San Diego gets a Dash of Paris

A couple of months ago an exciting idea popped into my mind: an image of me prancing around inside an Eiffel Tower costume. It’s one of the most iconic landmarks on earth and I thought it would be a fun project to try to make. This costume presented its challenges, but I can say I gave it my best try and I hope it makes people smile or laugh today.

 

 

This is the fifth year in a row that I have made my own costume. I love doing it! But there have been trade offs. I traded fun for comfort. I couldn’t sit in most of my Halloween costumes. Some included a wire structure that scratched me. Certain costumes made walking hard. Some made me sweaty. I could not use the bathroom while in costume. But all these inconveniences did not deter me from creating another fun but uncomfortable costume the following year. I either don’t learn from past experiences or I forge on anyway, motivated more by the love of creating than the love of comfort.

This costume is more comfortable than most of the others have been. The tower only weighs two pounds because I made it out of plastic PVC pipe, wooden dowels, tape, ribbon and hot glue. There is something to be said for a lightweight costume!

Well, I’m going to sign off now because there’s trick-or-treating to be done, costumes to primp, jack-o-lanterns to light and fun to be had. To all the Halloween enthusiasts out there: Happy Halloween and au revoir!

Bed Time!

…And speaking of garden beds…

(Well, we were speaking of them this spring. Okay, if we must split hairs, I was the one speaking writing about them and you were patiently listening/reading/ whatever—why again are we splitting hairs? I don’t know why you insist on such accuracy. But since I’m in such a nice mood, I’ll give ya one more chance. So please stop interrupting and let’s get back to what we were saying about garden beds…)

This spring I was obsessed about my community garden. I decided to have mercy on you and I stopped yapping about it for a while but I think it’s high time we revisited the topic. Two weeks ago I found another community garden in town. I stumbled upon it quite by accident and as you may know, that is my favorite way to discover gardens and so many other things.

This one is the Linda Vista Community Garden. It’s a bit of a secret, which is fun. It’s not on a main road. It actually butts up against a canyon, which is fantastic because then the garden plants can look through the chain link fence and see the plants in the canyon and they’ll be inspired to grow as big as the canyon plants.

This community garden has a charming feel, as many gardens do. It’s not a huge garden but so what? The fact that someone dreamed it up and made it happen is terrific. It has a hand-painted sign (yay), a small green house, repurposed materials and a funky vibe with a meandering path. It was such a treat to come across it.

For me, the crowning jewel was this real garden bed…

It's a Pumpkin Thing...

It’s Halloween season, y’all.

 

I’ve embraced it. As usual.

A few days ago I picked up fallen Jacaranda seed pods, took them home and began to paint them.

 

Their shape reminded me of pumpkins and I knew there was an art project waiting to be discovered. I like how the pods are slightly different in shape and some are not completely symmetrical. It makes the effect more charming and gives the mini jack-o-lantern faces more personality.

Enjoy the season, everybody!