Scavenging through my files

It's time for Scavenger Hunt again! Thanks to Made With Love for hosting.

I was not very clever this month and could never remember even one of the prompts on the few occasions when I was out and about with my camera. So I'm trawling through my old photos to find ones that might fit the prompts. I think that still qualifies as a Scavenger Hunt, don't you? Most of these have not been blogged before.

Local

Taken just down the road at the corner of Happy Lane and Ecstatic Acres Drive, 2015

City

Seattle alleyway in 2013 with random tiny person

Crisp

Ice on the river behind our motel on our recent trip.

Street Art

Seattle 2014 - the file name on the jpeg was Street Art, so there you go.

Tiles

Tiles used on Local Street Art.

Rocks (This was a little confusing because the prompt said RocksStairs, but I think it means Rocks and Stairs. Or maybe it was meant to say RockStars, in which case I failed.)

 At the coast in December 2015

Stairs

Seattle again, 2013

Hair

This was me about a year ago.
I still think of myself as a brunette - I guess that's a bit delusional now.

Stripes and Measure - same photo! Striped jacket, thermometer measuring the temperature (incorrectly).

Large

 Large watering cans in Las Vegas, 2008

For One

Very blurry - sorry - but I thought it fit the prompt perfectly! Montacute House, UK, 2010

Landscape

 Landscape, with lots of water - Crater Lake, Oregon, May 2009

That's all for March, ready to turn in to April. Don't believe anything you hear tomorrow!

Val

Sight Unseen

I don't consider myself a very brave person. Where physical peril is involved I'm a bit of a wimp. But I have taken some leaps of faith in my life, and so far I'm still standing.

My latest leap of faith (with Mr. S) is buying a house in the UK - sight unseen.

No, that's not it, but ours is No. 4.

It's amazing what you can do on the internet. Mr. S spent a lot of time looking for houses within a certain radius of the town where his children live, and as he kept looking he noticed prices kept going up. We decided we had better get something before we couldn't afford anything. So we bought an ordinary (affordable) house in mid-Wales, sight unseen, in a location we've never been to! We'll be living in a tiny hamlet, just down the road from a small village, which is just down the road from a small town, which is just down the road from the English border.

No, that's not our house, either. I don't want to give the exact location because of the paparazzi and all that, you know.

Using the magic of the internet, we've driven down our road on Google Street View, we've "visited" the local pub (dating from 1310) and even met our neighbor! He's a painter/handyman and has his business listed at his address. That shows up on Google maps, so Mr. S gave him a call and talked to him before we bought the house. The neighbor (I'll start using British spelling once we've moved) had already been cutting the grass and looking after the house while it was empty, so after we bought it we made arrangements for him to continue. He's been so helpful, checking the mail for us and doing a few repairs. Since the house is sitting empty for several months, this has been an even greater asset than having two bathrooms!

Just down the road is Lake Vyrnwy (pronounced 'vern-wee), which you can see here in The Telegraph's article of Britain's Best Lakes. I tried to download some copyright-free photos, but my computer said no, so I hope you'll follow the link and see how stunning the lake is. More photos and history here from a local B&B.

It'll be so fun exploring the area. I'm already following some local businesses on Facebook, so I know what soup the nearest deli is making and what's on at the winery. Yes, an English winery!

Nope, that's not the place either. These photos were taken by me in 2012, and as I said, I've never been to my new home before!

Val

Flux

Have you noticed how time is, yes it is, going faster all the time? When you were 7 years old, one year was one-seventh of your life. When you're 59, a year is one-fiftyninth of your life. The years are scientifically shorter as you get older! Yikes!

As I'm on the cusp of a major life change and moving to another country - for the last time - I can't help but think about the passage of time and my passage through places on this earth. I'm thinking about how the years seem to have disappeared in ordinary days of work and watching TV. I'm wondering what my future life in Great Britain holds and how much the country has changed since I last lived there. And I'm still wondering why the British don't rinse the soap off their dishes.

pondering, 2010

When I started blogging a few years ago, I joined in with other 40+ and 50+ fashion bloggers, taking selfies and trying out new outfits. I had just bought some new clothes and cut my boring bob, I was ready to take the plunge, so I started blogging at Late Blooming Sparkle.

 

January 2013

People who knew me were surprised that I was suddenly taking an interest in fashion, and many of my friends and acquaintances still don't know I blog because I've felt self-conscious about it.

March 2013

I had fun trying new things, writing up silly posts and taking photos, but it wasn't really me.

September 2013

I'm impressed, though, by the camaraderie and wide network of lovely women worldwide who keep up with each other's blogs, offering encouragement and advice and humor. I don't want to give that up, but I have cut down on my blog-reading lately.

March 2014

I decided to blog as Muse Fondue to widen the scope of my blog. Now I'm more likely to post about crafts or my attempts at photography. I love to get lost in creating little things, mostly dioramas in tins. I know that's a pretty narrow-interest niche, but it's my narrow-interest niche.

my latest, sort of an experimental piece

tiny railroad model figures on a bench with a Parisian background

For the next few months, I'll also blog about the changes in my life. I don't want to bore you with stories of cleaning door jambs or sorting through old socks. I plan to write about some of the profound but universal stuff churned up in such a major change: looking at past and future, learning to change compass points in life, and saying meaningful goodbyes to people and places, maybe for the last time.

with my mom and cousins in Florence, Oregon, 2013

Whew, got myself choked up there.

Anyway, thank you for your lovely felicitations on my last post about my 20th wedding anniversary. I hope you'll keep reading about my wild ride!

Val

Leap Year Scavenger Hunt

I love the idea of February 29th, a day that magically appears once every four years, like a rare desert blossom. What a special day to post Scavenger Hunt photos. Thanks to Greenthumb at Made with Love for hosting the link-up!

I didn't really get going on this until last week, and suddenly everything fell into place, starting with


2

Mr. S and I just celebrated our 20th anniversary. Here we are, the 2 of us, looking very much younger at our wedding dinner in 1996.

On our anniversary, we decided to ride our bikes into town and have lunch at a beautiful little deli, so I got most of my photos there.


Somewhere you went

The deli is in 5th Street Public Market. I remember visiting here decades ago when it was a hippie-type place with little stalls for people to sell homemade things. Now it's all upscale with lots of shops, a courtyard with a fountain, and a boutique hotel next door.


From a low angle

 
This sculpture is outside the boutique hotel. I have no idea why they put a rooster on a tree stump.


Up

In the deli, looking up at the ceiling, sort of.


Cool

Green

On the shelf

Inside

Inside the pastry case. I passed on the macarons and had a chocolate chip cookie instead.


Then on the way home, we got stopped at a train crossing. Serendipity! I had seen this building many times, but never looked at it closely.


Shape

Frame

Line

On the other side of the tracks -

Writing

There was writing all over this bus, far too many sayings to read them all. That's a chicken coop on the roof at the back, and I wonder if the white box is a compost bin.


All in all, a beautiful day out, and 20 beautiful years together!

Val



 

Idol Hands

Not working right now, but I am busy, busy, busy. Trash is being trashed. Crannies are being cleaned. Another garage sale is imminent. As I write this, Mr. S is sorting nails and screws and odd bits and bobs that must be disposed of.

I've gone through my craft stuff and have created several Grab Bags to sell - stamps, ribbons, beads and whatever.

I've kept back what I want to keep to work on over the next few months or to move with me because, really, some of this crap is irreplaceable.

especially the 3D glasses

Right now I don’t want to start a big project - I'm easily distracted and have many little things to do. But I don't want my hands to be the devil's playthings (or, hmm, I could rethink this). So I've been working on refining my wardrobe. I've started sewing the lace on the jacket I showed you here.

And I embroidered the reverse of the hat I showed you here (after I sobered up).

And I decided to make a pullover out of this stripy wrap (previously seen here and here and here, and at least one other place that I can't find, but that would be overkill anyway), so I basted the neckline together.

It does hang a little funny because the ends aren't square, but it might work. I think I like it.

Have I mentioned how much I'm enjoying the presidential campaign here in the US? No, I didn't think so. But I did enjoy the last four movies I borrowed from the library - my latest picks were all excellent! They were:

The Imitation Game with Benedict Cumberbatch
The Grand Budapest Hotel with Ralph Fiennes et al.
La Vie en Rose with Marion Cotillard
Celeste and Jesse Forever with Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg.

I know there are a lot of fans out there of Mr. Cumberbatch, but do you know who I have the biggest crush on? Rashida Jones. She's cute, funny, talented, smart, the daughter of Quincy Jones and Peggy Lipton. I mean, how cool can one short, freckle-faced girl be? She's adorable!

Ja, I tink zo.

Val

S-S-S-Scavenger Hunt

The Scavenger Hunt this month is a little different. Our hostess and ringleader, Jill (Greenthumb) at Made With Love, is on hiatus for a few months. With advancefuturetiming technology, the link-up went ahead last month - basically, we showed up at her place and made our own drinks and snacks. She just asked us to clean up after ourselves, and then she gave us carte blanche to do what we wanted for January. I made up prompts for my photos. I wanted some kind of theme to tie them together, so they all start with the letter S.


First up, SEQUEL
 

I wasn't completely satisfied with my logo cover-up that I showed you in my last post, so I changed it. Here, I've used a scrap of rather lovely fabric and glued it down to the logo. Then I glued a plastic brooch (without the pin) on top of it. The brooch came from Citizen Rosebud's shop.

I like this better, but I still need to trim the edges or add something to finish them off.

SOFT
 

I was given a lot of lotion at Christmas, and some lip balm. So I'm pretty soft right now.

SORT

Yikes! I've been sorting through lots of old clothes and shoes to see what I could jettison - I got $79 at a resale shop, which was way better than I expected! The rest went to the thrift store.

SCISSORS

Trying to work out an idea I had for embellishing a blazer. It's all pinned - see below - but I just haven't started sewing yet.

SUGGESTION

This is my suggested placement of the lace pieces.

STACK

You may have guessed there's a sort of sewing theme going on here.

SAFETY

I seem to have several of these travel sewing kits with safety pins, thread, needles and buttons.

SEE

See! It's nearly invisible - and has been waiting for use since the '60s!

STICK

A "voodoo" doll I was given long ago. I use it as a pin cushion.

And, breaking away from the sewing theme -

SCULPTURE

At our local art museum - the head is sculpted out of Sotheby's catalogs!

Check out the other scavengers here. Happy scavenging!

Val

I Hate Logos

Happy New Year! I haven't checked in here since before the jump (ha ha, using trendy online jargon - incorrectly), and I don't have a huge post or anything major to report. I've been busy sorting and purging and shredding (photographs of old boyfriends, incriminating tax returns, communications from the Mothership). But I also managed to do a little tiny bit of creative work - I customized a logo'ed handbag that I bought in October.

You got a glimpse of it here.

It's a lovely bag, rich dark-red leather, cross-body strap as well as a shorter strap, and just enough pockets and space to keep me organized and content. Except I hate logos.

I vowed to cover this glaring advertisement in some way, to personalize my purse and show Liz where she can shove her shiny vanity plaque. So I did this:

I took the flowers off a hat (seen here) that I had added them to. I rarely wore the hat, so it's now gone to St. Vincent de Paul's thrift shop, and the flowers are here, attached with embroidery thread and a tiny bit of glue.

 Of course, after finishing, another great option presented itself. My mother gave me this:

It was purchased on our family trip in 1964 (which I wrote about here). The badge would fit sideways over the logo, and I'm tempted to try it. The original adhesive might not hold, but I'm sure I could make it stick with some E-6000. Still haven't decided about this.

Anyway, I've been "doing" a little embroidery. The quotes mean that I'm mostly thinking about it and getting ideas. Now that I've said it publicly, I'd better follow through!

Val