What a weekend... Life is Good.

On Friday I had a birthday. I turned 71. When my grandmother was in her 70's I thought that was REALLY OLD. I suppose it still looks old to some... but now that I'm here, and the reality of it is apparent, I don't feel this old.  I don't feel like I did a few years ago when the BIG 70 was looming like a huge slow motion title wave. I have a year of this under my belt now and I think I'm going to be OK...if...
I can find my glasses, car keys and the really comfortable pair of shoes that I put somewhere so Carl, our Corgi, wouldn't find them and chew on them. The ones I still can't find.
And then... there's my left knee. It seems that nothing heals on its own after 70. You hurt yourself without doing anything that you can remember ...and there lies the rub. You can't remember how you hurt yourself so you can't tell the doctor what happen... so they have to probe, test, examine and stab at a guess about what might have caused this injury. Then you start with ice packs and Tylenol, and hope for weeks, that this will be the answer... but it's not. Then an xray finds the beginnings of DEGERERATIVE ARTHRITIS and BONE DEBRIS and they tell you that you may have to try some cortisone shots and possibly have a knee replacement... "...down the road". I call it my "road" of discontent. The ragged road of being older than dirt. It's an ongoing saga. I'm trying to be positive about this but pain sucks.

So... enough of this... I had a great weekend. My sister was here. It's kind of a tradition that she be here and, in January, I will drive down to celebrate her birthday. We do this because we love each other and because we need to support each other during these trying years and cheer each other on. I have good friends and they are wonderful... but there's nothing like a sister for whining and crying. We have history. We understand each other.
So... We spent four days doing fun stuff.  On Friday, my birthday, I strapped on my knee brace and we went to an antique store, in Jackson, just for fun. The Prospector took us to dinner that night.

 Sis brought me a homemade carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and a hand packed box of See's candy. 

 Yeah... it was a good day.

 We went shopping in Sutter Creek for the Christmas Open House on Saturday. I kind of over did it with the walking, but we sure had fun.

Also, on Saturday, we cut some Manzanita Branches for decorations. We do this every year before Christmas. I use one as a Christmas tree. Sis uses hers over her kitchen window. Then we decorate them with homemade items and favorite ornaments.
This is my "tree" on the buffet.

We also made paper wreaths out of old song book pages.
This is the progression of rolling and gluing the pages onto a backing and the final results of my sister's wreath. She used small twigs, brown packing grass, some gold paint and a sparkly silver ornament.

It's so beautiful.

Mine was done a little differently. I used smaller pages from an old Christian songbook.

 Instead of making cones, I rolled the pages and shredded one end of each rolled page before hot gluing them to a round cardboard backing.

Finally a few pieces of mossy twigs, and three star ornaments.  I'm quite pleased with the wreath.

I want to try more of these. The possibilities are endless.
After dinner we started Christmas boxes. It's the technique that I used on the Halloween boxes that I've made before.
 You start with any old box or book and hot glue plastic toys and fake flowers and, in this case, plastic words like JOY and MERRY CHRISTMAS on the top of the box. Then you separate two ply paper towels, wet them and lay them over the top of everything that you have attached to the box and use Mod Podge glue to attach the paper towels and tuck, fold and push the towels into all the nooks and crannies of the figures on the box. We did this last night so it would be dry this morning.
I should have taken more photos because the transition is really amazing.
I went from a plain box like this...

To a colorful, painted box with Joy written all over it... and a dragonfly... and a little frog. In the right top, the word, the frog and the dragonfly didn't seem to stand out, so I added some black paint with a dry brush and more gold. I also added a bit of gold sparkle glue too, which isn't that noticeable in the photo, but added some real bling bling to the whole box. The darker color brought out the letters and accents more. Compare the upper right photo with the lower left. You can see the difference in the two of them. This whole process gets easier with practice.
My sister nailed it on her first try. She used and old soap box that hinged. She had a dollar store "Merry Christmas" ornament that took forever to tuck and wrap with the paper towel, but she did it and it turned out so festive and gorgeous.

I love this technique. It can be a bit labor intensive on a late Sunday night, when we did the wet paper towel/ Mod Podge part, but the results are always worth it. Here's a link to Pinterest and the original site were I got the idea. Just click here.
Sis went home this morning and I miss her all ready. As a distraction, I went to the dentist. Two hours in a dentist chair with Novocaine was not my idea of the way to end this wonderful weekend, but it did give me something else to do for a few hours. At one point, I was looking out of the window. I noticed an incident across the road. The dentist, his assistant and I watched as two woman have a knock down, dragged out, kicking and screaming fight in front of the library across the street. Someone called the police. One of the women got arrested. Real drama in downtown Jackson. That doesn't happen very often in our small town... in broad daylight. It was kind of comic relief for all of us.


I miss you Sis. Thanks for everything... you are a dear person, even if you were a pain in the arse when you were little. You grew up to be my very special friend. I love you. See you at Christmas.

Sister time...Sharing my world with my closest ally

Sis was here a week ago for a long weekend. Her world and her loves are time consuming and sometimes demanding of her lovingkindness and big heart. So she calls me up, saying ... "Can I come up for a few days. I need a respite." She is always welcome. The only person that never needs an invitation or reason... well there are a few other people I feel this way about, but none that I say "Yes." to without question.
So she came, with her tired body and the anticipation of sleeping in, taking naps and wandering with her older sister.
We, of course, came to the river. We always have to stand on a rock and contemplate the river's beauty.

A cadence of movement and harmony, of fluid peacefulness.

The place that lets you feel its presence.

That asks you to step onto its ancient bedrock and smooth stones...

To walk across its bridges...

To understand where it comes from...

And where it's going.

To find yourself looking at something bigger and older than man's history of it and finding reassurance in that thought.

I watch my sister relax. I see her smile, talking politics with the Prospector... having patience and understanding with a different point of view. I see the little girl who still loves the man I married so long ago.

We also do the things that we always do... going to see Sandy at Country Living in Amador City and having lunch at Andres. We buy one small ceramic piece of art at a gallery in Sutter Creek, by a favorite artist, and we stopped at Wal Mart, on the way home, for some essentials. There are no Trader Joe's or Whole Foods here. We have a good time, laughing at the long lines and watching the interesting people. We are part of the potpourri.

But, always...  there are the long talks. The discussions about life. And...there are the quiet, peaceful naps, in the afternoon, with Carl, who allows Sis to cuddle up with him on the sofa bed and sleep. He thinks that this is his bed and that she is there because of his permissions. He is guarding her. What a dog! I think that this is a mutual admiration and agreement for both of them. I think they have discussed this without me.
She reads a book for hours each day, from beginning to end... a luxury of monumental proportions.
Carl, and sometimes Cutter, are always at her side.

The time goes by too quickly.
She is saying goodbye and " I love you. See you next month. I will call you about the workshop."
The visit is done. The car drives away, down the dirt road.
I wave and return to the house.

I have a sister. 
Life is good.

"Today is far from Childhood..."

Last Tuesday the Prospector left me. He drove to the airport and flew to Seattle, where his old buddy picked him up. He was gone for a week of fishing and visiting with his long time friends. I had the rest of the week all to myself, which I always like. I'm a bit of a hermit and when I'm here by myself I never feel alone. Actually, I'm not really alone. I have Carl and Cutter, Annie Cat and the chickens. So technically I'm not "home alone". I also have some really great neighbors that would be here in a heartbeat if I needed them and the Sheriff dept. if things got seriously crazy.
And ... I just don't mind being by myself.
On Saturday afternoon, my sister arrived. Now, as much as I like being by myself, it's always more fun when my sister is here. I relax and I'm not so aware of my vulnerability in the middle of nowhere.
She and I are seven years apart but, as we have gotten older, we have become good friends. As children, we were close... but seven years is a great distance when you're young and she was always the little kid sister that had her friends and I was the older sister that loved being the boss and I had my friends. She started kindergarten when I went into the 7th grade.
Now, we are almost the same age.

We use to fight about stuff, like who sat where, in the car and who had to wash dishes... but now we've  decided that life is too short to argue, so we just have fun.
This weekend we tackled a rather large project. We refinished my old dark coffee table with Annie Sloan's Chalk paint and soft wax. We didn't have to strip the finish. This paint is applied over any old finish. Annie Sloan is right, in her video... it's addictive. My coffee table went from a very dark and scratched up finish to this...

We were able to do the refinishing right in the living room, on an old plastic tablecloth. The paint dries quickly (we did two coats because of the dark old finish) and the table was ready to wax on the second day. We applied a first coat with clear wax and let it dry overnight. Then a second coat was applied with a mixture of half clear and half dark wax.
The results were amazing.

I'm so happy with my "new" coffee table.

It's like a new piece of furniture. I couldn't have done it with my sister. She had done some of her own furniture and she really knew what she was doing. Also, I found it hard to get into the spaces underneath and even though we tipped the table over for the painting, we had to lay on the floor and do some upside down work as well when we did the waxing. This was hard for me because of my hip. Sis was a big help and did most of the buffing for me as well.
This was our "project" for the long weekend, so on Sunday, to reward our hard work, we took a drive to Sutter Creek, walked around and spent a few hours just goofing off. On Monday we drove up to Electra Road on the Mokelumne River. I wanted to show her the poppies. She had never, in all her visits, been up this beautiful road before.
It was a gorgeous day...

And she fell in love with the river, as I knew she would.
She walked down the trail to the beach...

I could tell that this old river was already working its magic on her.

She sat down on a rock...and I knew that we were going to be there for a while.

I could see the little girl again.

We drove up to the end of the road and walked out to the power plant.  There use to be homes up here and there are still old foundations, Sycamore trees and pyracantha, growing around the hillside where houses and remnants of buildings use to be.
An old staircase on a retaining wall is one of my favorite places to photograph.

 A bird watched us from a tree.

The poppies were still in bloom.

 I found the mystery flower that a friend had photographed. It was so beautiful.

On Wednesday I asked if anyone knew what this beautiful plant was. I put the images on Facebook as well and, as if by magic, my question was answered.

Katherine Evatt of our Foothill Conservancy answered my call for help.

She said the plant is called a Styrax redivivus or snowdrop Bush.

This uncommon plant has showy white flowers which stand out against its darker green foliage. It also has an exceptional fragrance, which smells similar to oranges. I'm so tickled when I can find the name of a new plant or flower that I don't know. This one is a beauty.

Sis left on Wednesday. I will miss her. We had a happy and productive visit. 
The Prospector came back on Tuesday. It's so good to have him home.
The prospecting couple that were living in their truck and digging in our creek are gone. They must have gone to Alaska. That's where they said they were heading.
The weather is really warming up... too fast.
Time to take early morning walks. My hip is feeling better.
It's time to start doing things in the early part of the day and after the sun goes down.
Summer is coming. 

( The title quote is from a poem called  ~One Sister have I in our house~  by Emily Dickinson ) 

Sister Visit

Sis was here for a few days. On Sunday we were dying of unseasonal heat.
She arrived, bringing all kinds of goodies from Trader Joe's and looking for a little relaxation on the mountain top.
We ate dinner, talked, watched Masterpiece Theater... and she just relaxed on the couch, with a dog on each side of her.
In the morning she fixed me some of her unbelievable oatmeal for breakfast.
This sister of mine can really fixed a dish of oatmeal.

She makes the oats with milk. Then she adds cut up apples and dried cranberries while it's cooking.  She tops it with a small amount of brown sugar and pecans, that she buys at Trader Joe's. They are pecans that are baked with honey and sugar. I'm guessing that you could do this with regular pecans but these are already sweetened and packaged this way. Sis breaks them up on top of the oatmeal and OH!  Is it good. You only need a little milk because the fruit and nuts makes it all moist, sweet and delicious without adding a lot of milk or sugar. She even sprinkled some of the brown sugar on the plate, to make it look beautiful enough to take a picture of (which I did) and similar to what you pay big bucks for in the restaurants. It's called "plate-ing" on the Food Network. It was a truly beautiful serving of oatmeal.
So, we ate in the living room... with the dogs... and then we let them lick the dishes. A bad habit that has been reinforced in this household. They are truly spoiled dogs.

Carl always gets to lick first, and Cutter waits patiently, for his uncle to lick part of the dish. Then Cutter gets to lick the rest.

"Oh boy. It's my turn."

After breakfast they got to cuddle with  their auntie.  Cutter still gets a little overwhelmed with too much closeness, but Sis finally won him over.

And, a few days later, when it was time for her to leave, they were both unhappy about saying goodbye.

"Where are you going Auntie?"

Look at Carl's expression. It was a sad moment.

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While Sis was here we spent a morning down on the river. First we drove to the new river access under the highway 49 bridge.
The drive down to the water was springtime magic.

The whole area from the highway to the river was covered with a daisy like flower that had been planted along the road, with lots of California poppies in between all the beautiful yellow flowers. It was a most beautiful site. 

The river was flowing wide and deep... and clouds were moving in from the west.

It was a perfect spring day in the foothills.

After we tiptoed through the daisies, we drove back toward Jackson ,over the Mokelumne River bridge and north to see the hills of poppies that I posted on  Wordless Wednesday.

It was so beautiful. Nature never fails us here in the foothills.

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On Tuesday we went to Sutter Creek and had lunch.

We went to some of our favorite stores... mostly "just looking", because these are high end stores and things tend to be a bit pricey. But, there is always the possibility of a surprise "bargain". You just never know when something will be on sale that you can't resist.

We introduced the owner of Romancing the Range to the Magnolia Pearl website. She had never seen or heard of this amazing women and her endeavours. The clothes in this store are all "cowboy meets Pearl" kinds of clothing and she went crazy when she saw The website. Check it out. The music is worth the link. It's beautiful. She also has a blog..... My, oh my!  Read a few of the posts on her blog and you'll see why I call her amazing.

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Loved having Sis here. It had been a while since her last visit. It rained most of yesterday but we managed one more lunch downtown before she left for home. 

 Thanks for coming up. We all miss you . Carl and Cutter have been looking for you all day. 

I will see you soon.

Sistering

My sister followed me back home on Sunday. She wanted a few days on the farm and a little R&R. The weather cooperated . It turned into a few day of achingly beautiful Spring weather that was warm and DRY. We just goofed off and had fun.
On Monday we drove into Sutter Creek and had lunch. We ate ice cream and shopped the south end of town. The Prospector always says, "Well, did we shop til we dropped?" and we say "Yep! We bought the town."
Truth be told.... the shopping part is getting a lot shorter as we get older.  So we don't spend hours walking up and down the street anymore. We form a strategy. We pick and choose the stores we really want to look at and then we only go into these stores. It's a matter of survival. I'm old. Sis is gaining on me.
After we had lunch we walked over to Yesterdays Heirlooms . I used amazing restraint. With all the beautiful Easter things and wonderful FREE PEOPLE clothing, which I can't afford anyway, but love. These clothes are really wild and unique styles. Kind of hippy style clothing with Anthropology prices.  But if I was in my 20's or 30's and had the money, I'd be buying this clothing .... and letting my hair grow to my waist.... and wearing flowers in my hair again.... Oh, yea!!
I invested heavily here. I bought a card. I liked what it said and reminded me that I need to be more careful about all human hearts and that loving kindness is always a better choice.

We moved on down the street to Topia Home and Garden. Well, you all know how I feel about Home & Garden. This is a very wonderful store at 33A Main St. that makes you go a little crazy when you walk inside.... and we did.

I bought this antique embroidered pillow. I fell in love with it . There it was.... sitting on a small, old sofa in the back of the store, with lots of other pillows. NO PRICE anywhere. I swear I heard it say, "Here I am. I need to go home with you. Forget me not." Yes, I'm pretty sure I heard the pillow say this to me. So this is why I had to pick it up and walk to the counter with it.... just to asked the price.
I'm not going to say how much it was, but I will tell you that it was almost 40% off the original price and that was when I knew I could not walk away. I bought it and haven't regretted it since. Look at the beautiful work that someone put into this.

The fabric is so soft and old.  The women who sold it to me said that her mother loved these pillows and she would buy them for her mother when she was alive. This pillow had memories. This was a well loved pillow and now it would have another wonderful home. How nice! A history, a remembrance..... no wonder the pillow was talking to me.
Now where shall I put it.... HERE? In my grandmother's old oak rocking chair?

Or HERE? In my mother's wicker chair?

Which do you like best?
Maybe I will switch it around and see which place the pillow seems most comfortable ... but right now I think I will keep it next to me in the tapestry recliner, where I sit all the time. It may have more to talk about and I want to hear what it has to say.
This beautiful old pillow sure does add something to my living room. Makes it seem like Spring is here and life is brighter.It's a good feeling.

The next day we went antiquing in Jackson. I bought some lace.

and a doily.

Each was only a dollar. This made me feel better about my splurge the day before.

On Wednesday we made felted soap. I showed Sis how to do it and from then on she went at it like a pro.

This is a fun and easy thing to do. You can spend a few hours with your kids, grandkids, nieces and nephews making felted soap. Especially on a rainy day when there isn't much else to do. A few supplies and a little direction... that's all it takes. If you Google "Felted soap" you will have all the information you know what to do with. It's such fun..... and everyone smells good afterwards.

Look at all the beautiful soaps we made. It's a plate full of Easter.With little pieces of cotton doily felted in for exfoliation. Aren't they just the prettiest? Put them in an Easter basket for someone. I use little soaps I save from hotels, inexpensive soaps from CVS,Walgreen's and WalMart. Any soap that smells good and lathers well. I love Yardley's Lavender soap and it's not very expensive.
Sis made a most beautiful felted soap with Yardleys. It looks like a rock.  It's a soap rock. Kind of like a pet rock only softer and if you drop it in the shower it won't break a toe. Look at this one.

Isn't this wonderful?
You must try these felted soaps. They are useful and you will never need a wash cloth again.
I gave one to my youngest grandson last weekend. He is 4 yrs old. He held it, turned in in his hands, pulled at it and then said "Noni, how do you get the soap out of here?" He needed to have some fun with it in his bathtub to understand why Noni would wrap soap inside all that fuzzy stuff. I will let you know how this turns out the next time I'm there. I'm not sure he understood the concept of "fuzzy" soap.Maybe he can put it under his pillow at night (before he gets it wet) and it will make everything smell good.
So my sister left around noon yesterday. I will see her again in less than a week. We are driving up north, to Susanville, to celebrate our uncle's 90th birthday party. Should be fun.... if it doesn't snow and we get over the mountain passes. Our cousin is going with us so we can all take turns driving.

This was Tuesday evening.... Sis and I are sitting on the front porch, enjoying the beautiful weather.

The temperature was 72 degrees at 5:00 p.m. Honestly.

And the Tulip tree was showing off for us.

....Good ol' California Springtime.