life is short!..

and in an effort to enjoy every moment... our plans are made for travel this spring!  in May we'll go to Denmark for a week to visit Soren and his family, our 4th visit to Denmark.  Soren lived with us during his student exchange time in 1988  (has it really been that long ago???)  and happily, we've stayed close thru these years.  he has made several trips back here and we went there for his high school graduation, wedding and again after he'd had 2 children.  part of the joy of the trip this time is that Chris, Kate and kids will be going with us.  we'll spend 2 days in Hamburg, Germany on the way.  after Denmark we fly to Athens then drive to the Peloponnese and spend a week there (time share exchange - yay), go to Olympia and see where the Olympics originated, plus other ancient sites, maybe some vineyards and wineries.  from there we'll drive north to Arachova and Delphi and i'll try again to find the Oracle... at least i'll be listening.  we were there on our first trip to Greece 9 years ago and thru an agro-tourism website got in touch with (and ended up staying with) a wonderful, warm, and welcoming woman named Frosso.  she and i connected in such a memorable way!  she is very involved with fiber arts and is active in the art workshop in Arachova.  tho she speaks only a few words of English and my Greek was zero at that time, we shared our love of spinning and fibers... she showed me her mother's hand spindle which she uses, and gave me an armfull of yarn she had spun on it.  i showed her my knitting and yarn, and of course, gave her some of my yarn.  we were bonded for life!  and exchange greeting cards several times a year... hers come written in Greek, which i take to my friend Denny at his Greek restaurant and he translates for me.  when i write to Frosso, i send it in English with a translation which i get from an online translation site... who knows how my words come out thru that to an accurate translation into Greek.  i keep on getting cards from her, so i guess the translation hasn't been something insulting or weird.  i am really looking forward to seeing my friend, Frosso, again!!  ok, so then we drive back to Athens and fly on the Hania, Crete on May 21 and back to my other home in Vamos for 3 weeks.  and looking back at what i've just written... i'm exhausted with that much travel!  dear Goddess...what have i signed on for?  but the thing is, i want to do every bit of it.  so when we get to Vamos i'll collapse for a day or 2.  well, i say that, but know that we'll walk down to the taverna for hugs and raki as soon as we've got our stuff loaded into our house.  and thanks to Klio, we'll be in the same house as the past 2 or 3 years... happy.  i really shouldn't be wishing time away... but i'll be so happy to be back there that i wish i were there now!!  ~sigh~

and i hope that by then i've conquered blogging on my iPad which has flummoxed me in the past!

love this guy!  he's got to be really secure in himself, don't you think?

passion for pink flamingo

i have the extreme good fortune of having been blessed with several good friends who are excellent enablers in helping me pursue my passion for the pink flamingo... the tackier, the better.  i opened a package from my dear friend, Anna, recently and what to my astoundedness, did i find but this drunken flamingo, whose purpose in life is to hold a bottle of wine.  (no shortage of wine bottles around here!)  this bottle was a gift yesterday from friends who came for dinner and brought this fine wine which they made and has their own label on it!

somehow... drunk flamingo reminds me of "drunk uncle" on the evening update of SNL.  if only he could talk.... or maybe better not.

and more on the pink flamingo theme... here's a portion of the collection serving as decor in the guest bathroom of dome central.  sad to say, some of the outdoor flamingo residents are either roosting in trees, buried for the time being in leaves and a bit of mud, or otherwise not available for photos.  their day will come... as will spring, blue skies, warm and no rain.  i'm ready already!

someday i may get them all together for a photo shoot.

tagine

it's a clay pot and can be used either on the stove top (medium low), in the oven or over a fire.  we first saw one on (i think it was...) an Anthony Bourdain show done in Morocco in a very rustic setting.  Jim said he wanted one, so i filed that wish away and brought it out again at xmas and got him one.  a rather selfish thing on my part really as i thought it would be a good addition to our kitchen.  he used it (finally) this week and cooked up a really fine meal of chicken, potatoes, carrots, onions, and olives... and it took about an hour over medium low on the stove top.  it was a great meal!  and now i'm on the hunt for some recipes!  highly recommended after just one experience with it.  thanks, Tony!

i'd love to know about any recipes that anyone has for this!

here's a link:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tajine

new music

Last week Stephen Colbert's guest was a young musician named Benjimin Gibbard.  it was a typically awkward interview by Stephen... but the music was great!  Ben was promoting his new CD "Former Lives" and was joined by Aimee Mann (well, ok, i don't really know who she is except that i've heard her name before) when he did his music.  so... next day i ordered the CD and am really glad i did... really enjoying it.

part of the "awkward" was Stephen's reaction when as part of the interview he asked Ben what else he liked to do... and the answer was something like "well..... i don't do anything besides music".  kind of left Stephen with no where else to go.  and i saw on the interwebs today that Stephen's sister will run for the senate from south carolina as a democrat, probably against the (loser) former governor... yeh, the one who was in Argentina with his lover while he claimed to be hiking the Appalachian trail... while he was governor and left the state without telling anyone where he was going... yeh, that loser.  so there's your little bit of random trivia for today.

snow came to Duvall

i spent 5 days with my grandkids while their parents went to Las Vegas.  we did make a good effort to get to go along with them and got an unequivocal "no", but that's ok... we had a good time!  there was some snow and Z was so anxious to go out in it that she didn't bother getting out of her nighty first... just kind of dressed around and under it and seemed warm enough.  and made some fine snow balls!

they don't seem to mind posing.

part of the fun for me is unlimited use of Kate's electric carder and access to several bins of dyed fiber that she has deemed unworthy of selling.... some of my favorite fibers are in there!  blueface leicester, silk, silk, silk, alpaca, merino... and on and on.  so i made several lovely blended batts.  mmmmm - some happy spinning ahead.



















the weather stayed really cold, so the snow hadn't totally melted before i left on tuesday.  this is the view from the deck.  i kept watching for some wildlife like at least some deer, if not bobcats or bears... but none came by.

good morning, deer

 


definitely a treat to see deer from my bedroom window first thing in the morning!  a nice way to start the new year, i'd say.

scattered stuff...

adorable felted (Whimsical Ewe) little sheep.  a gift from Kate.  she got it at OFFF and i was SO envious because she got the last one.  so i was very happily surprised to find it under my xmas tree.  it is for hanging on my spinning wheel and holds one of those little oil bottles in the hole in its back.  so cute!!

and these are buds (or something) on a tree in my yard that are weird and charming.  they almost look other-worldly.  i can't remember the name of the little tree... which was labeled as a "bush" when i bought it and i expected it to stay small... it did not, so gets heavily pruned.. occasionally.

it's New Year's Eve, a very laid back, stay-at-home evening for us.  thank goddess i'm well past those wild and crazy new year's eves of heavy partying and being out on the roads with those crazy drunken folks.  for years now i've deliberately avoided going anywhere on this night.  so we had chinese take-out at 5pm and settled in for a wild night of MSNBC.  if i did make resolutions for the new year, the top one would be to watch way less politics on the tv machine.  i find myself so totally pissed off at these people that we hire to work for our benefit and well-being who are NOT doing the job they were hired for and are making a huge salary with benefits far and above what the "ordinary" person has.  i just want to find a "you are fired stick" and wave it at so many of them.  oh, but i digress ... i wish for all of us a 2013 that is filled with joy and love and success and happiness!