Wednesday, August 27, 2014

WOYWW August 27-Juggling



As I trust you can see from above I am in the midst of much.
New Quietfire Design stamps! and a fun label challenge I converted into ATC's.

Can you see the brown object that looks a bit like a boat in the rear center of the desk? 
It's a wood covered mini stapler I picked up in a thrift grab bag. 
Wonder what I will do with that?

I discovered several of my Distress Stains has gone green and moldy. 
An email to Ranger Customer Service brought a quick reply and promise of replacement.

I've been out and about of late, so please scroll down to enjoy my food and fiber adventures!

Off to desk around!
Thanks all, for prayers and good wishes. It gets better!

Comments and Questions always welcomed.

Monday, August 25, 2014

Tales of Two Tastings! Whole Foods Asheville and Asheville wine & food-(T stands for Tuesday)

Robyn's Phood Philosophy 
The short version
Eat whole foods, simply prepared as fresh as possible.
Love animals, don't knowingly eat them.
Do no harm.
Eat when hungry.
Give back as much or more than you take in.

This weekend was food centric even for Asheville.

Whole Foods
Friday found me invited to the Press sneak peak at the New Whole Foods Asheville across front he Mall.

This recycled shipping container cum food truck is 
parked in the parking lot and serving lunch and dinner till the store opens on Tuesday.
Vegan Alert- they cook the animal products and veggies on the same grill.

I found folks waiting around outside for a tour for the general public and decided to tag along on that tour instead to see what WF had to say to consumers.
 Jayne our tour guide was professional and told a good company story.
You can scroll around and see what I thought was most interesting.
Honestly, if you have seen one Whole Foods you have seen them all.


Decent bulk area


Lots of soap.
Concierge shopping- that might be useful if you need that sort of thing.

The tastings were very lame- some mini cupcakes that had no taste- a cracker-their 365 brand with peanut butter- and a chip with some salsa on it.


Purified water machine.















The speciality area- not much you couldn't find at Ingles.

I asked Janye about their policy on separating animal products from veggie in the prepared foods and since that wasn't part of her talk she invited me to a chat with Nick, the regional prepared food manager.
Nick was a nice guy and said they do what they can. When possible he will chose to prepare, why he called vegetable options rather than protein. That's nice.

Nice- yes Whole Foods looks nice.

I find when a new store opens there are lots of happy employees and best intentions.
They do have a more open policy than when they took over Greenlife on using local providers, and they have foundations to give money to various causes.
I'm sure all of that is on their website, and you can look it up.

I probably will not shop there, unless there is some compelling reason or a specific product.
We have lots of other options in the Asheville area, and I know who the grocer and farmers are and where the money goes.

The press was being wined and dined in the upstairs bar and cafe- I passed.

I'll stop here, as I am trying to be nice.

Asheville food & wine
Saturday, I was gifted with two tickets to the Asheville wine & food festival by man about town and food critic Stu Helm.
I highly recommend you check out his blog and FB page, if you enjoy food, witty, often hilarious writing, and other fun Ashevillian antics.
I admire Stu's lack of driving and drinking lifestyle, haven fallen myself to the former and not big on the latter.
I love his reviews because, he tells it like it is, I mostly agree with him! and I often LOL -truly -huge belly laughs and you need a good abs workout after all this eating.

If you are offend by four letter words- get over it! Stu uses fuck, shit, hell and damn as nouns, verbs, adjectives and dangling participles and if it bothers you just ignore them.
I bet you go to the movies. Do you keep your eyes closed and put your fingers in your ears?

Any hooley(as Stu would say)
I met my daughter and after getting shuffled around a few tables at the entrance to the Civic Center(what is it called now?) we waded into a sea of people already dangerously swaying and wielding glass weapons- wine glasses!
There were 150 some vendors and it seemed most of them were alcoholic .

Why does anyone build event spaces like this? The upper tier was verging on dangerous and it was difficult and messy to get the vendors.
The downstairs is a bit more spacious and still a very uninviting space and very difficult to get good photos.
Forgive me in advance for the crummy photos.
Our fav vendors:
 These folks have heart and do so much for the community
 Blue Blaze- delicious unsweetened sodas( not covered by phood philosophy!)
 Support this non-profit- they are growing our children's healthy food awareness.
Crackers from Black Mountain
 Second best tasting hummus in the world, 1st in ingredients and mission- every batch is sacred-
and they gave me a whole Lima Bean to take home!!
 Best booth visuals and Best water urns.
Only booth rating two photos!
 Food fight
We didn't stay not really being interested in what happened to a pile of dead bunnies.
We had a good time, aside from the crush of the crowd, tasted a lot of interesting food, met a lot of great folks and learned a few things.
Thanks Stu.

If you want to see what other folks around the world are thinking about, food related, do pop over, give Mr Linky some love and with drink in hand enjoy your visiting.

The plan is to do more food writing on Tuesdays, so now that you know where we are don't be a stranger!

Comments and Questions always welcomed.



Anything Fiber Sale- Black Mountain, NC 2014- Recap!

Here's what you missed!
 Setting up
 Yes there was ANYTHING FIBER!
Waiting at the door.
The line formed a little after nine and we opened at 10- there must have been 100 peeps in line by 10!
Once the doors opened it was packed isles and aggressive shopping for 2 solid hours.

The crowd thinned a bit around noon, as everyone grabbed a bit to eat from Sweet Monkey, our food vendor in the lobby.

A splendid time was had by all, vendors and buyers alike.
Thanks all for participating and stay in touch on FB for announcement of next years date.
The FB page is also a good place to brag about your haul!

Comments and questions welcomed!

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

WOYWW August 20-Rising up!

It's actually W underneath my WW.
I've only bought two pieces of furniture in my life, this wonderful drawing table being one of them.
I stand when I work  play so until yesterday I had it propped up on bricks, somewhat unsatisfactorily .
Yesterday I got 6" risers made for this table, and they installed effortlessly, once I cleaned off the entire top of my desk.
The little black pads on the bottom can be screwed in and out easily to level the top and raise it up a it more if desired.
The circles point to the extensions-6" and the arrow points to the join.
I got the You doodle app on my iPad, just to share with y'all.
How fun is that!

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I'm off to visit many of you.

If you are a praying desker- please hold my dear friend Dick(80+) in the Light. He has had a stoke, and is on the long road to (we pray) recovery.
{me a little bit too}
Art Heals!

Comment and Questions always welcomed!

Friday, August 15, 2014

Be prepared- Paint!

You never know when you might need to send off a quick postcard.
Painting is meditation and therapy rolled into one for me, 
so feeling a bit down, with no intent in mind, 
I put paint and ink to paper.

The best viewing nights of the Perseids were rainy and foggy.
Wednesday eve it cleared, and the full moon was not yet over the mountain.
I took my lounge chair outside and relaxed and enjoyed the light show.
There were points and streams of light everywhere!

Sunrise? Sunset?

Raspberry, seedless preserves, festive berries, a dash of lemonade.
Good enough to eat!

What will become of them?
Write to me and you might get one in return!

Comments and Questions always welcomed.

Deepest Desire is for Peace

My dear friend Diane sends me the most heartfelt cards. This one went directly into my everyday journal and onto Poetry Journal Monthly.
Please give a visit over there-I'm needing more poetry in my life!

Woman's Work 
Send the camouflaged men home
Ship the guns back
Let the metal rust
Defuse the bombs
Detonate the mines.
Sands shifting with a new wind.
Gone! Gone! Gone are the ghosts.

Array the women in silver
daughters of the world's Great Goddesses
Bearing medicines and gruel
see their hidden sisters int he shadows
Hear them shout across the line
"Do your children have enough to eat?"
by Lyrion Ap Tower

As I began to enter this post, an ant crawled across the monitor. My first impulse was to reach out and smash it.
Breath in, Breath out.
I went and got a cup and paper and carried the ant out.
She is, after all a mother wanting to feed her children.

Feed my lambs.

Comments and Questions always welcomed.

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

WOYWW August 13- Brain Function Returns!

YES! DD is back from Israel, safe and somewhat sound.
Thanks for all your prayers and kind words.
Backtracking...


Cell phone died, then rodents ate the land line!
I did some therapeutic shopping and found some fun stuff on the free table at the FAA meeting.
At left, altered book poetry journal page- my first.
Do come by Poetry Journal Monthly and join in the sharing.

I finished up the pack of crummy watercolor postcards and gessoed the front cover and back board to make two more!
Somewhere over the rainbow is a digital cut file, sketched instead of cut.
Use the popsicle stick to get the right setting for your pen.
I don't know where I got the green woman and blowing dandelion files-shout out to me if you know or they are yours.
Sentiments by Quietfire
(exciting announcement coming soon- I'll let Julia spill the ink on that one!)

Don't you wish life had an "ok" button to push!

I maybe a day or so behind and I will get around to visiting many deskers!

Comment and Questions welcomed!


Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Rubber Dance meets Quietfire- 15 Minute Wonders!



Bibi of Rubber Dance Stamps invited me to be a Guest Designer and in the midst of a major fit of cleaning, organizing and reclaiming brain functions (YES! DD is back safe and somewhat sound from Israel), I started to play around with these fun and inspirational stamps.

Two stamps
 an image-Celestial dancers
  and a background-#BK2-1E: Flourishes
 various inks and embossing powders and 15 minutes give you a pile of cards with very different moods.

VersaFine black, clear emboss.
Gold background.

Stamped in Versamark, white emboss.
Gold background.

Versamark, gold emboss.

I'm planning a tryptic, so stay tuned!

WOYWW post tomorrow will have more of what I've been up to lately
and 
please drop by my new blog
Poetry Journal Monthly and join in the sharing.


Comments and Questions always welcomed