collections | Italian pottery

Many years ago I received a stoneware pottery casserole dish as a high school graduation gift. That dish is still used regularly in our kitchen. Through the years I've sought out pottery at local pottery shows, flea markets, antique stores, garage sales, Goodwill, and ebay for all sorts of handmade pottery. Raku, Native American, Mexican, McCoy, Shawnee, and Italian pottery have all been collected at different times. For several years I even traveled all the way to Florida to rummage through weekend garage sales for kitschy things.

These days are more about simplifying and less about acquiring. Oh don’t get me wrong, I still LOVE rooting around a good sale.

Have you ever been to a designer Goodwill store? We happen to have one here in downtown Portland. This is the premium Goodwill store that receives slightly used designer discards. It’s here that you’ll find racks of designer jeans, dresses, jackets, jewelry, handbags, shoes, and a few home decorating pieces too. I stopped in a while back and picked up a cute pair of Michael Kors jeans and a tweed Anne Klein jacket.

If you’re lucky enough to be in the store when boxes full of goodies come through the door, you might find something you must have even before it’s unpacked.

Trinkets like this...



Or this...



This urn was on display in the front window.

Imagine my surprise.

I have the perfect corner for it!

a trip to the pumpkin patch...

... means hot, crispy, sugary, delicious apple cider doughnuts. Yum.

Do you spell it doughnut or donut?

At Fir Point Farms in Aurora, Oregon, doughnuts/donuts are made to order during the month of October. They make pumpkin ones too, but I’m too in love with the apple cider version to allow my taste buds to stray.



Hot, fresh out-of-the-fryer, just like my Grandmother used to make, doughnuts... Oh my!

meet Moltin’ Nelly...

No worries, her feathers came back in beautifully.

Lucy and Ethel

I love these girls... they’re everything I wanted in chickens and more. They’re mischievous, friendly, easy going, and great egg layers too.

As soon as we returned from the Galapagos, Lucy and Ethel started acting very strangely. I received a call from my neighbor on Sunday morning. “I have a chicken in my backyard, and I don’t remember having any of those.” I threw on some clothes, went out the front door, only to find Lucy wandering around the front walkway squawking her head off.

My husband spotted both Lucy and Ethel two houses down terrorizing the neighbors cat who was crouched under a bush shaking in his boots. It took both of us to herd them safely back home.

The next morning I found this in the nest box...



Isn’t it a beauty?

I found Ethel sitting under a tomato plant in one of our raised beds a few mornings later. She was possessively sitting on half a dozen eggs. I explained to her how those were actually our eggs. We rightfully bought them. She reluctantly allowed me to take them.

I left one in the nest box, hoping she’d get the subtle hint, and low and behold the next day she actually laid an egg in that same box.

One of these eggs is not like the others.



Ouch, that must have hurt.



A very tasty double yolker...







Happy hens lay the best eggs!

is this a good thing?

The start of the school year is always a bit frantic... purchase $100+ of supplies, organize notebooks, binders, sharpen pencils, get up early, back into a routine. Those are good things. The first week is always exciting... Which electives did you get? Which teachers did you get? Which friends are in your classes? Where's your locker?

Then the second week arrives, and along with it, homework! This year there is plenty of it. The reality of it all doesn’t really come until parents attend Back-to-School night. This is the night when parents rush around the school going to all your child's classes following the order that your child has written out for you, in an hour and a half. Parents are in each class for exactly ten minutes, with three minutes in between to run to the next class on the schedule. Note to self: next year do NOT wear heels. Running shoes only!

In those ten minutes parents are informed of what each class will cover for the year, how much work is expected to take place at home (aka homework), and told how we can help our child(ren) accomplish all this. There are several projects that parents need to be involved with this year such as community service projects and a family history term paper. Oh, and then we're asked to volunteer either on a regular basis in the classrooms, on special projects, or by driving for field trips.

Tonight after my daughter's weekly two hour dance class (Portland Public Schools cut back the P.E. program this year, so this is a must), she typed a paper, created a diagramed poster on the destruction of the ozone layer explaining the process, read a chapter for social studies and did an assignment based on that reading, worked on a few math problems, read for half an hour and fell asleep. This is all after being in school for nearly seven hours.

Just for fun I decided to add up the number of hours that go into school and homework per week. Here’s what I came up with:

30 hours in school per week (5 days)
4 hours Math homework (1 hour, M-Th)
4 hours Language Arts homework (1 hour, M-Th)
4 hours Social Studies homework (1 hour, M-Th)
4.5 hours Science homework (1-1 1/2 hours, S, T, Th)

That's a total of 46.5 hours a week!

When there are large projects going on, the number of homework hours will, of course, increase.

Her teachers claim they’re preparing them for high school. But that's next year. This is 8th grade!

I would love to hear from other parents. How does your child’s workload compare?

I gotta go sharpen some more pencils now...

Galapagos Expedition | Day 10

Cloudy skies and our last day arrived at the same time. This morning, the consensus of moods on the Daphne was gloomy. Thoughts of spending the day stuffed into airplanes, dealing with airlines, and crowded airports, was less than appealing.

We boarded the panga, and waved farewell to the Daphne crew.



I really wanted to bring this guy home with us! We could continue to receive delicious treats each time we came home, clean sheets and towels folded into animal shapes each night. He was also just a lot of fun to be around.

Luis grabbed a lifejacket and hopped aboard the panga for our return. And he carried our bags for us. What a guy!

Adiós Luis! Adiós Charlie! We’ll miss you.

Our first delay came at the Baltra airport. We were bumped onto the next flight.

We arrived back in Quito at around 6pm, just as the sun was setting.

Several people in our group were feeling a bit under the weather. A bowl of warm quinoa soup in the hotel restaurant and an early night to bed helped immensely.

Another early morning wake up. 3am, cram into a taxi with all our luggage. And you’ve already heard the rest of the story here.

The only things that made the day tolerable were thoughts of a soft, large bed and this sweet little face waiting at home...



Thank you so much for coming along on our journey through the Galapagos.

I’m glad you’re here!

Adiós.

Galapagos Expedition | Day 9

Isabela Island: Sierra Negra and Puerto Villamil

Today we go eight miles on horseback to the edge of the crater of the volcano Sierra Negra on Isabela Island. This is the second-largest volcano on earth.

Sierra Negra (Spanish for Black Mountain) is a large shield volcano at the South eastern end of Isabela Island that rises to an altitude of 1124m (3688 feet). It is one of the most active of the Galapagos volcanoes with the most recent historic eruption in October 2005.

Okay, so I'm a pretty experienced rider. I’ve ridden horses since around the age of ten. I’ve been thrown off horses while riding bareback, even had a few lessons through the years. But these horses were a challenge! They had obviously been trained by Spanish speaking riders and taught not to listen to anyone but those Spanish speaking cowboys who traveled behind us. The trails were narrow and we were often teetering on the edge of volcanic cliffs. The horses all had their own ideas about where in the line they needed to be and would charge at each other whenever the Spanish speaking cowboys did a kissy sound, which they of course did frequently.

The weather was cool and foggy with a light mist falling as we headed up the trail.



This was Iz’s first experience riding without someone leading her. She looks like a pro.





My husband on a horse? Now that’s a rare sight!





Once we reached the other side, the weather cleared. It was downright hot for our two mile hike on foot up to the summit of Sierra Negra.



Iz still looks fresh as a daisy after a long ride up...



The weather had again returned to misty on the return trip.

For some reason my horse insisted on being behind all the other horses all the way back. I was in a cloud of dust.

Mist + dust = ...



Notice the dead pig draped over the horse in the background. That’s not my horse. Some cowboys had just shot a wild pig nearby and I just happen to be passing by it on my way to the restroom when Michael took this picture.

The restroom didn’t have any paper towels, so I did the best I could with cold water splashed on my face.

Looking a bit like I just finished working in the coal mines, we headed to town for cervezas.

Puerto Villamil

Puerto Villamil is a small port village located on the southeastern edge of Isabela. Of the 2,200 people who live on Isabela, the majority live in Puerto Villamil. Residents of Puerto Villamil have earned a living either through agriculture or fishing, but over the years the government has made moves to move the population away from fishing and into tourist-based activities.

This place was closed, but what an awesome spot to spend an afternoon...



They even have a sand floor...