This Week 14th July 2012

Pohara Beach in July!

Some weeks have their challenges, and others seem to sail through fairly unscathed.  This has been a relatively unscathed week - I've been toiling at my bench and finalized some pieces I'm rather proud of and have also had some lovely time to play and sort out my somewhat chaotic life!

 

1.  I had a day at home this week and moved my home office from a draughty corridor to a sunny spot in a window.  Why didn't I do this years ago?  It's so nice to "go" to my office rather than pass it every time I go to my bedroom, and it's just a so much nicer space all round.

2.  I always walk on the beach in the very early morning with a group of friends.  We rip up that beach like terriers and I'm puffing like a train by the time we get home.  My dear friend Tracey and I went for the other sort of walk during the beautiful sunny afternoon hours - it was truly  gorgeous!  There were little children playing (it's school holidays here), but it was so calm and peaceful - a real lift and a gift mid-week.

3.  It seems to have been a week for my old Dad.  He turned 86 last Sunday and we took him out for grown-ups afternoon tea (that means red wine and antipasto platter)  at Jellyfish Cafe in Mapua.  It was another of those glorious sunny winter's days...

4.  I had an oxygen bottle issue this week - my old regulators which have done 9 years of solid service - mostly outdoors - finally coughed and spluttered and needed a trip to the repairers. Now my Dad was an engineer and taught welding in his later years at Polytech and had accumulated an impressive and precious collection of antique welding equipment.  We've had a lot of it stored at our place and when the emergency struck (I WAS mid creative flow...) the Toy Boy rummaged around and found this lovely old regulator for me to use...

It works a treat and is actually much nicer to use than any other I have tried!  Gives and lovely clean, even flow - some of them pulse, some choke...My old one was pretty nice, but this old sweetie, though she doesn't look glamorous, certainly does a lovely job!

Do you know by now that I LOVE old things? I would generally rather re-use most things than buy new, so this totally reenforces all I think about old things and quality!

5.  Speaking of old things, in my clean up on my day at home, I found some old URBIS Design magazines from about 10 years ago, when I was studying interior design.  And, you know, good design is always good design!  Some of the technology advertising was a hoot - cutting edge cellphones with clumsy plug in cameras, mega expensive CD players, and some of it was still pretty sexist, surprisingly.  I'm still flicking through them and found these "medals" (brooches?) which were quite inspiring...

6.  And finally, one of my friends posted this picture on Facebook this morning - it's just so right on so many levels!

Winter tropical escape on a plate

So how was your week?  Did you stop to think about the good stuff?

 

The website sale continues - simply by using the code BUYBEADS in the box at the checkout you received 20% discount on anything on the site.  Sale ends 31st July.