Tree of Texture

I'm calling this "Tree of Texture". My plan is to make a carved stamp or maybe have a thermofax screen made of this image. I think it would be a great start for a series. I'm writing this down to remind myself later, hope it works!

I took this photo on a recent field trip to Mt. Hermon for my son's 6th grade class, they went to do the ropes course. Which involved climbing waaaaaay up the redwood trees and jumping off. With safety ropes of course! It was hard to watch. I had to practically sit on my hands and gag myself so I wouldn't be yelling out various "mom-isms" at them (like Watch Out, or Get Down! for instance). This was supposed to be a team building exercise, and I think it was, in a strange sort of way. The kids egged each other on and cheered when they overcame their fears and tried stuff they couldn't have on their own.

House Progressing towards completion

Our house, under construction on November 18th. Sorry about the finger in the shot, but I was taking this at the absolute wrong time of the morning!

Here are the rooms framed in, in the addition, it is all sealed up now to the outside elements.

We have to climb a ladder now to get up into the addition. Here is Alex encouraging me up the ladder. He knows I have a ladder phobia.

Spike the teenager cat, checking out the hole for the laundry chute. I may be carrying laundry upstairs, but not downstairs anymore!

Here you can see the old part of the house, that window is the upstairs bathroom window, and then the new beams and roof and vents. Kind of neat to see it all together.

Here is my former studio, soon to be the master bathroom. I don't know who this master is, I hope he will share the new bathroom with us...

Back down the hatch we go.

Oh my goodness, here it is today, looks like a whole house once more!

Don't Look at the Sun!

Don't look at the sun! One of the fun things with a camera is to make it look at the sun for you. Saves your eyes, and sometimes results in an interesting picture.
I'm trying to spend some time outside each day when there is sun and see if it improves my mood.
So anyways, this is the view off of our deck in the late afternoon.
We are debating cutting down the three trees in the foreground as they are growing so quickly, soon we will have only a view of them.
It is hard when you live in a forest to keep your view open. But I hesitate because they are so beautiful, young and strong. They are doing just what they are supposed to do, and I am set to destroy them just because they are in my way. Is it immoral, I wonder? It isn't as if having this view off our deck is essential to our continuing on in a living state. We would use them for firewood, so at least they wouldn't go to waste. It would give other trees and shrubs a chance for the sunlight, so they could grow. I go back and forth, and they continue growing up and out, year by year.
Maybe if the chainsaw that got left out in the rainstorm this week starts, I'll take that as sign that this is the year they go.

Poetry Thursday

Thursday already?!! That must mean Poetry Thursday, this week we are encouraged to lie. Like a rug covered in lemon curd.
Here's my contribution. The photo is one that I took yesterday of the one remaining lemon on my lemon tree.

Lemon with a view
by Julie Zaccone Stiller

The lemon is terrible sad today.
Being the last on the tree is a lonely business,
I mistakenly assumed.

"No! That isn't it" she sobbed.
"It is so frustrating to see the candles get used
every single day. They tempt me with their
subtle fire to forget that I am only a fruit and
a sour one at that.
I wish I could roll out of this tree and smash them flat.
And I'd knock over that vase that keeps taunting me.
Filled as she is with sweet water and fragrant flowers.
I hope that bitch breaks into a million pieces."

Fed up with the ranting of this bitter lemon,
I plucked her roughly off the tree.
Turning towards the view I chucked her as far
as I could manage away from my house.

We have enough bitterness thankyouverymuch.
Now what will I put in my evening cocktail?
Something sweet this time, I think.

Ladder to the Sky

This is the view from one of our new upstairs bedrooms. (Before the window is put in.) It shows the hillside where our road comes down and in the foreground is an apple tree thinking about chucking all of its leaves off at once.
This picture isn't all that old, but I'm already missing the dry dry hot hot first week of November. Now it has turned rainy and cold, where the house is colder inside than out. And all the chairs are wet so you can't sit in the occasional sunshine without bringing your own dry towel. Whinge. Someone better get me a SAD light for my birthday!

Happy Birthday to my new Teenager

Having a son who just turned 13 requires a special kind of birthday cake. With dripping blood, soccer carnage, mutant dinosaurs and bugs, tiki symbols and candles that don't go out. Oh and four layers. Yes, four cake layers, which also means four frosting layers. Yum. Had to stabilize with drinking straws punched through. Looked pretty impressive though. And you should have seen how big his eyes got!
We are just getting used to him being a teenager, although it has been sneaking up on us for a while. It certainly hasn't happened suddently, overnight. But there is a difference in how he carries himself, more self assured and confident. And a marked increase in attention to grooming (hah!). He's a booger around his little brother, but on his own he is quite fun to be with.
Yesterday we had an errand to do and he wanted to go spend his birthday money at the mall. On the way we started talking about cars and he mentioned how he really wanted to save up for a Scion XB. So I took him to the dealership, and we picked up all the info brochures, a free cd of thumping music, and sat in one of them for a while to twiddle all the knobs. It was so cute, I went to get in on the passenger side and he did too. I put my hands up(yes up!) on his shoulders looked him in the eye and said "driver's side dude"". Got a big grin from that one.

He is turning into a wonderful separate human being slowly but surely. Which is thrilling and painful at the same time.

Vote or Else!

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Halfway to Glam

For Self-Portrait Challenge this month the topic is Glam.
So here I am as of today, only halfway from last months' study of imperfections, on the road to glam.
Note: It is really quite hard to makeup only one side of your face! Those automatic reflexes kick in without any conscious thought. Luckily no one came calling before I could scrub half of myself clean since I look pretty darned demented!

Mystery Picture

What is it?

Can you guess now?

Yup, a banana slug. Right at eye height. Climbing across the screen door on a rainy day.

Halloween Summary

The Four Halloween Spooky pumpkins, it was a windy night, but they stayed lit!

Dear Son Alex as a Vampire Army Bunny. (don't ask me, he made it up, I just drilled the holes in the army helmet!)

Dear Son Zach who went as "Hi, My name is GOD" . No one got his costume. Several were offended. But that was what he decided on, after watching the movie Dogma.

Here's my favorite picture from Halloween. The pumpkin seeds, soaking in saltwater. This year was the best ever, I used three kinds of salt when they were in the cooking tray, regular, Sea salt and Japanese salt. yummm.
I am bummed that I didn't get a pic of myself. I bought a new witch hat finally, and it looked rather nice, plus I did a good job on my makeup. Oh well. maybe next year!

ArtShare MeMe

Artshare Meme
I saw this on Deirdre's Sloppy Studio Studies blog, she saw it on Emmy Schoonbeek's blog (and she saw it on Arlee's... who saw it on Skybell's ...)

So if you want to play along, read this and you wil get a piece of art from me , but you must follow the instructions.

The first five people to respond to this in the comments section will receive a piece of artwork from me.

BUT, in addition to the comments you have to post this same blurb to your blog too and continue sharing the art with people who respond to you.

What will you get?

It will be a surprise, but you will have it before the end of November!.......

Rusted Hollyhocks, drat!

I spoke too soon, the hollyhocks have rust now. But, hey, it is the end of October and new plants have sprouted and are blooming. "Always look on the bright side of life!" Tuneful whistling..

Here is a white and frilly one. Not bug eaten, but affected with rust a bit.

And another thing in the same sunny corner of the garden is borage. The happy plant! With yummy blossoms.

Lastly, my new favorite picture of Zelda the wonder dog. This is our ugly front door screen, which I have been scheming to replace for years. It has been repaired many times. Son Z crashed out of the house one morning kicking the bottom corner out.
Then Spike the teenaged cat (no longer kitten) started going in and out. So it got a little bent out of shape.
Then Zelda ran through it when she was dashing for some deer on the lawn chasing action. But she can't come back in that way, although she tries, and gets stuck which is rather hilarious.

Think I oughta get a new screen door now??

New Roof, Hurting Tree

Here's the new roof, overlaying the existing house, as seen through our almond tree.
This is our final weekend to empty out the top story of the house, next week the roofing, siding and windows go in so they can bust through into the existing house. How exciting!

But we've noticed that this poor almond tree has moss and lichen growing on the lower part of it, I'm not sure what to do with it! I suppose I could cut off the affected branches and see if that helps or not. I'd hate to lose this tree, it is the squirrel's favorite!

Superfluous Signage

Here is my favorite new sign around here. It says "HILL". Talk about superfluous! (I've been thinking about that word all week, finally got to use it, hooray!)
I drive this road everytime I leave the house.

Here's a closeup of the sign which cracks me up. Someone has added stickers that spell out"DUH!". Indeed. DUH! What is your clue that this is a hill people? Geez, you've just been driving for a bout two miles with your car pointed downhill, and all of a sudden you need a sign saying "HILL". Whattawasteo'money!

Puffy Cloud Detail

Here is a detail of a quilt I just finished for the Fabled Fibers challenge. A cloud made with tuelle net, chiffon, angelina fiber and lots o' stitching. Now that I look at it, the cloud is almost Africa continent shaped. I guess you can find anything in the clouds if you look hard enough.

A buncha stuff!

I just finished up a quilt, but it is for a challenge, and I can't show it quite yet, I think. I'll check and let you know.

Dead flowers are pretty too! Oh yes they are! Finally found some marigolds which are blooming away, gotta keep them pinched back, I sprinkle the deadheads around in my pots for extra color. This is a columbine plant in this pot by the way, done flowering for the season of course.

A rather hefty Garlic braid, part of our last basket of the year from Camp Joy. Good thing we love our garlic around here! I'm going to miss all that fabulous, fresh, organic produce every week. Especially the tomatoes and the grapes.

Peak of the roof is on now. Starting to look like a house again! My studio is almost emptied out into the storage unit we rented. I feel really silly carrying my boxes of fabric out to the car, driving 12 miles, transferring the boxes into the storage unit, and driving back. And then I'll have to do it in reverse. Whine, whinge! At least I HAVE fabric to drive around in this silly fashion, oh and a car, and gas money.

Are you voting? Are you registered? If not, why not?!

Walking up and down my street

I've been parking a ways up the street so that the contractor's and their giant trucks can use the driveway. Of course it is the steepest part of the road, makes for good exercise, and Zelda the wonderdog likes the extra walks. Of course I had to take my camera along since it sees so differently than I do!

A nice view. BUT See that red? It's poison oak! Aieeee!

The red berries of autumn, don't they look yummy? Not sure if they are edible. Wonder if they would dye something red??

What's this? The new kitty, Spike is following us up the road, meowing rather pitifully. He doesn't know any better.I scooped him up and loaded him in the car to drive back to the house. He wasn't happy about that at all!

Zelda sniffing her way down the road.

Not scared of my own shadow! Nope not me! doesn't this shape look like one of those clay Chinese warrior statues?

Early fruits of fall. Don't eat them even though they look like pears.

First view of the new roof as you come down the road. Framed by the dark shade of the redwoods that surround the road that I'm standing on.

Here's how it is looking from the driveway. Wow, a high peak!

Zelda in the construction zone. No she isn't helping with the digging of the the new patio site. Lazy dog!
She is also "helping" the workers as they move all the materials around. Helping meaning tripping or bumping into them. Helpful isn't a well-defined word for a labrador I guess! Luckily they all love her and great her every morning.

House Progress!

House Progress is happening! Here is the framing of the part being added over the garage. It is soooo fun to see where the new room are, and if they are as we imagined them. We picked out windows too. I'm most excited about the garden window over the new bathtub in the "master bath".
The roof for this part is going on this week, it will reach over the current peak of the house. Then, we'll be busting out the existing walls of the upstairs. Which means boyz room and my stooodio are getting packed up in the next week. Wish me lots of unflagging energy please, I'll need it!

West Coast Pyramid

Poetry Thursday on Friday

Picture of newspaper bales to be recycled from Murfy Recycling in Australia. Isn't this a beautiful picture? I went looking for something to illustrate this post, but this one stopped me in my tracks. I love the colors, but the lines, horizontal across the bale and the ceiling too are really striking. This reminds me of just how much we recycle now. Our recycling bin is twice the size of our garbage bin. The recycling bin is always, every week without fail overflowing. Usually the garbage is maybe 2/3 full. We are really into this recycling this now. It has become a habit, not a problem anymore to do it.

Yes, I'm a day late, but anyways. For Poetry Thursday, here is a poem inspired by the headlines in the newspaper I read today, the San Jose Mercury News of Friday, 10/13/06.

I Read the News Today, Oh Boy

by Julie Zaccone Stiller

Shock, Sadness, Despair

Emotion packs the headlines

Warning, Pervade, Balk

Action words carry the mood

Mystery, Crash, Waste

Solid yet slippery concepts confuse

Political, Bigger, New

Describing our world in easy terms

Murder, Arson, Poisoning

Destroying life and property

New, Testing, Matters

Questioning what comes next and why

All in one page

worries of the society

on center stage

keeping us entertained

as we obsess

who can we trust with our future?