Willy-nilly Friday Five: Paint, water and fantasies…

1.  I mentioned last week that I was going to Brush It Off Paint & Sip Bar in Sturbridge for a night out with the girls.  It was a fun night.  We painted wine bottles that can be threaded with fairy lights and used as a night light or something like that.  Here we are with our bottles:

I think we did a great job!

2.  While I was standing around waiting to leave Brush It off, I noticed that the paint aprons were pretty cool and I took photos of a couple of them.  I think this looks like an intentional modern art painting.

3.  We’re having a very dry spring.  While our problems in the water department are dwarfed by the problems they are having in California, I think it’s interesting that the record-breaking amount of snow we had this year was not enough to keep us from having a spring drought.

4.  On Tuesday this week, I got up early to let the refrigerator repair guy in for the fourth or fifth time in a month.  Our Samsung refrigerator that we bought in August, 2011 had been on the fritz for more than a month for the second time in its short life.  This time, I think he fixed it, but I have no faith that the repair will last.  My Facebook friends have heard all about this travail so I won’t go into the ins and outs of it.  Living without a convenient refrigerator is bad enough, but I am distressed that major appliances, while being so expensive, are so shoddily made as to have a short shelf life.  I know that sadly we have become a “throw away” society, but throwing away something as large as a refrigerator is so very wrong!  It’s not just the “fancy” appliances that this applies to.  We bought a very simple fridge for a condo we own and rent out to our daughter.  It lasted about one month past its warranty and the repairs were so expensive it didn’t make financial sense to do them, so we had to buy a new one.   We shouldn’t have to take this, people, but I’ll be damned if I can figure out what to do about it!  Every time I think about this, I can feel my blood pressure rising.

  Okay, rant over.  I need to take a deep breath and clear the air…

5.  Well, I guess it’s fanciful to imagine major appliances that might last at least ten or eleven years.  But one can dream, can’t one?  How about this?  I think I will petition Congress to install a coffee pipeline from our kitchen downstairs to my office upstairs.  Or actually, wouldn’t it be nice if it could just come directly from Dunkin’ Donuts to my office piping hot?  That way I wouldn’t even have to grind the beans.  It’s a thought.  Congress has been known to spend money on stupider things than this, but I’m not going there.  It's a crazy world!

Hooking up with Willy-nilly Friday Five!

Late Edition:

Joining up with Friday Greens, too!

Best laid plans…

Tuesday night was the meeting of the Massasoit Art Guild Photography Group.  At our April meeting, our leader Dayle suggested we all gather at White’s Landing in Brookfield to photograph the sunset over the Quaboag River.  White’s Landing is one of the few places around here that you can actually and easily watch the sun set.  The other place is on the Quaboag Pond boat landing.  Being surrounded by hills and trees has its challenges.

 

After April and practically a whole month of unrelenting sunshine and blue skies, wouldn’t you know that on Tuesday it rained all day?  Believe me, I’m not really complaining.  We need the rain.  And, as if trying to cooperate, it did stop except for a fine mist by the time I had to leave to go to the meeting.

 

My hope was that there would be a break in the clouds and a little bit of sun would poke through, but no such luck.  It was downright grey and the clouds were thick.  Well, what the heck?  We went anyhow and clicked away.

 

I came home and was surprised that Dayle posted one of her shots on Facebook that night and it was really good.  So I looked at my pics the next day.  Not impressed.  I decided to let them percolate in my brain for a while and go back to them.  Still not impressed.  But I set to work on them anyhow.  Here’s what I came up with.  I sort of like them.  I think that I met the challenge of making something out of not much.  But I hope that the next time the darn sun actually makes an appearance.

Watching the cars buzz by on Rt. 148.

Looking toward Quaboag Pond.