I hope everyone had an enjoyable weekend!  We went hiking in a couple local areas over the weekend.  It was nice to get out of the city for a while.  Kiah hates to go anywhere that is out of a 5 mile radius because he gets car sick.  So we took his cousin along to keep him company.

It was quite a hike to get to the swimming hole.  But this is the swimming hole of swimming holes.  It is called the Garden of Eden because the Mount Harmon boys used to swim here naked.  I didn't like having to hike along side the railroad tracks with two kids in tow.  Thankfully the train didn't come by.  The kids had a huge pool to themselves.

Then to the other side there was this huge rock they could jump off of.

We got there about 5pm and by that time everyone was heading back up the trail.  There were only a few sets of people down there while we were there.  Which was nice, I hate to be in crowds of people.

The day before that Chris and I had gone hiking at a local hiking trail.  I don't think I sweat that hard in a long time.  It was quite the work-out.  At least I can say I exercised.

Besides that I have been trying not to focus on our financial state, working on a couple things for a Stampington & Co submission, trying to keep Kiah off of video games, and praying my sister gets better quick. 

I was so excited the other day when one of my photos made it to explore on Flickr.

This week I am not going to do my to-do list since everything is pretty much the same as the last weeks.  Once Kiah starts school again a couple of weeks I hope to be better at getting things done.  Yeah, yeah that's what they all say.

Love is in the air and apparently strep throat too.....

Well, it is officially summer here.  Kiah's last day of school was Thursday.  The prior Saturday he started complaining of a sore throat, but I didn't really think anything of it since he is prone to allergies.  So we went ahead and took my sister and her boyfriend out to Santa Cruz.  It was the cutest thing seeing them go down the boardwalk hand in hand.  Her in her scooter and him in the wheelchair.  Ahh, young love.

 Kiah was not better by Monday; still a sore throat, a tummy ache, and a slight fever.  I set him up for an appointment early Tuesday.  He wanted to go to school even though he felt crappy because he didn't want to miss the last three days of seeing Nina, his 2nd grade sweetheart.  It turned out he had strep throat.  Go figure.  As soon as he took the first dose of antibiotics he started to feel better.

I am amazed at how many people commented on the giveaway.  Thanks to everyone who stopped by and a special thanks to the people who decided to follow.  You all made my week.

I am taking another one of Susan Tuttle's workshops.  I haven't had much time to do it, but I did do a couple pieces. The bokeh texture was made from some pics I took of bubbles purposely making them out of focus.The stained glass and Venus de Milo photos are from morguefiles.com.

She had a lesson on adjustment layers .  I never messed with adjustment layers before.  I made the above photo's background more pink by messing with the photo filter adjustment layer.

Next time I have some vintage finds to share.  Hope everyone has a good week!

I love vintage goodies

Found some really cool goodies today at the flea market.  They were all from the cutest elderly lady.  I got some vintage buttons, a large flower frog, a 1925 copy of Peter Pan and Wendy, and some little vintage hor d'oeuvre picks with abalone and polished stones.  I'll post pics of the other items tomorrow. 

We took Kiah and his friend to the creek by our house.  There were these beautiful yellow flowers and tons of gnats.  But the kids had fun and I got some good pics.

My photoshop elements actually worked long enough for to me to mess with a pic.  I swear it only worked because we were going to be walking out the door in a couple of minutes.  But I was able to quickly do this.

We will see how my computer will work this coming week.  I want to upload photos but am scared it will just up and die on me.  The Geek Squad guy said it can go at any time.  So I have been using my phone for most of my internet posting.  I apologize  in advance for the spelling and spacing errors.

Till next time

I think I live in the Land of Loonies...

First off taking care of a Granny with dementia entails answering questions like, "will it be dark until it is light?", helping her when she gets stuck in public restroom stalls, having to deal with her when she gets angry when she doesn't have beer and chips, telling her I am her granddaughter every other day, listening to the same stories over and over again, and what not.

But what really worries me:


The other night started off okay. Kiah received a gift certificate to Baskin Robbins for graduating out of reading lab. He was happy to skip karate to go get ice cream. I was happy to skip karate and not have to sit in uncomfortable chairs listening to kids yell at the top of their lungs, yet, reluctant to go to ice cream - I mean come on - I just started a diet. I was proud of myself for picking the kid's size vanilla pomagranite probiotic frozen yogurt. So I figured why not go to Trader Joes to pick up some good healthy food to reward myself. Kiah was being his usual crazy self: squirreling around, hopping on the cart, all while holding his double scoop ice cream cone. I kept telling him to stop, and in what seemed like slow motion his ice cream flew up, somersaulted and landed face down in the cart. Of course he starts trippin'. After telling him told you so, I instructed him to take it out to the garbage and use the napkin to wipe the top of it off so he could eat the rest. He looked at me like, "What?" So I repeated my self again - "What?" So I slowly broke down the steps pointed everything out and figured he had it. Went and got the cart and came back. I started shopping and he asked, "Are you sure I can eat it?", "Yes". "Are you sure I can eat it?", " Yes, you wiped it off right? , okay then. " He takes a big bite then says, " I didn't know I can eat ice cream after wiping it on a garbage can." OH MY GOD!!! Now I am trippin'. Chris walks up and I start telling him and freaking out. I asked him, " Can you take him ... take him to get a drink of water." He looks at me like, "What." "Chris, can you take him to get a drink of water?" - "What?" By that time I was almost in shock by the absentmindedness of my boys -I mean what in the hell? Why would my son even think that I would say to wipe it off on the garbage and Chris, hello!, he ate garbage practically. He got his drink, I gave him my frozen yogurt and thanked God for probiotics.