I feel as if I'm making a confession to you all. I always loved gardens but my folks never had much money or knew anything about plants so we had the ugliest, deadest yard on the block. I always hated that. My Dads mom had a beautiful garden and my moms mom grew a few rose bushes and a big loquat tree and my moms dad grew strawberries and tomatoes. My folks bought a house with clay soil and made a half hearted attempt at planting some unsuitable shrubs then promptly gave up. Everything died but the couple of pines and the Italian cypresses. My dad's folks garden was the magic place and I adored it. I always loved the prettiest yards on the street and I would stop and look at all the different plants on the way home from school. In particular I was in love with a Japanese couple's dicondra lawn surrounded by maples and bamboo and clipped things. They were out there almost every night working on it together. I can still remember them on their hands and knees pulling little weeds from the dicondra and talking to each other in Japanese. The azaleas were so beautiful and there must have been so many other treasures that I can't recall now. In my mind it was the best a garden could ever get. So then the years went by and I got a copy of the Sunset Western Garden Book in high school and I read that book over and over and learned the latin names and began to really look at plants in a new way. I got an understanding of plants and what they like and that different plants want different things and that it isn't just magic that some people have and some don't. I started making an herb garden out in the no mans land of the front yard. Then I started growing annual flowers from seeds and working them in all the while waging war with bermuda grass that threatened to ruin all my progress. I planted seeds mostly because I was spending all my money to go to college but sometimes I splurged and bought fuschias and any other flowers that hummingbirds liked. I soon had a big fuschia collection going in the back under dads big pine tree that managed to survive the early years. I hated my job in the women's clothes section of a department store so I found another one at a local nursery run by a Japanese couple and their son. This couple was so good to me and the hours I spent sitting by Sumi learning about flowers and just being in her gentle presence changed the way I looked at the world and about flowers. She had a great wisdom and kindness. I don't think I'll ever know such a graceful and gentle person like that ever again. Sumi's brother Ken was there too and he was a wonderful man with a gentle way and great sense of humor. I wish I could go back and tell them how much I appreciate all the kindness they gave to me. I loved them and I loved the nursery and every plant in the place. I just wanted it all to grow well and for everyone who got a plant to be happy. I listened to all the growers and customers and I read everything I could read. Then came my friend Robert who knew everything about plants and loved roses. After a trip to his garden I wanted to grow roses. I thought I didn't know much after meeting Robert, but he was also very kind and wise and didn't mind my inexperience. He was also a great enabler and got me started buying roses from RoY&T. That catalog was like candy to us and we talked about it on lunch and while we were planting up flower baskets for holidays. When bare root rose season came around, Robert was always so happy. We loved getting into the big boxes of bareroots when they would arrive. After a while, I thought my humble herb patch was nothing special and started expanding. I left them all to go to the University and then I got a job at Disneyland Entertainment that ate my life. I spent many many hours during and after hours in the park and got to watch all the plantings and talk to the people in charge of landscape for the parks and the hotel complex. All that time, my garden saw me through tough times and I faithfully got up to water it before dawn when I had to go to work early or get to school and study. All along the way I met people who loved plants and I took cuttings and collected seeds to grow in my own garden. My grandma stood by me all the way, encouraging me. I loved Lord of the Rings too and Narnia. I remember when my sister and I were young and went camping in Colorado. We walked out into a meadow and I said " If I see the tents of Narnia, I'm just going to keep going" and she agreed with me that we wouldn't go back. I try to put a bit of fairyland in the yard for kids that come by and for myself to remind me of the old days.

Rosie- at first I thought you meant she created a figure of a person using the altered hymnal as the body. Minnie- to me, altered books are a form of collage or assemblage art. The hymnal istelf becomes a new work of art by the artist adding paint, decoupage, stamps and other items to the pages. She used the topic of each hymn to inspire her when she added images. I think it is lovely! Although I am surprised at how nicely the pages look. Hymnal paper is so thin it can't take much added wet media unless she put something else behind the page as a backing. I just did a collage for an art journal round robin, and used a page from a hymnal as part of the background with watercolor paper as a base. Karen

It was a great time, it was the first time for the class and it went longer than the 4 hours. Should be a day class with breaks and lunch. I learned so much, things like using the paint and the distressing pads. I've been a very simple with my pages doing matting and some embellishments. Plain and simple. I learned to use ribbon, staples, brads, and flowers. I love the pages I did now I just need to add pictures, which is something else I learned I always picked pictures then did the pages. Nancy

I certainly did better than usual on the book-front this Christmas. From the DH I had asked for Katherine Swynford by Alison Weir. I gave the DD Selective Memory by the well-known English journalist Kathleen Whitehorn . . to be read by me later! From an American friend Memories of Times Past a collection of stories/articles on the slower pace of US life in years gone by. From a US Aunt In the Shadow of the Blue Ridge by VA writer Carolyn Feagans (Mary, do you know her work?) and finally from the boyfriend of the DD Roy Strong's A Little History of the English Country Church. I must say these books press all the right buttons; I can see those I have from the library going back unread.