"Glass is the most magical of all materials." ~Dale Chihuly

I love Groupon! I first signed up for Groupon after my friend, Megan showed me the glass balls that she and another friend of hers had made. I had always thought it would be fun to learn how to blow glass. After a few months of daily emails I got the coveted Groupon offering the half off glass blowing experience. I bought two, as my friend Holly and I had talked about what fun it would be to try glass blowing when we watched people doing it at Mt St Helen's years ago.

So, away we went yesterday to have our adventure.

Gary was our "tour guide"/assistant/the only one who really knew what he was doing out of our small group. He is in the red cap and Holly has gotten started.

Hot glass to start!

Rolling it through the base color.

Into the fire!

Rolling through the color.

Back into the fire!

Gary did the shaping for us! Like I said~the only one who really knew what he was doing!

Holly was blowing through the tube that was connected to the rod to make the ball. Gary would tell us when to blow lightly, when to blow hard, when to stop blowing. He did the shaping.

Looking good!

After the ball was blown to the size it needed to be they headed over to cut the glass ball off the rod.

Lookin' good so far!

Gary then put a dollop of melted glass on the bottom to seal the hole.

Holly stamped it!

And away it went to the kiln...voila! Almost done!

This was the shop dog!

Then it was my turn!

Hot glass.

Spinning the rod.

Rolling through the base color!

Into the fire. It was nice and warm right here.

Blow light. Blow hard. Stop. Blow light.

Lookin' good.

And then the stamp and kiln!

These were the glass pieces from mine...amazing that they created such a beautiful ball.

There was this fantastic glass hanging in the studio. It was impressive.

The longest piece of glass was probably 4 feet long. Must be a heavy piece.

Tonight I picked up our pieces after they were in the kiln overnight. This is what the finished products look like. Mine is the one on the left and Holly's on the right!

So that you can get an idea of size...I am holding it. You can also see the base on it at my palm area.

After our glass blowing adventure, Holly and I headed to lunch at Deschutes Brewery. Love. And then we went to Anthropologie...a store where I love the "home" section and Holly had never been too. I think she loved it as much as I did. We then headed to Micheal's...she wants to take up crocheting. It was such a grand day!

Ladies Night Out

I have some great friends. A good group of them were at the site I was working at and they still count me as one of their own. I worked with some great ladies and miss them, but have great opportunities to see them-even for ladies night out at Duke's- a cowboy bar! We had a great evening and I will remember this fun night out with these wonderful friends.

Jenny, Shauna, Jennifer, Brandy, me and Sara!

Nice group, eh?!

I love that you can see my glow-in-the-dark glass in the dark picture below. That glass contained an amazing drink...I won't repeat the name--but it was a little bit of coconut tastiness.

:)

Jenny was staying at Sara's for the night and this is right before I left to head home myself!

Me, Jenny and Sara. And, Jenny--you can thank me later for not posting the picture of you sleeping...! :)

Thank you ladies for a soul rejuvenating night out and for keeping me as one of yours! I {heart} you all more than you know!

Dear Deer,

Thank you for coming down to my "backyard" so I could be thankful for the glories of God's wonderful creations!

When it snows, deer come down lower on the mountain I live on to eat the vegetation. They graced me today with their presence in my backyard. This was the second day they came down. Two on the first day and three on this day!

Saying Goodbye

As stated before, I am starting a "new" job and am leaving my current job. I will technically be doing the same job, just in a different building. I'm still working on processing this, but in the meantime-things end and things begin. One event marking the end was my going away party from the site I've been at for over six years. Alas, Friday the 13th was my last day. I didn't know and I still don't know exactly what to think about that, but it has happened and the next phase must begin.

Here are a few shots from the party...

The table of goodies- almost 100% gluten free.

Getting ready for the party to start~ Waiting with me are friends, Megan and John.

Above: My dear friend, Diane (pictured in the below picture on the left in black) used her artistic experience to create this cat picture for me!

Diane and Jan

Opening gifts. My friend, Sally, knows I love almonds-I have a lifetime supply now...or at least a years supply! She also made a yummy gluten-free pound cake with lemon icing!

Dear friends Jenny and Sara! I will miss them so much!

Two of my biggest fans! John and Cece!

Jenny and Shauna!

Pam, Monica and me! Pam and Monica are the nurses on "my" team that isn't my team anymore. Monica is the official photographer and most of these pictures are courtesy of her.

Monica also got a picture of my office space that I shared with Donna. It's weird to know that isn't my area any more.

I will dearly, dearly miss all of my friends and coworkers at my "always-will-be-home-to-me" site. Maybe some day I'll return. I hope that I never loose contact with those who matter most to me from my days at this site. My heart hurts to say goodbye.

Basketball and Friends

I'm blessed with sweet friends. Friends who will decorate poster boards for the Trailblazer game that they invited me too while I work on cleaning out my office. And, they even help in the office cleaning out, physically and emotionally.

Jenny, Jenny's boyfriend, Matt and Sara bought a 15 game Blazer tickets package. Lucky for me, Matt couldn't go to the first game they had tickets too, so Jenny requested I join them! Much to my pleasure. The three of us girls went to the game last night and had a great time, even though the Blazers lost. We got on the jumbo screen with the poster boards that Jenny and Sara made! Woohoo!

Me, Sara, Jenny

I love the above picture~completely candid shot!

Sara was trying to get her arms around us...

We were up high-second row down from the top so we could see the whole arena!

Thanks ladies for the fabulous time!

I {heart} them!

I haven't advertised this much, but I have accepted a job at another ElderPlace site (there will be commentary about this in a later post when I have successfully processed the emotionalism of this decision and the fallout following it). I have worked at my current location for 6 years and 4 months and this was one of the absolute most difficult decisions I've had to make in my fairly short life. To leave was to not only leave the stability, comfort and security of the place I almost consider home; it also meant leaving some of the people that are close to family for me. I spend most of my time in a given day at work and am surrounded by people I love dearly, both participants and staff and some of those staff are my dear office mates.

I have shared an office with two of these three for the entirety of my "career" at ElderPlace and one of them is like a second father to me. So, to make the decision to leave was also to make the decision to say goodbye to these close to my heart people. Though I will still see them, it will never be the same. For them, and all other that I am leaving behind at a site I dearly love, I thank them for who they are and who they've helped me to be. This is my last week at my current site and in honor of that--Office Mate photo time!

L to R: Kevin, Donna, John and me. January 2012

Such a group!

It's Christmas time again

I didn't take many pictures of my Christmas adventure this year-for many reasons, but mainly because it wasn't anything really outrageous-just really layed back and nice.

Here are the pretty Colorado Rockies.

Snow covered below a blanket of crisp, blue sky.

We are a 3D family.

We went to see Hugo in 3D in Casper and I had to have a picture of us in our crazy glasses.

Mom, me, Dad, Josh.
I didn't take one single picture of gift times. Oh, well...

Back in Denver with Dad we went to explore downtown as we used to as kids and went to see this giant blue bear (like three stories tall, giant) and had to get a few pictures-they were hard to get because of the size and lack of light.

A totally blurry Josh and Dad in the "crotch" area...ummmm.....
And, I opted to stand near his foot than in the other area. With brother! :)

When I left Denver I really liked these waves of soemthing that I could see-when I got closer I discovered it was thousands and thousands of origami cranes that had been made and mounted in waves in the wall-pretty cool. A picture of the whole thing wouldn't have done it justice-so here is a close up of about 1/100th of the whole display.

And then, Christmas was over. I was back in Portland and back to reality. Though, I am thankful for the restful time I had and I even got to see my best friend from high school, Summer and meet her darling, just over 1yr old daughter, Penny.

I love family and friends.