Sagrada Familia-- A Most Holy Place

Some places are just.....holy.

I can count on two hands the number of places that I've been that are....holy. 

Don't get me wrong I've been to sacred places and hallowed ground.  But a Holy place. A holy place is different.

In a holy place is God's presence.  God is present.  God has been and will be in that place.  A holy place is where you breathe in and just know......you just know God is there with you.  

A holy moment isn't the same as a holy place either.  Nope.  That's altogether different.  A holy moment is just between you and the big guy.

A holy place?  Well, it doesn't matter who's there or isn't there.  Who's been there or will be there.  It'll be holy.  Period.  A human's presence or lack thereof doesn't matter.  In a holy place, amidst all of the chaos, in the spinning of the day and the loudness of the world you can hear His still, small voice.

Sagrada Familia is a holy place.  113 years in the making and still not finished.  This majestic, masterpiece built with one purpose......architectural art to serve and glorify our Creator.  Now for a girl who grew up in a church tradition that didn't even allow a cross in the Sanctuary Auditorium, lest we begin worshipping idols (yeah, I'm pretty sure that's an entirely different blog post of baggage for me), this is big stuff.  

Imagine being able to envision, design and create the story of Jesus out of bricks and mortar.  Oh!  And then?  Then, yeah, you can also use it as a house of worship.  Pretty, darn cool.

And holy.

See what you think?

A Trip of a Lifetime

We just returned from a 10 day trip to Europe---3 days in Barcelona and then a 7 day cruise to Spain, Italy and France.  And here's the best part....both of our mothers went with us!  It was a perfect trip.  Perfect weather, perfect travel, amazing scenery, wonderful people who tolerated our pitiful attempt at their language and the company we kept couldn't have been better.

We are blessed.

At the Pablo Picasso Museum, Barcelona

There's a slideshow below [WARNING:  It's a bit long.  And yes, I recognize that this is like subjecting your dinner guests to slideshows in the living room.  BUT you don't HAVE to click on it.  There.  You've been warned.  Oh!  Oh, oh, oh!  Here's your second warning....IF you choose to click on it, I'll know.  AND you'll be obligated to watch EVERY slide show in the our living room post dinner after EVERY vacation.  MUWAHAHAHAAAA!!!!!  ok, just kidding.  I won't know.  

Really.  I won't. ]

Locations included Barcelona, Spain; Monte Carlo, Monaco; Nice and Eze, France; Santa Margherita, Camiglio and Portofino, Italy; Alghero, Italy; Mallorca, Spain; and Valencia, Spain.

A few reflections from the journey.....

-4 countries in 10 days, pretty impressive.  And amazing.  Perfect weather and beautiful, stunning scenery

-We walked.  A Lot.  I loved it.  I always think to myself, I would love to live somewhere where I could walk or ride my bike to work, have public transit, great small markets and restaurants.  But then.....then I realize I'm really a country girl at heart.  The city is great, but I really like to only visit.


-We were prepared and conquered jet lag on the front end of the trip.  But dear Lord, why didn't someone warn me upon the return!!!  A four day recovery is brutal.

-Lord, forgive me for all of the times I wasn't patient with a non-native english speaker.  I'd like to think there haven't been that many, but probably more than I care to admit. For every person who tells a visitor to the States to "learn english", shame, shame, shame on you.  How quickly we forget that our great grandparents and their parents were once visitors to the States too.  And Lord, thank you for putting patient, kind and willing to not laugh at my broken non-agreeing noun-verb Spanish in my path over the last ten days.

-Europeans do food better.  Period.  They take their time.  They enjoy it.  They don't preserve or use artificial ingredients to make it convenient.  Food and eating is part of the art and culture.  We can learn a lot from them.

-Europeans do churches better.  We saw a lot of cathedrals and we were in a lot of holy places. [not one of which included a coffee bar in the narthex----yes, that's a glimpse into my snarkiness]

-Very few adults get to travel parts of the world with their parents.  We did it with two and have memories to last a lifetime.  Indeed we are blessed.

Thanks for a great trip Mama C and J!

Pottery Finale

Geez, people.  SETTLE DOWN!!!!  Seriously, 1,468 email requests to update the blog?  I mean, I'm flattered.  Really, I am.  [But you guys, don't you think it's weird my mom sent that many emails when she was AT THE PARTY?]  Yep, my number one fan.  

Ok, without further ado [adieu, adieu....I bid you adieu.  sorry couldn't resist.]

Pics of the the fun classmates, the entire class's work and then some close ups of what I did this year......

a full table of wares!

A close up of the full table

The Class: [L to R] Brandi Jessup [our ever patient and WAAAAYYYY talented instructor.  Check out her work here.], Natasha, Claudia [Yep, there's Mama C], Harvey, moi and Kirsten

My 2013 wares.

Please with this little guy, but wish I would've added a handle.
I might put a florist frog in the bottom [if I can figure out where to buy one of those]

A nice sized small bowl.
The glaze is a purple-ey-ish-ness though the picture doesn't show that at all.

Mug #1.
I stole the handle idea from a piece I saw when we were in Florida in June.  

Random Thoughts....I dare you to Keep Up

Ok, so here goes.....

b.  Does everyone love the challenge of saran wrap like I do?  I mean, seriously.  When I put that crap on a bowl you can BOUNCE a penny off of it!  How tight?  How tiiiigggghhhttttttt can I stretch it before it breaks and still holds???????  Love.  It.


c.  I love that I have been able to bring Sweet Sarah to the dark side with some of my absolutely ridiculous amazing idiosyncrasies.  Right now, for instance?  She's outside.  It's dusk.  And she is trimming and edging the grass.  The woman could work for St. Andrews!  It's beautiful.  And she's obsessed.  And that makes me happy.  Clean edges.  Sigh.

4.  I love Trader Joe's, but why, oh, why must their aisles be so friggin' narrow?  I don't care that you're wearing Birkenstocks and have on a Tallulah skirt and bought the first edition prius and you only buy eggs from the farmer down the street and you can say you're more granola than me GET THE H@#L OUT OF MY WAY!!!!!  For God's sake woman!  My two buck supply is low!!!!!  Seriously, Trader Joe's, why?

8.  I broke out a cookbook yesterday.  Why don't I do this more often?  Maybe that should be on my deliberatelifespann list.  Whaddya think?

iii.  I'm currently wearing a pair of mesh athletic shorts from my college days.  Yep.  They come down to me knees.  The elastic waistband is pretty much dry rotted and......well, I LOVE THEM!  BC SOFTBALL RULES!

xiiiiiiiixi.  What number is this?  Wait I don't think it is.  There are some rules I forgot to follow.

eleventy.  We've had a cleaning lady for two and half years.  Yet, when I finished this post I will be vacuuming the dining room because she is not doing a good enough job in the corners.  What's the best way to divorce a cleaning lady?

In conclusion, I plan on adding some pink flowers to the window boxes at The Drayer this week.  I'm thinking geraniums, which I used to completely detest since they smell like dog pee carpet.  But MAN do they ever look good in containers.  Damn you stinky pink geraniums!

Overheard at The Drayer

While looking at a picture of someone we both know who when turning sideways could me mistaken as a bean pole.

Sweet Sarah: Man, he looks emancipated!

Me: [pregnant pause waiting for a self-correction...........none came]  RIDICULOUS laughter!

Summer Mud

After a three year hiatus, I'm finally back in the studio.  Ok, ok.  I couldn't resist that last sentence.  Doesn't it make me sound like a semi-professional, once-had-a-really-good-thing-going-but-life-got-in-the-way-and-prevented-me-from-producing-amazing-ceramic-wares-that-are-sold-in-the-thousand-dollar-range?  

Now, here's what that sentence really implied......after three years, I found a local summer course where I could ruin a lot of clay, get really messy, attempt to center a lump-o-clay for at least 30 minutes of each class and hope that at the end of the three weeks I have something to bring home so Sweet Sarah really believes I was doing something.

Top left corner.  That's my bowl.

I also happened to rope Mama C in to it.  Her first pottery wheel class.  I think she's hooked.  But she's also tired from making the drive twice a week.  Don't you know how exhausting it is to golf three times a week, be a regular concert goer [Darius Rucker in the rain for her last night], have perfectly preened containers around her garden and maintain an active social life on the weekend?!  Retirement is EXHAUSTING, PEOPLE!!!!!!!

That look?  Yeah, that's the look I got when I was six
and I did something I was told not to do.  Same look.

It's been fun to spend time with Mama C [don't let The Look scare you.  She's all bark, people!]  And it's been delightfully frustrating and re-training [some of it came back to me, but I learned a LOT] and a nice reprieve for my brain to think about something other than work.  

Classmates!

Ready for the kiln

Ready to glaze! [why did I just use an exclamation mark!?
The picture above shows ceramic wares that are ready to be glazed.
There, much more aligned with the first sentence. ]

Tonight we glaze.  More pictures to come!

The Stewarts Visit The Drayer

Well, it only took us two and half years, but we finally found a weekend that worked with all of our schedules!  [and it really didn't happen this past weekend, but since it's Jaime's birthday the timing couldn't be better!!!!  HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEAR SWEET COUSIN!!!!!]

The Stewarts came to The Drayer!!!!  That's a pretty big deal folks.  Combine the weekend schedules of an assistant high school principal [I totally had to revert to my elementary verbal cheat sheet for a second...."the principal is YOUR PAL!"  thankyoumrs.kettering!], a man who works Sunday through Wednesdays and moi, the one who thinks we're boring and useless on earth if we don't have plans!!!!!  [Yes, please send your condolences addressed to Sweet Sarah, c/o The Drayer].

Anywho, they came.  And........

And........

Welp, we had a BLAST!!!!!!  [well, minus someone, who shall remain nameless, losing her salvation on the 12th hole.  Her name rhymes with Amy.  But I'll never tell...]

A few cosmos to start the day, a walk to FlipSide [check it.  It's awesome!]

Followed by a round of nine.  [Pretty sure I won!  What???  WHAT???!!!  I did win.  I'm sure I did.  So, what that I happened to be the one keeping score.  Someone had to do it.  Sheesh!  Ok, maybe I didn't win, win.  But I'm pretty sure I won....]

From there we headed to Melt.  [Again....check it.  Awesome!]

Then to Pickwick and Frolic.  And that was, well......weird.  A bomb really.  A comedy act gone wrong.  Bad wrong.  Like, embarrassed to tell anyone you were there wrong.  Let's just say the guy rolled out of bad, threw on last week's dirty clothes he found under the bed, attempted to slick his greasy hair back, got on stage because he told the doorman he was funny and then FORGOT TO ZIP HIS FLY!!!!!

AWK.

WARD.

AWKWARD MY FRIENDS!!!!!

The minute, THE minute he got on stage Sweet Sarah and Jaime turned in to 11 year old girls laughing at the poor kid at the front of the classroom who was too nerdy to even know he had a zipper.  Out of control those two!

In spite of the bad comedy, we still found a way to laugh.

Sunday included the famous Sweet Sarah Drayer Pancakes and a bit of geocaching.

It was a good weekend.  Let's hope it doesn't take two more years to make it happen again.

Flip Side Happy!!!!

There are NO pictures of golf.  We're serious golfers.  Ain't nobody got time for pictures on a golf course.  You're out taking pictures on a golf course that's a DEAD GIVEAWAY, dead giveaway you're an amateur.  [that quote is also a shout out to Spencer who made that the quote of the weekend]

Oh I forgot!  Jaime stopped in to get a quick Irish Dancing lesson in before golf.  She likes to keep up her practice since the annual recital is just around the corner.  So committed, I tell ya!

Enjoying some QT.  Dead giveaway.

Pre-Melt Gluttony.  Jaime, by the way, is completely sober,
but apparently SUPER HAPPY to be there!!!

No words people.  That is a grilled cheese sandwich.
Oh yeah, it also has meatballs and marinara too, but it's a grilled cheese.

This too.  A VEGGIE grilled cheese.  Pretty sure it was good for me, since it was veggie.
I mean, look at it!  Pure picture of health food.

Here are the 11 year olds just after they picked themselves up off the floor from laughing!