Monthly Archives: June 2015

a bottle tree

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I can hardly wait for the owner to come pick you her bottle tree! After I figured out what I was doing I started to have fun making this I might have to make a few more!
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Today’s Quote

“Difficult times have helped me to understand better than before how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way, and that so many things that one goes worrying about are of no importance whatsoever.”
– Isak Dinesen
About Isak Dinesen
Isak Dinesen was the pen name of Karen Blixen, the Danish author famously portrayed by Meryl Streep in the film of her best-selling memoir, Out of Africa. She was born near Copenhagen in 1885. In 1914, she and her new husband moved to Kenya to run a coffee plantation. She stayed on after divorcing her husband ten years later, living an unusually independent life. Her book of stories, Seven Gothic Tales, sold well, but Out of Africa made her a worldwide success. She died in 1962.

4 projects finished & a quote!

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It was 93 degrees out today and I was working in my shop. My little shop felt like it was 120 degrees inside with the welder going. Susan Gerend has been asking me to build her a bottle tree. I finally got it finished today.

I also finished a few other projects and I am closer to getting a few more completed.

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“The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.”
– Linus Pauling
About Linus Pauling
American chemist Linus Pauling is the only person ever awarded two unshared Nobel Prizes. He was born in Portland in 1901. He won a Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his breakthrough work on hemoglobins and proteins. He also originated the theory that DNA was formed in a double helix. He became a peace activist after studying fallout from nuclear bombs. His influence and work in concert with other scientists led to a test ban treaty and his second Nobel Prize, for Peace, in 1963. He died in 1994.

The art of spending time with friends & a quote

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Today was a lovely day. My friend Laura and I drove over to Prosser to visit friends. Our first stop was the VineHeart Winery to visit my friend Patricia. Upon arriving we found out it was the first day of the cherry harvest! Guess who got some fresh picked cherries.

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Then we went to my friend Sues where we were treated to a lunch for Queens!
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After Lunch Sue got out Lady Bluebird and we went for a spin through town. Yep, Lady Bluebird is a lovely 1963 Thunderbird! IMG_0414

We even took time to hug a large tree!IMG_0420

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We had a fun filled packed day with a variety of friends!

Then on the way home just miles from Laura’s house I was spared from receiving a speeding ticket and just asked to slow down or to pull over and rest. Yikes I was doing 39 in a 25 zone.
Today’s Quote

“The point is not to pay back kindness but to pass it on.”
– Julia Alvarez
About Julia Alvarez
Dominican-American author Julia Alvarez is best known for her novels, How the García Girls Lost Their Accents, about sisters adjusting to life in the US, and In the Time of the Butterflies, the tragic life story of the anti-Trujillo activists, the Mirabal sisters. Born in New York in 1950, she was raised in the Dominican Republic until she was ten, when her family fled the country. She and her husband live in Vermont and run a sustainable coffee farm/literacy center in the Dominican Republic.

a quote , a photo , and two friends healing

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At the end of this month it will soon be two years since I caught myself on fire at my work shop. I am still not very comfortable to go there alone. Healing takes some time, the scars are faded but when I turn on my torch I am no longer fearless.
Below is a photo of the shirt I was wearing two years ago in June. It was hot out and I had my leather apron covering a piece of art to protect it from the sparks.

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Instead of working in my shop this past year I have been spending more time with friends. In the below photo: taken this past week, I am with my friend Laura. Just two years ago Laura had a double brain aneurysm and a stroke. She really understands the healing process. She spent a month in intensive care and has had to learn how to do everything from scratch! When I am out with her I find that I am more aware of how clueless people are. They look at her as if she were a normal healthy lady. When we are out together only her and I know how hard she is working to walk the trail with me.

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“There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.”
– Beverly Sills
About Beverly Sills
Beverly Sills, the talented American opera coloratura, became an international superstar in 1966 with her performance in Handel’s Guilio Cesare. She was born Belle Miriam Silverman in 1929 in New York. The New York City Opera rejected her repeatedly before they hired her in 1955. She left singing briefly in the 1960’s to devote herself to her young children: One is largely deaf, the other is mentally retarded. After retirement, she took the reins of the New York City Opera, turning it into a viable operation. Sills died of lung cancer in 2007 at the age of 78.

a cup and a quote

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Last Friday I was working my security job at the Issaquah Court house. I had a homeless guy in the lobby who was there to give a urine sample. He told me he had an instant container of Folgers coffee in his back pack and asked if it was okay to drink in the lobby. We get dozens of people a day that come in with coffee so of course it is okay. He made is coffee from the water fountain and I offered to stick in the microwave to warm it up. The cup was old and when he started to drink the cup was leaking. I went to our kitchen and I lent him one of the spare mugs (there were at least 50 in the cupboard). He was sitting in the lobby sipping the coffee waiting his turn to give his sample. While pointing to the homeless man the bail lift came up to me and asked, “Where did he get that cup while. I told him I lent it to him as his paper cup was leaking. The bail lift said to me, ” We do not lend cups to homeless people, he could use it has a weapon or he could have hepatitis! Go get it from him! I replied he is not going into the court room and I too could have hepatitis!

I got home from work and had an email from the security company that employed me saying, ” we need to re assign you.” I told them no thanks I am tired of getting in trouble for being nice.

I am thankful to be out of the court house I have more time to make art and I have taken up golf!
This is a bottle tree that a friend has been bugging me to make for 2 years!

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Today’s Quote
“Some people are always grumbling because roses have thorns. I am thankful that thorns have roses.”
– Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr
About Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr

French author Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr is remembered primarily for his epigram “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” He is also known for his autobiographical romances, including the popular Genevieve. He was born in 1808 in Paris. As editor of Le Figaro and, later, Les Guepes, he became widely quoted for his sharp witticisms. An avid horticulturist, he named more than one new flower, and when he retired to Nice, he popularized the tradition of selling cut flowers. He died in 1890.