A Typical Morning at Home

It started with making up another batch of half-sour refrigerator pickles, recipe adapted from cooks.com because I don't like making a ton at a time since they are best eaten soon (and really, you can't help it), or ending up with unused brine, and I like my proportions better than theirs:

• 2 pickling cukes (crispy)
• 4 c. water
• 1/8 c. white vinegar
• 1/8 c. plain salt (no iodine)
• 1 t. pickling spice
• 1 t. dill seed (I never honestly measure this because I just pick the seeds off of their stalks into my brine)
• 2 cloves garlic
• a couple of sprigs fresh dill
• Heat up your vinegar, salt, and water until boiling; take off the heat. Then add the rest of ingredients and stir. Into your tightly packed quart jar of cukes, pour as much brine as you can. I usually end up with about a pint of brine leftover, ready for the next batch.

After slicing the green peppers and onions, while the sausage cooked, (prepping for pizza dinner), I started the above ATC backings. I first laid down a couple of coats of gesso, then some acrylics. Preparing some backings in advance will help me to be able to easily make cards, even as my life ramps up in busy-ness with my upcoming internship. Then, there's no "blank" page looking at me. I will cut up the above boxes into the standard ATC size: 2.5x3.5".

There was vacuuming, laundry, plenty of kissing and cuddling with Sylvan, and also time to scribble out some design notes on my next bag project! It will feature the adorable owl fabric you first saw here.
It was a lovely full morning, with lots of my needs and "house" needs, and Sylvan's needs happily met.

And finally one of our heirloom tomatoes:
Can you believe the colors?