Mosaic Art

One of the things I have been wanting to do but didn't have time for was being creative.  I had done a couple of mosaic classes in Yosemite the last couple years and scheduled another one for last week.  Above is this year's project, dogwood flowers.  They go with the last projects which were Half Dome and a giant sequoia tree.  I need to figure out a way to frame them.

This is the 4th class that I have taken with this instructor and have become friendly with her.  She also is friends with the gal who I went with, who is also a mosaic artist.  So after the class we all had lunch together and it was fascinating to listen to them talk about mosaic art and the people they know who are involved.  One of the coolest things is they go on trips to Italy to study mosaic art and create in local studios.

Big News - I have retired!

My last official day was May 1, 2026, although I was easing out since the end of January.  My last big hurrah was accepting an Emeritus Award from Ethisphere, an organization that has been championing business ethics for decades.  

I traveled to Atlanta to accept the award in front of a crowd that included 14 of my team mates.  The entire leadership team of the legal department came to see me accept the award.  It was truly such an honor and so humbling to receive such a meaningful award.  I have always done this work simply because I felt that it was the right thing for my company, the industry and the business world.  It was so nice to see that the hard work for 36 years was noticed.

Now that I have moved onto gardening, hiking, reading and looking for a board to join, I hope to find more time to blog my adventures.

Chickpea Chicken Salad Recipe

 

Filling

2 14 ounce cans of chickpeas drained
1 pink lady apple diced

1 stalk of celery diced

1 small shallot (or you can use red onions) - add more if you like onions
1/4 cup of sliced almonds

Dressing

1/2 cup of mayo
1/2 cup of plain greek yogurt (when I didn't have yogurt, I used sour cream)

4 teaspoons of dijon mustard

2 tsp of lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon each, pepper and salt.

Instructions

Roughly smash the chickpeas with a fork or your hands.  Mix all the fillings into the chickpea mixture.  Stir all the dressing ingredients together and add to the chickpea mixture.  Let it sit in the fridge for at least a few hours before serving.

Note - do one and a half recipes of the dressing!

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Astrid's 5th Birthday

 This is from last year but is too good not to capture.  This was Astrid's 5th birthday and all her friends were over to celebrate!

Hops the First

A Canine Companion puppy was named after Hops to honor what a great mentor she is to all the dogs that come through our home.  This is Hops the First....but really the second!  

 

Anna and Hops

At the end of last year, Anna broke a vertebrae in her back and had a very long and difficult recovery.  To cheer her up one day, we brought Hops over.  Hops did what she is so good at - gave Grandma some love!

World's Most Ethical Company Honor

 I don't post a lot about work but I am super proud that under my management, my company has been honored for 5 years as a World's Most Ethical Company.  Here are our 5 trophies!

And here is a video of the company celebrating the honor!

Happy Pack

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this picture of the dogs looking so happy on a hike.  But the best part is how happy Lydia looks!

 

Kaylene's Shower

At the beginning of August, we attended a shower for Kaylene!

It was hosted by her cousin in Gilroy and about 35 ladies attended.  It was a beautiful day celebrating her and her love for Drew.

 

Wedding Kicks

 The wedding is coming up quickly and I think this is my favorite part so far!

Fridge Drama!

We remodeled our house about 23 years ago.  And Jim designed the kitchen to have a built in fridge - which are more expensive then regular fridges.  I hated the fridge from the second in was put it - it didn't have much room, the water dispenser never worked right and the ice stopped working.   I always talked bad about it....until I realized how much it cost to replace it.  It started failing a couple years ago but we got it fixed.   It worked until the beginning of this year and we got it fixed again.  But this time it didn't work.  It wouldn't cool the fridge below 54 degrees!  

So we went on a hunt for a new one and settled on this beauty.  It is a subzero and cost $17k!  It should be able to serve me dinner for that much money.  But - I do love it!  I hope it lasts about 23 years like the last one.

Cherry - July 2025

 We lived at the cabin for 6 weeks this summer and only managed to get to Cherry for one of the weekends.  It did not disappoint!  I caught over 20 blue gill and Jim caught a couple trout.  We swam and paddle boarded and played with the dogs.

Kierstienne Graduation

Kierstienne, the latest puppy we helped raise graduated a week ago as a service dog.  She will be helping a 20 year old man by interrupting unwanted behaviors and opening the doors to social interactions!

I was lucky enough to go up to the graduation, have lunch with her new family and walk her across the stage at the official graduation ceremony.  She will be living in Washington and I hope to eventually go visit her.

The video is of our reunion.  She certainly remembered me and her main puppy raiser, Cathy.
 

Honey Harvest 2025

We harvest 188 pounds on Aug 15.  That's up about 82 pounds from last year.  

Grace was home so she helped, as did my friend Allison.

Along with the honey, Grace rendered a bunch of bees wax and made lip balm and Jim and I made two different types of hot honey.

Above is the rendered bees wax and below is the lip balm.

On the bottom of the pic above is the red pepper hot honey and above it is jalapeno hot honey.

More rendered wax above and below is the set up in the garage.  Since Jim has developed a bee allergy, we got a screen for the roll up garage door so we could safely keep the bees out.

Our hives above - 3 of them!   And our crew below!

Honey Harvest September 2024

We had 40 frames this time - which is way more than we have ever harvested.  Last year we had 24 frames which was our previous high.  One box of frames weighed 53.6 pounds!  And the water content was about 14% which is really low and means the honey is really thick.

 This is 50 pounds of honey in a 5 gallon bucket that is not even filled to the top.

Total amount of honey - 108.8 pounds!

Kierstienne the CCI Pup

Kierstienne is a CCI pup who turned 1 on July 4, 2024.   Her puppy raiser is a delightful older woman who found herself in over her head when Kierstienne was about 5 months old.  She reached out to the CCI community asking for help.  Ideally, she was looking for a co-raiser.  I reached out and said that I could help but likely did not have time to be a co-raiser.  At that point, she brought her over for a visit and I gave her a bunch of tips.

A little while later, we took her for a day and worked on some stuff that she was having trouble with - including being resistant to her gentle leader.  We played gentle leader games with her and BAM - fixed that problem!

The awhile later, the puppy raiser ended up in the ER and had no one to watch Kierstienne and didn't know how long she would be in the hospital.  Jim ran over (I was at the cabin) and rescued Kierstienne from her crate and brought her to the cabin.  We had her for a couple days and brought her home once the puppy raiser was released.

Most recently, the puppy raiser had a more significant medical issue and reached out to let me know since I am invested in Kierstienne.  She had talked to the Puppy Program Manager who told her she had a couple choices:  re-home Kierstienne or find a co-raiser.   And then she had a longer term option of sending her to San Quentin in November.  The inmates would work with her for the month, giving the puppy raiser a break.

If you have read this far, you have figured it out:  We agreed to take her for a week to allow the puppy raiser to rest.  After the first week, we checked back in and she asked if we could keep her until Aug 10.  Because I am living at the cabin right now and not going to the office, the answer was an easy "yes".    So this is our guest, Kierstienne, living the adventurous life that we give our dogs.    

She is a great dog who is super easy to manage.  When she first came to us, she was dog crazy.  She just could not get enough of the dogs and played a bit out of control.  But these last couple weeks of having dog friends 24/7 has solved that problem.  There is so much they learn from other dogs that this has been a really good experience.  Plus I have seen her confidence grow as she watched the other dogs do stuff that she was not sure about.  

Date Night at the Brewery

Since we are spending a good chunk of the summer at the cabin, we get to do stuff that we wouldn't normally have time for.   Including a paint and sip class at the brewery.  We went on Friday night and really enjoyed it.  We met some nice local folks and learned some stuff in the process!

The pics we painted are of Tenaya Lake, which is a lake in the high country in Yosemite.