SNAG

Firstly, let me apologize for how long this one is. But at least it has pictures. It's not all just reading. :)

So yeah, I know I should have posted this a couple of days ago, but I just felt like slackin' a little. On the 13th I got up around 5:15am and got ready to drive to Memphis for the SNAG conference. (If you can't remember what SNAG stands for look in the previous post.) I met everyone and we were on the road by 6. Needless to say, I packed the night before! Thant first day was pretty boring; mostly just driving and riding. We did stop in St. Louis at the zoo and saw this really huge piece. I don't remember what it was called or who made it, but here are some pictures!

This is only half of it. The rest are close ups.

I like this guy. I should have sat on him and had someone take my picture, but I didn't think about it until I got home. Oh well, next time.

This is the other half. I told you it was huge!

These are ants! They're a little bigger than my hand.

So after 12 1/2 hours of driving we finally made it to Memphis. The conference was held in the Peabody Hotel and on the first night they had a welcoming thing up on the roof. You could see the Mississippi River from up there and since I can't actually remember seeing the Mississippi River before I took a few pictures while I was up there. (At the time I didn't think I'd ever seen the Mississippi, but apparently I saw it when I was 4. Um . . . yeah. The only thing I remember about that trip is that Mom and Dad left me with Aunt Linda so they could go to Nashville and my cousin and I did NOT get along. And when they finally came back I was ready to go home and they made me stay for another whole day. Parents are mean! ;) Don't they know that when a 4-year-old is ready to hit the road they should take advantage of that.)

I thought the bridge was pretty.

I liked the city lights too! At least from up there; I felt relatively safe from all the scary city people. (I'm such a country girl!)

This is Tom! He's the guy that taught me how to do Damascene - "the direct application of nonferrous metals onto articles of iron using the chisel overlay process." (I got the definition out of my 2007 SNAG conference booklet.) I made a necklace pendent with my damascene piece. I wish I had a better picture of him but after the demo he was surrounded by people.

I saw this while I was riding around in Natalie's car. I don't even know for sure what street we were on but on the inside there are all these little faces. If you blow the picture up you can see one of the faces by the green light pole.

Iron Flower!

Another Iron Flower, but this one is part of a gate at the Metal Museum.

This Necklace was part of the student exhibit at the Metal Museum.

I love this Iron candle stick. I love the way it curves and twists, just like a vine.

Ha! Ha! My friend Travis got these (crawdads) when we went out to lunch one day. When he brought them to the table he was just kinda looking at them and Elloitt (our teacher) asked him if he knew how to eat them. Well, No! So Elloitt showed him how and then Travis offered to let us all try them. The other two girls said no thanks. But I wasn't about to play the wussy girl roll so I tried one. They were really good! They taste like shrimp, but they are a major pain to get into. And these had some kind of spice on them so they were super hot! Natalie eventually tried one, but she made Travis clean it all for her. She didn't like those itty bitty eyes or something. :)

Travis was gettin' just a little silly here!

Ok, the Ducks! Apparently the Peabody Hotel is famous for the Ducks that they have swimming around in their indoor fountain. The Ducks have a little "Pent House" on the roof where they stay at night, but at 11am the come down the elevator and march across the lobby to the fountain where they stay until 5pm and then they march back across the lobby to the elevator and back up to their little "Pent House" on the roof. I have the story of how the ducks came to live at the Peabody and just so you know I'm gonna copy it straight from the napkin that I . . . well, lets face it . . . I stole it. But honestly I don't think anyone is really gonna care.

THE LEGEND OF THE DUCKS

Back in the 1930's Frank Schutt, General Manager of the Peabody, and a friend, Chip Barwick, returned from a weekend hunting trip to Arkansas. The men had a little too much Tennessee sippin' whiskey and thought it would be funny to place some of their live decoy ducks (it was legal then for hunters to use live decoys) in the beautiful Peabody fountain.

Three small English call ducks were selected as "guinea pigs," and the reaction was nothing short of enthusiastic. Thus began a Peabody tradition which was to become internationally famous.

THE END

What the napkin doesn't tell you is that when Schutt and Barwick came down the next day the Ducks were still in the fountain and there was a large crowd around the ducks.

This is the only picture of Beale street that I was able to get. We ate down on this street a couple of night and the food was amazing! If you ever get to go to Memphis you have to eat at The Kings Palace Cafe on Beale street. The food was a little pricey but it was definitely worth it. There is live music in every "eating establishment" (ok the whole street is basically a bunch of bars, but they will give you water or soda too.) At night they block off the street because it is so crowded and crazy. Just on the street I saw a guy playing the trumpet, a guy doing these crazy back flip and stuff, and a guy that had all these pots, pans, and buckets that he was playing like drums.

I wont bore you all with the details of the conference. I found it very interesting, especially the lecture on Women in Iron, but they made me really mad when they just cut her off. They were very rude about it, and she looked upset afterward.

The vendor room was my favorite. there was a bunch of different stone, tool, and book vendors. I'll take some pictures of the stones I bought and post them next time. This post is already super long and I've been working on it for almost 3 hours now. I blame that on the pictures they took a while to load. That and it took me a while to figure out what I was doing.

Anyway, the last picture is what Travis did pretty much to whole way home. I don't know why he was so tired. It's not like he stayed out every night or anything ;)

Ok so next time. Pretty stones from SNAG and maybe some projects.

Leavin' Again

Well. . . I'm gettin' ready to go to the SNAG (Society of North American Goldsmiths, you have no idea how long it took me to remember what SNAG stood for) convention in Memphis, TN on Wednesday with some of my metalsmithing classmates. I'm excited to go, but also nervous. None of these people are Christians and they've told me stories about how waisted they got the last time they all went. All I want to do is go to the convention stuff during the day, get something yummy for supper, maybe some sight seeing, and then go back to the hotel for the night; while they go out and do their own thing. I'll be back sometime late Saturday or early Sunday morning. We're driving! It's going to be the longest trip ever! Ok, maybe not for some of you, but it will be for me. When I was little we always used to drive up to South Dakota to see my Grandma in the summer and that was about 10 hours one way. This will be longer! I get sick of driving when I go home for the weekend and that's only 3 hours. Oh well, I'm sure I'll survive.

Other exciting news. . . I finally broke down and bought a digital camera. It's supposed to come today! I'm so excited! So maybe I'll get to post pictures next time. (Assuming I figure out how to do all that stuff. I might have to ask for help.)

Also Josh and Annie are officially parents now. Hooray! Elizabeth Leona will be a week old tomorrow. She's so sweet. She's got the cutest little rosebud mouth. Everybody thinks she has huge feet but they look pretty proportional to me. I don't know what the deal is.

Hmm. . . can't think of anything else right off hand. I would just ask that you all pray for me on this trip. Pray that when I say "No thanks, I don't want to go to the bars." that they will just leave me alone to do my own thing.

Adventures on the ol' Homestead

I made it home around 4 in the afternoon on Friday and actually followed Mom for about the last 1/2 mile or so. One of the first things she tells me is that Dad took the landing to the basement out because they'd had a leak and they couldn't fix it with out removing the landing. She just wanted me to be careful if I went downstairs for anything because, to quote my mom, "That last step's a bit of a doosie!" She actually forgot about it and rolled her ankle a couple days before, but she's ok.

Unfortunately I did not make my goal of finishing 10 pages in my scrapbook. I only finished 6. But in my defense Todd didn't get home in time to take the kids so Angie and I were a little late. My niece, Taylor, went with us. She's really funny, she knows how to use some of the new tools better than I do. The funniest thing she did was tell me how to spell McDonald's. ( I might add that she is 10 and yes, she made me feel really stupid.) She's also migratory! She started out at one end of the table and before I knew it she was around the other side right in front of me. But that was my space, so after about 10 minutes I tried to make her move, 'cause I didn't have any room. She just giggled and moved about 2 inches toward her side. So I proceeded to put my huge book on top of her and her stuff and the after a smug protest she moved her stuff. (Hee! Hee! Hee! I'm such a mean aunt!) She got a real kick out of telling me how to spell McDonald's though.

After scrapbooking most of the night I got home about 1am and since I don't actually live with my parents anymore I do not carry a key to the front door. You guessed it. They (Dad) locked me out. Now here's a little background info. My parents live WAY out in the country, it's pitch black out, and because of all the rain they've had; the grass/weeds grow faster that my dad can mow them down. Also, since they live out in the middle of no where they keep the basement door unlocked. So I make my way through the jungle of weeds around to the back of the house and let myself in only to be greeted (and scared half out of my skin) by a big hairy beast. (The beast's name is Shadrack and he's my parents dog. Needless to say, I was not expecting him to be in the basement.) After crawling back into my skin and patting Shadrack on the head, I made my way over to the stairs. But remember the landing is gone. Now I'm only 5'1" and that first step was at least 15 inches. So I had to hoist myself up that "step" (I told Mom it was like jumping the gauntlet!) Shadrack followed me upstairs and then whined 'cause he wanted out. So he went outside and I went to bed. (Oh, and Shadrack cleared to gauntlet much easier than I did!!!)

You would think the adventure would be over, but it's not. The next morning I got up and took my shower. Well, just as I finish this HUGE spider climbs up out of the drain and starts coming right for me. My first thought was, "Oh crap! I don't have a flip flop to kill this thing!!!" So as it makes it's way toward me I finally hop over this HUGE thing and grab the clean shower spray stuff and, yes, I killed the spider with shower spray. Then I went and got Mom and she got it out of the tub, 'cause it was all huge and gross and soggy from the spray. Of course, when I went to get her I told her that I'd bairly escaped with my life from the HUGE spider that was holding me hostage. (She thinks I can be to dramatic. I don't think she realizes how big that spider was before I sprayed it and it curled all up and died.)

So after the spider adventure, Mom and I went shopping in Hutch. I got some little t-shirts and Mom got a new tube of lipstick. There were some other items in there, but those were the most exciting. Sunday, we all went to church and relaxed. I didn't get back until 11 o'clock last night. But I had fun. Over all it was a pretty good visit.

I'll post more later. I have to wait for something good to happen.