Raige Creations

That is it. Sometimes, just sunshine is enough to make the day great. Add to that 3 days of 2 + miles each day now, and life is pretty good. I thank the return of sunshine for this. Sunshine makes it glow! Yes, simply the sun. Even tho it's January, and the cold has set in, the sun was enough. I don't mind the cold, as long as the sun is out. Seeing what it did to this sculpture, I knew the sun has a profound affect on everyone.  I see people milling about downtown, find that visitors are in fact in Asheville enjoying the mountains in the winter.  They come out when the sun does, walk slower, look around more, bask in the sun basically. Ominous in the grey rain. The sun brings brilliant light, uplifts the mood, and gives a nice golden glow to things we see every day and have blended in with the background.  It had rained for 4 days straight, almost non stop. I gladly took 2 of those days to enjoy the cloudy greyness, but by the 4th day I was more than ready...

I love my neighborhood. Though I am sorry to say I missed my goal of walking each and every day since my birthday, I am still walking at least 5 days a week, and I still love seeing everything in my 'hood'.  How about seeing some of the things in my own 'hood' today? I run into some beautiful nature, fine neighbors, and interesting things that make me appreciate where I am. Today I am bringing you into my 'hood'. This area is full of dog lovers.  Dogs go with their families to eat, to festivals, and there is always someone walking a dog or a yard with a dog in it, whether you are downtown or here further in 'the country' as we are. Plus, there is a dog every other house here in my hood. Some houses have 2 dogs. They each greet us with their barks, scaring LadyJ, but I think they just mean to say hello. 'yang' 'yin' These 2 fine dogs, the 'yin' and 'yang' dogs of the 'hood', share the same house, ...

The perfect driving song, we listened to this on our drive to Greenville, NC. Last week was my son's college orientation, and we loaded up the car, and drove. It was the first road trip we have taken since we moved here, going on 2 years ago. It is a quite pleasant 5 1/2 hour drive, and after only 2 years in the mountains, we found it interesting how flat that side of the state is. (I was also surprised at the comfort I felt once we returned to the mountains.)  A beautiful campus, East Carolina University is in the small city of Greenville, NC , with the city population of only around 84,000. Compared to Asheville, the kids said it is flat and were surprised there were no tall buildings.  Pitt County Court House Greenville City Hall The highest building downtown is three stories tall. In contrast to that, the campus has dorms 10 stories tall. We all liked the campus though. Gorgeous architecture.  Cotton Hall, one of the oldest reside...

Let's Take a Walk Down Memory Lane the art show we went to This past week has been full of memories for me.  Starting with our family going to an art show opening last Friday.  It had been years since we have attended a function like this. I hate to say how many years. It was a big deal for us, especially since in our former lives, we put on art shows like this on a regular basis when we owned an art gallery. So I had to dig out my dress clothes . They were still in a suitcase since our move last August.  In there, I found all my skirts and clothes I used to wear when I had to look nice on a regular basis.  My Toekini's - Blue Rose on Black These days, jeans and a tee shirt are the wardrobe of choice, so seeing all these dress clothes was like being in a time warp . I found a skirt I barely fit into, made a set of Toekini's to go with the outfit, and dressed up for the first time in many years.  I found a dress I had worn to my first prom in that ...

I used to think I wasn't too bad at carving pumkins. I used to think my husband, who is much better at carving than me, was great at carving pumkins.  Then I saw this guy and his pumkins. This pumpkin is good, no question. But when I saw this video of some more examples of the best pumkin carver in the world, Ray Villafane,   my jaw hit the floor and all I could do was just watch and say things like "wow", Oh my Gosh", and "That is amazing" each time a new pumkin was shown. Then, to top it all off, the last sculpture blew my mind. Maybe next year we can carve something better than these. Have a sweetly scary day!

We are just returning from a road trip, and after finally recovering from the days on the road (exhausting!), I stumbled across a fitting tribute to all Road Trippers - CarHenge ! Although after 2 days of 12 hours on the road, I didn't want to see any more cars, I saw this tribute to Stonehenge , in  Alliance, Nebraska , USA, fittingly made from US cars, and loved it!  Carhenge was conceived in 1987 by Jim Reinders as a memorial to his father. While living in England, he studied the structure of Stonehenge, which helped him to copy the structure's shape, proportions, and size. Here is Carhenge compared with Stonehenge.   Other automobile sculptures were subsequently added to the location of Carhenge, which is now known as the Car Art Reserve. The Spawning Salmon - created by Geoff Sandhurst of Canada and The Fourd Seasons - representing the 4 stages of wheat grown in the area. Green for Spring, Yellow for mature, pink for after harvest late summer...

The Easter Bunny of Western European legend brings baskets filled with colored eggs, candy and sometimes also toys to the homes of children on the night before Easter. It will either put the baskets in a designated place or hide them somewhere in the house or garden for the children to find when they wake up in the morning.  According to the tradition, children would build brightly colored nests, often out of caps and bonnets, in secluded areas of their homes. The Easter Bunny would, if the children had been good, lay brightly colored eggs in the nest. As the tradition spread, the nest has become the manufactured, modern Easter basket, and the placing of the nest in a secluded area has become the tradition of hiding baskets.  The precise origin of the ancient custom of coloring eggs is not known, although evidently the blooming of many flowers in spring coincides with the use of the fertility symbol of eggs - and eggs boiled with some flowers change their color, bri...

Being a hereditary carrier of the recessive 'colorblind' genes, I have first hand experience seeing my sons growing up with being Red/Green Color Deficient, often referred to as 'colorblind'. All of us 'color-seers' could not relate to or understand why, when asked if one wanted to put on a green shirt (St. Patty's Day), he put on a tan one insisting it was green, and finally settled on saying "it's close enough". That is, unless others searched as long and hard as my husband did years ago to find a very usefull Photoshop plug-in from VISCHECK for transforming pictures into how 'colorblind' individuals see the world, and everything in it. A search engine will bring up web-site design links that allow you to transform your site (generally for a fee) as well, but the plug-in is free, can be used on any image, and has been an invaluable tool we have utilized for years. (NOTE: Photoshop plug-in hyperlink will take you to a download page ...