Summer, Glorious Summer!

Finally, it's really summer! The weather this weekend was just perfection, sunny and warm without being overly hot. The hummingbirds and bunnies are out in full force (as demonstrated tonight by a dog whose nose is glued to the space between our shutters while she watches a bunny family hop around our patio!).Although bead making is on the menu this week, the weekend was for a trip to a lavender farm and popsicles. I came home with a super cute bird house in purple and teal from the lavender gift shop and plans to return in the near future!The popsicles, mmmm, crazy good flavors at Viva Pops...all their ingredients are organic and usually from local farmers' markets. I had strawberry basil and aprium (an apricot/plum hybrid that is more apricoty, unlike a pluot which is more plummy), hubster had pineapple chili and peach ginger and our friends had nectarine basil and lavender lemonade. I have so many ideas for the extras from my CSA box this summer now! I used my strawberries and white peaches to make a galette this weekend...should have taken pics, it was gorgeous...but if I don't have time to bake they might just turn into popsicles now.

I've had a few items that haven't made it to the website yet...little pieces that managed to sneak in between special order items in the kiln.In beady news...the summer issue of Stringing has a lovely pair of earrings created by the talented Michelle Mach that feature my coffee cup charms and some adorable coffee bean beads. I'm working on replenishing my bead cap stock as I've had a couple of projects I've been working on where I've taken first dibbs on my supply so that will be in the works for later this week.Although it's officially summer I've taken on teaching a summer class at a Community College so PowerPoint and I have been very close for a couple of weeks. I'm trying to just put the lectures together a week at a time so I'm not losing huge chunks of time at the computer (and also because I haven't taught this course before and have no idea how effective my pacing will be on each topic!). Hopefully I can get through the semester without boring everyone too much :) Unfortunately I can't just bring beads for show and tell to fill the extra time (although I think that it would be a good plan).

So how are your summers kicking off?