It was SPOOKTacular!!

quote of the day

" I love Autumn, It is so beautiful"

-Sophia Gianino

Today between 6:30 and 6:35 God painted the most beautiful sky. It went from a deep dark gray purple..to a pink..to a very faint blue

there was a rumble of thunder

A slight breeze blew,

a few leaves fell to the ground in there glory of vibrant yellow and orange.

all of the colors seem to be under a black light...

And to appreciate this, it took a wisdom of a 6 year old...

A Haunting Beauty

this haunting beauty

is now on Ebay.

Please come visit and sit a spell.

http://shop.ebay.com/crabby_gabby_dolls/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=25

PFATT Market Place Sneak Peak

Touching History

Things are slowly but surely returning to normal..what ever normal is...I don't think we will feel total closure though until we sell Seb's house.

on one trip to clear out the house, I found a most wonderful old box, filled to the BRIM with old pictures. I am really looking foward to sharing these with you.

the other weekend when we were going through the box , Michael found this picture. It has the 3 sisters of Seb in it. I don't think Seb was born yet or I am sure he would have been in the picture. But the 2 littlest girls in the Picture Rosemary and Gloria look almost uncanny resemblance to my 2 girls..Gabriella and Sophia. OUR JAWS DROPPED!!
my first re-action to Michael was, We should show your dad...it was just a thought that popped into my head. he said he thought the same thing for a split second too.

now, my little girls..(this pic was taken last wed. the first day of school..)

I had always thought that Gabby looked like me..lol, I guess the Gianino Genes win.

Their hair cuts and teeth are exactly the same..

another really cool thing is this wonderful old picture

This passport is amazing!!

This documentation blows my mind..i am not sure what this is..maybe a visa?



This is one of my favorite photos. I remember this being in Aunt Gloria's living room. I am so thrilled to have this in my possession.

out of all of the things that we have gotten from the house, the most treasured are the old pictures. I am truly looking foward to sharing them with you.

until next time...

Heidi

Remembering a Great Artist...Sebastian R. Gianino

this is just a small sampling of Seb's Paintings. My house had turned into a small gallery of his works. He was so incredibly talented. Now I know where my kiddos get it from.
His primary medium was oil painting. I can't even begin to tell you the thousand upon thousands of sketches he has. yes, thousands. His Morgue file was unbelievable. At least 9 metal old file cabinets.
If you are unsure what a morgue file is..it is where he would spend hours upon hours cutting stuff out from magazines and such and use for research to draw a certain body part or item.
if it was hands, abs, breast or feet..he had at least more then a thousand of each. Then it was put into sub categories....babies, adults....American...european..you name it there was a category. His dream was to one day be an illustrater.
In the 70's someone offered to buy a painting for 300$$. He declined.
I can only fathom how well he would have been known if he would have sold his paintings.
He studied under Brother Matthew, who was a wonderful monk over in Illinois.
I will be posting more art work soon from Sebastian.

He loved Jesus.

He loved the idea of family

my husbanded misses him.

the kids miss their Grandpa

the art world has missed something.

Today's Freshness

ahhhh....
a cool front moved through..knocking it down a few degrees and with lower humidity it has made it nice to survey my small garden of Eden.

It has been so hot that Watering 3 times a day was necessary. More so for the plants that are in containers. Which is halve of my garden.

I love to garden...I mean grow food. Sure flowers are nice, but give me something I can eat. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but for me, beauty is in taste.

I have never grown FOOD. I am in WONDERMENT that I can grow stuff I can EAT. Sure, I have always had an Herb garden. There was nothing more liberating then being able to step out my door and pick basil, Italian flat leaf parsley, dill, sage, cilantro, thyme, rosemary.... what ever else I might need for a dish. I felt like I was kind of free from the MAN. I mean, have you checked out prices of fresh Basil at wally world? I was spending easily about 15 bucks a month alone on Fresh BASIL during winter.

When we first thought about how we would garden we did not have much room. Our back yard is the size of a postage stamp with a GINORMOUS tree in the back yard. I think that thing has seen many moons pass. On the side of our house was optimum sun. but we had shrubbery. Well, up it came.

I did not have quite enough room for all of the things I wanted to grow. So containers were a great alternative.

The rest as they say is History.

This leads me to now.

Today's Freshness.





As I pick the okra when it is ready, I go ahead and clean, cut then freeze. I am hoping by turkey time have enough for our tradition of Gumbo Thanksgiving day weekend. We have picked about 2 pounds and had it stewed with homegrown maters. With speckled butter beans, rice and corn bread. Wow..is life ever good!





I am really not sure how big Okra is supposed to get, anytime I have ever bought it home grown from the farmers market it was never this big.



My okra is just grown in containers. I can't help to think how much I would have if it were in the ground with great dirt.




Today we also picked about 2 pints of grape tomato's...




all in all this 3 dollar grape tomato plant growing in a pot has given me at least 12 pints of tomatoes...with more to come it seems. What a money saver. if you buy the sweet grape tomatoes at the store you are spending at least 3 bucks if not more a pint!!




This tomato is my favorite. The bradley.



I really thought it was done. but after putting some compost in there it has had a rebirth, every flower blooms into a fruit now...I am counting down to pick these so I can grab my salt and savour the acidic goodness this tomato has, with a flesh that is tender with no mushiness at all.

WHAT IS IN THE FUTURE?

Eggplant...



cantaloupe..( I planted this from seed, I have at least 6 waiting for the perfect moment to be plucked) Again, just in a container..and I was told Cantaloupe had a low yield and was hard to grow...








what is even more wonderful about our garden. Pesticide free. and no unnatural chemical fertilizer.
here is to fresh eats...

Sewing Again!!

It has been so long since I have sewed, I can't tell you how wonderful it feels to create a dollie....

now listed on ebay.....

Todays Fresh Pick'ens ~ SWISS CHARD

Today bright and early went out and picked Swiss Chard, yellow and red varieties..

hmm..now the quest to find what to make with it today

My FFA Girl

Sophia, my lil ole FFA Girl..

we picked these carrots a while back, just enough to put into a pot of chicken noodle soup.

my small garden has grown by leaps and bounds. Cucumber have been plentiful..as well as all of my herbs.

I had no idea zucchini was going to take over like it did.

if you go down a few posts you will see my garden in the begining...

the small plants with only 2 leaves on them have turned into amazon like plants.

I am still awaiting much anticipated home grown maters...

BitterSweet Fathers Day

It was a very bittersweet fathers day for my husband.
His father passed away on June 5th, after spending nearly 6 weeks in the hospital.

The passing was all to surreal.

I feel for my husband. there was no closure....
we got the call at 10:29 that he was not doing well..we had even talked to them just at 10..the nurses that is.
when they called we rushed up to the hospital, I got pulled over even. i wanted to make it there.

I ran in, took the staff elevator even, I did not care.
ran into the room with people telling I could not go in there.
I knew something was not right when there was not a neighboring patient, there was not monitors hooked up to him, he was covered, mouth open and eyes closed...

I held his hand, it even felt liked he was gripping it....I could have sworn I saw his chest moving......I put my ear to his chest...no signs of life.......


Michael had not yet made it in, he was the nurses station, and asked how is my pop..I ran out and said..he is dead.

we hung out in the room, the priest came..we said prayers.....

having kids does not make you an adult, taking care of a dying parent does.
it has been hard...there is so much more...but out of the 6 weeks, he only spent 4 official days in rehab. after checking in, then fell out of bed had bleeding on the brain and rushed to 2 diff hospitals, was released on a Tuesday, then on Friday again rushed to hospital because oxygen levels were low and he was lethargic,
90 percent of the time in the past 6 weeks he was not with it...calling out to dead relatives that have been dead for years.....

this is so hard for my husband...his dad never let him know that he loved him, or was proud of him.


seb bit nurses, punched..for being so sick he was so strong.

Seb was terribly mean to Michael....for years...but even in the hospital in his half coherent mind, he was just mean. seb asked a nurse, are you a praying person..the nurse said yes, then he points to Michael and says pray that he gets punished.


Mike has a cyst on his head....seb asks him, what is on your forehead....A HORN GROWING..????

I mean, we knew it was a matter of time before he died. I remember the weekend before we checked sebastian in, he fell in our house, had an accident on the floor, hubby even had to bathe him he had not had a shower in months...I told Michael then, I think your dad only has 2 months to live. If we did not insist on checking him into the er, I really think within days he would have been dead in his home. I told Michael, you have to make him go the ER, you know how much guilt you would feel for years to come if you did not.....


on the 25th of this month he would have been 75.


It is just sad.
please pray that I have strength for my husband....and that we have wisdom on to know what to do....

Life Happens & So Does Death

This is a really weird time for our family right now.
My father in law is kinda touch and go.
With Congestive Heart Failure and Kidney failure.

for a few days he did not know anything and calling out to his sisters that have been dead for years, and his mom. when he sees me he calls me Betty, which is deceased wife.

My husband felt the brunt of it. His father was saying nasty vile things to him. All though I think he did not understand he was talking to his son because he kept on calling him a different name.

Nurses have been bitten, and he needs constant attention with someone at his side to keep him from pulling his cathater out.

we are visiting as much as possible and trying to understand this all. We now have had a crash course between assisted living, skilled nursing, and nursing home.

........
but for now hospital is a home.
Heidi

I'm GroWinG!!

I am Growing!!

Not in Height

(maybe an LB here and there...)

But needless to say, I am growing..

it has been about 8 weeks just about since I have sewed a stitch.

I traded my needle in for a shovel..

instead of fabric to create, I have been planting seeds.

and I am sure my neighbors really thought I lost my mind when I decided to PULL OUT ALL OF MY LANDSCAPE ON THE SIDE OF MY HOUSE and opted for a raised cinder block garden instead.

not only did I pull out all of my landscape on the side of my house (the side that faces south and gets 6-8 hours of light a day..) but also any container that could hold dirt, well, now holds dirt.

My radishes are even almost ready for harvest!

Arugula is very tasty compared to those old plastic tubs that you can buy in the store! for years I have always heard how arugula had a "peppery" taste. Not the ones I was buying all of these years that come pre packaged. but the baby greens growing that I planted from seed have a very peppery taste indeed.

I can be found grazing on the seedlings that need to be thinned.

I have got 3 different types of basil plated so far, and awaiting the Thai basil to come in (it is so good in a noodle bowl soup!!)

by good ole summer time I am hoping to have a healthy harvest of 5 different kinds of maters, and my favorite lettuce, bibb.

so, that is what I have been up to. Now, today for the first time in about 2 months, I am ready to sit down and sew.

Happy Growing & Sewing to all.

Heidi