Pepper Paints

Art al Fresco

We live in a really active arts community.  With a OSU and CCAD in our city, along with  The Short North down, High St.,  there are many opportunities to not only enjoy art but participate in it also.  Last night The Short North introduced a new concept, Art al Fresco.  Most galleries stayed open late, hosting performances in their windows and on their sidewalks.  Artists, including my kids Grimaldi Circus, roamed the main drag.

This is just a small sampling of the fun!  Hopefully this will become a regularly scheduled event!

And on another hopeful note-I have fingers crossed that Ginger’s puking and high fever this morning at 5 AM will be quick to pass.  She has a very important Birthday to attend later this afternoon.  And I already made the potato salad dag nab  it!

Magic (Science)

Yesterday Ginger and I went for a walk and picked some Queen Annes Lace.  We brought it home and placed  4 separate bunches into 4 jars, each with a different color of food coloring added to the jars.  (You need to use a lot of food coloring)  We have also done this with celery and white carnations.

This morning we checked our white flowers and whalla…..

As if by magic, we have colored flowers!  Really just a good way to show how what we take in effects us.  And a good , “Give a Hoot, Don’t Pollute!” example too.

The Ohio State Fair

Note the “Theeeee” at the beginning of most everything in Columbus, maybe all of Ohio.  It’s not the it’s theeee.

The Fair is almost a national holiday at my house, although with my kids getting older, not as much this year.  Molly usually has a count down going about 2 weeks prior to the it’s arrival.  Every year we go the Fair, early in the morning until late at night.   We spend too much money on wristbands and admission.   We pack a lot of food and drinks that mostly don’t get eaten.  My kids ride rides the whole day.

I don’t.

I follow them around trying to find an inch of shade to stand in, watching all the different people walk by.

And yell things like, “Hey did you plan that?”  Not really.

I complain about not spending time looking at he “fair” side of the fair and not just the midway.  They appease me by quickly walking through the Fine Arts Building

(And look what I saw!!!)

and The Ag building-mostly because they have to use the bathroom.  I think they have looked at the animals a couple of times over the years.  This year Jake and I walked off so I cold take some photos and look at a few real fair attractions.

The sun started to finally go down,

we loaded crabby, overtired kids and most of our food back in the van for a car ride home of screaming, yelling and crying of the volume 10 type.  Add to it blaring music from the boys up front so THEY didn’t have to listen to all that, “whining and carrying on ” in the back.   So I sat stoically in between two sets of  guttural cries of, “We didn’t get to ride the …” and “Take me back, I want to play that game.”    After throwing them separately into the shower and into bed, I too fell into a deep needed sleep.

Today we are moving slowly-although I have much to do.  They are reminiscing this years day at the fair as if it were one of the best so far..ugh!  Glad it is a happy memory for them and I am sure by next year I will once again forget the year before, as I do every year.

The Rewards of the Day

The sights of this mornings Farmers Market….

Obama even made an appearance!

I spent the day with my dear friend Lynne who is wise in the ways of canning.  She helped this novice can a 1/2 bushel of peaches.  Very satisfying!!

We managed to make it through two summers at this house with no fire pit.  Last year my Mothers Day present was..you guessed it, a fire pit.  And one of the things our family really enjoys is cooking and eating around our fire ring.  Tonight we had a local spread of green beans and corn and a cucumber and tomato and fresh herb salad from our own garden.  We roasted hot dogs over the fire and completed the party with smores of course.  It’s like a short camping trip!

Clay/Dough

Today we made a clay/dough that can be baked or air dried.

Mix together 2 cups of flour, 1 cup of salt , 2 Tablespoon of oil and 1 to 1 1/2 cups of cold water.

We used this dough to make a few beads among other things.

We rolled the beads and then gently threaded them onto skewers and laid them on a foil lined tray.

We baked them at 300 degrees for almost an hour. bake until they are hard.

After they cooled we painted them with acrylic paints.

Once the paint dries you can put a coat of clear shellac or acrylic.

Molly also made a small box to hold her beads.

These can also be air dried for 48hrs.

A funny story about these beads:  when Jake was little and we made these, he walked out the back door to get into the car and our stupid dog-not our smart dog-jumped up and ate the beads right off of Jakes neck.  I drove around for years with a half strung necklace of those beads in my ashtray waiting to be fixed.  Moral of that story I guess is keep these beads away from your dumb dogs as they are sure to think they are treats.  But your smart dogs will know better!  Or at least they will wait till your not looking.

No Parking ….Loading Zone

or more aptly put..Unloading Zone

I have crabby kids-maybe not all the time but a good bit of the time they are not happy.  Today so far is no exception.  Child 1 is 13 and still sleeping but if I dared to awaken him-LOOK OUT!!!  His 13 year old mood swings could knock out George Foreman the I, II and III. (I don’t actually know how many George Foremans there are but I know he named all of his kids after himself and a funny grill.)  He thinks it is his job to make his siblings scream and in turn I scream louder.  He also mistakenly thinks he is 18 and acts accordingly.

Child 2 walks around with a cloud hanging over her head 80% of the time.  Her glass is always 3/4 empty and nothing meets her standards.  She thinks it is her job to knock any happiness out of child 3. I look forward to her PMS years around the corner.

Child 3 is the happy one.  She smiles and is easy going.  She is happy way down deep.  But because she is so blessed to have moody, dark siblings-she thinks she should act and react like them.  She is being dragged down to their pit-happily playing in the brown crap.

Now my wonderful hubby just stopped back home and will make some comment about me still sitting at the computer, still in my jammies and I have been up for 3 hours.  I can’t win…..Wait it’s coming…..”I wasn’t going to say anything!”..Good boy.  The one shinning moment of my morning!  Besides my crack, I mean Starbucks.

OK gotta go before I get a ticket.

Photo(s) of the Day July 13

We saw this blue beauty on our walk to the farmers market.

And then this one at the market in a storefront.