Back home in the honeysuckles...

Yes, I did remember to take my little traveling visual journal and had fun with it in New York City. It was a great quick trip and so much fun. Got to do everything I wanted to do.... nice. I love the NEW "CSI Crime Scene" yellow tape. Too cool - found it in the CBS store. On the left hand page, I used the yellow tape along with some clip art I found at the wonderful and fantastic "The Ink Pad" store on eighth avenue. If you get to NYC, you need to visit that store. I bought way too much but it was items I can't find around this town. I also like to see stuff and would rather buy in a store than online. The "Girls Night Out" is from a clip art page by m. mata. Lovely purples and NYC skylines. The "Field Journal" stamp is from clear stamps from Paperdoll pARTs at Character Constructions.

The Pierrot is from a digital collage sheet already purchased from itkupilli on her etsy store. She has some nice digital pages. It is always good to come home and have a day of doing nothing. I don't have to go back to work until Wednesday. Play tennis tomorrow. We had good eats in New York City at Remi's, Gallaghers, Ellen's Stardust Diner, Sweet Emily's and Gotham Bar & Grill. Great shows: Wicked and Jersey Boys. And, of course, it was great to hang out with the girls!

Loren loved her "Wicked" and even picked up a Wicked Barbie Doll - the green was to die for:

It was a rainy weekend but you don't care in New York City. The hustle and bustle is just too fun and it is contagious. The hotel, Washington Jefferson, is perfectly located and in close proximity to the theater district, Times Square, and wonderful restaurants. I have stayed there before and it was fun to return to the small hotel. Sunday was an exciting day with tennis players arriving in the Big Apple getting ready to play in the U.S. Open. I saw a few on the streets.... you know the really tall ones with a wonderful tan and cute.... those types.. Well, need to straighten up and put my new purchases away. You have a good evening!

See ya in a few days!

Enjoy your weekend, friends! I'm gonna enjoy mine! xoxoxo

Getting Arboreal in the Breeze

Oh boy, big word: "Arboreal" = (1) of, relating to, or like a tree; (2) inhabiting or frequenting trees....

I really like # 2 -- inhabiting or frequenting trees. Over at the land of lost luggage Julie is hosting her 2nd "annual virtual photo excursion. Getting Arboreal: A Nature Collection, will document a single trees journey from Summer to Fall/Winter to Spring."

I have just selected my tree which is right outside my condo and I have watched this little tree grow since 1994. We have bonded and I have used photos of this one in previous blogs. I will be posting photos of this tree around November 8 and April 4. I really don't know what type of tree it is but it is mine.

I hope you are ready for the journey, I think my tree is and was kind of purring when I was out taking photos of it. The squirrels love it.

I really love taking photos of it looking straight up, especially in the fall and its little leaves are changing colors. And here is a closer photo from the third floor landing ....

It is basically a young tree as trees goes but it is a sweet one. My nephew pup, Oliver, loves this tree also and he helps with watering the tree...... So, hiya Julie, it's fun to introduce my tree to your tree.

One more page down in the Journal!

Ahhhh, the Gratitude Journal.... yes, got one more page done today! Whew - didn't think I would. I gathered images last night that had been hanging around. Mostly magazine ads and it did come together. One of my fav detectives is H. Poirot. I love the actor, David Suchet, saw him in London in a play once. He is fantastic. Used his photo from my PBS schedule, had an ad for cat food (loved the cat), and cut out a model from an ad in Martha Stewart Living.

Added some black lace, then felt it needed something else and added the "dangles"..... so girly girl....... Did get a tennis game in this morning and I'm headed to Team Tennis tonight (wasn't suppose to play but I'm a sub).... should be fun since I don't have to get up at the crack of dawn in the morning! Have a good evening and I will be home in time to watch Top Chef!

When in doubt - go for the dangles! That's my motto and I'm sticking to it for tonight! ; )

My Rolodex is beautifying the Breeze

Yes, I think I made up a new word (or not, it is not coming up on the spell check as wrong) -- "beautifying" - it means in my speak to make beautiful and radiate beauty. I love my Rolodex especially with the new cards I received this week. Over at PaperWhimsy, I am participating in a swap. This is my only swap and I am having such fun. I was introduced to this site by the wonderful *~*Patty over at the Magpie's Nest. If you have not visited her blog, you should. Love her art work, love her philosophy about life, love her tea posts like today! Anyway, I digressed as usual again. (*head bowed*) You all have been privy to the Rolodex cards I made within the last few weeks. And now here are the ones I received....

The first two are the front sides of the cards from Heather (R) and Cat (D).

And the back sides:

The next two I received are from Angie (E) and MsChristy (I):

And the back sides:

I love the quote on the back of Christine's: "Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions." Albert Einstein. Thank you ladies for beautifying my Honeysuckle world. And now to the next item of business -- one really really blank page in the Gratitude Journal (this staycation is wonderful - however, it was really hot playing cardio tennis from 12:30-2:00 today. WOW and it was only 84 degrees):

First day of really sleeping LATE in the Breeze

Oh my word, 9 am came really early this morning. 9 am! WOW, and then my boss calls to see if I'm up.... uh? up? You see, usually by 9am, I would be dressed and headed out the front door to play tennis or something. A few cups of coffee later and here I am. I will digress here and tell you about the birthday lunch with Larcy, Oliver, and Phil last Saturday. One of Larcy's gift was a wee little stapler that looks an awful lotz like Oliver. When she started LOL, I knew something was wrong.....very wrong. She had already purchased three of the staplers at the Paper Source: one for her, one for Phil, and one for me for Xmas. That is now FOUR staplers between the three of us. Well, she gave me her stapler for my Xmas gift and was going to take the other one to the office. How funny is that.... ahhhhhh, great minds.

Last night stayed up for no reason other than to get the second page of the two page spread done in the Gratitude Journal. I am seeing that I am having less and less of a problem working on "top" the "journal" page and covering some of it up. It doesn't matter what the words say to me, the fact is I recorded them that day on things I was grateful for....New concept in my mind. The final two page spread looks like this:

Once again the images on the second page are from Charming Sam Studio. I would leave you a link but, believe it or not, I can't find the digital sheets on her web site anymore. Too bad. I will keep looking. I love the gal below and I cut out each of the letters spelling Venice.... each one while watching the season finale of The Closer last night.

Used some rubons. These specific ones are from Basic Grey and I love them.....

I need to literally go get ready for cardio tennis. Will be ruthless and not many will be out. Will tell you all about the Rolodex Cards I received in the mail if I survive the cardio stuff!

One more day in Breeze

One more busy day on the staycation. Got the shark over to the Chrysler Service Department to get two parts ordered that are under warranty. The lovely boys I bought the car from in May bought me a rental plan. So I get a rental car at no cost to me to run over to the Mall across the street.... when I don't have to go back to work. Life is good. Real good. The mall was fun today - shopped, had lunch, shopped, had Starbucks, shopped. Then my service guy called and said the shark was ready....

Got one more page done in the Gratitude Journal ... Calling it the "Witches' Dance." My wonderful friend Korie had these two pages on her blog last year and she knew I would love them. Bless her little heart! xoxo Korie! I then used some clip art from Stampington and Company along with other places. I ripped a page out of an old copy of a 1963 Roget's University Thesaurus. Nicely yellowed pages.... really nice.

I have always loved the flying angel and the birds from Stampington:

Also loved the digital image of "mad woman" from Charming Sam Studio.


She looks like I feel sometimes! LOL. Need to run and get ready for the evening viewing and catch up on The Closer episodes. Did not realize it was the season finale tonight and I have three more left to view. Just enough time........ Have a good evening, boys and girls.

The Breeze

Finally finished the "poultry page."

Added some paint splatters,

images from the clip art sheets, rub ons from 7gypsies,

and Recollections,

did a little sewing and finished.

Got a quilt drying on the patio... This is one of my favorite smaller quilts I have purchased over the years. Love the tea cup motif and have it on a small circular table in the living room. Need to get to the grocery store, yup, still love my staycation. I plan on playing tennis tonight at 7pm with no concern about work in the morning!!

Still Saturday in the Breeze

Just thought I would update you on this day. WHAT, two posts in one day. Oh wow. Oliver is once again napping on the workspace here while I yawn. I have him for a few hours today while Phil and Larcy run some errands. Now, I did get the new shelf up and loaded all of my stamp pads on it. I swore up and down i would not show you the "before" photo but it really shows the work I've accomplished today. All of this was done before lunch.... between 7:30am-11:00am. Yup, this is called uncontrolled CHAOS. I do work in chaos but not this much that is why I had to get it cleaned.....

I can't stand to even look at here .... so let us go the the AFTER photos:

Here is the new shelf with all of the stamp pads:

I also went searching in the trash this afternoon for a "rice" bag I saw yesterday. Needed some of the burlap but the bees were busy on it. It had trash in it and they were trying to get too it. But today I managed to get to it and cut little pieces of it off the "clean" parts.

I really love these bags in the grocery store. They are wonderful but I would never eat that much rice. Not sure what I will use the burlap for but I couldn't pass up the little bits.... They had to dry because of all of the rain last night.
Speaking of trash, I found a wonderful bit of a broken CD in the parking lot and used it on the birthday card I literally whipped up for Larcy while cleaning. The colors on the CD worked. Found the stamped image amid the clutter, sewed the background paper onto cover stock and we were done! Headed to a dinner and a play in a few hours. Back to more cleaning up here in the ROOM....