When we left Renton on Saturday afternoon, it was gray and foggy...no hint of sun to be found. As we drove east into the Cascades on I-90, we emerged into a beautiful sunny day and I was so pleasantly surprised!

Snoqualmie Point Park is another of our favorite parks. It offers a spectacular views of Snoqualmie Valley, Mount Si, the Cascade Mountain Range, and Mount Baker. The view there is always incredible, but Saturday it was even more so.

I couldn't resist taking a picture and grabbed James iPhone 5 to do it. The camera on the  iPhone 5 offers a choice to take a panoramic photo and that's what I did. Click on the pic to get the full view! It's about a a 220 degree view from the vista point at the park and that band of fluffy white at the base of the mountains and above the trees to the left is the clouds we drove through and above.

I hated to leave and go back to the gray but that's just what we did but now I have this gorgeous photo to remind me that it's always sunny somewhere and sometimes it's closer than you think! Corny, eh? :')

What am I talking about? Well...let me tell you!

So I've never been a great cook and never particularly creative when it comes to cooking. I love eating AND eating out, trying new restaurants, and watching cooking show competitions...Top Chef especially...but trying to cook new stuff has never been my forte.

As mentioned, I love cooking competitions, and in watching the latest incarnation of Top Chef, which was filmed in Seattle by the way, I kept seeing pan-seared scallops. They looked so delectable in the shows that I was actually inspired to try cooking them. The lovely golden brown pan-seared crust against the delicate white color of the jumbo sea scallops was just too much for my eyes and stomach to ignore!

I searched online and found a manageable (for me) recipe with a nice picture of how they were supposed to look after pan-searing. The recipe had a bonus ingredient also....something that would save me if the scallops didn't quite turn out right. Yep...it's BACON!

I went to seafood counter at the local grocery store, pretended I knew what I was doing and requested a dozen jumbo sea scallops. Did you know they can be quite pricey? I certainly didn't! For 1 1/2 lbs...about 12 scallops...it was $30...talk about sticker shock. No wonder they prepare them on those cooking shows and not in any old restaurant!

Well, long story short, I got all the ingredients, followed the recipe, and was rewarded with the most tender, divine tasting scallops ever. And the bacon made them even better, of course. lol

Below is the picture that was with the recipe (L) and the picture of what I made (R). OK...their pic looks a bit better but I'm proud to say....for a first attempt...they are pretty darn close!

One of my favorite things to do is take walks and hikes in the many county and state parks in the area. We moved from Sacramento, California in 2007 where I'd lived most of my life. If you've been to Sacramento, you know that it's flat as a pancake and very brown during the summer...so different from the always green, hilly, and mountainous Puget Sound area!

This time of year is especially different from my old stomping grounds. In Sacramento, winter is big storms with heavy rain, maybe an occasional drizzle, and glorious sunshine for days at a time and nary a snowflake in sight.

Last Saturday, we took a walk at the Iron Horse State Park. It's one of our fave parks with extensive trails and paved walkways as well as beautiful scenery all seasons of the year.
It's been pretty cold (highs in the 30's during the day) here lately despite some sunny days and that means fantastic winter tableaus. I love how the frost and residual moisture formed this prehistoric looking flower shaped ice crystal! Yep...that's all ice! Love those spikes!

I'm excited about the new year being here finally! Not that 2012 was a bad year by any means...in fact it was better than ever but when a new year rolls around, the delicious sense of a fresh start is just too exciting to ignore.

Just to warn you, this is my inaugural post so it's going to be fairly long!

There are so many things I would like to accomplish but I have learned to never make 'new years resolutions'! The word 'resolutions' sound so inflexible to me and we all know that most resolutions fall by the wayside some the flowers and beautiful weather of spring. Instead, I have a list of 'new years goals'.

So besides the normal self and home improvement goals which I won't go into here, my first goal is to keep up with this new blog! :') My goal is to post to this blog at least once a week even if it's just a pic and a few words.

As you may have noticed, that last year I changed my website to the present one. I'm happy with the look of it but I didn't get all that I wanted done since show season started. I also want to list more items for sale which means taking pictures. I'm not a perfectionist exactly but I do have my standards and I want to have pictures that accurately capture my designs and that takes time. :') It's a perfect project for the winter when there aren't many shows to participate in...unless I want to travel out of state...which I would love to do occasionally but it's a little more difficult now...more about that later in the post.

Above is an etching of my real world workspace. It was done using my camera phone and an app called appropriately enough...Etchings.  I don't dare put an actual picture of my workspace here because i don't want you to see how messy it is. :') Everything somehow looks better and more artistic in black and white!

Building up my inventory and working on new designs are also yearly goals. Speaking of new designs, what type of designs would you like to see? I'd love to hear from you! Feel free to leave a suggestion in the blog comments section.

I ordered a bunch of new tools to make jewelry easier for me to fabricate and to enable me to expand on some techniques I've wanted to use more of. I'll be posting pics here and on my Facebook page as I create new designs.

Ok...enough business talk! What else have I been doing? I was happy to finally see the King Tut exhibit before it returned to Egypt. It was held at the Pacific Science Center and we had to chance to go the 1st week of the year. To the left is a picture of one of my favorite pieces of the exhibit!

Although I don't use karat gold in my jewelry, I certainly still appreciate the workmanship, technique, and beauty of this collar made by ancient Egyptian goldsmiths. I really love the counterweight piece that helped keep the collar from falling too far forward and I think it was gorgeous enough to be it's own necklace!

I'd wanted to see King Tut's treasures since I found about them in elementary school so it was a dream come true! The hieroglyphs and variety of half-human half-animal gods were so interesting. The jewelry of course was of particular interest and although the pieces were much more ornate than my simpler designs I still found inspiration in the details of the jewelry and other art and will diligently try to work those inspirations into my current years work. Pictures to follow!

And now...introducing Phoebe! Many of you have met my husband James who is usually there at shows with me. You may have even had the privilege of hearing him talk about how he's always wanted an 'attack basset' hound. lol Since he's such a supportive and hard-working husband, I'm happy to say I made his dream come true! And yes...I'm also an awesome wife. lol

Anyways, Phoebe is not quite a year old and she's full of puppy energy. She's a real sweetie, even though she was supposed to be housebroken, we found out otherwise and have been dealing with that. For a while I was affectionately calling her Pee-be! She's getting along with my other two 10 year old dogs and our kitty although it hasn't been 'incident' free. :') All in all though, she's settling in beautifully with our little family.

I call this picture "Happy James and Vicious Attack Basset". lol Our pretty Foxie girl is in the background. She doesn't like change and is finally getting around to deigning to play with the new, noisy, quick-moving creature.

Here's Phoebe and our other dog Max in 'synchronized sleeping' position. Max has always been more puppy-like, and he and Phoebe became fast friends as you can tell!

I'd love to travel to shows outside the state but with 4 pets, the cost of boarding is just too much...especially since we have a special needs kitty...she has diabetes and requires insuiin shots twice a day. Whew! It would be a real adventure to travel with all 4 but our dogmobile isn't big enough for all the pets and all my show gear! Next project....a bigger vehicle! :')

Well, I think this is long enough so I'm signing off. I hope you enjoyed my rambling and I'd love any encouraging comments you'd like to leave!