*

mochi!

I have never actually KNOWN what mochi was until last week.  I was at my grocery store and,  lo and behold!  "Japanese Style Green Tea Mochi- made in Taiwan".
I grabbed a box and tried it at home.  It has the most delightful squishy texture- SO squishy and soft and pleasing to hold, a bit funny to eat but all in all a good experience.
I am a big fan of textures in food- I love chocolate with rice krispies in it, I am crazy about slippery noodles in pho soup ( sorry Krissy -lol!) and I love food in its own packages- ravioli, burritos, dumplings, spring rolls, perogies!
So there you go- Mochi- yum!
Now I want some molten chocolate cake...

cuteness!

Leave it up to the japanese to make something so cute and so useless- I love it!
It is a USB robotic owl- found at think geek.
Be sure to watch the little movie of the owl in action, with peppy music of course!

true love

true love buttons!

Clockwise from the top:
* tea and cake
*mushroom and snail
*cloud and rain
*tomato and basil

They can't live without each other!

I am working on things to sell in this years City of Craft 
which I was lucky enough to be accepted to.
It's going to be awesome, so many talented people- I see me buying more than selling!

deluxe canary starter set!

hartz Christmas ad, 1967.


Check it out!
My brother has started a design blog-

illustration friday - repair

A very quick sketch for this weeks Illustration Friday!
:)
That's me as a little girl learning to sew- repairing a piece of fabric- and I still stick my tongue out like that when I am concentrating.

golden

I love these golden, sunny fall days.  This is a view from my kitchen table a few sundays ago.  I LOVE my weekend mornings- sitting at the kitchen table with the paper, girl cat on my lap, the washing out, geraniums in the window and a hot cup of tea.   It may not be repeated again this year.  The days are colder and laundry is happier drying by the newly turned on furnace now.

Enjoying the colors at the park-

Picking a pumpkin at thankgiving out in Picton.

Golden.

I am playing around with some new silkscreen ideas!  It has been along time since I did this!  I am happy to pay now to have my screens exposed and I will be taking them to Kid Icarus to be done.   How nice to delegate!  They make beautiful things as well as sell lovely things made by other people.  I have decided I simply never create enough screens anymore to make buying a bottle of the stuff worth while as it expires within a short time once it is active.  I have a sad expired bottle in my fridge as we speak and its such a shame to just toss it but I have no other choice.

I thought the food one would be cute for a grocery tote bag and the house, well a house with a face is always cute.

best day ever

I know that I said this was my best day ever, but I have upgraded to pugoween.  This was the craziest thing I have ever seen.  I dragged Paul (bless) out to it, after having heard about it the week before and then, thank goodness, seeing a poster about it at the pet food shop or I may have forgotten!  Obviously, pug owners dress up their pugs for a hallowe'en costume contest and the pugs LOVED it.  I was really happy to see Nora, top right, center and bottom right, as she is the only pug I am acquainted with and I got to cuddle her.  It was mayhem with pugs runing around in circles everywhere and people squatting to take pictures.  I sat on the floor and was immediatley overrun by enthusiastic pugs, trampling over my lap and snuffling in my face. Sigh- it was heaven really, pure pug heaven.  I have been a pug admirer for probably over ten years, when I would longingly scroll through pug rescue sights and read anything  (hilarious book, BTW) about pugs I could find.  Why not get a pug? Why not indeed... girl cat might not appreciate the intrusion into her peaceable kingdom though, and I like to spoil her in her golden years.  For now I will just have to remain a pug stalker.

library staff parking

Not to much to say, i just liked this picture.  It is the Picton library.

It must be the strong cup of tea I just finished, but I have overcome two of my hurdles just now and they are:

1) Posting an actual picture of myself that is clear, not a drawing  and including my face , on this blog.
(That is obviously me, at the book presentation)

2) Looking at all the pics Paul took of me at Word on the Street and picking a few to put in a new photo album on the right here.  It has taken me three weeks to calm down and not be scared to look at them.

The album I just finished making is all the news about our book, which has already been reviewd in a few places and I decided since this IS my blog and all, I may as well do some horn tooting because no one else (except my dear Paul who I should hire as my publicist, bless) will do it for me.  It also includes some great pics sent by friends of Berkeley sightings in stores near them and anything else I can think of.  So stay tuned!  More will be added as it becomes available.