Reasons to Celebrate!

Today's bouquet 

I was on a roll, heading into my 119th day of no seizures, every day was a celebration. The last two years from January to June I have had 8 seizures in those time periods, each. This year 2015 from January to June I've had three seizures, less than half, more reason to celebrate. Friday the 10th of July my friend Angie and I were heading to the Farmers Market, I didn't make it, a tonic-clonic seizure overcame me in front of the church on Mill Ave. My friend Karina just happened to be there and a woman named Kathy came along with water and drove Angie and I to my place, all two blocks that I could not manage with a twisted up ankle, short circuit of the brain and the platform sandals that added to the twisted ankle. Today is Monday and I am still a bit sore, when I have a seizure like that my whole body is tense like a cramp and it can be sore for days. Flailing around on the sidewalk I  scraped up my ankle and elbow, even tho a blanket  and coat were placed under me, with great difficulty I can only imagine.

As I go into a seizure I always have a profound awareness  of something we all strive to understand about life. In those brief moments I can only watch and wonder as I slip away falling in and out of reality. When it is over and I wake from the exhaustion of it all, it's gone, lost to my confused brain waiting for the memories of the last hour to slowly return.

At 41 Celsius for days, my body was stressed and the neighbors love whatever it is that spews forth chemical perfumes which seam to expand in the heat  and permeate my house, meaning I can not leave my windows open at night or I am inundated with chemical perfumes that make me ill. The smell sticks in my nose and it won't go away. The neighbors singing doesn't bother me but most of the time he is cursing what ever is in front of him, yelling for his wife or his son, yelling at the many dogs just being dogs,  he doesn't seam to be able to do anything with out cursing , long streams of potty mouth. Stressful.

The bracelets getting a coat of Varathane.

I have been getting ready for the Art's Festival, working on some wooden bracelets, sometimes my ideas feel like a train wreck spewing out of my brain, with so many ideas I will have many projects I will be working on in a day. The race is now on, what will I finish in time for the Art's Festival? I lost the last three days. Lucky I have a lot of art to fill up my booth not just the bracelets.

http://enderbyartscouncil.ca/arts.html

July 25th downtown Enderby hope to see you there!

Little Treasures Art Show at The Courtyard Gallery

Can you believe November is here. This morning the temperature was below 0, 6 degrees below 0. I was happy to have the hand me down snow pants from my daughter Yolanda. She stopped wearing them when she was 10. They keep me warm, that is what matters.

Sunday the 9th I took a large box of my art work into the Courtyard Gallery 61 pieces, photo greeting cards, small fabric zippered and lined bags, for jewelry, makeup, travel, great for small gifts, watercolors, wood and acrylics canvases. One of the Artist and writer Howard Brown built a tree to hang the glass painted ornaments, I hear it is beautiful, and the gallery is jam packed with small canvases, pottery, felting, glass, wood, books, jewelry, and much more.  

It can take days just to prepare a canvas. This 8 x 10 is being prepared for the small canvases with the dragonfly and flower.

Saturday the 15th is the opening of the show, after we vote for whom we feel is going to do the best job for our community, we plan on hanging out at the gallery. Virginia says she is bringing chocolates, how can I not go. 

The finished work.

This 8 x 10 canvas has many layers of experimentation, creating interesting textures and crackling effect. I painted what I saw in the textures.

4 x 4 canvases. Steve was sitting at the table admiring my small canvases and he started laughing. He said "It's like a totem, that tells a story, went for a sailboat ride, walked on the beach, had a heart attack.
  

I took this picture on November the 11th, In memory of my nephew Ian, this morning the flowers were frozen.

Hope to see you at the show, enjoy.

Karen's Endless Blooms

It was a frosty February 4TH, 2012 the one year anniversary for Karen  at "Karen's Endless Blooms". She graduated from Florist school in 1981. The first 4 months were business related not one bloom in sight. It makes sense all the knowledge as a florist would just go out the window if you had no business sense. 

On my way to Karen's Endless Blooms I had to stop at Jennet Palmer's to take some photo's of the frosty globe thistles. 

Karen feels great about the move to Enderby, her husband is very supportive and paid the first months rent. In the shop I was drawn to a beautiful white flower, my nose led the way. It was the kind of flower that smelled so good you wanted to eat it, but then you couldn't smell it ,so you savor the aroma. Yummy. When I asked Karen for a photo with her favorite flowers, turns out it was the very yummy flowers I was sniffing, Gardenia. She wore them in her hair when she got married, I can just imagine how beautiful she was with Gardenias in her hair wafting a luscious aroma as she walked down the isle.

Gardenia!

Karen with the yummy Gardenia.

I came home with carnations and Bird of Paradise.

As a florist Karen gets people coming in for a variety of reasons.  Some of the sold flowers in her cooler were for people that helped with the procession of Dan Botkin. She already has weddings booked for September, and Valentine's is ten days away. If you think of flowers in terms of emotions, Karen has a lot of emotions walking through her door. It takes a special skill to deal with people and their emotions on a daily basis. Next time you go see Karen tell her she's beautiful.

On a Fine Sunday

Most days start out with breakfast then a walk with Matty. Our neighbors have beautiful gardens, the sights and smells can be heavenly.
Each time we walk we see something new or now blooming. This Sunday Steve was out playing golf while we walked around town.

Yellow roses

With the beautiful gardens we also get the ugly highway work. We haven't had sidewalks on the highway for a long time. It will be so good to have the work done and the dust settled. Please get it done!

Cat encounter. The cat was meowing loudly from this doorway.

River Walk

The water is high and moving swiftly.

Steve arrived home about the same time as Matty and I. We planned on going to The Caravan Farmers Market and then off to Vernon for some grocery shopping. It's a beautiful drive to the market and we purchased bread, and apricot cake, Ginger beer with roasted garlic, and organic chocolate. 

Ushie told us about the Run Away Moon Peony Tea, but we were on our way to Vernon. The traffic was so bad at Armstrong we decided to go to the 

tea. Good choice!

The cake was good and very sweet.

They have a puppet museum from the ten years of shows. Wonderful puppets. 

Entertainment scheduale

From the Puppet Museum you walked into the room with the food, silent auction , hat decorating, and seedy art.

One Camel Short

For a donation you could cut your own peonies.

The entertainment was fun and we were happy to have arrived early parking was on a kilometer long road.

Home, as Steve snoozed on the deck with Matty  I walked into the workshop and made a discovery.

Looking through the dirty window I found white roses were blooming behind the shop, where no one walks.

Our purchases and discoveries of the day 

Trees in our yard

Our square foot garden, and the pond

I can't believe how many quince are growing  on this tree.

Barrel to collect rain water. We have one more to set up

Old gardens have old weeds and old sad trees.
The pleasure in the treasures to be found of color and scent make up for all the hard work.


Our Sunday finished off as the clouds slowly rolled in and the rain came.

A fine Sunday it was.


www.caravanfarmtheatre.com