Okay, so I need to update here! I have been so busy, my feet have barely touched the ground and my head has barely rested on my pillow at night! This is my tourist season and show season and it keeps me running! I will be back with pictures on another day. For tonight my thought is sleep and maybe a pedicure tomorrow after dealing with some icky issues. Sleep well, my friends!

At Andrea's house today on the bluffs above the beach; it was not nearly as hot as it was in Seattle. We could still pound away and solder, craft and learn. The weather is expected to get unbearably hot here for about the next week. I hope not! Hot, sticky days wear me out and make working in my studio and especially the heat of the shop, not fun at all! Stay cool and watch for new pieces here tomorrow. School's out after that!



The parts all laid out for the next box. Ready for another day of creativity and learning. Just wait until tomorrow when I add the bracelet we finished today!



Everyone working so intently on their projects in the class. Today's class was very physical, lots of heavy duty hammering on Andrea's anvil and my entire upper body and back is sore. I am feeling my age - dang it!



This is the etched copper side of my " box ".


This is the sterling silver side of my component that I have made. It will end up being a pendant sometime officially tomorrow.

Today I learned new jewelry techniques and remembered some skills from high school and college. My friend Steff flew in to teach four of us silversmithing techniques, something I had been looking forward to for months. We began by etching designs onto copper or silver metal plates. This was deja vu for me as I did etching in school and it is pretty much the same as before. Steff was right, it IS like riding a bicycle and many things came back to me out of the far reaches of my cobweb filled brain. This is my copper plate and it looks like a mini etching plate, ready to have a print pulled from it. Two more days of this intensive class and I might finish something and improved my skills! Great fun with wonderful people!





One of my sterling silver etched plates created in class. with a bit of luck and Steff's teaching skills; it might be a wearable art form tomorrow!




Andrea and Steff working away on our etchings in class. Steff is a terrific teacher and we are all so glad that she could come in from Chicago.






A picture from class today in Andrea's studio of Kathy and Steff working.

I am a nice person, truly. I enjoy life, take care of my family, work very hard and am grateful for all my blessings BUT i hate the little yappy dog next door! It is 11:34 pm!!! and that dog is barking away! I have fantasies of how I will do it in. Hoping that a coyote eats it or an eagle swoops down during the day and snatches it up and flies back to its nest and slowly feeds the little fur ball to the young eaglets waiting for a late dinner. I often yell out at the dog to shut up but it makes Phil mad and my neighbors act like they do not understand english. I mostly really think they do not. Sigh.... where is a hungry coyote, a wily fox, a lurking weasel, a pouncing mountain lion, when you really need on!

Yesterday, on the way to take Jacob to camp near Mount Rainier; we stopped in Brinnon to pick up his friend, Joshua. There, right beside their home and in the back yard was a whole herd of elk! There were bulls, young adults and moms with nursing babies! It was so exciting and Joshua said, they are so used to his family; they are practically tame. They weren't too sure of me but graciously allowed me to snap away at them with my camera. I did get pretty close. What a wonderful way to begin a Sunday or any day!

Sometimes it is nice to just have a reminder. I love all my friends, family, customers and the people that will be my friends that I just have not met yet.

This day has fooled me. When I woke up at an unearthly hour of 6:30 am, the day had dawned cool, misty and foggy. I could hear the fog horns on the water through the open bedroom windows. I thought it was marvelous but now, it is warm and sunny and my inspirational day of fog and mist is gone!

When we were in Tacoma, we stopped into the Washington State History museum and went to the top floor where an exhibit on women's voting rights was installed. It is just a shock to read that men thought that giving women the right to vote would destroy our government among other dire warnings! I think we as women, need to remind our younger sisters that women were not and perhaps not even now; afforded the same rights as men. Today we have wage disparity and even in my own working environment: I find myself not treated equally with the men I work with. We must not take women's rights for granted, remember the history of these hard won rights and work to ensure that these rights are kept equal among the sexes in the US. That is enough on my soap box for now but it has only been in recent weeks that this unequal treatment has been brought home to me. Just when I thought that such treatment was old, old news!

Well, I am off for a few more hours to work in the studio. xo, Lois