Day 2 Day radishes

Experimental "photoshop"

Here is a trial scrapbook page:

July 31/ Out of town

Tomorrow I leave with my daughter's Margaret and Meredith .     I will take my computer, but there will be no Internet . I will be back in a week. 

July 30/ Planet Earth 2

I must revise my comment on yesterday's post.  I do not like the sound on the series Planet Earth.  The narration is very hard to hear, and that could be deafness on my part, as the music covers the descriptions which are very interesting.  But the visual is so beautiful that it is worth watching.  Last night we watched the episode on Fresh Water.  A large segment of the program was filmed in Brazil.  As my daughter, NoName, had lived in Brazil and had traveled, it was amazing to see places that she had visited including Foz de Iguacu falls, widest falls in the world, and Pantanal, the world's largest wetlands. The Pantanal is an amazing place that I would have liked to seen as it is a delta of the Paraguay river and has the largest concentration of wild life in the world.  It is bigger than Florida. In this section of the series there are piranhas, teethy guys.  Here are pictures of my kids swimming with the piranhas at the Pantanal.

July 29/ Planet Earth

Thank God there is no news this month, because I would not know it, if I met it. Attempting to be a grandmother , takes precedence for the month of July. Today I open the AOL headliners and what do I do? I open up the Steve Martin gets married feature. He sported a mustache for the ceremony. My mind likes only mush. This action is the equivalent of following Paris Hilton, who I like a bit better than the Lindsay Lohan stories.

My husband ,for Father’s Day, received the CD set of BBC PLANET EARTH from his girls. Alone for several nights we started watching. It is a fabulous ,and astonishing piece of filming. The first part gives a review of animals mostly migrating from Pole to Pole. Helicopters fly over breathtakingly dangerous territory to capture images, while a ground crew can wait months to spot a snow leopard make a kill. Seeing the migration of the caribou overwhelms ones sense of numbers. The second episode is about mountains. We have seen many films of the Himalayas, but this shows a flock of cranes trying to fly over them to their new seasons destination. But the Andes, which I have not seen much, are equally as interesting. And it is shown how the mountains are interrelated.

Many of you may have watched the series on television, but if not, it is a good thing to put on your Christmas list.

July 26

When asked, “how do you feel” after having been sick, one must decide to tell the truth or lie. Some people want to know, but most are doing what is considered polite. In my mind when people ask, they should be willing to wait and listen to the reply. But this is folly. People really want to know that you are well. Period. This approach allows no embellishments, no taking them through the details, no differentiating between chronic and acute. Oh well. It is a good thing I am well.

July 25/ For scrapbookers only

Recently I ordered a book on scrap booking. I liked the author and this is her second book. The name is CLEAN & SIMPLE, the Sequel by Cathy Zielske. If you scrapbook, you probably know her. And she has a good blog, if you like crafty things. Her first book answered a lot of questions for me and was very informative. For example she explained Fonts,(now she likes handwriting) one of the fun things of our time, and showed how to work in the negative. She was pretty kick ass creative. Most people will say that why would anyone scrapbook? Cathy is a good photographer, and I could use that help. But scrapping is very creative. If you have any inclination towards graphic art, this is a wonderful place to start. It is a great place to display photos, It is a great place to journal, it can be very therapeutic. It is also a good excuse to buy beautiful paper.And  I love the smell of fresh paper. I took up pastels just so I could buy the colors, and the color feeds my innards. Should you still be able to hand write or print, it is a perfect place.

Sometimes I need a creative lift, especially I want more for the blog, so I ordered the new book. Her first book, CLEAN AND SIMPLE, is better. Somehow she went from simple to a lot more complicated. None the less, the book is inspirational and there are many principals that can be transferred to other crafts.

July 23/ For all you who remember camp with fondness

                         If you saw the start  of camp for these girls, you would see that one girl went to camp with the same smile on her face. The older girl was trying "casual", but camp exceeded her expectations by far, and here are some faces to prove it. 

July 21/ food columns and Bobbi

Thank you to all my readers.  Another friend of daughter NoName said she read the blog. I do like that it is being read.  I want to apologize for my bad blog manners as I do not respond often.  I will try to be better. 

The house guests are gone and we dropped the grandson’s with their mother who bought us lunch.  Nice touch. 

Afterwards my daughter had some Bobbi Brown purchases to pick up at guess where.  I decided I needed a grooming pick up, something to me punch back into a better appearance.  I bought Brown’s latest book LIVING BEAUTY which seemed like a great book to take to bed.  I was surprised at how many ways there are to improve your skin for over $750.00 which are not makeup.  You can sand, laser, peel, apply retina, what ever. But of course you young women already know this.  And I am going to do this myself right after I get my teeth lengthened, and my cataract removed. Also after I paint the living room,  and pay for the bed and linens.  And my husband gets a second job. 

Of interest to you today could be two articles, one from the LA Times about Tacos, http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-tacos18jul18,1,3364283.story?coll=la-headlines-food. And the NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/18/dining/18mini.html?ref=dining, on cool in the kitchen fast dishes.  I suggest you go to both sites and print them out, and as they do not stay past Tuesday.  I think both articles  are useful. 

July 20/ Photos

My grandchildren humor me with letting me take their pictures.  All except Calligan.  I have endless photos of him in a grump.  This time he came up to my house and actually asked if I would take his picture.  See the difference. 

July 20

My sister-in-law just left on the train back to Emeryville. The 9:15 train that left at 9:05. I had said that the train never leaves early. In any case. Kathy brought her grandson, Finnegan with her. My grandsons, Calligan and Gabriel came up to keep Finn company. The older boys are nine and have never met each other. Calligan and Finnegan became great friends. Finnegan says to his grandmother this morning, “I have waited all my life to meet him,” and now I won’t see him probably until I am 15 or 18.