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I woke up with a start at 5am and then realized… something is under the bed. I got up to discover that our dog Krystal was hiding under there. July has been so far, a month of booming sounds, fireworks and lots of thunderstorms. These sounds that didn’t bother her much as a young dog, now at the age of 10 years, turn her into a nervous wreck. Apparently we, weekend warriors that we are, slept right through a bad storm. Krystal is not one to jump onto a bed, so she managed to crawl in between 4 containers full of winter clothing and then found herself trapped in the morning. What a gal.
I have been busy with garden work and natural dyeing using plants from my garden. It generally takes me at least an hour each day to pick the dyestuff from the garden as it is ready and put it to soak, at least another hour to rinse out fiber or yarn from the previous day’s dyepot and to set up a new batch of yarn of fiber, ready for dyeing. I’m mostly solar dyeing and using my crockpot so that I can do other things and not have to watch a pot..
However, I do have to watch little dogs… Krystal’s half sister, Tara is very different from her sister. Sweeter in many ways, but while Krystal does not care if anyone catches her doing something she shouldn’t, Tara is sneaky… See that innocent face in the one photos… another shows a sand/water box. Every chance she gets, she tries to snatch the tray of toys on top of that box. If she gets one, the toy becomes a dog chewy. She also loves yarn, fiber, plants… you name it..
Krystal (Fine Krystal) age 10 is shown in a photo when her coat was longer.
Tara (Diamond Solitaire) age 9 is shown in her puppy trim…..
I’m taking photos of dye projects as I do them.. will have some up in my next post….
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Some new things at a park where I like to walk. I understand there are 5 of these dragons even though I saw only 2, all are actually large paddle boats.
Other attractions at the park.. lake/pond for fishing, very large and fast carousel, a boat named Jasper, skate board park, Banquet Hall used for weddings, etc., arcade, sports field, walking paths and more..
Along with a lot of other things, tracks and a train will be added in the future.
This is garage sale weekend for us. We started setting up at about 7:30 and before 9am the skies opened up and it started to pour… Good thing we have a large enough garage to be able to set up in. The rain stopped an hour later and we were able to pull things out again. I took a photo as we were setting up and that was only a little of what we had to sell. Our sale continues tomorrow!
While pulling out things for the sale, I found a toy guitar belonging to an older grandchild. A younger grandchild saw the guitar, grabbed it and declared himself a rock star while playing and nodding his head to the beat of the music… shown is a photo of our rock star..
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WordPress has introduced a new feature.. posting by email.. thought I’d try it out, including a photo.
I’ve been moving some things into the garden shop including some things to hang on the walls. I picked up the artwork at the Art Festival in Sayre, PA. I love all the colors in it. I especially like the way it is made. Would you believe some hand crocheted items were used to make some of the designs in the piece?
And the Star… my granddaughter says the design on part of it looks like knitted stitches.. so of course it will live in there with everything fiber and flora.
Been a while since I’ve updated my blog, but as my friend Sue says … I can be doing or I can be writing about doing. I’ve been doing, little time for writing about it.
The first day of spring we had a dusting of snow, this came after a week of nice spring like weather and it still hasn’t warmed up much. Yesterday my daughter and I took her grey girls for a long walk around the park, exercise for us, obedience training for them. We were warm as long as we were moving and we were moving. Weimaraners love to move fast and have lots of energy so doing a few miles with them doesn’t wear them out. They did very well, for the most part ignoring the ducks, geese and seagulls in the park lake, sometimes needing just a little reminder. Hopefully our next walk/training session will be on a mild sunny day.
Today I went to the monastery for Sunday service. It was cool and cloudy and its gone downhill from there, with a few scattered snow flurries. A warm up is predicted for the rest of the week.
Along with regular spring chores such as cleaning out flower beds, putting out new mulch where needed, trimming trees and shrubs, I like to check all the bird houses, make sure they are clean and in place for new tenents. I put this one up and within minutes a pair of birds were checking it out and claiming it. While I have quite a few bird houses, this is a favorite one, partly because it was a gift from a friend and partly because it has a little front stoop. The bird house resembles a country store and one bird will go inside while the other sits on the stoop.. very cute.
Of couse, the birds aren’t the only ones nesting. We are working on a little ‘house’ of our own. We started out with wanting to replace our old metal garden shed. It was too small to hold more than a lawnmower, snowblower, tools and my collection of pots. There was no room to move around in it at all and it was looking old. The only other storage space for furniture and other garden items was the 3rd bay in the garage, which I use as a summer studio during the warm months.
So… Hubby started on a new shed, with plenty of room to be used for a potting shed. Somehow the project evolved so that now this will be my potting shed/summer studio and the 3rd bay in the garage will go for large storage and garden tools.
I’ve been taking photos of the project all along and once we are a little further along I will be posting them on my studio blog, here is a sneak peek of the ‘nest’ so far.
This is what you see when you pull into the driveway, it sits in the corner under the mulberry tree, off to the side and back of the garge. I told hubby I planned to pain it bright yellow with a red door and purple shutters, He’s hoping I’m not serious. *G* I’ll let him sweat a little before I tell him what I plan to do.
Here the garden side of it.
Needless to say the herb garden has suffered a lot of damage and I will start over. I’m thinking of shutters on the windows and trellis’ on either side. I’m also thinking of making that garden larger, centering the bird bath with paths or some maze design around it. Stuff to ponder. This will be insulated and has good windows and doors so I should get a lot of use out of it for studio work or for when I just want to be alone and with a little heat, I can use it year round. I have a hired man’s bed that will go in there for sitting, reading, napping.. etc. Also chairs for visitors… work isn’t all that I’m going to be doing here.
Still to finish, insulation, wiring, lots of paint!
I need to decide what to call this place name for this place. Right now it is the shed/studio/nest. Ideas welcome.
FOR TODAY (February 9th, 2009)…
Outside my window.
Sunny, mild, a beautiful winter day. Snow is slowly melting. Jacket weather.
I am thinking
How much I enjoyed going to Monday knitting at the book store. I rarely go on Mondays, but I’m glad I did today. We chatted a lot over coffee, browsed through books, worked on our projects and even helped a regular customer there with their crossword puzzle.
I am thankful for
For all the creative and talented people in our guild. We had 5 new people come to visit, 3 joined. We seemed to be attracting quite a few young adults who are really absorbing everything we teach them and who will in turn teach the next generation.
That Mizz Krystal has decided that she really does know who the other dog here is despite the really very short hair cut and that she will stop trying to beat up the strange dog. How can a dog live with another dog for more than 9 years and not know it is the same dog even if it looks a little different? Or is this just her way of telling us that she thinks he has a stupid haircut? Never a dull moment with my dogs.
From the kitchen
I just finished having some white rice, stewed meat and sweet plantains. Yum!
I am wearing
Browns… Everyone who knows me knows that I love color. So I got more than a few comments today about my chocolate brown pants, same colored sweater…. And my jacket just happened to be a dark brown suede… it wasn’t planned, just what I grabbed, interesting cause some seemed to think I was feeling down when I wasn’t. *G*
I am creating
Simply Divine Shoddy Yarn (or would that be shotty?) Of course people think it means something of poor quality, but a very experienced weaver in our guild informs me that my use of weaving thrums to make new yarn is considered an old shoddy technique , the word shoddy meaning ‘recycled’ or ‘reused’. Yesterday I received weaving thrums from Bro. Pierre’s weavings and I have them all sorted out by colors and ready to chop up and mix with fiber and card into new batts.
I’m also still working on my sweater… back and front is done, one of the front bands is done. I’m moving on to the buttonhole side band, collar and then sleeves.
I am going
Maybe to the library and if I have time, to the monastery to pick up some jelly and granola, browse through the gift shop.
I am reading
Because Denise and so many others recommended it, today I picked up The Story Of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski.
Still reading… Sabbath… Restoring the Sacred Rhythm of Rest by Wayne Muller. I’m reading only a little bit at a time so that I can study each section and Exercise before moving on to the next.
I am hoping (praying)
That the twinges I’m feeling in my jaw is not the return of a jaw bone problem from a couple of years ago.
That the nice weather holds out.
I am hearing
Child playing upstairs, dog snoring in the doggy bed.
Around the house
Signs that winter is leading into spring… jackets and rain shoes, lighter gear now in the mudroom along with the heavier winter outerwear.
One of my favorite things
Time with the ’gals’ over coffee and knitting.
A few plans for the rest of the week
Studio work
Bake cupcakes for Valentines Day
Work on this month’s guild newsletter.
Prepare for the Women in Arts exhibit in March
A picture thought to share:
New leather bound (red of course!) artist sketch pad with a spot for pencils and sharpener… I opened it shortly after brining it home today to find that my granddaughter had already used it, leaving me a drawing and a message. *G* We both like that each pencil has a word printed on it … such as …depth, create, indulge, believe, love, spirit, vision, inspire, explore, wisdom, dream, passion… On the pad cover are the words..imagine, invent, inspire create, imagine, motivate, dream, compose, remember…
To read more about The Simple Woman’s Day Book, visit her blog. http://thesimplewomansdaybook.blogspot.com/
Alexa Roze
Although Mom & Dad are gone, we have many living aunts & uncles (at least 20) and so counting them, this baby is the first of the 5th generation in our family.
Alexa Roze is my nieces first grandchild, was 2 weeks late and delivered by c-section. Mom, Baby … oh and Dad are all doing well. I can’t wait to go meet this sweetie in person and hold her for a bit.
Today a friend and I went to see a museum exhibit titled Fabric of Survival. The exhibit was comprised of many fabric collage pieces by Esther Nisenthal Krinitz.
While the pieces depict a very sad part of human history, the work is beautiful. It is very moving. You can read more about this work and see some of the work at Art & Remembrance.
Glass Tree at CMOG
Needing some time to ourselves yesterday, we decided to visit the Gaffer District in Corning.
First we stopped at the Corning Museum of Glass to check out new displays, gift shop and grab a bite to eat at the cafe.
The photo above is of a large tree made entirely of blown glass ornaments… I really liked the colorful balls of glass against the stark background.. photo was taken with my camera phone, but I think it still turned out pretty well.
Note: if you are ever in the area around this time of year, a glass blown ornament is one of the things you can choose to work on in the museum’s studio for a small fee. Several other private glass studios in the area also offer visitors the opportunity to blow their own ornaments.
After a lunch of smothered chicken, we proceeded just a couple of black to Market Street. We got some good deals on winter boots at the Bass outlet, some simple tops at another store and did a lot of window shopping, looking at items displayed at glass blowing studios… till the cold chased us back to the car and home.
Several friends have mentioned that they don’t use their ipods because they dislike using anything in their ears and most stations for their ipods are too bulky or require a plug, thus not being very portable. I mentioned I use a small speaker unit for mine and was asked what it looks like… Here it is…
It isn’t very big at all, fits in a large pocket, has very good sound quality and batteries (I like to use rechargeables) seem to last forever. This allows me to take my ipod just about anywhere in my multiple floored house, studio, garden… away from home. Occasionally I will use the ipod with the earbuds, carrying it all in the little bag I made from yarn leftover from a sock project, which to my surprise won a first place ribbon at a fiber festival.
While the ipod is a modern gadget, I find that it is one of those things that simplifies my life. On there I have devotionals, music, tutorials, books and more, all of them free downloads. While there is nothing to compare putting my feet up and reading a good book, being able to listen to something on the ipod while I work is very enjoyable and keeps me from acquiring even more books than I do.
Another thing that helps keep life a bit simpler and uncluttered is the small counter area I planned when we knocked down the wall between the kitchen and dining room. Most of out friends and family liked to hang out in the kitchen with us and combining the spaces allowed us to create a seating /window seat area at one end and the message center area as well as an island for eating or food prep.
The message center is a small granite tiled counter on two bookcases with recycled cabinets above. On the left side of the counter is a slim wine cellar and more storage above for wine bottles. One of the cabinets holds glasses and such. The other cabinet holds coffees, teas, and snacks such as nuts. On the counter sits a wireless lap top, a one cup coffee/tea maker, and a few items we use everyday. When the letter holder fills up with photos, recipes, etc, It is time to clean it out. Artwook by the grandkids or other interesting photos or items such as the apple pencil holder I made many years ago, pencils and a family calendar iare all we need tacked on the wall. Cookbooks are in one bookcase, childrens books in the other. Often a grandchild can be found sitting on the floor looking through the books.
Altough most of the time the counter serves as a message center, it takes only minutes to set it up as a serving area for desserts and coffee bar. I like that I can monitor pc use by grandkids while I prepare supper, read a book, use my spinning wheel, etc.
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