Trip to Florida

We flew to Orlando for a wedding.  Never been anywhere in Florida.  Orlando is amusement park heaven.  Disney, every Disney, Seaworld, Epcot, and a million others I'm sure.  We weren't there for the parks but boy were there tons of amusement park tourist all over Orlando!  The weather was rainly most of the week.  However, we had a nice day and took a drive to Canaveral National Seashore Park.  It was so windy which kept away people I guess.  There was no one there but us.  It was pretty, can't ever get tired of seeing the ocean and that beautiful blue water.

 On our way back to drove through New Smyrna Beach looking for a place to sit and eat.  We googled pizza and that lead us to Prima Pizza @ 112 Sams Ave, New Smyrna Beach, FL 32168.  It was a small place and it was full and an hour wait.  We ordered to go, then went for a walk in the area.  I'll tell you the wait was well worth it.  Met a few locals and they raved about it.  The pizza was fresh & delicious .  Garlic rolls, amazing!   So much butter and garlic.  If you ever find yourself exploring outside of Orlando,  go there and eat.

Balance

 A year ago, Lake Louise, Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada.  Yeah, it's that beautiful.  

Calm the mind

Welcome to 2018!

Saying goodbye to 2017 is hard since it brought so much to my life.

January began in Lucca, Italy!  Visited Rome and Pisa, too.  The Woman's March, which gave me hope.

February we learned Maximus had cancer and needed surgery.  It also sent us to Nebraska for the farm sale!  On the way to Nebraska with my friend, Alice we got my grand niece Anaya to travel with us.  Also got to  my first Nebraska men's basketball game!

March got back from Nebraska with a UHaul full of treasures.  Tom celebrated 30 years on his job. Traveled to Las Vegas with a good friend.

April, Gabi turned 21, wow.  Spend all my time planning my next trips.

May was the longest road trip, 7000 miles!  Started out with Jason, my brother from Arizona to Nebraska...my sister, Melinda from Nebraska to Lincoln, Omaha, Kansas City, St Louis, Memphis, Nashville, Washington, DC, Philadelphia, Richmond, Detroit, Omaha, Yankton, SD, Lincoln, North Platte, dropped off my sister and headed home.  Tom joined my thought the trip.  May also gave me the greatest gift, we met my nephew, Antwein for the first time in 25 years!  What joy that was for my soul.  Also a visit with my good for my soul friend, Cathy was the best.  Can't forget Joni time, sister time with all my sisters and my Mom and Dad time!  Blue boy was a big part of our trip...antique shops all along the way.  

June we drove my camper home!  I'm in love!

July both sad and exciting.  I had to say bye to my Maximus!  I have tears just thinking about him.  I miss him daily.  July also brought a trip of a lifetime...river rafting trip down the Colorado River at the Grand Canyon with good friends!

August was the lunar eclipse in Idaho!  Frida exhibit at the Heard Museum.

September we got a visit from my nephew Zachariah!  Another highlight...U2 Joshua Tour concert!!!

October sent us to Nebraska to spend precious time with my father-in-law, Irvin Arens before he passed at the age of 91.   Visited with so much family.  Highlight time with my nephew Tommy.  Then there was time with Patrick, Nate, Amelia, Dana, Brenda and meeting her son, Clay!  Just to name a few.

November was a quiet and reflecting time.  I really needed the down time.

December brought birthday fun and my love for the holidays and fun projects.

I need to take some time here soon to write down my thoughts about this past year and the life changing events.  I would have to say the Colorado River trip was the most impactful experience.  I took so much away from that experience.  FAITH OVER FEAR was so true and you CAN do anything!  The loss of my dog Maximus turned out to be harder than I thought.  I am blessed.

Bring on 2018!

Hawaii trip!

I'm heading to Hawaii next month to dog/house sit for my friends, Kate & Jennifer!  I'm going with my young friend Christine!  We're going to Honolulu and anywhere else from there!  I thought I better do my research so we can maximize our time.

Got two books at the used book store and they're full of lots of ideas of fun shit to do.  I can't wait!!

I've been making some little books for some of my trips.  The book asks "where I'm going", "what to pack", "what food i ate", "who i met", etc.....  I get an vintage postcard image off the Internet and then I use my vintage typewriter to type on notebook paper.  Cut it all down a quarter page size and put it all together with a ring.  So fun.

Starting on my Hawaii book and making an extra one for Christine.

The story of this photo album

Last summer I attended the Buckley family reunion in Marshfield, Massachuetts.  I know the Buckley family through my long time friend Paula and I'm an honorary Buckley through Papa George.  I've visited the Buckleys & the Marshfield/Boston area a number of times.  On all trips to Marshfield it's full of beach days, family, food, drinks, laughter, sightseeing, and tons of fun.  The day of the reunion we had a huge rain storm, with thunder, lightning & so much rain.  But we handled it and the reunion went on!  Two of the Buckley cousins, Erin & Taylor were sitting around not really interacting with anyone.  I talked to Erin about how many of her relatives we didn't know or meet. I thought how fun would it be to meet everyone in attendance by taking a photo with every single person.  We talked Taylor into doing the photo blast.  I announced to everyone we would be going around to take their photo.  There were lots of photos being taken this day of course but we put a spin on our project.  I took a photo of Erin & Taylor with every person.  We ended up with about 120 photos total.  We were successful getting most of the people there with exception of maybe a handful!  Everyone was awesome.

Erin, me & Taylor

Group photo and we met all of them individually!

As we went around the group we told our story as to how we are Buckleys and asked how they were related.  It was the coolest thing to exchange our stories of how everyone was related.  The Buckley family consisted of nine brothers and sisters, Mimi, Kay, Rita, Joe, Kenny, Claire, Dickie, Bobby and George. 

I had to figure out how to put this set of 120 photos together.  This is what I did....

I used two of my beach photos as the cover and back cover of the photo album.

I've never used a laminater before but thought with all the humidity and handling of the photos, laminating them would be best.

I sent out the photos to be printed.  Cut them to fit four per 8 1/2 x 11 size laminate sheets.  Cut them, trimmed them, punched holes and set them with rings.  On the back of each photo I added their name & their Buckley family tree information.

1

Ta da....finished.  I love the way it turned out.

Final packaging and sent off to the Marshfield Buckleys!

I need to put together two more photo sets, one for Erin & Taylor.  It was a fun project and one of the most memorable things I did on that trip.

2014 Road Trip - Churches

A common thread of my road trip was coming across churches and taking a moment to sit in the silence.   I love how it feels to sit in that space.  The churches had ornate altars, statues of Saints, beautiful stained glass windows, worn wooden pews, the smell of candles burning, and most of all, the absence of judgement.  Not to get into it too much, I love being in church but not a fan of going to church.  

My Dad told me about a church he read about and even saw a movie about it years ago.  I've been researching what he told me and found the movie and then found the church.  It's in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  Our Lady of Light Loretto Catholic Chapel.  The story goes like this, the church burned down and they needed a staircase.  A man showed up and built the staircase.  It's built without nails and wood unknown in the area.  It's beautiful!

The altar is beautiful.

The staircase

Great stained glass windows

Outside the church was this tree filled with rosaries.  An amazing thing.

St Pat's Catholic, North Platte, Nebraska
This is the church I attended as a kid.  It looks very different inside.

St Anthony, a favorite Saint of mine

Touched the water in this many many times!

St Charles Borromeo, North Bend, Nebraska

Loved the interior of this church

Stained glass windows are so beautiful

Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, Leoville, Kansas

This window was absolutely gorgeous

Our Lady

Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, Boys Town, Nebraska

 Cathedral of the Epiphany Catholic Church, Sioux City, Iowa

A great tour of catholic churches on this road trip.  I will continue to walk into catholic churches everywhere I travel.  Love the silence of the space, love the peaceful feeling of the space and love spiritual love of the space.

2014 Road Trip - Sierra Blanca, Texas

This is the first Texas town to make a stop in.  It's a dying town.  Met a woman who talked about the town's business was hurt by building I-20.  The Highway was the Main Street but since the I-20 was built no one stops in the town.  

Main Street 

Abandon cafe

The woman owned a shop on Main Street.  It was a shop full of all kinds of stuff, rocks, gems, jewelry, art supplies, party supplies, second hand items, thrift store buys.  She explained how people drop off their junk and she doesn't turn anything away.  Also, no one ever steals anything.  She talked about being very happy living in her town and was gracious for the chat time. 

bottle tree

crate of blue glass

crate of purple glass

I regret not buying up some of her colorful glass!

She said to check out the old church...so here it is.  Mass is no longer held in the church.

2014 Road Trip

I took a month long road trip and traveled 4000 miles through ten states.  In the next few weeks I'm posting some of the coolest things I experienced and saw on my trip.

This post is about a house I found along side US Highway 83 in the middle of Kansas!  I drove pass this beautiful aqua colored abandoned house! 

It was so cool I had to go in.  So I made a U-turn!  It was full of beautiful original wooden floors, wood doors with original knobs, light fixtures, walls of wallpaper, and even a creepy basement…didn’t go down into the basement…shit I’ve watch my share of scary movies!  

basement stairway!

Anyways I really wanted to take the door knobs, the light fixtures, wall paper off the walls!!!!   But all I could think of was karma.  Honestly, if I had had a screw driver and wire cutters I would of ignored karma!  But I would of left $20 bill on the floor just to even out the karma thing. ha ha Okay, okay, okay, I did take some wallpaper, it was peeling off the walls and some newspapers used as padding under the linoleum  floor.  The pages of newspaper were dated 1936.  The upstairs was pretty cool, all original looking wallpapers, small size rooms and neat bathroom fixtures.  You could tell this home was one sweet home sweet home.  Sad to see a house like this get neglected.

yellow kitchen!

front porch!

Road trip in Mini Lula....

Hello from the road.....

Mini Lula and I have been on the road for nearly three weeks.  We began in Arizona, traveled through New Mexico, Texas (huge state), Oklahoma (the tiny part), Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, Minnesota (for a minute), Iowa and we'll still travel through Colorado, New Mexico (again) before we end up back in Arizona.

I can't even begin to tell  you all the things we've done and who we've met and all the blessings along the way.  I'm taking notes and organizing photos so I can share our adventure on my blog.  Please be patient with me and I promise you, you're gonna want to read about this trip!

Back in Arizona

Road trip to the Midwest.  A stop in Lawrence, Kansas with my sister and Tom to watch a football game at Kansas University to watch my nephew play football.  Overnight in Overland Park, KS with a fabulous visit with family.  A stop in Lincoln, Nebraska to visit more family.  Tom off to Randolph, Nebraska to play with big boy toys, harvest time.  While I headed to North Platte, Nebraska to help paint a house!  Then off to Denver to meet Tom at DIA and finish road trip home via Taos, NM.  I will post pics soon.  Overall, it was a great time.  Lots of amazing things to share with you.   

The biggest challenge was to work on pendants and I must say it was an epic fail...no time for jewelry.  I did stop in a shop in Lincoln and talked jewelry.  Stay tuned!

** update **   Winston did get better and all I noticed when I got home was he really needs to be brushed! 

Busy day, but a really nice day outside.

Feeling a little overwhelmed today.  Getting ready for a long road trip and have a gazillion things to do.  Packing my soldering suitcase since I have pendants to finish for a show I have next month!  But first I have to finish cutting, filing and cleaning metal bases for my pendants, oh and did I mention I'm watching the Red Sox.  I'll have to finish the designs and set resin while I'm on my trip.  Maybe the colors of autumn will inspire me.  Next on my list of a gazillion things is packing packing.  It's so nice outside it's hard to know what to pack for Nebraska's weather.  Boots for sure, oh and sweater weather!!  Gotta remember to have all the electronics and camera, cords, chargers, etc.  Then finally, music and snacks for the road. 

One big worry is my dog Winston, he isn't feeling well today.  He has this thing that happens out of the blue for no apparent reason and it lasts a day or two and then it goes away.  Bad thing is he's in pain because he moans and cries when he moves around especially when trying to lay down.  He tilts his head to the left and will not move it to the right or up or down.  We've taken him to the vet when he was like this but as he jumped into Mini and by the time we got to the vet's office he was fine and I mean fine.  The vet really didn't have much to say since Winston was fine, but a little tender when he moved his head to the right.  Vet said something about a neck disc thing but that was about it.  Part of me thinks I should take Winston for a ride and maybe that will cure him like the last time. I hope he's fine by the time we leave.  He is eating, drinking water and walks with me outside and wags his tail....ugh.

** update on Winston**  Took him for a ride and it didn't help! He did like the ride but it was tough getting in & out of Mini.  I bought him a new dog bed, gave him aspirin and put him to bed.  He's still showing a tilted head and some moaning when he lies down.  We may need to delay our trip a day to take a trip to the vet.  Last time this happened he was fine within two days... keep fingers crossed he will be better tomorrow....worried.

Memories

The other day I bought a large package of pecans and when I opened up the bag the smell of the pecans took me back to when I was a kid.  We visited my "uelo  y uela " in Abilene, Texas and they had pecan tree in their back yard.  I remember picking up pecans and eating all the time whenever we wanted.  The ground was full of them.

 

This past June while visiting Abilene,  I found out my prima, Susie purchased my "uelos" property and plans to turn it into a community garden.  We all met at the D'Bois property in the barrio.  Boy what memories of this place.  Here we are under the pecan tree.  I'm so proud of Susie's purchase and vision.  I'll keep you updated on her project.

 

Susie, SueAnn, Patricia, Tia Mary, Delores, Vicki, Jobi and Angel
This was a great day!

 

On vacation

Staying with friend's family in a beach community near Boston.   Ocean, sunshine, rocks, sand, waves, fun.