House Guest

There's a guest in our house this week.

And his name is Clancy.

I realize that he gets fairly lost with our wild floral tapestry couch as a backdrop but even so it was the best place to shoot his picture at the time (which was 5 minutes ago in a messy house).

He and our two cats are getting used to each other...slowly.  Bobo is bold and outgoing, so he and Clancy are making their way steadily.  But Mama Kitty is a recluse.  She hides and thus hasn't had much exposure to Clancy.  Consequently, they're a little on the outs with each other still.

But Clancy is just the cutest little dog.  He's a Yorkie-Poo.  Part Yorkshire Terrier and part poodle.  He's way bigger than a Yorkie but doesn't have the curly hair like a Poodle, so they're not sure of how the mix plays itself out mathematically.

He blinked.  I don't think I've ever known a dog to blink when getting their picture taken.  This guy sure did.  But get a load of those eyelashes!  I'm told that they're really eyelashes and not just hair above his eye. 

He's so sweet.  Gentle and obedient.  Always wanting to please.  Rolls over to get pets.  And his tail..... his funny little tail....

is always going a mile a minute!


I'm really enjoying having him.  Mr. Clancy.  (Sounds much more sophisticated than what I've taken to calling him most of the time which is Bubba Doo.)  I think he looks as distinguished and full of character as a Clancy should.

Uh oh.  I hear hissing.....

When I Grow Up I Want To .....

If I had multiple lives to live I would like to :

- be a writer

- be a full-time artist

- be a college art teacher - medium = clay

- be a marine biologist, wildlife biologist, or wildlife veterinarian/rehabilitationalist

- be The Dog Whisperer

- have a llama or alpaca farm

- be a fiber artist who is also a llama farmer.  You know, the whole A-Z process of raising it, sheering it, spinning it, dying it, and then weaving with it.

- be an archaeologist

- be a missionary

- have a small Alaskan lodge

- have our own gift shop in a log cabin,  full of all our creative endeavors from music to writing, ceramics to wood creations, jewelry to knitting, quilting to photography!

- have a piece of property and run a no-kill animal shelter/farm

- have a ministry like L'Abri where people come and stay for varied lengths of time to learn about God, get specific soul questions and theological questions answered and work the property as part of their boarding.

- have a prayer day-retreat ministry in the woods where we'd have prayer cabins set up along the lines of Open Door Fellowship's Sacred Space


Some of these are dreams that are actual possibilities yet in my life, desires that are on the list of ""serious dreams".  Others are ones I seem to be well past the crossroad of opportunity for. 

What other "lives" do you think you would have liked to experience?  What do you want to be when you grow up?

Huge Bead Give Away - See Link

WOW!  I just read my friend, Angie's blog post about a HUGE BEAD GIVEAWAY over at Bling it On!  I haven't posted anything so you may not know this about me but I love making beaded earrings.  I have a business, Copper Moose Creations, that has been dormant for a couple years.  Several things got in the way of my taking the next step with the fledgling business and it sort of went to sleep.  I make earrings out of natural gemstones (my favorites), sterling silver, copper, shell, pearl, and glass.  My interpretation of them is "Earrings for Every Day".  I have not given up on the business in my heart and I still long to pursue it.  Especially since I have a few hundred pair of earrings stashed away. 

So if you like beads, too, (and are in the U.S.), head on over to Bling it On! and check out her giveaway!

Today in Town

Well, today's wolf encounter was very disappointing compared to last year.  The wolf was penned in behind fencing where he and his handler sat and talked to people hanging around the outside.  He's still not an adult wolf and is really only about a year into his role as ambassador.  So, I guess they're trying to make sure he feels secure.  Maybe last year was too much for him.  But the nature center that sponsored the event also had some other groups present with educational tables.  A Game and Fish guy was there.  I saw maps where various Mexican Grey Wolf packs hang out in our area.  I learned that the Mexican Greys are on the smaller side of wolf sizes. Turns out those two smallish wolf-looking canines I saw silently running about 20 yards from me and my two unleashed dogs early one morning about 8 years ago could very well have been wolves.  Wow!  And that shockingly large"dog" print in the snow many years ago could also have been a wolf track.  I had dismissed it at the time because a friend said that wolf tracks are about as wide as a woman's fist.  This one wasn't that large and I didn't know if had melted any, thus spreading it bigger than the paw that made it.  But today I saw track impressions that were smaller than the standard huge wolf print, so maybe it was.  Pretty exciting to think I saw two wolves right on our property.  I'm very glad my dogs didn't see them!

I ended up spending ALL day in town, though that was not the plan.  I had such exciting things to do as go to nearly every store here on the mountain including  K-Mart, Wal-Mart, Big Lots, (some of the finer establishments so well known to small towns!), Safeway, and Home Depot.  Not to mention stopping for an early lunch and later on stopping for dinner because I was STILL there, stopping by the quilt store to pick out my border fabric, and hitting the kettle corn stand in the Safeway parking lot.  (When we did our This-Is-A-Brilliant-Idea, But-Utterly-Failed Kettle Corn Adventure in Alaska in 2006 this local guy was the one that taught us the ropes....so I stopped by to say Hi....and got a free bag out of it! Nice guy.  Must still feel sorry for us.)

But the BIG event of my very long trip into town was that on a whim I stopped by The Movie Gallery, a rental place that's going out of business.  I stopped by about 5 weeks ago and things were discounted quite a bit but prices were still in the $7.50 range.  Today I thought that surely things had been marked down again and I'd check it out since I'd been forgetting every other time I'd been in town.  My first clue should have been that the parking lot was nearly full.  But, fried as I was from 8 hours of running around, I didn't catch on.  I walked in and though the shelves were nearly bare, there were these wonderful hot pink signs over 90% of the shelves that said: 50 cents.  50 CENTS!  Hey, for 50 cents, I'll try movies I've never heard of.  Apparently everyone else in the store was thinking the same thing.  People had STACKS of DVDs.  And, well, a certain blogger did, too.

 I bought some completely unknown movies to gamble on (hey, it's only 50 cents, right) and some interesting titles like Saint of 9/11 (the story of the priest who rushed to the scene of 9/11 to pray and serve and was killed when one of the towers collapsed),  The Ron Clark Story (an awesome true story about a teacher who believed the rebellious and failing students of an inner city school could actually excel in learning),  Sometimes in April (based on a true story of two brothers and the horrible conflict in Rwanda),  John Adams (an HBO mini-series about the second president...Oops!  I just looked closely at the DVD and it says 'Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5.  Dang! Have to go back!)

 I bought Ambulance Girl, the story of a writer whose life is falling apart and decides to become an EMT - based on another real story.  And Shop Girl.   Shop Girl is a remake of the original movie The Shop Around the Corner starring Jimmy  Stewart and Margaret Sullivan.  If "Shop Girl" and "The Shop Around the Corner" make you think of the movie, You've Got Mail with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks...you're thinking rightly.  You've Got Mail was also a remake of the movie, The Shop Around the Corner.  In the original movie, the man and woman were pen-pals and actually worked in the same gift shop but didn't know the other was the pen-pal they were falling in love with.  In You've Got Mail, they meet in an online chat room.  Meg Ryan's character's handle is "Shop Girl" and she owns a bookstore named "The Shop Around the Corner."  It's one of my all-time favorite movies so I thought it would be fun to see how another rendition does it. [*Update: This movie was NOT a remake of the old Shop Around the Corner and You've Got Mail. It was something completely different, a story written-and starred in-by Steve Martin. It was a disappointment.]

I tried to grab a bunch of action/adventure titles for The Fisherman, but it was difficult.  To me, they all looked unappealing.  I did my best to follow what I know of his interests and, of course, his values, and steered clear of the highly thriller, victim, or evil predator type story lines.  Which didn't leave many on these picked over shelves.  But I went with some good and favorite actors like Cuba Gooding, Jr. and Val Kilmer.  I also found some movies that had a distinct Christian sound to them.  Good wholesome sounding films about people finding faith.  And then I bought a bunch of chick flicks!

Because I had to stand in line for over an hour, though I was behind a mere 5 people, I didn't get home till close to 9pm.  Had an almost immediate visit from one cute little raccoon on the front porch, and have been hanging out on Facebook, email, and now here.  Nearly midnight...so, goodnight all!

Going to Visit a Wolf

I'm going back to the nature center today to see the visiting wolf.  I went last year and met "Flurry", a white arctic wolf.  Check out my post from last summer about my Wolf Encounter.  I got some great photos that day.

Quilting 101 - Progress Report and I Need Your Help

Well, I've been a busy little bee in the last 5 days since my Beginning Quilting class. I had so much fun in class that I came home and continued working on my Log Cabin blocks, getting nearly finished.

Problem. Hmmm. How come my "squares" are rectangles? There's GOT to be one more fabric strip I need, but I bought as many different fabrics as I was told. There just has to be one more needed on that edge. Knowing the answer, I eventually called my teacher and she said, "Yes. You probably need one more strip to complete your square."

I went to Wal-Mart after my MUCH needed haircut and found way too many fabrics on sale for $1 per yard. Came home with one that would work well.

Oh, and I also realized that while the instructions call for - and I had been doing in the store on a borrowed sewing machine - 1/4 inch seams, well, I discovered that little piece of masking tape marking a seam width on MY machine at home...was at 3/8 inch. My squares would be too small.

Now, I could have just gone on ahead and finished it like that...and I still may, someday. But I decided to go ahead and start all over and do it right.

So... without further ado....

TA - DAAAAA!

I have all 16 blocks done.

And now

I NEED YOUR HELP!

Should I arrange them THUS....

(Arrangement A)

...or SO?

(Arrangement B)

Leave me your comments and help me decide.

THANKS!

Ethiopia - The New Life

AND FINALLY,

we come to the last scheduled post about Ethiopia.

And this is one of exciting importance.

Of the 9750 people seen in the clinic that week, many, many of them came into the prayer room seeking prayer.  The Gospel was shared and over 900 welcomed The Good News into their lives and wanted to pray to receive Jesus' forgiveness through believing what He did on the cross for them. 

And these ones received the "new life" He gives by His grace through their faith.

About 55 of them visited The Fisherman's table.

These are some of the FACES OF NEW LIFE from the

2010 Jewish Voice Ministries Medical Mission Trip to Ethiopia

 

 

Here in the States, I am used to new believers showing great expressions of joy on their faces; their hearts are newly light and their spiritual burdens lifted.  I couldn't help but notice that many of these Ethiopian faces did not show such joy.  I think their lives are so heavy and burdened - and, after all, these were mostly sick people not feeling good - that they just haven't yet grasped the spiritual freedom they've received.  Their conditions have not changed on the outside, but soon they will know their inner landscape has changed immeasurably.

Pray with me for them, would you?

Ethiopia - The Roads

(Three posts today.  Scroll down and start at the bottom.  We'll get trhough this, I promise.  We're almost done.)

The roads in the villages and country look quite different from the city roads,

although the crowds in this picture look as familiar as a big city

As they left the villages, the roads became less congested and this was a common sight:

There were several times when The Fisherman thought the bus driver was going to run right into one of the many donkeys on the roads

Getting closer to the city.

Getting MUCH closer into the heart of the city.

In the big capitol city of Addis Ababa, these blue taxis were simply everywhere.

Ethiopia - The Monkeys

When they took their trip out into the country, they also found wildlife. 

MONKEYS!


Here we come....
Walking down the street...er, grass...

Hey, hey, we're the monkeys...

and people say we monkey around...

Mickey

A Fan

Mike

Peter

A Gaa-Gaa Fan

( gasp! "Oh my gosh! Is that... is that... The Monkees?!")

Hey!  It IS The Monkees!

and everyone's favorite, Davey

OKey Dokey.... Thanks for bearing with me on that.

And just in case you're wondering, though I was a little too young,

I was a TOTAL Monkees fan. 

And Davey Jones was my first crush.

Ethiopia - The Country, The Villages

One day, after the clinic was over I think, the team boarded their bus and took a drive out into the country.  And beautiful country it was!

They passed by and through several villages.

Lots of  farmland... some richer looking than others...

Love these thatched roofed houses....

What a thing to behold - oxen threshing grain.

Now THAT's a decked out horse!  With a proud and smiling rider.

Here's a nice little house

with a nice little fence,

enclosing their nice little yard.

...with a nice little tree.

Gorgeous view...  Interesting roof....

Makes me think of Hawaii...

Now here's some interesting structures...

REALLY interesting...

LOVE this photo!

Love this fence.

More thatched roofs...

THE TREE.

I love this tree. 

So sprawling.  So branchy.  So beefy.

Just HOW beefy? 

The photo below shows some of the team members standing under it.

NO WAY, right? 

I was shocked to see how big this tree is! 

Makes me love it even more.