A (breakfast) Room with a View

It has finally stopped raining here after 3 days. Although I quite enjoy the rain it puts a bit of a damper (pun intended ;) on my schedule of photographing some of my new work. So I should finally be able to get my Silent Night earrings listed on Monday barring any other unforecasted surprises from Mother Nature.
But today the sky is blue and the sun is peaking through white fluffy clouds and I think it's a great day for some pancakes, eggs and coffee. So come join us. I've saved you a seat right across from the window =).

My Neck of the Woods - Part 1 - The big city of Arnoldsville

I thought I might share with you each week little nuggets about where I live, my neighbors and any other little interesting tid bits that happen, have happened or will happen in "my neck of the woods". But before I introduce you to the neighbors I'll give you a little bit of insight about where we call home. I'm in one of the more rural (and older) counties, Oglethorpe, in the state of Georgia in a tiny little town called Arnoldsville. Population 336. I know our post master by name - Andrea, our mail carrier, Peggy, who has an affinity for my fresh eggs and takes extra special care to be sure my packages get to where they're going =), the county extension agent, Mr. Norman, is one of our neighbors and I think you get the idea.

The county itself was founded in 1793 and named after James Edward Oglethorpe, who as you may know was the founder of the colony of Georgia back in 1733. There are 5 little towns in Oglethorpe county - Arnoldsville, Crawford (our neighboring town which actually has a bank, gas stations, a Chicken Express and my favorite feed store ;), Lexington (the county seat), Maxeys and Stephens. We're about 75 miles east of Atlanta and about 15 miles east of Athens, where Dan commutes to work each day and home of the University of Georgia, where we both graduated college. We have no red lights, no gas stations, no banks. The one little restaurant we did have, Momma's Place, closed down about 8 months ago. We do have a little post office, a volunteer fire department, a few very lovely pre-civil war historic homes (one which happens to be our next door neighbor), lots of lovely scenery and that brand new water tower you see above. If I remember correctly the water tower was erected about a year and a half ago but the pipelines haven't quite made it out to where we are yet. We still use a well for our water. But don't worry - it's electric ;).

Now that you have a bit of background on my neck of the woods I look forward to introducing you to some of the goings on around here in the next few weeks ;).

Daily Scoop - Friday

After quite a few loud Journey and REM songs, two huge glasses of iced tea, a basket of fried pickles and some chips and queso you are looking at the Thursday night World of Wings Trivia champions! So my wealth of useless knowledge helped to pay off in the form of a $50 gift certificate... looks like more fried pickles and iced tea coming soon. We had to battle it out against "Your Momma" and "The Buttery Elvis's" or should that be Elvi? ;) but we ended up pulling out the win by 24 points. The other 6 teams didn't pose much of a threat... those college kids are gonna have to study up on their useless facts before next time ;).

Oddly enough one of the questions was "what is the Moh's scale used to measure?". I wouldn't really classify that as useless knowledge since it measures the hardness of minerals and that little tid bit of information comes in quite handy to me almost on a daily basis!

Another random question was "if bovine refers to cattle what does ovine refer to?"... of course everyone at the table turns to me for the answer (they're all city folk ;)... if you don't know it I'll let you guess or you can cheat and see the answer in the comment section below =).

It's another cold, rainy day here - perfect for staying indoors and getting the creative juices flowing, my coffee is gone and the "kids" are waiting on their breakfast so until next time...
Happy Friday everyone!

Daily Scoop - Thursday

Today is one of those rainy, cloudy, lazy days that I really enjoy. Except I can't be lazy. But that's ok because these are the perfect days to sit up in my studio and create and not feel guilty for not being outdoors. But before I can do that I've got to make a run to our little post office, order some packaging supplies, finish up the earrings for the Silent Night Collection I'm debuting this week, polish up the bracelet and necklace in the same collection and hopefully get them photographed and listed this afternoon. I'm going to need the cooperation of the weather though to get my photos done - I'll have to see what Mother Nature says about my request ;). And then later this evening it's out to meet Dan and some of his co-workers for a birthday dinner and trivia. I usually do pretty well at trivia because apparently I'm full of useless information - did you know that a group of geese on the ground is a gaggle and a group of geese in the air is a skein? See. I have no idea how or why I know that.

Enjoy your day!

Fall, falling, fell..

Even though it's cloudy, cold and a bit windy here today I just couldn't help but notice how beautiful the leaves looked against the grey skies. So I grabbed my little camera and took a few photos... here's one of my favorite places and where you'll find me every morning - my barn =).

It seems like a great day to wander off and munch on a grill cheese and sip a bowl of soup...

see you next time!

Inside Scoop

More sterling silver coming to the little Loft shop next week! Including square lobster clasps, satellite chain, larger size spring rings (which are hard to come by), rubber earring back clutches and the ever elusive disc chain. I had the toughest time finding a supplier that kept the sterling disc chain in stock on a regular basis but I found one at my last wholesale show so I just ordered a ton - and at a really good price too!

If anyone ever has any requests for gems or sterling supplies I always welcome them!

Have a happy Wednesday! =)

Naked Chicks

Well not entirely! My little ladies are molting so they look like vagabond chickens at the moment. I think they get a complex about it too because they stop laying during this process and me telling them they look like little hobos probably doesn't help either ;).

But I have quite the collection of feathers now... I've been thinking about listing them but I have no idea what the going rate on vagabond chicken feathers is these days.

Happy Veteran's Day!