Seems we just get started and before you know it . . . comes the time we have to say, "so long"

The great room-swap and painting upheaval continues in Hinckleyville; alas, I feel it may be some time before there is a place for everything and everything in its place.

Right now, it's more like everything is everyplace.

One of the projects we've been working on is a much-deserved den for Russ (in all of our many houses, he's never had his own room) where he can keep all his cool western things, like his cowboy boot collection and the beautiful saddle that his grandfather won


(complete with horse!) at the Utah Centennial State Fair in 1947. The paint is on the walls, the bookcases have been purchased, and there's even a new piece of art waiting to move in:


Will Rogers, 3" x 5", Flannery Dolan, 2009

Russ has always had a soft spot for Will Rogers, so when my friend Amazing Embroiderer Flannery started doing portraits of famous people with quotes, I knew I had to have one for the new den.

I don't think I'm as nice a person as Will Rogers because I'm sure I cannot say that "I never met a man I didn't like" . . .

I feel I can say with some certainty, however, that "I never met a bowl of guacamole I didn't like."

Gabriel's Guacamole -- enlarge it to see the recipe -- or better yet, just go to Gabriel's.


Which is part of the reason we're on our way to our beloved Santa Fe tonight for the postponed vacation I was complaining so much about a few weeks ago!



A friend asked me the other day why we keep going to New Mexico.
"What do you do there?" she asked.

The clue to the answer is right in the question.

I don't DO anything
in New Mexico.


I just BE.





D.H. Lawrence had a similar love affair with New Mexico and penned one of my favorite descriptions:

". . . The moment I saw the brilliant, proud morning shine high up over the deserts of Santa Fe, something stood still in my soul, and I started to attend."

The first time I read those words, I thought, "That's it! That's it exactly!"

Because when I first went to New Mexico,
my soul definitely stood still.


Georgia O'Keefe, another famous New Mexico transplant, said something that creates such a lovely visual picture for me:

"I want real things --
music that makes holes in the sky."

Georgia O'Keeffe, Ladder to the Moon, 1958


I guess I feel like New Mexico is full of all kinds of real things that make holes in the sky, because I can breathe there.


Matt Mitchell, monotype and mixed-media



So I'm off for some
deep breathing,
some feasting,
and a veritable fiesta of fun!




Robert Burt




Don't worry, I always bring home treats.

If anyone needs us, we'll be at Gabriel's.


(And will someone please let the dog out while we're gone?)


Small Works will return
August 11 packed
with pictures
and pounds
and a little piece
of sky . . .