the last few days

 if you look really close to the pink painted piece above you will see

cat prints... apparently, in the evening after i finished painting the 

magnets and was waiting for them to cure... angelo jumped up

and walked around on top of all of my paintings:)

 i thought it was quite comical actually... i had to get some photos.

 it looks like he did a little happy dance around my brushes...

 and onto more painted backgrounds...

 look - proof!

so i moved them outside to work a bit more on them... found a great

way to dry them, stuck to this metal shelving unit (that sat outside

all winter...) so i could cure them in the sun.

 maybe when they are cut up and finished, i can use this as a display...

 and found the perfect system for storing my handmade stamps...

these boxes that a friend gave me a while back, that also sat

out in the garage for at least two years... they used to house wooden

blocks for babies to stack...

 lots of colored boards waiting for their next layers..

 can't wait to continue working on my children's book paintings...

 more stamps... i have tons from carving like a maniac for years...

 lakshmi is done i think... well, maybe not... i now kind of like

going back to paintings and continuing to work on them these days...

and my blurry little hanuman... i got my camera back today,

from being fixed... got a refurbished one, so i am hoping it will

be as good at it was before my bro-in-law dropped it.

so no more blurry shots!!!!!!!! i hope.

 the ending to the school year was quite nice, but kind of dragged on
a bit... we had two extra days because of the 9 snow days we had,
not so bad considering some schools took away their spring breaks...
this was a service learning project the kids worked on.
it was a collaborative 6th grade painting that 39 kids had the opportunity
to add to. this painting above with the puzzle pieces will hang
in our school. they studied hunger, homelessness and poverty
all year and this was taken from a postcard after experiencing
an "oxfam hunger banquet"... they changed it a little to make it
unique to them.

this is the same deal, but will be a gift to the Norwalk Emergency
shelter to adorn their living space. the kids made sandwiches for them
all year and we donated a bunch of food to them as well.

 we also made coloring books for the children at the shelter to color in.
next year, our kids will bring them the paintings and coloring books.
this girl was inspired by our experience with Ven-Ji-Xing, the
head of the American Buddhist society when we went to visit
Chuang Yen Monastery... he shared the above phrases to us and I
just now realized that was what she had drawn about for her coloring book.
very cool....

and last but not least...
celebrated the end of the school year with three awesome people

tonight at my favorite indian restaurant... (thank you W, M + J!)

and my own little mini-bottle of champagne. for someone who rarely

drinks, i had some bubbly and felt quite relaxed after

just one glass:) sooo glad to be finally DONE with school

and on to a summer of inspiration, creativity, smoothies, reading

a stack of books i have saved up all year,

walking, floating down the river

and hopefully watching some grass grow.

namaste,

j