Unfortunately, Carol

I was nudged on my sister Peggy's blog to google, "Unfortunately, Carol" and check out the results. She originally saw this idea on Carla Sonheim's blog.
Here is just a sampling of the results:
Unfortunately, Carol has been crabby for quite a while now.
Unfortunately, Carol's career was cut short when she died under mysterious causes.
Unfortunately, Carol and Mike are in the cave again, trying to find that bracelet that Carol dropped in the previous arachnid encounter.
Unfortunately, Carol's plan backfired, because most men don't respond well to being "wooed."
Unfortunately, Carol's daytrip to Paradise is spoiled by Multiple Man--no, not that Multiple Man, the DC one.
Unfortunately, Carol's words result more in perspiration than inspiration.
Unfortunately, Carol has never been able to catch on from Grandma's teachings.
Unfortunately Carol had used the jar containing his DNA as a candy jar.
Unfortunately, Carol violated her parole by mashing the potatoes for dinner. They were lumpy.
Unfortunately, Carol lacked the quick wit to get back at the mean girls.
Unfortunately, Carol was in recuperation during our second visit after impaling her arm on a knife that Dave had bought to replace a damaged one.
Unfortunately, Carol got into the vodka pretty fast.
Unfortunately, Carol was allergic to monkeys.
Unfortunately, Carol is in Spain and cannot buy the nicely packaged lard this year.

Unfortunately, all true.

Did We Have Fun?

I haven't posted for a long time, but I finally uploaded my pictures from the Banders August "Staycation" at Patti's, and I had to share these photos on behalf of all of us.


The Midnight Stampers retreat in October was fun too, but we had to focus now and then.

Heart Art

I hope everyone had a happy Valentine's Day and did something that makes your heart happy. On that subject, I know that making art and doing something creative makes me happy, but sometimes I need a push (like doing a swap) to make me spend more time in my favorite room in the house--the room that is overflowing with all my arts and crafts supplies. The majority of them are collecting dust, drying out, or otherwise waiting for me to DO SOMETHING with them! I mentioned the idea of making a heart of some form, any media, each week for the next year to a friend of mine (you know who you are, April) as a nudge to creating on a regular basis, and now the two of us have made a commitment of sorts to do this. Even though I don't feel I should need a push to make art, at the moment I seem to, especially with going back to work. I'm hoping that having a buddy in this endeavor will add the slightest amount of pressure to the nudge, and that it will soon turn into a habit.

Want to join us? We are starting this week--yes, right away! By next Valentine's Day we should have 52 hearts. Of course we don't want to wait till then to admire our work. Bring your hearts to our meetings, post them on your blog, or send us photos. There are no rules except to complete one item each week--a heart or something with a heart on it. If a particular week is impossible, you can always make two the next, etc. And since I'm a person who needs a deadline, let's make it Sunday of each week. Are you in??

It was a Dark Chocolatey Night

Answer: Milk chocolate, white chocolate, bittersweet chocolate, hot chocolate, chocolate fondue, chocolate cupcakes, chocolate mousse, brownies, chocolate molten cake.

Question: What are the perks of attending a chocolate cooking techniques demo at Williams-Sonoma? The result of the evening was that April and I each left toting a 10 lb. chocolate bar because when all is said and done, the chocolate itself is really the best part. We briefly considered splitting one, but who were we kidding?

Christmas Past

December 25th seems like so long ago now! Especially since I've gone from cold and snowy Montana to warm and sunny Dallas. I had a wonderful time with my sister's family, as always. These were my daily views. And on a trip downtown to see some of Michael deMeng's new items at a hip toy/artsy store called Tsunami, we encountered more evidence of the cold.



Welcome to Daisy, the newest member of the family.

Niece #1 and niece #2--I'm a lucky aunt!

Not in Texas Anymore

So we were driving down the road and stopped when we spotted this near the side of the road:

And later, this:



Obviously, I was nowhere near home. Steve and I took a cruise to Alaska in late August, and we saw these bears on a day we rented a car and drove to the Yukon Territory in Canada. Nothing but beautiful scenery hour after hour, and five unexpected black bears along the way.

Speaking of unexpected, who knew that in the midst of all the lushness, lakes, and waterfalls we'd come across "World's Smallest Desert," originally covered by a glacial lake:

This was one day of our three-week trip, and I'm not usually one to take landscape shots, but the scenery was so beautiful I had to try to capture some of it. Of course the pictures don't compare to being there, but I just had to keep snapping. The cruise was excellent, and we also explored the interior for ten days after that. Here are a few shots. First, Mt. McKinley from Denali Park on what we heard was "the clearest viewing day all season."

"Glacier landing" near Mt. McKinley

Speaking of glaciers, I have to post at least a couple of my hundreds of shots of the many glaciers we saw on the cruise and afterwards.



The Roadhouse in Talkeetna, where we spent a night and enjoyed sourdough wildberry pancakes after our flight.

Did I mention the gorgeous scenery? By the time we arrived in Denali National Park, fall had arrived.


And we saw lots of moose, a few grizzlies, caribou, dall sheep, a wolf,and other critters in Denali. This was a particularly large bull moose we saw.

I'll try to post more later. I haven't even mentioned the beautful flowers we saw throughout the trip. Hanging baskets and planters with larger flower blossoms than I've ever seen, such as here, for starters:

Alaska is beautiful!

Aren't Zebra Zneat?

I love looking at their coats, especially when they are not chomping on my car door! My sister and her two younger kids visited a couple of weeks ago, so one day we headed to Glen Rose to the Wild Animal Park and had some up-close and personal moments with the wild, yet docile animals--from the safety of the car, of course.

I learned from my previous trip there to keep the bag of food out of reach of the giraffe's tongue.

The faces of these emus are more than a little freaky looking, especially when they're moving towards your own face.


OK, now back to the zebras...