Keepin' My Word & Havin' A Day

 

We went to the bridge...well, sorta. Let me explain. "The bridge" goes over the river and there is a path on both the North and the South sides of the river. We always take the path on the North side. I've explored the path on the South side once, but did not care for it as much. It is closer to the main road (much louder with car traffic) and runs behind apartments and condos, instead of having the river on one side and nature on the other. You feel closer to all of those power lines. It feels very different.

But, today, after figuring out where we could park and start way down the path, we did that. This put us on the South side, about 1-2 miles (perhaps) from the bridge. We planned to walk as far as I was able towards the bridge. 

It did not tick off any boxes for us. Not only for the reasons mentioned above, but because it was less clean, the scent from the McDonalds was over-powering (not in a good way) and there was a lot of plant/tree life between us and the river- but, I still couldn't catch the scent of my favorite plants. For a very short distance, we tried the dirt path that runs right along side of the bike/walking path. That did not change our minds. The one plus we experienced, was that we could really hear and see (closer) the hawk(s) that were at that end. That was cool.

So, the jury says we won't go this way again. We have the option to take the main road down there to cross over to the North side of the river and walk back towards the bridge on that side. We may try that.

It was 87° today.

Oooh...Look What I Found...

Cornell Red-tailed Hawks Live Cam - #CornellHawks | Cornell Lab

LINK

In Making News: This past week I had signed up for Making Zen, online art (cloth) workshops. The next one is in September 2026.  It was free, but you could to pay for the VIP upgrade, if desired. I did the free part and I participated in each workshop I watched very loosey-goosey. I watched what I wanted in the way that worked for me. I did not stitch a stitch...but, I enjoyed what I watched very much and learned about some new artists.

Here are some of the ones that sparked something for me. I've included their main website page, but they have blogs, galleries, books and other channels or formats to explore. Fun to poke around a bit.

Ann Smith

Claire Voelkel-Sedlmeir

Emma Freeman

Soul Pages with Rakefet Hadar

Ellie Beck

After our walk at the other end of this section of trail, we stopped by the bridge to take bridge photos and to see the owls. After all, it was Mother's Day for this mama owl!  This is not a day I enjoy, so I thought the visit would put a softer edge on it for me, which it did. But, boy, was I surprised!

When we arrived, the Camp Kinneret scent greeted me and my whole body relaxed. Then we rounded the bend and...why do the owls look so different? The mama was not sitting tall in the nest and the whole scene was confusing.  It looked like two young owls and no mama in sight. Mmmm?

We also stopped to take photos of the bridge, from different viewpoints. Grace had asked for a photo and I was happy to oblige. I took a bunch, which you will see here. As usual, we looked beneath the owl nest for feathers and maybe other debris, to no avail. We talked about how low the water was, but how dense the brush was and how the other nest still does not look lived in. The Pooh Stick got stuck.

I think I took the last pic by accident, but it does kinda tell a story, eh? I also walked past the bridge on each end to try and get photos from those sides. The two, past the rock circle look almost he same, just a slight angle shift. The bottom pic is from the entrance side. That side has a path down to the water. Today we saw a man and woman and two big black dogs, who were loving the water!

The river is leaving new trails while drying up.

Right before we left, a hawk came a calling on the owls. It was circling close by...checking them out? My photos aren't great and it was really much closer in real life...but the bridge angles are cool, so there's that! haha

I hope the owls are okay.

Later at home, I was inspired by Grace to once again try my hand at drawing the bridge. You get what you get with me. haha Do you see the two juvenile owls tucked in there? They look like ghosts! lol But, I wanted to remember this time, so I drew. The drawings on these pages are dated from 12/2023 - 5/2026. I'm almost out of room, especially since I had added the shimmering power lines back in 2024.

How do you evaluate what to do again or where to go again? 

 

May you observe closely

May you try anyway

May you treasure what you treasure

xo

Photos by NAE @pomegranatetrail ©2026

Less Than A Day of Time Traveling

 

I've pulled out more of my old classroom books in preparation for my next mailing. These few books include two siblings, both of whom were in my class, at separate times. I keep in contact with this family and mom said she'd love to have them as mementos for her children! Yay! I keep working on finding appropriate homes for these kinds of things. I look forward to writing their memory letter to go with the books.

This reminds me about how much I love mailing off goodies to friends and family. Every month, I am still mailing postcards from our old collection to the little grands. Last month, I came out of the post office saying how much joy and pleasure these mailings give me. Me. I did not mean just the fact of sending them something, I meant actually opening the flip-door and dropping the postcards in...because in that moment, I am the child again. I can well remember the joy of little me getting letters/gifts in the mail. The surprise of that. The curiosity of that - what is inside? The feelings of fun and being cared about. I'm so lucky I get to provide some of those feelings for others.

This Disabled Sheep Drives Her Own Wheelchair | The Dodo

LINK 1:54 minutes

Inside-out, Outside-in: Today we went off to the VA. It was rather early and super, super foggy. The top photo shows the view from the second floor. Normally, one can see far across the whole Valley - seeing the mountains rim the other side. Unfortunately there was no way to get the fog without the reflections in the window, but you get the idea. Inside on the first floor, there are live trees! There are many windows and skylights, which is how this works I guess. But, I'm always a little surprised when they drop their leaves. They seem like they should be artificial trees, but are not. Surprising.

Today I noticed a small, 8X10? plaque on the sub waiting area wall. A large wall, empty for this one photo plaque. I got up and walked over to read it. A memorial for a doctor, who dies at about 40 years old. It was brief, but lovingly written in appreciation her skills and traits as a doctor and as a human being. It mentioned things she enjoyed doing in her free time. It struck me as such a nice thing for a huge, bureaucratic workplace to do, while still standing, physically, as such a small comment on a whole life lived. Left me thinking. 

Also, we walked in from a different side of the parking lot today, so we saw the memorial plaque. Another surprise. I had never seen this in all of these years!

As an observer of people, it's always an interesting adventure. Everyone who works there, from the security, the staff, the techs, and doctors are so nice. That makes it an oddly uplifting visit. 

When I got home, I found an AARP magazine on the free pantry shelf in the mail room. Yay! Something more to cut up! This pic of Rod Stewart was perfect timing, since when we pulled out of the VA parking lot...we saw someone who looked JUST LIKE him in the clothing choice! The stranger's outfit was silver and black leopard print...but, same print short boots like Rod's! haha

I'm still in the thick of cutting and gluing. My green book is still the furtherest along, but the brown, blue, and pink are getting attention too. My plan continues to be to make red, orange, yellow, green, blue (and indigo) and purple...along with black and white (maybe gray and sepia too), brown and pink books. I was happy when I found the pig in the magazine today. 🐷

I will also be making a "rainbow" book. I've started collecting for that too. I'll share that next time, as it involves more story and I need a nap!

How do you make art? How do you memorialize someone? How do you embrace the weather or peoples of the world?

 

May you keep considering 

May you keep looking

May you keep engaging

xo

Photos by NAE @pomegranatetrail ©2026

The Time We're In, A Mash Up

 

My sister sent me this LINK also. Go there to make sense of what I am saying here. It's instagram, so I didn't know how to import it here.

While I thought at first that the instagram post was just humorous, before it even came to an end...there was a certain bittersweet quality to it. How we all wish to go back to a simpler time. Yet, here I am writing my personal thoughts (my diary) for all the world to see. That one just keeps feeling weird to me, yet I continue. Huh. 

At any rate, the news of the world, the news of anything has me shifting from bitter (sad, angry) to sweet, again and again, and often a mixture of both. At least I'm able to keep my humor alive too.

I think I'd like to escape to this kind of place! And I know which one I'd choose on most days. haha

I love how the pages in the GLUE BOOKS just fall into being. It is very freeing. I'm appreciating how even in the ease and fun of this new form of creativity, I'm able to see some connections to other parts of life. Of course I am. I mean, really...even without trying, deeper meanings come through. I couldn't stop myself if I tried, real hard! haha Wild.

Today quotes keep popping into my head, as they relate to myself and others. Playing with words is always a fulfilling thing to do. Playing with images, colors...just playing are all such good forms of self-care.

If you've lost focus, 

just sit down and be still.

Take the idea and 

rock it to and fro.

Keep some of it

and throw some away,

and it will renew itself.

You need do no more.

~Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Online weather reports it will be 90° today and 61° tonight. Then were set up for 80° 's - 90° 's until the 31st of March. April first = rain? We'll see! This porch thermometer is very old and sits in direct sun much of the day. I'm not so sure it's accurate at all, but perhaps it's close enough. However, in some moments it really does reflect a "feels like" temperature! Kinda like the whole 'wind chill factor' - but with intense sunshine!

Where are you landing these days?

 

May you find the bitter not too harsh

May you find the sweet mind-numbingly sweet 🙂

May you shift and swing with ease

xo

Photos by NAE @pomegranatetrail ©2026

Mini Glue Book

 Okay then. I'm still busy with paper. Today it was the color brown. My current resources include the gifted subscriptions to TIME & SMITHSONIAN magazines, among other free local magazines and grocery store flyers. I came across a lot of browns , black (or grayish) and white and some other interesting images. My sister may have some magazines or catalogs for me to use. Yay, I hope so!

The steps to creating a "glue book" include prepping the book by taking out some of the pages and adding washi tape along the sewn middle page to make it stronger. I'm glad I had some old washi tape from long ago. So far, what I have is dictating what color book I will work on (i.e. green, brownish, blue, pink, purple).

Once you've done that, you can add 'background' papers to each page, which also makes the pages stronger and provides a base to add your images by covering up the white pages of the book. The 4 pages above are background pages, so much of what is seen may be covered in the end. This does not matter, it is the way of going. Or I may keep some of the images showing (like the two children in the muddy water). We'll see.

On the background of the map, I added the bowl of food and the little bird. One image came from a magazine, the other from a daily calendar. It is not a complete page to me yet.

Next or at the same time as the images, I will add words and/or phrases (as I've done on a couple of these). These steps are my favorite so far. I like that you can do WHATEVER YOU WANT! Again, it does not have to make sense, be important, be deeply meaningful or executed perfectly (just like anything else one chooses to make)...it is for practicing to gain skills, playing, and having fun...zoning out. I am doing just that. 

So, does that kind of bird live in that desert environment? Who knows! Could those mules (or are they donkeys?) really be in that area, looking in that too small for them door? Heck if I know. Would those geese (?) fly over that canyon, which is not a canyon because I ripped up the papers and placed them every which where? Yeah, probably not.

So, what will I do with the goats? Will I leave "SHIFT" showing or cover it? These are still unknowns, which is another aspect I like about doing this project. I can skip around and do bits here and there, completing a page over time. No rush, no stress.

Today I am loving this page from the green book. We joke around a lot pronouncing 'deal' as dill, so this one makes me smile. The 'all natural' is half of the sticker from a lemonade bottle. We're on a big lemonade kick on these hot days.

Speaking of hot...it is. It was 98 here today, but the porch thermometer read 106, sitting there baking in the full sun of the late afternoon. That was not a correct reading of course, but it feels that hot, mostly because we know in our heads that it is still just March and the first day of Spring!! Oy.

This was in a link my sister sent me. Ugh. I hope not! 

When do instructions help? Are there instructions for everything we need to learn?

 

May you find fun things to do

May you share your fun with others

May you keep a little silly in your heart

xo

Photos by NAE @pomegranatetrail ©2026

March 17, 2026

 

Once again, March 17th has rolled around. St. Patrick's Day...but also the day we were sent home from work due to the pandemic. I've done posts in the past to honor that moment in time. Today, while the art is green, no deep reflection on this day, except to say that 6 years ago many things changed in my life and most of them never returned to what they had been. Not even close. That's it.

The other day I proclaimed that I'm starting to feel like an old car. You know how that goes. First the right rear passenger window breaks. But, usually no one is back there and the left side works, along with the air conditioning. So all is well. Then the paint chips and/or fades. It looks ugly, but the car runs fine. Next, maybe it's a turn signal or tear in the seat or some other luxury one decides they can do without. But, the car is paid off and it works fine, really, so you nurse it along and ignore the little broken things and try to maintain the bigger things. That's me. An old car. All that to say that I am still doing little walking and mostly resting my foot. I've become quite used to the velcro shoe, which now looks like normal attire to me.

With the old car in the garage and the country in an even worse state, this gal has been seriously searching for distractions. So, I've been watching this gal, Nicole's channel. Paper crafts. Glue Books. Relax, Cut, Glue. In my new quest for fluff - meaning something light-hearted to make with my hands. No deep meaning. No deep expressions of my values in my 'art'. Just plain old play and fun.

So, after watching enough videos to get some of the lingo, techniques and some inspiration...I started digging through all of my paper stuff. I have a very small amount, but figured I could do something or another. I "harvested" any free magazines or mailers that came my way. I cut squares, circles, around shapes...I did some "fussy" cutting, picked up a 3 pack of mini-composition books ( sized 3.25 in x 4.5in) from the dollar store and jumped in. From what I learned at Nicole's and the other paper crafters I checked out...this is all about relaxing and having fun. Period. It doesn't have to make perfect sense, be executed perfectly or be beautiful. It just has to be.

Even though this feels very different to how I normally work, it feels great so far.

Some of the quotes have been hanging around here for years, some reflect current events only because we were gifted a subscription to TIME magazine! haha

I would love more images to work with since I have so few. I wouldn't mind more variety either...or some that show things I like. But, so far this is working for me. My self-imposed rules are to spend as little money as possible and use up what I have here. Other than that - anything goes.

I do still plan to warp the little loom again real soon, so I'm not leaving my roots completely! ha

Where do you look when searching for something different?

 

May you find something new when you need it

May you relax your expectations on yourself and others

May you play and have fun

xo

Photos by NAE @pomegranatetrail ©2026