Sunday Gratitude

In all the busyness of the past few weeks my feelings and thoughts of gratitude have fallen to the wayside a bit, something I do not like at all. For me it is important to show and express gratitude for the richness of my life, for the things that we often take for granted.

This is why I am writing a post about gratitude today, on this day of rest.

I am grateful for

- my family, the Geek and Kaefer, being in my life and making it so much richer every single day. Yes, we do fight from time to time, but we also laugh a lot together and enjoy being with each other. We love each other.
- my friends without whom my life would be so much duller and less fun. There aren't many people I call friends, but these few are close, kindred souls that I don't want to miss.
- writing my thoughts on my blog and receiving responses from YOU that I often need in order to go on and follow my path.
- the colors that brighten my world and feed my soul. Imagine a world in black and white - how sad would that be.
- books that I can escape into whenever I feel the need for that. I am thankful for all the wonderful writers who "kidnap" us into their made up world and lives of characters we come to love. A beautifully written piece of words can soothe my soul.
- our beautiful home that is warm and cozy. Since spring 2012 when we bought and moved into this house we have transformed it into a home that we love and that is truly ours.
- the food that we eat every day, the abundance of deliciousness. The wonderful smells that travel through our home when I cook dinner or bake bread.
- my garden, the feeling of dirt under my fingernails and the crumbling soil in the palm of my hand. Watching flowers, shrubs and trees taking off and changing the landscape within our beautiful redwood picket fence.

- teaching a mixed media class which once again showed me how much I love teaching - and I wonder why I don't do it more often.
- my workout classes that help me to stay in shape (though still not in the way I would want to) and give me the chance to literally dance off my anger and frustration.
- music. All kinds of music - classical music, meditation sounds, Native American inspired music, piano, Crosby Stills Nash & Young, the soundtrack to Lord of the Rings. The list is endless.
- hot chocolate. Now that the cooler season has definitely arrived, all of us enjoy a mug of hot chocolate in the late afternoon. It makes the dark and chilly time of the year warm and delightful.

This is just a glimpse of what I am grateful for. There is so much more. But this might just be the start to more grateful Sundays.

What are you grateful for today?

Put a Bird on it!

This week has been another creative one - it feels so good to create again. In two weeks I'll sell at my first holiday fair of the season, and I'm working like a crazy woman for that - painting wooden ornaments, knitting hats and scarves for wood snowmen, making journals, knitting small winter outfits for dolls, adhering photos to cards. There are thousands of things that still need to be done, and my list seems to get longer and longer.

Last Saturday I was supposed to teach a mixed media class, but it was cancelled due to low enrollment. However, one of the ladies who wanted to take the class called me and asked whether I would do a one-on-one class with her. I agreed and we met last Monday morning. It was such a wonderful class - more like a get together with a friend. She was a lovely lady, and we spent a few hours creating a bird canvas. A canvas board, actually.

I usually have a sample in class, but my students can create whatever they like, the sample is just a very loose guideline. I create along with them, because that is the best way to show some techniques. My bird turned out completely different from my sample (I'm still working on my sample, so I am not showing it here).

It's a happy bird - I felt happy that Monday morning, teaching my class. I only added a few things after the class, like the little rhinestones at the banner, and the bird's feet.

I'm joining Paint Party Friday, one of the most wonderful painting parties in blogland!

A Very Different Kind of Fence

You probably wonder what snowmen with hats and scarves are doing in a post about - good - fences?

Well - look closer.

The pinkish-red one

Can you guess? This is leftover wood from the fence the Geek and I built in the spring. Beautiful, untreated redwood. It was sitting in our garden shed in all kinds of different sizes because I couldn't bring myself to throw it away. Some of the really small parts we threw in our fire pit on warm summer evenings. But the others are still holding out in the shed.

So I grabbed some of the smaller parts and made ornaments from them - as I showed you here. But what to do with the bigger parts?

It was so obvious - snowmen, of course. With hand knitted hats and scarves.

A few years ago Kaefer had asked me to knit a hat, scarf and leg warmers for her American Girl doll. Lucky for me I still had the pattern and found that the AG hats fit perfectly on my wooden snowmen. I got some skeins of colorful yarn and happily knitted along. The great thing about knitting these is that I can watch a movie while creating the hats and scarves.

The wood is untreated and I left the imperfections of the wood - I only primed it and then painted over it. The "personality" of the wood is still there.

The blue one

Painting on the faces was fun, and I also added a few buttons. Good thing I have quite a lot of buttons! The snowmen are available in my Etsy shop.

But of course I will show you a "real" fence photo - an image of the fence where my snowmen come from, the "mother fence" if you will.... taken in the spring when I had all the wonderful poppies in my front garden (of course they are all gone, but I can already see some new seedlings!).

So - do my snowmen count as a good fence? I admit it's a bit unusual... still, I'm linking to Theresa's "Good Fences" where you can find a lot of real, honest fences!

The Glory of Chinese Pistache

Last week we planted a Chinese Pistache in our front garden. I wanted to have a tree there that has some spectacular fall color. At our old house I had planted a Chinese Pistache that unfortunately only stated to change color the year before we moved away. All the autumns before that it stayed green and just lost its leaves. What a disappointment.

When I decided to try a Chinese Pistache again I avoided one of the mistakes I made with the first tree - I didn't buy and plant it in spring. Instead I waited until November when the color is the best here in my corner of the world. A friend of mine came over with her truck and we went to the tree farm where I found this pretty tree that was already on fire - hopefully a good sign for future falls. The farm had quite some Chinese Pistache that were still green and I made sure to stay away from them.

A couple days later the Geek and I planted the tree and it now adds some wonderful color to the front garden (yes, I still had my ghost pumpkin outside...).

Layered with "kk-appreciate" in soft light at 100%; texture removed from tree; copied and blended in multiply at 100%; layer adjustment on texture only

Further down the street stands a huge Chinese Pistache which is absolutely gorgeous at the moment. Compared to that, mine is a tiny baby.

I'm linking up to Kim's Texture Tuesday again.

25 Years Ago the World Changed

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It's been 25 years ago today that the Wall that divided my native country into West and East, into democracy and communism, came down. Peaceful, without a single shot. Unbelievable. A miracle.

Thinking of this day still makes me teary eyed. The emotions are still raw, after 25 years. This day will stay with me for the rest of my life.

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The days and weeks before let to the events of this day - it was already a very unique atmosphere in the entire country, but I don't think that anyone had really thought that the Wall, so hated by many, would indeed fall. We had always hoped for that. And then it suddenly happened.

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Over the next few days a long long line of "Trabis" (Trabant, an East German car) with East German residents crossed the border into West Berlin at Checkpoint Charlie... a first in our history.

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This was the beginning of the end - of the Wall, of this dreadful border, of a communist Germany in the East. The end of the DDR (GDR). The beginning of a unified Germany. And pictures like this one belong to the past.

However, we will never forget the victims of this ugly construction.

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For the 25th anniversary a Lichtgrenze (lights border) was erected all through Berlin, following the original path of the Berlin Wall. They were released this evening - and the German-German border is gone.

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On August 13th, 2011 - 50 years after the Berlin Wall was built - I had written about it here. Check it out if you're interested.

A Trio of Wooden Snowmen

Remember when we built a picket fence around the front and side of our house in the spring? Quite some wood was left over that I had piled in our shed. First I had no idea what to do with it, I only knew that I didn't want to throw away all these pieces of perfectly fine wood.

Then it came to me - ornaments. Of course!!! And since I like snowmen, it was pretty obvious that I would make snowmen ornaments.

Snowman with blue-green hat and scarf

I first put down a layer of gesso, adhered some torn pieces of scrapbook paper and then covered the background with light blue paint. The snowmen were painted after that and further embellished with glitter glue that shall represent the falling snow. A screw eye drilled on top for the hanger and I also added a sparkling ribbon.

The first "batch" is done and available in my Etsy shop. I think I will do some more with different colored backgrounds.

Snowman with red hat

It was so much fun creating these little guys. Of course as true Northern Californian snowmen they are made of untreated redwood.

Snowman with black hat

Are you making some ornaments for this year's holidays?

I am linking to Paint Party Friday, joining some wonderful and talented artists.

On Top of the Big Apple

My good fences this week come from high up in the sky - from the visitors' platform on the Empire State Building in New York. We visited New York in 1997 when the Geek was working in Allentown for a couple month. We met for 10 days over Easter in New York and spent a gorgeous time there. This was my first trip ever to the United States.

Everything was so easy at that time... no long lines because of security checks. You just waited in line to get on the elevator that would transport you to the top of this famous building in no time at all.

This "fence" of course is more of a barricade, to prevent suicidal people of jumping the fence and throw themselves down. Here's a detail:

It looks rather sharp and you certainly would think twice before attempting to get up and over there. The entire fence was curved as well.

Quite impressive, right?

Just one look down, please - one of my favorite views of this big city:

I'm linking to Theresa's "Good Fences". Please come and visit!