Our Goofy Cat, Spartacus!

This is how he helps me put the groceries away ...

He LOVES to help with this - and changing sheets on the beds.

It must really feel good to roll around on the canvas bags??

His brother (Artemis) looking on - must be thinking either he's jealous OR Spartacus is nuts! Look at Spartacus's closed eyes! Cracks me up!

Ohhhhh ..... more goodness ...

But that last stretch got him tangled in the handles --- oh dear ... look at the panic in his eyes!

Oh boy - he's upset now! He's beginning to attack the bag (see the hind legs going into attach mode) He was definitely yowling by this point!

Guess he decided if he rolled on his side it would be better (but it wasn't - I had to help him so he'd quit screaming!) Cats don't understand being helped ... he attacked my hands!

Ahhhhhhhh ... bliss again ...

Over it now ... going to lie down in Paul's slippers ...

A day in the life of a cat who loves putting the groceries away ... it was the absolute highlight of his day!

Hope you have a blissful highlight to your day too!

Happy Weekend to all!

Paul & Cheri

Midweek

Queen Anne's lace for you, Mom. :-) I miss you.

It's gorgeous here. The sunflowers continue to bloom and sway in the breeze. The veggies are beginning to yield and we had a fabulous squash/onion/cheese bake for supper last night. Supper is called dinner in most of blogger land ... but it's called supper up here ;-).

This is our first zucchini of the crop this year. It was DELICIOUS!

This is the last week of dance camp. Boo :-( It has been such a total PLEASURE to dance and teach more than once a week! What a lovely and joyful experience it has been!

We had one of the Crossnore Cottages over for a cookout Sunday night. There was laughter and giggling, eating and game playing, wii-ing and yes, some whining too (that was me)! We had such a good time and I think the kids did too. Sorry I can't post pictures directly of the kids because they are beautiful, but it's a privacy issue thingee. Dang. But I will give you proof that Paul can grill out --- enough hamburgers and hotdogs for an army! And he was attended by one of the Resident Counselors at the school, Rachel, whom we now claim as one of our own :-).

a game of Scattergories which at one point had 8 players --- it was WILD!!

Paul playing on the Wii. He lost a lot to Casey --- I smiled (because I can't seem to beat him at anything on the Wii. we'll have to get a dance game). They are bowling here.

Shannon and I got our official acceptance letter for the Riverwalk Festival art Show in August! I'm so excited I don't even know how to express it ... we've never had to be "accepted by the board" before! I put the letter up on the wall in the studio and Paul laughed at me. So, all in all, things are normal around here! I'm super busy trying to get a lot of pieces made. It's fun and such a treat to create. But it's stressful to think I HAVE to be ready. More deadlines. Oh well.

I'm also trying to work at Fabio's, finish his website, go visit my grandsons in Atlanta, clean the house, do the laundry, tend the garden, be a supportive and loving wife and mother. This is taking a lot of juggling! We are not bored. Life is good!

AND we got an update that Paul's dad is recovering beautifully from his back surgery and has gone back to work part time and light duty and can even drive himself. Whoo hoo! And also that Rick is recovering beautifully and now has permission to drive and return to work next week. So in the words of Paul's mum, they are both happy campers! I'm sure getting their independence back is wonderful ... on all counts.

Hope your midweek is finding you happy, safe, well fed, loved and blessed.

Paul & Cheri

Garden Update ...

Well ... we obviously have sunflowers galore. They are GORGEOUS and happy and just make you feel good to see them. They are absolutely sprouting EVERY WHERE thanks to the birds, Mother Nature and Gardner Christian's spring planting episode. We definitely live in the Sunflower House, which is just fine with us!

Here is some sage and some mint ...

some beautiful lemon basil and some plain basil ...

some delightful and delicious banana (sweet) peppers ...

some tender scrumptious green lettuce which we are eating plenty of ...

the beginning of our zucchini crop (the yellow squash is also coming in but I forgot to take a picture ... )

and my favorite ... broccoli! Yeppers! Real groceries in our back yard.

The green beans have begun to flower, the tomatoes are in the process of growing, the eggplant has flowered, the peas have flowered and the potatoes look pitiful. We've had a terribly hot spell here and I don't know about the taters ... first year they've looked dead. Well see?

Paul came home with a tractor yesterday and we tried to smooth out the front yard mess a bit. We ended up doing a lot of it by hand. We need Charles. It's a fact! But I raked and moved rocks to the best of my ability. Now I'm sore (again ... still)

I mowed tonight - it is so hot and humid that we have to wait until evening and hope for rain clouds to keep us cool. Tonight was perfect! So I did the back 40. Now ... for the front!

We've invited one of the Crossnore cottages over for a cookout on Sunday evening, so we're trying to get things prepared and decent for company. Always fun! A good reason to clean up, don't you think?

If you have a minute, check out Crystal's blog at a Little Bit Funky. She is an amazing woman, has done an amazing job of answering a calling with a twist that might benefit you. PLEASE read this post. http://www.littlebitfunky.com/2010/07/are-yall-ready-for-this.html PLEASE do your part if you are in the position to do so. Buy a net!

Hope your gardens are plentiful!

Blessings to all,

Paul & Cheri

July, week 2 ALREADY!

Sunflower House!

The sunflowers are finally opening up ... everywhere in our yard. We have a lot of "volunteer" sunflowers this year ... and they are everywhere. It's nice and welcoming and happy and yellow! We finally had a bit of rain, and the flowers have decided it's safe to come out. So nice to see. The black eyed Susans are also beginning to open. Must be yellow flower time! The day lilies are about finished. The summer seems to be absolutely flying by.

On that note, we had someone come out to our house and give us an estimate on spraying foam insulation in to help with the heat this winter. Yikes! We need to win the lottery pretty soon. Fortunately we can do it in stages ... underneath the floors on the first floor (ceiling of the basement and garage) ... then the "roof deck" ... then the walls. The walls will be the most intricate part having to drill holes every 15" or so and every 2 feet into the siding. That's a lot of patching ... so maybe we reside? Maybe we have to win the lottery first! Yikes! It's July ... the temps have been in the high 70's to high 80's and absolutely lovely. And here I am, worrying about the winter. I have found that heat is very important up here in the High Country!

Dance Camp has begun at the Crossnore School and we have successfully completed our first week. It's lots of fun to see the kids smile and even laugh sometimes. Makes my day!

Paul & I continue to work at Fabio's on Friday and Saturday night. It is GREAT fun and hard work sometimes! Last night was jammin' and we were actually having to turn folks away. But the ones that had reservations and got in at the right time had a wonderful dinner and totally enjoyed their evening. Food and fun!

I am still pushing hard to get enough inventory for the show on August 21st. Shannon and I went to see the Avery Arts Council people on Friday. I called to make sure they would be there. We pulled in right after they pulled out about 2:00. So disappointing. I will try again tomorrow after dance camp. We are full of questions and curiosity about things ... would love to just get some answers! I put some more pieces in BJ's last week. I'm hoping to get some more finished this week and keep the cycle going. I met someone who's been very inspiring to me. Check out her art work .... she is phenomenal. http://www.periwinklepass.com/ Tammy Brinkley has opened up a shop here in Elk Park and she has the most delightful paintings and collages ever. She also has some cool furniture she's redone, as well as antique pieces she's found at auctions and such. If you are local or in town for a bit, please make of point of dropping by her little shop. It is well worth your time and trip!! Tammy will be doing a couple of shows next week too, the Blowing Rock Art Walk or Art in the Park (whichever one is next weekend) and Banner Elk as well. Treat yourself!

Added these to the booth at BJ's ---

and this (paper media - no mosaic here)

I had a meeting with someone about joining her art center as the dance portion of it. We'll see. It's time to make some "work" decisions .... I'm asking for wisdom and guidance from the universe. Hope it comes in bucket fulls, Lord knows I need bucket fulls!!!

Paul is working hard in this crazy heat. I'd say it is like Florida, but that would be a lie. It's hard to breathe up here when it's over 80 because we're up so high and humidity is about a zillion percent. He's pretty tired when he gets in. Those big trucks come in off of the road and they too are a thousand degrees. Then he has to get under them and change the burning hot oil and etc. It's a very dirty job. Yesterday he actually got to work on an iron railing with his buddy Bruce. He said it felt really good to do that. It would be so nice to have the shop up ... but then, up here there just aren't enough iron railing jobs to make fulltime work. Hopefully we can change that! Man, that's optimism, isn't it?

Final world cup match today. Spain vs. Holland. It'll be kind of boring without a cup game to look forward to. All of our Mexican friends are hoping for Espana, but secretly betting on Holland. We shall see ... 2pm EST.

Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend.

Cheers!

Paul & Cheri

post-poned

I was waiting to post because I knew I was going to just get inundated with responses from my request to check out the website. But I guess I'll move on (thanks, guys). Truly a testimony to the phrase "to each their own" I suppose.

and so ... without further delay ... our week with our grandson Christian, who will be a big 7 year old on August 6th.

Christian here in the machine that picks the dirt out of the hillside and puts it in the dump truck! Forgot the name again, but it's H.U.G.E. and intimidating looking to me. He and Paul Paul finished retrieving the dirt for the front yard project.


Christian really got to work the controls! He was mega concentrated on everything. And so was Paul Paul! Hard work!

BIG toys!

Christian directed Paul Paul on where to dump the dirt ... here he is conducting!

We rewarded the hard work by picking cherries from the cherry tree and then sitting on the swing and eating them. You can see a little cherry splatter on the back side of the swing. Nice.

Our friend Barbara from Sundance Farm gave Christian some sunflower seeds when he was here for Spring Break, which he planted then. This is how big they were when he was here this time! They are this close ( ) to opening up! They are on target to be HUGE!

Charles came over to spread out the dirt, and of course he couldn't even think of doing that without his co pilot, Christian! Unfortunately, about the 2nd pass the big orange Kioti tractor began to smoke and so all the go systems had to be stopped! Hopefully it isn't anything ultra serious and we'll get our tractoring done soon and a project finished. Better late than never. My personal target was late May/early June. Whatever ....

Christian and I went gemming and trout fishing (fishing for Fabio, gemming for Christian). It was a lovely, restful couple of hours, and he found a HUGE ruby, a beautiful quartz crystal the size of his 4th and 5th finger and 3 gorgeous amethyst pieces! He got impatient eventually though, so we kind of just left the rest of our gems for the next person and headed home.

We had an art day too ... sitting in the studio, mosaicing together. It was pretty cool for Nana. Christian chose a pre-made frame to decorate. So he found some paints and tiles and mirror pieces and all sorts of things, and he made a beautiful frame.

Our friend Patti gave him some of her parrot's feathers and we thought these two were just beautiful with his frame. So here is his finished art work!

We had Monopoly night too! It was an interesting take on the Monopoly game, playing with a 6 year old's understanding of money and real estate! What a hoot! And in case you were wondering, Paul won. As usual.

Paul Paul and Christian went down to the falls and climbed on the rocks, and swam in the freezing cold water while I was preparing a little bit for Fabio and his children to come over for a cookout. Christian came home with a very cold body temperature! Paul said that the water was really cold. This from someone who learned to scuba dive in the water in England ... THAT water is cold!

We set up a slip and slide for the kids ... and it was quite fun to watch. They giggled ... that was quite fun to hear! Kids! Although I must say that Paul gave it a try too!

See! I wouldn't lie to you ...

Then, just like that, it was time to take Super Fly home. So he buckled up, put on his headphones and his all important sun glasses and we headed downhill.

A long way down hill ...

We met his beautiful mom in Chesnee and found a Mexican restaurant, had a quick lunch, made the hand off and I drove back uphill as they went on back to the big city.

A side note ** While Christian was here, Fabio's son (Fabio Jr.) hooked up our Wii that Father Christmas brought, which we have not been willing to delve into, but Jr. is TOTALLY into electronics, thank goodness. Paul, Christian and I bowled a lot. Paul stayed up late practicing on this Wii thing he DID NOT want. Now I come home and find him playing tennis and bowling. He is now a PRO status. So is Christian. My neck hurts.

I have to admit, it's fun to play but I think I need to get the games that are slightly more exercise oriented for me. Then maybe I wouldn't feel guilty playing instead of working! Any suggestions out there? HA!

Hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July weekend. I'll post parade pictures later in the weekend. I'm sure you are all just holding your breath!

Cheers!

Paul & Cheri (and Christian this time!)