Shrines Surround Me In My Home

. . Living room shrine, bedroom shrine, Retablo or box shrine.

Always a reminder to be kind, be the best me I can, and remember those who are gone.
I am a fan of HH The Dalai Lama.

Holidays Past

This past holiday season, I made some foods for the first time. I made Gravlax, from a simple recipe in The Barefoot Contessa, Ina Garten's new book. Salmon, dill, pepper, sugar, fennel and just time to marinate and cure in the refrigerator for 3 or 4 days. Sliced thin and served on pumpernickel bread with her recipe for mustard and I surprised myself with how good it was. Friends ate it and I gave the recipe out to friends, so I guess it was a hit.

I also made my grandmother's sweet kugel recipe, with pineapple and raisins and baked it just before the party was to start. The house smelled like sugar plums, or at least sweet kugel. I used my blue enameled pan that was a find at Goodwill for around seven dollars. It is heavy and holds the heat and the bottom did not scorch as it did when my grandmother used to bake it in her old Pyrexware.

I also served my potato pancakes with sour cream and apple sauce, using a 5 pound bag of Idaho potatoes, and two huge onions, 4 eggs and flour, salt and pepper. Fried in canola oil they are a once a year holiday caloric treat.

Desserts were store bought tiny cupcakes, tiny mint brownies and cookies, contributed by my ever busy daughter, bought at Publix. I baked a candied apple cake, recipe adapted from a recipe I saved, pignoli cookies and fruit cake baked by a friend Ann.

It was a party filled holiday season for me, I have made friends here and my roots are starting to develop here. I am home. Finally. again.

The Dining Room

This is the new dining room, created from a bedroom, basically used just for storage, that was off the kitchen. Barely 10 feet by 10 feet, I removed the door. By doing this it connects the two spaces quite well. The walls were painted Mustard Yellow Valspar paint, the trim, Canvas Sneaker, also by Valspar. The color is a not too deep but rich color that is very neutral.

I have always loved the American Southwest, and the room is reminiscent of some of the places I visited while out West. I used a pine table from IKEA, which can seat 6 or more with the extension leaf in use. We squeeze ourselves into the small room but when at the table we just laugh, talk and eat. My Mexican Equipale chairs which I purchased twenty years ago and shipped East from Solvang, CA, have been a treasured purchase. They have always manage to be used somewhere in the home.

I love textiles, being a former textile designer, and I collect fabric whether in the form of a bright Mexican blanket, a Pendleton wool blanket, a woven Alpaca blanket, purchased in a clearance bin at Macy's for four dollars!!! I collect table cloths, a Pierre Deux, French country style, or block printed Indian cloths, or printed versions of Indonesian Ikat's, and an African mudcloth . All for their color, texture, Ethnic origin, patterns, and interesting designs.

To Inspire, To Be Peaceful, and Be At Home Where I Reside

I have always love other people's blogs where clever people show all the stuff they bought, how they used it in their home, how they decorated, their clothing finds, what they made, how they did it, why they did it, where they bought it, how they cooked it, and on and on.

I will attempt to do the same, but please be kind, I am a newbie at this. I will include things that I found, bought, cooked, created, and things that I love, plus sometimes photos of places I have visited during a previous 5 years traveling and living and working out of my RV, out west.

I more recently have landed in a house, a small cottage 5 minutes away from the water. I love this tiny house, with all it's defects, blemishes, pipes that sometimes leak, windows that leak, but it has beautiful wood floors (that need refinishing), walls that are slowly being painted beautiful colors, rooms that are being made into more useful spaces now that I am living here almost 3 years. I am slowly making my own footprint here.

I love to entertain my friends here. I love to cook for them trying out new recipes on them, they don't seem to mind at all. So I suppose you might say that I am a good cook, if not a inspired cook. Last Friday night I had some friends and my daughter and her partner over. I cracked open a jar of olives marinated in herbs, a bottle of very good champagne (a gift, I would have bought a much cheaper one) , and roasted some almonds, pepitas, and cashews, and used Martha Stewart's recipe for spiced nuts, using fresh Rosemary from my garden, butter, salt, sugar, and two T. of the finely chopped fresh herb. All in 10 minutes. The nuts were fabulous and we ate and drank the bubbly and salted thingys and talked and laughed and had ourselves a good time. I love my daughter and her honey and I love my friends. I like to eat interesting foods.

I love to buy things for my home, my dogs, my bedroom, for myself to wear, and I haunt the man local Goodwills, TJ Maxx, Marshalls and Ross stores to find things that I like. I confess I am a bargain hunter, and some of my finds are pretty cool, and came real cheap and some came free from the street. My daughter found a large hutch in the alley and now it sits in my house. Free.

Like today, I knew I needed tall candles for a candle holder that was a gift from my daughter. It's in my new dining space so I went looking for candles at Goodwill, and though I did not find candles I did find some wooden candle sticks in wood, carved and heavy.

As if that was not enough, another pair just about jumped out at me, later while in Marshalls, green glazed ceramic, that sort of looked like they had been worn gently by use, chipped and paint rubbed off. Can you believe that they make this stuff to look old and abused. I love it.

The irony of today's adventure is still no candles, but great candle holders. Thus, anther shopping expedition will have to be done. Someday, but not today.

Got to walk the bad dogs now. Two bad dogs, not really, actually quite funny and sweet.

My new dining room

I love to entertain my friends but had no dining space in my cottage. So I thought and thought on this dilemma. How to make a space for entertaining friends with my cooking. I took one of my two bedrooms and removed the door between the kitchen and this room and painted it mustard yellow, bought a pine table at IKEA, and gathered up lots of my favorite things and moved them into the new dining room. I have had a holiday party in it and a dinner party. I eat my breakfast in here and read the morning paper and my magazines. I love it. The room is just under 10 feet by 10 feet. big little space.

Welcome to my cottage near the sea

I am an artist, I create one of a kind necklaces and earrings using beads, gemstones, sterling silver and other findings. I also have done collage art and assemblage. But my favorite art is when I make Retablos, or shrines, using recycled materials I have collected. I have made shrines of Buddha, The Virgin of Guadalupe and of my favorite artist, Frida Kahlo.

I have been collecting for ten years at least, long before I even knew what I was going to do with these things: broken auto reflectors, small kitchen drawers and small wooden boxes, paper, rusted metal gathered in the desert, dried twigs, flowers, beads, ribbons, magazine photos, enough odds and ends to fill at least ten giant rubber storage bins. All organized in smaller drawers, and bins, and labeled for easy finding.

An extended visit to the American Southwest and a class in assemblage helped me to decide how and what to make with all this stuff.

Two and a half years ago I moved back near the water. I found a small cottage, built in 1939, a Key West style cottage, barely 850 feet square.

I designed gardens all around the cottage, planting every flower, tree, shrub by myself. It's a little wild and a little organized. I have a chiminea in the middle where at night friends and I sit by the fire and and drink a little wine and laugh a lot.

I love to decorate my cottage and create new spaces out of old spaces. I created a dining room from a bedroom, a bedroom from a Florida room.

I love to cook for my family and friends. I love to have parties. I love sitting with a roomful of friends and just eat and talk and laugh.

This will be a blog about lots of things. Things that please me and I hope they please you. Random thought and random rants sometimes may happen. Photos of foods I have eaten and foods I have made. Flowers and my two dogs and my 12 year old cat. When I feel creative I will post my art, jewelry, and my garden when it blooms.

So, please feel free to come in and visit with me and I welcome comments. Ideas. Photos of what you have created. But please, be kind.