Back Again!

As I mentioned earlier, I lost the charger to my camera battery (knew it was somewhere, couldn't find it) which kinda cramped my blogging style. I'd been wanting to get a new camera, so I figured Christmas was a good opportunity to ask for one. I am now a proud new owner of a new camera! I also found my charger for the battery to my old camera 3 days after Christmas (of course). I am way happy to have a nice camera and a beat up camera that I don't have to worry about as much. I had a lovely Christmas with a lot of fun time with my family. They are the best! I got lots of great things, but here is a picture of one of them. My Mom knitted us girls each a pair of gauntlets that we got in our stockings (Santa doesn't come to our house any more as we are all over 18). They are really warm and soft, and everything wonderful, including my favorite teal color. The buttons are really cute vintage metal ones, the teal is a really soft wool-something blend that can wash and is really warm, and the white is an even softer cashmere-something blend. I love them!

O Sweet Torture

I changed my calender today (a calender of John Singer Sargent paintings) to find the location of the December painting is the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris. I'm afraid I let out a very audible sigh. I heart Paris.

Blustery Day

Well, we had 90+ mph winds last night/today here in SLC. Our house fared quite well, things blew over, but nothing other than a terra cotta pot broke. When I left at 7 to go to boot camp someone else's lawn chair had blown into our back yard (it was gone when I cam back, we think they came and got it). However when I went up the street I saw a bigger casualty. Too bad. At least a tree didn't fall on their house or anything. There were bigger damages/overturned semis due to the storm, but this was the worst I saw in our neighborhood.

And we're back!

So, my camera battery has run out of charge and the charger has been AWOL for about 4 weeks now...I keep expecting it to turn up, I know it's somewhere, but it hasn't yet. Anyway, it's really been cramping my blogging style. I got desperate today and put my memory card in my mom's camera.

If you haven't heard yet, I got accepted to sell jewelry at a neighborhood holiday boutique in December. I am over the moon, I'm so happy about it. It's something that's been years in the developing. I'm really excited to see how it goes. So for the next couple of weeks I need to kick the creating into high-gear to expand my inventory. It's been so fun.

I bought this kitchen (aka craft) table at IKEA a couple months ago (when we bought the red couch). I finally assembled it this morning. It is uber, Uber cool. There is the central section with 6 drawers (3 each side) and two collapsible leaves, so I can fold them down when they are not needed, but it is all quite sturdy.
Recently I started experimenting with asymmetrical chain necklaces. I got some extra chains to experiment with. Below is a study in browns.

Gettin' started

Ta-Da!

A landscape that hasn't changed in a while

Up Close and Personal

Although we didn't see many people we did see some occupants of the surrounding ranch, some of whom seemed indignant at our intrusion and were reluctant to give up their positions in the middle of the road.(I'm pretty sure he's giving us a wicked crusty)

The Spiral Jetty

The Spiral Jetty was built in 1970 during a drought, so it is mostly under water right now. It was still cool to see, the next drought year we'll have to go out again so we can go and walk on it.

Weird Things on the Jetty

...the jetty that is NOT the Spiral Jetty, that is

1. Tar (not that that is that odd)
2. Feathers and Bones (lots and lots of bones)
3. Bubbles

The Jetty that is NOT the Spiral Jetty

We passed a family on mountain bikes on the drive out, but other than that we didn't see a soul for hours and it was utterly silent except for the sounds of slight breezes or water lapping occasionally. Looking at the lake and the mist shrouding the base of the mountains in the distance made me feel like this should be the scenery in a fantasy novel. We're at the end of the jetty from the first picture. The lake behind us didn't show up, so it looks like we're at the end of the world.
This jetty is close by the spiral jetty and was used in oil explorations from the 1920's - 1980's.

Our Grand Fall Break Adventure

Promontory Point
As anyone with good taste knows the best adventures start with Coke, Peanut butter M&Ms, and Munchie Mix, AND picnic sandwiches.
Adventure's 2nd stop was Promontory Point, cuz we were there. (Stop one may or may not be addressed in a later post.)
Real steam-engines that that work! They also came with chatty conductors that gave us cool historical facts. (We lucked out this is the last day of the year the steam engines come out of their little house until May.)
Uh...can I say I'm glad I'm not in charge of moving this train?

Power of the Eyebrow

Charles Le Brun was a painter for Louis XIV in the 17th century. He was in charge of the French Royal Academy of art and he dictated the style and taste of art in ways that impacted the next century or so of art. Anywho, he considered showing expressions very important and he created a handbook for artists with different facial expressions that was widely published.

This is an excerpt from an article we read for my art history classes by Linda Walsh called "Charles Le Brun 'art dictator of France'".

"Le Brun asserted (with a touching confidence) that the eyebrow is the most expressive part of the face because it best shows the 'nature of the agitation' of the soul. Plate 72 shows how the eyebrows are linked to the pineal gland situated 'in the middle of the brain' - the brain being the part of the body 'where the soul exercises its functions most immediately'. Although Le Brun conceded that eyes, mouths and noses can betray or express emotion...he felt that the eyebrow was capable of the greatest and most subtle range of positions, and thus able to express passions of all kinds."

Lol! So utterly fabulous. Gotta heart it. See the diagram for anger below, with the man himself below that. (It appears that his eyebrows, at least would be capable of considerable gyrations.) The picture at the beginning of the post is really small, but check out those sweet brows.

Catch the Moon

Handsome Hankies

Some of you may know that I have a terrible acquisitive instinct. I sometimes blame it on my Clark ancestors (I need one of these, therefore I should buy 3), but I'm afraid I probably can't actually blame it on them.

Over the past year or so in my jaunts to the antique-mall and estate sales I've been collecting hankies. I have about 20 now and I just washed and ironed them all today. Still deciding on their destinies, but even if I just end up using them at church, I'm happy. I get a lot of pleasure out of looking at them. All the pretty colors make me happy. I love feeling their softness and a connection with the past.

Now that I think about it, as things go, hankies are a pretty harmless thing for me to buy, small and relatively inexpensive. :) (like I need any more justification, I'm trying really hard to move to no-buy mode since I moved to only working part-time).