Gorgeous Day!

Just took this pic looking north outside of my shop right now

Wow, it is so nice out right now.  Just how I like it, very little moisture in the air, blue sky and warm.  Days like this are the reason I have stayed in my birth state of California.  Now, if I could just feel as good as the day is pretty.  I awoke with a small headache hurting behind my eyes.  So I am taking this stuff.  I like it for those minor aches and pains and I love the name "END PAIN" isn't that what we are trying to do?  I don't like taking drugs of any kind but if I have to take something stronger to get thru the day then so be it.


I'm gonna take the M.L. King holiday off on Monday and get more of the kitchen refinished.  That is why I can't be gettin' sick or anything darn it. When I get home today I will start to wash down the cupboards since they have to thoroughly dry before using the finish stuff on 'em.  I haven't worked on them since early November.  Perfect weekend since it will dry fast.  No cooking this wknd! 

This is the snow capped mountains east of us that you can see out my shop's back door this morning.  

Landlord and his buddies have gone up on the roof to go about fixing some of the leaks.  He asked to borrow the ladder I keep at the shop and LOOK what they have concocted.  I just snuck these pics of them while I had the camera taking pics of the mountains.  Geez, guys for heaven's sake get a real ladder made for going up that high.  It's this activity that keeps hospitals in business.  Totally scary and stupid.  I can't wait for 2pm today so I can get the he** outta here.  

Does that look dangerous or what? 

On a lighter note...some of you don't know I have Cinderella feet, hee, hee.  I buy kids shoes when I find something I like.  I got these while Christmas shopping.  They are comfortable and perfect for no rain days.

That's all I got for today.  Hope you have a fantastic weekend and make something beautiful!

And The Rain Comes Down

 Where is the sun?  It has been raining on and off for 5 days, gray, gray, gray.  It's become an unwanted visitor.  Sneaking into the crevices where it doesn't belong.  It has gone into places that I didn't want it to.  At the shop's back door, the carpet gets wet, and the ceiling where we thought we fixed it last spring it has gone there again.  Now I'm glad we didn't replace the ceiling tiles yet.  Drat, drat, drat it has come into my back room, a new ceiling leak!

The new leak :(

A new storm is supposed to be here tomorrow.  All I can say is now they can stop saying "DROUGHT".  I foresee more painting in my future.

I've been wrapping up the last of my gifts.  I'm putting together gift bags right now for my delivery men (Fedex, UPS and DHL), the real "SANTAS"!  I'll post pics soon.

Hope you are warm and DRY wherever you are, enjoying the season, being festive and eating chocolate or whatever floats your boat!  Have fun! oxoxox

Hey, It's Hot Here

Well so much for the mild summer as autumn would like to cook us.  I do believe the high here today in LA was 112F.  Yesterday at 109F was hotter than Saturday's temp. which was around 98F.  I didn't go to the fair on the hottest day!  Even at 3:30p when we got there, it was allot cooler than that.  We had a fun time and I have some pix to show ya soon.  I haven't been too busy at the shop today but I didn't think I would be.  The TV and radio media are busy telling everybody to stay indoors and keep outta the heat and that kills my business.  BUT, if I didn't have AC here I would have gone to my sis' at the beach and just stayed there until it cooled off.  So it's ice tea and cold food day.  We'll survive!  Hope you are in cooler territory and having a wonderful Monday!  I'm sure I'm not the only one dreaming of owning one of these right now!

I brought my new crochet project in to work on and I 'm glad I did, so now I'm gonna go work on it. 

**********EDIT***********

OKAY, so we had a record breaker of 113F today and it's still hot out, 102F right now at 6:45p!  I'm not leaving the AC, I'm hanging out at the shop until about 9pm.  Maybe it will be cooler by then.  I hope so.

Violets, Violets and No Rain Today!

Hello! Here are most of my African Violets.  They are blooming away right now and I wanted to share them with you.  They are rewarding me with their beauty since I took care to save them about a half a year ago from those nasty thrips!  My pics just don't do them justice!

Well, after having 5 days of rain, a few days off and then a bit of rain yesterday, it is just perfect weather outside, sunny and about 70 degrees!  I wish I could get out in the garden but it will have to wait until Sunday because I work, work, work until then.  I do however, sneak out for a bit and go into the back parking lot and bask in the sunshine!

Rain, New Year Amaryllis, Rain, Organizing and more Rain

Yup, I've been away from my blog writing and January is almost over already.  I've been thinking of writing and coming up with ideas and even taking photos thinking I'd post about this and than and then, nope, I didn't get to posting that day and that went on for days.  Well today, it's been much slower in the shop since it is our 4th day of rain (we don't get much rain!!!) and it has been raining most of today, not a speck of sunshine peeking through the clouds...nope, none at all.  I didn't have any reason not to post, so here I am.

Here is our holiday gift from one of my long time customers, a beautiful Amaryllis that just got through blooming.  This one has huge blooms and is a really pretty deep red.  My others are white and red striped.
































Soon it will be going outside to be with my other Amaryllis.  They won't bloom until mid-spring so it was a treat to enjoy one indoors!

WOW!  We're having a torrential downpour right now.  I just stood up and looked outside and if this keeps up there will be flooding in some areas of  Los Angeles for sure.  OH! there's a bit of sunshine, my son just went out back, came running in and said a rainbow, so I grabbed my camera and look, we have a rainbow!



We've been busy rearranging the back room supplies here at the shop.  We bought some shelving to organize everything better.  Here are some pictures to make you happy that this is not your mess and some pix of what it looks like today, still in need of final organizing!  The important thing about organizing is that it just not look neat but rather you can easily find what you need when you need it!  AND we're not quite there yet.

Well, that's what I've been up to.  Now, I sure hope it's not raining when I have to drive home!

Feels Like Fall

Hey, yup fall is here.  Cooler today and I just passed by the thermostat and it says 68 degrees on it.  I have both doors open and there is a constant breeze through the shop this morning.   I wore a cotton knit lightweight long sleeve shirt in preparation for today's cool down.  Glad summer's over as I get tired of wearing the same thing!  Bill my mailman, just brought the mail and he is wearing long pants!  His usual attire is postal blue shorts.  Wow, it is just beautiful out today. 

Do you So Cal drivers ever use the Sigalert site on the internet before taking off somewhere?  I use it daily while I'm putting on my make-up, I have my laptop next to me watching the traffic patterns.  This morning there was an accident on the 210 east in Pasadena which is how I travel in the mornings on my way to the shop.  Lifeflight helicopter had to land on the fwy and the traffic was backed up for miles onto the 134 fwy above Eagle Rock for over 2 hours.  Glad I knew so I left later than usual and just got the tail end of the slow down on my way in.  Saved me time and I didn't get stuck, yeah!  Thanks to my friend Danny and his computer knowledge for my laptop!

Besides cleaning and most mundane Sunday chores, I got out my long abandoned crochet afghan project and I'm trying to decide how to attach them.  I have 69 squares now and here is a pix of some of them.  There is something about yarn and heat that don't go together and now since it's cooler I'll get going on this.  I really should finish it.  Every square is a different pattern with similar colors in each one.  Have any suggestions?

Too Hot To Trot

Too hot to move!  Reached 100+ degrees today here in the San Gabriel Valley.  Should be cooling down by Monday.  Looks like the firemen and women are getting the Ventura fires under control, YEAH!  When I looked out the back window of my bedroom this morn, the view of the skyline of downtown LA and west towards the ocean was hazy from the fires.  We of course aren't the only ones contending with mother nature.  My heart goes out to those in the southern US around Georgia who have been flooded out of their homes. 

This week while we've having a heat wave, I've had fewer customers and have been less busy.  This always seems to happen whether it is too hot, too much rain, an earthquake, fires or major news events.  People must be glued to their TV sets watching events or won't come out because they will sweat or get wet!  What I do when that happens is: I get to cleaning and organizing and using the time to delve into projects such as updating my brochures.  Yesterday and today have been spent doing that.  It is never too early to be thinking about Christmas and the holidays either.  With the economy the way it is I will probably cut back on my supply orders this year.  Gotta get to finishing the brochures and I'll be back with more pics tomorrow.