Who's your hero?

So, you know, you're stuck in traffic, bored to tears, and you make your lists? The list that occupied me for those 30 minutes was...who are my heroes? Thank god I don't live in LA any more or it would have been 2 hours! Maybe my list would have been longer though - cause I could only really come up with two. I'll give you one today... Maya Angelou Even if you haven't read any of her books, just to look at her face and to hear her voice. I don't know - something about quiet strength. And anyone who could come from being mute, to being a prostitute to one of the first woman streetcar ticket takers to - holy cow - poet laureate. That's pretty damn cool. Her books are a fantastic read too, if you haven't picked one up before. Who are your heroes? I love to hear what inspires and motivates my friends - leave me a comment. And tune in next time...I share hero #2.

The new diet craze??? Let's cross our fingers.

So, you've got the South Beach Diet, the Atkins Diet...how 'bout the 100 Mile Diet? If you've been reading this blog for any length of time you've probably learned that I'm a nut for organic and sustainable food. I was reading about this concept a couple of days ago and I really hope it catches on. The premise is that your diet only consists of food that came from less than 100 miles from wherever you are. You end up eating fresher food that hasn't been shipped for days to your market. You support your local farmers, and you get a better connection with the place you live. The tradeoffs? Yeah, no tomatoes in February (they taste terrible then anyway). Anyway, if you want to read more, here's someone else's experience. Where does your food come from?

And the winners are...

Thanks to everybody who placed orders during my private sale yesterday. It was great talking to a bunch of you. The winners of the $10 gift certificates are...drumroll please... Eva Alpert Suzanne Taylor Angela Oldham Thanks again - it was a lot of fun.

Oh, isn't this fun.

There's some hard core shopping going on behind the scenes here. I don't know about you but I get in a frenzy when there's a good sale going on. I'm really glad I don't live in Boston - Filene's basement just sends me into coniptions. It's been fun - I get to talk to some of my old customers, and meet some new ones - and some of Dave's too!

Invites are out

If you didn't get yours, email me.

Aack, where's my invite?????

Looks like the invites for the private sale aren't going to go out quite as early as I had hoped. I planned in my little head for them to hit everyone's mailboxes at midnight tonight, but it looks like they'll be sent out some time tomorrow morning. The newsletter has to be approved before it gets sent out (which is pretty cool of my newsletter service, so they don't let spammers weasel their way into it). But I guess all of their approvers actually like to sleep at night, and don't want to stay up till midnight to send off my INCREDIBLY important email. Oh well, hope that doesn't junk up your plans too much. I'll keep the sale open until Saturday morning to make up for the lost shopping time. God forbid you lose precious shopping time! I'll post on my blog once I'm sure the invites went out. Then you can truly say "Aack, where's my invite?!?"

Hmmm...cut it a little more

I'm putting the finishing touches on the private sale as we speak. It's kind of fun. I look at a price...hmmm...I think I'm going to lower it by $10 more. Good thing I'm having the sale tomorrow - if this lasts much longer I'm going to be paying you guys to buy the stuff! So, I'm scheduling the email to go out at midnight tonight (Pacific time, that is) - first come first served. Check your email, and happy shopping. Oh, and I'm sweetening the deal too - 3 lucky orders will get a $10 gift certificate too, along with their cool lampwork keychain. Are you feeling lucky?

I've gotten out my big red pen

Ok, you may not see it now, but I'm frantically marking down a whole slew of goodies for my private sale on Thursday. Let's see - I think the biggest discount so far is $75 off one piece - which one? Well you'll just have to get an invitation to find out! Want another little hint? Start picking out your curliecue necklace. Or maybe some flowers...lots of flowers.

Back from Puerto Rico

Wow, it's taken a while to get my act together from coming back from Puerto Rico. I didn't get to stay nearly long enough, and didn't get to leave the resort grounds - but what the hell - I was in Puerto Rico on someone else's dime. I can't complain too much. By far the coolest thing I saw there were the unbelievably cute little coqui's all around the grounds. They're these teeny little tree frogs that sing their little heart's out once the sun goes down. Listen to this little guy, and imagine thousands of them all singing together. It was by far the neatest thing I'd experienced in a long time. Between the frogs and the hermit crabs, we were knee deep in critters. There were little crabs everywhere! You'd go to the beach to try and collect a couple of shells to bring home with you and...oop's someone's in that one...oh, someone's in that one too...hey - that pretty shell's walking away! One evening before going back to my room, a friend of mine and I were catching frogs (yeah, some little kids just never grow up!) We put our little frogs back in the bushes and looked down it the ground was just crawling with hermit crabs - and we were quite a way from the beach. Having had a very traumatic childhood experience with hermit a hermit crab (those guys hold on for dear life no matter how hard you shake your hand!!!!!) I was a little hesitant to play with the crabs as much. But the frogs were good fun!.

A burger joint with roots

So, a couple of years ago, Dave and I decided that we would only eat free range meat (Read Fast Food Nation and it will sway you too!). That really kills you when you're looking for a fast greasy burger - and some times I really jones for a Western Bacon Cheeseburger all drippy and gooey and yucky. But there's this one fast food joint (or chain rather) here in Oregon called Burgerville that decided, during the whole mad cow escapade to only serve local free range beef. Whoopee! They're pretty cool - they're a total fast food joint but they still only serve seasonal stuff that's locally sourced. So I drove past one of them this morning, and I notice their sign said "Get gardening tools and seeds with every kid's meal purchase". What an awesome idea! Instead of junky little spongebob plastic things that are either going to get choked on or forgotten in 10 minutes, they're teaching munchkins how to plant seeds. I love it. Something tells me Devera would be a big fan of their strawberry shakes! We'll have to find out.

Ok, flower photos as promised

And a cute little petunia in the front.

How sad...

Ok, so this is how sad my life has become. Dave and I went out to the movies for the first time in - yikes - 2 years. (DaVinci Code - we liked it a lot, but I think you would have had to read the book before you watched it). So we're walking to the movie theater and Dave looks over at me with this concerned look on his face - he says - "Are you ok? Your eye looks purple"... Um, yeah - that's called eyeshadow. Obviously poorly applied if it scared my husband. I learned it's a lot harder to do with a squirmy 20 month old kid in your arms who wants to do everything you are doing. Maybe I should warn him first next time. I had to laugh - and Dave was so embarrassed. He'd dug himself a good hole. Oh, and I'd take some garden photos for you if it would stop raining for 2 seconds!

The happiest comment

Hi guys - took a little extended hiatus there. So we got the sweetest comment from someone this evening. Devera, Dave and I were working in our garden this afternoon. One of our neighbors was walking her dog and stopped to introduce herself. She told us that we just had the happiest looking house. Isn't that a cool concept? I have a happy house! I really do. You know our garden is just going bezerk these days. I think I'll take a bunch of photos and share them with you all week. Sounds fun, huh?

Private? Exclusive? Special?

I don't know about you, but I'm a sale junkie. Especially if it's a good one. Well guys, hold onto your hats. I put a countdown on my home page...this is my first ever private sale. It's such a fun concept...I'm actually going to be closing the shop to the general public and only letting newsletter subscribers and previous customers in. All my new designs I've been putting together over the last couple of months will be previewed there as well as a whole bunch of pieces that will be 50% off. I'll give you a sneek preview on my blog of what's going to be on sale as it gets closer. So, mark your calendar and spread the word...June 23rd is the big day. To get your invitation, join my newsletter here >> Sounds like fun, huh?

I've got some updating to do

Here are some remnants of last weekends show. I've got a whole bunch of cool new pieces to add to the site over the next couple of weeks. Oh, and if you didn't notice on my home page - I've got a newsletter signup form I just added. Sign up for it (I promise I won't spam you every week). I'm planning on having a sale just for my newsletter subscribers and previous customers - I'm going to close shop for everyone but you guys and give you some HUGE specials. Sounds fun. So sign up and feel very exclusive.

You thought I was exagerating...

When I said that in a couple of days it's going to be snowing pink around here. This is the view out of my car window this morning...

A rain shower hit right when the cherry tree's flowers were about done - and poof - instant pink snowstorm! If you enlarge this one, you can actually see it snowing. Beautiful, isn't it?

Ok, everything's set

I went over to Tracy's house this evening to set up for the show we're having there this weekend. It looks gorgeous there as usual. There are some really talented craftspeople set up there. I'll take photos when I stop by there tomorrow. I think I've got all my mother's day presents picked out now. Wish us luck! Toby

I love portland in the spring time!

These are my neighbor's trees. It's so cool to go outside these days. In a couple of days it will be snowing pink!

Yippee! New Tools!

Oh, I'm always so excited to get new goodies in the mail. Here's the latest. It's a custom metal stamp I had made to stamp my logo on the back of my pieces. It's teeny tiny - like 1/4". Poor Devera's not going to be able to sleep tonight - she'll keep hearing me "tink tink tink-ing" with my hammer playing with my new toy. I think my next design will be a big sheet of metal with my logo all over it. Talk about self gratification!

Gearing up for the show next weekend!

Hi all, hope you had a great weekend. For any of you local guys who are looking to do something fun next weekend, I just wanted to remind you about the show Dave and I are going to take part in. Here's where it's going down: Moss Street Studio 1938 SW Moss Street Portland Oregon 97219 (503) 327-4899 Here's a map>> I've got to get crackin and finish up some pieces - yikes! You'll see lots of new lampwork pieces from Dave and I, and we're joining up with another talented glass artist, a furniture maker, a paper arts person, and a couple others. I remember the first time I joined these guys I was a little hesitant - you never know if you're joining a group who knit doilies and make toilet paper covers (remember the ones that had the little barbie dolls coming out the top? I think my great grandma had some of those) Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised - this is a REALLY TALENTED group of artist. I'm excited to be a part of them. Anyway, stop by and say hi. Oh, and here's a Sunday Devera picture. We went to the tulip fields yesterday in Woodburn. Beautiful as always. As quickly as we could say, "No, no, Devera" she lops off the first flower she can get her grubby little hands on. And then she's like a shark tasting that first drop of blood. We pretty much had to drag her by her ankles to get her out of the flowers. Here she is holding up her contraband...