At the Geneva market, there is this very old dog. I don’t know it’s name. It belongs to one of the vendors there, but I couldn’t tell you who. I only know that we’re not allowed to feed it because it throws up in the car on the way home.

This dog wanders around from 7:30 in the morning unti 1:00 in the afternoon. It never stays in one place long.

​ This week it sought refuge underneath one of my tables. It wasn’t looking for food, water or attention. It just wanted to rest a bit. I guess it felt safe in my space. Am I crazy to feel a little honored?

It doesn't take much to bake my happy cake. The ingredients are family, laughter and a fire pit. 

My daughter, Grace, and I went down to Long Island this past weekend to see my sister, Diane, and her family. Saturday we had a barbecue and my brother, Dave, and his wife, Ida came out from Brooklyn. Now, a barbecue to me means hamburgers, potato salad, and a beer. But to my sister, it means filet mignon, grilled shrimp and cocktails. All I can say is vive la difference!

My brother-in-law, Doug, cooked the meat on the grill, while Dave gathered wood for the fire we'd be sitting around later. When the meal was finally done, we ate a feast of steak, shrimp, Greek potatoes and a Greek salad. I will admit I took two skewers of shrimp. If there was ever a hostess contest, Diane would win hands-down!

Later we made our way to the fire. My niece, Joyce, started a game in which everybody had to answer the same question in turn. They were universal questions like - what is most important in life? Or, what personality trait do you most deplore about yourself? No judgements or comments were allowed while people answered. Diane tried to sneak in a few comments, but any rule breaking was quickly shut down. Even Dave entered the spirit of the game and did not roll his eyes or mock the questions.

​Finally, Joyce brought out the sparklers. I love sparklers. Beats me how she found them, but she did. And that, my friends, was the icing on my happy cake!

When I was a kid, our family had a sickle pear tree in the front yard. For a little tree, it put out a lot of fruit. Our neighbors would come over with shopping bags and fill them up to take home. I remember many a warm September day, passing by that tree and pulling 2 or 3 pears to eat on my way to a friend’s house. That little fruit tree served our family well.

When I had my own house and my own children, I didn’t think too much about fruit trees until one day, my son asked me to plant some in the yard. Money was pretty tight at the time, but I heard about a farmer who was selling fruit trees cheap. I went to his farm to take a look and, lo and behold, he had one little, sickle pear tree for $18 bucks. I bought it and we planted it on the side of the house. Well, the tree grew bigger and fuller each year, but it never had any pears! Each summer would come and pass with no pears. I finally gave up looking.

The fall my son, Ben, went to the Naval Academy, I was mowing the lawn on our riding mower. I approached the pear tree to mow around it, and suddenly noticed something I had never seen before - pears! How did it happen? It must be a miracle! To tell the truth, I know very little about plants and less about trees. I didn’t know that fruit trees have to cross pollinate to produce fruit. Yeah, I was sleeping in biology class. My poor, little, pear tree  had never had a sweetheart! But, unbeknownst to me, my neighbor 3 houses down had planted a sickle pear tree in her yard that spring. Apparently that was close enough to start a romance. This year my tree has outdone itself in the fruit department. The pears are a good size and in a few weeks they’ll ripen. I’ll grab what I can and the deer can eat the rest that fall to the ground. I’ve never been disappointed in the sturdy sickle pear tree yet!

I get bored easily, so I'm always trying something new. I am loving the effects I’m getting on jewelry by mixing my Pebeo paints. There are so many creative ways to combine different metals and different mediums. For the stainless steel pendant above, I used a  Vitrail cobalt blue paint for the background and then accented with a Prisme  Caribbean Blue.
I used the same paints for the copper earring blanks to get a matching effect..
For the aluminum bracelets, I decided to switch it up a little and add a Prisme Emearaude to the other two paints. I really like the results.

I'll wait for these pieces to dry, then resin them and get them ready for market!