Cherries, Bees and Hives...

I went down to Pikes Place Market today to grab some flowers for a teammate recovering from surgery and ran across some cherries.  Lots of cherries.  Washington is just as well known for cherries as it is for apples and serial killers.   I'm not terribly fond of cherries.  When I was a kid I would break out in hives whenever I ate anything cherry - or used cherry shampoo, etc.  I believe it honestly was the artificial red no. 5 or whatever the dye's number was that was banned in the 1980s.  But the damage was done and I stayed away from cherry - in general.  (I do have very few memories of my material grandmother - but one of them was her sitting at the table pitting cherries to make cherry pie.)  And at the Market today - there were tons of them.  I couldn't refuse and bought a small basket of them and a Monster cookie and headed back to work to eat my salad and tackle the rest of the day.  

My body, wanting to dump stress hormones in to my now-missing omentum, broke out into hives earlier this week - they  spread across my belly over where my omentum would be - which I thought it was funny, as I sat there eating my cherries.  (I like cherries alright.  I like blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, apricots, peaches, pineapple and mangoes better but they're not bad.)

Tonight, after gathering some more "stuff" from a co-worker to take to my team's garage sale this weekend, I zipped back to Ballard to join my friend Glitter (Danni) for a crafting class at Venue - a local store that has studios you can rent and sell all local artists' works.  We had signed up to learn how to "needle felt".  I had never heard of it but I loved the little felted animal and characters in the shop - and we couldn't pass up the opportunity to learn how to create these super cute creatures - like BEES!  The instructor was from across the Sound and explained our class very well.  She was really well known for these felt creatures and I LOVED IT.  It was fun and funny and very easy, in my opinion, to learn (though it will take a while to get good at.) I made a bee that looked like a little sushi roll and a ladybug that actually looked like it was suppose to.  I bought the artist's book and a kit to make bluebirds. at the end of the class.  Danni and I parted ways and I headed home -  completely relax, thrilled to have spent some fun times with Glitter and having learned a new craft that I think I'm going to really enjoy.  And I look forward to  a different application "hives" -  one for little felt-y bees.