Bento Bento On My Mind

I just don't know about Polly. At least she doesn't need me to play with her all the time. She's quite content playing little games in her "padded cell"!


Since I am back at the Desert Botanical Garden, doing some seasonal work, I am working all day so I have to resume my lunch-taking adventures. For the past couple of years, I have been exploring my Japanese heritage - the Chopstick Culture of eating from a Bento Box. What is a Bento Box? It's delicious morsels of a variety of food geared toward eating with chopsticks. So, no supersized, giant pieces of whatever you eat. I thought, "What better way to control my portions!" The challenge for me, was to gather enough variety for a balanced meal. Some rice or noodles, some protein, vegetables and fruit, and yes, dessert. The portion sizes are small so you can have a decadent cheesecake but it has to fit in the Bento Box! That's the trick! The calories of a slice of cheesecake can be enormous, but a bite or two can be the perfect calorie count, never feeling deprived.


I usually cook a main meal to plan for leftovers that I can put in my Bento. I assemble it in the morning just before work. This time it was pork thingy's - um, dumplings, I guess. I've never cooked with gyoza skins, that's the outer sheet of the pork meatballs. The ground pork was filled with ginger, onions, mango, mango chutney, slivered chili peppers, snow pea pods, chili powder for an extra kick, and salt, pepper of course. My little steamer could only hold ten of them, so I baked the rest in little mini muffin pans. That actually worked out better because it didn't take as long to fold around the pork, which is a definite technique that needs to be practiced.

I have two Bento Boxes from a long time ago. They weren't used much because I felt like they didn't hold enough food for my satisfaction. Little did I know...
They usually have two separate layers, fitting one on top of the other, then the lid. The bottom, I fill with a small serving of rice or noodles - today, it's rice with pork dumplings on top, and I had some leftover roasted vegetables in the fridge. It's interesting too, how I save more leftover foods, even if it's a couple of tablespoons for my Bento. It adds color, some variety and nutrients too. The next section has pickled vegetables. I took a pear with me to work, so I opted for some pickled veggies instead of fruit. It was delicious, kept me from overeating and I like to make them pretty, laying out the foods in a very appealing way.

There's even creativity in making Bento Boxes!


My Featured Jewelry Piece ...


I made this green dichroic glass bracelet a long time ago. I took it out the other day to polish it. Since it's getting cooler (ha ha), I can wear heavier bracelets. I made each link from precious metal clay, made the dichroic glass cabochons and fired them together.



Even though the glass is green, there is a dichroic pattern in each one making them unique at the same time. I'm selling this for $250.00 retail. My blog special price is $175.00!



Have a Great Day. I'm watching the Memorial this morning, and have been watching it all week. New York's Memorial is so grand, so beautiful. It touches my soul.

Sunday Sunday

It's been almost ten days since I was last here. I forget about all the ins and outs of posting. I am happy to say that I'm still been getting up early in the mornings and getting myself out the door to walk. This morning was a little difficult, my feet hurt, my legs weren't working like they should be, feeling achy... ah, yes, I was whiny about it. I walk to Chaparral Park and see my friends, the ducks, the geese, the swans, believe it or not, there's even an egret out there. And, there's "bob". My favorite, I look for him every morning. His tag reads B05, looks like Bob doesn't it? His brother's B08, I call him "Bob" too.

This morning was beautiful, a little cooler than it has been, reminded me of Florida, especially seeing that lone egret. What I used to do occasionally on Sundays was go to an oceanside restaurant/bar in the afternoons and listen to Reggae. That brought me back to my sweet memories. So I put on Taj Mahal's Sacred Island music in my IPOD, and walked a little less painfully, and suddenly, I didn't feel so whiny.

I finished my walk feeling so much better and ready for the day!




I am putting together a small jewelry case for my niece to take to her work. Maybe I'll be able to sell some things through her friends and coworkers. Always look for creative ways to show my work.



My featured jewelry piece today is one that I made a few months ago. It's a PMC covered porcelain bead, with one of my better lampworked beads, and an Egyptian eye charm. I like this piece because it has an unusual way of getting in and out of it. It has a soft 16" leather cord, it's asymmetrical which is what I love about it. And, it can be yours! Retail price is $75 but my blog special is $40!

My Next Class

Teaching requires some level of organization in going through each process thoroughly to make sure that I offer very good quality classes. I made this crystal necklace, not necessarily intending to teach a class in it. As I was creating this, I began to think that this might possibly make a nice class where students would have an interest, be excited about making this for themselves, and offer some variations to the design. It has to be easy, simple, and the student will be able to finish the whole project or the majority of it in the three hours allotted. That's what I look for in my potential class. Can the student with or without experience be able to do this? I prefer this method of coming up with a class.

My usual process of working up a class idea is much more involved. It takes me days to think of ideas, work the process up in the head, answer all my questions, think of any difficulties that might be addressed with new students, make the piece, have handouts printed up, market the idea, and get some students! And, keep the costs affordable.

My next class will be teaching this project. Lean to make wire links to join chunky crystal beads together. With all the links that will need to be made, by the end of class, you will be comfortable with bending wire and creating your own links. No clasp unless you want one. This one fits easily over your head. I'll offer this twice in September. Saturday September 10th 10-1pm, and Wednesday evening, September 21st 5-8pm. It'll be in my home, and the cost will be $40 for the class and $40 for supplies.



This is my featured jewelry piece today! I made a pair of earrings to go with it! I sell this piece for $125.00.


The last couple of days have been quite difficult with my limited computer technological skills, bumping into so many obstacles to get to where I want to go, is a frustrating experience to say the least. I can say, though, through all that, I still managed to do my walk in the morning. I've even added two sets of lunge walks, or "death" lunges is what I prefer to call them. It makes me so sore but I keep thinking that I'll be lean and svelte in just a few more days! Yuk! Yuk!

This morning, I did my walk and got rid of the ju-ju that's been mucking up my life. Came home and baked. Ahhh, most excellent! All is well with the world.

TASTE TESTERS NEEDED!

I made these Red Velvet Brownies. Thanks for the recipe Tammy. This is a bit unusual as the ingredients are not your typical red velvet ingredients. I used red beets and red beans! So I'll need some taste testers! When I try a recipe out for the first time, I'm putting some extra ingredients in and changing them out. I want to make some changes in this recipe, using fresh beets instead of canned. This one now, it's de'lish!

Live Everyday Sacred

Today was a great day. I accompanied Pam to her pottery class this morning. What a treat to be back in the pottery studio. I helped her glaze a pot while she glazed three. She was a production potter, me - I just glazed one pot at a time even if it took me hours! It reminded me of the many hours that I spent creating pots. One day, I will be back there!


We had lunch at the Farmer's Market, our favorite food truck The Mobile Hot Dog Eatery. Best hot dogs in the whole city.





My Featured piece is a Teapot Bracelet.


Live Everyday Sacred.

Tonite's Dinner

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I'm dedicating this blog to my niece, who loves to read blogs about cooking. She's my muse when it comes to writing blogs. She asked me for a recipe for Chai tea that I used to make a long time ago. Ahh, but I don't have it anymore, and can't seem to find it. So, instead, I'll make dinner tonight in her honor. But first....

Some Sake...






I had some ground lamb thanks to my friend who gave me some for my birthday. A very wonderful birthday present. Thanks Pam. I don't often have jars of sauces and spices because I like to mix my own, but I saw Patak's Mango and Ginger Chutney and thought I'd give it a try. Maybe the lamb and the mango chutney might go well together as meatballs. So I chopped up more mango and grated more ginger because you can never have too much. Also added to that mixture was panko bread crumbs, an egg, and some red and yellow sweet peppers, a little salt and pepper. I'm not giving the amounts until I taste the results. This is just a "hmmmm, I think it'll taste good" experiment.

So here are my meatballs! Into the toaster oven for 35 minutes at 400 degrees...


I thought that maybe some pasta shells would go well together and I really should have some greens but nah, I think I'll just have meatballs and shells. I'll eat greens next time. I love my food in bowls. I made this one in my pottery days. It just tastes so much better as "bowl food".




They are finally done! Cooked to perfection! And, the chunks of mango show nice and bright. Yum!





Okay, so now, do I eat this first and then write my blog? Of course not. I'll eat first!



I'm back! It was very delicious. I could probably use less chutney, more ginger, and maybe something spicy. The meatballs were nice and sweet and light. I will try this again most definitely.





My Featured Earrings today are the crocheted metal wire earrings. I've been working on these for quite a while, making different colors, not just the ones shown. I have purple, blues, reds, oranges, in a variety of sizes. I sell them for $20 each.

Sweet Inspirations - Vintage Buttons

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As an artist, I get inspirations from everything that I come in contact with, whether it is something that I've seen in nature, a texture from a modern building, or even an old building for that matter. It could even be another artist that speaks to me through their work. You'll see me blogging a lot about my "Sweet Inspirations" because they fuel my own work. I want art to be in my life always, even when I'm doing the most mundane of chores or tasks. I look for things that will carry me to my next creation.

I love vintage buttons and have collected them over the years, from purchases in antique stores, gifts, and found buttons (those are the best!) Even the smallest ones have a wonderful pattern to them. So I took the smallest ones and made molds from them.



Then using my fine silver Precious Metal Clay, I created a pendant with a gemstone placed in the center. They came out beautiful! I want to make more but I have to sell some first! From the buttons, to the molds, to a finished piece of jewelry, this is my heartbeat!



My featured piece is on of the biggest buttons that I have made. It measures 1/2 inch by 1/2 inch, and is on an 18" sterling silver chain.



I even spruced up the back and put my symbol on it, so you'll know who made it...



I love the detail that these buttons have and what it does to my piece!

Get Your "Warm Fuzzy" On!

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It was particularly humid out this morning when I started my walk - the air was thick with moisture, and I was already damp. But that's what I'm walking for - to sweat out the toxins, to breathe deeper, and lose some poundage! I have to laugh to myself when I talk about humidity. Is this really HUMID? Ha! I think not. At least not compared to spending 30 years in Florida. This is nothing. I'll take this "Humid" and be fine with it.

When I walk, I like to think about my next blog ideas. I passed a few other walkers out for their morning exercise. It always amazes me how we can be the only two people on the sidewalk, passing each other within one foot and Bam! - No eye contact, No "Good Morning", Nothing. And that split second is gone. I remember someone saying a long a time ago that, "Everyone needs at least 257 Warm Fuzzies every day to feel good!" Warm fuzzies can be a smile, eye contact, a "Good Morning" from strangers. It can be a phone call from a friend, hugs and kisses from a child, and it can be reaching out to help someone. I happen to like saying "Good Morning" to everyone I pass, and I get to snag a Warm Fuzzy for myself. I stopped by to get my photo card from Beverly and she gave me a bag of kumquats for me from her tree - ooh, another warm fuzzy! How many can you get today!

I chose two earrings to spotlight today because they were both made of bronze coins, with niobium ear wires. Coins. For reminding us of how rich our lives can be if we let it!




This pair of earrings has suede strips, ooh, a "Warm Fuzzy"!

My "Left Brain" Day

Feeling great today. I simply had to leave my creative right brain for a little while this morning to learn about how to sell some things on Ebay. Beverly is helping me. She and Shirley have a store and they are doing very well. I'm so thankful that she will be coaching me every step of the way. All of those little details of even signing up is not for the creative...not yet anyway. Those important details will need to be evaluated, checked and rechecked before I can be good at it. Learning curves can be very frustrating. So, it's time for my patience to kick into gear, reading everything carefully and thoroughly, and getting over my first listing. Then, it'll be a breeze. At least that's what I'm counting on. This is just another step for my Plan B, and I'm actually excited about starting this new adventure! So my morning is totally gone and I must get ready for work this afternoon. I'm exhausted - well my brain is. I have to figure out how to make this more fun and more rewarding. Oh, I know!...when I sell something!





So here's my featured jewelry. I know, they are not earrings. I had to deviate a little today. These are simple wire pins that I made a while ago. (I left my photo card at Beverly's so I had to rely on an older piece of jewelry). I love these whimsical pieces and the beads are lamp worked, hand crafted.

Ugly, Nasty, Crazy Day Turns Around

Do you ever have one of those days where something happens first thing in the morning and it has the potential to ruin the rest of your day? Unless you back off, slow down and turn it around yourself.

I woke up this morning, got dressed to go for my morning walk and stepped outside. Hey what's this? My sprinklers were going, the ones that I had turned off months ago because I didn't have anything growing there. What were they doing on? Oh well, I'll just deal with it when I get back from my walk. Then I noticed that the water was all the way down the street, I decided to follow it. Oh my, it had been running for a long, long time. So I cut my walk short, half an hour instead, and came back to the house. I unplugged my timer, that didn't work. I turned off a valve, that didn't work. But I saw another one and turned that off, that did work. Then I didn't have any water in the house. I remembered that I had turned the first valve off but not back on again when it wasn't the sprinkler. My next chore was to bag some yard trash and the bag broke. I wanted to hang a wind chime and my drill wasn't charged, tried by hand, but that didn't work. Okay. Time out! Sit down, take a deep breath, and change my day...

I fixed myself some steak and eggs for breakfast. That turned out well! I created my featured pair of earrings for my blog. Hey that turned out well too. Got a call from a patron and she stopped by to purchase a pair of earrings. Now THAT was an awesome thing.

I'd say, this IS a GOOD day!


My featured earrings are made of mixed metals, bronze and silver, on a niobium earwire. I'll be wearing this today when I'm out and about.

An Early Morning Firing

Early in the morning is a great time to fire up the kiln for a long 9 hour firing. That's what I did yesterday after the Friday night class in Bronze clay. It was Diya and I and we created pieces one right after the other. Bronze Clay has small particles of bronze in an organic compound and when fired becomes pure bronze. All the organic stuff burns away. It's a fairly new product, much like the Precious Metal Clay that I use for my fine silver pieces. The bronze is beautiful and I must say that I wasn't too enthused about it in the beginning. But the more I work with it, the more I like it. Since the firing is such a long time, I like to have a full kiln load and it isn't very often that I work with it, so we use up the whole 100 gram package. I made a couple of "test" pieces among these. I wanted to see if PMC silver paste would adhere to the bronze during the firing. And, I also wanted to see if decorative balls would adhere, as well as a cubic zirconia gemstone. This is what we came up with.



Our pieces get put into the carbon standing up on its end...


Into the kiln it goes to be fired...


And, nine hours later, the firing is complete.


The result of my testing was that the PMC Silver did not adhere at all on the bronze, but the cubic zironia gemstone did make it through the firing and stayed on my pendant. I'll be finishing that up in a few days!

My featured jewelry piece is the shiny bronze "Peace" pendant laying on top of the just fired piece. I call it my "Peace" pendant because it resembles the Native American symbol of an arrow, with the head of it pointing inward. Very Cool!

I did my walk this morning...am eating my oatmeal to which I added some Cheerios...and I'll be working this afternoon at the House of Rice, where I'll get my ingredients for the next green tea cookies that I'll be baking this week. I'm having dinner with the family tonight. It's going to be a good, good day...

A "Getting Grounded" Kind of A Day

I have great friends!

My 6th Day of working out, and...I passed. Oh No! I didn't go out and walk this morning and I'm not sure why. But I'm giving myself permission for it to be okay. The downside is that my day was a bit discombobulated, and not quite focused and on track like I had been all week. So, I think I'll go for it tomorrow. I just have to remember how good I feel when I do work out! I decided to do some grapefruit hunting instead. Ha! Don't know what that is? It's the old grapefruit that should have been picked earlier before the 100 degree weather came around, and it's still hanging out in the trees. Now, it's "hunting" season, picking them off with the other end of the grapefruit picker and just hit them so they'll fall from the tree. Time to celebrate! I finally got them all. It's too bad I can't think of any good use for them while they're in this stage - really soft, really mushy. Face mask? Ahh... No! I will make sure I pick them all next year!









Dawn, my niece, and her friend, Alex, stopped by to drop off some batteries so I could finish taking pictures for my blog today. They were up for doing a taste test of my green tea cookies. Remember them? So they were all for the taste test. At first, Dawn was a bit hesitant because they looked "green"(?). I guess they didn't look like cookies. But she and Alex did the tasting and they both agreed that they were delicious. So far, I have five people doing the taste test and they all concurred that it was a very good cookie. And, good for you too, with the green tea! I have another cookie recipe to try next time. Thinking of packaging too, maybe incorporating a little origami! They would be perfect together.

My day was very relaxed and unhurried, and it felt great to not have to be somewhere and not have to really do anything. Getting grounded is a good way to spend the day. It allows for fresh ideas to enter into my head. One idea I had was to feature one of my "creations" every day, every time I write my blog. Feedback is always welcome!

This pair of earrings are made of Swarovski crystals. It was a quickie pair of earrings that I was inspired to make. I like the bling but in a subtle way!

Finding Time To Be Creative

I believe my chocolate stash is complete!




This week has been very hectic and in a very good way. It's Day #5 of my working out first thing in the morning and it's going well. It hasn't been too hot and my walking has in fact been very pleasant at 5:45 am!
I went to Dozo last night. My favorite sushi restaurant. Mr. Robert-san and his wife Risa, always make us feel welcome. I was treated to a special birthday dinner from Valerie. We had oysters on the half-shell, yum, among other luscious foods, like aji, calamari cocktail, taro chips. Their happy hour specials are awesome. A great time, good food and good conversation makes for a great evening.










With all of this running around, going here and going there, celebrating and getting together with friends seems to sidetrack me from spending time with myself creatively. It grounds me and soothes the beast in me. So today, I took some glass pebbles, and made some earrings. Since the price of silver and everything else is going up in price, I like to make some earrings with a lower price point. I think these will retail for $15.



I like to make my own sterling silver ear wires. That way I can change the length of the earrings, add different details making each set of earrings different. I used a couple of different sizes and I love the colors. This is just the start. I will make more. And, as always, I am looking to sell these fast. So I'll post these on Facebook and those of you who read my blog, know that they are for sale!




Since I don't have a professional models at my beck and call, I am forced to find creative ways of taking pictures of earrings on my own ear, in a mirror. Ha! I think it turned out, don't you?


ALWAYS EEK OUT A LITTLE CREATIVE TIME IN YOUR DAY!

My Test Kitchen!

Today I tested out a new recipe for cookies. Green Tea Matcha Cookies! I love the taste of matcha green tea and what a great idea to combine them with a simple sugar cookie.

For years, I have wanted to bake a variety of things and be able to sell them at the local farmer's market - Another avenue of income! - but was stopped dead in my tracks when I learned that you have to have a commercial kitchen for any food prep. Pammy, my friend, called me one day to let me know that the Arizona Dept of Health Services just opened a branch for baked goods. I can bake cookies now in my home. I just have to have a food handler's card which I do, and keep my baking simple with my name, ingredients, and baked in a private home. Hey, that's do-able!

So today, I tested out one recipe. This is just the start. I want to come up with a fantastic tasting cookie, and I think this one is very very good! So in order for it to pass the taste test, I most definitely have to have some tasters. Hmmm, I am going to dinner tonight with Valerie. We're going to DOZO for sushi. Perhaps I'll be brave and see if Robert-san would like them. Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid. I know Valerie will be my guinea pig for sure. And, I'll see another friend tomorrow morning, Billie. She'll be up for it too!

I took this picture, quite proud of my uniform shape. Notice I just had to break a cookie for my own pleasure!