May 7

It was such a Monday at work.  Faculty yelling; students threatening to go to the dean if I didn't let them into one of the classes I cover; other faculty trying to pick arguments with everyone.  The yelling faculty calmed down; I gave the student the name and phone number of the dean; and so far no one took the bait and started a fight.  Hopefully tomorrow will be a little calmer.  If not, I'll just bring up this post and look at the gingko leaves....  Mary

May 6

Coffee with JK(!), laundry, studio time.  All in all, a lovely day....  Mary

May 5

We had a lovely visit with our friends Jim and Joan.  They came up from Chicago to see the design show for Joan's niece, Caelainn, at the University.  Anne, Caelainn's mother, and Molly her sister came down from Neenah for the show as well.  We all stayed up to the wee hours of the morning laughing and talking, a real feat for Joan and I to be up that late....  Mary

May 4

Out of town guests arriving any moment.  We've been cleaning like crazy, so no time for beads tonight....  Mary

May 3

We went from chilly nights and cool days to hot, sticky, and humid.  Big thunderboomers are due through tonight to cool things off....  Mary

May 2

Over the weekend Rick and I went to the Allen Centennial Gardens at the University.  It is right in the heart of the campus.  In fact, it's three blocks from my office.  Now that the initial blush of spring flowers are fading, the greenery is really coming into its own.

There's a wonderful artist whose blog I started reading about a year ago, Melanie Testa.  Melanie has a new book out, Dreaming from the Journal Page.  As soon as I got the book, I used some of her techniques to alter a large sheet of watercolor paper using stencils, masking, watercolor, and stamps.  This page is what I cut up to do the May pieces from.  It is way outside my comfort zone for what I normally do, so I decided to add something I'm very familiar with: beads.  We'll see where it goes....  Mary

May 1

Happy May Day!  April is done.  The calendar at work got flipped.  No idea where this month's calendar bits will go....  Mary

Cup and Saucer Vine