Neighborly goodness...

You may remember this post from last March where I had a workshop at my friend Loretta's house. She lives very close to me, walking distance in fact. (Well for me it's walking distance - but for others it may not be.) Loretta and I get together every so often for a home made lunch, a good meal out or a movie - no pressure just when we have the time.

I really enjoy Loretta's company. She's very worldly, and I learn things from her all the time. She's also an awesome quilter, baker and conversationalist. Monday I had the pleasure of going to her house to learn how she makes bread. She has brought several loafs of her artisan bread to my boys - and they absolutely go nuts over it. Sometimes I think they'd rather her for a cook than me, but then I make something out of this world and they come back to me. It's a good thing.

The bread we (well mostly she) made comes from a book "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day", it's a great book and Loretta certainly has mastered it! The recipe we used was the Master Recipe: Boule on page 26. Here's a few pictures of the fruits of our labor! That's Loretta taking the bread out of the oven.

That's all I've got for creative endeavors today....I'm tired and a little on the brain dead side. My husband tossed and turned and tossed and turned and tossed and turned for hours and hours last night....and needless to say it took me about 2 or more hours to go to sleep. Since I went to bed at 11:30 - fell asleep around 1:30 and awake at 6:59...I'm feeling the need for a nap or two this afternoon! TTFN and thanks for visiting!

I am so LUCKY!

And it's not because I'm scottish either :-) For as long as I can remember I've worn orange on March 17th. Just to be a little different....keep things interesting....you know - just being myself. Today, the orange sweatshirt that I've worn for the last two years wasn't presentable in public, so I wore a blue shirt with a white t-shirt underneath, to honor the Scottish flag. I sent my son to school in a green shirt trimmed with orange. You see, his father is Irish....he he he. I'm not sure where I learned about the orange thing, but it does have some historical importance....
I found this on Wikipedia:

Some Protestants have begun wearing orange on St. Patrick's Day as a mark of defiance [15]. This relatively new tradition has its roots in William of Orange (William III), the King of England, Scotland, and Ireland, who defeated King James II, a Roman Catholic, in the Battle of the Boyne near Dublin. William's victory would ensure Protestant military dominance on the island and has been a source of tension ever since. Although the "Orange" in William's name actually referred to a province in southern France, the colour reference of orange for Protestants stuck. This is why orange now appears in the Irish flag - to symbolize the Protestant minority in Ireland [16]. The first group to take part in the tradition of wearing orange on St. Patrick's Day appears to have been the Orange Institution, a Protestant fraternal organization more commonly known as the Orange Order. Some members of the order wore orange in various parades on St. Patrick's Day as a mark of defiance.

I'll have to make sure I have an orange shirt for next year.
I wanted to share one of the reasons I feel so lucky this week! Yesterday I received 4 of the most beautiful ATC's I've gotten lately to add to my collection. Two from my dear friend Stephanie in Canada and two from my dear friend Shawn. All four of them are gorgeous, dontchya think?

The two above are from Shawn.

These two are from Stephanie.

Thank you ladies, I love them so much! Well, thanks for visiting. Hope you have a lucky St. Patty's Day, or whatever it is that you celebrate today. TTFN!

More pictures from the weekend!

This seaweed was kinda weird looking. At first I thought it was fabric or something.

Cool heart shape embedded in this rock.

That's all. Have a great day!

My Sea Glass Beach

I haven't talked much about my (well, really our) seaglass beach, but that doesn't make it any less important to me, but the location is a heavily guarded secret....well it was until the DH told a couple of people. Now it's not really our sea glass beach, it's the entire state of Rhode Island's sea glass beach....but I guess I should start by saying that we went to rhode island over the weekend

We actually decided pretty last minute to go. Actually at 11am on Saturday morning. We were dressed and out the door by noon - and after lunch in Topsfield - and a half an hour or so at Absolutely Everything we made to our home away from home, the Residence Inn. We really did go JUST to hunt for treasures on our sea glass beach....we've found so many treasure there and it's been a few years since we've had the chance to look for sea glass, cool rocks and what ever else we could find.
Here are a few of my treasures from the weekend:

When I saw these two shells I had a vision of a canvas or two with them secured on it....I can't wait to make that happen!

The tops of these two bottles were both round at one time, but the one on the left was heated up somehow and melted and now it's not round anymore. Notice the funky heart shaped rock they are leaning on??

My lovely son found this heart shaped rock, I'll be adding it to my collection!

A couple of marbles....

A picture of all my loot, 4 heart shaped rocks!

I thought this looked a little bit like a dragonfly wing....I've got a plan for this in the near future too!

The bottom of this bottle says Newport RI....to cool!

Thanks for visiting....more pictures soon!

What a week!

What a week, after stressing and stressing over a project, I finally got it done....and when I needed to get approval for it before I could send it in my internet went out....and it was out Tuesday, Wednesday and the majority of Thursday. I don't think I need to say that I was lost without the internet! I got nothing mailed last week, emails that needed to go out weren't sent out, and important ones that needed to come into me didn't come it. I'm thankful it's back now!

Could you get any work done if you had to look at this all day?? Not only is the dog doing what she normally does, but my DH had the day off from work and decided to hang out, needless to say I didn't get much done ALL week because of his schedule!

Isn't she a cutie?? My dear friend's daughter wearing the blue dog hat at Michael's on Thursday. We had a field trip to Portland to Michael's, Artist and Craftsman Supply and the Christmas Tree Shoppe. It was a great day, weather was perfect, company was devine and shopping...well perfect as usual!

I volunteer on Friday afternoons at my son's school, so I end up either doing errands before running home and sometimes we even go out to dinner. This week we decided to go to the movies....I loved this poster - and made him pose in front of it. He wasn't to happy with me because I made him stand there....but when his father was done paying for the popcorn he got in the picture and they ended up hamming it up for me........

I wasn't so happy with this picture of my husband, but I did love how the lights in the background came out....don't you think they look pretty cool?

As I was taking this picture while driving down the road it reminded me of something I used to do when my husband was in the Navy on deployment. He was on the USS Carl Vinson off the coast of wherever doing whatever it was that they did to Afghanistan, shortly (months, maybe weeks) after 9/11. I knew he was dreadfully homesick for us, we couldn't talk on the phone and he was to busy to write. I had a website for my watercolor paintings and started a photo page, similar to a blog I guess. I would post a picture everyday of something that happened that day. Sometimes it was me driving down the road and a picture of the weather and other times it was our son or his favorite food or something silly like that. When I took the pictures sometimes I'd be driving down the road...similar to this picture! I got some really cool picturs this way! I'm not sure how much time he spent looking at the pictures, but it made me feel good to share what was going on in our world with him.

That's all for today....ta ta for now and have a great weekend!

What a weekend!

Perfect weather. I wish we could have 3 weeks of weather like we had on Saturday. Warm days, well - warm enough for a short sleeve shirt and a light jacket, it was awesome. Saturday we got up and went right out into the back 40 snow shoeing. My boy is such a trooper, after about an hour he decided he'd had it and wanted to go home and get on with our day. so we did.

We had decided to go to the local Farmer's Market again and ask my Mom to go with us for our Saturday errands. My Dad decided he wanted to come too...I was so happy to be able to make fresh carrot and beet juice again. So refreshing to me. Yum. Can't wait to grow them in my garden and make juice from my own organic veggies!

The market and the Frontier Cafe are housed in this beautiful brick mill. In the early 1900's it was a textile mill - they made some type of fabric. My Pepere (french for Grandfather) worked there. In the 80's my father worked in this building as an inventory clerk. In the 90's it had been restored and converted to offices and I worked there, I was lucky, my office overlooked the river. My other grandfather worked in this building too but I'm not sure what he did. It was fun seeing my boy's face when he heard that his Mother, Grandfather and Great Grandfather had worked here.


This beautiful flower was on the table at the Frontier. Anyone know what it is? it was very exotic, and the color just stunning!

My lunch, the mediterranean plate, but they forgot the Feta....bummer that I didn't remember that it was supposed to have that until I got home!!

A couple of pictures from our little trek in the woods on Saturday. It was warm enough that we brought the dog, she was pretty happy, though she stuck to the trail pretty much. When she didn't she sunk up to her shoulders in snow! My boy, I can hardly believe he's so tall!


Sunday I went to my friend Karen's house, for an artful afternoon. We have a small group of ladies that get together once a month, Karen made a lovely lunch for us, had a project for everyone to do and I worked on finishing up these wooden block ATC's. My friend Sarah is organizing a swap of these over at Paper Whimsy. We've been talking about a swap for a while, and we finally decided on this style. My husband cut the blocks out for me, I think he used regular pine, they are about 3/4 of an inch thick.

I have a few little touches to add and they'll be on their way to new homes....hopefully by the end of the week!

I worked on this pile of things for an April 15th deadline....sorry I can't show you more - but hopefully you'll see soon enough!

That's all for today, I've got to get kickin' on this one project I'm working on today.....send me some calgon, will ya? Oh, and the winner of the little K & Co. Make and Take is: ROSE!! Send me your addy Rose and I'll send this to you this week!

Thanks for visiting and Ta Ta for Now!

Friday Randomness....and TGIF!!

I'm pretty glad that it's Friday, and very relieved that the weather man messed up his forcast for us. They predicted snow, sleet and all kinds of messiness - and we just got rain. Plain old wet and cold rain. Rain that isn't slippery, or icy or nasty yucky. Dare I hope that Spring is close at hand? I'd better not, right Barbara.....as Mother Nature may knock us back to our senses really quickly!

Today I ran into one of my favorite stores in the area, Borders!! Gotta love some inspiration and some reading. I'm excited to start my new book later tonight after the boy goes to bed, The King's Grace by Anne Easter Smith. It sounds great....but I'm more excited to start reading this...Somerset Apprentice, I just could not say no to this magazine. After a quick flip through it I decided i had to have it - and who wouldn't want it with this beautiful art on the cover? I only wish I had this beautiful canvas to hang on my wall, I am totally in love with it!!

In other news, I went out snowshoeing again yesterday, but decided after my hike with Hannah that I'd kick it up a notch and wear my husband's survival backpack loaded up with half a bag of wood pellets from the wood stove. I can tell you that it was an amazing workout, but I'm glad I brought my iPod and listened to that instead of heavy breathing!! he he. It was a great workout and I can't wait to go again in the morning with my boy. I don't think I'll make him wear a pack though :-)

My butt is really not as big as my shadow makes it look, really - it's not!

How do you suppose that acorn got in this indentation in the tree?? It was lodged in so tight I couldn't get it out....hmmm. Gotta wonder about that one!

Nature's sculpture, very interesting! I might try and lug it home when it thaws out from the snow and ice and put it in my garden somewhere!

I got an envelope in the mail today from the lovely JenXo from Australia. She sent me several cool pieces of punchinella, a lovely ATC for my collection and a hand made card! THANKS Jen - I love everything! Can't wait to use that funky ribbon! I'm lucky I got anything because the envelope had a huge rip in it and though I'm not sure if anything fell out - I don't think so.

This is a gorgeous card! I may frame it!

Fun ATC!!

So, in honor of Jen's generosity, I've decided to give away a little make n' take that was sent to me from K & Co. I'll pick the winner on Monday morning...so comment on this post to be eligible!

Tomorrow is going to be a great day, with highs in the 50's....can you hear me, I'm happy!!

Thanks for visiting and Ta Ta For Now.