Hyper over my “Tufa”

Hypertufa is a technique for making lightweight stone-look-alike pots out of common ingredients available in gardening and home or hardware centers.  The most common recipe for the mixture is 3 parts peat moss, 3 parts perlite, 2 parts Portland cement and water mixed to the consistancy of moist cottage cheese.   Larger containers require reinforcement using [...]

Befuddled and Not Bemused

Not sure at all how to take this bumper sticker.  Quote:  “Everything I know I learned in prison.” Unquote. Even after having thought about possible angles for 24 hours now, I still don’t get what the guy is “driving” at.  Taking the message at face value is a little scary, definitely aggressive and certainly perplexing.  The overall impression I have always had is [...]

Mystery Moth

Walking through the yard the other day, I found this moth (dead, unfortunately).  At least, I think its a moth.  Looking through the insect book did not produce a match.  It is truly beautiful.   The small ovals run down over the head, looking like two eyes.  Very unusual.  
Research is in my future because I have never seen anything [...]

Sales(wo)manship

Just about one month ago, wistful notions of once again driving my now departed Saab convertible rushed through my veins.  It was a beautiful spring day and other Saab nuts were out tooling around having fun–making me incredibly jealous and lonely for just one drive.
Fortunately, sanity returned in short order, but the real end of the story has to include how I [...]

Note to Self

Organizing the closets feels really good when it’s all done.  Clean, fresh, neat–what else could possibly be done to tweak such a satisfying experience?  Well, going forward, all closet and organizing projects are going to include a shorthand list of where the things that used to be on that shelf have been moved to.  (My high [...]

Then and Now

     Then
     Now
*Then* there was more energy to burn.  Still love the sheep sweater and am eternally grateful that perserverance is prominent in my gene pool.  Compliments always accompany the annual winter wearings of what has become known in my family as the “Princess Diana” or more simply “the Sheep Sweater”. 
L-o-o-o-o-ng time ago, the former McCall’s Magazine used to feature a famous woman [...]

Belated Happy Ground Hog’s Day to You!

My daughter was born on Ground Hog’s Day.  Several years ago she experienced what I call her “Great Adventure.”  Right after graduating from college she moved to California.  When her birthday came, I felt she needed a bit of home-grown nostalgia to cheer her on for her special day.  I also wanted to tell her that I [...]

Newby Begins Experiment

The past few years have brought a lot of new technology into my life.  Born just a tad too early to have grown up absorbing computers, digital cameras, flash drives, PSP’s, up/downloading etc. as just another part of the day, I have had to learn it all the hard way–on my own.
That sense of accomplishment is, however, [...]