1. On Sunday, I came away from the antique fair in Moss Landing with eight yards of the above fabric. It was $3/yard, a bargain I could not resist, especially when it's such a cool print. I have no idea what I'm going to do with all that material. Any suggestions? 2. In case some of you are wondering, the huge pile of fabric strips (scroll to xiii) that I cut several weeks ago are still sitting on the bed in L Studio. Molly the Cat seems to enjoy sleeping on top of them. 3.  Carol of Comfort Spring nominated me for The Sunshine Blogger Award . Thank you very much, Carol! As part of receiving the award, I'm to answer Carol's 11 questions.  Here's the first one: How did you begin blogging? I wanted to hear my voice again -- the storyteller, not the writer of educational and reference materials -- so I decided to publish a blog about my hometown, Hollister, California. It became more like a travel blog, which was something else I wanted to try. Since I wa...

Lately, I've been thinking again about earning a bit of pocket money. If I applied myself, I could find a writing gig or two, but I'm not ready. I don't know if I'll ever be ready again. When I was a young thing living in San Francisco, I daydreamed about being a street artist selling her creations to locals and tourists. I had one major detail missing in my daydream. I didn't create anything. Nada. Zilch. Zip. But now, all the experimenting I've been doing with paints, fabric, plants, and junk, maybe, just maybe, my daydream may come true. And, if not, I'm certainly having loads of fun. I'm also learning that there's more than one story in a painting. When I started painting this tile, I thought about creating an outdoor scene with overt dollar signs and calling it Stand United Against Greed. I was ticked off at that moment about the current government's dismantling of environment laws and regulations. The result is what you see...

Camembert! Buche de Chevre! Cacio di Fossa! Cheddar! Molly the Cat loves cheese. Unfortunately, her tummy doesn't. Missy Girl and I are heading over to Say Cheese , hosted by Jeanna of The Ched Curtain , and ABC Wednesday , lead by Melody and the ABCW team. Come join us.

A whispering of leaves. . . Plop! Sometimes, after the sound of trembling leaves, goes a ping! against a ladder, a bench, a table, or the shed, followed by a thud. Rustle . . . ping! . . . plop! I wonder how many times Molly the Cat has had a near miss with a fallen lemon or apple or avocado or apricot or Asian pear. The Husband says that Missy Girl knows precisely where to lay herself down in the backyard. He's right, Missus Lady.  Purrrrrrrrrrrr.  This has been a good year for Mama's fruit trees because of the winter and spring rains.  All the trees have been continually aborting themselves of immature seeds and fruits so that the fittest may live to full development. Plop! The lemon tree is a different story. We can't reach the top branches, thus when the fruit ripens, plop! The two apricot trees had branches heavily laden with fruit that they snapped. Giving baskets and box lids full of apricots to several friends didn't make a dent to the t...

Because of the bogus leader sitting in our nation's executive office, I searched for words to fill me back to the brim with positivity. Brave Big-hearted Beneficial Brightness Benign Bounce back Brain Beauty Breakthrough Befriend Beloved Blossom Breathtaking That helped. Today's memes are ABC Wednesday and Thursday Thirteen . Please join me in checking out the other participants. :-)

"Talky. talky. talky. talky. talk. . ." That's the first line to "Happy Talk" from South Pacific . So the Husband and I thought. This afternoon we learned the first line goes like this: "Happy talk, keep talking happy talk. . ." Yup. We have sung "Taw-kee, taw-kee, taw-kee talky talk" for over 50 years individually, and 24 together. Not to say we listened to the song yesterday. Twice. The Husband says he's shattered that the lyrics aren't "talky, talk." Go ahead: giggle, snort, snicker, chuckle, belly laugh. We have. "Talky, talky . . ."   REDWOODS, WATERFALLS, and HISTORIC KILNS One of our day trips during the Husband's birthday week in June was an adventure with good friends Missus and Mister H to Limekiln State Park in Big Sur, along the California coast, about 50 or so miles south of Carmel. (Pshew, that was a long sentence.) The park was a first visit for us all. We picnicked and hiked ...

i That apricot tree grew from a seed that Mama ate and planted, which came from her Blenheim apricot tree. That makes this a second generation tree, but not necessarily a Blenheim according to some experts. The apricots are delicious, Blenheim or not. ii I can forget something I thought of minutes ago because I climbed upstairs to the office so I could plop it into the computer. Where are pen and paper when I need them? iii Two Sundays ago we stayed overnight in a faraway place and it wasn't because one of us had to have surgery. Hurrah! That's what our last few overnighters had been. Not two Sundays ago. We drove straight across the state to Shaver Lake in the Central Sierra Nevadas. A lot of driving that we weren't used to, but it was well worth it. iv How fun it was to zig and zag, to go down a road with matured abandon (mature abandonment? oxymoron phrases, both?). Left, right, right, right, left. . .too late. oh well,  turn right, this road runs paralle...

Hi'ya, dear friends! Big hugs to all. I thought I'd be back sooner on the blog, but you know how it goes with summer distractions. I'll write about more of them mañana. One distraction has been a local photography exhibition. A week or so before our party (the day after the Solstice), I got an email saying my three submissions were accepted and I would need to deliver them matted, framed, and ready to hang on what turned out to be the day after our party. All good, because that distracted me from getting too anxious about prepping for the party (including cleaning house and yard), as well as the party stuff sidetracked me from becoming nervous about preparing the photos for display. The photo above of an apple blossom is one that's on display in the exhibit. I took the picture in the backyard on a late Spring afternoon, then played around with Photoshop filters to get the final effect. Getting the photos ready for display took a village. A local business servic...