RAIN--SNOW--DOGS

I am so grateful.....rain and snow have finally come to Southern California. After years of praying for rain and a good winter snow pack, it has finally arrived. We still need a lot more to recover from our 4 year drought; it's happening.

(I grabbed this photo from Google images which said it was from the San Bernardino Mountains??) Jones looked a lot like this when he was a puppy--except he was black and started turning blue when he was about a year old. Sweet memories.

Now, on to important things like Venetian stemware. I am not talented photographically. I could put it on my to do list of things to improve on, but it just doesn't inspire me that much. However, when I happen to take a photo that turns out to be half-way decent, I feel a little rush of pride. The Venetian stems that I bought on Thursday (without previewing them--and that's a no-no) turned out to be pretty good--wish there were a few more..... Today I took a few shots of the stems (after I had polished them with Windex)

Not too bad. The stems are really pretty--I love the cobalt blue of the coupes and the mouth blown twisted balls forming the stems.

Claudia Strasser, author of The Paris Apartment, has challenged herself to revamp, refocus and increase the revenues of her business, The Paris Apartment, in 2016.

I love Claudia's blog and this challenge is exactly what I needed to inspire me. I had already planned to redo shop and expand a bit; Claudia has reinforced my gut motivations. Thank you, Claudia, for this 365-Day Challenge. I will be following (perhaps imitating) your daily posts and progress.

Hope that your 2016 has been great so far.

Blessings,

Mary & Jones & Cole