Treehouse Again - First October Picture

I am endlessly fascinated by the view from my treehouse deck.  It's beautiful almost 24 hours a day, though I don't stay up to see it much past midnight.

We've got these large flocks of vultures that like to wheel around in the sky and occasionally they roost in the top branches of the tree across the road.  A couple of days ago there were 10 or 15 of them and as the sun started to rise they spread their wings and just sat there as if greeting the sun god.  I suppose if you had a really bad hangover you'd tend to think they were waiting for you.

There hasn't been much in the cloud department for a couple of months but when they show up they produce some fabulous sunsets.  Last night the bands of clouds were lavender, rose, and a deep purple, it was stunning.  I've been experimenting with my new droid phone, which has an awesome camera feature with some very cool special effects.  It was either on posterize or solarize when I took this one, makes it look like I live on Venus.

And I'm finding more interesting local flora, fauna and bugga.  Just as I was going to turn off my light a couple of nights ago I heard this large whirring and something splatted up against the wall and stuck.  I had to see what it was.  It was a very large praying mantis, very green and about 3 or 4 inches long, beautiful.  I didn't want it to end up stuck in the house and starving so I captured her or him and took it back outside to the dark night.  I'd much rather find a praying mantis in my bedroom than one of the countless spiders I'm always finding.  Sorry no pic, too late at night but I'll see what I can find around the house.

Happy day

TV Fun!

Ok, I have to admit that after two months I'm actually pretty happy to have cable tv.  I love my Craigslist find, the cabinet is beautiful and the tv works great, so tonight I get to curl up and watch a new House episode.

Today I drove down to Sacramento to pick up my latest CL find, a Pottery Barn wooden office chair, woot!  One of these days I'd like to wander around Sacramento and look at the neighborhoods.  The house I saw today was a very cool Mid-Century Modern house.  This house had aggregate flooring that extended out from the kitchen/family room completely outside to the pool.  Go look for some pics of Mid-Century Modern, the Atomic Ranch and Eichler.

Nothing else here right now, hot, hot, hot and thankfully my a/c is working so we're keeping cool except for occasional trips outside for necessities.

The sunset is beautiful.

Peace

Bigger!

When a person tells me I need to do something I will generally file it away for future reference.  However, when a second person in the same week tells me the same thing I put that item up on my mental bulletin board as maybe something I should look into.

BIGGER is what they said, your earrings are nice but they need to be bigger.  Hmmmm, really?

Oh yeah, you're not in Kansas any more Dorothy, or rather you're not in Minnesota anymore Krystal!

How exciting!

So last night and tonight I've been busy in my studio until late, torching up some larger versions of my tried and true line of fine silver.  This pic shows a few of the prototypes, bad light this time of night but at least you get the idea.  The pair with the ear wires is my standard size and all the others are new.  I can't wait to try them out tomorrow.  Yippee!

My current Craigslist find, it's big and solid and has a tv too. My nephew and his friend kindly came and hauled this huge thing up to my treehouse, they were amazing!  At first I thought it looked too country but it actually has more of a Spanish feel to it so it gets to stay in the living room.  Tomorrow I'm going out to find cables and a DVD player, maybe tomorrow night I'll be movie watching, yeah!

Tomorrow is the Draft Horse Classic at the Grass Valley Fairgrounds.  My niece will be going with me, should be fun.  We get to see the log pulling finals.  I love horses and Draft horses are especially wonderful, working animals are always fine to see.

Peace.

Bracelet Fun

I thought it might be fun to show the process of a series of bracelets I'm making.

I start with a sheet of sterling silver and using some large tin snips from my local farm supply I cut them, very carefully, into strips.  I wear a leather glove on one hand and try to stay focused.  Metal work is almost as good as meditating to get your mind into a focused and aware state.  You just can't be trying to cut this stuff while your monkey mind wanders off somewhere, otherwise something bad is surely going to happen.  Either you'll mismark the piece and cut it badly or you'll slip and take the top off of a knuckle, I've done it already.

So before you start you say, "Here now" and keep repeating.  And then hopefully you'll end up with some nice straight pieces of silver without blood.

Next is stamping, sounds easy but it's practically impossible to get the letters straight.  Again, focus, look at the word on paper, look at the letter in your hand.  Is it the right one?  Is it right side up?  Part of the appeal of the pieces is the slightly wonky lettering.  If you want precise you should shop someplace else, though I do use precision tools for many things.

While there is life there is hope in Latin.

After stamping you can trim the piece and do some nice hammering to add some texture.

Pretty, huh?

Lots of finishing left to do.  File the edges smooth, drill the holes, file those.  More hazardous things, once while filing I let my mind wander and didn't hold it steady.  It slipped sideways and drove the metal straight into the end of my finger, this metal is sharp everywhere.

Then the piece is shaped.  I use this great wooden shaping tool that was made for me.  The hammer is a terribly gorgeous Fretz hammer, each one made to move metal in creative ways.  I don't let anyone use these but me.  Normally the hammer would be on the right but lacking two right hands I couldn't hold it and take a pic.

The pieces ready to head to the designing bench for finishing.

Bis vivit qui bene vivit - S/he lives twice who lives well.
Aut viam inveniam aut faciam - I'll either find a way or make one.
Dum vita est spes est - While there is life there is hope.
Love conquers all.
Nemo me impune lacessit - No one harms me with impunity.  This one is my personal favorite.  The first time I'd heard of this was from my son wanting a jewelry piece for his love with her favorite phrase.

And heading to the design table for finishing.

Some nice amethyst, purple dyed turquoise and some really fine aquamarine for this piece. Sterling silver wire, jump rings in various sizes (I make my own) and a nice bit of advertising for Rings & Things, one of my favorite gem suppliers.

Still have to tumble it, then decide if it needs a patina before it's ready for a picture and a tag and the website.

Fun huh?  Hope you like a glimpse into my workshop.   If you want a custom piece just let me know.

Peace.

Living a true life...

Isn't it funny that when you got your glasses you suddenly noticed everyone who wore glasses?  And then you were pregnant and felt like you lived in a sea of bumped out bellies.  And now we're hot flashing and have to grin at some poor soul unzipping her jacket in 30 degree weather, right there with ya honey.

It's just nice to know you're not alone in whatever universe you happen to exist.  I'm lucky to know so many great women who think hard.  They ponder the difficult and hope to find a way to share their good fortune amd wisdom with others.  Most of us don't get here without suffering somehow, death, illness, betrayal, frustration.  And yet they manage to greet the day, get up and struggle on, they find time to laugh, to love, to cherish and comfort and smile.

Thanks!  You make my life better just by existing.

One of my favorite food blogs is the Gluten Free Goddess.  Even if you don't suffer from celiac disease you can appreciate many of the recipes. My favorite is the Moroccan Coconut & Chickpea Soup. Today Karina has a great post on Gluten Free Muffins but take the time to read her thoughts about living a true life.  It's very inspiring.

Karina's Kitchen

I like the direction I'm heading, it feels true.

I also like stamping and shaping metal.  I'm making a mess of bracelets like this one.

It says, "After all, tomorrow is another day."   Isn't it though?

BINGO at the DMV!

I just noticed my Droid takes some long skinny pics, funny.

Anyway, we're all sitting at the DMV, it's going on my third hour and the nice lady next to me has left her cell in her car and is fretting because her spouse is in a wheelchair and must be worried about her and she's worried about him and the little numbers keep tumbling along on the monitor, B007, B008, C015, C016...and about then someone says, "Come on G, give me a G" and we all crack up.  And then my number comes up and I say BINGO and head up to finish, yeah!

But I must give those DMV people credit, they are very nice, very patient and work really hard.  You know they've cut back on staff and closed extra days and created an incredible backlog of work for the remaining folk.  The sweet lady who was helping me not only did all my paperwork quickly and well but was also running in and out to check vehicles and give driver's tests, that's some multitasking.

I knew it would be an ordeal, switching things over is never easy, thankfully I had all the right documents anyway, not surprising as I spend a lot of time researching the DMV site for info.

One more thing done.

It's a peaceful night here, black and clear, nightbirds calling occasionally, rustling leaves and the yip of a fox every now and then.  The dogs are snoozing, Dandy close to me, Bode out on the front deck.  He loves to be outside, either on the decks or on his picnic table, funny little dude.  I've got a great mix of music playing, Patty Griffin's newest "Downtown Church" is a fine mix of gospel and blues, she's amazing if you happen to like rich eclectic voices.  She's seems to be touring in Europe right now, hope she comes this way someday.

Peace to you.

Order from Chaos

What a lovely mess comes out of the tumbler.

And after it's untangled.

The bracelet:

Upside down, don't they look a little like a booty? 

So he gives you one of these and says, "Honey, you have my....."  And you say, "I have your a**?" 

Sorry, tickles me.

Laughing!

Still Lazy

And a bit boring.

My friend CS told me about a book called "Keeping the Feast" by Paula Butturini.  So I headed down to our library and when I found they didn't have it I keep right on walking down to our local book store and found it there, yeah!

It's very good, hard to read sometimes as it deals with depression and sickness.  BUT, it's interwoven with stories of Italian family life and food and living in Italy and how simple things like preparing good food can help get you through the day.

I believe the goodness of food, finding, preparing and eating can get us through a lot of tough days.  Unfortunately good food lovingly prepared and served is often the first thing that is forgotten in our daily whirlwind.  We hit the fast food joint or toss something together quickly and of course there is the child who will only eat boxed mac and cheese for six months at a time, but we can forgive ourselves for that.

I'm loving having the time to find, fix and feast on some simple but wonderful food, just one thing missing at this point is the fourth component, friends, but that will come.

 I'm also busy foraging about looking for bits and pieces of furniture.  I left most of my favorite pieces in MN until the house sells so right now my living room is a little bare.  Actually I kind of like the empty look but it's not that comfortable and the boys are asking for a nice couch we can all curl up on together.  I particularly like Craigslist.  It's full of junk but every now and then a real gem comes up.  I found a very nice leather chair and ottoman which is very comfortable.   Today I found a really nice tv and armoire/media center but that will have to wait another couple of weeks until I can line up a couple of large burly men to move it for me.  Which makes me giggle, can't we all use a couple of large burly men around to move things?

Tomorrow I will show you the large pile of hearts that just came out of the tumbler, very pretty.

Bode cooling off in the NID (Nevada Irrigation Ditch) at the park.  Picture taken with my new Droid, a technogeeks dream.

Sleep well!

Lazy Day

I changed Labor Day to Lazy Day and did almost nothing, or my version of nothing.

Went out to my Dad's place and walked the property with him.  I think he just doesn't want me to forget about my little corner which is becoming more of a jungle every month.  The 10 foot tall pile of blackberry bushes must cover about an acre now, yikes!

And they frown at me when I mention using a flamethrower on it.

It does make me wonder what an upscale miner's cabin would look like, here's my architect of choice and the house that grabbed me:
http://www.davidwrightaia.com/cabins/


Can't you just picture me and the dogs kicking back on the porch.  It's built to be off the grid and has features essential to fire country.

The rest of the day was spent on a long nap, some studio torching and dinner.

I sliced some polenta, brushed some olive oil on it, sprinkled bread crumbs and parm cheese and then baked it in the oven.  Then I sauteed some onion, added sliced bitty tomatoes, my homemade pesto, a splash of white wine, a little pour of half and half, and then simmered some shrimp in it until they were barely pink.

It maybe doesn't look as good as it tasted.  I ate it on the back porch with a glass of Sauvignon Blanc, heavenly.  Not bad for a 15 minute meal.

 Mangia!

Inspiration

Where do I find it?  And why?

Lately I'm in the middle of a hearts jag.  While my own heart has been feeling a bit tattered and torn I've been churning out dozens of bright and shiny hearts in my studio.  Mostly earrings and pendants so far, with a bracelet or two lurking on my bench, insisting on being made.  They do that you know.   The ideas simmer around in my head until one day I have to sit down and start cutting and torching and hammering until they are born.  Every now and then it's a bust, the mental picture and the hand skill just don't mesh but usually something nice comes out and occasionally it's lightning!

So one of these days I'll be done with shiny hearts and move on to something else.  I'm drawn to old and used, the mine is one of my favorite places as well as hanging out at my Dad's place with his treasures.  

This image is from the Empire Mine, look at the great handmade hinge and the connectors.  This gets me thinking of rivets and texturing metal in unusual ways.  I think I'll take some mold making compound up on our next walk and see if I can get a good impression of the rusted parts on the left.  Though I'd love to take a piece of fine silver sheet and a hammer and texture it right there, though someone might wonder what the hell I was doing, ha!

And my favorite links, imbedded in stone, great stuff. The challenge here is to fuse a really thick gauge of fine silver wire, maybe 8 gauge, and then hammer it like crazy.  Or just try some bronze clay, hmmm...

I also love this website, Spirits of the Abandoned which has some of the most powerful images of forgotten places I've ever seen.  Check it out.

Sleep well.

I forgot.

Already.

I forgot what's it like to have kids at home.

 I find myself a little impatient that my sister can't go with me on a walk or whatever.  It's just a walk, but she's got this to do and that to do and both of us are tired just thinking about her schedule.  So I say ok and head off by myself for some excellent adventure, which would be ever so much more excellent with someone to take along.

Sorry.

I have memories of a busy family, my boy out the door early for sports or music practice, my girl packing her bag for school and for our after school trip an hour away for skating.  And checking schedules with my spouse to remind him of the concert that night or whatever.

I forgot the mental exhaustion that came with managing schedules for a family of four along with various pets.

It was great fun actually, tough and exhausting but so rewarding to raise a great family and then send them off to live their lives.  And I'd do it all over if I had the chance.

But.

I'm so glad it's you and not me.  I love the been there, done that of the whole thing.  I'm learning to be sort of selfish and it feels good.

I love having time to do things I love.  I bought a bag of fresh roasted chilies, washed off their peels and seeded them then layered them in a baking dish with cheese, some sauteed and chopped shrimp and a cream/egg mixture and topped it with some salsa before I baked it.

What do you think of my shrimp chili relleno casserole?

My big dilemma now is beer or white wine?

Cheers!

Eat, Pray, Love

I slogged though the book, loving the Italian eating (who wouldn't?), finding the praying part "meh" and the loving section in Bali just seemed too weird to be believed and the whole book was overshadowed by Liz's incredible self absorbed whininess.

But I found the movie very good, the 2 plus hours flew by.  Julia Roberts was good as usual, though I'm beginning to assign many of her expressions to other movies, as in "Oh look, she's playing the Runaway Bride," and in the scene where's she's having it out with Philippe she reminded me too much of the berserk Jean in the X-Men movie, right before she dissolved Xavier.

Again, I loved the Italian section, loved the people and the food but this time I like the praying section as they shortened up quite a bit of useless "I can't" wailing and made the Texan even better than he was in the book.  I was leaking tears all over when he told her his story and loved the part about forgiving yourself.  Then they automatically made the third part best by having Javier Bardem as the sexy Brazilian, holy s**t!

Interestingly, both Julia and Javier are fascinating to watch.  Neither have great features but they both swing from amazingly ugly to astonishingly beautiful in a second, making it hard to take your eyes off them.

Other than that it was a general clean-up day, the kitchen had a hangover from yesterday's wretched excess.  I did find these pics of Kirsten and me in San Francisco in March.

Love SF, loved living there and love to visit again.

Hanging out in the kitchen

Yesterday I stopped at a farm stand outside of Marysville and picked up corn, peaches (3 different kinds), nectarines a couple of tomatoes and a melon.

This morning I hit the growers market in Grass Valley and bought some basil, small pear tomatoes, red bell peppers, a sour dough baguette and some pomegranite syrup.

Then I cruised by the supermarket for some coconut milk.  You gotta love this place, they had a huge shipment of New Mexican Green Chiles and they were roasting them outside, the aroma was amazing.  Of course I bought a big plastic zip lock bag filled with warm, black, roasted chiles.  I figure that if I can't find anything to put them in I'll just dump them on the floor and roll in them, they smell that good.

Back at the treehouse I got a batch of Moroccan Chickpea Stew going, cleaned off a few of the peppers and added them to that along with vege stock, garlic, sweet potato, fire-roasted tomatoes, chickpeas, red bell pepper, lime juice, green curry paste and a can of coconut milk.  While that burbled away I finished cleaning the rest of the peppers, chopped them and stuck them in the freezer, later I'll add them to soups and whatnot.

Then I made an lovely salad of orzo, basil, tomatoes, corn left over from last night's dinner, red onion, balsamic vinegar and some olive oil with various spices.  The crunch of the onion, the sweet corn and the sublime basil smell and taste make this one of my favorite salads.

Meanwhile I'm boiling and peeling peaches and dumped them all into my biggest bowl with a handful of sugar and a dump of lemon juice.  I had an idea to make some little personal pies so I made some pie dough and rolled out little rounds and put them in my favorite Ziploc round plastic containers.  Then I added some more sugar to the peaches along with a bit of flour and poured some in each container, rolled out a top crust, sealed it up and tossed them in the freezer.

For dinner I added some swiss chard and a little kale to my stew and had a bowl of that with the sour dough bread and some orzo/basil salad and a glass of Lucchesi's Sauvignon Blanc which is so crisp and flinty it held up very well to all those veges.

I wanted to try one of my mini peach pies to see if it would work so I let them freeze for a couple hours to set up a little and then made a triple layer aluminum foil mini pan, popped the pie out of it's plastic holder and put it in the foil, baked it for 40 minutes until bubbly.

Holy Cow!  It's great!  Half was just enough for a small dessert and I saved the other half for breakfast.

All in all a good day.  Except for the mess in the kitchen.  I love to cook.  I dislike clean-up. Oh well...

Next project will be a huge pot of Giada's Marinara Sauce.  My freezer is looking pretty good.

Smiles

Home again, home again, jiggity jig - Friday

Our little motel and the beach in front of it.

The trip up the mountain is not quite as bad as down, thankfully. What a difference from two days ago when the temps in the valley between Grass Valley and Fort Bragg were 100-108 degrees, today they were in the 80's.  

It was a soul satisfying couple of days.  I love being near water of any sort and the ocean blisses me out.  Strangely it also terrifies me, the thought of boarding a fishing boat and heading out gives me the willies, so I'm content to wiggle my toes in the surf and watch the crashing waves.  

So back to my mountain lair, already planning my next trip.  Stopped at a roadside stand for a big mess of peaches, sweet corn and a melon, more jam tomorrow.

Peace

Glass Beach - Thursday

You would think that having a motel room on a public walkway at the beach would make for a noisy night.  Nope.  It closes at 10 pm and with the fog rolling in thick it's pretty cool anyway (50's) so it was a lovely sleep.  We got up early and headed out to Glass Beach and then downtown Fort Bragg.

Sometimes stupid things result in something quite intriguing.  In the 1940's residents turned this area into a public dump and for almost 30 years it conitinued until about 1967 when the dump was closed and relocated elsewhere and much of the obvious junk was removed.  However, the glass has been continuously washed and pounded and now covers whole sections of the beach.  There are still parts of cars imbedded in the rocks and a couple places looked a bit funky and scary but overall the beach is magical.

A close-up of the glass.

We continued walking to downtown and had a nice cup of coffee and a muffin outside a very nice coffeehouse, wish they would have had an outside dog friendly eating place, oh well.  I couldn't resist a couple of flower pics, this white flower smelled so sweet and was almost as big as my hand.

It was a great day!  We rested a bit and then drove over to the dog beach in Noyo Harbor and later went cliff walking.  Later we just sat outside and enjoyed the glitter of the sun on the ocean, at least I did.

Ahhhhh....

Running from the heat - Wednesday

When the temperature reached almost 100 degrees before 10 am I thought and thought and finally said, "F**k it, I'm going to the beach."

The Beachcomber Motel in Fort Bragg had room for me and the boys so we packed up and headed out by noon.  The trip was a relatively easy 200 miles except for final 33 miles of scary, twisty, turny complete with an encounter with a deranged mountain fellow who clearly needed to take his meds.

This made it worth the ride.

The view outside our room and shortly after that we hit the beach:

Play first and then some much needed food.  Silver's on the Wharf in Noyo Harbor allows dogs on their wonderful outside patio.  This line fished King Salmon on a bed of sweet corn was fabulous.

Doesn't get much better than that.  And it's cool and the fog is rolling in and my sweatshirt feels ever so good.

Peaceful

Loving, leaving, grieving, forgiveness, loving again...

Or why am I crying because I can't get the picture to hang straight?

Grief is loss, it's losing something or someone.  Think about it, if we get sick we've lost our independence and our sense of wholeness, we may mourn a breast or our ability to experience life as we've known it and we may face losing our own life.  If we experience a death we've lost connection to that person and their love.  If we divorce we've lost our lover, our friend, our confidant, our history, our financial security, and our reason to bitch.

I don't think you can really know someone until you see them grieve.  Oh, you may think you know them, you have lunch and discuss your various friends, husbands and children.  You laugh at their jokes and cheer their successes and secretly find them a bit needy or annoying or full of themselves.  Then one day you get lucky and find yourself with someone experiencing deepest grief.  Lucky?  I don't mean lucky as if you've won front row seats to a real tear jerker, but lucky in that you are privileged to see a person stripped down to their core.  Here you get a chance to see the real person and to test your mettle in the face of their grief.  Can you stand and let it wash over you without flinching?  Or do you run from it?   What if the person grieving is yourself?

I can't write publicly about my own experience because I still love and respect the man I left.  But somewhere along the line I've decided to love myself more and to wade into my grief and let it wash over me.  I'm grieving for so many things, my old life, my friends, my stuff, my flower gardens and so on.  And while it is difficult to start a new life, it's so much better than being in the same town.

I will honor my grief, knowing that at the bottom of that well is forgiveness and if I am able to forgive then I will be able to move on and to love again, perhaps this time with more wisdom and kindness that I did before.  And I will stand with my grieving friends and thank them for honoring me with their true self.

Peace

Out of the closet

I came out of the Blogging closet this morning and I feel all naked but never fear friends, it's just a mental nakedness.

I've been madly sending pics to various people and then feeling bad when I forgot someone so this is much easier.  And my friend AW is my first follower, woot!   Little does she know my evil plan to show such gardens of delight that she will be stricken with an uncontrollable urge to hop on a plane to visit.  Just don't do it until this weekend when it's supposed to cool down.

It was 91 degrees before noon today and keeps getting hotter and hotter.  The dogs are sacked out panting.  Hell, I'm panting but I'll make it.  I have a couple deliveries this week, one tomorrow (Wed) and one installation of DTV on Friday or I would be out of here.  I looked up Fort Bragg, it's only 200 miles west of here and there are pet friendly motels and beaches and water, it's soooo tempting.  I think if the delivery shows up early tomorrow I may just head out of town.

And boy does that thought feel liberating.  I like the idea of just leaving when I want to so extremely wonderful.  When the house sells I'm going to splurge and buy myself something like this:

It's a teardrop trailer.  You can find them here http://vacations-in-a-can.com/
They custom make them and they are so light you can move it around by hand and even pull it behind a regular car.  So I'll be off to wherever without worrying about finding pet friendly lodging.  Isn't it cool?  There is a bigger one but for some reason the smaller one has a longer sleeping space, perfect for a six footer with two dogs.

Breakfast at the South Pine Cafe this morning with my Dad, sMom and Sister was very nice. It's such a thrill to go have breakfast with my family.  I had the potato pancakes with pesto and a couple of eggs, a blueberry muffin and black, black coffee. My Sister had the Lobster Eggs Benedict with jalapeno hollandaise and avocado and my Dad had his usual South Pine Scramble, a great mess of spinach, red onions, corn salsa, mushrooms and jack cheese with red and green pesto on top.  It was great!

I'm also either working on or thinking about classes at Beads Galore.  I want to come up with designs for classes that are truly mine and showcase some of the skills I know and can teach.  The process is a bit difficult because I have to limit each project to a particular skill set but at the same time leave room for artistic expression for each student.  Next I have to take those pieces in and talk about the materials I need to be available to my students.

Later I want to talk about friends, leavings, grief and forgiveness.

I LOVE it here!

Love, love, love this place.  Got up a little earlier this morning and headed back up to the Independence Trail, this time to head the other way and maybe find some water.

Well, it was a steep .4 mile climb down but we found Jones Bar, which has a lovely bunch of places to explore.

There is a bald eagle sitting on the big rock in the upper middle right.  I've got to figure out how to get to the far side, nice sand there.

The boys found a nice place to cool their feet:

But then we had to climb back up.  While it was pretty steep and I stopped often to catch my breath it was easier going up, less fear of falling.  Of course, four legs do better than two legs.

Then I found the Yuba river is only a quarter down the road and with a bit of rock climbing there is a lot of cool water, sandy bottom to walk on and lots of places for swimming.  Didn't take my phone but we're going back there soon.   Dandy is getting pretty good at swimming, he likes to follow me even if I'm in the water.  Bode likes it more but he's so skinny he looks like he's sinking.

Maybe tomorrow because it's suppose to be 98 and we don't have any a/c.

On jewelry and dogs

I realize I haven't posted many pics of Dandy and Bode.  I just wish I could get pics of them while we play the water every evening about sunset.  They leap and run and growl and have a generally glorious time, you just have to be there.  But here's one of Dandy flying for a frisbee that my son Grant took over the holidays.

I worry about his back but they are both so athletic and fit right now that they like to fly.  Bode's favorite spot is on top of the picnic table outside the kitchen.

I think he likes the view and he usually gets up there by jumping from the small bench seat, he's a goof, love that boy.  His personality is getting more attentive and a couple times he's crawled into my lap when he knows I'm sad.  He'll be a good therapy dog someday too.

I'm feeling like some of my last post was a bit mushy and stupid, oh well.  It's hard to put things into words sometimes, especially matters of the heart.  I'm sort of a Scarlett O'Hara person, never think about anything today that you can put off until tomorrow, but eventually it all catches up to you and then there's hell to pay, for sure.  

Today was a marvelous day.  I went to the GV Grower's Market and bought cilantro, nectarines, strawberries, a sourdough baguette and some great French goat cheese.  I met an a gorgeous, vivacious woman selling wine for Lucchesi Vineyards.   She was out of my favorite Sauvignon Blanc but gave me a coupon for 25% off at the tasting room.  So I toddled off to downtown GV, bought a bottle of wine and several pounds of coffee, what a great shopping trip.  I even went to the library and checked out a few books, superb!  The amazing thing was I bought herbs, fruits, wine, coffee and bread from the people who actually made them!  What a satisfying expedition.

Then I spent the rest of the day making a big mess of heart pendants in various forms and just now took them out of the tumbler, all shiny and needing homes.

And I cleaned house, ew.  Not my favorite thing but important to keep ahead of the dog fur a little bit.  I have to get rugs I can vacuum.  I brought a bunch of rag rugs because I had them but they have to be shaken and beaten and handled in rough and strenuous ways to get them clean, it's hard work.  Then vacuum, dust, scrub bathrooms and mop floors, feels good mentally but the rest of me hurts, oh well.  The two things I can't believe are the dust and the spiders.  No rain here for over a month so a lot of the red dirt is everywhere and long legged daddy type spiders in every corner and windowsill.  At least they are fairly benign, nothing like the  black widow I found in the garage.  That scared me a bit and reminded me I have to be careful here, those are serious spiders, especially for the animals.  I don't think I've ever seen one but when you do you know, they are very black and shiny, fairly large with long legs and the unmistakable red hourglass on the belly.  I squished it with no regret.

Going to the big city shopping tomorrow.  I haven't been in a mall for months and the one in Roseville is very nice, Pottery Barn here I come.

Peace...

Back to the Studio

I'm so happy to be getting back into my studio.  I cannot turn on creative so relationship changes and moving across country and setting up a new house and traveling for US Figure Skating have all drained my pool of pretty.

 But it's coming back, yeah!  When I start daydreaming of things I want to make then I know it's time to sit down and get busy.  I'm pretty much settled into my downstairs garden studio.  Yesterday I found a great jewelers bench for sale and now I'll be doing a bit of re-working my space, which may mean I've got a new place to put my rolling mill.

So today I actually photographed, photoshopped and uploaded some new things, how cool is that?

 The weird thing is I'm totally smitten with hearts.  I don't do cute but for some reason they are just calling out to me.  Of course, there was the heart attack last fall and the end of a 31 year relationship so a heart theme isn't too far off the track.  I just keep thinking about hearts: heart attacks and heart health, she's got heart, I left my heart in SF,  hearts desire and hearts afire, bury my heart at wounded knee, the Tom Petty song someone sang for me recently - Walls Fall Down, and my fingers are bending shapes into hearts without me even thinking about it.  I love their little lopsided charm, the way they dangle upside or downside or sideways.

I'm working on healing my broken heart and filling up my reservoir again, so that it's strong and sure and my love can bubble up and overflow and spread around.

In the meantime this is what's coming out of my studio - Earrings

And pendants

It's been fun!  You can find these on my website www.riverwomandesign.com

And now my boys are sleepy and telling me it's time for bed, good night!

Treehouse

Ok, I'm going to post some pics of my new house and then I'll call myself caught up, sort of.

I rented this house without seeing it.  I relied on my Sister's good sense and her knowledge of what I would like. She did a great job!  I love the house, it's got high ceilings, a great view, skylights and beams and the light just floods in, perfect for someone who suffers from SAD.  Of course there are trade-offs, the driveway is scary enough I may stay home if the weather gets snowy and the yard isn't much for the dogs, just weeds and red dirt. But they love their pool and playing frisbee up the driveway and we go for lots of walks both in the neighborhood and other cool places.

Here's my view, I love to sit out here in the morning and have breakfast and at night with something cold to drink and a peach or maybe a pluot.

Here's the driveway from hell.  I thought I could rent it out as a ski jumping facility, except you'd land in the neighbors yard, maybe on top of one of their cars, not so friendly.

But I like it fine.  We've been looking for new places to walk besides our favorites in Condon Park and the Empire Mine and the Western Gateway Park in Penn Valley.  Today we tried the Independence Trail above Nevada City which was very nice.  It's handicap accessible so the trail is wide and smooth and the only really scary part was the scaffolding walkways they've built along the cliffs, whew!  I did some walking not looking over the side.  And the rocks, huge big rocks, love them, here's one you have to walk through, quickly without thinking about earthquakes.....

It was a good day!

Driving, driving, driving.....

Long slow days but the boys and I are doing great!  I have to stop for gas more frequently and we've fallen into a nice rhythm.  Usually gas stations are lousy places to walk around and check pee mail so I try to stop at a rest stop first, let them do their thing and so when I go for gas next they barely move, it's fascinating how quickly they learn the drill.

Wyoming is starkly beautiful and I got a couple of really good pictures.  We're almost into Utah at this point, climbing up into Park City.

After this it's a bit more severe, like this of the great salt lake in Utah:

This makes me thirsty just looking at it.

My cool little FJ pulled that big heavy trailer all the way to California without any problems, thank goodness.  We got going on our last leg from Winnemucca, Nevada at 6 in the morning and the one car on the road kicked up a rock that put a nice bullseye in my windshield.  So far so good though, no cracks so hopefully it will be fixable without replacing the whole thing.

I'm heading out to Michigan tomorrow morning for a figure skating assignment so more pics when I get back.

Long Road to Home

Obviously the move took all my time and energy for all of July and on into August.  Oh well...

I cannot believe how much time it took to pack.  I was the most ADD packer ever.  The hard part is trying to pack a Fiestaware service for almost fifty (yes, that's 50) into boxes that a human woman can carry down a flight of stairs, into a U-Haul, 1900 miles across the country and then into a pick-up truck that ferried everything up the driveway from hell and on into the treehouse and then upstairs to the main floor.  Whew!  So I'd layer a blanket or two, a layer of newspaper wrapped fiestaware and then I'd run all over the house looking for soft, light things to top off the box.  Which is why the box of bowls was crammed with all the dog toys and most of my clothes ended up on top of fiestaware, which made for some interesting unpacking too.

And then I made the brilliant decision to attend Skate St. Paul for the weekend before I left and did half of building the competition and printed the whole thing.  Sometimes I think I'm wonder woman when I'm really just wondering where my brains are?  So gone til Sunday late, picked up the trailer on Tuesday and packed it all day Tuesday and Wednesday.  Or rather I packed it in the early morning and late at night when it was slightly less than 90 degrees with humidity so bad it felt like swimming, yuck!

Thursday morning I was still packing but I managed to get out of town by noon.  I know, what a joke huh?  But it was the best I could do.  I had to drop a bunch of things off at the local pack and ship place, stuff I had to have but could not find a safe place to pack.  And I was afraid the car would not be able to move the load at that point, really, it was riding low.

Well, my usual 8 hour days turned into 10 hour days simply because you can't go as fast towing a 6x12 foot U-Haul, but we made it to Kearney, NE that night safely and stayed at my favorite, pet friendly Microtel.  You may laugh but finding a decent (not stinky, dirty or expensive) place to stay with pets is hard.  Often they'll not only put you up in a cruddy been smoked in room that hasn't been refurbished for 20 years and then they'll charge you 20 bucks for each pet on top.  This Microtel is the BEST, clean, kind, pet friendly and no extra charges.  I would stay there without my pets and I am a hotel snob.

I did manage to leave the front seat empty and padded it with dog blankets so the boys could take turns sleeping up front.  Dandy liked it best.

Next is day two to Rock Springs, Wyoming; day three to Winnmucca, Nevada and day four over the Donner Summit to Grass Valley, California.

15 days and counting

Only 15 more days here until I leave for California!

And the pile of stuff I need to do in between is nuts but I'll get it done.  The pile of stuff I've already gotten done is far larger so I think I'm winning.  At least I feel like I'm winning.

I'm having a studio sale this week, which should  be both fun and a bit sad, as I'll be saying good-bye to a lot of good friends.

The big push is getting the court documents signed and sent off to the judge.  I'd like it all done so I don't have to deal with it when I'm in California.  Another ending...leading to a new beginning.

Went to the cabin this weekend.  The weather behaved for one day, was hot and humid and we floated around in the lake in pure bliss.  And we plowed through 20 years of family pictures, laughed and scratched our heads over a few, "Do you know who that is?"  "Nope, do you?"  We made a couple new books for him to keep, which was a good representation of those years.  Only 10 more years to go.

Packing, packing, packing...now I'm wondering why I need that many Fiestaware plates, oh well.  If I need money I can always rent out my service for 50.

Up ahead is a competition in St. Paul, another chance to say good-bye to a lot of friends.  The cool thing about that is that I will probably get to see them every now and then at other competitions, the skating community travels quite a bit.

Then back here, get the trailer, pack it up and head off to my new adventure.  I keep looking at the pics of my new house and imagining how things will be.  All the  variations will be fun, I can hardly wait!