Enterprise Wash in Central Arizona.

Enterprise Wash in Central Arizona.

About a week before this picture the water was flowing down the wash at a tremendous rate. Farther down this wash is where we had our family reunion. Every year the local members of the family go down to the wash and prepare the area for the picnic.

This year the boundaries of the wash where pushed into the picnic area and clean up was a little more extensive. They trim the trees so that we can sit under them for protection from the Arizona sun, even in February!


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Creosote Bush of the Sonoran Desert...

Here is a picture that I took of a creosote bush near the Ajo Museum in Arizona. Creosote bushes are drought-enduring plants that grow in the deserts of North and Central America. This bush is growing in the Sonoran Desert, the hottest desert in North America!

The fruit of this plant is a 5-lobed nutlet with silvery white hairs. As a child growing up in the Mojave Desert, I gathered these little "kitties" by the hundreds to play with!

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Snow on the foothills...

My mother and I went for a drive just to take pictures the other day! This picture is of the foothills at the base of Mt. Pinos located in the mountain range that skirts the southern edge of the San Joaquin Valley of California. The infamous "Grapevine" on I5 is located to the left of these foothills. You will notice that it is a vineyard in the foreground of this picture!

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Remembering Grandma & Grandpa...

With the family reunion less than two weeks away, the memories of my Grandma and Grandpa are flooding back...

...I loved their red house! I remember the window seat, and trying to go to sleep upstairs while looking at "Sneaky's Footprints" on the ceiling! He (really Grandma) would tie knots in my shoelaces! Glad it wasn't my hair. And the smell of breakfast waking me up in the morning! Delicious!!

...I remember running in the irrigation ditch on the edge of the pasture past an angry bull with three of my girl cousins!

I remember walking out into the alfalfa field with Grandpa and getting to eat my very first alfalfa bloom and trying to catch some little yellow kittens that hid in the hay stack while Grandpa was milking a cow...

...I remember the swing in the tree beside the driveway and the tree house that was above the swing and picking blackberries (I think they were blackberries, it was something with lots of tiny thorns) on the back of the white house...and going to the grocery store in Grandma and Grandpa's 1963 Chevy Corvair (my brother has the Corvair, now!) and being very careful beside the canal that ran swiftly through part of my grandparents property.

I have so many wonderful memories of Grandma and Grandpa...I miss them!

My mother painted this picture of her parent's home the year I was born. Grandma and Grandpa lived there for 28 years.

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I found a "Shop Around the Corner"!!!

I don't know if you have noticed, but there is a list of blogs that have been recently updated on the blogger sign in page. As I was attempting to sign in to my dashboard, O'Gara and Wilson, Booksellers caught my eye!

As I browsed this blog, I instantly thought of one of my favorite romantic comedies, "You've Got Mail" with the "Shop Around the Corner". Even though, they are located in Hyde Park, Chicago, Illinois, the writers of this blog have captured the ambiance of their "used and antiquarian bookstore" as well as have set the scene giving us a glimpse into the Hyde Park area.

If you love to read, love old books and love to travel via your computer, this is a blog well worth visiting and bookmarking!


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The two blue books are copyrighted material by Artist ~ Phyllis Mae Richardson Fisher.

Happy Birthday, Christina Dawn...

On this day in 1982, I became an aunt for the first time ever! Christina Dawn was born in San Angelo, Texas as a premature baby. The doctor who delivered her, had delivered her mother and her mother's father. Seventy-one years earlier, Christi's paternal great grandmother had been born in San Angelo, too!

At first they told us that Christi was 4lbs. 6 oz. and then a couple of days later changed her weight to 6lbs. 4oz. I knew better! My son Travis, who had been born 7 months earlier and weighed in at 6lbs. 12oz., was twice her size at birth!

Christi loved playing the piano and her repertoire was getting quite long. She was very good with people and her guinea pigs. Christi taught Sunday school and was active with the puppet ministry. She wrote stories and poetry and created 3D images out of baling wire or modeling clay. Christi loved to go on nature walks, always taking her walking stick. She got to go to our family reunion in Arizona in 2001 and loved every minute in the desert.

She was my angel after I had back surgery, staying with me during the day for about a week while my sons were at work. She cleaned house for me, did the laundry, fixed meals and helped me when I needed to move around. But, what I will always keep in my memory is the picture of her curled up on the edge of the couch with her favorite book. She had just sighed really deep knowing that she had completed all her work of taking care of Aunt Janey and she had a few hours to enjoy reading before her cousins came home!

We lost Christi in a car accident along with her mother Pamila Dawn, five years ago this coming May. Christ was only 21 and this would have been her 26th birthday. We miss you Christi and Pam...

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Valentine's Day is not that far away...

With Valentine's Day on everyone's mind, I have been creating heart filled designs for our CafePress Gift Shoppe. Being able to use my mother's artwork is a real pleasure. I hope that you are ready for Valentine's Day this year. So far, I have four designs: Hugs 'n' Kisses, LOVE, Neddy's Hugable Love and Gunny's Hugable Love.

The special day falls on a Thursday and is less than a month away.
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