I love January....and Sundays...

January is always full of promise for a new year, and Sundays allow the time to daydream and plan.  So, I'm just now finishing up my tea, and considering making another cup.  Wonderful breakfast invention I'm calling the "California Sunshine Scrambled Tofu Bowl" has been enjoyed by all, and there might have been cake.  Because dessert, we love dessert.  We are allowed dessert if we eat healthy veggies and protein first.  And, I did sub in half whole wheat flour.  And no frosting - doesn't need it.  ha ha...

Quickie photo of said bowl of healthy goodness, and the recipe:  

Tofu Bowl - California Sunshine with Orange Tahini Sauce

Serves 2

4 oz sliced mushrooms

1/2 medium red onion diced

1 large jalapeno, diced

1 box silken extra firm tofu

1 teaspoon spicy Mrs. Dash

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon turmeric

fresh cracked black pepper to taste

4 cups fresh baby spinach

1 avocado, sliced

2 T toasted sunflower seeds

1 orange peeled and segmented

Sauce:

3 T tahini

1 heaping teaspoon white miso

1/2 teaspoon toasted sesame oil

juice of 1 lemon

zest from one orange

juice of one orange (at least 1/4 cup)

pinch salt

Make sauce:  wisk everything in a small bowl, adust texture with water or additional orange juice.  Should be pourable, but not thin.

Preheat pan, add 1T extra virgin olive oil, or 2T water if you don't use oil.  When hot, add mushrooms, diced onion and jalapeno, and saute about 4 minutes.  Add water to prevent sticking when needed (just a little at a time).

Add tofu, break up into pieces in the size you prefer.  (I make mine into scrambled egg-like texture).  Sprinkle over spices, and saute another 2 to 3 minutes, adding water to prevent sticking.

Add spinach, and stir until wilted

Put into large flat bowls.  Add sliced avocado and orange segments, top with sauce and toasted sesame seeds.  Enjoy!

With the sun peeking out between the clouds, my mind is turning to bright new jewelry ideas perfect for a Sunday afternoon.  Speaking of new jewelry ideas...  This large dragonfly ring is one I made for my mom a couple of years back, and always intended to put in the shop, along with matching pendant, earrings, and whatever else I can think up.  I love the combination of the opal with the silver and brass.  It reminds me of the iridescence of a dragonfly's wings in the sun.  

The ring is now in the shop, and a matching pendant is waiting to be photographed and listed.  I'm thinking about earring designs.  I've needed a new dragonfly earring design for a while.  Hopefully one will happen today.  We shall see.  I've been known to get distracted by all pretty stones lying on my bench and making something totally unrelated to the plan.  Ha.  Until next time the blogging spirit moves me....bye for now.   

 

Change

 

Some things change and some things don't, which is basically everyone's story.  I was feeling nostalgic (because 2020 makes me want to remember ANY other time ha ha...) and thought I'd see if my blog was still out here.  I really thought I would just retire it, but like boxes of old pictures and letters (those old enough to remember paper will understand) opening it up took me on a journey of remembering. The beginning days of jewelry making, the wonderful friends I've made along the way and how much this new idea of selling art online has changed and evolved over the years. It is quiet and reflective to write a blog post away from the frenzy and insanity on Facebook.  So, I guess I won't retire the blog.  I miss the days of finding beautiful handmade artwork on Etsy and the long gone 1000 Markets to post about every week.   Maybe some day soon another site will pop up for handmade work to shine again.  I hope so!  Meanwhile most of us are still here, making, but just a bit harder to find among all the mass produced and cheap knockoffs that clutter everything these days. In fact, I'm currently fighting my own Chinese knock-off and stolen image battle, but that's a story for another time.  Back to what changes and what stays the same...

I started this blog almost 14 years ago to the day - November 2006.  That seems like 100 lifetimes ago!  But remembering how I felt about making jewelry then, and how excited I was about starting my metalsmithing journey made me realize what stayed the same.  I still love making jewelry every bit as much as the day I made my first pair of earrings.  But, around 2010, things really took off, and the 8 years between 2010 and the fall of 2018 were a blur of crazy production and little time for friends, family or much of anything else in life.  Except that I did manage to squeeze in a sweet Tennessee Walking Horse named Cloudwalker, who lived on a glorious farm about 15 minutes from my house.  From 2016 to November 2018 he was my bliss.  Sadly, one of the farm owners passed away and our lives all changed. That period of time seems like a lovely dream now, but I'm hoping another horse will come into my life when the time is right again.  Change forces itself upon us sometimes.

More changes... A flooded studio forced me to close my Etsy shop. The studio renovation to permanently fix the water issue was on hold.  I realized how burned out I was, and that I had to just breathe. I went part time.  I got a "real job" for just short of a year.  But my mom's memory and her macular degeneration continued to change.  I needed to be at home full time. I "retired" early with the help of Social Security.  I found a lovely little part time contract bookkeeping job, on top of part time jewelry.  Then...more changes....2020 arrived with a disaster a week. The little contract job went away.  Change again.  Part time jewelry and taking care of my mom full time now.  I love cooking for my mom because she loves to eat - an appreciative audience is a wonderful thing!  I'll have to stay part time on the jewelry until I reach full retirement age.  Didja know you can't work full time in self-employment (even if you don't make much money) if you are on Social Security prior to full retirement age????  So I have a little over 2 years to create my new, more sustainable, more balanced, jewelry empire that will support me in my old age. Creative change.

Meanwhile, I'm baking and cooking. A LOT.  What you see here is my whole wheat sourdough loaf.  Makes the best breakfast toast ever. Avocado toast.  Guacamole toast.  Almond butter toast.  We love toast in this house. 

I also remain very busy as "staff" to my sweet retired racing greyhound Arkans BD Doc (just Doc for short). I adopted him this past January, and have been in love since the day I met him.  Good thing.  He continues to expect toweling off if rained upon, regular massages, and he also expects a daily schedule to be maintained.  He keeps me in shape on our walks as long as I take him somewhere interesting.  If it is not an exciting and new place, he will spend forever sniffing a blade of grass, or staring off into the distance.  This is not really exercise for either of us.  In this photo he is checking out a cardinal way up in the treetop.  Greyhounds are sometimes said to be not "real" dogs.  This may be true. They may be cats in disguise. More stories on this later.  I never get tired of talking about greyhounds.  You've been warned.  Check out one of his races - this is one of my favorites - you'll see why.  He was a fast boi!  I'll also probably talk about Greyhound racing now and then.  I've met so many great racing people since I got Doc. I'm sad to see what is happening to the profession. These dogs are loved, and I promise you they LOVE their jobs.  A retired racer (or several, more is better, ha ha) is a privilege and a joy to share your life with.  I'll end with Richard Skipworth's excellent illustration of "walking" a greyhound....

And yep, I'm working on a lot of jewelry.  That will be another post.  Theoretically I'll be posting regularly.  But don't hold me to that, no promises, ha ha.  

Back to blogging!

Ok.  I'm officially starting up my blog again - really! There have been a lot of life changes since I last posted, not the least of which was a partial remodel of a portion of my house for my mom to move in with me back in the fall of 2012.   We have both settled in nicely now, and are enjoying each other's company.  My mom is also an avid gardener, and we have split up the yard - she gets the front yard (I'm no dummy - this is the most visible part, and it's looking gorgeous now).  I have the back yard and vegetable garden.  The trees have gotten larger and larger, so full sun is a thing of the past now.  We have learned which veggies will grow in partial shade - and tomatoes are one of them, surprisingly.  The fig tree is also thriving, and we actually got 15 figs this summer!  No photo, we ate them all as soon as they were picked!

Perhaps the biggest change has been that both of us have lost tons of weight and gotten crazy healthy. We have become "nutritarians", which is a mostly vegan lifestyle heavy on veggies and salads.  I have invented many new salads, and make all my own salad dressings with nuts/seeds/herbs instead of oil. Cooking without oil is not as hard as it sounds, and nut-based salad dressings truly taste better than oil based.  Definitely not a low fat diet, as the nuts, seeds and avocados keep us very satisfied.  You can even make a fantastic chocolate pudding with avocados!  I'll definitely share some of our favorite recipes here shortly.  You can find out more here or here.  I started eating this way back in 2012, and have never missed my old diet or the weight that went away, lol!  One of my favorite snacks is apples dipped in chocolate tahini and pecans, yum!  You can make the chocolate tahini dip by mixing together 4T tahini, 1T cocoa powder, 1 teaspoon vanilla, and about 1/4 cup of date paste (made by whirring up water and dates in a high powered blender).  I will say eating healthy definitely requires a high speed blender like a Nutribullet or a Vitamix.  I use the Nutribullet, which works great for less than half the cost.  Someday I dream of owning a Vitamix, though.

The next biggest change is that with all the weight loss and health, I've gone back to riding horses, something I love, but hadn't done for 30 years.  I have always wanted to be a serious dressage rider, and am well on my way to making that dream come true.  I'm working with an instructor once a week, (2 hours away, unfortunately), but was lucky enough to come across a wonderful horse farm only 7 miles away from me where there was a horse that needed to be ridden. I get to ride Cloud Walker, a 19-year-old Tennessee Walker as often as I want on 65 acres of rolling hills and woods. It is a perfect complement to the long hours at my jewelry bench - allows me to breath fresh air and get exercise that is actually fun.  Yes, riding horses is every bit as much exercise as going to the gym!!  You can see Walker here doing what he loves best - sneaking in a bit of grass whenever he can.

Jewelry business-wise things are as busy as ever, and I still have tons of stones and not much time to make one of a kind pieces with them. But....I am working on that!  Here's the stone I think I am going to set next.  Soooo.... that is all for now.  I plan to fit in a post here and there to share horse stories, recipes, and news from my jewlery bench.  We'll see how that goes, lol!