Another day in Paradise?

Well, I finally got a hold of the landlady and things are a go there. I am working with the current owners of the coffee shop and trying to get a contract for the loan. Once I know their terms then I can talk with the bank. Next week I will get my training and food handlers permit and well things are moving along. The roaster does not look like it will be moving until sometime in January which will allow me time to get the coffee shop up and running and start getting the events and things in place. It will allow me time to round up artists for the gallery and get used to making the coffees. So it will all come together.
I started shipping gifts today! Finally got out of bed and had some energy. I also did some Christmas shopping and am getting things ready for Christmas at home. Tomorrow I mail the rest of the stuff and this weekend we do our final shopping so I can mail things express on Monday to ensure they get there (wherever) on time.
Hubby and I will go get the tree Saturday and then we are going with some friends over to see a huge Christmas light display over town Saturday evening. It should be a lot of fun. Sunday we will get all the final gifts and decorate the tree and I get to start cleaning the house for Christmas.
I do love when Dan and I finally can do the tree and decorate. I am especially glad that I will be done with this stupid virus and have the energy to do more.
I got to talk with my daughter in law today. A long phone call! But it was so nice and I have to say I got really lucky with this one!
Well I need to get going but will write more tomorrow. Am going to update my website tomorrow too. I will have pics of my new ties and after I have a chance to work on the coffeehouse I am hoping to get pics of it on the site as well. Will talk more tomorrow. R

Ok Let's start over!

Well this has been quite an autumn. Right after I promised to blog each day I got busy with life and blogging became a problem (so to speak...)
Anyway, this fall we have traveled to Florida to see our grandson turn one, and spend time with our son and his wife. After a week in Tampa we came home to chilly rainy Seattle. I have to say I loved Seattle. Florida is ok for some but it's too sunny and harsh for me. Give me rain and green and water and the seasons! Well at least three of of the seasons anyway. I could do without snow and winter.
I entered a show with my beadwork and although nothing was purchased there was interest in the ties! That is really saying a lot since they were the most expensive items in the show! I later donated one to Operation Sack Lunch. It is a non-profit that feeds the homeless in Seattle. My hubby and I serve on the board.
We also did a lightning trip to Boston to see our youngest son. This was a terrific trip even though it was only for the weekend. It was a no pressure trip and we had a lovely dinner at the chart house. I got to meet one of the guys that hubby works with and his wife and they invited us back this summer for lobster on the beach! We'll be there!
The big news is that I am getting ready to buy a coffeeshop! I am so jazzed! It will be a combination coffeehouse and folk art gallery. I will be able to have my studio there and a meeting room for groups and we will have activities like Pinochle games, chess, go, mystery book club, and live entertainment every Friday and Saturday. I have a ton of plans but am stalled right now. I cant get the landlady to call me back so I can talk to her about a continuation of the lease! FRUSTRATING!!
On top of everything, Hubby came down with pneumonia and he spread the virus my way and both of us have been sick in bed. Now the house is a mess, the tree is still in the tree farm waiting for us to find it and presents are still needing to be sent! Tomorrow is the day for mailing both the cards and letters and bills and presents and getting a response from the land lady etc.!!
I need to go for right now. Hubby is coming home from work. His first day back and I think he is going to be exhausted! Will write more tomorrow.

Changes coming

How does one get away from changes in a constantly changing world. Better yet, why do I feel I need to?
My husband came home about a month ago and informed me that his company would be merging with a larger company in January. We have been through this before with the same company taking over a smaller one that "hubby of mine" worked for. I was not thrilled and today remain highly skeptical. However, Hubby of mine is very excited about it and is preparing for that eventuality.
Last night I attended a meeting for our non-profit and they are debating over whether to accept a merger with a collaborative group of non-profits here on the island. Personally, I think this would be a huge boon to us since we could actually get rid the current leadership who are not real knowledgeable about what they are doing. If I sound like I am skeptical about the leadership, I am! It is hard not to be when you find that the accounting books hadn't been reconciled to the bank statements for a year and a half because it was "impossible" to do. When you have a director who attends a workshop on fundraising and comes away calling it a class on grant writing 101. In actuality grant writing was only discussed in this work shop by this statement, "if you are looking for a class on grant writing you came to the wrong workshop. This class is strictly on fundraising on a local level. It will not include grant writing in any way!" What bothers me most about this is that this co-director informed the whole board that this was a class on grant writing! That was her summary of the event! Now that I am only a board member I find myself really reluctant to take anything she learns or relates to us at face value. I in truth wonder if she actually sees things from a different planet like maybe Pluto..... HMMM Pluto girl!
Anyway, this merger is more than likely a good thing for us since we will actually be able to achieve some of our goals. I am excited about that and I like the director currently in charge of this non-profit. She is smart and many of her ideas for TU are ideas I began incorporating when I was the director. So I think this is a good thing. I also think that since Pluto girl sees fit to kind of phase me out of the shop this coalition will be a good opportunity for me to be able to participate in my community and achieve some goals I have set for myself.
However change is hard and I do not enter into these transitions without a little ambivalence.
Hubby of Mine and I just got back from visiting our grandson in Florida. While I was not impressed with Florida, I was totally besotted with my grandson! He is the most wonderful boy there ever was (not including my two wonderful boys of course!) and he will probably be able to walk on water when he grows up a little more. Right now the walking is a bit of a challenge. He will be one year old on Thursday. It is hard to have a grandchild who lives so far away. We live in Washington State over north of Seattle. It is even harder knowing how much he will grow in the next few months. Hubby and I are planning on visiting at least two or three times a year or arranging for them to come up here and visit though and this should work out OK. It is the way I was raised and I was very close to my grandparents and my great Aunt Ella.
Well, I have done some writing on my blog again. I don't feel quite so optimistic this AM so I wont promise I will continue to write every day but I will try and we will see how it goes.
Till tomorrow or whenever, R

It's Autumn in Ferry Land

What a wonderful time of the year! Here where the water never changes color and the trees stay green (for the most part) we are blessed with a crispness in the air and a tingle to our toes. It is a time of bonfires and apple picking. The end of the month will be a time of ghosts and goblins and freights and delights.
I always fear Halloween a little.. I dread its pranks and mean spiritedness that often comes out in those who want to hurt others. I also feel sadness that Halloween is not what it was when I grew up. My kids had to have their candy x-rayed to prevent finding objects in them. There are no candied apples and homemade donuts and now most of the tricker treaters are done and home by dinner time. There is no going to strangers homes because the milk of kindness might be tainted now. Who knows what lurks behind that mysterious door?
I grew up in a town of 210 people. We knew everyone and if we didn't then someone else we knew did. Mostly everyone was related. We weren't but we were not originally from that town either. At 7:00PM after dinner we were driven to town and we started at the first house on the main street and we trick or treated every single house in town. We had a route all mapped out because there was one house that gave a way warm caramel apples. We hit it half way through the night and we always went to the cooks house last. She had hot apple cider and homemade donuts for us. What a treat that was and usually our parents would be sitting in her kitchen waiting for us to finish and eating their homemade donuts and hot apple cider.
I wont say our time of youth was a time of innocence but surely it was a time when safety on the streets was something taken somewhat forgranted and frights in the night were more a product of our imagination than an actuality.
I have wondered though if part of our "reality" today is not actually the news medias tendency to overdramatize every small incident to create a sense of doom in our lives. I recognize the complete devastation of hurricanes and typhoons and tornadoes and acts of God That is not really what I am talking about though. Maybe it is the news medias failure to recognize that the whole town or area is not devastated with crime. In other words.. Have you ever noticed how the news will cover a murder or some other horrible event from a town on the other side of the United States when they cannot find a sensational story to cover in your own neighborhood? Have you ever noticed that the awful stories are the lead stories in every broadcast but that stories about building good neighborhoods are the last story of the evening? Or on the last page of the paper?
Part of the blame is ours. We tend to read the bad stuff and dwell on it more than on the good stuff. We look for the awful stories and then we feel anger toward the person who did the crime and pity for the person on the receiving end and then we feel thankful that we weren't that person, that family, that neighborhood.....
I had a teacher who once told me that children will do what you expect them to do when it comes to learning. If you teach a child as though he has a handicap then they will grow up with that handicap. I suggest that possibly adults are the same way. Perhaps if the news was just a little more real to our areas... We could establish a relationship to the area we live in. For instance... Tonight in the news... So many people were fed by Operation Sack Lunch and other food vendors in Seattle. After discussion about the organization and how you could help the news would review non profits and community organizations news. It would review the weather, and things that affect your neighborhood and then after making sure that in a town of 500,000 people, 375,000 of them were involved in activities in their own community, helping others and working hard, and 124,450 were traveling, staying home, ill or otherwise involved simply in the day to day existence that life gives some people and that possibly 50 people through out an entire community spreading miles and miles were involved in an illegal activity that directly affected perhaps 50 other people in that community. Put more succinctly wouldn't it be nice instead of looking for bad guys around every corner we started recognizing that most people are not bad guys. They are just like you and I? We want to trust our neighbors, make friends and live contented lives..... Perhaps if we started treating each other as people like ourselves we would change the way our communities have evolved... It is just a suggestion...

I'm Back

So it has been a while since I have posted. I have been licking my wounds so to speak. In my last post I stated I had been made a director for a non-profit here on the island. For two months I was so busy doing my position as director that posting on here was not really an option for me.
Well after two months the store manager decided she could no longer work with me (not sure what her reasons were......) but the board decided that since there was conflict I was expendable. So I was fired and the original director replaced me.
So here I am now working one day a week at the shop and then working at my home again the other days of the week. This is ok for now since I do have a few things that I am desperately in need of doing. One of these things is to do my art and finally get it selling. I have a class to teach in January and I will be doing the craft show in freeland with my bead work. I have a concert coming up for Operation Sack Lunch and I need to help with advertising and ticket sales on that and I have the holidays coming up and etc. So I am busy and I am setting up plans for next year as well. So....... Why do I feel so down?
I will be writing on this blog daily from here on out. I PROMISE! and I am establishing a format that will everyone will enjoy reading I hope. I have lots of stories and some fun things for each blog and included in the blog will be a story I have long wanted to write so read on McDuff... and I promise it will be worth it.

I Have Grown Up!!

So it has been a while since I have logged on and for this I truly apologize! I have become so busy trying to get things done before leaving for one weeks vacation. Have you ever noticed how preparing for a weeks vacation usually makes the vacation more necessary than it was initially and then how you always feel that another vacation is needed to recoup from the initial vacation?
I went to see my family. Actually, my sister and my mom. My brother and his wife and my two nephews as well as my niece and her mom all live in Boise too but we are not close at all and most of the time when I go visit them it is only an hours visit or so. That's enough for us. I think the classic example of how my brother and I get along was my STUPID response to an argument we had several years ago. I (being at a loss for words and attempting to point out my brothers stupidity) yelled out at him "HI HO I'm from Idaho..." Thinking that said it all. I now realize that it only made him an entire grade higher than me.... OOOOHHHHH! I hate that!
Anyway, you may have guessed that my family is not perfect. As a matter of fact we aren't even close. My husband says that my relationship with my mother and sister is the only game of "I don't like you" that he has ever known to last for 26 years. He actually says the game has gone on for 30 years now and he has become so used to it that he just chooses not to play. So my family has come to terms with him. They may not like him exactly but they tolerate him fairly well.
I love my mom very much. I guess I love my mom enough that I have spent a lot of years trying very hard to make her happy and proud of me. This is a difficult thing since my mom's pride and my pride in myself come from two different spheres. Mom's lately comes from degrees and pedigrees like MA or PHD. Mine comes from trying to make a difference to my community and my world through my actions. This involves small actions and large ones but mostly it involves a deep caring for people I meet and a concern for what my actions will show to those around me. I discovered something this week while visiting my mom... I don't need her to validate me, my life or how I feel about myself. After 46 years of living, I don't care that she is proud of me. I hope she is... I want her to be but I will not give and what I do with my life will be mine to be proud of. I enjoy caring for people, caring for my community and caring about my family and in the end I will hopefully have left a legacy that my family and community will remember for longer than a year or two. It will not be determined by what others think of it. I will help as I can and when I can and I will be the better for it.
So how was my vacation? It was OK. I loved seeing my mom and knowing that she thought enough of my visit that she planned activities for us to do together that she would not otherwise have done. It was wonderful that I got to spend time with my nephews who are turning into wonderful little boys. It was nice to see my sister even if I hate the way she has become. I do not care to be controlled at this stage in my life. If I ever do I will be sure to let her know. But ultimately it was a wonderful vacation because I dealt with myself and I am at ease now knowing that what I am doing is what I choose to do and that it is important to me and my values. This is a good thing. Talk with ya soon. R

August already.. A month for picnics

I love this month. I know this is still summer and I always seem to be ahead of the season. I grew up in the palouse empire. August was the start of fall for us. The crops were just getting done being harvested and the colors of the land were golden, oranges, browns and grey. It was fall colors. August was a time for canning and putting up food and preparing for winter. Usually by Halloween in Spangle, we had our first snow. So winter was not very far away.
For us kids it was a lazy time of lemonade, long bike rides, hiding away in hedgerows and under overgrown trees. It was a time for boredom and for creativity.
In farming country it is a time when things speed up then suddenly slow down. Combines clear the crops, women cook for the field hands and then the farming is done, the crops are in and life becomes simpler and quieter.
When I was growing up, July and August were the very best months. My family would pack up the car, take off for the lake at about 9:00 in the morning and then would spend the entire day into the evening at the lake. We went to Badger lake or Williams Lake usually. We had a huge picnic went swimming and played in the playground at the lake. It was a fun time and one I remember very well.
I also remember the days spent hiking or bike riding about a mile from our home where there was an old lilac hedge. I would go to the center of it where it was cool and sparse and had sturdy branches and I would spend the entire day pretending it was a house or a fort with an upstairs and a downstairs. Bike rides would turn into adventures that lasted for hours and we traveled miles to see what was over the next hill.
August was a time for fairs. That is where my husband and I first met. We met at the Interstate Fair in Spokane. My girlfriend wanted to make sure I was a fifth wheel when she met up with a friend she knew from some church function. He wanted to spend time with her and she didn't want to spend time with him! I was to make sure he never got her alone. I loved carnival rides then and Dan (the boy who was pursuing my girlfriend and later became my husband) chose the carnival rides as a way to get rid of me. He figured if he could get me sick on the rides I would leave my girlfriend alone for him. After two rides I got deathly ill ... So did my girlfriend and Dan was left to wonder who that fifth wheel was. I on the other hand swore I would get even if it was the last thing I ever did. I met Dan two years later and we became friends, then more and sometime in our relationship I did get even!
I hope you enjoy your August. I know I will. R

Dog Days of Summer

I can't help it. This time of summer hits and I start wanting to stay up till early morning and watch stars. I love this time of the year inspite of the fact that I get incredibly lazy. I signed up to work on 6 "why tie ties?" (check website; http://ferryfolk.com) anyway they have to be done along with 4 beaded ornaments come November and all at once I found myself doing beading again. On top of that I have a class I am giving at joggles.com on painting a children's rocking chair. This should be a fun class but I am behind not only in painting it but doing the directions. I need to get started on a website for "Teens Unlimited" so I will have something to give to the board next Monday and quite frankly I have a person who is so militant and gung ho on one of my projects that she is totally ruining the experience for me! Oh well this too will pass. Sooo I am slowly getting back on track again. This will be tough since I really hate traveling and I will be traveling one week a month for the next three months. It always takes me a good week to week and a half after I get back from traveling to get my feet back on the ground. Anyway, I am doing some wonderful projects for shows this fall and winter and I am really getting to think of a studio. It is time for me to work on a studio so that come next spring I can have a place to show my work and be in the open studio tour here on the island. This is something I really would like to do. Of course, where the studio is and how it is constructed depends greatly on what is built in the empty space next to our house. If it is another house or a duplex then it will not be such an issue to have the studio in the garage or up behind our shed but if it is a restaraunt or another business well we will have to wait and see.
Anyway, I am rambling and since my hubby is the only one reading this blog he is probably thinking, "what on earth is she thinking? We can't afford a studio yet!!!" My response is "We'll see."
So the shop is going great and our sales are really up and everything is going along swimmingly... Why am I so concerned? I just keep thinking about putting the brakes on spending until the shop is consistently earning money. We are going on a great ride right now with sales up dramatically but we have only seen an increase in these sales for one month. We need to see a full quarter to see a real gain. This is a worry for me! Plus I see everyone getting so excited about how well the store is doing and I keep flying the caution flag because..... well good hopes, thoughts and what have you are wonderful however they are not always effective.
Well I had better go. I am trying to get my name in a few contests over the next couple of months and get some exposure for my business and before the end of this month I probably better finish concentrating on that. I will talk with ya soon. Rene

Movies movies movies and a really good book!

You would think that I haven't got a thing to do... but everyone needs some time off and this weekend we took it. First we went to see the Fantastic Four...
This was a fun movie and I enjoyed it but... It didn't rate high on my must have scale. It was based on a comic book and well... what more can you expect then what it gives? It was ok.
We went to the Macaroni Grill and wow did I have a great meal! And a really cool drink to boot!
The next night with a different couple and we saw Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I loved it! It was really a fun movie and not to off from the original although I kept waiting for Johnny Depp to say... "and once in band camp" AKA American Pie. Anyway then it was off to Buca De Beppo and then we went to see the Wedding Crashers. Now understand, I did not really want to see this movie. However at one point in the movie I found myself laughing so hard I thought I was going to have a heart attack! I loved this movie! It was really funny (adult comedy) and had a sweet story too.
We followed that up by going on yet another day to see "Crash". It was a great movie too but i have to say it left me feeling really depressed. I hate that people still judge each other by the color of their skin and that only when times are really bad can they find the fortitude to trust someone of a different ethnic background.
And for all of those of you out there waiting for Harry Potter. I got him too. I am enjoying the book tremendously but since I signed up for a show in November in which I need to have 6 of my beaded ties done and 4 beeded ornaments finished, I have a show in October for my furnishings and am teaching a class on painting a rocking chair, I have had to buckle down and get some work done. It is a busy time still but I thought I would let you know that if you havent seen any of the movies I mentioned ... go see them and just relax and enjoy them. Rene

Another Recipe

Okay so I have been wracking my brain to come up with another recipe for summer cooking and I found a wonderful one:

ingredients:
1 tub cool whip
1 package ladyfinger cookies
1 quart vanilla, orange sherbet mix
A large oblong cake pan

Take the cookies and put them into a food processor and chop into fine crumbs. Then take the icecream and spread a quarter of it out in the pan. Place a quarter of the crumbs out on the top of the icecream and coat with a quarter of the cool whip. Continue adding ingredients as stated. Cover and then put in freezer till ice cream is hard again. This is a wonderful way to cool down on those awful hot days of summer.

So Life Goes On.....

This has been a very quiet week for me compared to last week. If you are coming the Whidbey this weekend stop by the flea market. I will probably be there. It is looking like a nice weekend and I have a few more items for the tent. Dan and I will be working on building a display back for my paintings so I will be able to put them in my tent as well as all my furnishings. Anyway, I completed another painting and my husband didn't hate it. He didn't like it but he didn't hate it either. So he has to work on a frame for it and on the molding for the bathroom. I had intended to finish the bath this week but my body decided it was in need of rest sooo...

My body does this every once in a while. If I go for three or four weeks at break neck pace then it stops for a week so that I can rest. And Boy do I REST! but I hate these weeks because I feel like my time is spent so poorly and I dont get anything done.

Well the shop has been busy which is good and we have increased business and inventory so we are achieving something good from our increased efforts and total shake up of Teens Unlimited.
I guess I had better go now. I am in the process of cleaning up my bedroom and organizing it better. This should reduce the allergens in the room and allow me to get all my clothes in the closet. I have discovered thrift stores and I can now get silk shirts in all colors shapes and forms for about $3.00 each. I am dressing better now than I ever did when I was working. I didn't have time to go shopping at thrift stores when I was working and I could not hardly afford store goods! Anyway, I am changing my total look and getting an entirely new wardrobe. This is so much fun and I think that at the most I spend $20 a month or less on clothes. I spend more money on coffee!

Well I need to get going but will write more soon. Rene

Another Summer Day?

It is always amazing around here in the summer. The temp today was in the mid '60's with some breeze and an occasional raindrop. Add to that an absolutely gorgeous rainbow and well you couldn't ask for a better day. Summer always reminds me of times with my parents when I was growing up.
We had a visit from my grandpa and grandma and great grandma and my great aunt when I was about 5 years old. It was a really hot summer day and my great grandma was laying out on a lawn chair soaking up some rays. She was kind of sleeping in the sun and we were all just kind of enjoying the heat and sun. My grandpa turned on the sprinkler and went up to where great grandma was sleeping and turned on the hose. At 70 some years old it was surprising how quickly she could move. Before anyone could even think we were each manning a hose or a very large bucket of water. There was water throughout the house, basement and yard and there were puddles all over the yard because it was so full of water. Everyone was wet and laughing. A year later great grandma was diagnosed with cancer and she went to a nursing home to live. It is a wonderful memory of these people who were so dear to me when I was growing up.
I remember one summer my sister, brother and I spent all day gathering bricks together to make a barbecue. It was a great day! We used mud as the cement since it was mostly clay and we piled up the bricks and when it was done we went in the house to get the hamburger that we could barbecue. My mom actually cooked the meat for us and we had dinner on our handmade barbecue. Of course that was the last time it was used but for one night we were so proud of our achievement.
As kids we used to sleep in sleeping bags out under the stars. We often put all three together so we could be warmer during the night. We also had the two house dogs come sleep with us when we slept outside so they could protect us. One night there was a definite need to protect us. We were awakened about 1:00 in the morning by the dogs growling at something and what sounded like scratching at the front screen door. My sister turned on the flash light and we could see a very faint shadow of something on the front porch of the house. When my sister shined the light on the shadow we saw eyes. Boy that was all it took. All three of us kids tore the bedrolls to shred trying to get out of them and we were off with the dogs quickly running behind us. We ran around to the back door of the house and tried to get through the door all at the same time. My father said it was the worst noise he had ever heard and he met us at the end of the stairs in the house. He and mom slept upstairs. Mom was right on his tail. Dad grabbed a gun when we told him what we had seen and he went out by the back door around to the corner of the house by the front door and discovered a HUGE porcupine. Dad said it easily stood 4 feet tall when it was standing on all four feet. He waited for the porcupine to get out into the wheat field and then he shot it. We had hunting dogs and other house dogs and we didn'ttttt need to have quills in the dogs. I think back now on that event and realize from a parents perspective that had to have sounded like the house was falling down when we all tried to get through the door at the same time!!
There are other memories some old some newer but they all center around summer and they all make me smile. I do love this season. Talk with ya soon. Rene

Choochokum

I am sorry it has taken so long to post! This has been a whirlwind of a week. It has been one of those weeks that you are really glad it happened and at the same time you will be really glad it is over. To begin with, last Friday, the board of Teens Unlimited voted me in as the director of our little organization. We are a non-profit group running a thrift store for teens. Our goal is to provide affordable clothing to teens, provide a retail training experience for the teens in our store and to provide funds to assist in the forming of an emergency shelter for teens who live on our island. And yes to answer your question, we do have homeless teens on our island. Currently we have identified over 100 homeless teens on the south end alone and over 200 on the north end. Homeless teens are defined as those teens without a day to day provider and guardian. Most of our teens couch surf. They go from one friend's house to another to yet another. Sometimes there isn't a couch for one night and they end up in an old abandoned trailer or simply walking the streets. I could go on an on about this subject but suffice it to say that if this situation did not exist we would have much less incidents of vandalism.
Anyway, the board moved our founder and old director to the president of the board position and we also created a store manager position. We also decided to aim for doubling or possibly tripling our inventory in a one week time and really push the store for our big event "Choochokum". Choochokum is Langley's big art show. It is a huge tourist event and we hope to have a lot of sales today and tomorrow. Anyway, I get to man an information table and we get to put up our sign and well the list goes on and on and this all has to get done within the next two hours so....
I will be taking pictures and will hopefully be able to post them this weekend but till then if your over Seattle way, come see us on the island at Choochokum. Rene

OOOOH, AHHHH, WOW

I love this time of year! The third and fourth of July are turning into my favorite days of the year. They aren't as good as Christmas but they are getting close. It was not always that way however.... Another story...
The year that Dan and I moved to Denver we decided the boys were finally old enough to see the fireworks and enjoy them if we took them to a public fireworks display. We had just gotten to Denver in May of that year and right after we moved there we started hearing about this new radio station that had just started and they were going to be having the largest fireworks display in the state of Colorado. Dan and I were so excited. We figured if it was a new station there would not be as many people as if the station was already established.. It was supposed to be in brand new park with a large lake and well it just felt like Kismet. We decided we would go down to the park at about 1:00 PM the kids could go swimming and play on the park swings and playground for a while, we would have a wonderful picnic and when it got dark we could watch the fireworks. So July 4 rolls around and we are all really looking forward to the day we have planned. When we get to the new park we were forced to park about a 1/2 mile from where the display is going to be, in this huge field. There weren't many cars parked there and we kind of felt this was a good place to park because there would not be so much traffic clear away from the fireworks. They provided a bus to drive us to where the fireworks would be and up on arriving there we discovered that the park did not even have grass. We would be sitting in scrub fields full of weeds and dirt. There was no swing sets or even a playground and if you so much as put a finger in the "lake" you got fined and if you went swimming you got arrested. The sheriff was watching that lake like it was his grandchild and no one crossed him. So we put out a blanket and ate our food and fortunately we had some books and crayons and things for the boys to keep them busy and somehow the afternoon and evening passed. The fireworks were wonderful! They were huge extravagant and really wonderful. Everyone of us enjoyed them. They were over at 11:00 and it was time to go home. So we gathered our blanket and headed to the bus along with 50,000 other people, most of whom had arrived much later than us to the park. We finally caught the bus to our car after a half hour wait. We packed the boys in their car seats and turned on the car and literally crawled out of the parking lot. It took until 2:00 in the morning for us to be able to get out of the parking lot. It took another half hour for us to get home and we finally got to bed at 3:00AM. Both of us were dead the next day since we both had to work and we worked on 3 hours of sleep. Since that day we dont do public fireworks displays. We dont do large events with even larger crowds and we DON'T do NEW!
Instead we have the most wonderful small town fireworks display on the island in Freeland and every year we go to sit on the grass in the small park with about 5,000 people (a lot of who are friends or acquaintances) and we watch the fireworks, hike to our car and go home. It is the most wonderful way to spend the holiday. Freeland has their fireworks on the third so those who go to it dont have to work the next day and can sleep in on the fourth. It is a nice thing. Of course, everyone else has their fireworks on the fourth and we have turned the fourth into a barbecue time for us and a deck party where we sit and watch all of the fireworks from Marysville, Tullalip Indian reservation, Everett, Bothell, Arlington and Mukilteo go up for over 4 hours. It honestly looks like a war zone and it has become a part of our celebration to sit and enjoy this evening with friends and family. This year we expect about 20 (maybe) and it should be a party!! So I hope your party and your celebration for the fourth of July is big and wonderful and full of fireworks, and good food and most of all friends and I will talk with you on the 5th. See ya soon, Rene

Another day of no sleep

Menopause is going to kill me! I have just spent another night of no sleep and have managed to go till now (6:00 PM) till my eyelids have started getting heavy and I keep threatening to fall asleep as I sit.
This has been an incredibly nerve wracking week! I am now the director of Teens Unlimited with the director/creator of this venture taking over the President of the Board position. We also have a new store manager and have defined everyone's roles but now I have to say....GULP! It should be an interesting adventure. Talk with ya soon, Rene

Summertime cooking

OK so here is a wonderful recipe for everyone's grill.
Ingredients:
1 salmon cut lengthwise and de-boned
mayonnaise
butter
lemon
onion powder
lemon pepper
horseradish
salt
foil wrap

Place salmon on foil. Be sure foil will be large enough to cover the salmon leaving a cap above the salmon to allow for the meat to cook.
Add one to two tablespoons of horseradish to about a pint of mayo.
Coat salmon with mayonnaise mixture. You will have about 1/2 inch thick mixture on the salmon. Sprinkle on onion powder, lemon pepper, salt and garlic powder (light with the garlic). Then cut butter into tablespoons and place about 1/2 Cup or one cube butter on the fish. Take one whole lemon and squeeze juice over entire fish. Fold foil around the fish sealing the sides so that the juices do not escape the foil baking pack.
Salmon can be baked in the oven at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes or until done. It will take at least 30 minutes for the fish to bake but depending on size of fish it could take longer. Cook salmon until it flakes when cut into. I put fish in a cake pan or broiler pan when I cook it in the oven so if there is a leak then it won't spill all over the oven.
You can also cook the salmon on the BBQ. I cook it just like the oven but uncover the salmon for the last 15 minutes so it gets good and smoked.
Serve this with a wonderful Spinach salad with blueberries in it and a blueberry vinaigrette.
Add garlic bread and watermelon and you have a terrific meal. Granted this meal is not low-fat but salmon is very good for you and the other things in the meal can be made low fat to compensate.
I hope you enjoy this recipe and please let me know if you try it or if you have any questions. Talk with ya soon, R

Politics or mudwrestling?

Let me begin this blog by stating I am a die hard liberal with some conservative threads still attached. I believe in a woman's right to choose for several reasons... 1st If we were to make abortions illegal it would not end promiscuity. This was proven when we attempted to make alcohol illegal, when we attempted to make drugs illegal, when we attempted to make abortions illegal. The very thing we try to control through legal channels only makes the problem worse and the cost more expensive. 2nd, by making abortion illegal we hearken back to the days of back alley abortions. This is not a threat it is a reality. It has hit every country (and I do mean EVERY country that has made abortions illegal). Girls who get pregnant are not "bad" girls they are just pregnant. 3rd (and this one is the most important one to my way of thinking) reproductive medicine is one of the leading advancements in women's medicine. It is one of the reasons that women's healthcare is finally improving and becoming as good as a man's healthcare. If we take that particular practice away from medicine I fear that women's health issues will once again take back stage to men's health issues and women's healthcare will slide down into
stagnation and poor medical care. This is a very HUGE concern.
Finally, I think it is time for men to bow out of this issue. They have not ever nor will they ever have the joy of experiencing, labor, PMS, menstrual cramps, bleeding from the nether regions, delivery. The simple truth is they cannot know all of the responsibilities, pain and joy experienced in pregnancy and until they are able to experience them they should have NO say in how the woman who experiences them might feel. As for the pro life women, it is not that I don't understand how you feel.. I was raised Catholic and I truly do understand. I am opposed to abortion for my own person but I will not presume to make that judgment on another woman. What they go through is their own choice. I will state that (going back to the first reason quoted) making abortion illegal is not the way to end the practice. The truth is it is not used nearly as prevalently as we once did (especially when it was illegal) and if we created a practice like what we are doing with cigarettes then eventually we would be able to make abortions so repugnant that women would choose other options. The only way to do this is through plain speaking, encouraging the use of virtuousness, encouraging the use of adoption to those who do become pregnant and offering incentives to women who do find themselves to be pregnant and unable to see how to have a child and support it and themselves. We need to become more active in forcing men to support their children instead of determining whether women should have the right to abort them. It is time for women to step up to the plate and take these responsibilities on. Force our lawmakers to make things more amenable to the plight of women who are poverty ridden and cannot support another child. We as a community need to help these people. We as a nation need to.
So now I have said my say... I have much more to say and when I am tired enough and angry enough I usually do tend to say what I believe and frequently it gets me into a lot of trouble. Such is life.. Without dialogue and the sharing of ideas and compromise we don't get very far... We just stay ignorant and we never learn. Our current president needs to learn this. Our current government needs to learn this. We elected these bozos into office and they are not making decisions that benefit the average person. The decisions made are benefiting big business.. Are you better off from their administration? How? Are our schools? Is our health care? Is Your social security safer? What about our swimming holes are they safer? Cleaner? Do you find yourself feeling safer or are you out there with the rest of us and find yourself feeling more frightened and vulnerable? What has our current government done for us? Walmart is receiving a lot of flack right now. They pay so poorly, they hire clothing factories overseas that are paying their employees so poorly they cannot survive on their income and they live in squalor. Our government condones this.. They actually attribute to it by creating an environment that says big business is God. Big business can do anything it chooses as long as it is paying the government's bills but what I want to know is if big business is paying their way and doing it so well then why does the average Joe continue to have to pay taxes as well? The trickle down theory goes in reverse as well.... If I shop and do business at big businesses like Walmart, electrical companies, telecoms, and banks then I am paying my dues to them and they should in turn pay their dues to the government. Right? Not only are we working for them but we continue to provide a percentage of our wages back to them for their services. If they are providing the majority of the income to the government and our income to the government is so insignificant as to make us meaningless in governmental decisions then why do we continue to pay for that insignificance? Before you start yelling and getting angry at me for this silly rant... Let me state right here that I pay taxes every year, I vote at all elections, and I do stand up and say what I believe in where I can. I am a responsible citizen who is pissed off by our current government. I am not talking Democrats or Republicans because in truth one is just as bad as the other. Our president and his cabinet I particularly loathe and when someone says they support him my response is typically, are you wealthy? And when they respond no I typically ask them if they have children who are in the military? Usually the answer is no and then I have to ask them why? What has our current government done for you? What has he done for our country? There are no good answers for this one.. NONE.
Well, this post has gone on far to long. It is time for me to go to work. I will not talk politics next time, I promise. I will have a great salmon recipe for those of you who are getting ready to grill. Till later. R

A summertime story

Ok so it has been a couple of days since I posted and I figure it is time for a story. By the way I apologize for not posting in the last week but it has been an outrageous week as far as events going but I can't post on those events yet so here's the story.....
First the prestory....
Dan and I and our two boys lived in San Diego for a little over seven years. We lived in North Park for those of you who are familiar with San Diego and for those who have visited San Diego we lived about two miles from the new Naval hospital and Balboa Park.
Dan got out of the Navy and got a job in Ohio and we decided to try and sell our home in San Diego before joining Dan in Ohio. So the kids and I stayed in our home in San Diego. I never worried to much because we had a really good dog and our neighbor who was a border patrol man had a really big gun! Anyway, one day I was out working in our front yard and this man comes up the street, stops on the opposite side of the street, walks across the street up my driveway and heads toward my front door. When I asked him if I could help him he responds, "I bet you have a lot of stuff you want to sell if you are selling your house..." I said no I didn't and that if I did I would have a yard sale.. The man was adamant about my having things in my home that I wanted to sell and all the time he is heading for my front door. I finally got really pissed and I told him "NO I dont and get away from my house." He hit the front door about the same time my big dog hit the front door and the neighbor who heard all this went in his house and got his gun and met him too.. So the guy takes off running gets in his car and leaves. I called the cops told them what had happened and well there was nothing else to do. Anyway, the next day the neighbor brings over the paper and on the front page was an artist's rendition of this rapist that had been raping women apartment managers in LA. He was supposedly headed south to San Diego and the police were issuing warnings to be on the look out for him. It was the same guy that had tried to get into my house... Anyway, I am a small town girl. I grew up in a town of 210 people. I learned a lot in San Diego especially the value of a good dog..
Well, when we finally moved to Ohio it was in the winter and we had to wait for a few months until we got a house to rent. When we did the house was in Morrow County. The entire population of the county was 10000 and we were in the country just outside it's county seat. We lived in a very old house that was over 100 years old. We were in the house for about a week when these two men came up to the house in a plain white car. Both men got out of the car and came to the front door and Myrtle (our dog) greeted them at the screen with hackles raised, teeth bared and a tail that flared out to the size of a large cat. I being sensitized to San Diego life made sure the door was locked and talked to them through the locked screen door making sure they could see Myrtle the entire time. These guys came to our house to because supposedly they had gotten a report stating that we had a horse in our septic tank. Uh Huh... I knew these guys were after something and .. "I don't have a horse..." "ma'am we need to see your septic tank. We have a report you have a horse in your septic tank.." "Ok what do you really want?" "ma'am we are from the county health department and we are responding to a report that you have a horse in your septic tank..." "Uh Huh...You don't understand we don't have a horse.." "But ma'am we still need to see your septic tank to see if you have a horse in it..." "Uh huh.. Don't you think that if there were a horse in my septic tank that I would know about it?" "Yes ma'am but we still have to check.." By this time I figured I had either lost my mind or they had lost theirs.. So I told them to go find the septic tank.. They asked me where it was... "I don't know where it is.. I just moved in last week. Just listen for the horse. You should be able to find it."
so the two men slumped off to find the septic tank. Turns out all they had to do was follow their nose. It seems that the previous owners did have a horse and it did indeed fall into the septic tank several years prior to us moving in. When it did fall into the tank it died and the previous tenants drug the horse out behind the barn and buried it. The owner not wanting to replace the cement lid for the septic tank took pieces of marble from the bathroom floor he was replacing and laid them over the top of the septic tank. He was fined and had to redo the drain field and the two men from the county health department never came back to see me..... The ending of the story goes like this. The landlord called to find out about what happened with the county board of health and when I told him he got very quiet. He later got a letter and a huge fine but what really set him off was that someone had reported the incident at all. This was "rural" folks. The house we lived on was on a small portion of an entire 450 acre spread. It had been sold off that spread by the family that lived just up the street from us. Their son decided he wanted the house back along with the 32 acres and he reported the landlord to try and force the landlord to sell his house rather than have to pay the fine. When the landlord informed me of this I flippantly said "well just tell them that some crazy people from California were buying it and they are going to build a local Disney Land." I said this as a joke and never thought anything more of it until I was shopping at the local grocery store. This woman comes up to me and says "aren't you the lady from California?" I responded that Dan and I had just moved from California yes.. She looked at me and with a very straight and serious face said, "Well when is Disney Land going to be finished?" When you live in small town USA never open your mouth unless it is to say, Hi, Bye or How are ya doing?

Website?

So for those of you that have tuned into my latest messages on e-mail and are curious enough to want to find out why my website looks totally different now... here goes...

About a week ago I decided to put two more pictures on my site...Just two mind you not 10 or twenty... Just two. I went to my site where my website is parked and went to the photo page where my pictures would be put and I plopped them on the page. Well, my website takes the photo page automatically and makes a thumbnail page from the photos and it decided that the pictures were just fine the way they were so it made the thumbnails of the two pictures the actual sized pictures. Needless to say this screwed up my entire thumbnail page... So I deleted the images thinking I could start all over from scratch and not screw up the thumbnail page. NOOOOOO the website decided that "Oh you want thumbnails of those two pictures so it incorporated the two thumbnails but then must have really liked the way the page looked with actual sized pics because it randomly chose every 4th or 5th image that was thumbnail sized on the page and made them full sized. Then it took the thumbnails and put them on the page that had the actual pictures on it. So I attempted to reverse this damage by undoing my action and it swapped the images back and took another random sample of picks and reversed them. After two days of fiddling with this beepity beep beep website I finally decided I would start from scratch.

Last night at 9:00 PM I decided to finally start on the new format. I worked on it until 5:00 AM this morning. But it does look wonderful and except for two small technical pieces of advice from my hubby I can honestly say it is done totally by myself!!! Not bad for a girl who does not speak computerese....

So I have had 2 hours of sleep in the last 48 hours. It is my hope that the website looks good and is not just a figment of my imagination. At this point I am kinda scared of going to sleep and finding out that I dreamed I did this and my website is still the old one that is "fubar'd" (an old Navy term.. think language like a sailor). Well I am going to go get some dinner then it is early to bed for me. Take care everyone and I will talk with ya tomorrow. R

Here's one more to dad

So it is still not father's Day and I figured I would add another post only this one is for my husband. The father of our two boys. Dan and I met in high school. We started dating my junior year. He was a senior then. We dated for four years before we finally got married. We eloped and when our first year anniversary came we told everyone we were married. So here's a story about my husband.....
Dan went off to the Navy in 1977. He went through bootcamp came home and we got officially engaged and had plans to marry in a Catholic church in June when he would be done with "A" school. He was studying to become a tradevman. They worked on flight simulators. Dan says its the next best thing to Disneyland. Anyway, while he was in Memphis at "A" school both he and I went through a lot of changes. I was pushed into calling off the wedding by my parents and his and he kept writing me about girls he was meeting and I had met a young man who was going to be a dentist and he interested me (a little, sorta, well not really but maybe....) So when Dan came back from Memphis I was seriously considering calling off our relationship entirely. Dan persuaded me to wait until we took a few days by ourselves and went camping. This is something I highly recommend for every couple. Take three days and four nights and go camping with no TV and no one else to keep you entertained. Don't take books or radios or fishing rods (unless you both like to fish) and go with the very barest provisions. I highly recommend this.
Anyway, Dan and I got Dan's father's camper and headed for a camping site on the ST. Joe River. He was sure it would be full since it was just after July 4th. The site was empty. Not another person in site. I learned a lot about my ruture husband that trip. He had a great sense of humor, he was not into nature as in a nature child. (nudism was not his bag) and he preferred me to not be a nature child either. The water from the river was wonderful and I had forgotten my suit. I love skinny dipping (in private) and Dan loved hanging out on the shore with a towel extended trying to get me to cover up and not show my bod to anyone else. Nevermind that there was no one else... He was just modest. We spent a lot of time walking and talking and we spent time falling in love all over again. Someone once told me that you dont always stay in love.. there will be times in every relationship where you fall out of love and then fall back in love but the trick is to never fall out of "like" . I have liked my husband for a very long time now. He is still my best friend. He knows secrets about me that no one else does and he has never betrayed my trust. He is truly a wonderful guy. There really is no end to this story. Dan and I came back from camping and decided we would get married after I got my "AA" degree. We waited one more year for that and then when I started moving toward getting our wedding planned my parents objected again and I decided I would move in with Dan instead. We got married a month later. I guess the funny thing about our first anniversary was that I had decided I still wanted a church wedding. The Catholics did not think a civil marriage was legit so I sent a letter to a priest in Spokane explaining our situation and that I wanted the civil marriage to be a secret so our parents would think we got married on our formal wedding. Dan's mother disliked the idea of him marrying a Catholic and I had explained her hesitancy toward our marriage as well. (In short I was going to Hell and I was taking her son with me!!) So the priest in an effort to establish familial peace decided he should talk with my mother in law about our future marriage. Not being able to share what I had shared with him, he made a cold call to my mother in law without my knowledge or consent. I guess everything went fine but about a week later we get this call from my mother in law. "Dan, I just had the strangest visit and you will never guess who with... A priest.... Yes, he just called me out of the blue and suggested we should talk so he could explain the principles of the catholic church. Isn't that strange? He was very nice and we had a very nice talk but I haven't any clue as to why he felt he needed to talk to me.. It was just very weird. No I didn't know him at all.... Isn't that strange? Well, it is the Catholic Church and they do operate from a different world....." So we called off the formal wedding and on our wedding anniversary we told our families we had been married for a year. It was an awful anniversary! Actually our anniversaries were all awful until Dan and I reached our 10th anniversary. Then they began improving and by our 20th we had it down. We have been married for 25 years now. On our anniversary I will tell you about spending your first anniversary telling your family you have been married for a year.... Not pretty!!! Very Bad!!! Talk with ya soon....R

A tribute to my dad

So here we are half way through the week. It has been somewhat delightful for our area. The days have been cool and sunny and in the evening the rain came. It says it is supposed to do this for the next week. It has been hard this week settling down to working again. I have to admit I have not even looked at my beads since I got home. I haven't opened the door to my studio and I haven't done much in the way of house work. That is about to end. I have a library that is a real disaster and needs more shelves and a large desk that my husband and I can both share. I have a bathroom to finish. I have a lot of work to do for my business such as building up the inventory and arranging storage space in the garage for my things. Then there is all those items in the garage that need painted and well the garage itself needs painted and well the list just goes on and on....
So enough of the list lets see if I have a story for today.... Ok so it is almost Father's day so I will tell a story in memory of my father. My father was a major prankster. He loved jokes and would spend days and days contriving them. He also was a school teacher. He taught high school science and yearbook. He loved teaching as well as jokes and could take as well as give. But anyway, One Halloween my school created a mischief night. This night was when you would end up with your house being toilet papered, windows being soaped, and we always ended up with an outhouse being dumped at the end of our driveway! For a fundraiser for FHA we sold insurance and if you bought the insurance and your house was tp'd or soaped or whatever, the FHA would come to your house the next day and clean up all of the "mischief" that they made. My father secretly bought the insurance from the FHA advisor so the kids would not know he had purchased some and for weeks when he was approached about the insurance dad would smirk at the kids and say that the dogs and his guns were insurance enough against any "mischief". Well, Halloween came and sure enough so did the mischief makers. The first batch to show up were a group of guys. They soaped all the windows except the living room where we were watching TV. Then they tp'd the trees and strung toilet paper everywhere. They were pretty proud that they used 10 rolls on the house and that dad didn't catch them. Thing was, dad watched them the whole time and when they finished he was standing by the door of their car. They laughed about how much mischief they did then dad invited them in for doughnuts and punch. He had posted the insurance on the inside of the front door at about face level. After the boys had their snacks they turned to leave and the insurance paper was right there. They each turned a little white, dad laughed and told them he would see them in the morning. The boys weren't laughing quite so much when they left. A little later that night the girls decided to visit. They were a little more devious. I must explain that my father also trained field trial dogs and we had a kennel with about 10 dogs in it off the back of our garage. I was out feeding them that night with our two house dogs (blue healer, and dingo mix) when I hear laughter out in the wheat fields. I ran in and told dad and he grabbed the blank pistol and ran out in the back yard. You have to understand that it was pitch black outside that night. The moon was almost non-existent and the girls were trying to crawl through the plowed fields with out a flashlight. Dad steps out on to the back lawn and starts yelling to the dogs (who were in the house so they would not attack) to go get those girls then he starts shooting off the blank pistol. Of course the dogs in the kennel started barking like mad and the girls not knowing any different thought my dad had grabbed a gun and the dogs was going after them through the field. In truth he was laughing so hard he could hardly stand up. Well, those girls ran back to their car. One of them was a little slow and she got locked out of the car. We picked her up in the pickup when we chased the other car down the road about 5 miles. She finally pulled over into a driveway of a friend of ours. It took dad and the girl we picked up almost 5 minutes to get the girl who was driving to open the door. When she did dad invited them to come down for doughnuts and punch. They were really white when they got to the house. Dad had terrified them so badly that I don't think the one girl drove again for a full month!! They did laugh really hard when they saw the insurance policy and dad showed them what mischief had been played on us by the boys. The next day the boys came and cleaned the mischief up and the house looked as good as new. Our school never did mischief night again. But for that one year it was both a huge fundraising success and a terrifying experience for a few of the participants who ended up out-pranked by the best prankster of all. R

A Vacation, A Graduation, and a Few Days of Swimming

OK, so who in their right minds goes to Spokane WA and Richland WA for a vacation? Who said I was in my right mind? If you ask my friends most of them would have to tell you that it has been many years since Rene was in her right mind! The truth is we had a niece graduate in Spokane, Dan's family still lives there and we have some dear friends who still reside there. So that is that. Actually, the graduation was a lot of fun. There were 100 kids and the ceremony was one hour long. YEAH!!! It was very nice. Then we had a picnic afterwards and took a drive up to where my husband and I used to live when we were teens. It was great! The weather was terrific and we enjoyed ourselves very much. The next day we visited with dad and then later got to see a very dear friend, Richard. We went to the Art fest in Spokane on the second day of the show when it was pouring down rain and I met some very nice people who had some ideas for me on selling my things, especially my beadwork.
Then Dan had to go back to work...In Richland. I tailed along. We got into our hotel and the first night about 10 P.M. the toilet seat broke. One side broke about half way down the seat. Ever try to pee when balancing a broken seat on the rim of the toilet? Plus it kept pinching me... Not pretty! When we called the front desk they stated someone would be down in the morning to put on a new seat. I had to ask the maid at 12 P.M. the next day if she could please get someone to replace the seat. The third day the iron had a short and caught on fire! I don't even have things like this occur at our home!!! So we got our stay free and another stay free until we find the service to be excellent. We kinda decided we would not be going back though. Although their swimming pool was wonderful and the spa was terrific.
I got a lot of beadwork done for a lamp I am making and I am really excited about how it is going to look. It was a very restful vacation that I truly needed! Now it is time to hop back into the fray of things and get some more things ready to sell. I also need to work on my garage (it needs painted) and I need to get a few more items ready to sell at the next flea market (next weekend). Well it seems it is time to go clean house right now and Dan will be home so we can go get a fish tank. Something we desperately need. Our tank is kind of getting old really not great right now. I will write again soon. Till then..... R

Another Rainy Monday.. Tuesday

What a great weekend. Granted I didn't sell anything on Saturday, but I did get to set up my tent and it looked awesome! I had such a nice time too. The weather was incredible and Mary came and kept me company for most of the day and I got to spend some time talking history with another vender named John. It was very nice. Then we went to Rock Hoppers for coffee and company and I came home and DIED! I was so nervous about putting up my tent that I guess it just got to me. Sunday, we went to a brunch with my son's girlfriends family (and our friends) and then went to Rock Hoppers for the Clinton days music. It was a lot of fun for us. Yesterday I read, did a small amount of gardening and then read some more and crashed again at 11:00 PM. I feel a little revived today which is good because I have to go work at the shop this afternoon. Sooo......
I have a lady coming over this afternoon to buy a shelf that I have on my website. My website for all of those who haven't seen it yet is http://www.ferryfolk.com Check it out. Well I need to get going. I had a little touch up to do on that shelf and I really want to put a couple of coats of polyurethene on it before my customer comes to pick it up. Talk to ya soon. R

Another Sunny Day in Seattle?

Hey, what is going on? It isn't even June and we have another sunny warm day! It's in the 80's today. That is unheard of! Well, I got my rocking chair done for the Flea Market tomorrow. So I have two new pieces to show along with my other things. I finished my covers for the table and my display rack and Dan will finish the display rack this evening. Sooo.... I got kind of scared this morning. I went up to the store and drove by the flea market and there were no tents there. I thought oh great.. You sign up for the flea market and the first weekend you can be in it the flea market is not there! On the way home though, someone was setting up a tent so the flea market is on for this weekend! I will have a tent set up at any rate! It may be a very small flea market. Actually, it is just starting up so it is very small anyway, and it really isn't a flea market but more of a craft and antique show... sorta. Anyway, if you are on Whidbey this weekend, come check out the flea market and introduce yourself.
I got kind of spooked yesterday when I was painting. Actually I had something kind of weird happen about a week ago when I was in my studio and it happened again yesterday. That is what spooked me. About a month ago, my husband bought an electronic doorbell for our home. The doorbell that we had did not work right and when I was upstairs I could not hear it. This doorbell has two receivers that my son programmed with a simple doorbell tune. One of the receivers is upstairs in my studio and the other is in the living room. Anyway, I was upstairs working on my painting and suddenly the doorbell rings. I told my husband (who was downstairs) to answer the door. He hollers up at me "why?" I told him that was the doorbell and he says "I didn't hear a doorbell." Now I know I heard a doorbell. It went Bing Bong just like all doorbells do. Only our doorbell is supposed to make a song. It does make a song. This was not our doorbell.... We didn't know what it was but I was a little spooked. Well today it did it again. This time I realized that the sound was coming from my receiver but it wasn't until I went downstairs and started looking for the person who rang the doorbell, that I realized it wasn't our doorbell. I suddenly realized that our receiver upstairs is receiving someone else's signal for their electronic doorbell as well as ours. I am thoroughly delighted that whoever it is has visitors about as often as we do. Anyway, I don't dare move the receiver because if it is downstairs I cannot hear it from upstairs so I will just have to tolerate the minor intrusion from someone else's doorbell. Just one of the quirky things you learn to deal with in an old house.... This one I can live with.
Well, it is getting late and I need some rest. Take care and I'll catch ya tomorrow. Hopefully, I will have good news about selling some stuff. R

Our first day of Summer!

So here I am on one of the most glorious days of the year and I have to paint and sew! Not only that but this old house turns into a furnace upstairs where my studio is! Still, my curtains are finished for my tent, one floor cloth is finished, I have a rocking chair ready to introduce and a coffee table (I hope). I hope it is finished in time but if not then it will be at the next flea market.
Dan and I went to see the most wonderful little movie last night. The wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill. It was an independent film and it was terrific. I found myself wondering why I spent so much to go see the latest greatest Star Wars. Why don't they make more movies like this little film?
Well, I went to the thrift store today. I found a wonderful rocking horse to paint and two lamps that are somewhat Native American in nature. I wont paint them that way of course. Native American is not really my style and the look of the lamps lend themselves to my style as well.
I also picked up some really nice frames as well. So that means more paintings. I love doing canvases anyway it's just that they take so long compared to other works. But I will soon have some more paintings to sell. I am hoping to have a beaded shade with matching lamp soon as well.
In case you haven't visited my site yet here is the link: http://ferryfolk.com I hope you can access it. It has all my most current projects and what I don't have pictures of yet will go in next week. I will post a picture of my tent on this site as well so you can see me at work.
Well, I had better be going back to painting. Talk to ya soon. R

Another Working Day

Do you ever have one of those days when you really seem to be getting a lot done but you wonder if it is worth it? I have made the cover for my display rack, my tablecloth and finished two of my curtains and they look really cool. Thing is I wish I knew how they were going to look all put together and I wont know that till this Saturday. Sooo It's a crap shoot! I'm pretty sure they will look very nice but if it involves sewing .... well let's just say that sewing is not my forte'. Ok.. You want a story...
When I was in high school we were required to do a sewing project for our home ec. Class. This was a long time ago in a very small school district. The average income in this district today is $18,000 for a family of four. This according to their statistics on their website. Anyway, I guess they figure it is important for the girls to be able to make clothing because they probably can not afford to buy it ... But with the cost of material today.. Who Can Afford To Make It? Anyway, the project we had to make had to have a zipper, interfacing, a collar and darts. So my mom and I dutifully went to town to buy material and all the supplies to make this really cool dress that I had found a pattern for. It was kind of like a "gunny sack" style dress, form fitted with puffy sleeves and a wonderful apron that fit over the top of it. I was so excited about making the dress. When I got to school I showed our teacher. She was a little dubious that I could get all of the dress and the apron done in the allotted time but she okay'd the dress at least and if I had time for the apron.. Hey, go for it! So I picked out a large table and began putting the pattern out on the material. First thing that happened was I had not gotten enough material. I was short about 1/2 yard. That's quite a lot when you are making a dress. But with the help of my teacher and almost the entire hour we finally figured out a way to lay out the dress pattern on the material and get most of the dress. My mother and I would have to go back into town to get some more supplies to finish off the collar and the necessary interfacings. So I began cutting out the dress. I cut very carefully each individual piece and put them aside till I was done. Then the next day we began doing the zipper on the back two places and then the sleeves and so on. You have to understand there were only so many sewing machines and we didn't sew every day. So the projects were designed to last at least one month. About two weeks into the making of the dress I finally got to put the front and back together. That is when I discovered that somewhere along the way I had created a wonderful little "V" shaped hole right where the belly button should be. After crying for a few minutes my teacher finally told me about a wonderful product called "wonder under". This meant another trip to the fabric store for yet more supplies. I grew to despise this dress! I put one sleeve on upside down and the other sleeve had the most wonderful even gather right in the arm pit. The color was crooked (just a little... But I knew it) and it had a hole! Granted I was the only one that could see the hole but... It was there! I got a "C" on that dress mostly because of fortitude. At the end of the semester we had a modeling show and mother's tea. We had to wear the dresses we made. I hated that. Not only did I have to model the dress with the hole in the belly but I won an award that year so I had to go down that long aisle two times instead of just once. I just knew everyone was looking at my belly!!
I got home and on came the jeans. My sister made the apron to go with the dress and I wore it once after that but it was just to much. The dress became a very expensive rag for the rag bin and life went on.
Now where was I before talking about my naval dress.... Ah yes. I was discussing my sewing. It is sad that I enjoy all crafting except sewing. In truth there are even a few sewing things I enjoy. I love doing free sewing with small pieces of material. I just did that to a piece of material about 12" by 9" and covered with polyester. Then cover with lace and then burn the fabric with a soldering iron. It is really interesting and you get a really interesting piece from it. I am going to cut it up into small pieces and use it on a lamp shade with beads. Anyway, I also love applique but I have to admit I enjoy doing the hand sewing more than using the machine.
Well, I should go up and finish painting. This morning I had a visit from a huge male pheasant outside. He decided to make a nest under our lilac bush. While I applaud this romantic location I would prefer he move his nest to the area in our pasture that my husband is not mowing. He wants to make a habitat for pheasant and other animals. If he does manage to attract a female under my lilacs I may have to quit mowing for a few months. I do love pheasants and I guess I could get by with only half my lawn mowed. It is for a good reason... Right?
I need to go paint now. I have procrastinated enough. Talk with ya tomorrow. R

Star Wars...BLAH

Well, we went to the movies yesterday. Had to go see Star Wars. I was so excited about it. Even though it had gotten some bad press, I was looking forward to the circle being closed! I think after seeing it I will just pretend that the first three (star wars IV, V, and VI) were the entire story and forget that I even heard about...Much less saw Star Wars 1 through 3. I HATED this latest movie. I don't hate many movies but I really Hated this one!! The droids had better acting than the actors did... The action was so fast that at times it was just a huge light blur on the screen and the actors... I just wanted Anakin to smile just once. He scowled the entire time of the movie and I came away feeling that that was the only acting he was capable of. I do have to admit the first few minutes of the movie had some parts in it that really did make me laugh but from then on it was just Boring! I didn't feel sad or mad or anything. Just BORED! It truly was awful.
So enough about this movie... Saturday, I had such a nice evening. I went to a Pampered Chef party at Mary's house. It was a great deal of fun! I got to tell a few stories and we laughed a lot. I thoroughly enjoyed myself.
Dan got on my blog the other day and after reading it and pointing out all the errors (which have since been fixed) told me that I need to refer people to my website and then print the site address in my post. The address for my website is listed in my profile section but if you don't feel like going to look at my profile here is my address; www.ferryfolk.com
For all of you who have been checking out my site... And there were 81 of you yesterday... Thank you!
Well, I guess I had better go for now. I have a ton of painting to finish today and I want to get it done! I am hoping to have a rocking chair done for the Flea Market on Saturday. Stop by and see my stuff. Please note.. If you want to see my items they are on my site. I am also planning on displaying at the Clinton Flea Market but only if there is no wind or rain. My lamps do not stand up well to either one. So when the weather is good on Saturdays come see me at the market. Otherwise I do have studio hours. Thanks, talk with you soon. R

An Exciting evening on the Island

You would think we were in LA. Dan and I went to take some things up the hill to Rockhoppers coffeehouse in Clinton. You know its the place run by our friends. Anyway, we are having a piece of pie and all of a sudden here comes a blue car going about 70 to 80 miles an hour right through the heart of Clinton. He has 3 cop cars on his tail with lights going and sirens and one of them scoots up behind the car that they are chasing and butts the car. Now keep in mind that should the car have lost control it had no safe place to skid. It would have run into people or buildings. Not to mention that the ferry had just finished unloading and well.... There were tourist cars and locals all over the place!! Then we get a call from our friends neighbors and it turns out their house is on fire. Then we find out that the state patrol was busy in Coupeville. There was an accident with a fatality there this evening. The emergency services were very busy tonight.
The weather is supposed to be awful again tomorrow with wind and rain. Needless to say I wont have my tent up at the flea market. My lamps don't do well in the wind! I hope the weather is good over Memorial Day. I do plan on having my tent up that Saturday.
For all of you out there who are grammar nuts, please forgive my poor spelling and left out words on my previous posts. The truth is I have had so much fun just learning to blog that I haven't been real concerned with spelling and grammar. However my hubby is and he has added a spell checker for me to use from now on. I don't guarantee that it will take care of all the problems but it will help. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I now have four dolls and a few smaller items on display at RockHoppers. Come on by, have some coffee and check out my dolls. I will talk with you again tomorrow. For now, Goodnight. R

Story time

So I was coming home from Oak Harbor this morning and I am thinking about what I should blog this afternoon. My husband has said in the past, that I have some great "actual" stories to tell and I should tell some of them, I have a great recipe for salmon on the grill for summertime and some other stuff I could blog. I decided to do a story. So sit down children in a semi circle around me, and listen to this wonderful story written in honor of my sons.
I believe I have told you that my husband, and children and I, have traveled all over the United States. Dan was in the Navy and they transferred us from Oak Harbor WA to Denver to San Diego. When he got out of the military he got a job in Marion Ohio. So we packed up the kids and moved to Marion. After 4 years in Mt Gilead (where we lived) we moved back to WA only this time we got to live on the south end of the island in Clinton. Anyway, this story takes place as we are getting ready to move to WA. From Ohio. Seems my son (Dan Adam) went to school one day about three days before we were to leave. At the end of one of his classes he got up to say goodbye to his teacher, and the SCIENCE teacher told him goodbye and to have fun hunting all those sasquatch. When my son got home he relayed that message to me and when I asked him about his teacher Dan said "Oh mom, he always says smart things like that as a joke." I thought about this for a few moments and since I was feeling a little ornery at the time decided to turn the "joke" around on him. That evening I sat down at the computer and composed a letter to him.

Dear Sir,
I am extremely upset by a comment you made to my son today as he was leaving your class. The comment being "Have fun hunting sasquatch". I am appalled that you would imply that my son might have fun going hunting for a thing that could very well be a relative of his...
You see my mother's brother was a very large man. He stood over 7 feet tall when he ran away from home at 17 years of age. My mother's family tried to keep track of him but it became very difficult after a time. He tended to be very reclusive. After moving up into the mountains and becoming a nudist he disappeared from most of my mother's families friends hemisphere. There is something about nudity that does discourage companionship unless you don't mind nudity yourself. Anyway, while in his teenage years his feet and hair began growing at a phenomenal rate. When he left home my mother said his hair was needing trimmed every other day and was growing all over his body, and his feet were already so large that his shoes had to be special ordered.
It is said he moved up into the mountains so he would not have to cut his hair so often. It is also said that the hair on his body kept him so warm that he did not have a need for clothing anymore and thus he became a hermit or a recluse. Overtime I imagine that he began looking somewhat like what people call a sasquatch but we just can't call him anything other that uncle Clive. I have enclosed a piece of his hair that he sent to my mother shortly after leaving home. You can tell it is long and dark in color. This piece of hair along with the descriptions have left us to conclude that Sasquatch must be uncle Clive. It is rumored that there is a Mrs. Sasquatch but no one knows that for sure and I and my family are unaware of a female with the same physical conditions as my uncle ever showing up missing anywhere. Although if the only option I had to eliminate unwanted hair all over my body was wax treatments or laser, I have to admit I would be inclined to move into the mountains with Uncle Clive as well....
Given these facts you can surely understand why I would be upset about the suggestion that my son should have fun hunting a relative.
I hope in the future you will consider your words well and I wish you well. Thank you, Rene Schlangen

The next day my son gave the letter and a piece of my hair to his science teacher. When I asked my son what the teacher did (thinking he would read the letter as the prank that it was and laugh). He said, the teacher read the letter turned pale white, and took the letter to the principle. I received an note of apology from the school the next day.
This is just to let them know that 7 years later.. Apology accepted. :)
See ya later. R

An Almost Friday, Thursday

Do you ever have that kind of day when you wake up look around and simply want to go back to bed? It's almost Thursday.. If I could sleep through it it would be Friday. I am an awful procrastinator. I should be on my way to Oak Harbor today instead I will go tomorrow. Today I will work at the shop (Teens unlimited) in Langley and then go to work on my paintings again. I have one floor cloth almost all done and another on it's way so they should be finished by Saturday. Of course I have to finish the floor cloths today because tomorrow is all about sewing and finishing my curtains for my tent!
Dan and I will be here over Memorial Day weekend this year so I will be displaying my stuff on that Saturday up at the flea market. I will also be displaying my stuff there this Saturday. If you can come check it out!
Well, I had better get going. I have a lot to get done today. Talk with ya later tonight probably. R

Another late night! Ah Menopause!

What a life! It is now 1:48 AM and I am sitting here wide awake! I just primed a floor cloth and watched a movie (James Bond ... MY HERO :)) and took my little dog out to go pottie and well here I am without a yawn and I have a feeling it might be a long night. I am getting used to it but it can be annoying. I have more painting to do so when my floor cloth gets good and dry I will roll it up and do the priming for another one. For those of you who do not know... a floor cloth is a painted canvas that goes on the floor in place of a rug. It has to go on hardwood or linoleum or some other hard surface. It sits flush on the floor and you can walk on it and everything. Floor clothes were used a long time ago since they were easy to clean and took less time to make than a crocheted rug or a braided rug and they were lighter and could be moved around more easily. Anyway, I am hoping to get some done for Saturday. Just this evening I sold one of my items and got a commission for a painting. I have to say I am somewhat overwhelmed by all the positive input into my work. Remember I told you (I think I did anyway.) that when I started painting it was because 1. I ran out of my own furniture to paint and I am running out of walls to paint in my house, and 2. My husband and my best friend both said I have talent and I need to sell some of my things. Although I have always wanted to do this I just never felt I was good enough. There always seemed to be a new technique or a new craft to master to make me better. It is so much fun to get such a positive endorsement to my work. I don't quite understand it because in truth, it seems so easy to do. I just figure if I can do it then anyone can. My husband assures me that is not the case. He has tried at times to prove it but I am never sure that his attempts are on the level. I cant understand how anyone can paint so badly... He is a computer geek. While this may not explain everything I do believe it helps. My husband sees everything through logical thought. EVERYTHING! No abstract! No Rose coloring! No wavy lines... Just O..O..O..O.. And o...1's. For those of you out there that don't understand that it is how computers speak. I really don't care how they speak, personally just that they get my messages out there comprehensibly. So... Anyway where was I? Oh yeah... I have a best girlfriend who is also a techie. I admire her so much. She talks about electronics like I talk about painting. I think my talking about painting is a little bit more understandable to her than her talking about trons is to me but anyway she is a very logical person. She also is creative in her own right but her creativity tends to be geometrical or linear in nature. Anyway, we wanted to paint her living room and after some discussion and sampling we decided on sponging the walls. This was a tough one for her. The randomness just threw her for a loop. I would go back and get her patterned sponging so it looked more random and show her how to rotate the sponge and overlap it occasionally and just sponge it till it was textured and she would watch then go to another space on the wall and starting at the top would sponge in perfect rows down the wall... We laughed so hard over the painting... She said that doing random was so hard for her it made her brain hurt. We do have so much fun together.. I think probably because we are so different from each other in the way we think. Yet our values and the things we like are very similar. Anyway, we have known each other now for over 23 years. I met Mary when she and my husband worked together in the Navy on flight simulators. She used to come over with about 10 other people to play D&D on Saturdays at our house. She watched me all through both pregnancies and then we moved and they didn't and we didn't see or talk to one another for almost 11 years. When we moved back to the island She and her husband and family were back on the island too. We hooked up and well the rest is best friend history!
Okay so now it is 2:15 AM and I still haven't yawned. Think I will go up to my studio and see if the one floor cloth is done and perhaps prime the other so I will have two to paint tomorrow. Then I will really try to get some sleep. I hope you all are doing better than I am tonight. Sweet dreams. Talk with ya later today after I have slept a while.

Clinton Days

I hope everyone has had a great Tuesday. I worked at the shop again today. We had a great day with quite a few sales!! I planned on coming home and working on my tent for the flea market only to find a message on my machine that says I need to go to Rock Hoppers ( a local coffeehouse here at Clinton) and sign some papers. I had thought about going to the coffeehouse on the way home and decided that I really needed to get some work done so I wouldn't stop. The coffeehouse is run by some dear friends and I always end up spending way to much time there. Anyway not only did I end up spending way to much time but I got volunteered to work with Brenda (her husband and her own the coffeeshop) to schedule and coordinate next years Clinton Days. This will be the first year for Clinton days and it hasn't had a lot of press or promotion so it will more than likely be a small event this year. Next year it will be different though! We started planning tonight! Anyway, I am getting swamped with all the things I am volunteering to do. I do love it though since I am beginning to feel a real part of this community. So if you are in Clinton over Memorial Day please stop and see what is happening this year and next year for sure! We would love the visitors to our wonderful island to check us out!
I also signed up to run some classes in July! Teaching teens to learn their own styles. We are going to be doing some neat things with embellishments and different techniques to change clothes to things that say more about the kids personal styles. I am jazzed. It should be a fun experiment!
I feel so bad I just came home from the coffeehouse only to discover I had forgotten my dog who went outside to go to the bathroom. She is blind and normally I am overprotective of her but tonight I guess I just got totally distracted. Fortunately she knows to just come up on the patio and stay if we don't come get her right away (which she always is gotten without ever having to wait) but I still feel so bad!
I guess I had better go now. I need to paint some before bed and although I had planned on being able to paint all day and evening tomorrow I now find out I have to go to the airport to pick up my hubby. It's cool he's going to be home early but kinda puts a kink in my schedule. Oh well, I put kinks in his all the time! Gotta go.

Another day...

Well, hubby and I went to Bellingham yesterday. It was such a nice trip. If you get to Bellingham at all stop at the shops in Old Fairhaven. They have some very nice shops. My favorite to date is called Arrabellas. They have terrific pieces of vintage looking clothing, and jewelry, chandeliers, and a room that I honestly think I could live in forever.. Full of chenilles, and brocades and wonderful lush yummy fabrics. I wish I had a ton of money when I visited since I honestly think I could have bought half the store. Instead I bought a wonderful broach. I collect vintage brooches and love them but this one was definitely not vintage. Anyway, of course I visited the bead shop.. Got away from there having only spent $11.50. A cheap visit. I have one gripe. The wonderful pieces of art we saw in some of the shops were very cheap. When I asked about the prices I was told that they came from China. I HATE that! First of all I hate that we are selling art items that look American in design for so little money, when there are local artisans who need the exposure and the places to display and sell their work. Granted they are much more expensive but if you want something that is beautiful and unique you want it made well and that costs money. I saw wonderful beaded purses for $30 each and I know they took hours to make. I also know that they used substandard thread that breaks very easily so if you purchase a purse like the ones I saw you can expect that there will be a trail of beads following you down the sidewalk. I also hate that labor in china is forced labor from prisons or from women who are so poor they will do anything for enough food to feed themselves and their families. By buying these items you are forcing these women to undervalue their labor and their circumstances will never change. I find this appalling. I have no problem with the coops that have been opened for women in Africa and other areas. The materials produced for these coops are well made and sold at reasonable prices for the amount of work produced. It seems wrong that we as consumers are not more conscious of where the items we purchase come from and the impact our purchasing them has on others. Don't even ask me about Walmart. I have to admit that on occasion I do shop there. The items I purchase are usually small and generally are not made in China or Indonesia. I don't claim to have easy answers. I just think that maybe we should be more aware of our purchases and their impacts and start buying accordingly. I do have to admit that there is no easy answers to this problem. If we take away the items that women and slave labor in China produce we eliminate an income that these women need to survive. It is an important income even if it is much smaller than it should be. I have no easy answers... I just hate seeing local artisans undermined by poorly made cheaply priced crap.
I have been known to talk to artisans who underprice their things as well. I hate seeing artisans selling things for the cost of their materials. This undermines the rest of us who are trying to make a living off the things we make.
Well, I have ranted and raved for the day. I cleaned my kitchen and am off to paint! Take care till later.

Movie Review: Kingdom of Heaven

Well we just finished going to see Kingdom of Heaven last night. We had a terrific night.. Went out to dinner at Canyons (not one of my favorite places to dine) and then went to see the movie. I enjoyed this movie although I am not really sure why. I guess I liked the action and the story line but Why is it that Hollywood feels they have to take really interesting periods of history and falsify them to make a good story? Do they really think we are all stupid out here? I guess maybe I am an exception since I am a History major in college but good grief... Wouldn't it be wonderful to get a clear picture of the times without trying to decipher fact from fiction? Oh well, I wasn't expecting much from this movie because of the reviews. The acting was fair and the action was good. My husband found it ludicrous that the people in the main characters village had lived so many years without water and yet the minute the main character shows up they decide they need water and discover wells? Well anyway, I said I would do a quick blurb on the movie so you have my opinion for what it was worth.
I spent yesterday getting my website updated. So please visit it and let me know what you think. I will post later but bye for now.

May 13, 2005

Oops! Hubby just found out how much I spent on yarn last week! Not good! But every crafting addict knows that it takes money to support our vice.. I um mean our interests. I am also getting ready to put my stuff into storage. Yikes! Can't believe how much it costs for a storage unit. But if my finished things are in storage I will be able to walk around in my studio. You should see my tight quarters. I have more room in my iddy biddy bathroom.
Well I just spent the last week involved in a community effort to get a homeless shelter for teens on the island. I still cant believe that we have over 100 identified teens who are floating around in our community with no real stable home to go to. Most of these teens couch surf from one family to another. The problem is that the thing which caused those kids to not want to stay at home are still there and no one is addressing them. We are trying to find a way to create a transitional housing situation for teens here so those problems can be address. It is an interesting process.
I just found out that I will be teaching classes this summer to teens who want to learn how to change/update/modify/embellish clothing. It should be a fun effort. These classes are an effort to become more involved with teens in the community and get them more involved in our community effort for teens transitional housing. We are a non-profit organization that resells clothing to teens. Our money we raise is for the problem of transitional housing. Soooo... You will probably be hearing more about this from me since it is an issue that is so close to my heart. If any of you out there are aware of housing homeless teens I would love to hear from you.
I am also in the process of getting my display tent set up for the Clinton Flea Market. I had planned on being a part of that this weekend but my display cabinet isn't ready yet and my table is not ready so tomorrow is spent sewing as well as the rest of the day. Look for my website to be updated tonight or tomorrow. I have been adding pictures and updated info for it so it should be ready soon.
I guess for now that is all. For Friday the 13th it hasn't been a bad day at all.