Back to school sales.

OK, this year Walker told me not to buy him any back-to-school stuff. 

You must understand, I've been buying back to school items for 35 years.

This is a hard habit to break.

Walker said it makes no sense to travel with it

and he can buy what he needs at the bookstore or at Walmart.  

 OK. 

 No fun for me but if that's the way it has to be.

But, old habits die hard.  I took a little side trip through the back to school aisle at Target the other day, just for old times' sake,  and look what I found!  For ME, thank you very much! I love these composition books.  I've been filling one per month with my classes and craft ideas.  I may keep this up for a while, so I NEED lots.  Especially when some of them are .50.  I hear they may even be .10 each later on.  I even found that cool stretchy binder belt for keeping art supplies in.  You know, like when I take my sketchbook on a roadtrip.

Black and White and art all over...

I started a new on-line class.

It is Suzi Blu's "PORTRAITS" class. 

She says she can teach me to make sweet faced girls with stylized faces. 

But first, I had to draw an 8-part gray scale and a shadowed sphere.

Homework!

This is my first attempt, and I am pretty happy with it.  I thought the nose would be much harder. This is just the beginning of course, I have high hopes for great improvement.  This is the preliminary drawing.  Next I will adhere it into my sketchbook and add color and more shading.

This technique is something I learned from the Alisa Burke class.  You sketch out a picture using a non-permanent black pen.  Then, use a waterbrush, or a wet paintbrush to make it run a bit and look watercolor-ish. I like the technique.  It was hard to find a non-permanent pen in my house.

 And a couple of sketches inspired by the Alisa Burke class.  Above is a design that is on a scarf/tablecover I like. I am trying to sketch out (with ball point pen) designs in fabrics I have around home.

And this one is just looking at pictures of real flowers and trying to make them sketchy/doodle-y. This is a great way for me to relax and feel artistic.  Time just flies when I'm doing this.

My kind of fun!

Happy Birthday!

I have to admit we love our celebrations. 

On Walker's birthday Phil and I cooked him a great BIG breakfast.

fresh caught trout - cornbread pancakes - scrambled eggs - bacon. 

One of W's gifts - hearing protection for range days.

hmmm, I might want to borrow those around here sometimes...

 Ice Cream cake is a tradition for this July birthday.

Some people see art in everything around them!

We had what I call a "junk food" menu:

Hot Dogs, meatballs, beans,

chips and cole slaw.

Fancy cars in attendance: 

classic Trans Am, and hot off the press SONIC,

a new car for Aunt Jonny.

(the guys were all drooling over both)

We love our little family gatherings.

The countdown is on for Walker's return to his Senior year. 

Firsts...

Can you remember your FIRST Rice Krispie Treat?

Wyatt thought he found heaven on earth...

The rest of  us LOVE them too, but can you remember the FIRST?

We did some other fun things today too...like a trip to the park.

...and Tori is always perfecting her handstands and cartwheels!

What have I been doing?

Shopping at thrift stores...

                                                     Lunch with the folks and Walker
                                                                   at Budd Bay Cafe

An online class I'm taking:

Alisa Burke's CREATE DAILY

This class has 30 days of activities to jump start your creativity and show you how you can create art every day.  The doodling exercise is just one of the ideas, but one I have been enjoying quite a bit. More to come.

Upside down day.

Phil fixing our damaged deck umbrella.

Damaged from falling over on a windy day.

Mr. Fix-it rarely fails.

We laugh.

But we like it.

Pretty food

A week of good eating

Confetti Collards

Phil was skeptical of this dish until I told him I got the recipe from the cookbook he gave me on our anniversary.

It was good!

carrot and potato fries

The fries were roasted the usual way (olive oil, salt seasonings) with a Tablespoon of corn meal thrown in and tossed around.  These were a big hit.  The corn meal gave those softer vegetables a yummy texture.

I also made a nice pasta dish with snow peas, rainbow kale, garlic, pecans, tomatoes and lots of Parmesan cheese. We ate that tonight and OOPS all gone and I forgot to take a picture. It was very pretty.

I wonder what will be in tomorrow's box of vegetables.

Have you cooked an unusual vegetable lately?

Mondays I wear my grandma hat...

On Mondays, I don't try to do any housework. I don't plan on getting anything accomplished but playing with Wyatt and having a nice day. 

We

played with trains

went for a stroller walk

played with blocks

read books

napped (a little)

ate ice cream bars

explored everything

touched all the flowers in the yard

played ball

So why am I so tired at the end of the day?

It finally feels like summer!

I love this hydrangea that is blooming in front of the house.

 So, why don't I work outside when the weather is finally beautiful?

 I'm afraid I don't want to dig that deep into my subconscious.

 Here is what I did instead:

I started with an overwhelming urge to reorganize my pantry.  That turned into reorganizing nearly everything in my kitchen!  I worked at it ALL day and FILLED my garbage can (the outside one!)

I got rid of a bunch of stuff that was never going to be used, and reorganized the rest.  I put the baking items in my double turntable above.  That freed up some space.  I organized the food around the edges, leaving the front centers more open for the things I use on a daily basis (salt, pepper, sugar bowl, etc.).  I even found room for cookbooks.  I have a ton of cookbooks, and put the ones I use most in the pantry for easy access.  I had a glass cutting board I don't use much anymore and put it on a shelf to place the syrup, ketchup, oils - all the gooey stuff.

I was happy with my progress. 

You may wonder if I was avoiding some other job.

You might be right.

Last week's vegetables...

Last week I received many yummy vegetables and I made lots of good things. 

apricots at the Farmer's market

I am very happy with what I started last year...my vegetable cookbook with all the things that we liked or looked good and should have tried last year.  So, now I have lots of ideas when I receive something like Hakurei Turnips, Lacinto Kale, Scapes, Cilantro, Asian greens...

herbs at the farmer's market

This week these are some of the things I cooked up for dinner:

Steamed broccoli with chicken and rice;
Pasta with Cilantro lime chicken, snow peas, spinach and more;
Fried rice with snow peas, garlic scapes, kale, carrots, radishes;
Angel hair pasta with Kale, bacon, tomatoes, cheese (BLT?)
Roasted Root vegetable salad: turnips, sweet potato and carrots on green salad with chicken tenders;

I also bought some more Spooners strawberries - I made Betty Crocker's Hot Milk Sponge Cake (thanks for the tip, Kay!)   to put the berries and cream on.  Recipe below:

Vintage Hot Milk Sponge Cake

4 eggs
2 cups sugar
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 cup boiling milk with 1T butter in it

Beat eggs.
Add sugar gradually and beat until creamy.
Fold in flour and baking powder.
add milk/butter.
Put in greased 9 x 12 or two round pans.  Bake at 325 for 50-60 minutes until cake springs back when lightly pressed with fingers.

It make a superb base for strawberry shortcake.  My grandchildren liked it plain! (NO frosting!)

I will definitely keep this recipe.

I don't know why I can't remember to take photos of some of these dishes.  Maybe because we are fork-ready when they are done and we dive in!  Later I think...rats, why didn't I take a picture...

The Fourth of July

July 4th

Independence Day!

fun

sunny

wonderful food 

horseshoes

birthday celebration

garden tour

family time

Independence Day - Celebrate!

Happy Fourth!

Wyatt found a pinecone.

If only we knew what was going on in their minds...

Wyatt found himself a pinecone. He was very proud of it.  He started hitting a big rock with it, trying to grind it in (that's what it looked like anyway) and got very frustrated.  Then he took a bite out of the pinecone and I took it away from him.  Then he was really frustrated.  hmmm. What was he trying to do?

Monkey business

I found this sock monkey at Goodwill about a week ago --

$1.29

This is the second sock monkey I have found there.

The last one was YEARS ago.

I was so excited, I barely looked at him, I just snatched him up!

In the light of day, at home, I realizede he needed a little "surgery". 

For one thing, his tail was positioned halfway up his back!

Too weird - I moved it.

Also, his ears were STUFFED and huge and plump - removal and repositioning required.

I started getting carried away because Phil and Walker kept noticing weird things about him and making fun and playing with him...

I had to move one of his eyes.

Then, Walker and I felt a NEEDLE inside! That will never do!  I had to unstuff him to get it out. It was the tiniest needle I've ever seen!  It was about 1 inch long and had a microscopic eye in it! I had to sift through all the stuffing, then re-stuff him.

He's a newer and happier monkey now.

I think he'll be the reading monkey.

I hope he survives the washing machine!

He is naughty, as monkies are though - yesterday I found him sitting in the back seat of Phil's car!

Do you think he needs a hat?