bonsai!

Yesterday Joseph and I went to a bonsai shop in Louisville owned by this old man. We were going to just look around- we have been thinking of trying our hands at bonsai--but we ended up coming home with a little starter tree. It is a Brazilian Raintree and is about seven years old. It will be a good tree to learn on because it can be inside or outside and is in general very tolerant. Its leaves close up at night and then open up again in the morning. I like that it shows that it feels the difference between day and night. Also, it has half inch thorns on it that aren't very sharp but it is a nice contrast to its tiny feathery soft leaves.


We hope to have a number of bonsai someday and even when we are living in an apartment, we can keep them on a balcony and then inside for the winter. Some of them can stay outside for winter, but they do better if they can be planted in the actual earth so that the roots stay more warm than they would in a pot.

At the shop where we got our tree, the man had a 70 year old raintree that was just beautiful. I hope ours will be that big someday- not that that is what it is about, but it was just so beautiful. Here is a photo of it.



The amazing thing about bonsai is how they can be so small and yet be very old and have all of the character and rough weathered look of full size tree, but be even more expressive since you can affect the shape.

Well, this weekend is my mom's birthday and I am going home to Martinsville, plus Tara and Matt are flying in. It will be a good weekend.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!

I just got back from visiting Joseph's brother and wife in Asheville, NC. We only had a three day visit, but it was a great time. Asheville is my kind of town- lots of privately owned interesting shops and places to eat. They had a double-decker bus among the buildings that had been converted to a coffee house/bus and had its own address.

We went on a day hike in the Pisgah forest off the Blue Ridge Parkway. We did about 7.5 miles and started at 6am and got to see the sunrise from the top of a mountain. It was a little cool up there and very windy. There were wild blueberries and black berries growing along part of the trail, so we did a lot of foraging. We would be walking along and realize Joseph was gone- and he would be back there shoulder deep in blueberry bushes.

We went swimming in a cold cold mountain swimming hole. It was about seven feet deep and was literally clear to the bottom. There was this perfect rock to jump off of in to the water about 10 feet up. There was a group of elderly people at the hole when we got there and they all watched us jump in and cheered us. It was funny. Really, I'm glad they were watching otherwise I may have chickened out. It was officially the coldest water I have ever been in and just perfectly picturesque.

We also went to some gardens outside of Asheville that had a bonsai garden. It was amazing to see all of these different bonsai. I had thought that they had to be a certain kind of plant, but that is not true. It can be any kind of tree or shrub. Joseph wants to learn how to do bonsai and I would love to try too, but it will be a while because we want to grow ours from seeds. Ask me about it in a couple of years...

saw a yoga competition

Today Patricia, who I work with, and I went to the regional Indiana Birkham yoga competition to see another friend from work compete. It was held at a monastery in Floyd Knobs. The top two men and women get to go to L.A. for the national competition...and our friend Steve, who is in his 40's won second place! Really there weren't very many men competing, just 3, but we were proud of him.

I was so impressed with these people. Not everyone was great, and there were all body types. Which is really what impresses me the most. That some of these people have the gumption to get up in front of all of these people and do the best poses that their body can do, knowing that they are not really competing to win.

The woman who won is actually my friend Steve's teacher. She can back bend until her head is between her feet and hold all of her body weight, parallel to the ground on her fingers. I am thinking back to my one college yoga class that Tara and I took together...fun but it didn't last long enough to make any kind of progress. Maybe I will try to get into it at home on my own since classes are so expensive. It would be good for my back- it still gives me trouble; it aches most days, and I never even did anything to it that I know of. I have just been touched by the bad back fairy.

suit shopping with Angelo

Yesterday Joseph and I had the day off together and we went out to this wacky restaurant called Lynn's Paradise Cafe in Louisville. I had Bourbon Ball French Toast and Joseph had eggs with fried green tomatoes. And I now know that I love fried green tomatoes. Ahhh...Kentucky thank you for showing me the way.

So after our delicious brunch, we went suit shopping for Joseph. We went to this great store that we were referred to and had a really good time with it. The tailor there was called Angelo. He was this short trim older Italian man with perfectly wavy hair and unwavering confidence. We would ask him a question like are there other white shirts that could go with this suit? And almost before we have finished asking he says, no no, this is the shirt.
We did not question Angelo. We told him how much we wanted to spend and he made Joseph look great for that amount. Isn't it nice when people are really good at their jobs? It was so funny to watch him chalk Joseph up in the suit. He is tugging and pinning and folding all around his bottom--and Joseph trying to stand so still and look straight ahead as instructed--Angelo whipping the measuring tape all around, rolling it up and then zinging it out of his hand again. I enjoyed watching that.

Pretty droplets- Nancy Rose

Pretty droplets
Originally uploaded by Nancy Rose

I am trying out creating some posts from the flickr photo site and occasionally posting photos taken by others that I really like. I love looking at other peoples pictures. You get to see what they find- It's like having millions of sets of eyes.

I like these water droplets caught on the spider web. First I thought they were on a window pane, but no a spider web.

Well, tomorrow morning Joseph and I are driving to Grams and Grandpa's house to visit for the day and then going to a LensCrafters pool party thing in the evening. Oh my, bathing suit clad drunken co-workers...we shall see. It is a going away party because one of my managers that I actually like has found a new and better job. Cheers Kelly! May Patricia and I follow in your level headed foot steps with our belief in the human race still relatively in tact.

New music

I found two new singer/songwriters. Not that they are really obscure, but...anyway one is A Fine Frenzy. I heard her on public radio singing this song called Almost Lover. It makes you want to cry; it is so beautiful and sad. Her whole album One Cell In The Sea is worth checking out- she is sort of dreamy but still strong voiced. The other person I found is Brandi Carlile. She sounds sort of folk/rock with a earthy and bold voice. The Indigo Girls sing with her on one song on her album The Story-automatic credit for her!! Come to think of it she has a similar voice to Amy Ray. Finding new music by people I have never heard feels like finding precious stones in a drab wall of rock. Thank goodness people make music. I, myself am a listener, not a maker. (Thank you mom for having hope and giving me piano lessons anyway.)

Today I was trying to get old pictures on my computer that I had on disk and I found a disk of photos from Japan. It was strange to see them. That all seemed like it was lived by some other girl- even though I still can feel it all like it was yesterday if I stop and remember. How funny that we will put ourselves in these compromised situations, like we can step back out of splatter range and just see what happens. splat.

Still, there are good things.