Three Beautiful things, courtesy of The Shepherd/Landscaper

  

Some pretty pictures of our church.

As part of his service to the church, The Shepherd, who is a professional landscaper, does our gardening.

A previous member made the trellis.

My girlfriend did the stained glass work.

Pretty, huh?  

The front & side of the building.  The roses are especially beautiful this year. 

And a quiet place for people to meditate.

The wooden pillar behind the bench is called a kopjafa. It is a memorial pole and was made for us by our partner church in Transylvania.  It is a treasure.







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Man Cat Monday

Just layin' around.

Sunday's Sweet

"Top Hat" Blueberry

This loaded little blueberry plant is from The Shepherd's bonsai collection.  The beautiful little Japanese clay pot it was in broke last winter, but it seems to be doing OK in the plastic pot it's living in now. 

For some real Sunday Sweets visit my new favorite blog site Cake Wrecks.  My friend Trish at The Katnip Lounge talks about being addicted to Bejeweled 2.  - Cake Wrecks is nearly as addictive - I can sit for hours clicking on the links and being amazed and amused by this web site. 

Have a Happy Sunday! 


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A Momentous Occasion

 It's not often you come to work and see your name on the reader board -

For all to see -

"Congrats Tina 

on 20 years

with SSNW"

It's not often anymore that someone actually works for the same company for 20 years!

But I work for a good company -

We have one employee who just hit 40 (yes FORTY) years working for this company.


Many of the employees who work here weren't even born when Dean started to work for Jim. Where were YOU in 1973?  The next guy down has worked there for 28 years - me at 20 -Three guys coming up behind me at 18, 17 &; 16 years - and I think, there are 5 between 10 &; 15 years.

Like I said, it's a good place to work.  

 When you've been there for 20 years, you get a pretty bouquet of flowers - (actually, I got flowers at 10 years too...)

(Don't look at my messy desk) 








 








And you get balloons (which went home with a co-worker for his little girls)















 And a pretty basket of African Violets from an old co-worker -

 

 And you get to throw a pizza party for your co-workers - (the boss bought the pizza)  - 6 of these 12 inch pizza's disappeared like "poof" - and there was a big Caesar Salad and three dozen cheesey balls to boot - Whoosh - watch out for the stampede!   Not a bite left! 


 




And there was cake too - Thanks to my co-workers Nina for picking out the cake and the flowers and Drew for playing Susie homemaker and cleaning up before we left, so I didn't have to.

All in all, it was a Momentous Occasion!

The next party?   - I'm thinking 5 or 6 years - will be the retirement party.  Whoopee! 



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Come into my secret garden -

three Beautiful Things

I love this fern.  It welcomes me home every evening.  Thank you fern.  

Oli Scarff / Getty Images

This Japanese Anemone has survived with little care in my garden - it just comes up year after year - it is very reliable.  










Well, the Kate-Wait is over - Will drove mommy and baby boy home in the Range Rover - 14 hours in labor and she's still pretty as a picture.

At Christmas time we sing a song at church - "Each night a child is born is a holy night."   I wish all good things to this new little family.  They seem like sensible kids - Kind of makes you want to send them a "Congratulations on your new baby" card, doesn't it? 

Do you suppose he'll get to call the Queen "Grammy" - or -- Prince Phillip - "Paw-paw"? 


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Tour de fleece remnants

 Tour de Fleece is over for 2013 - I have this bobbin of fingerling weight singles of CVM/Shetland blend - a birthday gift from our friend Yvonne   It's funny, when you just look at the bobbin, even in the light, you don't see the red or green hues, but they are very apparent in the photo.

This was some roving left over from my year's worth of Roving of the Month club.  I'm calling it "Lemon/Lime Sorbet"  

I think it will make a cute hat or some mittens.  It will go to the Farmer's Market with Donna & Tom  -  I need to get cracking and get it washed though, or the market will be done for the year! 

I have one more skein that I'm working on - pinkish lavender & lite blue with firestar (make's it sparkely)  I'll take pictures when It is done. 

I liked sitting down and spinning for a little while every evening, although I didn't get much else done.  So, I'm thinking Tues, Thurs & Saturdays - the biggest things is to be consistent, I think and build the habit.  We'll see, I guess.



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SUNNY SUNDAY SUNFLOWERS

  My little row of sunflowers that The Shepherd planted for me. 

and two itty bitty cherry tomatoes on the vine!  .


Hope you're having a great Sunday! 

The Caturday Report

 Hello effurry body and effurry kitty! Gracie here with this week's Caturday report!   Mummy says it has been San Diego weather here this week, what ever that means - (Lovely & warm - only rained once)    
                                                 



 It was pretty busy at Mummy's Salt Mine - she said Friday was just a heck of a day. That sounds nice, don't you think?

(Actually people were acting like it was a full moon!)

So, today, I led Mummy on a wild goose chase around the farm so she would get out and have some exercise. 

She was being tempted by her string machine, but I convinced her that she needed to get out and smell the flowers. 





Like this pretty day lily that was a gift from a friend for her birthday last year.  Purple with a green inside - Quite splashy, don't you think...











So we walked a bit then she would find a chair and rest a bit.  Sheesh -

Well, it was warm and it was nice to find shady places to have a little time out. . 

The woolly boys were being shy and wouldn't come out of their little barn - but they finally got curious as to what Mummy was doing and came out to see. 

Elliott, the new guy (in front) seems to be getting along very well with his new BFF Frosty, and they were very polite and stayed back when The Shepherd went into their pen yesterday to do some maintenance (He was taking down the electric wire - they don't seem to be banging on things like the other woolly boys did and he was afraid that they would get it wrapped around themselves and get hurt - so he took it out.  We'll see how long that lasts....

We'd like you all to take a minute and send healing purrs and thoughts to Shadow, a kitty who lives with our friend Trish's parents in Tucson Ari-zona,  Shadow, a pretty little grey girl cat, had a very bad reaction to a "combo vaccine" and has been very very sick.  Georgie and I both got the sickies from our vaccines, so we feel very bad for Shadow and want her to get better soon. 

It must be kind of a common thing, because Mummy said the company that makes the shot medicine is picking up all of Shadow's V.E.T. bills - so they know that their stuff could make us kittehs sickie.  Hrumph - you'd think they'd work on that, or something. 

Anyhow, Shadow, like I said, we hope you gets better really soon!

This bell was rung during Mummy & The Shepherd's wedding to celebrate!  Now it lives in the front garden. 

The Shepherd has some very pretty flowers in his garden, don't ya think? 

Oh look Mummy, I'm maskerading as a pussy willow - ha ha ha ha.....















One of the reasons it was so busy at Mummy's Salt Mine is that a lot of people have been taking days off.  A couple of them have been sick with colds and Mummy is afraid she might have caught one of them.  She has been coughing a lot - but she slept a lot today trying to "head things off at the pass" - or so she said - she might have just been bein' lazy...

There was a bunch of little white butterflies flittering around the lavender - I tried catching one, but couldn't reach it because it flew up.  So I'm watching to see ifn another one comes along so I can catch it. 

That's about all there is for now.  Mummy is trying to decide if she can get 9 more posts in the next week so she can get to her 900th post by next Sunday.   Purrsonally, given her posting history, I think it's a pipe dream, myself - but who knows...

Until the next time - HAPPY TAILS effurry one! 

Love, your roving reporter, Gracie







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Not really my colors, but...

 Only a couple more days left of Tour de Fleece - I've spun during Mariner Games, the Home Run Derby, The All Star Game, some golf, M*A*S*H, Antiques Road Show, and the Calgary Stampede but not Tour de France - which The Shepherd noted tonight that he wished it was over -

Oh, why? I asked - to which he mumbled something like it was a waste of time...

 Like any of the above shows weren't really? 

Anyhow, this was some Blue Faced Leicester wool that was in a raffle basket that I won.  Not really my colors (at all) - but it did ply up to an intriguing yarn. 

Maybe someday I'll feel comfortable enough with my Navajo plying skills to try it out so the colors stay together, but,  I've never wanted to "waste all that yarn" by practicing, when regular plying does make an interesting yarn.  

Oh, and when I got to the end of the singles on the top bobbin? This one foot long slip is all there was left on the second one.

That I was really pleased with. 

When art imitates life...

Fancy that...

Tour de Fleece

I have never participated in Tour de Fleece - a stash busting event by spinners over the same time period as the Tour de France (in fact the Tour de France people got so worried about their image that I heard they actually sent a nastygram to the Ravelry people saying cease and desist - like who isn't going to be able to tell the difference???)

Anyhow, I took stock of my "stash" before we headed to Eugene & Black Sheep Gathering last month.  No new stuff for me - I have MUCHO MUCHO stash - probably not as much as some - bur probably more than many - 6 or 7 large plastic tubs?

I didn't join any teams or anything but my Tour de Fleece goals for myself are:

#1 - spin at least one ounce of fiber a day - I have found that 2 ounces on each bobbin plies up to a FULL bobbin but I can generally fit it all on and then I have a 4 oz. skein with no breaks.

#2 - Keep a log of what I spin, how much the fiber cost, and how many yards I spun.

#3 - Spin nice enough yarn that our friends Donna & Tom will be comfortable offering it in their farm stand at the Bow Farmer's Market.-

So far I have three 4 ounce skeins - the third one is yellow & lime green - I'm calling it "Lemon/Lime Sorbet" - it's really pretty.

Well, It's late and I've got today's ounce yet to spin!  I'd better get busy!!   

A Heartfelt Gift

I have been doing the monthly newsletter for my spinner guild, The Spindrifters for about four years now -

I enjoy doing it - you get to meet all the new people, and keep in touch with old friends.  And, you are always "in the know" -

So, I was surprised when I got an email from our guild president saying that she was sorry I had missed Dye Day because the guild members had made a present for me. 


Since she and her husband are landscaping customers of The Shepherd, she would send it home for me the next time he came over there to work.  So last Monday after dinner, he handed me this pretty bag.

Inside it was THIS -

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The only place I could find to lay it out to take a picture was on our front deck - and then I still couldn't get a very good picture of the whole thing, so I've broken it down into bits. 

Bits of hand spun, woven, crocheted and knitted love and affection. 

And it came with a little envelope of the notes and cards that came with the squares before they were put together into my beautiful blanket. 

All the colors of the rainbow . . .

Thanks to everyone who had a hand in making it. 

I will treasure it.