leslee roberts :: shouting into the wind

driving with cheryl

over the last several weeks, cheryl has been learning to drive.

we started out practicing in the back parking lots in the presidio behind our house and out by the zoo, just to prepare for the "paid" lessons. then, to practice between "paid" lessons, we graduated to driving in the outer avenues, parking, driving in traffic.

today, we went on the freeway, this was her second time but our first time together (her first time was with her paid instructor) -- we drove on to the golden gate bridge and up to the fireman's fund offices in novato, where she could have worked if she only knew how to drive at the time. we sat on the lawn and took a short break. then we visited a mall and then downtown novato where had lunch and shopped. she drove us home over the golden gate bridge, both of us with bags of candies from powell's sweet shoppe in novato.

we won't talk about how i nearly croaked when she suggested we take a drive to novato... it all turned out fine... she drives pretty well.

mmmm...

i don't drink much but when i do, i like a really nice dessert wine or port. i just opened this tonight... and it's yummy

eos 2005 tears of dew, moscato, late harvest, paso robles (eos estate winery):

coffee-dyed socks

i carry my knitting in my purse so where ever i go, i can take it out and knit a few stitches. usually the project is a pair of socks.

the yarn for this particular pair of socks caught my eye with the slighly odd color combination which happens to go with almost everything in my wardrobe. the bulk of the second sock was done on the plane trip to and from milwaukee. i was about 10 rows away from finishing it when i had a coffee thermos mishap in my purse.

in the morning, i usually load up my lunch and coffee thermos into my purse and head off to work. i didn't realize it but i had put the cap on crooked and by the time i got down to the financial district, my socks were swimming in a pool of coffee and my pants were all wet. i rinsed the socks out right away and let them dry but there're still noticeable coffee stains which don't go too badly with the colors of the socks.

north beach street fair

the summer street fair season has started here in san francisco. barb and the kids and i went to the north beach street fair last week. the weather was beautiful. this basket made of telephone wire caught my eye -- it was sold in the bridge for africa booth. once i picked it up in my hands, i couldn't let go of it. the colors are so vibrant.

recovering

i've spent the week recovering from the annual bead & button show. here are a couple of samples of my classwork -- two classes using precious metal clay (fine silver) with celie fago teaching. they were fantastic classes and i ended up buying an ultra-light kiln, like the ones used in my keum-boo class and some more pmc to play with.

earrings: pmc+, keum-boo (ancient asian technique of applying thin sheets of gold to silver) (ignore the pink reflections from my clothing):

garnet pendant: pmc3 with garnet (ignore my reflection in the image):

i'll be posting more pics from my trip soon.