Homebody at Heart

Feathering my Nest

2012-01-07T17:27:00.000-08:00

I meant to post photos of some of the things I made last year but I didn't get around to it. So here is a queen sized duvet cover I made for my down comforter. I bought the fabric online so I didn't realize the it was gold. But, it was beautiful and I loved it. I made a couple of pillow cases to match.

Here it is laid out in the spare bedroom looking like a bohemian squat amidst some of my other ongoing projects.

I liked the pillow cases so much I made some green ones. Then, I made some blue ones, too. They are very cheery and make me feel like a princess! Since they are 100% cotton, I usually don't throw them in the dryer after washing but air dry them and iron them to a crisp finish. People (wives/women and servants, I suppose) used to iron all of their linens along with their clothes! Hard to believe in this day and age. Sometimes, I think I could be a hermit and never leave the house except to go on vacation!

Quilt in Progress

2011-12-30T15:54:00.000-08:00

Here is my Norwegian medieval quilt in progress. I still have elements to work out. Since the diamond blocks are at a 60 degree angle, they will not make a 45 degree angle, so I must figure out how the diamond sections are going to mesh with the cross pieces. I still haven't decided the end corners yet either.

Originally, I have the blue block in the middle of the cross but it looks a bit out of place. The blue block was going to be appliqued or pieced like a small, stained glass window to represent the window in the cathedral in Trondheim.

The diamonds represent shingles on a stave church roof. I tried out random placing versus rows and thought the rows looked more roof-like. Stave church roofs can have a number of levels, topped by a smaller roof. Some roof timber ends have carved dragon-
like finials. For the shingles, I chose fabrics that I thought might be recycled from finery. I wanted to put in a wavy path encircling the quilt but I might just put a wide border with curly elements in it because the quilt's name originally was "All Roads Lead to Nidaros" as in the pilgrim's trail. Still a ways to go to finish up the layout before I start piecing but when I look at it at random, I like it.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-24T13:15:00.000-08:00

I don't know where the time has gone this holiday season. It seems that I am behind schedule on getting all of the things I want done around the house so I didn't decorate as much as usual.

This little miniature tree is my favorite Christmas decoration this year. And, little birds seem to be making their way into the decorations. I really love the little handmade felted birds I bought from CraftCaptive on ebay .

Maybe next year I will get my cleaning/decorating/superwoman act together. I've decided that I really would like a new house or at least a different one. But, I doubt that I will do anything about it for awhile so I will have to make do. In the meantime, I have a few sewing projects that I am obsessing about which is why I have not been able to focus on the tasks at hand. Fabric is everywhere. Books are scattered here and there. Little scratchy drawings torture me. My trainer wants me to exercise five days a week. The weeds in the garden are out of control and my strawberry plants will be here soon so I will have to abandon my sewing projects until I get them squared away. Plus, I need to clean my house before New Year's Eve. I need more time, more daylight and more energy.

So, here is wishing you and yours, wherever you are, a Merry Christmas and hoping for so much more(whatever more of you need in your life) in the New Year!

My Little Shifuku

2011-11-23T21:17:00.000-08:00

My sister invited me to a tea at her church on Saturday. We are supposed to bring a teapot and cup. After looking through my cabinets, we decided on this cute little square teapot. I didn't have a good way to transport it several towns away so I decided to make a shifuku for it. A shifuku is a little drawstring pouch made specifically for this purpose and many times for a specific object as in my case.

I thought the square shape would be a perfect choice for a first time try. I spent some time (a good part of the day) yesterday thinking about how I would make said shifuku and looking up examples on the Internet (few and a book on how to make them cost $40 plus, I didn't have time to wait for the book). Then, it was onto what fabric. I bought some Japanese print fabric at Joann's and then looked at my fabric closet to see what would make a nice contrast and chose this green, vintage cotton plaid scrap dissected from a thrift store man's shirt. As I make reversible bags, I followed the way I make those except with a few variations. Firstly, The sides aren't sewn up all the way but about the bottom third of the finished bag (it is about half way up the bag before the bottom is squared up). The top two thirds open up, so they had to be hand sewn together. I used a thick poly batting between the inside and outside fabrics. (I don't know what they used in the photos I saw online but their filling seemed much denser and packed tighter plus, the shifuku should be made of old silk but I didn't want to use silk on my first try.) I didn't like how the teapot sat in it with the poly batting, as it seemed bulky and not level, so I took it apart. Then, I racked my brain for any kind of scrap I might have around to make a hard and level bottom.

I didn't really want to use card board, and traditionally, a Japanese paper called washi would be folded up and used. I didn't have any spare washi laying around and even, if I did, no way! Washi is way too beautiful to hide away in the bottom of a bag. So, I found last year's monthly datebook with a hard plastic cover and cannabalized it. I wrapped some flatter, cotton batting around it, sewed the sides up, trimmed the excess and inserted it in the bottom of the outside bag. It looked like this.

Then, I stuffed the batting in moving it around squaring it to the corners of the outer bag, put in the liner bag, doing the same thing and pinned it all up making sure that the little teapot was nice and snug in the bag. In the Japanese versions, I am sure that the bottoms aren't made this way but that a fabric covered square or round is attached to bottom.

Then, I had to make little loops to sew into the top and inserted a drawstring and voila! Here it is, my little shifuku. I want to get some ceramic beads for the ends of the drawstrings to finish it unless I can find something around the house (hmm, I'm guessing I can as I write this but I just have to figure out where I might have put said beads). I also practiced mottainai which I do anyway but I didn't know the Japanese word for it. I read about it in this unbelievable magazine I bought at the San Jose Kinokuniya bookstore called Kateigaho. Since, it was dark after I finished, the photo is a little yellow. I'll post some more photos tomorrow, if I have time.

The Winter Garden

2011-11-20T14:00:00.000-08:00

This is the first year I have had a winter garden. I really should have planted it earlier, but like everything in the garden this year, I was late. Part of my delay was in trying to figure out something to discourage the cats from using the planter boxes without spending too much money. I decided to buy some short 2 foot t-posts (they were cheaper that bamboo sticks, figure that out) and some green plastic construction fencing.

I decided to plant some decorative kale (bought in Canoga Park at the Green Thumb Nursery on our trip home from LA) for some bright winter color. They have a very friendly and nice staff!

Since I was rather late putting it in, I bought lettuce, broccoli, green onions and baby bok choy already started. I did scatter some daikon, carrots and arugula seed here and there.

Oh, and those naughty chickens. I have decided that they can roam around and try t keep the weed population down. But, I have to keep my eye on them so they don't become gourmets on my garden or my worm bin! Or, worse, victims of the lurking cats.

Vespa Bag

2011-10-27T18:09:00.000-07:00

For my friend's birthday (one that ends in a 0, her husband bought her a cute little black Vespa. So, I made her a bag to go with it as her birthday present. What do you think? Stylish, no?

I liked it so much I made one for myself so we can be twinsies except that she is tall, thin and blonde and I am short, dark and, well, let's just leave it at that.

The Jewels of Elizabeth Taylor

2011-10-16T21:26:00.000-07:00

This weekend we made a quick trip down to Los Angeles to see the jewels of Elizabeth Taylor before they are auctioned off. Not only was Elizabeth Taylor a beautiful woman, she was a very nice person.

This had to be one of my favorite pieces, an Art Deco brooch.

I also admired these bracelets made with old, perhaps Roman coins.

Here is the main reason we had to come. La Peregrina. A pearl once worn by Queen Mary I of England (Elizabeth I's older sister) who ruled England from 1552 to 1558. You can read about it here.

All of these items and more will go on sale in December. Some of it will be online in case anyone wants to pick up some bling or an Academy Award for their mantelpiece. Our mom just loved jewelry and she would have loved to see Liz Taylor's jewelry but we hardly wear jewelry because we don't have anywhere to wear it. While we were waiting around, we were chit chatting with another visitor and wondered who would be buying jewelry of this magnificence. After all, where would someone wear it? That time of Hollywood glamour is gone and most younger people aren't interested in it. Christina Onassis's daughter sold off all of here mom's jewelry (to some criticism) because she isn't interested in wearing it. All in all, we had just a wonderful time in Los Angeles and we were glad that we were able to see her jewels before they disappear from public viewing.

French Gardens baby quilt

2011-10-08T10:09:00.000-07:00

My sister and I designed this quilt for our cousinette who is having a baby soon. Our inspiration was the French gardens at Villandry. Each cross represents a garden path.

Freeks and Geeks

2011-09-25T21:23:00.000-07:00

This is the famous chicken that lived for months without a head. No really, someone wrote a book about it. Just kidding. This breed is a bearded buff laced Polish. But, he (?) does look like his head is missing.

This guys tail feathers are missing. He is an Araucana.

Eeee! A naked neck chicken

It's enough to curl your feathers! (Like these lovely Sebastopol geese).

Playing (with) Chickens

2011-09-25T21:04:00.000-07:00

Oh, it's a good thing these two boys were in separate cages. They were not too happy being in such close proximity to each other.

Here is a better look at this game bird. All I call think of when I look at him is that he is descended from velociraptor. He looks built for speed with those long legs.

And here is a beautiful Dominique rooster. Ooh, la la.

This Silver Spangled Hamburg is also a very handsome bird.

I didn't note this fellas breed, but, I love his coloration.

And, I love the coloration on this proud and prim Welsh Harlequin duck as well (those of us with Welsh heritage have to stick together!).

Isn't he a pretty bird!

National Heirloom Exposition

2011-09-20T19:15:00.000-07:00

They didn't just have lots of veggies at the National Heirloom Exposition, they had some handmade items for sale. Here, a lovely pillow in stamped floursack or muslin fabric. Quite adorable! I should have easily been persuaded to buy some, but alas, the booth was un-manned or un-womanned.

Handmade quilts

The most lovely, lovely handpainted garden-themed dishes.

These are kind of Frieda Kahlo-ish, or someone.

I love this green plate!

Fortunately, none of these dishes were for sale at the show, or, I should be quite impoverished! But, I am on the mailing list and only time will tell.

More squash, eek!

2011-09-19T21:31:00.000-07:00

Here is a lovely bucolic scene from the National Heirloom Exposition. Is bucolic the right word? Hmm. I grew these pumpkins a couple of years ago. They have a vining habit so they vined my entire back yard. Kinda like the zucchino rampicante this year.

The pumpkins went from lovely, deeply lobed pumpkins to increasing warty and crusty.

Then, they grew large and

somewhat freakish. Note the people in the background for scale. Apparently, after a certain time, the pumpkins must be moved to a pallet so they can be transported via a pallet jack. Feeding the pumpkins so they wont' lose an ounce to see who will win the contest.

Even without a scale, I'm guessing it was this guy below. I think it even had a custom built pallet. It reminded my of Jabba the Hut from the movie Star Wars. I'm not sure it wasn't two pumpkins grown together from the seam.

God, I love squash!

National Heirloom Exposition

2011-09-14T23:32:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, we attended the very first National Heirloom Exposition in Santa Rosa, California. The Exposition highlighted heirloom varieties of fruits, vegetables and animals. And, some talented artists like the chef who carved this beautiful melon.

We saw lots and lots of squash.

In fact, we saw a mountain of squash!

Lots of beautiful heirloom tomatoes. No GMO's here! The blue tomato is a new variety. The others had interesting names like Berkeley tie-dye.

I think next year we will grow some of the yellow and green stripey tomatoes and purple peppers like on the bike below. Just think of the beautiful salsa it will make!

Apparently, our cuckoo maran chickens are forming their own club. Eggs are graded on their color as shown on the chart below.

My Obsession

2011-08-30T19:33:00.000-07:00

Okay, I tried to take a better photo of my adorable little zinnias. They are the "Cut and Come Again" variety. I love them for their beautiful shades of color. I like to cut them when they haven't fully opened. So you can still see the little, petals still partially formed.

I have a favorite style of vase that I try to find at thrift stores and yard sales because they are perfect for these small flowers. But, sometimes when I am stripping the leaves, I yank the heads off or there isn't enough stem for this vase. So, I found some smaller "vases". I have a pressed glass toothpick holder for these really short zinnias. It would make me sad to throw a flower away because it is length disadvantaged.

Then, I found some old, cut crystal glasses at the thrift store for 29 cents. I paid a dollar for the cut, champagne glasses. Yes, all these glasses are all different. I am sure 60 years ago or so, they were part of a set now reduced to a single. But, alone they make the most beautiful, mini vases for these mini flowers. Wouldn't these be the most adorable individual arrangements at a dinner party? You don't need many flowers to make the arrangement and it just takes a few small fronds of fern to back it.

This is a shot glass from San Diego with wild animals on it and the word Africa. So, I put these hot orange and yellow zinnias in it.

I don't really like orange flowers. But, I think I can live with these.

I like big zinnias, too!

Yummy goodness!

2011-08-23T23:25:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the beautiful eggs from my chickenettes! They are still young girls, so their eggs are small. Sometimes they forget to put a shell on their eggs. I don't let that stop me from eating them, though, I usually cook those ones up right away. Right now, one of the hens is laying speckled eggs. I think eventually they will be solid and darker.

Here they are doing their thing. Eating. They eat grow mix. I switched them to lay mash but they went off their feed. It was hot and the gal down at the feed store said that corn made them hot. So, I guess it was too hot for them so I had to go and buy some grow mix but not the medicated feed they eat when they are little. Then, I had to buy some oyster shell to add to the grow mix. The chickenettes are spoiled. They like tomatoes, cantaloupe rinds and seeds, watermelon, tree branches from my fruit trees and certain weeds. I have to say, I look for weeds to pull in the garden to give them a treat. They also have lots of activities they can do in their chicken coop. The large terra cotta saucer is their "pool". They like to wade through it when it is hot plus, I think they don't like dirty feet, so they will walk through the water to get the dirt off them. They can also hop up on various objects and sit on their bench and stare out at the yard. They can also be obstacles when they are racing around the coop trying to chase down a bug! They are sweet, sweet girls and I like to give them a treat when I find eggs in the henhouse. I think they know what they are supposed to do, don't you?

Zinnias!

2011-08-21T15:33:00.000-07:00

I can't seem to do photographic justice to these zinnias from my garden. But, they bring me such joy happiness and a sense of fulfillment and serenity to look upon such perfection.

The Bluebirds of Happiness

2011-08-16T16:38:00.000-07:00

That is what I think everytime I look at these bird soaps! Handwashing has risen to a new level of pleasure. The shape is pleasing and as it gets used it loses its detail but is still pleasing to me. This was also experimenting with colors and I like how they turned out. What can I say, I'm into the simple pleasures!

Garden tour 2011 part 2

2011-08-02T21:59:00.000-07:00

This is the producing part of the garden. I differ from a lot of gardeners whose main purpose is growing food. I love flowers! So this is my raised bed of zinnias. There are more zinnias in tubs and other flowers tucked in here and there. They serve a purpose other than just for my pleasure and they bring a variety of bees and other pollinating bugs into the garden. And, they are probably biggest cash value crop since I won't have to buy flowers at the store.

This is looking back at the zinnias. My tomato plants are huge! Because I put the garden in so late, I just picked my first tomatoes today, a purple Russian. They were so delicious. It may have been the best tasting tomato I've ever eaten in my life.

Here is a baby heirloom squash nestled in with the chocolate cosmos and oregano. This variety is a vining type and and just migrated everywhere.

Here is what the zucchino rampicante looks like mature. To tell the truth, I have been so busy trying to eat the zucchini and yellow crook neck squash, I haven't tried these yet. I am saving them for winter squash. They are supposed to taste like artichoke and are used in ravioli and gnocchi.

My sister weighs all of her garden's bounty. I wish I had done it so I could say how many pounds of squash I have grown, so far. But, I have started to count all of the eggs my little chickenettes have laid. It is quite a sense of satisfaction having a squash omelet for breakfast all produced from my little town backyard. In the heat of summer, my thoughts are already turning to what I will be planting for this winter.

Garden tour 2011

2011-08-01T20:18:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my garden!

Have a seat and I will take you on a little tour.

You can have a seat here.

Or here. I had the seating spray painted.

Some lovely succulents.

And, a few more in an old metal basket.

My favorite succulent. I love the shades of pink and gray.

My little chickenettes

2011-07-01T17:45:00.000-07:00

There they are at the bottom right. They are a french breed called cuckoo marans. They are a bit spoiled and hoping to get a treat. Lately, it has been a blueberry or two. This is their chicken coop but I call it the chicken pavilion. When I was rehabbing the backyard, I couldn't decide what to do with this old gazebo. I was on the verge of having it disassembled and carted off. The canvas cover had rotted away and it was looking quite shabby. I had looked into buying a replacement cover but it cost more than what I had originally paid for the gazebo. And, when I was trying to decide what configuration to make the chickens new coop to keep them safe from cats and marauding possums, everything I thought of was looking a bit like something Ma and Pa Kettle or the Beverly Hillbillies pre-oil strike would have. So, I had it made into the coop by having chicken wire tied to it. Posts are set into the ground to hang the dutch doors and I had some lovely garden trellises that I had about incorporated into the frame. I think it turned out quite lovely and fitting for my little french hens.

Orchidea phalaenopsis

2011-04-03T21:30:00.000-07:00

I love orchids. These seem to be quite happy residing on my kitchen table along with a few african violets. I am hoping that they will like it so much they will continue to grow and bloom. I have tried to grow orchids before, sadly, not too successfully. But on a beautiful and sunny day as today was, I am very hopeful!

Saturday Still Life

2010-11-14T20:58:00.000-08:00

I bought this piece of batik fabric at a rummage sale today. It is just gorgeous. I can't decide what I will do with it so for now, it is a tablecloth.

If you're visiting San Francisco

2010-11-09T19:52:00.000-08:00

You may want to visit Britex Fabrics. I really am feeling the need to go there myself. Except I am afraid, very afraid. I need button or a frog or some type of decidedly exotic closure for a bag. I barely escaped the urge to take up a new hobby myself the last time I was there buying fringe for a pillow. I fear I may start buying yarn and try to learn to knit. They had imported Italian yarn, all feathery and textury. You have been forewarned.

Saturday Still Life

2010-11-07T21:44:00.000-08:00

The weekend went by so quickly and peacefully. Yesterday, I was up in my sewing room at 8 in the morning trying to decide what to do. Then, I heard on the radio it was going to rain so I thought I'd better clean out the rain gutters. One thing lead to another, trim the tree, cut the grass, rake up leaves, sweep the street gutter, clean the storm drains for our area, then the creative energy of the day was spent. And then no rain. Today, it rained pretty much all day so I was free for creative pursuits and sewed at my leisure. I had the windows open to air out the house and left them open until late afternoon. The rain seems to have cleaned the dust from the air and streets making it feel almost spring like. It doesn't seem much like fall and I'm not ready for winter. Hence, the pastel gerberas.

Saturday Still Life

2010-10-31T17:09:00.000-07:00

Norwegian quilt

2010-10-26T22:28:00.000-07:00

I haven't come up with a design yet for a quilt with a Norwegian influence. I wish I had gone to the Museum of Decorative Arts in Trondheim. Oh well, that is just another reason I will have to go back to Norway.

But, here are some fabrics that I am considering using for the quilt. I think the fabric below looks a lot like the intricate carving from the Norwegian stave churches.

I love these three batik fabrics.

I think this pattern is reminiscent of runic writing.

I would love to back the quilt with minky if I could find it in an fur-like pattern or something similar. I need to get my creative inspiration going!

Yosemite's North Dome 2,294 MOH

2010-10-19T20:23:00.000-07:00

No, this isn't North Dome, it is what you see from North Dome which is Half Dome in Yosemite National Park. I want to hike Half Dome and wanted to do it this year, but as a preparation, my friend thought I should first do the much easier hike out to North Dome from the trail starting at Porcupine Flat. I was game for it. So off we were early one morning eager to be out in the wilderness.

I saw the sign at the trailhead, North Dome 4.8 miles. No problem, I walk that much just on Sunday. Except what I walk isn't at elevation. In fact, I live pretty darn close to sea level and North Dome is at about 7,525 feet above sea level or 2,294 meters above the sea (MOH in Norwegian). Just for your information, a mile is 5280 feet, so it was 1.4 miles above sea level.

You will notice that we keep going downhill. We also tried to keep in the shade of the trees as much as possible as it can get quite warm. And drink lots of water. My rule of thumb in the field has always been that I bring two quarts to drink. When, the first quart is done, time to turn back.

A side view from the trail of pine trees growing out of the solid granite.

More going downhill. That made the hike in not too bad. (You do see where I'm going with this, don't you?)

Just for scale, the person in the photo is 5'10" or 178 centimeters tall.There it is, just off in the distance. That is North Dome.

Just before we get there, we have to go uphill. The climb to the top wasn't too bad. And, the view was stunning!

We had a nice lunch and a short rest. Then, I had to slog myself back uphill to the car. That took considerably more time and effort. My whole backside was strained to the max. Let me rephrase that. My gluteous, hamtring and calf muscles were screaming, I CAN'T TAKE ANYMORE! STOP! REST! BREATHE! Every step was like doing squats except that I was already at muscle failure and had to keep going until I really, really couldn't take another step. Oh, I could have stopped more often like every other step, it's just that then I would have had to sleep out on the trail and who wants to do that when you have a perfectly lovely bed to go home to? (Note to self: I need to loose more weight. Do more endurance training. Maybe go to a bootcamp. Join the Marines.) I think that I will have to put off hiking into Half Dome until next year since it is about twice the distance as the hike into North Dome. But, just for the record, the hike was great and I would do it again anytime!

Retailers pay attention!

2010-10-16T18:27:00.000-07:00

Okay, I wasn't really sure what to name this post but I wanted to complain to the powers that be that they really need to design everyday, mundane objects with some sort of style even if we are in a recession. I have been looking, quite unsuccessfully, to buy sheets for a couple of years now. Everything I have seen is your basic blue, brown, green, white or off-white in the most awful shades. I thought it was just me so I mentioned to my friend recently how I had finally bought a new set of sheets after years of looking (the last bottom sheet had finally shredded) and she said the same thing. She finally had to buy a new set and settled on the least offensive color she could find which was off-white.

So, this is what I was lucky enough to find. I would buy another set and maybe even another in a different color, if they were available. They are made of microfiber which is not as breatheable as cotton but I fell in love with the color and the Art Nouveau like pattern. And, best of all, I bought them at a discount store for a mere $15. I love them!

Norway Rocks!

2010-10-14T20:41:00.000-07:00

That just about sums it up. These are the rocks I found on my walk around the Nidelva. I was getting a bit worried that I wasn't going to find just the perfect rocks, but I think I did. I call them on my Norway zen rocks and when I light a candle and put them there I remember the peace and serenity I felt when I was in Norway.

Trondheim, Part Three

2010-10-10T14:39:00.000-07:00

So, as I had been criss-crossing Trondheim Torg, near my hotel, they had been setting up for a concert all day. The Torg is plaza with a granite column with a statue of Olaf Tryggvason, the Viking founder of Trondheim. I asked someone who seemed to be part of the setting up, what was up? Well, it seems that they had been having the world orienteering games all week around Trondheim and this was to be the medal ceremony. And, afterwards, there would be a concert by some local bands. The speech making and awards would take about an hour. I asked if the bands were good and she thought they were very good and to come back later.

I returned just a bit before the ceremonies were over. Here they are, the medal winners. The Norwegian won first place, of course!

Then, the bands started. I thought this artist had a bit of promise. Don't know his name, but he is a student at the same college in England that one of the Beatles had gone to.

Oh, this singer had quite an enthusiastic following. I couldn't get a photo of her without the two gentlemen in the foreground.

This guy was pretty good. He had been touring Europe as a tribute artist to Jerry Lee Lewis. Had a pretty good rendition of Great Balls of Fire.

Oh, and I really liked the shoes this lady was wearing but before I could find out where to buy them, she left. Darn! Well, if anyone knows, please let me know!

Trondheim, Part Two

2010-10-05T22:13:00.000-07:00

Who couldn't love this face? This is the Vitenskaps Museum on Erling Skakkes Gate in Trondheim (and just who is Erling Skakke)? I was drawn to this place like a moth to a flame. The Vitenskap. As far as I can tell, vitenskap means science. I know, it's kinda cheesy, nevertheless, I had to resist the urge to smooth his whiskers back and scratch him behind the ears.

This reminded me so much of the Museum of Natural History in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. As a small child, my parents would take us there on Sundays (my dad later confessed that we went there on Sundays because it and the Steinhart Aquarium were free that day!) There, my mom would hold my hand as I walked down this ginormous hall with dioramas of stuffed animals from Africa. I would stare wide-eyed at these dead and stuffed animals and I could not image why in the world anyone would want to kill animals, stuff them and display them in fake "natural" scenes behind glass.

There was a lot of interesting stuff in the Vitenskaps museet, including a pretty decent American Indian section. I went to look at Viking treasure bling, ever in search of design inspiration. I can't say I found inspiration there but doesn't 14 look a lot like a chopping board? Well, I guess chopping boards been around a long time.

Here is a lovely statue. It was rather peaceful. The statue is called An-Magritt of Hovistuten a character in a novel by Johan Falkbergets and erected in his memory. The work is by Kristofer Leirdal who just passed away in July at the age of 95. I like the simpleness, straightforwardness and power of the statue.

It is in front of the Ilen church or kirke. I liked the tile patterns on the church's roof.

Oh, here is the beautiful Nidelva or Nid river. Elva means river in Norwegian and I think I prefer to say, the Nidelva because it suits the river better.

I had been searching for a few pebbles to bring back with me as a memory of Norway but hadn't seen anything visually appealing. That is what I say when someone asks me why I chose to collect certain stones. I can't always explain why I pick one rock over another except that I find it more visually appealing. Anyhoo, I was explaining my dilemma to the hotel clerk and asked him where I might find such appealing little stones and asking him to forgive my weirdness. But not to worry, he said he did the same thing himself on vacation. So, he drew a path on my map and this is where it led.

I thought the undulating balconies of these apartments where very appealing plus all of the flowers!

More lovely homes!

I had to photograph this climbing hydrangea. I couldn't believe a hydrangea could grow this far north and survive the winters.

Trondheim was full of surprises including this classic, Chevy Nova. Look at that wax job! I couldn't resist taking a photo! Evidently, there is an American muscle car club in Trondheim. I could hear them revving their engines and pealing out from my hotel room on my first night in Trondheim. Then, they were busy cruising the streets the next day. As you might imagine, the drivers of these cars are not teenagers! Well, they might have been when these cars were new!

I came out to this really, quaint group of buildings. Trondheim was full of surprises but more were yet to come!

Nidaros Cathedral Trondheim

2010-10-02T19:38:00.000-07:00

People ask me why I went to Trondheim. I don't know why that is a question that crosses their mind when I think that Trondheim may be the most beautiful Norwegian city that I visited. Yes, Oslo and Bergen are nice and I didn't make it to Ålesund, a city rebuilt in the art nouveau style after it burnt down. But, Trondheim has a transcendental,almost ethereal feeling. Like magic (cue Abba, even though they are Swedish). The cathedral is made out of this blue gray stone. I am sure that it is quarried locally. The photos are not adjusted for color. This is it.

The west wall. If you want to see the window from the inside, click here. As, I bypassed the cathedral to go somewhere else, I didn't see it from the inside. I planned on returning later, to go inside and see the bishops palace, however, I didn't check the hours of opening and they closed just as I got there.

Oh, my, heads on a platter. Evidently, these poor fellows were decapitated and their uncle, the bishop found them.

Jesus on the cross. I'm not sure who the knight shaking his fist at Jesus is, a Knight Templar?

Adam and Eve. They don't look that embarrassed to be naked. We are in Scandinavia, after all.

I just love the gargoyle rain spouts. Wish I had them on my rain gutters.

Norway in a Nutshell

2010-09-28T20:14:00.000-07:00

This is one of the many waterfalls I saw on the "Norway in a Nutshell" tour of the Sognefjord area. The maiden in the red dress is supposed to be a huldra, a creature of Scandinavian folklore.

Unfortunately, I messed up a bit in my travel arrangements and had to backtrack from Bergen. If I had been smart, I would have gotten off the train from Oslo at Myrdal like 95% of the people on the train to catch the Flåmsbana or Flåm Railroad down to the town, then taken the bus to Voss, then the train onto Bergen. But, in my defense, I couldn't figure out the freakin' bus schedule from here and I didn't want to be dragging my luggage around while on tour. And, I booked a RIB or rigid inflatable boat tour (think rubber raft with a motor) to go out into the UNESCO World Heritage site Nœrøyfjord and it was a blast! I got off at Gudvangen and the tour had a van waiting to take us to Voss (something else I couldn't figure out from the States). However, some folks did go back to Flåm. This is the stave church in Voss.

As we had missed our scheduled train back to Bergen because of mechanical problems with the van, I had some time to photograph it while nervously waiting for the next one and trying to figure out just how much time I would have to get to the airport when we got back to Bergen. When I had tried to book a train ticket to Trondheim in Bergen, I was told there wasn't one. You get spoiled travelling in Europe. You just assume that there is a train going everywhere especially to the third largest city in a country. Wrong. (Actually, there is a train to Trondheim but I would have to go back to Oslo.) So I had my choice of getting to Trondheim by bus or plane. And, I had to get to Trondheim because I was flying out to Berlin from there and had already booked my ticket in Oslo. This is why I think the name "Norway in a Nutshell" is so appropriate for this part of Norway because a nutshell is hard to crack!

Saturday Still Life

2010-09-26T18:58:00.000-07:00

Lovely, lovely Bergen

2010-09-23T21:37:00.000-07:00

The view from the train.

So, I left on the early morning train for Bergen from Oslo. Just as a note for those who ever go to Norway. Norway is a land of rivers and fjords. What does this mean for a traveller? Lovely landscapes? Yes. Scenic vistas? Yes. Difficulty in getting from Point A to Point B? Yes. But, not quite yet. Here is old, downtown Bergen, a UNESCO world heritage site. At the top of the photo, you can just see where the scenic vista from Mount Fløyen is and the funicular.

Here is one of the quaint buildings.

Eventually, I rode up the funicular to look down on Bergen. They asked me when I purchased my ticket whether I wanted a round trip ticket or was I going to walk down? So, I asked how long it would take to walk down and they said about 45 minutes. Of course, if you ask a Norwegian, those are 45 Norwegian minutes. So, I figured, no problem, I would walk down even though it was about 7 ish pm in the evening.

Looking down at Bergen from one of the trails on Mount Fløyen.

It was quite a lovely walk down. Very wooded and peaceful, although I passed lots of people walking and running down, or rather, they passed me.

This pergola was quite lovely. This was taken about 10 pm in the evening. Due to the midnight sun, the days are long in the summer, and it doesn't really quite get dark at night. I could so live in Norway. In the summer.

Oslo - good stuff for science nerds, too!

2010-09-15T18:12:00.000-07:00

Argh!!! This sexy guy was at the University of Oslo Paleontological Museum.
He kind of has attitude, don't ya think?

I thought this guy was kinda cute with that smirky grin. He doesn't look nearly as frightening as the T-Rex above, but somehow I think that he had a pretty good bite, too, with his almost beak-like mouth and jaw...

And speaking of birds, here is a lovely fossil archaeopteryx, the evolutionary bridge between dinosaurs and birds, but I'm not sure if he isn't a cast of the original one in Berlin. But more so, I'm sure that birds definitely evolved from dinosaurs.

I love what this is called in Norwegian, glimmer!

Here is another mica called muscovite, in english.

It's good to be a science nerd in Norway! So, three days in Oslo (the first day was kind of a bust because that was the day I arrived and I didn't get much done). But, I made up for it on the second day and by the third I really came to love Oslo and hated to leave. But leave I did to head towards the beautiful town of Bergen and the fjords.

One last photo from the botanical garden near the Paleo Museum.

Oslo Grand Prix or even more fun in Oslo

2010-09-07T22:07:00.000-07:00

First of all, I don't relax on vacation. That doesn't happen when you're with me. I don't eat, I don't rest. I must see everything. I am obsessive. Obsessive compulsive. After spending all day walking, first to the Frogner Park, taking in the Historical Museum and Oslo Cathedral, then walking downtown to catch the ferry to the Viking Ship Museum, then going to the Akershus Festning (fortress and royal residence), walking around taking photos (i.e. being lost), I decided to see if I could squeeze in the National Gallery. They have lovely paintings of Norwegian landscapes and the Scream by Edvard Munch.

Yes, I have seen the Scream! I have felt the Scream deeply in my soul, particularly in the winter time here in the Central Valley when it is possible to not see the sun for weeks on end because it is foggy and you are forced to paint something in an extremely bright color or lose your mind, but, I digress. So, I came out of the National Gallery to find a bike race going on. At first, it was leetle kids, so cute. Then they seemed to grow a bit with each lap. I couldn't believe how seriously Norwegians take sport activities because there were camera crews and big screen TV's set up.

Then, I decided the races might be over and I should start walking to my hotel in time to get lost and eat dinner. Much to my surprise, I asked a Norwegian if the little kids bike races were over and he said yes but now it was the adults who would be racing. In fact, a professional bike race with no less than riders from the Tour de France was up next! So, I found myself a spot and I had a great time even though I didn't know a soul here. And, the crowd was fantastic! They clapped and sang to music, they did the wave (and everyone did it). They were having a blast, me included! And, that was before the race even started. Oh, and here they are,

Edvald Boasson Hagen, the Norwegian National Time Trial Champion, riding for Team Sky

Andy Schleck, the White Jersey winner and second place from the Tour de France riding for Saxo Bank but next year they will be riding for a team from Luxembourg and who was recently kicked out of the Tour of Spain for drinking, naughty boy.

Here are the main protagonists, front row from left to right, Thor (i.e., the God of Thunder) Hushovd (Cervelo Test Team and the Norwegian National Road Race Champion), Andy Schleck, Kurt Asle Arvesen (Team Sky) and Edvald Boasson Hagen (he has the yellow shoes). Okay 3 of the 4 guys are Norwegians so maybe it isn't a surprise that they are riding in the Oslo Grand Prix.

And then they were off!

They went round and round ...

My camera (or was it the photographer?) was having difficulty capturing the fast action. My new girlfriend (no, not that kind of girlfriend) standing next to me and I decided that we had somehow gotten the best spot in the whole race to take pictures of the riders. In fact, a very tall professional photographer (waaay bigger camera than my Nikon D70) was taking shots over my head of the action.

Somehow, near the end of the race, the main protagonist were back together. Who would win?

EBH won! I think that Andy was a little dizzy from doing all of those short laps and he was second. The God of Thunder was third. A fairy tale ending for cycling fans. (Post TDF races are kind of like this, the favs tend to win.)

They were all smiles and congratulations at the end! And me? I was blissfully happy in my own dreamy Norwegian landscape! End of day two of vacation.

Oslo, part two

2010-09-05T13:56:00.000-07:00

Here is another lovely island of landscaping in Oslo.

It is hard to believe that current day norwegians are descended from the guys who terrorized northern Europe in these.

You can see a bit of carving in the longboat as well as the doorway of this stave church.

A closer detail of the beautiful carving.

A beautiful concert poster. Hm, I may try to work this into a quilt design.

Vigeland Sculpture Park, Frogner Park Oslo, Norway

2010-09-04T17:59:00.000-07:00

So, I am back from my European sojourn. It was a bit more territory than I usually cover in a vacation, but since I hadn't been in a while, I think I just bit off as much as I could. I landed in Oslo,Norway, one of the 2 places I had been to before of all the places I went, if I don't count the airport in Amsterdam. I think that I could take up residence in Schipol Airport. They have a meditation area in the airport where I gravitated to as I had a bit of a layover before my connecting flight to Oslo. Some guy got the last comfortable seat before me but I found another chair near the massage station to listen to the young man playing the baby grand piano there. They also had a mini-museum of art from the Reichsmuseum that was the beginning of all the art was I going to soon be seeing...

So, to begin in the beginning, I got up in the morning early before anything was open to go for a walk, because I could. I knew I was near the Frogner Park so, I just took off down the street from my residence. Eventually, I had to ask someone waiting for a bus for directions. He pointed to a dirt path just a few hundred meters up the road and said to take that and I would get there. So, I followed this path up a trail along and over a stream through a canopy of forest tree cover till I came up into a flat area of rose gardens and eventually made my way here. I wished I had taken photos of the trail but it was probably too dark anyway.

The park was very peaceful and relaxing until a bus load of giggling, tourists showed up to the Vigeland Sculpture Park to take photos of the sculptures in various stages of life without clothes.

I think the Norwegians are among the top flower landscapers in all of the cities I visited (except with the possibility of Versailles).

A Change of Plans

2010-08-06T21:47:00.000-07:00

While I wrote the previous post with over a month to go on my vacation, two days ago, I changed my mind and decided not to spend my entire vacation in Norway. With all of the uber planning I did, it just didn't feel right and I didn't seem happy to go on vacation with the plans I made. Other than it seems almost impossible from here to figure out how to get around by bus without a previous knowledge of the schedule (which I worked around by emailing the local tourist information boards) or that the summer weather in Norway looks a lot like the winter weather here (and God knows that will be here soon enough), I had a vacation meltdown and cancelled the last two weeks of my trip and will head south to Berlin, Prague and Vienna before heading into Italy and flying home from Paris.

For having been to Italy twice, I have never been to Venice. I've never had an overwhelming desire to see Venice even after reading the book, A Thousand Days in Venice by Marlena de Blasi. However, the visual connection can be a powerful mover of mind and thought and I have been staring all year at the magnets I made of an old appointment calendar with photos of Venice...

I don't have a railpass (too late to get one by express) or any hotel reservations. Just my Rick Steves travel guide. I pulled the winter shirts, long underwear and food supplies from out of my suitcase. And, rather than stressing about all of this, the most important thing I seem to be worried about is getting all the right music on my ipod. (I love, love the soundtrack to the new Pride and Prejudice movie by Italian composer Dario Marianelli

So, as I step onto the plane on Sunday, I throw myself upon the mercy of the travel gods and hope that the winds of good fortune are with me.

The Countdown Begins

2010-07-04T12:06:00.000-07:00

Soon, I will be leaving on a jet plane. No, not to Italy. I'm taking a break from Italy. I've also taken a break from London, another one of the most wonderful place on the planet. It isn't for any protest or political reason. It is just that I really thought that with the recent spate of movies on Italy, a TV series and even TV commercials for tours of Italy, that 1) it was going to be even more crowded than it has been and 2) as I'm not eating bread and pasta (for the most part), I would have no resistance to homemade ravioli, cream-filled cornetti or a host of other Italian food. And, as I have now lost 36 pounds and still have a bit more to go, I don't want to get off track. So, I chose another country. A country not known for its cuisine nor food that I like. Norway. A beautiful country full of fjords. A country obsessed with outdoor sports. So, not only will I be not tempted by food, I will be out and about in the outdoors, hiking, kayaking and glacier walking. An exercise vacation! Oh, and in marked difference to other vacations I have planned, I also have checked out local gyms where I can work out!

I've got my reading material picked out, Kristin Lavransdatter by Nobel Prize winning Norwegian author Sigrid Undset (Tina Nunnally translation) and plan to read a few novels by Karin Fossum before I go. I checked out a couple of Norwegain quilting blogs and stores and have a list of quilt stores in Norway, in case of a rainy day. And, yesterday, I went out and scouted fabric stores in my area (I don't want to buy something there that I could have bought here, although, I'm sure a lot of fabrics there are made in China, with better quality fabrics from Korea and Japan, I'm hoping for a Norwegian design influence). I've always wanted to do a a quilt in browns and I'm thinking that I will do one with medieval influences. So, I can't wait to see the cultural and historical museums in Oslo and Trondheim will have.

Michelangelo's David Return to Italy

2010-06-21T16:46:00.000-07:00

I received this hilariously funny email today:

David Is To Being Returned To Italy.

A bit of cultural news for a welcome change.

After a two year loan to the United States, Michelangelo's David is being returned to Italy

His Proud Sponsors were:

Of course, we all know that the Florentines would never let David leave the country. But when we were through laughing, we all agreed that it is a truthful commentary on what is happening in this country due to high calorie, chemically enhanced, fast food and drink.

My Thirteen Weight Loss Tips

2010-03-20T13:58:00.000-07:00

How can this be? After years of trying and trying, I have finally lost 14 pounds! That is not all of the weight I am trying to lose but it has finally begun! It seems that every time that I have tried to lose weight in the past, I have gained weight. Just thinking about losing weight would make me gain weight. I walked 1/2 hour each day for years and years and slowly, inexorably, put on the pounds and I thought it didn't matter. But, I found out that all of the walking kept some of it at bay. This was borne out by the fact that when it rained for a couple of weeks one year, I didn't walk and gained 5 pounds!

I can recall many, many times making losing weight my number one priority, the one thing that would make me happiest in the world. I would sit down and make a detailed plan to lose weight. Eat healthier, eat vegetables, quit drinking sugared drinks, drink water, give up junk food, exercise (more). Then I would eat something to give me the strength to start, only, I wouldn't start.

This was so mystifying to me. Why would I eat (usually something I shouldn't) right after I had all this desire to lose weight? I read books and began to wonder what deeply psychological problem must be lurking about in my psyche to exhibit such contradictory behavior. Surely, someone could explain this to me so I could stop.

Truly, did I need psychoanalysis? Did I mention I even got hypnotised? (No help, either). I went to Weight Watchers and lost a few pounds but I don't do very well on diets and I refuse to count calories. I complained to my doctor and he referred me to a nutrition class where I learned that there is a real disconnect between what the US of A calls a portion size and what everyone else does. We had all of this lovely plastic food in class and I distinctly remember the nutritionist pointing to a plastic orange and saying, "have a baseball-sized portion of fruit". Maybe she didn't play sports because it looked more like a tennis ball to me than a baseball. I wasn't sure you could buy oranges that small. I didn't lose any weight.

Then I went to a different doctor, the Ob/Gyn and complained about not being able to lose weight and she said, "when you get to be a certain age, weight loss is almost impossible". Wonderful. I was finding that to be so true. So, we (I have an exercise partner)refused to accept that and upped our walking time to about 100 miles a month. I lost 6 pounds from May to November. Six months, 600 miles and 6 pounds. That would work out to be weight loss of one pound a month. Then no more even though, I was diligently working out at the gym.

We contented ourselves with the realization that we knew we would eventually lose weight but in the meantime, we had all sorts of other benefits. Increased strength, stability, lowered blood pressures, a feeling of accomplishment that we walked whether it was 100 degrees in the summer or raining on us in winter. The trainers were working with me on my "diet" but I was not making much headway even though they all told me that diet is 80% of weight loss with all sorts of helpful tips.

Then recently, I received an e-mail from one of the commercial blogs I subscribe to, to take a test to determine why I am overweight. Eureka! Free analysis. I was sure that my disorder could be pinpointed. So, I took the test. My results? I am overweight because, get this, I am an over eater! SERIOUSLY!!!

So, I was complaining to the trainers that I hadn't lost any weight since coming to gym even though I had really been eating less and better food (and I hadn't been to Jack in the Box for awhile and had given up root beer floats as well as thrown all the ice cream and chips into the trash). But I had been working out pretty diligently in the gym and still walking about 18 miles a week. So, the trainer really put me through a good workout and told me to not rest between sets to keep the intensity. I work out pretty hard but not as hard as when the trainer puts me through a workout. So right after all of my whining about not having lost any weight, I weighted myself at the gym and I lost 4 pounds but, I didn't believe it. I figured someone had monkeyed with the scale balance. So the next week I told this to the trainer and he told me that I could check out the scale by zeroing it out and to see if the balance arm was in the middle. And, it was. So that meant really I lost that 4 pounds. Only now, I had lost another 4 pounds.

So now I am on the Paleo or caveman diet which isn't really a diet but more of a lifestyle. I don't eat wheat, grains, potatoes, corn or legumes. For the most part. Mostly, I eat protein of fish, lean red meat, turkey and boneless, skinless chicken breast. For carbs I eat fruits and vegetables. I still have raw sugar with my tea. And, no, no high fructose corn syrup which is like the crack cocaine of food! For fats, I have lowfat cheese, 2% milk, nuts and oil for salad dressing and my consumption of butter is way down. I don't really restrict or measure what I eat except, I try to keep to this one cardinal rule which is, I STOP EATING WHEN I AM FULL.

Yes, I confess. I am not perfect and I fall off the food wagon, on occasion, and sometimes I know I am going to eat stuff not eaten by a caveman but it is a conscious decision and see Tip #10 & #11 below.

So, these are my weight loss tips:

1. Keep food preparation simple during weight loss.

2. Don't go on a "diet". Make healthier eating a lifestyle.

3. If you fall "off the wagon", it's okay. Just get back on. Accept that we are not perfect. We are human. Only our Heavenly Father is perfect. (I only wish Heidi Montag knew this.)

4. Make a grocery list and don't spend too much time in there. I find that after a certain amount of time, my willpower weakens and DORITOS! COOKIES! ICE CREAM! scream out at me as I pass their aisles on the way to the checkout stand.

5. Don't have conversations about food that you want to avoid eating. I was in Zumba class the other day and these 2 gals WOULD NOT SHUT UP! They were going on and on about all this decadent food as we were waiting to sweat our butts off for an hour to attempt to lose weight. The class probably wouldn't have burned off the calories in the dessert they were describing. I finally left the room to go stretch in the hallway after even putting my hands over my ears could not block out their conversation. (They were loud, too!)

6. Talk up good foods like just how yummy steamed broccoli is! Or, ooh, raw carrots! Or, how delicious salad made with arugula fresh from the garden is! Or, what a fabulous meatloaf you can make with lean ground turkey!

7. Don't watch TV cooking shows! Especially Paula Deen!!! Seriously. Unless you want to look like her. In fact, quit watching TV entirely or mute the commercials as 9 out of ten commercials seem to be about eating fast food. Watch TV shows like the one about Ruby Gettinger, whom I adore. At one time, she weighed 716 pounds and now is under 350 lbs. Go Ruby! She inspired us to get personal trainers (even though we are much smaller than she is) and listening to someone elses issues helps you with your own, it's just on a different scale, in our case.

8. Read, learn, try different stuff. Use what works for you.

9. Find a way to deal with stress. (I walk and talk to my workout partner but I think kickboxing would be fun, too!)

10. Eat only good quality food. Savor each bite as you chew it slowly and thoroughly. On a scale of 1 to 10, rate each forkfull. The first bite should be a 10. When it gets to a point that it is not as good because you are getting full, stop eating and save the rest for another meal.

11. STOP EATING WHEN YOU ARE FULL!

12. Listen to your body. It is the best gauge of what is and isn't working for you.

13. Be in it for the long haul.

Here is a link to 52 Ways to Lose a Pound a Week

They are good, but, I have already done most of them.

Ow, I feel good!

2010-03-07T14:34:00.000-08:00

This morning I reached over to scratch my left shoulder and it was hard. My muscles were hard. And, it was hard to reach over there because I can barely move my right arm. I think I worked my trapezious muscles. Now, please excuse me I have to go and clean the bathrooms. If I can.

Reflections on Resolutions

2010-01-05T21:38:00.000-08:00

Almost every year since becoming an adult (I wrote it this way instead of saying, err, for the last few decades) I have written down goals and resolutions for the coming year even though I often despaired that they would happen. One year, in particular (I can always tell when I have been watching Jane Austen movies because the word particular becomes more present in my communication). Anyway, one year, I became despondent about my goals/resolutions because they just weren't happening! Here they were, year after year, down on paper but nothing had moved me towards them. So, that year, I refused to make them. But, the next year, none of them happened either, so being a persistent creature, I wrote them down again. Yes, most of them were the same. Boy, am I a sucker. But ever optimistic and without any clue as to how I was going to do it, I wrote down what I wanted on a 3 by 5 index card and stuck the card under my mattress cover.

One of the things that I wrote down on that card was the salary that I wanted to be making. It only happened to be more than twice what I was currently making. Seriously, I sat on the bed staring at this number WITHOUT A CLUE as to how it was going to happen. No breakdown of the mini steps I needed to do to get me to the magical number, where it would be, etc. None of the typical uber-goal setting techniques I had learned and used from the myriad of books and seminars I had read and attended. Nada. Blankness. Empty brain. Just a 3 by 5 index card. I had a nice job and I loved the folks I was working with and the salary I was making was better than a lot of other people's (and did I mention that we were in another one of those recession things?). Oh, I had gone on a few job interviews before my current job but they hadn't panned out.

But within a few months, I received a phone call, out of the blue, from a man who had been on one of the interviews panels. He invited me to apply for a job opening at his company. And, so I did. And guess what? I got the job. And guess again? It paid what I had written down on that card. (In fact my then boss remarked somewhat sheepishly when he saw the salary I was going to make, "Uh, that's more than what I make.")

So this year, feeling once again that my resolutions just weren't happening, I looked at some of my old years resolutions to see what I wanted to write down. Surprisingly, I was, well, surprised at the number of things that had happened. Oh, maybe they had taken more than one year and some had taken hard work but I was amazed at what had gotten done over time. Bought a house, remodelled a house, painted living room, got a new roof, moved woodpile, installed sprinklers, new flooring (okay, I think I lived on plywood sub-flooring for a couple of years before it got done) as well as equally taxing projects like, get organized. I can't think of all of the things that happened because now that I am organized, I'm not quite sure where those lists are. Hmm, maybe in the current projects box in the closet?

Yes, sadly, not all of the things I wrote down on that card have happened. My thoughts on some of those? Some things don't happen because we move on from who we were when we wrote them. Maybe they don't happen because I really don't want them to happen. Shockingly, could this be true? Let's take this small test. Stop now and write down the first 10 things that you want to happen as they come to your mind. If you don't have 10, that's okay. Just write down what you do have. If you have more than 10 just keep writing. A word on this test later.

Some things I have not given up on even though I write them down year after year. I still want to weigh 130 lbs and wear a size 7. I have quite the detailed plan on this with charts (!) and even though I have exercised regularly for a couple of years, I haven't made much progress. I attended nutrition classes for awhile. I upped my walking time. Then I joined a gym and I actually workout 3 times a week. Then, I decided to get help and have a personal trainer. BTW, getting help is not cheating. Sometimes we need a little help. Or a lot help.

Some of my resolutions are less specific like, live more simply, be more gracious (this includes the writing of letters sent by the U.S. postal service on pretty stationery), stop rushing, meet more interesting and genuine people. Some goals are slightly onerous. Sometimes I have to rewrite these goals and give them a more enticing spin. Example? Change "clean out the garage" to "park car in garage" (only possible, if I clean it out) or "convert garage into work studio" so I can take up rug hooking. I got a little more enthusiastic about this before the holidays took over my weekends and spare time, so it's still not done.

Oh, and I still have a few resolutions/goals which are for the future and which I wrote down because even though I don't know how on God's green earth it's going to happen, I still want them to happen. And now for your own list. Look at the order at which you wrote them down. Unconsiously, you wrote the most important first. Sometimes we're smart that way. If what you think is the most important got written down, third or fourth, maybe it's not happening because it really isn't that important to you. Think on that.

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-24T11:17:00.000-08:00

This year, the urge to decorate for Christmas returned to me. Er, I can't believe that I have all of this stuff, but evidently, I do. I decided not to buy a big tree because there really isn't room for one as you can see from the photo of my, very small living room.

But, I have a few, little trees like this mini one. It has the red, painted bowtie pasta ornaments that my niece and nephew made in pre-school. My niece painted hers very meticulously covering the entire pasta. My newphew's was painted with a few broad strokes. I'm sure he tolerated the pasta painting for just a few moments before running off to play with all the other little boys. That's him in the photo probably about the age he painted the pasta.

Here is a trio of trees with some of my favorite ornaments.

The round pottery ornaments were too precious to hang on the tree.

I seem to have a lot of santas.

A lot.

I wanted to have the ornaments out that would have hung on the tree. So I placed them here and there on platters or baskets. It made me feel very festive!

Here is another little western table with barbed wire trees and an overdresed coyote.

And, of course, the Holy Family with a few Magi. I enjoyed Christmas so far this year, so much so that I am really looking forward to next year. And, in between, I wish everyone a very, Merry Christmas and a hopeful next year.

Finished magnets

2009-12-16T21:39:00.000-08:00

These are the finished magnets. I think they turned out quite nice considering they are photos from a date book glued onto magnets that came with the phone book.

This is a magnet that I made from a panforte wrapper. Panforte is the Italian version of fruitcake. The wrapper was so pretty but I didn't really have any purpose for it before it got a second life as a frig magnet.

Recycled goods

2009-12-14T20:35:00.000-08:00

Last year, I received a beautiful, spiral bound datebook about my favorite love, Italy. The datebook was made of a wonderfully thick cardstock and although, it was lovely, I had my regular, monthly datebook in which I scribble all of the things I am supposed to do and things I have done. Still, I kept the Italy calendar on my desk, opened to the nearest photo page, so when I glanced over, I would see the photo and smile. So, as the year comes to a close, I hated the thought of throwing the datebook away but didn't really want to store last year's calendar for an indefinite amount of time. (Yes, I am one of the millions of viewers who have made A&E's TV show, Hoarders, a hit.) After all, I have my own photos of Italy neatly stored on digital media or in albums. So, I leafed through the calendar, tearing out my favorite photographs thinking that I would make a collage or maybe just put them up on my bulletin board with a stickpin holding them in place.

But then, I found these gentlmen stuck on the refrigerator. They were lovely 4 inch by 4 inch advertising refrigerator magnets that came with last year's phone book.

Last year, I made a bunch of these smaller refrigerator magnets from scrapbooking materials. But the photos from the calendar were much larger and I didn't think that the scale would work for the size of the magnet.

So, I took a piece of scrap paper, put the magnet on the paper and used a exacto blade to cut the area of the magnet from the paper. I could then move this template around the photo to choose what portion of the photo to use for the refrigerator magnet. I guess the size works.

Unfortunately, I have to choose between these two possibilities for this photo of St. Peter's Basilica.

As much as I love the dome, the one below is the one I decided on.

So, carefully mark the limits of the photo from the template and cut it down to size ( I prefer to use a large paper cutter rather than scissors or, ack!, my rotary cutter). You may want to leave the photo just a bit bigger than the magnet and trim off any excess photo after gluing. If you cut your photo short, no problem! Just trim the magnet down. Lay down some newspaper to protect your work surface and spray adhesive on the non-magnetized side of the magnet and press the cut out photo on it. If you get any air between the photo and magnet, try to smoothe them out. Trim any excess photo and voila! Beautiful refrigerator magnets from Italy! (Photos tomorrow!)

Baby Quilt in progress

2009-10-25T21:47:00.000-07:00

My sister asked me to make a baby quilt for a friend. In a moment of weakness, I said, uh, sure. How much fabric do I need, she asked me. Considering the small size, I said about 2 yards plus fabric for the back. She showed up a couple of days later with about 12 yards, none of which more than 2 or 3 fabrics worked together. We looked through my considerable quilting stash but didn't find much more to add to the mix (I don't do baby quilts that often and have avoided adding any flannels to my stash). What is her theme, I asked? She didn't know but was going to go home and look online. When she called me back, she said the colors for the baby were pink and brown. Pink and brown? So, I laid out about 4 possible color combinations to think about of which only one was pink and brown when she showed up the next day with even more fabric! At least this time they had pink and brown colors. However, almost all of the fabric she had bought had a one way direction or lines! (Over all patterns are the best, without linear features and real quilters don't like printed, fake quilt patterns on fabric.) Cutting and sewing are not my strong suits. In fact, I can pretty much say, I don't particularly care for sewing at all. But I like having my own creations.

So after considerable consideration, I came up with this. I first cut the 5 inch blocks and the fabric was cutesy and babyish enough but kind of blah without any pop. So, I decided to fussy cut the rick-rack fabric, with long vertical lines to sew in between the blocks. I fussed alright, because, I am not the best at sewing straight lines and the quilt was going to look bad if the long vertical lines weren't straight. And, lucky for me, I only had to redo one vertical line. I was tormented by how to cut the shorter, rick rack fabric pieces in between the longer vertical pieces because the fabric repeat was close to the width of the block. I decided to hedge my bets by centering the cut on a yellow line since I was pretty sure it would be impossible/I would go insane trying to match the pattern. But, I did cut them all lined up colorwise the same. I'm quite pleased with the baby quilt. If I have enough fabric left over, I want to make a matching bag to go with it.

P.S. The light doesn't do the colors justice but I haven't gotten around to working on a better lighting situation yet.

Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day

2009-09-01T21:32:00.001-07:00

I've been wanting to make bread all summer long, except that it has been too hot to even think of heating the oven long enough to bake bread. I have managed to go the entire summer without turning on the air conditioning (yay, utility bill) by opening up the windows after the temperature has cooled off. So last night, all the stars came together, (weather cool, boule made, sufficient time) and I baked my first loaf. Ta da! Here it is. I made it with an all purpose, unbleached whole grain flour courtesy of my sister and Costco. It was chewy and flavorful and crusty after baking on a pizza stone. I also got the pizza peel this weekend in San Francisco at Sur La Table and seasoned it up with mineral oil so it slid right off the peel (use the edible mineral oil for constipation found in the pharmacy section of the grocery store, don't use a cooking oil).

I suppose that if I lived in Europe, I would not be compelled to bake my own bread but I don't think that the Europeans would tolerate the current list of ingredients now in bread. The last couple of times that I opened a package of bread, it didn't smell like bread but slightly like the chemical aisle in the hardware store where all the pesticides are sold. Particularly repulsive are the hot dog and hamburger buns. When we looked up the ingredients on Wikipedia, I was taken aback by the fact that one of the preservatives is used as a foaming agent in plastic. Of course, the article goes on to say that all of the gas is burned off in the baking process. Is that why it smells so bad? Even the artisan bread at the local grocery store has a list of ingredients longer than I want. Here is what I want my ingredient list for bread to say: flour, salt, yeast and water. Okay maybe some flavorings but certainly not any combination of this list of additives. I am willing to live with the fact that bread made without additives will not last 2 weeks in a plastic bag but I'm thinking that the stores need the longer shelf life since customers are buying/wasting as much food in the past.

So, while my sister has been making bread with an Italian sourdough starter from Ishcia which I plan to bake with next time, I opted for the basic recipe in Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. I've ordered the book from Amazon but in the meantime, the basic recipe was in an article in Mother Earth News. Can't wait to make focaccia, pizza and hamburger buns!

Oh, the zinnia of it all!

2009-07-13T18:13:00.000-07:00

I just adore zinnias. I have been too busy lately to make regular bouquets of flowers but I finally cut as many of the zinnias as I could from the garden and was pretty pleased with the large bouquet and the rich colors. When I finally get my backyard in shape, I plan on having lots more space dedicated to the planting of zinnias!

Saturday Still Life

2009-06-14T18:33:00.000-07:00

Bouquets of flowers from the garden.

A mixed bouquet of hydrangeas, calla lillies and aglaia daisies.

These are cone flowers otherwise known as echinaceas from my garden.

I couldn't decide which photo I liked better. Plus, I just love these flowers.

Some more flowers and greenery from my garden as well as the first squash minus what has been already eaten (I did try some batter fried zucchini blossoms stuffed with mozzarella cheese with little zucchinis attached this afternoon-delicious!) . We also made some frutti di bosco jam as well as some pickled beets. I was lucky enough to find golden and chioggia beets at the farmers market on Saturday.

Viola

2009-06-07T12:00:00.001-07:00

No, this isn't Provence but the Lavender Hollow Farms near Escalon, California. Some gardeners I know won't plant anything that isn't edible. However, I don't subscribe to that philosophy. The soul needs to see beauty.If the gardening muse in you needs order, straight rows of lavender will soothe the mind. In the early morning, the fragrance is also a sensory delight. I couldn't resist walking down the rows of lavender and trying not to disturb the bees hard at work.

Wouldn't you like a spot like this in your garden?

Ummm... Purple. I also bought some lovely lavender and grapefruit lotion, lavender butter cookies and a couple of plants. The cookies were delicious.

I love the color purple (viola in Italian and also the name of the soccer team in Florence, I like them, too.) I wish I had more space to grow lavender in my backyard but at least I won't have to go far for a fix.

Wild Horses

2009-05-11T23:22:00.000-07:00

This is the third quilt I have in progress. It is almost ready to go to be finished on the long-arm quilting machine. I've been waiting to finish this quilt for about 5 years. I say waiting and not working on as all I needed was just a bit of off-white bandanna fabric seen under the backing on the pieced front. I still have to sew on a strip to the backing as it has to be 6 inches longer than the front and it is a tad short. I'll get it back in about 4-6 weeks after I take it in then just have to hand finish the trim. Someday, I suppose I will hand-quilt my pieces but not until I have a lot more time! (Although, I am debating about hand tying yellow thread here and there on the front to look like grass.)

Dov'è dov'è Marco Materazzi?

2009-05-10T17:36:00.000-07:00

Alla spiaggia con la sua piccolina figlia?

(Photo di BlackBlue_Blood@photobucket)

Sognando di Parigi?
(Photo di Dejan Dex)Perchè, non era alla partita contro Chievo oggi. Perchè no, perchè no, chiedo? Mi manchi. Senza te, le partite sono noiose e qualcosa è persa. Sei un protagonista molto divertente a guardare. Se giocherai forsè Inter vincerà? Chissà!

(Photo di Sports Illustrated)
Ha dimenticato Mou?

Saturday Still Life

2009-05-09T16:58:00.000-07:00

Homemade soap

2009-05-03T13:20:00.000-07:00

This is the second batch of homemade soap. The first batch turned out wonderfully but I gave most of it away in my excitement. I have the kind of skin that suffers from dermatitis if I buy the wrong kind of soap. I even buy baby soap and baby laundry soap to avoid it. No whiteners, brighteners, fabric softeners or spring time freshness for me. Right now my skin is wonderfully soft and supple and doesn't seem to require lotion to stay that way except for my hands because I am using up the last of the store-bought, liquid hand soap. I cannot believe what a difference there is even between the homemade soap and the Johnson's Baby Wash. We are still in the experimental stage of trying different recipes although, I definitely have at least one keeper, a complexion bar. The soaps are made with with a variety of oils including olive, palm, shea, macadamia and coconut oil.

This is the natural state of soap without colorants. I do put fragrance and essential oil in the soap because I think it is part of the soap experience and it hasn't bothered my skin.

I also love the different soap molds but they are a lot more work than a simple bar.

The only downside is that there is no instant gratification to soap making! After it's made, you have to wait for all the lye and oils to saponify and that can take at least 3 weeks. Hence, the soap supply. I don't want to run out because I can't go back.

The New Mama

2009-04-13T23:11:00.000-07:00

(click on the photo to get a better look at her)

I walked by this mourning dove nesting on a stack of earth boxes under a shovel in my sister's side walkway. I couldn't believe she had made her nest under a shovel. I hope she and her babies don't get eaten by a cat or attacked by the very territorial blue jay that inhabits the the backyard. I didn't want to get too close to take the photo and disturb her from her nest. When my sister has to walk by her she just doesn't look at her and pretends she doesn't notice her. She didn't budge from her nest and we all figured she must be a first time mama. We are keeping our fingers crossed!

Saturday Still Life

2009-04-04T08:41:00.000-07:00

Garden in Waiting

2009-04-03T17:37:00.000-07:00

This year, I kind of went crazy on what I'm planting in the garden. My sister has been expounding on why I should be planting heritage plants and avoiding "franken" foods so this year, I got a Baker Creek Heirloom Seed catalog and went a bit overboard. Of course, I had to have Crostata Romanesco, the zucchini fried with the squash blossom, Delicata, a winter squash, Marina di Chioggia, another wonderfully knobby, winter squash from Italy, a beautiful, brown french pumpkin, Musquee de Provence and a small french melon, Petit Gris de Rennes. I had some San Marzano tomato seeds from last year that I bought at Home Depot. I am keeping my fingers crossed that I have a bountiful and un-cross pollinated crop this year as I have way too many squashes for my yard.

Ce n'è piú tulipani

2009-04-02T16:48:00.000-07:00

Tulipani

2009-04-01T19:57:00.000-07:00

Even More Stuff

2009-02-05T22:34:00.000-08:00

I have quite a collection of bags bought over the years at museum shops, vacation spots and even the grocery store. Last year, I started making them. I bought this fabulous zinnia print cotton fabric from Walmart, no less, made in the United States of America. If you don't sew, you may not realize how rare this has become. The holstein heifer fabric in photo below is from Korea. Sometimes western fabric from countries other than the U.S. are a bit strange looking. The animals don't quite look right or they have a different "look" that is definitely not western.

Then, I made bags with watermelons, strawberries, pears, cowgirls and more. I loved the way the watermelon bag lined with strawberries turned out. My original motive for making the bags was that I was always forgetting my cloth bags for groceries in the car. About the checkout stand, I would remember them. They were a motley assortment of freebie bags that were, well, just plain ugly. I thought, if the bags were cute, I wouldn't forget them in the the car. You know, I usually don't forget them now! The bags turned out so cute, that I made some for Christmas gifts. My sister says hers are too nice to use!

I just love them and now when the checker at the grocery store asks me, "Paper or plastic?", I reply, I have my own bags, thank you!

Probably not the last pillow post

2009-01-18T10:35:00.000-08:00

This is a photo of an Etruscan youth's sarcophagus at the Vatican Museum. It doesn't look like he died peacefully. In fact, he looks to be in the throes of a painful death. My intuition tells me that he died as a result of a hunting accident. Maybe he was gored by a boar or a stag? His favorite (hunting) dog lies next to the bed while his head rests on, yes, a fringed pillow. This type of fringe is called bullion fringe. I used what is called brush fringe on the pillows I made. But, I am fascinated with who made this fringe in ancient Rome? Unfortunately, textiles rarely survive antiquity and we have to look elsewhere to see what they were like. Like on frescoes, tombs, sarcophaguses (sarcophagi?) and vases.

This probably isn't the last pillow post but I had to include it with the last two posts. As I have yet many pillows awaiting construction as soon as I find (enough of) the right fringe...

Fringed pillow finale

2009-01-18T10:21:00.000-08:00

These are the pillow that I made for my sister. The fabric had a dominant symbol so I fussy cut it out to be centered in the front of the pillow.

After I had decided on the fabric dimensions, I had to sleep on how to cut the back of the pillow pieces. I didn't have enough fabric to match the pattern on the two cut pieces so I decided to reverse the pattern so that the two symbols "met".

This is how the back turned out. Not too bad.

The Pillow Project Trial Run

2009-01-18T09:20:00.000-08:00

Several years ago (I say 2, my sister says it's more closer to 4 years), my sister wanted to have some custom made pillows from Calico Corners. They are a lovely, designer/decorator chain with fabulous upholstery fabrics and trims. They also do windows. However, as I am, I felt the price they wanted to make the pillows was excessive. So, I told my sister I would make them for her. I made the euro shams seen on the daybed in my many photos from sheets and piping and figured fringe wouldn't be too hard. (In a moment of madness, I had also decided to make two bridesmaids dresses for my sister's wedding when we could find nothing to satisfy ourselves. That is just the way we are.)

But, time went by, and I thought too excessively about making these particular pillows too perfect and they didn't get done. Until now. In order to get over the worry of having her pillows not turn out, I decided to make a trial run. So I had this western, tooled, leather-look fabric in my stash. Of course, I did a bit of Internet research and turned up a lovely rug-hooking blog that had posted about making fringed pillows.

So, here is my post about making fringed pillows. I make my pillows sort of like an envelope, so the pillow can be removed and the cover cleaned, if necessary. (Gene, of the rug hooking blog, sewed his pillow into the cover.) So then I had to think about what size to cut the fabric. My sister had bought 18" pillows that were pretty stuffed. I had to think about the size of the overlap on the back of the pillow and how many layers of fabric I would be sewing through and if my sewing machine was going to be able to do it. I decided on allowing 1-inch for the seem, but because the pillows were so stuffed, to allow 2 inches more for that. So, I cut out a 21-inch square.

I knew that I wanted the two pieces of the back to overlap by 4 inches plus 1 inch for turning over the edge so I cut a piece of fabric 26" (21 + 5) by 21". Then I cut it in half so I had two pieces 13" by 21".

Next, attach fringe. I bought the kind that is meant to be sewn between the layers. The white string holds the fringe together until you pull it off. Don't do this until you are completely finished with the pillow.

Start the fringe on the bottom of the right side of the fabric. Usually, the fabric store will put a piece of tape of the fringe to keep it from fraying. See the paired loop in the photo below? I sew through it then carefully separating the fringed "pairs", I cut through it and the string on the bottom holding the fringe together (Then cut off the taped fringe. I don't want sticky stuff gumming anything up). Then, I zig-zag the loops at the top, to make sure it is held together. Pin the fringe to the right side of the fabric then overlap the fringe a couple of inches. Repeat the steps above before you cut off any excess fringe. If you want the pillows extra fringy, you can double the fringe all the way around the pillow but it gets pretty spendy. Try to sew the fringe to the fabric at the end of the looped ends as close to the loosened threads as possible. (If any fringe threads are loose, smooth them out flat so you don't sew them into the seam.) You don't want to see the bound threads when you turn the pillows inside out. But if you do, it is easy to fix. Just turn the pillows back inside and re-sew a little closer to the edge. That is why you want to wait until you are satisfied with the pillows before pulling the thread holding the fringe together.
Then, sew on the back pieces, right sides together one at a time with the folded over edge in the middle of the pillow. I usually reinforce the openings by sewing over a couple of times. Trim the excess fabric at the corners ( I didn't do this on my sister's pillows fabric because it was a loose weave and I had zig-zagged the edges). Turn the pillows inside out especially at the corners to make sure the bound fringe is not showing.
And there you go, easy, peasy pillows!

More Fleece Madness

2009-01-04T13:47:00.000-08:00

I got a bit caught up in the no sew, fleece quilt mania. I had lots of fun making the "quilts" and even got my sister caught up in the madness. Here is a another, cute flower print.

I made this no sew 49'er football quilt for my dad. He also got a nice neck scarf. I actually sewed the fabric into a tube then fringed and tied the ends so his could be a double thickness. Since his bypass heart surgery, he has had trouble staying warm and always wants to have his shoulders covered with a blanket. The back of his quilt is a cute generic football print.

Here is a single thickness, camoflauge scarf I made for my nephew. I didn't think he would wear a neck scarf, but since it is camo....

Then, after Christmas, I found this adorable western print. I have made two quilts with this fabric, one with a dark brown backing and one with a green (like grass) backing in between Christmas, New Years and going to work. (Unfortunately and quite irritatingly, my camera has been pretty temperamental lately, so, I can't seem to take a photo of the finished quilts. I made my sister a pretty, Hawaiin tropical print quilt, but I just can't get a photo of it that isn't completely dark.) I was thinking of making some pillows with the western print but I got a whole 'nother pillow thing going on right now as well as a couple of other projects I will post on later.

No Sew Quilts

2008-12-20T20:41:00.000-08:00

This is one of those, no-sew fleece quilts that I made in about an 1 1/2 hours. It wasn't that hard to make. While I was waiting to have some webbing measured out at the cutting table in Joann's Fabric's, a couple of ladies who were buying boatloads of fleece explained how to make them (The fleece was $2.99/yard and took 4 yards of fabric which made the quilt cost about $12.00). It was fun to make and I can't wait to make a few more as soon as Joann's restocks their fleece supply. I gather that this is the new craft rage from the number of ladies who were buying fleece.

Basically, the instructions are:

1.) Buy 2 different fleece fabrics, one for the front and one for the back. Typically, a pattern for the top and a solid for the back.

2.) Lay out both pieces of fabric with wrong sides together and trim the selvage off and the cut ends so that the fabric is squared up.

3.) Cut out the corners. The corner cuts control how long the fringe around the blanket will be. 4" seems to be typical for baby blankets that are 1-1 1/2 yards long. I used 7" corners on my quilt because that's what the lady in the fabric store told me. Adult quilts are usually 2 yards long but can be longer if the person you are making the quilt for is tall. I cut out a piece of cardboard to use as a template.

4.) Cut strips 1-inch wide by the corner cut (whatever length used 4", 5" or 7") all away around the quilt. Cut through both the top and bottom fleece together. It helps to put something out under the fabric. I used my plastic rotary cutting mat and a folding cardboard pattern cutting under the fleece to help guide me in cutting 1-inch widths. I laid my fleece out in my exercise room where I had room to work and I didn't want the scissors to get caught up in the carpet. To make the fringe cutting go faster the next time, I think I will lay a piece of string from corner to corner, so I can make my fringe cuts. They tended to get shorter and shorter and I had to go back and cut a little more to make them 7 inches long. Some use tape but I didn't want to deal with sticky tape backing on the fleece.

5.) Tie the knots (but not too tightly). I used a double granny knot. The instructions below use a different knot. I knotted one side at a time when I was done cutting that side because I am an impatient person. I also knotted every other knot because when I was done with all 4 sides I was going to flip the quilt over and then do the other ones. I ended up liking the quilt without each fringe set being knotted as it made the fringe longer. Doing one side at a time also keeps the top and bottom fringe together so you will not get off and end up with an extra piece of fringe when you get to the end. It you do end up with 3 pieces of fringe at the end of a side, just tie them together. This is a very forgiving quilt to make. You are just limited to your immagination and the fleece in stock!

Lots of ladies were buying fleece to make blankets with sports teams logos on them. There are pet prints, camoflage prints and lots of solids. I loved this retro flower print. Although it is hard to see, the backside fleece was a tie-died purple print. I save my trim scraps and am thinking of some projects to do with them. Plus it would be fun to make hats and scarves, too.

Below are a couple of instructional sites, if you want to join the fun. We're thinking about having a tying bee (like a quilting-bee - where a bunch of ladies get together to make a quilt). Since we're headed back the Depression, we thought we'd revive some old-time customs!)

No Sew Fleece Blanket instructions

No Sew Fleece Blanket video

TARP = Corporate Welfare

2008-12-14T20:15:00.000-08:00

Notice I didn't say socialism. It is far from socialism. Let me tell you a story. Someone I know recently lost his job in retail management. He found a new job in customer service with a large national company at 1/2 the salary. He was happy to have the job at 1/2 the pay because he had health benefits for his entire family at a very reasonable rate. And, he will have a pension. His rate of pay? $9 per hour. That would make his total annual salary $18,720 per year. He has a wife (works part-time), 2 babies and a house payment. Since he was out of work for a bit, he fell behind on his house payments and has had to economize. His sister, who is on public assistance noticed that they didn't have any meat at their meals so she was going to take food over to help them. His sister is on welfare and, of course, who has public health care. Don't get me wrong. I like his sister, she is obviously a very nice and caring person.

But, she has more available to her, than her brother who is working at $9/hour. So, how does that equate TARP (a.k.a. the Wall Street/banking bailout) with corporate welfare? How else could Goldman Sachs ($13 billion) and Merrill Lynch's John Thain ($10 million) even think about performance bonuses! Oh, and I forgot the AIG people who were paid "retention" bonuses for not going to work somewhere else. Who's going to pay for all these bonuses? A lot of people making less than those hot shots on Wall Street. People making $9/hr. So, we can pay not only the salaries of those $#@! but also for their bonuses through that colossal fraud of TARP.

So, I decided to do a bit of math. Let's assume that in addition to the salary of $9 per hour there is also a 60% overhead for benefits. That would make an annual salary around $29,852 per year. If I divide that amount into $13 billion that Goldman Sachs wants to distribute to their management personnel for bonuses in addition to the salaries they already receive, that amount would provide 435,481,710 people with jobs. Let me rephrase that number, 435.5 million jobs with health benefits. Let's just add in John Thain's hypothetical bonus (because he didn't get it but don't believe he won't get it some other way.) $10 million divided by $29,852 per year is another 335 jobs. From 2 corporations alone, we could create 435,482,045 jobs. What the heck! Who could live on $9/hr, let's double their salary to $18/hr, that is still 217,741,023 jobs. I can't calculate how many jobs could be created from AIG's "retention" bonuses because there is no amount published. But, I say, if they can be hired away by another firm like Lehman Brothers or Washington Mutual, they shouldn't be discouraged from taking those job opportunities. Or maybe they can apply for one of the 30,000 to 35,000 jobs that Bank of America is cutting over the next 3 years.

The point is, if TARP weren't saving their sorry behinds, there wouldn't not only be no bonus but also no job. Then they could go to work for $9/hour. It would be a lot less money, but at least, it would be honest work for them.

Oi, the economy!

2008-12-13T04:00:00.001-08:00

Last fall, the news at CNBC was all about how retail sales were down and how they thought it was because it was such a warm fall that no one had gone out to buy a new winter coat. One year later, the experts have declared that we entered a recession then. My only thought at the time was that they were wrong. And I was thankful that it was so warm that I didn't have to run the heater and run up my house utility bill.

So, it is with interest to read the prognostications of the experts and see how that coincides or doesn't with what I and the people I know are doing. Or not. Now I say, I read. Notice that I don't say that I watch TV? Thursday was my one month anniversary for going without the satellite TV. At first, I didn't know what to do with myself without TV. The house seemed empty even though I played my music CD's. I called more family and friends on the cell phone with my carryover minutes. I got in the truck to go visit more people, now more affordable with the drop in gas prices (I also cleaned my house more and vacuumed!). Finally, I just stuck a DVD in the computer or DVD player to have the same background noise going on as before with the TV. I have to say that the first few days were tough. The first week a miracle. I thought I might have to go down to Alcoholics Anonymous for the 10-step addiction program. But, I made it one month. I can't say I miss the TV that much. There really wasn't anything on worth watching (except for the Naked Archaeologist and Stargate Atlantis). I think that the networks screwed themselves when they let the writer's strike go on for so long. I'd rather have a combination mammogram/pelvic exam/root canal than be forced to watch reality/redneck/tattoo/motorcycle/America's next top model/Survivor shows e.g. shows cheaper for the networks to produce because they don't require writers. Last year I tried to watch Dancing with the Stars but Lisa Rinna lasted way too long, and those botox lips of hers were just too horrifying to tolerate. I am now scarred for life. BTW, I don't how long I will go without TV, I'm just taking it one day at a time.

So next, I'm disconnecting myself from my cell phone. I don't think it will be as hard as the TV. Maybe. My sister gave up her cell phone, too, but my cousins have done the opposite. They gave up their land lines but I still need my land line for the Internet and alarm system unless that goes, too. That could be the reason AT&T is laying off 12,000 people (land line employees). Sadly, those are much better paying jobs than what AT&T is paying the cell phone employees.

Long ago, I cut down on trips to the grocery store, tried to stop having so much waste, installed a programmable thermostat, worn my clothes until they couldn't be worn to work, then made them gardening clothes, recycled my own stuff, insulated the hot water heater, weather-stripped the house, banked with a credit union, gave up pedicures and lengthened the time between hair salon visits, gone to the library for books instead of buying them, turned off the lights in the rooms when I leave them, done only full loads of laundry and dishes in the machines and even switched to a cheaper dentist (I have dental insurance from work, too). Two of the gals from work have switched to cheaper hair salons and another gal from work says her nail salon is closing from lack of business. I know that when I call my hairdresser, she is easily available whereas, she used to be booked solid.

As for Christmas, I usually give the kids cash, so they can buy what they want for themselves at the best price, some things are getting made and for myself? Usually, I give myself a nice vacation or gift, like a digital camera. This year? I gave myself a new intake manifold gasket for my beloved Chevy truck. It is 11 years-old and I'm making it last for as long as it can. I surely don't miss having to make payments.

So, what am I going to do with the extra cash? Pay off the last Italian vacation, save more for retirement and put more on the principal of the house mortgage, I hope! And, there will probably be even more belt tightening once the holidays are over.

Why I am beginning to hate the "Experts"

2008-12-05T18:59:00.000-08:00

This has become one of my pet peeves. People who call themselves journalists and fail to disclose that they may have a motive for monetary gain when they write their "editorials". Now editorials aren't "the news" per say but the parent company of CNBC, who is Diana Olick's employer, is General Electric, who guess what, it is in the mortgage business. She states in her recent piece that lowering the interest rate to 4.5% wouldn't help the mortgage crisis. She then goes on to give an example between a house that ends up showing a monthly mortgage difference of $89 when compared to a mortgage at 5.5%.

I guess they don't have fact checkers at CNBC because I ran her numbers and I came up with $90 per month. Now, maybe Ms. Olick never learned how to round numbers when she went to school but I doubt it. But marketers always like to use numbers that end in 9 because it has a psychological effect that makes the mind think that the amount is less. You know, 99 cents instead of a $1.00. $9.99 instead of $10. $89 instead of $90. $90 is almost $100 and that buys a lot of stuff at Walmart. Like $5 medical prescriptions and those silly incidentals like milk and bread.

So, I decided to run the numbers on my own home to see how much of a difference it would make to me if I refinanced my house at 4.5%. I came up with a whopping $371 dollar difference per month. If I run the numbers at 2.99%, which was bandied about on the financial websites, it makes a difference of $524 per month. Now, I realize that those numbers may not mean much to Ms. Olick who works in the TV industry, but for little old, middle-class me who lost a significant amount of money from her IRA, it's no chump change*. Now, I am too financially conservative to run out and buy a new car or a big screen TV, but lots of folks who had the extra money might. And, that would make a big difference to get our consumer driven economy going again.

* If you invest your $90 in an traditonal IRA with an annual rate of return of 4.5%, you will have put away $65,888 in 30 years. And, this doesn't include savings you would have had from tax deductions.

**P.S. And, just to keep these numbers in perspective, the Fed is loaning money to banks a 1% (I must have missed a .5% drop in the Federal Funds rate.)

Maybe too much money, in part, led to the Stock Market collapse

2008-12-04T01:21:00.000-08:00

It seems to me that part of the blame for the stock market blowup could be people like me. People, mostly baby boomers who diligently invested on a regular schedule (dollar cost averaging) in the stock market through employer sponsored 401k and 457 plans. We knew that Social Security was not going to be enough to fund the life we wanted. Social Security was never intended to replace more than 30% to 40% of a retirees income. So, we invested money to pay for the glory day when we would be able to retire, not worry about money and run around on a beach, well anywhere. I studied, read books, I tried to analyze what was going around in my world to figure out to invest. I never bought individual stocks (too risky, see John Bogle's books) diversified my portfolio and was forever looking for a fund that would return 10% per year average over 10 years (it never happened). I became increasingly convinced that the profit takers were driving up the price of certain stocks, knowing that large funds would be buying on certain days, then selling. You see those programs advertised on TV. This could easily be done for a stock like Microsoft. If you read how many large cap funds had Microsoft in their portfolios, it wouldn't be hard to figure this out. End result, I was always buying high. And there was a lot of money that had to be invested somewhere and earn a competive return. Of course, now we know how that was happening in part.

Then, we began to read about exit packages for lousy CEO's getting paid large sums of money to leave. Bob Nardelli of Home Depot was the first. I got so mad, I quit shopping at Home Depot even though he isn't CEO anymore (this is called consumer power, don't think it doesn't exist). Now, he's at Chrysler. Go figure why they're in trouble. The list of those robber CEO's got bigger and bigger. Stanley O'Neal of Citibank, Richard Fultz, and so on.

So, it is quite clear to me that all of my diligent investing to make myself prosperous was pointless. All I and the millions of other baby boomers were doing was making CEO's fabulously wealthy and paying salaries much more than mine on my hard-saved money.

All this scrimping and saving I was doing was allowing others to live in a way beyond what most of us can't even fathom. And still we hear that Wall Street wants its bonuses (Goldman and Sachs some $13 billion) all the while we are bleeding money to bail them out. While the stock market was crashing, the talk on CNBC was that Wall Street had lost a generation of investors. No, they lost much more than that. They lost the new generation of investors and the old.

So, it is clear to me, that other investment vehicles are needed to fund a safe and secure retirement. Obviously, Wall Street and their investment firms are no longer credible. P/E ratios? Meaningless. Who can believe their numbers? Everything is designed to reward management, brokers, CEO's. We are incidental. We are the sheep to be shorn. Those firms don't exist to make us rich. They exist to make themselves rich at our expense.

So what new investment vehicles could there be with sufficient government oversight? Well, a government investment fund! How about we start with a U.S. Government Infrastructure Fund? I don't know why states couldn't do the same? We would invest in our own government. Infrastructure projects would be chosen, notice I say chosen to be funded on the basis of their potential to be repaid. Long term projects like bridges and dams could be funded in this manner. They would have to be projects with the potential to generate revenue. Dams usually have hydroelectric power plants associated with them that could pay back the principal, to be used for other infrastructure projects and pay out a nice investment return. This could be a supplemental retirement program. NO, NO, projects would be subject to the whims of Congress (no "Roads to Nowhere", Governor Palin). The GAO would have oversight. No ridiculous CEO perks, private jets and bonuses, sorry. Just investment and return for the investor while accomplishing the building and replacement of important public works and putting people to work without adding to the trillions of dollars of the National Debt and not increasing anyone's taxes.

The investment fund would be like a 401K or 457 plan, tax exempt, available through payroll deduction, no distribution until retirement. Let's say 55 years of age. And since it would be handled like an investment fund, no one who didn't invest would be able to collect except heirs so it wouldn't have add ons like what happened to Social Security. And, I'd much rather invest my money in the US than China, too, and know that my principal would be safe and I'd be getting a return.

Government has long been getting a bad rep for being well, cumbersome and inefficient for too long. I'll take that any day over what has happened to my money and future courtesy of Wall Street.

More idiocy from the financial sector

2008-12-01T15:58:00.000-08:00

In the never ending search for profit no matter what the cost, oil speculators are now hoarding crude oil and believe it or not, keeping the price artificially high by 20 to 40 cents a gallon. I know this is hard to believe and even to complain about since I was deliriously happy to have recently paid $1.79 a gallon on a national holiday weekend no less. But storing crude oil on ocean supertankers for an indefinite length of time? In the ocean? The example quoted in the CNN Money article states that "U.S. oil trading firm Koch Supply & Trading recently leased the 2-million -barrel capacity Dubai Titan", the third supertanker they have leased this year. They are buying the oil and waiting for the price to go up. But, let's just think about this. The supertankers are just sitting there waiting for? Pirates? A storm to hit? Millions of gallons of crude oil encrusting beaches and harbors? Oh, I'm sure that the speculators will be insured. Let's see, who would be a good insurer? AIG? They got lots of (our) money. That is if they are not all off a weeklong spa vacation or luxury hunting trip.

What are the odds that this type of storage is unregulated? Maybe someone needs to call Greenpeace and give them a heads up?

My Economic Recovery Plan

2008-11-25T17:44:00.001-08:00

I've been giving this some thought and here's my plan on the way to help the middle-class, pay off the soon to be trillion(s) dollar debt and recapitalize the economy. The federal government should start making home loans available at a 3.5%to 4% interest rate to qualified buyers. What do you think?

The federal government has already taken control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and they are a huge part of the mortgage market. People already in homes could also refinance their homes through these low-interest government loans. If you are already in a home, you don't have to qualify or have an appraisal, so there would be no additional refinancing costs just proof that you are the legally titled owner of the residence you are refinancing. This is for people already behind on their mortgages or upside down. Therefore, there would be no writedown on the price of homes (stopping the downward spiral of home prices) but the payments would be lower letting people stay in the homes they already have. Let's just say one (1) home loan per social security number for a personal residence for qualified buyers. That's to keep people from buying 10 or 20 homes at that rate. Yep, just one to a customer. And this offer is for all home buyers not just ones in trouble. This is only fair. It is a plan for middle class America including those of us who are responsibly paying our home mortgages and credit card bills, etc.

Let's just think about what that would do?

That would make homes more affordable and attractive and stopping the downward spiral of housing prices.

The inventory of homes for sale would go down.

Banks would be forced to compete with the government if they wanted to stay and business and quit hoarding the money we have already given them (greedy bastards are using the money to buy up other banks and Treasury bills). The Federal Government is loaning the money to banks at 1.5% interest rate but the banks aren't lowering mortgage rates to borrowers. I'll confess here. I have an adjustable rate mortgage. My rate? 6.6% Yep. Greedy bastards @#$%!

At this reduced rate I propose, I, and my fellow American home owners who would refinance their homes, would have a significant amount of money to buy groceries, gas, clothing, car payments (hello, Ford, Chrystler, GM!), credit car payments (hello, Citi!) shoring up those industries.

Since I and my fellow American home owners would be making our payments to the Federal Government at a 3.5 % to 4% interest rate, they could use that money to pay off the national debt.

Further, with less interest deducted for income tax (home loan interest is a major deductible in most households), the Federal Government would also have increased revenue from taxes to further pay down the debt, fund infrastructure improvements or what the heck, reduce our taxes!

What's the downside to the plan? The banks won't like it and they have the largest and most well-funded lobbyists in D.C. If they lower their rates and compete with the Fed, they will make money on the insidious fees they charge like, the "mortgage origination fee".

Critics may charge that low interest rates are what got us into the trouble we are in now in the first place. But, I think we know by now that is not entirely the truth. Cooked books to bolster CEO bonus pay, loose and fraudulent lending practices, and all sorts of other various and sundry Wall Street financing stuff I don't (or anyone else, evidently) understand, un-qualified buyers and lack of oversight were all much worse culprits.

Surely by now, those Wall Street whizzes (or is it wizzes) have to know that we aren't getting out of this mess in a year or two. The Great Depression lasted from 1929 to 1941, 12 years. I think that the economic hardship really lasted much longer than that. Loans could be offered for terms of 10, 20 or 30 years and be assumable making walking away from a home much less attractive.

I think I'll write President-Elect Obama, Dianne and Barbara. If you like my idea, why don't you write your representative, too?

P.S. I forgot part B of my plan. Make the first $500 of interest income (you know for those who actually bother to have a savings account) tax free. What is the point of having money in the bank when you are paid a 4% interest then having those earnings taxed as ordinary income at 15% to 25% or whatever tax bracket you are in. Really! That's why credit is so much more attractive if you have good credit. I'm still getting 0% interest rate offers of credit.

My life in one sentence - La mia vita in una frase

2008-11-23T10:05:00.000-08:00

Marc and Angel Hack Life have an interesting post up at their web site. The question is, what is your life in one sentence? Here's mine.

"It will all work out in the end."

I have felt that way for awhile. Of course, I can say it with so much more confidence now that Barack Obama will be our next president.

Marc and Angel Hack Life ha un post interessante al suo web sito. La domanda è, che è la tua vita in sola una frase? Ecco è la mia.

"Tutto ne farà (bene) alla fine." o "Tutto farne (bene) alla fine." No?

Mi sentivo questo modo per un po'. Senz' altro, posso dirlo con più confindenza adesso che Barack Obama sarà il nostro nuovo presidente.

Ciao a tutti ancora

2008-11-20T19:34:00.000-08:00

In an about face to my recent ciao, I have decided to start publishing my blog again. Why the about face? Well, I re-read my posts and they weren't as bad as I thought they were. And, something seems different after November 4th. Hope fills my spirit. Hope that my country is returning to something I can be proud of once again. Somehow, America just doesn't seem the repressive and fascist place it had sadly become under GWB (and just think, I felt that way and I'm an American citizen!). God, am I glad that's over with!

Amore bello

2008-11-17T21:06:00.000-08:00

Here is a beautiful duet with Mango and Claudio Baglioni.

Lyrics to Amore Bello :
cosi' vai via
non scherzare no...
domani via
per favore no...
devo convincermi pero'
che non è nulla
ma le mie mani tremano...
in qualche modo io dovrò
restare a galla...
e cosi' te ne vai...
cosa mi è preso adesso?
forse mi scriverai
ma si è lo stesso
cosi' vai via
l'ho capito sai...
che vuoi che sia
se tu devi vai...
mi sembra già che non potrò
più farne a meno
mentre i minuti passano...
forse domani correrò
dietro il tuo treno
tu non scordarmi mai...
com'è banale adesso...
balliamo ancora dai...
ma si è lo stesso
amore bello come il cielo
bello come il giorno
bello come il mare amore...
ma non lo so dire.
amore bello come un bacio
bello come il buio
bello come Dio
amore mio
non te ne andare...
perché è cosi'
no non è giusto
se è cosi' se te ne vai
se te ne vai...perché è cosi'
perché finisce tutto qui
tra poco andrai...
un lento, l'ultimo oramai...
e fare finta, che ne so
di essere matto
piangere urlare e dire no...
non serve a niente, già lo so
è finito tutto...
e se tu caso mai...
ma non mi sente adesso...
balliamo ancora dai...
ma si è lo stesso..
amore bello come il cielo
bello come il giorno
bello come il mare amore...
ma non lo so dire.
amore bello come un bacio
bello come il buio
bello come Dio
amore mio
non te ne andare...
vai via cosi'
no non è giusto mai cosi'
se te ne vai
se te ne vai
vai via cosi'
finisce allora tutto qui
fra poco andrai...
un lento, l'ultimo oramai...
[ Amore Bello Lyrics on http://www.lyricsmania.com/ ]

Italian vocabulary words:

nulla - nothing
a galla - afloat
banale - commonplace
un lento - a slow dance
matto - madman
fare finta - to pretend
andarsene - to go away
andare via - to go away
ormai - by now
oramai - by now

Working my craft

2008-09-27T16:23:00.000-07:00

As I have been listening to my two new CD's from Italian singer Claudio Baglioni, it is amazing to compare his voice at the beginning of his career to the incredible sound of his voice now. I don't completely understand the nuances of what he is saying in his songs but I am impressed by how much his voice has improved. Compared to his first songs, his voice now 28 years later, is deeper, stronger and richer. Here is a man who has worked at his craft.

So, I ask myself, woman, have you been working at to improve your craft? Well, that brings up the question, err, what craft? Just what have I been working at improving? That question threw me for a loop for a while. I work at improving myself at work and I am a creative solution thinker and some of my work experience and work skills do transcend into my regular life but not in a quantifyable way. But as I think about the things I want to do, the things that excite me, there seems to be a dichotomy between my career and my life.

So, I came upon this post about Ruth Asawa, whose work I saw recently at the Fine Arts Museum in San Francisco here. To quote the website, When asked about her life, she said, “that there is no separation between studying, performing the daily chores of living, and creating one’s own work.” And also “Sculpture is like farming. If you just keep at it, you can get quite a lot done.”

Throughout her life, Asawa remained true to this philosophy of no separation between her art and life. In a review of her work, art writer Shirle Gottlieb said, “Then as now, art is a way of living, an integral part of her life; less is always more; and the positive/negative elements of line, form, color and space must be kept in balance.”

I like what the artist has said, there is no difference between my life and work. I need to look at myself and say that I am my craft, the sum total of my experience and to keep working at it, whatever "it" is at the moment.

When the World is your Oyster

2008-09-19T17:22:00.000-07:00

Sono Qui per l'Amore

2008-09-05T23:45:00.001-07:00

Sono Qui per l'amore
Sono qui per l’amore,
per le facce curiose che fa
Per la coda alla cassa,
con il saldo più o meno a metà,
per le gabbie di carta,
per la chiave scordata in cantina,
per il giro del sangue
e per quello del vino.

Sono qui per l’amore,
per difendere quello che so
per le rampe di lancio,
e lo sporco che riga gli oblò
che nel lancio ci siamo,
e la torre controllo lontana,
con il brico sul fuoco
e la fiamma puttana.

Con tutto il sangue andato a male,
e poi di colpo questo andarsi bene,
un solo sole che forse basterà.

Con tutto il sangue andato a male,
e poi di colpo questo andare insieme,
in una vita che forse basterà.
Questo andarsi bene qua…...

Sono qui per l’amore,
e per tutto il rumore che vuoi
E i brandelli di cielo
che dipendono solo da noi,
per quel po’ di sollievo
che ti strappano dall’ombelico,
per gli occhiali buttati,
per l’orgoglio spedito,
con la sponda di ghiaia
che alla prima alluvione va giù..
ed un nome e cognome
che comunque resiste di più.

Sono qui per l’amore
per riempire col secchio il tuo mare,
con la barca di carta,
che non vuole affondare.

Con tutto il sangue andato a male,
e poi di colpo questo andarsi bene,
un solo sole che forse basterà.

Con tutto il sangue andato a male,
e poi di colpo questo andare insieme,
in una vita che forse basterà.
Questo andarsi bene qua…..

Sono qui per l’amore,
per le facce curiose che fa
Per le giostre sfinite
che son sempre più fuori città,
stabiliamo per sempre le corsie
che ci mandano avanti,
e prendiamo le multe
tutti belli e cantanti.

(Grazie a jack per questo testo e a il dito, let's per le correzioni)
[ Sono Qui Per L'amore Lyrics on http://www.lyricsmania.com/ ]

Ciao a tutti

2008-09-01T20:54:00.000-07:00

This evening when I spoke to my sister, one of her recent job application questions was, do you have a url (website)? This was a little disconcerting to me considering the low-key job for which she was applying. But I have been reading more and more articles about employers looking for digital dirt on prospective employees. And, I have written about some of my personal feelings and been pretty free with my political opinions but been fairly careful about not posting about work and staying anonymous. But, who knows what the future may hold, and as my sister recently said to me, you're a smart girl, you can figure out a way to get to Italy sooner (right now, it's still a couple of years off). And, maybe I can. But, I believe in being honest, and if someone asks me I if I have a blog, I'm going to say no, and it's going to be the truth...

I've shared a part of myself, my love of my family and my love for Italy, a country whose amazing civilization has not only survived with many cultural traditions intact since before the birth of Christ and amazingly, continues to be the basis of a lot of our current civilization (think of fire & police departments, water and sewer systems, laws, the writing of wills (the Vestal Virgins were in charge of them), apartment buildings and yes, even the inventors of fast food). And, whether your agree with me or not, believe me, I've tried to be helpful and encouraging and any opinions offered were based on my own, personal experiences. But, artifacts and history aren't the only things I love about Italy. It's a beautiful country for sure and the food is fabulous but it is also filled with some very lovely people and I was amazed sometimes at how nice people were even though I must have been the 1,000th person that day, who asked them the same question.
So for now, ciao a tutti. If you see a woman in Italy singing along with Claudio Baglioni, Ligabue or Pino Daniele sans music and with iPod earbuds in, with that silly/happy look on her face, snapping away photos with a Nikon camera glued to her face ... it just might be me.

Music Monday - Ligabue

2008-09-01T16:44:00.001-07:00

Here is another Italian music artist I enjoy on Radio Italia, Luciano Ligabue. I love his gruff, growling voice.

L'amore Conta - Love Counts

Lyrics to L'amore Conta :

Io e te ne abbiam vista qualcuna - vissuta qualcuna
ed abbiamo capito per bene - il termine insieme
mentre il sole alle spalle pian piano va giù
e quel sole vorresti non essere tu

e così hai ripreso a fumare - a darti da fare
è andata come doveva - come poteva
quante briciole restano dietro di noi
o brindiamo alla nostra o brindiamo a chi vuoi

l'amore conta
l'amore conta
conosci un altro modo
per fregar la morte?
nessuno dice mai se prima o poi
e forse qualche dio non ha finito con noi
l'amore conta

io e te ci siam tolti le voglie
ognuno i suoi sbagli
è un peccato per quelle promesse
oneste ma grosse
ci si sceglie per farselo un pò in compagnia
questo viaggio in cui non si ripassa dal via

l'amore conta - l'amore conta
e conta gli anni a chi non è mai stato pronto
nessuno dice mai che sia facile
e forse qualche dio non ha finito con te

grazie per il tempo pieno
grazie per la te più vera
grazie per i denti stretti
i difetti
per le botte d'allegria
per la nostra fantasia

l'amore conta
l'amore conta
conosci un altro modo per fregar la morte?
nessuno dice mai se prima o se poi
e forse qualche dio non ha finito con noi

l'amore conta
l'amore conta
per quanto tiri sai
che la coperta è corta
nessuno dice mai che sia facile
e forse qualche dio non ha finito con te
l'amore conta

[ L'amore Conta Lyrics on http://www.lyricsmania.com/ ]

Parole italiane del giorno:
1. briciola - crumb
2. fregare - to cheat
3. botta - barrel
4. allegria - cheerfulness, happiness
5. peccato - pity, sin, shame (in this case, it's a pity)
6. la voglia - wish, desire
7. difetti - failings
8. zoccolo - hoof (as in for a horse)
9. teppista - hooligans
10. calamita>calamite - magnet(s)

And my another word to add to my mystery word list:
sia (Non capisco sia).

Saturday Still Life

2008-08-31T15:44:00.000-07:00

Parole italiane del giorno:

(Devo smettare traducendo la canzone del Claudio Baglioni, Fammi Andar Via, che triste!)

1. lutto - mourning

2. luttoso - mournful

3. boia - executioner

4. crepare - to kick the bucket

5. crepare dalle risa - to split one's side laughing (si, ho fatto questo, dopo ho letto crepare nel dizionario)

6. crepa - crack

7. crepacuore - broken heart

8. vigliaccheria - cowardice

9. fuorimano - out of the way place

10. irraggiungibile - inaccessible

bonus words:

fossile - fossil

conchiglia - shell

roba - stuff, things, possesions

The Horses of Rome

2008-08-28T19:16:00.000-07:00

When we were Rome last, we just happened to tour the Capitoline Museum and saw this recently restored horse. I really didn't know much about this statue, except how strikingly beautiful it was.

So you can imagine how surprised I was to see this while trying to take a shortcut through the Villa Borghese Park from the Borghese Gallery to the Piazza del Popolo. Of all things, in the middle of the park, there was a horse show! These gentlemen, I believe are the mounted carabinieri. Yes, these horses were as beautiful as the statue I had seen a few days below, just a lot more high-strung.

This nice policeman was trying to get his horse to do something for us so we could take their photo. But in the end, I think his horse was trained for crowd control and he was very intent on herding us. I couldn't believe how tall the horses were, 16-17 hands? And I have no clue as to their breed. Eventually, our policeman had to give up trying to get us a proper pose and work the kinks out of his horse so off they went down the road. But, not before his horse made one more high-spirited prance at us. So, I grabbed my niece who was patiently waiting for the photo op and dragged her behind something to protect us from being "crowd controlled". While she wasn't afraid, I didn't want her laid up in the hotel after being kicked or knocked down by the horse. We still had 4 or 5 days left to see as many of Rome's treasures as we could.

And I like more mellow horses, like the one Marcus Aurelius is riding in his newly restored atrium (also at the Capitoline Museum).

Parole Italiane del giorno:
1. quasi - almost
2. venerdì - Friday
3. cavallo - horse
4. cavaliere - horseman
5. amazzone - horsewoman (I'm not making this up, it's in the dictionary!)
6. ippica - horse racing
7. sella - saddle
8. fieno - hay
9. briglia - bridle
10. morso - bit

Music Monday - Ancora Claudio - Tutti Qui

2008-08-24T22:04:00.000-07:00

Che bella poesia!

Parole di Tutto Qui :
Come i giorni sono tanti
a guardarli da quassù
e a portarli tutti avanti
quanti restano laggiù
ti inventi allora degli istanti
che la vita non da più
sotto le dita quei momenti
che vorresti ancora tu
tutti qui.

Santa musica leggera
per chi è senza compagnia
per un’esistenza intera
per amore o per pazzia

che dura tenerezza c’era
al rientro di periferia
dentro un ragazzo di pianura
a caccia della sua poesia

tutti qui, tutti qui
i miei viaggi che vago
per quel mare che ormai è un lago
tutti qui i miei sogni
di essere un mago
e di correre il vento mai pago

e per battere il mio tempo
l'ho dovuto vivere e
mi ha rubato nel frattempo
tutti quanti gli altri me

e una canzone non è niente
è un odore o una bugia
soffia al cuore della gente
mentre prova a volar via

dal ponte amaro del presente
dietro a qualche nostalgia
o un metro dopo l'orizzonte
sopra il treno della fantasia

tutti qui, tutti qui
i miei passi all'assalto
delle strade di nubi e asfalto
tutti qui i miei sguardi
oltre il cielo in un salto
per vederlo una volta dall'alto

e arrivare in capo al mondo
e alle stelle che non hai
ma siamo storie di un secondo
di chi non ha vinto mai

tutti qui, tutti qui
i miei anni alle porte
sulle scale di un pianoforte
tutti qui i miei pezzi
a ingannare la sorte
per cantare più a lungo e più forte

se nel sole di domani
ci perdessimo così
e se anche fossimo lontani
noi saremo insieme sempre tutti qui
(Lyrics courtesy of lyricsmania.com)

Italian words of the day:
Parole italiane del giorno:
1. quassù - up here
2. laggiù - down there, over there
3. pazzia - insanity, madness
4. pianura - plain (geographic plains)
5. vagare - to wander
6. un mago - a magician
7. caccia - chase
8. rubare - to steal (pp - rubato)
9. nel frattempo - in the meantime, meanwhile
10. nubo > nubi - cloud(s) or nuvola > nuvole - clouds
11. la sorte - fate, destiny
12. ingannare - to deceive, cheat ( also, to while away as in Amore Senza Fine)
13. qualche - some
14. oltre - on the other side of, beyond

Saturday Still Life, Italian in 10 Words a Day

2008-08-23T17:52:00.000-07:00

Flowers in a Laura Ashley blue chintz pitcher. Fiori nella blu chintz brocca da Laura Ashley.

La giungla aspetta...

Italian Words of the Day:

Parole italiane del giorno:

1. dettaglio > dettagli - detail(s)

2. svolazzare - to flutter ( past participle - svolazzato)

3. scendere - to go down (past participle - sceso)

4. salire - to go up (past participle - salito)

5. accendere - to turn on (past participle - acceso)

6. spegnare - to turn off (past participle - spento)

7. lo spicchio - piece, slice, (clove of garlic or segment of citrus)

8. il bagliore - flash, dazzling light

9. un bagliore di speranza - a ray of hope

10. raccoglimento - meditation

Endless Love - Pino Daniele (Music Monday, a day late)

2008-08-19T21:43:00.000-07:00

I know. It isn't Monday but I'm trying to keep certain regular topics on regular days but stuff keeps happening in real life. I've been trying to find a (good) music video of Pino Daniele with a song I like and this is about the best I could find. He's not very videogenic (as in not photogenic but in a video) but I love his music, too, even if I can't understand it sometimes. He sings a lot in Neapolitan, the dialect of Naples and he is very proud of being a southern Italian from Naples. But here he is singing in Italian. Someday, I would love to go to one of his concerts, in Naples, of course, just as I would love to hear Claudio Baglioni sing in Rome. Sigh. The Italian words of the day are at the end of the lyrics, courtesy of Lyricsmania.com.

Amore Senza Fine
Pino Daniele
Se mi guardi con gli occhi dell'amore
non ci lasceremo più
inganneremo il tempo e il dolore
sia l'estate che l'inverno.
E cambieremo il mondo ogni volta che vuoi
e fermeremo il mondo ogni volta che vuoi.
Perché non so che dire quando mi guardi così
non riesco mai a finire un discorso senza errori
perché mi fai impazzire quando mi guardi così
mi sembra di capire che voglio solo te in questo mondo
voglio solo te in questo mondo.
Se mi cerchi con gli occhi dell'amore
allora si mi troverai
fra le parole semplici e il sapore
di un mattino di primavera.
E cambieremo il mondo ogni volta che vuoi
e fermeremo il mondo ogni volta che vuoi.
Perché non so che dire quando mi guardi così
non riesco mai a finire un discorso senza errori
perché mi fai impazzire quando mi guardi così
amore senza fine io voglio solo te in questo mondo
voglio solo te in questo mondo.
When I look into your eyes I will feel so good
'cause you make a better day to me
[ Amore Senza Fine Lyrics on http://www.lyricsmania.com/ ]

Italian Words of the Day
1. lasciare - to leave
2. discorso - conversation, talk
3. ingannare - to while away
4. il dolore - pain, sorrow
5. riuscire - to be able to do, to suceed
6. rifornimento - supplying, providing
7. lastricato - paving
8. lassù - up there
9. giù - down
10. gioventù - youth

Five years ago

2008-08-17T14:26:00.001-07:00

Today, marks the day that my mom will have been gone for five years. She passed away in my house after a battle with pancreatic cancer. The Navajo believe that it is bad luck for a person to pass away inside a home as the soul of the person will remain in the house unless it can escape through an open smoke hole or window. I know that my mom had a lot of superstitions about the dead, but not this one. It was her last wish to die at home and it was a wish that I was able to provide. She spent the last several months of her battle with pancreatic cancer in and out of hospitals, convalescent hospitals and emergency rooms. To this day, I cannot imagine going to an emergency room for anything but a near death situation. My sister and I joked that we were going to write a book critiquing the hospital cafeteria food in all of the places we had been. I also wish I had started a blog at that time to document what we went through with my mom's medical insurance.

I had never heard of a "discharge planner" before, but that is the person whose job it is to kick you out of the hospital as quickly as possible, no matter the state of your health. This is so medical insurance companies can keep their books in the black, after all, it is a business. And businesses are in business to make money. In fact, my sisters and I all clearly remember the day a discharge planner told us this. They wanted to discharge my mom from the hospital because they were losing money on her. We were in the hospital family conference room and I remember us all looking stunned and not quite comprehending what we were hearing. Did she just say what I think she said?

I don't remember my word for word reply to this woman, but I'm not exactly afraid to speak my mind, and I believe that I gave her a piece of it that day. But, it didn't end there, this was pretty much a constant, daily battle each time she had to go into the hospital. The discharge planners would question us to make sure that we were not delusional about my mom's health. Each time, we assured them, yes, we know that our mom is terminal, yes, we know she is going to die, yes, we know that there isn't any hope, however, that doesn't mean you can discharge her until she is over her current health emergency and stabilized. One day, another discharge planner who seemed like a nice man informed us they were discharging our mom that day. Really, I replied, isn't the specialist coming to see if she needs surgery in a couple of days? He didn't know because he told us that he hadn't read her medical chart.

Now, let me tell you that all of the discharge planners I have ever talked to are registered nurses (RN) with a 4 -5 year degree specializing in nursing, not touchy, feely, counselors. So, I asked the man who was wanting to discharge my mom without having read her medical chart, just what exactly do those letters, R.N. behind your name stand for? So my mom remained in the hospital for a while longer and I didn't see him again, well as our discharge planner. When he did see us, he just looked the other way. But it was pretty much a battle every day where some family member had to go to the hospital (yes, every day) to make sure she had proper care or wasn't being discharged in a couple of hours. Eventually, they did discharge her from the regular hospital and into a convalescent hospital. My sister had held off the discharge to a convalescent hospital for a while until one was found that was acceptable and within convenient driving distance to us so we could see her every day.

What goes on at convalescent hospitals is another post entirely, really. I swear, all the women nurses were menopausal, 20 degrees hotter than all of their patients and in control of the thermostat. The workers who are not nurses were paid minimum wage to wash and clean up, get water, help those who can walk to the bathroom and clean up a lot of poop. So they don't get paid a lot, and lots of their patients are cranky. And a lot of them (lots and lots) call in sick on Friday and Saturday evenings. I can't imagine why, but, I'll save this topic for another day, as well as a long rant on the quackery that is alternative medicine (yes, we went this route, too, for a while. It is only for the desperate and we were.).

But finally, the day came when she was holding her own enough to try a test run and spend an entire day away from the convalescent hospital (We took her on occasion to a close by K-Mart or restaurant for a break from the freezing temperatures). I had to promise to bring her back in the evening. It was the 4th of July. She loved to sit in the plastic, white lawn chairs I would line up in front of my house and watch the neighborhood kids set off their sparklers and fireworks. We both felt we could handle the care and she could come home. But, in the meantime, I had to take her back to the convalescent hospital that evening. I think that this is one of the hardest things I have ever had to do in my life. She didn't want to go back and I promised her it was for just one more night. She didn't want to go back to her refrigerated room, she wanted to come home.

Well, not to her home. My younger sister had said she would take her in but had to back out. My mom had been working so hard at getting well enough to come home that I took her to my house even though it was and still is not a house for a semi-disabled person. She had strict rules. She couldn't go into the living room unassisted because it had a sunken living room (I had always wanted one and they are so dangerously stupid). I removed it when I remodeled my house after she had passed away. I didn't want her to fall and break something because then she would have to go back to the convalescent home and that would be the end of any home stay. We found an angel who would come and keep her company a couple of days a week and I tried find someone else to fill in the days while I was at work so she wouldn't be home alone. Yes, my own mother now needed daycare.

I think that in caring for my mom, she eventually became like my child, the child I never had. I had to fuss over her, make sure she had day care, change her still unhealed wound bandages daily and after she had an accident, clean her up. I never thought I would be able to do this. In fact, I spent a lot of my life resisting it. But, I am so glad that I did take care of my mom and make her last wish come true. It is truly one of the most satisfying things I have ever done in my life.

Now, if all of this seems sad to you, please let me tell you that I can say all of this without crying.... now. But, it took a lot of time and frankly, talking to people about my loss. You can't keep grief bottled up inside you or it will never go away. While my mom was sick, I made a conscious effort to never take a photo of her because I didn't want to remember her looking so ill and different. After she passed away, I couldn't look at flowers or go to garden nurseries without thinking about her and crying. I avoided certain streets. I would be so angry when I drove by one of the hospitals where I had taken her or so sad when I drove by a restaurant where we had taken her or bought take out to bring her in every effort to have something appetizing for her to eat so she would live just a little while longer. And, she fought so hard to live.

Our time spent together was so ordinary but so precious. That is what happens when you know that death is close by. Sometimes, my sister and I still get angry when we remember some thoughtlessness committed by someone who should have loved her more (and I now don't celebrate the 4th of July anymore) but mostly we try to learn lessons from her life and passing and to remember all the things we loved about her.

Her passing let her live again in our memories as we choose and to tell funny stories about her that make us laugh. I can't say that she suffered (thanks to pain medication) but she wasn't living life the way she wanted. She didn't like being a bother and hated not having control of her functions. I remember going to the funeral of a friend's mother-in-law years before my mom passed away. His wife had taken care of her mom for years as she descended into dementia and eventually, didn't even know her own daughter. His wife couldn't stop crying at the funeral. Frankly, that was a mystery to me because her mom had become increasingly difficult to handle and finally, had to go to a nursing home (not the same thing as a convalescent hospital or assisted living). Now, she would be free to have her own life again. But, after my mom passed away, I understood her grief. Her mom had become her helpless child, someone whose life depended on the decisions she had to make and whose responsibility it was to make sure that she was receiving the best possible medical care she could get. When her mom's body died, she could finally begin to grieve for her mother, who had really died mentally years before and also begin to remember her mom the way she was when she had been herself.

So, please don't be sad for me. I didn't post this today to help myself or my own state of mind, but to help any of you who may be going through something similar. If you are young enough or lucky enough to never have experienced this yet, you may someday and I hope you'll remember some of the things I've written and I truly hope it helps you. And am I worried that my mom's chindi (spirit) may be lurking around the house? The answer is no because her loving spirit lives in my heart and can be found in my fondest memories.

P.S. I find many cultural similarities between the Navajo and Japanese.

And, P.P.S. I don't know if any of you have heard of Randy Pausch, the professor from Carnegie Mellon University, who died recently from pancreatic cancer at age 48. He wished his diagnosis had been for hepatitis or AIDS as he would have lived longer than having had pancreatic cancer. My mom lived 8 months after her diagnosis and he lived for 1-year after his. Interestingly enough, they thought he had hepatitis at first, as the doctors did with my mom until their final diagnoses. The Last Lecture video has been seen by more than 6 million people so far.

And, P.P.P.S My mom had a sort of obsession with vacuum cleaners, usually expensive ones. After I accompanied by mom's body to be cremated, I stopped at the shopping mall. I had no reason to go and I don't like going to the mall. But, there I went and found myself buying, of all things, a vacuum cleaner. Go figure.

Saturday Still Life

2008-08-16T17:34:00.000-07:00

Bringing me much needed calm

and, distraction....

Music Monday - No one like you

2008-08-11T21:48:00.001-07:00

This is a beautiful live video of Claudio Baglioni with his son Giovanni who is a accoustic guitarist. Yes, the song is being sung in Spanish but just think of it as one of those cross cultural moments... a very sweet one between a father and his son, and the best music video of this song.

Mai Più Come Te
Basta un niente un nome una calligrafia
perché ogni cuore ha una memoria tutta sua
si vede sempre dove strappi via una pagina
come ti fissa una fotografia di ieri
la stagione delle piogge arriva qua
alla stazione della mia malinconia
e scende il tiepido acquazzone di una lacrima
sull'ultima tua voce che ho in segreteria

mai più come te
nessun'altra mai
perché dopo te
io sì che m'innamorai
sempre più di te
quanto tu non sai
e anche senza te
c'è qui la tua assenza ormai
che amo come te

chiudo gli occhi e faccio buio dentro me
e la mia mente è come il treno delle sei
con cui ritorna a casa la tua cara immagine
in un silenzio che non puoi far stare zitto

non è tanto questa fine tra noi due
ma quanto quelle sue rovine dietro me
e accanto ai passi con cui pesto ombre di nuvole
quando esco a buttar via gli avanzi di poesie

mai più come te
nessun'altra mai
perché dopo te
io sì che m'innamorai
sempre più di te
quanto fu non sai
e anche senza te
c'è qui la tua assenza ormai
che amo come te

e com'è sempre tardi per amare
e l'amore è la pena da scontare
per non volere stare soli
e meglio è amare e perdere
che vincere e non amare mai

mai più come te
nessun'altra mai
perché dopo te
io sì che m'innamorai
e sempre più di te
quanto tu non sai
e anche senza te
c'è qui la tua assenza ormai ma
mai più come te

e com'è sempre tardi per amare
e l'amore è la pena da scontare
per non volere stare soli
e meglio è amare e perdere
che vincere e non amore mai

mai più come te
nessun'altra mai
perché dopo te
io sì che m'innamorai
e sempre più di te
quanto tu non sai
e anche senza te
c'è qui la tua assenza ormai ma
mai più come te
(Courtesy of Lyricsmania.com)

Italian Words of the Day:
1. strappare - to tear,rip
2. via - away (it also means street)
3. niente - nothing
4. malinconia - melancholy, gloom
5. il tiepido - tepid, lukewarm
6. acquazzone - cloudburst, heavy shower
7. nessun'altro/a - no one else
8. scontare - to serve
9. ombra > ombre - shade
10. il buio - darkness

Here are some bonus words totally unrelated to the song but since it's Monday, you know what that means:

la scrivania - desk
la sedia - chair
lo schermo - screen
la tastiera - keyboard
la stampante - printer
cucitrice - stapler
graffetta - staple
rifuti - trash (è lunedì per me)
secchio della spazzatura - trash can
cartella o cartellina - file folder

Oops - Italian Words of the Day

2008-08-10T22:15:00.000-07:00

I seem to be experiencing technical difficulty. I noticed that what I wrote for my previous post wasn't what appeared to have been published in its entirety. But, I didn't realize the words of the day didn't end up on it. So, belatedly, here are the Italian words of the day for the previous post.

1. in restauro - under restoration
2. impalcatura - scaffolding
3. rovina - ruin
4. scultura - sculpture
5. raffinato - refined
6. marmo - marble
7. lavoro - work
8. capolavoro - masterpiece
9. lo scavo - excavation
10. imperatore - emperor

The Divine Augustus

2008-08-06T17:57:00.000-07:00

The first time I came to Rome, I don't think I saw this statue. Maybe I missed the room in the Vatican. Or maybe it had been removed for restoration. If you want to see all of Italy, you must be patient because something is always undergoing restoration... But, here he is, the divine Emperor Augustus of the Prima Porta. Archaeologists think that originally, the statue was painted but the traces are too far gone to determine what color they might have been. I can't imagine that color could have made this statue any more beautiful and majestic. It was found in the the area believed to the villa of his wife Livia.

Nek, I'm with you - Music Monday

2008-08-04T19:31:00.000-07:00

Filippo Neviani otherwise known as Nek is another Italian artist whose voice I love. BTW, did you know if you click on the "box in box" icon on the You Tube menu bar, the video will go full screen? I just found that out last week!

Don't you love his voice, too?

Sto con te
E' per parlare
che sono qui
non è facile
nonostante ciò sto qui
Ho fatto male
ho preferito gli amici a noi
delle altre non ti ho detto mai
anche se so che lo sai
Vorrei, dovrei
ritornare sugli sbagli miei
e dirti che

di cercarti sai
non ho smesso mai
me ne accorgo solo adesso
ed è chiaro che
il più fragile
tra noi due non sei te
che da me punti fermi non ne hai
me li dai
ecco qua quello che c'è...
sto con te

si, ho sbagliato
ad alzar la voce lo so
tu sei l'unica
che mi accetta coi difetti che ho
Dovrei, vorrei
stringerti e trasmetterti i pensieri miei
ti calmerei

Di cercarti sai
non ho smesso mai
me ne accorgo solo adesso
e capisco che
tempo non ce n'è
perchè sto rischiando te
e se tu mi dicessi è tardi ormai
non me ne andrei
ecco qua quello che c'è...
sto con te.

Di cercarti sai
non ho smesso mai
me ne accorgo solo adesso
ed è chiaro che
devo insistere
sarei pazzo a giocarmi te
io perciò
faccio quel che un uomo può
non mi dire no
ma il sorriso che mi fai
sta azzerando tutti i dubbi miei
ecco qua quello che c'è
stai con me
sto con te
(Lyrics courtesy of Lyricsmania.com)

Italian Words of the day:
1. nonostante - in spite of, although
2. ciò - this, that
3. sugli - on, over
4. sbagli - mistakes, sbaglio - mistake
5. smesso - stopped (passato prossimo)
6. rischiando - risking
7. accorgo - noticed, realized (passato prossimo)
8. accetto/a - welcome
9. i difetti - lacks
10. stringere - to hold tight

okay, more than 10 words
11. alzar(e) - to raise
12. perciò - so, for this or that reason
13. azzerando - wiping out

A Practicing Italian

2008-08-03T18:32:00.000-07:00

So from my previous posts about my sister's wedding, you may have guessed that I'm not Italian. Nope, I'm an American. My sister and I like to say that we are about as American as it gets. My dad's family came across the plains in covered wagons. They moved to California from Virginia to escape the Civil War. But we were Yankees (fought on the Union side) and I even have an Uncle Sam who died in a battle outside of Atlanta towards the end of the Civil War. He has my dad's clear blue eyes and chin dimple. My mom came to the US on an airplane.

To make a long story short, my dad met my mom in post-war Japan, they fell in love and got married in Japan. After about a year of paperwork, legalese and finally, favors and evidently, a congressional act, my mom was officially allowed to enter the country and became our mom and an American citizen. We never knew we were different. We didn't know everyone else wasn't like us. We grew up in San Francisco. My parents had a circle of friends whose wives were Japanese and whose kids were a mix. Usually, the dads had been in the service and they could be Greek, Finnish or Danish. For us, that was normal.

I don't think it was until I got married, and I was the first sister to marry, that we realized that there was this thing called tradition, that we didn't know much about. Our mom didn't know American tradition. In fact, since her own mom died when she was 13 years old as a result of injuries she received in a bombing raid, she didn't know lots about Japanese traditions either.

I suppose that is why I find cultural traditions so fascinating. For my sister's wedding, we had to adapt tradition because we just didn't know enough (or maybe start early enough) for her wedding to be traditionally Japanese. When her dresser asked her how many kimono changes she was going to make I started to laugh because I had been to my cousin's wedding in Japan and they change their clothes a lot during the ceremony. But, in all fairness to us, the Japanese have changed their cultural practices. At my cousin's wedding, the bride first wore an all white uchikake, then changed into a more colorful one, then ended up wearing a traditional American wedding dress with flowing train. The cake was beautiful and a prop (no cake to eat just looked like a 3-tiered wedding cake with lacy white frosting). They did a candle lighting thing together, and everyone, separately, sang a karaoke song for the bride and groom. We all made a toast to the bride and groom with real champagne but no one drank it! Evidently, they don't like champagne and that was fine. Just all the more for me! But, when I turned around and sat back down, all the champagne was gone! Hauled off by the waiters!

So, when traditions can be traced back centuries and even for thousands of years, I think it is worth the effort to honor them and keep them alive when possible. But, I realize that we are not all the same. And that having a mom from an old country makes me different but in a good way. Yes, there was drama about the wedding but it was handled and the bride decided that if she just looked nice and the food was good she would be happy and both came true. So in the end, my sister's wedding was just lovely and the guests enjoyed themselves and a good time was had by all.

So, segueing back to the post title, while I may not have been descended from Italian relatives (what about people with last names like Greco, Tedesco or Lombardo, they don't have those last names without good cause), or even Catholic, I like to say that I'm a practicing Italian.

So here are the 10 Italian Words of the day:

1. ipoteca - mortgage
2. risparmio - savings
3. tirchio/a - fiscally conservative
4. preventivo/a - estimate (please don't confuse this with a preservativo)
5. assumere - to hire
6. stipendo - paycheck
7. saldare - to pay up/off
8. pagamento - payment
9. affitare - to rent (a house) affito - rent
10. noleggiare - to rent (everything else) noleggio - rental/charter

bonus phrase:

Un buon affare - a good deal!

The Wedding, Part 4

2008-07-30T17:30:00.000-07:00

So, the flower girl recovered her composure, the ringbearer was a rock of responsibility and I think someone told them that Grandpa had candy in his pockets waiting for them at the end of the aisle! They zoomed by in a blur... and performed like troopers.
Of course, we have no photos of bride walking down the aisle here because her face was so puffy from her crying... or in the receiving line... As my Dad is not too churchy, the bride and groom kept the wedding vows short and simple. The minister was charming and gracious and even put his tie back on when we went outside to take more wedding photos. Oh, here it is all done, the groom kissing the bride.
See the silly, deliriously happy look on the bride's face? Yep, made the whole wedding.

Who couldn't be happy for her?

Then, it was time to chow down and have some of that cake!

So, back to the usual theme, the Italian words of the day:
1. matrimonio - wedding
2. sposa - bride
3. sposo - groom
4. gli sposi - the newlyweds
5. marito - husband
6. moglie - wife
7. anello - ring
8. patrimonio - heritage
9. benedetto - blessed
10. brindisi - toast

The Bride - Wedding Part 3

2008-07-29T20:07:00.000-07:00

Here is the bride! She is being fussed over by her professional dresser. Thankfully, she hired a "dresser" to get her in her wedding kimono. When, she first decided to get married in a kimono, I was to be her dresser along with being the wedding photographer, assistant florist, seamstress and whatever else needed getting done. (There's some good English.) She mentioned someone needed to vacuum the chapel after the ceremony ...

But as the wedding date got closer and closer, we (I) couldn't figure out how to tie the obi which is the sash or belt that goes around the waist. My sister bought a video, we had books and eventually we found a Youtube video on the web. We spent a good part of a day trying to figure this out and discussed kind of loudly, each one of us, how it should be tied. Although everything we read never said it, the obi needed to be folded in half, with the fold on the bottom and the obi acting as a large pocket for the fan, and ceremonial knife. (Don't even ask me about the ceremonial bridal knife, to protect the honor of the bride's new family. We spent alot of time looking for one and all the Japanese ladies we asked thought we were, um, well, nuts. She finally bought one, but I think it's a letter opener!)

BTW, kimono just means clothes. Each style of kimono has its own name depending on if it is an unlined summer kimono (yukata), a bathrobe/pajama kimono (nemaki) and is dependent on sleeve length and occasion, a furisode is the most formal kimono for unmarried women with long flowing sleeves. Here is the bride in her uchikake which is an ornate wedding coat with a long trail. The uchikake is worn like a robe without obi over another kimono, called kakeshita that is tied with the obi. My sister's kakeshita is made with shibori fabric which is a Japanese tie-die.

Then there is the "boat". That is what we jokingly called the white bridal hat. Yes, we went from store to store in San Francisco, San Jose and websites asking if anyone had the "boat". My sister just wasn't going to be happy unless she looked a little more authentic although, we didn't follow a lot of the Japanese customs. We couldn't find zori or sandals to fit her americanized feet and they are not very comfortable to wear. We couldn't find my mom's zori and, I think she threw them away because they just hurt too much to wear. Finding all the gear we needed, and we were not even sure that we had all of the gear was just too difficult. We finally decided that it was okay. We were a blend of cultures and the wedding would also be a blend of our cultures.

But, while we were in San Jose buying the an under-kimono, yes, she is wearing 3 layers of kimono, well 4, if you consider the under, under kimono, she picked up a business card of a lady who did hair and was Japanese. After some frantic calling on my sister's part, she made an appointment to bring all of her stuff and do a trial run. Her name was Sachiko, which is the name of my mom's best friend and amazingly enough, she was from a town in Japan next to the town where my mom was from. She asked us our family name and the deal was done. She was going to fill in the missing parts of my sister's wedding gear and do some sewing and bring it all when she came to do the hair, dress and makeup.

And, she had the boat! After, she had dressed my sister and tied her obi, she wanted to know if my sister wanted her to do the hair and makeup. Then, she hauled out this huge case with a proper wig and all the combs and decorations. My sister waivered. But, after Sachi, put the wig on her she got this big smile on her face from ear to ear. Oh yeah. It was happening. When we were done, we hugged Sachi goodbye and breathed a sigh of relief.
A side note: The Japanese consider the nape of the neck the sexiest part of the body and unmarried women expose there bare, naked necks while married women wear there collars so that their necks are covered up. Unmarried women also wear their kimono with long sleeves and married women cut the length of their sleeves down, so as to not drive the men wild. Of course, this tradition is from a long time ago. But then, my sister wanted to honor tradition. I don't think that until that day when I saw how happy my sister was, that I realized how much her wedding meant to her. (I know, duh!) Here they are, the bride and groom, getting ready to march down the aisle, one last practice run with the music before it all becomes official.

Wedding, Part Two

2008-07-28T23:31:00.000-07:00

My younger sister decorated the party favor table. She did a beautiful job. We filled the little bags with Japanese candies, seven (7) of them. We're not sure what the Japanese tradition is. But, we followed Italian tradition and they require seven. Oh yeah, and you can see the bulldozers in the background. (Editors correction: when I re-read the post from Shelley of At Home in Rome, it was 5 and not 7 candies that is the Italian tradition. Oops!)

My only reqret is that I didn't take a photo of the entire room before the guests arrived because it really turned out nicely. But, I was taking photos of the bride and groom back at the chapel and I couldn't do everything and they haven't invented self-cloning yet.

And, the chocolate cake is our favorite. My sister first ordered one for the 90th birthday party of our great-aunt seven years ago (Yes, that made her 97 this June). It is chocolate cake with chocolate ganache frosting and fudge between the layers from Olde Tyme Pastries in Turlock. The bride and groom hauled it to Monterey and it was appreciated by all.

A Thousand Cranes

2008-07-28T22:42:00.000-07:00

A thousand cranes was the theme of my sister's recent wedding. She is a woman of a certain age and it was not her first marriage. But, she wanted her wedding to be special, different and to honor our mom who is no longer with us.

Yes, we made all these origami cranes. We figurativly. Mostly my niece and my sister's future daughter-in-law. All with the most beautiful washi (Japanese paper). We're not really sure that we made it to the thousand origami cranes ... even though I hosted a crane making party for the bride. Cranes are supposed to bring good luck and my sister wanted for us to share in her good luck in finding someone to love and marry.

The wedding chapel was large, there was not going to be a large wedding party to sort of fill the stage, as it were so we decided we needed a focal point so all people would notice were the bride and groom. Keeping with the Japanese theme, the groom decided he could build a tori gate to frame them, then decided he couldn't, then decided maybe, he'd better. (My sister said, I was getting sort of bossy, but hey, it paid off! Someone had to crack the whip.) Here they are assembling it in the chapel under the watchful eye of the groom's grandson. We also did the flowers for the reception room. Notice, the orange construction barrier in the background of the photo below? The country club forgot to tell the bride and groom that the grounds would be under construction during their reception! My sister handled it well. I don't think people really noticed.

Flower girl having her own mini-meltdown.

Yes, flower girl, I've known how you feel.

Saturday Still Life, Italian in 10 Words a Day

2008-07-26T13:32:00.000-07:00

I haven't really been happy with the lighting for my still life photos and I have been wanting to try a different view or location to see if I could get more natural light. But first I have to, err, tidy up a bit so you couldn't see the pile(s) of books, Italian lessons and dust in the background!
This vase of my garden zinnias is my favorite. They are about a week old and have held up pretty well. I used the soft focus feature of Picasa on the photo below.

I'm still working on the Italian words in some of my previous posts, but here are a few Italian words for the day:

1. polvere - dust

2. aspirapolvere - vacuum cleaner

3. mettere in ordine - to tidy up

4. riordinare - to tidy up, reorganize

5. organizzarsi - to get organized (reflexive verb)

6. mettere via - to put away

7. sporco/a - dirty

8. pulito/a - clean

9. pulire - to clean

10. assai - a lot

Claudio Baglioni, Un Bis

2008-07-20T11:02:00.000-07:00

Italian is such a beautiful language because it is almost musical. So, I find it helpful to sing along to work on my pronounciation and connect certain words in context (like presto la mattina, for some reason I can't keep presto (soon or early) and pronto (said when answering the phone but can also mean ready) straight and both can mean quickly but here it means early in the morning). This song had so many words I didn't know and I can't stop listening to it. I love to sing along, although not too loudly as all of the windows are open. (But, once I get it on CD/boombox with a louder volume control, I'm singing it in the shower, and there's no stopping the volume in there.) Italians also love to sing along, and it's always good to know at least part of some classic tunes to join in. So, the words of the day are at the end of the lyrics.
Tienimi Con Te
Tienimi con te
dentro questa vita
chiudi ogni via d'uscita
per restarmi più vicina
e tienimi con te
quand'è presto la mattina
mentre il cuore sta in sordina
dietro a una ferita
quanti raggi ha il sole
per dar luce ovunque
quando e come vuole
e noi siamo due qualunque

quante stelle ha il cielo
file di miliardi
su ogni parallelo
e noi le vediamo troppo tardi

tienimi con te
in un pomeriggio
quando piove giù un litigio
ed un giorno sembra eterno
e tienimi con te
se è già quasi sera e inverno
tra le righe di un quaderno
e un inchiostro grigio

quante rive ha il fiume
senza mai legami
fugge tra le schiume
e noi presi in mezzo ai rami

quanti anni ha il mondo
che ne ha visti tanti
lenti sullo sfondo
e noi siamo solo istanti
almeno per un secondo
un po' meno distanti

fino alla fine
fino ci che si può
e fino al confine
fino all'ultimo
fino alla fine del tempo
fino a che ce n'è ancora un po'
e fino alla fine di tutto
fino allora tu

tienimi con te
sotto il buio aperto
della notte di un deserto
tra le dune del tuo petto
e tienimi con te
così al tuo sonno stretto
niente è triste più di un letto
vuoto e già sofferto

quante foglie ha il vento
nei viali soli
quando ha il sopravvento
su noi persi in altri voli

quante onde ha il mare
come belve in gabbia
sempre lì a scappare
e noi siamo solo sabbia
e che pena poter bagnare
appena le labbra

fino alla fine
fino a che si può
e fino al confine
fino all'ultimo
fino alla fine del tempo
fino a che ce n'è ancora un po'
e fino alla fine di tutto
fino allora tu
tienimi con te
[ Lyrics on http://www.lyricsmania.com/]

Words for the day:
1. tenere - to keep, to hold (a verb, different than in Spanish)
2. tenersi a - to hold onto, to stick to
3. in sordina - softly
4. una ferita - wound
5. miliardi - billion
6. giù - down
7. un litigio - argument
8. eterno - eternal
9. le righe - lines, la riga - line
10. inchiostro - ink

1. riva, rive - bank(s)
2, legami - ties, bonds (il legame, singolare)
3. le schiume - foam, froth, schiuma - singolare
4. istanti - instances
5. il confine - boundary
6. il sopravvento - upperhand
7. belve - wild animals (belva, singolare)
8. in gabbia - caged, gabbia - cage
9.sonno - sleepy
10. stretto - stretto is tight

1. le dune - dunes, il duno, singolare
2. il petto - breast, chest, (yes he sings about the (sand) dunes of her chest)
3. la pena - sentence, punishment
4. rami - branches, ramo - branch
5. i raggi - rays, il raggio, singolare (irregular plural, there's a rule, maybe I'll talk about it later)
6. il sfondo - background

espressioni (?)
presi in mezzo ai rami - this might be an idiomatic expression
sonno stretto - sonno is sleepy, stretto is tight, I don't think someone slept well
in mezzo a - between

Note: listen for già - already, if you don't know how to pronuouce it, it was a mystery to me for a while.