august break ~ day 25-30

i guess i fell off the august break band wagon... our oldest son was home on leave for several days and we spent it out at our cabin. beautiful weather, wonderful family time...

so good to see these two having fun together again...

 

 

 

 

 

so good to watch him soak it all in...

 

 

 

 

(cullan took this underwater photo with his new lifecase on his iphone, at the waterfall)

 

 

 

 

 

a rare family shot (minus thea : { )

 

 

 

 

duffy was especially happy



august break ~ day 24

august break ~ day 23

 

today is the first day of his senior year in high school.

i simply can't believe it.

august break ~ day 22

august break ~ day 21

i missed yesterday, because we spent the day out here: 

at 3 mile beach. watching the surfers. watching duffy try to swim with the surfers.

it was fabulous.

august break ~ day 19

i'm thanking my lucky stars i remembered to post this before it was too late!

august break ~ day 18 ~ it's all good

after so many days of nasty weather, duffy needed a good walk

and after a good swim in the bay...

a good hot bath before bed.

august break ~ day 17

we finally got a break from the fog & rain...it was lovely while it lasted~

august break ~ day 16

pete is entering his golden years...

august break ~ day 15

stitching stars in the sky~

august break ~ day 14

blueberries are ready

so are the salmonberries...





august break ~ day 13

foggy & wet today...so quiet outside



august break ~ day 12

behind cannery row~



august break ~ day 11

i love this random sewer cover on a gravel path

through the woods to one of my favorite beaches.

in the middle of nowhere it silently rusts away...

not too random, as here & there through the trees

 you can spot overgrown foundations now covered with moss~

all that remains of part of some Naval Base buildings from WWII.

(excuse the blurry edge, it was rainy & cold)



august break ~ day 10

Those who live by the sea

can hardly form a single thought

of which the sea would not be a part.

~ Hermann Broch



august break ~ day 9

good morning!

august break ~ day 8

some lucky seal or sea otter had a fresh uni feast for lunch~

august break ~ day 7

what would we do without duffy to show us the way~

august break ~ day 5

three mile beach, kodiak island

august break ~ day 6

the shed

august break ~ day 4

ayakulik river, kodiak island



august break ~ day 3

oregon sand dunes

august break ~ day 2

august break ~ day 1

(i'm going wordless for august break. also, most of the photos i post will be from my iphone and will be

unedited, unfiltered, untextured. that's the point of a break, right?)

click on the august break button to the right to see other participants!

liberated~

this is the second year of kat sloma's "Liberate Your Art" post card swap. this year there are over 200 folks participating from all over the world. (if you click on the button above it will bring you to the participant page so you can visit them all!)

i love seeing stuff in the mailbox when i open it. i also needed a prompt to get me in the creating mode again, so this swap came at the perfect time. i just liberated my post cards friday.



kat deserves a standing ovation for coordinating this huge project all on her own. can you imagine sorting, labeling, stamping and mailing over 1,000 postcards??? yikes. at least she gets to see them all. i look forward to the next few weeks, as five of the little beauties find there way to my mailbox.

august break 2012 with susannah conway~

i'm just back from a quick overnight trip to our cabin. we went for fun (a rare treat) and to try out the new outboard on the little skiff. lucky for me, the water was flat calm all the way to the bay. look at it up there - can you believe it?!

it was a wonderful, slow trip, which gave me a chance to take some photos - usually not an option on the need-for-speed blackcat... i'll post them as soon as i get them off my phone.

i blame my new phone for my severe "blogger's block" as i have become a slave to Instagram. what a wonderful world that is! i feel like i'm traveling the globe every time i take a peek. i like that it is what it says "instant."

to try to get back to my blog, and my art in general, i have decided to joined up with Susannah Conway's August Break 2012. i invite you to click on the link and sign up too. here's a snippet of how susannah describes august break (copied from her blog post):

How it works: you simply share one photo (or more!) each day on your blog – Monday to Friday, or every day. Or whenever you feel moved to share. Using any camera – DSLR, compact, Polaroid, Holga, iPhone (my choice), Instax, film or digital – with or without words – anything goes! – for the whole of August. No pressure – just looking at August through your camera lens as a way to be more present this summer. And to have a little break from the pressures and expectations of regular blogging.

There are NO RULES, people! Just sunshine (hopefully) + a bit of fun. And lots of lovely photos to look at and new blogs to discover.

see, easy-peasy. at a great time of the year. even if you aren't interested in joining, i really urge you to go meet susannah on her blog. i have been following her for over a year, she is a wonderful artist of photography & words all wrapped up in a beautiful soul. and she shares it all with us. i recently finished her new book "This I Know"

everyone needs to read this beautiful book. i'm not going to try to describe it. just find a copy and read it. it will make you cry, and smile, and laugh. it will make you feel like all those feelings (and all the rest of them you have inside you) are valid. there, off my soapbox.

duff & i are ready for our august break~

 

moving on~

after returning from a spur-of-the-moment long weekend at our cabin, i finally feel like i can breath again. it was great to be "home" on the bay, disconnected electronically and technically, surrounded by the beautiful quiet. we put in a new hot water heater (YAY) and got the second set of solar panels up. and de-spidered. it was a good break.

now i feel ready to get the lead out and start making things. i've found some great help for mom, so have some time to myself again, and that is a wonderful thing. right up there with not having to carry a diaper bag anymore.

i'm participating in kat sloma's Liberate Your Art Postcart Swap again this year, and just finished my card. it's off to Moo to be printed. last year my postcards all came to me while i was living in a tent at the outcamp, and i treasured each one. can't wait to see who comes to kodiak this year.

my inspiration for this year's card came from my tea bag. even the tea gods are out there seeing to the good of the world and all of us in it ...

if you are interested in joining the swap, there's still time - you can sign up until july 17. click on the link, there are over 200 participants from all over the world! it's a huge undertaking, and kat is wonderful to do this for us.

until next time, duff & i give you our love~

off balance~

i know how this guy is feeling.

i've hit a rut, i've lost my balance, i'm going down...

caring for my aging mom is probably the hardest job i have ever had. sometimes the things she says to me, this tiny little silver-haired gramma, have the same impact as clobbering me with a steel beam. a big one. and then the next minute she wants to get bananas to make banana bread.

i know there must be a way to balance caring for {a very cranky} mom with continuing on with my own "stuff," but i haven't found it yet...

...and that leaves me feeling like this guy...



we take things one moment at a time right now, the good ones with the bad.

and while i have no time for the art that's unfinished on my bench

i am so grateful for coffee

and quiet car rides

and my pal duffy who is never cranky with me~



home~

i absolutely loved portland. there was art everywhere. folks even dressed artfully.

even my food was beautiful. what a great place.

hello folks, i'm back from my big adventure. it was everything i hoped for and so much more. the best time i have had with my girl since...well since she still let me pick out her clothes for her. it's been a while.

and look what happened to my blog while i was gone! it got a wonderful spa treatment and face lift from the amazingly talented and very sweet karen valentine of valentine designs. i can't say enough about how swell karen is. a couple of emails, a phone conversation, and pow! she totally "got me."

if you are thinking about starting a blog or getting a new look, please go visit her & view her intro video. i know you'll love her too.

i have lots of stories about my trip, lots of photos i haven't yet downloaded (i haven't even unpacked yet) and great spots i found i want to share...

sadly, the day before i returned, my mom had a fall and broke her hip. luckily gerry & my youngest son were here to take care of her until i got back. it was a long plane ride. for her 83rd birthday she had surgery, got three nice new pins in her hip and a room full of nurses to bring her cake and sing her happy birthday (which is a good deal because when our family sings the neighborhood dogs howl for hours.)

i find myself now in the role of primary caregiver to my dear mom, who is healing well but is fighting the battle of tremendous memory loss and dementia. my days are full of repeating myself over and over and her days are full of wondering why her hip hurts... throw in the small white dog and my world is an episode from the 3 Stooges.

i'm not sure what will happen in the upcoming days. there probably won't be a lot of artsy posts for a bit. but i wanted to say hello, and take a minute to bask in my new bloggy look!

texture wednesday??

i bailed on texture tuesday this week...i've been trying to finish up lots of odds & ends in the sewing room & studio because...

i'm leaving!!! yeehaw, i'm getting on a plane and flying off this island!! i'm so excited i could just spit because

1. i haven't been off this island in three years

2. i'm going ALONE

for the past two weeks we've had a couple of male house guests here on a welding job. guests are great, but there is already a husband, a 17 year old (injured) son and a small white dog in this house. the warm fuzzies for male companionship wore off about 10 days and two containers of clorox wet-wipes ago.

so how convenient that my daughter is moving into a new apartment right now. her first one that is all her own, no roommates. it's a landmark moment and call it grasping at straws, but i'm pretty sure it's required that mothers assist in these situations. i'll grasp whatever i have to to get out of this house.

so i'm off tomorrow, prepared to be amazed at how fast my new 4G iphone will work in the states. i can't wait to get on an escalator - love those things - smell a skunk. go to dairy queen. finally step foot in an IKEA store. and anthropologie. and see all those cherry blossoms everyone posts about. and eat sushi without a husband asking why anyone would pay for that when he can grab a raw fish anytime...

before i leave let me share what i've been working on. it's been a long winter.

i've been knitting and felting bowls...

lots of them. it's like knitting pets, they're small and warm and soft.

some of them i lined with my hand-dyed fabric scraps,

 i like how sturdy it made them.

this is a cowl knit from a beautiful merino yarn by Katia.

it's fluffy and soft and i like the subtle pops

of colour here and there in it.

this scarf is called "Loreli's Gift," i found the pattern in the book

Sock Yarn One-Skein Wonders by judith durant.

i knit it in a beautiful heathered baby alpaca - soft as a cloud.

this shawl is probably my biggest knitting achievement to date. it's just a simple triangular lace pattern, easy to follow. i started it last summer, and brought it down to the lodge/outcamp with me. i tore it apart and restarted it many many times after losing my place. i worked on it until my hands got too sore and chapped at the outcamp and my fingers were snagging on the fibers, then i put it away.

i finished it just before xmas, and decided i couldn't give it away.

i love it too much. love the colours, and the silkiness. the yarn was a gift

from my daughter, it's an extra fine italian

merino lace weight by ella rae.

like knitting a lamborghini.

and then there's these guys

the socks.

 it wasn't enough that i didn't finish the first pair i started, i had to start a second pair.

i don't think there is a winter long enough for me to be able to finish knitting socks.

but sock are patient creatures.

that's it. that's all i got. i'm off to pack for my fabulous, man-less 13 days

of no dinner-cooking. i'm sure when i return i'll have great stories

of being lost in an elevator, or a parking lot,

or arrested for jay walking...

it's going to be so much fun.