Sunday Scribblings: Deepest, Darkest

I'm a woodworker.

Now you know my deepest, darkest secret.

What? You already knew? Oh, right almost everyone who knows me knows that, and those who don't know me or don't know that can follow the link to my workshop and figure it out.

What you probably don't know is that I've gone over to the dark side, wood wise.

I haven't developed a jones for ebony, yet, but while at one of my favorite suppliers on Thursday I was drawn to a gorgeous slab of wenge. It was the deepest, darkest piece of lumber I've ever wanted to get my tools on. Many kinds of wood have found their way into my shop - pine (not so much lately), maple, birch, aspen, cherry, mahogany, walnut, and even zebrawood and purpleheart. I've been pretty much a light to medium wood kind of girl. Wenge isn't the right texture for the project I'm working on, and it costs more than I was ready to spend, but boy was it attractive.

The wenge didn't come home with me, this time. But now I'm trying to figure out how to incorporate a small amount into the next project.

P.S. This picture I just added (Sunday night) is an ornament I made for family and friends for Christmas 2005. I've made an ornament (different designs) almost every year since 1999. I've missed two years both because of work obligations. There are pictures of a few other creations in my flickr account (link to the right).

More: Sunday Scribblings

Thursday Challenge: Spring

More: Thursday Challenge

Waiting for Snowflake

Our pals, Sunshine and Snowman, are expecting their first child, Snowflake, in a couple of months. It couldn't happen to a better couple. The parents to be are kind, gentle, generous and fun-loving. And judging from the crowd at last Sunday's baby shower (Thanks Domino for organizing it!) the little one has a lot of honorary aunts to provide even more love.

I can't wait to meet this new person.

Morning Swim - for D and N

This is my entry in Buried in the Slushpile's contest. The challenge was to write a story of 75 words or less using words from the Dolce word list. I found out about this a the last minute and submitted my story less than 10 minutes before the deadline. Thanks to Shelley for bringing this to my attention.

Sun comes up
I jump out of bed
put on my best blue shirt
and my red shorts.

Where is my aunt?

Each day she jumps out of bed,
and walks past green trees
to jump in the big blue lake


I run past the green trees
and call to my aunt

Pretty please can I jump in too?

Sunday Scribblings: In the Kitchen

In the kitchen daisies dance on a field of yellow,
In the kitchen cereal is stored between the wall studs,
In the kitchen pudding is stirred from a foot stool,
In the kitchen cast iron radiator foot rest,
In the kitchen popcorn fire ceiling stain,
In the kitchen tricycle zooms from laundry room to living room,
In the kitchen cookies cool,
In the kitchen girl scouts learn to cook,

The kitchen,
now only a memory,
the house long ago sold,
and not quite so long ago fallen prey to gravity.

More: Sunday Scribblings.

Thursday Challenge: Green

green.

Detail from Niki de Saint Phalle's Nikigator outside the Mingei International Museum in San Diego.

A picture of the whole gator is here.

More Thursday Challenge.

Grey Friday

This afternoon's fog fascinated me. Usually this sort of weather depresses me, but the fog rolling off the river as I headed home and off the pond when I got there drew me to it. It was intriguing enough that I even made the trek down the hill to the pond.

The pictures here are (clockwise) the Charles River looking west from the Cambridge side, the base of the dogwood tree in our front yard, Pickerel Pond near our house, and the hill from the pond to the road.

Anniversary Celebration

Another shot from today's anniversary kick-off at work. The poem is inspired by my pal Shelley.

cold
grey
rainy
gloomy day
made bright by cannons
of purple and green confetti

Thursday Challenge: Entrance

A day late...

The kick-off for the 25th anniversary of my workplace was today. The day was rainy, but the event started out outdoors as planned. The highlight was the cannon release of many bucket fulls of confetti - the speckles above the banner are bits of confetti caught in the netting over the upper windows of the entry. Click the picture for a better view.

For more go to Thursday Challenge.