Happy Halloween!

Has your personal surgeon completed carving that Jack o' lantern?

Did you go with a standard face?

A pattern from a book or online?

Or design your own creation, like the Offspring?

We love using those tiny saws to carve.

They are quick, easy, relatively safe, and allow one to carve quite intricate designs.

Another one is in the works, but if I don't post now, I simply won't!

Don't eat all your candy tonight!

Celebrating October 17th!

October 17th.

What a gorgeous day!

What is not to celebrate?!

It's not a holiday, you say?  What's special about the 17th?

Everything.

Every single microsecond of it!

My FIL's birthday.

Being alive.

SUN!!!!

Hummingbirds in the salvia outside the kitchen window.

My first Fuji apple of the new crop.

The brown sugar goodness of frozen cookie dough.

Being home with my beloved.

We take sooooooo very much for granted, with good health being near the top of the list.

Life turns on a dime.

There is no guarantee for any of us that there will be tomorrow.

We have to live NOW!

In this moment.

So now I am just basking in a rare sunny autumn day.

Glad to be alive.

Glad that we are all together in one place again.

Glad to have sore muscles from dethatching (OK, partially dethatching)

 the front lawn after weeks of inactivity.

Glad to not be in, near, or around a hospital of any kind.

With a heart of thanksgiving for just being.



Happy Independence Day!

Happy Fourth of July!

This marks the freedom of summer for me.

My obligations, which have been many, have been met.

Now I get to work on my own projects

go on bike rides

pick berries

play tennis

research the family tree (a fav!)

 garden

 read

watch movies

and, maybe, just maybe, blog.

I know I have been missing in action big time!  It has been a busy spring with work and volunteering and special events and visitors.  We have just returned from yet another (gasp!) family vacation to see The Mouse.  The last trip to Anaheim was five years ago and that is a long, long story in itself.

This time everything was better...health, weather, lines, transportation, accommodations.

While our local fireworks cannot compare to the Disneyland displays,

the family atmosphere and "small" town feel create community.

Here's wishing you an old-fashioned 4th!

Family

Friends

Fireworks

While ours won't include the homemade peach ice cream and swimming of my childhood,

we are sure to make memories that the Offspring can recall.

Have a great day!

Luck of the Irish

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Wishing you your very own pot of gold at the end of your rainbow.

So what is it?  What is your "gold"?

What is the "rainbow" in your life?

Mine?

My gold is my family.  Nothing makes me feel better than to see that special smile on Offspring or see the glint in the eye of my husband when he is teasing.  Because then I know that all is right in my world.

One down.....

I hope that you got a valentine from someone special yesterday and that it was a day of feeling special.

Well, I wanted to post this photo last Friday, but I had to wait.

Because it was going to someone very special to me.

My mom.

It was a project 14 years in the making and I finally finished it!

I started it when I began my days as a stay-at-home mom.

This project is so old that the finishing directions are totally outdated!

It is one of those projects that is part of my resolutions for the new year.

Now it is one less thing cluttering up flat surfaces.

One less thing that reminds me of all I cannot accomplish.

One less thing that periodically surfaces and I work on before relinquishing the idea that my time is my own.

However, if I am truly honest, I do get distracted and am unfocused because I have so many interests.

How old is your oldest unfinished project?

(Please tell me you at least have one.)

Love is.....

Happy St. Valentine's Day

May you be surrounded by love:

Family

Friends

The Natural World

You

Then give thanks to the Almighty that you have been so blessed.

Across Time and Space

January was a busy month around here.  Lots of birthdays among other things.

My sister over at Meadowsweet Cottage will not admit it, but she somehow managed to have another birthday without showing it.

 

Now I am by no means a professional cake decorator.  Not even close.

But Offspring has made some unusual requests for his celebratory confections.

This "Battle on Mustafar" is one of which I am quite proud.

(That is supposed to be lava, if you can't tell.)

This year's request was the TARDIS from Doctor Who.

I thought "piece of cake"!

(Get it?!)

I studied photographs, measured the different dimensions, and plugged the numbers in a calculator.  Authenticity is my trademark.

I mixed up the frosting, added the dye and could not come up with the intense blue I was looking for.  After a trip to the cake store, I finally had to be content with the two blues you will see.

So it begins.

You can see all the parts I have trimmed off as a first step.





Then I started to build up the roof.

The next step....well, you get the picture.

Then I put on the lettering, outlined the windows, followed by the doors.

The windows were just a plain icing (as opposed to frosting), thinned sufficiently to flow just enough to fill in the panes.

I don't know if you can tell by the "exposure" how the hours were passing with this "simple" cake design.

The final step was to "write" on the sign below the window.

Here's the finished product!

(You can't see the light on the top because of the angle, but it is there.)

  This last photo was taken the next day because it was so dark by the time I finished decorating that we could not take a photo without horrendous shadows.

Offspring must have liked it because he posted his photos on Facebook minutes after seeing it!

And that is what really counts.

As I said, I just try to pull off these creations without any training.  It would be fun to take a class and learn how to make it easier/faster/less frustrating, if nothing else.

Thanks to my beloved for taking photos during production.

  I would never had thought to do it.  I was focused on only one thing.

And I finished just in time to start making dinner.