ruby crowned kinglette

happy birthday mister

yesterday was chet's birthday. i nearly let it pass without notice and generally this happens. he is thirteen, and i suspect that i have missed eight of them entirely, luckily he is mighty forgiving. i know i am his biggest fan, by far..., all in all he has been a pretty great dog. i think pretty smart too, but like his owner, he doesn't like to flaunt it. case in point; he graduated three, THREE, times from obedience school. impressive, no? i am a firm believer that it is the owner and not the dog that needs the training and i have promised, to the powers that be, that the next dog will be better trained and therefore behaved. thankfully, he has a heart of gold, and one hell of a personality.

chettie has been going through a bit of a rough patch lately and just two weeks ago i didn't think he was going to see his thirteen year. luckily i was wrong.

so this is for you chet, happy birthday and here's to at least a couple more good ones.

stop me if you've heard this one....

the chicken and egg are each having a cigarette while lying in bed. the chicken, with a far off look and a wry smile says, "well, i guess we finally know the answer to that question now, don't we?"

looking toward the future

over the weekend i opened a nice little shop on etsy. i would like to think that the number of times the shop has been viewed does not include the visits i have made to the site... the way it is set up, i am notified if something has sold and if someone has a posted a question for me....yet, still, i find my self checking the shop every 12 minutes...... at least.

it is difficult to put myself out there for others to see - to point to myself and say "look what i have done". i suspect that most people are hesitant to offer up things they have made; for others to judge, to consider, to speculate if that is something worth buying, owning, keeping... i have found it is almost as rewarding to have someone appreciate my work - my attention to detail, the ways i have considered the design of the fabrics and the color combinations - as it is to sell something. almost.

in march 2005, i spent a week in tennessee. it was the greatest week of my life. i enrolled in a workshop taught by akira blount at the arrowmont school of arts and crafts. to say that this was the greatest place in the whole wide world would be an understatement, and, i was sick as a dog the whole time.

i had seen that akira offered workshops at the school about once a year - the first year i tried to enroll, the class had been filled for months. the next year, the timing didn't work for me. last year, i signed up the day i got the catalog. i was pretty certain i would not get back to tennessee within the next decade, if ever, so i planned on doing as much as i could while i was there. i took my camera, hoping to document my week in tennessee, and my binoculars, hoping to bird in the smokey mountains every morning before class. but, because i was sick, it turned out the only birds i saw were the ones that were kind enough to flit around in the trees behind the buildings on campus... the only time i actually ventured into the park was on the way back to nashville at the end of the week when i turned left instead of right on the way out of town.

there isn't time or space enough to express the wonderful experience i had at the school. before lunch was finished on the first day, i knew i would be back. every year, if possible. the energy there was infectious. everyone was there to create something - whether it was jewelry, sculpture from clay, a shaker chair from hickory, a turned vessel from spalted maple, marbling on wood or fabric, fused glass, woven paper baskets or in my case, dolls - and very few of us left the studios before 10pm.

it was like the very best summer camp for adults. a little secret i have had for several years now is to own a wood lathe. had never used one in my life, don't know the first thing about them except you can make some mighty fine things with them. i was lucky to have had two wonderful roommates, one who had been to arrowmont several times. she knew the boys who taught wood turning and introduced me to them - so, i got to turn myself a little piece of barky wood into a round piece of smooth wood - i could not have been more proud. this same roommate invited me to her class studio where she was marbling paper, wood and fabric and offered me a black silk scarf to marble with some metallic paints. lucy was the best roommate, ever.

i received the summer catalog a couple of weeks ago. akira blount has another class the second week in july, but what really caught my attention was a class on freestyle machine embroidery by carol shinn. man oh man i would like to do that. but.... this summer just isn't going to be the summer i get back to tennessee.

that is where my etsy shop comes in... i figure what i sell there could help me finance my way through the whole curriculum at arrowmont. i hope i am right, because i would sure like to get back to the greatest place in the whole wide world.

*editor's note: while writing and editing - and editing - and editing - this post i had my first esty sale! skippy the butterfly will be leaving for utah shortly... already the promise of another week in tennessee emerges on the horizon...

pretty words

until fairly recently poetry scared me – i was certain that is was beyond me, filled with hidden meanings, and until i could get them, the work was going to be lost on me. i don’t know when that feeling shifted for me... was it when i took my first iq test at 42 years old and realized i was as smart as i wished i was? was it when i read a poem about iceberg lettuce? was it when i realized that these works didn’t have to have a meaning at all? or that the meaning i ascribed to the work was the meaning the writer intended – whatever that might be?

it turns out that blogging is not the only party i am late to (to which i am late? ((cripes)). a girlfriend and i started a book club in january – a first for all but one of us in the group, so i am in good company... i keep pushing for us to read a book of poetry... mostly, i am nervous at the prospect because of the reasons listed above. i dont even have a good idea of what i would suggest to the group as an option. a friend from highschool has written 'wintering', a beautiful novel based on sylvia plath’s last months. in combination with 'ariel', a book of plath’s poetry written during this period of her life, i think, would prompt an excellent discussion – but.... i am not much of a plath fan... so that might not fly.

my other suggestion – ‘the world of christopher robin’ - a little more my speed if i am completely honest. i think the discussion might go to our childhood, and that wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing at all... in it – my favorite poem of all time...

Disobedience by a. a. milne

James James
Morrison Morrison
Weatherby George Dupree
Took great
Care of his Mother,
Though he was only three.
James James said to his Mother,
"Mother," he said, said he;
"You must never go down to the end of the town,
if you don't go down with me."

James James
Morrison's Mother
Put on a golden gown.
James James
Morrison's Mother
Drove to the end of the town.
James James
Morrison's Mother
Said to herself, said she:
"I can get right down to the end of the town and
be back in time for tea."

King John
Put up a notice,
"LOST or STOLEN or STRAYED!
JAMES JAMES
MORRISON'S MOTHER
SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN MISLAID.
LAST SEEN
WANDERING VAGUELY.
QUITE OF HER OWN ACCORD,
SHE TRIED TO GET DOWN TO THE END OF THE TOWN --
FORTY SHILLINGS REWARD!"

James James
Morrison Morrison
(Commonly known as Jim)
Told his
Other relations
Not to go blaming him.
James James
Said to his Mother,
"Mother," he said, said he:
"You must never go down to the end of the town
without consulting me."

James James
Morrison's Mother
Hasn't been heard of since.
King John
Said he was sorry,
So did the Queen and Prince.
King John
(Somebody told me)
Said to a man he knew:
"If people go down to the end of the town, well,
what can anyone do?"

(Now then, very softly)
J. J.
M. M.
W. G. Du P.
Took great
C/o his M*****
Though he was only 3.
J. J.
Said to his M*****
"M*****," he said, said he:

"You-must-never-go-down-to-the-end-of-the-town-
if-you-don't-go-down-with ME!"

and finally i wonder...

how do others approach poetry? is it scary for them? is it a retreat, or a chore? and, how much influence did a parent, teacher or friend have in their appreciation of a good poem?

beginnings - this time it isn't a test...

what is the protocol for blogs? how many times do i get to ‘begin’ again….? and, is it just me, or did everyone feel that they have invited themselves to a really hip party, came without a hostess gift and are wearing fashions seriously out of date?

since beginning this journey - three whole days ago - i am, by far, my most frequent visitor - i can count on one hand the others…. that is if i don’t include ‘site meter’… i didn’t invite him, i don’t know how he found me and since he hasn’t left any comments it is hard to know his intent…

often encouraged to get the things i’ve made out into the world and beyond the occasional local show, i resolved that 2006 to be the year to accomplish just that. lurking since january of this year has been my blog activity - until now. these few months lurking have been inspiring, a great education, and just plain fun... i stumbled upon a group of women who are spectacularly talented and more generous than i ever imagined. there are some fantastic people in the world and luckily a number of them have chosen to share their lives with the rest of us. what i didn’t expect to find was the community they have established, the obvious friendships, and the admiration they have for one another.

and there lies the root of my apprehension…

•will i be accepted into this community?
•will i be a valuable contributor?
•am i worthy of commenting? knowing that at least a few might link back to my site…
•will my personality appear in my posts?
•will i embarrass myself to the point of stopping this endeavor altogether?
•will my inadequacies as a writer be amplified? for me. to see. EVERY SINGLE TIME I POST?
•will i have to buy a thesaurus or will everyone have to suffer come to love my over use of the words spectacular, great and lovely? and the comma... my over use of that baby is less than spectacular…
•am i going to be able to limit my penchant for using what others might consider ‘the vocabulary of a sailor’ to real life and not my blog?
•did i fiddle around with the look of this thing too much? not enough? will I feel like i can change it and not reveal that i am obsessing to the point of nausea?
•is it obvious to everyone reading this that i worry WAY TOO MUCH?
•has anyone but me considered that upping my dosage wouldn't be a bad idea?

and, finally i wonder…

how much time do others spend taking photos, making crafts, writing posts? did they check their etsy shop every hour after posting their first items? did they thank someone, as i did, – four times - for being the first person to comment on their site? and did they consider sending them a present too? is it possible to make a living and have a blog at the same time? and when does it begin to reach a balance? and then there is the learning curve… can i remember how to add a button the next time? where the hell do i learn about blog rolls? would julia child be of some help there i wonder? do i need a graduate degree to understand rss feeds? ….mama?

despite it being an invitation i extended to myself, i am pleased to have been invited to the party… so for now, i will grab a bottle glass of wine and start to mingle a bit.

the tower of power

amy, at angry chicken, posted about cookbooks, it seems to have everyone thinking about what their favorites are, inspiring some to post about it as well...

here are mine.... and i am certain there are a few more rolling around the house, having not been put back where they belong. as to a favorite, i don't really have one... i like the 'the joy of cooking' quite a bit and have a dog eared paperback with the glued binding beginning to fail. i am in search of a hard bound copy but am specifically looking for the 1964 edition and it turns out, that isn't as easy to come by as one might think. i found one once.... it didn't smell right.

i am currently favoring sally schneider's 'a new way to cook', not only because the cover is so pretty, but the recipes are good too, and despite all evidence to the contrary, i like that she focuses on low fat, healthier eating. it is wonderful to read and she uses ingredients that get a lot of flavor bang for the buck.

like others, i have to include rosso and lukin's 'the new basic's cookbook', i like everything i have made, especially mary emmerling's chicken barbecue - page 462 - and berta's carrot cake - page 679.

and cook's illustrated magazine, as well as their cookbooks, america's test kitchen's 'the new best recipe' and 'baking illustrated' always produce great results.

i used to cook more than i do now - eyeballing that tower of books and knowing how many great possibilities they contain has me thinking i should find some interesting things to make for dinner and get cracking...i don't know if that is going to be better, necessarily, than the usual wine and crackers - but it will be different.

still more snow day

the yard - obviously it didn't snow a great deal, but what managed to fall from the sky made it look mighty pretty around these parts.

snow day

it snowed here a few weeks ago. since i operate under the 'borrow till you own' philosophy and i had jim's my digital camera handy, chettie and i took a walk around the neighborhood... it was lovely. we saw some raccoon tracks, some birds flitting around the laurel hedge at the end of the alley, and best of all, new spring blossoms.

beginnings

one big test...