Where does the time go?

Has It Really Been A Month Since I Blogged?

I hereby vow to blog more frequently, or at least offer pictures like this. Halloweenesque, I think.

Fresh Salsa From Farmer's Market Veggies

I'll be making cucumber and tomato salsa tomorrow. I can't remember what recipe I started with, but tomorrow, I'll be using:

2 tomatoes
1 Cucumber (peeled)
1/2 a red onion
2 jalapenos
minced garlic to taste
basil (or cilantro) to taste

chop, mix together, and refrigerate. Easy, no? This salsa is so good, you'll want to use enough of it to be a vegetable dish. The cucumber adds a lot of flavor and crunch. I'll be making some with jalapenos and some without, to satisfy all the palates. :)

Book repair! In black and white, just because...

This is an old Catholic prayer book I have had for many years. It was published in 1925 and I have no idea where I got it. I finally put it back together with the help of my bookbinding supplies--I make books after all, why not repair some?

I ended up recovering the entire book with black book cloth, but loved the detail on the front too much to cover it, so I remounted the front cover over the bookcloth. I added some gold flowered bookbinding paper to the spine and glued it to the fly leaves. More book cloth on the spine and voila! E pluribus unum--from many parts, one book. :-D

From an Illuminated Manuscript

I carved this stamp based on a flower detail from a medieval illuminated manuscript of The Iliad. The book is currently on display at the Vatican Library. I've done calligraphy for a while and have always had an interest in illuminated manuscripts. I wanted unique tags for my little wrapped packages as they go out the door.

RIP Charlie....

You will be missed. 7-23-10. ^..^

The Waiting Game

He's living out his last days (weeks or months? maybe) on a thick folded blanket in the dining room near the patio doors, where he can see squirrels, birds, lizards and anything else that might wander by. His cocktail of meds appears to be keeping him fairly comfortable. As we wait. My eyeballs are gritty, and I didn't get nearly enough sleep last night. But I can't sleep anymore. Most of all, I am saddest for my sister, who one day found a sweet friendly kitty in her office parking lot. He had a collar on, but she never found his owner, and so, brought him home. And he became "man of the house", where he would walk around the house like he owned the place anytime a workman or a contractor showed up. In reality, though he would mostly just sleep on the porch in the sunshine, dreaming of salmon.

"Most likely lymphoma", the vet said yesterday as she showed us the x-ray of the mass in his chest. We'll find out more in the next few days, but he already is having neurological problems, so the diagnosis at this point is almost moot, and definitely bad.

Don't leave us yet, Charlie, we're not ready.