Into the garden

 I am amazed by plant life.  I can't help it, it's genetic.  Both sides of my family dating back generations have been gardeners (some professional, some amateur).  My love of plants started when I was a baby, before I knew what it was about.  My mom used to roll me around the gardens at Sunset Magazine headquarters - heavenly gardens - in my stroller.  There were also trips upon trips to the local nursery.  Thus, through nature and nurture, I am a gardener.  

available at

thewheatfield at etsy.com

Two years ago, my parents helped me put in my amazing garden boxes.  I stole the idea from an old clipping from Sunset.  Dad designed the boxes and the three of us spent a day building them.  

The prep work

Boxes built, lined with gopher wire then covered with
pea gravel for pest control and drainage.

 Then the fun begins.  I started with a winter garden and have now had my second of summer gardens with the boxes.  It's amazing how well things grow in them.  If you are contemplating adding garden boxes to you yard - DO IT.  Use quality loam and additives for best soil.  There is literally nothing I can't grow here.

Finished boxes

This spring's seed planting

 I plant my edibles from seed.  It is the most amazing thing to watch a particle that you placed in dirt come to life with sun and water.  Amazing, simply amazing!

12 varieties of tomatoes

I realize that I go a little overboard with the varieties and amount of plants but after watching the seeds grow into little plantlings, I can't throw any out.  I do give many away to good homes.  

Watch me - I'm germinating!

The yard in late spring

My yard is my sanctuary.  My place of peace and recovery of growth and connection to my world.  It is the place I come to sit with myself and with my Maggie, to drink in the smells and the air of the garden. 

The garden boxes  

Teddy Bear sunflowers

 Yes - flowers too.  I have 4 varieties of sunflowers and the happiest bunch of crayola colored zinneas!  The edibles include zuchinni, corn, artichoke, pasilla peppers, cantelope, strawberries and cucumbers in addition to more herbs than I can keep up with.

Yellow Pear Heirloom tomatoes

 This year I ended up with 22 tomato plants - some more productive than others (the ones in the boxes do best).  I am into the harvest season and am blog hopping through the foodies to see what I can do next with my amazing tomatoes.

fresh harvest

Marinated Heirloom Tomato Salad

Tomato Salad with Almond Crusted Okra via Roost

Roost is one of my new favorite blogs.  Please take a moment and jump over to it.  The photography will leave you drooling over the recipes and then running to your kitchen to attempt to replicate...  good luck.

"In memory, everything seems to happen to music."

"In memory, everything seems to happen to music."   These words spoken by      in  Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, are together one of my favorite quotes.  Music.  What stories it tells.  What images it evokes.    We all feel it.  Hear a tune and escape, to the feel of the summer breeze, to the feel of sand in your toes, to the sweaty grip of a slow dance... to high school, to a first date, to a favorite movie.  Where does music take you?

For me, there is always music.  It is in every memory.  In the current iWorld we inhabit, there is a playlist for everything.  Here are a few of mine:  Lullaby for Cooper, Margarita Madness, Get Going, Tough Shift, Funeral for a Friend, Margo's Suite, Happy, Harmony, In the yard, Sing-a-long...  


My favorite song, and that's not easy to pick, but I have one - is Dancin' in the Moonlight (by King Harvest).  The tune, the words... they just make me happy, can't fight it.  

We like our fun and we never fight
You can't dance and stay uptight

It's a supernatural delight

Everybody was dancin' in the moonlight

You can't dance and stay uptight.  Says it right there in the lyrics.  So dance.  Dance like a kid.  Dance like a dancer.  Dance like a crazy fool, drunk on life.  Just dance.

When I was in nursing school, my roommate and I used to get each other through challenging times.  One of our tools?  Music.  We'd drive to school (or to study group or to clinical) with music blasting, singing like teenagers.  The favorite at the time?  Leonard Skynyrd's Sweet Home Alabama.  Again, just try listening to the lead-in guitar without feeling the weight of everyday life just fall off of your shoulders.  Try it!  Turn it up.  Do a little dance.  I know you feel it!  

What's the lesson here?  Grab a hold of life.  Anyway you can.  Put on a tune that brings you back to a happy place.  Put on a tune that makes you FEEL.  Create a playlist called Happy or Get Going...  

Life is TOO short to wallow.  I've been noticing lately that people are almost surprised when they ask, "how are you?" and I respond with a solid, "GREAT!"  Of course I have bad days.  But I am blessed with a beautiful life and I don't take it for granted.  

I've been surfing around my favorite blogs and the past week has been dominated by mentions of Jennie Perillo of  

http://www.injennieskitchen.com/.  Jennie lost her husband suddenly and unexpectedly. Though most of the bloggers didn't know the family personally, or very well, the circle of virtual friendship that exists in the blogosphere wrapped arms around Jennie and her girls in their grief.  Jennie asked that people to "make a peanut butter pie this Friday and share it with someone you love. Then hug them like there's no tomorrow because today is the only guarantee we can count on."  When I went to visit one of my dailies, http://www.tastespotting.com/ I found a collection of images of peanut butter and chocolate pies made in honor of Mikey.  What a strange and beautiful world we live in.  

Peanut butter pie for Mikey and for celebrating those we love
www.meanderingeats.com

Peanut Butter Pie:  for Jennie, for Mikey, and for all those who have loved and lost.
www.georgiapellegrini.com

A choco/peanut butter pie for Mikey; our whole family made it together
www.jollytomato.com

Peanut Butter Pie (a pie for Mikey)
foodlibrarian.blogspot.com

Peanut Butter pie in memory of Mikey Perillo
www.roxanagreengirl.com

Frozen Peanut Butter Pie (dairy free).  Share with someone you love.
www.kitchentravels.com

And those are just a few.  Makes you think, doesn't it.  Take that moment, pause, feel it.  We rush through our lives surrounded by technology.  Everything happens so quickly.  STOP.  Just stop for a moment and take stock.  Look around and BE in the moment.  Tell your loved ones that you love them.  Don't put off dreaming, creating, celebrating the little things.  Make a peanut butter and chocolate pie.  Dance to the music.

Back to work...

Wow, we've been bad.  Forgive the long silence.


This spring I took three courses in my pursuit of my Masters degree and with my jobs and other commitments - well this blog fell to the wayside.  In April, I had minor surgery.  The kind of surgery that is performed every day in this country.  I had no complications but because I am an ICU nurse and have to lift heavy weights in my work... I got six weeks of recovery.  


Tomorrow, I return to work.  I am ready to go back, to care for patients and to see my fellow RNs.  Do I wish I had a few more weeks to play in my garden and take long walks with my dog and to catch up with old friends?  Sure.  But I am so grateful for all the gifts in my life, one of which is my work, so I am ready to go back.


During my six weeks, I had the great pleasure to see my sister and my nephew TWICE!!  Talk about gifts. My sister lives way to far from me and I love spending time with her.  One of our favorite things:  Swirl-a-ritas.  At On the Border they serve frozen margaritas swirled with sangria... dangerously delish!  It's kind of a special thing that we do when we are together in a place where there is an On the Border.  Silly, but these are the little moments for which I am so grateful.

Swissie Swirl-a-ritas!!

Yesterday, May 21st, the world was supposed to end (according to some wack job).  I awakened to a crystal clear, perfect California morning.  Maggie and I went for a walk and the wind was blowing soft kisses.  I thought aloud, "I am grateful for this day."  It had nothing to do with the prophesy and everything to do with the whisper of the wind and the blue sky overhead, and my Maggie and I spending time together.  

Miss Maggie May (12 years old on May 8th)

So this is just an impromptu entry to say hi after months of non-blogging.  I am grateful for this day.

Cooper and his cousins, Henry (Hen-a-ry as Cooper says) and Anna on Easter.

Brrrrr...

Soo...the groomer calls & says your pooch is all matted underneath & has to have a "close cut"... & he's going to be very cold. Here was my answer to that...


Not a bad look! I just took an old sweater that I had already felted... cut it to fit, & sewed it together under the neck & belly.




just some pinking shears, some yarn & a big darning needle, & voila.


and I added a bone for a little color on the back...


& to put it on, i just pull it over his newly trim head, & wiggle his front legs through the front opening.



i'm pretty pleased with the results, & mister bean is cozy!

down the rabbit hole...

Recently I've been using the term "down the rabbit hole..." a lot.  My new addiction, Pinterest, takes me down the rabbit hole again and again.  I've discovered countless new things...

Remember Alice?  When I was growing up, we had this amazing multi disc collection of Lewis Carroll’s Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.  I would listen to it over and over, and though I read the written works, the images conjured by those recordings, are so vivid, they still come flooding back.  Alice is a well known literary heroine.  Carroll’s words have become standards.  “Wonderland” is used to refer to a fantastic, magical place. “Curiouser and curiouser” is a phrase we use to qualify a strange, odd or extraordinary event.  And “down the rabbit hole” is used to describe an adventure into the unknown. 

illustration by John Tenniel
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Lewis Carroll 1866

For the past several months, Pinterest has been my new adventure into the unknown.  If you don’t know about Pinterest, you must visit the site http://pinterest.com/and request an invitation!  It is truly an adventure!  I often feel as if I’ve gone “down the rabbit hole” when I delve into the multiple layers of Pinterest.  I find an image I like and click on it.  It enlarges and shows the link to the site from which the image was posted.  

Pinned from kchataigne.blogspot.com

I click on the link and I am on my way.  I’ve had the greatest time exploring blogs and websites.  The new discoveries I make and the places they take me are galvanizing my creativity.  My love for design is a passion I’d neglected!  And as a direct result, Margo and I have created Persnickety.  Have you discovered Pinterest?  I am having so much fun pinning.  I try to come up with clever names for my boards... some people might not get it, but it's a blast for me.

Clean bed...

If there is any truly simple pleasure, it is getting into a fresh, clean bed.  I know you know what I mean.  This morning I stripped the bed and changed the linens and was filled with the sense of happiness and contentment of knowing that at the end of my day, clean bed was awaiting me.  

via my hipstamatic...

And don't think for a minute that I take my bed and bedding for granted.  I am grateful for what I have.  I could be sleeping on a floor somewhere, or on dirt in a tent.  Mine is a bed of luxury.  There is the feather bed, the base of any good, fluffy bed.  The linens?  I prefer Bella Notte linens http://www.bellanottelinens.com/.  Their lush fabrics and colors have me spoiled.  If you are lucky enough to live near Marin County, you should seek out their warehouse (open Friday and Saturday mornings).  My favorites are the bamboo sheets and the silk velvet accessories.  I even gave bamboo sheet sets for Christmas presents last year!

luscious chocolate

Chocolate, white and petal (pink) are the colors I have the most of... I say that, because my weakness for these yummy linens has lead to a well stocked linen closet!  The bamboo sheets are a soft and creamy.

whisper white

crimson quilt and pouf

The crimson is the most heavenly deep color.  If you love reds, this is as perfect as a red can be.  The patchwork is beautiful and, did I mention, all of the fabrics are washable!

poufs of many colors

luxury patchwork

What is your bedding of choice?  Do you worry about thread count?  At the end of the day, do you tolerate your bed or do you relish in diving into the fluffy goodness?  Sweet dreams...

Gone to Carolina in My Mind...

This is a little bit I jotted down when my folks were with me over the holidays.

My dad is 75.  Thank God he’s healthy and active and I am blessed with the opportunity to enjoy time with him.

Tonight he is sitting, playing his guitar, learning James Taylor songs.

In my mind, I’m gone to Carolina…

I remember hours as a kid, sitting and listening to him singing.  Learning enchanting folk songs… Little boxes, Abiyoyo and of course, the Fox Went out on a Chilly Night.  We sang.  We learned Pete Seeger and other classics.  Moments to be bottled up and saved for a time you need an infusion of sweet memories.

My dad has recently rediscovered his love of the guitar.  So here we sit, harmonizing while he strums.  I’m more in love with James Taylor (if that’s possible) for giving us this moment in time.

He says goodnight you moonlight ladies,

Rock-a-bye sweet baby James,

Deep greens and blues are the colors I choose,

Won’t you let me go down in my dreams,

And rock-a-by sweet baby James.

http://thesoundprincess.com/2010/08/jt/

The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time
Any fool can do it
There ain't nothing to it
Nobody knows how we got to
The top of the hill
But since we're on our way down
We might as well enjoy the ride

http://www.jamestaylor.com/guitarlessons/

Seems only right to pay homage to the man, the myth, the legend…  James Taylor’s website is beautiful and includes on line guitar lessons with James himself. 

Another fun site my dad discovered is Chordie.  If you are learning to play the guitar, Chordie is a great site that includes words and cords for many songs and allows the learner to transpose the song to different keys as preferred.  (http://www.chordie.com/)