Janet's Smiles

Had a mostly quiet 4th during the day as usual but when night falls the sky lights up and there is a lot to see without leaving our own front yard which makes it the best!  I was not sure how our Benny was going to react since this is our first 4th of July together but I didn’t have to worry.  He is such a good boy and the noises did not affect him at all.  Bill brought him outside for a bit but it was cold so he went back inside. 

We had some friends come over and the guys got the fireworks ready for the kids to light.  We should be able to have a pretty good show with all these. 

Sparklers are fun no matter what the age.

I got some cool pictures this year I think.  It is not always easy to capture the fireworks. 

A few more neighbors came by to share in the fun.

One of our neighbors gave us some of these cool glasses and it turned the fireworks into a rainbow display!

 I put the glasses over my iPhone lens and this is what I got:

All done for this year. 

The Crazy Bug Fountain in action:

Hope your 4th was a good one.  Did you catch some fireworks?   

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Back in January I wrote about the Vision cards I made for this year.

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Juicy – full of juice, interestingly scandalous, temptingly appealing.  Synonyms of fascinating, colorful, exciting, thrilling.  Sounds like a good name for a month, right? 

Let’s see if we can start the month out with some juicy stories. 

First, under fascinating and exciting, our local mall had a shooting yesterday and while I was not inside the mall at the time, my husband was in the parking lot at a booth selling fireworks for our local Pony Baseball team.  I happened to be on my way to bring him a sandwich when I saw traffic backing up and police car lights both in front of me and coming up behind me, sirens blaring.  All in all there must have been 100 different emergency vehicles from all over the county.  The story is that there were two shooters inside the mall and two people were shot.  It was not a random attack, rather a deliberate thing between these four people.  We are not sure yet exactly why.  Unfortunately, the local mass transit, BART, station is on the same property as the mall and at least one of the suspects was able to get on the train and go across the Bay to Oakland.  We have not been told the identity of either the victims or the shooters as the police are waiting to see surveillance camera videos but the boys that were shot were about 14 and 16.  Way too young.  They were taken to the ER in San Francisco, one in critical condition and one in serious condition.   

The police set up a command center in the parking lot across the street from the mall.  I caught these pictures as I was driving home.  Lots of armed uniformed men crossing the street with rifles out and ready to go.  It was not really scary to me, but it definitely was not something we see everyday.   

Today the mall is open again and I suppose business as usual, although perhaps a few more police present. 

More on the colorful side, my entries into the Escapist Coloring Club for July.

I think I’m going to take a break from coloring these card toppers and go back to Alice in Wonderland or something else.  After a while the flowers all start looking the same to me.  I do kind of like the feather and the owl though. 

That’s it for the first installment of Juicy July.  How about you, any fascinating things to tell me?
 

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Jim Adams has chosen the good reporter’s questions, Who, What, When, Where, Why and How as our theme for today.  So many possibilities!

This reminds me of when we were raising the kids.  If they wanted to go somewhere with their friends, we always told them not to bother asking us if they couldn’t answer the questions:  Who were they going with?   What were they going to do?    When were they going to be home?  Where were they going?  How were they getting there?  The Why was kind of obvious – to get away from their parents who asked too many questions – LOL. 

I wanted to use a song by Adele off her “25” album, “Why Do You Love Me?” but it seems there is no video for it.  It was a bonus track on that album, available only if you bought it from Target.  It is a really catchy tune and if you get a chance you should try and have a listen somewhere.   

So I decided to go with “Where Or When” written by Rogers and Hart, as sung by Rod Stewart on his “As Time Goes By” album.  He did a series of oldies called “The Great American Songbook” and this is on Volume II.  Quite a departure from his normal rock.  We’ve seen Rod a couple of times and I always have to check the setlist before my husband will go because this style is not his cup of tea.

 From a show my daughter and I saw in 2009:

That’s all I got for today.  Make sure to check out some of the other #SLS gang.  Pretty great songs out there.  Happy last day of June.  What am I gonna call the blog next month?     

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Today’s prompt from Linda is for/fore/four.  We get bonus points if we can use all of them.  Let’s see what I can manage…

FOR the last 22 years every September we have been going to Boulder Creek, California for a golf tournament that my husband and his friend started.  I can easily remember how long it has been since our daughter was born the year before and she will be 23 in November.  Of course being the scrapbooker that I am, every year has been well documented.

The first year of the tournament.  Rachel was 10 months old. 

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Jim has given us a nice topic this week, cards/dice/gamble/lose/win.  I had used Kenny Rogers’ The Gambler a while back so I searched for something different and came up with The Outfield, Winning It All.

I like the lyrics in the last verse.  “The time is right, my time has come.  Gonna give everything that I’ve got…”  There are some things in my life going on now that these words really inspire me to complete.  Hopefully I’ll come out a winner! 

Hope you have a great Sunday.  Happy listening to all the other #SLS offerings!

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Hey all!  We’ve transitioned to summer.  I love the warm weather but ours has been in the 80’s and 90’s which is too hot for my poor hubby.  We got an evaporation fan but of course as soon as we did the temperatures dropped.  Go figure.

The prompt for today’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “leaves.”  Before June “leaves” us, I thought I should post my entries to the Escapist Coloring Club.    Linda, whatever would I blog about if you weren’t so good at organizing these?

Most of the time I use markers to color with.  Sometimes I outline first with the markers and then color the inside with colored pencils.  For these two I used metallic gel pens.  I have to be careful to let the ink dry before putting my hand over that part or the ink gets all over and smudges.  The pictures don’t show it well but they have a metallic sheen to them. 

Lots of “leaves” in all my coloring.  I like to two-tone them too.  I’m making these to use as backgrounds in cards and things.  I am getting quite a collection though so maybe I better stop coloring and do some card making!  Happy Saturday all.       

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Today’s prompt from the lovely Linda is “social.”  I am definitely going to be social tonight as we are going to our favorite Mountain Winery to see Foreigner!  We have tickets in the second row, so maybe we’ll have another up close and personal experience.  Cross your fingers!

Stop by and check out the other #SoCS participants and see how they are being social today. 

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I haven’t written in a week!  That won’t do.  Have I been busy?  I don’t think so.  At least no busier than usual.  Perhaps lazy is the word?  Shameful.  I’ll have to rectify that.  Anyway, this week the prompt from Jim is Desire/Lust/Romance/Passion.  Quite a risky – risque’ topic!  I’m choosing one from Kenny Rogers called Morning Desire.

Short and sweet today.  It is roasting hot here (88 degrees) so I think I’ll go spend some time in my cool studio watching the Giants and crafting away.  Happy Listening!

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Jim, who has been doing a great job since taking over from Helen with hosting our Song Lyric Sunday fun fest has given us the prompt Avenue/Boulevard/Drive/Lane/Road/Street for today. 

I’m gonna choose Scorpions and “Melrose Avenue.”

Hope you all have a great Sunday.  Take a listen to the other participants in the group too.

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