Relay for Life

Today is the Relay for Life event in our area. I enjoy going out to support this event. Our family has been touched many times by cancer. The last couple of years, my Girl Scout troop helped with the set up of the luminaries. This year, since I no longer lead a troop, I was there as a regular visitor.  I enjoy looking at the different booths and doing a lot of people watching.  We usually buy several luminaries in honor of/remembrance of family members.  This year we also purchased one for Jonathan.  It was hard to write his name on the bag and write in "remembrance of."  My favorite part of the night is when they turn the lights off in the stadium and you see all of the lights from the luminaries ringing the track.  They also set up the word "HOPE" in the visitors stands across the way.  It a good word to use when thinking about cancer.   The day a cure is found will come soon, and events such as this one will help with the funding for research and education along the way.  If you have a Relay for Life event in where you live, go out and spend some time with your family enjoying the food, music and the atmosphere of the evening.  

Amazing Artisan- Stephen Wiltshire

This week's Amazing Artisan is Stephen Wiltshire. Mr. Wiltshire is able to accurately recreate images of cityscapes and other architectural elements after seeing them once. He was diagnosed as autistic at three and didn't fully learn to speak until the age of nine. Up until that time, he communicated through his drawing. Queen Elizabeth II named Stephen Wiltshire as a Member of the Order of the British Empire in for his contribution to the arts in January 2006.

His art is incredible. This video on YouTube shows how he was able to recreate a 5 1/2 yard long cityscape of Rome after viewing it from a helicopter for 45 minutes. He had 3 days to complete the drawing and it was amazingly accurate. Enjoy!

Wordle

I have read several blogs today that mention Wordle. Wordle is a program that takes the words used on a site and makes a word collage of them. I love the look of these. A couple of years ago I made a scrapbook layout of 100 things I love. It looked similar to this. I am such a geek.

Amazing Artisan- Diane Duda

This week's Amazing Artisan is Diane Duda. I first saw Ms. Duda's work a month or so ago while browsing the "Artful Blogging" Spring 2009 issue. I fell in love with her art, especially her mixed media work. She is this one picture of a group of 4 frogs with silly newsprint hats one. I break out a huge grin every time I see it. It is just so cute. All of her art makes me smile. Ms. Duda has a shop on Etsy called DUDADAZE and also sells on Ebay, Zazzle, and Lollishops. Her blog, DudaDaze features her work as well. Check her out. Her work is wonderful and will make you break out the grin as well.

Questions Anyone?

These thought provoking questions came from That's My Answer.

1.  What is your favorite movie whose title starts with the letter C?

I could not think of movies that started with "C", so I did a google search.  Then I had a hard time choosing just one.  I guess my favorite one would be Chocolat with Juliette Binoche with a small part played by Johnny Depp.  Johnny Depp makes any movie memorable.

2.  Would you rather do the dusting or the vacuuming?

I think I would rather do the dusting as it is easier than dragging around the vacuum everywhere.  But in my house I would have to do the vacuuming since the people here think you only vacuum where you can see something to pick up (and they don't always turn on the lights). Later they are talking about all of the stuff still on the floors.

3.  What animal at the zoo would you be?  (It is a very humane zoo- huge enclosures and no concrete in site where the animals are)

It would have to be an elephant.  I have had a thing for elephants since I was 14.  I have collected them for years and I love to go and see them at the zoo.  They are so wonderful.

4.  Do you feel younger or older than your real age? Or do you feel your real age?

It depends on the situation.  Most of the time I feel younger than my  real age.  Sometimes I am amused that I am someone's mother.  Other times, when I am dragging, I feel much much older than my real age.  I seldom feel my real age.  It is either older or younger.

Instead of tagging people and asking them to respond, feel free to give your answers in the comment section.  Have fun...

Amazing Artisan- Andrea Joseph

This week's Amazing Artisan is Andrea Joseph. Ms. Joseph's work is gorgeous, especially her ink drawings. I can hardly write with a pen without making mistakes. Andrea draws beautiful creations with a pen and no mistakes (that I can see) are found. Her work is fun and full of tiny little details. I love looking at her work. Andrea Joseph's work can be found on her blog, Andrea Joseph's Sketchblog, and on her Flickr photostream at Andrea Joseph's illustrations on Flickr. I hope her work intrigues you as much as it does me.

Awards

Sometimes I am honored to receive awards from fellow bloggers. I am truly touched to think others enjoy reading my blog. I will post my awards here. Again thank you so much for the honor.Thanks Margie and Edna                                          Thanks Nancy!
and Swapna too!

Another Award

Nancy from nfall2rt * designstudio gave me the Friends Award.  I am thrilled to receive this award.  I have love reading tons of wonderful blogs and enjoy commenting and sharing in their thoughts.  Nancy creates gorgeous knitted purses, bags and scarves, lovely art pieces and really cute note cards and envelopes.  Nancy's blog is one I read every day, just to see what she is up to next.  

The "Let's Be Friends" Award  rules states the following:  

These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.

I pass this award on to 8 blogs I enjoy reading.  Check them out.  You will enjoy them too.   They are in no particular order.  I love them all.

Dogmaw Glass

Small Town Mommy

The Sewing Mom

A Nut in a Nutshell

Daisy the Curly Cat

Tiger and Smokey

Cats Who Twitter

Cat Lovers Site

Top Droppers for February

I am getting a kick out of writing this blog and am thrilled that people are interested in reading it.  I want to thank the following Entrecard users for being my top Entrecard droppers for February. Check out their blogs too!

John Wright Art

Youniquely Chic

Unique You

The Beadings and Buttons of Randomcreative

Spotted Cow Soaps

Pat's Encaustics - Art in the Wax

Starcasm

Behind the Bit

Coloraddiction - glass, beads and color 

Rose Works Jewelry

My first blog award...

I received my first blog award! Margie and Edna's Basement is a wonderfully creative blog written by two fictional sisters. It is fun, wacky and a great read. Anyway...they gave me the Kreativ Blogger Award and I am thrilled. The rules of the award are that I am to:

1. Copy the award to my site.
2. Link to the person from whom I received the award.
3. Nominate 7 other bloggers.
4. Link to those sites on my blog.
5. Leave a message on the blogs I nominate.

So I am passing this award on to 7 blogs I enjoy reading. They all have great blogs and I like to visit when I can. Enjoy!

Jewelry by Lisa -Lisa makes beautiful jewelry and is a great person to hang out with.

nfall2rt designstudio- Nancy makes gorgeous knitted items and lovely art pieces.

Duck and Wheel with String- Lin writes a great blog and I love reading about her adventures.

Rose Works Jewelry -Here is another talented jewelry maker and one I love to check in on and see what she is working on next.

Nothing Like It -Robin creates these fun "smashed" critter coasters, but my favorite is her art series about Sparky and Hoot.

A Mom on Spin -Liz has me laughing at the crazy things going on her her life. She puts her special spin on the events in her life.

You've Got Maille- She creates the most beautiful chain maille creations.

Amazing Artisans- Althea Crome and Rachel John

I have wanted to blog about these ladies for a while. I watch their YouTube videos with my jaw on the floor. They do incredible work and represent two opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to knitting.

Althea Crome knits with what looks like pins. Her work is so tiny and delicate, but amazingly very detailed. A look around her website, Bugknits shows many of her sweaters and designs. Wow! Below is a video of her working on a sweater for the movie, Coraline.



Rachel John knits in the opposite extreme. She does "extreme" knitting often using dozens of strands of yarn at a time in her creations. Her website, Rachel John- Textiles and 3D shows her incredible work and gives you an idea of how huge her knitting needles are. Below is a video of her breaking a world record for knitting with 1000 strands simultaneously. Enjoy!



So these two fabulous ladies are this week's Amazing Artisans. I could not have featured one without featuring the other. They are truly wonderful.

I found out who was driving the truck that hit me...

It was Mr. Pneumonia.  Yes kids...that is why I am feeling so yuck.  Sunday night I was just not feeling any better.  I started to worry that maybe I had 2 things going on (1) a cold to account for the coughing, congestion, and fever; and (2) another pulmonary embolism (I have had two other episodes of those lovely things). I knew that going in to see the Dr. would not tell me about the clot without needing to go to the hospital to get the tests run, so I decided to go ahead to the ER.  Well, since I am on a blood thinner "for life", a clot was ruled out.  My chest x-ray did show pneumonia. After 3 fun filled days in the hospital, I am so happy to be home.  I am still out of breath and coughing, but I am feeling a little better.  

Things might be a little slow around here while I am getting back up to speed, but I plan to check in often.