Chilling In The Pool

Not me, silly, we don't have a pool anymore, but after our walk this morning Porter needed to cool off.  Badly needed it.  You'd need it too if you'd just walked a couple miles wearing a black fur coat.  DS & DIL1 bought her one of those molded kiddie pools and pun an inch or so of water in it.  When we got back she raced around the yard for a few laps and played a little fetch, the third time instead of bringing the ball back to me (my vicinity, anyway) she plopped into her pool to take a little drink and bat the ball around.  Too much fun for one dog.  The only thing more fun would be if they hadn't fenced off what they call her "fort," a small shrubbery area alongside the sun room where she's dug a dirt wallow.  DIL1 said she'd taken to getting wet in her pool and then plopping down in the dirt to make one muddy dog so they fenced it off.  Meanies.  Today's Photo A Day theme is "where you shop."  I don't shop.  I've never been much of a shopper, not someone who could make a day of it.  I used to grocery shop mainly, and now that Durwood's taken over the meal planning etc. I rarely even do that.  With my yarn and fabric diet still going strong I only buy items to complete projects--really.  (On Sunday I bought 3/4 yd. of fusible interfacing for a bag I'm making, what I had wasn't right.  Spent $2.35.)  So I don't feel right taking a picture of a store since I don't shop.  That meant the only places I "shop" is in the stashes, so I went downstairs and took a picture of my overloaded fabric armoire and then the shelf unit crammed with bins and bags of yarn.  That's where I shop lately and I'm enjoying it.  My "Nova Scotia bus trip" savings is growing nicely since I curtailed all that hobby-shopping and I don't feel deprived one bit.  I took my knitting outside to take its picture after my walk, watered all the potted plants, and was on my way into the house when I saw two monarch butterflies wrestling on the patio.  I got closer and... oh I see, not wrestling, but "wrestling."  I was crass and took their picture.  Thought you'd enjoy it, they seemed to.  One flew right to the birdbath for a drink and the other flew a couple loop-de-loops around the lantana before flapping away.  It's the circle of life, peoples, the circle of life.

June 26--Louis Comfort Tiffany, Magnolias and Irises.  Lissa tucked her pad under her arm and carried her pail of colored pencils down the stairs.  She was supposed to be in her room amusing herself but it was a sunny day and she knew that meant that the sun would be shining through the flower window.  Mama was at her committee meeting.  Papa was in his office.  Tally and Marcus had gone outside on one of their expeditions to collect bugs.  Tally and Marcus called Lissa "the house plant" because she'd rather stay indoors with her art supplies than go tramping through the fields.  Lissa slipped through the door into the parlor.  She smiled to see the flower window glowing in the bright sunlight.  She lay down in the pool of light, opening her drawing pad to a clean page.  She planned to draw the window when she noticed the pools of colored light on her white paper.  Sorting through her colored pencils she began shading the colors on the page, not the outlines of the stained glass panel, just the soft shapes cast by the sun.  She liked it.  She thought it looked like the water lily panels painted by Monet.

And now I'm going to see if I can't find a recipe for pesto hummus.  I want to make hummus with basil in it, not necessarily with pine nuts or nuts of any kind, but I want to approximate the pesto-y goodness without all the oil and fat.  Maybe I'll just wing it.  I'll let you know how it goes.
--Barbara