5 STEPS TO RUINED

Cousins' reunion was yesterday, up in The Valley. (Yup. In our family, there's just one--the Hood River Valley.) We had a wonderful time, and some woefully, sinfully, way-too-temptingly delicious food.

On the drive to my cousin's house, I passed several amazing buildings. Funny how much more interesting building seem to get as they decay. I took dozens of pictures of them, as my brother and I walked back along that road. Here, I'll post five individually, and the rest in the form of a slide show, to keep this entry from being way l-o-o-o-n-n-g.



Step One




Step Two




Step Three




Step Four




Step Five


And because I couldn't decide between color and black and white, here they are again, in black and white:



Step One




Step Two




Step 3




Step Four

FRIDAY FENCE POST #6

Man. I've been busy, busy, busy, and tired, tired, tired.

The two-day Handmade NW show left me with lots to catch up with, and way too much to do, so by evening I'm so tired I sit down in front of the TV after dinner with my laptop, and promptly fall asleep! So here it is, Friday already, going on 4pm, and past time to do the Friday Fence Post.

And THEN, I'll need to rush into something gig-worthy, preferably black, and be at Blackbird Wine Shop on Fremont by five-ish. Swappin' Lies, the band I'm in, has a gig there from 6 until about 8. What a great way to end the week--wine-tasting and music! aaaaaaaaaaah.

And now, without further ado, some cool fences!

COME ONE, COME ALL! HMNW SHOW

Live in the Portland, Oregon area? Tomorrow and the day after (that would be Tuesday & Wednesday, Oct. 14-15th) is the Handmade NW show, at Montgomery Park on NW Vaughn. Come see us, and get your Christmas shopping started early!





Christmas shopping aside, I love meeting people in person that I've only met online. They are, so far, as lovely in person as they are "through the wire". If you do come, be sure you introduce yourself!

SAVE THE TATAS!

This is as much a post about philosophy and theology as it is about breast cancer. How can that be? Let me explain.

I've felt a twinge of guilt for a long time because I didn't get into the whole pink ribbon breast cancer awareness thing. I wouldn't. Couldn't make myself do it, and didn't want to try.

It isn't that I'm callous. It's that I don't really want to walk around thinking about breast cancer.

Consider the scripture, "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." It's echoed in the Eastern religions, and New Age beliefs. What you think about, you either become or draw to yourself.

Now, maybe it doesn't extend to disease, but you know what? I'm not willing to take that chance. It might look selfish or uncaring, but there it is.

But then, something lovely-wonderful happened. I was in the Etsy forums, chatting away about who knows what, when I noticed the avatar of another poster, Payson Winters . Here it is:

Now, that's a slogan I can get behind! I will happily walk around all day, every day, smiling about saving TaTas! They're fun. Saving them is GOOD.

Even better, there appears to be an entire industry promoting the idea. I didn't know it, but I've waited a long time for a t-shirt like this:



Want a website? Here:
Save the Tatas!

FRIDAY FENCE POST #5

I'm getting to this late, but I found some great fences today, and so many that I've got several in reserve for another Friday.

Here are today's:



Every Which Way





Fretted & Looped





Little Feet





Flanges





Angles

A HOPE-FULL TREASURY

I loved this Treasury, both for the coordination of the items included, and for the originality and creativity of reiterating the theme by spelling out HOPE vertically.


Click here to be taken to the Treasury itself


And links to each shop:

• Keys And Memories
• Sparkklejar
• Red Letter Words
• Olivia Moon
• Sarap (Charm School Dropout)
• MortieDoodles
• MoxieD
• Risamay (Memories and Dreams)
• Curved
• PianoBenchDesigns
• It's All About You
• Mud Hutt

The Treasury will expire, but the shops won't!

PS Yes, I'm an Obama supporter. This isn't a political blog, though, while I probably wouldn't love this Treasury so much if I were a Republican. This is, however, as political as I'll ever get here, so no offense intended to anyone, and no fighting, okay?

MEET THE (New Tea Pot) FOLKS!

Got a small flock of Tea Kettle Characters that had been in the works for a while done today, and took pictures of most of them, so here they are!



Rocco




Maurice



Nigel



Bliss

Not much in the way of verbiage today, but I will say it feels good to have these new little peeps lined up on the kitchen counter!