Camping for Halloween - Pismo Coast Village and Lunch with the Cousins

    I know! I know! I have not done the second part of my post regarding the funeral for my brother in law Sean. I will, because it was one of the most amazing and special funerals I've ever attended. 

    Since his passing on August 4th, I have been spending the nights with my sister. She has never been alone, from living with our parents she went to live with her husband and I knew it was going to be difficult for her to be alone, especially in the beginning. 

    So my routine since then has been that I wake up at her home around 5:45 a.m. and get dressed and head to my house which is probably four blocks away. I do my normal morning routine and since I work from home and have since Covid began, I put in my eight hours of work. After work I spend a bit of time with my mom and then head over to Lisa's house where we have dinner, talk about the day, on Monday's we go to Grief Share, a grief therapy group that meets for two hours, then we start the routine all over again the next morning.

    Lisa and Sean LOVED camping! It was their greatest passion, after their children and grandchildren. They own a beautiful 5th Wheel motor home which they store at the coast and when they want to go camping, they make a reservation and the RV park picks up their RV and moves it to the campsite they will be in, they set it all up and hook up the water, sewer and electricity, they just come in and organize the inside and relax. 

    They had an annual tradition of coming the week of Halloween as all the RV's are decorated for the holiday. Because of the popularity of the event it books up fast so they had made and paid for their reservations months ago. Lisa wanted to go ahead and come, I was not so sure. I felt it was too soon, but if she wanted to do it, then I was coming with her.

    We left on Friday morning and her son Sean Jr came by to see us off, he's such a great young man and I'm so proud of him. You can see by the smile on their faces how much they still hurt for their dad and husband.

    We always stop at TJ Maxx in Paso Robles to shop. Lisa doesn't really enjoy shopping and even less now that she is grieving, but she made the effort. We didn't buy much, but Lisa did buy me a beautiful coffee mug with Nutcrackers on it, I'll share that when I put up my Christmas decorations sometime in December.

    We headed to Pismo where we had lunch at The Sidewalk Cafe where we each had the most amazing Asian Salad. It was huge too, we actually had it that night for dinner and I still ended up throwing about 1/4 of it away. 

    We got to the campsite soon after and I was so worried that Lisa was going to be devastated seeing the RV and walking inside for the first time without Sean, but the people that were supposed to set up the sewer, water and electricity had done nothing and all the hoses and pipes were strewn about in the back of the RV! Lisa was LIVID!  I think it was a blessing in disguise, she was so focused on getting everything fixed that she didn't remember to pay attention to the fact that this was the first time she was back in the RV without Sean. Death sucks so much, this is such a hard time for her.

    After all that drama we decided to walk to the clubhouse and then to the small store next door where Lisa bought two beers and some pretzels and we headed to a small table where she and Sean used to go when they came together. We said a toast to Sean and sat there drinking our beer. We then realized that we are Arizona girls and we don't do beach weather well (it was cold) and we headed back to the RV.

Beer in a can in a brown paper bag. Sean's favorite beer would have been Bud Light but they were out of that so we had Michelob Ultra. It was a beautiful spot but way to cold to stay long with the wind blowing.

    We set everything up and organized ourselves and decided where we each were going to sleep and then we watched some TV and played some cards and finally decided to get some sleep as we had plans to go to lunch the next day with two cousins that live close by.

    The next morning we slept in for a bit and woke up and had coffee, we planned our day because we knew we were meeting our cousins Diana and Vera at 1pm for lunch. We ran a few errands and cleaned up some more and then met them for lunch at this lovely place, Marisol at the Cliffs Restaurant. You can see the ocean in the background in the picture below.

Enjoying a Jalapeno Melon Margarita with the cousins. My sister Lisa in front taking the photo. Left to Right is our cousin Diana, daughter to my dad's sister Leonor and Elvira aka Vera daughter to my dads brother Manuel, then me.

    We had such a great time, there was a lot of laughter, a few tears and many shared memories. 

    For dinner I had the Thai Chicken Lettuce Wraps, which were fabulous!

    Lisa had the bacon and eggs, the bacon looked really good, but she didn't share! 

Cousin Vera I believe had fish tacos with potatoes.

Cousin Vera deep in conversation.

    Cousin Diana had the nachos which she shared with us all and still had enough to take home!

Cousin Diana enjoying her nachos.

    Afterwards they wanted to come and see Lisa's motor home, so here's a picture of the four of us. We had such a great time and can't wait to get together again!

Great shot of the four us and Lisa's motor home. Left to right: Vera, Diana, me in the front and Lisa behind me.

    There is nothing like family. We never spent a lot of time with my dad's side of the family, but my mom and dad both used to say to us all the time that "blood calls" and it does. Even though we seldom see these cousins there is a bond that we can't break, our ancestors blood runs through our veins and calls for us to be family even though we are literally strangers.

    I'm not going to lie and say that this has been a great trip, Lisa is here in body, but not in spirit or in mind or heart. Her spirit, mind and heart is with her husband and she is going through an agony that is unimaginable. Earlier that day we were driving through a busy part of town that has a lot of little shops and I had a memory while passing a bead store of my sister in law Connie and I bringing mom right before Covid to Pismo and taking her to several bead shops and there is one we particularly enjoyed with her and as we drove by I remembered that day and how happy my mom was and how special she felt and I also realized that someday my mom is going to be gone and my heart clenched in pain and it was brief, maybe a few seconds, but I then knew exactly how Lisa is feeling, it's an incapacitating pain and you feel as though your heart will explode  and there is nothing that you can do....except to be brave like my poor, dear sister is being brave. 

    More to come as I'm writing this several days later. Dinner with the cousins was Sunday afternoon. I'm writing this on Wednesday afternoon, October 26th and this morning they invited us to get together again with them for dinner and drinks tonight.

Heaven Needed Another Angel

 In my last post I mentioned that my sister’s husband Sean was going through a serious illness and that my sister was being kept busy being at the hospital with him and also preparing for his care upon his return to their home.

It is with great sadness and shock that I tell you that Lisa’s husband Sean, the love of her life passed away quietly in the hospital with his wife and two of his sons by his side. Their other two sons were with him via Facetime. His passing was unexpected and his illness progressed much faster than the doctors had anticipated.

Needless to say, my sister Lisa is devastated, they had been married for 32 years and had four sons, their sons’ wives and eleven grandchildren. Sean was only 57 years of age upon his passing, too young, way too young to have been taken from his family.

Sean’s funeral services were extraordinary! I believe he would have been so proud to have known what a beautiful sendoff he was given. He had lived in our small city almost his whole life, he went to school here, his boys all went to school here, he was well known and well-loved in the community.

Sean had a beautiful visitation at the local funeral home, it was a packed house and there was a Catholic Rosary recited for him, then a Pastor that was also his cousin said some words and recalled the last few times he had seen Sean. His sons wanted people to have the opportunity to share their memories of their father. Several people spoke including his sons and their wives. The most poignant speech for me was his granddaughter, you all know her as Baby J and I have shared many posts about her on my blog. Baby J loved her Poppa as she called him, as she named him since she is the oldest grandchild. She was so brave and reminded us that he was the best cop then she turned to her own dad and said “you are a good cop too daddy, but Poppa was the best.”

I shared a few words because of all the things that everyone said about him, no one mentioned his Heart of Service. He was someone that was always willing to help, someone that would do things without being asked. There was never a time that he came to my house that he didn’t throw out the trash, he just did it. He was ready to run errands before anyone else, he always stood up and gave his seat to any one new coming in, whether it was in the living room or in the kitchen. I found out about so many other kindnesses he did that I didn't even know about. One being that he would make breakfast burritos for the gardeners that came to mow his lawn on Mondays. 

He was the main person I knew I could count on when it came to Christmas tamale making time. He was the main person I counted on when I needed to move and needed muscle and a truck. He was always generous with Lisa’s time when I need a girl’s night out or a weekend getaway.

Sean was also a great giver of his time and gifts. He would stop by our house often, randomly, with flowers for my mom and sometimes for me as well, or he would bring her donuts or Twinkies, never arriving empty handed. Many aunts recounted at this funeral that he often brought them flowers as well. He had a true heart of service to his family, far and wide.

The day of his funeral we showed up first at the funeral home, one last time for his family to be with him before he was taken to the church for the Mass of Christian Burial. His four sons and a grandson, plus his brother and his best friend were all casket bearers.

When we arrived at the church there was an Honor Guard of Correctional Officers, all volunteering their time to be there for their brother Sean. Sean had been a Correctional Office for almost 17 years. They lined the steps to the church and when we walked in behind the casket the church was packed! I have never seen the church this packed ever for a funeral. The Mass was beautiful and the Priest gave a lovely sermon. After the Mass we had a procession out of the parking lot and Lisa’s wish was that the hearse drive by their home of 32 years so that he could be at his house one more time, since he never made it out of the hospital. I cry as I write this because it was such a bittersweet moment. Rick, the funeral director and dear friend to Lisa and our family stopped the hearse in the street in front of their house, he got out of the hearse and just stood there accompanying Sean is taking one last look at his home. Lisa and I and Baby J and his son Edward were in the car behind them, overcome with emotion. Then Rick got back in and we drove in procession to the cemetery.

There is still so much I want to recount about his service because someday we will want to look back on this and remember every moment, so I'm going to post this for now and continue it in the next few days. 

Saturday with My Sister Lisa and Korean Ground Beef and Rice Bowls Recipe

     Yesterday I went over to my sister Lisa's house to help her organize a room that she is going to be using for her husband while he recuperates from an illness he is going through. She's having a hospital bed delivered tomorrow and we cleared out an extra bedroom. We could not move the treadmill or the couch she had in that room, but we did move a dresser and today my son and hers are supposed to get together and move the big stuff.

    Once we finished cleaning that room, while Lisa kept organizing stuff, I cleaned the kitchen and vacuumed her floors and did basic tidying up, then she made us some delicious Chocolate Iced Coffee and we had some of the lemon cake I had taken over to her.

    She wanted to order a new robot vacuum cleaner as their old one had broken several months ago and while we were searching she found a recipe that she had posted that she wanted to try out. She had most of the ingredients and I had a bag of coleslaw mix at my house so I went to go get it and we started cooking.

    I am a recipe girl, I've said that several times on the blog. I can't just pull ingredients out of the fridge and pantry and come up with a meal, I have to have a plan. Lisa and my mom are magicians in the kitchen, give them 8 items and they will make a fabulous meal with it. Yesterday we used a bit of my system and a bit of Lisa's.

    The recipe was for a Korean Ground Beef and Rice Bowl, you can find the recipe and photos HERE. We had most of the ingredients except for the fresh ginger and eggplant, so we improvised by adding frozen cauliflower rice and coleslaw mix.  Coleslaw mix is a mix of shredded green cabbage and carrots. 

    Lisa browned the ground beef while I chopped the red bell pepper and onion. She doesn't cook with salt, so she added a spice blend of Roasted Garlic and Red Bell Pepper from Dangold, you can find the spice HERE. This has zero sodium and was so good.  She also added lots of coarse black pepper and the onions. Once that was browned she removed it from the pan and added a little olive oil and sautéed the bell peppers and zucchini, cooked that for a couple of minutes, we both like our veggies with a little bite to them.

    Then she added the whole bag of the coleslaw mix and some Asian Salad dressing which has a peanut flavor and a bit of the low sodium soy sauce and sautéed that just enough to wilt it a bit, added the frozen cauliflower rice which she had put in the microwave just long enough to have it break up and then put the ground beef back in.

    Then it was time for the taste test...

    Winner Winner! We both love it. We both added Sriracha Sauce to the top because we love spicy. You can see all the lovely veggies. This is low sodium and low carb. Because of her husbands illness she has been trying to find recipes that will she can make with the specifications given to them by the doctors and this is one that he can eat.

    As I write this, she is at the hospital, hoping to get some news on how he's doing and when he can come home. Because of new Covid restrictions, only one person can be with him, so we can't visit him. This is a serious illness and I am hoping for the sake of my sister, their sons and grandchildren that he is able to get through this and make a full recovery. 

    If you can say a prayer for him and Lisa and their family, please do so. If you can send them positive vibes and energy, please do that as well. I'm a strong believer that everything that comes from love and concern for others can help.

The BIG 64!

     Yesterday was my 64th Birthday! It's hard to believe! 

Champagne Cupcake and Smith's Bakery Cookies from my daughter.

    Where has the time gone. One minute you're 18 and graduating from high school and in the blink of an eye you are 64.

    But I'm fortunate to have people who love me and took time out of their day to help me celebrate yesterday.

    The day started out with a special celebration with this little girl, my daughters dog Chorizo. 

    Since it was my birthday, Starbucks sends me a notification that there is a free treat waiting for me at their store. There is nothing Chorizo loves more that the free Puppuccino that Starbucks offers their little puppy customers.

    So we made the drive to Starbucks and I got a free Latte, purchased some Egg Bites and Chorizo got a Puppuccino!!!

Starbucks Latte, Bacon and Gruyere Egg Bites and a Puppuccino!

    She could barely wait for me to take the picture above she was so excited about her puppuccino! You can see all the whipped cream on her little beard in the photo above. 

    Later that evening my daughter told me she had a surprise planned for me and did she ever! She finally let me come into the kitchen and she had a whole table of delicious treats laid out. Just look at this spread!

Charcuterie by Charcuterie by M

Pepperoni and Salami Roses, Chocolate Nonpareils, Olives and Pickles, Baby Grapes, Cashews, Dried Apricots, Pistachios, Fresh Apricots and Strawberries, Various Cheeses including my favorite a Blueberry Boat cheese Log, you can't see it, but it's there and it was all so declious!

Garlic Crisps, these were so garlicky and crispy and delicious!

A bottle of Pinot Noir from my sister Lisa, this was such a good wine!

    My daughter and son were there, my mom and my sister Lisa, all my favorite people!

    We sat and just tasted all the different goodies on the tray and I opened my gifts, a ring and bracelet from my mom, a pair of sneakers from my sister, a Starbucks card from my son and all the deliciousness above from my daughter.

    And the birthday is not over yet, tonight I am having a celebration dinner with my coworkers and tomorrow night I'm have another dinner with my sister Lisa and our friend Lupe. 

    I guess it's not so bad turning 64 when you realize how many people love you and remember you and want to make you feel special. 

    Happy 64th Birthday to me! I'll finish with pictures of the beautiful Pop-Up Birthday bouquet of butterflies from my daughter.

Paper Pop-Up Birthday Card from my daughter.

    

Close up from the top!

Carrying the Weight of the World

    Recently (today) I've started listening to a Weekly Reflections guided meditation. They're not a long meditation, this one was five minutes, but it really made me think about the things that I carry around that weight me down.

    The meditation starts out with some deep breathing, then asked me to close my eyes and imagine that I am about to take a walk. I know that I'm going to see beautiful sites and have new experiences and I'm looking forward to going. First I make sure I'm prepared, I have on good walking shoes, some water in case I get thirsty, perhaps a sweater in case it gets cold.

    I notice that in each of my pockets, I'm carrying rocks each signifying a past experience. Each one holds meaning and was picked up for a specific purpose, but for now these rocks weight me down, they keep me from stepping lightly and I will get tired carrying them around.

    I start taking each rock out and setting it down and take a step, another step another rock, each time releasing the weight that I've been carrying until I feel lighter and I realize that what we carry with us can serve a purpose, but sometimes it can weigh us down and hold us back. I'm prompted to examine the weight I carry and set aside what isn't useful to me in my life right now. 

    Sometimes I carry these rocks around like a badge of honor. No one can carry these rocks the way I do. I can't allow anyone else to help me carry these rocks because they won't care for the rocks as I do, they'll allow them to fall out of their pockets and break on the ground, or they will lose them along the way. 

    But the longer I carry these rocks, the heavier they become until I can no longer stand from the weight and I can no longer walk or enjoy life. I'm so busy worrying about these rocks that I don't see the beauty around me and I start feeling anger towards the carefree people I see floating through life without the weight of any rocks.

    What I learned through this meditation is that I need to let go...

Let goooooooo.

    I need to remind myself this week to "let go". To take notice of the things that weigh me down and write them down and get rid of the things that aren't useful to me in my life, the things that make me angry and bitter and make life heavy.

    How heavy are the rocks that you are carrying and why do you carry them?

Paint Night, Baby J and Cheesy Zucchini and Red Onion Flatbread

     During the Pandemic lockdown I really missed sharing a paint night with my sister Lisa and our friend Lupe. The three of us are like the Three Amigos and at times like the Three Stooges, depending on how much wine and how many shots of Agavero we've shared. But no matter what, we always have fun.

    Here's a photo of the three of us, it's pretty old, I believe from 2019, but I just love this one. 

    Because of the health of my mom she and I were very careful to stay in quarantine to prevent her getting sick, so paint night was put on hold until this past Saturday night, June 11th. 

    We had planned to get together at 5pm at my house, but Lisa and Lupe surprised me by showing up at around 4:30! They caught me still prepping and I didn't even have time to change the grungy t-shirt I was wearing, so needless to say there are no pictures that I allowed to be taken of me that night!

    However we did take pictures of almost everything else, but let's start with the food we shared. 

    Lupe brought our appetizer, a veggie tray with snap peas, carrots, broccoli, celery, baby tomatoes and ranch dressing. Wish we had a picture!!! Picture or not, it was so good!

   As for a beverage, we started the festivities with a shot of our favorite tequila, Agavero. It was delicious. I had bought two kinds of wine because I know some people don't really like wine and I didn't remember if Lupe did, so I bought a very mellow and sweet Stella Rosa, cause everyone loves Stella Rosa wines. I also bought a 2019 Robert Mondavi Cabernet Sauvignon as I'm partial to Cabs. I don't remember who had what but after a shot of Agavero and half a glass of Cab I was not so worried anymore about people showing up early!

    By this time the Cheesy Zucchini and Red Onion Flatbread was done and we had that with a mixed spring salad on the side with Italian Dressing. Again no photo, but I have blogged the recipe, so here's a picture and a link to the recipe is HERE. 

    We then cleaned up and what I like best about these two ladies is that they jump in and help! Then it was time to get down to painting.

    But before I talk about the painting, we had a special guest. Someone that has made multiple appearances on my blog, someone near and dear to my heart, Baby J!!! She is Lisa's granddaughter. Here's one of the first pictures I posted about her on the blog back on Sept, 2014. 

    She and I have done numerous Art Projects every time she visits and it was so fun to have her join us for the first time ever for Paint Night. Here she is, all grown up and beautiful!

    I'll show her artwork first. She painted a bunny rabbit peeking out from the left side of the canvas. She's only halfway through in this photo, but you can tell she's pretty pleased with her work so far!

    Here is her final piece, she did an excellent job and she is the smartest, funniest, most insightful child ever. She astonished us with her knowledge and her vocabulary is over the moon. I know she's my niece but I'm not exaggerating, it's a flippin' genius!

    Here's the piece Lupe started, none of us really had time to completely finish our art piece, except for Baby J, but we got a good start. Lupe is wanting to try stenciling designs on some of her walls at home, so she took the opportunity to stencil on a canvas board and we all loved where this is going and hope she frames this once she is done. (You can see the intensity on Baby J's face in the background as she works on her painting.)

    Lisa decided to work on what was to me a very difficult piece, but I love what she's got so far and it's going to be beautiful once she is done. There's a waterfall in the middle part there that is not painted in yet.

    I had purchased a book for Lisa when we had our road trip to Ojai a couple of weeks ago and there was a photo in that book that I really wanted to try painting, here's the photo.

    And here's what I've done so far, I have quite a ways to go and in the photo it looks like the sun setting behind the tree, but in mine it looks more like dusk already, so I may add some stars and then paint the tree over it, not sure yet.

    We also had a surprise visit from Baby J's dad and Lisa's son Sean, who is a police officer with our local police department. Since he was there my mom took the opportunity to give him a handmade quilt she was making for his birthday but she couldn't wait until January of next year. She's so proud of him!

    He just stayed for a second as he was on a break and had to go back on duty, but it was wonderful to see him and I am so grateful to him for sharing Baby J with us all these year. Love you Sean!

    I will end this post with a photo of the joyful chaos that was on my kitchen table that night. I hope Baby J remembers this night, but if not this blog post will always be here for her, as well as all the other blog posts since 2014. 

    Thank you Lisa and Lupe and when can we do this again!

My Art Featured on Art Group - Bloom Where You Are Planted

      I'm a member of a prompt related art group on Facebook called The Mixed Media Emporium with Nina Ribena & Kylie Coo. 

     The group has over 10,000 members and out of those 10,000 members my art was chosen for a special honor and picked to be the masthead of the group page for the 4th week of April, 2022. 

     Everyone in the group congratulates you and it really helps to inspire you to work hard to continue to create artwork that people love.

 

     I am so honored to have my art featured, here's the art page I did that was chosen. This is a page in my art journal. 

     This is a two page spread that I made for my homemade art journal. The art journal is made out of a recycled Fruit Roll-Ups Box, covered with fabric and the decorated, it's a whole process and I may do a blog post for it another time. 

     What we do in this group is called Mixed Media Art, anything and everything is fair game. In this piece I used leaves cut out from an box of tissue paper, here's a picture I found online of the top of a box. Once I cut out the leaves, I peeled off several layers so the leaves would not be so thick. 

     I took a page out of the art journal (the pages are removal of ease of use). The page I decided to use already had the background on it. It's what we call a "mop up" sheet. As I am doing other projects I have a sheet of paper either underneath to protect my desk or sometimes to the side and I clean off my paint brush, or try paint colors, so eventually it's got a beautiful blend of colors, in this case I felt it had a bit of a jungle look to it. So I started gluing the leaves around the top and bottom of the page to make a border. 

     I added a flower I had made following another YouTube channel and started gluing the sentiment "Bloom Where You Are Planted" and then added butterflies, because I love butterflies!

     And that was it. I was surprised that something so simple to create was worthy of the honor of being the masthead, but hey, I'll take it!

     Not to toot my own horn, but "toot-toot" this is actually the 4th time my artwork has been chosen. You can check out the first time HERE, second time HERE, third time HERE.