Quilted Heart Update

Oh, how lovely! One of my Quilted Hearts was found and recorded on the official website! It's one of the two I placed at the magnolia arboretum.

Here's the post:

SPRINGFIELD, OR USA

POSTED ON APR 25, 2023

While taking a walk at the local Magnolia Park I came across this beautiful heart that needed a home. It was hanging by some beautiful Magnolia blossoms. It was a birthday present from the heart angels.

You can read lots of wonderful stories about hearts all over the world on the I Found A Quilted Heart website. I've read several stories from my old home in the Spokane / Coeur d'Alene area on the site.

Island Park

The third park Jodie and I visited last Monday is Island Park. It sits along the Willamette River. The river is running high right now!

I left one of my Quilted Hearts on the bridge entering the park.

In this park, weeds become a joyful field of flowers.

The benches canopied with flowering trees make for a peaceful place to rest and watch the river roll.

We left another Quilted Heart near a second bridge on our way out of the park. Next stop? The Adult Activity Center.

It's good to see my Quilted Hearts go out into the wild. I hope the people that find them get a bit of joy and comfort.

Doris Ranch

After walking the paved path at Ruff Park on Monday, Jodie and I headed off to Doris Ranch. This heart-shaped rock met me in the parking lot. A good omen.

We wanted to hike the path on the hill to look at wildflowers. 

There's lots of trillium to be found.

Unfortunately, we missed the first wave of color, but can see that more wildflowers are on the way.

After our short hike, we stopped at the information kiosk to leave a Quilted Heart.

Ruff Park

Monday afternoon with Jodie at Ruff Park Magnolia Arboretum.

Soft, cloudy day. Wide expanse of grass surrounded with blooming magnolias.

Most of the white flowers bloomed a week ago. 

A lovely spot for lunch

Now the pinks and purples are showing off.

We sent a couple more Quilted Hearts out into the wild.

Jodie Time

Most Monday afternoons, Jodie and I try to spend a couple hours together. Since the weather was decent, we went out to the magnolia arboretum this week. The trees are in full bloom. 

This is my favorite photo of the day.

I plan to show more photos of our daytrip later this week. We ended up going to three parks in Springfield plus the Adult Activity Center. We enjoyed our walks and the Spring flowers. Jodie also helped me place several of the Quilted Hearts. Good, good day.

Tuesday Travels: Geocaching Along the River

A beautiful Spring day beckoned Dale and me outside today. Hooray! We're resuming Tuesday Travels! This was an especially fun morning because we also added in geocaching, park visits, and a Quilted Heart placement.

We started northeast of our home, visiting an open space that will eventually become Evergreen Park. We found this froggie holding a cache among the trees.

It's fun to stumble upon a cute cache container.

Then we traveled to the tiny town of Coburg where we found one cache in a hollow log by an antique shop, and another at this small gem of a park.  

For the first time in months, we got to add visits to our Eugene Park Tour. I released a Quilted Heart on the tree just behind this sign. 

After finding the in-town caches, we drove through the countryside along the McKenzie River adding more smilies 😀 to our map (geocache finds). This cute cookie cache container  is about 4 inches across, so had room for lots of small trinkets. It was tucked into a highway guard rail. Altogether, we found 11 geocaches this morning ... and had zero DNFs (Did Not Find ... when you search and search, but can't find the prize). No disappointments today!

By noon, there wasn't a cloud to be seen. Driving past the University, students were frolicking in the sunshine wearing shorts. 

I'm cuckoo happy the warmer, dryer days are upon us. Dale and I are ready for rides in the convertible with the top down!

Household Sculpture - 4

It's a rubber band, man! A biggish 2-1/2 inch diameter yellow rubber band.

At least one of my friends figured it out. I was listening to a podcast, mindlessly twisting the rubber band in my fingers, then dropping it on the table. It looked cool. I took a picture

Played again. Another cool shape. Took a picture.

When I got into my photo editing program, I started playing around with tone and texture and sharpening. The shapes are starker and more sculptural when on the plain white background than this wood table. On the white, the black-and-white images made the rubber look like metal to me.

A bit of photo fun. I amuse easily. 

On Your Mark ...

Get set ...

A pile of birthday presents

A hill of luggage

A fresh haircut and teeth cleaning. (Silly grin to show them off).

GO!

Off to see a very special 4 year old.

And look what I left behind at the dentist's office for someone to find.  :: teehee ::

Household Sculpture - 3

 

Household Sculpture - 2

Household Sculpture - 1

 

Focus, Girl!

I had a disturbing dream right before I woke up this morning that knocked me off my game for most of the day. At 4pm I decided I needed to find a way out of the grumpy feelings. I went back to bed. I tried to listen to 6 different kinds of soothing, instrumental music. Nothing took.

I got up to make a phone call to our granddaughter for her 4th birthday. That helped some. 

I took some meds. I cut my hair. I took a shower and put on fresh, pretty clothes. That helped some more.

I did my morning routine. That helped the most. There's a reason I do that reading and writing every morning. It sets my mind on a good path. I'm much, much better now.

The oracle card I drew was Focus. Slow down. Pick one thing to focus on that brings you joy. Do that. 

I chose to write a blog post.

Rainbow Jewels and So Much More

Dale and I had a busy day yesterday. Of course, I'm such a homebody that just about any time I leave the house I feel like I've had a busy day. Nonetheless ...

We started out by meeting our eldest, Jeanne, at the Eugene Public Library's annual used book sale. I got to hug a good friend there that I haven't seen for several months. That was a lovely way to start.

I don't read many paperbound books anymore and didn't expect to buy anything. I thought I'd peek at photography books. There might be one by a solo photographer in which their photo process is explained along with the photos they took. Reading through this type of books is one of my 23/2023 goals.

I was so lucky. I found three such books. One is: Anne Geddes An Autobiography: A Labor of Love. Anne is known for her flower baby photography, though the book is about her entire photographic career.

The second book is about the history of photography in England.

The last is by my photo teacher, Nick Kelsh, and writer Anna Quindlen. It's called Naked Babies.

I also found a hardbound copy of Sherman Alexie's memoir, You Don't Have to Say You Love Me. I loved his book, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian which is semi-autobiographical. I so enjoy his writing.

In the crafty department I found a paperback book called, Designing Handcrafted Cards by Clair Sun-ok Choi. It has some beautiful ideas, especially for cards with windows cut-outs.

After that, we hit the kids' book section and I found about 10 books for our granddaughters. Their birthdays are coming up very soon and we get to go to Idaho to visit with them. Reading books together will give us plenty of cuddle time. One of the books has all the "Dick and Jane" volumes in it -- the books I used when I was learning to read. I think Melody will get a kick out of that fact.

When we came back home, Jeanne and I put this colorful puzzle together while watching my favorite version of Pride and Prejudice -- the one with Colin Firth. 

This beautiful puzzle by Puzzlebug is called Rainbow Jewels. It was slightly harder than we expected, but it was finished by the end of the day.

This makes for the 6th of the 23 puzzles I hope to do in 2023.

All in all, a very good, full day yesterday. Today, I'm totally tired. Good thing I'm retired and have no obligations.

Cute Cache Containers

Dale and I spent our anniversary on a day trip to Salem, about an hour north of where we live. We did a lot of geocaching, then had a nice meal at Olive Garden before returning home.

We started our search in the parking lot of a big shopping center where we spotted many caches on the map. One cacher had placed an entire series of geocaches with unique names housed in adorable tins. These were three of my favorites.

This cache is called Judge Jokingly Juggles Juvenile Jaguars and was placed in honor of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The tin is about 2 inches square. Dale found the cache hiding in a cave in a rock wall.

This cache is named Sloths Slowly Slurping Strawberry Smoothies. It was hidden near a Jamba Juice shop.

The clever name of this cache is Lo and Behold. It was hidden in the parking lot just outside of a Lowe's hardware store. This adorable container looks like a flattened paint can. There's even a screwdriver attached to the lid. 

The most difficult thing about finding this cache was waiting for a police officer to finish ticketing a pickup truck that was parked near ground zero. We found another cache, then returned to nab this one after the cop drove away.

We ended up finding 15 caches that day!

Serving our meal at the Olive Garden was a lovely waitress named Emma. We arrived near the end of her busy shift. As we chatted, we learned that she enjoys geocaching, too. Her dad used to take her on hikes in the woods where caches were hidden. Emma gave us extra-special service when she learned we were celebrating our anniversary. At the end of the meal I gave her one of my Quilted Hearts -- and she gave me a hug!

It was a memorable day all around for Dale and me.

Thirty-two

Then

Now 

Still a couple of lovebirds singing in harmony.

(This guy is rather special to me).

Geocaching Treasures

Not all the treasures we find when geocaching are toys and swag. The real treasures are visiting new parts of the countryside, and the beauty that Mother Nature bestows.

Yesterday we saw a full double rainbow!

The colors were incredibly vibrant. I think it's the first time I've seen the full arc of a rainbow in person.