Toledo Zoo

Here are some of the animals we met during our visit to the Toledo Zoo.  I suppose the benefit of going when it's cold is to see animals like the snow leopard walking around.  My sister-in-law (who took this shot) and my step-mom said that they have never seen it out and about before.

There are two new baby polar bears.  This one was very curious about us and came right up to the gate.  It seemed so sweet I sorta wanted to climb over and pet it - but I'm pretty sure I would have been killed, so it's best to just take a photo.  Sis-in-law, Kristy - took this one too. Her zoom is much better than mine.  I am filled with zoom envy.  They also have a lot of web cams up at the zoo so you can check out the hippo or seals at play.
These are a couple pics I snapped in the aquarium.  As a child, I loved the aquarium.  It's so dark and calm in there.  And I really love looking at jellyfish.
Mind you, I'm absolutely terrified of jellyfish in open water where I am swimming.  In New England, if it's a really hot summer, they will come to the coast.  My husband and his family are used to them and can spot them, but I can't see them so I get totally freaked out if anyone spies a jelly floating around.  What can I say?  I'm a wuss.  We don't have them in Ohio!!!
I don't know what this fish is called.  I didn't have my notebook on me to write it down.  But isn't just the ugliest thing ever?!?!  But I love it.  It's like the character actor of fish.  I think I'll call it Bugsy.

We're Back

I got word on Friday that my grandfather had passed away. It was expected and I had decided earlier that I wanted to return to Ohio for the services and bring Magoo with me. It's been a long time since extended family has seen either of us. And I think it's nice to have youth around when someone old has passed to remind us of the cycle of life. That sounds cheesy but I believe it.
Anyway - Magoo and I hit the airport on Saturday.
Here he is, waiting for our plane, with a small Etch-A-Sketch. What a great thing! This little gadget kept him good and occupied many, many times this trip and I think it helps inspire a couple more abstract ideas in me, too!
On Sunday morning my Mom and I met up with my step-mother, sister-in-law and my nephew to go to Toledo Zoo's Frozentoesen - which basically means you're going to the zoo when it's cold. The place was deserted and that was AWESOME! Magoo could roam and always be in my sight. Here he is by the fish fountain.
This is a pic of Kristy (sis-in-law), her son (Little J), me, and Magoo. I hadn't seen my nephew since he was, like, 9 months old - so it was really fun for me to spend some time with him and he and Magoo are like two peas in a pod when it comes to high energy levels. We let them run wild in the aquarium and they had a blast.
We saw a lot of the cold weather animals enjoying the climate and I think I'll post some of those pics tomorrow. But right now, I have to get Magoo ready for school and I have to recover a bit. I'm tried!

Sketches and a Break

A few days ago Magoo came home from school with a paper folded in half. On one side was a snowman that the teacher had drawn. On the other, his version of that same snowman. He did a really good job of copying the shapes and details, like 3 buttons. And it's a great way to teach him how to build big things out of smaller basic shapes. So this is a game we have been playing at home. May I present you with ... an elephant. Look at that mighty trunk!
Magoo and I will be in Ohio for a few days. We'll be back on Tuesday. So, until then, I leave you with a cat:
Meow!

Cactus Pot: A creative process

I have a very ugly corner in my kitchen.  Someone thought it would be good to install a corner sink to save space.  As a result I have a triangle of useless space behind it that is dark and usually collects old soup cans that need to go to recycling.  Then I saw this pot.  Why not put some dark and damp loving plants back there!

So I got an old peanut butter container - LARGE.  And I paper mache'd it.  The example has a knitted rim, but I don't knit, so I thought I'd make Shrinky Dink tiles.  My whole design after that point was to display my tiles.  So I painted the pot black and decoupaged green and blue piece of paper in a mosaic sort of way.  Well, it looked alright, but when I put on the tiles it was a little busy.  Okay.  So I painted the base white.  Nah.  Still not good.  My pal, Angela, suggested I draw some black details on the white.  Brilliant!  But nah, that didn't look so great either.  So I finally came to this blue sheet of paper.  I let the color do the work.  This is, by far, the best of all the versions, but it would have been better if it was smooth beneath the blue.  So it's a little bumpy, but it will do.  I still like my tiles and I found a nice cactus to go in it.  That said, I don't think the cactus will do well behind my sink so that will have to be another project.

Lemon Poppy Seed Cookies

I have a cookie cookbook (Better Homes and Gardens Christmas Cookies).  I usually pull it out at during the holidays and make my selections then.  But I ALWAYS make Buckeyes and I usually make Gingerbread, so that really just leaves me with making one other cookie.  But there are LOTS of great cookies in it and Magoo loves cookies so I've decided that 2008 will be the Year of the Cookie.  

Each month I will make a cookie I've never made before.  This month it's Lemon Poppy Seed Cookies. 

Lemon Poppy Seed Cookies

Ingredients:

3/4 cup butter, softened

1 cup sugar

1 egg

1 tablespoon milk

2 teaspoons finely shredded lemon peel

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon lemon extract (optional, but I did use it)

2 1/2 cups flour

2 tablespoons poppy seed

sanding sugar (which I could not find so I just used the regular stuff.)

1. Beat butter w/ an electric mixer on medium speed for 30 seconds.  Add sugar.  Beat until combined.  Beat in egg, milk, lemon peel, vanilla and lemon extract until combined.  Beat in flour until it becomes to stiff then mix the rest in.  Stir in poppy seed.

2. Divide dough in half.  Shape each portion into an 8" long tube.  Wrap in wax paper and freeze for 3 hours or until the dough is firm and easy to handle.

3.Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Cut logs into 1/4" slices and place on ungreased cookie sheet, 1" apart.  Sprinkle sugar on cookies.  Bake 7-11 minutes or until the edges turn golden brown.

This recipe makes approximately 60 cookies, but they are dainty.  Good with tea or as a gift.  You're going to want to eat 2-3 cookies at a sitting, so feel free to give some away - but keep plenty for yourself.  Mmmmmm, they're good.

Two Crows

In a continuing effort to find an artistic voice for working with crows, I dabbled with collage. All of the green bits were left over pieces from other projects - unaltered (for the most part.)  I painted some watercolor paper with deep blues, purples and greens and cut that out for the crows.  

Actually, I originally cut out a large central crow - but it wasn't working for me.  So then I did these two.  Generally I work with threes, but the two crows seemed to bring peace to the mish-mash of the background.  So I just let the third one go.  I used Nori glue to lay everything down - which I recommend for collage.  

All in all - I like it.  But I still haven't found what I'm looking for.

Day at the Museum

Yesterday, Martin Luther King Day, the Wadsworth Antheneum had free admission and crafts for the kids.  We like to go to places like museums on free admission days because we never know if Magoo is going to be into it or not.  He's a pretty active kid.  "Don't touch" and "Look at the paintings" don't usually go over too well with him.  The first time we came, all he wanted to do was ride the elevator.

But the activities were great and he got into them right away.  First stop was button making.  The kids got a small circle of paper to color and then the gals at the station made them into buttons.  I think it was great that they set this up right in the gallery.  Magoo didn't look at the paintings on the walls, but maybe the air of great art seeped into his pores?!
Then we went into another room where the little kids had scratch boards and they had etching out for the big kids.  Well, Magoo did his scratch board pretty quickly and then he was determined to etch.  The tools are too sharp, so we compromised.  Magoo drew his image and Dad etched it out.  Good deal.

Here are the final works.  I'm trying to figure out what the rubber blocks we used to carve on are called so I can order more, but so far no luck.  My quest continues.

The Book Barn I: The Books

This weekend we went down to Niantic, CT to visit my mother-in-law.  Whenever we're there, we like to go to The Book Barn.  The Book Barn is this great used book store that is less of a barn and more like an estate.  I think they must have outgrown the "barn" years ago because there are many more little buildings and wagons throughout crammed with books.  (They've even expanded into downtown Niantic with a separate shop.)

A little atmosphere: here you see a bookstore cat, the front entrance, a fire to keep the outside workers warm, and a chef that gives the rules of book selling to the barn.

This is where I hang out - the children's literature section - where I judge many books by their covers.  I have to.  There's no organization to the books so you have to flip through the bins one by one. I've gotten pretty good about spotting the gems - so I can zip through pretty quickly.  It also helps that Magoo wants to be with "Daddy" so I get to look solo.  
And here's what I got:
Emily and the Golden Acorn by Ian Beck - this one I don't know.  But it has nice illustrations and a pirate ship.  $1.00.  You are mine!

Berlioz the Bear by Jan Brett - when I see a Jan Brett, I buy a Jan Brett.

My Name is Georgia by Jeanette Winter - this one is more for me.  I love Georgia O'Keefe and I think the illustrations are bold and simple.  Something I strive for in my own.  I'd be surprised if Magoo went for this one.

Arthur's Tooth by Marc Brown - I don't go for books based on TV series.  But when the books came first, well that's just fine by me.  I figure Magoo is only a couple years away from loosing a tooth, so this will be a timely one and he's just getting into Arthur too.  This will be a hit.

Just Me and My Dad by Mercer Mayer - When I was a girl I loved the Little Critter books.  I remember copying pages out of them.  Since Magoo is in a real "Daddy Phase" right now I thought they'd both enjoy this one.

Harry the Dirty Dog by Gene Zion - A classic.  I spied this and snatched it out of the hands of a 4-year old girl.  Only kidding.  I was alone.  But I did snatch it out of a bin.  I never read this as a child, but I am reading a book on composing picture book texts and they refer to this a lot.  I think classics are always good to own - they're classics for a reason - but I think I might use this one just as much as Magoo.

Book Barn II: The Barn

Among the many, many cats and fish and other animals they have about, the Book Barn keeps goats.  Magoo fed them some corn, then he wanted to take some pics.  Here he is reaching for the camera.

Normally I'm fine with Magoo and the camera.  He puts the band around his wrist and he's very careful.  But he doesn't now much about goats, so he kept putting the camera through the fence to take his super-duper close up shots.  I was a little concerned the goats would chomp on my Canon Powershot...

...but they were very well behaved and I think they preferred the corn so my camera got away unmunched.  Phew!

Two Views of my Desk

This was my desk yesterday morning.  It is mostly a collection of things I did the evening before and hadn't put away yet.  The central project being a crow study.  I've always loved the shapes of crows, but I have yet to find the perfect way to capture it.  The green sheet is just me playing around with some stencils I made.  

There's also a bunch of Sharpies, a glue stick, my cruddy pencil sharpener and a bunch of new acrylic paints that one of my watercolor students no longer wanted.  I run an eager orphanage for unwanted art supplies.  

And cocoa.  

A spontaneous poem about cocoa:

I don't drink coffee

I don't drink tea

Cocoa with marshmallows

Is the drink for me.

Below we have the desk mid-work day.  I am working on my final art for my Ninja book and here I am set up working on a kimono for the ninja master.  (I circled the tiny kimono in yellow.)  One tiny kimono makes a lot of mess.
But I am loving it.  I think this is my favorite part of the process.  The text is done, all the pencil layouts are done and now I get to work with the fun and colorful paper.  Good stuff!!!  

Zucchini - Pineapple Muffins

My boy is a muffin fiend.  He'd eat muffins morning, noon, and night if given the opportunity. And it's the only way I can get fruit and (some) vegetables into his system.  I can't remember where I got this recipe, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if I typed "vegetable" and "muffin" in a Google search and found these.  

I've made these a few times and all the kids in the neighborhood love them.  Magoo included. They are really good.  And this recipe yield a TON of muffins so you can give them out and make new friends.  :)

Zucchini-Pineapple Muffins (really big batch)

Ingredients:

3 eggs

1 cup veg. oil

2 cups sugar

2 tsp. vanilla

2 cups shredded zucchini (about 2 zucchinis)

1 1/4 cup crushed, drained pineapple

3 cups flour

1/4 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon

3/4 tsp. nutmeg

1 cup chocolate chips

*************

1. preheat oven 350 degrees.  Line muffin tins. (This recipe yields approx. 2 dozen muffins)

2. Combine: eggs, oil, sugar, vanilla.  Beat until smooth.

3. Stir in zucchini, pineapple, flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt & spices.

4. Fold in chocolate chips.

5. Fills muffin cups 1/2 full and bake 20 minutes.

ENJOY!

THIS and THAT

THIS:  I had some stuffing upstairs.  I don't remember why, maybe for sock monkeys?  Anyway - Magoo started putting it in plastic bags to make "stuffed animals".  So I got out some light fabric from the basement (where I keep such things) and gave him some Sharpie markers.  The first thing he made was the man with the heart shaped head.  I don't know if it's really a man.  I forget what he said it was - but it's basically a person.  Two eyes.  Mouth.  At least one arm.  Legs. Then I sewed it up and let him stuff it - which, I think, was his favorite part.  

A couple days passed and he wanted to make another one.   I think it's a dinosaur with a sword.  (The sword is the line in the upper triangle to the right.)  Once again - good stuffing fun.  I think these are just too darn cute and I'll probably get some fabric paint next time I'm out at the craft store so we can take it up a notch.

THAT:  I am making a board game.  Well, I should say I am revising a board game that I made in my early 20's - yeeeeeears ago.  It was always fun to play but I'm not going to go into the plot of it because my neighbor is convinced I should patten it and try to sell it to Parker Brothers.  We'll see.  Anyway, I made the little game pieces into people and I thought they turned out pretty cute.

Look at those awesome fashions.   Clearly it's a game for really cool people - like me! :)

Bottle Cap Magnets

I don't subscribe to Martha Stewart Living, but every so often I thumb through one at the market and if it looks interesting, I buy it. The December 2007 issue had this cute idea, Bottle Cap Magnets.
It's very simple. You collect some bottle caps (twist off is better-if you can get them) and print up some 1" square pics from the computer - or cut out cool images where you can find them. Then cut them into circles - I had a template. Now Martha recommends using clear resin, but I couldn't find any. The hardware store guy recommended Epoxy glue, but I found that difficult to work with and I could feel the cancer creeping into my lungs. So here's my solution, fill the bottom with a thin layer of Elmer's glue. Lay picture on top. Let dry overnight. Then I put a layer of gloss Modge-Podge on top to seal it. It also turned the black & white images a little purple, but I think they look aged and cool - so I like it. Then I glued magnets on the back with some glue called Fabritac - which is a good, strong craft glue that I use all the time.

If I do it again - I'll probably try to cut the photos just a wee bit bigger. But all in all I like them a lot.

A Day with Horses

Yesterday was a great day. It started lazy, no plans apart from donuts for breakfast. Then I got a call from one of my watercolor students, Melanie, who keeps horses. It was a sunny, mild day and she asked if we wanted to bring Magoo out to see the horses. Uh - ABSOLUTELY!
He helped brush Kiwi, the horse, and was eager to get on. No fear whatsoever.
Actually, he was quite upset to get off. He could have kept going for an hour, I think!
But he still got to meet some of the other horses. This one was watching us the whole time, but very still - very quiet. Only inched closer and closer, as if it wasn't quite sure what to make of my little gremlin. But it got close enough for a meet and greet.
Even if there weren't any horses, Magoo had fun squishing in the mud. Oh yeah - he's a boy!
It was a lot of fun. Thanks Melanie!

Muffin Thief

The other day, Magoo and I were going to an after school playdate so I thought I'd bake some blueberry muffins to bring along as snack. I made twelve. But when I went to package them up - there were only eleven!
My husband comes home for lunch. So, at first, I thought he may have grabbed one on his way back to the office. Then I saw this:
My husband doesn't usually leave 1/3 of a muffin under the dining room table. But she does:
Doesn't look a bit sorry, either. Does she?
(Magoo was at school, so he's in the clear. It was definitely Java. Rotten, rotten Java.)

Flowbee

Yesterday we got a package in the mail. Something to enhance out lives. A Flowbee.
Note the discrete packaging.
For those of you who do not know what a Flowbee is - it is a device that you attach to your vacuum cleaner and it cuts your hair. The theory is, the vacuum sucks your hair up into the mechanism that houses the cutting blades - snip, snip - then your unwanted hair goes directly into the vacuum and not on your floor.
My father has been using one for years and I guess he wanted someone to join him on the Flowbee bandwagon because he bought one for my husband. My husband usually allows me to cut his hair - so you know he can't be too picky. Just the right candidate for a Flowbee!
So here it is -

Now this is me in the photo with actor Nathan Fillion (Desperate Housewives, Firefly) playing my husband. (If you know my husband at all, you'll know why I had to Photoshop an actor in order to post this shot. It's not because he's hideous. He's very handsome. But he doesn't like having his photo taken - let alone posted on my blog. So this is my solution. I did a pretty good job - don't you think.) Anyway I thought it was important to show the actual Flowbee in this post. You move it around the head - up and down, up and down - and it just snips away.

I used my scissors around the edges of the neck and ears, but the rest was all Flowbee. My husband (not Nathan Fillion) and I both thought it did a pretty good job.
Thanks Dad and thanks Flowbee!

Our New Library

West Hartford had a nice town center.  There were restaurants, little shops.  It was cute.  But there was an area right behind Main Street that housed a run-down vacant Chevy dealership, some ugly lots, and one tiny brick building.  It put the "ug" in ugly.  I think every resident had their own fantasy plans for the space should they ever win the lottery.  I certainly did.  I wanted an art house movie theater.

Well, some developers came and now - two years later - we have what's called Blue Back Square.  Whole Foods.  Barnes & Noble.  Crate & Barrel.  REI.  And a lot of smaller shops and boutiques.  AND - a movie theater!!!  But they also re-did the main library and it just opened this weekend.  (That's where I waiting in line an hour for Magoo's balloon hat.)

So here are some shots of the Children's Floor.  Yes - that's right - an entire floor! 

This is the puppet theater.  There are two curved blue benches that run out and serve as audience seating - but not for my boy.  For my boy they were planks to be run upon and jumped from.  (There was really no one there on Monday afternoon and it's January and mucky outside.  The kid needs his excercise.  (shame-spiral) I know - I'm bad.)
Here's a wall full of velcro shapes to stick and unstick.  There's also a corner with a train table, house section, doll house, and dress-up area.  Oh - and there's books there too! ;)

Here's my little leap frog.  I know!  I'm bad!  But you see, these folks were smart.  They put this section all the way in the back.  They know this is going to happen. (shame-spiral.)

Anyway - the library was nice before.  Now it's frickin' awesome!

Sunday

It was a big day, Sunday.  Pretty early on, Magoo wanted to make cookies.  I was working on my puppets (below) so Michael helped him out.

The thing to note about this picture is that this is NOT just a corner of my kitchen.  This is pretty much my entire kitchen.  I am standing against my sink and dish washer to take the pic, and that's as far as I can go.  If the shot went a little wider you could see Cam's hand touching the fridge, which marks the other wall.  Teeny kitchen.
Do you like the hat?  I hope so.  I spent an HOUR waiting in line for that hat.  It was the grand re-opening of the main library in town and we went to check it out.  When I got in the line for the balloon art, I would have guessed a 30 minute wait.  Michael took him around to see the library sites, but when they came back, some 20 minutes later, I didn't appear to have moved.  (I think some people were letting their kids sneak in the front.  I can't prove it though.)  Magoo waited with me the rest of the time.  And he was sooooo patient.  And it was sooooo hot in there.  We're going back today, Monday afternoon.  I bet it will be a lot less crazy!  but we're so glad that it's open again and it looks AWESOME!
And I finished my puppets for my Gingerbread Man performance at Magoo's class on Friday.  The big one is the sly Fox.  I know he looks more like a high fox, but I'm still pretty impressed with myself.  And i love the little gingerbread man I made on a little baking sheet for the old man and woman to put in the over.  That's all they do with it.  Put it in the over.  But it's still cute!

Then my agent called around 4pm and we talked over some changes to the project that we are currently shopping around.  I'll be busy this week working on that - so I may have to slack off of the blog.  But we'll see.

Brownie Snack Cake

Today we had Magoo's second 5th Birthday Party. Since I made vanilla for the first one, I thought I'd make a chocolate cake this time. I pulled out a recipe I had ripped out of the pages of Cooking Light yeeeeeears ago. It's a handy little cake. Normally, it's one layer and you can even eat it with your fingers. But I wanted things to be a little more grand, so I doubled the recipe and made it two layers. What you read below is for a single layer Brownie Snack Cake.

BROWNIE SNACK CAKE:
Ingedients
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup veg. oil
1/4 cup fat free plain yogurt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 large egg whites
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup baking cocoa
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
ICING:
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
2 1/2 tablespoons skim milk
1 teaspoon cocoa

- Preheat over to 350
-combine sugar thru egg whites and beat at a medium speed until blended.
-combine flour, cocoa, salt and baking powder
-add flour mix to wet mix. Beat well.
-coat 9" round baking pan with cooking spray. Fill pan.
-bake 25-30 minutes
-while cake is cooling, you can mix icing. Mix powdered sugar and milk together. Beat well. Pour almost all of it over the cake.
-add cocoa to remaining icing to make it brown. Fill a sandwich baggie and snip a small hole in the corner to make a squeeze bag.
-create a spiral over white icing.
-take a toothpick, and starting in the center, lightly drag toothpick thru to the edge to make a "spider web" effect. Do it all around the cake.
-leave to set. (If it's cold, I put mine out on the cold deck for a few minutes.)

Eat and enjoy!

Progression of a Koi Painting

I just finished another large koi painting. For anyone who knows me, I paint a lot of koi. Sometimes I have very good results. Sometimes it's a mess. I guess that's one of the reasons that I keep doing them - they have yet to be conquered!!! And they're pretty.

This time, I thought I might walk you through a few steps of the process as best I can. I find them very difficult to teach to my class because so much of what I do is based solely on my instinct and not any "watercolor procedure."

I usually will compose and draw my fish out prior to painting. I've tried to lay the base colors in first and sort of "feel" where the fish are - but pre-planning tends to work better for me. So I lay a crazy loose wash down with my three favorite "water" colors: Prussian Blue, Sap Green and Burnt Sienna. Lots of splashing and spatters. I want some of the colors to be in the fish so that they look as though they are IN the water, but if it gets too dark, I lift the colors out with my brush and/or a paper towel.

Now let's focus on the bottom fish. I already washed in some vermilion, purple and blue to give it some form. (above) Now I paint in a darker top fin (there's names for these things - I know - is it dorsal?) And paint a darker blue around the negative space at the bottom of the fish, leaving a white lower fin. I also have begun to add the yellow and orange coloring on the top - this part is the most fun. (If you're wondering what the light blue over the eye is - it's masking fluid. When I am done, I will pull it off and there will be white, clean paper underneath.)
Here's a detail of the completed fish. I added more blue to the back and felt the fin was too dark, so I lifted color out of it. I added more shadow to the lower fin and lifted out some scales on the side. I removed the masking fluid over the eyes and whiskers and painted those in.

Here is the finished painting. You'll notice that I added a large area of dark blue between the two main fish. Although I liked what the paint was doing there before, I needed something to unite the fish and bring them together and the deep blue did that as well as adding contrast to their heads and bringing more focus to them.

Then I spattered a bit more to add some looseness and used two of my seals to balance and finish it off. Finally I signed my name. It goes into a show at the Artspace Gallery in Hartford on Saturday. Here's hoping it sells!

Shrinky Dinks

One of the gifts Magoo got for his birthday was a box of "Shrink Art" - which anyone who was born in the 70's knows is really Shrinky Dinks!!!! 

I don't think he knew what was going to happen at first.  He didn't like that he had to color it with colored pencils - and, admittedly, the ones that came in the box were LAME!  So I let him do some line drawing with a Sharpie, then I pulled out my case of colored pencils.  (I think he's always a little more excited when I let him use my art materials.)

Then we popped that bad boy in the oven and watched (through a grease layered window) as it distorted and shrunk within seconds.  It really was quite cool.  Now it's the size of a credit card.
These are Magoo's tiny hands.  And he does, in fact, call them "credit cards."  He LOVED it and made a few more.

Aren't these cool!  He seems to have a Miro sensibility to his work.

2008

I'm not much for New Year's resolutions.  I pretty much try to do my best every day, be it January or April or October.  

I don't even stay up for the "dropping of the ball."  Last night I was asleep by 10 pm.  

But if I do have one thing I'm going to try to do in 2008 it's keep up with this blog.  I am inspired by so many other blogs that I read - to create - to share - and I like how it has shaped my life.   Even if very few people ever peek in, I like how I am motivated by it and the feeling I have when I have completed something.  It's like that ever satisfying red line through items on a to-do list.

Create.  red line.

Record.  red line.

Share.  red line.

So, for 2008, let me share this.  A beautiful blue sky.  

Happy New Year everyone!