Stayin'-in-town weather

It's just another boring forecast for SoCal from the Weather Channel. Things are never quite this boring in Connecticut, which is where Mr. Gadget and I will be headed on Sunday. At least there should be no delays gettin' outta town.

This morning, as I approached my computer table, I noticed a congregation of ants milling around and intruding upon that particular pile of interest. I don't know where they came from. There was no visible trail of ants. But I'm pretty sure I know why they were there. I'd very recklessly forgotten to discard an empty granola bar wrapper. I must be more careful.

So, for a long time I've been threatening to design a new doll and now I'm finally getting around to it.

For those of you who are interested in the sewing particulars, I drew a pattern on newspaper, then traced around it on a double thickness of muslin. I stitched around the whole thing, leaving an opening for turning. But before I turned it right side out, I stitched across the bottom corners to make a "paper bag" bottom. Then I filled the bottom with enough rice to give it a nice weighted base, and stuffed the rest of the piece with fiberfill.

I painted the front of the head with gesso in preparation for applying clay. This will be a clay-faced doll.

This afternoon I had some time (while the ants were on a coffee break) to apply some clay. If you're thinking witch, you are correct. Witching season is fast approaching. I like making witch faces because witches are not beautiful people. I can pretty much apply the facial features any old place and it's OK. I still have more clay work to do, but for now I'll let her dry so she can ride in my suitcase.

I heard a cute story yesterday. Last winter while I was in town I met one of my high school friends at a coffee shop. As I waited on the sidewalk for her to park, I noticed some commotion and realized that, sadly, she'd had a small fender bender with another woman who was also trying to park.

They did what most women do--they wrote down the pertinent information so that later their husbands could deal with the insurance companies. Oh please. Of course I'm just joking....

But here is the cute part of the story. The ladies began to email each other and soon they became friends. Earlier this week, one drove to pick up the other--so as to make sure there would be no further fender benders--and they went out to lunch.

I love happy endings. So sad about the ants.

A story for the season

Today Mr. Gadget and I drove over to the new digs to check out the construction progress. It was exciting to see the sheetrock up and the rooms taking shape. But before I share a few pictures with you, let me take you back to a time early last year when I joined a few girlfriends on a fun little weekend road trip to Plymouth, Massachusetts. We had all signed up for some spooky evening entertainment.

It was during our trek through the town's old cemetery and the haunted museum that we learned about orbs--balls of light that some would have you believe are the spirits of departed ones.
Here's a real bright orb just under the window. Now, I'm not saying I believe this or anything. I'm just relaying information from the ghost-tour lady and the images my camera recorded that evening. Can you see the one up at the top of the attic window?

So now, back to the present. The sheetrock.

Here's looking toward the dining area and the back deck.

Here's my new treehouse. Nice big windows. Lots of trees.

The new kitchen. The new gourmet kitchen. Can you tell?

And here's Mr. Gadget's office. Yep. Orbs. He thinks he's gonna be alone in there...heh...heh...

Gardening season

I remember my growing-up years in southern California and how exciting it was each Christmas season to sponge a certain window-cleaning product on our windows in an effort to duplicate this icy look. Here on the east coast, Mother Nature does the decorating. Mighty convenient.

So my trip down to the big city to visit BCG was fun, and the highlight was our 67-story non-stop elevator ride up to the Top of the Rock.

While there's no end of noise on the sidewalks of New York,

from this vantage point, the city whispers. This is a view of Central Park.St Patrick's Cathedral is in the lower center of the picture. If only I were taller.

Here's the Empire State Building. It was a mostly overcast day, but you can see a few rays of sun shining down on it.

We had a lovely lunch, after which we shared a piece of pumpkin cheesecake.

So I was indeed fortunate to have a loss at Weight Watchers this morning. I'm back tending my little container garden again.

What I've learned over the many years of dieting stops and starts is that it's really just a matter of staying on the main road with a destination in mind. There will always be bumps, detours, and the occasional road construction. But if you have a road map and you don't veer off the interstate too far, you'll get there eventually. Meanwhile, find some fun and interesting things to do so you won't fret over how the trip you expected to make in 3 months is ending up taking a year. Just a little flower-pot wisdom for ya......

Groovin'

I haven't figured out what he's listening to. I asked Tech Guy what he thought and he said it must be Yellow Submarine. I harvested this big and portly guy off the tree behind the condo. Usually our visits are slightly off-season for taking advantage of the fruit growing in the yard. I'm sure these figs.....one of Dear Ol' Dad's favorites.....will be just about perfect soon after we leave.

And speaking of DOD, I'm now in the process of planning a memorial celebration to be held in the early fall. While trying to come up with ideas, I remembered a collection of old 78 records he had stashed in the back closet, and thought it might be fun to select a few for playing on that day. Mr. G., who must have some psychic abilities although he would never fess up to it, recently purchased a new gadget that transfers records to CD's. How convenient.

While I was rummaging through the old records, I found this.

It's a children's book that belonged to my mother. It was published in 1918. Look what's inside:

Little records to go along with the story. I had no idea there were records back in that day, but Mr. G. says there were. Just for kicks I checked on eBay to see if anyone was selling one of these books, and I found one with a starting bid of $54.00. I would never think of parting with it though.

Further rummaging produced this:

My folks apparently made a record of me speaking nonsense when I was about 2-1/2. There are a few people in my life now who I'm sure, on occasion, don't think I've progressed very far......