daily life.  Since my studio/office space is still under construction (but getting closer!), we will be working out of my kitchen, temporarily.  Maybe one day I will put a picture up of our temporary "classroom" on Nine Acres Designs Facebook page.  During this transition time where we are finding our stride, my blogging may take a more sporadic schedule, but I am going to do my best to keep up with it as much as possible.  Please say a prayer for us that this was the correct decision for my kiddos and family!

I'm hoping everyone has a fabulous week...sending love all around.  xo

The Expedition- Digital Collage Painting

It pays off to get out of you comfort zone every once in a while.  I've never been a fan of crowds and the hustle and bustle of a city, so the king of all cities, The Big Apple, sends fear into my heart at the mere mention of going there.  So, of course, my teen daughter, who is into television production, live theatre, movies, and all things LA, New York, and Hollywood, choose to go to New York City for her 16th birthday trip.  In lieu of a sweet 16 party, both of my teens opted for going on a trip instead. So, off to NYC we went on Sunday via the train.

We stayed in Times Square and did all things television and theater.  Our first morning there we made it to the front row of the Today Show Plaza and actually were spotted on television for a brief wave to the public.  But the cool part was actually watching how the whole production went down. So many people are involved behind the scenes and the anchors or "talent" as they are called, are pretty clueless about the segments coming up other than a quick briefing right before the segment is about to happen.  The tele-prompters keep them on track with the content and the producer behind the camera keeps them on track with time (soooo funny to watch them get upset when the anchors aren't wrapping it up). Basically, the anchors get paid a LOT of money for reading, smiling, and looking pretty.  Which, they all are, actually...we had a chance to shake Al Roker's hand (boy is he much tinier than I imagined!), and Tamron Hall's hand (she actually had a conversation with my daughter about her birthday and said she was a queen!)  We were greeted in general by Willie Geist, Natalie Morales, and Savannah Guthrie when they waved to the crowd in between segments.  Apparently Matt Lauer was on vacation this week, so we didn't see him (which was fine...I think he is my least favorite of the bunch).  Besides having to stand for 2.5-3 hours, it was a fantastic experience to watch it all behind the scenes.  Check in with Nine Acres Designs on Facebook later today for some screen shots of the broadcast of us on the Today Show (and maybe some other shots from the Today show).

It was a great morning and then afterward we took my daughter to Central Park since she has never been there before.  We walked around in the beautiful weather (80's with almost no humidity) enjoying the sights and sounds.  It really is amazing to see what the natural landscape of the area looked like before they bulldozed it all over to build the city.  A quick rest in the hotel geared us up for dinner at Planet Hollywood where my daughter was overjoyed to see some of the costumes from one of her favorite  movies...The Hunger Games.  After dinner we went to a great Broadway show called 39 Steps...an amazing and hilarious adaptation of a Hitchcock movie.  There were only 4 actors in the entire show that played 101 roles!  Truly amazing.

Riding in New York taxis is a must for any first timer to the city, just for the experience, so we did that several times for my daughter, but honestly, it is pure torture for me filled with anxiety and fear! I thought driving with my teens was terrifying...um, no.  For someone who hates not being in control, the back seat of a NYC taxi is not the place to be!

So glad to be safe and sound home in my rural comfort zone, but so happy to have gone with my dear daughter to experience some of her life's firsts with her!  I wouldn't have missed it for the world.