finding treasure

My sister Lindy and I went from the foggy Carpinteria Flea Market (at the beach) (do you like the new farmer's market shopping bag i found there? can you see all the work that went into it? It's all hand crocheted) to the sun and tree filled Lavender Festival in Ojai (about 20 miles inland). We walked and walked and shopped and talked. We drank lavender infused iced tea (so delicious). We ate (and no kj, i didn't have any trouble). The one thing i didn't do was take many photos, I blame my little finger. Besides I could never have captured the day, you had to be there.

After the festival we took a walk around downtown Ojai and to the best little independant book store in the world (besides Powells). I found these vintage books, the Tolkien triology and the three nature books. I love the gentle words and illustrations found on every page. It was a perfect day, being with my sister, finding treasures, and seeing the old oak trees i love.

Today it's monday and back to work (right after xrays). Have a good week everyone. :)

♥ lori

time outs

i had to visit the doctor this morning. it seems i may have fractured my pinky. i'll know for sure on monday when i go get xrays since i ran out of time and had to get to work. my accident involved a certain someone....


our little 8 month old puppy owen (or otherwise known as oh owen). this is what happened...he was raiding the panty basket, i tried to grab them from him and well, i wasn't being very smart. owen is getting mixed messages for sure because chuck laughs every time and i scold. i secretly think it is pretty funny how much he loves panties and how hilarious he looks running through the house with a pair in his mouth. from now on we will try to remember to keep certain doors closed. at least till he's out grown this stage. (please tell me that will happen).

even though my finger hurts, i'm so excited it's the weekend. my sister is coming up and we are going here and here!
enjoy your weekend everyone!

♥ lori

mim. :)

congratulations mim, and thank you everyone for your comments and support of ripple. kj and nancy you are angels. together, everyone who commented, helped to raise one hundred and ninety two dollars. and that's not counting all of you who went to ripple and donated there. a friend of mine asked "shouldn't the people who created this mess pay for it?" and i'm sure the answer is yes, but it's not so easy, apparently the responsibility falls on many. so while they sit pointing fingers at one another, wildlife, birdlife, all life, needs help now. The Institute for Marine Mammal Studies and The International Bird Rescue Research Center, are at work today. The IMMS has this to say: Your donations at work! Since April 20, 2010, IMMS has responded to over 200 animals and has rescued more than 20 sea turtles. With large portions of their habitat in ruin, threatened and endangered species remain at risk. Please donate to help save wildlife.

i would have had this post up sooner but i needed to cut up 50 something tiny squares with all your names on them (minus mine and kjs numerous comments) as soon as i got home from work and cooked dinner and then wait for Chuck to come home to help me draw a name. i'm sorry i don't have 50 something bottles or i would send one to each of you. still trying to think how i can do that...

mim, please send me your address, you'll find my email in my profile.

thank you again everyone, very very much.

♥ lori

giving

The first part of this post I borrowed from Kelly Light and her blog Ripple. If you don't know about it yet please pay her a visit. If you are a lover of art, nature and our planet, this will be terribly important to you.

From Kelly:
Donation Details - How this works
Each sketch card on this blog is $10.00. The $10.00 is a donation to help the animal victims of the Deep Water Horizon Gulf Oil Spill. Every penny is donated. The two Non-Profits that are benefiting are The Institute for Marine Mammal Studies and The International Bird Rescue Research Center. You can purchase a card if you donate directly to one of the non-profits and email me the confirmation and your address to ripplesketches@verizon.net. The artist will mail you the signed card.

We don't have to feel helpless. We can help. Our small actions together will ripple outward.

In all human affairs, there are efforts and there are results. The strength of the effort is the measure of the result.

Thank you for reading about Ripple, and thank you if you go. I think you'll see a lot of your friends there, donating their art. I still can't believe how brilliant an idea this is. I read one of the artists say that maybe it will be your ten dollars that will pay for a bottle of shampoo to clean an oil covered bird. Please donate.


I want to give something too, but I'm really not an artist. Then, I had an idea, for every comment left here i'll donate a dollar to Ripple. And to say thank you to you, I made up something for a give~a~way. Please leave a comment if you would like to be in a drawing (see photos below) I also hope that anonymous readers will say hello and make a comment too, I would really like that. I just realized that lori times five has had over 46,000 visits and over 65,000 page views in the almost two years i've had it. Thank you truly.

This bottle (which at one time held olive oil, i scrubbed it really well) is full of sea glass, I counted for awhile and then lost it after 150, so that is a lot of glass! i also added some pretty pieces of abalone shell and one or two worn pottery pieces (i love those). There's plenty of aqua (my favorite) and green, white, brown and blue. I don't know what i did with the cork, so i used a very large piece of sea glass in the opening. I made a tag out of a vintage topographic map, to give an idea where this glass was collected.

If you would like to have this bottle please leave a comment by next Tuesday, June 22, 6 p.m. pacific standard time. I'll post the winner shortly after. And yes, I'll happily ship it anywhere.

Thank you for being such kind souls and good friends, I really truly appreciate you. Madly and deeply too.

♥ lori

red roses

they call it june gloom, the fog that hugs the coast here at this time of year. the world is all shades of gray for most of the day. all except my red red roses. there is a sweet story behind these flowers that i've been thinking about, and it goes like this...

once upon a time, there was a boy and a girl (who were actually quite grown up, but were feeling like kids) as they planned their soon to be wedding. the event was most uneventful, in that there would be no fussing or stressing, on that they both agreed. they decided together, every last bit, except he wanted to choose the food and she the flowers. he chose mexican and she chose Rose Story Farm. it was the one indulgence, these gorgeous old fashioned and antique variety organically grown roses. after many delightful trips to the farm the perfect flowers were chosen, fair bianca (ausca) a heavenly white~creme~blush rose. because they had to stick to budget (even in fairy tales) only a certain number of these gorgeous potted rose bushes (and bouquets) were ordered, the remainder of flowers would be provided by farmers market.





day of wedding~the house was full of family and friends, everyone doing something to help, the time is almost here. the girls were drinking mimosas while putting on their makeup and dresses, she alternating between utter calm and giddyness. the eldest son, had a very important job. his job was to set the rosebush's in place along the walk to the wedding place, with a hand painted sign stuck in one, directing the guests. so he smiled and dashed out the door, with his new girlfriend on his arm, to take care of his v.i.j. (very important job).

hours later~ not really, it only felt like it to the girl, her eldest son came back. beaming with joy and a sense of accomplishment, he said the job is done. the girl was thrilled, since she really loved the flowers of the fair bianca best and this was really her favorite part, the flouncy flowers and the sign and all.

but...her son said...there was a problem. the flowers were not there. he said we looked everywhere and your roses were gone. (small panic feeling here). but...he said, we fixed it! he said he and his girlfriend raced over to a nearby nursery and purchased a new rosebush. a red one. and when he said this he was telling her (me) that they looked at every bush and chose the most beautiful and most best and that he was sure of. and while he was talking she was thinking a million thoughts, like first how she hated red, maybe hate is too harsh, but red is not a favorite. and how her dream of billowy creme roses had suddenly disappeared two hours before her wedding.

but mostly her thoughts were of her son standing there in front of her, wanting to please her, he'd done so much, driven all around, looking and searching and choosing and not to mention having to buy a new rose bush with his own money. and at that moment instead of feeling like crying, she beamed back up at him and told him how much she loved him and how grateful she was for him and mostly how very much she loved...

red red roses.

the end.


♥ lori


p.s. if you're wondering whatever became of the fair bianca's, it seemed that the kind and generous owner of the home we were married at, had not only left us with the keys before she took off for a fishing trip in patagonia, but she also left instructions to her gardeners to polish up the place before our big day. when the gardeners found the rose bushes in pots they did what any good gardener would do, they planted them. which we didn't see until the following day when we went back to clean up, and then had a good laugh.

and so my fair biancas live happily ever after at the home we were married at, and the red roses are happy here.