Goodnight Sweet Prince

Sweet Trouble. You will be sorely missed. I will miss how you followed us around, constantly. I will miss how obedient you were. I will miss how you took your paw and raised it up like you wanted to shake hands, but all you wanted was a belly rub. I will miss how happy you always were. I will miss the smell and feel of your coat . I will miss your good hugs. I will miss the torn tennis balls in the house to clean up. I will miss how you guarded us and kept us safe. I will miss your devotion to us and your trust in us. I will miss your company in the kitchen. I will even miss your stealing steaks off of the counter. Sweet Trouble. I will miss you with all of my heart.

Biltmore Gardens

We spent last weekend in Asheville, North Carolina at the Biltmore House and Gardens. Everyone I had talked to about this said that it was amazing and they were right. I was awed that the house was so "modern" for having been built in 1895. What I really enjoyed were the gardens and took way too many pictures of them. I am posting a picture of the door to the 115 year old greenhouse. You should have seen this green house, quite large for a private home and something you would imagine in a public Botanical Garden. Inside I found a tree that had hanging blooms on it that looked like little paper party lanterns. I couldn't find a name for this little tree anywhere so I took a million pictures of it. Here is one of the beautiful blooms on it. Also a picture of some of the flowers floating in one of the "CementPonds". I am terrible with flower names, but they were all so pretty. The weather was wonderful. While it was close to 100 degrees at home, the highest it was there was 82 degrees around noon. The view, well, no wonder these people built a mansion in the mountains. So serene. Originally they owned 125,000 acres, including some forest. Can you imagine? And back then, it all cost about 2 million dollars. Mind boggling !!! Today it would be billions.

OK, I have tried to change the order of my pictures, but whenever I upload them, they are always in the wrong . Enjoy anyway !!

More Ancestors

New Orleans

I was in New Orleans last weekend for a wedding. While walking through the French Quarter, I noticed how some buildings are kept up very well and the one next to it is just there, barely it seems. I will always love walking through the area and am amazed that as much as things change, they seems to always be the same here. All kinds of people coexisting in one area not bothered by one another's differences and seeming to respect that difference with a southern soul unlike any southern city I have ever been to. We had a chance to talk to some people that were born there and lived through the Katrina experience. I was speechless as I listened to their stories and admired their tenacity to live and die there too. We did not visit the parts of town that were affected by the levee break but most of the people we talked to had lived in those areas. My heart broke for what they lost, more than bricks and mortar. It seems they are still fighting hard to bring it back to the city it used to be , but to me this is a city still like no other you will find in America and it could never be replaced.

Ancestor ATCs

I'm in another ATC swap in the RedLead Yahoo group. It's an Ancestor swap and you have to use their images on the cards. It's been really fun to use these and to make each card different. Most of the time in swaps so far, I have made them all alike so each swapee gets the same card. So, anyway, this gives me a little more artistic leeway which has really been fun to do. I love the vintage feel of the images, and although they aren't my ancestors, I have given them personalities of my real ones. I hope you like them.

Save the Seals

I'm passing it on. My daughter loves all animals and she made this poster to spread the word. I really like that it's expressive of her personality. Colorful and to the point. Just passing the word

Save the seals and the puppies and the kittens and the polar bears and...... 

Some recent ATCs

I have been a member of my ATC group for almost two years. Time flies when you are having fun ... Anyway here are some recent cards. I loved the Travel theme. There are so many places I would love to visit I thought this would be a great series to  make of just places I wanted to go. For the swap I chose Rome. This ATC folds open, looking like a passport on the outside. 

This one is from a "Letters and Numbers" swap. The topic was my suggestion but it took me a while to come up with an idea. I kind of like how it turned out.