Pansies

I removed the pansies from my window boxes yesterday, it is so darn hot here you'd think it was 4th of July instead of Memorial Day weekend. I made lots of little bouquets that I put in the little glass bottles on my kitchen windowsill. Gave a Dixie cup full to my DIL, too.
I just love seeing them there.

Beach and Books

I was so thrilled to get back to the beach, my first trip in two years. I do nothing at the beach but sleep, eat, walk, read and enjoy the sights and sounds of surf and sand.
Destin is a beautiful beach on the Gulf of Mexico with sugary sand beaches and this year a lot of surf to go with our 80 degree temperatures.


I usually woke up at 5:30 which is my normal 6:30 EDT. Amazingly, Jim was an early riser, too! We took walks early and then settled in for reading and enjoying the beach.

Gelato- twice, sorbet once thanks to Richey's suggestion

I like to get a lot of reading done. I don't give myself permission enough to slow down and read when I am home. Being a business owner, there is always work to do!

I read Gone by Lisa Gardner.  I love mysteries and thrillers- I can't help myself. When we used to go to FL in August, Janet Evanovich's latest was always with me. But, now her's don't come out until June or July so still waiting for Smokin' Seventeen to come out next month. It was good and my first of Lisa's so I'll be looking for more.

My next choice was The Help, another good read. I'm so excited this will be a movie. I hope they do it proud. Strong female characters and a reminder of my childhood and the memories of segregation in my small town.

Next was Henry's Sisters, a dark novel about a dysfunctional family (hits close to home but we aren't nearly so dramatic) but has a wonderful, probably too wonderful theme of grace. As a matter of fact- grace was the theme of the week. I must have needed that.

Lastly, I squeezed in this peach of a book that I had read a good bit of previously but not finished. I think at the time I read it before, the fact that it consists entirely of letters was distracting to me.  I absolutely loved it and all of its characters. I wonder what they are doing now as I still have them in my mind.





All of the books featured strong characters and as I mentioned a theme of grace and hope. I feel in a transitional period moving into something new- a personal paradigm shift of a sort. I'm curious what the future is bringing to me.
Because of this sense, I am participating in Mondo Beyondo, we'll see where my dreaming goes. I'm not much of a dreamer. More of a realist and fairly concrete so who knows? But, I feel a pull in the cosmos and I don't know where it is leading or what is in store, but I'm trying to be open and listen-not something I do well being a take charge kinda gal.

Next week? Finally, the farmers market again. Wonderful travels but missed our market two weeks in a row!!

Yesterday-this week's movie

This week I watched Yesterday, a wonderful film about an HIV+ woman in Africa and her struggles including what to do for her daughter, Beauty. It is a beautiful story and brought home to me the importance of the work my daughter, Amy, does with HIV/AIDS research in Kenya.

Another must-see movie to add to your list!

• "Best Film" at the 3rd Pune International Film Festival in India.
• "Inaugural Human Rights Film Award" at the 2004 Venice Film Festival.
• Awards for Best Sound, Best Make Up & Best Editing at the 2005 African Movie Academy Awards
• Nominated for "Best Foreign Language Film at the 77th Academy Awards.
• Nominated for Outstanding Made for Television movie at the 2006 Primetime Emmy Awards

Farmers Market

If you missed last week's Seattle farmers market post, you may want to take a look, it was a great market.
This week in Louisville it was a cool, cloudy start to the day which, for Derby goers thankfully has turned into a beautiful day.

I bought a handful of dutch iris buds to add to these beautiful ones from last week, still looking spectacular!
Buffalo steak and ground for dinner this week. Jumbo free-range eggs- pretty much a staple around here.

ARen't they beautiful?

Ready for summer

A staple at our house

These tomatos are for a snack today with some fresh basil, fresh mozzarella. Yum. How about a cup of burgoo for a nice Kentucky Derby treat? I got Mom a basil plant for Mother's Day along with another little treat.
Not a lot of stuff at the market today- and darn if I didn't get to Anne to say a quick hi, rats. I came in a different end of the market and it threw me all off.

The new restaurant Harvest that some of our farmers opened was reviewed in the Courier Journal today. It was a hit- can't wait to try it! You can like them on facebook, too.

And for a little KY Derby Flair here is Amy ready for the race in Seattle, 2nd hand dress and a handmade hat.  Gotta love it!

Something the Lord Made

Something the Lord Made- a not to be missed, Emmy winning movie from HBO. I watched it on Netflix DVD today and I must say it is one of the most moving and inspiring movies I've ever seen. It has moved into my top 10 favorites.
Do yourself a favor and rent it-soon.
Read a NYT review here.

Farmers markets here and there

You know I love a farmers market so it was so fun for me to go to the Ballard market with Amy and Rachel when I was in Seattle. I will get to imagine them there and ask about certain venders. It was fabulous! Nice blend of prepared foods, produce, meats, craft items, too.

A and R on a typical Seattle spring Sunday

Aren't these succulents beautiful?

Who wouldn't want to eat bread shaped like a croc?

or a bear?

I'll have some!

Tried this one, interesting

I'm more of a sweet cupcake kind of gal

Made me want to make cupcakes to sell at the Farmers Market here. Yum, yum.
So many craft items. I put these bowls on my Christmas wish list along with some of this soap. I wanted the bowl maker knit the bowls which are then felted in hot water. So many colors. I'd like a whole table full.

Don't these just make you happy?

I can smell them now

I'll have one in each flavor and wrapper

I wanna take a bath

Gotta love a cake of soap! Funny, eh?

There was a fun bluegrass band playing, lots of kids dancing, people enjoying shopping and sampling. I was so happy that our market would be in full swing when I got home.

fresh greens

a sure sign of spring to me

Buckets-o-flowers!

My haul this week at the market

Mini doughnut machine. I had a half dozen cinnamon sugar ones. Wish we had one here.

Next- my farmers market haul this week.

Not as exciting but I absolutely love my market.

Homemade tamales for breakfast!

These Dutch Iris were calling my name!

Basil

Mixed greens

My tomato plants- Mortgage Lifter and Cherokee Purple

Artfest, this may be the end

There was no winner of the Iron Chef, unless you would consider whoever got the most for their art for the scholarship fund.  I don't know who that was, but guessing Jesse was. I saw 105.00 on his.

The last night was show and tell for the participants.  You could display what you did and see others' art, too. I enjoyed it a lot though I might have liked it sorted by class rather than person. Nice to see how different students interpret a class.

I did decide that next time I want to do more finished projects and less technique.  There are lots of books on technique and I want more to take home physically, not just in my brain. :) so courses like the mosaic prayer rug, the monster dolls, silk screen and stitch journal, (which I'm sure wasn't the technical name), lonely hearts  etc, will be my class choice.

you can see the group of photos on my flickr site

Artfest, the continuation

It's been a super busy week here.  I somehow scheduled myself a week that didn't leave a moment for anything fun or leisurely.  ( I went to get a pedicure last night which would make me sit still for an hour and when I had to wait 20 minutes for a technician- I had to leave I was so sleepy! Too tired for a pedicure?? Really?! Ridiculous. And up at 4:30 AM to get to seminar I gave this AM-- I'm ready for the weekend... can you hear the Calvin Harris song yet?  I Jazzercize to it.)
See? I get off track when I'm tired.
Let's see- other Artfest activities- Every night there was an activity from 7-8:30.  Wednesday night, after dinner there was a welcome which was nice- the instructor artists introduced themselves, Teesha and Tracy Moore-our artist hosts, introduced and thanked the "Crew" which did a lot of the logistical help with setting up and transporting and were super helpful and upbeat.
 Let me give a quick applause to them for a well-organized event. I cannot even imagine what it takes to organize classes, tables in rooms, lodging, meals, events in evening, shuttling around the fort for those who needed it, dealing with issues.... I'm really glad they do it and appreciate it.  Looking at other events around the country- I doubt many offer the opportunity for fellowship for artists in addition to quality courses that this one does.
Thursday night-was Iron Chef night where instructors competed with each other to produce a piece of art in 45 minutes out of a basic weird collection of items provided for each of them and anything else of their own. They had to use at least 5 items from the bag given to them.

The goods to work with that each person got- you can't see the BIG bug.

It was a crazy 45 minutes and fun to go around and watch the artists working frantically to come up with their pieces, which were silent auctioned off to provided a scholarship fund for next Artfest. 

Here are some of the artists during the competition and the finished pieces.

Lisa Englebrecht

Jesse Reno

Michelle Allen

Jesse Reno's which was auctioned but didn't follow rules

And this one, too.

Later that night the planned activity was a bonfire journaling night on the beach.  I ran into Lizard at the Iron Chef and spent the evening with her, Donna and their housemates. 

Friday night was vendor night. I allowed myself the rest of my budget to spend on art/supplies as I desired. It was fun to see the artists and their art for sale, other vendors with crafting supplies of a wide variety. Some of my purchases were 3 fat squares of beautiful bird fabric and blue fabric with French letters and postal cancellations, a copper and silver poison ring, a tiny 3x3 canvas by Lisa Bebi, my teacher for Saturday, a cool leather and copper journal, a cute bird pin that I gave to Amy and some stencils of Mary Beth Shaw's.

Coming next- Show and Tell night. Get a look at the other participants class results. I loved this and it helped me identify the kind of class I'd take next time, which would be different from this year.