I wanted to blog some more about my trip to Maine. I love the northern east coast of the U.S. and would happily live there, if it were possible. So, I was really looking forward to this trip! We flew out on a Friday, so we could arrive that evening, spend the night in a hotel, then drive from Portland, Maine to Castine the next morning. It is a 3 hour drive and we wanted to be able to take our time and not rush to get their in time for classes.

Unfortunately, we had a layover in Chicago and we were trying to land while there was all sorts of wild weather. At one point, as we were approaching, the plane dropped like a rock, before the pilot recovered. Then the pilot was told to back off on landing three times, before we got a clear. We had to wait in the air for almost an hour! And then, as we landed, the wings tipped back and forth the entire time, till the wheels touched the ground. We had a fantastic pilot though, and he did it!

But then, we got into the airport to find that flights all over had been canceled and the lines at customer service had like 100 people trying to get alternative flights. Our own flight kept getting delayed and delayed and delayed. Originally due to leave a 5 pm, in the end we didn't leave Chicago till 1 am due to all the wind and poor weather. Luckily, it was not till several days later that I learned there had been a tornado in the city of Chicago that day!

We finally arrived in Portland at 3 am, and wearily got to our hotel and dropped into bed, only to sleep about 5 or 6 hour before we had to be up again. However, the drive to Castine was so pretty. The air smelled of pine, was clear and everything was so green and pretty. We had hoped to be there by 3 pm, but because of our late night and later start that morning, we didn't end up in Castine till closer to 4. That did give us enough time to get our dorm room and change for the opening dinner.

The other interesting thing I learned about Maine is how often the weather changed! The first day it was cold! Then we got into heat and humidity that was really tough, especially since all the buildings didn't have AC of any kind. Luckily, about the 3rd day in, we turned to more reasonable days, with bearable temps. All the lilacs were in bloom and it smelled so nice!

One evening they did a lobster bake for all of us and it was so yummy! There is nothing tastier than fresh Maine lobster!

Anyhow, here are some pictures I took while there:

The view from the dorm window

The bay, as seen from the campus

One of the beautiful, colonial style homes

A lovely little shed tucked in near the lilacs

This path led to a little garden in front of an antique shop

Down at the harbor

Another charming home

I loved the character of this house!

Lilacs

Unknown tree blossoms. People though it was an crap apple tree, but the leaves don't match. Anyone know that this is? The branches were growing out sideways, in a gnarled manner.

Hope you enjoyed!

It has been awhile since I blogged. We did get home from England, but just before we left, Joe's mom had a heart attack and we had no idea how bad things were and if Joe should stay or go home as planned, etc. In the end, we decided it was best for us both to go home, since she would be sure she was dying if Joe stayed (since that is how she thinks.)

Luckily, over the next several days and tests, they found it was a mild heart attack and did surgery to insert three stents. She is back home now and doing very well, for which we are all very glad.

I only had a week home before I had to head off again for my week of classes in Maine. I belong to IGMA (International Guild of Miniature Artists) and they hold a Guild school once a year with the cream-of-the-cream miniature artists. The timing was not at all good, but there was not much I could do at that point. So off I went and I was glad I did. It was really fantastic and I learned a lot, especially in miniature wood working. I took four classes and here are the results:

This was a painting class. I took it because I don't have much confindence in my painting skills and was hoping to pick up some pointers. It turned out a lot better than I expected, but she did pick out all the paint colors, told me where to paint what and where to shade.

In this class I learned to solder copper wire for this stained-glass lampshade. I am sorry, this is not the best picture. So, it is very fine work and it is a real trick to keep one solder joint from becoming undone as you do another. But I really did enjoy and plan to try my hand at more work in a similar vein. (And yes, this lamp lights up, I was just too lazy to take a picture with it on.)

This class was really fun! We made peaches out of Fimo clay and I did this in just 2 hours! They really turned out great and even if you click on the photo and see them oversized, they still look realistic! I am definitely going to try my hand at more mini food products!

This was the hardest and longest project, and as you may have noticed that I am not finished. I worked on this for 5 hours a day, for 6 days. All the scrolled work had to be hand cut, carved or filed. There is no way to do it with a scroll saw or machine of any type, being so intricate. So that is where a lot of my hours went, slowly and carefully cutting with a jewelers saw, needle files and uber fine sand paper.

Hopefully, I can get this finished in the near future and post some pictures when done. So that is what I have been doing for the last week. I will post some lovely pictures of Maine soon.

Meanwhile, the girls are out of school for the summer and we are busy making plans of fun things to do while they are home. I have some fun craft ideas and local travel and adventures. Well once I get over the cold that I also picked up in Maine! LOL! I slept 18 hours my first night home and another 2 yesterday afternoon. Then I slept 11 hours last night. Bleh! This too shall pass!

I hope everyone is well and having a good summer!

Create your own family sticker graphic at pYzam.com

After Stratford Upon Avon, we got in our rental car to head to Surrey, our plan for the day was to tour Hampton Court Palace. However, it was soon obvious that Joe was very tired, so I suggested I drive for awhile, since it was just following a motorway (sort of the UK version of a freeway). We pulled off at rest stop and traded places and I pulled out of our parking spot only to find I couldn't seem to get the car to shift into any proper gear.

Most rental cars in the UK are stick shifts, but I had driven a stick shift for years in the US, and I had driven a rental stick in Scotland a couple years back, so I even had some experience with everything being on the wrong side of the car. But here I was, digging around for the gears and feeling like a brand new driver. Joe started to get upset and began shouting, telling me I was stripping the gears and burning up the clutch. By this time I was back on the motorway and couldn't get past about 20 mph and there was a burning smell. I kept insisting I couldn't get the car into gear and Joe angrily told me to pull over and he would drive, now being fully awake due to my poor driving.

I pulled over, we switched places and he started the car, only to find he couldn't find the gears either! Oh god, what had I done to the car?? He managed to gain some speed and finally, when it was at a point where you would normally shift into 4th, he got the car into gear and things seemed mostly okay, as long as you ignored the horrible burning smell. Since it is against the law to use a cellphone while driving in the UK, I started to call the car rental place and the UK version of the auto club to find out what we should do. Joe seemed to be able to shift between 4th and 5th, but we worried what would happen when he needed to go down to the lower gears. Meanwhile, I was mentally swearing I would never, ever, ever drive a stick-shift again!

We didn't have luck with the auto club and the rental just asked if we wanted to drive to Heathrow airport and exchange it for a new car, which would totally destroy our plans for the day. So we decided to finish the drive to Hampton Court, see how it did shifting down to the low gears, etc. We found parking and went off to get some lunch in a nice place across the road from the palace. We had delicious lamb steaks with a mint and blackcurrent sauce. Whoever things food in the UK is lacking, just had not eaten at the right places!

After lunch, we found this neat Hotel next door that looked perfect to spend the night in and made reservations. Originally, we were going to spend the night with Joe's daughter in London, but she had a last minute friend visiting from Australia, and we didn't want her to miss seeing him, since he was just in town for he day. Joe said he was going to go get our car from the public parking for the Palace and move it to the hotel parking while I finished my lunch. Unfortunately, he called me a short time later to say that now the rental car would not even start! Arggh! He has been to Hampton Court several times, so he told me to go ahead and see it myself, so the day would not be totally lost and he would sort out things with the car. I muttered some unhappy comments about rental cars and reluctantly agreed that his logic was the best and I headed off alone to Hampton Court.

Mind you, I must say with a bit of guilty pleasure, I adored Hampton Court and I have a fantastic husband for making this sacrifice. I really am glad I didn't miss it. I had about 3 hours to wander and I enjoyed every moment of it. Hampton Court Palace was a property that the famous Henry the VIII used as he sorta vacation home, but often would spend all summer there, hunting, eating, and perhaps looking for his next wife! The place has been added and added on to over the years and is just massive. Often meals were served to 1000+ people in a given day and the kitchens were massive to accommodate the kind of food needed to do so. It really just staggers the mind to imagine what it must have been like. The Palace also has huge gardens of all types including a long reflecting pond with trees laid out in military order, a hedge maze, a rose garden, a wild garden with beautiful trees, knot gardens, well pretty much anything you can imagine. I suspect you could easily just spend a day looking at the gardens! I particularly loved the rose garden, which was just coming into bloom. Even before you entered it, you could smell the heavenly perfume of the flowers. It was so pretty and pictures will never do it justice!

My other favorite part, which I am afraid I have no photos of, because cameras were not allowed, was the ceiling of the chapel, which was a deep blue, trimmed with gold leaf stars and carved wood. It was just so beautiful and I was told this is how it would have looked in Henry's time and has not been altered over the years.

So, if you have survived this rambling, here are some photos..

The entrance to Hampton Court Palace

There must have been hundreds of chimney stacks on top of the palace and every single one seemed to be done in a unique brick pattern, it was really stunning. 

Carved figures like this fierce dragon great you as you enter

Because of all the additions, it was easy to get lost and this type of interior corridor was very common to find all over

This is a huge astronomical clock that is the highlight of the Clock Court and the workers were busy doing a full restoration of the area. Luckily the main face was done. Blue and red seemed to be the colors that Henry the VII used all over his court.

Here is just a tiny part of the kitchens, an area that allowed multiple pots to all cook at the same time. Each cutout under the surface was a place where a fire could be built to heat the pots.

This is a smaller fire place used to spit roast, and was one of several fireplaces the cooks had to use.

The reflecting ponds in one of the many gardens

The wild garden. Notice how tall the grass is. In a few days they will be cutting it for the summer, but apparently they let it grow like this once a year because it is good for the health of the plants. I just loved the pink blossoms on this tree. I assume it is some type of fruit tree, but it was not one I recognized.

And here is a bit of the rose garden

Just about as I was finishing up my tour of the Palace, Joe gave me a call to say that the auto club had come out and looked over our rental and found not just one, but two problems! First there was some sort of oil leak that had put oil all over the clutch and gears.. thus my inability to shift gears. And second, the starter was dead. Joe had gone back and forth with the car rental company who swore there were no other cars to be had, due to a long holiday weekend and so on. But in the end, the manager did find us a car and drove it out and exchanged the two. Yeah! Meanwhile, our hotel had been kind enough to upgrade us to one of their two suites because "Your husband was just so nice!" according to the girl at the front desk. We had the Catherine Parr suite with lovely sitting area, large bathroom and an impressive bed.

Even Catherine Parr would have been impressed!

For dinner, we went down to their bar and found a table right on the Thames. It had been a beautiful day (despite all the forecasts of doom and gloom) and we enjoyed a bottle of champagne while munching on a salad of crispy duck on rocket lettuce with a bit of cilantro. Dessert was a chocolate tart with cream and a strawberry. Joe claims this was to kiss up to me after blaming me for destroying the rental car, when it actually was not at all my fault. *grin* I honestly wasn't mad, just frustrated I couldn't get him to listen when I tried to tell him I was not mucking around with the gears!

So, in closing, here are a few views of the Thames we had from our riverside table...

On Wednesday we left Broadway and drove toward Stratford Upon Avon again, to spend another day and night. Our first adventure was a visit to Mary Arden's farm, just outside of  Stratford. Mary Arden was Shakespeare's mother and the youngest of her siblings. Since her other sister's were married and she was not, she inherited her father's farm when he passed on.

And of course, being that time in the world, when she married Shakespeare's father, all the property left her possession and became his. I am glad that ownership rights are a bit more equal in our day and age. And people wondered why Queen Elizabeth the I didn't want to get married!

Anyhow, the farm was just wonderful! Less than a year back, they had shifted the site to a living history location, where the staff dresses in the clothing of the period and spend their days living, as they would have in Mary's day. Wood is cut for the fires, bread is baked once a week, animals are fed and tended, meals are cooked over open fires, etc. I just love that type of history! It was not too busy, so we had some lovely time speaking to the re-enactors. They even prepare their own meals and eat them and let me tell you, the stew (called a pottage) smelled delicious!

After the farm, we finished the trip into town and settled in our room at an inn, called appropriately enough, The Shakespeare. We then went just down the road and toured the Nash House, approximately on the location of a home Shakespeare owned, once he was married. It had the most stunning knot gardens and was just across the road from the river Avon.

Then, we met up with another of Joe's friend and chatted with him for an hour or so while enjoying tea and scones.

Our inn offered a nice theater dinner where they served a starter (appetizer) and main course, before the play, then coffee and pudding (dessert) afterwards. The inn is owned by a French chain so the food was outstanding! We enjoyed our dinner, then went to see A Midsummer Night's Dream performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company.  If the Merchant of Venice had been great the night before, A Midsummer Night's Dream could only be described as amazing and magical. The scene of the play within the play had me laughing so hard I was crying!

It was a really fantastic time, a perfect day in every way! So without further ado, here are some more pictures. More to come tomorrow!

The barn at the farm

Picking herbs for the pottage at lunch

The real guy in charge!

 Next week there is a special sheep shearing event, so the lambs had wool about as thick as you can get without them tripping over it.

The entry into the farm house

A bedroom in the farmhouse, notice the cool trundle bed at the foot of the main bed

The kitchen where the meals are cooked. This was directly under the bedroom in the previous picture. We found the bedroom filled with smoke. Not the best design!

Lunch time! The owners get the table cloth and salt, the laborer just gets the boring end of the table. The dinning room is separate from the kitchen, with the entry way in the earlier photo between the two rooms.

A lovely old building in Stratford 

The knot garden, in full bloom, at the Nash House

I am in England now, and finally have time and an internet connection to catch up a bit. We arrived on Monday, about an hour late, but that was not too bad. After doing passport inspection and collecting our bags, we headed off in a rental car to a little village called Broadway in the Cotswold area of the UK.

I love this area, it is so pretty: pastures, sheep, trees and everything is in bloom right now. We stayed in an inn that we have been in before and used the time to meet up with some of Joe's old friends. On our second day, we drove into Stratford Upon Avon and had dinner at an Indian place and then went and saw The Merchant of Venice, performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company. We had wonderful seats and their acting skills are just fantastic!

So here are some pictures and I hope to post some more tomorrow.

The inn we stayed at, that is Joe to the left.

Our room

Beautiful flowers!

They are just everywhere!

Apparently even the midmorning bird catches the worm here

We had tea with our friends Mik and Jim at this little shop down the road from the inn. Mik and Jim live in Broadway, but are American by birth.

Well we worked our butts off yesterday and if the amount of dirt on clothing and people counts, we did great. The project was finished and I think it turned out really well and the girls should be proud. Here are some pics:

Pulling out overgrown plants and weeds

Becca (on left) and her friend Tera (on right)

Planting geraniums

Trimming the birds of paradise

Weeded, cleaned and planted!

More of the finished garden!

It has been harder than I expected to blog again, since telling about the passing of our cat Chelsea. It is not that I am still so emotional about it all. I knew she was old, I knew she was sick and it was a relief to finally see her drift to sleep and no longer feel the pain, suffering, and hunger. I do think she is in a better place and I refuse to believe in a world with the idea of heaven for humans but not for animals.

Life goes on regardless and we have been busy with Girl Scout projects, a visit from our friend Daryl and preparing for the trip to the UK to see Joe's family and friends.

We took my Girl Scout troop to their last visit to the senior home to celebrate May Day. The girls did a May Pole dance that was fairly successful if you don't count the attempt to unwind the braided ribbons, LOL! Becca's troop worked this last weekend on their big service project to earn the last of their Bronze Award. They have been clearing, preparing and planting a sensory garden for special needs kids. They will be going back this Saturday to hopefully finish. I will try to remember to take my camera and get pictures. I think it will look really nice.

Daryl, our friend from Chicago, came to visit for a long weekend. It was nice to see him again, since we didn't get out last Christmas or this March when I am usually in that area. We had waited to see the movie 88 Minutes with him, which was a lot better than I expected. It had really been panned in reviews and only had something like 2.5 out of 10 on Rotten Tomatoes. I think it probably was more like a 5 or 6 and enjoyed it. On Saturday, Becca was off with a friend for the day, so Daryl, Joe, Megan and I went to the science museum. Megan totally loved it and kept saying how cool it was. She loved pressing all the buttons and all the neat hands-on stuff. We saw an IMAX movie about dolphins. I was the only one who had seen an IMAX movie before, so it was a cool treat for the rest of the group. Sunday, we had intended to go to Ren Faire but all of us were too tired, so we compromised by going for a fun meal at Bennihanas (a tradition when Daryl visits) and watched basketball playoffs on TV.

Yesterday, I went and bought some new clothing to take on my trip to the UK and later to Maine. My normal dress is blue jeans and faded t-shirts, but I wanted something a bit more tailored to see Joe's family and friends in. I found a couple cute summery skirts and a few nice tops.

In other news, I have decided to try to green with shopping bags, but I really didn't like the option of buying bags covered with the logos and names of the local grocery stores and such. Then I found a cool crafter's blog where she made cloth bags using a regular plastic grocery bag as a pattern. I followed her instructions and made one as a test. It turned out pretty cool, is fully lined and really strong! I can put up to 3 2-liter soda bottles in it, without a problem. Now that I have worked out the kinks, I will make more. I certainly have plenty of fabric in my stash! Here are some pics I took:

The basic bag 

Filled

And cat approved!

So hope life is going well for all of you! Be good to each other!

Today I had to put my friend of 18 years to sleep. She had a tumor and was bleeding internally. She was not young enough or strong enough for surgery to be an option. May you find peace, plenty of sunny napping spots and toy mice in the kitty-hereafter, my little one.

I have been doing some more work on the 1930's kitchen. It isn't finished, but it is a lot further along. Here are some pics of how it looks now:

The stove was cast resin which I assembled and painted.

The fridge is also cast resin.

The table I made assembled and painted. The drawer pulls are actually very small nail heads.

I need to make some kibble to go into the cat bowl before the cat gets too hungry. By the way, the cat food bowl is one I did on my potter's wheel and fired in a kiln.

I still want to do curtains for the windows, some hand towels, more food for the pantry, kibble for the kitty and some dough on the table where the baking is happening. Oh and I would like to decorate the plates in the cabinet, so they pop out a bit more and have a bit more personality. I am not sure if I can make it look right, but I would also like to have an apron hanging on a hook by the door and broom near the pantry too.

Oh and the floor.. I really do need to do something with it!

For this mini project every real life foot is represented by 1/2 inch. So that work table is about 2 inches tall.