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.

Then we went to my friend Sues where we were treated to a lunch for Queens!

After Lunch Sue got out Lady Bluebird and we went for a spin through town. Yep, Lady Bluebird is a lovely 1963 Thunderbird!

We even took time to hug a large tree!

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.

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.

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.

“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.

“We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality.”
– Iris Murdoch
About Iris Murdoch
Iris Murdoch, the acclaimed Anglo-Irish author who won a Booker Prize for her novel The Sea, The Sea, about jealousy, love, and loss, was equal parts novelist and philosopher. She was born in 1919 in Dublin. She taught moral philosophy at Oxford for 15 years and wrote the influential book The Sovereignty of Good. Her fiction often used Gothic elements to tell stories with a philosophical theme. She died of Alzheimer’s in 1999. Her life was the subject of the movie Iris, starring Judi Dench.

I took a friend who has had a bit of cabin fever for a short walk this week. We danced to the music made by the rain! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcpjnRy7avI Now I want rain drums in my backyard! ! In this short 1 minute and 50 second video you will see my friend Laura. A year and a half ago Laura suffered two brain aneurysms and a stroke , she has had to teach herself to do pretty much everything over again. From walking to talking to dressing herself and feeding herself.She is nit able to drive or go to work yet however she is painting. Laura likes to send paintings to people who donate $100 to her go fund me campaign.http://www.gofundme.com/saboya

There was a time in my life that I was a smoker. I am not sure why I started as I knew it wasn’t cool. I am glad I quit.Smoking Crow,acrylic 12 x 12 x .8 $50

Today’s Quote
“It has been my philosophy of life that difficulties vanish when faced boldly.”
– Isaac Asimov
About Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov, the American author known as one of the top writers of science fiction’s golden age, penned nearly 500 fiction and nonfiction books, including the Foundation trilogy and I, Robot. Born on January 2, 1920 in Russia, he moved to the US with his parents at age three. As a teen, he would read pulp magazines in his parents’ candy store and became inspired to write his own stories. His fiction frames interesting ideas in a bare-bones narrative. He died on April 6, 1992.

I work hard to embrace my mistakes and failures and turn them in to something positive.

“The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything.”
– William Connor Magee
About William Connor Magee
British prelate William Connor Magee was known as the Militant Bishop for his forceful speaking style, though he always worked for peace. He was born in 1821 in Ireland. Extremely bright, he enrolled in Trinity College at age 13. Ordained to a curacy at St. Thomas’s, Dublin, his fame as a speaker took him all the way to the powerful Archbishop of York. He spoke several times in the House of Lords, arguing against the dissolution of the Irish Church and against national temperance laws. He died on May 5, 1891.

I am doing a  happy dance as I just  SOLD this piece to a private collector in Federal Way Washington!  😉 

Thanks to Ellen Kwor for having me create a  one of a kind piece if wall art  for her living room. Skipping through  leaves,  is approximately  31 inches by  31  inches made from  scrap metal, each leaf was  hand  plasma cut and  hand bent.  close up of leaves so you can  see the bends. 

You are invited to a fun event at Columbia Winery on January 9th, 2014 from  4-7 PM. 

As part of my workshop clean up project I have been working on  using up some of the art supplies that have  been  sitting around the  shop for awhile.  these  little  birds are  made from  shovels, horseshoes , disc brakes and a few other  odds and  ends. From left to  right, Fern, Eve, & Dixie  added  Frens hair after the photo was taken.