Sidetracked Artist

Meet Sophie.  We recently adopted her from a dog rescue group.  She's about 3 years old, and 18 pounds of love and fluff. We don't know what breed she is, exactly.  The group we adopted her from said she's part American Eskimo. The vet said she appears to be part corgi. Except Eskies and Corgis have ears that point straight up, and Sophie's ears flop over. Her ears look like border collie ears.  And she does like to try to herd the cats.  Hmmm. When she's wet, her fur curls into little ringlets, like poodle fur.  Maybe she's part poodle. So what does that make her? EskieCorgiPoo? Don't know; doesn't matter. At the shelter, the fur was shaved off over the back half of her body because it was so matted.  Poor pup. We had a really cold, rainy Spring this year, so Laura got Sophie a rain coat to wear on her daily walks.  Her fur's growing back now, but nobody likes a soaking wet dog raining water through the house as she shakes off,

I discovered Susan Branch's art years ago when I made scrapbooks.  I love watercolor paintings, and her work grabbed my attention.  I can't really explain why I like Susan Branch's work so much.  Looking at her watercolors just makes me feel good. It's the kind of watercolor that I enjoy creating.  Except that my work lacks that extra something that comes with thousands of hours of practice.  I'll keep working at it. I just discovered that Susan Branch has a blog , and it's filled with her lovely watercolors! That just makes me happy . Cindy Update:  You can enter to win a copy of Susan Branch's book, Girlfriends, here at Creative Connections.

I just found out that my digital image, KEEP CALM and HAVE A CUPCAKE is currently being featured on GREENWAWA-Live Life Greener in a Father's Day gift idea post  by Elena Lipson. Elena will also be including the item next week in a post on her blog, Eco Diva-Ethical Luxury . Thank you, Elena! And "thank you" to my daughter, Laura, for providing the great cupcake drawing. Cindy

Enter to win a prize pack of gluten free baking mixes from Betty Crocker and MyBlogSpark at my other blog, Wheatless Foodie. Click here to go to the giveaway. Cindy

It’s been a cold, wet Spring here in Northwest Washington state. In Bellingham we’ve only had a handful of days above 60 degrees so far this year. We haven’t seen 70 degrees since sometime last year. At least the temperature has been staying above freezing for the past couple of weeks. I finished planting our vegetable garden over the past week. Now we just need some warmer weather so we can harvest the summer vegies before first frost. Fortunately, we like salads, because the garden has produced lots of lettuce these past few weeks. There really is nothing like fresh, crisp, delicious lettuce. The broccoli heads are forming, and the few sugar snap pea transplants have been blooming. Most of the sugar snap peas I planted from seed didn’t sprout. I think it was just too cold and wet here. There are carrots, both orange and purple, and green onions just coming up. We’re still waiting on the pole beans to sprout. To make use of space as much as possible, I’ve been planting n