Officially on hiatus

Well it's official, I'm on hiatus. The last of my studio went into boxes last night and of course right after wards we got news that the duplex is behind schedule to be ready for us to move into. I'll now be without my studio for over a week!
To top off the bad news I messed up my foot quite badly today at work- well on the way to finding lunch. I was walking with a co-worker (the awesome Chris G) down to Friendly Street Market to get some accouterments for lunch and walked right into a huge pothole and did something awful to my foot. At the time it was just a little twinge, but by the time I left work my foot was huge and I could barely walk on it.
My ankle oddly enough is perfect, I messed up something in my arch and I'm hoping it's not something that's going to require a cast. Just a light sprain rather than something torn or worse. Either way my long holiday weekend has been shot and I'm on the R.I.C.E (rest, ice, compression, & elevation) plan along with some Chinese herbs for injuries of this type.
I am hoping to be mobile enough for planned trip to Portland this Sunday, it's a $2 Sunday at OMSI and I want to be able to walk around and explore!

As it doesn't feel right to leave my blog with such a somber post let's look at something cute and fuzzy!

That my friends is a 3 week old lion cub from the West Coast Game Park in Bandon, OR. We took a road trip down last weekend and it was fantastic! I held both Bella pictured above and her brother Simba. I also got to hold a 4 week old spotted leopard cub Bentley, but he was squirmy and is pretty blurry in most of my pictures. They have many more of other fantastic animals for petting and viewing but the cubs are a pretty special thing. I also held two Opossoms, two farrets, and something else I can't remember or find in my photos... out for petting was a baby fox, baby wallaby, a baby black skunk, and an adult golden skunk (both de-skunked) and a few other animals- plus the heard of deer and goats that run over small children to obtain food.

I'll leave you with another picture my husband and I with Bella. I am going to make my way towards bed and contemplate unpacking some of my tools.

A different kind of book for a different kinda swap

In my slew of creative work last week I also finally completed my swap book for the Book Arts Forum swap! This book went to Billie and she kindly provided the pictures as I was so excited to get it in the mail across the pond I forgot all about taking pictures to share!
The cover is made from old x-rays, this one is of a chest. Kinda hard to tell from the pictures, but trust me it's a chest :) The theme of the swap was to use materials we had never used before. I received my book from Rhonda and I think it's already packed in a moving box but you can see pictures on her blog!
The x-rays of course came from MECCA my favorite craft reuse center, and in exciting news I'll be teaching classes there again in the fall. I'll be teaching an introduction class, probably a coptic class, and a class on ATC albums as they do a monthly swap. I also just signed up for their summer artist challenge and should be getting my materials next week. I'm a little frightened as I've never let someone pick my materials for me, but it should be a lot of fun.
I have enough x-ray left to make another book, maybe two. I haven't decided if they would be good for the shop or if they would be too strange...

I haven't made any new books yet this week, almost all of my creative energies have been going into my CSA box and finding wonderful new things to eat. While I haven't been taking pictures I think I'll put up a post later with all the tasty things I've been eatting and links to how to make them.