April 27, 2009

• Busy Weekend

  Staurday, For the first time in several years, I went on a hike!!  It was billed as a relaxed 2-hour walk on the Trillium Trail.  Well, for a seasoned hiker I'm sure it was an extremely relaxed walk.  For me, it was slightly more strenuous than I was prepared for.  But - I handled it fine - kept up with the group, learned some new spring-blooming wild flowers, pulled a number of garlic-mustard plants (invasive species) and recognized a few old favorites from many, many years ago when I took botany in college.  Not even too many creaky places in my body - nowhere nearly as many as I'd expected.  And the worst was my heels, which I'd never dreamed would start to hurt.

  I inadvertently created a video of the trilliums:  which seems to only want to load at the very top.  I don't know if it'll work.

  Then, on Sunday, I spent the day working with precious metal clay in a workshop at a nearby beads shop.  I created 3 pieces up to the point where they need to be tumbled with steel shot.  Somehow, this makes them stronger and increases how polished they look.  They'll be ready to be picked up on Wednesday, I was told.  I'm not sure how many more times I'll do this precious metal clay stuff - it's awfully expensive.

  Here are some photos of the Spirit House I made a couple weeks ago at Clay Day.  It's somewhat the worse for wear - holding the roof together with ribbons doesn't really work very well.  All the decorative glitter and glitz represent items my sister was collecting for kaleidoscopes she'd make.  She was bipolar - the chartreuse and black colors are to show aspects of her personality as she went through from depression to manic without her meds.  The other colors are more the in-between (what we like to call 'normal') phases at the midpoints and/or when she was using her meds.  The green side has pink seed beads as decorations - she loved stringing necklaces in her later years.  And finally, the origami crane is inside the house and represents another long-time interest in Japanese paper folding.

  

   

  • 5:20 pm
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