feline friday

this is our oldest cat, sambucca(sam for short), who is learning to tolerate(on good days)the kittens. sam grew up with marie, our abyssinian who died this summer. sam is 16 years old and is pretty grumpy but loves my husband--she has always like him better than me i think, even though i started dating him after i had sam. she is pretty snuggly in the morning when she is hungry and at night when we are all tucked in. here she is in the new kittie condo we got so the kittens would have something to play on besides her. if there are any cat lovers out there who don't have a kittie condo because all the ones you have ever seen are disgusting, expensive and hideous looking go to this website, steps for pets, they have a great selection, are inexpensive, the shipping is free and the product is a really great quality. i would definitely shop there again. they also donate a part of each sale to a shelter of your choice.

this is one of her favorite spots

unfortunately, these are the only good pictures i have at the moment. next week i will be posting some portraits taken by my good friend and excellent photographer paula casentini who does human, pet and fine art photography.

art

this is a passionflower painting i finished fairly recently. it is a 14"x11" in one of my favorite styles to paint, almost a stained-glass look. this will appear in my etsy store soon. a butterfly inkwash painting i did in trade for more tattoo work. i have a full back piece of koi and lotus with waves that needs the color finished up. 11"x14"

a larger go off of one of my daily paintings. it is 10"x22"

my fish alphabet. i started this series with letters k and m for my twin nieces one year birthdays. my 3 year old nephew loved them, so i am working on a swamp scene for him now. i am changing the style up a little for the series so it is more abstract and stained-glass like with more fantastical coloring. commissions taken for specific letters.

the side garden

this is what i planted in my garden this weekend, my winter bloomers. it is my first attempt at growing annuals from seed so hopefully my experiment will be successful. the sweet peas and nasturtiums will be a challenge because of our cold snaps and short spring. hopefully they will not freeze. i am also unsure about the black hollyhocks, i have never seen them growing here but what the heck, i had to try it. here is the bed pre-cleaning and edging. and after. i have planted the sweetpeas under the trellis so they should have a nice, sturdy support when they flourish and bloom and fill the air with their amazing scent. yes, visualize it.

and one of my favorite furry succulents, my brother has the same one that i got for him. maybe they have a long-distance connection.

celestial seasonings

i forgot to post the celestial seasonings website, it is very nice and you can order any of their 90+ varieties of tea online. http://www.celestialseasonings.com/index.html another of my very favorites is the white tea pear, which happens to have a siamese cat on the box--very cool. the teas also seem to be less expensive online but then you add on the shipping.... the website is worth looking at, very artistic and fun.

boulder, colorado--city of tea

my favorite place in boulder was the Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse. being a tea freak, it was a total paradise and an amazing place to spend an afternoon. i came home with a packet of ceylon black tea flavored with chocolate and blood orange, known as the "potion of immortalitea:a limited edition vampire tea". that was enough to hook me right there, i am a huge fan of anne rice's vampire books so i think i would have gotten the tea no matter what flavor it was. although the chocolate/orange combination is delicious! http://www.boulderteahouse.com/ the food was great as well as the desserts, see below. (that is the "vampire tea" i drank with my dessert)

another great tea visit was the celestial seasonings factory where you can tour the actual factory/warehouse where they store, chop, blend and completely package the tea. i must have sampled 8 or 9 different teas and came home with several new varieties i had not tried before including candy cane lane-a decaf green tea, antioxidant white tea plum and honey peach ginger-a wellness tea. the candy cane lane is really delicious and is one i probably would not have bought at the store without trying it first. bonus! it was also great seeing all the artwork for the different teas on the walls, i would love to design a box of tea for celestial seasonings!

last but not least we visited a tea shop called "the leaf store" that sold their tea in bulk so i got a few 1 oz. samples: a black tea with peppermint and chocolate, an organic wild blueberry flavored black tea, and a lovely fruity black tea called ku cha imperial, i don't know what the fruity scent/flavor is but it's very tasty. i really like all the teas i got, especially the blueberry. they have a website: http://www.theleafstore.com/. they also had a nice selection of various kinds of tea pots and even mate pots and straws.

Denver Botanical Gardens

here are my top 9 pics from the denver botanical gardens, i would have posted a nice even 10 but i kept getting an error so i just gave up. more on denver and my new love, boulder: city of tea shops and natural beauty, soon. artichokes--beautiful foliage

i love the soft, pretty yellow with the dark, spooky colored leaves

these are just too cute, i love the dr. suess shapes of the petals and eyes

i am somehow having one of these in my own yard

the changing of the seasons, i especially love the willow

these orchid-like beauties were just overflowing onto the paths, so pretty

smooth rocks in a flowing river formation--my kind of project. i can do tedious but i hate back-breaking garden work. thank god for hard-working husbands.

i don't even know what these pods were but they were so neat looking

there were so many amazing dahlias in every shape and color--this was one of my favorites.

the gourd harvest

I will be away and not posting until the 15th. happy blogging until then! i am going to denver to get a taste of some fall weather and to visit a couple friends.

my bounty of hard-shelled gourds. maybe next year i will get lucky with my pumpkins.

checking the "to do" list

i have accomplished 3 out of 4 things on my list. well, kind of. i have only finished one daily painting and i wanted to do more, however i have been working on and have completed a couple other larger pieces that i will post tomorrow. here is the latest, "my yellow weed". secondly, i did weed, cut back, and get my edging stones in this bed. unfortunately, i ran out of edgers so i will have to complete the bed with some similar sized grey stones. that's o.k., the edgers came from my little garden shop and they were all that was left. i knew i would be short but i ended up being even shorter than i thought. oh well, good thing i am not a perfectionist. here are 2 "before" and one "after" shot of the bed. now i have room to get in some cool weather flowers like foxglove, delphinium, pansies, alyssum, etc...beforeafter. i left all the vines on the trellis, i am not sure what will die back. i think my bleeding heart may last through the winter but the red morning glory and dutchman's pipe will probably die back. i am still holding out for some blooms on the dutchman's pipe--i think this is unlikely but you never know...

the progression of the bleeding heart blooms. there is actually another bleeding heart vine with all white petals and then the red "heart". i haven't spotted any buds on it though.

thanks to my blogger buddies who asked how my to do list was going. it is nice to have a friendly push in the right direction.

my first official feline friday

well i'll start by introducing my clowns, the two newest members of my cat family of three. hazel, in black, is now almost 6 months old and seems to be starting her rebellious teenage years early. she will not tolerate being held but loves to snuggle and be petted at night and at her preference during the day. she idolizes our older cat, sambucca. fern, a tabby-tortie-spotted stomach-ticked fur wearing ball of energy, is a hyper but 0h-so-cute four month old. she better start growing longways because she is starting to get a little bit of a tummy. she has figured out how to get every last morsel of food that has fallen down the inside of the automatic dispenser. she is very serious looking in this photo--don't be deceived.a good shot of the belly and cute tummy spots and stripey legsone of the most unusual and funny sleeping positions i have ever seenhazel in one of her favorite places--our laundry bin, a 3 sectioned rolling cart with a white liner. fern, right next door in the laundry bin.

and i'll save more for next week and introduce sam, the eldest member of our cat family. and now i have to go catch up on survivor from last night.

fall garden

i have been very bad lately about posting things from the garden. frankly, it looks terrible but i did discover a few things that are blooming for the first time or are having a comeback now.

i have a nice pile of edging stones i need to get in the garden on the side of the house after i weed and cut back some things, hopefully this week or during the weekend that will get done. bleeding heart vine i planted in early summer is finally peeping out, hopefully the "hearts" will be out in the next couple days

the first tiny bud on the "strawberry fields" gomphrenaa lovely grass i planted not knowing it had this um... tassle. very nicethe asclepia is filled with new blooms, and lovebugs. i can be comfortable knowing that if all other vegetation failed i could live on okra, it just keeps going...

tiny beet sprouts. yummy.

i have a few october resolutions--ideas i have seen on other people's blogs that i am adapting to my own use. the first is posting a "to do" list (keeping to the subjects of painting or gardening) so that all the millions of people reading my blog will hold me accountable... here goes--for this week i would like to:

*weed and clean garden beds

*put in edger stones

*get some new daily paintings done and posted to my etsy store

*talk to brenda at the red onion about a grand opening night for her new location

also, i am going to start participating in "feline friday", a fun way to share my pets with other cat lovers, and if you are not a cat lover you don't have to look on friday.