Giving Thanks

This is my 700th post and I saved it for today...so I can give thanks for all of the years I've been able to do this and all of the wonderful people who have visited and continue to visit...


A small photo montage of just a few of the things in my life I'm thankful for...family and friends, including our cat family...our lovely little home and garden in one of the most beautiful places on earth...my work...flowers that bloom throughout the year...and at last, to life...living it moment by moment and practicing being grateful for each and every one of them.


Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

Stormy Weather

We've had some pretty wet and windy days this week but the compensation is some interesting cloud formations and sunsets...here's last night's sunset.

Photo Friday

I've been taking photos all week and getting to know my camera better...also working on a 3-D collage piece for our local community show, Push Pin. It's open to everyone, but you can only bring in one piece and you must be able to hang it with 4 or fewer push pins. This show gets better each year as more and more people hear about it...
This is my photo friday photo where the theme is "vehicle".... I chose to photograph a tiny ricshaw given to me by a friend which reminds me of him every time I look at it. It's part of an assemblage of small things sitting by my computer/beading desk and I look at it first thing in the morning and last thing at night and many times in between.

Numbers

I'm thinking about numbers this morning....this is my 697th post and the first photo is my 999th photo on my new camera (that I've only had 10 days) and this morning is my 10th monthly infusion of zometa (the medication that is rebuilding the bone mass that the tumors are destroying)...a lot of significant numbers for me today!
I feel so lucky to still be here...and so blessed in my family, friends, and the amazing people who visit here and send me their kind thoughts and wishes and actually come back and do it again and again!
And pat asked me about my fascination with the hand as a motif that I come back to again and again and wondered if there was a story behind it? I got to thinking about it and realized there were many answers to that question....for one thing I've "always" made things with my hands...I can remember being 4 or 5 and sewing doll clothes with my cousin helping and being 6 and visiting my oma and opa in germany and playing with some nails and corks in one of their kitchen drawers, and then drawing and drawing and drawing in my teens and again in my 30's before finding beads in my early 40's.....so that's a big part of it. I also found the hamsa hand was a perfect vehicle for the guardian spirits I've been making for years now and here I am, back to my own hand again. Also the hand has been a model for artists from the earliest days, sometimes the only "model" they could afford to pose for them again and again, lol! But, I think, finally, what it comes down to is that I just like the shape...it's recognizable at many sizes, so I can make a pair of earrings at 2" that are just as obviously hands as the fullsized 6.5" ones.
So now I have to go sit in a clean, well-lighted place for an hour or two...and when I come home I have a small hand to work on...;)

Finito

Finished on the beading anyway...still not sure of the final finish...jewelry, or book insert or part of a wall hanging...I'll look at it until it tells me what it has to be...you know how that goes!

I spent yesterday in the valley with friends, visiting art galleries, museums and holiday shows! We had such a good time, we are planning to do it again. There's nothing quite as wonderful as doing something you love to do with dear friends! AND we had some blue sky and sunshine!

The Beach Today

Wow, even for an area that has very changeable weather patterns this time of year, today was a surprise. Early this morning we had blue sky and sun, then the storm clouds started gathering on the horizon, it rained heavily, but then the clouds passed through and we had a warm sunny calm afternoon...the stormy one was taken around 11am...the sunny ones around 1pm down on nye beach...
I'm sure enjoying my cameras!

Heart

Unless you fill the space with sand, you can't see the heart...must be a metaphor in there somewhere, don't you think?

(if you click on the photo it will be easier to see)

Memories

This morning the sun came up in a blue sky, so I put some sweats on and took both my lumix's up to yaquina head to take some photos. The older one has a 12x zoom so I took a photo of nye beach from way north of it in memory of our friend, darrell, who died last year on november 10. A few months later, a group of his friends gathered at our house and we all drove over to nye beach to scatter his ashes in the surf (below the bluff where the condo he once owned sits). It was a sunny day last year too.

No Dramatics

The weather seems to have calmed down (so to speak) to it's usual november grey skies and rain, minus the dramatic winds we've had for the last week or so. The good part of that is we can go to the grocery store, library, etc. without being blown off our feet! The downside is that it's not a lot of fun for landscape photography unless you're a big fan of medium grey, lol!
That means it's time to get cozy on the loveseat with my beadwork and ott-light.
I'm almost finished (really!) with the first hand and am looking at a smaller one I'd like to start this afternoon.

You Say It's Your Birthday...

yes...and the weather was just amazing...took my new little lumix out and shot photos all day - 276 in all - including the lighthouse on my banner for this month...here's just a few of them.

(and a special thanks for the birthday wishes from my friends here who are also on facebook who got a slightly larger slice of my shots today...)

(added more to my flickr page this morning of the 7th)

Just a bit more

to finish this hand...still haven't decided how it will work or where but there's no big rush as we have almost 2 months before the next bead journal project starts.

Day of the Dead

I spent this beautiful sunny day thinking about dear friends and family who have passed on...and giving thanks for their presence in my life.

Colors

This month I'm going to focus even more on putting together colors that are out of my "comfort zone" in all my pieces...
My "palette" for this week and one of the first experiments in colors...