I decided to enter the garden art class in the repurposed and recycled crafts category for the county fair. The instructions were simple: Take one item (any item), photograph it, then turn it into garden art. My first idea was to make an asterisk out of a tree branch. It worked, but looked too clumsy. Next idea was to create an elephant out of chicken wire. It was turning out well but safety became an issue with all the sharp points. So I abandoned the project for another day. Then came the mini aluminum decorative milk can, pictured above. Too bad I painted the lid shut so I couldn't plant a succulent in it. (I'll work on getting it open later.) Finally, something worked. I painted one of the Mama's dried gourds that I found in the garage. It's one she grew for seeds. If anyone asks me what it's purpose will be in the garden, I'll say "Birdhouse." lol Time for me to clean up and take the entries to the fairgrounds. When I get back, I&#

    At the moment, I'm working on my photo entries for the county fair (due tomorrow). As usual, I let the days go by like three years ago, the last time I participated in the fair. My post from September 28, 2015. ************** Yesterday afternoon, procrastinating me started thinking about my flower arrangement entries for the fair, which are due on Wednesday afternoon. I opened one of the kitchen cupboards and staring boldly at me, obviously begging to be in the fair, was an Eiffel Tower martini glass.  "I'm for the A Touch of Glass dry floral arrangement," it proclaimed.  "Okay," I said. "Let's go." We went to the office where I set the Eiffel Tower martini glass on the drawing board, into which the poor Husband keeps bumping as he goes in and out of the office. Before I knew it, the dried green moss called out from its basket on the floor, "Hey! Hey!" Bammm! A handful of moss planted itself in the glass,

"How do you get brown?" asked I, standing outdoors at the patio door. "Mix green and blue," responded the Husband, washing dishes about 20 feet away. As I walked back to my temporary work table beneath the Miracle Tree, I realized I would have to first mix blue and yellow to get green. Sigh. Several hours later, when the Husband stopped, I showed him the rock I was painting. "The brown looks like dirt." Accomplishment achieved! Today is Our World Tuesday , where I'm participating. Here's the link . Grazie, OWT administrators.

The Husband and I finished and installed a fun project on Friday. Some of you may remember I talked about the work-in-progress fence project last Sunday. Amazingly it only took us six days from creating the first fence panel to the installation of seven panels weaved with branches from the backyard trees. That's a short time, considering who we are. It was lots of fun working with the Husband on it. He agreed. We love the final result. We don't know about the neighbors, who I hope simply think of us as those old hippies doing their thing. Hmmm. Maybe that's not a good idea. The Daddy warned me not to end up being a hippie, which to this day I have no idea what he considered made up a hippie. I can only hope I did not disappoint him. lol This morning the Husband showed me how to tie Boy Scout knots. One knot reminded me of the stitch the Mama taught me for hemming. Another knot had me thinking of knitting, and still another of crochet. I didn't do so well re

The paints came out last week. Splash! Splish! A blue elephant now dances across a dinner plate. A once-upon-a-time metal spoon holder now pirouettes in the breeze. This morning the Husband set up the portable table outside so I can play at being an artist. I envision a white pan being painted into a turtle, chicken wire being mangled into the shape of an elephant, and a branch being cut and put back together into something, maybe an asterisk. If any of those things turn out well, it becomes my entry for garden art in next month's county fair. We shall see. Time again for All Seasons , a weekly meme hosted by Jesh of The Jesh Studio , which is where I'm heading to share my post. Click here to check out Jesh. For the participants list, click here . Thanks, Jesh!

The other day someone asked me what do I do now that I don't spend 24/7 on the computer writing and doing research. A whole lot of nothing was my answer. The better answer, I realize today, is a whole lot of experimenting with stuff, such as plants, crafts, sewing, baking, drawing, writing, reading, and whatever comes my way. So, today, I show off last night's results of my experimenting with the markers I purchased on a whim earlier this month. Lucky for me there happened to be a box of crayons nearby so I didn't have to get off the couch.

Closed eyes no more. Time to be responsible, my aching knees.  ~ Su- sieee ! Mac That was my pronouncement to myself this morning. Neither The Husband nor Molly the Cat heard, so you, dear readers, are my witnesses. I am going to do my best to go through, organize, and throw out the piles of papers and boxes of stuff that are in this house, as well as "do" instead of "thinking about doing" something fun and creative for no reason at all. Yes! In that second regard, I am happy to say I made something yesterday evening. Actually two somethings—those coffee cup cozies you see in the above photo. Sewing them was easy-peasy. Unlike the first time, a bunch of years ago, when figuring how to do it completely stumped me. I was sweating bullets while stitching it on the machine. Sweating bullets, what an image! We've been getting coffee to go lately so cardboard coffee sleeves have been collecting in our car. We don't remember until we get back into t

Last Sunday I shared with you the chair I painted that morning. There's the final product in the meadow. You may not see it at first. That's Okay. That's my intent. I don't want the chair to be obvious. I want it to suddenly be a delight in your sight. By the way, Molly the Cat hasn't noticed it yet. I wonder what she'll do when she does. I ended up painting details onto the chair's frame.  A hodgepodge of things to practice painting impressions of flowery vines, cat paws, flowers, and butterflies. Here's the back of the chair. For the front of the chair, I decided to paint one subject rather than several. What do you think? I love the way the chair looks in the meadow. The chair is too flimsy for anyone to sit on, except for Molly the Cat, so I asked the Husband to place it in a hard-to-get place. For humans, that is. While the Husband and I stood on the sidewalk admiring the chair in the meadow, I thought the yard looks just how I

Hello Visitors from the Blogging from A to Z April 2018 Challenge. This post is for the weekly All Seasons. You can find my posts for the April Challenge here . I'm pooped. Happily, though. I just came inside from painting that chair you see in the photo. I've been wanting to paint an artsy chair ever since I saw a bunch of painted chairs done by artists for a local fundraiser in town. That was over 10 years ago. By the time I mustered the confidence to consider painting a chair, the  group hosting the fundraiser stopped it. Last night I decided if it didn't rain today, I would paint the old broken redwood chair against the fence that has been wearing the fake evergreen bough since last Christmas. So, I did. Today is gorgeous. Sunny. A  bit of a breeze. Warm enough to peel off hat and sweater as the painting progressed. I hoped that Molly the Cat would hang out with me, but the rocking chair claimed her. That's okay, every so often a bee buzzed by to see what wa

French presses don't last long in our household. It used to be we could go a couple of years before the glass container breaks. In recent years, nope. Three months, if we're lucky. Each time one breaks, we go back to using our makeshift coffee system—a 32-ounce glass measuring cup and a leftover plastic funnel from a legitimate coffee dripper that got broke who knows when. I can't bring myself to throw the coffee press plunger right away because I never know when it may come in handy. The problem is I put it away and forget where. It's not uncommon to reach deep into a kitchen shelf or open a box marked Kitchen Stuff , voila! there's a coffee press plunger. Last month I finally did something with a coffee press plunger. It so happened that I came across a  bunch of metal tubes that were once-upon-a-time chimes at the same time that I spied a coffee press plunger. Yup. The coffee press plunger chimes make a pretty sound hanging from the apple tree outside the

The VHS tapes have been staring at me in the living room for more than a month. It could even be two months. I think that was the last time the Husband and I opened a bunch of boxes from storage to determine what to use, keep, throw, donate, recycle, maybe repurpose, or maybe sell. I think these VHS tapes are ones that I thought we might be able to sell online one day. This morning I finally did something with 12 of the VHS tapes. I bound them together with duct tape to make two walls for a bottomless planter. That's it in the photo. Pretty cool, huh? The planter would've been made of all VHS tapes, but I didn't have enough tapes. Fortunately, I kept the doors of a small cabinet, which fell apart last year, for the other two walls. I figure the pretty flowers will take the focus away from the funky taping. Maybe later I'll pretty up the planter with color or simply put something beside the taped VHS-tape side. It feels good to make something! Today I'm

I'm creating a structure at the sidewalk end of our front yard. Not a fence. Just look at it. What creature could that evolving spiderness-of-a-something keep off our property? Giggle. Hmmm, maybe that's something I ought not to giggle about. I'm making this not-a-fence out of skinny branches of the fruit trees we pruned a few months ago, as well as from the second-time-with-The-Mama era. I'm not kidding. You can find all sizes of branches in our yard that I'd say were at last 10 years old. Some lie on the ground waiting for their time to become something helpful, such as the stakes holding up the boards that the Mama put around her flower and vegetable beds. Have I digressed? Doesn't matter. :-) That's my story for the letter N , this week's theme of ABC Wednesday . Click here to check out the participants from around the world. How cool is that? Thanks, ABCW team!

Until this past week, since April 8, the day after the Mama's funeral, all I wanted to do is sleep. Sleep, to catch up with not having slept. Sleep, to not think. Sleep. Tonight, sleeping takes a back seat to playing in Photoshop. The piece above is from the top left section of this photo. I'm linking up with this week's Creative Every Day , hosted by Leah Piken Kolidas. Thanks, Leah. Now, I'll go to sleep. Good morning, All.

This is a close-up of the petals of the first California poppy that I saw this year, back in February. Dear friend Jennifer said the lines of the poppy reminded her of a Georgia O'Keefe painting, and suggested that I zoom in on the petals, crop, and play with what I saw. Most definitely! Georgia O'Keefe is one of my favorite artists. I love all of her phases, from her early years in New York to her later, and more familiar, years in New Mexico. Many years ago, I dropped everything to trek down to Los Angeles to see an exhibit of Ms. O'Keefe's works. Wowza! Here's the photo that I took of the poppy. Isn't the poppy gorgeous? Maybe one day, I'll try painting a close-up of its petals with actual brush and paints. I'm linking up with Seasons , hosted by Jeanette of St Germain's Blog, and the Creative Every Day Challenge , hosted by Leah of Creative Every Day.  I hope you'll go visit both memes.

Some of you may recall that last month I bought an empty burlap sack , which once held coffee beans, at my favorite cafe. The sack hasn't moved from where I draped it when I took the photo of it last month. It questions me every day: So, what am I here for? Yesterday morning, as I was picking leaves off the lawn, I thought how exceptionally pretty they are. Bingo! So, I collected a few and brought them indoors to dry. By afternoon, they were in the office. Ah-ha! Within minutes, I attached a few of them to the canvas. Hmmmm. I looked down at the floor and saw the box that held stuff I used for a floral arrangement for last year's county fair. Hellllllllloooo! called some blue dried flowers. They went up on the sack. Then all went quiet. To be continued. * * * * * I'm linking up with the weekly meme, What Happened in Your Surroundings or in Your Mind This Week? , which is hosted by Pippa Koenig. To join in and/or to check out the other participants, click he

 Gosh, it's been one busy week. I apologize to the blog hops and memes that I hooked up with this week. I'm very late about visiting other bloggers, as well as responding here on The View from the Top of the Ladder . That's my plan tomorrow.  Among the things the Husband and I did today was a stop at the art supplies store so I could spend my birthday money. I purchased a lot of cool stuff for the Husband and me to have fun with—suede boards, colored pencils, colored pens, drawing pad, Mod Podge, fabric glue, air-dry clay, and oven-bake clay.  Whooo-hooo! It's great being 62-years-old.

This afternoon I bought a very large burlap sack at our favorite cafe for $5.41. (What a deal!) It once held coffee beans from India. Now, what shall I do with it? Use it as a canvas? Sew tote bags? Make a skirt? Cover a box? What? What would you create with this beautiful, very large burlap sack?

"I'd like to be under the sea in an octopus's garden in the shade.  . ." That Beatles' song was looping in my head as Tilda-Hilda and I pedaled up and down hills this morning. Over 8.5 miles in 53 minutes! Perfect song for the ride. Today, I'm hooking up with two cool memes. Click on the links to check out other bloggers. One meme is Our World Tuesday . The other is Creative Every Day . See you tomorrow with Jane Austen, Action Doll.

"It's 9:01!" "It is!" exclaimed the Husband, throwing the bed covers off him. As if it mattered that we got up late. We didn't have to get anywhere or have anything done by 9:00 a.m. today.  Although getting up later meant no early bike ride with Tilda-Hilda. Maybe we'll go for a spin around the neighborhood after I rake leaves in the backyard and prune some vines and such in the front yard. I wondered why our alarm clock didn't wake us up. I opened the blinds in the living room. Molly the Cat looked up from the couch. Ha! The Mama? I peeked into her bedroom. She was sleeping soundly. Yes, a perfect Sunday morning. Now a perfect Sunday afternoon. I still haven't gone outside. Those colored pencils distracted me.

Yesterday, Georgy, of Jubilee Street and Remember Freedom , wrote a post on her former blog that sparked a memory bubble. (Thanks, Georgy. ) That's watching "Bonanza" with the Daddy on Sunday evenings. It came on after "The Wonderful World of Disney." I can't recall if the Daddy watched that with me. If he did, that was nice of him to let me watch it. We watched TV nearly every evening together in our favorite spots. The Daddy sat on his recliner while I laid on the floor with my legs on the couch.  I had a good excuse for being near the TV. I was the Daddy's channel changer and fixer of the horizontal line on the TV screen. P.S. I'm linking up with Art Every Day Month Day at Creative Every Day. P.P.S. Monica, hostess of the NatureFootstep Digital Art Meme , invited me to link up. So, I shall.  Thanks, Monica.