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Archive for August, 2007

Activity on the Home Front

Monday, August 13th, 2007

What have I been doing since I got home? — not much on the creative side.

  1. Did lots of laundry.
  2. Stocked up on groceries.
  3. Went to Target and Fabric Depot and bought some great goodies.
  4. Made a family dinner for Steph, Jack and M & M when they got home from camping yesterday. It was so good to spend time with them.
  5. Got caught up on lots of work on the SDA website.
  6. Set up my Mac Calendar to signal me when I have approaching deadlines. I have so many coming up that I am afraid, I will forget something.

Today, we had to call this woman to come and help us out.

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This is Kelly, the mole lady. We have a really bad infestation of moles in our yard.

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First, we tried one of the electronic gizmos that is supposed to send out a vibrating sound that annoys them. Ha!! They were dancing to that tune. When we got back from our vacation, there were mole trails throughout all of our landscaping. So, Mr C bought poison pellets and put them in all the tunnels. Every time we turned around, there were more tunnels. They are immune to the stuff.

This morning, I consulted my landscaping guru, my son Mark. He says, Mom, you have to call a mole trapper; you can’t do it on your own. So, Kelly showed up an hour after we called her. She set about 7 traps in the front and back yard. She puts these buckets over them to prevent an inadvertent dog, child or adult foot from getting snared.

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She will be back in a week to check her traps. We have to pay her $25 for each mole she traps — that could be pricey, but worth it.

This afternoon, I went to the paint store with Mr C. The couple who bought our house from the estate of the previous owner, ripped out the molding in much of the house and put in molding that does not match the rest of the house and is the wrong style. You can not buy it as stock now, so we had some milled for our bedroom. Mr C needed to get primer for it and I went along to pick out paint for my Adirondack chairs. Isn’t this purty?

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I get so excited when I see a wall of paint chips. Last week, I found some great fabric for curtains in the bedroom so I picked out some paint chips to go with the fabric — turquoise and brown are involved.

I now have to give my attention to my weekly guilty pleasure — Big Love.

Asleep in Seattle

Friday, August 10th, 2007

At least my computer was!

We left Victoria by ferry on Thursday morning. Here is Mr C watching Victoria fade away.

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We made our way across the waterways of the Northwest and arrived on Bainbridge Island just in time to take the ferry to Seattle. Here are photos of the Seattle skyline as we approached.

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After a few wrong turns, we finally found our way to the Seattle Grand Hyatt where we had a fantastic room on the 18th floor with a bathroom that was out of this world. But, in this fancy schmancy hotel, you had to pay for wifi, so I decided it wasn’t worth it for the amount of time I had to use it.

We set out to walk around the city, something we love to do. We, of course had to check out the Pike Place Market.

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We walked by Etta’s, the seafood restaurant owned by Tom Douglas, and snagged a reservation for 8 pm. I had halibut, pan seared, with sweet corn cakes, fresh corn, avocado, arugula and spicy tomato vinaigrette. It was divine.

This morning, after breakfast, we walked down to SAM, the Seattle Art Museum.

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While we waited for SAM to open, we checked out a nearby sculpture exhibit.

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There were many pigs around town.

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I liked the message on the lips.

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I loved SAM. It has lots of modern art and quite a few wonderful textile pieces. One of my favorites was an installation by Marita Dingus. She had made 600 bodies dressed in cast-off fabric to represent 400 African men and 200 African women and to honor the Africans who were treated as a commodity for 300 years. She used film canisters and plastic pens for the body base. Her words and the visual were very powerful.

After lunch, we collected our belongings and car and drove to the new Sculpture Park for a quick walk-through.

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We left Seattle around 1 pm with the hope of getting home in time to pick up Maggie from the kennel, but the traffic was brutal and so we are home without her.

On another front, I am happy to say that one of my quilts is a finalist for the World of Beauty judged show at the International Quilt Festival in Houston. I think it is the first week of November. It is A Thin Place which can be seen by clicking on Abstract/Geometric in my galleries. There are so many luminaries with quilts in this show, I feel very humble!!

I’m tired and I get to sleep in my own bed.

You can see all of my Seattle photos on my Flickr.

I want to end by saying that Mr C and I had a great trip and after six days of 24/7 time together, we are still speaking and quite happy.

A Beautiful Day In Victoria, BC

Wednesday, August 8th, 2007

This morning we awoke to sunshine and blue skies. The air was brisk when we set out for the Royal BC Museum, a short walk from our hotel. We viewed the Titanic exhibit first, which was quite interesting, but my favorite exhibit was the First Person’s exhibit. The ingenuity of the indigenous people of North America is remarkable. In order to survive, they needed to invent and use technology. I am very drawn to the ethnic drawings found in the decoration of clothing and other artifacts. I bought this t-shirt with the design of a modern native artist.

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Here is a view of the inner harbor from the third floor of the museum. The tall structure on the right is the carillon, a gift from the Netherlands.

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Here are a few sights from Victoria this morning:

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I love the couple that was putting these signs out in front of the parliament building.

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After lunch, we took the car out to Butchart Gardens, which is an incredibly beautiful place. Here are some photos from the afternoon. You can see all of them here, on my Flickr Site.

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I went directly to the source today to find out the name of the trumpet like flower I posted a photo of yesterday, and it is indeed an Angel’s Trumpet, also known as Brugmansia.

I wanted to make a visit to the Emily Carr House, but we did not get back to Victoria soon enough. I did make to the Munro Book Store to see the textile banners created by the owner’s wife. You can read about them here.

Tonight, we had another marvelous dinner at the Blue Crab. I had perfectly cooked Chinook salmon and a wonderful assortment of vegetables. The waiter failed to bring us our salad and comped us dessert: rhubarb-apple cobbler.

I have been racking up the walking steps, averaging 16,500 a day so I felt a little dessert was in order. My old pants are starting to be a little too big. I bought some new clothes on sale last week that are a size smaller, and they are still fitting so hopefully I have not gained too much weight back.

Tomorrow, we are taking the ferry back to Port Angeles in the morning and then heading to Seattle where we will take another ferry. KT, I will try to give you a call, once we are in our hotel and I have figured out our schedule.

I’m in Canada — eh!

Tuesday, August 7th, 2007

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We had a very rough night. Mr C was hit with food poisoning as we were settling in for the night. I thought I might have to take him to the emergency room, but after a major purge, he got a good night’s sleep and we continued on our way. I am sure it was his lunch because it was the only meal that we did not share.

Our ferry was due to leave Port Angeles at noonish so after breakfast we wandered around town and then picked up sandwiches to eat on the ferry. I loved this sign in a bookstore.

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In the bottom right corner is says 01.20.09 Bush’s Last Day!!!

While we were waiting for the ferry I took this lovely photo from the pier. I love the colors, the reflection and the lines.

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On the way in to the inner harbor of Victoria, we could see our hotel from the ferry:

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We have a view of the harbor, but not quite from this side. I selected this hotel because it has a very Japanese, zen decor. I am not comfortable in the old world style hotel with all the fabric and stuff. Here is our zen bed:

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We are off the beaten path, but just outside the hotel, you can get on the walking path and within minutes, you are downtown. The flowers here are just gorgeous. These are tuberous begonias outside our hotel:

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I love being outside the US for a few days. There are lots of Europeans here, and I love hanging out with them. There are many street performers — some talented and some just plain weird. Here is the Darth Vader violinist. I gave him a dollar for just being innovative.

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Look at this absolutely gorgeous flower. Does anyone know what it is? The blossom is huge.

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We had a fabulous dinner tonight. I had seared albacore tuna, cooked medium rare with a wasabi soy sauce and tempura onions and leeks and perfectly cooked green beans. Our wine was a Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand — Mt. Riley.

Tomorrow, we are going to the BC Museum and Butchart Gardens. It has been gray and overcast, but no rain. Tomorrow, the sun is scheduled to come back.

Another Beautiful Day

Monday, August 6th, 2007

What a gorgeous day on the Olympic Peninsula. We are having perfect weather for hiking and exploring this beautiful part of the world. It was overcast and chilly when we woke up in Forks, a rather dingy has been kind of town. This building sort of sums up the place:

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We stayed at the Forks Motel which is quite large, but a motel out of the past. They did have wifi, albeit a very slow connection. It was clean and adequate for our needs.

By the time we hit the road and headed toward Port Angeles, the sun was starting to come out. We came upon a bit of heaven on earth when we found Crescent Lake.

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We went to the Storm King Ranger station and parked the car and took our first hike of the day to Marymere Falls. I loved these plants called Devil Rods. They have large leaves reaching to the sky, but the stem is all prickly, hence the name.

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The falls trail was a little crowded, but worth the hike. We then took the loop to Crescent Lake Lodge where we fell in love again. We are hoping to come and stay in one of the cabins here next year. It is so beautiful.

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We then drove in to Port Angeles and had a so so lunch before we drove up to Hurricane Ridge which has to be at the top of the world. We saw a riot of wildflowers.

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Here is a view from the top of the world.

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We took a short hike up through the meadow above the visitor’s center. You can see Victoria and Port Angeles and the bay. Here is another view from the top of the world.

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I love Alpine meadows and their are many up on Hurricane Ridge, all studded with beautiful wild flowers.

Here I am enjoying my travels with Mr C.

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Tonight we are staying at the Red Lion which is on the port and very near the ferry landing. We had a very scrumptious meal of dungeness crab cakes at the Bella Italia restaurant. We had a great Oregon Pinot Gris, from Adelsheim Winery.

We took a nice walk along the waterfront and took part in our weekly guilty pleasure, watching Big Love on HBO. Tomorrow, we are taking the ferry to Victoria for a couple of days and a more urban adventure.

You can see all of my photos from the National Park on my Flickr site.