Christmas Cheer

Spending time with my Grandson's this year made for a truly wonderful Christmas.

This is Jayson.  His favorite movie is Cars so we got him the movie and Mater's Tales, along with Lightening McQueen and Mater.

Robbie Jr. is scooting himself all over the floor.  He is such a doll.

Abby was such a good kitty and hung out with the kids all day and all night. 

Catch me as Jr. can?  Catch me as cat can?  Either way, it was a perfect photo op.

Tis The Season For Redish Things

Some of my favorite redish things from 2010

New fall geraniums and baskets

Christmas bouquet 1

Christmas bouquet 2

Peonies

Revisiting cactus blooms from Summer 2010

Revisiting flowers from Spring 2010

Merry Christmas!!!

Pumpkin Head Paper Dolls

This year for Halloween, I was inspired to make Pumpkin Head paper dolls for my grand daughters and great grand nieces.  I had such a fun time creating these little dolls and accompanying envelopes.

I was inspired by the recent purchase of these little dears while my sister was visiting this Fall.  The dolls also served as Halloween cards for my little dears.

The dolls are from Character Constructions, Paperdoll pARTs.

The banners are from the Martha Stewart craft line.

The images on the envelop and tag are Tim Holtz and Zettiology.

Another Fall at BTA

Sometimes you just have to spend some time doing whatever it takes to restore vitality, perspective, inspiration, enthusiasm...to one's life.  When I am feeling the need for restoration, that means it is time for a trip to Boyce Thompson Arboretum. 

We found many leaves turning into their fall colors.  We also found a few critters out and about.

Conn and I ended our walk with a nice long sit in the Demonstration Garden where the view overlooks Picketpost Mountain.  Afterwards we enjoyed a yummy picnic lunch before heading home.  For more pictures, see my Hiking page.

"Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves."  John Muir

October

There is no season when such pleasant and sunny spots may be lighted on, and produce so pleasant an effect on the feelings, as now in October. Nathaniel Hawthorne

All things on earth point home in old October; sailors to sea, travellers to walls and fences, hunters to field and hollow and the long voice of the hounds, the lover to the love he has forsaken. Thomas Wolfe

Top 10

1. Holding my newest grandson.
2. Playing with my grandchildren
3. Carribean grilled chicken salad
4. Star Trek
5. Pulled pork sandwich in adobo sauce with apple coleslaw and crisp fried onion rings
6. Fall sun angles
7. Cool mornings
8. Wild morning glories
9. Listening to my fountain while posting blogs.
10. Poems read by John Lithgow and Friends from The Poets Corner

Random White Things

Bubbles

Puffy clouds

Lola

Beautiful glass work

Waves hitting the shore

Spray

My dream house in San Francisco

San Francisco

Top 10

1. Lazy weekends
2. Chuy's California Tacos
3. Playing in my art journal
4. Tim Holtz demos
5. Laughing at work
6. Being part of a great company.
7. The sound of my chimes
8. The sound of my fountain
9. Taking 15 minutes at the end of my day to unwind and listen to my chimes and fountain
10. Salmon with honey, butter and whole grain mustard sauce

Life is amazing...

These morning glories came out of some bird seed we were using last year.  They are back and thicker this year.  Today was the first day I found blooms on the vines and there were many. 

The blooms are very pale and the dimension across the top is no larger than a quarter.

This vine is working its way up the lemon tree.

I can't wait for October to get here so I can begin to plant and spend time in the back yard again.

Top 10

1. Trout with lemon and cilantro rice
2. Boyce Thompson Arboretum
3. Saw a Ford Fairlane in excellent condition
4. Chrysanthemum tea
5. Mango Jamba Juice - Yum, they passed out free at work this week
6. Lucille's BBQ sauce on chicken, served with cheesy mashed potatoes and corn
7. Wore my new jewelry that my sister made me
8. The T.V. show Leverage
9. Yoga
10. I really, really love my job

Boyce Thompson in September

A month and a half is just getting to be too long between visits to Boyce Thompson Arboretum.  The first thing we noticed when we drove into the parking lot were all the butterflies and dragonflies.  It was incredible how many there were buzzing here, there and everywhere.

On the way to Ayers Lake, we found cactus in bloom.

The colors and sheen in the bloom above, reminded us of Christmas candy.

So shiny, they look like they are made from satin.

 

Ayers Lake

We saw some critters.

While standing near this bush at the lake, I was able to get some cool pictures of dragonflies.

It was another spectacular day at BTA.  So glad we were able to get out of the house and go.

Until next time....

Top 10

1. Mom came home from the hospital last weekend
2. Daily visits with mom
3. 3-day weekends
4. New Beth Ciotta book
5. Pool time
6. Mexican food
7. Veal chops marinated with lemon and thyme
8. Grandkids
9. Martha Stewart baby back ribs with Lucille's BBQ sauce
10. Presents from my sister

August Showers

The Monsoon rolled in on Saturday, dumping a lot of rain fast.  It rained hard for about 5 minutes, then sprinkled for maybe 10 minutes, then completely stopped. 

After the rain stopped, the skies cleared to the west, and as the sun began to set, the light cast a rosey glow on the clouds to the east. 

The white cloud in the foreground looked so dramatic against the darker clouds.

Spectacular

One last view of the white cloud before the skies became too dark.

This year, Arizona's Monsoon season did not disappoint. We had significant rainfall in our area of the valley and thankfully no damage.

Cat Fetish???

I had to post this picture of Coz sleeping on Conn's flip flops this morning. Amazingly, he'd been laying there sleeping peacefully while I was putting away last night's dinner dishes.  He was clearly sacked out and so I became inspired to grab the camera and take a picture.

Coz raised his head and looked at me for a few seconds right before I snapped the picture, but thankfully layed back down and went back to sleep.  Such an obliging kitty.  I guess I could say he took one for the cause.  Haha.

There is a bit of a story with our cats Abby and Coz and their need to sleep or roll around on our shoes.  The other night Conn and I watched Abby and Coz in an odd battle of wills.  Abby had been on Conn's flip flops and Coz wanted her spot.  It wasn't really a fight with them rolling and bitting each other, but rather that they were conveying their displeasure with airplane ears and snappy tail movements. 

Finally, in a very stubborn manner, Abby moved off of Conn's flip flops and over to mine.  A few minutes later, she huffed away and Coz took up residence on Conn's flip flops. 

I'm not sure what this says about our foot odor, but it appears to be a comforting place for our cats.

Awesome Sunrise

These pictures were taken around 6 a.m., Thursday morning.  The sky was so dramatic that I had to get some pictures.

The sky was gorgeous with the sunrise on these clouds that were in the southwest part of the valley.

What a beautiful way to begin a day.

A Beautiful Mess

This past week it seemed that all I wanted to do was play in my room.  I cut short my normal time spent in front of the TV during dinner just to get more time in my room.  The object of my attention is as usual, my art journal.

I used iridescent watercolors to wash the pages. The page on the left was done in gold and the page on the right was done in a silvery light blue. The interesting part is that after I stamped and used dye based inks over the top, the shimmery iridescence still came through.

White noise

I really had to laugh the other day. We were enjoying dryer, cooler than normal weather for August, and consequently I went around the house and turned off most of the fans. This reduced the white noise in the house significantly as this time of year, every fan we own is set on high and we have at least 2 fans in every room and one fan in the hallway.

So why do we have so many fans running? Since we run a swamp cooler through the Monsoon months, the fans are vital to keeping us cool while they dry off the sweat rolling down our backs. Oh my gosh, the other day I was leaning on my knees and started sliding, that's how humid it was in my house. Yuck!

Ah, but I digress.

Anyway, getting back to the laugh... With the fans shut off, I realized that the volume on the TV, radio and even our talking all needed to come down a bit to compensate for the "quieter" environment; which got me wondering whether people walking down the street or our neighbors can hear how loud we are during this time of year and if they think we are deaf.

I used to think it was odd that some people talk more loudly than others while in places where there is no noise to talk over. I'm sure you can relate and know a few people that talk too loud. Anyway, I just figured that they are partially deaf. On the flip side of that (and what I found to be funny/ironic), my co-workers sometimes struggle with me and tell me I'm talking too low. Anyway, it got me thinking, are they deaf or am I a low talker? I don't notice them talking too loud, but I never considered myself to be a low talker either. Maybe my rationale for loud talkers is all wrong... Could it be a sign of intelligence? As in loud talkers are less intelligent than low talkers, or vice versa? And those who neither talk loud nor low are of average intelligence?

Hmm, sometimes I wonder about the things I ponder.

What do you ever wonder and ponder about?

What happened on this day in history?

I don't normally think along the lines of "what happened on this day in history", but like most people, when you here about stuff, I always listen.  For some reason, I thought about it today, did a Google search and found an interesting website.  I picked out a few things that happened on August 1st that meant something to me.

August 1, 1960: Aretha Franklin records four demos in New York City, which lead to a contract with Columbia Records.

Some of my favorite tunes by Aretha Franklin are:
Think
Respect
Freeway of Love
I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Loved You)
Chain of Fools

August 1, 1982: Rock in a Hard Place is the seventh studio album by American hard rock band Aerosmith and was released in 1982. This is the only Aerosmith album to not feature Joe Perry. Perry had left in 1979 while Whitford left in 1981, during the recording of this album. Whitford is billed as an "additional musician" as he can be heard playing rhythm guitar on "Lightning Strikes." This was also Aerosmith's last studio album released on Columbia Records until 1997.

Some of my favorite Aerosmith tunes are:
Never Loved a Girl (same tune as above, slightly altered)
You Gotta Move
Toys in the Attic
Sweet Emotion
Walk this Way
Dream On

One last thing, that is too funny to pass up.  On August 1, 2001: South Park Episode 507 - "Proper Condom Use".  Thanks to Stan's "handy" work, the children of South Park must endure sex education from the unlikely duo of Mr. Mackey and Ms. Choksondik. While the two adults take their lessons to heart, the children are left frightened, mis-informed, and armed for battle against the opposite sex. Much hilarity ensues. 

Recharging my batteries

With the recent storms this week all due to the Monsoon season, our temps have been much lower and mornings have been down right cool.  With that in mind, we were inspired to take a trip out to Boyce Thompson Arboretum this morning.  We packed a picnic, grabbed the camera and headed out. 

Below are some ominous looking clouds hovering over Superstition Mountain. Please click on the pictures to enlarge. 

The temps were around 75 on the way to BTA.  We enjoyed having all the windows and the sunroof open.

While driving along, we spotted a vapor trail which seemed odd since the clouds were so thick.  As we pondered whether it really was a vapor trail, Conn spotted a plane coming out of the clouds and as we watched some more we saw the plane doing loop-d-loops.  I just had to pull over and get a few shots.

What a total surprise it was to watch this guy flying around.  We must have sat by the side of the road for about 15 minutes watching him have fun and it was a blast for us too.  I could just imagine this being some guy and his son or grandson, both having the time of their lives doing loop-d-loops on a Saturday morning. 

I updated my Hiking page with more pictures of BTA.  Take a look, we found a few surprises there today too.

As days go, this one ranked right up there as a completely awesome day.  August, here we come...

Cheers!!!