Summertime in Tucson

Summer in the Sonoran Desert means dramatic monsoon skies. This is the view from my front courtyard of rain falling at sunset over the Tucson Mountains. Below is the morning view of the Catalina Mountains turning out of my neighborhood after a night of storms. Our monsoon season is June through September.

Summer here also means it's pretty standard to have highs in the triple digits. No one even blinks at 102 degrees. I don't have my own pool to cool off in, but luckily my friends in Sun City often invite me to join them at their beautiful community pool.

They also invite me to play Mahjong at one of their community rooms, which is a good way to pass a few hours inside in the heat of the afternoon. Half of us here don't even live in Sun City.

New version of mom, dad and Juniper

I'm also continuing to churn out snow people ornaments. I decided to make a more put-together version of my daughter without the wild hair! While I was at it, I gave her husband a hat and shortened Juniper so she looks like the little kid that she is. And I put stars in her hands, because what toddler doesn't want to hold stars?

Before version with a frazzled Julia

I took some of these to my favorite quilt shop here, which carries a lot of the wool that's used in them, and asked if they'd be interested in me teaching a two-hour class in making them. The owner said she didn't want to add any more wool classes to their schedule, which really surprised me since it would only be two hours and only for the Christmas season. I've taught many different sewing classes in Kansas, Texas, Illinois and Washington over the past 35 years and this is the first time I've had a class proposal turned down! There are some other quilt shops here I could try, but I've sort of lost my momentum.

Have a colorful day