left brain

Best way ever to start off a Monday! Enjoy!

XOXOXO

scenic sandpoint

Peeeeeps! A day late (and always a dollar short), I am finally swooping in to publish my Friday post on Saturday. In other words, all the Sandpoint photos that were supposed to be available for your viewing pleasure yesterday, you may commence viewing today. For the last 3 days I've been a co-chaperone up in Big Bear for 28 girls, ages 14 to 18, out of who knows how many hundreds of boys & girls from the 7 LDS church's in our city. It was a joy, it was a blast and it was exhausting! I love those girls - they are all so different and all so awesome :) But now I'm back and it's time to see some beautiful Sandpoint pics before I officially put myself out of commission.

The photo you see above was taken as I was driving home from church one Sunday. There is really nothing that unusual about it, but the sky was so beautiful with the fluffy clouds against the bright blue background...... For me it was as much about the moment as it was about the beauty.     

The *adorable* photo of the two fawns above is NOT one of my photos. However I had to include it because it is so reminiscent of our back yard in Sandpoint and a very special occurrence that happened there one morning.

One morning not long after we had moved there, I woke up very early. The sun had barely started to rise, and I went into the kitchen and sat down at the kitchen table where the bay window looked out upon the back yard. I could just start to make out the shapes of the wild flowers and trees. To my surprise, I even saw some cute, furry bunnies here and there, nibbling on grass. Then out of the corner of my eye, to my amazement, I saw a tiny fawn walk into view. It was the sweetest thing I had ever seen! Still young enough to have it's spots, it walked along nibbling grass with the bunnies. Then quietly and seemingly out of nowhere, came another fawn - a twin! - to join it's sibling in the misty morning grass. It was every bit as precious as the first. I knew their mother would be close by, carefully watching over them, but I never did catch a glimpse of her. I watched them with delight until they were gone as quietly as they came. It remains one of my very most favorite captured moments in time. 

One of my all time favorite photos - it's the road that leads up the mountain to our home at the top.

About half way up the mountain, if you looked to the left, you would see this amazing view. The little city of Sandpoint down below, on the shores of Lake Pend Oreille (pronounced 'pon-der-AY') - the largest and deepest lake in all of Idaho. In fact, the only access to Sandpoint, and northern Idaho, is by crossing Lake Pend Oreille by bridge. The next 3 photos below are similar views from a similar vantage point as fall arrives - note the trees changing and the snow starting to dust the mountains. And of course the sunsets were spectacular.

This last photo is an off-shoot of Lake Pend Oreille located behind one of the main streets of town - so pretty.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend everyone! xoxo

the wants

The one challenging part about loving design and home decor is my tendency to come down with what I call a bad case of the wants. Which is usually the cause of great frustration, always having to do with money, or more specifically, the lack of. I have all kinds of tricks to combat this of course - rearranging furniture for a new look, rotating the things I have to keep decor changing and fun, and buying and selling pieces of furniture upon occasion. Not having a cash flow is the most difficult however, when you find something unique you have been looking for. Case in point, my DREAM COUCH I found at a consignment store. Just look at it. LOOK AT IT!

Clean lines. Leather. Light color. Tufted. High-backed. Cool stitching everywhere. Solid construction. Mid-Century but not mod or retro. Classic. Would go with anything. Soooooo comfortable. Easy to keep clean. Ahhhhhhhhhhh.

I never expected to purchase a used piece of furniture as a main piece again, but this one came from a model home. It has some signs of wear and needs a little cleaning, but otherwise it's in very good condition.

I was trying to show the signs of wear in a close up, but all I can see is the awesome stitching. I have visited it twice now and it's just so doggone comfortable to sit on. The back is so high you can rest your head on it. And like it's not going to get some wear if it came home here to OUR house? Yeah, right.

You know there's a catch though, don't you. And there is. It's twice the price it should be. Even as beautiful as it is, and as nicely constructed, it's still a used couch. I could purchase a new one for much less. The problem is, I've never found a light colored, tufted one like this. Such an awesome couch. So ridiculously overpriced. 

And to add some salt to the wound, I finally, FINALLY found the ottoman of my dreams! This is a new ottoman, at a different store. For an excellent price, I might add. Leather. Tufted. And ROUND! Isn't it totally wonderful? 

I hate the wants.

And so you will see below, all the things that I'm slapping up on Craig's list. I'm putting them up here first, just in case any of you want to make me an offer before they go up in print. And there are probably a bunch of little end tables here and there I'll be selling too. None of my antique armoires or anything like that though... But I'm 

MOOOVIN' IT OUT! 

Red Chenille L-shaped Sectional

shows definite signs of wear - good construction - super comfortable - nonsmoking household

dog not included 

Meg's Red Bed (sniff)

king size bed frame with side boards - all hand painted - complete steel reenforcement frame underneath

no need for box springs - comes with 2 bunk boards to place mattress on top of - can fit king or cal king  

antique bent cane/wicker rocking chair

nice details

small red pedestal table (chairs not included)

2 bent cane/wicker chairs (exactly the same) from Pier 1 Imports

dark stain - multicolor seat pillow from Pier 1 - washable back pillow covers from Ikea

small square tufted ottoman from Home Goods

shows definite signs of wear and tear!

Okay, I need a diet Coke - I'm so outta here! LOL! Have a great day everyone! :D

combustable

Davy's band had a performance at It's a Grind last weekend that was downright ELECTRIFYING. Hey - I announced it twice on Facebook, so what can I say. If you snoozed... you loozed. And you loozed BIG TIME. They were all at the top of their game - although I need to mention they were down one violin player, but it was for a very happy and worthy occasion: best wishes and *congratulations* to Amelia on her graduation! :)

So the guys were in fine form and the crowd was large - I wish I had taken more photos. Jimmy the bass player was playing with gusto, even with his ripped shoulder ligaments - the reason the show was titled 'the Broken Shoulder show' in the first place. This refers to the recent wipe-out he and Davy had on their longboards. Not good. But I digress. Henry the violin player... was on fire! I thought he was going to combust at any moment.   

Davy was in amazing voice and had some great solo performances, which everyone really enjoyed - excepting his bandmates which had been kicked off stage. He played some songs he had never performed before. Just the sight of him up there by himself was awesome. If you had told him even a few years ago he would be doing that, he would have never, ever - even remotely - believed you. Of course, he rarely thinks he sounds good, but such is the frustrating life of the performer. And of the mom that just wants to smack him around when he's like that.  

They had a special guest too! Beloved and talented friend John Sanchez and his sombrero. We all love John. How can you not love John? They performed some totally cool songs they had collaborated on and of course they sounded fantastic. I'm sorry I didn't fix chicken nuggets for you John. I should have. You deserved them. 

love our Liam, of course :)

the rising generation - Jimmy's younger brother David, the Mouse, and their friend Geoff

two of the most adorable girls on earth, Kara and Maren :)

Liam, Davy's girlfriend Valerie who is FINALLY back from India (yay!), and Val's dad David :)

Thanks to everyone who made it such a great evening! They'll be performing again on JUNE 19th!!!

phenomenal phenomena

Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a great weekend! It was 2,000 degrees here, so yeah... But Davy's band rocked a performance that was so amazing I thought they were going to IGNITE! So we had a terrific weekend :)

I also wanted to *thank you* for your lovely comments about my Sandpoint post - stay tuned for more photos!

Today you're going to get an amazing science lesson, courtesy of my cousin Bill, who sent all of this to me in a recent e-mail. You may roll your eyes and say "who doesn't already know this!?" but I was completely fascinated! I had heard of maybe 2 of these amazing natural phenomena. My only sadness is that there were no information or photo sources to give credit to, which I try to be very diligent about. Aside from that, I hope you enjoy your science lesson! It never ceases to amaze me what an incredible (and sometimes scary!) place this earth is!

(ABOVE PHOTO)

~ SAILING STONES ~

The mysterious moving stones of the packed-mud desert of Death Valley 

have been a center of scientific controversy for decades. 

Rocks weighing up to hundreds of pounds have been 

known to move up to hundreds of yards at a time. 

Some scientists have proposed that a combination of 

strong winds and surface ice account for these movements... 

However, this theory does not explain evidence of different rocks starting side by side 

and moving at different rates and in disparate directions. 

Moreover, the physics calculations do not fully support  this theory as wind speeds 

of hundreds of miles per hour would be needed to move some of the stones.

~ COLUMNAR BASALT ~

When a thick lava flow cools, it contracts vertically
but cracks perpendicular to its directional flow with remarkable geometric regularity - in most cases forming a regular grid of remarkable hexagonal extrusions that almost appear to be made by man. 

One of the most famous such examples is the Giant's Causeway 

on the coast of Ireland (shown above), though the largest and most widely recognized 

would be Devil's Tower in Wyoming . 

Basalt also forms different but equally fascinating ways when eruptions are exposed to air or water.

~ BLUE HOLES ~

Blue holes are giant and sudden drops in underwater elevation that get their name from the dark and foreboding blue tone they exhibit when viewed from above in relationship to surrounding waters. 

They can be hundreds of feet deep and while divers are able to explore some of them 

they are largely devoid of oxygen that would support sea life
due to poor water circulation - leaving them eerily empty. 

Some blue holes, however, contain ancient fossil remains that have been discovered, preserved in their depths.

~ RED TIDES ~

Red tides are also known as algal blooms -

sudden influxes of massive amounts of colored single-cell algae that can convert 

entire areas of an ocean or beach into a blood red color. 

While some of these can be relatively harmless,
others can be harbingers of deadly toxins
that cause the deaths of fish, birds and marine mammals.

In some cases, even humans have been harmed by red tides

 though no human exposure are known to have been fatal. 

While they can be fatal, the constituent phytoplankton in ride tides are not harmful in small numbers.

~ ICE CIRCLES ~

While many see these apparently perfect ice circles as worthy of conspiracy theorizing, 

scientists generally accept that they are formed by eddies in the water 

that spin a sizable piece of ice in a circular motion. 

As a result of this rotation, other pieces of ice and flotsam wear relatively evenly 

at the edges of the ice until it slowly forms into an essentially ideal circle. 

Ice circles have been seen with diameters of over 500 feet and can also at times 

be found in clusters and groups of different sizes as shown above.

~ MAMMATUS CLOUDS ~

True to their ominous appearance, mammatus clouds are often harbingers 

of a coming storm or other extreme weather system. 

Typically composed primarily of ice, they can extend for hundreds of miles in each direction 

and individual formations can remain visibly static for ten to fifteen minutes at a time.

While they may appear foreboding, they are merely the messengers - 

appearing around, before, or even after severe weather.

~ FIRE RAINBOWS ~

A circumhorizontal fire rainbow arc occurs at a rare confluence 

of right time and right place for the sun and certain clouds. 

Crystals within t he clouds refract light into the various visible waves 

of the spectrum, but only if they are arrayed correctly relative to the ground below. 

Due to the rarity with which all of these events happen in conjunction with one another,
there are relatively few remarkable photos of this phenomena.

~ SINKHOLES ~

Sinkholes are one of the world's scariest natural phenomena. 

Over time, water erodes the soil under the planet's surface until in some cases, quite suddenly,
the land above gives way and collapses into the earth. 

Many sinkholes occur naturally while others are the result of human intervention. 

Displacing groundwater can open cavities while broken pipes can erode otherwise stable subterranean sediments. 

Urban sinkholes, up to hundreds of feet deep have formed and consumed 

parts of city blocks, sidewalks, and even entire buildings.

~ PENITENTES ~

Named after peak-hooded New Mexican monks (lower right pic above), 

penitentes are dazzling naturally-forming ice blades that stick up at sharp angles toward the sun.

Rarely found except at high altitudes, they can grow up taller than a human and form in vast fields.

As ice melts in particular patterns, 'valleys' formed by initial melts leave 'mountains' in their wake. 
Strangely, these formations ultimately slow the melting process as the peaks cast shadows 

on the deeper surfaces below and allow for winds to blow over the peaks, cooling them.

~ LENTICULAR CLOUDS ~

 
Avoided by traditional pilots but loved by sailplane aviators, lenticular clouds are masses of cloud
with strong internal uplift that can drive a motorless flyer to high elevations. 

Their shape is quite often mistaken for a mysterious flying object or the artificial cover for one.

Generally, lenticular clouds are formed as wind speeds up 

while moving around a large land object such as a mountain.

~ LIGHT PILLARS ~

Light pillars appear as eerily upright luminous columns in the sky, 

beacons cast into the air above without an apparent source. 

These are visible when light reflects just right off of ice crystals from either the sun 

(as in the two top images above) or from artificial ground sources such as street or park lights.

 
Despite their appearance as near-solid columns of light, 

the effect is entirely created by our own relative viewpoint.

~ SUNDOGS ~

Like light pillars, sundogs are the product of light passing through crystals. 

The particular shape and orientation of the crystals
can have a drastic visual impact for the viewer,
producing a longer tail and changing the range of colors one sees. 

The relative height of the sun in the sky shifts the distance the sundogs appear to be on either side of the sun. 

Varying climactic conditions on other planets in our solar system 

produce halos with up to four sundogs from those planets' perspectives. 

Sundogs have been speculated about and discussed since ancient times, and written records 

describing the various attributes of our sun date back the Egyptians and Greeks.

~ FIRE WHIRLS ~

Fire whirls (also known as fire devils or tornadoes)
appear in or around raging fires when the right combination of climactic conditions is present.

Fire whirls can be spawned by other natural events such as earthquakes and thunderstorms, 

and can be incredibly dangerous, in some cases spinning well out of the zone of a fire itself 

to cause devastation and death in a radius not even reached by heat or flame. 

Fire whirls have been known to be nearly a mile high, have wind speeds of over 100 miles per hour
and to last for 20 or more minutes.

~ ORANGE MOONS ~

This last phenomena is something most people have seen before - 

a beautiful orange moon hanging low in the sky. 

But what causes this phenomena - and, for that matter, does the moon have a color at all? 

When the moon appears lower on the horizon, rays of light bouncing off it 

have to pass through a great deal more of our atmosphere which slowly strips away everything 

but yellows, oranges and reds. 

The bottommost image above is true to the hues of the moon but has enhanced colors to more clearly show the differences in shade that illustrate the mixed topography and minerology that tell the story of the moon's surface.  
Looking at the colors in combination with the craters
one can start to trace the history of impacts and consequent material movements 

across the face of our mysterious moon.

I say that's enough studying - now it's finally time to enjoy summer! :D

sandpoint

Alrighty then. I get it. My readers aren't into Apartment Therapy like I am. I can live with that. I have to admit, it took me a while to get it. Especially because a lot of it isn't my personal style. But should you need resources aplenty, at least now you know where to start. And it was a good thing for me to catch up on while it hurt to move my neck, and I was stuck in my jammies with dirty hair, and I couldn't go anywhere since I was attached to a heating pad, and I smelled like a eucalyptus tree from one of those icy hot patches. It's a good life and I love it.

So... Sandpoint, Idaho. Nearly 6 years ago, we sold our favorite forever house (above), and moved 1400 miles way up to northern Idaho's panhandle, to a quaint little town called Sandpoint. Sandpoint lies one hour north of Couer 'd Alene and an hour south of Canada. Let me tell you, there's a reason they call it God's Country - it's the most beautiful scenery you can imagine. I won't go into all the reasons we moved because there are many, but it turned out to be a rocky, rocky road. We did end up making the trek all the way back here to California. But I don't want to jump ahead of myself. Not a day goes by when I don't think of Sandpoint, and there is much to tell. 

Now is the first time - 6 years later - I've been able to start looking at ALL of these photos. I've kept out a few of my favorites - some I've even shared here already - but the majority of them have been too hard for me to view. That needs to stop though. I've decided that every Friday I'll take you on a little journey with me to Sandpoint, so I can revisit that time and everything that was so awesome about it, and I can also share it with all of you too.  

This is the house we bought - 14 Riverview Circle

It was located a mile up a windy road, on a few acres of land at the top of the mountain.

The is the back of the house - and following are a few photos of our "back yard"

First photo. We had literally just arrived after 2 days of driving - I don't think we had even been in the house yet! 

Me in the back with Angel and Luna :) I was sooo happy to be there, but I think we were all freaking just a little!

Have a great weekend everyone! And stay tuned for more Sandpoint next Friday...