With several recent parties to celebrate friends coming into town and entertaining one’s bestie, we have been a little busy around here. At Le Jardin, which is the name of our house, you are never disappointed with the gathering or the menu. The pairing of the guests is equally important as the food itself, and we truly enjoy it all. We also enjoy introducing people to new friends.

Outside cover of my dinner parties journal and pages with notes from a party.

With that said, I have always been a fan of Bunny Mellon, who also liked to entertain but in a simple way. In a recent article in The Wall Street Journal, ‘Her Blooming Influence ’ goes on to cite examples of her influence. Philanthropist, art collector, and horticulturist was a tastemaker extraordinaire whose pursuit of beauty and style still inspires designers and brands today. When you read further about Oak Spring Garden Foundation, you learn in detail how they are keeping her spirit alive. OSGF is an operating foundation dedicated to sharing the gifts and ideas of Rachel “Bunny” Mellon. Its mission is to support and inspire fresh thinking and bold action on the history and future of plants, including the art and culture of plants, gardens and landscapes.

A lush arbor at Oak Spring. Durban Saylor/Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Upperville, VA

Bunny was extraordinary in many ways. At the age of five, she believed ‘gardening is a way of thinking’. She was designing gardens at the age of eleven. Another one of her quotes was ‘nothing goes noticed ‘or ‘nothing should be noticed’. She liked the simple things in life. Heck, listen to what she carried in her purse as reported by her nurse and companion: ‘Her small pink coin purse, ID, tissue, nail file, a pad to write on and a blue flair pen, a small bottle of Smirnoff vodka and, last but not least, a small bouquet of flowers wrapped up to take to her destination’. Reading more about her, I can’t help but see so much of our grandmother, Momo, in her. We learned so much from Momo—her love of life, her wisdom, and especially her appreciation for the beauty of nature. It makes me want to get outside and plant even more flowers and plants!

I'll add the definition for…

Horticulture is the science, art, and practice of growing plants. It focuses on fruits, vegetables, flowers, and decorative green plants. The word comes from Latin words meaning “garden” and “to cultivate”.

Travel

Even the CEO of Booking.com Is Fed Up with Travel These Days. Glenn Fogel notes that travel is one of the most complex transactions. He’s counting on AI to make it better, even those customer-service wait times. In the AI-powered future Fogel envisions, the company will flag in advance whether it will rain on the day of your boat tour or be sunny when you plan to go to the museum. It will ask if you would like to swap days, then handle the changes. We will see…..

Products

Jaye’s Studio – cute gift ideas for the hostess

Red Co Goods – online store for home and kitchen goods

Pa Jia Ni Tissue box – like I needed another one, but it can be used as a storage bag

Lochby – a field sling for carrying art stuff or iPad. Water-resistant waxed canvas, rotating strap, and a one-handed clasp. Lightweight and stylish.

Hummingbird season is almost here. Check this company out: PERKY-PET®: EXPERTS IN BIRDING SINCE 1958

‘Here at perkypet.com, we are happy to provide you with all the tools you need to interact with nature, relax, and build memories that will last a lifetime. Happy bird feeding!’

Friendsheep – spread love not toxins. Dryer balls with a bottle of oil to apply before each use. One tree is planted for every bag sold. Interesting read on the founder of the company. The scented balls really work.

Smallflower - The Original International Apothecary®

My family will tell you I am crazy about a good drugstore, and mother always made sure we had access to a well-thought-of drugstore. I can spend hours in a well-curated one, but nowadays you must travel to New York or Chicago to find them. I am a stickler for my toothpaste, and this store has hit the mark with its selection. I used to order from a store in New York for a Swedish brand of toothpaste that isn’t made anymore.

Merz Apothecary has been a Chicago institution since 1875 and maintains a unique balance between modern (allopathic) medicine and traditional remedies. Now owned by the Qaiyum family, Merz Apothecary and the Shops at Merz operate with the belief that true health involves feeling good mentally, physically, and emotionally.

Despite the growth and attention, the store has not lost its focus on the original apothecary concept. The staff hails from around the world and collectively speaks more than ten languages. Customers seek out the well-trained staff for the 151 years of health and product knowledge it has inherited. The location and people have changed over the years, but Merz Apothecary’s goal has remained the same: providing superior and personal service for each customer’s total well-being.

Abdul Qaiyum and his son, Anthony, founded Smallflower.com in 1998. The challenge here was to meld the Old-World approach and knowledge of Merz Apothecary with the New World technology of e-commerce, without losing the vision and character that make Merz Apothecary special.

Gardenheir -Gardenheir brings together a collection of goods for the discerning gardener. We share the unique understanding that our gardens are in equal measure expressions of enjoyed beauty and uncompromising hard work, so we’ve selected objects that will work hard for you. They celebrate impeccable craftsmanship and practicality, as well as the luxurious, even eccentric, display of good looks to accompany you through all aspects of your cultivated life as a gardener. Long Live the Garden.

They have various hand-picked products to offer from garden, clothing, and apothecary. It isn’t too early to start Christmas shopping.

Art

Josphine Trotter ‘Towards Bralies Hill’ Oil on canvas 36”x48”. Her work sings with color.

Nelleke Van Lomwel ‘The Crossing’ 2026 Acrylic, mineral paint and crayon on linen, 100 × 90 cm.

Mattew Eguavoen ‘It’s not that I don’t like it here’ 2025 Acrylic and oil on canvas.

27 1/8”x23 ¼”

Paul Jenkins ‘Phenomena Gemini Encounter East’ 2001

Acrylic on canvas 73-1/2 x 100-1/2 inches 186.5 x 255 cm

Private collection, New York. I met this artist back in art school

Ernest Proctor ‘Porthgwarra’. Oil on canvas

Alain J. Picard ‘Over the Water’ 9.5x12.5 Pastel

Lucy Nye attempted copy of an Alice Neel painting of ‘Elenka’ 1986 Oil on canvas board

Tidbits:

Ok enough already! Enjoy your weekend. Be safe. Be nice.

Subscribe now

Tootles

RIP Dolly Parton

The world is behind a sensory veil, and what we know of it is based on concepts in our minds rather than on any direct access to reality. Color is the classic case. The color we call red doesn’t exist outside the mind; it is the human brain’s subjective interpretation of certain wavelengths of light reflected off a surface.

Paul Cezanne intuited this when he said.

Color is the place where our brain meets the universe.

Marc Padeu

Marc Padeu, a painter from Cameroon, draws inspiration from Renaissance art brought into an African landscape. The above painting is titled “Sous le poids de la coupe” — under the weight of the cup.

Cameroonian painter Marc Padeu says that being an African artist means “being the heir to an extraordinarily rich history.” But he also says it can mean “living and working on a continent where artistic infrastructure is virtually nonexistent.”

Padeu’s work often takes inspiration from religious paintings from the European Renaissance — but reimagines them, depicting people in Cameroon’s cocoa plantations. London gallery Larkin Durey is currently holding an exhibition of Padeu’s latest work.

By Robbie Griffiths, NPR

In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but how many can get through to you.

- Mortimer Adler

Modernist painter Georgia O’Keeffe on making your vision a reality:

“Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant — there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing.”

Source: Georgia O’Keeffe: Art and Letters​​

“We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question that divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct.”
​— Niels Bohr, Nobel Prize laureate and one of the central contributors to quantum physics. The quote was a response to Wolfgang Pauli after his presentation of Heisenberg’s and Pauli’s nonlinear field theory of elementary particles.

If you do follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open doors to you. I say: follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.

Source: Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth with Bill Moyers

We trade time for money and power, then discover that what we wanted all along was time.

Shane Parrish, Brain Food

Paws on Boards

Stella (right) and Moxy compete in the World Dog Surfing Championships in Pacifica

And… Have a Great Weekend

A competitor rides casually during the Helen Woodward Animal Center’s 18th Annual Surf Dog Surf-A-Thon at Del Mar Dog Beach.

Couldn’t decide on the cover so put them both. Positive and colorful ways to start your day!

Often reminded of the advice to slow down and do it right. Hard to stay focus on the objective when things take SO much time. For example you must prepare yourself and time allotment when calling your doctor which is a minimum an hour. Other everyday examples involve home maintenance, cooking, work and writing, fitness, technology and setup of new items. You should always make the time to do it right the first time.

Making time to do something right means slowing down upfront to save effort, money, and stress later. It replaces rushed, faulty work with careful execution.

Why It Matters

· Reduces Rework: Fixing a rushed mistake always takes longer than doing the job right the first time.

· Builds Trust: High-quality results create lasting value and reliability in personal and professional projects.

· Lowers Stress: Rushing causes panic and mistakes, while deliberate pacing keeps your mind clear.

With football season around the corner why not have some advice from Nick Sabin: (from Garden & Gun August/September) Comments from his upbringing that carried over to his professional life -

· It isn’t about the win it is about doing the best that you could. ‘Did you do as well as you’re capable of doing?’

· If you don’t have enough time to do it right do you have enough time to do it over?

So always ask yourself, ‘do I have enough time to accomplish this task?’

Art and Architecture

Current obsession the dirty sink paintings of Helene Appel (b. 1976) – Rose Florence .

‘Queens Green’ Georgina Hoby Scutt. Interesting read about her life and other stories: Shepherdess – Light on the Land.

One of the places she lived was “L’Eixample” which means “The Extension.” The district was developed to connect the original city of Barcelona with the surrounding towns of Sarrià and Gràcia. It’s a huge barrio (neighborhood) with many different faces, but if you spend a few days there, you’ll soon be able to recognize them all. L’Eixample is a famous, central district in Barcelona, Spain, built in the late 19th century. It is known for its strict grid layout, octagonal street corners, and stunning Catalan Modernist architecture, including masterpieces by Antoni Gaudí like the Sagrada Família and Casa Batlló.

Ariel view of L’Eixample

Gustav Vigeland (1869–1943) was a famous Norwegian sculptor. He is most known for the Vigeland Museum and the huge sculpture park in Frogner Park in Oslo, Norway, which features more than 200 stone, bronze, and iron works. Gustav Vigeland’s life work is a fascinating story and shared the artist’s name with a friend that was traveling recently in the area. Here is her photo:

The steps leading up to The Monolith, which stands at the highest point in Vigeland Park, and measures 17 meters above ground. The sculpture is carved out of one stone block, hence the name. The stone was originally shot out of the quarry in Iddefjord, Norway, and transported to the park during the late 1920s.

The sculpture depicts 121 human figures clinging and floating together. There are women and men of different ages, and the top of the Monolith is crowned with children. The sculpture has been interpreted as a kind of vision of resurrection, and our longing and striving for spirituality.

Model of the park

Close up view

The sculpture park is Gustav Vigeland’s life work, comprising over 200 sculptures in granite, bronze and wrought iron. It was installed mainly in the period 1940-1949 but is nevertheless a result of over 40 years of work. The starting point for the park is Vigeland’s Fountain, which was originally meant to be placed at Eidsvolls Plass in front of the Parliament. These plans were never realized, and the Fountain later became part of Vigeland’s more extensive park plans. Vigeland was also the designer of the Nobel Peace Prize medal.

Stanislaw Kamocki (1875-1944) ‘Flowers in Front of a Cottage’ Oil on canvas

Henri Edmond Cross (1856-1910) ‘Venice’ Watercolor over black chalk

Elizabeth Lennie ‘First Swim’ 2022 Oil on canvas

Foodie

From one of the Co-Founders at Made in, Chip sends emails about their product develop. Here is a portion from a recent email:

Shokunin.

‘In Japanese, it describes a maker who dedicates their entire life to mastering a single discipline. Not a career. A life. The shokunin soba maker in Osaka has been making the same noodle for forty years. He is not bored. He is getting closer. Anyone who has seen Jiro Dreams of Sushi knows what I am talking about.

What has happened over the past decade, though, is that ethos has expanded from Japanese culinary tradition to a global food focus, and it’s incredible.

The seventh-best restaurant in the world right now, Sézanne, is a French restaurant. It’s in Tokyo. Chef Calvert spent years training in France, came home, and made French cuisine more precise and enriched by the local influence. Sean Brock, a Made In customer and one of the most serious American chefs alive, just opened a Japanese pizza concept in Nashville, because he became obsessed with Japanese pizza dough in Osaka. People argue, sorry Tri-State area, sorry Italy, that the best pizza dough in the world currently comes from Japan.’ Look into Sho Pizza Bar, Nashville.’

​

Product

Made In – recent purchase and my review I sent:

Stemless Crystal Wine Glasses

¼ Sheet Pan Ceramic Non-Stick Coating

Stainless Clad Kadai pan

Stainless Steel Gratin Dish

Made In x Jacobsen Salt Co. Sudachi Citrus Salt that is great on fish.

And more stemless glasses……

My review:

Made In has truly revolutionized my kitchen experience with their exceptional range of products. From my very first order to my latest acquisitions—a sheet pan, stemless wine glasses, and a stainless clad kadai pan—I’ve consistently been impressed by the quality and functionality of each item.

Quality and Design

Each product is crafted with the home chef in mind, striking a perfect balance between durability and aesthetic appeal. The sheet pan has proven to be a workhorse, delivering even heating and easy cleanup. The stemless wine glasses are not only stylish but also practical, making them a great addition to any gathering. And the stainless clad kadai pan? It’s become my go-to for everything from stir-fries to slow-cooked stews, showcasing both versatility and performance.

Innovation and Variety

What stands out most is Made In’s commitment to innovation. Just when I think I’ve found everything I need, they introduce new items that pique my interest. It’s exciting to see a brand that continuously develops products that cater to the evolving needs of home chefs.

Customer Service

Their customer service has been outstanding, always responsive and eager to assist. It’s refreshing to engage with a company that values its customers and genuinely cares about their satisfaction.

Gift Idea

I wholeheartedly recommend Made In products, whether for wedding presents or for anyone just starting out in the culinary world. Their items make for thoughtful and practical gifts that any cook would appreciate.

In summary, I can’t thank Made In enough for enhancing my cooking experience. Keep up the fantastic work—I can’t wait to see what you come up with next!

Misc. finds

And last

Enjoy your weekend, touch base with friends and get outside! It really isn’t that hot, and good sweat is good for you.

Subscribe now

From our friends at Cleveland Clinic:

Yes, sweating is good for you because it is your body’s natural way to cool down and stop you from getting too hot. However, it is a myth that sweat cleans out heavy toxins; your liver and kidneys do that job. Sweating also helps push out dirt from your pores and releases natural germ-fighting peptides.

tootles

Georgia O’Keeffe at Home

I went up to Abiquiu to visit Georgia O’Keeffe’s Home. A meditative and beautiful place.

Every year they take cuttings from a Jade plant that resides in O’Keeffe’s home. There was one cutting left which I took home with me.

Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.

- Vincent van Gogh

Members of the press photograph a dead mouse caught by Larry the cat, Chief Mouser to the U.K. Cabinet Office, during incoming Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s first cabinet meeting at Number 10 Downing Street, in London, on July 21, 2026.

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.

- William James

Alexander Calder at Work

Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.

- Rainer Maria Rilke

Our earth is degenerate in these latter days; bribery and corruption are common; children no longer obey their parents; every man wants to write a book, and the end of the world is evidently approaching.

Assyrian tablet, c 2,800 BC

Ian Fleming who wrote the James Bond series describes his typical writing day.

Morning Routine

• 7:30 AM: Wake up with the birds, take a morning swim in the ocean, then eat breakfast (scrambled eggs) and relax in the garden until 10:00 AM.

• 10:00 AM: Sit down at the desk to write exactly 1,500 words straight through without looking back or editing.

• 12:15 PM: Go snorkeling in the bay to look for lobsters, returning for lunch paired with a couple of pink gins. [1]

Afternoon Routine

• 2:30 PM to 4:00 PM: Take a traditional afternoon siesta.

• 4:00 PM: Spend an hour sitting in the garden, followed by a second afternoon swim.

• 5:00 PM: Write the final 500 words, number the pages, file them into a folder, and reward yourself with a couple of strong drinks. [1]

Reliable people don't just keep promises, they remove uncertainty from other people’s lives.

Shane Parrish, Brain Food

Pickle Ball Courts

Geometry of Play a civic space located in Pittsburgh’s Cultural District.

Have a Good Weekend

Christine

The correct answer is: When inanimate objects seem hostile, uncooperative, or as if they have a deliberate plan to frustrate and rule your life, the humorous term for this perceived malice is resistentialism. In broader psychological contexts, assigning human intentions, personalities, or control to non-living things is known as anthropomorphism or object personification. Wikipedia.

Well sort of and we all do it. The movie that first comes to mind that demonstrates this is John Carpenter’s Christine. How was the name assigned to the car used? According to Stephen King, he selected the 1958 Plymouth Fury for Christine because the model was a “forgotten car” and its name seemed to fit her angry disposition.

And why not have nicknames for things that protect us, have a mind of its own, or bring us pleasure.

Charlie Nye

The example I am talking about is my own car a 2023 Mercedes GLS 450. The name I assign/call the car is Charlie, short for its charcoal color. The navigation system, that directs me everywhere is calls Mercedes or Benz. I truly feel Charlie is there to protect me as on a recent morning as I was backing up in a parking lot and the car abruptly braked. I am thinking here it must have sensed that I wasn’t paying attention (eye movement) and did the hard brake. This has happened before when in reverse. You feel like you just hit a large tree. While driving forward if my eyes start to wander it sounds an alarm.

I do talk to Charlie and explain where we are going if on a trip. Charlie protects me. There is a ponytail palm located next to the driveway and at first, he would warn me every time I backed up. I in turned moved the plant yet when I back up now, I scream ‘PONY”. Charlie likes that!

Now Mercedes (directional queen and Charlie’s girlfriend) on the other hand does a good job in getting me to and from places. Still learning my way around here and one time the ‘turn’ wasn’t noted properly and my detour resulted in a 45-minute delay. Probably because the map isn’t updated with our new bridge. However, the other day while in Houston she was attempting to get us to the correct place (Costco Business Center) and Tracy didn’t think it was going the right way. They had a fight in the car and he told her off. He doesn’t like Mercedes nor does he trust her. Time to update the map.

So, a simple reminder: A car is a non-living, manufactured machine that serves as an everyday inanimate object. It consists of various static and mechanical components designed for transportation. But please don’t tell Charlie and Mercedes that.

And yes, I am crazy!

They other thing that comes to mind is our beloved Alexa. ‘Amazon Alexa, or simply Alexa, is a virtual assistant technology marketed by Amazon and implemented in software applications for smart phones, tablets, wireless smart speakers, and other electronic appliances and at Alexa.com.’ Wikipedia. She really is more Tracy’s friend than mine and I often refer to her as his girlfriend. I came downstair the other day and the music was odd. I asked why and he stated she was mad at him and was playing Hispanic music. He went on to say that he would be having a meeting with her the next day.

So, this is life.

A fun hobby I have is capturing words from articles that pique my interest. Here is one of the articles on Remembering John Reoch - as told to Tim Roger - Interview with Richard Patterson. Colorful person from Dallas that recently passed. The collection of words I noted:

Just slam it

Straight photography

No cell phone just a notepad and pen

Polite laughter

Avail myself

Intrusive

Costume change

Making a bigger statement

He pollinates the entire place

Louche - suggest nakedness

On the move

Expounding art

Enters the room with great fanfare

Something wonderful

Art

LA Monumental at The Ranch, Montauk. Meditating Figure, 2026 - Made from 12 Shipping Containers.12 containers. 12 million miles. One meditating figure.

This incredible sculpture by artist Matt Johnson is made from 12 de-commissioned shipping containers. Fun fact from the artist: each container logs about a million miles before retiring. Together, that’s ∼12 million miles — about 500 times around the Earth.

On view at The Ranch, Montauk, NY. Show opened Saturday 6/27, 3-7pm - 8 Old Montauk Highway.

Matt Johnson is an artist based in Los Angeles. Johnson was born in New York City. He is a sculptor who creates humorous works out of everyday materials. His art has been compared to that of Tom Friedman and Charles Ray for its innovative manipulation of objects. Wikipedia

Art or architecture? What do you see?

Another Texas artist mention in the article along with Matt is Nancy Rubins.

Nancy Rubins, Friends of Pluto, 2026. Aluminum canoes, Jon Boats, rowboats, stainless steel armature, stainless steel wire cable. 396 × 528 × 396 inches. Courtesy Max Levai Gallery / The Ranch and the artist. © Nancy Rubins. Photo: Ollin Culbert.

Rubins did a similar sculpture at UT Austin in 2015 title ‘Monochrome for Austin’.

Opening July 31^st at LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe. Jivan Lee ‘Ghost Ranch at Sunrise’ Oil on panel 48”x48”

‘Up close Jivan Lee’s paintings celebrate paint for paint’s sake – luscious, colorful, moldable. When viewed at a distance, the paintings collect into studies of light, architecture, and landscape – a transformation that highlights the relationships between raw material and familiar image.’

His work reminds me of another artist and gallery that is representing the estate of Louisa McElwain by Evoke Contemporary: Louisa McElwain. Watch a couple of two short films that explains her methods in painting. She left our earth way too soon (2013), but Jivan has the same approach. Jivan paints out the back of his truck like she did.

Louisa McElwain Ghost Ranch, Shining Stone Oil on canvas · 54” x 62”

Sylvia Benitez

Sylvia Benitez is the recipient of two Pollock-Krasner Foundation awards: 1997 and 2000, an Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Individual Support Grant: 2011, an AICA award for her exterior sculpture installation Puerto Rico: 1997, two National Endowment for the Arts Visiting Artist Fellowships: Abington Art Center, PA 2008, and Escuela des Arte Plasticas, San Juan PR 2001. Other fellowships include the MacDowell Colony: 1984 & 1985, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts: 1999, Sculpture Space, 1998, The Vermont Studio Center, 2003, the Ucross Foundation, 1993, Manhattan Graphics Center 1991, Yaddo, 1984 and Altos De Chavon, Dominican Republic 1984. She is the founder and president of The Gentileschi Aegis Gallery Association. gagaart.org

​

Pop up artist (again) but focus on his discipline.

Itsuo Kobayashi, Untitled (Pop-up Paintings) 2018–19.

Photo courtesy of Kushino Terrace, Fukuyama, Japan

Some meals leave an impression—you might remember the cherry pie your grandma always made or a multi-course dinner consisting of toast and caviar, a mound of shaved truffle topping pasta, and wagyu tartare. Rather than solely rely on his memory to envision the fare he’s enjoyed, though, Japanese chef Itsuo Kobayashi has been painting and describing in detail the dishes he’s eaten for the past 32 years in a series of notebooks and standalone works. Interesting read about him and apparently he practices drawing every day.

Daniele Barresi, Avocado Art. Courtesy of Daniele Barresi.

Avocados are great for your heart, brain, skin, hair, and gut, but Italian artist Daniele Barresi has found another use for the popular fruit. He uses the green flesh as his canvas to create incredibly intricate avocado carvings. His food sculptures are so impressive that they’ve even earned him awards. He’s the two-time world champion carving designer of WACS championship (both 2013 and 2014) and in 2015, he was invited back to be one of the judges of the contest.

T. S. Harris Still Water 2018 Oil on Canvas

In her paintings, T.S. Harris presents a dazzling aqueous vision that merges the past with the present.

Subscribe now

Chill out during our hottest days to come. Have a fantastic weekend.

Thank you all!

tootles……

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”
​— Anaïs Nin​

Our Aging Brain

Brain shrinkage is just one of many processes that occur in the older brain, some of which, as we shall see, actually bring remarkable benefits. The most obvious change is with certain kinds of memory. There are actually four kinds of memory:

Semantic Memory is general knowledge about the world, everything from who Isaac Newton was, to what a bagel tastes like, and where your office is—all the kinds of basic facts and meanings that computers and robots don’t understand. Thankfully, in normal brain aging, this huge knowledge base not only remains generally stable in an older adult but can continue to grow as a person learns more.

Procedural Memory is knowledge of how to do things. How do you get dressed in the morning? How do you ride a bike? Once learned, procedural memories tend to remain solid as a rock. Performance does tend to fall off with age due to the natural slowing of reflexes, although as of this writing, seventy-six-year-old Morgan Shepherd is still competing as a NASCAR driver.

Episodic Memory is your recollection of events. Where did you go to kindergarten? When did you first meet your spouse? What did you eat for breakfast yesterday? And where did you leave the keys? This is the one that tends to naturally weaken with age. In fact, episodic memory peaks in your mid twenties and then slowly declines throughout life. That’s why you still remember the words to songs from when you were a teenager but barely remember the plot of a movie you saw last year. Fortunately, our phones can help catalog and retrieve much of this type of memory.

Working Memory is the brain’s workspace, where you can hold and manipulate a handful of facts and figures in your head. The reason multiplying 36 by 42 in your head is so difficult is that your working memory has limits—and the older you get, the tighter your limits. That’s why mathematicians, musicians, and physicists tend to do their most important work when they’re young . . . and why once-simple tasks get progressively more difficult with age. This the type of memory, which facilitates multitasking and juggling life’s responsibilities, is the type of memory most healthy people want to optimize. Working memory plus creativity is the key to productivity. Brain-training companies and programs are paying a lot of attention to keeping working memory at peak levels.

Jandial, Rahul, Life Lessons From A Brain Surgeon: Practical Strategies for Peak Health and Performance

That Internal Sense of Ourselves

Even when the world around us seems quiet, our insides are bustling. Much of the time we’re unaware of the tumult within — of cells shifting shapes, organs releasing chemicals, or blood vessels dilating. But sometimes a signal breaks through, and we feel a pang of hunger, a fullness of the bladder, or a racing heartbeat. It’s a call from the body to the mind that something’s off, a plea for a return to balance.

This type of sensation has a name: interoception, which is loosely defined as the perception of internal signals from the body. While the five commonly recognized senses — sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell — help us understand the world around us, interoception processes information from the heart, gut, lungs, and more as our internal organs interact with the brain.

What the researchers found was that during slow, controlled breathing, signals coming from multiple areas of the brain were more in sync with each other than during regular breathing. They concluded: “Our findings imply a fundamental role of breathing-related oscillations(Mindful Breathing) in driving neuronal activity and provide insight into the neuronal mechanisms of interoceptive attention.” (Interoception, sometimes considered a “sixth sense,” is the perception of one’s own body and its functioning.) This study is proof of the neurobiology underlying the mind-calming effects of paced volitional breathing, commonly known as mindful breathing.

Jandial, Rahul . Life Lessons From A Brain Surgeon: Practical Strategies for Peak Health and Performance

What is mindful breathing?

The idea is simply to focus your attention on your breathing—to its natural rhythm and flow and the way it feels on each inhale and exhale. Focusing on the breath is particularly helpful because it serves as an anchor–something you can turn your attention to at any time if you start to feel stressed or carried away by negative emotions.

Achievements are great. It is satisfying to accomplish something. It feels good to win. And many achievements make the world a better place, too.

But also remember to ask, “What am I really trying to accomplish here?” You may realize the goal is not to write a best-selling book or earn that promotion or get into medical school, but rather to build a life you enjoy. And there are many versions of a life you enjoy.

James Clear

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

- George Bernard Shaw

Enid Marx – textile designer, printmaker, artist and illustrator

Author Jim Murphy(Inner Excellence) on deceiving ourselves:

One of the biggest mistakes we make in our stories is confusing our circumstances with our thoughts about those circumstances.

Have a great weekend.

The World’s Largest Popup Book

Me at the pool with one of my BFF’s.

Not really but I got you to laugh!

With changes in our lives, it is a good practice to have defined routines to ensure happiness. This applies to not only if you are retired, change in life status such as a loss of a loved one or just a good habit in general.

Happy retirees successfully transition from working to thriving by establishing daily routines, prioritizing physical and mental health, and fostering new social connections. They stay curious, find clear purpose beyond their careers, protect their financial basics, and set boundaries to focus on what brings them joy. (Kingsview Partners)

Here are some effective practices to consider:

1. Prioritize Physical Health

Instead of letting themselves go, thriving retirees make consistent movement and healthy eating intentional. Whether it is swimming, joining walking groups, or taking up sports like pickleball, they stay active to preserve mobility and energy.

2. Foster Strong Social Connections

Leaving the workforce often shrinks built-in social networks. Happy retirees actively combat isolation by nurturing existing friendships, volunteering, and building new communities to stay engaged with people. (Constant Contact)

3. Establish a Daily Routine

Without the structure of a 9-to-5 job, days can easily lack direction. Successful retirees create daily rhythms that mix productive tasks, hobbies, and downtime, keeping them motivated and busy. (Haws Federal Advisors)

4. Never Stop Learning

The happiest retirees keep their minds sharp and fight boredom by committing to lifelong learning. They take classes, read extensively, travel, or learn new skills to challenge their brains. (Constant Contact)

5. Find a Clear Sense of Purpose

Work often provides a major source of identity and meaning. Retirees who report high life satisfaction deliberately cultivate new passions, such as mentoring, gardening, or part-time consulting, giving them a reason to wake up excited. (Kingsview Partners)

6. Protect Financial Basics

Constant money stress drains the joy from retirement. Happy retirees manage their withdrawals carefully, maintain a budget, and protect their assets—sometimes by bringing in a professional planner to secure their nest egg. (Haws Federal Advisors)

7. Set Boundaries and Say No

Unlike during their working years, retirees have complete control over their time. The happiest ones know how to set boundaries with loved ones and community obligations, so they aren’t overworked or over-committed. (Haws Federal Advisors)

In summary I do ok with the guidelines above and working on # 6 & 7. Just booked trip to Costa Rica for next year and on a buying spree. I still am caught volunteering around here but that has settled down a bit. Good points to consider even if you are not retired.

To address the question of what you do now that you’re retired, let’s explore some titles that better illustrate ‘who’ you are at this stage. Here are the updated titles that capture my current identity:

My current title: Artist, Gardener, Writer, Socialite and Fitness Enthusiast, IT Manager and Domestic Technician.

Fancier version:

· Artist: Visual Arts Innovator or Creative Expressionist

· Gardener: Landscape Artisan or Horticultural Designer

· Writer: Literary Creator or Narrative Architect

· Socialite: Cultural Connector or Social Engagement Strategist

· Fitness Enthusiast: Wellness Advocate or Physical Vitality Specialist

· IT Manager: Technology Solutions Director or Digital Infrastructure Strategist

· Domestic Technician: Home Management Specialist or Residential Operations Expert

You can try it as well. Come up with your titles and then have AI dress it up. For example, this is the list for one of my besties:

Her current titles I came up with: Chef, Housekeeper, Master Gardener, Logistic Manager, Travel Agent, Dog Whisperer, and Relocation Facilitator.

Translates to:( the ones in bold are the ones I would select.)

· Chef: Culinary Artist or Gastronomic Specialist

· Housekeeper: Domestic Operations Coordinator or Residential Care Specialist

· Master Gardener: Horticultural Expert or Botanical Curator

· Logistic Manager: Supply Chain Strategist or Operations Architect

· Travel Agent: Travel Consultant or Journey Design Specialist

· Dog Whisperer: Canine Behavior Specialist or Animal Communication Expert

· Relocation Facilitator: Transition Consultant or Mobility Solutions Advisor

So much fun. Use your new titles in conversation and borrow some of the above as am sure several of you out there do have similar titles. I feel elevated with my new titles.

Products

Water filtration system AquaTru - water you can trust. Results you can taste.

I recently purchased this compact purifier with a glass pitcher, and the water really does taste different. It’s perfect for smaller households:

• Sleek design with 64 oz. carafe

• 4-stage Ultra Reverse Osmosis® filtration

• No installation or plumbing required

Living in a small town affords several delightful things but a good water supply it does not. Was wanting to be rid of the grocery store system (Brita) as it didn’t seem effective so I investigated a unit that would be compact. The only drawback so far is the carafe is a little smaller than I thought but I can get buy an additional carafe for back up.

More on water….

With the water issue upon up we are always looking to save water. For example, the water in the flower vases goes to the garden as does the water from the above water filtration system goes in the yard. In the shower we have a button on the showerhead to ‘pause’ the water but there still is water that is wasted when you wait for the water to heat up. I considered a bucket but haven’t taken that step. Found the Sevas water catcher that saves water while the water heats up.

Meet the SEVAS Water Catcher, the purpose designed water catcher that helps you save water while waiting for your shower to heat up and then becomes a watering can. By catching and reusing this clean wasted water, you can reduce your household water usage up to 1800 litres a year using SEVAS just once a day. An average household can save over 7,000L a year. Sustainably produced with 100% recyclable materials and packaging, if you are a passionate gardener, care about your footprint or live in dry conditions, this is the product for you.

New title: “Residential Wellness Coordinator” or “Home Sustainability Consultant”

Art Openings

Lisette McClung – Archway Galleries Houston, Texas Road Trips, paintings by Lisette McClung August 1 to September 3, 2026

Opening Reception, Saturday, August 1, 2026, 5 -8pm Artist’s Talk at 6:30 p.m.

Home Design from Huckberry: The One Stop Men’s Shop

· Inside This Architect’s Self Designed Urban Sanctuary

· An Austin Musician’s Bohemian Bungalow – Scott Ballew

‘You can learn a whole lot about someone by the way they make their home. It’s why, long after they’re gone, we leave some homes exactly as they are. Their homes are portals of understanding what obsessions drove a person to make what they make.

With Huckberry Homes, we sought out the individuals whose homes are an extension of themselves. These homes are carefully designed, thoughtfully curated, one-of-a-kind abodes that gesture at the flow between all facets of a creative lifestyle. Nary a detail has been overlooked or an opportunity to add a little flourish. With these homes, we found people whose living space is an extension of their style - appointed to their respective crafts and made up of such beautiful details that like a great work of art, it becomes more than the sum of its parts.’

Follow Scott’s ethos: “Start early, pull the trigger on something that moves you - there are no rules but the ones you create. Inevitably it’ll be unique.”

Books Recommendations

The Big Rich: The Rise and Fall of the Greatest Texas Oil Fortunes is the fifth book by Bryan Burrough, published in 2009. The book tells the story of four Texas oil men and their families that made large fortunes in the oil industry: Hugh Roy Cullen, Clint Murchison, Sid Richardson and H.L. Hunt.

If the Devil Had a Wife – Interesting read here as this is about The Stark family out of Orange, Texas. As you will learn, the book reflects the true story of the author’s grandfather -- H. J. Lutcher Stark -- and his fate after marrying a third time. Considered one of the richest men in the South, he was credited with naming the Texas Longhorns, building Memorial Stadium, and serving on the University of Texas Board of Regents longer than anyone before or since.

I do remember the portrait of the author’s grandmother that hung in the President’s suite at UT Austin. I was told that that the painting was augmented to make her look taller in the painting as she was a woman of short stature.

After 13 years of research, interviews and writing that covered more than 450,000 documents, selecting an author’s name for ‘If the Devil Had a Wife’ was simple for Rebecca Stark Nugent: use Frank Mills, the name her father was given at birth before he was adopted. After all, this was his story, not hers.

Ps An interesting read about a relative of mine that was hired by the Stark family to build a saw mill. They established a lumber mill and a new town called Wiergate. Read the brief history here. My mother’s first name was Wier. Small world.

Recipe

Alfredo Chicken Bacon Ravioli – easy, quick, and yummy

Recent purchase at the Rockport Center for the Arts Festival

Carol Fox Henrichs ‘Patriotic Sunrise’ Printed on metal.

Joey Blazek ‘Mary Kay Reef’ 36”x36” Original sold and this is a print

Subscribe now

Enjoy your weekend. Hugs to you all and be nice to one another

Thanks for checking in with us!

Tootles

Our Umwelt

Imagine an elephant in a room. This elephant is not the proverbial weighty issue but an actual weighty mammal. Now imagine a mouse has scurried in, too. A robin hops alongside it. An owl perches on an overhead beam. A bat hangs upside down from the ceiling. A rattlesnake slithers along the floor. A spider has spun a web in a corner. A mosquito buzzes through the air. A bumblebee sits upon a potted sunflower.

Finally, in the midst of this increasingly crowded hypothetical space, add a human. Let’s call her Rebecca. She’s sighted, curious, and (thankfully) fond of animals.

The elephant raises its trunk like a periscope, the rattlesnake flicks out its tongue, and the mosquito cuts through the air with its antennae. All three are smelling the space around them, taking in the floating scents. The elephant sniffs nothing of note. The rattlesnake detects the trail of the mouse, and coils its body in ambush. The mosquito smells the alluring carbon dioxide on Rebecca’s breath and the aroma of her skin. It lands on her arm, ready for a meal, but before it can bite, she swats it away—and her slap disturbs the mouse. It squeaks in alarm, at a pitch that is audible to the bat but too high for the elephant to hear. The elephant, meanwhile, unleashes a deep, thunderous rumble too low-pitched for the mouse’s ears or the bat’s but felt by the vibration-sensitive belly of the rattlesnake.

Rebecca, who is oblivious to both the ultrasonic mouse squeaks and the infrasonic elephant rumbles, listens instead to the robin, which is singing at frequencies better suited to her ears. But her hearing is too slow to pick out all the complexities that the bird encodes within its tune.

The robin’s chest looks red to Rebecca but not to the elephant, whose eyes are limited to shades of blue and yellow.

The bumblebee can’t see red, either, but it is sensitive to the ultraviolet hues that lie beyond the opposite end of the rainbow.

The sunflower it sits upon has at its center an ultraviolet bullseye, which grabs the attention of both the bird and the bee. The bullseye is invisible to Rebecca, who thinks the flower is only yellow. Her eyes are the sharpest in the room; unlike the elephant or the bee, she can spot the small spider sitting upon its web.

But she stops seeing much of anything when the lights in the room go out. Plunged into darkness, Rebecca walks slowly forward, arms outstretched, hoping to feel obstacles in her way.

The mouse does the same but with the whiskers on its face, which it sweeps back and forth several times a second to map its surroundings. As it skitters between Rebecca’s feet, its footsteps are too faint for her to hear, but they are easily audible to the owl perched overhead. The disc of stiff feathers on the owl’s face funnels sounds toward its sensitive ears, one of which is slightly higher than the other. Thanks to this asymmetry, the owl can pinpoint the source of the mouse’s skittering in both the vertical and horizontal planes.

All of this commotion goes unnoticed by the spider, which barely hears or sees the participants. Its world is almost entirely defined by the vibrations coursing through its web—a self-made trap that acts as an extension of its senses. When the mosquito strays into the silken strands, the spider detects the telltale vibrations of struggling prey and moves in for the kill. But as it attacks, it is unaware of the high-frequency sound waves that are hitting its body and bouncing back to the creature that sent them—the bat.

The bat’s sonar is so acute that it not only finds the spider in the dark but pinpoints it precisely enough to pluck it from its web. As the bat feeds, the robin feels a familiar attraction that most of the other animals cannot sense. The days are getting colder, and it is time to migrate to warmer southern climes.

Even within the enclosed gym, the robin can feel Earth’s magnetic field, and, guided by its internal compass, it points due south and escapes through a window. It leaves behind one elephant, one bat, one bumblebee, one rattlesnake, one slightly ruffled owl, one extremely fortunate mouse, and one Rebecca. These seven creatures share the same physical space but experience it in wildly and wondrously different ways.

But every animal can only tap into a small fraction of reality’s fullness. Each is enclosed within its own unique sensory bubble, perceiving but a tiny sliver of an immense world. — There is a wonderful word for this sensory bubble—Umwelt.

It was defined and popularized by the Baltic-German zoologist Jakob von Uexküll in 1909. Umwelt comes from the German word for “environment,” but Uexküll didn’t use it simply to refer to an animal’s surroundings. Instead, an Umwelt is specifically the part of those surroundings that an animal can sense and experience—its perceptual world.

Like the occupants of our imaginary room, a multitude of creatures could be standing in the same physical space and have completely different Umwelten. A tick, questing for mammalian blood, cares about body heat, the touch of hair, and the odor of butyric acid that emanates from skin. These three things constitute its Umwelt.

Our Umwelt is still limited; it just doesn’t feel that way. To us, it feels all-encompassing. It is all that we know, and so we easily mistake it for all there is to know. This is an illusion, and one that every animal shares. We cannot sense the faint electric fields that sharks and platypuses can. We are not privy to the magnetic fields that robins and sea turtles detect. We can’t trace the invisible trail of a swimming fish the way a seal can. We can’t feel the air currents created by a buzzing fly the way a wandering spider does. Our ears cannot hear the ultrasonic calls of rodents and hummingbirds or the infrasonic calls of elephants and whales. Our eyes cannot see the infrared radiation that rattlesnakes detect or the ultraviolet light that the birds and the bees can sense. Even when animals share the same senses with us, their Umwelten can be very different.

Yong, Ed. An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us

Johnny Cash, letter to June Carter Cash, 23rd June 1994

“We get old and get used to each other. We think alike. We read each others minds. We know what the other wants without asking. Sometimes we irritate each other a little bit. Maybe sometimes take each other for granted. But once in awhile, like today, I meditate on it and realize how lucky I am to share my life with the greatest woman I ever met. You still fascinate and inspire me. You influence me for the better. You’re the object of my desire, the #1 Earthly reason for my existence. I love you very much.”

So much advantage in life comes from being willing to look like an idiot in the short term.

Shane Parrish, Farnum Street

Learn to love the interruptions.

Find the fun in the delay, the humor in the challenge, the pleasure in the daily commute.

A great deal of life is spent dealing with interruptions and waiting for the conditions to turn. We think, “If I can just get past this, then things will open up.” But the interruption is not standing between you and your life. It is your life.

Yes, I prefer hassle-free days too. But you’ll rarely find a situation that is all bad. There are little pockets of joy folded inside the annoyances we face. There is always fun to be had, if you go looking for it.

This is one of the arts of living. It’s the art of enjoying the imperfect days. It’s the art of making all the moments count.

James Clear, 3-2-1: On feeling stuck, chasing your dreams, and the secret to life

For contemporary artist LéAna Clifton, the rugged landscape of far West Texas became the muse for her new exhibition titled Marfa Daydream, now on view at Veldt Gallery in Marfa, Texas, through September 26.

Living without Resolution

Maybe some days you feel your true centre of gravity is your creative work, while on other days it’s home life. Maybe you crave closeness in relationships and then, the moment you get it, start missing the sweetness of solitude. The lack of resolution feels like a problem that needs solving. But have you considered the possibility that the only problem is your belief that such tensions might ever get resolved?

You could instead try living “without hope of resolution… [and] if that phrase doesn’t wash over your whole tortured mind like a cool breeze, I don’t think you’re yet internalizing how beautiful and liberating it is.”

Living without hope of resolution is liberating because it removes a terrible weight from your actions and decisions – the weight that arises from the feeling that they must always be moving you toward some settled state. (Which often just leads to procrastination, since you’re unsure which action would be most helpful for getting you there.) It frees your past actions, too, from being judged a waste of time or a blind alley, simply because they seemed to be headed in a different direction from the one you’re now embarked upon. A relationship you’re no longer in, for example, wasn’t necessarily a mistake, just because you’re no longer in it.

Oliver Burkeman, The Imperfectionist

Pueblo Colorado Levee Mural Project

Have a wonderful weekend.

Children with physical and intellectual disabilities receive treatment and recognition at the Future Children Center in Cairo, Egypt, pictured on June 30, 2026. The center provides physical therapy and rehabilitation services tailored to each child’s individual needs, aiming to improve motor skills, enhance mobility, and support their integration into daily life.

USA Flag Abstract Art - Flag Print East Urban Home

Happy Birthday America

This past week in Rockport has been a vibrant tapestry of birthdays and celebrations, culminating in an exciting crescendo as we gear up for the Fourth of July! Each day, the energy has been infectious, drawing larger crowds eager to join in the festivities. Tonight, the art center will host its much-anticipated annual gala, setting the stage for a weekend filled with creativity and inspiration at the art festival. Under the festive tent, we’ll be celebrating the arts and discovering unique pieces to take home. With the holiday weekend just around the corner, it’s clear that many are choosing to soak up the sun and joy on our beautiful coast.

In appreciation……

Karen and I want to take a moment to truly express our heartfelt appreciation for all our readers and supporters. During our recent two-week break, it became even more evident just how much you all mean to us. Hearing from several of you—some I hadn’t connected with in a while—reminded me of the strong community we’ve built together.

Your feedback and engagement are invaluable; they help us ensure we’re delivering the information that truly matters to you. It’s essential for us to know what resonates, what you find useful, and how we can continue to serve you better.

And honestly, I missed you all more than I realized! Your thoughts and interactions fuel our passion and commitment to providing quality content. Thank you for being an integral part of this journey; we’re excited to continue sharing and growing together! Let’s rock it!

Authenticity

A gentle reminder to embrace honesty with yourselves and cultivate authenticity—it truly leads to a more fulfilling life. Self-honesty involves peeling back the layers of denial to confront your genuine feelings, motives, and limitations, all without the weight of judgment. This practice forms the bedrock of authentic living and fosters emotional growth.

When you commit to being honest with yourself, you embark on an inward journey. This journey requires acknowledging your true thoughts and emotions, even when they provoke discomfort. It’s about cultivating self-awareness without the cushion of denial, which empowers you to recognize your genuine desires and shortcomings. By taking full accountability for your life, you create space for personal growth and transformation.

Consider this a mental checkup—an essential practice to periodically assess your emotional landscape. Just as you would visit a doctor for physical health, regularly tuning into your mental and emotional well-being can help you steer clear of denial and confusion.

Honesty with yourself allows for:

•Clarity: Understanding your true feelings leads to better decision-making.

•Empowerment: Acknowledging your flaws and strengths gives you control over your life choices.

•Connection: Authenticity fosters deeper relationships, as you present your true self to others.

•Growth: Recognizing areas for improvement opens avenues for personal development.

In essence, embracing self-honesty isn’t just about confronting discomfort; it’s about paving the way for a more authentic and enriched life. Regularly checking in with yourself can be a transformative practice that fosters a deeper connection with your inner self. What steps can you take today to cultivate this honesty in your life?

On to fun stuff…...

Products

Face creams

I recently caught up with a dear friend I hadn’t seen in a little while, and I couldn’t help but notice how radiant her skin looked. Curious about her glowing complexion, I asked her what she was doing differently. She generously shared the names of two products she’s been using, both of which are available on Amazon.

One of the products is from Weleda, which she uses twice a week, and she mentioned that it has made a noticeable difference in her skin’s appearance. The other product is made in France, while the first is from Germany. If you’re looking to enhance your own skincare routine, these might be worth checking out! Both afforable.

Weleda Skin Food Original Ulta-Rich Cream

Embroyisse Lait-Crème Concentre

East End Press

Hand printed goods: Assortment of ornaments for a tree and the face mask would be fun at a dinner party. Check it out

Birdmoss –

Folklore inspired treasures for dreamer and one-of-a-kind gifts. The candle carousel below caught my eye as our grandmother (Momo) had a similar one in her home and then we had a wooden version in our home. Brought back memories.

Candle Carousel

Four intricate Foxes and silvery stars adorn this whimsical carousel. Powered by a tea-light candle, the Foxes take flight, running through the starry evening. This simple mechanism evokes feelings of wonder and nostalgia. It’s a breathtaking gift for anyone who craves a little magic.

Sample that Momo had in her home

Sample of a Christmas Carousel we had in our home which was called Christmas pyramids or Weihnachtspyramiden in German. These festive wooden decorations, which originate from the Erzgebirge (Ore Mountains) region, use the rising heat from candles to spin a central carousel featuring nativity scenes, angels, or forest animals. Located in Peddler’s Village Lanaska, PA, German Clocks and Gifts has a variety of these gems.

Space lamps by Space Trips. Cute little lamps or a night light for a budding astronaut.

Made In

New favorite 6qt Stock Pot from Made In. Perfect for making pasta. Remember this company is located in Austin, Texas.

Random words of thought

From Profitagnosis: Matthew McConaughey has built a career by embracing challenges, uncertainty, and growth. Beyond acting, he’s known for sharing thoughtful perspectives on life, purpose, and the value of taking chances.

One idea he returns to is that success isn’t about avoiding failure. It’s about being willing to try more often.

Most people play it safe because they’re afraid of missing the mark. But McConaughey argues that a life spent taking meaningful risks is far richer than one spent protecting a perfect record.

Every attempt teaches you something. Every setback builds experience. And every risk creates the possibility of an opportunity you would never have found by standing still.

You don’t need to succeed every time.

You just need the courage to keep showing up and taking your shot.

Profitagnosis is a popular motivational and entrepreneurial digital media brand. Primarily publishing on platforms like Instagram, it provides daily inspiration, personal growth tips, and mindset strategies for founders and high achievers. The content focuses on resilience, authenticity, and actionable business philosophies.

‘From the music-listening perspective, I’m obsessed by how music puts people on the same frequency, how it’s a mood generator, how you can create your own world by creating a mixtape of other people’s songs, and how songs are like little time machines that put you back in the place you were when you first heard them.’ Austin Kleon.

A pluviophile is a noun that describes someone who loves rain and finds joy, peace, and comfort during rainy days. The term comes from the Latin word pluvia (meaning rain) and the Greek suffix -phile (meaning lover of). Check out this website for pluviophile’s: Rain Lovers.

On the easel this week 9”x12” Oil Some additional adjustments are due.

“America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination, and unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.” — Harry S. Truman

Be safe on the 4^th and Happy Birthday America and my friend Carol!

Tootles!

Great to be back.

A Hidden Network

Beneath our soil is a vast circulatory network of microorganisms. They attach themselves to the roots of plants. These filaments ferry water and nutrients to plants and trees and whisk away carbon, helping to keep vast quantities of it out of the atmosphere.

Laid end to end, these filaments would extend for 68 quadrillion miles — roughly 730 million times the distance between Earth and the sun. These filaments are mycorrhizal fungi. Seventy percent of Earth’s terrestrial plant species rely on arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi.

Underground fungal networks are “living algorithms” that quietly help regulate the Earth’s climate. Now scientists know what makes them so efficient. Fungal networks appear to assess demand and supply. Which plants need its nutrients the most? Which offer the most carbon? Where is the optimal payoff?

These fungi cannot live on their own; they need the carbon from plants. In turn, 80 percent of the world’s plants rely on fungal networks to survive and thrive. The two are dependent trade partners.

Alan Burdick, How Fungi Move Among Us

Emily Anthes, 68 Quadrillion Underground Miles of Fungi

Philosopher Howard Thurman on asking the right question:

Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive. Because what the world needs most is more people who have come alive.

Success and Luck

There is a tendency to believe that we make our own luck. We lift ourselves with our own bootstraps. The lucky are the ones who come prepared.

But there is luck that we don’t have any control of. We are lucky that we were born in America and not North Korea. I am lucky that I got a great high school education that set me up to think critically and independently. Did I work hard to make the most of that luck, yes.

Michael Lewis who has written several best sellers talks about his beginning at a commencement address at Princeton:

One night I was invited to a dinner, where I sat next to the wife of a big shot at a giant Wall Street investment bank, called Salomon Brothers. She more or less forced her husband to give me a job. I knew next to nothing about Salomon Brothers. But Salomon Brothers happened to be where Wall Street was being reinvented—into the place we have all come to know and love. When I got there I was assigned, almost arbitrarily, to the very best job in which to observe the growing madness: they turned me into the house expert on derivatives. A year and a half later Salomon Brothers was handing me a check for hundreds of thousands of dollars to give advice about derivatives to professional investors.

On the basis of his experiences at Salomon, Lewis published his 1989 breakout best seller describing how the new wave of Wall Street financial maneuvering was transforming the world:

The book I wrote was called Liar’s Poker. It sold a million copies. I was 28 years old. I had a career, a little fame, a small fortune and a new life narrative. All of a sudden people were telling me I was born to be a writer. This was absurd. Even I could see there was another, truer narrative, with luck as its theme. What were the odds of being seated at that dinner next to that Salomon Brothers lady? Of landing inside the best Wall Street firm from which to write the story of an age? Of landing in the seat with the best view of the business? Of having parents who didn’t disinherit me but instead sighed and said “do it if you must?” Of having had that sense of must kindled inside me by a professor of art history at Princeton? Of having been let into Princeton in the first place? This isn’t just false humility. It’s false humility with a point. My case illustrates how success is always rationalized. People really don’t like to hear success explained away as luck—especially successful people. As they age, and succeed, people feel their success was somehow inevitable. They don’t want to acknowledge the role played by accident in their lives.

Promoting and offering opportunities to people who are qualified is important, very important. But how easy is it to implement meritocracy? A university receives thousands of applications for a couple hundred openings. Test scores can be similar across a few hundred of those applications so what else: athletic ability, interesting side gigs, interesting essay. But that moves into bias. What is an interesting side gig or essay?

We all have our own biases. Maybe you are hiring and you interview some one who is qualified, and they have great ideas and are energetic, but you personally don’t like the fact that they chatter when nervous. And a person less qualified is quiet more like you. You think, ‘I can comfortably be around this person all day.’ You hire the quiet one. Who is the lucky one?

We all agree that success should be based on effort and ability and striving for that is important but it is also important to realize how difficult it is to objectively assess one’s abilities and sometimes people are just lucky.

Frank, Robert H.. Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy

I am, at the Fed level, libertarian;
at the state level, Republican;
at the local level, Democrat;
and at the family and friends level, a socialist.

If that saying doesn’t convince you of the fatuousness of left vs. right labels, nothing will.

― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Skin in the Game

Our comforting conviction that the world makes sense rests on a secure foundation: our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance.
― Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow

Narrowing

The thing that quietly destroys more lives than any injury or surgery isn’t a torn ACL or a blown-out hip. Dr. Luks calls it the narrowing:

Here’s a little summary of how narrowing works: You used to carry four grocery bags. Now you take two. You used to get on the floor with the grandkids. Now you stay on the couch. Your body loses a little capacity, your habits shrink to match, and a few years later that smaller life is just... your life. Nobody chooses it. It happens by a thousand tiny surrenders. And the cruelest part? It feels exactly like aging, so people don’t fight it.

Is some decline real? Yes, VO2 max drops about 10 percent per decade if you do nothing. Power fades twice as fast as strength after 50. But Luks says that’s a sliver of what people actually lose. The rest is a death spiral. You stop lifting. You lose muscle. You get weaker. You lift even less. The loop tightens until the door you thought was open…closes.

Here’s the hope: That loop runs both ways. Trained adults in their 70s routinely outperform sedentary people half their age. The ones who reverse the narrowing aren’t genetic lottery winners. They just decided to stop accepting the losses. Luks is proof at 63. Most of your narrowing is reversible the moment you ask your body to work again.

So how do you push back? Luks lays it out in The Midlife Athlete’s Playbook. The big idea: You can keep the same goals at 60 that you had at 30; you just have to train differently. The narrowing is real. But it is not your destiny.

Dhru Purohit, Try This

No one has ever lived your life before.
- Adam Wright

Have a wonder filled weekend.

Locals watch a World Cup soccer match between England and Croatia projected on a barn wall, in Kumrovec, Northern Croatia, on June 17, 2026.

We will be back 6/26.

In an information‑rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.

Herbert Simon, Models of My Life

The great cognitive psychologist Amos Tversky once said something along the lines of:

If you don’t waste hours, you’ll end up wasting years. Ritual is almost always going to be inefficient, because it’s something you’ve committed to ahead of time that will get in the way of whatever short-term optimization you could be doing.

Have a wonder filled week.

Usually, the tiny little bug doesn’t bother me much even though I am apparently allergic to their inset bite. But after being in the garden all day I was almost at my wits end, yes, I did spray up, which I detest! Yes, I finally went and got my mosquitos net hat, and yes, I had shorts and a sleeveless shirt on. You can now catch me when I am outside yelling at them to give me a break. Like that is really going to help. But when you read a little more about them, it still doesn’t help. We sprayed the yard and recently bought two zappers. It appears to have calmed down somewhat.

Gootop Bug Zapper from Amazon

Contrary to their reputation, mosquitoes significantly impact the world’s biological ecosystem. They act as pollinators and essential food sources for fish and birds. However, they are also the world’s deadliest creatures, surpassing even the most feared predators by transmitting many diseases and affecting millions yearly.

One of the basic facts about mosquitoes is that only female mosquitoes bite humans and animals, gathering nutrients for egg production, while male mosquitoes sip on plant nectar.

1. Mosquitos are the world’s deadliest animals.

2. Only female mosquitos bite and drink blood. Really.

3. Mosquitos live everywhere except Antarctica.

4. Mosquitos can smell hosts from 100 feet.

5. Beer attracts mosquitos.

6. Mosquitos can live for a month.

7. Female mosquitos lay 300 eggs at a time.

8. Mosquito larvae grow up in the water.

9. Mosquitos pollinate cacao plants.

10. Mosquitos are invaluable to the ecosystem.

Mosquitoes are a nuisance and a vector of diseases. However, they are also significant contributors to the stability of diverse habitats. One of their essential tasks is pollination, which makes them vital partners to specific plant species.

Hope these mosquitoes’ facts shed light on the complex sphere which these tiny creatures occupy. August 20th is World Mosquito Day.

Party Ideas

This again is not me but sort of looked like me

in the Glamour Shot back in day

Who remembers Glamour Shots? Well of course I indulged and went for a session a thousand years ago. I don’t have a copy of the final product as I gave the last known copy to my Aunt Betty (Karen’s mom). She always had it posted up in the guest room that I would stay in when visiting. I was consistently reminded of the goofball picture as I was wearing makeup I didn’t normally wear and a stupid hat. But heck that is what we did back in the day.

Here is the history on how the company Glamour Shots got started:

In the late 1960s, a young, entrepreneurial college student named Jack Counts, Jr. picked up a camera, took pictures at fraternity parties, had them developed and sold them to fraternity members. Unable to locate a lab that could turn around orders quickly and inexpensively, a makeshift processing lab was fashioned and the trademarked photographs called “Party Pics” were born.

Soon a blossoming business emerged as one campus became two, and three, then four…until nearly every college and high school in the country is now photographed during graduation ceremonies, parties, special events, groups and processed at this now very state-of-the-art, efficiently run, black and white and color processing lab. The company expanded and became Candid Color Systems®.

After years of success in special events photography, Candid Color Systems® introduced a new company designed for women – Glamour Shots®. Women like to be pampered and feel great about themselves, Glamour Shots® filled a niche in the professional photography business by offering a complete session that includes a personalized consultation, makeover, hairstyling, and a fun photography session. Glamour Shots® was considered the first in the industry showing customers their proofs on a monitor right after their session and allowing them to order their pictures instantaneously.

So why write about this. A local friend did a ‘Glamour Shot Rockport style’ birthday party for her best friend. All you need is a beauty bar, a caterer and a photographer. This was the message on Facebook that caught my eye:

‘Happy birthday, Anna Pearl! There is no one else I’d throw a surprise glamour shots party for… huge thank you to @quitefranklyphotography @bayloungerockport and @besweetcookieboutique for making all these silly, fun, and gluten free memories happen! 10/10: one of the best parties! If only we could show the finished portraits… we’re just “too glam to give a damn”

And here is the video of the surprise:

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1673371427332577

Anna Pearl at her party. Big Surprise!!

Courtney, her best friend and host is on the left.

Products

Embroidered Floral Bandana Granada Sky 20”x20” 100% Viscose Gauze

Chanluu’s brand includes jewelry, ready to wear and accessories.

Started in 1996, Vietnamese-born designer Chan Luu founded the brand as a passion project after a long career in retail. From her early days making jewelry in her garage, the brand grew to encompass cashmere, fine jewelry and a men’s line. Throughout its history, Chan has championed artisan craftsmanship and the support of fair labor practices, and her efforts have been recognized by the United Nations.

Since 2021 her niece and longtime head of design Tessa Tran has served as CEO and Creative Director, bringing her own distinctive vision while preserving the brand’s mission. They believe when something is made by hand, it forms a deep connection with the wearer that’s impossible to replicate. Their mission is to keep artisan crafts alive — every weave, wire wrap, and casting we make helps preserve this knowledge for future generations.

Chan and her niece Tessa.

Colorscience

From my aesthetician and owner at Tora, recommended a cleanser from Colorscience. Feels great on the face. It is all about using the right product. And another is a product that even outs the discoloration in your face. Even Intensive Skin Tone Correcting Serum by Skinbetter Science.

‘Harnessing the power of two cutting-edge biotechnologies, b.r.y.t.e.r. and TAP, to target discoloration, revealing a more luminous and even complexion.’ It really works.

Come to visit me here in Rockport and we can book you an appointment(prior to your arrival) for a facial.

Books

Every Now and Then: A Single Mother, One-Night Stand, Cowboy Romance. From a local residence here in Rockport, Erin Olivier. A friend recommended it, so I am about to dive in.

Art

TJ Cunningham Fine Arts ‘Untrodden’ Oil on panel 24”x36”

Shelby Keefe (American Artist, born 1958) ‘Alterations’, 2012. Oil, 20 × 16 in.

Patrica Espir ‘An Alleyway in Florence’ Oil on canvas

Liz Wright

“Sushi and Beer, Brooklyn, 1993” is a popular acrylic/oil on canvas painting by the English artist Liz Wright. Known for her colorful, detailed, and every day-life still life’s, this specific artwork features chopsticks resting on a vibrant plate of sushi alongside a glass bottle and a glass of beer.

“The Truth Dragging the Sciences to Illuminate Humanity” (c. 1891) is a monumental ceiling mural painted by French Impressionist Paul-Albert Besnard. The piece, located at the Paris City Hall (Hôtel de Ville), celebrates human progress and the Enlightenment through striking, light-filled allegory.

Cyril Edwards The Tube Train

Hurricane season started June 1^st. Of course, our phones blew up here with that announcement. I leave you with these:

“Hurricane season brings a humbling reminder that, despite our technologies, most of nature remains unpredictable.” — Diane Ackerman

“In reality, you don’t ever change the hurricane. You just learn how to stay out of its path.” — Jodi Picoult

“You are the first drop of rain in a hurricane. Your bravery builds beyond you.” — Author Unknown

“After every storm, there is a rainbow of hope.” — Author Unknown

Subscribe now

Share

Enjoy your weekend all! Tootles

If there is poetry in my book about the sea, it is not because I deliberately put it there, but because no one could write truthfully about the sea and leave out the poetry.

- Rachel Carson, The Sea Around Us

Categories are inevitable -

Language itself is a collection of categories - but their leakiness and limits should be recognized. Categories too often become where thought goes to die. That is, there’s a widespread tendency to act as if once something has been categorized, no further consideration is required. But, often it is. [It is] the tyranny of the quantifiable [which] recognizes that often the impact and value of a person, a work of art, an action, a movement, a place, a system is not going to fit into the categories or be measurable by the usual yardsticks. We are forever confronted with complexities, contradiction, ambiguities, with bad people doing something good or/and good people doing something terrible, and, more than any of these, with the fact that so often we don’t know.

Rebecca Solnit, No Straight Road Takes You There

Making it Harder Than It Needs To Be - Sludge

Perhaps the most basic principle of good choice architecture is our mantra: Make It Easy. If you want to encourage some behavior, figure out why people aren’t doing it already, and eliminate the barriers that are standing in their way. If you want people to obtain a driver’s license or get vaccinated, make it simple for them, above all by increasing convenience. Of course, this principle has an obvious corollary: if you want to discourage some behavior, make it harder by creating barriers. If you want to make it harder for people to vote, forbid voting by mail and early voting, and reduce the number of polling stations (and place them far away from public transportation stops).

All around the world, governments are keenly interested in reducing cigarette smoking, but they have not banned cigarettes. Instead, they have taken steps to make smoking increasingly difficult. In our youth, every bar and restaurant had a cigarette vending machine to accommodate smokers who ran out during the meal. First, those machines were removed, then smokers were segregated into smoking sections, then smoking in restaurants was banned altogether. Naturally, tobacco companies opposed these regulations.

Nudges like making it hard to get a smoke can be used for good or evil. The dark side is called sludge.

We use the term to mean this: any aspect of choice architecture consisting of friction that makes it harder for people to obtain an outcome that will make them better off (by their own lights). If you cannot get financial aid without filling out a twenty-page form, you have been subjected to sludge.

Some choice architects intentionally impose sludge, inserting friction into a process in order to achieve goals of their own. Making it hard to cancel a membership or a subscription is an example.

The software our publishers provided when we were proofreading the galleys of this book was so sludge-ridden that Sunstein gave up and typed up a list of changes. We couldn’t help but wonder whether this bit of sludge was designed to reduce the number of last-minute changes we introduced, such as this one.

Examples of Sludge

Thaler was excited to get an email from his editor sharing a link to the first review of the book, in a prestigious London newspaper, no less. When he excitedly clicked on the link he ran into a paywall. Aargh! But wait, the newspaper was offering a trial subscription for a month that cost only £1. What a deal! Of course, the fact that it did cost a pound meant that he would have to provide a credit card, and he knew that inevitably he would be automatically renewed at the end of the month, so he figured he’d better check the dreaded fine print. As he suspected, once the trial period was over, his subscription would be automatically renewed. No surprise there. But the price was a bit stiff: £27 a month for an online subscription. Still, a pound was not a lot to read the first review of a book he had managed to write without Sunstein’s help. Ready to splurge on the trial deal, he checked into how to go about unsubscribing, which he planned to do as soon as he had finished reading the review, to avoid the risk of a lifetime subscription. Here he ran into a bit of a shock. It turns out that to unsubscribe he would have to give the newspaper fourteen days’ notice, meaning that the “one-month” trial subscription only lasted two weeks. Worse, it was not possible possible to cancel online. You had to call the London office, not on a toll-free line, during London business hours! This is the experience that led to the Twitter term #sludge.

The sludge comes in when the procedures for subscribing and unsubscribing significantly differ. Why can you subscribe just by entering your credit card but have to call long-distance to unsubscribe?

Gym Memberships - During the pandemic a gym required members to come in person to cancel their gym membership.

Sludge can be hidden as an attribute. The strategy here: sell the printer cheap and make the money on the ink. If you go shopping online, it is easy to find models with all the latest features, such as wireless printing; they cost less than $100. But try to find out how much the ink costs and how often you have to replace the cartridges, and you will have more trouble. Furthermore, printers are often designed so that they will not accept ink cartridges from other suppliers (to make sure that your valuable printer is not damaged, of course). The ink cartridges are an example of what behavioral economists Xavier Gabaix and David Laibson call “shrouded attributes.”  The headline price of the good understates the true cost to the user because the shrouded attributes, and their costs, are hard to discover. Hotels are notorious for shrouding the prices of various services such as parking and wi-fi, and they sometimes hit guests with something called a “resort fee,” which is not an optional extra. As anyone who has been unfortunate enough to have to get a suit cleaned at a hotel has learned, the cost is usually at least two or three times that of a local dry cleaner.

Per European regulations, cookies can be installed only if the user has given active consent. Cookies that are “strictly necessary” to fulfill the services of a site are excluded from this requirement (for example, Amazon is allowed to use cookies for its shopping cart), but otherwise allowing cookies is an opt-in policy. It is possible that this policy is a good idea, but if you have logged on to any website that is subject to this regulation, you have undoubtedly found yourself buried in sludge. The problem, as we see it, is that although you have to opt in to permit cookies, the alternatives are by no means clear. Based on our experiences, if you are using your phone or other mobile device and you log on to a new site, you are immediately shown a screen on which you can say yes or no to cookies. The problem comes when you say no. You are not then painlessly switched over to the article you were hoping to read. Instead, you are asked what appears to be an endless list of questions about cookies in a very small font. Neither of us has actually gotten through this process. We either give up and say yes to cookies or leave the site. We do not appear to be the only ones acting this way. Researchers ran a study on how users react to the EU cookie consent notices in Germany. They found that websites use nudges to get users to consent (for example, highlighting the accept button or burying the non-accept button at the bottom of the page), and many do not even give users a choice.

In a subsequent experiment, the researchers found that the positioning, wording, and design of the consent notices “substantially affect people’s consent behavior”—and that nudging had a strong effect on people’s choices. The study also found that only 0.1 percent of users would freely consent to be tracked by third parties if websites offered them a genuine informed opt-in choice. This is sludge, not nudge. As we write this, the EU is considering reforms. We hope they are more sensitive to user experiences.

Richard H. Thaler, Cass R. Sunstein, Nudge: The Final Edition

If intelligence is getting what you want, wisdom is wanting what's worth getting in the first place.

Shane Parrish, Farnum Street

The best revenge is not to be like that.

Roman emperor and philosopher Marcus Aurelius

Joyce Chen Rice Wash Bowl & Colander

It is great for rice but also fruit like blueberries. It was an impulse buy that has become a staple for me.

The unique agitator bumps on the bottom help efficiently remove starch from rice or grit from fruits and vegetables. The angled bottom allows for quick and effortless draining, while the properly sized drain holes keep food secure while letting water flow freely whether you’re washing.

Have a Wonder Filled Weekend

A young calf nuzzles an adult bison as snow falls in the Hayden Valley on May 21, 2026, in Yellowstone National Park. Affectionately known as “red dogs,” bison calves are normally born in April or May in Yellowstone.

The joy of fishing the coast of Texas and no that is not me

In our coastal area, we host an annual fishing tournament known as Babes on the Bay. Recently, when I mentioned to a friend from Houston that I would be volunteering at the event, she misinterpreted it. To be fair, I only referred to it as “Babes on the Bay,” which led her to picture me in a bikini, running around (definitely not the case!). However, once you add the context of a fishing tournament, the event’s true nature becomes clear.

It’s a fun mix of community spirit and competitive fishing, attracting participants and spectators who are passionate about the sport.

Babes on the Bay is an all-women’s fishing tournament that has existed since 2000. The tournament is hosted by the CCA Texas Aransas Bay Chapter, based in Rockport, Texas. The tournament was created to help educate women about the sport of saltwater fishing in a conservation-minded approach. This format not only educates and brings more women into the sport of fishing, but it instills an attitude of conservation in the sport through conservative bag limits during the tournament and encouraging the participants to keep only the fish they need. This year the tournament was catch and release and included an elaborate method of recording each catch.

I wanted to check it out this year and maybe get a team together next year. Do I have any takers?

With fishing there are the lucky fishing sayings and never say ‘good luck’ to a fisherman who is about to head out for the day. Here are just a few sayings that are suggested:

“Cast long, live long”

“A fish on the line keeps the storm at bay”

“Tight lines!” is arguably the most universal fishing saying, used from the rivers of Montana to the shores of New Zealand. It wishes for a taut fishing line, a sign that a fish is hooked and the day is off to a great start. The phrase is simple yet powerful, encapsulating the excitement of the catch in just two words.

“May the fish be with you”

Regional terms:

Lucky sayings are a vibrant part of fishing’s cultural tapestry, offering a glimpse into the hopes, humor, and resilience of anglers worldwide. From the universal “Tight lines!” to the poetic “A fish on the line keeps the storm at bay,” these phrases carry the weight of tradition and the promise of good fortune. By embracing them, you can deepen your connection to the sport and its timeless heritage.

Whether you’re casting in a quiet stream or braving the open sea, let these sayings guide your journey. They remind us that fishing is about more than the catch—it’s about the stories, connections, and moments of joy that define the angler’s life. So, the next time you hit the water, wish your fellow fishermen “May the fish be with you, and let the luck of the sea be yours.”

Product

Multipurpose hand tote from Feral Concepts

The vendor and owner of this company was present at the Fishing Tournament, showcasing their impressive Feral Multipurpose Tote. The image above doesn’t truly capture its quality; seeing it in person reveals its versatility. This tote is perfect for various uses, whether you’re heading to the beach, going out on a boat, or even hunting in a blind. It’s designed to last season after season and is spacious enough to carry a baby if needed!

Key Features - just a few

• Shape: Square, allowing for easy access to contents

• Storage: Includes an outside pocket for additional convenience

Available Colors:

• Black & Tan

• Olive Green

• Screaming Hot Pink

• Turquoise

The owner’s wife and mother were also at the event, with his mom sporting a fun t-shirt that read “Feral Mama.” The combination of a great logo, a catchy name, and genuinely nice people made their presence even more memorable.

Reel Sportwear - Seawitch

I did purchase this shirt at the Babes Shopping Mall at the tournament. Cast spells, not shadows—meet the Seawitch. This long sleeve performance shirt brings bold energy to your next cast with a wicked pink backdrop and a sketchy sea-inspired print that’s all sass, no stress. It’s built from the same high-performance fabric as their go-to gear, so you’re getting all the right tech with all the right vibes. This vendor appears to be out of Corpus and make a good quality product.

“Reel Sportswear® comes from the Texas coast — gear built for the grind, the salt, and the good times that follow. Tough enough for the sun, true enough to carry the stories that matter.”

Another one of their quotes

Enough on fishing and back to some sayings. Saw the movie Devil Wears Prada 2 the other day with friends. One of the friends in our group arranged for a luxury van rental, courtesy of their husband, to take us to and from the movie theater. The ride also included some adult beverages for us to enjoy. We all had a blast which included the popcorn with butter (bad girl), and some also had Junior Mints. Did you know they can put butter on your popcorn halfway up in the bag, then they finish it off to the top with popcorn and you complete adding more butter on top? A new standard. One of the girls texted the next day ‘who knew buttered popcorn and junior mints would make me feel so good today.’ It is the small moments.

Sayings from the movie:

Did your mother put all of your artwork on the refrigerator when you were a child?

May the bridges I burn light my way.

Well, look what TJ Max dragged in.

Just hide a feeling for once please.

Who gives away Chanel.

That’s all.

By all means move at a glacial pace. You know how that thrills me.

Shared carbs have no calories.

The Future

Familiars are in the shape of a dog

With increased talk about Ai and how it is changing our world and how we cope adapting there is another introduction in the world of robots but not a human one but a dog. For the households that can’t have a dog this sounds perfect. From the creator , Colin Angle , formerly of the Roomba vacuum cleaner he has created a new start-up company called Familiar Machine & Magic. The ‘animal’ responds to physical touch.

Learns your household rhythms and adapts over time. Encourages habits you’re building and interrupt patterns you’re breaking, from a paw tap when it’s time to move, to a gentle nudge when you’re doomscrolling.

From the owner: ‘If Ai is going to live with us, emotional intelligence cannot be an afterthought. The next generation of intelligent machines will need to understand more than commands; they’ll need to understand social context.

We’re developing the underlying models and hardware for emotionally intelligent, physical Ai that can “read a room” and operate safely in the physical world. Familiars are the first step.’

Found this as a definition of Familiars: In European folklore of the medieval and early modern periods, familiars were believed to be supernatural entities, inter-dimensional beings, or spiritual guardians that would protect or assist witches and cunning folk in their practice of magic, divination, and spiritual insight. Source: Wikipedia

Bring it on but you will need to be added to the wait list since it is still in production.

Jewelry

Fridge Art You Can Keep Forever – cute idea in preserving the fridge art.

Article in the WSJ (link above): Handmade Mother’s Day cards and kids’ artwork are more endearingly irreplaceable than the most over-the-top gifts. Now some jewelry designers offer ways to preserve your children’s little love notes and popsicle stick masterpieces in gold and silver.

King Ranch X Clint Orms W Scarf Slide

A recent acquisition from the King Ranch Saddle Shop with the collaboration with master silversmith Clint Orms. Check out both sites.

This elegant scarf slide is the result of a rare partnership between King Ranch and master silversmith Clint Orms. Handcrafted in solid sterling silver in limited quantities, the design centers on an artful Running W surrounded by Orms’ signature hand-cut scrollwork. Refined over decades, brings softness and depth to the silver, with hand-engraved lines that catch the light. Bring on the scarfs.

Art

Artist: Richard Claremont ‘The View Can Wait’ 61 X75 cm, acrylic on board

Artist: Jeff Bourgeau ‘At The Ready’ 18 x 18 inch print on 24 x 24 inch coldpress watercolor paper.

Artist: Josephine Trotter ‘Tenby Church from Penally Abbey’ 26 x 32 in Oil

Subscribe now

Share

Enjoy your Memorial weekend and be safe.

Tootles

Constraints - the value of friction

It is a myth—widely believed but not less mythical for that—that people are most creative when they are most free.

—Herbert Simon, Nobel laureate in economics and pioneer of cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence

The AK-47 vs M16 Rifles

Field stripping the M16 was a pain. There were 15 disassembled components to keep track of, including four fiddly little pins that could easily be lost. A technical manual dryly explained that one of the smallest parts, the bolt cam pin, “must be installed or rifle will blow up while firing the first round. Doing so may result in injury, or death of, personnel.” The manual added, “Do not interchange bolt assemblies from one rifle to another. Doing so may result in injury, or death of, personnel.”

So much for interchangeable parts. The enemy’s AK-47s, in contrast, disassembled to just six components, all large, all interchangeable. And no mistake in reassembly could make the weapon blow up.

The Ordnance Corps introduced three additional features for the M16 that Stoner said would degrade the gun’s performance. They did. For spurious reasons, the Corps experts added a useless handle to the bolt, altered the rifling in the barrel in a way that reduced the gun’s lethality, and, worst of all, changed the bullet’s gunpowder in a way that created two additional causes of jamming. The new powder fouled the rifle and made it fire too rapidly on automatic and then jam. Tens of thousands of the futuristic, unproven M16s were deployed to the American and South Vietnamese troops. The rifles corroded rapidly in Vietnam’s tropical humidity, and their vaunted accuracy at 500 meters was of little use for fighting in jungle so dense that some soldiers wound up having to use their jammed M16s as clubs in hand-to-hand combat. The primitive-seeming AK-47 still had battlefield advantages over America’s state-of-the-art assault rifle.

The AK-47 had a quite different design history. During the months in 1941 that Mikhail Kalashnikov spent recovering from his wounds in a military hospital, he overheard other soldiers complaining about the unreliability of the rifles they’d been issued. As soon as he got out of the hospital, he set about designing a better gun. “His only goal,” according to Larry Kahaner’s 2007 book AK-47, “was to build a weapon that would work every time.”174 Figure 85. In 1990, Eugene Stoner (left, with his M16) met Mikhail Kalashnikov (right, with his AK-47). They traveled together and became friends. In many of the world’s wars since 1965, the two guns have been on opposite sides. (Chris Lawson, Marines)

Kalashnikov and the engineers he worked with were realistic about their customers’ situation. They knew that Soviet soldiers were mostly conscripts, many unable to read or write. There would be no manuals and probably no training in rifle maintenance. Fieldstripping and cleaning had to be easy and obvious. And manufacture had to be cheap, ideally with stamped rather than milled parts, because they were going to make a great many guns. No one cared what the gun looked like. The answer to all these requirements was simplicity. Kalashnikov was guided by the words of Soviet gunsmith Georgy Shpagin: “Complexity is easy; simplicity is difficult.” The route to simplicity was continuous paring down. Repeated field testing by soldiers led to hundreds of refinements, each enabling greater reliability and ease of use. This was a case where reducing precision helped. Kahaner writes that Kalashnikov designed the “components with looser tolerances, more space between parts. Instead of dirt or sand clogging the gun, debris was thrown off in the firing process—like a dog shaking off water.” Unlike the M16, Kalashnikov’s gun actually was self-cleaning. Aside from being deliberately loose in their fit, some parts that looked unnecessarily large had a reason for their size.

As C.J. Chivers explains in The Gun, “The combined bolt and gas piston were… massive, and by giving these parts heft, the designers provided the AK-47’s operating system an abundance of energy every time a shot was fired… to push through any dirt or accumulated carbon inside the weapon.”176 The rifle could power through gunk that would paralyze the lighter, finely tuned M16. It had what engineers call “forgiveness.” It forgave neglect. It forgave mud, sand, and ill usage.

The crude-looking but highly evolved AK-47 had just 73 parts. The snazzy M16 had 144 parts and required “surgical” care. It assumed a fully stocked supply line and skilled armorers with factory-level repair facilities nearby. It was—and is—a sophisticated weapon that depends on sophisticated support. In Vietnam, the most common cause of jamming in both rifles—though far more common in the M16—was when a spent casing got stuck in the chamber instead of ejecting. There was no way to claw it out. The only way to remove it was to run a cleaning rod down the barrel and push it out. The AK-47 had its cleaning rod mounted under the barrel, in immediate reach. The early M16s had no cleaning rods.

Stewart Brand, Maintenance of Everything: Part One (Maintenance: Of Everything Book 1)

The General Magic handheld

You have never heard of General Magic (most likely) because [the engineers] did not, in fact, birth the iPhone long before its time. General Magic’s fall was even more precipitous than its rise. All of that incredible innovation never turned into a coherent device that solved anyone’s problem. When a product finally launched, the book-sized device running General Magic’s battery-sucking operating system was a disaster. In six months, it sold three thousand units, many of those purchased by friends and family. A year after the IPO, the stock price was down 85 percent. Ecstatic early hires were already gone, or leaving. Soon, Alliance partners started to bail, and the prescient Porat stepped down as CEO. A rocket ship that appeared fit for the information economy had instead exploded on the launchpad.

General Magic had it all a visionary leader at the helm of a driven team; an anything-is-possible attitude; vast resources; loads of freedom; and talent—so much talent. In addition to members of the original Mac team, General Magic alumni went on to become executives at Apple, Google, Adobe, Samsung, and other household-name companies. They designed or led Safari, the iPod, iPhone, Apple Watch, Dreamweaver, search at Google, and AI at Apple. “Magicians,” as they were known, also cofounded LinkedIn, Nest, and Android, among other companies.

Years later, the founder Porat would say that one of his goals in raising so much money so quickly had been to create “heaven for engineers.” “They were free to imagine and play and invent and write,” he said. “They were inventing one thing after another, after another, after another and for an engineer, what more can you ask for?” The answer, it turned out: a little less freedom.

One engineer likened it to hand-building a car instead of using a factory. Another said that instead of standing on the shoulders of giants, “we were building the giant from the toes all the way up to his head.” That was exciting, but also reckless. As it turned out, even with their prolific in-house innovations, the technology needed to realize the General Magic vision was years away. As the project dragged on, it became clear that General Magic would have to start with a less-majestic intermediate step, but nobody had a clear idea of what that should be. As Megan Smith, the magician who went on to become a Google executive and then CTO of the United States, put it: “Probably the most challenging part of the product was deciding what not to do. What to do, and what not to do.” With their combination of resources and talent, the team could do anything, so they often did. If an engineer had an idea they thought was cool, they went ahead, even if it was superfluous or pushed back a deadline—when deadlines existed at all.

David Epstein, Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better

Felix culpa is a Latin phrase translating to "happy fault" or "fortunate fall," referring to a mistake or sin that results in a greater, unexpected good.

Walter Darby Bannard was an American abstract painter and professor of art and art history at the University of Miami

You will rarely outperform your self-image.

James Clear

Have a good weekend.

Tracy said it the other day, and it made perfect sense: if you’re serious about being on the water down here, you need three boats. When I asked him which three boats, the list was simple — an airboat, a shallow water bay boat, and an offshore boat.

For now, we’re working with one: the shallow water bay boat. Ours is from Shallow Sports Boats and it’s perfect for fishing these local waters, slipping into places other boats can’t reach, and zipping across the flats before tucking into a quiet inlet. It does exactly what it’s supposed to do. Read up on their history as the name of their first company was Falcon Boats, and the grandson is running the show now. Designed for this type of fishing off and around the coast.

From canoes to the Maltese Falcon and beyond, private boats range from eight feet to mega yachts stretching hundreds of feet in length. People fish from them, cruise on them, live aboard them, and use them to escape the beaten path. The truth is that boats have been woven into human life since the day some restless soul decided a ride downstream on a log sounded like a fine idea.

Boat design has come a long way since that first dugout, but one thing hasn’t changed: people love boats, and they’ll find all manner of reasons to justify having one — or three.

Because whether you’re a rowboat guy or running an expedition yacht halfway around the world, it all comes down to the same thing: a day on the water chasing whatever dream got you out there. For some, that’s a catfish on a cane pole at the local lake. For others, it’s gamefish somewhere far offshore. Either way, people will always find a way to get on the water.

And one of my favorite quotes is: ‘A day on the water doesn’t count for your day on earth.’ First saw this on a sailboat written out on a plaque and hanging in the cabin of the boat.

The phrase “a day on the water doesn’t count for your day on earth” is a commonly cited, though often tongue-in-cheek, proverb encouraging a lifestyle of leisure, fishing, or sailing, implying that time spent enjoying nature is “extra” life not deducted from one’s total lifespan. It suggests that such moments are rejuvenating and timeless.

The Airboat is the next one that he would love to have.

How many kinds of boats are there? A lengthy list and not just three.

This week was my birthday week or as a friend texted ‘Happy Pre-Natal Day’ on Monday. Always filled with fun times whether hosting a party (Cinco de Mayo) or traveling somewhere. This year was a little low key and that was ok. Came across this article in New York Times: The Gift of Getting Weirder With Age. It becomes easier to embrace your authentic (and eccentric) self. I would like to think in terms of being a little eccentric – that sounds more refined.

Age of Scams

It feels like there is an increase in scams lately as reported from a friend being taken by a message from Apple (fake) about her account, to receiving a letter from the IRS saying you owe ‘$8k from 2000’, to my beloved American Express sending an email that wasn’t from them yet wanting my information. The email from American Express stated that ‘their’ bill was returned to them, so they wanted a different address. I in turn called and the agent walked me through the issue quickly noting that the account number shown wasn’t correct.

You just can’t be too careful.

How to Protect Yourself:

Slow Down: Scammers create artificial urgency.

Verify Everything: Independently confirm the identity of anyone asking for money or personal information.

Use Trusted Contacts: Add trusted contacts to financial accounts to monitor for suspicious activity.

No one is exempt as the numbers below describe the type of scam your age group will experience.

Age-Specific Targeting (from the Federal Trade Commission)

18–24: Employment scams, online shopping scams.

40–69: Catfishing*/romance scams.

70+: Tech support and government imposter scams.

*Catfishing is the act of creating a fake online identity, usually on social media or dating apps, to deceive someone into a false romantic relationship or friendship. Catfishers often use stolen photos, false personal details, and “love bomb” victims with affection, often intending to trick them into sending money, stealing their identity, or just for malicious entertainment.

Sleep

Salt Labs

WORLD SLEEP DAY was March 13 and is a gentle reminder that true wellbeing begins at night. Prioritizing rest isn’t indulgent, it’s essential. When we honor our sleep, we create space for balance, clarity and renewed energy. In their blog 5 Evening Rituals for Deeper, More Restful Sleep they list ideas to help you fall asleep.

Salt Labs magnesium spray does the trick. Magnesium has a calming effect on your body’s nervous system and relaxes the muscles, which in turn will help you to fall asleep easier. A deficiency of magnesium is also sometimes responsible for the nervousness that prevents sleep as well as restless legs syndrome. Magnesium oil may also improve the length and quality of slow-wave sleep. It has been labelled “The most powerful relaxation mineral available” by experts such as Dr. Mark Hyman. They have it in a deodorant form now.

Sleep is good and I love sleeping!

Art

From Laura Rathe Fine Art Houston Texas

SYDNEY YEAGER ‘HELIOS!!’, 2024 Oil on Linen 50 x 50 in

“Working this way is consistent with my interest in motion and transitory forms, as each brush mark holds the possibility of altering the painting entirely.”

AUDRA WEASER ‘OCEAN DRIVE’, 2026 Acrylic, plaster & metallic pigments on panel 48 x 48 in

“Nature in an abstracted or reflected state has always been an inspiration for me, specifically when a connection appears between an exterior and inner reality. And it is this powerful but elusive moment that I aim to convey in my paintings.”

HUNT SLONEM ‘BAYOU TECHE ST MARY’S PARISH’, 2026 Oil on Canvas 72 x 72 in

“In many ways, I see my whole life as an installation itself…I’m always after that wow factor, those magical moments where I create a work and look at it in amazement, as if angels or gnomes had entered my space and created the whole thing.”

Misc Artist

Barbara Hoogewegen ‘Surrender’ OIL ON BOARD, 36 x 29 cm 2024

‘Creating art that invites you to feel, not just see’. Barbara Hoogeweegen is a dynamic contemporary painter celebrated for her bold use of colour and her exploration of the human psyche through both figurative and landscape paintings. Born in Amsterdam and later spending her formative years in Trinidad, Barbara’s artistic path was shaped by the island’s vibrant scenery and her mother’s close friendship with renowned painter Boscoe Holder. Watching Holder at work on the sun-soaked beaches of Trinidad ignited Barbara’s passion for art and influenced the rich, energetic palette that defines her work today.

Notable Interred - Cemetery’s

Recently watched a video on notable people buried in a famous cemetery in California (likely Forest Lawn or Hollywood Forever). Visitors participated in a guided tour of the cemetery, traveling by tour bus to explore and view the various notable locations throughout the site. The guided format provided informative commentary and allowed participants to easily access different areas of interest within the grounds.

Then that sparked a reminder to check out our very own famous cemetery in Houston called Glenwood Cemetery which is the final resting place of a remarkable cast of Houston and Texas history figures. Distinguished people already buried there include people like Howard Hughes Jr., heart surgeon Dr. Denton Cooley, actress Gene Tierney, Texas governor and Houston Post owner William P. Hobby, and Oveta Culp Hobby — the first woman to become a colonel in the U.S. Army. The list goes on and on.

Glenwood has a detailed list of notable people that are buried there on their website. Now why do I know this? Well, my great(x4) grandfather (on my mother’s side), James Bailey, is buried there - Section C1. Even though he isn’t listed on the Glenwood website he was one of the first mayors of Houston.

Bio from Wikipedia

James Bailey (1801–1880) was Mayor of the city of Houston, Texas in 1846. Bailey immigrated to Houston from New Hampshire in 1838. In 1840, Bailey was elected as an alderman representing the Fourth Ward of Houston. He chaired the Houston Board of Health in 1844, the year of a severe yellow fever epidemic. Although the cause of yellow fever was not yet known, the Houston Board of Health under Bailey’s leadership mandated quarantines to slow the spread of the deadly disease. They also improved drainage, which they believed created more sanitary conditions.

Bailey served as mayor for a one-year term in 1846, the same year that the United States annexed Texas and the War with Mexico began.

A book is also available about Glenwood Cemetery:

Publication Of Glenwood’s History

To appropriately preserve Glenwood’s history, a book, Houston’s Silent Garden, has been published by Texas A&M University Press that tells the story of Glenwood from its formation in 1871 to the present. Glenwood was established as a private cemetery during the difficult years of Reconstruction following the Civil War. A critical need for additional burial space in Houston had been identified as early as 1860. Glenwood responded to that need and, in addition, to the growing desire of city dwellers to have more contact with landscapes of natural beauty. Like other romantic cemetery parks of the 19th century, Glenwood provided such a setting.

Subscribe now

Share

In closing:

Dress Well

Stay Weird

Make Art

Confuse People

TOOTLES

Happy Mother’s Day this Sunday

thank you all

The psychologist Abraham Maslow on maturity:

“The most mature human beings are also childlike. That is not as contradictory as it sounds. The most mature people are the ones who can have the most fun.

They are able to regress at will; they can become childish and play with children and be close to them. It is no accident, I think, that children generally tend to like them and get along with them.

Involuntary regression is of course a very dangerous thing; but voluntary regression seems to be characteristic of very healthy people.”

Il Buco Vita

Ceramic sculpture handcrafted in Umbria by Il Buco Vita's co-founder and partner Antonello Radi.

A contrarian isn’t one who always objects—that’s a conformist of a different sort. A contrarian reasons independently from the ground up and resists pressure to conform.

The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness

Nieves González

The 29 year old artist’s use of contemporary puffy couture within a centuries-old Spanish Baroque aesthetic speaks to the negotiation of the past and present. For her friends, what Ms. González really screams is southern Spanish authenticity.

We are all chasing success at some level. We all want to be good at what we do. We want to be well regarded by our peers. However, how you do this is really important. Success often happens in a vacuum. We are so dead set on the outcome — Am I going to get into this college? Play this sport? Have this leadership role or win this accolade? Yet, being successful in this world isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Rather we should aim to be significant, which means accomplishing things together. We want to make an impact on the people around us and bring people along with us. Success is meaningless unless we are being significant.

Connor Buczek, head men’s lacrosse coach at Cornell,

Computer scientist Alan Kay reminds us that our perceptions are limited:

“A frog’s brain is set up to recognize food as moving objects that are oblong in shape. So if we take a frog’s normal food -- flies -- paralyze them with a little chloroform and put them in front of the frog, it will not notice them or try to eat them.

It will starve in front of its food! But if we throw little rectangular pieces of cardboard at the frog it will eat them until it is stuffed! The frog only sees a little of the world we see, but it still thinks it perceives the whole world.

Now, of course, we are not like frogs! Or are we?”

Source: “The Center of Why?” (November 11, 2004). Later in the talk, Kay says, “You can’t learn to see until you realize you are blind.”

Have a Good Weekend

List of duties

I have been retired now for almost six years. For those who don’t know me, I was Manager of Interiors at MD Anderson Cancer Center — no small task, but I had a terrific and talented team to help fulfill that vision.

So where is my life now, beyond Rockport, Texas? The other day I wrote out a list of every task I’m responsible for, just to show a girlfriend all that we do to support our individual households. You can imagine the other half of that story — the one involving husbands. She, too, started making her own list. I could probably write a full job description for each item on mine. In the end, we both had a good laugh, felt better about everything in front of us, and keep right on adding to our lists.

In a recent article and reminder from Wendy MacNaughton ‘Can a Home Inspire Creativity? Taking notes from Frida Kahlo and Ruth Asawa.’

Can a Home Inspire Creativity?

The answer of course is yes and is demonstrated by these two artists. Frida as we know was bedridden and died at an early age (47) but managed to continue with her artwork from her bed. She had installed a mirror overhead so she could see herself in bed; this began painting some of her most well-known self-portraits.

Frida painting in her bed in Casa Azul.

Ruth Asawa on the other hand produced her artwork despite the fact she had 6 children running around the house. She accomplished this by having a table in every room. “I couldn’t go to a drawing class, so I drew my children or the flowers in the garden. I kept my hands in it.” Ruth Asawa

With a table in every room sounds like a creative concept so I did a comparison of our home and started yet another list: List of Tables

· Garden table (outside in garden) – metal prep table 32”x 52”x 36”

· Dining table and Art table in their respected places. Both by Knoll Furniture with steel legs and solid core laminate top – Parson’s style. Perfect size: 36”x 72”

Knoll table where I first saw it in Chicago

at NeoCon

· Folding TV type tray at my TV watching/reading chair

· A table that was once the dining table in the last house is now my current desk

· Next to my desk is a table I inherited that was once our grandmother’s table (Momo)

· Painting table in studio which is two surplus doors sitting on two sawhorses and a piece of brown paper covers it. Here is where I paint.

Art table in studio. Cleared off to reorg

and put new paper down

· To tall tables 18”x 52”x 42” high that came with the house and are in one of the garages. Perfect for prep work in the gardens.

· Dining tables (2) on the patio for evenings soirees.

· Custom butcher block table on the patio that also serves as a bar during parties however now it houses fishing gear.

The list appears to go on forever. Tables do set the stage to inspire creativity in a home.

Other designers of tables that can inspire creativity:

‘Porcelain Dawn’ 280 x 90 x 75cm. Handcrafted using recycled steel,

pigments, resin, and varnish.

‘We live our lives made up of a great quantity of isolated instants. To be lost at the heart of a multitude of things.’ Middernacht & Alexander

Bio: Middernacht & Alexander transform forgotten matter into meaningful objects.

What once lay buried—contaminated, discarded, ignored—is brought to light and given a second life.

Their ongoing series, How I Got Over, centers around the poetic reinvention of old underground oil tanks, turning them into sculptural furniture pieces that carry both weight and memory.

Sofie Middernacht (BE) and Maarten Alexander (NL) form a renowned artistic duo driven by a deep interest in the psychological layers of everyday life. Their work often engages with discomfort—material, emotional, existential. Perception, time, preservation, and the human condition are recurring themes that anchor their practice.

What others overlook or abandon, they approach with care and reverence. Rusted metal, traces of tar, and the soil still clinging to the surface are carefully preserved under layers of epoxy, becoming part of the object’s visual and emotional depth. Most pieces are both functional and symbolic: a table, a sculpture, a relic.

Their design practice balances material intuition with conceptual depth, moving between craftsmanship and reflection. No two pieces are the same—each holds its own texture, its own story, its own soul. What emerges is more than design: it is a dialogue with the ground we stand on, a meditation on time, decay, and transformation.

Middernacht & Alexander create a universe carved from what others forgot.

And last from a designer for Knoll who created the first truly Modern outdoor furniture:

Products – Mother’s Day is coming soon

Lip Oasis from The Outset by Scarlett Johansson. Gives your lips a shiny look.

Corona – Flowers & Herb Ergo Dead Head Snips- a gift from a friend (thank you). Game changer for cutting and trimming all things in your garden.

Botanopia - more garden enhancements. Jazz up your plants!

Plant stakes

Kate McLeod

Received this as a gift. Buttery texture without being greasy.

Air Supply – Fresh start. More ideas for the mom in your life

Painting: George Samuel Elgood/The Print Collector/Alamy

Curated shop with all the best companies to offer. From their website: ‘Spring is a reset. It’s the moment things get cleared out, cleaned up, and put back into working order. AIR SUPPLY’s edit moves through that instinct: homes aired out, surfaces refreshed, wardrobes pared back, and the small systems of everyday life brought back into shape. The focus is simple: reset, restore, and make things function properly again. The kind of seasonal shift that doesn’t just change what you wear, but how everything around you feel to use. So, store the heavier layers, clear the clutter, and bring everything back into rotation, from the tools that clean and care for what you already own, to the objects that make home, wardrobe, and outdoors feel ready for the season ahead’

Artists

James Prosek

Prosek in the wild

RIP Michael Hurd

New Mexico artist Michael Hurd, son of renowned painters Peter Hurd and Henriette Wyeth, died on April 12, 2026, at age 80 following an unexpected illness. Known for his work at Sentinel Ranch, he continued a legacy of Southwestern art, blending local landscapes with unique creative perspectives.

Quotes from Hit Hard by Mindset.unchained

1. Someday someone will break you so badly that you’ll become unbreakable. – The Joker

2. The prettiest smiles hide the deepest secrets. The prettiest eyes have cried the most tears, and the kindest hearts have felt the most pain. – Unknown

3. If it makes you happy, go for it. They gonna talk about you anyways. – Thomas Shelby

4. Behind my smile is everything you ‘all never understand. – Thomas Shelby

5. The more you love, the more you suffer. – Vincent Van Gough

6. We stopped looking for monsters under the bed when we realized they are inside us. – The Joker

Carry on and get busy with some spring cleaning. Or as we say in the South summer prep time as we don’t really have a spring.

Last: Stewart Copeland ‘Wild Concerto’. An article on 60 Minutes this week with Stewart, a drummer from The Police working with Martyn Stewart who is a British audio naturalist. Martyn has been described as the “David Attenborough of sound”. His work has been used in many documentaries over the years. He started doing nature field recordings at the age of 19; over the years he has recorded sounds of now extinct species. Copeland, a rock legend and a naturalist, Stewart team up to turn field recordings of animals into music. The album on Spotify: Wild Concerto. Add it to your playlist.

Stewart Copeland

Martyn Stewart recording audio in the wild

Subscribe now

Tootles and enjoy your weekend

A Diagnosis Dilemma

In her book The Age of Diagnosis, Dr. O’Sullivan asks if we are moving into a phase where everything needs a diagnosis. Is knowledge always power? She questions whether doing a full DNA analysis on an infant is helpful. What about mutations that get identified but where nobody knows how that mutation will manifest itself. Leaving parents always looking to see if the mutation has affected their child’s development. Veronica whose mother was diagnosed with Huntington’s Disease, debated whether she should be tested. To her knowing could take hope away. For years she was experiencing symptoms like her mother and was convinced that she had the disease. When she finally got the test done, she tested negative. The stress of not knowing caused many of her symptoms.

Many early cancers disappear on its own. As tests become more fine tuned to detect early cancer, the question is to treat the cancer with heavy duty treatments or wait. Most people will choose the heavy duty option.

The parameter of many diseases or conditions have expanded like prediabetes and autism. Many people with prediabetes can move back to a normal state on their own. But borderline medical problems can become an ironclad diagnosis.

Many diagnoses are an art form, not based on a single blood test but on a combination of tests that narrow down the probability that the person has a particular disease. There is no single test for Lyme Disease. There are several tests that make it probable but the rest is based on the patient’s story and the doctor. This leaves the treatment field wide open for quacks. People with questionable ethics and expertise to promise a cure for a disease that is very hard to even diagnose.

Also, we are giving a diagnosis for problems that aren’t really a disease or medical condition but which we are giving prescriptions for like poor sleep, aging or menopause symptoms.

And the problem of telling an immature and socially anxious child that they have a neurodevelopmental brain disorder.

We have such an unrealistic expectation of happiness that sadness, even when it is entirely understandable, has become pathologised. We so expect to achieve our goals that when we don’t, we have started to look for a medical explanation to tell us why.

A diagnosis may be correct but may not benefit the patient and may arguably do harm. Overdiagnosis occurs when a medical problem is detected at a stage when medical treatment is not really required. Such as telling fifteen-year-old Abigail that she has an untreatable genetic spastic paraparesis before she was aware there was something wrong.

Abigail won’t go through the diagnostic uncertainty that her mother suffered, but she also hasn’t had the luxury of her mother’s unencumbered optimism for the future.

And the case of a child who is wonderfully different and is on the outer edge of the autism spectrum. Does the diagnosis just give him/her a label that becomes self defining and self limiting or does it provide services that the child qualifies for and a community?

We need to be more thoughtful before accepting labels that offer very little and which could lower our expectations for ourselves.

Undoubtedly, Dr. O’Sullivan found most patients found a diagnosis was helpful. Even if there was no treatment, they found knowing to be powerful. Many felt heard after years of searching for an answer.

Dr. Suzanne O’Sullivan, The Age of Diagnosis: How Our Obsession with Medical Labels Is Making Us Sicker

“The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The navigator adjusts the sails.”

- William Arthur Ward

Up-cycled Glassware

So much of what we believe is the residue of someone else’s thinking.

-James Clear, Atomic Habits

People gathering to celebrate across the River Danube from the Parliament building, following the partial results of the parliamentary election, in Budapest, Hungary, on April 12, 2026.

I am rooted, but I flow.

— Virginia Woolf, The Waves

Satellites Orbiting the Earth

You only have power over people so long as you don’t take everything away from them. But when you’ve robbed a man of everything he’s no longer in your power- he’s free again.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Have a Grand Weekend

Image above from a Chanel Boutique where products are displayed. Bright and shiny.

In describing my design style for our home might be more in the range of functional and industrial. Here are some points and steps from a recent upgrade to a dressing area to create a luxurious feeling:

Problem: Need additional shelving in dressing area (aka make up area) that is shared with a washer/dryer. Home has an eclectic vibe and loved by many.

1. Define the design style to be consistence with the overall theme.

- Functional and Industrial: The home embodies a design ethos that values practicality without sacrificing aesthetic appeal. The industrial elements resonate through the materials and layout, creating a distinctive charm.

- Unique Layout: While it’s not a typical design, the well-built structure has garnered praise from guests, indicating that beauty can indeed be found in unconventional spaces.

2. Ongoing improvements to keep in mind for future projects and stay focus.

- Desire for Enhancements for other areas: A vision for further improvements, reflecting a commitment to evolving your space while appreciating its current state. More to add to the ‘to do list’ but is on the list.

3. Always have a goal to create: Luxury in Practical Spaces

- Dressing Table as a Functional Design Element: The dressing area doubles as a laundry space, showcasing how functionality can blend seamlessly with design.

- Existing parts in the room: Stainless Steel Table -sourced from a restaurant supply company, the stainless-steel table not only fits the industrial aesthetic but also provides durability and easy maintenance.

- Maximizing Storage is the established problem:

Existing storage: Three aluminum shelves 10” wide from Ikea served both functional and aesthetic purposes currently and in the past.

Determined in recent discussions about adding more shelving to provide for decluttering and enhancing storage solutions.

Solution to maximized shelving: Replaced with (3)- 5”x 24” and (3)- 5” x 18” wide shelves. Shelves from Webstraurant Store , my go to for restaurant supply store items online. The brand on the stainless-steel mirror finish shelve is Lavex.

Draw up elevations:

To keep Tracy (engineer/installer) on track.

Water spots on paper are not blood.

Lavex Shelving

Observations:

- Organized and Accessible: The new shelving allows you to see all the beauty products at a glance, preventing them from being relegated to drawers and forgotten.

- Mirrored Aesthetics: The polished stainless steel adds a reflective quality, enhancing the overall design while mimicking the feel of a retail environment. Refer to Chanel counter in opening picture.

- Design Philosophy: Standardizing practical design by advocating for designing master suite areas that prioritize visibility and accessibility, making everyday routines more enjoyable and efficient.

It was a win/win in transforming an ordinary area into a luxurious experience.

Finished product but prettier in person

Products/Finds

Recently joined the app Audible: Audiobooks and Podcasts(thank you Susan). Started listening to the novel ‘The Correspondent’ by Virginia Evans. In a debut epistolary novel about a retired, cantankerous lawyer named Sybil Van Antwerp, who uses letters to navigate life, grief, and past trauma, exploring themes of connection, forgiveness, and the power of the written word. The book, published in April 2025, became a New York Times bestseller and is being adapted into a film starring Jane Fonda.

Interesting how the main character insists on either ‘real’ letters or emails, no texting for her communications. She would go to the post office monthly and purchase 30 stamps in order fulfill her desire to send out 30 letters per month. Both the app and the book were in order and a gentle reminder the importance of letter writing.

What a better way to augment your time while doing chores or driving long distances by listening to a book. Highly recommend the app and added these two titles for my audible shelf. The Hail Mary Project and This Story Might Save Your Life.

Interesting article: The case for the handwritten letter. By Elizabeth Passarells. If you want to start a letter writing habit, or return to one, here are some tips from experts on how to get started. Let go of your hang-ups. National Handwritten Letter Day is December 7^th.

Which of course lead me to a recent Thank You Note I received from an order from Copper Corners for some playing cards.

First the thank you note enclosed in a red cloth envelope:

And one of the cards within the envelope had this message from the creator:

The playing cards:

Playing Cards – Doting Dogs

A variety of merchandize that include playing cars, bookmarks, jewelry, paint by numbers, clothes, and puzzles.

Loess Botanical Soap

Handmade soap from Costa Rica

Be Care Love Spa Message Cream

Great find from my manicurist. Your feet and hands feel buttery after application. Soaks in quickly. Indulge your skin in rich hydration with their Mandarin and Mango Massage Cream—an age-defying blend crafted to moisturize, nourish, and refresh your skin. Infused with mandarin orange extract, mango extract, and argan oil, this luxurious massage cream helps refine skin texture and promote a more radiant, youthful appearance. It does come in a gallon size.

Their motto: ‘We believe that people deserve to live a healthier and happier lifestyle.’

Refillable Creative Pen from Tom’s Studio

A beautiful & infinitely refillable fineliner,

writing & brush pen including 11 professional artist’s tips.

While in Houston I popped into my favorite pen store Dromgoole’s in Rice Village. Asked what was new and the salesperson directed me to this pen. I had read about the item but never thought I would be introduced in person to this ‘system’. Can’t wait to start drawing with it but for now I have:

‘The hesitation to use a beautiful new item to keep it pristine is often called “saving it for best” or, more psychologically, the “precious item effect.” It stems from a desire to protect the item’s perceived value and beauty, sometimes leading to the Diderot Effect, where the item feels too nice for your current belongings.’ Don’t get me started as this happens often.

We the Wild Plant Care – Tabletop Potting Mat for mess free gardening.

Bought this from The Old Farmer’s Almanac Store but you can buy from We the Wild Plant Care directly. Also plan to have Tracy use it on the table on the patio when he does one of his fishing tackle projects. We will see if my plan works. Monitoring at this point but don’t want the serene patio to be converted to ‘his’ fishing tackle station. More dinner parties are in order so he must clear the area of fishing gear. Right now, there are 5 poles and a large fishing tackle box on the table.

In closing thought I would update on the garden scene. The flowers are starting to pop that include 9 blooms on the rose bush archway.

Bouquets on their way

Werner Herzog interview from the WSJ in reference to his ‘To Do List’:

‘It’s like walking along a torrential river. You never keep pace with it. So I deal with what comes with the greatest vehemence at me.’

Vehemence refers to the quality of being intense, forceful, or passionate, often characterized by violent, eager, or turbulent expression. It indicates strong emotional fervor or forceful action and is used to describe passionate speeches, strong convictions, or powerful natural events.

Merriam-Webster

Another from WSJ on the passing of Margareta Magnuson the writer of ‘Swedish Death Cleaning’ or getting rid of things you don’t use before you die so that someone else isn’t burden with it. A gentle reminder that is a good practice no matter how old you are.

She had some other comments worth considering:

· Magnusson opposed drastic efforts to resist aging: “Plastic surgery does not make you look younger—to me it just makes you look like you have had plastic surgery.”

· To get along with grandchildren, she advised: “Don’t tell them about your bad knee, again. Don’t guilt-trip them about not calling enough. Just ask them questions. Listen to them. Act interested even if you are not. Give them food and tell them to go enjoy their lives.”

· Old people who can no longer take care of pets should consider nurturing plants, she believed: “Having even a small thing to look forward to, something other than yourself to care for, is important whatever age you are.”

Subscribe now

Enjoy your weekend. Consider upgrading an area in your home to add a luxurious feel and go plant a plant.

PS

ART

Currently at Evoke Contemporary Gallery in Santa Fe, NM.

Louisa McElwain’s Sweet Medicine exhibition celebrates the artist’s profound connection to the New Mexico landscape. Through her bold, gestural brushwork and vibrant palette, McElwain captures the spirit and energy of the high desert, inviting viewers into moments of transcendence and wonder. She would load up her car and head out to paint the area around Santa Fe. She left this earth way too early.

Show closes April 18^th. This painting was sold but worth sharing.

Titled: ‘Ecclesia’ Oil on canvas 50”x70”

Tootles