Pictures from Arizona

I finally got around to uploading the photos on my camera and there were 219 of them, including some from our trip to the Mogollon Rim this summer.  FINALLY!  I went with our daughter and her family to the Living Desert Reserve today and took my camera along, so I had a ton of photos from that visit!

I've been TRYING to get a decent photo of a logging truck FOR YEARS and finally, upon spotting one at the General Crook overlook, I handed my camera to hubby and told him to "go for it".  The results are here, along with some other photos from the Rim.  There had been so much water up there that it was standing in the meadows!  Amazing!  From drought to deluge in a year!

 Logging truck, Mogollon Rim.

 Woods Canyon Lake, one of our FAVORITE places in Arizona! 

Old age is creeping up on us!

Al, over at Travels with the Bayfield Bunch wrote an interesting post last Saturday

http://thebayfieldbunch.com/2017/09/dealing-with-realities-of-aging-in.html?showComment=1507011258651#c1975459907768025361

about traveling.  I do all the driving now because hubby gets dizzy.  After a day out, however, I am exhausted for the next day or even two!!!  That's NO FUN!  Nowadays we only go out to visit the kids & grandkids, but that is a pretty full schedule!  The 4 year old granddaughter has soccer on Saturday mornings and the 8 year old grandson in Temecula has baseball games on Tuesday afternoon.  He won't be going tomorrow as he already has a cold!  We DID drive to Arizona in August for 4 nights and it took me 1 whole day to recover the 7 hours' drive there.  We managed to find an Air B&B home that was pet friendly, so we were able to take our dog with us.  We stayed in Overgaard, up on the Mogollon Rim.  She had a blast smelling all the wonderful and new smells and one morning I looked out and saw a coyote across the street!  I found a quilting shop and an antique shop that had some items I wanted, so I bought them.  Hubby was content to stay in the cabin. 

Other than that, we haven't ventured out much.  We DO want to get up to Oak Glen shortly during apple season (midweek, of course) and maybe down to Julian.  However, Julian is an all-day trip.  The Whitewater Preserve is only about 25 minutes away and the sycamores will be turning soon.

Saturday we ARE going to the Living Desert with our daughter and her two kids (ages 4 and 1).  Then, Sunday we might drive to Temecula to see our son and his 3 kids...depending on how tired we are from Saturday!  So, you see our situation? 

We BOTH take afternoon naps every day now and Saturday I went up to check on the horses and to be there to give the shoer his check.  Unfortunately, Gigondas, my big red thoroughbred mare, stepped on my right foot and wouldn't GET OFF!!!!!!!!   I had to scream at her and hit her to get her to move (I guess she was comfortable on my foot!).  I even had my steel toed boots on and it still hurt like....the dickens!  It is now completely black & blue.

OY!
Please take care.
~Cheryl Ann~
P.S.  I just finished journals #20 and 21 and 22 and I'm almost done with #23 and I have 3 more in the works!   :-)

Idyllwild!!!!!

We took a 3 night trip to Idyllwild, leaving Friday noon and returning early this morning because our daughter was experiencing stomach pains and needed our help with her kids.  It was DELIGHTFUL to get out of the desert heat for a few nights and go up into the cool mountain air.

And...

It was POURING here when we left the desert!  SAY WHAT?  Palm Springs actually got major flooding.  A mobile home park, too, was badly flooded, with water rushing down its main street.  We, of course, were up in Idyllwild by then.  We discovered that our black lab, Ripley (who will be 10 this month) does NOT enjoy thunder!  It was thundering, lightninging, and raining when we got settled into the cabin and SHE DID NOT ENJOY IT ONE BIT!  She tried to crawl under hubby's legs!  More rain Saturday morning.  I went outside and watching the clouds silently moving in overhead.  It was wonderful!  Our son and his family came up for lunch and stayed for a steak dinner and then drove home.  We took the kids (age 8 and 2) down to the fish pond to see the koi and they nearly jumped out of the water for the 2 year old!  They got to throw peanuts at the blue jays and I guess we wore them out because they slept ALL THE  WAY HOME!  HA, ha!

Sunday we all stayed indoors, not because of any rain, but because WE were exhausted...

Speaking of fall plans, we aren't sure we'll be going anywhere this year either.  Last year we did a 4 night trip to Mammoth.  Last month we took a 4 night trip to central Arizona and frankly, the 6 hour drive nearly did me in!  So, we're thinking maybe a couple of short trips back to Idyllwild.  It is only 45 minutes away, we can take all our food with us, and we can take the dog and she doesn't have to ride in the back seat for 6 hours.  Sounds like a plan to me!  While we would LOVE to revisit the eastern Sierra, I just don't see it happening this year.

I'll post photos after I upload them.
~Stay safe and stay well~
~Cheryl Ann~

Just surviving by hibernating!

July is always the hottest month here in our desert, but it seems that August is THE. WORST. MONTH!!!!!   My plants always wilt and die.  The birds are panting.  I've set up 4 dishes of water for them (2 in front and 2 in back) and I even cleaned out the big water found (which doesn't work) for them in the front yard and the doves enjoy it.  I also leave the hose running out back into the birdbath and I have 2 bowls under it to collect the water.  Our neighborhood Cooper's hawk has shown up twice to enjoy a foot soak and a drink.

My garden HAS survived the summer (first time in years...).  I think it is mainly because except for our brief Arizona trip to Heber/Overgaard, we've stayed home all summer.

Not much else new here.  Oh, grandchild #5 arrived last week and I spent 3 days helping our son with food and laundry.  The little one is now home and she is keeping her parents awake at night!  HA!

We MAY take a trip to the eastern Sierra sometime in October, so hubby is busy researching Air B&B.  We went for 5 nights last October and got photos of the fall colors, but we might just go to Idyllwild for a few days instead.  The trip to Heber/Overgaard (6 HOURS) nearly did me in as I had to drive the entire way.  And home, except for a 45 minute break!!!!!  I haven't uploaded the few photos I took yet...maybe today if I can locate my uploader!

Be safe and stay well.  We are staying INDOORS these days.  It was 115 here yesterday and we have a heat wave through the weekend here...UGH...NO FUN!
~Cheryl Ann~

I've been AWOL again!!!!!

You know, we already have 4 grandchildren:  2 boys and 2 girls and #5 (a girl) is due to arrive...ANY DAY NOW!  Phew!  We have been busy babysitting the 1 year old grandson while his 4 year old sister was taking swim lessons.  Mom decided she couldn't be in the pool with the 4 year old AND watch the little man, so we babysat for 2 weeks.  Swim lessons are now over (thankfully), but now #5 is due.

I've been busy creating journals.  I REALLY enjoy this!  I even got my sewing machine out and stitched around some of my photos and attached either scrapbook paper to them or writing paper!  I put ruffles on pages.  I'm having quite a good time.  I HAVE to have a creative outlet, you see!

We're heading over to Arizona in a couple of weeks...going up to Heber/Overgaard for a few nights.  Hopefully we will get a couple of storms up there.  We found a cabin that is pet friendly, so Ripley will come with us.

OH...AND BIG NEWS>>>

Hubby traded in his Nissan X TERRA for a Nisson Rogue hybrid!  We are LOVING it and we usually get anywhere from 33 to 39 MPG!  What a difference!  In fact, we both forget to look and see whether or not it needs gas!  HA!!!!!

Here are some recent pics:

Sewing zig zag stitches around my photos and attaching either writing paper OR scrapbook paper to the back of them.  Now I can insert them into my journals!

These were journals #3 and #4.  I am now on #15...I'll TRY to remember to get some more pics of them.  I did one from a Sunset Western garden book (hardcover) and it nearly did me in!  I actually THREW IT across the room!  I couldn't get the pages sewn in because the spine was so stiff!  I even ripped my stitches out and redid it TWICE!  It is finished now and it is my go-to journal!  I LOVE its "bigness" and will take it with me on our vacation because it has a TON of envelopes in it!  Oh, and I'm experimenting with painting leaves and then using a roller on them onto muslin.  I have GOT to post photos!

THIS is what I'm doing with Home Depot paint samples!!!  I'm going next week to get more samples!

 I finished these 7 back in early July...One is a Western one!  I LOVE it!  (the tall, skinny one in the back row...)

 3 more done in July...

 My hardcover ones.  The others were made from a 9x12 inch envelope.  These are NOT.  The green one on the right is a Reader's Digest book, pages removed, and I sewed in my own.  I haven't sewn the Good Housekeeping Cookbook, which I'm still adding pages to, or the second Western Garden book, on the left.  It is another hard cover book, just like BIG BERTHA (below)...

 THIS is my BIG journal!  I messed up the spine.  I didn't get my sewing holes lined up correctly, so I had to redo them and I made a REAL MESS!  Oh, well...I dearly LOVE this one!

 140 pages!  Can you believe it?  4 sewn in signatures.  A signature is a group of pages.  I think each signature has 15 or so pages...

 I used Dollar Tree bags at the beginning of each signature.  TOO STIFF!  DO NOT attempt this!

Inside front cover.  I kept the original inside cover and back inside cover pages, then added all the other pages.  This one was a REALLY HARD ONE to do because of the stiffness of the Dollar Tree bags.  However, I just couldn't let them sit around and the colors blended so well with the book...live & learn...sigh...At one point I was so frustrated I threw it across the room!  I put it to bed, got up the next morning, and finished her.  Phew!

Journals, journals, and MORE JOURNALS!

I have been so occupied making journals that I scarcely have time for anything else right now.  "Busy hands are happy hands" has never been so appropriate.

I've finished 10 journals now in 3 weeks.  PHEW!  I keep them in a basket, but I'm heading out this morning to Dollar Tree to get... A BIGGER BASKET!

I'm neglecting housework, laundry, but I did do the dishes this morning!  Ha, ha!

Bronchitis, heat, and I have a new passion!

Between the bronchitis, which took over a month to get rid of, and then my complete LACK of energy, I haven't been doing much.

Well, actually, that's not true.  I have a new passion!  I'm making journals!  And, giving them away to family & friends because right now I need the experience of making them and learning from my mistakes!  Finally, it is a great way to spend my days INDOORS!   (It was 119 here this week and we have two days of 118 degree days coming up next week).

So, yes, I had that HORRIBLE bronchitis that was going around and I was basically so tired that I did NADA.  NADA.  I didn't even get up to visit my horses!  That's how tired I was.  I seem to be over it now and my energy level is back.

I discovered journals after trying canvas, fence boards, 12" square wood cuts, and decorating my photos.  I really wasn't happy with any of those things.  I don't remember how I came upon journals, but I've always loved writing!  My first poem was published in first grade!  I was a writing coach at my district for two years and the students in my class always had higher writing scores than the other teachers at my grade level...(snicker, snicker...).  My kids wrote EVERY DAY.  They learned to spell.  They learned to write a complete sentence (in 3rd grade, for crying out loud!).  Yes, they struggled, but they also succeeded.  Every year except my last two, I published their year long writing in a spiral bound book and sent it home with them.


...sigh...

So, somehow, I think on Facebook, I discovered junk journals.  That's when you just grab whatever you have and make it into a notebook/journal.  Of course, I ran around the house and quickly filled up 3 boxes of...junk.  Old mail, old writing paper, new writing paper, paper bags, magazines.  My husband thinks I'm NUTS!  I even went out into the garage and found a whole box full of stationery that I used at school which was left over.  I somehow hadn't gotten around to giving it to a thrift shop!  THANK GOODNESS!

I'm on a roll.  I made 2 Edgar Allan Poe journals using what is called the "altered book" method.  That's where you keep the book pages and glue stuff on top of them.  They were awful.  I wasn't happy with them.

However, not being an expert seamstress like my maternal grandmother, I couldn't sew ANYTHING!  So, the sewing machine went in for reburbishing and now I sew lace and other things onto papers!

I now find books for 50 cents, gut them (take out the pages) and then build them back up.  I decide which pages should go into them.  I've made 4 that way.  Two went to one of my colleagues who retired the same year I did.  One is my first one and I'll keep that one.  Another one I did for a friend and I'm already working on #5. I've learned to get over my fear of sewing, although I do still occasionally swear at my sewing machine!  I gesso my covers and add items to them.  It is a wonderful outlet for my "creative energy".

Hubby finally asked today, "When are you going to make some money off these?"  HA!  Probably NEVER, but I don't care.

Oh, and I CLOSED my ETSY shop.  They were charging me fees for stuff that NEVER SOLD and I had just HAD IT!  NO SUPPORT, NADA!  So, bye-bye!

I just sneak some of my grocery money into my purse each week and trek over to either Michaels, Hobby Lobby, or JoAnn's.

Here are some photos of journals #1, 2, and 3...I don't have any of #4 YET...

 This one is #1.  I didn't know how to stitch the spine yet, so I just used ribbon to hold it together.  I punched holes in EVERY paper and tied it with a blue ribbon.

 These are #2 and #3.  I gave away #1 and #3 yesterday.  The one with the owl was the first one I stitched.  I didn't get enough papers in it, unfortunately, and the cover doesn't sit straight...oh, well...live and learn!  I'll keep that one.  I put gesso on the cover to give it some texture.  My colleague wanted the purple cover on hers left intact, so I didn't do anything to it.

This is the spin and stitching on #2.  I somehow didn't get my pages lined up correctly on the inside, so they aren't even...sigh...lesson learned!  There is a learning curve here and I think I'm doing better, but on #4, I didn't make enough holes for the spine and paper, so I just double stitched EVERYTHING!!!  OY~

Oh, and with the HEAT WAVE, I'm stayin' INSIDE!!!!
Later!
~Cheers~
Cheryl Ann