June 16, 2009
· Filed under Uncategorized
And our Texas heat. We really had a nice long Spring but we are now in the 90’s and probably going to stay that way. My grandson is thrilled that our pool is now open. He has been waiting patiently. 
Had some good friends visit over the weekend. My long time friends’ husband had a high school class reunion – 40th! My DF didn’t want to go so we treated ourself to a wonderful dinner at York St. in Dallas. It is one of the fifty best restaurants in the US and is 10 minutes away. The food was wonderful – even bought some leftovers of blue fin tuna and beets for my DH. He was highly appreciative. 
Darwin decided he had to get in the picture too but no leftovers for him!
May 30, 2009
· Filed under Uncategorized
May 13, 2009
· Filed under grandkids
I spent Mother’s Day weekend this year with my two daughters and their families. We spent two days at Disneyland in Los Angeles and one day at a great beach. Two things I love most – spending time with my family and spending time at the beach. It was wonderful.
Here are some cute pictures of Stella, Sophie and Kate at Disney:
On Mother’s Day we went to Crystal Cove just north of Laguna Beach and had a wonderful brunch at Beachcomber’s – right on the water. But first we beachcombed – I love the sand in my feet – see how much my granddaughters do too!
You can also read my daughter’s post about our trip on cheeseslave.com. We are four days away from our neighborhood garden tour – so need to get some phone calls made and label all the plants I am donating! And my tomatoes need staking. So off to the garden I go. Happy Mother’s Day to all!
May 3, 2009
· Filed under art/craft, gardening, grandkids
April 5, 2009
· Filed under Uncategorized
April 1, 2009
· Filed under etc.!, grandkids
Here are some cute pictures of my grandkids vacationing - one in CA and one in Hawaii.
Here is Hawaii:
And here is Sophie with a lime green ice!
Cute isn’t she!
Baby Kate – actually toddler Kate is loving the sand in her toes at Venice Beach:
Finally a neat picture of a dog loving the sun. Harry is his name and he belongs my my DH’s daughter Kerry.
That is a dog’s life for sure. Haven’t been blogging because I have been busy in the garden - more pictures on that soon!
March 20, 2009
· Filed under cooking/baking, gardening
Just like the TV show on Food Network. I had the garden tour committee meeting here this week and decided to serve food from my garden. I had white bean spread with sage pesto, lemon balm bars, fruit and veggies and a chocolate pound cake with rosemary. Everything turned out great except the chocolate pound cake. My DH took one look at it and said “Throw it away! You are so chopped!”
Here is a picture:
When I picked it up from the cooling rack the middle literally fell out. I told my DH that there was no way I was going to throw this away – too many expensive ingredients.
So here is what I did – the edges were done so I cut them and drizzled them with a chocolate ganache – still wasn’t the tastiest pound cake I have ever had but at least it didn’t end up in the garbage…
Here are my lemon balm bars. The lemon balm is just barely peeking through but I was able to gather just enough to bake this great treat. I have made this many times and it is always good!
Speaking of gardens, here are some things that are in bloom right now – yellow columbine, blue verbena, peach tree and my knockout rose. I LOVE 
spring!
March 9, 2009
· Filed under art/craft, cooking/baking, gardening
It has been absolutely beautiful here and I can’t stay OUT of the garden! I say I am going to only work for a couple of hours and then three or four hours have passed. All my veggies are coming up – chard, beets and peas so far. Also planted some new oregano, marjoram and thyme. Because our growing season is so long in Texas some of our perennial plants just wear themselves out. So they need to be replanted every few years. In a few weeks I will plant basil and tomatoes.
My friend Judi told me that the squirrels weren’t eating my Japanese maples – they were just sharpening their teeth! Could they not find a trash tree to sharpen their teeth and NOT my maple that is probably worth at least a thousand dollars…. Please!
Anyhow my art in the garden today is this pathway I am creating. I saw this idea on the garden tour last year so it is not original but I love it. We have a great slope in our yard – good for drainage but not so good for keeping decomposed granite from washing away. Here is what I did yesterday!
And here is some swiss chard that overwintered from last year and a blossom from our ornamental peach. The peaches from this tree are not edible but the squirrels like them and plant them all over the place – so I now have five peach trees growing in my backyard and I have given a few away. Yesterday I found two new japanese maple seedlings while clearing some leaves . I will transplant them once they get a little bigger . I already have 18 little trees in four inch pots that I rescued last year - they are ready to move up to one quart pots.
And finally my DH is a great and in the Spring when I am so busy in the garden he cooks for me. Here is a dish he made last week – pan seared scallops, mashed sweet potatoes flavored with ginger and a wilted spinach salad.
March 4, 2009
· Filed under art/craft
are now finished. First is the handpainted malabrigo – yarn leftover from my circumnavigate sweater. It is long and wonderfully soft and warm. Only have a couple of weeks left to use it – but I will pull it out next year and enjoy it a lot I am sure. Here it is!
And on Saturday I took a nunofelting workshop at Whiterock Weaving Center (whiterockweaving.com). My instructors were Rhonda Douglas (petuniafiberart.com) and Suzanne Morgan (suzannemorgan.com).
They were both very patient and supportive. I really enjoyed the process and now know what I was doing wrong when I tried it on my own. I also want to experiment with dyeing fabric and yarn. I bought several silk scarves from Dharma Trading Company and have lots of roving. So I will be making more scarves. Gardening is foremost in my mind right now but come June I will be wanting something that will keep me in the air conditioning. Here is my pretty springlike scarf!
It is light as a feather but warm at the same time.
February 27, 2009
· Filed under darwin, gardening
It was 86 degrees yesterday and I spent the whole day in the garden. Unbelievable weather – hope it is not a predictor of a summer in the triple digits. Not going to worry about that now – it was a great day and I got lots done. Our Japanese Maples are leafing out – see how pretty!
Speaking of Japanese Maples, I have declared War On Squirrels. The little “tree rats” have decided to eat one of our Japanese Maples. And this is no ordinary maple – it is now 10 feet tall and has been lovingly nurtured by me since my DH and I spotted it growing in our front yard 12 years ago. We have 18 maples growing on our property – all grown from seedlings from a large Maple in the front. It takes 6 – 7 years of loving care to get these seedlings ready to transplant in the garden – they are like my children.
Initially I thought the squirrels were just climbing on the small branches and breaking them off. Then I thought they were just eating the fresh young leaves. No! They are gnawing on the limbs until they break off. And they don’t eat the young tender leaves – they just run off after they have done their damage! I just chased two away now. Of course Darwin, our airedale terrier, is sleeping in with DH. He is not a morning dog! I am thinking about a gun. Or we could cut down the adjacent magnolia tree so aerial climbing wouldn’t be so easy. You can see I am obsessed but I have a feeling that the squirrels will win. Hopefully this maple will survive eventhough it will be misshapen.
Two more gardening pictures. The first is one of my three peony plants. They literally seemed to grow in front of my eyes yesterday – at least six inches by the end of the day. The second is a snapshot of the loquat fruit on our loquat tree – going to have a bumper crop this year – maybe the squirrels will eat them rather than our maple.
And speaking of dogs here are two pictures of handsome Darwin after his grooming.
A cold front is coming in today – crazy Texas weather. Will be down to freezing Sunday evening. More daffodil pics!
I have been doing some hand felting – wet felting and needle felting. Here is the bird I entered in the local library’s art show yesterday. 
Not very good photography but it was a last minute endeavor. I learned a lot doing this project and am enthused about doing some more. Am thinking the work would be better displayed without glass so you can experience the texture of the hand felting. But the day for entering came and I decided to go for it! My signature for the work is bj – stands for my first two initials but also stands for barb/john. My DH is my mentor and infinitely patient with me. He also is a wonderful artisan. Don’t have a picture of the other piece – will get it up eventually.
