Mar 13
we have a macadamia nut tree in our backyard that produces A LOT of nuts. when we first moved in, niels would collect a barrel of nuts, painstakingly hit every single nut with a hammer, crack it open and then roast the nuts. not kidding. it took eons. in fact, i felt guilty eating them because he worked so hard. as the girls got older, he started making it “their job” to collect the nuts. they do it, but they definitely don’t get excited to pick up nuts. i am convinced that when they’re old, they will talk about picking up nuts and think of it as a fond memory. at least that’s what i tell myself now. anyway – this is niels special project. he has the girls collect the nuts, then he takes off their husks and he actually found a spot about half an hour away that has a macadamia-nut-cracking machine behind their store. what are the chances? in the front they sell creepy fountains. so today, niells took the girls to the nut farm and they cracked nuts (i happened to be driving to a photo shoot nearby, so i pulled over, ran in and snapped these pix. multi-tasting!). as i write this, the nuts are roasting in the oven and tomorrow they will be ready to eat. a freshly roasted macadamia nut is one of the most amazing things i have ever tasted. snappy, buttery, a little salty and totally yum.
Mar 12
have been meaning to make this design for a while… inspired by one of my favorite clients in arizona named sue, hence “arizona sioux.” i have made many, many necklaces for sue – feels like we know each other by now! i had attempted this design a few times and it frustrated me so i threw the practice tags in my junk drawer and never looked back. sue requested the necklace and of course i would make anything for her, so i tried again. it took me a while but i finally figured it out. it reminds me a bit of the rock star necklace – order it for your man but wear it with your boyfriend jeans and velvet blazer. thanks for the inspiration sue! you can view the hand stamped arizona sioux necklace in our store!
Mar 12
yes, a fun new design! i saw tim burton’s “alice in wonderland” with jette and of course was in awe. burton does an amazing job of making every, single thing in the movie interesting to look at – from the red queens “bulbous” head, johnny depp’s orange eyes to alice’s amazing gowns. i was in heaven – visual delight. jette held my hand the entire time. it was fun to have a bit of mother-daughter bonding time. i digress… anyway, i made this necklace and thought it was the perfect “alice” necklace. pretty, funky and visually stimulating. you can see the new alice hand stamped necklace here!
Mar 11
here are a few things that i learned in vegas:
be you. no matter what you do – a stay-at-home-mom, a photographer/jewelry-maker with an ostentatious ring, a corporate executive/working mom, a soccer coach…be you and feel confident about you and your decisions. sounds simple, doesn’t it? i do feel it’s taken me a long time to feel secure and confident in many areas of my life. but i came to a certain point when things clicked and i realized who i am – or maybe i just stopped caring what others thought. my ring is a perfect example – i wore it all over vegas and received DOZENS of comments on it. in fact, it was like having a small pet with me. kind of fun. by wednesday, lisa was totally nauseated by my ring comments – tee hee. some were like “oh..uh…that’s interesting” – others were like “wow! cool!” and others were silent. but for me, it’s not just a ring. it doesn’t matter what others think. i like who i am, what i stand for and as long as i do my best to be a good person and make a positive difference, everything else will follow. i saw a great presentation by jessica claire and it reaffirmed a lot about how i feel.
here is a picture of lisa, my photographer partner, getting ready to unleash the “iFart” app on her phone on an unsuspecting victim in a quiet elevator. hee hee. but i learned that i have a great friend in lisa. we laughed, we cried, we were TOTALLY overwhelmed at all of the photography “stuff,” we ate (and ate), we drank (and drank) and we gambled (and gambled)… so fun. within ten minutes of arriving in vegas we were referred to as “thelma and louise.” i’m not sure if that’s a compliment, but oh well. anyway, it’s so great to have a good friend. lisa is hilarious and she enriches my life in so many ways: creatively, intellectually, interestingly and HILARIOUSLY.
speaking of hilarious – i realized how important it is to laugh ALL of the time. i cracked myself up (and lisa cracked me up too) during the convention. every where we looked, we saw humor. there was a lot of serious people at the convention and maybe that’s what made us laugh…and laugh…and laugh. perhaps the best example was how lisa made friends with the supplies lady. as a result, she set us up with a life time of MGM shampoo/conditioner because we really liked it. so we laughed at the stockpile of shampoo/conditioner sitting in our room. it feels good to laugh and it should be done ALL of the time. it’s therapeutic.
and that is what i learned in vegas!
Mar 10
lisa and i are back from the crazy photo convention in vegas – 14,000 people! yes, that’s a lot of photographers. we had a blast – it was crazy, i’m tired and can’t blog much. but just had to share the view from our room with you. we stayed at the MGM Grand. After our plane was delayed 1 1/2 hours (sitting on the runway the entire time!) – we were so excited to finally get to our room, throw our bags down, kick off our shoes and throw open the curtains to soak up the lights of the strip. instead, the gravel-roof top of the casino stared us straight in the face. we laughed hilariously – what else could you do? … was this a foreshadowing of things to come? i don’t know…stay tuned. lots to blog about!
Mar 8
last week all of the ladies in the house ended up with new shoes… and we also realized something, ellika and i are more alike than we thought. we do not own tennis shoes, which i think is really, really funny. that tells you a lot about us. anyway, we all ended up with new shoes for different reasons. ellika wanted a new pair of shoes because her BFF has the same pair. jette needed a new pair of cleats (and cleats they ARE – so fancy!). brittsy lucked out with some hand-me-downs. and me, well i made an impulse buy at marshall’s while ellika was in gymnastics class. i will probably take them back, but i couldn’t help myself – aren’t they decadent (and neck-breaking?). i am going to vegas today after all! see you in a few days…
Mar 4
today was an exciting day! our disneyland tickets arrived! when i held them in my hand i felt like i was holding charlie’s golden ticket. we participated in disneyland’s “give a day, get a day” program where if you volunteer for a day you receive a free voucher for disneyland in exchange. pretty darn cool! we made blankets for project linus – there are few volunteer activities that children under ten can do. but this was perfect! we can’t wait… we think we will celebrate brittsy’s birthday there – princesses everywhere! she will be in heaven. i love disneyland – thank you walt for creating the happiest place on earth.
Mar 3
today we said good-bye to elle’s first lost, baby tooth. it’s been hanging by a thread for a week or so – being held in by her tongue. she brought niels the dental floss tonight and asked him to pull it out – she had had enough! jette and i were freaking out, not sure what to do. pull her tooth out with dental floss?! yikes! niels tied a piece of floss around the tooth and yanked it out. elle didn’t flinch. so brave. the first thing she did was not to look at me or niels, but to look at her sister. jette was mightily impressed – her sister was brave! hmmmm…..wonder what the tooth fairy is bringing sweet elle? just tonight elle informed us that she believed in the tooth fairy but NOT unicorns! phew, close call.
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