This week

Still no word on Erick. Thanks, everyone, for your thoughts and prayers. Please keep it up! One of the ladies in charge of prayer at Del Sol Church left a comment. I emailed them, and they are praying hard for Erick, too. He really, really loves his church, its members and his ministry.

This is a self-portrait that I found. Now you have a face for your thoughts. Erick is a terrific photographer; if you have a chance to visit http://www.hotbebop.com/, be sure to look at his artwork, OK?I went on the Garden Walk, and saw 9 of 10 gardens. It took me 5 hours, because I walked the entire thing. I'm estimating that was about 5-6 miles! I was amazed to discover that I can grow many of the things I loved in my Washington gardens--peonies, roses, iris, hostas, lavender, coreopsis, clematis and more!This house used all sorts of decorative accents. Here, they took some very old shelf supports and used them to garnish the garage door! Can you see the acorns? I bought one of the sculptures from this lovely, casual garden. They are rusted zinc silhouettes. I got the Garden Joy sculpture, which now graces my front yard.I noticed a couple taking photos of tree bark. Odd...so I inevestigated. This is what was ON the tree bark! ISH...what is it? We think it's a cicada coming out of the pupae shell? It was about 2" long, and bright green. It's hanging upside down. Check out the eyes! And the wings!I walked down to the beach in Santa Barbara on Tuesday--4.2 miles each way--that's 8.4 miles round trip, including hills! Yes, I was sore, but it was worth it. Here's one for the Glamour Don't file:Go ahead, take a closer look...what ARE those on her feet? And WHY black socks????This sand sculpture was really cool--it's dragon guarding its egg. Gee, I can barely make a bucket castle...this is really good!My primary objective in going downtown was to go to the Farmer's Market. Santa Barbara has a nice one. I found PASSION FRUIT!!!! Yippee, I haven't had passion fruit in over 20 years, since I lived in LA! I also bought walnut oil--it's delicious, and can be used in anything you'd use olive oil for. I bought some honey, and extra virgin olive oil, too. My pantry is well stocked.Then, when I got home, my neighbor brought me this bounty from his garden. Tomatoes, lemon cucumbers, squash, the biggest zucchini I've ever seen, and an eggplant! The tomatoes are delicious! I'm hoping to make curried squash soup tomorrow or Sunday, have eggplant for dinner, and I don't know how I'm going to eat all of that zucchini--can you freeze it? Want some?Fall must be here. I spotted this tree yesterday. Beautiful, isn't it?Today, Trish & I went for a walk and spotted the cat in the basket. Cute!Remember my old couch? It was perfect in Colorado Springs, but overwhelming in my new house. So, I sold it on Craigslist.This is my new furniture! The red chair was delivered by mistake, but I'm going to enjoy it for the next day or so, until they pick it up. If they'll sell it at a floor sample price, I'll buy it--I love it!

Here's the new couch! It fits the space so much better, doesn't it? Its colour is really close to the old sectional, but the lines are so much cleaner and more contemporary.

Check out my new bookcase, which matches the old one. I was thrilled to find it! I'm finally unpacking, slowly but surely (ignore the box in the corner, OK? And the man behind the curtain!)

I hope that your week has gone well. Again, please keep Erick in your thoughts--I believe that every thought and prayer counts. Thanks.

Erick Djerf

My good friend Erick has been missing since August 10th. His family notified me today. He was supposed to take his mother to a doctor's appointment, but never showed up, which is completely unlike him. Instead, he went camping by the Rio Grande, near Ft. Hancock, which is an area used extensively by the Mexican Drug Cartel to smuggle drugs into the US.

Erick is not an outdoorsman--he's an artist, a jazz musician, and a chili afficianado--I have a link to his website on the blog. Camping and hiking are not things that he does, yet he set up a tent 8 miles off the highway. Erick's camp was found with everything still in it on Tuesday morning, after his mother and sister filed a missing person's report. The Border Patrol said that he had stopped and asked if he could camp at the spot at which they found his belongings.

Erick suffers from bipolar disorder. He had grown his hair long, but cut it right before the trip, but that may have been because school was starting in a week (he's a teacher). He left sticky-notes all over his apartment, telling his mom he loved her, asking that this or that be given to particular people. He left his cell phone, apt keys and other things one normally takes, but took clothing and the cat's food--but the cat was found outside the apartment. She's an indoor cat and beloved. Maybe he was taking her with him and she got away, and he left without her?

I talked to Ranger Shaw, who is in charge of the investigation. He is pretty convinced that Erick wasn't contemplating suicide, but was either going away to start a new life somewhere, or just needed to get away for a little while. He had gigs lined up, school was starting, and he was very involved in a lot of new church programs as well as art and music events. Taking the cat food and clothing isn't indicative of suicide. That is encouraging. Ranger Shaw pointed out that although Erick has had a tough time in life, he has always been a fighter and succeeded in getting around, over or through any obstacle.

Still, something is terribly wrong. The Border Patrol and Texas Rangers have been searching for Erick for a week using horses, dogs and helicopters. His tracks lead to the river, but the dogs have not scented an exit point. Kristen said that the Patrol and the Rangers plan to continue their search for another week. Obviously and unfortunately, our law enforcement can't go into Mexico to search for him.

Please keep Erick, his sister Kristen and his mom in your thoughts. I hope that this is just a bipolar episode and that they will find him safe somewhere. I'm very afraid that it's not.

A Walk Around My Block

I went for a walk yesterday and look what I found! Aren't those a cool take on Adiorondack chairs? I might have to stop by and find out where they got those--I love them!Right after the chairs, I heard an unusual hawk's cry--more like a cat's meow than a hawk's scream. I spotted this guy up above, and another in the trees. They were calling to each other. I inherited a love for birds and birding from my Grandma, and I've got a life-list of birds.

I knew that they weren't red-tailed hawks, but I didn't know what they were. Prairie Falcon? No. Swainson's Hawk? No. Definitely not a Perigrine or any sort of falcon, so it had to be a hawk. Not a Harrier, or a Ferruginous, or a Goshawk...what were they? So, it was off to the internet to figure out what they were.Aha! They were juvenile Cooper's Hawks! They were amazingly beautiful, and the one on the antenna let me watch him for quite a long time. They actually look almost identical to Sharp-Shinned Hawks, but can be distinguished by the half-white belly and the muted stripes on the tail with the white ruffled end. Sharp-Shinned have denser spots over their entire belly, and very distinct tail stripes, but otherwise they look almost exactly alike. The adult birds are even harder to tell apart--glad these made it easy for me! I'll bet your neighborhood is full of amazing jewels. All you have to do is look...enjoy!

Fun week!

This is never a good thing to see, especially if you are going TOWARDS it! That thunderstorm was 70,000' high--and we were at 36,000'! Glad we opted to go around it!

We ended up breaking the plane and had to ferry it to Colorado Springs for repairs. This is inside our hanger. It was nice to be surrounded by handsome mechanics! Finally made it to Lincoln. I went downtown the next day, had a nice lunch, and went to the art gallery. This is a 4-piece display by a guy named Tom Reinholt or something like that.

Trish and I went to see the Rockies vs. the Cubs on Friday night. Rockies lost, but we had fun!

Maybe a little TOO much fun!?!

Hope you had a good week, too!

New Sofa!

So I went browsing today at Arhaus Furniture as well as a couple of other high-end, I-can't-afford-it-but-I-want-to-see-how-they-live furniture stores.

I've been undergoing a lot of changes--downsizing, getting rid of things that I just don't love or want any more, getting rid of clutter and knick-knacks and doo-dads and extra STUFF. In fact, you can see the Goodwill pile in the back corner of the room--yup, that HUGE pile is leaving!

Somewhere along the line over the past year, I've realized that I've outgrown many of my things, including a lot of my furnishings. Other things are just languishing because I've been a little afraid to use them--like Grandma's table (which will become my sewing table when I finish unpacking the office).

I bought this sectional for the house in COS, where it looked terrific, and fit my style.
However, it's just too big in this house. Waaay too big. 95" x 95"--that's 8' per side! It's also no longer my taste or style. It's a cool sofa, but really, how functional is a sectional? There's no room for a chair, so there's nowhere else to sit. There's no way to face someone while having a conversation. And, although sectionals are designed to seat many people, more than two people is just too cozy.

So, I went to browse and get ideas today. Really, I was just looking. Really!

Sooooo, meet my new sofa! It's from the Yale Collection by Corbin--it's got a hand-crafted frame, and is upholstered in a chenille fabric with a herringbone pattern. The wood frame sweeps across the bottom; I LOVE the tapered legs. It's comfy, it's a smaller scale, and I LOVE IT!The sectional is listed for sale on Craigslist. The above sofa was on clearance, marked down over $1000--well within my price range. There is a matching armchair and ottoman, which I will buy if the sectional sells, and if the bonus check is a good one! Keep your fingers crossed!