Sunflowers

7-7-10 vacation brain
I have some volunteer sunflowers in the Des Moines yard this summer. Not hard to do, since I was feeding the squirrels regularly this winter with piles of sunflower seeds.

I was amazed at the blooming process: these pictures just span 4 days last week!




OK.... I am on vacation..... and vacation time away from the computer begins NOW! Give me a few days and I'll be back.

Dead trees

7-6-10 sad brain
I have not seen it yet in person, but our KC house had some needed tree work done the first part of July.

I love trees, but boy... they can get to be expensive when you have to have them removed.... of course this opens up new possibilities for replace and new landscaping ideas!

Before

After


I will miss that old rotting apple tree by the front door. We did eat some of the apples last year.

More time with "art"

7-5-10 creative brain
I feel lucky to have had some time to spend on creating some new art over the last few weeks... well I have MADE the time.

Currently working on a project for neighbor friend Sue. She wanted something to match her new living room rug. I'm still having fun playing around with pixel pieces of paper. Here is my laid out work, not glued down yet.

Happy 4th of July

When my niece Sarah was in middle school she had to write an essay on her favorite holiday. She wrote about 4th of July in Iowa because of the fun family time together without the hassle of buying presents. This surprised me a bit, since Sarah loves getting presents.... but she is correct we do have a great 4th of July tradition going in my family for several decades now: Picnic, parade, 4th of July dinner, fireworks, canoeing, board game playing, swimming... just to name a few things we usually do together. ALSO we honor Dad for his Marine service in WWII. Every once in awhile hear some of Dad's gruesome war stories.... we feel blessed that he was not killed.



Proud to be a "peace-loving" American!

4th of July Weekend

7-3-10 humidity brain
4th of July weekend is usually very hot in Iowa, however I do remember one time back in the mid 1990's when it turned very cool, and we were not prepared to be wearing sweatsuits, jackets and bluejeans.... instead of shorts and sleeveless shirts.

After enjoying several days of temps in the 70's and low 80's.... and glad not to run the A/C..... This weekend is predicted to be hot again... so to remind myself NOT to complaint about this, I am posting these pictures from 6 months ago.
Compare and contrast!



Our front tree is missing of course... now the light pole is visible. I think I need a new smaller ornamental tree to hide that from the front door view.

Backyard....



Which would you choose?

Childhood SAFE part II

7-2-10 reflective brain
Another "priceless treasure" in my childhood safe, which actually might be worth something to someone…. Is a blue piece of paper in which I had collected autographs in 1970. This was the first real concert I got to attend. I was in 8th grade I believe.... and I rode along with friend, Becky, and her older sisters over to Mason City on the campus of the community college. There we saw Jim Croce as opening act (he was new and just had his first hit record)…. And the main act was The Carpenters.



Afterwards, we hung around and I think I got every band member to sign, but I think I was missing maybe one. But you can see I did get Karen Carpenter's autograph on one side and her brother, Richard's on the other side.



I still love Karen Carpenter's voice, probably as my favorite voice of all time. Since I am trying to be in a cleaning-out mood, I'll take offers for this piece of music history!

PS: now you can see what I will be dealing with, when I really get into my basement cleaning project :(

Childhood SAFE revisited

7-1-10 summertime brain
I’m off work next week … taking a “stay-cation” this year, with part of that time spent in my hometown celebrating the 4th of July, which is always a family and high school friends type of reunion. … And part of time cleaning my basement….. AND I will be taking a blog vacation too, so before I go, I want to tie up some loose blog ends…..

So back about two weeks ago I wrote about my childhood safe and I’ve been meaning to show you what I have discovered inside this safe…. There was that priceless picture of me and my Dad…. But mostly silly old things from my childhood.



My sister might be able to recognize a few things we use to play with here.



This here was interesting to me.... I had written a few diary pages of when I was first asked out by a guy I liked BRUCE! (March 23, 1972).... and of course more of my blond hair had been saved.



Continued tomorrow….