ruby crowned kinglette

gratuitous post number one

this little piggy has been in my life almost as long as i can remember.  my mom and dad would go to mexico on occasion and one year she brought back this embroidered pig (and one of those big grass tote bags with a lid and embroidered flowers out of raffia).  i distinctly remember how i fell in love with this piggy and helped her to stuff it with old pantyhose and then.... then, it was put away in her closet. it wasn't until she moved to washington, 14 years ago, that i snagged it and called it my own.  he has some tears and a couple legs and the ears are no longer 'with stuffing', but he so cheerful and perky it is impossible to quibble.

margaritas anyone?

heartbreak at the kitchen sink

it was bound to happen, and that it did on such a tea filled weekend seems apt. but, oh, the horrors.  i was rinsing it of it's soapy water and i knew it was going to break as soon as it squeaked away. interestingly, it is not the first, or even second, but third! drinking vessel broken in the last seven days. 

first, while pulling something from the dish rack i bumped one of my very expensive (but got cheap) riedel whiskey glasses and it fell into the small sink with the disposal.  those crystal glasses break furiously and it seemed that i may have lost a few pieces down the rabbit hole. since there wasn't much else to do, i flipped the switch to find out... nope! all good there. but, now i am down to two.

then, just one evening later i was casually walking (shuffling?) through the dining room with a piece of bread in one hand and a glass of wine in the other, when my slippered foot caught a tiny popped up nail in the floor.  that little thing grabbed my foot and i went down like a sack of rocks, first landing on my left knee, then on my right arm and hand. yep, the one holding the wine glass.  once i quit writhing around  while holding my knee, and once i quit yelling at the dog, the deaf dog, to stop licking up the wine (and possibly the broken glass) - he had already eaten the bread - i looked to see if i had cut my hand.  luckily, i try really, really hard not to hold wine glasses by the bowl, but by the stem (i hate looking at all my smudgy fingerprints). i think if i was less sophisticated, the cut could have been worse. still, it was kinda icky.

i have a lot of glassware and drinking things in my house, now i have three fewer. thankfully i have a second tea cup like the one that broke, one i liked even better because of the glazing (but fractionally so since i never could tell them apart) so i think i can soldier through. i shudder to think that these little accidents might have anything to do with anything at all except coincidence, so let's just let me believe that, shall we? the alternatives are so unappealing.

and, i feel like i should mention that i slipped and fell on the ice today, going down, again, like a bag of bricks. between the slipper/wine incident and falling into the fire pit i think this last one qualifies as a hat trick. luckily these kinds of things are supposed to come in threes.  right? 

a little love for the one that squeaked away...  prophetic? maybe so....

and yes, as i continued to bleed, i got out the nail setter and pounded that little bastard back into the floor.

 

birds. i love birds.

birds. i love birds. and this year i have been pretty lucky to have several goodies in or near my back yard. i pulled out the birding scope to get a better look at this one. a cedar waxwing. there were three in the madrona in the alley. i think they are one of the most beautiful birds and i am not just a little excited to have them around here for the first time.

i also am loving this digital camera. until i had the blog i thought that a digital camera was cheating somehow. now, i am not thinking that so much. it is so great that i can take 97 pictures of a bird and look at them just minutes later. i do have some more things to learn, and the more i learn the more i think i need to know.

this shot was taken with the camera lens pressed up to the eyepiece of my telescope. i know there are tricks to achieving better results. one of the things i intend to figure out this summer is what those tricks are.

things i love thurdays

i have two of these teacups, made by jeff hanks of red house pottery on lopez island, washington. i love the way they feel in my hands, the color of the glaze and the smooth feel against my cheeks when i put the warm cup to my face - i am not the only person that does that, right?

these two were also made by jeff hanks - i loved them to death. both have fallen to the floor and broken but in such large single pieces that i could glue them back together. although i can not drink from them i use them, the orange one to hold my cooking brushes, the white to hold a tea light. the glow it produces when the candle is lit is beautiful.

more love here, and here, and here.