Do You Recall by Royal Wood

I'm pathetically unaware of new music, but a young friend on Facebook posted this song. Wow. I love it. Hope you do, too.

Always Never the Same

We spent Valentine's Day, re-stomping old grounds at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. My husband attended school there, many moons ago, and my daughter and son-in-law are class of '02 -- Aggies forever.

A&M is rich in tradition, and the guardian of that tradition is the Corps of Cadets. Upon attaining Senior status, the Corps members can finally wear the famous "Senior boots" which traditionally have been hand-crafted by Holick's.

But the Holick's store is now --

Quite a change indeed! I hope the Holick's store has simply relocated, and has not disappeared entirely.

My son-in-law's apartment is now a law office,

conveniently located in North Gate, home of all the social venues which might result in a student's needing specialized legal advice:

But so much of A&M is still the same. The Century Oak still stands

and no visit to campus is complete without sitting under the Oak, watching a new generation of Aggies rushing to classes.

(Here's my Valentine, and favorite Aggie.)

Kyle Field keeps getting bigger to accommodate the ever-increasing number of Aggie football fans

and Miss Reveille, the University's mascot, still attends every game.

Members of the Corps of Cadets adopted the original Miss Reveille. Unwilling to break tradition even upon Miss Reveille's death, the Corps adopted another dog, named her Miss Reveille, and the spirit continues. In fact, the entrance to the statium is still guarded by long-gone Misses Reveille,

strategically laid to rest so that they can see the scoreboard!


We always enjoy visiting the campus, where so many of the students recognize our "Senior (citizen)/Visitor" status and say "Howdy!" Texas A&M University is a very special place. Surface changes will always occur, because the world hates stasis. But the Aggies' traditions, and the spirit of the school, will always be in place.

Paper Roses

(psst! -- There is a real blog post down there somewhere, so click on the music if you're so inclined and scroll down.)

The end of January means that Valentine's Day is just around the corner. And Valentine's Day always means roses to me. I've been wanting to craft some paper roses for my home, "shabby chic" style, and found my inspiration from Cassie Chappell's roses in a Martha Stewart episode -- http://www.marthastewart.com/article/paper-roses -- and this fabulous blog post --http://frenchcupboard.blogspot.com/2010/07/parisian-inspired-rosette-tutorial.html. I combined their ideas to craft my own quirky style of paper rose.

Believe it or not, these start with plain ol' cone-shaped paper coffee filters. Using the templates provided on marthastewart.com, I traced and cut petals and leaves from the coffee filters.

Then I took inspiration from The French Cupboard blog mentioned above, and stamped images on the petals.

I added color with very thin watercolor paints:

and immediately realized that some of my stamp ink was not waterproof!

Well, let's see what happens anyway. I'm painting on the smooth side of a glass cutting board, so the paint will pool

and I really saturated the petals with color:

Then I set the petals on absorbent paper to dry:

and found that I really like that some of the inks ran!

These look a bit like petals cut from an old, water-damaged love letter.



When the petals were mostly dry, I spattered them with more paint.

After all of the petals were dry, I assembled the rose, shown here in lop-sided, imperfect glory. (Be kind -- this was my first attempt!)

I like the way some of the stamped details peek out on the petals -- a face; a hotel stamp; indecipherable words:

I won't belabor the details, but you can get the instructions and see a video on the Martha Stewart website. I did learn a few tricks, though: Double-stick tape is my friend, and floral tape is not! Wrap 26 gauge florist's wire around the rose while assembling, and it will stay together while fluffing the petals.

I think I need to make about 5 more to fill this cute container which started the whole business. First, though, I'd better make a pot of chili -- Mr. Slipper Moon Studio's appetite is getting the better of his patience! Maybe he will even bring me real roses for Valentine's Day.

Oh My Country (Scotland)

This is a beautiful video -- the music, the images -- just lovely. Hope you enjoy.