Bob Hoskins

I was greeted with very sad news online this morning in reading of the passing of the actor Bob Hoskins. I completely agree with a writer who said she would miss his mischievous grin - and oh, that twinkle in his eye.

I haven't had a chance to see one of his best reviewed films, Mona Lisa,  but I loved him to pieces in Mermaids with Cher and Who Framed Roger Rabbit. It was bad enough when the news came out 2 years ago that he was retiring because of Parkinson's Disease,  but I didn't expect that something else like pneumonia would take him sooner. I hope that he knew what a pleasure he was to watch.

Wet Weather and Beautiful Wood

Woody & Boo

It's hard to believe it's almost May. We have had rain every single day for the last week, but are supposed to get a complete turn around this week with it drying out and temperatures in the 70's. I'll be out there mowing in shorts again in a few days, woo hoo!

This weekend was definitely back and forth with the rain, and this afternoon after the last bout of showers, all the cats came in to nap, and Woody and Boo ended up curled up together in the big chair.

With the wet weather, but longer daylight hours I have been getting more sewing and needlepoint in. This weekend I put the collar on the blouse I am working on, and today made the buttonholes and sewed on the buttons. All I have left to do on it is sew on the sleeves and that will be done. The needlepoint is now about 80% done with some of the design and colors still being determined on the fly; but it's coming together.

I don't think I ever featured my dresser in the posts of furniture projects of the past. The dresser itself has a long history. It has a signature on the back and I decided today to try and find information online about it. The signature is Carder & Sons, Kalamazoo (my hometown). I couldn't find anything on Wikipedia, so I decided to Google it. And it brought up a book on Kalamazoo history, and it looks like that furniture company may have existed back in the 1880's. I pretty well knew it was over a 100 years old, and that is strong evidence of it.


It is a very solid and nicely built piece of oak furniture. My personal history with it started back in the early 1980's when my brother Mark gave it to me before he hitch-hiked out west. I had done an initial stripping of the really dark stain on it in the driveway back home, but it stayed in that rough condition until 2006.

There were two things that lead me to start the final refinishing of it; my neighbor Dave passing away, and coming across the decorative keyhole covers in the drawer of my secretary desk. I had figured I better take advantage of having the back deck to work on it while I still had the chance, thinking that I might have to move in the near future (that's where Dave comes in). Well, 8 years later, I'm still here and Dave's property is still up for sale. (This is the short version, the long version is too long).

The keyhole covers were my other
inspiration, because I really wanted to see them on the dresser after all those years. I love the curved upper drawers and curved top as well. My dad had gotten me the beautiful round brass knobs for Christmas one year back in the early 80's, and I found the pulls that complimented them in 2006. I do everything by hand, so it's a lot of elbow grease, but I totally love very minute of it. I use Homer Formby's Tung Oil, I like a natural finish where the beauty of the wood shows through.

The weather was good starting in April that year, so I went to it and got the dresser all sanded and refinished within about a month. I would go on to refinish 4 other pieces of furniture by October of that year. I was really on a roll, and the weather was good all summer.

The Difference Between Cats and Dogs Religious Beliefs

Happy Easter

Carved Goose Eggs from Piotr Bockenheim

Happy Easter! I just saw these amazing carved goose eggs over on Colossal.com, check it out, they are amazing. Did I say they are amazing?

Yesterday afternoon I visited Tina & John's small farm Marietta Shetlands to check out their 9 new lambs all born last week. I went with Jo Wallace, her mom Dot, and another friend of Jo's, Edie whom like Tina, spins wool.

Being Washington in the spring, of course it was raining, but the lambs were so cute it was totally worth it. And John is a landscaper - nurseryman by trade, so it was cool to see all the trees, bushes and flowers on their property as well as his bonsai collection.


Tina & John's 20th wedding anniversary is this coming Wednesday, the 23rd. I was one of Tina's bridesmaid's, and the wedding was in the Bellingham Unitarian Fellowship. The picture below is of the main hall; I love that wood ceiling, it feels like you are in a ship. For their wedding John had brought in several large flowering shrubs in pots, it was so beautiful. They actually attend the Unitarian Church in Blaine where Tina is in the choir and John is the leader of the choir.

Bellingham Unitarian Fellowship

320 Licht (Light)

Please check this out, it so cool.
This was posted on Colossal.com yesterday and is of a light projection art project, exhibit, whatever you want to call it in Germany. The space is a re-purposed gas storage facility. The video is a conversation with the artists as well as part of the show itself. There is also a little bit of footage from a previous project at the Sydney Opera House in Australia.

320 Licht

Kelpies Time-lapse: Andy Scott’s Steel Sculptures In Scotland

The Kelpies from The Helix on Vimeo.

I think that I featured these here before, but there was another posting on Colossal.com Thursday of some still pictures along with this video. The colors change with the sky and their pretty cool.

The sculptor is Andy Scott and the construction actually ended in November 2013. They are along the Forth & Clyde canal in Falkirk, Scotland. They dominate the local landscape and are officially opening to the public this month on the 21st.

A Bad Start to My Weekend

So my day started out with me calling 911 to report a guy climbing out the back window of my late neighbor Dave's house, as it was happening......

Dave S.

Tuesday morning of this past week I saw the storm window from the same window leaning against the house, and I really regret not calling the police that day. I was starting a load of laundry this morning and looked up to see a bicycle coming out the back window followed by a young white guy. And he was looking at my house, and I am pretty sure he saw me.

I'll tell ya, the thing I learned today is to take a picture, or better yet a video before calling the police, because before I could even finish the call with the 911 operator he was long gone. And I don't know about anywhere else, but the dispatchers locally are horrible. They either waste your time asking dumb questions, or they treat you like you're an idiot. It's very frustrating.

I was so shaken up by the whole experience, I am probably going to have another nightmare where I wake myself up yelling at an intruder in my kitchen. Living alone it is very unnerving to have the house right next door broken into, I'm glad I have deadbolts on the doors, but still.

Dave Sr. passed away in March 2006 and the house has been empty ever since. His son David Jr. inherited it and has had it listed for sale three times now, but no takers because he is probably asking for too much. Unfortunately the house will possibly be torn down because the whole property is 2 1/2 lots, so it will most likely become apartments or duplex's or something obnoxious.

Dave Sr. was a sweetheart to me and my late brother Mark who originally lived in this house. Dave's wife Mabel passed away in 1999, and she was a lovely person. Dave ended up having open heart surgery and a pig valve put in around 2002, and I visited him a lot during that time to make sure he was okay because his son Dave Jr. lives in Seattle. We joked that he was my 'Washington' dad because he looked out for me too.

Dave had this sneaky habit of mowing my lawn while I was at work. He had a John Deere riding lawn mower so to him it was no big deal, and he would always brush aside my thanks saying 'Oh, it only took my five minutes". But he had a knack for mowing right before it rained, so he saved my butt plenty of times. He apparently had the reputation of being a grump with some of the neighborhood kids. I think that he was probably a lot like me, that he just was pissy with people that didn't respect his space. But he was always nice to me, and I was more than happy to help him out when he needed it.

TED Talks - Jackson Katz: Violence Against Women is a Men's Issue

Anyone who has read my blog knows that violence against women is a something that sickens me to my core. I have thankfully not been victimized, and hope I never am. The statistics are horrible though; one in every three women is. To live life as a woman and know that either you or someone close to you will suffer that fate is not really a good way to face every day is it? 

The reason I am sharing this video, is because the message in it is powerful; sexual violence should not be an accepted expectation. We as a society have the ability to change that, but it will take a paradigm shift for all of us to achieve it. You can make all the laws that you want, but if attitudes don't change, the problem will never go away. 

GPS Parody

This is hilarious - it gets better as it goes along-