Bunnies & Blossoms & Bears! Oh, my!!!

After reading my blogger friend Tanya's post yesterday about her lovely Sunday drive, I was inspired. Mr. Scottie Dog said we should spend the afternoon organizing a bunch of "stuff." I've worked hard all week and didn't want to go back to work tomorrow without having some rest and relaxation. So I suggested we have some fun. He thought that was a fine idea and when church was over he thought we could drive out to Dry Lagoon and check out the beach. We stopped for lunch at Los Bagels. Los Bagels makes the best bagels in the world. I kid you not! I usually get a Sesame Seed Bagel or a Slug with Slug Slime (a slug is a "straight" bagel) and Slug Slime is a topping that is a mixture of every kind of Bagel topping they have: sesame seeds, garlic, toasted onion, chopped garlic, poppy seeds, you get my drift. But I saw one today that was new to me: Parmesan Rosemary Bagels! YUM. I had mine with cream cheese, grated carrots and La'ruppin Dill Sauce. Oh, if you don't live here in Eureka, too bad. You can't get Los Bagels OR La'ruppin dill sauce. I don't remember what kind of bagel Mr. Scottie Dog had except he topped his with cream cheese and chopped black olives (about a cup!) and La'ruppin Dill.

Where we live on the far Northern Coast of California this is the first thing you see at the beach. Behind the sign at Dry Lagoon State Beach is this wonderful view. The ocean is directly to the left (I was actually surprised it didn't show in this photo).
We took a walk on the beach, found some cool rocks and sat on an enormous tree trunk piece of driftwood. Here's a shot of the ocean. It was warmer than it looks. So very relaxing.

We walked back up to the bluff to check out a gigantic rock formation and found another driftwood "couch" and sat some more. We both live pretty hectic lives and don't take much time to do "nothing." Ahhhhh, nothing was really something!

I love flowers...any kind of flowers. Big, small, red, blue, aromatic or not. I'm always checking out the flowers and Spring in Humboldt County never disappoints. Here are some wild strawberry blossoms growing right out of the sand.

Blue (purple) Lupin abound in our area. They grow wild. We saw fields of them today. Blue/purple, white, yellow...wonderful.....well there are those who would love to rid the county of all lupin. It was introduced from Europe to help stabilize the sand dunes and now covers hillsides near and far. I like them. In the midst of taking pictures of flowers a bunny crossed our path! A small, cute, brown bunny. I'm not sure I've ever seen a small wild bunny near the ocean in the 40 odd years I've live here. Bill saw a pair of them nearby and then later when we traveled up the coast a few miles we saw another one. So I guess they've been here all along!
Everywhere we went today, Dry Lagoon, Stone Lagoon, Big Lagoon, Orick and Prairie Creek State Park we saw a plant with very large leaves sending up huge stalks (3-6' and more!) with a flower that looked like Queen Anne's Lace on steroids. I looked it up when we got home and it was Cow Parsnips!
And last, but not least in the floral department is Skunk Cabbage. I've heard they smell terrible, but not in my experience. Friend Tanya saw White Skunk Cabbage on her drive, yellow is what grows here on the North Coast.
We left the lagoons and continued driving North. There was a field by the road with over 50 Roosevelt Elk! Another car had stopped. I bet they thought the elk stayed inside the fence. On our way back only a few remained in that field. The rest had meandered over the countryside.
Our last stop was at Prairie Creek State Park. A new exhibit told the story of the CCC building the Visitors' Center (originally the caretaker's lodge) in 1934. I know it has had a new roof several times since then, but this one has quite a crop of ferns and moss growing on it. Check out the roof of this phone booth too! No cell service here so a pay phone is a good idea.
As we drove south towards home we saw a black bear in the road. He wasn't happy to see us and ran down the road ahead of us for quite some time. Just when Mr. Scottie Dog said, "Get your camera!" He veered off into the underbrush. So my picture is from the Internet....but "our" bear looked just like this one!
Thank you Tanya for putting the idea of a drive in our heads.....we needed a rest and diversion. I highly recommend it for all.

Back to blogging

First off I want to thank all of you who have left me comments, emailed me and personally made sure I knew that you read my blog and have missed me. From the bottom of my heart I am humbled and warmed by your kind words.

Yes, I do have a new computer. After gathering lots of advice, recommendations and information Mr. Scottie Dog and I went shopping. At the 2nd store we found an HP with 1 1/2 Terabytes (he says that's a lot of bytes!), a nice big monitor and new keyboard. It's kind of slow going because my camera doesn't want to work with it...(Skype with the Grandchildren is a MUST for me!), as of yet I don't have a compatible mail program so the newsletter from our store will have to be put off until I buy a program. I don't understand all the ins and outs but Mr. Scottie Dog does and he is a sweetie to help me out.

Today was the local Rhododendron Parade in Eureka. We've spent the last several years watching it with Sydney, but this year she was in MN visiting Uncle Jason and Auntie Beka & her cousins. I worked in the store. As I left for work I told Mr. Scottie Dog that it would either be dead all day or it would be a zoo after the parade was over. There are lots of other activities associated with the Rhododendron Festival too. At 9:45 am I put the OPEN sign out. No customers by 11 am. That was OK by me....I had lots of things to keep me busy. A Quilt Shop always has work to do. We had gotten in new Batiks and I cut fat quarters and rolled them. I started work on the newsletter. I opened the mail and recorded some of the inventory into the computer. 11:30 am and not a customer but several phone calls from customers and then I did some ordering online.....Sure enough at 12:04 pm the store was swamped. I couldn't cut fast enough. I helped people pick out patterns, fabrics...I helped them choose borders, backings & bindings. I showed and demonstrated Pfaff sewing machines. At 2:30 I put my lunch (leftovers) into the microwave and hurried to answer the phone. More customers. At 3:15 I nuked my lunch a second time. I poured a Diet Coke and gobbled my lunch in time to greet a mother & daughter traveling through our area and help them, meantime several regulars came to browse and shop and a gal from a town over the mountains showed up to buy for a retreat she was going to. She had one FQ she wanted to build her quilt around. I got her all rung up, she left and then returned 10 minutes with another Fat Quarter...."maybe she should be prepared with a second set of fabrics in case the first set wasn't exactly what was needed." This meant choosing 4 more fabrics for a total of 7 yards for EACH quilt. We close on Sat. at 4 pm. At 3:50 a regular gal came in looking for a pattern she had seen somewhere. We had the pattern. "Did we have the fabrics pictured on the front?" Well, no since the pattern was about 2 years old and the fabric line had long ago sold out. But $266 later we had made a good effort. By now it was after 5 pm. I vacuumed the store as our faithful store cleaner is on vacation and made my way home. It was a good day. I know it sounds hectic and long, but actually the time flew by.

Today was the Rhododendron Festival and parade. Here are two of the many Rhodies growing in our own garden.I shall be glad this summer as the old fireplace chimney gets a facelift!

And that was the glamorous day in the life of a Quilt Shop owner.

Sad Computer

Well, today it has been declared official! My computer is dead. Not sick, not hurting....dead as a door nail. (why is a door nail dead I wonder?.) I should look that up sometime.

I've not posted for a long time because I had some kind of blogger blockage....does anyone really read my blog? Does anyone CARE to read my blog? What do I have to say, anyway? And then when I actually was ready to blog my computer started doing weird things. First I couldn't access my mail (or send any, read any) on my particular computer. Then I found that while I could access FaceBook and comment there, I could READ blogs but I couldn't comment on them.
Get the picture? Weird. Just plain weird.

Then I found that I could access and watch things on Hulu, I couldn't watch anything on my Netflix account. I could GO to Netflix and add to my queue or rate movies but I couldn't watch anything. It was very frustrating. Every day there was some new odd thing I couldn't do or access. I told my husband in frustration all about it. Mr. Scottie Dog suggested I make a list of what software I actually used and back up whatever files I wanted to save. Yeah, right....like I even know what software I use. You see, I am terribly computer illiterate. I can find my way around the Internet, I can use many programs. But are they software? Hardware? Programs? I have always left that up to him. After all, he is the electronic genius (generally a genius about everything!). I promised myself I'd get to it. A couple of times I've gotten a virus and he's always been able to fix and restore my computer back to normal.

Well, late last week I turned on the computer and after a couple of minutes a large notice came up saying, "HARD DRIVE FAILURE." And then the screen when black. Not just blank....black.
I knew that wasn't good. Mr. Scottie Dog has patiently tried to "restore (?)" it. Things look promising and then the screen says, "Wait..........." After three tries it still waits.

Tomorrow we're going to buy me a new computer. I hope I don't break this one! I'm now using an old laptop of his. But Explorer is so old I can't access pictures, see videos, solve my daily jigsaw puzzle and more. But at least I can still check and send mail. I have a bunch of photos I want to share with you. See you soon!

computer problems

I'm having some computer issues and I'll be back as soon as I can!

More Cruise & April Fool's

Our Mexican Quilting Cruise was awesome! No doubt about it. We had a fun group, pictured here with our just one of our cruise projects: Mexican Rivera. I am amazed at how many have finished their quilt. Several ladies finished a Potato Chip Bag (handy over the shoulder bag...named because...."bet you can't make just one!") and I've also seen a few of the appliqué samplers finished. Here we are...even the grands. I had to hunt to find Shiloh but she's there.

Every night our cabin steward had fun towels folded into animals. Jakob is posing with our walrus (who really DID look like a walrus in person). Our family had three rooms. Liz & Steve had an adjoining cabin to ours. The door was nearly always open between the rooms and our balconies joined too. Beka & Jason were in the room across the hall from us but again we nearly always had the doors open so everyone wandered from room to room. Jakob slept in his own upper bunk in our cabin. This was his first sleep-away-from-home with Grammy & Grampy. We got along fine.

Everyone always talks about the food on a cruise. Well, ours didn't disappoint in that respect!

Some of the meals included Lobster & Prawns!

Prawns with the most delish roasted corn!

Mr. Scottie Dog had duck one night.

Here is one dessert I tried: Apple & Bavarian Cream with caramel sauce!

I think I ate pretty well on our trip. For lunch I usually just had a salad. But at dinners I often got two appetizers and ordered two desserts....I'd take a taste of each and pass them on to Bill. I think the favorite dessert was Carnival's signature Warm Chocolate Melting Cake with Vanilla Bean ice cream. I won't tell who ordered two entrés one night....Prime Rib AND Lobster.....it wasn't me, but after seeing the Prime Rib I almost asked for some too! We had two formal nights and here's a photo of Mr. Scottie Dog and I....we clean up pretty well! What a handsome man I married!

One last thought....Mr. Scottie Dog has some dietary issues and cannot eat several seasonings and common vegetable. Carnival was willing to work with him each night to fix any dish he wanted without using anything on the forbidden list. I had heard that on a cruise you could ask for a special diet...I imagined Low Fat, Kosher, low carb, no salt, etc. But they took his list of "can't eat" and he had the most fabulous meals. They were even willing to put special dishes in the dining room or buffet for lunch & breakfast too. He was always able to find something yummy to eat then so didn't take them up on that. Hats off to you, Carnival Cruise Line for making Mr. Scottie Dog's meals so fabulous.

Finally back to blogging!

I'm finally back to blogging! My last post was in February just as we were getting ready to leave on our Scottie Dog Quilts Mexican Quilting Cruise. All I can say is that it was wonderful! We drove to So. CA and spent the afternoon & night before in Long Beach. It was fun to stay at a hotel out of town and every few minutes meet up with someone else from our cruise! Our MN family members arrived and the grandkids gave Grammy hugs. A family pizza party! The next day we embarked on the Carnival Splendor...off to the Mexican Riviera!

We had a chance to dress up and enjoy ourselves...Here is my oldest friend, Maralee (she hates it when I say oldest friend...she reminds me I'm older than she....we met when I was 4 and she was 3 or thereabouts). Don't we look grand?

We really did sew! Here's Crystal sewing her cruise project.

Judy took time out for the 3 story water slide!

In Puerto Vallarta Mr. Scottie Dog found the local fabric store. It was just a couple of blocks from the dock. Maralee, Bill & I had a great time checking it all out.

This next shot is one of my favorite shots from the cruise....my two oldest grands: Jakob Haché and Sydney Adams. Don't they look fine!

We tried to get a nice photo of all the grands...this is the best one!

There's lots more to share...but it's late. I'll post more tomorrow!