My Life on a Cup

I have enjoyed this series so much and it keeps me focused on drawing and painting. Wearing my Duluth overalls for gardening

My favorite Sweet Pea variety this year. I probably bought the seeds on Etsy

A great find at It’s About Time Antiques in Orange, CA. Perfect for Sweet Peas

Seeding takes place over a variety of days, picking and choosing the right seeds/plants for certain parts of the garden

I also picked up these funny ducks at the antique store too. They will get repainted and put in the garden

These Cosmos are over 6 feet tall now. They are a marvel!

Cut my finger gardening, so it’s back to wearing gloves for me

Love this color of pink! This Hollyhock is over 12 feet tall

Brought my own coffee to breakfast at Norm’s and it made everything better!

Hydrangeas 


Got a much needed haircut! 

The painting desk

My Life on a Cu

I have enjoyed this series so much and it keeps me focused on drawing and painting. Wearing my Duluth overalls for gardening

My favorite Sweet Pea variety this year. I probably bought the seeds on Etsy

A great find at It’s About Time Antiques in Orange, CA. Perfect for Sweet Peas

Seeding takes place over a variety of days, picking and choosing the right seeds/plants for certain parts of the garden

I also picked up these funny ducks at the antique store too. They will get repainted and put in the garden

These Cosmos are over 6 feet tall now. They are a marvel!

Cut my finger gardening, so it’s back to wearing gloves for me

Love this color of pink! This Hollyhock is over 12 feet tall

Brought my own coffee to breakfast at Norm’s and it made everything better!

Hydrangeas 


Got a much needed haircut! 

The painting desk

Bainbridge Island in May

We flew to my happy place on Bainbridge Island to honor the life of our dear friend, Sue. It was very emotional to say the least. Dear friends and family surrounding one another in love. Gone too soon. I am glad we had one another to lean on to share our grief with. It was hard. 

We had beautiful weather until Sunday when it rained all day. Two words Cottonwood Trees. They were shedding their cotton into the air. The streets looked like snow drifts and the air was filled with tiny snowflakes of cotton. Female trees shed cotton, but male trees shed dangerous pollen. I definitely had a bad reaction to this pollen. I am still recovering and taking it easy. 

Vineyard Lane is where we stayed. The development is so peaceful. Paths for walking, a bridge, water, birds and green! 

My friend Sue took me to Esther’s in 1986 to look at fabric and buy antique buttons! So many great memories here, as we shared the love of sewing. She had a line of children’s clothes. I still have the jacket she made for our daughter when she was young. Then she became an upholsterer. Needle and thread. We both enjoyed embroidery too. 

Eagle Harbor Book Co is always a stop for us. We took our kids here. We all love to read

This bakery finally got a brick and mortar location in Winslow. We enjoyed ham and egg croissant sandwiches for breakfast and a big latte, which was so delicious! 

Daily walks through this calming paradise

Some flowers from the Celebration of Life. Every arrangement was absolutely gorgeous. Sue loved to grow flowers and veggies. We were all given envelopes of Zinnia seeds, her favorite flower!

A beautiful quilt in the church. There was a matching on on the other side

One of Sue’s stitching projects on the window

This artwork is on the wall in her kitchen. She loved it. She also lived by this code to hold others up. So, hold others up. Do what you love. Hug people you love. Send a letter or a card to tell someone how you feel about them. Sing a song. Have joy! Love and be loved. Make a difference that you lived

Life’s Little Realities

Last three books I’ve read and look all of the covers are the same color scheme, and the authors live in different countries.

Growing Sweet Peas from seed has created a huge crop of flowers this year, except zero pink or red, which is so weird. Then this beauty sprouted. So gorgeous!

Gotta love Alaska Airlines. Leaving on a trip to honor the life of a dear friend. Why not have a bright spot on a flight? 

For my dear friend, Sue. How I remember where we sat last time I visited. We had coffee and cookies and talked about life, love, family, our friendship and her cancer. I never thought it would be our last. I will miss you my dear friend with every fiber of my being. We laughed, we cried, we drank a lot of coffee, we went to Esther’s for buttons and fabric. Hand sewing, painting, upholstery, our children, books, gardening, and more laughter. Joy and sorrow. We wrote letters to each other. We talked about cooking. 

Another three books I’ve read

Hollyhock and bring pink!

Home is where your story begins. You can write your own story. Typewriter wall quilt. I have a great love for typewriters and memorialized this one in fabric and thread. 

I will love you forever dear friend. Look at us with our white hair. 37 years of friendship. I will miss you forever. Being here on Bainbridge has been difficult to say the least. Our trips to Winslow to buy our favorite candy, Esther’s, the Blackbird, ice cream, coffee, laughter and crazy fun. You will live on in your kids and grands and in my heart. 

You Can’t Always Get What You Want

My neighbors and I have been fighting an horrendous proposed home project, and there are days that I just can’t think about what it will do to our neighborhood. So, I work in my yard. I am worried about my neighbors not getting enough sun to work in their own gardens when two story homes are built 10 feet from their back walls. We have single story homes

The rest of the project is 3 story homes and some have roof top decks on the 4th floor. The developer referred to Eichler homes as being similar in style. Crazy talk. 

This is part of the Small Lot Subdivision Guidelines and the developer failed to meet this first one

Also there are no sidewalks or pathways. No driveways. Just streets and parking

Funny thing, the project was denied by the first two entities 

Last night the City Council voted unanimously to approve this project. We left at 11:30pm. I am not happy. But, what gives me a glimmer of hope is that some of these people will be up for re-election in November. 

Such a sham on so many levels. The developer didn’t follow the guidelines, yet approved. Did the Council read the guidelines? Then there are the scare tactics, which are red flags. They chose money over our 39 neighbors homes, over our way of life, over us reading the Guidelines, Municipal Codes, and they just didn’t care what we discovered. We were the enemy, because we could read and research and get packets on people’s doorsteps, people in those seats, expensive, hard work, and putting portions of our life on hold. I felt like it at all been decided before we even got to the meeting. My Slice of Old Town Charm has been squashed with a gavel.