I Like #296

 Welcome to another week of things to like.  We are still swamped at work, but it was Easter week last week which is a big celebration for us.  And we've had gorgeous spring weather here so that's been a real delight.

I loved seeing this bed of tulips outside my building at work.

And inside the house, my beautiful pink houseplant is blooming!

I built a new raised bed this weekend for my little garden (it's from Vego garden), and then on Saturday morning I went down to the free Norman Compost Center and filled up 12 dog food bags with compost. After hauling it all back, I finished filling up the new bed and replenishing the old beds and planted all the rest of the garden. Of course Spooky and Blue helped.  It was such a nice day to be outside.

While I was working in the garden, I saw the most gorgeous giant humingbird moth feeding in my dahlias.  So fantastic.

And the weekend culminated with wonderful Easter services, so joyful and celebratory.  A great relief given some of the stress and chaos that's happening at our church just now.

I hope everyone who celebrates had a happy Easter!  Click over to LeeAnna's for more things to like!  Click over to LeeAnna's for more things to like!

I like #295

 Welcome to another week of things to like!  I missed last week because I was at a symposium in La Jolla CA for people who have and study the type of inherited retinal degeneration my lab has been working on for years.  It was a wonderful and inspiring trip, but I'm very glad to be home after bunches of traveling.

The symposium was held at a lovely hotel near the Torrey Pines golf course, unfortunately I never could figure out how to get past the golf course down to the ocean (which maybe you can see dimly in the horizon of this picture).

The first afternoon I arrived, I was able to visit Point Loma and Cabrillo National Monument.  One of the coolest things about it was walking down to the tide pools.  The tide pool creatures were similar to the ones we see at Asilomar, but the rocks are really different.  Really pronounced layers (so cool!) and lots of bioturbated rocks (where the shapes were formed by the presence of little creatures).

After I got back I spent the weekend cleaning out my garden,  I'm still not finished, I have a new bed to build and need to go get compost, but it's so much better and I planted a bunch of flower seeds and some annuals after taking these pictures.

Before (so messy from last year)

And after

And so exciting, my crabapple tree is in full bloom.  So beautiful!!

Click over to LeeAnna's for more things to like!

I like #294

 Welcome to another week of things to like!

It's been a crazy week here, I'm busily preparing for two more short trips that are coming up.  But there are still things to like.

It's starting to be springy here, but I haven't done any gardening yet (or even cleaned out my garden from last fall).  As soon as I get back from these travels, that will be on my list.  But in the meantime, some of my dianthus have come back from last year!  They'd completely died back and here they are grown back in and flowering!  Yay!

I've been working on some projects associated with some upcoming episodes I'll be filming with the Quilt Show, and hopefully I'll do a full post at some point coming up!

Related to the upcoming filming,  I got my nails done yesterday.  It was my first time with acrylics, and even though they aren't particularly long they are longer than my normal nails which are very short and now it feels like I have too much fingernail.  Love the sparkly blue though.

I accidentally got this great tongue picture of Blue the other day, and it speared a whole pets-with-tongues thread on the chat stream I have going with my mom and I thought they were too good not to share.

Blue

Becky's dogs (that's Checker with the tongue out)

Swatch and Jordi (who we sadly have lost)

And sadly all three of these beloveds are no longer with us.  But they had great tongues!

Sam

Shooter

Bentley

Wishing you all a good week!  Click over to LeeAnna's for more things to like!

I Like #293

 I missed last week because my mom and I were in the middle of a trip to Empty Spools Seminars out in Asilomar California.  She was teachin ga five-day workshop out there (it was very exciting!!) and I went with her.  I took a class from Katie Pasquini Masopust which was great.  We love Asilomar, it's just a gorgeous gorgeous place.  It feels like camp for grownups.  We actually had great weather until the very last day when we got caught in all the storms and flooding and power outages.  We had some stressful driving getting off the Monterey peninsula.  All the power was out so all the stop lights were out, then one of the roads on our route was closed due to flooding so we had to backtrack and re-route, and then even  Highway 101 was flooded and we barely got through (very slowly in a giant line of cars).  We were lucky we weren't going north, quite a few more roads were flooded there, and of course many many people had severe damage from the storms and flooding.  

The road trip was quite long- three days each way, but I enjoy mom's company and we listened to some audiobooks and lots of podcasts.

Blue stayed at home with a house sitter and I took Spooky to stay with my dad.  He got to spend the week playing with Quark, and apparently had a grand time (and taught Quark some naughty behaviors too evidently).

On the way out, mom and I stopped at Petrified Forest National Park for a couple of short hikes to break up the second day of driving.  I hadn't been there since the mid 80s, so it was great to see it.  Such a beautiful and stark landscape, and the giant petrified logs are amazing.  So many gorgeous colors.

We had been a little worried about the weather going out as there had been lots of storms, but our primary area of concern (around Flagstaff) was fine,  lots of snow on the mountain and piled up on the side of the road but the roads were all clear.

On the third day of driving, we stopped at Cesar Chavez National Monument which is dedicated to highlighting the work of Cesar Chavez (and others) who formed the first agricultural union and worked tirelessly to improve the abysmal working conditions for farm laborers.  We were there very early, before they opened, so we mostly just strolled around the gardens (which are beautiful) and read the outside signs.  But just before we left an NPS employee arrived and kindly opened the memorial garden for us (where Cesar Chavez and his wife are buried), answered lots of our questions, and let us into the visitor center where we were able to stamp our National Park Books.  It was a beautiful stop.

We finally got to Asilomar, and had a lovely five days at the workshop.  At some point I'll do a post on the workshop itself, but every morning while there Mom and I went out for a walk along the gorgeously rugged coast and sometimes went tide-pooling.  We got caught in drenching rainstorm one morning but otherwise the weather was perfect until the last day.

Starfish and anemone!

On the second day of driving home, we stopped just outside of Flagstaff at Walnut Canyon National Monument to have a break and a hike.  It's so close to Flagstaff, but I'd never heard of it before!  The canyon was really beautiful, especially covered in snow.  The monument preserves a wonderful series of cliff dwellings, inhabited by ancestors of the Hopi people c. 1100 AD.  We hiked the Island trail and it was a beautiful break.  Well worth a stop.

After getting back to my parents' house, Spooky was very happy to see me and jumped right in the car.  I think he didn't want to be left again even though it's really fun to visit my parents.  He didn't seem to understand that we first had to unload all the stuff from the workshop before he could get in the car.

And now we're back home, reunited with Blue and running around like a crazy person trying to get caught back up at work.

It was definitely a good trip and a good mental break for me.  I love Asilomar.  Click over to LeeAnna's for more things to like!

I Like #292

 I like lots of things but this has been a boring week on that front.  Lots and lots and lots of work, with very little time to do anything else.  

But today's prompt from LeeAnna is lots of fun:  What do you like and not like about your studio?

I love my studio.  I built it in my backyard in 2011, and I love having a dedicated, light filled space.

I love my three giant rolling design walls (my dad built for me) that serve as doors for my storage areas.  They're covered with ceiling tiles and flannel and great for pinning things up.

I love my rolling cutting/ironing drop-leaf work table (also built by my dad).  It's also covered with ceiling tiles and flannel so I can iron on it, but it also has my cutting mats on it for cutting.  Both sides can be raised or lowered depending on how much work space I need.

I love my reading corner- here in an old picture occupied by my beloved Bentley (and Blue) in the pre-Spooky era.

I love my bright yelllow wall and all my quilts.  I love my sewing spaces.  I love the windows (of course it was dark when I took this picture) and I love all the plants (also not in this picture)

The only thing I'm a little sad not to have is a big work sink.  I don't really have space for a wet area, and when I built this building in the backyard, adding in plumbing was just too expensive, especially since the kitchen is just a little ways across the yard.  But in the intervening years, I've started to do more painting, and it would be so nice to have a big sink.  But in general I love love love my studio.

Since Spooky wasn't in the studio picture, here's a picture of him from this week.  In case you're wondering, that yellow thing on his nose is a piece of foam from the couch he's chewing up.

Thanks to LeeAnna for the prompts, and click over to her blog for more things to like!