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 o...

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...

Keeping chips from getting crunched while being stored in your house can be a challenge. It’s especially frustrating to have an opened bag of chips get lost in the back of a cabinet or shelf until it’s too stale to eat. I have throwing away food. I recently came up with a solution that’s working well for us. We have a pantry with some shelf space and also a little unused wall space. This little bit of wall space was just big enough for hanging chip storage. Here’s how to make this chip holder: Using heavy cotton yarn and a suitable size crochet hook (the yarn label should have a recommendation – I used a size I hook with Sugar ‘n Cream® yarn), crochet a chain about the length you want the finished chip holder to be. Turn and single crochet in each chain stitch. Chain one and turn, then single crochet in each single crochet. Repeat until you have the width you want or about a 1 ½ to 2 inch wide piece. Bind off. This is the backing for the chip holder. Fold down the top 3 to 4 i...

We're not supposed to discuss money in our society.  No telling how much money we make, and don't ask how much money other people make.  Just don't. But discussing money management seems to be OK, so I'ld like to share a tool I found that helps with managing personal finances. Managing the family's finances is my job.  Knowing where we stand financially requires keeping track of how much money is coming in, which doesn't change much, and how much money is going out, which can easily get out of control. I've tried several methods of tracking expenses over the years, and most haven't worked well for me.  The reason is that I'm terrible at keeping records.  Whether recording things on paper or on the computer, I'm just not good at following through with recording expenses daily, or weekly, or whatever...over, and over, and over... Not happening. Fortunately, I found Mint.com .  This site pulls the information I need into a nice, neat, easy...