Well, so far working with my latest batch of shells… After settling on three arrangements on three backing pieces…all three backing pieces BROKE during the drilling of the holes. Since each pendant is a one-of-a-kind that means those three pendants are now history and will not be completed–they were designed to fit that particular backing piece. (I think I will do something else for a little bit before I go back to drilling holes in more shells!)
Wheeeeeee!
The whole thing is sooo small and so different from what I’ve known as a microscope. And the lens is so tiny! I don’t know how in the world Leeuwenhoek ever discovered all those things he did using this! (Now to figure out what I can try to look at using it. — Any ideas?)
Lovely–eating together to the sounds of Christmas music!
I thoroughly enjoyed going to the Brooks Art Museum in Memphis today. We went especially to see the exhibit of William Christenberry’s photographs. They were all taken in Alabama around the area where he was born. There was also a very interesting movie about him that we watched. That made viewing his photographs even more enjoyable.
This month of May started with me finding three four-leaf clovers in two days at home. Yesterday coming back from Memphis I stopped at Mammoth Springs, Arkansas, to give the dog a chance to do what dogs need to do. I found a total of five four-leaf clovers before we got back in the car and left. This morning I found one more! This must be a good omen for a good decade.
Were there really no wells in Amsterdam in the late 1600s? While researching material for my book about Maria Sybilla Merian I realized that not once had I come across any reference to wells. Nothing was mentioned in the books I read. I had not seen any marked on old maps of the city. Oh there was plenty of water with all of those canals, but I suspected that the canal water was salty since they did connect with the sea. So where did the residents of Amsterdam get their drinking water? Who could I ask?
Last weekend in Columbia, MO, I tried Tiger Ice Cream at MU. It was quite tasty and the scoops were the biggest I’ve seen in awhile.
Last night we went to Andy’s where I had my favorite––a concrete with raspberry topping (which means the topping is all mixed in). Delicious.
But my all time favorite is the ice cream I had in the little town of Wilster, Germany, at the Eiscafe Rialto across from the church. It was a dish called Spaghetti Ice Cream; looked like real spaghetti with tomato sauce! Tasted fantastic! I loved the combination of looks and taste. And if I’m ever back in Hamburg, I will definitely take the train to Wilster for more ice cream at the Eiscafe Rialto.
I have taken Maria Sybilla Merian and her family from Frankfurt, Germany, where she was born to Nürnberg, back to Frankfurt, on to Castle Waltha in Friesland, northern Holland and now to Amsterdam.
Side view of Sculpture
While in Chicago I also wanted to find the Bat Column, a steel and aluminum sculpture designed by Claes Oldenburg. It is on the grounds of the Social Security Building on West Madison Street. My friends and I walked down Madison Street, keeping an eye out for this column. Unknown to me, my friends thought it was something else and were looking for another kind of bat column. They were quite surprised to discover the sculpture was a baseball bat instead of a column of bats–the flying kind!
I always enjoy Claes Oldenburg’s gigantic sculptures of ordinary things. : )