Artful Adventures

A week off and now I'm back--

OK, I didn't really take the week off, far from it actually, but did take a week off from blogging.  Among other things, I got 5 necklaces done which I'll show more of another day, for now here they are, all in a pile getting ready for a dunk into some liver of sulpher.  But it did seriously take the better part of a week to construct these-and then people wonder why jewelry is expensive? 

Not sure why my hand looks so red here, wierd lighting or high blood pressure:)  For some reason, it's when I get close to the end of a project such as this, that's when I stress out.  I'm fine while I'm making/creating (well, most of the time) but the ending always gets to me.  Must be a fear of saying here it is, this is what I made, all part of that "putting yourself out there" thing, I suppose.  Jeremy's been home for a week now, working a part time summer job as a staff member for the West DePere Marching Band.  One more week and then he heads back to Madison to his regular job.  As you can tell from the picture, he typically works inside a building, so his new tan line after a week of being outside all day just cracked me up!  Can't imagine what it'll look like after this week:)

There's lots to talk about, but the day is getting away from me-again.  So for now, a few more photos, a few more words, and I'll elaborate more and have stories to tell tomorrow!

This past week has been absolutely beautiful summer weather, and in between doing all of the "must do" stuff, we still squeaked in a few pleasures.  Like a trip into Dyckesville to the Frosty Tip for a decadent turtle sundae (have you ever had one made with chocolate ice cream?  You should!) which we hauled down to Red River Park to watch the sunset.

This time we saw pelicans down there, a first for me!  It still just seems odd to me that there are pelicans in WI.

Another thing we normally don't see is this cute little baby woodchuck that scampered up a tree.  In the 20 plus years that we've lived here, it's only the second time we've seen this.  And a particularly favorite summertime treat for me is a bonfire-love it!  I grew up having bonfires camping, so the smell of that burning wood always brings back good memories, and watching the flames is nothing short of mesmerizing.  Don't you agree?

Summer Treasures

As I look at the calendar & see that August is half way done, and summer is going to give way to fall sooner than I'd like, it's time to share a little of what has caught my attention over the past few months.  Snippets of time & what will bring back a memory of what has been my first summer off in what feels like forever.  There's just nothing better than a fresh tomato, picked from the vine & still warm from the sun.  This is the first one from the 3 plants we did this year, and the first time we've grown any veggies in years.  And yes, it tasted as good as it looks.  Every year, we're lucky enough to have the finches come, and each year they treat us to a photo of them munching on a sunflower that was kindly planted by either themselves or the overabundant number of chipmunks that seem to have moved in.  Either way, it's a treat to see a sunflower pop up in some unexpected place, knowing we had nothing to do with it.    The little frog that has lived in one of the window boxes for the summer, has only come out for us to see a few times.  I found out he was in there accidentally, when I reached up & stuck my finger in to check the soil, and touched the frog instead-eeeewwwww!  Those little suction feet do fascinate me, though.  Let me preface the spider photo with the statement that I really don't like spiders, I mean I REALLY don't like them!  But if yuo click on the photo to get a better look, it's hard not to admire the web that's it's in the process of spinning.  I have to admit that it's pretty amazing, even if they do send me running for cover whenever I see them!  Other summers, when I had a day off, it was generally spent on catching up on things like laundry, etc, so I never paid attention to what was happening right outside my window.  The little brown thresher is a perfect example-I honestly can't tell you if these birds first made their first appearance here this year, or if they've been here all along.  Regardless, they provided hours of entertainment, watching them build their nest, in a forsythia bush right next to the deck, and just about eye level when you're sitting there.  The best word to describe them is tenacious, I've never seen birds work so fast & furious to build a nest, which is made entirely of twigs.  Some of them were so large, that they'd drop them on the way to the nest, go pick it back up & try again-sometimes it took several attempts to haul a single twig, that they apparently decided that they HAD to have.  Like I said, tenacious!  When the butterflies arrived, I was thrilled.  There's just something abuot them, that seems to define perfection, when I see them go from flower to flower-they just add so much to a garden, don't you think?  Kind of like a flying flower:)  Yeah, I know, I'm easily amused!  Last but not least, are a pair of new shoes-lol!  I live in tennis shoes, year round, so buying myself a pair of cool sandals was an event, and then of course I had to paint my toenails so I could pretend to be a girly girl for a bit:)  Just never quite got the hang of that girly girl thing, so this really was abnormal behavior for me, which raised the eyebrows of my husband & both kids.  Who would thing that something that simple could cause such a commotion!  I'll probably regret this one, but here they are, swollen up feet at the end of the day, in my new shoes.  But it really means that I was out & about, walking around for the day, so it's a good thing, really.  There'll be more photos coming, it was hard to narrow it down to post.  It really has been a summer to remember so far, and remembering it, is what I plan on doing!