Thankful Thursday -- Happy Halloween, and the Housework Virus.. beware!

I'm thankful for Holidays that let people have some fun with their kids.  Making costumes was one of my  favorite things when the girls were growing up.   I hope that you have a safe and happy Holiday, All Hallow's Eve!

AND, speaking of scary stuff!

A VIRUS is going round called Housework. If you feel the need to start housework - Stop Immediately!!
This virus affects your sleep and wipes out your social life.
It causes you to be late for luncheons with friends and disrupts coffee get-togethers.
It makes you grumpy and irritable.
If you should come in contact with housework
go straight to the nearest store and get
the only known antidote which is called......
CHOCOLATE. 

From an email from Pina

Wordless Wednesday Butterflies - Monarchs. DH's Photo

Wednesday- Cabrillo Farmer's Market Special

These are local fresh pasta and cheese makers.  My daughters say they have wonderful things.  We were on our last day before coming home, without a refrigerator, so we didn't buy much of anything but it all looked wonderful.  Our refrigerator turned up it's toes two days before we left home. 

Malabar Trading Company was at the market with an aromatic assortment of teas and even Tisanes.  I'd always thought that Tisane was just a fancy way of saying tea in a glass until seeing this display.  It's herbal tea.  Hercule must be smiling.

We bought two kinds of Hummus, luscious garlic and one very delicious basil herb,  plus a stack of pita breads, from a seller who is from the Monterey Bay area.  Yummy stuff.  We also bought a big bag of organic, and deliciously thin, long green beans from another fruit and vegetable seller.  These three foods comprised our dinner for the next day when we stopped in Irvine at a "Park and Ride" lot the next day.  There is a Mediterranean market on Balboa Avenue that I like to get pita bread from at home, and this bread was just as good.

Lovely, freshly made pita breads

Organic is the Heart and Soul of the Eat Locally Grown movement, and this booth was one of the ones that traveled, by rotation, to several local farmer's markets.

Part of the exhibits were of fruits and vegetable carved in a traditional way by a woman who was a  restaurant owner.  This is a traditional art for festivals in Thailand.  Everything is so very beautifully done, and she will give lessons on how to make these, also.  She has won competitions with her intricate and beautiful carvings.

And what is a festival without music?  This guitarist was singing original songs for the passing crowd, some with ice cream cups from three local organic creameries.

Pretty much that's all folks!  Hope you enjoyed the foodie post!

More trip: Pottery and Books Read, and Bee's Wax adventures

I wanted to share the Local Foods Movement show, but first the potter.  He was a droll sort of fellow, and when I told him I would be blogging about his pottery, and would he mind, he said, "You are going to blog me?  What does that mean?"  He turned to someone else in the booth and said, "She's says she's going to blog me."  Then he looked at me, and I snapped the worried look.  He was, of course, only teasing.   The encounter was fun and entertaining.  He's very fun to talk to.

My new cup. 
First thing I drank from it was a cup of coffee!

The Potter Modelling for me.
He's pretending that getting blogged might hurt.

His tables.
His pottery is very popular and very Beautiful, too!
I wanted several more pieces!

Reading and no knitting.  My hands were still recovering.  So, I had a lot of great books to read.

The DD's gave me Dead Ex, and I was so pleased with this sort of "Miss Marple, channeling Sam Spade, meets Hollywood" tale that I'll certainly read more of Harley Jane Kozak's mysteries.

Donna Leon's latest, Beastly Things, did not disappoint.  As per usual, Brunetti always gets the culprit while traveling a thoroughly entertaining and thrilling path.    

True Nature Stories is a great book if you love interactions that are unusual, and kind, between wild animals and humans who are caring. 

Do Fish Drink Water? is a collection of writings about questions that started to arrive at Bill McLain's desk.  He was the Webmaster at Xerox and became very popular with his dedication to answering every question that crossed his desk.  It's a wonderful book to have around when you are trying to get a "time out" from the madmen in Washington.  I don't include the Prez, nor all the Congress, just sayin'.

Maeve Binchy's last book, before her death - something I was shocked to find had happened - is the last one in the pile, A Week in Winter.

I'm truly going to miss this writer.  She could remove you from the world of "WAY TO BIG AND MEAN TO UNDERSTAND", and bring your mind down to the level of a whole Village full of people who worked things out together.  I'm now reading one of her other books I'd missed (while wallowing in Washington DC Ills and Evils) called, Minding Frankie .

Five books I read while lazing about.
I was happy to be away from Politics and Economics!

I was having trouble finding Bee's wax at the Farmer's Markets.  It was at the Monterey Market but we didn't do that trek this year.  So... when we were out and about the town with Bee, we were looking for a leather shop that sold patterns.  Bee wanted to get some leather and a pattern for making moccasins for Elle.  While we looked round for the leather works we found a Candle maker.  She sold me a good lot of her scrap which I can melt down into hearts and flowers for beading and seamstress friends.  I was very happy to find this shop because of being almost out of bee's wax!   The hemp is from a lot that DH bought to make something but it had gotten lost for several years under his seat in the Bounder.  So, I have adopted it to make necklaces with, and any other whatnot that comes to hand.  Lovely stuff!

Wax from the Candlemaker's shop,
and a lucky find under the driver's seat.

More tomorrow, from the Cabrillo Market Local Foods show, but I have to tell you, here in SoCal, we got rain!  It was glorious, fantabulous October Rain!   Two days, or nights rather, it has rained. 

Clouds Break to ReBuild Yesterday

Music Monday - Steely Dan "Any Major Dude Will Tell You That."

This is one of my favorite bands from the 70's ...

They say it's your Birthday.. Sunday stealing...bit of catch up

Welcome back to Sunday Stealing which originated on WTIT: The Blog authored by Bud Weiser. Here we will steal all types of memes from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent memes. You may have heard of the expression, “honor amongst thieves”. In that age-old tradition, we also have our rules. First, we always credit the blog that we stole it from and we will “fess up” to the blog owner where we stole the meme. We also provide a link to the victim's post. (It's our way of saying "Thanks!") We do sometimes edit the original meme, usually to make it more relevant to our global players, to challenge our players, sometimes to select that meme's best questions, or simply to make it less repetitive from either this new meme or recently asked questions from a prior featured meme.
Let's go!!!

This comes from the old Saturday 8 blog which is defunct and removed.  But it's almost my birthday so here we go:

1. as you get older, are you jazzed about your birthday?  I marvel that another year shot by the windows of my life without any effort on my part.  I never expected to live past 53.

2. do people usually remember your birthday?  Yes, a few people do, mostly my closest friends and family- daughters, sister,and Hubby.  The Ceramic Club friends.  It's OK.  It's enough.

3. an ex-coworker used to begin 3 mos. before her birthday flat-out reminding us that it was coming up. it's amazing what no self-esteem does for you. anyway, do you know anyone who pre-announces their birthdays?   No,but I think that I will always try to remember as many birthdays as possible because it  seems to make people happy just to be thought of in this easy and, to be honest, very kind way of acknowledging their existence.

4. what was your best birthday? why?  My birthdays were always very difficult because they were so close to Christmas that I felt they were an obstacle in the preparations for it.  The DD's were unhappy that, one year, I said let's just forget about my birthday, it's such a hassle!  They wouldn't hear of it.  They made me celebrate it,  and it was very touching.  I'd say that was the best birthday ever.  

5. what was your worst birthday? why? My worst birthday was my eighteenth.  This was because my dysfunctional family forgot all about it.  So, seeing this, I took my dog Shadow to the mountains and spent all day there with him, hiking the trails.  Actually it turned out to be a pretty day and we got lots of good exercise.  I packed a lunch for us, and we went to Oak Glen which is a beautiful little mountain town, and didn't come home until after dark!

6. name your best birthday gift.  It was a lovely Moss Rose tea  set my mother gave me on my 13th birthday.  It was a full tea set.  Wish I still had it. I honestly don't kmow how she could have afforded it. 


7. name the best birthday gift you've gotten for someone else.   Bicycles for our two first daughters.  These bikes had banana seats and high handle bars with tassles.  But, actually the best might have been MacGarlica, their Wonder Horse.  They "fed" him - tufts of grass and weeds - so he got a little garlic smell if you sniffed his "breath".  They named him that because of the smell.


8. as i age, i value SLEEP as a priceless commodity. i didn't get any for my birthday, however. what do you want this year for your birthday?  I would love to have a BIG Christmas themed Party for my whole family.  That's all I want.  It would be the Best Party ever!   We could meet up and camp out over Christmas.  We could talk, laugh and cook and just go looking around the desert for whatever. 

Good night now.  I'm pretty much well now and will try to catch up on the rest of the trip as well as anything else that strikes my fancy.  No pics this time because this is the net book with it's teensy brain. 

Wordless Wednesday - Spooky Halloween Trees

Wordless Wednesday Link:  come join the fun!

A tiny Tuesday Tail about wolfie.... Bird tail, too, and some flowers. Marine's Dogs flown free by Good Samaritan

It's late but I wanted to post a sweet picture of our furball, and a cartoon that was in this sunday's paper.

Wolfie get's his Clean Plate Club star sticker.
The human paws sets belong to DH, Jimmie and Me.

One thing we found that helped a lot, besides getting Blue Buffalo foods for him, is canned Pumpkin.  And, of course, it's organic.  When he came to us he was a mass of soreness, internally and externally.  He was feral for awhile after losing whatever home he had - though it didn't seem like it was such a good one, with two broken ribs and a tail broken in two places.  Now he is a fluffy, bouncy fuzzball who goes Carazzzzy at the beach and loves to ride in the car.   

I now see that it's not unusual for pumpkin to be given to dogs. 

So, since we've given Wolfie canned pumpkin for several years now, I'd just like to say that it's good for him, and not just the mini poodle half of him.   Our vet suggested it.

The resident Phoebe put in an appearance tonight at dusk, and so that's why the picture is so bad, but she is so sweet that I wanted to share her.  (All wild birds are females to me unless I am absolutely sure they are males.)  I've been horse-whipped, so to speak, too many times for announcing the wrong sex in certain ubber birder groups.   So, there is my proviso.

She comes every evening and stays until dark.

She's there, through the top square of window, on the edge of the dwarf daylily enclosure.

Wild Fuchsia of Santa Cruz County.

Last but not least, here's a story that is wonderful!

Marine's Dogs, deemed too large for Commercial Flight, get help.

Sunday Stealing part III of Random Randomness

I have a marauding cold virus that took my voice a couple of days ago, so have had a lot of time on my hands....

This is what a 56 Chevy pick up looks like.  I really loved my truck; though it wasn't this fancy, it was very nice:

Now, down to business with part three:

October 19, 2013

My Random Randomness, part 3
Welcome back to Sunday Stealing which originated on WTIT: The Blog authored by Bud Weiser. Here we will steal all types of memes from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent memes. You may have heard of the expression, “honor amongst thieves”. In that age-old tradition, we also have our rules. First, we always credit the blog that we stole it from and we will “fess up” to the blog owner where we stole the meme. We also provide a link to the victim's post. (It's our way of saying "Thanks!") We do sometimes edit the original meme, usually to make it more relevant to our global players, to challenge our players, sometimes to select that meme's best questions, or simply to make it less repetitive from either this new meme or recently asked questions from a prior featured meme.
Let's go!!!


My Random Randomness Meme, part 3


1) What room are you in?  I'm sitting on the bed, keeping warm.
2) Can you solve a rubix cube?  Is that how it's spelled?  But, yes, I can/could. One of the DD's boyfriends taught my how to do that one year.  So for about two or three years I could do it.
3) Are you psychic in any way? Ha!  All mothers are Psychic.
4) What star sign are you? I'm in a cusp, so I read two, when I read them- which isn't very often.  I will read it if a "voice" tells me too. hehe
5) What's your favorite color?  Pink- all shades of it.
6) What's your lucky number? 37  It's the number of a hexagram for "Woman's progress is rewarded".  I like it.
7) Do you have any chores that should be done now?  Good Lord, everything should be done, I might manage laundry today, just.
 8) Did you have a cherished childhood teddy bear or other toy?  I had a darling little Kewpie Doll my mother and grandparents give me for Christmas when I was four.  I really loved it and  even played with it after it got left out in the rain.
9) What was the last thing you bought from a vending machine?  That would have been years ago, so long ago that I don't remember anything about it.
10) What shoe size are you? size 8 sometimes a 7.5
11) How many pairs of shoes do you own? Somewhere around 14 now I think, but I'm not getting out of my warm spot to recount them.  Recently I added four pairs of Crocks.  I came late to the Crock Camp, but I love them!
12) If you were prime minister/ruler of the world what laws would you make?  There will be No Wars, ever, or arms selling.  Those guys would be send to re-education schools to learn to teaching small children their ABC's and whatever.  This is because little children suffer so much from wars!  There would be free education, and job training and health care for everyone.  The selfish and aggressive, since it seems to be genetic,  would find themselves in classes about compassion.and sharing and learning to control their disabilities. 
13) If you were a super hero what powers would you have?  I would be a mind reader who could read all minds, all earthling minds.  I would love to know what animals think of the human animal.
14) and what would your hero name be?  Tatiana
15) and what outfit would you wear?  Plain clothes, to blend in.
16) What was your last dream about?  Honestly, just last night I had a vivid dream that I was a really brave and smart Blonde who drove a red car and who caught a criminal to stop a crime spree.  Too much Netfix!
17) What would you do if you won the lottery?  Big Money?  
 18) Would you like to build/design your own house?  Actually I thought it was something I would do. 
19) Which form of public transport do you prefer?  I'm too old and don't enjoy riding in anything but a train anymore.
21) Can you juggle?  Sadly, no.  I think juggling is a very fun thing to be able to do.

Sunday Stealing: My Random Randomness Part II

From My Random Randomness

My Random Randomness Meme, part 2  Part 3 is on the way...

1. What was your first alcoholic drink?  Same as ever, I have two favorites - Cadillac Margaritas, and sometimes Gin and Tonics.  That's for when, like once a year, that I drink anything.
2. What was your first job?  I was a  library assistant.
3. What was your first car? My very first car was actually a truck, a 56 Chevy.  I like that they are naturally lower in front.  I had a picture here but the way these memes are ser up, the numbers don't track.  Later I had a Simca, which was really mine, tiny, cute and I loved it.  It was mine meaning that it was beyond the reach of my paternal unit to sell it out from under me.
4. What was your first mobile phone?  A Motorola, give me by DH when he got a new one from his job.
5. What is your first proper memory?   When I was two, and I cut my fingers on a razor blade at my grandparents farm.
6. Who was your first teacher?  My Kindergarten teacher, who couldn't figure out what to make of me.  I could already read, and like many others, she was prejudiced.  She never let me read in school.  Kindergarten was terrible.
7. Which fictional character do you wish was real?  Superman
8. Where did you go on your first ride on an airplane?  I was in my early fifties, and got a ride on a bi-plane at an airshow.
9. Who was your first best friend?  A girl named Vi, in fourth grade.
10. What was your first detention for?  I never went to detention.
11. What's your strongest sense? Sight is my strongest sense, but hearing is right there with it.  I  enjoy having color vision and good hearing.
12. Who was your first kiss?  My hubby.
13. What was the first film you remember seeing at the cinema? One with Red Skelton, and my Auntie's had to drag me there, kicking and screaming, because I thought it was called "A Red Skeleton".  I was four.
14. What's the largest amount of money you've ever won? I've never won money.
15. What's the largest amount of money you've spent in one spree? $1,900.  I bought a sewing machine a long time ago.  Well, DH bought it for me.
16. If you had a warning label, what would yours say?  "Don't be mean to this one; it won't do you any good". 
17. Have you ever got sweet revenge on anyone?   By living well?  Yes.
18.  Have you ever been to a live concert? Janis Joplin, and then much later, two featuring Neal Diamond. 
19. Have you ever been to see stand up comedy? Yes, I've been to a couple of shows when they were Improving in Pacific Beach.
20. Have you ever needed stitches? For an accident?  No.  Surgery, yes.

Sunday Stealing, Movies and TV Randomness

From The Real Mrs. Kelley at Whipped Cream & Lollipops

Movies/Television Meme

1. Name your favorite movie actor:  Tom Hanks and Don Cheadle.
2. Name your favorite movie actress:  Emma and Sophie Thompson
3. Name your favorite tv actor:  I really can't think of one.  
4. Name your favorite tv actress: Probably the actress who plays Brennen in "Bones".
5. Name your favorite television show right now: Bones
6. Name a few really cool movies you’ve recently seen:  "Mirror, Mirror"; "Fly Paper"; 'Powwow Highway", "Ocean of Pearls" and "Sequins".  Love them.
7. Your favorite canceled television show:  Medium
8. Name one movie you wish you hadn’t wasted time/money on recently: 
9. You would never watch a movie with:  Probably my brother, who loves to pick them apart.
10. Favorite candy/food to watch movies with:   Popcorn, of course.  Love the stuff!
11. Three favorite tv channels:  I have ONE channel I'm willing to watch and that's PBS.   I have TV shows I watch but never when they are on the channels.  I watch Netflix.
12. Favorite reality or competition show:  Sorry, I hate them.
13. Cable or satellite?  Nope.  Good old Cable.
14. Do you watch more movies at home or at the theater?  Home.  It's a whole lot more fun that way.  Pause buttons, dontcha know?
15. Is there a time of year that you watch more tv?  Sorry to be a downer but I can't stand the tele, with the one exception of KPBS. 

Sunday Stealing, My randomness Part I Sept 28

First part:
September 28th



my random randomness meme
Welcome back to Sunday Stealing which originated on WTIT: The Blog authored by Bud Weiser. Here we will steal all types of memes from every corner of the blogosphere. Our promise to you is that we will work hard to find the most interesting and intelligent memes. You may have heard of the expression, “honor amongst thieves”. In that age-old tradition, we also have our rules. First, we always credit the blog that we stole it from and we will “fess up” to the blog owner where we stole the meme. We also provide a link to the victim's post. (It's our way of saying "Thanks!") We do sometimes edit the original meme, usually to make it more relevant to our global players, to challenge our players, sometimes to select that meme's best questions, or simply to make it less repetitive from either this new meme or recently asked questions from a prior featured meme.
Let's go!!!

My Random Randomness Meme

1. How did you choose your baby's or pet's names?  My first DD's name was a compromise because I wanted to call her Maria.  The pets names were usually agreed on after I got married, but I usually named all my cats.
2.  Have you ever been fishing? I loved to fish.  We fished as much as we possibly could.  I especially liked surf casting with a big pole.
3. Have you ever had your national flag painted on your face?  No, I never had anything painted on my face.  Of course I didn't go to high school football games much, either.
4. What was the last social faux pas you made?  It was so terrible.  It involved having momentarily forgotten a big tragedy for another family. It caused a lot of pain, for them, even though it was not known to me.
5. What makes you nostalgic?  I used to love to dance, in the kitchen and at ballet classes.   I miss it.
6. What's the scariest thing you've ever done?  I outmaneuvered some car thieves who tried to drive me off the road for about 20 miles one night when I was coming home late at night from a study group.  I supposed they never expected that a teen could drive like that. It was very scary but it ended well.
7. What fairy tale character would you most associate with?  I like Tinker Bell.
8. How much do you tend to swear in public? I almost never swear anywhere.  
9.  If you ruled your own country, who would you get to write your national anthem?  Steven Sondeim is my favorite.  He is the best song writer I've ever heard, ever.
10. Who is the most intelligent person you know?  I don't know him on a personal level, but I believe that Noam Chomsky is the most brilliant person I've ever followed through books and other venues.
11. What's the craziest thing you've ever done for someone?  Just for them?  I took them out on a surf board in a rip tide.
12. What's the worst piece of advice anyone has ever given you?  I was told be a school councilor to send my daughters to a local junior high.  I wish I had that person in my personal space for just five minutes.
13. If you had to describe yourself as a flavor, what would it be? I'm absolutely  chocolate cherry.
14.  If you had to describe yourself as a car, what would it be?  I'm a Lamborghini.  They have the MOST amazing breaking system for any car that can go over 140 mph.
15.  If you had to describe yourself as an animal, what would it be? A Falcon.
16.  Do you think laughing at someone else's misfortune is wrong?Yes, it proves how heartless you are, without any equivocation.
17.  If a loved one was to serenade you, what song would you most like them to sing?  I'd like hime to sing, "What a Wonderful World" to me.
18. Would you ever let your parents pick out a partner for you? No, and I didn't.
19.  Have you ever tried spam? (the meat product)  We were pretty poor and that was, a lot of time when I was growning up, on the menu in place of holiday meat.  I actally still like it from time to time.  

Saturday Komeekz - Pastis at his best.....

Well, he's usually at his best, except for those terrible Puns!

Speaking of puns, here's some....

Some Tearable Puns

Hope you can read them!  There are many sources of these on the web; these came from a church site so are PG, or is it PC?

Thanks Bee!

Happy Saturday!

Five Minute Friday and tiny bit more of trip photos/chat

The word for this week is, "Laundry."  I'm stunned, what could possibly take five minutes to describe laundry itself or my relation to it in this life.  Should I say that I hung all my clothing up for years until we had a home of our own?   I actually liked it because my mother had done this before me, and my grandmother would have me hand the pins to her as she hung out the laundry.  Things have really changed because where we live is a dust farm, not my words.  If you hang laundry outside it gets dirty all over again!  DH built me a laundry get up in the small side yard, and I actually used it for some time until giving up and wanting to not have to have grit on all my clothing. 

Recently we watched a documentary by Ken Burns about the Dust Bowl, and people described over and over how their mothers or older sisters would hang out the laundry only to have a dust storm roll in and blacken it.  I thought how hard those women worked and for nothing at all.  Ten seconds and I will say that some day I would like to again live where laundry could be hung out and actually stay clean!
------------------------------------
Now the next part is to visit one of the other posters and cheer them on!  Yippie!
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Tippin' Down the Road, Part II

This is not in order other than small stories about this and that to accompany the pix.

Hubster, Bee and I were on the way to a Fabric store to get some knits from a bin so Bee can practice her knit sewing skills.   Santa Cruz is a lovely place and you truly do meet a lot of different people here.  Think of Venice without the Ubiquitous Palm trees;  although palms to thrive here, they are less numerous.

We found some lovely slinky black on black knit that will go into at least two garments, and something else that was more suited for a mundane "muslin" for pattern testing.  The day before, though I go no pictures of the process, I showed Bee how to lengthen - she is very tall - the pattern pieces for herself. 
She had a Stretch and Sew pattern for a long or short sleeve T, and I was happy to see that Stretch and Sew was still in business. 

I'll end here in order to post the Five Minute Friday...

Thankful Thursday and a Merriam's Chipmonk who came to dinner!

Firstly, I'm thankful that I am feeling better.  Thankful for DH's tender care, and something that must have occurred while I was sleeping, some powerful something like lots of sleep maybe.  My dreams were of baking and fixing foods, though I've never actually mixed rice into pasta before but in this dream, I did!  I don't think it sounds any better when awake than it did when I was dreaming about it!  I was a very unhappy cook in that long, disjointed dream.

I'm thankful, Great Spirit, that it is finally FALL!  I'm celebrating with a new header for awhile!

And, with no further ado,  I'll start a sharing of the Photo Horde from the trip to the Santa Cruz County Mountains, and nearby environs.

First, the Merriam's Chipmonk.  Several of these cute critters came rustling around the short undergrowth and leave litter in three different camp sites.  I think they knew a morsel or two would be made available from our vegan feasts.

I used many sources to make sure I wasn't wrong, but I like THIS source a lot
because of the many pictures of other chippers and ground squirrels to compare.

Mostly we camped at the land of crooked trees.  A perfect place to be when Halloween rolls around.

Henry Cowell's was partially closed but they opened back up the big half to accommodate  travelers who had been bumped out of the National Parks because of the furlough.  This time was a boon for the State Parks but it was a very sad state of affairs for the National parks and their users.  Climbers, especially some who were from Europe, were unhappy, and some others who were in wedding parties were extremely put out.  One group had planned for years to have their wedding at Yosemite.  

Happy notes...
Wolfie got lots and LOTS of Cuddles:

Wolfie and Gee

Wolfie helps DH with the Crossword

Wolfie, sleeping under my sweater.

It got cold up in those mountains.  There was only one other time when we actually used the heat in the RV, and that was 30°F weather in the Sonoran Desert one January.  That was the night that tiny Jazzie wobbled up to me and snuggled up against my body, poor baby.  He weighed three pounds and that kind of cold is just too much for such an itty bitty fellow.  We started putting out some self heating pads for him and made him a little shelter from then on.  We'd heard enough horror stories about people smothering their tiny pets!

View of the sunrise through the crooked trees. This was the same cold (BRRR!) morning.

Taken out the back window of the Bounder.

Back with more tomorrow.  We had a great time with our daughters, running around the countryside meeting neat people at Farmer's Markets, etc.  There was a gathering, at the Saturday Cabrillo College market,  of farmers and artisan bakers - as well as others,  who are promoting the practice of eating locally grown foods.  I bought a coffee cup from a potter who may or may not be world famous but he is terrific and lots and LOTS of fun to chat with, too.   Until Tomorrow!

Toy made in Space.. Fun!

Astronauts with needles, in space.  I'm not sure I'd want to take needles up there but then weightlessness has over advantages.  This toy is from re-cycled materials, too.  You Rock, Karen!

Dino Toy, Made in Space.

Hi Everyone.  I'm back and still trying to NOT catch a cold- 

Well, this is a day later.  And, "Ooops", the cold caught me.  We went to the Freezing North and the weather was Arctic!  This means, for SoCalians, that it got down to 49°F at night.    But we "camped out" in the spooky trees in the mountains, and that, for me, is as close to heaven on earth as it gets.  I love the crooked trees in Henry Cowles.  I also saw a life bird for me, the very first Townsend's Warbler - actually there were several in a little flock. 

I read five books, NONE of them was Non Fiction, flaming retorical masterpieces.  One DD said, "Mother, what are you saying?  You have to be the flaming liberal that you are!" or words to that affect.  
Knitting got it in the neck.   I did NO knitting despite wanted to have finished at least one sweater.  That's ok.  We did an awful lot of visiting with the DDs, and that was the main thing  we went North to do. 

One day we all trekked to a new store in their town, to look at new Sergers and maybe - I really think this will happen - Bee will be making her own T-shirts PDQ.  She will do it with a regular machine for now.   Sergers aren't totally necessary but they are nice.  Actually, they are Darn Nice!  

We saw the BabyLock combo of serger/coverstitcher, and I would get that one if I didn't already own a coverstitcher and a serger.  Though my two are ancient, I still love them.   Juki made them as Berninas.   The serger is a tiny witch to thread but once done, it sews perfectly.  It has the feature called D so that it can sew ruffle on one side and flat on the other.  Way cool!

 
I forget where I stole that, but it's probably the Discovery Edu channel.

My cold is just like any other cold at this time of year.  Several people have it, my doctor's receptionist had it.   'Tis the Season!  Now to get better in time to get a flu shot.  Yay!  Flu! 

I promise that there will be much more "show and tell" once the old head, eyes, throat, and ears stop making me wish I didn't have a head.