A Couple of Quiet Days & A Finished Project

It's been a couple of quiet days since the weekend. Every one is gearing up for this weekend. It is the start of Carnaval. Just as it will be the start of Mardi Gras, in New Orleans and Carnival in Rio. This is a huge 8 day celebration for Mazatlan. The city especially the old town will be packed. The city spends all year getting ready for Carnaval. A queen, and her court, a princess, and a king are all elected. There are 2 huge parades and 2 nights of massive fire works. I think the one thing that distinguishes our celebration from the others is Carnaval is geared to the family. As the week goes on I share carnaval with you.

But for now it's the quiet before the storm. The beer distributors are trying to get places stocked up, and the price of hotel rooms have nearly doubled their rates. :( LW and I spent an afternoon at the beach cuz we won't be seeing much sand for the crowds for the next little bit :)

I thought I would show you a few pictures of the shadow box I made LW for Valentine's Day.

One of the keep sakes LW brought down with us was his grandfather's pocket watch. I been ponding just what to do with it. At one of the yard sales I found a little beat up shadow box. Just the right size for the watch. :) I sanded the wood bit then painted some crackle medium and on top of that I painted white matte paint. I was really pleased with the way it crackle up the paint!!

I printed out Elisabeth Barrett Browning's poem "How do I Love Thee, and cut it out in a heart shape and tied ribbon with a small key attached around the heart.

I placed a couple of buttons and a piece of old lace, and a small twig of bamboo. I rally liked the way it turned out rather simple and showed off the lovely character marks that come with living. :) What do you think??

Early bedtime tonight we have an early call to take a friend to the airport in the morning, so I think I'll say good night. As always please have a most audacious day or evening my Bloglandian friends depending on where in the world you are ;)

Of Mice and Bloggers

Well yes I did take a few liberties with John Steinbeck's title :) But it's for a good reason. As we all know unless you just moved here from the planet "Hedinsand", the state of Victoria in south Australia is suffering her most devastating season of wild fires. Many hundreds have lost their lives and many thousands have lost their homes. To date there is still 24 fires burning. LW and I come from Idaho a state that knows the devastation that comes with wildfires. It takes weeks to contain and extinguish them, and years to rebuild and heal both human and nature's scars.

I realize Australia is on the other side of the world for most of us but it still is part of our world. I also know that when ever the US or Canada has suffered huge natural or man made disasters the "Aussies" are always amongst the first to offer help.

I think it's time to return the help. I was very lucky and blessed to meet some amazing blogging artist when I first started blogging. Many have quickly become blogging sisters. And many call Australia home. Handmade Helps is a blog that has been set up to provide info. on what is being done, what needs to be done, and how you can help. Take a few minutes to visit, to find a way to offer a hand up. I promise you will feel so good and quite proud of yourself when you do :) There are also a number of artists who have donated their creations for sale. There are auction items on the blog and they also have listed different eBay auctions. That's where my cutie putootie mouse at the top of my post comes in. Miss Muggins made this adorable guy and has him listed on eBay here,

There is about 26 hours left in his auction time. Head over there leave a bid. Oh and if you are in the States remember the bids are in Ausrtalian dollars.

As Always have a most audacious day or evening in Bloglandia depending on where in the world you are ;)

Happy St. Valentine's Day Everyone :)

For me everyday is Valentine's Day. Every day is a new and special day, one to fill with the simplest pleasures and the most delicious memories :) Even though we are reminded that each moment is the only one like it that will ever exist. If you let it slip away it's gone forever :( But being immortal humans we tend to ignore those reminders. That is until you run smack dab into that particular "life's lesson" but by then think about all those moments that slipped by with no one celebrating them :(

Thankfully for what ever reason some of us are given a second chance to get it right!! I am so very grateful and a very lucky girl because I not only have been allowed a second chance but so has my Bestest Friend, my Soul Mate, my LW. So for us every day is a special day to share, experience and give to each other.

Never let a chance go by to say I care, I love you, I'm proud of you, Thank you for being in my life. Never let a chance to hug, hold hands, kiss, dance, giggle, laugh, cry, or just be be silent together slip away. Never never let the chance to make beautiful memories get away from you. Because the only piece of luggage any of us is allow to go through life with is our memories. The person who "wins" is not the one with the most "toys" It's the person with the fewest "I wish I hadas" :)

This is one of my most favorite gifts LW ever gave me. For me it's the only "operating manual" this girl need :)

Have a most audaciuos St. Valentine's Day or Evening in Bloglandia, depending on where in the world you are ;)

A Gypsy WON!! :)

Yep she did. And I for one am sooooooooo excited!! Back oh about 5 months ago when I was a freshly hatched blogger I was drifting through blogs one day and fell right into little Vanessa's Flights of Fantasy . I was having so much fun checking out all of her postings and even the buttons on her side bars. Well right there on her side bar she had the button for last years OWOH :) Well I had to find out what it was all about, so I put my little cursor on the button and pushed. The next thing I knew was being right in the middle of OWOHs blog. I was so excited as I read about the premise for and the reason Lisa had created OWOH :) I thought this would be the perfect way to have a chance to meet all kinds of new bloggers from all over the world. Surely I could find at least one or two Kindred Spirits to develop friendships with :)

AND you know what that is exactly what happen. I have met some of the most amazing women, actually the few men that participated are extremely remarkable. Many of them I could only dream of being as gifted!! But they were women I could establish friendships with and yes even a couple that have already become kindred spirits.

I consider, myself sooooooooo blessed and fortunate to have made some wonderful friends with amazing Bloglandian Sisters!! Strong, independent, talented, imaginative, caring women that believe there still is a bit of good in everyone and believe in magic :)

For me that was more then I could ever dream of finding anywhere but here in Bloglandia!! I'm so glad I stumbled into the Gypsy Caravan's path!!!

Oh Goodness I do rattle on, someone should have said something, jeez where are the kids with their "Okay Mom you're stalling out there!" when you need them ??

So yep it's true a Gypsy won my little hearts BUT not just any Gypsy!! She is actually the one!! The chauffeure the creator, the magical, Whimsical Bohemian herself!!!!!!!! Yippie Skippie, Hurrah, I Don't Believe it!!! But it's true my little made in Mexico hearts are going to live with Lisa Oceandreamerer Swifka !!!! The Whimsical Bohemian, The creator of One World One Heart!!!! Sometimes life can't get much more pleasing :)

Do my Bloglandian friends please have a most audacious day or evening depending on where in the world you are ;)

A Sunday Afternoon & I'm Sure Winter is Here

I should have known that if it snows in southern Arizona it's more then likely to be a bit cooler then 80 degrees here :) This morning we woke to winter. :( It was windy and the wind was coming off the ocean. We are 8 blocks from the beach so that most of the time we really don't get much of the sea breezes. Oh man we did this morning. And it was just a blowing papers off my desk. The curtains in our room were all poofed out :) Down stairs it felt like we had all the ceiling fans on excepting we didn't Jeez we even had to shut some of the windows. And then I had to put socks on with my sandals, which will guarantee I'm not setting a toe outside the front door. Oiy would the neighbor ladies have a huge huge fit!! :) I even spent time hunting for my sweater because I didn't remember where I put it away at last year!!

Sunday unlike today was a very lovely sunny day nice and warm and only a slight refreshing breeze :) LW and I decided we would throw our books in the car and set out for the surfer's beach at the northern end of town. The beach is called Playa Bruja (witch beach) Hmmm don't know why it was named that. I think a bit of investigating is in order :) For tons of years there was only a couple of cobbled together palapas that served some of the best and freshest sea food around.

But in the last couple of years as the resorts and condo developments keep moving ever north. Now the little dirt driveway is paved and across the street from the palapas is a strip mall with fru fru restaurants and souvenir stores :( We still love going up on Sunday afternoons because they are the best days to hang out and watch families playing and relaxing together.

Playa Bruja isn't much of a swimming beach because the rock shelves come up all the way. The surfers are just around the cove a bit where the waves come up over the rock shelves.

But where the papas are when the tide is out there are some awesome tide pools that are exposed :) That's when you go down to beach comb. We really don't have any real exciting shell creatures but it's still fun to go. Well now if you like oysters then it's these times that you would be in Heaven!! Sunday there were a couple of different family groups hanging out in the tide pools.

Ice chest on the rocks Grandma & grandpa sitting on little stools or up ended buckets. The young virile men in the families are out collecting oysters. When they have a good size bag full they make for the tide pool where papa is shucking the oysters and then passes around on the bottom half of the shell along with limes and hot sauce. Pretty soon all you hear is a lot of laughing and singing with under notes of oysters being sucked off their shells :) Oiy I know it definitely is an acquired taste :) One I haven't even attempted to acquire yet!! There sure is no 5 star restaurant with fresher tastier oysters on the half shell :)

Since oyster feasting was not on our dance card we amused ourselves with gathering "Mermaid tears" and watching the urchins and barnacles play.

I was so excited about the sea glass, because we have had NONE for months. :( In fact it's been a year, because I gave Mette and Joe what I had when they were here last January and I haven't found a piece since then. No large tropical storms last season nor the season before I guess.

One last little piece of info. Tomorrow is the last day for OWOH :( I have had a great time riding on the gypsy caravan and have met some really wonderful Bloglandians. But like all vacations it must come to an end. Hopefully Miss Lisa didn't get so burnt out she won't host it next year. But who could blame her, not at 911 participants !!! Yikes that's a lot. Way more then I got around to meet. So any way tomorrow at 10pm (MST) LW has been given the task to draw the winning number :) I think he was talking about the random number picker thingy. He loves anything to do with numbers and then throw in some gears and techie things and he is in hog heaven. :) I will post our little winner on Thursday morning and drop them a note to let them know they can do a bit of the happy dance in the kitchen if they want!! :)

Here we are at the end of another wonderful day just a bit cooler then most but still awesome!! Have an auspicious day or evening my Bloglandian friends depending on where in the world you are ;)

Mind Wide Open & A Bit Of Magic ;)

Here we are it's again the 7th of a month. This time February :) I had such a great time last month creating my entry for Gail's Mind Wide Open art challenge. Okay it was fun after I got past the small case of stage fright. :) So I decided I'd work on the challenge for this month.

I don't know where Gail finds these prints but they are always so beautiful and you can't help but want to do something with them. The prompt word this month was "Dream" In the last issue of Somerset Life was an article on taking old bottles and filling them with pearls, & decorating the outside of the bottles. I just so happen to have an old Liquor bottle from Spain. There is just a bit of gold filigree left on the neck, and it has a nice faceted stopper. The last time I was at the bead store I picked up some strings of large (1/2 inch) dark amber glass beads. I thought they would look really nice in the bottle. Then Gail's print showed up. So I cooked up this idea.

Remember (that's hypothetical) when every drugstore, Dentist, Barber, and anyone else would mix together things like cod liver oil in 90 proof alcohol and call it Aunt Gert's Spring Tonic?? I got to looking at the lady in the print and the bottle of beads and let my imagination out to play :) Suppose 999 years ago there was three lovely young sisters who just happened to be apprentice sorceresses. There old potions teacher gave them a homework assignment to create a magic potion. The three girls set their pot to boiling, threw in a bit of this and that and just a wee bit of baby fine frog fur. When the steam finally cleared what they had in the bottom of their pot was all these lovely amber color orbs. The oldest sister Faith said, "I know let's call these Faith's Dream Orbs!! Each orb contains one dream."

"No fair" says Ima Gine the 2nd sister Wwhy do you get to name it. Hurph... Ha well unless they sprinkle my sparkle spice on their orb all they will get is a good hot flash :)"

"No fair no fair" whines Bee Leave she's sister (yes you know) number 3. "Why do you guys always get to have all the fun... just cuz I'm the youngest?? Na na na na naaa there will be no dream until you dissolve Faith's orbs and Ima Gine's sparkle spice in MY tea !!!!

When the girls finally stopped bickering they found an old empty bottle of newt tails that worked perfect to hold the orbs. Then a tiny little bottle that had only one or two gnat eyelashes left in it for the sparkle spice. After poking around a bit they found an empty dust bunny pouch under a huge pile of "Somerset Sorcery" magazines ;) (well it could happen there is already over 30 different ones now) for the tea. A bit of paper, paints, pencils and before you know it they had their potion "merchandised", directions written and finally set their seal of guarantee, for 999 years :)

Imagine the smile on their faces because they had enough faith to believe that they soon would be giving up their training brooms for full fledged sorceress brooms :)

Be sure you take the time to wonder over to Mind Wide Open starting tomorrow {that's the 8th for the my side of Bloglandia and the 9th for the other side of Bloglandia ;) } to see all the entries for this month. Then leave a vote for your favorite before you leave.

Now I think it's time that my imagination and I, shall wonder off to read a bit before bedtime. Do have a most audacious day or evening my Bloglandian friends depending on where in the world you are ;)

And What Did You Do Today??

Yes By Jeebers, LW and I spent the afternoon at the beach. LW's cervza, my limonada, a plate of ceviche, a good read. Now that's what living one's dream is all about!! :)

Have a most audacious day or evening in Bloglandia depending on where in the world you are ;)