On a recent trip to the Washington coast, a stop was made at Ruby Beach. The plan was to look for driftwood and heart-shaped rocks. The driftwood was too large but there was plenty of rocks to choose from. The amazing thing that took place is seen in the photograph. My friend looked down and at our feet was a rain-drop on a rock that was in the shape of a perfect heart. Within seconds it evaporated and all we had was the recognition of a perfect miracle that was given at that single moment in time for just us. And for you skeptics, note that it is only "wet" where the heart is.

February tulips

Aren't tulips in February a wondrous luxury? Particularly when they open so exquisitely like these. They reminded me of some flirtatious satin petticoats that might be seen darting about in gypsy camps . Luscious!

Christmas 2010

This was the first year my family was not be at home for Christmas morning. Seeing an opportunity to justifiably scale back my usual "over the top" decorating extravaganza, I did something I have always wanted to do and that was to have a simple tree branch with silver balls. Thanks to a timely windstorm, I found some "roadsidea" in the form of a perfect branch, that even had an added element of chartruesy lichen. Silver balls, matte and shiny, hung from the branches with care and the finishing touch was 2 snowy white birds. Perfect!

It seems like a century since my last posting. So many reasons have come and gone as to why I have been unable to post. Primarily I can say that my camera took a dive and without photos to post, I felt like a ship without a rudder, bread without butter, pickles without ice cream, and a writer without a voice. So without further ado (what is an "ado?"), I am back.

Recent Trip to Florida

I had the good fortune to travel to an enchanting island off the west coast of Florida early in October. The weather was perfect, the water temperature was perfect, the sunsets were perfect, and the shelling was, well, perfect. Shells are abundant and as long as there is not living creature inside, they can be removed. Would you believe that even after collecting bagfulls of shells, I still wanted to keep looking? It was as though a blissful, sweet addiction took hold and you find yourself always stooped over wanting to find just one more and then, just one more, and so on and so on and so on.

Not to be totally on the greedy side, there is a purpose for the shells. They appear in the picture frames, boxes, and wreaths that I sell at craft shows. With the bounty I came home with this time, I can use them liberally which is totally luxurious and wonderful.

Floral Arrangements for Wedding

This is a sampling of the floral arrangements I created for my daughter's wedding the end of August, 2010. There were over 25 total arrangements plus the bridal bouquet, corsages, and boutonnieres. There were also floating flowers in the 2 water features, 3 potted containers barricading the driveway which I had potted early in the summer (white geraniums, white pansies, and golden groundcover (forget the name right now-helichrysum?). I was making the corsages in my hotel room until 2am on W-Day. Yikes! There was a bit of a feather theme being woven through the decorations so my daughter wanted feathers in her bouquet which blended with her fascinator in her hair. She also wore the 2 crow feathers my late husband and I wore in our hair at our wedding 10 years ago. Transporting all of them took 2 SUV's with the air conditioning on full blast to keep them from wilting on the 1 1/2 hour drive to site. The amazing piece was between my daughter and my stash, we had all the containers, French flower vases, pedestals, galvanized cones we needed.

Floral Fireworks for my Daughter's Wedding

Here are some of the gorgeous flowers I had the joy to work with in putting together over 24 arrangements, one bridal bouquet, 7 corsages, 9 boutonnieres for my daughter's wedding the end of August. The colors were brown, white and citrus, with an emphasis on lime green and orange. Brown was picked up with manzanita branches and the white came mostly from dahlias & paniculata hydrangeas. The oranges came from rudbeckias, dahlias & crocosmia. Lime green came from limelight hydrangeas, bells of ireland, golden lonicera, golden cotinus, and monterrey cyprus, The next posting will show the finished products. Transporting them in two SUV's was a challenge. But my brilliant designer son figured out how to bungie-cord plastic crates and square buckets together to hold the vases. I worked late into the night under the tent but it sure was fun. Flowers were picked from 4 gardens in the area plus more from an area wholesale floral warehouse.