Colors sparkle and change, dancing in the light...
A beautiful dichroic glass pendant was waiting for me when I picked up my mail tonight, created by Julia Gardner of ínarú. I've always been fascinated by dichroic glass, by the colors changing as the light strikes the glass from different angless. The slightly asymmetric shape of the pendant adds to the appeal.
If you'd like to see more of Julia's creations, jump to her site, ínarú.
Thanks Julia!
It's past time... I've been relying on you to look at my blog to see if any new posts had appeared. I've been meaning to add a feed, and I did that over the weekend. I didn't announce it then because I wanted to sign up for it myself and make sure that it was working. And yes, it is working.
If you'd like to be informed of additions, click the feed button on my blog. You'll have a choice of subsribing via a feed, or having my blog updates delivered to you by email. I've included a feed button in this post for anyone who is not familiar with them, and a feed button can always be found in the blog sidebar as well.
Saturday, water falling from the sky, chilly, still a day for walking protected by an umbrella, listening, watching rain drops...
Do you ever wonder why companies pull products and replace them with new products that bear different names and (maybe) slightly different ingredients?
Somewhere, sometime, I tried Luna Tea Cakes, a product made by Clif Bar. It was a good quick snack, something to grab after work before I head out walking or riding, something to fill that gap between lunch and dinner that supports a reasonable amount of activity. Sometimes I grab a piece of fruit, sometimes an energy bar (of sorts). Over the past few months, the product just disappeared from store shelves. I did a search for it, and up popped a page on Clif's web site. Hmmm... it's still there. Or is it? When I popped over to the product page there was no trace of tea cakes. But look! There's now something called Luna Cookie. The packaging looks suspiciously like that of the missing Luna Tea Cakes.
I kept an eye out for the product. The retail stores where I usually purchase Clif products showed no signs of Luna Cookies. The thing is, the Luna Tea Cakes and now the Luna Cookies were a (relatively) small snack from a calorie standpoint at 130 to 140 calories, a nice energy boost, just right for me. I'm stubborn. I kept looking, and looking, and then I turned to the web. I found Luna Cookies at drugstore.com for a very reasonable price, so I took a gamble and bought two boxes, bearing the same names of flavors that I liked in the now missing tea cakes - Berry Pomegranate, and Mint Chocolate.
It turns out that from a taste standpoint and a looks standpoint - they could be the same product. I looked at the ingredients of the old and the new, and the lists are very similar. Not identical, similar. Taste? Seems the same to me.
I always wonder, what drives a product change like this? The old product contained green tea from The Republic of Tea; the new one does not. Was this a falling out between companies? An attempt to sell to a slightly different audience? Something else entirely? I suppose it really doesn't matter; I'm just glad to have this snack back.
Wind... it blew gray clouds in this morning, and then it cleared the sky, leaving blue decorated in white. Wind, gusting, slowing me down, speeding me up, wind...
This morning's chill supported a brisk walk. This afternoon? A little warmer, time for a wander on two wheels...
The forecast for today says it will be mostly sunny, and the early morning sky supported the forecast. Just after sunrise, I saw the magic of blue sky behind the patterns of clouds. But now? The gray has returned.
Here's the sight that greeted me earlier this morning.
Rain, rain, more rain...
It was a very gray, very wet day, yet I still felt a pull to walk. I headed out late in the day in an absolute downpour. In spite of the almost 50 degree temperature I wore warm layers, and I wore the (walking) boots that kept my feet happy all winter. Those boots kept my feet dry, even though I was forced to walk through what seemed like lakes on the sidewalks and along the side of the road.
Quickly walking, shielded by a bright umbrella, listening, watching... There were loud rolls of thunder, bright lightening flashes. And oh! I'm so glad I went walking in the rain.
