What you see pictured is my new classroom. It’s not much but it’s MINE – all MINE! Yes, folks. Tomorrow I start my new career as a high school photography, yearbook and “crafts” teacher. (Sorry – no pictures of the “crafts” room yet but trust me, it’s cool. WAY cool). I’m so excited. I can’t [...]

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Being at the Oakland Art Murmur last night reminded me of a photo I took last year, of “Bean” and also of an online Photoshop tutorial I recently came across. If you’re like me and you can’t afford a really long or a really fast lens, you can “fake” selective focus or shallow depth of [...]

Kind of odd this morning that I happened to be driving down Valley View when I spotted hundreds of goats on the hill next to the road. Well it *looked* like hundreds but was probably less than a hundred all munching peacefully on the dried grass. I guesstimate that there must have been at least [...]

Summer’s not complete for me unless it includes berry picking – that’s how much of a summer ritual it’s become. I was overjoyed when my friends, Paul and Marie, agreed to accompany me to the coast south of San Francisco for some olallieberry picking at Phipps Farm and Country Store. I got enough berries for [...]

There’s been no lag time between socks these days and progress on my most recent pair has been swift. A friend recently reminded me about Knitty.com and it was there that I found a sock pattern worthy of the super soft, yummy yellow Malabrigo sock I purchased at K2Tog a few months ago. BTW: K2Tog [...]

I’m taking off for the friendly skies tonight, at midnight, and I’ll be gone for a week. I will try to post from the road, can’t promise, but you can be sure I’ll be knitting where ever I am. addthis_url = ‘http%3A%2F%2Fwww.heavydutydesign.com%2Falicethelma%2F2010%2F05%2Fleaving-on-a-jet-plane%2F’; addthis_title = ‘Leaving+on+a+jet+plane.’; addthis_pub = ”;

I had an enjoyable hike with friends last Sunday at the Cataract Trail in Marin County on the Mt. Tam Watershed. Pictured above is my new friend, Aminta, still smiling during the tortuously steep section near the beginning. It’s surprising how remote this area felt being so close to San Francisco. This trail is known [...]

The hills near my home are so beautiful and green right now. I love driving and biking the country roads. But why do people do this? addthis_url = ‘http%3A%2F%2Fwww.heavydutydesign.com%2Falicethelma%2F2010%2F03%2Fthis-makes-me-so-mad%2F’; addthis_title = ‘This+makes+me+so+mad.’; addthis_pub = ”;

I spent an amazing 48 hours in Ashland and Southern Oregon last weekend and I’m only now getting around to blogging about it. I was felled by a stomach bug the day before last and I’m still not sure if it was the flu or food poisoning but that’s no excuse! Here, now, I’ll tell [...]