Thanks to my sis-in-law Val for this one:

P1010231Originally uploaded

On Thursday night I sat with a handful -- and I mean just a handful -- of people at The Grand Theater watching Sonos, an inventive acapella group. For $10, I would think this wonderful group would have drawn a much larger crowd... and a more diverse crowd. The pieces were a time or t

Whalen Island 7/5/10Origina

Tiki porch from hot tubOrig

Spent Sunday poking around the estuary tidal waters of Whalen Island with Kris and Scot, along with The Usual Suspects. While not exciting, it's easy access to approx 30 ft of water. Not much to see, but there's more than in my hot tub, which is my measuring stick for whether something is worth diving or not. Crab, little f

From the daily email of mouth watering specials at Word of Mouth (a fantastic place to eat that I have not been to enough lately):Troy and the good people at Santiam Bicycle, 388 Commercial Street downtown, graciously donated a

This long and rambling brain dump probably won't interest anyone. You've been warned.  =-) Asked the Big Boss for the day off, and did something crazy: ran up to WA for the day. The solitary drive time was needed (and put to good use; the road is a great place to think and plan). I was meeting up with Amy f

Saturday it was HOT. Loved it! It's been a long time coming.As usual, up early and to the Farmer's Market where we picked up two Chocolate Cherry tomato plants we'd ordered from the quirky lady who sells the best tomato plants at the market. (I say quirky while she's always very helpful and has tons of knowledge

Excitedly, we went to the Salem Saturday Market to pick up the Chocolate Cherry tomatoes we'd put on hold the week before. They were looking good, and I picked up a nice paste roma to round out my little tomato garden that will produce the foundation of fantastic tomato soup. (We ate the last jar of my last batch just this

Y'all know of the many things I love, abandoned buildings rank high on

Scot and I have always been avid collectors of stickers and what nots from our travels

Thumbs up to this weekend as it fades out. Highlights were many; I'm a lucky gal. I had a fun ride up to Tacoma with Allen (I blame him for my insanity, he was my instructor). A night dive didn't materialize, but instead I had a great late Italian dinner with Scot who surprised me with a visit; he and Kris had gone up to WA

Thanks to Ivan we found our way to Maui, to a fantastic condo sitting spot on a cove filled with fish, turtles and even a little spotted eagle ray. Thanks to Dana's research, we had great dives in Maui. 

Crossing the Desert

I haven't written much here about diving other than the cool thrilling stuff. While chatting about the more mundane with a friend, they encouraged me to post more about my discoveries. While I am always looking up and not wanting to sound like a n00b idiot to those I aspire to, she pointed out that others, like herself,

Thi

Last weekend when The Girlz and I went to TJ's in Corvallis, we hit Magenta for lunch and then s

(I so wanted to find the skit from the Chappelle Show where Wu-Tang Clan have become financial consultants... but alas, Comedy Central does a good job of scrubbing out their content from the likes of YouTube.)ANYWAY... not like this is news to anyone, but beware Wells Fargo. I was contacted via phone from the lo

Spring energy is in the air. Saturday was

Sex is an issue which divides generations, gender, education, class and just about everything else, despite being a simple fact of life for 100% of the human race. Especially in a culture where sex is everywhere but at the same time forbidden and sordid, open honest and truthful information about the subject is a positive c

Last year we started a Garden Journal, a place t

At 6am Scot, Dana and I lo

Everyone's gotta have weights to dive, and fluffy girls need more than usual. So the appeal of paying $3-4 per lb retail for lycra bags filled with metal didn't appeal. (Some good deals on ebay for around $2/lb, but then you have to ship it.) As usual, My Dude at the shop (that's Allen at Salem Scuba) had a good solution.

Design work is rewarding because of the tangible resulting outcome. We ad

Saturday I retu

It's a turtle alright. And an ugly little bugger to boot! A simple projec

Heavy components of solid glass thrill me. My first fusing projects were heavy stack

Today I spent two hours gently and carefully separating a sweet little rabbit from mats the size of... well, another rabbit. We'd never taken in an Angora before, so this was a new task for us. We worked slowly and carefully with a pair of my super sharp papercraft scissors, always keeping fingers between bunny and blade.