Tulip Festival

The first of April is the beginning of a month long love affair with all things "tulip" in Skagit County.  I've spoken to this before in our blog.

Today we decided to make the rounds to all of the art shows in various gallery locations, both formal and impromptu.  Our first stop included a hearty breakfast at a restaurant called the "Farm House" followed by a climb to the second floor showing of the works of several artists we found quite intriguing.  Our stomachs full, and our senses stimulated, we then ventured on to the next stop.

Gallery two was within the so called "Pickle Barn" of a local garden shop and nursery.  Here we met one of the artists in person.  He had created a miniature world within the auspices of a mushroom roofed building guarded by a raven that contained a tiny music box within its core.  Delightful!  His enthusiasm in demonstrating his creation only added to the pleasure we derived from viewing it.  It strikes me that the talent existing in this world is boundless.  The frosting on the cake at this site was the array of beautiful plants available, two of which I could easily have carried home that moment were it not for the inconvenience of driving along on this tour in our Prius rather than in our pickup truck.  Well, they will have to wait for another outing.

The third stop was again at a nursery with an historical 1888 school building occupying one corner of the property.  Here, within the schoolhouse were further examples of the work of talented artists.  The schoolhouse was surrounded by a garden just beginning to bring forth the promise of spring with a wide variety of budding and blooming plants.  This will have to be another stop during a late spring or early summer drive to see how it has matured.  An added focus to tempt a return was the paddock containing three very attractive and unusual looking sheep.  These creatures were quite beautiful and at the moment we saw them, they were much more interested in their keeper's apparent determination that it was their meal time, rather than our need to photograph them!

We then came upon one of the most pleasant of displays in a gallery that occupied what appeared to be a greenhouse on the periphery of a private home.  Here, sculptures caught my eye.  One called "Honey Sisters" fascinated me.  Two heads (connected by tiny micro lights strung between them that represent bees flying between them) gaze at each other.  The shape of the heads reminded me of Egyptian sculptures I've viewed, with whispy eyes that I could hardly lift mine from.

The final gallery was in the basement of a Grange building.  By this time, though just as talented and well presented, the artwork was beginning to swim in my brain in lovely little puddles I began to muddy together, one to the other.  You come away from such an eventful tour in awe, promising yourself you will try harder with your own creations-whatever they may be.

And then I realize, "there's too much I want to do, in too little time, each day."

 

Down to the Beach

After weeks of remodeling and tired of the effort, we drove over to the beach this afternoon on one of the first sunny days we've experienced this spring.  It was divine.  We were not alone.  From elders to infants, everyone wanted a moment in the sun.  Ours was a mission; the collection of rocks to paint in a craft rendezvous scheduled for the upcoming week.  But the moment our feet touched the sand, mind, body and soul were enveloped by the surroundings.

There were plenty of rocks to collect, in every size, shape and color one could desire.  We both quickly filled our jacket pockets with a variety.  Then my camera demanded attention and my "artist eye" photographed a hundred things I would aspire to paint later in soft pastel shades of watercolor.

The sounds of the sea acknowledged how the fine, soft, rounded edges of the rocks have evolved.  With each draw of the water back to the sea, the rocks clatter and thump along the sand.  It was a mesmerizing sound resembling soft, spa music.    











A seal floated by, curious about all of the people and gulls inhabiting his stretch of the beach. Then, more beguiled by the possibility of food, his head disappeared beneath the soft swells of the saltwater.  Evidence of his eating preferences could be found perhaps in the empty crab shells sprinkled sporadically in the sand along my path.

Footprints of the gulls seemed to hint of their search for morsels of food as well. This communal place sings to all of us I presume.  Like the children running down to the water's edge, we all are drawn to this place.  And like children, all I want to do is linger and play.

The Before and The After

When you watch the "Flip or Flop" and "Property Brothers" shows, or Chip and Jo describing "Fixer Upper" in Waco, Texas, remodeling seems like something anyone could do in two or three days (well, maybe in a few weeks.)  I have a distinct appreciation now for the meaning of seven weeks usually claimed by the property brothers.  That's how long it took us to remodel our kitchen/living room.  I can only imagine the time it would take for us to do a whole house, but then we've been here just over a year and it is coming together very nicely.  The satisfaction of doing a great deal of it ourselves have put down long roots in the commitment to this home.

Twelve months ago we painted the kitchen cabinet doors and interiors and called it good for a year.  The dire condition of the kitchen sink was a powerful spur to action.  It was leaking around its edges and threatening to literally begin the demo itself on its own.  And so we began...

First we papered and painted the living room walls with a special wallpaper specifically made to cover paneling.  This delightful product was true to its word and the walls suddenly looked like painted wallboard.  The newly painted ceiling sang to us, as light seemed to reflect around the room in abundance.  The dark cave had been defeated.

From there, we tore up the old carpeting and dragged it out the door to the pickup.  The carpet, with its evidence of prior furry residents of this home, made the trip to the dump.  That alone was worth the effort.  Now we were to begin the challenge of something we had never done before-the installation of Pergo laminate flooring.  To our delight, the assurances of the Home Depot flooring salesman were true, "My eleven year-old son could install it!"  The beauty of the new flooring was astounding as we worked our way across the room.

Now, one would think from watching the remodeling shows that demo is easy.  Nope!  It is hard work.  Especially if you wish to preserve any portion of the structure you are pulling down.  This is the stuff of aching muscles, bones and joints.  But, soon that too was behind us with two more pickup truck loads of debris journeying to the dump.  With electric wires hanging from the ceiling and walls and old pipes jutting down through the old vinyl floor that was embraced by wall studs stripped of their insulation, our home resembled a war zone.  But the worst was over.  The new building could begin.

Day by day the new kitchen revealed itself as we finished the Pergo flooring throughout and others took over the plumbing, electrical work and cabinet installation.  Finally, we were there.  Walking through these rooms now gives us the feeling we are in a completely different home.  It is remarkable.

 

Seattle Art Museum

As part of a watercolor class I took at the local college over the winter semester, I joined a group of my classmates today for an excursion to the Seattle Art Museum, also known as "SAM", to view the Paul G. Allen Family Collection of Landscape Masterworks.

Yes, one of the founders of Microsoft has been generous enough to share his private collection with us-the public.  After this exhibition ends on April 23rd, the works will return to Mr. Allen's personal collection.  I can only imagine what he has invested to own these paintings.  Even further, I cannot grasp what it could mean to have them hanging on my own personal walls to enjoy whenever I desired, as does he.  But gratefully, Mr. Allen has given the rest of us an opportunity to experience these works of art at least once in our lifetime here at SAM on this glorious day.

How lucky to have this opportunity!  Awe inspiring to the point of evoking a true emotional reaction  while standing in front of them, seeing these original masterworks is an experience almost beyond description.  I have never previously viewed the original works of most famous artists, including Georgia O'Keefe, Claude Monet and Gustav Klimt to name just three of the many masters we saw.  Their paintings take you beyond words, and I can easily see why the world is mesmerized by their works. 

We could have spent hours beyond what we had available to us on this day.  During our visit, we enjoyed a tour given by one of the museum docents, who provided us with wonderful descriptions of each work of art, as well as enlightening us with what the artist meant to convey beyond the actual image he or she created.  Further exploration found us admiring items in a phenomenal gift shop, followed by a yummy lunch we all enjoyed together in the museum's restaurant.

The museum is also stunning in other ways.  Within the main lobby, there is a giant replication of an actual tree created from tiny pieces of wood glued together to recreate the actual outline of a once living tree.  The trunk and branches represent the size, growth pattern and shape of the real tree.  Seeing the tree horizontally above you along the length of the lobby imparts a realization of the height and majesty these living plants are capable of achieving-a perception that one cannot realize as well looking up vertically while standing at the base of a tree in real life.

Nothing prepares you for unexpected adventures that turn into a dream experience.  But taking the time and garnering the courage to try something new, miles away from home, was well worth the effort.  Museums are to be commended for what they give all of us and I am grateful for them.

New Home Arrives In the Dark

When we were on the road in our RV, often a new home (aka RV) pulled in next to us late in the day or during the evening.  Sometimes we'd wake up in the morning with a new neighbor unexpectedly next to us, if their "rig" was quiet enough.

That's not as easy in a neighborhood.  But indeed, in the span of just a few minutes, a new home was positioned next to us this evening, as the sun disappeared over the western horizon.  With a few neighbors, we gathered on our porch to watch as young men maneuvered the home into place using a remote, radio-controlled tractor in much the same fashion as Jim would maneuver a radio-controlled hobby plane.

The more remarkable thing was the operator's ability to achieve this in almost darkness as the minutes wore on avoiding trees, scrubs, and a small shed on the perimeter of the lot, not to mention our awning.  All this with two halves of a home 57 feet long and probably 12 feet wide!

The new home's color is delightful.  A soft green is accented with white trim, and this gives us a pleasant enough view even though we were spoiled by a year of enjoying an empty lot beside us.  The birds, rabbits and squirrels will likewise have an adjustment to make in their territory.

It turns out the new owner's name is also Jim.  Hers is Linda.  They are moving here from Arizona to be closer to their daughter.  Similarities that are not hard to miss.  We will watch them settle in over the next few weeks, once their home is put together from these two halves that just arrived in the night.  Brand new with a huge front porch, their home is definitely a plus in the neighborhood.

Ours is progressing in that direction too.  We have demolished our kitchen and hauled it out the door to the dump.  A wall has come down.  We are painting and papering.  But that is a story for the next post.

Until then, we'll "leave the light on" out on our front door porch, awaiting the arrival of Jim and Linda.

Snow Play

There is something quite refreshing about the first view of undisturbed, newly fallen snow.  The world looks fresh and hopeful with all of its blemishes and winter dreariness camouflaged.  Such was the scene we beheld this morning when we awoke to a white wonderland of three inches of fresh snow covering our street and yard.

Snow has a way of bringing out the kid in many of us, especially while living in an area that doesn’t provide it with any regularity.  Though we didn’t actually go out and immerse ourselves in it, even at our age snow evokes memories of play when we were younger.

Jim remembers a time in the winter when he was a child playing outside with his pals on just such a day.  First they created the boundaries of a huge circle by making footprints in the snow.  Then they intersected the circle with cross paths through the center from several points along the circle’s boundary.  Within this now defined play area, next they invented their modified rules for a typical game of tag.  Adding a requirement that players must stay on the paths of the circle in order to “tag” someone, with some ingenuity the magic of snow yielded hours of play.

When I was quite young, my parents, my brother, and I built a huge snowman in the front yard with a hat, stick arms, carrot nose, and its eyes and mouth made of black rocks.  Overlooking our father’s Ford dealership that was situated across the street from our home, the snowman survived for days to wave at my dad while he worked.  I remember singing “Frosty The Snowman” over and over again to our creation, while he stood guard over us.

On another occasion, I purposely buried a toy in the snow in the same yard, only to lose track of it as more snow fell.  Impatiently, I had to wait for weeks until the snow melted enough to find it, imagining during the entire interval that “snow gremlins” were stealing it from me. 

As we grew older, my brother and I collaborated to build rooms with an igloo type of roof and door, calling them snow forts.  Once frozen, these temporary shelters could provide entertainment for days before they melted.  Ultimately, we surrounded them with more walls of snow.  Then these forts spawned snowball fights, along with hide and seek games.

Once during our youth, upstate New York received several feet of snow during one weather event.  The snow was so deep, my father borrowed a neighbor’s bulldozer to plow us out.  School was closed for days.  As children, we were delighted.  Living on a farm surrounded by hills, we created our own ski run, and rode downhill with our cousins on our father’s homemade toboggan for hours in the snow.

If I could go back in time, it would be to those fresh and hopeful, newly fallen snow moments, when no cares mattered except devising the rules of play in nature’s perfect playground.

Lose The Fat

In a magazine I found irresistible in the check-out line of the grocery store a few days ago, Dr. Oz’s January/February issue of “The Good Life” has an article on losing ten pounds in 21 days.  I don’t usually subscribe to fad diets, but this one is worth mentioning because some of the recipes I’ve tried so far from this article are really quite delicious.

One premise of the article is that prepping food ahead of time leads to less of the temptation style of eating.  Prepping also lends itself to avoiding the versions of eating where you “grab something quick” (usually the kind of food that falls into the realm of unhealthy or fattening) because you don’t want to make something from scratch at the end of a day.  The article also suggests storage in square containers, which I find are so much more efficient when it comes to space in the refrigerator.  Note:  Zip Lock has some nice square containers that hold about four cups.  I supplemented my stash of multi-sized and multi-shaped containers with about a dozen of these for storing the article’s “prep day” recipes.  Having about three more would have worked even better.

So far we have tried and liked the “bean chili”, “berries to go” and “container salad” while strictly following the regime for the first two days of the diet.  Indeed, I have lost a pound and Jim has dropped two, already!  Personally, I really liked all three of these recipes.  Jim is tolerating the “diet”, but I suspect the anti-inflammatory and weight loss features of this choice of foods is more to his liking than the abundance of veggies and lack of potato chips!

The recipes are filling, satisfying and sustain us until the next meal, although they are served in smaller proportions than we usually consume.  I don’t know if we will lose the ten pounds, nor if we will be able to maintain the regime, but it is tempting.

If you do try this, know that some of the items are a tiny challenge to find in the grocery store.  One item, called tempeh, required a stop at my local organic health food/co-op grocery store’s freezer department.  Stocking up on some of the staples ran up the cost a bit, but aside from that we are off and running (figuratively speaking) with the diet.  I’ll let you know how it turns out.