Bird of Paradise

Did you know that the bird of paradise is the official flower of the city of Los Angeles?

More things I love about the summer... the annual Biola Bookstore sale!  I walked over this afternoon and browsed around the bookstore.  As staff, we get an additional 40 % off for purchases this week.  Yay!  That's the kind of sale I like!  I picked up a few little gifts for friends and couldn't help getting this super cute, adjustable ring for myself for just a couple dollars.

Just the thing to wear this summer!

Summer Dresses...

Another thing I love about summertime is wearing summer dresses.  I found this colorful beauty on zulily a few weeks ago.  Wearing it makes me feel quite happy!  What does your favorite summer dress look like?  
All dark colors in my closet are hereby banished to Winterdom... Long live Summer!

Happy first day of summer!

I really love summer! 

 One of the things I get to do more often is hang out with these cutie pies.

 Last Friday we went to Huntington Beach and had a bonfire, roasted weenies, and made s'mores.

 

     Fun times!

Adventure Week Is Just Around The Corner!

It's that time of year again!  I don't get to paint or draw very often so when an artistic opportunity comes around I make the most of it.  The theme for Adventure Week (VBS) this year is "Saddle Up".  My friend Kim and I have worked on a couple of these projects together.

Last year we were up to our ears painting all kinds safari animals

From 2011 June 11 - Monsters and Lions and Elephants... Oh My!

but with the American western theme this year our main project is to paint a stagecoach that can also be used for a photo booth.

We started tracing the image onto the plywood last week so today we were ready to break out the brushes and paint and get to work.

Got a couple of hours of painting in today before running out of day light so we will tackle it again Saturday.  I'll post another photo once we're all done.

Serendipitous Saturday

The dictionary defines Serendipity as "an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident".  That is what happened this morning.

I was driving home from an early morning meeting and kept seeing signs here and there for garage sales and yard sales.  After driving past a few I just picked one and followed the signs to the address listed.  Now mind you it's been over a year since I have stopped at a yard sale.  I usually gravitate to the table with dishes or kitchenware.  I wasn't really expecting to see anything in particular.  Much to my surprise I saw a stack of plates on the corner of the table.

When I looked closer I noticed it was the same exact pattern of some dishes I bought years ago at an antique store in Orange.  Well, I bought the dishes for... ready?

$2 for the whole stack.  Yes!  I drove away with a big smile on my face.

Then noticed another yard sale a few blocks further down.  Why not I thought!  There were no dishes here and as I was about to walk away and drive home I saw this...

It's a beautiful, old, four drawer solid wood cabinet.

No pressed wood or particle board here!  I took it home for $60.

I love it when these little completely unplanned surprises happen.    

Did you see it?

 

A little black dot in front of a giant red dot.  I watched with great interest this week as Venus made it's way in front of the sun.  This is quite a rare event that will happen again in 2117.  Above is a screen shot of the NASA website during the transit of Venus.