Hoopfest is Hot!

Basketball is a winter sport (if you are relying on high school schedules) and even the NBA is done with their post-season activities.  All of the hoopla over Gonzaga University b-ball has died down and there wasn’t a snowflake in sight over the weekend.  Thunderstorms and raindrops on Saturday — yes, definitely — but no snowflakes!

Nephew B scores for his team, Dunk Dynasty

But that only meant that things were heating up for Hoopfest.

Dunk Dynasty was hot! Seen here blocking and battling for the rebound in their first game on Saturday, they went on to win all 5 games in their bracket.

Since 1990, Spokane, Washington, has been the host of Hoopfest — the world’s largest 3-on-3 basketball competition — 42 city blocks of 450 half-court hoops being played by more than 7,000 teams. It is organized basketball mayhem. And while this year is the 24th Hoopfest, it was my first opportunity to go down and see the action.

Another nephew shoots to score for his team.

My boys don’t shoot hoops but my nephews definitely do, so we hit the pavement and spent a few hours downtown on this hot weekend.

Nephew N scores again!

Fans needed (an estimated 225,000 of them!) for all of this hot action.

Speaking of HOT… Tomorrow is supposed to reach 100 degrees. I’ll be sitting in front of an electric fan with a glass of ice water.

F is for…

Count your blessings, name them one by one…

Welcome to F week!

I’m using Thursday posts to focus on thankfulness — and instead of counting blessings, I’m challenging myself to come up with them alphabetically.  (You can find the rest of the posts in this series here.)

There are so many wonderful things that begin with the letter F:  family, farm, flowers, forests…

What are a few of your blessings that begin with the letter F?

Challenging

I’m taking on a creative challenge — because apparently my creative side didn’t feel overwhelmed by the new job that is challenging the heck out of my logical side. 

Unlike other blog hops that I have seen, this one will not involve mailing a supply of beads to a previously unknown person and in return receiving a supply of beads from someone unknown to me. That would be more challenge than I am up for right now!

While I don’t consider myself a bead hoarder, I do have plenty of beads in my possession. Most of them are not interesting focal pieces (See the little fancy “purse” bead on the far right — isn’t it fabulous?) but I do need to use what I already own instead of shopping for new beads every week (Really, I’m only LOOKING!)(It’s a good thing that the Shipwreck Beads store is a full day’s drive away.)  month.

So…. in the next few weeks, in my “spare time”, I’ll be pawing through my stash and seeing what I might have set aside and forgotten about over the years — and I’ll make something (or some things) to share with you on July 20th.

More information can by found by clicking on the badge provided in this post or on the sidebar of my blog.

Wish me luck! I’ll need it…

E is for…

One of a pair of earrings made by Cassi

Count your blessings, name them one by one…

Welcome to E week!

I’m using Thursday posts to focus on thankfulness — and instead of counting blessings, I’m challenging myself to come up with them alphabetically.  (You can find the rest of the posts in this series here.)

This morning as I was getting ready for work, I paused to recognized that I am  blessed to have a plethora of earrings from which to choose. I decided on this lovely one, made by Cassi, since it picked up both the turquoise and green of the blouse I was wearing.

Earrings. I like to make them, I like to receive them, I like to buy them when I find the perfect pair. As you can see from the photo of the holder which my husband made for me, I have quite a few pair.

My earring holder, in a tight spot between 2 doors…   Not every pair of earrings was on this board when I took the photo a few months ago.

I was given some beads for Christmas that were not of my choosing, so it has been a good artistic challenge for me to create with them.

click to embiggen

This lanyard is an example of that challenge.  –>
I made it with some painted shell beads that my husband had helped the boys choose for me, adding various black beads in and playing with the pattern until I came up with something I thought was pretty.  The lesson I learned with this particular lanyard is that not everyone shares my tastes, because this design was a big hit! In fact, I had to go out in search of more of these shell beads painted with sunflowers. (Trudie, I haven’t forgotten your special request!)

I also received some colorful peace sign beads (painted/dyed bone) that I’ve spent quite a bit of time staring at and playing with, trying to come up with a way to use them.  Some of the peace signs came in twos — with these pairs I have been creating earrings.

New Earrings made by me: “Peace of Purple” and “Peace, Love, Coffee”

Not everything I make is something that I would wear:  tomato red is very much not my color, and dangles like these earrings would catch in my untamed hair.  But I do know that I like the things I make.
I had a lot of fun with the coffee-and-cream colors. They helped me fall a little bit more in love with browns. 

Currently, I have a pair of turquoise-colored peace sign earrings which I have been working on: I have done quite a bit of beading and un-beading, trying to find the right mix of color, since my turquoise-colored Vintage Venetian seed beads are not the same color tone as the peace signs.  As with everything I bead, if I don’t like it, I re-do it until I am happy with the result. Sometimes that makes for a long process until completion.

In the case of Earrings, it’s probably a good thing that I don’t quickly make too many pair! 😉

Two degrees of Sonora Dodd

My town has more than a few claims to fame. It is the Lilac City, the host of Bloomsday and Hoop Fest (world’s largest 3-on-3 basketball tournament), and a great place to oggle Craftsman-style homes.  There are many different styles of old churches (this is an idea for a photo shoot that I’ve yet to make happen but which I think about whenever I drive around town oggling Craftsman-style homes).

The church I attend has been around for over one hundred years.  In fact, it is where the very first Father’s Day was celebrated.

This commemorative Father’s Day plaque was made for the 100th anniversary of Father’s Day in 2010.    It hangs on the wall in the narthex of our church.

Sonora Dodd got the idea for a day to honor fathers after hearing a Mother’s Day message preached at another church. Her own mother had passed away when Mrs. Dodd was a sixteen-year-old girl, leaving Sonora’s father to raise 6 children on his own (although I suspect she helped out with those 5 younger brothers). As a young mother herself in the early 20th century, she must have had incredible respect for a man who took on the role of single parenthood. (Go ahead and click the link, it is interesting!)

My dad isn’t as old as Father’s Day

I visited my dad in early April.  We’ve aged a bit since 1988…

At my wedding rehearsal (I was 22 years old and 5’9″ tall.)

SuperDad and his boys, Easter 2002

Happy Father’s Day to all of the dads out there!

D is for…

Count your blessings, name them one by one…

Welcome to D week!

I’m using Thursday posts to focus on thankfulness — and instead of counting blessings, I’m challenging myself to come up with them alphabetically.  (You can find the rest of these posts here.)

This week, I am particularly thankful for our deck — and by extension, our back yard:

deck in use

I didn’t sneak out back in time to get a picture of 8 teenagers hanging out here. They had already moved onto the grass:

How much do I love this scene, where new seniors have welcomed a little brother to join them?        (Answer: a lot!)

Photo taken before they moved into a game of Ninja

All of these teens were a joy to be around yesterday as they celebrated their last day of school. They were out of classes before noon and happily settled into the backyard, enjoying each others company and being the kind of polite folks you would be thrilled to have hanging around your house.

And really, it wasn’t their fault that the hammock broke…

Class of 2014: H-J and friends

Please share something for which YOU are thankful today.

Breakfast?

Holy Crap!

 

 

 

Five Friday Factoids

Since I lost use of the laptop, I’ve had limited time to blog — both writing and reading. I know it sounds like a convenient excuse, but there’s more to it than sharing a family computer. A few things have changed around my house in the past month:

1. EB moved home from college at the beginning of May and started job hunting. Unlike last year, he actually bothered applying and following up at a few places, but the result was the same — no job to be had. This year, however, SuperDad had a plan in place that did not involve having him chop our winter supply of firewood (not that it was a bad use of free labor last year); instead, an advertisement was placed on Craigslist for other people to pay EB to do those sorts of things — and he actually picked up some work! It was a relief for both the parents and the 20yo. Unfortunately, jobs like roto-tilling a garden can only be done once per customer and replies that panned out into jobs were scarce, despite updating the listing nearly every day. (No, he was not going to ride his bike 20 miles to mow a lawn when the inquirer didn’t even have a lawnmower!)  Lest this become an essay of epic boredom, we’ll skip the remaining details and simply state that tomorrow EB is headed to the Boy Scout camp for staff training. The pay isn’t great (although it does include room and board in a pleasant natural setting) but it is a steady job for the remainder of the summer.
2. H-J took six AP exams and then discovered that the school year wasn’t really over; he had hoped that those classes would be all fun and games for the remaining 4 weeks of mandatory education. Still, the pressure is off now that he’s got those exams — along with last Saturday’s SAT — in the rear-view mirror.  H-J claims he is going to apply for jobs after school ends next week… and after drum major/band leadership camp…
   We’ll wait and see what happens.
3. While we are discussing jobs… guess who officially starts work next week? No, not SuperDad… me!  Years of volunteering in church offices has borne fruit — this particular fruit being the interim position left by our beloved church administrator.  She has some exciting life changes that are taking her away from us, so I am happy for her/sad for all of us (and me, because she is a friend whom I will miss greatly), but also happy for me… and more than a little bit apprehensive over the proverbial big shoes she has left in the office. I’ve been training over the past 4 work days (which is really 2 weeks) and just found out yesterday that there is even more to the job than I knew. Good Grief! This is going to be a steeper learning curve than I had expected. However…
4. Two days a week in the office will still leave me plenty of time to do other things that bring pleasure and help to pay for them, too.
   

   Vintage Venetian blue beads make a truly Cobalt blue leash for glasses — with Millefiori beads.

   

   Vintage Venetian seed beads in Pearl make a simply, classy leash for your glasses.

   Click on any pic to embiggen…

   

   White Cliffs of Dover and the Tower of London, June 1996

   

   London, June 1996

   

   A day to play on the beach in Calais (one of the few things our older boys remember from the trip to London in June of 1996)

5. The timing is good, since I have recently purchased more beads (and other supplies) and I spent last weekend at a scrapbooking retreat. Reality has already set in, though: we need to begin setting aside funds for outfitting H-J when he heads off to college in a year.

Bonus Fact:  This is our last weekend before school lets out next week! Hooray!

C is for…

Count your blessings, name them one by one…

Welcome to C week! As previously mentioned, I’ve decided to focus a bit more on being thankful, and today I am thankful for…

• Coffee. Mmmmm… coffee… Multiple cups of coffee…

I am very thankful for the coffee maker in my kitchen that has a feature where I can set it up the night before and wake up to the smell of coffee each morning. I might still be asleep at 6am, but that wonderful machine is busily perking and dripping fresh brew into the pot.

• COLOR

All colors, really, although my favorite color is blue… blue… blue… blue… blue… blue…
When I was in grade school and got my very first box of Crayola 64 Crayons, I became enamored with the color periwinkle. I love the name — what fun it is to say periwinkle! — and the blue-gray-purple shade of that color.  
After blue, I’m also rather fond of red and black and brown and green and… well, you get the idea.

Are you a fan of coffee? 

What is your favorite color? 

Forest Goblin

click on pic to embiggen…. I dare you!

**photo credit goes to SuperDad**
More adventure pics here