Today's News: GM dumps Saturn when Penske backs out of purchase. 
Remember the "Before" picture at the beginning of the project? To compare it to "After," go back to July 30. The easiest way to find it is over on the left-hand side at the top of the blog (which is where you should be if you're reading this) you will find "Blog Archive." Scroll down to July, click, click on July 30, and, voila, you are there.
After a long, hot summer, this Peace rose in Tina's garden has endured.
I'm a somewhat regal-looking white Lab. I go with my human every Saturday to the farmers' market where we sell frozen Alaskan seafood. My human is a really swell-looking guy: dark hair, long eyelashes. There's this older grandma-type lady with gray hair that comes by every Saturday. I finally allowed her to take my picture. If I spoke their language I'd tell her to quit stalking my human.
Just a smidgen of overexposure gives some eerie details to an agave plant.
Now that the holidays are approaching there should be no shortage of photo ops! I found these girls just hangin' out at Bashas' holding court in the produce section.
... with matching gloves!Today's News: Stadiums, hotels, and transit systems have been warned to be on watch for terrorist activities.
Today in History: 1888 – The first issue of National Geographic Magazine is published.
And you say coffee? I say macro. After about six years of owning this camera, today I discovered the macro setting! That's how you're really supposed to take close-ups! Once I discovered the setting, this was the first thing I tried. It was just sitting on the cabinet waiting to be put away and screaming, "Take my picture, take my picture, I'm very colorful." So this is my first real-life close-up photo. More to come!
What to serve with barbecued ribs (easy recipe below)? It's called clean out the fridge and I found pinto beans, slow-roasted tomatoes (which cooked with the ribs) and avocado slices. Not a bad meal!
It's beginning to look like fall at the farmers' market.
I went out to Leslie's new home for the evening. John was away for the weekend so we had a girls' night in. Grilling steaks with asparagus and tomatoes, a great bottle of cab sav, and lots of yakety-yak!
What? Leftover cornbread? That falls in the same category as leftover wine! Well, occasionally it does happen. Solution: Put it in a pretty glass, pour over cold sweet milk (only those who grew up in the South can appreciate the difference between sweet milk and .... well, any other kind of milk), let it soak for just a minute, and .... um um good!
SIGNS OF THE TIMES
Yes, but for a gardener, there's nothing better than compost. Emerson and I have started a small compost bin and simply by adding vegetable waste, grass clippings and shredded newspapers, by spring we will have black gold for our garden!
Emerson is utterly fascinated with all things having to do with The Incredible Hulk. Several months ago he decided that he wanted a Hulk costume for Halloween. His mom found one (and that was it, ONE!) at a party store today and he shows up at my place for an over-nighter musclebound, with a six-pack, and roaring green, announcing that he is there to keep me safe. After a dinner of pizza and wings at Streets of New York, we returned home where he was allowed to watch an episode of that famous Bill Bixby/Lou Ferrigno classic on the instant play version of Netflix. At one point he came running into my room, gave me a kiss and said, "Gramma, I really can't keep you safe because I'm really not the Incredible Hulk." Alhough he is pretty adamant about the fact that in real life Dr. David Banner (Bill Bixby's character in case you've forgotten) is his barber!
This was a closeup taken at night using ordinary flash.
Sometimes you just have to wait for the opportunity. I had all kinds of ideas of what I should "maybe" do for my photo today, but I just kept putting it off and off. Finally about 6:30 p.m. I drug my eyes away from the computer screen and looked outside and it had all the impressions of a coming monsoon. I grabbed the camera, headed out, and as I looked west this is the image I saw! There is nothing quite like a Western sunset. I was thinking just a few days ago we hadn't had many dramatic sunsets recently so it must mean that our skies are clearing of pollution since the beautiful sunset colors are generally reflections and refractions of light. I don't know why we got pink tonight because it's breezy and it was a clear beautiful day, but since pink is my favorite color, I'll take it any day!
It may be a magical day but homework still prevails. Emerson comes every Wednesday night for dinner and his homework assignment. Tonight the task was to find several household objects of which one could count at least 20. He had paperclips, rubberbands, Uno cards, and pennies (not shown). He actually (which, actually, "actually" is his favorite new word) managed to count up to 39 of most everything!
I decided over the weekend to buy a pedometer and track how many steps I take each day. The goal of course is 10,000 steps per day. So I checked out a few peds, finally decided on a cheap one (about $15) from Target. This morning bright and early about 5:30 a.m. found me with a sharp knife cutting open the package and a magnifying glass reading the instructions. Everything seemed to be pretty simple, so after getting dressed I clipped the little gadget onto my waistband and headed out into the world. After only a little over an hour I was simply amazed to find that I had already walked 2,000 steps! I was so skeptical I took a walk down the hall, counting 20 steps so I could compare it to the ped. The ped said 17. That's okay. It was a cheap ped so I didn't really expect it to be right on the money, but 17 out of 20 sounded pretty good. I once had one that you had to take your BMI, divide it by your height, multiply the number of children you had birthed by the square root of the diameter of your hair follicles and then program the sum of that number into the little machine so that it would accurately record the number of steps you took. This one, being only $14.99, came preprogrammed so I understood it might be just a tad off. So naturally I thought to myself, "Self: What's the big deal? At this rate I'll hit 10,000 by midafternoon." Of course, this morning I made about 10 trips outside, taking out the trash can, positioning 50 feet of sprinkler hose about five different times, numerous trips to the computer room to print transcripts that came in over the weekend. About 9:30 a.m. I finished all those little tasks and deposited my butt in my oh-so-comfy Lazy Boy and started proofreading. By 5 p.m. my ped showed that I had walked -- what? You say 3,803 steps? Oh, dear. I just can't afford the water bill if all I do is move the sprinkler around hour after hour. Thank goodness the weather is slowly becoming cooler and hopefully shortly I'll be able to take a morning walk and push those steps up closer to the 10,000 goal. Stay tuned for results!
Who doesn't love a bargain and who doesn't love fresh basil? I got both with this giant of a plant at Target for $1.99! Now, mind you, I paid $2.99 for one of those living basil plants at the grocery store that lasted three weeks -- and I was pleased and happy to have fresh basil for a dollar a week. I was especially happy not to have to pay $3 for a few measley sprigs thrown in a plastic bag at the farmers market. So bright and early this morning Emerson helped me repot it in a larger pot (we got it a little crooked, but that will surely straighten itself out). Basil grows very well in Phoenix because it does like hot weather. I decided to keep it in a pot through the winter so I can move it around for optimum sunshine..JPG)
Saturday mornings generally find me at the farmers' market no later than about 7:15, and today was no exception. I believe this may just be my best "People Picture." Hmmmm, as I think about it, it may just be my only "People Picture." I'll work on that. I can't imagine what these two gals were discussing, but one thing is obvious: They got melons!.JPG)
6:30 p.m., it's hot and muggy and the wind has kicked up, boiling clouds, white mixed with black are all signs that tonight our nonsoon may actually become the monsoon. We are still hoping this weekend to get the residual of Hurricane Jimena who has stalled out over Baja California. If she doesn't make a left-hand turn and go west we might see her presence over the weekend. Wherever it comes from, we don't care, because a measley one-half inch of rain in this monsoon season puts us at the fifth driest summer on record.
Emerson is now in kindergarten and has daily homework assignments. Tonight while his mom went to an appointment it was left up to us to find household items that represented circles. These are the things we accumulated in about 10 minutes. See if you can find: strainer, jar of olives, hair gel, French fried onions, salt, tube of Blixtex, Palmer's cocoa butter, Granny Smith apple with a circle scan sticker, coffee filters, marinated artichokes, toilet paper, lime, cottage cheese, hot dogs, two bowls, plate, salad plate, cannister of pasta, furniture polish, organic butter lettuce, can of tomatoes, fudge sauce, Comet, antiseptic wipes, Chinese mustard, horseradish, Pantene mousse, hairspray, three spices, gala apple, salt, two pan lids, plastic containers and lids, jalapeno peppers, whoopee cushion, funnel, shampoo, can of Coke, Apricot preserves, Bartenders' helper, and probably about 20 other items that are indistinguishable! It was a fun project! And plus, we put them all on a round table -- which is a circle!
PEACH/TOMATO SALAD
