The stories you are about to read are true. The names have not been changed, but maybe they should have been. When I was a child, I was deathly afraid of the garbageman. Ok, you can stop laughing now. If I was playing outside and would hear the far off sound of that crunching, munching machine, I would drop what I was doing and run into the house. As I look back, maybe it was the truck, and not the man, I was afraid of. As a child, I spent a lot of time at the Chavez's house. The Chavez's were more family than friends. Their kids ranged in age from older than my mom, to the same age as my younger brother. I loved to spend time at their house and practically worshiped Bobby and Barbara, the twins that were five years older than me. One day, the three of us were playing outside and you guessed it, the distant sound of the garbage truck was in the air. I ran inside the house to one of the back bedrooms. Suddenly I hear Barbara screaming, she was yelling that the garbage man had her! I bravely ran out the front door nearly taking the screen off it's hinges in the process. I continued down the street as fast as my little legs would carry me, after the big white munching truck, yelling, "Let her go, let her go!" The twins come after me laughing their heads off. They had been hiding behind the couch, while I was running to their rescue. They treated me just like a younger sister. They could torment me to no end, but had my back if somebody else was picking on me. Well, with the exception of this one time. We were trick or treating a few houses down the block from their house. After innocently knocking on the door and saying, "Trick or treat?", a full-fledged scary witch appeared before us. Of course, I was the closest to the door, and therefore, the witch. As soon as I started backing up, she grabbed my arm and started pulling me into the house. While she was pulling on my arm, B and B were pushing me from behind. I started screaming and threw my bag of candy in the air. My mom, who was standing nearby, came running. She told me later that anytime she sees candy corn, she is reminded of this incident, because there was candy all over the witch's doorstep by the time I calmed down. The witch felt really bad and tried to replace the dropped candy, but I wasn't having it. I eventually forgave Bobby and Barbara, and went back to worshiping them. I once was electrocuted with these two, but I've rambled on much too long. Let me know if you want to hear that story. It's very shocking!
Last Saturday I had the privilege of being at one of the most beautiful places on earth, Cambria California. My friends and I, along with about eighty other volunteers, showed up on a crisp morning to mosaic the amphitheater at Camp Ocean Pines, a nonprofit camp and convention center. As we were standing around getting our instruction as to how the day was to go, we could hear the waves crashing and the sea lions barking. After gathering up our tools, gardening stools, and knee pads (thank God for Knee pads!), we hiked up the hill to get our first look at the Coliseum, I mean amphitheater. As you can see from the pictures, we had a big job ahead of us. After more instruction, we got to work placing broken plates, shiny glass, and found objects between the flagstones already placed on the benches. It was a lot of fun. Fred and Donnell of Passiflora Mosaics did a great job of overseeing all the volunteers. Passiflora www.passifloramosaics.com is the place to go if you want to take workshops or just purchase beautiful mosaic artwork. I took a weekend class a few years ago and had a blast. After a great lunch provided by the camp, most people got back to work. Not my group, we headed back to town for some fast shopping, and a long drive to another beautiful place, my friend Teree's ranch. What a great weekend.
My husband and I have had these conversions before on what is better an ocean view or a lake view. To be honest I would take either and be happy about it, most people would. I have always been an ocean girl, and Mitch has always thought a lake was more interesting. After experiencing the beauty and tranquility of my friends lakeside ranch, I'm rethinking my preference. Checkout these pictures. 
