Six weeks post-hip surgery, I’m finally free to bend my hip joint past 90%. It still hurts, but with a series of maneuvers, I can gather garden blooms. Spring is in full swing, so I had many lovely choices. I went with a white and purple palette, with plenty of green to add structure and balance.
White Freesia with a hint of yellow center balances the purple Muscari or grape hyacinth. The Freesia returns yearly in various colors, but the white and yellow blooms dominate. The Muscari is new to my garden, and it did not disappoint. It’s also reputed to spread easily through the garden, so I see more and more of it in my future.
I clipped a few sprigs of greenery from our Pittosporum tree and plopped the flowers in a recycled glass sauce jar wrapped in colorful fabric Washi tape from 49 & Market.
Thank you to “the Cathys” for inspiring this Monday series. It encourages me to bring in some of our garden’s colorful and fragrant goodness. You can visit Cathy at Rambling in The Garden at this link to see several stunning vases worldwide.
My recovery from hip replacement surgery is going well. Without needing ice packs and elevated limbs, I could comfortably sit at my crafting desk to make a few ScrapHappy cards. Thank you, Kate, for bringing us together for these monthly challenges.
I have an inordinate amount of green paper scraps spanning many shades, solid and print. I managed to work four green scraps into three cards. I will continue to challenge myself to use more. I have an unappealing shade of leftover green paper from a paper pack that I will never use, so it went into the “scraps for testing ideas pile,” allowing me to cull the useable greens.
The first card incorporates two shades of green and a blueish background from a Halloween pack, believe it or not. As I’ve challenged myself over the years, I’m more confident about mixing the unexpected. It’s fun.
Once or twice a year, I receive a coupon mailer from a clothing company called Tommy Bahama featuring beautiful tropical art, something I can’t bear to toss. I set the envelope aside and waited for inspiration. This month, I incorporated the front and back of the envelope into two cards.
This first card uses a cutout from the front of the envelope, set behind a trellis die-cut using a green scrap. I inked a piece of white paper to get the shade of blue I wanted, then sandwiched the trellis, orchid, and blue paper, matting a sliver of purple to tie the colors together.
The final card uses the back of the tropical art, one more green scrap (yay), purple scraps from my sister, and a butterfly transfer to tie it together. I enjoy using up what I have, repurposing when I can, and, most of all, creating cards to send to friends.
These are difficult times. If you’ve been looking for a way to reduce stress, creative outlets like card-making, sewing, knitting, gardening, painting, or writing are a balm for the soul.
Here’s a list of contributing scrap-happy bloggers:
After a parched January, the skies opened up and delivered much-needed rain. I’m grateful for every drop. It’s fun to imagine droplets trickling down to the garden’s roots, perhaps encountering an earthworm as they travel. After years of gardening and drought in this semi-arid state, I take nothing for granted.
Various birds, squirrels, and perhaps this Virginia Oppossum drink from our fountain and the smaller birdbath on our deck. All thirsty guests are welcome.
We had one week in January with unseasonable temps in the seventies (F) and no rain; Mike ensured these water sources were clean and full.
Over time, I’ve replaced potted plants along the deck with succulents. Succulents store moisture in their leaves, allowing the plant to go one to three months without water. Conversely, most summer annuals need near-daily watering, so I’ve learned to (mostly) resist when I head to the garden center.
The newest addition to our deck is called an Othonna Capensis. It has thin purple stems and tiny yellow flowers. I transplanted it last summer into a waiting pot, but I wasn’t sure it would make it. The roots were loose and thin. To the contrary, it’s filled the pot nicely and its sending trailing purple offshoots down the sides. I add a few potted cyclamen for color in the fall, and when the corms go dormant, I replant them in different parts of the garden for color the following year.
Working in my garden has been physically challenging these past few years as the pain in my hips worsened. After five years of maneuvering through the US medical system, I finally had a complete hip replacement this past Wednesday. From a medical perspective, the surgery was unremarkable, and I was able to come home the same day. I need to replace the left hip in the future, but I want to fully recover before contemplating another surgery.
If you garden in the Northern Hemisphere, you’ll know February is a decent time to be off your feet. The first six weeks of recovery will carry me through the end of winter, leading to the effervescent gifts of spring.
A large swath of voters in the US elected a man-child to the highest office in the land. Some voted in denial of his words and deeds; others, as far as I can tell, didn’t care. No matter. The President-elect takes office Monday morning, coinciding with a federal holiday honoring the late, great Martin Luther King, Jr. The juxtaposition is depressing.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
As this country mourns the death of former President Jimmy Carter, the President-elect has asked that the flag be raised for his special day, an act that is self-centered, disrespectful, undignified, and crude.
The Carter Center’s mission is to Wage Peace, Fight Disease, and Build Hope.
The new guy wants to set back women’s rights by a century, as he hatefully deports hard-working immigrants while freeing the criminals who attacked the Capital on his behalf. He’s cozying up to three of the world’s wealthiest billionaires while lining his pockets and lying for sport.
When I hear that we’ve “seen worse” or “we’ll get through this,” I cringe. Some of us will be fine, others won’t, and race and gender will unjustly determine many outcomes.
I struggle as I search for ways to be. It takes energy to be scared and angry all the time. Avoiding news coverage helps tame the beast, but it’s always waiting to pounce on the other side.
“Our political culture tells us to see our opponents as uniformly awful—to reduce them to their vote—and yet ordinary human experience shows that most people are complex, decent, and just trying to get along. What should we prioritize: the stark binaries of politics or the reality of people as we know them? Hope doesn’t deny how grim things are; it doesn’t look away from the news, wish away the signs in the street, or sugarcoat the terrible plans of those coming to power. But it doesn’t deny the potential in people, either. “
In “The Spirit of Hope,” the philosopher Byung-Chul Han “distinguishes between hope and optimism. “Hopeful thinking is not optimistic thinking,” Han writes, with emphasis. Optimism “knows neither doubt nor despair. Its essence is sheer positivity.”
I hope positive thinking, acts of kindness, and truth will see me through.
Thank you, Kate, for bringing us together for these monthly scrap-happy challenges. Kate and Gun have hosted this blog hop for a decade. Impressive, eh? Forget your troubles, come on get scrappy.
My contribution this month uses scraps of velum and several pages from last year’s The Old Farmer’s Almanac calendar to create three greeting cards.
I used two pieces of heavy white card stock for the body of the card, then adhered a pretty section of the calendar to the card front. These illustrations by artist Kristen Kest are too pretty to toss.
I ran both layers through my nifty die cutter, then scored the top and glued it to the back layer.
I stamped a couple of sentiments onto scraps of velum (I love using velum) and added them to the front of the card. Making these cards was quick, easy, and fun or in Kate’s parlance, scrap-happy.
I have a few more pages of the calendar to craft with. I hope to get to that next month.
Thanks as always, Kate.
Here’s a list of contributing scrap-happy bloggers:
Assembling a jigsaw puzzle is the ultimate escape. It’s engaging but not taxing, and with one thousand pieces, it requires time and patience.
Conversely, I had neither time nor patience throughout December, yet I started assembling a puzzle anyway, and once done, I started another one.
Studies suggest that puzzles increase the production of dopamine, a chemical that regulates mood, memory, and concentration. Once I cracked open the puzzle box, the sorting began, and the list of things I needed to do fell by the wayside. A spell had been cast, one puzzle piece at a time.
Most of the time, I’m an organized and capable person, so I’m uncomfortable feeling this scattered. I planned to make Christmas cards this year and had the supplies. Making cards and corresponding with friends is a joy. I eventually sat down at my crafting table and created a dozen cards, but by day’s end, fatigue won out, and most of my cards remained unsent.
I made one card, using scraps, to join Kate’s ScrapHappy blog hop mid-December, but I lacked the time to create a post.
Earlier in the year, I set aside vintage Christmas postage to make a card from a friend’s stash. You guessed it: finished but unsent.
And Permits? How did that get into the title?
It’s a long and tedious story, so here’s my attempt at brevity. The space between the sidewalk and the street, known locally as the sidewalk strip, is the homeowner’s responsibility, but the City governs usage. When we bought our home nearly thirty years ago, we inherited a strip of lawn. We applied for a permit and planted a “street tree.” During the worst of the drought years, we removed the lawn. Mike built a planter box in its place, and I’ve happily planted seasonal flowers, tomatoes, and whatever else wanted to self-seed there for many years.
In the last decade, the tree declined. We applied for a permit to replace the tree. The City denied our request, saying the tree wasn’t sick enough. City workers came through this spring and pruned every tree on the block to prepare for road work, leaving a sickly tree in its wake. They approved our second request to remove and replace the tree.
Two weeks later, we received a Repair Notice and Permit saying we had to remove the planting box, calling it a tripping hazard. I’ll share more details in a future post, but suffice it to say I’m sad, disappointed, and, for a time, overwhelmed by the amount of work it would take to dismantle my beloved curb garden, not to mention the expense.
The City gave us thirty days to remove the tree, the planting box, and all the soil and gravel, plants, bulbs, and irrigation that went with it. When I called, they offered an extension but refused to budge on the planter.
I can always send those Christmas cards next year.
In the wee hours of the morning on November 6th, I crawled out of bed and confirmed what I already knew. Kamala Harris lost the presidential election to a vile man.
Since then, I’ve managed a near-100% media blackout, avoiding print, radio, and TV. Further, I’m on an extended break from social media. It’s tough to reconcile the fact that 50% of the votes cast in this election nominated a racist, misogynistic, lying, cheating man who is now free of any consequences for his contemptible behavior. I feel sick with grief.
While I’m not one to stick my head in the sand, this is how I’m coping with my sorrow and dread of what’s to come. It’s exhausting.
California is home to 39 million people, 27% of whom are immigrants. People are scared. My internal mantra has been “mourn, then mobilize,” but it will be a while before I get there.
I’ll end with this quote:
“We can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.” James Baldwin
Resist: Marches, Rallies, and Vigils Click on image for details
October left town on Friday, foisting the reality of November and the most significant election of my lifetime, November 5. I’ve kept busy all month with organizing clients and social engagements, spending time with friends and family, and trying to avoid the news.
Unseasonably hot temperatures kept me out of the garden the first week of October. It’s hard to fathom triple-digit days at a time when the angle of the sun says fall, not July.
I celebrated my birthday on October 2, and we had fun handing out candy on Halloween. Mike carved three beautiful pumpkins for the front deck. Soon, they’ll join the compost bin. The seeds are outside for the squirrels to enjoy or to plant a pumpkin for next year.
This year, I polished off the last of my Halloween paper and ephemera, making cards for friends, seasonal bookmarks, and craft-making kits next to the children’s Little Free Library. I offered seeds from my garden as well.
My friend Marcia gave me a treasure trove of vintage postage, so I had fun making a few pumpkins.
There are plenty of tasks in an autumn garden, and we’re finally enjoying the cool weather needed to get things done. I’ve been pruning where appropriate and removing spent annuals. The anemones grew tall this year, with the extra weight of blooms, bending them in a gentle arch to show off a snowy white skirt. I removed the flower stalks from the lower garden but left a pair of tall plants to go to seed. The hummingbirds will be along in a few months to harvest the seed fluff for their nests.
A second round of nasturtiums arrived on the scene, flaunting lovely saucer-sized leaves and a limited number of orange and red flowers. Nasturtiums self-seed in the spring and summer, dying off by the middle of July. The fall variety has proliferated in a section planted with freesia. They’re lovely.
This morning, I planted forty spring bulbs, a mixture of double yellow narcissus and grape hyacinth. I replaced the leggy coleus growing in a pot along our deck with cold-weather cyclamen. We enjoyed a light rain overnight, refreshing the garden and the stale air.
In the wee hours of Sunday, the US ends Daylight Saving Time (DST) or Falls Back. Here’s hoping this isn’t a metaphor for what could happen if this country doesn’t vote for Democracy. I’m cautiously optimistic for a better way forward.
“There’s no such thing as a vote that doesn’t matter.” – Barack Obama
For the second time this year, I had the privilege of modeling in a customer fashion show at Kismet, a boutique in Los Gatos. Kismet is my go-to shop for affordable, comfortable, stylish, and special-occasion clothes. I wandered in one day several years ago and found the perfect dress. I’ve been a fan ever since.
Jennifer opened Kismet in 2002, fulfilling her dream of owning a clothing store, but it’s more than that. It’s a place where you feel like part of a family, with excellent customer service and a warm, inviting atmosphere. The fact that my friend Andrea works there only adds to the personal connection I feel. It’s kismet, indeed.
Unchained’s mission is “Achieved through our flagship program, Canines Teaching Compassion (CTC), uniting at-risk youth with homeless dogs in a purposeful bond of learning and healing. Each carefully structured CTC session involves small groups of youth working intimately with dogs, guided by our skilled trainers, to nurture empathy, master new skills, and build a positive future outlook.” Source
Liverpool jeans are renowned for their inclusive sizing, fitting all types of bodies. Their recent addition of jeans with longer inseams further emphasizes their commitment to inclusivity. I had the opportunity to model a pair and then purchase them (of course) with a generous discount. Jeans, often considered among the least eco-friendly garments, are being redefined by Liverpool’s focus on better alternatives, including sustainable trims, chemical-free closures, recyclable fabrics, processes that use less water, and organic cotton.
Pictured above: My friend Andrea and store manager, Hannah. Most of all, we had fun. We modeled jeans with a top, then returned for a second round and added a warm layer. Our third pass featured a second outfit. In my case, I wore a black knit sweater, black trousers, and a fuzzy white bolero.
Kismet provided models and guests with a bistro box lunch from Bleu Fig and a delicious and fashion-forward shortbread cookie by Love Vero Sugar Co. that tasted as good as it looked.
We rounded out the morning with a fun shopping atmosphere before the boutique opened to the public, then headed home with a bag of swag. Jen and Hannah know how to bring the fun.
Kismet produced a video of the thirty-minute fashion show. You can watch it here.
As the autumnal equinox approaches, I’m pining for fall colors and cooler days. October is my favorite time of year, and it’s fast approaching. Sometimes, I miss the fun we had growing pumpkins when my boys were young, but with my sons launched, not to mention back-to-back years of squash bug infestations, I’m happy to leave it to the professional growers.
Also, I’m out of room. When you love gardening, a patch of exposed earth is a planting opportunity. I’ve filled pots, borders, raised beds, and the surrounding soil with living things. Potted succulents line the deck, the back steps, and the walkway leading to our back gate. I once joked that it would be fun to buy the house behind us, remove the fence, and extend the garden. Ha! A gardener can dream.
We have a decent tomato crop for the first time in several years. I was starting to think I’d lost my gardening mojo, but the cherry tomatoes are sweet and delicious, not to mention prolific.
I spent several hours last weekend taming the garden paths from the rapidly spreading nepeta and an annual called a 4’0clock. They fill the beds quickly and spill over on the path. The nepeta is a garden darling favored by cats, birds, bees, and paper wasps.
Last weekend, I spotted a mantis near the catmint. I coaxed him onto a stick and relocated him to a higher elevation for his safety.
Earlier in the year, we hired someone to replace the sideyard walkway, a project on my list for two years. When I met with a company specializing in hardscape to discuss our needs, the sales rep lacked the imagination and flexibility to do the job, prompting me to put it on hold again. The rep said they couldn’t repurpose the flagstone but would instead break it up and haul it away, providing their own material in its place. Go figure?
Fortuitously, a handyman we know reached out looking for work, so we hired him to do the job. It looks great.
The goal for the sideyard was one of safety as much as aesthetics: the stepping stones in place were small and uneven, presenting a tripping hazard. The ground cover that grew on either side looked great in the winter but dried to a crisp under the summer sun. I missed the green, so I added a few potted plants along the new path and hung a botanical print on the gate to create a focal interest. It feels good to check this project off the list.
Most of our spring plantings have done well, but we misjudged the placement of the Hostas.
They prefer shade, and we thought they would be ok, but the excess heat early this year and the sun’s rotation exposed them to more than they could handle. We’ll dig them up next month and hope they’ll survive a transplant to a shadier spot. I’m always learning.
I’ve missed blogging these past few months. August took on a life of its own. My younger sister sustained a foot wound on her wheelchair when a caregiver smashed her exposed heel on the footrest. The wound progressed to stage 3, requiring a trip to the emergency room and a three-week stay at a skilled nursing facility. I brought her kitty home to stay with us while Sharon healed. My sister was in pain for several days, but rest and good care helped. She was able to return to her assisted living home after three weeks and continues to receive care from a visiting nurse at home.
I had an appendicitis scare the Friday after Sharon went home. My doctor ordered an abdominal CT scan due to lower right abdominal pain. She thought it was my appendix. The on-call doctor called me that evening and said they saw something on the scan (a thickening of the appendix), and he sent me to the ER to have a surgeon make the call. I spent the night at Stanford Hospital, expecting surgery in the morning.
Saturday morning the on-call surgeon took a wait-and-see perspective, and I went home on antibiotics. The findings were atypical: My white blood cell count fell in the normal range, my pain was minimal, and I wasn’t running a fever. The surgeon suggested I try the antibiotic approach, and they gave me the warning signs to look for should things get worse. They did not.
Our son Chris managed the three cats, and friends came up and brought me home the following day.
It was a scary night. Mike was still in Argentina, and I couldn’t talk to him till the following day because of the five-hour time difference. He was already asleep by the time they admitted me. He was sad to be so far away in my time of need, but it all worked out.
Good riddance to August, and hello, early autumn days.
Gardening Nirvana 