Magical evening

George and I spent last night at the Fourth Annual McKinley Park Festival in Creston where he played his sax with Big Al's Blues Busters. There was a good turnout, beautiful weather and best of all--no mosquitoes.

After the concert there were fireworks. Fun since we had missed July 4 while we were in Colorado. The usual oos and ahs from the crowd indicated that they were a crowd pleaser.

Then to top the evening off--upon arriving back to George's place, the sky was lit up with stars and the Milky Way. George, of course, sees this spectacular star show every M-F night when he gets home from work at midnight. Me, being from the city, I only see the show at his place if I stay up late enough!!

Africa calling

George and I had a lovely first-time meeting and lunch with Tammi and Chris (Peace Corps volunteers) in May before they took off for Ghana in Africa and their first Peace Corp assignment. I've thought about joining the Peace Corps since my high school days and the idea has been haunting me more and more lately. I found Tammi and Chris by accident as I was looking through Iowa State University's web site so asked them to lunch. They were very kind to meet with George and me in between their busy packing schedule. What a delightful couple of hours we had with them.

I've been looking for a blog from them and the internet has prevailed. What an adventure they are having. Check out their blog here.

Garden delights and more

I picked my first tomato and cucumber today when I arrived home from work.

I did a search for Mark Cesark after meeting him in Colorado. He is the husband of a friend of mine. I found this video web site. What a creator he is. I have a lot of respect for him and his work.

Tales from the ranch

Back home to realty. What a shocker. After being around so many creative souls, I'm on a real downward spiral. Here is a photo of some of the work I did at the ranch.
The main reason though it is such a downer to be home though is because of this photo. This is the view out the back door of my friend, K's house. Who wouldn't want that view?

The sweet smell of encaustic

Oh, my gosh--what a day. Learning new techniques and working on new projects. I've gotten 7 small boards done, all quite different. Met some great people also.

Tonight 3 lectures all fantastic. Amy Arbus  is teaching a photography class. Check out her work here. Stephen Hogbin is teaching the class that George is taking on conceptual woodturning. And Nathan Lynch is a sculptor who gave an extremely funny presentation. I love his bird images. He also did  very funny wheel project where he drug a wheel around different cities over a period of 4-5 years.