Blue Door Repair

I took a trip to Mexico many years ago.  We stayed in Patzcuaro, Michoacan for a week and it was one of those weeks where I ended each day thinking this day was even better than yesterday when I thought yesterday was the best day.  The sights, the people, their craftsmanship, the food and which made my soul overflow.  Across the street from the motel was a wood shop full of carpenters and carvers and they let me spend the day watching and learning.  I drew lots sketches and when I came home we put up a courtyard wall and it needed a door.  I built this door from my sketches.  I painted all shades of blues and aged it.  I love my blue door, everyone knows my house because of my blue door.  The bell inside the window was from another stop in Mexico.  This door was built around 2007 and boy it needs some TLC.  Plus, the side boards need some repair so the door had to come off today.  I will be replacing some wood and repairing some boards.  I'll get busy finding matching blue paint colors to refresh the color.    

Side story, when we had our house painted and all the trim was painted black.  As they removed the paper and tape from the windows, I saw my blue door painted black!  Omg, I rushed out and said take that black off!  The painters simply said oh, we'll paint back to blue for you, I'm like no, it's layers of this blue and that blue.  Luckily the wax finish on the door protected blues underneath.  They spent an hour peeling black latex paint off.

 

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!

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!

Travel memory books

I've been making these for several of my trips.  I find a clipart on line of the place I'm going to.  I use notebook paper and type with my vintage Royal typewriter.  Some of the titles of the pages are

"stuff I bought", "what music I listened to", "who I met", "what I did"

It's a fun little book with simple documentation of my trips.

I made one for my recent Hawaii trip!

Here's some of the books I've made

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.

Twist of Pine

On my last trip I headed to northeast Nebraska and Yankton, South Dakota.  I have lots of family living in the Crofton, Nebraska area and all of them frequent the Yankton area. My sister-in-law, her two granddaughters and I stopped in the Twist of Pine.  A shop in a cool building near the Missouri river and this fabulous park. The coolest thing happens when you walk in with kids.  The kids are offered a small bag to fill will a variety of candies.  This was a great idea, the kids are occupied picking out their candy and we walked around the shop.  The shop is filled with soaps, candles, foods, small furniture pieces, signs and t-shirts.  I remember walking through several times trying to absorb everything I was seeing. I met the owner, Lisa  and she explained she is opening a Bed & Breakfast in the area and this is a step in that direction.  They offer a variety of classes at the shop.  They have a cooking class that uses the products sold in their store.  The plan is to use the recipes at their Bed & Breakfast.  The night before they offered a painting class, painting the American Flag on a large piece of wood.  

If you find yourself in Yankton, South Dakota make sure and stop in The Twist of Pine!  You won't be disappointed.

www.twistofpine.com

Lisa & Cady

Lisa explained each of her employees has a business card with their job title.  It's extremely creative. 

Creative Business Cards!

Lisa Kneifl- Chief Visionary of Creative Retail and Marketing Experiences, the owner.

Cady Van Surksum - Marketing Consultant and Event Coordinator, maker of marketing items.

Brenda - Director of Retail Merchandising & Customer Service, "Normal Employee".

Hallie - Junior Associate Usability Facilitator, she's 10 and the "taster"

Michele - Public Relations and customer Retention, she a nurse, cancer survivor and knows everybody.  

Jolene "Jo" - Principal Mobile Organic Branding Strategy & Product Solutions Specialist, she's a handy woman, and makes all their wood and craft items.  

She's also a Probation Officer.

Rylee - Minon and Customer Support Apprentice, 15yr old intern

Colette - CCO - Chief Cousin Officer, she's Lisa's cousin and a pharmaceutical rep

Presley - OCD Director and Volunteer Coordinator, high school senior and always brings friends to volunteer their help and also a clean freak.

Jane - Assistant Coordinator of Weekday Entertaining Experiences, she's 70 yrs old and she works two hours a week, on Tuesdays.  "Tasty Tuesday"

Meet Morgan, an artist!

While I was on my Nebraska trip I met Morgan, one of many great nieces.  She's an ARTIST.  I fell in love with her creative energetic spirit.   We happen to be sitting at the same table at end of the evening at my father-in-law's 90th birthday party.  She began to tell me how she was an artist and loved art. By the way, she was making art the whole time she was sitting with me.  Actually the first time I spoke with her that day was her telling about her puppet, Annie Pop, which she made out of scraps of stuff including a popsicle stick.  Annie Pop sang for me.  She went on to explain how she loves art so much that she must make art everyday.  I was impressed  "Wow! that's over 300 pieces of art a year!"  We then spoke about what to do with all our art.  I explained I hang and display my art on my walls and all over my house.  She described her bedroom and how her walls are slanted, so I suggested she tape them on her slanted walls.  At the end of night she asked for my mailing address and we both agreed to send each other art.   So we are officially Art Pen Pals.   
I was fortunate enough to visit Morgan at her home and I was privileged to see her room.  She already taped up her artwork.  I must say I was so jealous of her art space/bedroom.  I loved the artistic vibe and energy.  I can see how her space feeds her creativity.  I would love a slanted wall art space!

Morgan, my new creative artist friend!  Can't wait to share our art!

Check out Morgan's, hat and jacket....way colorful!

Speaking of big birthdays...

Tom's dad, Irvin is celebrating his 90th birthday this weekend.  We're traveling to northeast Nebraska and I checked the weather and it's gonna be a cold cold trip, something like -17 degrees overnight on Saturday, omg!  Honestly, I know I don't have enough warm clothes packed in my carry-on!!!   Sweet baby Jesus.   On the other hand, it's going to be sweet seeing all the family!

What to blog about??

I've had the worse case of mental blog block.  I have so much I could share but for whatever reason I just can't seem to put the time into posting on my blog.  

But it's 2016 and as most people it's time to reflect on the past year and start some newthings in the new year.  How I want to do this is post things from the past year.....  It was a busy travel year, it was a busy studio time year, it was a busy spending time with people year, along with all the photos to documenting everything.  That is one thing I did do, photographed everything 2015.

So let's begin.....

In March I traveled back to my home in Nebraska for my dad's 80th birthday party.  It was so much fun.

This is my family mom & dad and six of us kids.

This is my siblings and Texas cousins

My sisters & I always take a photo...this time we were lucky to have our brothers, too.

My parents, Gilbert & Kay Tinajera

My niece made this cool book.
The grandkids wrote letters to my dad of lessions learned from him.  

Here's something I forgot about...on my drive from Denver to Nebrasaka I drove Mini Lula through a ice storm.  The roads were clear and wet.  The temps were very cold and the windshield index was even colder.  I learned driving Mini is different than driving a regular car or truck.  It rides low to the ground and all the surface water was hitting Mini all the time...with the windshield index so cold the water was freezing and icing up the Mini to the point of no air getting through the front grill.  Scary scary scary drive!  Won't ever do that again!

Architectual beauties

While I'm in my hometown I drive pass these beauties.  They are magnificent, huge, unique and architectural beauties.

This house is just around the corner from my parent's house, when I see it I know it's time to make my turn onto my parent's street.  I don't know why I didn't take a shot of the whole house.  It's beautiful and such a home.  I always wonder who the family is that's so lucky to have breakfast in the white windowed room.

This is a magnificent house and so grand.  I've been in this house and I remember taking the stairs up to the highest floor and listening to T.Rex singing "Bang a gong".    I love this house.

What a front porch on this house!

I noticed many brick homes and this one I love the  design within a design.  I wonder if there was a time with brick was abundant because there are many that were built next to each other, almost like it was a new material to use on houses.

Look at all the details on this house. Columns, bay windows enclosed porch and the block style foundation.  Yep,  the stairway is purple!

 This house is a gorgeous yellow!  I just want to sit on the porch sipping my lemonade!

How grand it this house.  I wonder who's all lived in this house.  I passed this house so many times on my walk to high school and thought how amazing it would be to have a house this grand.  It sits at an angle and makes such a statement.

This house I drove passed a million times and it's so beautiful even in it's state.  I don't know if it's being renovated but I would have loved to gone in it.  It sits next to a beautifully restored house.

Next to this house!  What a house!  It's home to some kind of shelter for kids I think.  I didn't have time to ask for a tour...next time I'm in town I'll have to ask for a tour.

 This house has some neat angles and bay windows.  The porch says come sit with me.

 Now, this house was very interesting.  Colors and designs on all sides of the house gave it such character.  There were such large trees surrounding this house I wasn't able to get a photo of the intricate  details using paint colors and fish shingles.

This house was grand as it sat at an angle on this corner.  Once again a awesome porch and such details. Even the out buildings were a piece of architectual artwork.

 

There a so many more houses, this was just a sample along a few blocks on one street.  My parents live in a 1940's Bungalow style home.  Not sure why I don't have a photo of it.  It's a very cool house full of great architectural details.   I read that some of the houses were Four Square architecture style... made popular from mail order catologues.  There are also Bungalow, Queen Anne, and Vernacular architecture styles.  I think the Queen Anne style is what the large magnificent houses are.  A girl can dream of what it must be like to call one of this beauties their home.  (as I return to Arizona to my ranch style simple design home with no porch to sip my cold lemonade on a hot Arizona afternoon!)