Life On The Central Coast

What I've been working on this past month.... Remember the little rag quilt project I was working on? Finished! With all the rain we've been having my garden beds are THRIVING! We are talking about adding more beds into our yard and planting even more garden veggies. My husband is a whiz with a saw and having home grown fresh produce will save us money at the store! My husband and I have been working on "being prepared". We've taken some steps around the house to organize camping equipment, work on our food storage, build up a emergency water supply and learn a few new skills. We each made 72 hour food packages for our cars and larger bags filled with first aid items, warm clothes and camping type equipment. Better to think ahead and be prepared than to have something happen and be fumbling around not knowing what to do. Wes and I are taking steps to get HAM licenses, hopefully our respective father's old numbers. Its a fun way to communicate with others and i...

The year has gotten off to a rather crazy start. But crazy makes the time go by faster right? My husband and I are putting the finishing touches on our little upstairs "apartment". We donated quite a few items, sold some of the larger things and threw out a lot of useless junk! Now we are debating whether to keep our ugly old TV / entertainment center or just get one of the smaller flatscreen ones that we could even hang on the wall for space purposes. I LIKE this! Looks clean and clutter free! It doesn't even NEED the candle holders or pictures on the wall. Looks like I'll need to downsize even MORE stuff! Our area of California has been unseasonably warm.... in the 70's! We took our scooters out to Lopez Lake and made some reservations to camp this upcoming weekend. Here is a map of the "Blue Jay" section.... we will be in Space 31. We are VERY excited to go on our first campout of the year and are already planning something in April as well. I've ...

Goodbye 2010 and HELLO 2011!! Almost 10 days into the New Year and what have I been working on? A little Digital Scrapbooking using THIS program..... Skyping with the Grandkids I don't always see daily..... This is Grandson, Anthony with his baby sister, Audrey...... Taking Ali Edwards class.... One Little Word over HERE ......... (There's still room in the class if you're interested too!) My One Little Word for the year is ROOTS. The genealogy has come out of the box and work has already started filling in the blanks. Plans to use Ancestry.com eventually to further the research. I've taken a really messy area in my house and transformed it into a really cute little sewing area and I've been sewing again. IT'S BEEN YEARS since I sat down to make anything and it feels really, REALLY good! There's just something about the smell of fresh laundered material being ironed! I found some pink fabric, just a small amount that matched and here is what I decided to ...

Last week I saw a video someone had posted on Facebook. It brought tears to my eyes, hurt to my heart and after watching it, a determination to find something I could do in my community to help. Please take a moment and watch this video from beginning to end.... I started looking around for something I could do in my area. It didn't take very long. California has been hit with storms over the last week of a magnitude we haven't seen in YEARS. We were taking an exit to Christmas shop and there, squatting under an umbrella in pouring down rain, was a homeless man. No warm coat, just wet. I'm searching my car for something I could give him and I had nothing with me. NOTHING! No money, no food, nothing. As he came near my car I was almost in tears because there was nothing I could do. But then he passed my car.... it seems the car behind me had called him over and he was responding. I look in my rear view mirror and out comes a hand with a brown lunch bag tied with ribbon, mayb...

Pictures. If you are like me you have a bunch of them. This one was take just a couple of weeks ago as we were enjoying a visit to Avila Barn. My niece shared it on Facebook a couple of days ago and it's really special to me. From the moment I laid eyes on it I saw the magic that is Family. (Back row left to right - Me, My sister Lynn, my niece Carla - Carla's sons Cade in the middle and Jake, bottom middle) My sister Lynn says, "you can see we are related, we look alike." And that we kind of do. But I saw something more. The interconnectedness of a family. Without planning it at all, look at how we are each touching someone. My niece has her arm around my sister. My arm is around my sister and Cade. Lynn has her hand on Jake... we are connected, family. It reminded me of the roots of a tree.... grounded, strong, a bit tangled into each others lives perhaps but that wanting to be included... tangled....touched. Our families, our "trees" of connectedness, t...

I've played along with the Ali Edwards, One Little Word Challenge for the past 2 years.In 2008, my word was Greatfulness . There was SO much to be Grateful for that year. In one year we added 3 grandsons to our family. Last year I chose REcreate . What I was hoping for was a year of having fun, camping, doing all sorts of recreational activities. But I think the "Universe" heard RE create and instead of laying around on some beautiful beach, we did home repairs and fix-ups for the entire year! My home is gorgeous now and I'm really happy I picked that word, BUT, like the end of 2009, I'm ready for a break. I've tossed around words like peace, tranquility, rest, serenity, meditation but nothing has really seemed right. Then I was doing some reading yesterday and it said to just let the word choose you. I'm open, I'm waiting..... I think I'm hearing my One Little Word coming in.... My One Little Word for 2011 is.... ROOTS! I'm the keeper of m...