Make it and Take it: Girls at Play

Lunch for Happy Crafters

I enjoyed a crafty play date with my good friend Stephanie today. Stephanie was my student teacher a year or two ago, and is my favorite hands-on, creative friend to spend an afternoon just "making" with. We have a wonderful symbiosis. We encourage each other to take the steps that are needed to create the things we envision privately. Let's see: OUTSIDE of the classroom (where we did EVERYTHING) we have worked with clay, glass, soap making, painting, and some major culinary explorations. We've been camping, hiking, geocaching, boating, pubbing, dining, marketing, farming. She has introduced me to microbreweries. I introduced her to goat-milk. She didn't dwell on my introduction; I did on hers. We share a love of good teaching, good food, good books, good art, and good living. We share. She's too young to be my classmate but too old to be my daughter. I love her energy and don't have to mince words with her. She's the best teacher I ever met.

Stephanie is a spelunker, a passion I shared earlier in my life. She is due for a get-together of like minded people, where she will spend some festival-type time with her caving friends. She'll sell our handmade jewelry on their flea-market day, and our stashes of beads will yield some dividends to further enrich themselves. I'm a beading junkie; she's on her way.

I'll include some pictures of our wares on a later blog; I'll post a picture of my first lamp worked glass bat in a few moments. Today's blog picture is of our impromptu lunch (a new tradition for us). She calls our lunch "tapas"...we both spelunk our fridges and offer up a variety of stuff. Today's offerings were as follows: fried green tomatoes (thanks to the moisture that is killing my vines...more about this later), fried zucchini, heirloom plum tomatoes, cucumbers, basil and homemade mozzarella with balsamic vinegar, local ring bologna, corn, and fried pitas; homemade sweet and hot vegetable chutney, homemade butter for the corn and pitas and local hard cider. Oh, yeah. Local, sustainable, organic energy. Energy to fuel our creative juices. Summertime rocks...even if your tomatoes ARE green.

Everyone should have an artsy playtime buddy.