Migration {a new flock}

My little hands have been busy working on some new things for the shop, even as my mind has been steadfastly thinking thoughts of Spring. I’m eager to see the new perennials I planted last year come back to life, making their debut. The firework-like astilbes, strings of bleeding hearts, tall stalks of bluebells blowing in a soft Spring breeze…oh my!

Perhaps I shouldn’t be so eager as there are still several inches of hard, crunchy snow burying all things colorful and beautiful. I was most reminded of that fact this morning while driving in to work, in freezing rain/snow/sleet, knowing that we still have a couple months of messy, mucky, wetness to get through. So I'll try to continue to find the beauty in this barren landscape of Winter, and create colorful things of my own...for the time being.

Perhaps you need to see some pretty Spring colors too? See more photos of this new little flock here and here. More birds will be making their migration into my shop throughout the week!

~xoxo

Shadowbox {a little painting}

I’m a little bit shy about sharing my paintings. Partly because I feel it is one aspect that requires a good deal of practice (and patience!) yet I’m most sporadic in doing it…painting only when precisely the right mood strikes…usually a melancholy sort of mood. And partly because I haven’t really painted in such a very long time. I hadn’t even cracked open my oil paints since we moved and I last folded up my easel.
Yet last week I had the strongest desire to paint. So I started small, on an idea that had been percolating in my mind for quite some time. I’ve been wanting to put together a real shadowbox of some tiny objects from nature that I’ve been gathering lately…a soft, fluffy white bird’s feather, a tiny stem of pinecones, a smooth little piece of driftwood…and yet somehow that idea evolved into doing a painting of a shadowbox, where I included other elements that you normally wouldn’t be able to put in a real shadowbox...like mushrooms, a clump of moss, and fragile pieces of shell from a broken Robin’s egg.
My oil paints were so tightly sealed shut that I had to find hub’s vise grips to twist the caps off. Same for the canister of turpentine when it came to clean up time. Although messy, I love the richness of oils far better than acrylics. Next up perhaps I will put together that real shadowbox. And hopefully get back into painting more often as well!

P.S. Hope you're having a lovely weekend! We had a fabulous day yesterday with my parent's coming up for a little visit. We ate my homemade quiche, my mum's homemade cinnamon rolls (mmm!), played games, and took a refreshing walk in the chilly afternoon sunshine. Tonight Hub and I are looking foward to snuggling in and watching part 2 of Charles Dickens's "Oliver Twist" on PBS. Anyone else watching this?

Teacups {full of love}

Getting back to the basics of paper cutting, something I haven't done very much of lately, felt really good. Ironically I didn't use anything from those piles of fun crafting goodies I talked about in a recent post. Instead I used good old paper, scissors, my retractable knife, and some glue to create little teacups with a removable "tea bag" tied onto the teacup's handle. And although I have a cute little heart punch, I felt that I should keep true to the theme of papercutting, so I handcut each tiny heart that is lofting up out of the teacup, to create a little stream of "heart steam". That resulted in a lot of hearts multiplied by each card. But so worth it when sending a note to my loved ones that is from the heart!

...

Hub and I don't have any big plans today...we may do a bit of snowshoeing down by the lake and go out for some coffee/tea afterwards. Also, I really want to stop in at our local flower shop and pick out some flowers. I told hub it would be fun to go there together and pick out something beautiful & colorful to help brighten up this dreary gray day.

~xoxo~

my heart is full

...of lavender...

A knitted heart full of lavender, that is.

In the recent February issue of Living, there was a section about Valentines and the iconic heart. My own heart was immediately drawn to one of the simple, sweet projects shown…a knitted heart. Actually it was a knitted heart that you made for your kitty and filled with catnip. I’m not even sure what catnip is. But that’s beside the point. I don’t have a cat.

But I instantly wanted to make a bowlful of these hearts in various colors, filled with lavender instead. So far I’ve made one which I decided to dress up a bit with some of my favorite trim I bought long ago at Rose Mille that I hadn’t been able to use on anything…until now…because it is so sweet and beautiful (and a bit pricey too) and nothing seemed really worthy of it. But this little heart sachet is going to get stuffed in a dresser drawer among my pretties…and I didn’t use very much of the trim on this anyhow. So I can continue to hoard the rest of it for now.

~xoxo~

Wonton Wonders

We made spaceships the other night. I mean wontons. Have you ever made wontons?
I hadn’t until this past weekend and I don’t know why it took me so long to try making them. They were really very simple and deliciously good. I’d thought about making them in the past, but it wasn’t until our favorite Chinese place packed up and headed across town…to a location too far for us to grab take-out and now in a bowling alley no less…a place we don’t typically think about going to when we’re thinking of having a nice dinner out…that finally I was more or less forced to make them if we wanted our wonton fix. Which we really did. We even ate at China in Epcot while on vacation in hopes of getting some good wontons, but there were no wontons to be found on the menu anywhere!

While I was making wontons, Hub made chicken vegetable curry stir-fry, a relatively new (tasty!) dish he concocted. I searched online for some recipes and to learn the method for making them, but mostly all I could find were recipes for crab cream cheese wontons. But I noticed that many of the recipes used garlic powder and green onions. So I omitted the crab, used a dash or 2 of garlic powder, 2 to 3 finely sliced green onions, added about 2 teaspoons of shredded carrots (I'm addicted to shredded carrots lately and have been adding them to most everything!), and mixed this together with about 4 ounces of cream cheese. We bought some good, all-natural wonton wrappers from Whole Foods. I cut each one in half and placed about a spoonful of the cream cheese filling in the center. Then I sealed and folded them using a bit of water placed along the edges with my fingers and again at every point where I folded them. (Online, they also said you could use egg whites to help seal them but I think water worked just dandy.) I didn’t really know what I was doing with the folding but this was the fun part. Hub and I were each taking turns at trying to figure out the best way to fold them. We decided my spaceship-looking ones were the best method for frying (more flat) and eating too (by providing a little pointy handle to hold onto). I fried them in a low pan with a bit of olive oil on each side until golden brown (about 3-4 minutes).

Hub said they may just be the best cream cheese wontons he’s ever eaten. But it might just be that they were actually still hot by the time we ate them, unlike the so-often room temperature standard take-out type. Oh, and don’t forget to dip them in duck sauce (sweet and sour sauce)…that’s a must!

Snowboarding {& getting old-er...}

Hub and I have had sort of an eventful week. For us. We usually don’t get out too much and there isn’t a whole lot to do anyway…up here in the Northland (as our news people like to call it). Or at least anything we’re really interested in doing…lutefisk dinners and polka parties really do not intrigue us all that much. (I’m teasing, just a bit.) We’re quite content to be home-bodies for the most part anyhow…but as I reflected on our week, I realized we’ve really stretched ourselves.

It started with a Super Bowl party at some friend’s. And if you know me at all you know that I hate football. That’s a bit strong, maybe? But I just don’t get caught up in it, nor in the whole “commercial” fascination that goes along with that event. Yet we all had a fun time together and after the game, we played a little Wii for our first time too...which, I discovered, is just another method whereby I can school Hub at tennis. (Only teasing you, dear!)

Later in the week we stopped in to see Charlie Parr…he is a favorite musician among the college/twenty-something-aged locals. Hub even bought one of his CDs a little while back, so I’m starting to feel a bit like true local now myself. Hub loves music, finding new music, and listening to it live even more. So we listened to him sing and play guitar along with his sidekick harmonica-ist(?). Eventually another guy joined them who played an old washboard...and later he banged on a metal pipe with a hammer. Not sure what that was about.

Thinking back on the evening we may have been on the older end of the age spectrum there. But I’m not really sure. And that’s the trouble when you don’t have children. You start forgetting how old you really are. Because for awhile you’re doing similar things as others around your age at approximately the same time…like going to college, beginning careers, getting married, buying homes, then having children…or not having children. We don’t have children yet…and so in a sense our lives haven’t changed all that dramatically as I see other’s have changed who do have kids. So in a way you feel like you’re still the same age…life is still about you (sort of, if you know what I mean) and you’re doing totally different things than people your same age who do have children. You’re talking about different things. Pursuing different things. And suddenly I’m realizing that we are older, even if we don’t have the children to prove it…to mark the milestones of their ages and accomplishments. Does that make sense? It’s just an odd, wierd thing to sort of begin to realize and feel rather suddenly.

But moving on...on Friday afternoon we went snowboarding. I brought my camera with for the first time because it wasn’t that cold. And usually I don’t fall much, if at all. But of course since I decided to carry my camera in my pocket, I was especially clumsy and caught the edge of my board in the snow and slid down steep hills on my back and slipped on icy spots and landed on my bum more times than I could keep track. After 6 or so runs my knees hurt, my legs ached, and I wasn’t feeling so young anymore. What is going on? I guess I am getting older.

Afterwards we came home and cooked a fantastic dinner together, one of our favorite dishes, and I chipped my tooth…a molar way in the back…on a pistachio, I think. What in the world is going on?

.....

P.S. Hub went out snowboarding again this morning. I didn't feel up to going again...but he is 4 months younger than me after all! I'm quite content to stay home and begin making some Valentine's Day cards. My only problem is deciding which materials to use...I have various piles laying around of vintage cards, new goodies, and things by color. So first, I meet need to get some order...

Nature Notes {from today}

This afternoon I spotted a Ruffed Grouse sitting out back on the ground underneath some trees, so I bundled up and snuck outside to try to get a photo of it. Unfortunately, it got spooked and flew away before I could get a very good photo. But he's in there...somewhere...do you see his spikey-feathery head poking up?
Since I was all bundled up, I continued walking along in our little woods when who should I come upon but my favorite little white bunny, the Snowshoe Hare...sitting still as can be, trying not to be noticed. But notice I did and I was able to get some better photos of him than the other day…Isn't he sweet?

Today has been a very busy day in our backyard, full of creatures...deer, bunnies, the ruffed grouse, birds and such...and I even spotted 2 snowshoe hares together at the same time. Yes, as I said in my last post, I'm easily entertained...and very distracted today!

A bit of bird talk...

I gave Hub a seed ball for Christmas that, until this past weekend, has been spinning ‘round high up in a tree, with birds vying to be on top of it. On Sunday morning we awoke to find it on the ground, presumably from the strong winds we had during the night. Hub quickly recovered it before any of our hungry deer visitors ran off with it. He placed it on the deck railing, as it is rather hard to reattach it at this point. The birds just discovered its new location yesterday and the Redpolls, feisty birds that they are, have been holding off the timid Chickadees for the most part. But they are still cute little birds.

Also, the elusive Snowshoe Hare has finally started to make more of a daytime appearance. Yesterday I watched him hop cautiously up to sit out in the open underneath our bird feeder. Up until then we were only afforded brief glimpses of them as they hopped along in the woods, their furry white coats blending in seamlessly with the snowy background. I think they are sweet though and I was quite happy to get a photo of him again this year.

On Sunday evening, while at our friend’s house, Hub and I were talking birds with them, while another couple, having just recently just moved up to Duluth, listened in. We were talking about the Redpolls and how they pick through the seed on the feeder, throwing much down onto the ground below. The husband said something like “oh, is that what those birds are? We didn’t know what they were but they do that at our feeder too!” The wife said, “They have the little red spot on their heads and the males have red on their chest too, I think!”…“Yes, yes!” Hub and I agreed…“Oh and we’ve seen a Pine Siskin too!” said the husband…“Really! We haven’t seen any of those birds!” I said…

The bird conversation went back and forth like this a bit until the husband said to the new couple, sitting there quietly, “See? This is what you’ll soon be talking about after living in Duluth for awhile…the birds at your feeder!” I got a little laugh out of this as it is completely true. Hub and I can be so easily entertained watching the creatures outside our window, marking the changing seasons by the different visitors that appear throughout the year.