Post Hiatus -- May through July 2023

 I don't know why I haven't posted in such a long time. I'll try to catch you up -- but it will be a goodly bunch of photos!

I made the drive back from Palm Springs, CA (PS) at the end of April, the beginning of May. It was the end of many enjoyable moments with the Mexican Train Gang.

On the way home, I stopped at the Georgia  O'Keeffe Museum in NM. 

I really liked this painting. Then I discovered why.

At home in Amherst, it was a very good spring for flowering trees. I mourn the loss of my flowering crab apple tree, but I can look at the one across the street.

With a thumb drive full of photos (thanks Nancy!) of Cricket's quilled cards, I got to work tranfering the images to fabric.

Finally I completed Cricket's birthday quilt and mailed it off to California.

Trying to keep busy, I got my name on the list to help cook at the Church kitchen for various suppers and canning for sale at the Sleighbell Fair. Here I am helping to make Tricky Pickles. Yes, that's the apron I made for myself years ago.

My friend, Tomi, and I went to LilacLand which is in Amherst. It was a lovely windy day for viewing the 52 varieties of lilacs.

On another day, we be jammin' at the South Church making peach jam.

We made berry jam too and this is Gina who always has a smile and is a fabulous soprano among her many other talents.

This really is the final picture of Cricket's quilt. I hand quilted it -- large stitch -- on both sides.  It was complicated but it's one of a kind!

Then came the poison ivy. You don't want to see those pictures. Trust me. At least it was only on my inner elbows but I was miserable and on steroids for a week.

I began work on my sashiko project. It's Japanese embroidery. The stitches are stamped on the fabric and once you have completed the stitching, you wash the piece and the stamped image disappears. I'm close to finishing it -- months away. But it's often something that I may do during my two hour greeter shift at the Amherst Survival Center. (Unless they have me sorting eggs.)

Emily and I had a wonderful trip and Girls' Weekend with Deb at her home in New Hampshire. Here's Pork Chop (PC) welcoming us.

We got to meet Deb's next door neighbors.

Back in Amherst, the peonies bloomed and I had one perfect iris.

My long legged flower box did pretty well -- until it didn't. It totally collapsed toward the end of the summer after heavy rains. (We're in June here.)

This was really only the beginning of multiple heavy rain storms. 

My mini tomatoes did well even though they did a lot of traveling. I had to bring them in at night because it was still too cold to leave them out overnight. So when I went to Emily's house to stay over, I brought the plant with me. My front yard is south facing making them very happy in the day time, not so much in the below 40 degree nights.

Another time at the Church assembling apple crisp. They will be sold frozen (with baking instructions) at the SleighBell Fair.

Beagle sitting is always fun for me! This is Shortie and Brownie in their fabulous back yard. Jon and Farah have worked very hard in making it into a gorgeous patio/garden/park-like area.

I made a pilgrimage to Swanson's in Greenfield to donate some fabric. I am trying to get rid of fabric. And I saw this baggie ... with blocks of stars. And I thought, 'Some woman worked hard on these blocks and her work should be honored.' So this is what I did.

At this point, I may have some lunch and get back into August. Needless to say, it's fun to see these memories, but a bit time consuming to weed them out. I hope you haven't been bored. The good thing about this blog is you can ignore it whenever you want!

You're Such a Card!

 As you know I am very blessed, particularly with talented friends who make hand crafted greeting cards. You know who you are and I want you to know how much I love your cards! I can feel the joy and happiness you had when making (and delivering the cards to me). Here are some of my favorites.

Just in case you don't know, this technique is called quilling. We saw this type of card sold at the arunculus farm for $10 each.

From the Cambridge Dictionary: Quilling is the activity of making designs by rolling and shaping narrow strips of paper.

For the back, The Quiller has a stamp that reads "Handmade from the Heart" which she signs.

The top left card is a Valentine's Day card! The other three are cut outs and the artist confessed, "Alcohol ink is my new favorite craft." I don't know if she meant alcohol and ink ...

Okay, so I googled alcohol ink: "Alcohol Inks are a highly fluid colour that are vibrant and fast drying. They are also moisture-resistant and permanent once dry, and will work perfectly on almost any clean, oil-free surface. Use them for stamping, scrapbooking, textile and fine arts – the creative opportunities are endless!" My friend had signed her card on the back with a stamp that says "by me for you." It was framed with jewels.

These cards are certainly all fine arts in my humble opinion!

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Guess who's in their second flowering with a third bloom!

This little girl has been blooming over two months!

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Mom and I at the end of Dottie's birthday party at Waters Cafe.

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One of the many roses in Carole's garden.

Carole threw me a wonderful birthday party early. Look at how prettly her table is!

She made delicious vegetarian chili and countless appetizers. Of course, Carole's signature side dish is a huge (and I mean huge) baked potato. Seriously, three people can eat one potato and be happy.

I couldn't resist taking a picture of the cake and cookies. The cookies are amazing with big chocolate chips and macadamia nuts. The cake  was chocolate with mocha frosting. It was fabulous!

And then we played many rounds of Mexican Train Dominoes! It was a really fun time. 

On my actual birthday, Mom and I discovered a really good sushi restaurant which turned out to be a favorite of many of our friends. 
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The weather has been a bit unusual lately. We have been about 10 degrees cooler than normal, which is o.k. with me. But we have had a lot of rain for the desert. Yesterday, with only 0.6 inches of rain, I had to drive through a puddle that looked like it may have been a foot deep. I was on Dinah Shore Drive in Cathedral City and there was no place to turn off. It's a divided four lane road and the cars to the left of me were barreling through not only sending plumes of water high into the air but also making waves that came back at me. I was very scared thinking I'd be on the news as a dumb tourist who doesn't know any better with her car dead in the water. I made it through, going slowly. The brakes, however, complained loudly at being wet. Luckily, they seem dried out today. 

There was actually hail which covered the ground in Cathedral City yesterday. I didn't see it but it probably melted quickly in the 50 degree weather. 

Below are the clouds from last Friday. It rained off and on for a couple of days before it really poured on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Lake Arrowhead is counting 15 feet of snow. People have been stranded for a week and today they had to use SnowCats to bring firefighters to a house that had an explosion blowing out a wall.

This image is Ramon Road going toward the Palm Springs airport. (Yes, I pulled off onto a sidestreet to take the picture.)

There is a lot more snow on the "little" mountain near Mom's house but I didn't get out to take any pictures.

Did I show you my latest sunset picture? This was February 21.

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I have to confess that I have been slacking off in sewing, but I plan to make strides in finishing projects soon.

I wish you all health, happiness, and interesting times. Cheers!

Time to Catch Up

 

We ushered in the New Year with Mom's Christmas Cactus in full bloom.

Needless to say, we had a wonderful month with Deb, Paul, and Pork Chop. Here we are taking Pork Chop to the large dog park in my car. (They call his sling a taco and he rides comfortably in it.)

Deb and Paul were telecommuting and keeping on Boston (and NH) time so their lunch time coincided with when Mom and I were up and receiving visitors. Often Deb would stop by to say hi as she took Pork Chop for a walk. That was fun. PC loves Mom and I can hear him yell GRAMMY! in his head as he makes a dash for Mom. 

The New Year also brought snow to the mountains and rain to Palm Springs. (Ed. note: so far, Bear Mountain in northern CA has had 157 inches of snow since January 1.)

Above is the view from the Planet Fitness parking lot in Cathedral City. (Yes, I'm trying to go three times a week to the gym.)

Mom took me to an out of the way street trying to get better shots of the snow on the mountains. If she had let me go on my own, I would still be driving around!

January 11 Sunset in Palm Springs

On January 19, Mom and I drove to Ontario, CA to see the Road to California Quilt Show. It was amazing and a tad overwhelming with the artistry. There were many many vendors selling all things quilting and sewing from notions to machines, including many different long arm quilting machines. Here is a smattering of what we saw. We walked (and walked) for two and a half hours. Ontario is about 65 miles away so I got in some freeway driving. 

  

The quilting on Malaki is exquisite! Those radiating lines you see are some of the quilting.

I don't think you can read the story with the title of Sharing the Moment. They had just voted and that was the moment that the good friends were sharing. It was 1965 before African American women could vote in every state.

For you francophiles out there ... here are a couple of the French entries.

January 24 Almost Sunset 

Here is part of the hedge next to Mom's garage. I quickly took a picture once the bouganvilla was in bloom because the landscapers keep cutting it so far back that they cut off all of the flowers. We like the flowers! The hummingbirds like the flowers! 

January 31 The hyacinth is in bloom!

I got this bulb for Mom at Aldi and it was really fragrant. It finally bit the dust yesterday (February 6).

Which brings us to February 4th and the tree is in bloom. It's lovely to look at but I'm really feeling an increase in allergy symptoms. This is opposite Mom's large patio in the common area.

Today, February 7, we and three others went to see 80 for Brady which is a nice piece of fluff. It focuses on 4 women who were Tom Brady's biggest fans and they watched all of the Patriots' games on TV. Of course, the stars, Fonda, Tomlin, Fields, and Moreno were super. After the movie, we trotted off to the Waters Cafe at the Agua Caliente Casino in time for happy hour. The bar bites were delish. Yes, Mom and I did a bit of gambling ... I ended up winning $27 after starting with $20. At one point, I had won $130 over my $20, but you know how that goes. I'm very happy with my $27!

If you're wondering why avocados are so expensive (beside the fact that the demand is high for munchies during the Super Bowl), Mom read an article in the Desert Sun today which explained it all. Most if not all of our avocados come from Mexico and some from one state which is rife with banditos. If they steal the truckload of avocados, it can be worth $80,000 or more. And if they take the truck too, that's a lot more. So in order to protect the avocados, there are now civil patrols guarding and escorting the avocados. There is no word on the status of the avocados' passports ...

We are all eagerly looking forward to Carole's Super Bowl party. She has already spoiled us with Mexican Train Dominoes parties (she feeds us too much food), so we know this one will be good. 

Last time at Carole's I collected the empty Corona bottles, wine bottles, and my seltzer cans and brought them back here. We have an unhoused fellow who goes through the recycling buckets looking for bottles and cans he can sell. He and his very friendly dog both have orange vests and he totes one of the big blue recycling buckets. At least he's trying to keep body and soul together without begging. I couldn't believe one guy at the HOA meeting who called him a "trespasser." He who steals my trash, steals ... trash. 

I've been doing a bit of quilt making, but it's still in too many pieces to show you. I have been procrastinating because I've hit a design flaw which I have created and have to unravel. I'm pretty sure I can work it out, I'm just being lazy. Meanwhile, I bought a beginner's sashiko kit and I can't wait to dive into that. But I have to look up the technique on you tube first and do some research.

I hope you are having a wonderful time in your life and enjoying every minute of every day. I know I am.

Ciao, Tina

P. S. Anybody want to buy a quilt?