Neglecting

Life is a series of choices on what you will neglect. I find this statement to be true. My life (as well as yours, I’m sure) is full of way too many responsibilities and way, way too many fun things that divert my attention from those responsibilities and as a result it has been a while since my last post. I like writing and sharing glimpses of my life, but to keep both my and my families sanity I have chosen to neglect my blog. This is not to say that now I am going to be a regular poster, but I hope that you will see me posting more often. But, as the saying goes, “Don’t hold your breath!”

So what have I been up to all this time?
Over the past several months I’ve been re-evaluating my teaching techniques and the curriculum I’ve been using, and have come to the conclusion that I needed to make some changes. One of the drawbacks of homeschooling is that there is a lot of on the job training, but this year I really feel that I’m on the right track and I’m very happy at the progress we’ve made so far.

I’ve also spent much of my time on my soap box complaining to anyone who will listen about how much I hate this new digital television stuff. I will not go into it here. Just thought others might want to leave a comment about their experiences with the change over to digital. The only positive experience of this is that I receive a very interesting Japanese channel, which I watch a lot since I can’t get anything else in! Moving on.

We went “Ballistic” with our oldest 8th birthday this year! He received a book from his Grands called “Backyard Ballistics”. Honestly, this was really a gift for the big boys. The morning of his party was spent driving around looking for all the supplies needed to make a Tennis Ball Mortar. It turned out to be a lot of fun for the big boys and the little boy!!!

My husband has started his own blog, “Floating Axe”. It is turning into a great resource for anyone interested in woodworking, it is also a showcase for some of his drawings. He is a very eloquent writer and a very talented woodworker and artist. Check it out!

Now fast-forward to today. The weather has cooled and so the field mice have started to leave their pretty field and live in my pretty home. This week we have caught a mouse and a snake (aggghhhh!!!) and last night I saw another mouse. I think we have been watching a little too much “Swiss Family Robinson” around here. The kids got the idea to design their own mouse traps. Chaim had the idea of luring the mouse to some cardboard tubes with an empty jar that still smelled like peanut butter. Aby is trying to entice the mouse to walk onto her sticky trap of tape with a little crumb of biscuit. We will see if either of these works, but I have my back up plans in place!

Happy Birthday Dad!

(Josh Post) Well with all the various trials that have gone on this year it should come as no surprise that not very many new projects have come out of the shop this year but at last the wheels of progress have begun to turn and new pieces are beginning to emerge once more.

The life of this project began as a design idea for a relative in WI who was looking for a small table and so I drew up a design and saw the initial project completed by my Grandfather in his shop in Cable, Wisconsin.

Having seen the project in photographs I decided that it would be a fun project to build for myself and so I began to construct a matching pair the first of which is seen here while the second is entering the final stages of construction. (See future posts for details!)

I am holding this table hostage here at our home in Northern VA to encourage my parents to come and visit, because, “Happy Birthday Dad!”, this one’s for you.

"True ornament is not a matter of prettifying externals. It is organic with the structure it adorns, whether a person, a building, or a park. At its best it is an emphasis of structure, a realization in graceful terms of the nature of that which is ornamented."

-Frank Lloyd Wright

I Draw Pictures All Day...

"If you foolishly ignore beauty, you'll soon find yourself without it. Your life will be impoverished. But if you wisely invest in beauty, it will remain with you all the days of your life." - Frank Lloyd Wright

(Josh post) My lovely wife is always encouraging me in new creative endeavors and after seeing the enjoyment that she has had sharing her projects and thoughts here I have decided to join in (after much prodding to do so) and share some of the things that are happening on my side of the family too. As with anything, starting is always the most difficult part and so instead of wringing my hands and looking for just the right type of thing to begin with I've decided to start with the thing that I am most often doing which is design.




People often have a lot of conceptions about what I do as a landscape architect and most of them usually revolve around a central idea which is, "Landscape Architects, you guys draw dirt...right?" Well to a certain extent that's true but fortunately my days are also full of a lot more.

The one idea that I find people have most often is that they expect you to have a "philosophy" which guides everything you design. This does seem to be the case with all the shows on cable these days (although I am unsure as to what philosophy directs someone to paint rooms hot pink and glue grass to the ceiling) but it would seem to me after being in this business for going on ten years that tv is really the only place where it exists. Now certainly I have ideas about how things should be done and the other designers that I know do as well but either we just don't have enough ego or a lot of all that talk on tv is just glam for the cameras, for me, my philosophy comes down to this, I am "Dedicated to the Proposition that All Designs are Created Equal" (to steal a phrase from one of my favorite composers, Peter Schickele) and to steal a phrase from Duke Ellington "If it looks good it is good." It may not sound as good as the guys on HGTV but in the end it works for me.....