A Blog Post About Nothing in Particular. A Bit Like Seinfeld. (I'll be Kramer, you can be George.)

In lieu of a blog post about something specific, here's a random catch-all of what's been going on here lately.

Artist demos at work

Pasta-making in the kitchen

Visit to the Nixon Presidential Library

The most amazing kind of ugly but mostly awesome shirt I've ever seen - gold sparkly material with not one but TWO sequined elephants wearing party hats. Didn't fit me. Sigh.

Artwork drop-off time at the OC Fair

Beautiful 4th of July flowers from a client at work, complete with sparkly thistles that looked like fireworks. Not pictured are the patriotic cookies and chilled lemonade she also brought!

James looking fabulously patriotic at a friend's block party

New jewelry I've been working on

My July reading has gotten out of control because I somehow managed to finish 4 books in the first 10 days of the month. There's a little voice in my head saying "Whoa, back off, Tiger. Save some for the rest of us..."

So, how's summer treating you so far?

And I Came Home with 11 Bug Bites



My parents, James, and me

 My grandmother lives in Pennsylvania, in what I would call the middle of the woods. Those of you who live on the east coast would probably laugh at me, but whatevs. James, my parents, and I drove from Grand Island to Grandma's house and spent the rest of our vacation just relaxing. It was super hot and we sat around reading and visiting and drinking wine and eating. And, of course, I took pictures.



See? Woods.



Grandma's Garage. She didn't know what to make of some of the things I photographed.



More Woods

 We were there over the 4th of July, which hasn't happened in probably 20 years. The last time I was there for the 4th, I don't think my age was in double didgets yet. We bought a ton of sparklers then, and didn't use them all up. And Grandma kept them. And we dug them out this year and discovered that they're as good as new! So for this southern California girl who lives in an area where fireworks of any kind are illegal, I was THRILLED to be able to play with sparklers again! And, of course, I took pictures.



I snuck across the street to photograph the neighbor's display



James and I played with the camera and flashlights as the sun was going down.

 

Sparklers

So now we know. 20 year old sparkers work if you store them in plastic bags. Sweet!

I wish I'd been able to photograph the woods with all of the fireflies flitting here and there. I also wish we had fireflies here in southern California. Boo.

Sadly, all visits come to an end. It was wonderful to see family again - being on a different side of the country is hard, as I'm sure James knows as well. (He's in a whole other country, after all.) But we have to take the times we have with our families and appreciate them as something special. And you have to laugh together, even if it's at highly inappropriate jokes that your uncle and 15 year old cousin are telling you. Or at the cover art for your grandmother's current reading material:

It's a real Bible. It just has a motorcycle on the cover.

Me' n' Biker-Grandma