New book came

I ordered "Photographing Arts, Crafts & Collectibles" in hopes to actually be able to take a decent likeness of my glass beads. I haven't been sharing them here because my pictures just don't represent what the beads actually look like in person. I just can't have that! So far I have just leafed through the book but it looks good and it looks as though it will help me. Now that my helium provider is back home with the camera, I will attempt to share some of my work. Wish me luck, my patience level will probably need it!

Do things in Love

...for love shall find you then.

This little 8 year old boy, so sweet, so full of abundant love. I relish the joy of being his mother.

Today, burdened by a very sore throat, painfully sensitive ears and a miserable cold I went out and mowed the lawn. I drudged through each painful dizzying step while my boys played so well together inside. During breaks to empty the clippings or to steady myself, I could hear them talking inside about dinner. This boy telling his younger brother that they shouldn't get a snack now because it was almost dinner and instead of arguing the answer was a surprising 'okay'.

I finished the lawn and dragged myself inside, not knowing what to do about dinner. What was my healthiest option with the least amount of effort I could think of. Finally I sucombed to my throats needs and made Lipton's Chicken noodle soup. I put the water on and went to change from my grass dusted clothing when this dear boy came in and asked if he could make dinner for me since he knew I didn't feel well. As luck would have it, I have taught him how to make this soup before due to the fact that it is his favourite and wanted to know how. He was pleased when I said yes, and was happy to see the look of relief and delight on my face from his offer. I thought his offer came with him knowing what we were having. He didn't. So thoughtful, he was willing to try and make anything I requested. He was specially pleased to find that he didn't need instruction to be able to help and took the reigns. He did a fine job of cooking, even setting our places and laddling it out for the 3 of us like an experienced pro. Even placing a plate over my bowl so it wouldn't get chilled before I got to eat it. He's such a loving soul, so kind and giving. I truely am lucky to be his mother.

He sees things with a gentle heart. Yesterday he wanted eggs for breakfast so I fried him two eggs mindlessly, placed them on a plate and gave them to him. I cracked two more for myself and stood there still mindlessly, and cooked them. He came back over and in my mindless, tired, cold suffering state I looked at him I'm sure with a blank look on my face as to why he was bringing them back to me. His face, full of beaming joy, glowed in his discovery. What he found when he looked down at his plate after he sat at the table was an utterly perfect heart. Each egg placed so perfectly you'd swear it was deliberate. A random, beautiful perfect heart in such a surprising place and it didn't go unnoticed. We both stood there, hearts floating, savouring the connection the mindless common duty gave fruition to...Love.

Darnit!

My head is in such a fog this morning and it's totally my fault. Can you believe I caught a cold from my husband while he's away! How you wonder? Well, a few nights ago when I was brushing my teeth I used his glass to rinse with. He had mentioned he felt like he was experiencing a mild cold before he left but I had forgotten about that. The next day cold symptoms started to appear so I took Cold FX to stave it off. It did so I didn't take anymore, which was my bad. Darnit, now it's back and it's got a nice hold in my ears, the back of my sinus' and throat and I have the body ache with headache. I don't have time for this, I have so many things to accomplish before my sweetie gets home. I have a bedroom to paint, the family room to paint, a garage to clean, move the youngest into the bedroom that's freshly painted and then clean the house. Now this cold. Yuck. It's not working to my favour. It's working against my energy level. Why did I have to go and use his glass? Shoot!

Missing him

Oh How I miss my husband today. We've never been apart this long. My heart longs for him and aches for his closeness, voice and scent. His warm, engulfing embrace and soft kisses. 6 more days I have to wait, he's only 1/2 way through his trip today. No phone call from him tonight, I was hoping and waiting to hear his voice to sustain me through another day without him. Just to hear him say he loves me... I miss him deeply.

They don't come much more beautiful than this, even with Mayonaise! If I were an ice cube I'd be melting!

Individual

You Are 4: The Individualist

You are sensitive and intuitive, with others and yourself. You are creative and dreamy... plus dramatic and unpredictable. You're emotionally honest, real, and easily hurt. Totally expressive, others always know exactly how you feel. At Your Best: You are inspired, artistic, and introspective. You know what you're thinking, and you can communicate it well. At Your Worst: You are melancholy, alienated, and withdrawn. Your Fixation: Envy Your Primary Fear: To have no identity Your Primary Desire: To find yourself Other Number 4's: Alanis Morisette, Johnny Depp, J.D. Salinger, Jim Morrison, and Anne Rice.

What Number Are You?

Wow does this quiz have me pegged, other than the Envy thing. I mean my hubby is going away on vacation in Florida for 12days and I'm not envious at all. If that's not going to bring on envy then I don't think that is an accurate statement about me. But the rest, the rest is sooo true! And how cool to be in the company of those particular famous people! As Gene Simmons would say, it's good to be me! Deryn Mentock posted this on her blog, that's how I came across this quiz. Give it a try and see if it's accurate about you!

My hands are busy today, are yours?

Journal Entry

Here's a quick little journal entry I made on the boys and my trip to Tofino. Not a work of art by any means, but oh do my boys love that I drew and wrote in my journal about our adventure. I don't know what happened to the mohawk haired large nosed boy! I certainly didn't mean for him to look like that but the more I tried to fix it the worse it got so I just decided to leave it. This one entry has encouraged my boys to journal, actually I should say it's excited them to journal. They actually nag me now to journal with them so that in itself makes this sad little journal entry a work of art in my eyes. It's provided the inspiration to two young boys to write about their day, their feelings and their thoughts about things and to include drawings as well. It's one thing to tell them, it's another thing to show them but the best thing is to inspire them.

Customer designed Pendant

Recently a friend from where we used to live came and stayed with her son. I showed her my lampwork and she fell in love with this particular focal bead. The picture doesn't show it in great detail, it was just a snapshot as she was trying to duck away from the camera but I wanted to get some sort of pic, no matter how poor. After she picked the bead, I pulled out all my beading stuff and what was going to be a plain simple bead pendant turned into this, with all sorts of Swarovski crystals. She likes things plain but subcombed to the crystals dazzle. She was very specific about how she wanted it all to look so I did exactly what she wanted, even taking it apart and rehanging it a few times and she loved it in the end. I personally would have liked to do a few things different but it was totally her thing, and I wanted her to want to wear it so I let her go. The bead itself was based on the ocean's gorgeous tropical green colour at Weir's Beach in Metchosin, where we spent a gorgeous afternoon together a week before she visited me so I was happy she chose that one. She had no idea of the inspiration for the bead before she chose it either. I'll share some more lampwork soon, I'm making some special beads for a special blogger that I'm looking forward to sharing too, but not till she gets them first so it doesn't ruin her surprise. Right now though, I'm going to run and get ready to go shopping. I bought hubby a camera bag for his trip to Florida this week, and it's not quite right so we are off to exchange it and have a fun day in Victoria while we are at it. Have a great Sunday everyone!

Beautiful Strangers

What a beautiful glimpse, a moment in their life that I got to capture and hold for myself. Looking at them then as I took the picture and now as I see it again, I feel lucky. I imagine who they are, why they chose this place and where they came from. I get to take their experience of surfing here at Long Beach, here at the edge of the New World where waves claim lives and nature is in it's most raw form and imagine their story as if I know who they are. I love doing this. I love to be the writer of who these characters might be. It's profoundly interesting to me.

Most people who see these stranger snapshots think it's weird that I do take these pictures but I think it's beautiful and I never throw them out. I've done it since I got my first camera as a kid, which drove my parents nuts to be exposing film of people they didn't know. They thought it was very wasteful and in guilt, I stopped doing it until I got a better camera and a job and started paying for my own film and developing. Film isn't the gold I was lead to believe that you have to pay, it's a tool to be played with. Now with digital, no one can criticize the cost cause it only costs if I develop them. But they still think me odd for it.

I'm not sure why but I have always taken pictures of strangers while living their lives and writing their own stories. One of the first I can remember taking was of a group of strangers,strangers even to themselves, sitting all over a grassy bank, with a rocky hill behind them waiting for a bus to come along. The weather was beautiful and even though these people were on their way to be busy somewhere else, at the moment I found them, they were having quiet solitude and physical relaxation right in the midst a very busy interesection. Quiet solitude when there was no solitude to be found. I still have that picture, I even placed it in a photo album. I wonder where that old album is.

The thing is, they have a story, their story is being written right along side of ours but most of the time we don't see their story because ours is right here, immediate, consuming and distracting. We don't often have time to see the beauty of all that is around us let alone have the chance to see the the beauty around someone else that we will never know. The chance to grab a guess of what it looks like through someone's someone elses unknown experiences of the place they are at this one moment. I find it so beautiful. Like a painting done by one of the Great Masters, something that I will never be able to recreate but I'd like to hold onto for myself.

These beautiful people. I know them for one moment, but it's my secret. They won't ever know.

He may be a year older...

but he's still my little boy. He turned 8 on July 4th. Eight. How did that happen. Seems like just yesterday he was a tiny baby with digestion troubles. Now he eats like a powerhouse and I know it's just a warm up for his teens. He's my sensitive little thinker, my scientist, my timid lion. We call his birthday his independence day since that's the day he became independent from me. He loves that. For his cake this year he designed his own pokeball for a pokeman he created just for the day. I think he called it a Minun. I'll have to double check with him on that.

GeoCache

While we were enjoying this stop at Clayoquot Plateau park, we happened upon a GeoCache site quite by accident. I didn't even think to bring the GPS or look up some locations. We were planning on enjoying the beach and water and that was all that was on our minds. As the boys clambered around on the rocks, looking for pebbles to toss into the deep rippling pool laying before us, my oldest son found a lock-n-lock container all camoflauge painted in what looked like a former support for some sort of construction (maybe something to do with logging? dealing with log jams?). He was so excited to find it and knew immediately what it was. Here they are all proud of the find.

They scavenged things from the van that they were willing to part with and made their trades and we made our entry in the log book and put it back. I put in some beautiful Canadian stamps which aren't in circulation anymore, and some kids handiwipes. The boys all put in something, what a decision it was for my middle boy (the one in orange shoes) for both giving and taking out of the cache. A decision maker he is not. My oldest took charge to place it back exactly as he found it for the next person.

I wished in hind sight that I had taken the fire-starter sticks out of it since the 3 days of rain that we were about to camp in made it imposible to light a fire with the water laden paper - from the heavy damp air - and the unseasoned wood. The fire virgin we camped with wasn't willing to hand over the reigns nor did I insist on taking them so we went fire free until a bottle of lighter fluid was purchased on the last night - which by the way, the rainforest skies immediately doused once it got going.

There were so many entries from people from all over the world. The boys were all so interested in where the people came from. It was a fun piece of our adventure.

My Gorgeous boys at Clayoquot Park

I don't have time to post right now so I will give you something beautiful to look at. I took this a couple weeks ago at Clayoquot Plateau Provincial Park.