Diana Frey

Diana Frey is doing a give away on her blog. She makes the most incredibly beautiful jewelry. Go here to enter the give away

http://dianafrey.blogspot.com/2012/02/giveaway.html

anniversary weekend

This was us 34 years ago at our wedding at the Union Hotel in Los Alamos. Last night we stayed the night in the Presidential Suite! We have never stayed there before and it was just amazing.
This is the fireplace that we got married in front of
And these are the stairs that I walked down to get married in front of the fireplace. I was so scared to trip down those stairs with that long dress on.
This is the balcony outside our room.
Me in the living room this morning. Coffee and fruit, excellent.
Jerry chilling in the living room this morning
The jacuzzi hot tub was crazy. Really enjoyed that last night
This is a glass etched door leading from the bathroom to the bedroom.
The shower rocked! You could have a party in there. There are huge shower nozzles on the left and right.
The stained glass over the shower
and the stained glass over the bed
We had dinner at Bell Street Farms in Los Alamos and it was delish. This is the charcuterie and cheese platter we started the dinner with. From there we ordered the hot and crispy pork belly-wrapped shoulder on ciabatta, apple & jicama slaw and pickled onions and the tamarind chicken salad sandwich made with Huntsinger free-range chicken with celery, currants, apples,

tamarind-curry mayo dressing, butterleaf on multi-grain bread. we split it so that each of us got half a sandwich. It was so good that we went back this morning and had the breakfast charcuterie platter which was assorted cheeses, framani soppressata, rosemary ham, walnuts, almonds, plum jelly & olive oil. It was a party in my mouth.

Jerry in the living room
bathroom vanity
view from bedroom to living room. Notice the huge sliding doors that close off the bedroom
view from the bed to the balcony patio
glass etched windows in the bedroom
stained glass windows in the living room
the bedroom
living room
this is the front door and entry way. We had the bestest time there and had the bestest food. I really like anniversaries.

granddoggers are growing up

They are growing so fast. Their personalities are coming out and they are becoming friends with satchel.

satchel and the rubber chicken

jerry's brother randy and his wife cathy sent satchel a rubber chicken for christmas. it was chewed into tiny pieces within five minutes. the third picture down shows it in it's entirety, then slowly and methodically he removes it's body parts. Poor rubber chicken, it never stood a chance with h im

paper gift boxes

These gift boxes are all hand painted on 140 lb watercolor paper and then hand stenciled. They are all 2" deep. This one measures 6"x6".
This one is 4"x4" and you can see that the inside of the box is also painted.

This shows the inside of the box in the beginning and I have no idea why blogger decided to put it under the dragonfly box.
this one measures 3"x6"
and this one 3"x4"

graphite giraffe

been playing with graphite and just finished this giraffe.

Order From Chaos series

These are two completed pieces from the Order From Chaos series. The top one is called Silouette and the one below is Giraffe. They are mixed media and in 12x16 mats. The mats are white although the picture makes them look pink.

flower power

11x15 mixed media on watercolor paper. background is done with resist and layering watercolor colors. the flowers are watercolor paper that I previously painted.

Fall!!!

It's fall and that means soups & stews & chili for dinners here. Tonight it is Black Bean Soup with homemade croutons. Here is the recipe:

Sausage & Black Bean Soup
3 cups dried black beans
1 3/4 lb chorizo, andouille or spicy sausage ( I used a turkey kilbasa)
1 T olive oil
4 cloves garlic, finely minced (I microplaned mine)
2 yellow onions, finely chopped
2 celery stalks, finely chopped
2.5 quarts chicken or meat stock
4 T chopped parsley
1 t dried oregano
1/2 t ground cumin
2 bay leaves
1/2 T salt
1/2 cup sour cream
2 T finely chopped fresh chives
2 T finely chopped fresh cilantro

Sort through the beans, discarding any impurities or discolored ones, set aside
Remove the casing from the sausage. In large saucepan, warn the oil over medium heat. Add sausage and saute, coarsely breaking up the meat with a wooden spoon, until lightly browned, about 5 minutes. (or just cut the sausage up into cubes like I did) Pour all but about 3 T of the fat. Return the pan to the heat and add garlic, onions and celery and saute until the onions are translucent, 2-3 minutes.
Add beans, stock, parsley, oregano, cumin and bay leaves and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat, cover and simmer gently until the beans are very tender - 2-2.5 hours, adding half of the salt halfway through the cooking and adding a little water if necessary to keep the beans moist.
Discard the bay leaves. Pour a few ladelfuls of the beans into a food mill, food processor fitted with a metal blade or blender: (or use one of those hand held blender things but make sure that the soup is in a deep container when doing it or what you get is black beans soup splattered all over your shirt and the kitchen counter, and make sure that it has cooled off a bit so that you don't burn yourself when doing this) Stir back into the pan with the remaining salt. (before you add the remaining salt be sure to taste it. I found it was fine without the added salt)
Ladle the soup into bowls and garnish with sour cream, chives and cilantro. Enjoy with home make croutons too!

granddoggers

This is Zaya and Auri, they are our granddoggers. They are Scott and Angela's but we get visitation whenever we want. At the moment Satchel is rather indifferent about them but when they get bigger I'm sure they will be more fun for him. They are 3/4 Mastiff and 1/4 Rottweiler which means that when they are full grown they are going to make Satchel look like a toy poodle.

backgrounds

After hearing a talk by Joanne Beaule Ruggles (www.beaulerugglesgraphics.com) on how she approaches her paintings I came home very inspired. There is so much layering in her work. I got out some red rosin paper and gessoed both sides. Then started to play with acrylic paint and things (wall paper, sides of credit cards, stamps, stencils, etc) to add texture to the paper. They measure 14x18". I have no idea yet what the next step will be with these but I really enjoyed doing the backgrounds.