Okay, don't laugh. I am just learning how to oil paint. I have two friends who are sisters that are taking time to teach me different techniques that they both use in their painting.
I know this painting of the mountain and creek look pretty crude, but it is a start, beginning, a first, well you know what I mean.
What do you think of my first painting? Please leave me a comment. I can take criticism pretty well, just don't yell at me, ha ha.
I will post the next painting and I want you to know that I did copy a card that I received. So I am being very honest here.
Until the next post...

Today is cooking day for me, and so far this morning I have baked two loaves of banana bread, corn bread and made tapioca pudding. My husband is making homemade chili today as well. What a guy, he even does the dishes and takes out the garbage. Yep, I am one lucky woman.
I can smell the banana bread now, cinnamon scent throughout our home, yummy.

Here is the receipie that I follow and I add a little variation to it as well.

Banana Bread
Pre heat oven  350

1 3/4 Flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/3 cup of melted butter
1/2 cup of honey
2 eggs beaten
2 cups mashed banana (4)
3/4 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
1 tblsp of cinnamon (optional)
Oil bread loaf dish

Mix dry ingredients. Cream butter, honey and add eggs, add to dry ingredients mix well. Place into bread loaf dish.
Bake for 1 hour

YUMMY!

There are so many corn bread receipies and they are all wonderful. The only difference on my is what I bake it in. I oil one of our medium size cast iron fry pans and pour the batter into it. I bake and serve it that way, in my cast iron fry pan. Adds a touch of rustic to the meal.

One of my lastest projects is putting in a drip system in our garden. I am having a blast, just finished laying down the main line and placing the smaller tubes to the plants. Just knowing that I am going to save money and water, but time. This will enable me to work on other projects like, spinning, sewing, canning, hiking, photographing, writing and so forth.

If you have been wanting to put in a drip system in your yard, do it. It is very easy and make sure you get a digital timer for watering. You don't have to turn on the faucet every time you need to water, it's automatic.

I ordered the drip system from Irrigation Direct online.
One large drip irrigation watering kit for a vegetable garden
(covered 300 plants), plus a drip pro digital water timer 3/4" FHT
inlet x 3/4" MHT outlet.

Go to: www.irrigationdirect.com

Home is where my heart is.
Leaving Arizona's cooler weather of the high desert for warmer weather of the lower coast line of California, this California Poppy was in full bloom and absolutely beautiful to capture for our vacation album. Yes, the ole' camera goes where I go, and used quite frequently. My husband gets pretty tired of hearing me say "Stop, I need to shoot that". But all in all, he is pretty patient. Thank you Dear.
It is great to be home, but just like packing, you have to unpack. That is another chore that I hate to do. But I must say, it went a lot quicker then packing for our trip. Clothes go to the laundry room, cook stove to the garage cabinet, so on and so on.
I will post more photograph of many kinds throughout this blog. If there are any you may be interested in, please leave me your email address and I will get back to you soon as I can with information.

Vacation Time

I can't believe that we left Wyoming's cold winter to head for Arizona's warm weather and had to stay in due to snow. Yes, that is right, where we are staying had snow! Why did we leave Wyoming for warmer weather and then have to stay inside due to snow here? Life throws us many curve balls.
Our trip is going very well.
We spent four days packing, making sure things at home were taken care of, such as, shutting off the water, hot water tank, locking garage etc.
I can't believe the amount of work you have to do just to get ready for a vacation, and our children are grown, so we didn't have to take them into consideration. My gosh, I slept for hours after we arrived from being so tired from the delima of packing. Does anyone have any good advise for the future as far as simpler ideas for packing?
Oh my gosh, I just looked out the window, its snowing AGAIN!
We planned ahead of time, new tires on the vehicle, (going bald), shots for animals that we were taking, packing medications, our stove for incase we had to camp off the side of the road. Coffee for the husband to keep him going, our own medications, clothing, personal items, tooth paste etc. Thinking of all to pack, right down to our pillows.
Also the fear of when your driving away from the house, "did I forget anything"?" Did I unplug the iron, turn off the coffee pot"? You know what I am talking about?
I can't believe we left Wyoming for snow in Arizona....

This is our backyard, more specific, our garden space. The log seating is our snow covered fire pit (left). Our welcome sign is leaning against our Russian Sage plant covered in snow (right). When will spring be here??
I am so excited to plant in our greenhouse that we were able to have delivered in August of last year. However, our weather here in Wyoming isn't being cooperative with being able to plant seeds in it yet. No, I don't have heat plugged in the green house, not this year anyway. We wanted to be able to extend our growing season by at least one month more with the new green house. In a previous post, you will be able to see the green house that we have. We have never used a green house before, so this ought to be very interesting. I have two 50 gal. water drums inside right now, empty of course. I have been putting out compost from our kitchen in the beds inside the GH. Needless to say, I am so excited to get started. So when is sping going to be here????

Not only do I can foods and quilt, I am also a professional Photographer. I have been snapping pictures since I was a youngester. I remember my first camera was the old poloriod that unfolded. Now I am using a wonderful digital camera, a Cannon. It was very hard for me to turn over my film camera to a digital, one of the reasons why I did was cost. I had taken so many rolls of film to have only one good photograph from 10 rolls. Digital is a cost savings for me.

My favorite photographs are of close up images, live, still, what ever. I love close ups, and one of my instuctor's years ago had told me that the reason I love close up images is because they make me feel something, there is a some sort of connection.

Let me know what you like, here are a few photographs.