Back at it!

As you may well have noticed, my silver making has been on hiatus, but today, I got back at it!

Since the beginning of the year, my focus has been elsewhere, but now I'm hoping I am at a stage where I can find a balance with other areas of my life and make time for jewelry again.

The change started at the beginning of the year when I went back to my studies.  A few years ago, I completed my masters in health psychology and then trained as health coach, but at the beginning of this year, decided that I wanted to specialize in helping those with cancer, so since January I've been studying to become a cancer coach.  I'd previously trained as a cancer guide, but this new training was much more thorough.  I'm progressing with it - not quite finished yet - but that is what my mind has been focussing on.  And I'm loving it.

My goal is to do some health coaching and also some jewelry. But my ideal is that my jewelry business can support my health coaching business enabling me to coach cancer patients free of charge. One business, supporting the other.

The cancer topic is making it's way into my jewelry too and so you'll see some jewelry coming up - both new and old designs, that is based on affirmations to help us on our way with chronic diseases or difficult times in our lives. For example, like this "bird in the hand" necklace.  A great reminder for us to be grateful for what we have, instead of always wanting things just out of our grasp.

I have a blog for my health coaching business - Tickety-boo Health Coaching and I should finish developing my website in the next month or so.  That will really tell you what it is all about. I plan to run programs locally but also develop an e-program for cancer patients.  I'll let you know here, in case you are interested.

So I thank you for your patience as I've been developing another aspect of myself.  It's a great journey and who knows where it'll all lead.  But I can tell you, it felt good to get my hands in metal clay again today :-D

Weekly bird in the hand

Here's this week's things that I am grateful for, my "bird in the hand":

Photo by USFWS Headquarters

• blogs.  I love reading blogs and am right now finding some great vegan recipes that I'm trying.  Today I'm making a raw lemon tart.  There is so much variety out there but it's tricky to not just get 'consumed' by them all  - hee hee!
• catching up with friends
• watching rabbit ears twitching below the window, when I couldn't see the rabbit!
• getting our raised beds ready for veggie growing
• choosing a new pomegranate tree for the garden
• hearing good news about my nephews
• hearing that both grandchildren - and their parents(!) will come and visit - one lot in May and one lot in June
• being inspired with new business and jewelry ideas
• finally getting over the hurt from a nasty customer. I'm hoping I'll get back into jewelry making this week or next. My mind's been buzzing so I'll plan on writing a blog post to tell you what's been going on and what's coming up.
• watching the great blue heron at the pond
• learning lots of new things

Hope your week has been full of new things too. Here's to a great week coming up - and don't forget to change your clocks this evening.  One hour forward.

Weekly bird in the hand

Here is this week's list of things I am grateful for - my "bird in the hand":

Photo by PunkToad

• sunshine and showers.  I got pretty wet on one of my walks this week - and I could have cut it short, but continued anyhow.  How often do we just walk in the rain?  It felt good - but then so do my walks in the sunshine too!
• a good hike on Saturday at Annadel State Park.  I loved being in all the trees - but there were quite a few mountain bikers to contend with!
• drinkies with my friend in the afternoon!
• deciding on some new garden ideas - including raised beds for vegetables.  We've grow so many different types of fruits, but until now, haven't really got into veggies - so this will be a good project for 2012.
• trying lots of new cooking ideas - like making cheese from cashew nuts.
• hearing about all the fun my parents have been having while they've been away
• audio-books - I just so enjoy listening to books as I walk and drive.  
• going to a gala fundraising event with friends.

Hope you've had an enjoyable week too.  What are you particularly grateful for?

Weekly bird in the hand

I've missed a couple of my "bird in the hand" posts I'm afraid as I've been away, back in England - so that means I have even more to be grateful for this week!  Here's this week's list of the things that I am grateful for:

Photo by Navicore

• being surrounded my like-minded people
• having tender, sincere conversations with casual friends that takes the friendship to another level
• sunshine and warmth - it got up to 79 degrees here this week
• seeing the turtles in the pond, warming themselves on the duck platform
• getting back into singing
• being asked to participate in new things
• new opportunities
• the excitement of new ideas
• meeting new people
• enjoying the yellow of the daffodils
• seeing all the blossom on the trees
• seeing the brightest blue on a male bluebird as he flies around the vineyard with his Mrs.

It's like a week of new life with the flowers/blossoms, birds, turtles and new beginnings.  Has spring sprung in your heart yet?

Bird in the hand

Here is this week's things that I am grateful for - my "bird in the hand":

Photo by D'Arcy Norman

• my birthday and all the lovely greetings I got from friends and family
• a safe flight over to England
• seeing family and my new granddaughter and grandson
• having a warm coat, hat and gloves! It's freezing here and the snow has started today!
• cuddles and feed-time with babies
• seeing the ducks on a frozen lake

Hope you are staying cozy.

Weekly Bird in the Hand

Here is this week's Bird in the Hand - the things I am grateful for:

WWI Carrier pigeon

• My nephew Matt.  It was his 17th birthday yesterday.  Seems difficult to believe - but he's still as cute as ever ;-D
• Achieving my 10,000 steps a day goal every day this week - totalling walking more than 40 miles.
• My new walking shoes!
• The fun of learning new things. I'm busy building a new website for my Health Coaching business but as many things have changed since I built my Birdland Creations site, there is quite a learning curve.  I often feel I haven't much to show for a day's work, but I am getting there - and enjoying the challenge of it all.
• All this wonderful sunny weather here in California.  We've had practically no rain at all since the beginning of December - only 1 day I think - and this is supposed to be our rainy season!  I'm thinking it'll all catch up soon enough - but for now, I'm enjoying the 65 degree sunny afternoons and frosty mornings.
• The support of fellow artists and family when I had an unreasonable customer to deal with.
• Getting back to singing after a week off over New Year.
• Time with friends.

I hope you've had a good week too.  What was the highlight for you?

Weekly bird in the hand

This week's bird in the hand could include lots of things on my list, but instead, I've just decided to choose one thing that I am grateful for - and that is my blog "Merry Go Round" friends.

I started the Merry Go Round on September 25th, 2008 as a monthly blog post where a group of artists/craftswomen could all blog on the same topic on the last Friday of every month.  There have always been between 8 and 12 of us blogging. Originally the group formed by my inviting people who also sold on Dawanda and who's work I liked. They then invited others to join in and so it continued with new people joining when others left. Sadly, I have never met any of the "merriers" face to face.

There are 4 of us who have stayed the test of time from the beginning - myself, Mariana, Sara and Agathe.

I've now decided to leave the group, as things are changing and my mind just doesn't seem quite in it anymore.  But I am SO grateful for all that the merry go round has done for me.  I have "met" some wonderful people, made great friendships, felt supported, felt inspired, felt understood, felt cared for and many other things too.  It's been a wonderful group of people.

Our questions/topics each month have made me think carefully and differently about subjects and I've enjoyed the challenge of writing down my thoughts and ideas.

It has been a great journey during which we've seen each other and our businesses change and develop.  I hope to do something similar again in the future, as it truly has been a fascinating experience for me.

So thank you to all the present and past Merriers.  I hope the merry go round keeps spinning and you all stay merry. xxx

Weekly bird in the hand

Here's this week's good stuff - the things I am grateful for:

• A passerby who wished me "have a great afternoon".
• Spending time with good friends who are up visiting us for the weekend.
• Taking a class and learning something new.
• Going to my friend's art show.
• Warm weather (helping the grapes along) and still enjoying eating dinners outside.
• Cooking quince and enjoying all their flavors.
• This time of year. I just love it.
• Picking fruit off the vine or tree and eating it, warmed by the sun.
• The conversation between myself and my hair stylist.  It's such a different relationship from all others and  I always look forward to our chats.
• Seeing frogs jumping.
• Planning our trip back to the UK in 3 weeks time.
• Sharing green smoothies with friends!

One thing I am sad about this week however is that our friends from England who were due to arrive yesterday and share the grape harvest with us, had to cancel their trip due to ill health.  Here's hoping J gets better soon and that they can come another time instead.

Hope you've had a week full of things to be grateful for too.

Weekly bird in the hand

Here is this week's bird in the hand - all about food:

• Harvest time.  It seems my week has been full of fruit from our garden - apples, pears, green table grapes and now the figs are just ripening!  What a perfect time of the year. And the main grape harvest is yet to come!
• My aga.  The aga is our stove in the kitchen, but we don't use it in the summer when the weather is too warm.  This Monday I turned it back on and it's like a friend has returned to stay!  Yummy...lots of baked sweet potatoes, roasted vegetables, tasty comfort food...and a place to warm yourself when you come in from the cold.

My colorful Aga cooker

• My dehydrator. It's been working flat out this week!  I have an excalibur dehydrator - a wonderful machine, and it's been busy dehydrating apples, grapes to make sultanas (golden raisins), and blended grapes to make fruit leathers.  The last of the sultanas and grape leathers are finishing as I type this...then it's back to more apples.   We are eating the pears fresh as they are so heavenly and juicy, but if we can't keep up with them, we may have to start dehydrating them too!

Dried yummy apples from our trees

Hope you've had a fruitful week too!

Our own sultanas in the making!

Weekly bird in the hand

The things I am grateful for this week:

Photo by Steve (huz001); back in Missouri

• A few weeks ago we got the wonderful news that there will be two new additions to our family in the new year.  This week, we heard one will be a little girl. Still waiting a couple of weeks to hear on the other.  Yippee-yeye-yeah!!! 
• Walking in nature.  I love my daily walks, watching the deer, birds, lizards, squirrels etc all busy with their lives.  I wonder if they enjoy watching us too?
• Success at getting a reservation for The French Laundry restaurant in Yountville (best restaurant in our area) with our friends in October. I've tried quite a few times to get a reservation there and never been successful. Now we get to try it. 
• Our book club.  Yesterday was our August meeting and it was just a lovely way to spend the morning and then lunch.  Great group of women.
• Meeting new friends and finding out all that you have in common with them.
• Enjoying my latest food heaven: pumpkin seeds. I've recently been toasting my own for salads etc but now found "eden foods" low salt spicy pumpkin seeds and just adore them.  For those Brits reading, the flavour sort of reminds me of twiglets you get in England and I haven't had in years - but the pumpkin seeds are a little spicier - and gluten free.
• Seeing a stranger have a good old laugh! It is quite contagious and definitely brought a smile to my face!
• My gentle dental hygienist.  She is so considerate and I really do appreciate that!

Hope your week has been full of good things too.

Weekly Bird in the hand

Here is this week's things that I am grateful for:

Harold, my pet parrot.

• Fin, my brother in law who celebrated his 60th birthday this week.
• My friend Marion from Germany who is celebrating her birthday in her new home.
• My Vitamix.  I bought a Vitamix a few months ago and I absolutely love it.  I use it at least twice a day.  I'm loving my homemade hummus and just now, I made my own cashew nut butter!  And that is in between all the green smoothies I'm making with it!  Yes, it was an expensive machine - but it brings me a lot of joy!
• The fun of mixing paint colors!  (see yesterday's post)
• Meeting new friends and catching up with old friends.
• Getting excited about my sister and her family coming to visit in 2 weeks.
• Finding some unusual greens at a farm stand - including amaranth, sorrel, purslane....and then finding micro greens at the farmers market - including purple amaranth, sunflower, kale, beets, broccoli.  They were all so colorful with so many shades of green and purples.  A delight to the eyes as well as the taste buds.  It's made me want to try growing some of my own micro greens....

I hope you've had a colorful week too.

Weekly bird in the hand

This week's things that I am grateful for:

 

• All the nests with eggs and newly hatched baby birds!  Above, the top left nest is tiny - about the length of my thumb, with brown speckled blue eggs.  Top right is in the new Godello vines with four pale blue eggs.  Bottom left two little babes have just hatched - you can just see them to the left of the third blue egg. Bottom right, the bluebirds in their house, with one especially hungry one. These are the same bluebirds that I showed in last Saturday's post. You can see that their eyes are now open and they have more feathers. It's such a delight to watch nature.
• A successful farmer's market last Sunday with good sales and lovely people.  
• Some aluminum commission work.
• Going to the art museum with a friend.
• Lunch with a friend.
• Acupuncture.
• Creating our latest wine label for our 2009 Birdland Merlot. It's at the printers now!
• Seeing Quentin and Queenie numerous times with 11 babies. Today they can fly and jumped up on our dining table outside.  Phew, they are much safer now they can fly.
• Sitting by the pond after gardening and watching the great blue heron catch frogs and the baby swallows squalk continuously for more food!
• The pleasure of gardening - but I could have done without the reaction I had all over my arms to one plant! 
• Sharing in 4th of July celebrations at a friend's home.
• The lives of Craig, Adam and Charlie, who all shared a birthday on 4th July.

Weekly Bird in the hand

This week's bird in the hand - the things I am grateful for - is short!  One item only - and fresh on the palate.

Photo by Robbie1

This week I am grateful for:

• Orgran's gluten free pastry mix

I just made puff pastry with their new mix for the first time. It was quite a lot of work with combining the butter etc, and putting it in the freezer for 15 minutes after every two rollings...for a total of 6 rollings.  But if you make your own regular puff pastry, you have to do all that too - although if I recall you don't have to "freeze" it so often.

From the pastry, I made a steak and onion pie and wow! It was yummy!  I haven't had flaky/puff pastry for over 6 years as I've never known a way to make it gluten free. I just assumed I'd never eat it again.  But it worked! It was crisp, and crunchy, and tasty and you'd never have guessed it was gluten free.  Even John liked it!!

I ate dinner before taking a photo of the pie - but half is left for tomorrow - so here is my half-eaten gluten free puff pastry steak and onion pie!

 

If you need to eat gluten free - and don't mind spending a bit of time baking - give this pastry a go.  There is enough to make two pies, so I've frozen half of it already rolled out, so next time it will be quick and easy! :=D

Weekly Bird in the Hand

This week's bird in the hand i.e. things I'm grateful for:

Photo by ell brown

• Being home after a busy summer and having some time to catch up
• Meeting a friend unexpectedly and finding time to have a coffee together and hear all what's been happening
• Doing more creating with my new toy - a tap and die set!
• Starting a new class - more on that later!
• Being named as September featured artist for the Yahoo Metal Clay Group
• Starting back at singing again at Grace Cathedral
• Being able to see so much wildlife just in our garden.  This week John saw a Bobcat in the vineyard, a pigmy Owl, we both saw lots of Quails and yesterday we had an otter in the pond.  All were around long enough to really watch them. Hope you like my otter photos - it seemed he was as interested in me as I was in him! 

Couple more new hands

Here are a couple more hand pieces...

My protector:

and another "a bird in the hand"....

A bird in the hand....

In addition to the "take my hand" piece (which is on its way to Southern CA, where I hope it will provide great comfort), I also made a "bird in the hand" necklace. I like the sentiment - that we should be grateful and appreciate what we have - rather than always be looking for more i.e. two in a bush.

I think the brushed soft look of the silver goes well with this piece. And the hand is gently cupped, cradling the bird rather than holding it....... I had made a similar piece before with a slightly different bird. It's interesting to see how subtle changes can be quite significant. Here is looks like the bird is free to fly away but chooses to stay.....

There seems to be so much emotion in cupped hands... I feel it as a create them and then seeing them as jewelry - they speak volumes I think. So nurturing and comforting and gentle....holding something precious and delicate.....

Hope you like the necklace.