Fresh eggs

So far, this is my favorite find of all. Downside: very heavy. Will mount it somehow in our living room

Beautiful handmade Mexican plates my friend gave me. Each one different. Do I need more plates? They were so beautiful, I couldn't pass them up. Plus they will match my dining room

today's sunrise

Fresh eggs my hairdresser gave me. Her hens are out producing the demand

The producers of my fresh eggs. Different colored hens yield different colored eggs. Her bantam hens used to produce tiny eggs. Alas, they became hawk food

Yesterday was busy starting with driving Maya to school. Temperature in car: 16 but she still wanted to play in the playground before the doors opened. We went by the old house, which is just a 2 minute walk away from the condo. She wished we didn't move and claims she likes the old house better than the new. Kids are not impressed with granite and high ceilings. I hadn't seen the house since we had sold it 7 weeks ago. Still no window treatments. Steve threw the old ones away. I drove through the old neighborhood that I am no longer a part of, a strange feeling. We had lived there almost 32 years.

It was too early to visit my friend on the westside but fortunately the downtown consignment shop was open. I hadn't visited it in a while. Buried under a bunch of glass (which I bypassed though I will look up some of it), was my mosaic tile shelf. So, so pretty. I had wanted a shelf for the living room to keep some of my glass away from curious children. I was thinking of oak floating shelves (which I haven't found though there are plenty of floating shelves to be had). It is somewhat reminiscent of Gaudi's broken pottery sculptures (which when I get time, I want to try to replicate) but the mosaics were made from art tiles instead. The owner couldn't tell me anything about it. As it weighs about 15 pounds over my current weight restrictions (which I have been violating), I asked for help saying I was recovering from reconstruction surgery. Turns out she was a tattoo artist in a former life creating false nipples to mastectomy patients. I said I still had my original ones though they were re-implanted.

So last night I amused myself researching my new find helped by one of the tiles containing the artist's name (which I thought initially were initials). Michigan seems to have a thriving industry in artistic tile production stemming from the Pewabic tile company in Detroit. Aside from producing tiles, Pewabic Tiles trains artists that later go on to form their own tile companies such as Motawi tiles in Ann Arbor, which has a national reputation (my Art Deco woodpecker tile received as a gift was from there). Ms. Tyge, living in Traverse City, also learned her tile making skills there. But she also studied cabinet making too. She has combined her wood crafting with her tiles. She seems to a one person operation concentrating now on small tiles and ceramic jewelry. She creates beautiful things.

My friend will have to move in a few weeks to a place considerably smaller than her present place. Downsizing will be very difficult. I will help before I leave. Discarding stuff that doesn't belong to me is much easier than dealing with stuff I am attached to. She showed me some beautiful dishes that she has never used. Will I use them? Yes I will though I have a huge set of pink fine porcelain from my grandmother that I rarely have touched. Pink....Maybe this will be in fashion again during the lifetime of my grandchildren or theirs.

Still it was too early to visit my hairdresser. Senior Day at the Salvation Army! More jeans for Maya and one 4x6 frame for me. At some point, the default reprint size went from 3.5x5 to 4x6. There are plenty of the smaller frame sizes to be had. I have cut some photos down to fit them. I have used mats to convert 5x7 into 4x6 (most look tacky). Last week I bought this beautiful handmade iridescent fused glass frame, 5x7. The cardboard  matting looks bad in it. Once I find the ideal photo to show off the colors, I will get another reprint.

I took too long to do this plus I hadn't eaten any breakfast. I had planned to stop at a nearby produce store that has fresh take away food but I had run out of time. It would be close to 3 by the time I got home so I stopped at a chain fast food place paying way more for a sandwich whose meat was questionable than I would have at the Italian store. I had tried to eat it while driving leaving me covered in BBQ sauce. Yep I am classy. The weather was quite nice yesterday so getting stuck in the snow was not a possibility as it has been in the past. I drove by the two alpaca farms and see a vulture soaring. All the vultures at my house seemed to have headed south so I was surprised to see it. 

I do like my hairdresser full of interesting stories. I now have shorter and considerably darker hair. Her largest hen  Lovey came running out to greet me. Where was Napoleon, the bantam rooster who liked to peck at my feet? Didn't I read her Facebook page concerning his demise? She swore I commented on it. I think I would have remembered. He was less than half of the size of the flock of hens he commanded and thus easier to carry off by the hawk. They are protected by predators at night but by day, it's up to them to look for hawks. Lovey has seemed to get bigger since she is the stand-in rooster. Not having a rooster has not cut down egg production. I never had a fresh egg before. Again I am not an egg fan but I do eat omelets so I will see if I can tell. One of the Moms raised chickens until a very dexterous raccoon undid the clasp to the coop. She had served us fresh hard boiled eggs once but I can't eat them.

Shanna and Tessa were still there when I returned. Hadn't seen them in a while. There was still a bit of time before sunset to go for a walk. The temp had gone up to 38 degrees. Almost tropical.I passed a herd of  about ten deer. I did take a photo but them appear as dots. A stag did walk across our yard last week in the middle of the morning.

Today, I will make a dessert for tonight maybe using some of the 3 dozen eggs I now have. And it is unseasonably warm again with no wind. I should be outside.