Nacho's Garden,

One of the projects I have been working on this past month has been Nacho's Garden. This area started as small patch with just a few reating blocks next to the tree. When we bought this house 18 months ago Jean's mom gave us a wonderful gift of some irises from her garden. I have since then affectionately called the area Nacho's Garden. Well now I have made it much larger, added shrubs, removed the blocks, added rocks, petrified wood, flowers and still need to finish adding the small red rocks. It has an Asian lantern and think I may add a birdbath and eventually add an Asian piece too. Nacho in Japanese means long life. We are going to add a bench to the left of the garden that sits under a tall pine tree so one can sit and enjoy the garden.This has been such a wonderful labor of love and something that I get to look at from my bedroom window and brings so much joy.

New Bird Feeder

We just bought this new artsy bird feeder for the yard. It is about 5 feet tall and when we saw it we just knew that we had to buy it, It is made of wrought iron in abrown finish and has a patina finish by artist Tom Torrens. Now have to get more bird food for all the feeders.

working on the house

WEll things have been going gung ho around here. With the upcoming festivities we have been trying to get things done in the yard. One of the things that has been annoying had been the firewood pile. So our wonderful neighbors put up some fencing for us from what they had and this morning I got it painted, The color is alight lavender with purplle trim. Still need to add some more bushes there.

Bruce has been busy laying down the retaing blocks to create a division around teh yard that eventually we will fill in with landscaping. But it gives up some kind of idea of where weare going.

We also bought a peach tree thanks to the nudging of my sis. Also put up the a rbor that fell down last year but now looks like I may have to move that over.

ornaments and more ornaments

I have been busy sculpting these lil ornaments for the wedding. They will be attached to the ribbons instead of those usual roses and almonds that everyone uses. The faces are Jean Bernard's Celia mold as well as some others. There are 40 of these and now I have to start painting and embellishing them.

Granite countertops

Our new granite countertops have been fabricated and have finally arrived. It has been an exciting process to picki out slabs. Meet with the granite guys and see how we would like the veins in the granite to be in the is land area and watch part oif it be cut in the shop. what amazed us is how from two different slabs they have gotten the veins to flow and lent an artistic approach. This stone is called purple dunes and comes from Brazil. It is an exotic looking stone and not not the orinary stuff most folks have.

Quilt square

Here is a quilt square by dear friend Annie made for us for my Mom and Dad for our wedding canopy. My Mom collects Precious Moments and this is what they wanted to have on their square. annie customized the colors and the layout and created this wonderful square for them! Mom and Dad hope that you like it.

Coookies and the Monster

Ok the cookies keep coming out and of course you know that they have to be tested. Bruce has been now dubbed the Cookie Monster by one of the ladies of the CIFI group. He is not proud of h is new title. Todays batch is Spiced Chocolate Mexican cookies with cayenne pepper. He complained they were not spucy enough so a new batch will be made using chili powder. Also made was cherry almond cookies and some large Ukrainian honey cookies which you can see him happily testing! They are the size of a plate.