Thankful

 

I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving yesterday. I'm feeling especially thankful this year for becoming a grandma to this little girl! That's her mom and dad in the middle of the poster when they were little kids.

And I'm thankful for old and new friends who gathered at Beth's house yesterday for a bountiful meal and lots of laughter. We even decorated some gingerbread people and got a start at gluing together the pieces of a gingerbread house kit.

My family is spread all across the country, but we talked and exchanged photos from our day. Here are my mom, 92, and dad, 93, at the full Thanksgiving feast prepared from scratch by my dad. My brother is taking the photo. They're in California.

My son and his wife went to her parents' house in Illinois and didn't take pictures, so Rachel sent me this one instead of their hike.

My daughter spent the day unpacking after moving into the house that they bought last week in Washington. Her husband was at work. I love this picture that she sent of Juniper and the cat cuddling with her during a break from the unpacking.

My sister Terry, right, and her husband hosted Thanksgiving for friends in Louisville. The other sister, in Washington, threw out her back yesterday so they were postponing their big meal until she felt better.

I'm also very, very grateful to live in such a beautiful desert town with endless blue skies, big horizons, and plenty of hiking trails. We even have some fall color!

Barb and I hiked a new trail today in Catalina State Park, the CDO Ridge Trail, to help balance out the Thanksgiving calories.

We saw horses, hikers, dogs and bicyclists. We chatted quite awhile with a woman hiking with her dog who is a traveling jewelry artist who lives and works in her RV. She's here to sell her jewelry at a big outdoor art fair this weekend in Oro Valley, which I'll be going to. 

Have a colorful day

New tree, new trail, new key

 

I finished the fifth little tree in the "Tinsel" quilt. Four more to go.

I found this mini pom-pom trim a few years ago and I'm glad I bought some because it's perfect for this tree. I'm diverging quite a bit from the pattern with my trims and stitches.

Here are the first five. I love them!

I've also been hiking a lot now that the weather is nice.

Earlier this week I did my favorite trail, Canyon Loop. The views are spectacular.

If you're wondering why horses need a special trail for part of Canyon Loop, it's because the people part is a steep winding staircase with 98 (I counted them) steps. Going down is a good thigh workout, and going up gets the heart pounding.

At the bottom of the stairs you enter the leafy lower part of the canyon, where I always stop to visit my petroglyph rock. I think this figure looks like something from outer space.

At the end of the hike, the picnic area is a nice spot to sit for awhile before leaving.

Yesterday, Barb and I explored a new trail, Alamo Canyon Loop, which took us a couple of sweaty hours to complete. It's longer and more rugged than Canyon Loop and was a good workout. That's me by the sign and Barb down below.

And for something totally different, my daughter and her husband closed on their first house yesterday, and look at the key they received! Now that's a fun key! My sister suggested turning it into a piece of art inside the front door.

Have a colorful day

Cozy reading

I'm still collecting cozy pictures, and most of them show animals reading books, and most of those animals are rabbits.

Mice are also popular.

I picked up stacks of books yesterday at our Friends of the Library sale, where you could fill a bag for only $10. I got all of these for $10, and I could've fit more in the bag but it was getting too heavy and I had a long walk to the car. I'm looking forward to reading them after I get cozy in bed or curled up on the couch in the evening in front of the fireplace.

I thought today might be one of those days because rain and chilly temps were predicted, but it turned out to be a sunny (but chilly) day so I spent it mostly outside.

Here is my sky right after sunrise this morning with the full moon. The next picture shows the mountains by my neighborhood. The clouds hinted at rain but never delivered.

Have a cozy day

Still stitching and walking

I'm working on my fourth little Christmas tree, and the weather is nice enough to stitch outside. Here's the view in my backyard from the lounge chair.

I start by sewing every element down with an invisible stitch using one strand of embroidery floss. Then I do the embroidery and beading.

It's also been gorgeous walking weather, so this morning I walked through my neighborhood and down to the park. It was 64 and sunny, with the brilliant blue sky that comes from our dry air. The top photo is Pusch Ridge, visible from our neighborhood, and the next photo is the park. The mural says, "Dream it, then do it!"

Our neighborhood yards are bursting with color, like the Texas ranger above and my lantana below. Lantana thrives on neglect, so mine are doing great!

Have a colorful day

Sew, hike, read, recoup

Like many of you, I'm still reeling from the election, still unable to wrap my head around so many of my fellow Americans voting for such a disgraceful, lying, racist, misogynistic, foul-mouthed, self-centered man who admires and befriends dictators and threatens to take our country in that direction. A convicted felon, a rapist ... is this really the best the GOP had to offer? Really?

As a felon, he can't even enter Canada, Japan and the United Kingdom among other countries! It'll be interesting to see how that goes, since he owns a golf course in Scotland.

 

Like a lot of you, I'm trying to heal by stitching, stitching, and more stitching until my hands ache.

I've been working on my little Christmas trees, taking joy in the colors and meditative stitching.

I'm diverging from the pattern by substituting beads and my own stitches for a lot of the stitches used by Sue Spargo.

I love how these green drop beads glow on the velvet rick-rack.

There are a LOT of little wool circles on these trees, so I'm glad I have my hole punch. I can whack out dozens of tiny circles in minutes. These purple ones are a quarter inch in diameter, which I can't fathom cutting out with scissors.

I'm also seeking solace in the desert. Nature always heals, and I'm so grateful to live right on the edge of  so many desert mountain trails. Today Barb and I hiked the Linda Vista Trail, only half a mile from my house, and two days ago we hiked at Catalina State Park.

In the evenings I've been reading instead of watching the news.

I just finished "Rules of Civility" by Amor Towles, for which I was on the library's waiting list three months. It was excellent but bittersweet.

I just started "City of Girls" for book club and I'm totally engrossed. It's by Elizabeth Gilbert, the "Eat, Pray, Love" author. Interestingly, both books focus on young single women living and working in New York in the early part of the 20th century.

My little Juniper loves books, which makes me happy.

I've also started collecting images that I find comforting, and I realized that many of them include books.

So, I'll continue my sew, hike, read prescription for healing and recouping for whatever lies ahead.

Have a colorful day