Portrait of the Sun for Pink Saturday

The sun decided to play along this week for Pink Saturday. Mother Nature is truly inspiring.



Thank you to Beverly at How Sweet the Sound for hosting Pink Saturday and to you for your visit. Happy Pink Sunsets to you and yours.

Pink Saturday P.S. I forgot to add that I visited a new blogger last week for Pink Saturday, Liz at Life at The Gables. Please stop by her blog, you will be glad you did. Thank you again.

Tile Mosiacs at Huntington Beach for the Color Carnival

A couple weeks ago we met some friends at the Beach near Huntington Pier and had a relaxing day catching up and enjoying the beautiful weather. In addition to much natural beauty, there are wonderful mosaics on the walls and stairs adjacent to the beach. I hope you enjoy, and for more colorful shots, please visit the Color Carnival. Thank you for your visit.

Trouble Comes In Threes So Please Be Prepared

It is true that trouble comes in threes and last weekend provided ample evidence of this for me. The thoughts of what could have been weigh on my mind when I think about a fire we had Saturday night.

We were hosting two other couples for dinner and I was seated at the outdoor table with our guests while my husband was in the kitchen. I looked up and saw flames shooting out from the camp stove that we had set up on a table next to the grill and outside our kitchen window. Our camp stove, (which we were using to deep fry french fries to go with our grilled steaks), had flames at the bottle/stove connection and it caught two other small propane bottles on fire. Suddenly, I was in front of the stove and for a split second I reached over as if to put the fire out with my hands. I then reached underneath our gas grill and grabbed our fire extinguisher I had just put there the Week Before after reading a Be Prepared post from a dear blogger friend, An Eagle's View. I put out the fire immediately with the extinguisher without ruining any of our dinner. Somehow during this process and for the life of me, I don't know how or when this happened, but the two quarts of boiling oil with french fries ended up on our patio deck. Also, a foot sized oil stain on the outer side of my right jean leg. I am still processing how lucky I am, we are. I then proceeded to get clean cat litter and use it to soak up the oil spill and then we served our beautiful dinner. It's surreal to me, small seemingly meaningless circumstances, me wearing jeans, putting a fire extinguisher under the grill, keeping calm, all helped truly avert disaster. Truly incredible in the sense it boggles believability. To say I am thankful and appreciative is a major understatement. It is also helping me maintain perspective and reminds me what is really important as I struggle with the challenges of parenting teen sons. It also confirmed what I thought earlier about my loved ones and Angels looking out for me and all of us. I recently completed a family necklace with the birthstone colors of my family and Saturday night was the first night I wore it. I take it as a very good talisman. I think if I was a cat I would have definitely used up a couple of lives.

Thank you for listening, being here. Deep Breathes, for the real stuff versus the what could have been, but isn't.

What is synchronicity but like the one drop of water that tips over the bucket? Or the one additional blog post to stimulate a thought, and then an action. Thanks, E.V., you remind me, we are all connected.

Ad Projected onto a downtown LA Building for Wordless Wednesday

Angels Watching Over Me - Perfect Moment Monday

Dinner Party with friends. $125

Fire Extinguisher next to the grill. $12

Knowing how to use it and not getting burned or having your house burn down. Priceless.

Tagged Or I Need To Run Faster

I have been tagged for the Premio Memio Award (My new name for this Award because I think it rolls off the tongue more easily) by the very kind and creative Glenna at Your Fabric Place which is my Fabric Place too! (Especially for Amy Butler addicts like me.)

The Premio Memio is to list ten things about yourself which is a cool because Ten is a very cool number.

1. I like to give nicknames including the liberal use of acronyms to my blog buddies and pretty much any animal I meet. Gee, isn't that gripping information?

Now, to add a little fun and show my relief at having only 9 more items to go, the rest are some of my celebrity sightings both Big and Small, well, actually miniscule, that I've had.)

2. Mr. Muhammad Ali gave me his autograph in the baggage claim at Las Vegas Airport twenty years ago.

3. We flew with Michael Jordan from Miami, (he was in first class, I was in the cattle car), and I mistook him at first for Magic Johnson. My husband instantly corrected me. (I'm not a basketball fan, but hey, I got the initials right, right?)

4. We saw many of the cast of HBO's Entourage on our flight back from Hawaii last Spring. Can I just tell you they are all pretty short except for Kevin Dillon? Sadly, Adrien Grenier wasn’t part of the group. Sigh.

5. I got checked out by Mel Gibson at the Warners Brothers lot when I was visiting my cousin for lunch at their Commissary. (Which has great food btw because all these TV and Film people live on their stomachs, plus the long days, yada yada.)

6. David Leisure is a former neighbor whose children competed in our community swim league. He was a great announcer for the meets as you can well imagine.

7. Ann Jillian reached her career peak in the 1980’s with the TV show, “It’s A Living” and still looked great when I saw her 15 years ago at LAX airport.

8. Clive Pearse, the host of HGTV’s show, “Designed to Sell” is very nice and an animal lover too. I met him and Lisa LaPorta from the show when they redid our neighbors' house which still hasn't sold after 6 months on the market. If someone offers to renovate your house for a home improvement show, don't agree to it. It may look great on camera, but in person, it's a slap dash job.

9. I went to school with Sarah Jessica Parker and her brothers, Toby and Pippin. They lived up the street from us in Cincinnati until they moved to New York to pursue Sarah’s career. Smart move, Mrs.Forsthye.

10. We are lucky enough to be friends and neighbors with one of the most feared men in horror movies, Michael Myers aka Tyler Mane, star of Rob Zombie's Halloween. (Halloween 2 is coming out soon, so I'm very happy for Tyler and his family. Except I won't be seeing it, those kind of movies scare the bejeebers out of me.)

Hoped for future sightings-
And for my Twilight Fanatics, I mean Fans, I am on the lookout and carry my camera for Tyler Lautner sightings who plays Jacob in Twilight and lives in our fair city of Santa Clarita.

Please consider yourself tagged if you would like to play along. Also, please share any of your celebrity sightings. (My fellow Los Angelenos, Jason and Muppet Soul have a boatload of celebrity sightings and are downright cool about them. Well, Except the Divine Miss M, right, Jason??) Thank you so much and I just realized I consider my Bloggy Buddies, Stars in the Truest Sense of the Word.

Pink Accessories for Pink Saturday

Welcome to Pink Saturday, A Celebration of all things In The Pink.

Today, I am really putting myself out there, (or should that be "out here" you know, cause it's my blog?), by showing you some things from my newly rediscovered hobby of jewelry making. I enjoy the design and handwork aspect of jewelry making and really delight in making gifts for my friends and family. It is a very dynamic process with lots and lots of trial and error and redos, and what my initial plan was evolves into something different each time. I am also reminded of the other lessons taught by creativity besides flexibility and my changing vision, and that is that it requires a quietness of mind that can be difficult for me to achieve sometimes. I've noticed that as my job got increasingly stressful, my desire to have a creative outlet also increased significantly. You take a risk when you put something you make out there, even when it's a gift. So without further ado or jumprings, here are some things I've made with both vintage beads from broken necklaces and other jewelry parts from the thrift store mixed in with new materials.

This is a family necklace I made for a dear friend. The crystals are her family's birthstones including pink zircon for her husband and the pearls to represent the month of their marriage, June.

Here is a pair of earrings for my niece. I might change out the teardrops for another shade of pink. That is one thing fun about jewelry making, all the wonderful color combinations.

I embellished this chain belt with preppy ribbon, beads, and charms for a unique look. I am inordinately fond of belts, especially chain ones.

These earrings are made from jade using stones I won in a giveaway from Shannon and Auntie's Beads.

This necklace and earring set were made with vintage pink pearls and the pendant is made with an old earring hoop. It's fun to give these pretty things a new chance to be admired.

What creative endeavors have you been working on?

Thank you to Beverly for hosting this Pinkalicious Meme and to you for your visit.