When the fruit trees start making fruit, you’ve got to grab them when you can before the birds get ’em… and hopefully there’s plenty to make PIE!!! My cousin Kim grabbed a full bounty of cherries from her yard and made this beautiful cherry pie! It looks AMAZING… and I’m sure it tasted even better!!! Thanks for sharing your photos Kimberley Sue… but next time, let’s share the pie too!!!

We celebrated the Fourth of July on the sofa watching HAMILTON on the TV with my niece Taylor & family. With all of the craziness going on in the world, it just seemed “safer” and oddly “appropriate” to be watching HAMILTON to learn a bit of history on The Fourth… and not dealing with the crowds celebrating everywhere without masks or social distancing!!!

And for the record… it was my first time seeing HAMILTON. I know, how did that happen?!… or NOT happen in this case?!

But THIS time… I WAS in the room where it happened!!!

And to make the evening even more “fun”… I decided to bring a little childhood flashback memory to the party. Mostly because it made me giggle every time I thought about it… and the fact that it was now referred to as SPAMILTON.

Yes, we had Spam Loaf for dinner!!!
Basically slices of SPAM alternated with slices of mozzerella cheese, and then topped with tomato sauce and baked. It was better in my memory of when Mom made it for us… but Taylor made it this time and it was good for the joke! And that was about it. Not too tasty… a little slimy… and still very SPAMmy!!!

Plants on trees… now made possible with a trio of ceramic wall pockets made with drainage holes! A sweet little collection enjoying the morning sun. Thanks for sharing Kimberley Sue!!!

It would have been my Mom’s 81st birthday…
and to “celebrate” my Dad moved from his home in Elgin to a new place in Schaumburg. He’s very excited to be moving onto the next chapter of his life… and looking forward to getting back to the art fair circuit whenever they let us! Oh yeah… and you may have noticed he grew a “shelter-in-place” beard. For the record… I’ve NEVER seen him with facial hair before this pandemic. So much has changed over the past year.

Apparently it’s Monochromatic Monday!!! Who knew?! Yummy red cherries in a red glazed berry bowl. Great combo. Thanks Braxton for sharing!

So then THIS happened!!!
I was in the middle of a ZOOM chat with my sister & niece Taylor. They were waiting forever in line waiting for carry-out food while brainstorming for Taylor’s homework assignment. I was doing some trimming and then moved on to adding a pedestal to the bottom. I had even turned the camera around so that they could watch. A little pottery demo for them while they waited!

So I had explained trimming, scored & slipped & added a lump of clay to the bottom and was throwing a pedestal foot on the bottom. We even talked about my Giffin Grip and how well it held everything in place. We were chatting. Talking… and I couldn’t find my small red rib to smooth it out?! So I stood up to reach across my table to grab a new rib from the tool wall. You can see it coming, right?…

Well, the wheel was still spinning. I stood up. My shorts got caught on the wet & sticky freshly-thrown pedestal, stuck on and spun around a few times… effectively yanking the whole piece right out of the Giffin Grip… hurling it to the floor!!! With Jen & Taylor still on the ZOOM!!! ugh.

Luckily, the piece is part of a commission and I had made an extra one!!! But I didn’t feel quite safe “giving up” on the extra one so soon in the process… so I threw another one just in case. Just gotta stamp it, trim it, add a pedestal… and hope that the original lid might possibly still fit?!!! Fingers crossed… and another great ZOOM story!!! Eventually I’ll figure it out…

Yesterday, my niece Taylor & sister Jen tackled a plain gray wall in their basement… with some painter’s tape and paint… and made this amazing mural on the wall of their new “office & art area.” Who knew that that chalk drawing was just the beginning! I love it… as these desperate times call for creative measures!

About a week or so ago… it’s all blurring together, right... my niece Taylor and her mom Jen (my sister) made a beautiful geometric chalk drawing on their driveway. Oh, how this quarantine time is making us all get a little more creative!

And the big questions was “how long will this last with rain coming tonight?”… and then we found out the next morning.

Answer is… better than expected!!!

Looks like my cousin Kim is starting her day off right with a fresh-squeezed sip of orange juice… made easier with a handmade citrus juicer!

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And what goes well with cookies?… well, hot chocolate made with cookies of course!!! Another great gift from my sister & family!