{today's} Music

It's a big day around here!

First day of fall.

Seraphina Firenze's birthday.

Which she share's with the Boss, and who better to bring us this week's music?

Since I'll be in PA hitting up the big local fair, I have Bruce's song County Fair stuck in my head. Here's a live version (but unfortunately there's no video)::

And if you click on this link you can here the studio recording.

Happy Fall*

Indian Crafts

People in the know, know that it's been crazy hectic around here. All good crazy, but it hasn't left much time for crafting over the past month... although I'm hoping to turn that around very soon! In the meantime, I thought I'd share some goods from India.

First up : Shoes!! How awesome are these? And buying these was taking a step back in time, the shoe salesman had me sit on a bench and I wasn't supposed to get up or help in any way. They brought dozens of shoes to me, and they put them on my feet ~ anytime I bent to help he brushed me off and told me he would do it. Then, once I had my favorites picked out, I left the store so that the men could negotiate. And honestly, negotiating is not one of my strong traits, so I was more than happy to keep my nose out of that part of the process!

The white ones are my top choice at the moment for wedding shoes {if I don't go barefoot, that is!}. I think they'll be so comfortable for a day spent running around outside. Check out the bottoms on them:: And the brown ones are just for casual wearing... I think they would look great with some skinny cords this fall, what do you think? I also picked up a pair of very fancy, beaded shoes that could be in the running for the wedding ceremony, but they're hidden away in one of our bags, so I'll save that treat for later.

In the meantime, I found another very special piece of craftsmanship to bring home. Check out this quilt :: It's giant! We didn't have much choice as far as size went, but that was fine by me. This was by far our biggest purchase, but I had planned ahead and packed an empty duffel bag in my pack for just this reason. So getting everything back to the US was not a problem at all. I just had to keep my fingers crossed that the bags made it on each of the {many} planes!

Ok, soon enough we'll be back to crafting. Soon...

Wednesday Soundtrack

Love this song. Love his voice. Wish I were on a pony on a boat... Artist : Lyle Lovett
Song : If I had a Boat

And the end ~~

This is it! The last post of pictures from our adventure.

These are all from our time in Goa. Goa is an Indian state on the west coast of India, and from our understanding, it's a hopping place to be from November through February, and particularly during the holiday season.

But we have to say, we loved it in the off season. This next picture perfectly expresses the pace of life here {and shows the well-fed cat that lived at one of the beach-front restaurants... not a bad life!}:
The slower pace, lush, tropical forests, and quiet streets were a welcome relief to the hectic pace of the city. And while many businesses had "closed for monsoon" signs on their doors, there were enough places open to satisfy our needs.

The funny thing about Goa? It was once a Portuguese Colony, so we went from Muslim Hyderabad to Catholic Goa... not your typical India, but we loved it none the less. So our first adventure was a trip to Old Goa and its historic churches::




There were so many dogs throughout India, and by this point in our adventure, we made it a sport to photograph the sleeping dog. Here's one example: but in Goa, a scene like that soon became one like this: There were many moments when C and I would be doing our own thing and we'd be approached by someone who wanted to take their picture with us. This family took quite a few with their own camera, and then at the very end we realized we should take one of our own!

Throughout the whole trip, every morning I'd wake up and read the local paper. It was a lot of fun to see what they focused on both in the typical news section and in their version of the celebrity gossip section. But what really made me smile were their weather reports, they would refer to rain showers as "cloud bursts", and in Goa it literally felt like a cloud burst. The rain showers were short, but intense. Then the sun would come out, the streets would dry up, and everything was back to normal. All of the rain made for a really lush paradise. There were ferns and mosses growing on every surface. Check out the bench here:: And this scene that we found while wondering around empty streets on one of the many quite back rounds that we wondered down.

And finally, the cows, there were many many cows. Chincoteague has its horses, Goa has its cows::

Next up, some of the treasures we picked up along the way, and then, back to business as usual around here!

Good Tourists

We reserved one day in Hyderabad for doing all of the really touristy stuff. In this city that included museums, a palace, and a fort. As with all of the posts, you can click on any of the pictures to see them blown up!


~ Chowmahalla Palace ~



Remember those doors from my last post?









These friends followed us around throughout the Palace::

And while we were in the palace courtyard, the call to prayer rang out through the city. Please excuse the poor quality, it's going to take a bit more practice before I post more videos! It's a bit hard to hear, so you may have to turn up your volume.





~ Golconda Fort ~



General rule of fort building:: Every door this size : requires a door this size:

The fort was built with a special message system. Right inside the main doors, the ceiling looks like this: If you clap while standing under the ceiling, your claps will be heard way up on the top of this hill:: So it provided an easy way to send messages across the fort when new visitors were calling.



The fort had both a mosque:and a temple:

We were the last visitors to the fort this particular day, so as night fell we received a special {and scary} treat. Do you see that blur off to the right? Do you recognize it?Now, do you recognize it? The fort is home to hundreds {thousands?} of bats!!! Every evening we saw these large bats flying around the city, but having never seen bats that big and having no one to confirm that they really were bats, we weren't quite sure... until we visited the fort!

India :: the delightfully unexpected, silly, and beautiful

In India, you can....

a. get your Safari Suit cleaned from the comfort of your hotel!

b. study soft drink brand design over lunch

c. turn the corner in a grey alley and come upon an unexpected and lovingly maintained doorway.

d. dine guilt-free on drumsticks, because they are super foods after all!

e. find the perfect corn dish to go with your drumsticks...

f. heed the warning that too much spice is not nice {this was on the plane menu}!

g. expect to come upon a menagerie of beach traffic including :: a herd of cattle, a motorcycle, Indian women selling goods, and a Calder!

h. love every minute of it.

**oops, my lettering was off when I first published - who's still recovering from the jet lag?!