Be still my heart

When I saw this group of beads from Gaea I knew exactly what I wanted to make. I had been stalking Gaea's Facebook page for a few weeks trying to pounce on a winged heart and a good looking set of beads before someone reserved them.  Finally success!  You can also buy Gaea's beads at her website and at Lima Beads.

Even though I knew what I wanted to make, it took me awhile to get around to putting the piece together because they arrived just before the start of school and all the difficulties of the fall term.

The wirework is dark annealed steel which matched the loops on the pendant.  The spacer beads are copper, the enameled bird is from Gardanne Beads, the little etched copper charm I made myself, and the tuquoise seed beads are vintage from my stash.

The necklace it about 36" long and the seed bead length hangs around my neck and ends just above my collarbones.  The wirework has a nice drape because of the Goldilocks weight of Gaea's beads (not too heavy, not too light).  The smallest beads are about 6mm and the largest around 12mm.  I sand my steel wire, then rub it with steel wool before forming links. For this necklace, I lightly hammered each loop and jumpring.

This was my first attempt to etch copper.  I followed at tutorial similar to this one from Copperheart.  I bought my ferric chloride from the hardware store...it is used in pool cleaning.  For resist I used StazOn permanent ink and a stamp with tiny detail.  I have more to learn about etching, but I was happy just to get any result.  I need to practice a little more.

a little over exposed

blossom lariat

A gift made for my mother based on Leslie Frazier's Trumpet Flower Necklace in the Aug/Sept 2012 Beadwork.  I picked out a color palette to coordinate with a winter outfit and my mom's favorite color of nail polish.

Mixiotes de Noche Buena

with my husband Remi and my twin brothers-in-law Joel and Javier

 A few years ago Remi and I were in Mexico for Christmas.  Dinner for Noche Buena required that he get up at the crack of dawn to kill turkeys with his cousin for dinner.  My Christmas Eve dinner only required early rising for the 18 mile trip to the grocery store in the next town.

his name was Dinner

 Remi's brothers came for dinner and we repeated Thankgiving and ate another multinational dinner for Christmas Eve.  Pollo con chiles y epazote, tortillas, sweet braised carrots, mashed potatoes, mac & cheese, cranberry sauce, spinach salad, and chocolate cake covered in bittersweet ganache with sea salt caramel and Tahitian vanilla bean gelato. 

My brothers-in-law who having been working here for a few years are obsessed with mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce having eaten a few Thanksgiving dinners with us.  I added sweet braised carrots from the Joy of Cooking for a little more traditional American cooking, and they requested mac & cheese.  I had never actually made mac and cheese, but had a great easy recipe for it from Ellen, my bf of 30 years!, which oddly I'd written inside the cover of a Rick Bayless cookbook after eating some at her house a few years ago.  The boys were a little disappointed that I didn't make spicy pecans to top the spinach salad and Remi explained to them that the blue cheese dressing was vinaigrette with queso apestoso (translation: stinky cheese...yes Mom, I know you agree).

Even though they didn't have to kill anything, the guys were in charge of the main dish.  They made mixiotes with chicken with sweet and hot peppers, epazote, and onions en papillote.  In Mexico we would have wrapped it all in the outer skin of the maguey or century plant.  I have had mixiote wrapped in maguey and it is delicious, but also illegal because peeling the outer skin of the plant can kill it. I just read about some sustainably harvested mixiote so I'm pretty sure we won't end up eating our little packets of food with our heads shrouded as if we were having some bizzare dinner of ortolan.

los tres mosqueteros

Javier and Joel are really interested in learning to cook more than eggs. We have been talking about recipes and I'm dying to get Joel's recipe for green sauce which Remi says is fantastic. We have a food exchange going: they teach me the green sauce and I teach them  pierogis with peppers and sausage (you can take the girl out of Cleveland...).  They had pot roast with potatoes somewhere and were asking me about the recipe.  They were pretty into it while I was telling them about browning the meat on all sides and trying to figure out the translations for the various herbs, but put the brakes on when it came to the actual cooking time.  So I guess I know what's for dinner the next time they visit.

Happy End of the World

Happy Black Friday

Source: Uploaded by user via Robert on Pinterest

Happy Thanksgiving

Source: google.com via Jitterbuggin on Pinterest

Pigs and flowers - sure signs of fall

Fall is finally here in South Georgia.  I know this because my neighbors' pigs have arrived for the season and the yard is full of blooming camellias.  The arrival of Peaches and Milkshake each year roughly coincides with Día de los Muertos ( oddly like the monarch butterflies arriving in Michoacán) and they are here for fattening and showing before they become bacon and pork chops.  My neighbors' children have had a succession of Peaches and Milkshakes - each year the same names - which they raise, show, and sell.  And with the same precisely timed arrival, so come the Christmas decoration to the neighborhood.

Here are a few things I have discovered or observed during the past week:

1. No matter how many tiny wooden painted fir trees, illuminated deer, and singing angels my neighbors put in their yards, South Georgia will never look like a winter wonderland.  A thin covering of dried pine straw is a poor substitute for snow.  And when bright pink flowers are actually blooming on bushes next to a Santa, the illusion is interrupted.


2. Yesterday when I checked the mail two lizards were chasing each other on the box.  The road is full of smears from brave frogs who hop across the street oblivious to on coming traffic.  When it rains all the reptiles come out to play.

2. Desiccated frogs and lizards are a reality in my life.  I don't flinch anymore when I find a dried out creature tangled in corgi hair in some forgotten corner.  Yesterday a dime-sized frog mummy was in the middle of the living room floor, probably dropped there by a dog who discovered it and transported it to a spot more convenient for play.  I just scooped it up with bare hands and disposed of it.

3. There is no end to the growing season, the mosquito season, the wasp season, the fly season.  All annoyances continue to grow year round.

4. There is truth in the saying ,"...like a deer in headlights..."  Although few blasts on the car horn will scare away deer standing at the side of the road, it is the ones you can't see before they are running across your path that will nearly give you a coronary.

5. Try to find a grocery store that doesn't stock Kilz-Em-Dead rat bait right next to the fried pork rinds.  However, if you find yourself there because the only other grocery is out of something you need for dinner and a 36 mile round trip to the next town seems excessive, do not look into the meat case.  I repeat, do not look into the meat case.  Feet, intestines, and stomachs from all manner of birds and beasts abound.  And who says the pull-date is really a deadline?!