"It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!"

Our summer is all but over. I know because we registered Gus for school (junior high!) this week and we even knocked out the school supply list AND buying his new school clothes. Most of you know that I do the “Happy Mommy Dance” on the first day of school when I get the house and studio back to myself for a few hours a day… I love that Staples commercial where the parent is flying through the store on the handles of the shopping cart buying school supplies! That was me this week singing “it’s the most wonderful time of the year!” Daddy-O turns into a pumpkin next Thursday when ASD teachers return to their classrooms to prepare for the students first day of school on August 18. Right now Derek is about as far north as you can get from his regular classroom, near the Beaufort Sea coast in Nuiqsut. He was selected to participate in the Alaska Humanities Forum Rose Urban Rural Exchange for teachers where they participate in teacher cross-cultural immersion and should return home next week, providing he doesn’t get weathered in…

Weather has been on every Alaskans mind –or at least the lack of sunny weather in Anchorage! This has been one of the rainiest summers on record and we even set a rain day record in July! All of the rain has definitely affected the Farmers Markets –when it’s sunny the vendors ROCK the sales, when it’s rainy I’m lucky I sell OUTDOOR art. I’ll probably be having my last Market day the last Saturday in August and the veggie vendors will sell through September. I’ve slowed down on the production of

garden art and outdoor sculptures, adjusting my production schedule with the changing color of the leaves. The large "Zen Chime" pictured above is one of the last big chimes I'm making for this year. I’m thinking of having a big sale the last day I’m at the Spenard Farmers Market of any remaining garden art. A break in the rain (for at least a few hours) enabled the concrete company to get the new sidewalk forms in at the Credit Union One building on the corner of Mt.View and Bragaw, where my 1% for Art sculpture “Bicycle Bloom” sculpture is scheduled to be installed. When I saw the footer for the sculpture I thought to myself “ahhh, the beginning of a flower bloom” and it finally seemed more like Spring than a cloudy, gray, wet and rainy summer.