Hometown Swap

I was so very lucky and excited to receive this wonderful package from Shelley, of the blog At Home in Rome out of the Hometown Swap on Create a Connection.
She sent me a bag of coffee,and a recipe for Coffee Granita (you make ice slush out of coffee, sounds yummy!),

some reaalllly strong (stronger than Altoids!) mints,

photo-cards that she made out of picture she's taken in and around Rome,

a printed tea towel with a map of Italy and all the locales of Italian Vini e Pasta (wine and pasta), all wrapped up in a Rome newspaper. Which I made a point out of reading out loud to my boys. "Mom, you don't really speak Italian, stop it!" I really liked the weather maps in the newspaper.

Ahhhh, it was just like being back in Rome. Watch out Shelley, next time I come, I'll meet you for some Granita! Thanks!!!

Recent Dyeing

I recently got my dyes out of storage and did up some blues, purples, and the orangey/pink fabric above. I had to re-read the dye books I have since it had been a while and I knew I was mixing up some of the recipes and ingredients.
As part of my wardrobe refashioning I overdyed several shirts that had unfortunate and stubborn stains. This embroidered tank top was just white. I like how the embroidery threads dyed the nice deep navy. The construction thread and bow stayed white, not sure if I like that, or if I'll Sharpie over it...
This was one of my favorite Land's End shirts, a nice heavy knit, 3/4 sleeve, in a beautiful yellow. Somehow it got blue/green stains on it? So I decided to just go with it and over dyed with blue and green. The stitching stayed yellow, so it is a nice contrast.
This was a really faded Land's End t-shirt that started out as a fairly bright orange, which quickly lost it to a pale peach (bleah!). With some red and yellow overdye, I like how it looks now, back to vibrancy. And maybe wearable to a San Francisco Giants game.
This was my favorite purple t-shirt, I really like the keyhole neckline, but it too was faded and splotchy. Now with some grape dye from Dharma Trading, it looks intentional!

So with just a little effort, and a some water and dye, I've got some new looking shirts to wear. And I don't have to break them in!

War, What is it Good for?

Gerrie's got a great collection of photos going over on Flickr, of this bumper sticker on cars, houses (including the White House), and people. I was really glad to see the Dems make the Repubs stay up all night to explain themselves earlier this week. It seems the smallest sacrifice they could make before taking the month of August off on vacation (must be nice, huh?!). I don't know why they're sticking with this failed presidency to prolong this unjust and unnecessary war. Hopefully enough voters in America are paying attention and have long enough memories (til the next election!).

And then the Dave Matthew's Band is trying to get people to pay attention to what happens to the veterans of our wars once they arrive back home. They have a petition on their website that they plan to send to the Secretary of Defense.

Retro Pillow

I made another pillow covering out of some vintage 70's fabric, a remnant from Crate & Barrel (the ombre orange to green), and a contemporary print. I didn't measure, just started sewing and piecing together the puzzle of the shapes and how they would fit together.
So now that is two pillows done, out of my old ones that needed new covers. There are about four more of those.
And also four more brand new ones to go. Those will be out of a nice thick chenille with fringe trim.
You can never have enough decorative pillows! Especially for those epic pillow fights we like to have.

Plant of the Century

Here is something you don't see everyday in the middle of the redwood forest. In downtown (such as it is) Boulder Creek near my acupuncturists', a gigantic Century Plant (agave americana) or American Aloe. All of a sudden here it sprouts, up up up. Such a strange plant, it is boring for so many years, and then it gathers up all its reserves and sends up this huge trunk with blossoms and seeds. I wonder if the owners were surprised? I know I was when I drove by and noticed it!

Spider Detail

Some details of flowers and my favorite garden spider for Photo Thursday on Create a Connection.

Ottoman Empire Re-do

I purchased an ottoman from Goodwill, it was covered in a bright pink girly butterfly flannel, which I promptly removed and found this!

I pulled out a couple of fabrics from my upholstery stash, but they weren't quite right somehow. The floral was too floral, especially since the chair the ottoman will go with is on my husband's side of the bed. Plus the background was too white, the chair is more grey. And as my brilliant husband pointed out, white is kinda silly since his feet and shoes aren't 100% guaranteed to be clean. The plaid wasn't quite the right purplish that I needed either.

I ended up finding a piece of fabric that I liked at Goodwill (on another trip), and used the legs of my husbands old Dockers for the backing underneath. All in all, it cost me $11, and I think it matches the chair (seen behind the ottoman) very well.
What do you think? Does it count as a wardrobe refashion? Since I only thrifted and used old clothing to boot?

Elemental Daisy

I composed this photo to show my connection with the element, Earth for the Self Portrait Challenge. I'm always being accused of being an Earth Mother, as if that is a bad thing to be! No way baby.
It was fun taking this picture, which involved taking off my sandals and getting into the nitty gritty of the garden. Being mindful of the rose bush, dog droppings and hidden construction debris. The daisy felt so soft between my toes, I wanted to keep it there all day, but it jumped ship when I started walking around again.

Deerly Beloved

Did you know that our deer herd is on the increase? I don't have a picture of Bambi yet, her spots help her blend in so well that I haven't gotten a good shot. She sleeps under the trampoline during the day (a nice shady spot). This picture is taken out the back door onto our hill. Just over the hill is the undeveloped forest/underbrush which they dash into whenever they're alarmed.
They really do come right next to the house. The roof you see is the floor of my bedroom, and with the windows open at night we hear them munching and crashing around. Soon there will be a deck coming out from this spot, and I may have to put in a deer fence on the second story deck as they'd be able to leap over. And since I am planning to have roses up there, they will probably be tempted to try it!
Check out the leaping cat in the foreground. Spike was "hunting" the deer. I don't know what he would do if he ever caught one!

Our names for these two are Deer Leader and Dearie. Tre's creative, no?

Tshirt to Tank

Using this book that I checked out from the library, Generation T - 108 ways to transform a T-shirt, I performed quickie surgery on my favorite worn out t-shirt.

It had gaping, unfixable holes under the arms and a big one on the lower back. Here's the before picture:

And after a little cutting, the sleeves sliced off, the neckband too, and a scallopy uneven bottom (that was my innovation), then a very easy small hem on all the edges, here's what I've got:

The ultra low scoopy armholes are a problem for showing off the side of my bra. I'm too modest for that, so I'll wear one of my workout bras that is supposed to be a top too. I think it will be a good shirt for the hot days of summer.

The book has tons of great ideas, unfortunately for me, too many involve wearing teeny scraps of tshirt material without any supporting undergarments. Um, that ain't happening here, but for all you skinny types, you'd probably be able to get away with it! There are several others that I plan to try, so stay tuned for that.

So that's my wardrobe refashion for the week!

Flower Power

A tour through my garden to see what is blooming these very hot days (over 100F today!).

Pincushion flower which regrew from last year. These are so cheery and cute.

A shady daisy.

These old-fashioned flowers are some of my favorites in the garden. Acanthus (or bear's breech). They're so tall and stately, and the enormous deep green leaves look like something from back in the dinosaur ages.

I love how these roses grow in a bunch like this. They keep getting pruned back in this area, so grow really close together as if they've been assembled in a bouquet.

The enormous butterfly bush is swarming with butterflies these days. It is about 10' high now.

These columbines start out much more colorful, then fade away as they age. I love how they reseed themselves.

Look at the closeup of this picture, I love the repeating structure of this flower.

Happy 4th of July!

Elemental Wondering

As part of the July assignment for Self Portrait Challenge, we're supposed to show the elements, air, fire, earth, water, how we relate to them, which is our favorite, etc.
I couldn't decide on my favorite, and I'm not sure I do have a favorite, one that I'm drawn to or destined for, or whatever. I'm a seeker after balance, and part of balance is having all the elements at once, in a balanced manner. This is hard when you aren't aware of it. I always thought of myself as a really fiery, tempestous type of character. But after a lot of inner work, I discovered that I'm really quite grounded to the Earth. But I am happy with water, and spend a lot of time in the air too. So working towards a balance of elements is what I am striving for really. I'm glad I got the prompt to think about this!
Which element are you most drawn to?

Half Year Mark

Can you believe it is the last day of June?!? The year is half over, yowza did that ever go fast!

So, I thought for my final day of hosting Saturday Try Day for Create A Connection that I'd suggest we all try to look at our yearly goals or resolutions.

I was going to fudge, but what the heck, I'll be honest here. I had five resolutions that I blogged about in January as part of doing Self Portrait Challenge every week. The goals weren't too specific, but they were doable and important to me. None of them you will note included any art/career goals, those I gave myself a break on since we are still doing this house remodel and my studio will be getting moved again (third time) next month. I knew that putting that pressure on myself would be counterproductive, so I basically took a goal sabbatical in that area of my life.

So here were the five resolutions that I made and how I'm doing on them so far this year.

1) Spend more time with my pets

I've definitely done this. Just ask them. We know each other even better now, just in six months. And we had three pets die in this time period, two chickens and a parakeet. Not bird flu, just their time to go. It was hard, but I didn't have a really deep connection with them, like I do with the cats and dog. This might sound weird, but I have a clearer communication going with them now that I am paying more attention to them. Sometimes I feel like I'm eavesdropping on their conversations with each other and that they are surprised that I know what they're saying.

2)Eat fresh fruits and vegetables every day

I have succeeded at this, especially lately. We are on week four of our Camp Joy CSA organic produce basket, and nothing has gotten tossed onto the compost heap. It is all going in the blender baby, for those super green smoothies I'm eating/drinking every day.

I'm so glad that I'm back in the habit of eating fresh fruits and vegies, it is a habit that I'm planning on keeping! Here's a pic of my pomegranate tree (well it is only a bush size so far), with a blossom and a fruit showing, yay!

3) Stop and smell the roses

Yes, I'm doing that, definitely. Literally and figuratively. Been very "in my head" this year so far, pensive at times, and just thoughtful and curious at other times. Taking time to stop and enjoy is another habit that is worth continuing to cultivate.

Here is my favorite rose in the garden, it has such a lovely scent, and the colours are subtly different on each bloom.

4)Walk more

Nope, not doing this. I'm definitely moving around more, but still not walking much more than before. I have my weeks where my energy level is high enough and pain levels are low enough that I do increase my walking, but they don't last and neither do I. If I push myself too much it rebounds and worsens, so I just don't do it. I think I may have to change this resolution to move more instead of walk more.

Someday I'll have to calculate the percentage grade on our street so that people will understand why I can't just go out my front door and walk around the block. Living on the side of the mountain makes that little neighborhood walk into a hike. Having to drive somewhere to take a walk seems kinda silly to me.

I am walking around in my yard a lot more, mostly accompanied by my camera. It fools me into thinking that I'm just taking pictures (call me easily fooled I guess!). Here is a view through our fig tree.

5)Be Here Now

This was mostly about savoring the time I have with my kids and I'm definitely making some good progress here. I'll be honest and say that this surprised me and turned out to be the hardest goal to fulfill in a real and concrete manner. But I've found that it is a a cumulative thing, this learning to fully be in the present. Part of it was getting out of my own way, what worked for me was to continue with daily meditation practice. Making that space in my head available to experience what I was doing, at the time. Instead of analyzing and evaluating the experience later on, on my internal movie screen.

I'm keeping these same resolutions for the next six months. Except for the Walk More is now Move More. Also, today I'm having a talk with myself about art/career goals, more on that later after the conference in my head adjourns...

How about you? Have you seen 43 Things?

Bruschetta, Ah Bruschetta

We're on a bit of a bruschetta kick around here these days. Especially since we went to La Bruschetta for graduation dinner. They have a whole menu of just bruschetta, *squee*

I took these pictures to show off some of our recent creations, and by coincidence, Charlotte hosting Get To Know You over at Create a Connection asked us to share pics and recipes today.

So here we go, the Stiller version of making bruschetta.

To start off all of our bruschetta recipes so far to date:
1)We buy a nice fresh baguette, maybe sourdough, maybe not, slice kinda diagonally into pieces, 2) brush top of each slice lightly with olive oil, and then toast in a 400F oven for a little bit.

First up was Marc's Olive Love.

1 can of kalamata olives (pitted of course), 1/2 white onion, a tablespoon of olive oil and a handful of fresh basil leaves, chopped up in a food processor.
I know it looks a bit dog-food-esque, but believe me, if you like olives, this was Olive Heavenly in your mouth.
Spread mixture on the prepared toasted bread slices, back into the oven for a little bit, maybe 6 minutes

This is Zach's TriColore
Slice ripe Roma tomatoes, top with a slice of fresh mozzarella (the kind sold in water!), and fresh basil leaves.
Bake atop the prepared bread slices for about 5 minutes.

Eat it all up in about two minutes flat. Fight over who gets the last piece.
Now loll around the living room moaning like a stuffed Roman after a big feast.

Environmental Final

For my final environmental photo for Self Portrait Challenge, I thought I'd portray what I spend most of my time doing all the summer long. Watering!
We spend a majority of time outside so I like to have nice gardens to be out in. That and I'm addicted to going to garden centers and bringing home tons of new plants to see what the *&%$ deer will or won't eat. This of course means I must keep the plants that make up the gardens alive.
This picture was taken at 10am yesterday morning as I watered the hottest part of the deck where it was already over 90F. Where we live, we have little humidity, no rain all summer long, and thus increasing fire danger as summer progresses. So I like to keep a nice green and growing circle around our home as a hopefull firebreak against the worst-case scenario fire I worry about every single year.

Colour Swapped!

I received this enormously long mysterious box on Saturday from my Create a Connection ,Colour Swap partner, Rosalyn-Sue... she runs Operation Stars & Stripes, a great organization dedicated to supporting US troops. Check them out and see if you can participate.
And just looky what she sent!! A huge roll of purply papers, all different and unique and oh so very usable. One is tie dyed, one is even embroidered, how cool is that?!
And the package there on the right with the bow is a set of purple fibers wrapped around clothespins, what darling packaging, brilliant!
I love the cute little card too, very fiber-riffic Rosalyn-Sue, thanks so much for being such a great swap partner.
Now to go figure out what to use this purple yumminess for, stay tuned....

Scattergories 3

Playing Scattergories with DebR once again.

Rules are same as before - each answer has to start with the same letter as the first letter of your name and if an answer is a place name it should be real, not fictional. If someone who answers before you has the same first letter, try to come up with different answers than they did. Now on to…
Scattergories 3
Your name: Julie

A type of tree or shrub: Jasmine or Juniper

Something an astronaut would study: Jupiter

Eight-letter word:
Jhankrut
झंकृत
Feeling electrified; highly ecstatic

A sports team (any sport): Jacksonville Jaguars

A character in movie or play: Jane Hudson (From "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?")"sister,sister oh so fair. why is there blood all over your hair?

A nickname (or endearment) for someone you like: JuJuBee

Something that could get you arrested: Job Discrimination

Something you’d take to a picnic: Jug of Juice

A reason someone might get an award, medal, or trophy: Jump Rope Marathon

Something that makes you smile: Jumping on trampolines!

Herd of Cats

I'm surrounded by cats. This morning I woke up without being able to move one way or the other, being pinned on both sides by two cats. This first one is Spike. He is our teenager cat, still bugging the older cats, but mellowing out considerably. Now we find he is sleeping a lot more, hey, just like a teenager!

This is Zippy, my cat, and the oldest. When it gets too crazy on the bed (ie other cats have gotten too close, or I'm rolling around too much), he jumps up on the headboard and drapes himself over all the books and other stuff.

Finally this is Rexie, our fluffiest cat. He is a really lovey dovey cat, with these tremendously long whiskers and a very floppy belly. Whenever you sit down outside, he appears, ready to be petted. Or inside, he is always sleeping next to my son Alex.

We are happily Ruled by Cats.
They make the rules around here really. Here are some that I've noticed:

1. Don't come right away when called.
2. Don't enter the house with another cat, you must enter alone.
3. Eat the dogfood. Don't let the dog eat the catfood.
4. Toilet water tastes better than bowl water, just ask the dog.
5. When covered in burrs or foxtails make sure to snuggle into all the blankets on the bed.
6. Bite the hand that brushes you.
7. Dogs are for teasing.
8. If you want to go out at night, just scratch at the new carpet, they wake right up !
9. Pay no attention to the lady with the camera, she'll go away eventually.
10. If they're reading something, quick, sit on it!

Graduation Day

Here is my environmental self portrait for the Self Portrait Challenge this week.

In this picture I am at my son's middle school graduation this past Thursday. Now he is a high schooler, gasp!

Trying very hard not to well up with proud tears, or fearful tears, or happy tears, or any tears whatsoever. Not so successful at that. Oh well, I cried at kindergarten graduation too. If I'm not crying, I'm not feeling I suppose.

Anyways, feeling safe, secure and very happy in my element as supportive mother, proud parent, member of the school community and so on. And a sunburned gardener too, if you check out my neck and shoulder.

Meanwhile, back at the local thrift store, I got a hat pattern, for
*12*
*Terrific*
*Hats*!!
Or chapeaux sensass. Sensass? Is that really French for Terrific? I'm thinking that means something else, isn't formidable or terrible a better translation? I never took French, so I do not know!

And a book I've been looking for: Upholstering At Home. Yay, now perhaps the chairs will get redone with somewhat more expertise than my usual staple gun assisted upholstering method!...