the coincidental avocado...

Yum!

Fran, a sweet friend of mine was kind enough to share a couple of beautiful home grown avocados with me. They were perfectly ripe, and large, and ready to eat.
Naturally, I decided to make a batch of Guacamole (yum!) and to also make croissant sandwiches with turkey, bacon, tomato and avocado.  (If you add bacon.... the husband will eat avocado)
So, after a long day, we sat down to dinner and popped in a movie. We decided to watch the movie Big Miracle.  Just as we dipped our corn chips into the Guacamole, there, in the opening scene, was a reporter talking all about avocados and Guacamole - we looked at each other and started laughing - guess you had to be there LOL but we found it to be a humorous coincidence.
Anyway, if you haven't seen the movie it's about the 3 whales stranded in the ice up in Barrow Alaska, back in the '80's, and based on a true story.  My review- a thumbs up - we thought it was a nice family movie and I really enjoyed it.
We also have an avocado tree, but apparently our naughty squirrels have eaten all the buds before they can form into fruit. Oh well, lucky for us we have nice friends.

While I was away at quilt retreat (more on that soon) my friend Karen & I stopped at one of our favorite stops. The Earthbox store, to get planting supplies and starts.
I came home with a grape tomato and bell pepper start and a new mini Earthbox to add to my collection. Come October, I'm going to try green onions and radishes in the mini box.  After speaking to the farmer, it turns out I was planting my onion seeds too early.
This morning I finally got my planting started. In one Earthbox I have snowpeas, green beans and beets.  Haven't tried beets before, so I am curious as to how they will do.

 In the other box, I have my grape tomato and bell pepper. I need to go get more soil, so my third box will have to wait a day or two. The third one will have red romaine lettuce and spinach.

Now I can't wait for harvest time, and the cooler weather ahead. Hopefully this will be a green thumb year!

a precious week....

My parents were just here visiting from Wisconsin for a week but unfortunately my Dad arrived with a nasty cold and cough. It slowed him down a little but didn't dampen his spirits and the four of us had a wonderful, quiet, lazy week together. We reminisced, laughed, cried, ate, took naps, fed the squirrels, and went for walks.  My mom and I had a shopping day together and my DH made his out of this world BBQ ribs one night ..... they were thoroughly enjoyed by all. We also made a trip or two to the Apple store for some software updates. We all went out to a nice restaurant their last night here and as always, the week went by way to quickly. I miss them so much already. It's hard being so far apart, but I am truly blessed to have such wonderful parents that are lots of fun to be with besides.

My dad is a photographer- in fact he shoots most of my product images and this time around we shot my first video. It was a hoot to say the least and then I had to become and I.T. geek and figure out how to splice together 4 segments, cut out the bad parts, add tittles, and then load it into QuickTime to format it and then get it into youtube. I just hope I remember how to do it all again for the next one. LOL
We only did a couple of takes and my dad had a blast doing it. He recounted some of his early adventures as a photographer for the Milwaukee Sentinel when he was just in his early 20's. Great stories, some new ones I hadn't heard before. Like the one where he and my mom were on their way to a wedding reception and he got called to report on a bad fire, they missed the reception.


Here's hoping that you cherish your family moments.......they are the most precious gifts of all.

a new perspective....and a sad note

I think I need a time management expert to move in. With work (yes I work outside the studio too), designing, writing, sleeping, shipping, eating, socializing, and gardening, I must shamefully admit my blogging has suffered.
I had such high hopes that I would be able to keep a steady flow of interesting posts for you. There are days that I just don't grab the camera and find something to share. Perhaps I'm putting up my own roadblocks in thinking that I need something really special to share, and quite frankly, some days I am just too tuckered out. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

However, I am going to redouble my efforts because I do enjoy connecting with you all and even though I touch base on Facebook, I still like the journal quality that a blog offers.  I enjoy visiting other blogs (when I steal some precious me time) to bask in all the creativity out there.
So anyway.... just to keep from getting bored I decided to shoot some video's to share some tools, techniques, and maybe some squirrel play too. We'll see, those squirrels are pretty quick!
So, hopefully in the next week or so you'll have a video to critique. LOL - what am I thinking!
Anyone know a good director or better yet a screenwriter :)



Oh - speaking of squirrels. Sad news to report in squirreltown - our poor little squirrel Spot has passed away. She has been hanging around our yard about 5 years and she had gotten quite old. She had cataracts and was bumping into things. She would come up on the deck each morning and evening for a bite to eat and would sit at our feet so the other squirrels wouldn't chase her. Toward the end she was losing her fur and would sleep out on the tree limbs in full daylight, an easy target for the hawks. Thankfully, no hawks swooped down on her and we assume one morning she just didn't wake up. We miss her visits to our deck, she was such a sweet little squirrel. This is one of the last pictures I got of her a few days before we didn't see her again.

r.i.p. Spot the squirrel

Glamor shot

Even though it has been steamy hot outside, hubby and I always try to make some time in the relative cool of the evening hours to go outside and see who may be out and about. One of our favorite visitors has been making frequent visits lately and it may have something to do with the fact that we just brought home a fresh bag of tasty peanuts!!! This is "baby" the fox squirrel that first appeared as a baby - hence the really original name -LOL 
She is a real hoot and very fast so good pic's are a challenge but I did finally manage to get this glamor shot.

Of course bunnies are always hopping about too.  Actually there were 3 outside my office window the other night but dinner was cooking so I didn't take the time to snap their group photo. This one looks like he's out of a scary movie - ever see "Night of the Lepus"? Google "night of the lepus movie if you're curious.

Living in SW Florida we have our share of interesting bugs too - this critter was making his way across the driveway I thought it was very interesting. It's a Giant Palm Weavil and he must be happy here because we have a lot of palm trees.

Those are this weeks visitors although on rare occasion we have had brief visits by bears, bobcats and even and Emu that came strolling through one day!

Well now I am off to tackling today's to-do list which includes glamorous things like laundry, grocery shopping, packing orders and I believe I have a nap scheduled also. I am also very close to finishing the quilting on one of my small quilts and I want to finish that and get the binding on. I'll post a pic when it's done.

Don't forget you have until noon tomorrow to enter my giveaway for a $60.00 shopping spree at any of the many CSN online stores. All you have to do is post a comment on my July 14th posting to be entered. The winner will be picked tomorrow around mid day by random number generator and you have very good odds of winning! Good luck!

plum crazy!

Those crazy squirrels are at it again! Well, okay we may encourage them a bit.
We finished off a jar of peanut butter (yes, making cookies again) and we thought the squirrels might enjoy cleaning out the jar.....we were right.

I missed getting our buddy "Spot" while she was enjoying the jar, but I was laughing too hard to think about the camera. This other little fella came along and was more than happy indulge while being photographed. Needless to say there were some skirmishes going on over the jar. They are just plum crazy. Speaking of plum crazy...

Our neighbor called ( no - she's not crazy) with some water heater problems and so my dh and I  headed over to check it out. While we were there I noticed some fruit of some sort on one her large trees that I hadn't seen before. Turns out they are Japanese plum trees. I've never had Japanese plum...are they tasty!!! I am now plum crazy! (not exactly a state secret)

She sent me home with the ripe ones we could reach and told me to come back for all I want as they ripen. I will surely take her up on that.
It also seems my dh got her water heater working again. Yay!
It's been a rainy day so far and so no sun printing for me today.....I did put some printed squares and kits up for sale in my etsy store.
I guess I will do some dusting - oh fun - and some laundry - more fun - and then hopefully get into the studio for some stitching time. Oh - here's some more craziness....
Look what my hubby found out in the garage while he was cleaning up out there.
Yikes -  it's a black widow spider, now deceased.

Thankfully our garage is away from the house and I have never seen one in the house - you would have heard the scream. Well, enough craziness for now, I need another yum yum plum.

In case you missed it...there is still time to enter my Sweet Vintage Giveaway. You have until April 24th to post a comment to my April 9th blog post to be entered. If you blog about it or facebook about it, leave a separate comment for each and get more chances to win. 

One of my FB friends (Robin) is having a fun giveaway at her blog  - check it out !

happy feet

One good thing about the unusually cold weather here in South Florida is I get to wear all my fun socks to keep my tootsies warm. My friend Cathi gifted me these fabulously fun tie-dye socks from Artfabrik. I don't get the chance to wear them often enough but these past few weeks has had me scrambling for socks.
We had ice on the birdbath once again and the squirrels stayed tucked away in their beds until midday.
Sorry, gotta run and watch the rest of the Packer/Cardinals playoff game......come on Packers!

Sad day in Squirrel Town

About 4:00 yesterday I heard a loud bang followed by the power going out.
Well, now we know why the power went out. One of the furry little fox squirrels that frequents our property met his (or her) demise via a whole bunch of electricity. Hubby said it looked like one of the new fox squirrel babies, but not the one in the picture. Needless to say I didn't take any pics of the tragic end. Poor little thing.
On a happier note....this little guy is fine, but it was surely a sad day in Squirrel Town.
I almost threaded up my treadle machine but the power came back on around 8:00ish.

baby squirrel update

Remember Baby?
This is the baby fox squirrel that showed up on our deck one day. These first 2 pictures were taken in February. She hung around a good long time and really grew. Then we didn't see her for a long time. Well, she's back and she runs right over to us if we see her and call her.
We know it's her because of how friendly she is, (of course the peanuts don't hurt our cause either) and the bright spot in the light patch on her nose that she still has. She's not quite as dark as she was when she was little. Here's a pic from yesterday morning.
We were glad to see her show up again. If you want to see more squirrel pics, I've added a Flickr link of squirrel pics to enjoy.

Outside the studio window

I promised you a visit this week from Miss Rosie and here she is... Rosie is a Mullican cockatoo and she has got to be the tamest cockatoo I have ever met. A friend brought her by one day for a visit and I tell you I didn't get much done that day. I was too busy playing with Rosie. Most people we know with large birds are always having to say things like "don't stick your finger out" or "don't let her get to close to your face" or other things that definitely make you think twice about even getting near the bird.
Well Miss Rosie LOVES to be held and in fact as you walk past her, she holds up her foot to be picked up. Then she proceeds to sit on your lap like a dog and if you stop petting her she gives your hand a nudge. She is by far the sweetest bird I have had the opportunity to meet. She hung around for the day (her wings are clipped) she sat up in the avocado tree for a while, then she was walking around on the deck some and of course she spent some time on my lap. The squirrels made themselves scarce during her visit, but I'm sure they were watching from the trees.



Speaking of squirrels.... here's the latest snapshot of "baby" the fox squirrel I posted about in early January. You can see he (or she) has grown quite a bit. I tried to get the same pose and placement as the first picture (top) but this is as close as I could get. You can tell he's grown and his coat is getting darker. His mom still comes around once in awhile and on rare occasion his smaller sibling tags along with her when she comes. They are so much fun to watch, Today we spotted a pipevine swallowtail butterfly in the garden, gosh how do I get anything done around here? Okay back to work, hmmmm where was I?

Happy New Year Squirrel

We have a new friend for the New Year, a new squirrel friend that is. This baby fox squirrel showed up with it's mom and a sibling last week. It seems as though it's mom is cutting the apron strings and is ready to take her leave of them. She has reluctantly let them nurse a few times but we can tell she's ready to be done with it. Anyway, this little one seems to like hanging around the deck, but the sibling must have found better diggs. Fox squirrels are larger than gray squirrels and are colored much differently as you can see. I have seen all black and all blond fox squirrels but the normal coloration is like this little one here.
Speaking of apron strings, I tied my apron on today to make some homemade applesauce. The apples are so good this time of year and it's just so easy to make it fresh. I usually use 3 different kinds of apples. Today I have 2 McIntosh 2 Gala and 1 Granny Smith. I peel and core them then cut into a large dice and toss them in the saucepan with a dash of lemon juice. I add 1/2 cup water, cover and cook over medium low heat. I stir every few minutes and mash them up with the spoon as they cook. At the end I add about 1/4 cup of sugar and cook about another 5 minutes. I usually buy the cinnamon flavor applesauce when I buy applesauce, but when I make it fresh I leave the cinnamon out because the apples are just so scrumptious without it.
Well tomorrow I head to the printer with two new patterns, my distributors should have them by the middle of January at the latest. I'll post the pics next year - speaking of next year... Yes, of course I have a New Years resolution. It's the same one as last year, get more organized and stop procrastinating. Oh well, what can I say.
What resolutions, if any do you have and are they also the same as last years?
Wishing all of you a Happy, Healthy and Creative New Year.

Time Lapse

Oh my goodness, has it been 2 weeks already? Don't say I didn't warn you. Well, I have been scurrying about gearing up for 20 guests that are coming for Thanksgiving day dinner along with my day to day routines of writing instructions, shipping orders and stitching designs and samples. I hope to be able to show you my new design soon, my photographer a.k.a. my dad, is working on the images and as soon as I have them you'll get a sneak peek. Anyway, I have also been tending my precious squash and ta-da we have squashes! Now remember this is Florida and these are summer squash. They are called Pattypan squash and are very similar to zucchini and yellow squash. At the rate they are going I will soon be sharing them with friends until they beg me to stop. I'm sure that any of you that garden know what I mean. Here are a few pics since the first I showed you which were taken several weeks ago. You'll notice that we had to cage in my earthbox and the reason why is standing in front of my garden. We seem to have acquired a gang of squirrels that rove our yard and they are fond of yummy things like veggies and peanuts. We have gray squirrels and we also have some very cool fox squirrels that have also joined the gang. This one has babies tucked away somewhere because she is obviously nursing. She usually shows up around mid day for a snack. So, back to the squash........ I just love the blossoms, they are so numerous some days, and quite large, about the size of my hand. They are such a beautiful glowing yellow orange, who knows, my squashes may inspire a future design. I have been told that the blossoms are also very tasty, no really. I'll have to try them soon. The bell peppers in front are getting crowded out by the squash but they are holding their own.


Time lapse......Here are my first squashes!!!
The one my husband is holding I already picked as it was getting giant, The other I will pick tomorrow and we'll eat them at Thanksgiving dinner after our game of croquet.

Granted with 20 people coming I will have to add a few other veggies in the mix, but I can't wait to taste them. Time for me to put the stitching aside for a day or two and get busy cooking.

Wishing you all a blessed Thanksgiving,
Linda