kt40

Finished X-mas "cards" part three

Originally uploaded by kt40

Well I finally finished my Christmas cards. I just need to wrap them up and send them off to my friends and family back in the states. My ceramics teacher, Carmela, had a wonderful idea after they are bisqued to use furniture wax, you put just a little on a brush and push the wax into the cracks and then polish like crazy until all the wax has been rubbed into the clay so that you can't feel it anymore (like polishing shoes really) then I left them outside so that the smell would go away, then put a decoupage coating on to seal in the wax and give a little shine.  They look like pieces of leather and feel very soft. Finally I added my red string and natural looking elements. They are very funky but that is the kind-of stuff I make. I'm going to ask the kids to write 'Merry Christmas' on little slips of paper and put that with the ornaments(cards).

Front view of my X-mas cards

Here is a front view, this imprint is from some weeds from my morning walks.

This reminds of a story, when I lived in Eugene I used to have a booth at the Saturday market("Hello!" to my set-up crew, you know who you are) where I sold items that I had sewn and ceramics. I also sold bouquets of flowers in mason jars for a few dollars and if you returned the jar the next week you received 50 cents off your next bouquet purchase. I had a garden that was filled with wild flowers(I was very lucky, I had great river soil which made everything grow). One day my Mom told me that her neighbor had brought one of my bouquets and had told her that it also had a bunch of weeds in it. I said "Yes that is true I deliberately add weeds to my bouquets because quite frankly I think they are beautiful and deserve to be added to bouquets". That made my Mom smile.

Back view of my X-mas "cards"

On the back of every ornament is a relief of a leaf from our Judas tree in our yard, which is my way of making personal.

Little finds

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This morning my friend Bridget took me out to a second hand shop. I love going to second hand shops and finding what I think are little treasures. This orange crocheted bowl cover, only one euro, it will brighten up our kitchen. Rolls of ribbon, just in time for wrapping up Christmas packages. Nothing like the company of a good friend and second hand shops to start my day off right.

Working on my wreath.... still

Originally uploaded by kt40

I ripped this out of Country Living's October issue. I want to try to make two small wreaths, like this, for our door. I have seen little nests at pets stores around here. I will have different color leaves and flowers. I will post the wreaths when I finish them, you will be able to see how loosely I follow ideas.

Part two of my X-mas cards

Originally uploaded by kt40

I brought these little pieces of nature look-a-likes (the curly pods are real) wired them together and tonight when I go to ceramics my part one of my cards will be ready then I can wire these with them and I just want to find some pretty red ribbon to finish them off. I will share the finished result Friday. ( Yeah I know, it's a real "on the edged of your seat" post)

Walking in the fog

Originally uploaded by kt40

Here is me and Cubana. Yes, that is me in the groovy walking outfit with my shoes nice and clean, this is us at the beginning of our walk.

Foggy morning

Originally uploaded by kt40

Well this morning was foggy, I went on the trail with Cubana (that is us in the photo at the top of this page) I set the camera on self timer on a cement stump and ran back to get into the photo. Today I decided to take a little side path off the bike path that I had never taken before and happen to end up next to a car(it was blocking the path) where a couple was being, well, very intimate(this of course was very awkward). It was so foggy that I didn't realize this until I was standing right next to the car. Well needless to say I kept on walking only find out the path was a dead end. I didn't want to pass by the car again so I cut across a field and half way through it I was up to my ankles in mud and since the fog was so thick I was probably walking in a big circle, it felt that way at least. Finally I stumble up back onto the path right when this older couple that I see every morning came jogging by, the woman glanced at my feet which were really big huge clumps of mud you couldn't even see my shoes. Feeling ridiculous and obviously not going to try to explain why I was walking in the muddy fields, I said "Good morning" in Italian and attempted to stroll on by as if everything was normal(hard to do with big mud clots for feet). I thought about Robert Frost's poem 'The Road Not Taken' and how it simply did not apply to my walk today. Let's just say I am happy to be home. When Jason gets home today and asked "Did you walk the dog?" a question he always asks me just like I ask him "How was work?" I am just going to answer a simple "Yes." I don't feel like going into the details now that the fog has lifted.

Black and white webs

I love spider webs in the morning.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Originally uploaded by kt40

We just finished dinner and now the coffee is brewing for part two, dessert.... Yes!!!!! I made the Thanksgiving dinner from Better Homes and Garden this year ,well I loosely followed it. I always use a different magazine each Thanksgiving dinner as a guideline. I also ripped out the photo of the finished dinner and hung it up in the kitchen to keep me focused and on task. There was a moment I slipped and got caught up with a movie 'Peggy Sue got married' (I think that is the right name), and left the turkey giblets boiling up a storm on the oven, no real loss. Well, I have to go now, there is some pie with my first name on it and some ice-cream with my last name.

Working on my Christmas cards

Originally uploaded by kt40

If I can get these bisqued and fired before the 8th of December then I will send these out as my X-mas cards this year. They can be used as either an ornament or whatever really. I did my favorite theme this year, leaves and weeds, rolled them against the clay and then used a biscuit cutter then poked the hole with a branch. I will bring these to class tonight and explain my idea to my teacher maybe they will be ready in time to send off. I hope so I like this idea more than making  or buying actual cards right now.

In the air

Originally uploaded by kt40

I can feel Thanksgiving in the air, this coming Thursday. On Monday I picked up my weekly stash of organic vegetables from a farmer named Gino, who lives and farms near the elementary school Iris attends. I always get excited opening up the bag "What is inside this week?" It is always good and all of these vegetables will be incorporated (I like to use important sounding words when it comes to me preparing Thanksgiving dinner makes all the stress that goes with it seem valid) into Thanksgiving dinner these and a pumpkin pie, a cherry pie and I can't, of course, forget the vanilla ice-cream. I've got to yin and yang it after all. I was just thinking of my first I'm making the Thanksgiving dinner... it is all on my shoulders Thanksgiving when I kept walking past the oven door saying "Oh it doesn't look any different(referring to the turkey) and Jason finally came over after about a half hour of me pacing back and forth in front of the oven and said "Why don't you turn on the oven?"

"Oh yeah, turn on the oven, novel idea."

Faces on rocks(Inspire me Thursday-Gratitude)

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I am always grateful for all the unknown artists.
My youngest daughter and I went up into the mountains yesterday and on are our drive we kept seeing all of these carvings along the road.

More faces on rocks(Inspire Me Thursday-Gratitude)

Originally uploaded by kt40

We saw more faces as we descended down the mountain.

Our dining room windows

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The wind was blowing all night I could hear the leaves rustling around in circles last night. This weekend I will go outside and collect leaves and other natural elements that have been blown into our yard. Make some garlands and maybe some wreaths and maybe one the the kids will want to join me or maybe they will have a projects of their own.

Dried roses and shells

Originally uploaded by kt40

These are some of the roses that I buy for myself at the Monday market down the street. The man who sells them to me always says to me "For you, four euros for twenty-two roses"
I always respond "Yes , I'll take them" wondering why it is always twenty-two instead of twenty-four but either way it is an excellent price.  Then he insists on wrapping them up for me in beautiful waxed paper. The shells I brought in Florence when I was with my sister and mom I said "I don't know what I am going to do with them, I just really like them." and they both said "You should get them they look like something you would have in your house." I love them, the light on them the way they slowly turn.

Red thread and fallen items from our yard

Originally uploaded by kt40

I like to thread dried leaves and flowers together.  I realized when taking this photo that I have always hung up something from our yard onto our windows.  No wonder Jason commented when I put this up "Now it looks like we live here."

Vespas and other things

Originally uploaded by kt40

It is strange to me how life works sometimes. About seven years ago I was laying in bed, in Oregon, reading a recipe/gardening book, the title or the author I can't recall right now but that isn't important, I turned to Jason and showed him a photo of an olive grove and said "Someday I want to live near olive trees", to which I'm sure he nodded politely and went back to his book. Well the house we now rent has a sweet, medium sized olive tree in the yard and the walks I take everyday with the dog are surrounded by olive groves. I can't walk a block without seeing a Vepsa the mode of transportation I was head over heels for as a teenager, I didn't own one but thought they were "So cool!!".

"This is where I live." I say to myself time and time again.

The other night I was outside raking leaves and looked over at the kitchen window at Jason inside making dinner, a dish that I love I might add, and I thought "I am so happy right now". Jason came outside and helped me carry the leaves. I had them laying on a tarp that we ended up carrying like a rolled blanket, so that the wind wouldn't take them. At the end of the block we awkwardly dumped them in the community compost bin. As we walked back I put my arm around Jason and he walked a little ways with his arm around me too.

"What is going on?" he asked, knowing that I wanted to say something.

"I am just really happy." I replied.

"That's good." he smiled as the wind played with his hair.

Bowls of chicken noodle soup

Originally uploaded by kt40

The weather has changed we have to wear sweaters in our house and you can find someone leaning up against a radiator somewhere in the house at almost any given time. Today's post is mostly just about a photo of our table at lunch time with the mismatched bowls of hot chicken soup on top of wrinkled red napkins, crunchy Italian bread spread with butter that is right out of the oven, wrapped in paper towels so that it stays warm. A tray full of red apples and empty glasses waiting to be filled. This is one of the many lunches around here, how many have I made? I don't know if I really want to know the answer to that one. This one was easy and I know that it will be served again........and I'm not going to go to far out on a limb here and add.... and again.

The empty park (entering the park)

Originally uploaded by kt40

This park is always empty. I don't even know if it has a name. It sits on a little triangle of land near a busy intersection. I have walked past it quite a few times and thought it was, quite frankly, a dumpy little park. The only thing that seemed to occupy it was litter. Once Iris asked me if we could go take a look at this little park, we were headed in the opposite direction and I looked at it while we were walking across the street and said "No". Thinking to myself that it was empty for a reason. Saturday I walked past it alone and noticed, as always, it was alone too. On this particular day it looked cleaner than usual maybe it was the way the light was filtering through it's trees, so I decided to take a closer look and actually walked into this little park. It always surprises me how I can misjudge things, I think of myself with an open mind, but that just isn't always the case. Here someone had planted all these beautiful trees and designed these 1960's or 1970's funky looking benches with only the hope that people would hang out and enjoy it all. It wasn't just "A dumpy little park" like I had thought it was, it had character and was sending out a message like all parks do, saying different things to each person as they walk by. Iris had heard "Come explore me!" and luckly for me I had finally heard that too. I know the next time I pass by with the kids I will let them take a closer look.

Littered with light (inside the park)

Originally uploaded by kt40

There is this walk way in the park that when I passed by it before it always looked littered and uninviting but today I only saw the light on the tree near the wall and thought this would be a nice quite space to sit with a book or if I was a still a kid I would run as fast as my legs could carry me and touch the wall.

The wall (Leaving the park)

Originally uploaded by kt40

As I walked away I noticed the ivy climbing up the wall mixed with those unidentifiable (for me at least) plants that seem to find their way through cracks in sidewalks or walls and add softness.

*note: there are two extra photos of the park in my photo stream just click on this photo if you want to see the other two.

November where we live

Originally uploaded by kt40

Jasmine is sick, she has strep throat( I think). Yesterday she woke up with a fever and I won't get into too many of the details but I did think at first that she had the stomach flu but as the day went by I thought maybe this is strep throat. Her fever ended up staying high all day and through the night. She asked if I could sleep in Iris's bed which I did (they share a room). Iris was thrilled because I set up the couch for her and she got to watch a movie that was on T.V. with her dad last night. Last night Jasmine woke up about every twenty minutes crying because her throat hurt. I kept saying " Just try to sleep, rest will help" knowing that they were pretty hollow words because they wouldn't change how she felt but not sure what else to do. Periodically I would turn on the lights help her with some water, put a washcloth on her forehead, give her some fever medicine, mainly trying to get her "set-up" so she might sleep for longer than twenty minutes. Some of those moments would have been comical to watch because I was so tired about half way through the night that I was bumping into doors and must have looked a little insane. Well we made it through the night and I took her to the doctors this morning who confirmed my suspicion, strep throat (He thinks, official results not back yet). Now she has the right medicine(since the clinic is closed for the weekend he went ahead and prescribe something for her) and I hope she will sleep through the night, selfish reasons included.

Ivy and walls

Originally uploaded by kt40

I do love ivy on walls , covering the sides of houses, the types that will change colors with the seasons. It makes me think of the book 'The secret garden' that I read years and years ago. I'm not even sure if there is a description of ivy climbing up walls in the book, I just can't imagine a secret garden without one.

A little tree that I thought had a beautiful shape and wanted to share on my blog today

Originally uploaded by kt40

I have been writing for this blog for three months now. I was surprised when I figured that out this morning. I am the type of person that likes to jump into projects or hobbies, call them what you'd like, full speed ahead. It would be like if you filled up your car with gas and hit the highway and didn't bother to stop at a gas station along the way, ever, that's me. I think I am finally learning to pull over. I started out with two blogs, (enough said) then ended up combining them. I was writing everyday then decided to take the weekends off, I do have some moments of clarity. When I started this both my Mom and Jason said "Don't forget to pace yourself." Which of course I shrugged off at the time because I am who I am. Their advice must have sunk in though because I am still writing and taking photos, dare I say it, while pacing myself.