NEW POST...finally.

I really am bad at blogging....i know i should post more often but i hate posting drivel about myself...i haven't done much creating - i am still cleaning /reorganizing my studio....and my muse is full of ideas - but not much motivation.  Lots of yard work to be done.....summer makes the palm fronds drop like fall leaves....

the fronds have to be loaded into my truck and taken to the dump for recycling....what a pain!...

and then we have to mow...all THIS....about every ten days....

the mango trees are full of mangos - should be ripe by august - too bad they are growing on branches 30 feet up....

I intended to post when i visited my dad and sister Lori in San Jose - My sister Gina came to visit too, with her family........

Me, Lori, and my Dad

My sisters, brother in law, nieces, nephew, grand niece, grand nephew, and my dad.

while there, my sister Gina and I (and her family, too!) visited the House on Bird Avenue, where we grew up.  My parents sold the house over 30 years ago....it was a huge 6,500 sq ft Spanish house on 2 acres.
The new owners subdivided it, built 5 houses in the back and opened them out to the street behind the house.  They also took our detached 3 car garage and relocated it (the city wouldn't let them tear it down), took out our 40 foot pool and tore down the 3 bedroom/family room addition my father had added to the house.  It was such a great house....lots of laughter and children and joy! 
This is how I remember it:

and this is what it is like now...

This is the front of the house.  The new owners put up the ugly black wrought iron fence  We  used to play "statues"on the low white fence.

all of these houses are built in what we called our "2nd back yard"...it was an acre behind the garage , with peach , almond, walnut, persimmon apricot trees....and dafodils.   My grandfather planted a huge garden here every spring.....potatoes, artichokes, tomatoes, cucumbers, rhubarb, corn, beans.......
If you walk to the left around the new cul de sac, you come to this ...

this is what is left of the back of the house..........the white fence is new, it's where the garage used to be, (it was on the same plane  and you can see the spanish stucco house beyond the gate.  the single story spanish structure on the right of the house is where they moved the garage.  It used to be parallel to the house, and now it is at a 45 degree angle to it.

Here's a closer look

This is a pic of the back of the house and the garage as it is now, taken by looking over the fence.  To the right of the house is where the addition was, and behind the garage is where the pool used to be, and a huge deck, and a quince, cherry plum, loquat and mulberry and orange... trees.    The new owners cut them all down.  They did keep the 100 foot redwoods and pines.   
 VERY SAD.
moving on:
 i started a post about the "before" of my studio overhaul - but i was too embarrassed by the pics of the chaos.

EEEK!  what a mess!  (I am happy to report however, that my overhaul is almost complete....but not quite...)

While cleaning and sorting and reorganizing, I was UNpleasantly surprised to discover how many books of the SAME TITLE I had.  Sheesh..i didn't even know i had read them twice.

I have several new projects in various states of completion- and some cool new equipment....

a swanstrom disc cutter.....a collection of nail art metal discs for etching with nail polish....a spitfire micro torch...silver paste solder with built in flux....

but I haven't really been making any art projects.

I have, however, been drawing every evening with new Ahab Noodler fountain pens - my generous DH bought me six (yes, 6...so they can have different colored inks!)....

Here are some of my doodles....