So here’s a quick flick through my camera stream lately. First a photo taken by Rapunzel of her own hand. She’s not afraid to grab the camera and get in there with the interesting shots. I love that.

Another one of my old saguaro. She can’t believe that I never took this shot myself. Nope, I didn’t. Too prickly!

We had a little tiff at dinner so I’m feeling a bit sentimental as I post these photos. Teenagers are so complicated!

I spray-painted an old wooden chair my mom had laying around. I wanted to give the chair its own post but it’s not like I’m really a DIY home-decorator blog or anything so I’m just going to smash it in here instead.

Spray, spray, spray. Don’t you love it when you forget to change the ISO setting on your camera and the last thing you shot was a product shot inside at 3200 and then you go outside and over-expose everything so bad that your backyard looks like heaven from the 70′s?

Maybe that’s just my version of heaven from the 70′s.

Anyway, the chair looks fantastic! It went from country bumpkin to eclectic mess which is sort of good except I hate eclectic mess. I love the chair though. I just need to de-clutter my house a little so it can shine on its own.

It’s already a favorite for family meetings.

And vain self-portraits.

Speaking of, I need some better self-portraits because I’m A PUBLISHED AUTHOR NOW!!!! And I had to put some dumb hand-held frumpy mom shot in the back of my book. I know I could pay someone to take a real portrait but I like to keep it real (or cheap). I am self-published after all, it’s not like I have a big book-contract deal. But I do have an awesome agent/publisher friend who is hooking it all up. I’m so excited. This is really a dream come true for me.

It dropped on Amazon yesterday for my birthday! This is just a soft launch. I have two more books to illustrate and then we’re going to launch a blog tour with giveaways and prints and a book party (squee!) and I’ll probably talk about it so much you will all get sick of me. But until then check it out! $2.99 yo! It’s only on the Kindle right now I think but you can get a free kindle ap for your mac or ipad. I’ll share more when I get the hang of it. I’m new at this still. (Also available in the UK and Germany)

In the meantime I have two books still to illustrate! (And many more after that I hope) I’m so behind. If you see me goofing off, feel free to kick me in the butt. I’ve got work to do!!! It’s always feast or famine around here.

Yes, my birthday was fantabulous. Thank you for asking. We kept it low-key with a night out with my best beach gal pal DMA and a new friend on Friday and then a family dinner with the niece-com-poops and my Aunt Keren and Grandma on the day itself. My grandma made me my favorite birthday dinner (peanut encrusted Thai chicken—soooooooooo yummy you could die) and Rapunzel made my cake. How can I be mad at her when she’s so sweet like that. Teenagers! She kills me.

Anyway, it was super sweet and fun and the kids had a blastola swimming in Grandma’s community pool.

I love summer.

Why yes, I did make a peach pie. I know! All this fun going on when I have work to do!!! This is what I’m talking about. I should be shackled to my laptop but no, I’m in the kitchen pretending to be Martha Stewart or something. It’s just that it’s summer and the fruit is going bananas (or more correctly, peaches) and it’s such a wonderful new thing to me that I just can’t bear to let it rot! It’s me and the fruit flies and I’m not about to let them win.

Peaches, zucchinis, apricots, plums, sugar snap peas and soon tomatoes. I can’t even keep up with my camera. Life does not stop for the weary!

You know what time it is, don’t you? The sweat is rolling down your back, the kids have been traipsing dry grass bits in and out of the house faster than you can vacuum them up, bickering seems to be the favored form of communication…it’s time for a coffee break. An iced coffee break.

First you need some tall glasses and some little ones for the kids. Fill them with ice. Add chocolate syrup liberally. Fill the adult glasses halfway to three-quarters of the way with cold coffee and then the rest of the way with ice-cold milk. The kids get just milk and chocolate and maybe a smidge of coffee if they beg hard enough.

Like so.

Then dump out the kiddie pool and refill with warm hose water that has been baking in the sun.

Add kids…

I guarantee it will cure the summertime irrititus.

We started at Starbucks—a very expensive choice made by me but happily accepted by four non-coffee frappuccino-slurping girls. I really need to curb my caffeine habit.

Then we took Bug to gymnastics (Ballet was out for the week) and afterwards Toby took all of us to dinner on the pier in Balboa. The good thing about not seeing Toby for a whole week is that when he does see us, he doesn’t mind if there are FIVE rowdy girls instead of just two. It was a real circus.

We took Bug’s good friend “Boo” from the neighborhood. We may have been trying to show off how cool the ocean is. She was happy to oblige us and be impressed.

And the nieces. They miss their mom so much that whenever I suggested we take a picture of them together for her, they cuddled together like two little chicks and didn’t even whack each other, which is often their habit.

Us on the pier. I really need to try and be in more pictures.

The light was really cool as the sun was setting because there was this heavy fog bank that blocked the rays that would normally blind you. So we got to take interesting unusual pictures we normally couldn’t see.

Long shadows on the walk back to the car…

And more getting-along-nieces shots. Where did Rapunzel get such pretty lips? Not my side of the family.

Of course Pouty McPouterson had to join the party.

Thankfully the fun wasn’t hampered. “Don’t get wet!” I threatened in vain. Words to the wind, words to the wind…

Pretty pier.

Boo is properly excited.

It’s too bad I have my point-and-shoot camera set up to take super vertical shots and I cut off Super Chic’s face but I still love this photo. It really is a “slice of life.” A super narrow skinny slice. Super Chic is handing me shells to keep forever but of course I put them in some pocket and they are probably lost in the washing machine now. I love Rapunzel’s cackle.

More slices.

I love this shot of Boo playing jumprope with a piece of kelp. She wasn’t afraid of the slimy kelp at all. That’s my kinda kid.

The next day we initiated Boo into our traditional breakfast of doughnuts on lifeguard tower number five.

Patriotic sprinkles were enjoyed.

Tradition!

And then they were off to the sea. There really was no stopping them.

Catching a few rides in the morning soup.

This kid was unstoppable. She’s never had a boogie board before because technically she doesn’t know how to swim yet. But really, she can swim. She’s in the water more than she’s out and she’s not afraid to get her face wet at all. If she had her way, we would have been at the ocean all day and all night for probably the rest of the year. She never gets cold and she never gets tired. She borrowed a board this year and she may have found her life’s calling. I think I know what I’m getting her for her birthday this year: her own board.

Deb and Eric stopped by for a quick visit. I love my old beach friends.

By the way, Deb is on twitter now! One of these days I’ll get her to put up her own website. She really needs one. She has such amazing art.

We stopped by her house for a quick chat and I snuck in a few more photos of her art-filled house. She calls it a mess. I call it beautiful.

Rapunzel was looking particularly pretty and blue-eyed next to this stunning painting. Not sure which is prettier.

And then back to the beach! This time with sunblock.

Woooo-eeeeee! Boo took to the waves like a natural.

Bug stuck to the sand, much to my relief. I took a book to read but I couldn’t get much reading done because I was constantly looking up to count off my chicks. One, two, three, four. Phew. They’re all still alive. Then back to reading.

Which by the way, is a very good book Did you know Journey Mama wrote it? She’s such beautiful writer.

It’s just as much of a pleasure to read as her blog. She has a way with details…I’m completely engrossed in the story and quite attached to all of the characters. I’m not done yet but when I am, I’m going to have her do a guest post and maybe even a give away. I really think you all would enjoy reading it too. It’s a keeper. Of course I’m personally invested because it’s set in Northern California which is near and dear to my heart.

But back to Southern California and the waves…

I think it’s safe to say, a good time was had.

We’d been yelling at the kids to stop knocking the apricots out of the trees for what seemed like months. Finally, it became apparent that the kids weren’t knocking the apricots out of the trees anymore. The birds were and the apricots were soft and ripe when they landed on the ground which means it’s picking time! (Yes, that chair is totally busted.)

Hooray! I didn’t spend all spring paying that water bill for nothing. It was time for me to cash in on some yummy orange fruit!

While I went to the store for canning supplies, the kids picked whatever they could reach and Rapunzel, my oldest niece, got a ladder out of the shed and picked the higher-up ones. They left some yellowy-green ones for later.

You can’t just let these babies sit around and draw fruit flies. Nope. They have to be canned, into apricot jam specifically.

This is the face you make when you know you’ve got a big ugly mess ahead of you. It’s canning day.

My mom did most the cooking. I just cut up the apricots. Boy, did they smell good.

I love the smell of fresh hot jam.

We made 29 jars of jam which is a lot. Four batches. There are more apricots left too but I think I’m done with jam. My mom’s talking about dehydrating the rest but I’m going to let her do that at her house.

I’m done with messiness for a while. Phew!

It was worth it though. TWENTY-NINE JARS! Christmas presents, DONE. Now I just need to design some kind of cool label for them and maybe invest in some kind of big round paper-punch. There’s no way I’m cutting out 29 circle stickers like I did for the Marmalade. No way.

I did make some scones with some of the leftover cut-up apricots though. I just used my lemon scone recipe and added apricots instead of zest except I added a lot more than 2 tablespoons. They turned out super dense. Kind of like an apple fritter without the glaze. Pretty tasty really. You might want to stop by if you’re in the neighborhood.

I’m really digging this rural living. What’s next? Tomatoes, I think. Salsa anyone?

I think it’s safe to say that summer is here but then who knows, it is still June. The mornings are still chilly. But the fruit is here!

And my garden is exploding!

I’m such a happy farmer. I’m sure my neighbor thinks I’m a genuine nut with all the watering I do and the walking around crouching down taking pictures of things. It’s like they are my babies.

The kids are doing great. They are properly bored as they should be so their imaginations can grow, grow, GROW!! We have no television (it’s a godsend, believe me) and they spend almost 100% of their time outdoors making up complicated games and cluttering up my yard. But I don’t mind. I’m just happy that Bug has playmates. We’ve come a long way from being bored in the beach-house living room and watching Nickelodeon all day.

Of course I still have the internet so we struggle with that. I’m probably going to have to start clocking how much time the teenager puts in on Facebook.

There are swimsuits hung on the line…

…movies to be watched in the living room where the daylight seems to last forever.

And I’m wearing my hair up! A sure sign of summer.

I think they’ll have an album coming out by the end of the summer…or something.

P.S. Don’t forget to comment on my spinbrush post for a chance to win $$!

My nieces are here! They’re here for the whole summer! I’m so happy to have them. Of course it means we are running out of food every other day and there are clothes left on the bathroom floor regularly but they are a such a lovely sight for sore eyes. We’ve really missed them.

(photo taken by Rapunzel)

I was planning on keeping Bug in preschool all summer so I could keep to my work schedule but now that they are all playing so happily every day outside all the live long day, I decided to keep her out for the summer. It’s saving me quite a bit of money which is nice.

It’s going to be a summer to remember.

So far we’ve taken them into Orange County for Bug’s gymnastics/ballet class, dinner with Toby and a trip to the beach even though the sun was already down.

They had missed the beach. Sometimes I forget how lucky we are that we see it regularly. Super Chic wanted to go swimming right away of course. I think that girl is immune to cold.

They ran around crazy until it was dark.

Just like old times.

On Memorial Day my mom thought it would be nice to visit my grandma’s grave and put Grandpa’s flowers from the memorial service on her grave. He’s going to be buried there too as soon as the morgues do whatever it is that they do. I’d never been there so it was nice to see the gravestone and look at all the flags for the soldiers.

I wish Bug could have known my grandma. They were kindred spirits in their love of pink.

We attempted a family portrait but the sun was bright and harsh.

Then the park on the way home. Even my dad got in on the swinging.

It’s going to be one long fun memorable summer I know already. So I’m prepared with chore charts to keep things under control so I don’t go crazy. I’m thinking we might go somewhere special if they can fill these up with a lot of stars. I’m pretty sure they can. :)

everybody from secretagentjo on Vimeo.

I love my niece-com-poops.

My niece Rapunzel (not her real name) is turning 13. Can you believe it? It’s like yesterday I was taking her to Disneyland instead of Bug and she was only THREE!!! I miss that little munchkin so much. And I miss her as big kid too. She’s growing up too fast and too far away. They moved to the northernmost tip of California and I have no hope of ever seeing them again unless gas prices go down or Grandma brings them back down when she goes on a road trip in week. It’s possible but not likely.

Anyway, she’s turning 13 and she has requested a Paris-themed party. She knows she doesn’t have to say any more to get me on board designing an invite for her. I LOVE anything Paris-related, as you already know.

Here’s a rough prototype of a passport invitation I’m working on. I’m still working out the kinks.

I made the cover blue out of some cheap paper I had on hand and then cut it to the right size and rounded the corners with a handy-dandy corner-rounding tool. I love that thing but sometimes it gets dull and has to be sharpened with tinfoil. I printed out some pages for the inside and tried to staple them but my stapler is too small! If only I had one of those really long staplers.

So I sewed it together with pink thread because that’s what I had on my machine (of course) and I’m impatient. I’ll probably think of something better when I get back from our trip to Disneyland but I really wanted to bust these out while the inspiration was pinging away in my head. Ping! Ping! Ping!

Random pictures on the inside that I do not own the rights to but which should be okay since I’m not reselling this product. But if anyone knows who took these photos let me know and I will give credit. (Nice sewing job, eh?)

And a fun inside page where the guests can stick a photo of themselves. I’m still working on the details. I haven’t really figured out how to print on both sides of the papers and have the graphics line up correctly (stupid inkjet home printer) so I might tweak it a little more. Or not.

Anyway, I’m super excited about it and I can’t wait to see how the rest of the party pans out. Too bad I can’t be there!

My niece, Rapunzel (no, that’s not her real name), turned twelve yesterday and we celebrated by having an 80′s flashback party at the local roller rink. We didn’t wear old prom dresses and rock out to Depeche Mode (which I would have liked) but we did have a really good time skating and acting like a bunch of tweenagers. It took me back to my own tween days. Like totally.

We broke out the totally tubular glow bracelets and waved them around like we really didn’t care. I don’t know if glow bracelets were popular back in the 80′s. I sort of remember them at Disneyland…but they were super fun in the semi-darkness of the skanky skating rink that probably hasn’t been painted, re-carpeted or vacuumed since the 80′s. It’s such a dive. But we love it because of that.

The candy bar from Bug’s Rainbow Birthday made an appearance with some old school Now and Laters, candy dots and blow pops. They never go out of style.

Bug even skated a few laps with real big girl skates that actually rolled—unlike last time where she trudged around with wheel-locked skates. I need to take her more often so she gets the hang of it. I tried really hard to hold her up and push her around but it was murder on my back. I guess I’m not really a tweenager anymore.

Rapunzel opened presents and we ate technicolored cupcakes that CC made by the light of a nearby coke machine and our many many glow bracelets.

And then we skated, skated, skated until we smelled like sweat-balls from the 80′s and they turned the lights on and kicked us out.

My Grandma is the Queen of theme parties. In my lifetime she’s thrown full blown shin-digs that range from a Greek dinner where everyone wore togas and sat at long tables eating baklava and sandwiches wrapped in grape leaves to a crazy tie-die t-shirt-wearing “Un-Birthday Party” for the whole family…to a train station party for my brother when he was three that included various ticket-punching stations and a relay race across the backyard with a giant over-stuffed suitcase. I have so many memories of these crazy full-blown over-the-top parties. And I don’t mean over-the-top expensive. They weren’t. They were just really creative and fun. So maybe some of that enthusiasm for a good theme party trickled down to me.

When I posted a little blurb a while back about wishing I could host a black and yellow tea party, my Grandma took hold of my idea and ran with it. Mind you, she’s getting older now and has to be really careful that she doesn’t over-do because she tends to end up in the hospital when she does. This is really hard for her because the one thing she really loves to do is over-do. I can so relate.

She asked me to let her know when I was coming to town again and she started planning. She tucked little ideas away in an idea folder and before I knew it had dreamed up the most fantastic pink-themed tea party for little girls. The only problem was scheduling it. When would be a good time for all of us and not put Grandma over the edge and in the hospital again?

I knew I was heading out to the sticks this weekend so I called her up and we set a date. The only problem was she really really couldn’t over-do because she is scheduled to fly up to Canada on Tuesday for another granddaughter’s wedding. We can’t have her sick when she has a very important wedding to attend.

At first Grandma said she couldn’t do it. Then my Aunt Keren called up and said maybe she could if we were all really careful and helped out a lot. It’s such a hard call. To over-do or not over-do. Grandma only has so many more days left here with us. Should we live them up having fun tea parties or should we keep her in bed resting so she can stay with us longer?

We voted for both. The girls helped out making sandwiches.

I think my Aunt Keren did a lot of behind the scenes work and made sure Grandma stayed sitting down. And my mom, who is on a very strict diet and couldn’t eat a single thing on the menu, even helped out.

I think everything worked out. We weren’t short on effort…

…or food.

Then after our delicious tea party lunch we had a little treasure hunt for the girls and the last clue was to put Grandma to bed so she could rest.

Because we want to do this again and again and again…if Grandma is feeling up to it, of course.