Home Sweet Home

"Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam,

Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home."

It seems we've been gone a month! China was a fabulous experience - many sights were familiar (from my trip there in 1983), but the changes were staggering! Beautiful high rise buildings, the world's largest airport (Beijing) completed in 2008 for the Olympic Games, multi-laned freeways jammed with new automobiles, stylishly dressed citizens. There were still plenty of bicycles, but mopeds and scooters were everywhere, as well as busses, taxis and commuter trains. Beijing is a huge city (17+ million), and busily tearing down the old and building the new. Here are some photos of "modern" Beijing. I'll be adding addition photos as I "weed" through them.

Arrival at the Beijing Airport after a 16 hour flight! (3 hours spent on the runway in Tianjen due to high winds).

My favorite buildings - the one on the left is the head of the dragon, and the ones behind the body.

The beautiful new Beijing airport.

Beijing Airport

Modern Buildings were everywhere

Ooops, I got this one in twice!

The Bird's Nest - built for the Olympics

They'll be more photos as I get things organized!

Almost On Our Way

We leave tomorrow morning for our trip to China. I'm not taking my laptop, so the blog will be "dark" for a week or so. Hopefully I'll have lot of photos to p ost when I return.

Random Pictures Taken on October 4th

This morning when I woke up the moon was just beginning to disappear in the west. This moon is called the Harvest Moon - the full moon that occurs closest to the autumn equinox. If you were a farmer, you could work all night harvesting your crops in the light of a harvest moon.



I've been making lots of paper beads ever since a trade I did with Fabric Art Traders. I rather like this cuff style bracelet made out of the page from an old atlas. I have several more in various stages of completion.

Synchronized napping by Casey and Sunny!

Yesterday while I was "surfing" I saw an article that listed 10 coolest small towns. Cayucos, California was among the 10. Cayucos, population 3000, is just north of Morro Bay in San Luis Obispo county right on PCH (Pacific Coast Highway, or Highway 1). It's nestled right along the ocean and has a lovely beach that stretches for several miles. Today after church, we drove into Cayucos and had lunch at the Sea Shanty. The wind was howling, and the wind surfers were having a great time. Great views, and lunch wasn't bad, either.

Outdoor Concert at Castoro

Last week we went to Castoro Cellars on the westside of Templeton to an outdoor concert. Castoro is one of the venues for SLOfolks, the San Luis Obispo Folk Music Society. We attend concerts there several times a year. This one was held outdoors, and the weather was delightful! It started at 7:00, which was just as the sun was setting. The group was "Wake the Dead", a "Celtic Grateful Dead Jam Band" from the Oakland/Berkeley area, playing celtic traditional music and the songs of the Grateful Dead...a rather interesting combination. They were indeed "grate" and we enjoyed the evening.





Claudia, Tom and Charlie enjoy the concert.

Beep, Beep

The neighborhood roadrunner showed up in our yard this afternoon. Don't know where the Wile E. Coyote was.

A Grape Day

The Paso Robles area is one of California's fastest growing wine regions. Technically, the area is known as the Paso Robles American Viticultural Appeallation and is home to more than 180 wineries. There are approximately 26,000 vineyard acres and around 40 wine varietals are grown.

Besides the large well known growers, , such as Meridian, Fetzer, Castoro, etc. there are many people who grow just enough grapes to make their own wine.

On Saturday I went out to my friends, the Rahilly's, and joined them in harvesting their 1/4 acre merlot vineyard. They live about 5 mile east of Paso Robles on 5 lovely acres in the rolling hills. Their place is called "La Cuesta Encantada", or the enchanted hill, and it is truly a lovely place. The following slide show recalls the "harvesting" of their grapes, which will show up as wine in 2011! Grab a cup of coffee or tea (or a glass of wine) and sit back and enjoy!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Some New Trades

The following are for different trades. "There are no ordinary cats" is for a fiber page trade with postcardpizzazz. The cat portrait is a copy of a painting my daughter did of my mom's cat, Sissy. The portrait and quote are placed on a log cabin square turned on point. All the fabric strips are "recycled" from my scrap box.

The spider is one of 3 fabric postcards made for a trade on postcard pizzazz. I loved the batik spider-web background fabric and knew I just had to create a spider! His body and legs are cut from stiff felt and there's a little bit of black fuzzy yarn on top of his head.

The 3 bracelets below are made from handrolled paper beads for a trade with Fiber Art Traders. Those beads are pretty addictive to make. I ended up with a lot more than I needed and made some bracelets for myself, as well. The matching earrings are an added surprise to the recipients.

And lastly, a "mini" quilt made for a trade on postcard pizzazz. I used strips of left-over scraps to create a type of log-cabin design. I tried not to duplicate any of the fabrics. While I liked the effect a lot, I thought it needed a little something, so I appliqued the butterfly to the quilt. It doesn't show up, but there is a bit of beading on the butterfly, thanks to my in-house beader (AKA mom).

Exclusive Golf Tournament

Our women's golf club is fortunate to have over a dozen active members in their 80's. Today they had their own special tournament "The 80's Ladies".

They are all great golfers, and give us inspiration every time we get to play a round of golf with them!

Birdie CPR or It's A Jungle Out There!

What happens when this

is looking for breakfast, and spies these plump quail?

The hawk swooped down on a covey of quail yesterday morning, causing great alarm amongst the quail. They took off in all directions. Unfortunately, one of them flew into our window. We thought he was a goner, but this time luck was on his side. We stood guard (in case the hawk came back, or our cat decided to investigate) as he slowly revived, shakily stood up, and staggered off. Hope he looks where he's going before taking off next time!

Here's the lucky fellow! A happy ending, this time. (Unless, of course, you were cheering for the hawk!)

I got the first two photos from the Spanish Lakes website - http://www.spanishlakes.org/

they were taken by my neighbors, the Munks. I took the last photo. Check out the photo section of the Spanish Lakes site - lots of neat photos of the flora and fauna of our little section of the world.

Lavender

I love lavender. We have a very large lavender plant in our yard, which I "harvest" every year for the lavender "heads" to put in sachets. Today was harvesting day - I was about finished, when this little fellow popped out of a bunch of lavender that I had trimmed from the plant and was about to stuff into a bag. A preying mantis! I managed to get him back on the plant - hope he survives.





Almost finished trimming the lavender.



The preying mantis who lives in my lavender plant.

I Love Netflix

Thanks to Netflix, we re-watched a lovely movie last night - "Chocolat" - try it, I think you'll like it! Click on the link below for a preview.

http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi3387425049/

Rocking and Rolling

Just had an earthquake - 5 miles west of Templeton - 4.0. Big enough to shake the house briefly.

Fire Season in California

As you probably know, there are many wildfires burning throughout California,destroying forests, homes and wildlife. A friend sent me a link to some stunning photos of the huge fire east of LA. Take a minute to check out these awesome photos.

www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/09/wildfires_in_southern_californ.html

Make a Smilebox postcard

"When I admire the wonder of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in worship of the Creator". Mahatma Gandhi

The moon is officially full tonight! This is the Full Corn Moon (or fruit moon) - next month will be the Full Harvest Moon. (The harvest moon is defined as the full moon closest to the fall equinox).

From the Archives

I'm going through old photos to post on my Class of 60 Reunion blog. Here's a photo of my 6th grade class in Webster Elementary School way back in 1954. I'm in the front row of girls (3rd from the right) in front of our brand new school building. The old building was torn down during our 5th grade year (we had to go to another school during that time) and rebuilt, using the bottom floor as part of the new building. I remember the old building best - we used to go down to the basement during lunch time and play jacks on the smooth, cool cement floor. I don't believe the new building had a basement. When the city consolidated the 6 small elementary schools into one large newer building, the "new" Webster was used for preschool classes. I don't think it's used for anything anymore.