A New Dog Around Here

My dad decided he would like a dog.  He is ready for a small companion.  We headed to the local Humane Society since we knew they were full right now with animals.    A small dog and an older dog was what he thought would work for him.  My dad is elder and slower, so he didn't want a dog to overpower him.  We headed to the small dog area and we found at least five  to six possibilities, however by the time we inquired about all them they had been adopted or were no longer up for adoption.  We decided to walk through the whole building and man there were so many medium to large dogs, so many german shephard and pit mixes.  It was a very hot day and the shelter and it's volunteers worked so hard keeping the shelter cool and clean.  The place was busy and dogs were getting adopted.

We left feeling defeated.  On the drive home I checked on Craigslist and low and behold I saw a post for a dog and it needed a new home at no fee.  He was house trained, doggie door trained, leash trained and kennel trained.  He was four to five years of age and around 20 pounds.  Almost to good to be true.  I contacted the owner and no one responded yet and asked if we would like to meet his dog.  We met up the next morning and the gentleman, who was a senior and told us he lost his wife six months ago and thought a pet would help.  However, he is now dealing with some serious health issues and fearful he would not be able to care for his dog, CABO.    Cabo was friendly and easily approached my dad.  We were happy to have him and reassured him Cabo is in good hands and wish the man the best.

This is Cabo, he's so good and has warmed up to my Dad so well.  We may rename him in that he was also a shelter rescue and not much is known about him.  The gentleman had him for 2 months.  As of now he doesn't recall to Cabo very well,  a name change seems possible.

 

Father's Day

Me and my dad, he's 89 yr old.  There's so much he has taught me.  He's visiting which I can't put into words what it means to have him around.  Love this man.

 

Baby Boy Shower Gift for the New Daddy!

Got invited to a baby shower.  I'm not one for baby showers but when I do go I always make some kind of gift.   I've known the baby boy's dad to be over 20 years which I decided to make him a daddy tool belt.  I've been making them for some time.  It's always fun.

The new baby's theme was rockets.  I found some rocket clipart to transfer on the tool belt and luckily found a few rocket items, like star whatever that is, and a rocket chewie.  Blue is the color of as many items I could find, bottle, duckie, gloves, diaper pins,  pacifiers, it was fun to put together.  Finished it off by wrapping in clear wrap.  I think he'll have fun opening it up.  Found out, the favorite name so far for baby is Javi, love it.  Momma looked sweet and the shower was so nice, I won a gift!  A scented candle.

 

Spring flower bush scent - Lilac

If you know, you know that scent. I don't live near not one lilac bush, but I want to. So the next closest thing is I bought a Lilac scented Yankee candle. I shared my love of lilacs with my mom. Lilac bushes line the back fence of her yard....this photo is proof!

Murals

I have never painted anything on this large of scale, but boy are these artist amazing.  First one was painted by my friend  Emily, she is so talented.  After we stopped at her mural we stopped in her studio/shop Mucho Mas in downtown Phoenix.  The kids and my sister got to meet her.  She was so generous with her time and has the best loving energy.

This is a mural painted by my friend Emily Costello (Instagram @emcostelloart) in Phoenix.  

Another large wall mural painted by Emily Costello, Mucho Mas Studio Phoenix.

Mural of Chef Silvana Salcio Esparza by Lucretia Torva.   @torvasm
 I love the strength this mural represents and the "Si, Se Puede" tattoo!  Chef Silvana is one of my favorite people.  I don't know her personally but I have met her,  I donated masks to her cause she was feeding so many people during the covid shutdown.  

My sister showing her angel wings.  Grant, Nebraska   @popperposies

A storage shed in Winslow, Arizona.

 

Monday thoughts

Hello 2019,

Let's see where do I start.  December was a busy month.  I had a open house the first weekend of December.  It went well and I had fun putting it all together.  Lots of work but well worth the time.  The night of the show I was putting things away and moving patio furniture.  I made the mistake of not using my legs to lift a couch and pulled my back out!  A trip to urgent care with the rest of the week resting.  I have never had a back problem other than some minor soreness that a good nights sleep heals me right up.  Not this time.   But, once it healed it was amazing how the pain just goes away.   Then it was time for  the holidays!  Christmas was quite around my house.  Traditional tamale making on Christmas Eve.  New Year's was fun, we had a visit from a college friend.  On January  3rd we headed out to sight see and have breakfast.  It had been cold overnight in the Phoenix area and we had some freezing.  As I walked from the parking lot to the restaurant I stepped on some ice and fell right on my back!   Wow!  I'll tell ya, that hurt a lot!  I could hardly move.  We had breakfast but to be honest I could hardly concentrate on eating because my back was killing me.  My friend noticed a used bookstore he wanted to go into, so I stayed in the car and turned on my seat warmer!  Yep, my car has seat warmers!   I decided to video call my sister to cry on her shoulder....she answers and before I can say a word she tells me she is in the ER with my mom and that it was very serious.  OMG!  She wasn't able to talk and I then sat in my car stunned.  As the day went on my back got worse and back to a muscle relaxers, heat and ice and to bed.  I later found out my mom suffered a heart attack and needed surgery.  Fast forward a week...I'm heading to Nebraska to help with my mom.  The weird thing was the 18 hour drive in a car saved my back pain.  I was completely pain free by the time I got to Nebraska.  I think I needed to sit and do nothing in order for my back to heal.  I stayed in Nebraska for over three weeks and have just returned to warmer Arizona.  Yep, the deep freeze weather hit my hometown.  I haven't been in that kind of freezing ice cold weather in a long long time.  Good thing I had seat warmers in my car, lol.  While in Nebraska there a lot of time spent on rearranging, reorganizing, educating ourselves on my mom's needs.  My mom's recovery was amazing. She is a fighter and boy did she show us what determination was.  It was nice seeing her do so well and leaving her was not as bad as I thought it would be.  She is in good hands with my family.  I was reminded ... rest is important, self care is important, saying NO is good, prayer is powerful, family is important, having fun and smiling heals, love, love and more love is good.  Here's to 2019!

Me and my Mom, Kay

2017 Summer Road Trip - Travel log entry #1

I've been on a long road trip and did so many fun things, saw really cool things and visited with great friends.

One of the best things we did was stop at antique shops all along the way.  Here's a collections of photos from the antique stops.  We found some treasures and saw some very unique and interesting things.  I was able to add to my vintage camera collection, found the coolest butcher paper cutter, found some vintage ledgers, and a few Blue Boy and Pinkie prints.  This was so much fun and I love antiquing with my sister!

My sister, Melinda and the first Blue Boy!

Grand Island, Nebraska

Grand Island, Nebraska is where we began our quest to find more Blue Boys!

Another thing we both collect are cameras

Blue Boy and Pinkie! (out of our budget)

Roanoke, Virginia (closed when we got there)

Elkhart, Indiana

Elkhart, Indiana.  This was the coolest building.  It was a auto factory. 

Elkhart, Indiana  The first and original Elcar was built.

Near the Michigan Raceway, near Brooklyn, Michigan

Memphis, Tennessee

Somerset, Pennsylvania

Ohio I think?

Hamburg, Iowa

Des Moines, Iowa

Wherever there's a Blue Boy Pinkie is not far away.

Stuff and so much stuff

The Queens

Over priced, again!

Denver, Colorado

Affordable and so cute

The cameras that got to come home with us!

Dream catcher

Finished Amelia's dream catcher!  I have enough supplies to make three more!

Valentine's Day Treats!

It all started with my sister asking for cookies.  I decided to honor her request and send her some heart shaped sugar cookies.  Then one thing lead to one thing and then another and another....which ended up with me sending out 8 pink boxes filled with Valentine treats.

I chose to use a small heart shape cookie cutter and make tons of mini red heart cookies!

Next I assembled some bags with kisses.  Here's what I used to decorate the bags.

They came out so cute, don't you think?

Next on to another treat bag.....used my Royal typewriter to type out my "Happy Valentine's Day" strips.  By the way, I love love love my typewriter.  

 Next cut strips out of treat bags.

The bags are cookie sleeves and perfect packaging for the red jelly hearts!

On to the sewing machine!   

So cute, so cute!  

On to decorate and address the pink boxes... I used red paint and white pens to make hearts all over the boxes.

This is the inside of the boxes.I had some lollypops and heart shaped ballons to randomly throw in the boxes.

I added a hand painted heart note to wish my great nieces/nephews a Happy Valentine's Day!

Added some red paper stuffing to fill the box and it's ready to close and seal.

I put the heart shaped cookies in the red heart treat bags and tied a red paper heart.

I had so much fun making these boxes.  Stay tuned for photos of the kids getting their box.