Homemade Cheezeburger!

Heheheheh!

Work in Progress

Hammer hammer
Rivet rivet
Bead bead bead
Lah, lah di lah
Cuss cuss
Work work work
How damn lucky am I to do my work?
Very damn lucky!

Moving Color

Oh Dear.
I covet this stuff with a very covety covetousness. I seldom wish I were rich, but this stuff makes me wish I had a big pile of cash sitting around. Sigh.

Moving Color Products

It's gorgeous. I'd like this in the downstairs shower, for the patio, maybe as a floor in the studio. Heck, I'd like to WEAR it.

Be sure to click on all the products as they show the colors changing.

The Birds Know.

It really doesn't feel like spring here yet, it's still cold, with a lot of ice on the lake. The snow is gone, but the grass is still bleached buff and brown, the trees bare, and the meadow just a tangle of stalks, and twigs, and sand blown up from the beach.
But the birds know! They know in their bones, with a surety I can only envy. What must it be like to know something so profoundly, without ever being told? Because I am in a space of questioning and relearning and finding balance, I envy their certainty.
They are so cheerfully industrious right now. The sparrows inspect bits of grass, picking and choosing. "This one? No. This one? No. This one? YES, this is the perfect two inch piece of grass, the exact piece I need for my nest." And off she goes.
The grackles, who are among my absolute favorite birds, are courting and swaggering. They are so beautiful with their oil-slick black feathers and alert yellow eyes, and I love their confident, cocky, obstreperous attitude. Sadly, they have the most un-musical call of any bird, they sound like squeaky clotheslines. The males will fluff out their feathers, expanding to impress the lady of the moment, pause imposingly, and produce a loud, unmelodious, drawn out "GRAWK", which I am sure is a most welcome sign of devotion.
We've had cardinals around all winter but they are silent in the coldest months, only in the last few weeks have the males begun to call and court. Perched at the very tops of the trees, their sweet calls and trills and whistles always cheer me up. It's fun to try to spot them, and it's almost as though they know when I've figured out where they are...as they often fly off once I've located them. Perhaps they do know.
The other winter birds are busier too, the chickadees, and house finches, and juncos and wrens are all taking notice of each other. There is finally birdsong at dawn and into the morning. When the lake thaws, waves against the shore, and birdsong, will greet me when I wake up.
The robins are back, plump and sassy. And how they scold when they see the cat! She's oblivious, the only thing on her mind is trying (unsuccessfully) to find some green grass to eat, while the robins hover and call "CAT, cat cat cat cat", or that's how it sounds! The red-winged blackbirds are back too, with their trilling call. Dad always said they were saying "Come for DINner"! And mourning doves, with their softly tinted feathers and their mild, melancholy calls of "I'm a Dove, dove, dove, dove". Did you know that the whistling noise when a mourning dove flies off is not a call, but is made by their wing feathers?
I have heard, but not seen, the Tundra swans that pass by each year. They sound like puppies (really!), a soft sweet yelping, as they fly over on their way north. They rest at a provincial park just an hour or so from here each year, but I've never managed to see them on the ground. When I do catch a glimpse of them in flight, they are lovely, gleaming white and silvery shapes against the grey sky. Magical.
I haven't seen any Northern Flickers yet, or goldfinches, and it's much too early for hummingbirds, but I trust the birds. I have faith. Spring will come.

"All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well".

Long Earrings

Blog-iversary

Today is the first anniversary of starting this blog. I'm still enjoying it. But tonight I have a COLD so instead of writing something interesting, I am going to bed!

I Forgot...

...to mention that I drove us into town, and back home. Not a big deal for most I am sure, but progress for me! The grocery store parking lot is enormous and insanely busy and rather like a crazy game, with people and cars and children and carts popping up unexpectedly.
I had to have an extra, restorative coffee when we got home!

Pretty pretty antique postcards on ebay this week:

Miniature Aquarium Paperweights

Tiny underwater worlds to look at. I used my tiniest fish murrine. Fun!

The Prickly Bush

"O the prickly bush
It pricked my heart full sore
If I ever get out of the prickly bush
I'll never get in it any more!"

Here is one of my absolute favorite trees, I've always felt that if I were to live in a tree I would want a good thorny one, like this. Hell, there are days when I can clearly visualize my state of mind as being much like this! But only now and then, I promise!
Really a great tree!
I did in fact get out of one of my own prickly bushes today, which marked the end of a drawn out ordeal, it's done, finished, complete. I wish I could feel more proud of the accomplishment but I'm just worn out by it and glad it's done. Tomorrow I will celebrate the victory with So, but today I treated myself to a celebratory cupcake!

Yes, London now has it's very own cupcake cafe. How can you not love a cupcake? It's small, it's sweet, it's relatively guilt free and even the name is fun to say! Cupcake cupcake cupcake! Try it!

If you're in the London area and feel the urge upon you, you can check them out. Sweet Cakes , in the beautiful Covent garden Market. Yummy!

At the lake, I played with the mantel for spring. This weekend I'll cut some forsythia to force. I wish forsythia came in other colors, whoever developed a pink or a white forsythia would make a fortune!

Another miniature paperweight. I confess, it's just a short step into the world of marbles now! I've given in, I ordered a Stump sucker and a 6-size marble mold today. The tool urge, it never ends. Just keep me away from the Fretz hammers...

And finally a teaser of a piece in progress:

Miniature Paperweight and Crazy 60's Cake Decorations

How's that for a unique combination??
Last night I tried my first miniature paperweight. Not perfect, but it was fun and certainly much easier than a full sized one. I don't have a mini Stump-sucker but it's on my shopping list, it will allow for more dimensional set-ups. In the meantime I'll practice this way...really, much like making a button, but instead of adding a shank, I simply added more clear to the bottom, burned off the top punty, and did the final rounding the usual way but making more of a curve...almost a marble! I just popped it right into the kiln with the lower punty right on it, snipped it off in the morning and ground the bottom flat. Voila!

I photographed these for ebay today, truly the most amusing cake decorations I've ever seen. They date from the 1960s and were made in Hong Kong for the Wilton company. I think they are quite demented. If I was talented that way, I would make a stop action film with them, I am sure they would get up to all kinds of no-good!

When you're a Jet, You're a Jet all the way From your first cigarette To your last dyin' day. When you're a Jet, If the spit hits the fan, You got brothers around, You're a family man!

I like to be in America! O.K. by me in America! Ev'rything free in America For a small fee in America!

Some kind of fancy-butt dance going on here....

Unfortunately there are only three of these miniature Stepford Wives fashion-zombie cake decos, How I wish there are more. Yellow gal in the middle there looks as though she has hit the Valium already, probably with her orange juice in the morning. Pink woman looks as though she is coming on to the milkman, and red lady? Is that a large gin bottle?

It's a GOOD thing to be easily amused!!

Beads, What Else??

Just to be sure I can still make a bead that isn't a pod...an owl hiding in a hollow "tree":

And now back to your regularly scheduled pods...."Feed me Seymour!"

Feed me aaaallll night long!

Quite long feathery petal-pods, these are made with only ONE color of glass:

Very yummy and texture-y!

Alien flowers perhaps grown from alien pods?

I am loving these ones with Dichro inside! They glow!

Juicy!

And that's some of what I've been doing!

Driving practice is going really well. I will be taking a course but So is a wonderful teacher (seriously she could do it for a living I am sure). Just for fun we listened to Bob Newharts classic, The Driving Instructor. I couldn't find it on Youtube so I bought it on iTunes...it was 99 cents well spent, we thought.

I couldn't figure out why I was feeling achy after practicing until I realized that I was doing a kind of whole-body driving thing...steering with my butt, as well as with the steering wheel, also braking with my butt, and sitting up so perfectly straight that I looked like a Marine on dress parade. I will need to work on a more relaxed driving position!!!! Perhaps there should be a new-drivers yoga?

9 Out of 10 Cats Prefer....

Fleece lined nylon cat tunnel....$48.00


Scratching post with carpeted cubbyhole....$129.00


Plastic bag on the floor....priceless!