my corner of the planet Archives - Page 6 of 12

Doggies & A Waterfall

November 6, 2014 -

This time of year is my favorite time in Costa Rica. It’s the end of the rainy season. Everything is green and lush, we have lots of sunny days, but still have some rainy afternoons and nights. It’s the best of both worlds!! Once the rain stops completely, everything gets dry and brown and after about 5 or 6 months of just heat, I’m always ready for the rain to start up again.

But what I miss the most once the rain totally stops are the little bits of wilderness (present only during the rainy season) that I get to implement into my daily routine. For example, I have 5 dogs and we usually go for a walk every morning before I head to work. About 5 minutes from my place, there is a wooded area and a small ravine with a little waterfall below. All of my dogs l-o-v-e the water and so when we get to the waterfall, they scramble down the ravine and each have their chosen water game.

Merlin, the oldest doggie we have, loves to lap at the water coming down and also try to find rocks we throw from above. Manchita, the baby of the family, she likes to be the back-up catcher for Merlin, in case he misses any of the rocks. Carmen and Lola, they like to sniff everything around the water and try to see if there are any small fish they can catch. Then there’s the timid girl, Maya, who supervises from above the waterfall.

Once the rain stops, within a few weeks the waterfall dries up. It takes the dogs a few weeks to figure out that the waterfall is gone, and they always seems so confused. Where’d the water go?! But lucky for us, the rain always returns and the waterfall always does too.

Painting Day

October 10, 2014 -

Today was shop painting day. Finally getting to it made me realize how badly I’ve wanted a change. I spend 6 days a week, 8-9 hours a day in my space and for the past 6+ years I’ve had some shade of blue on the walls. Don’t get me wrong, I adore the sea blue/green, but I didn’t realize how tired I was of looking at it until it slowly faded under new crisp white paint. I don’t plan on keeping them stark white, there’s a master plan to incorporate color and pattern. I’ve been sketching different ideas. I’m excited to get to it.

I didn’t thing that blue was all that dark, but it took 3 coats to cover it. I started around 7:30 a.m. and by 1:00 I was still only about half done. Thankfully my awesome brother-in-law, Olman arrived and helped me knock out the rest of it — ceilings and all. Good thing he did the ceilings because I am hands-down the meeessiest painter you’ve ever met. Me painting ceilings white is a guarantee that I would have left for the day white from head to toe!

He even started on the floor. Yay. By 5:30 p.m. we decided to wrap it up for the day. All the painting was done, the floor prep was started, and tomorrow is another day.

Shop Renovation

October 10, 2014 -

I’ve been wanting to do some remodeling in the shop for a few years. For one reason or the other, I just haven’t done it. At the end of every high season I always think about it, but it just never comes to fruition.

This year, I’ve really been putting some thought into it and decided that THIS is the year that it’s gunna happen! I’ve had cement floors since day one and let’s just say, they’ve seen better days!! I haven’t repainted in about 3 years other than a few touch-ups here and there. I’ve been unhappy with my workbench situation for a while and definitely wanted to do something about that set-up. Since October is pretty much a ghost town here in Tamarindo, I decided this was the time to do it.

My clearance sale ended on Tuesday, I finished up the last of my orders and got them in the mail, so the plan was today was day one where I’d start packing up the whole shop, strip and prep the walls and start repainting. I’ve been toying with different color combos. I’m a sucker for my favorite color – a Caribbean sea blue/green. But I’ve had the color for a really long time. Considering how much time I spend in the shop, I’ve been thinking maybe a change could be nice. Here’s how it currently looks.

I’m installing terracota tile floors, which will be awesome. Considering how dusty it gets here in the dry season, tile floors will be so much easier to keep clean than porous cement!! Plus, I love the color of the tiles and I think they’ll bring a lot of life to the shop.

So, all excited to start today, I arrived at the shop to find it flooded over the ankle-deep. Ugh!!

It absolutely POURED almost non-stop for 11 hours. It was probably one of the heaviest rains I’ve experienced since living here. So, anyhow, I had to clean up the mess before I could get into the packing, etc.

By the end of the day, I had the walls stripped, the shop packed up and I’m ready to start the painting tomorrow.

My brother-in-law is doing the flooring for me and I was “instructed” that he wants to start ripping up the old cement at noon. Looks like I better get to bed soon since I’ll need to be arriving to do the painting e-a-r-l-y!!

Look Book Beach Photo Shoot

September 9, 2014 - Leave a Comment

After shooting the pix for my last look book I decided I really wanted to do some photos on the beach because …. hellloooo …. I do live in one of the most beautiful places ever! Once again, I hit up Hollie and Emily to lend their lovely selves to me. I went into production mode — wanting to do the pix with the etched stuff I’ve been focusing on lately. After a little over a month, photo day rolled around.

It’s been a really dry “rainy season” here — but about 2 weeks ago, Mother Nature decided to finally start being a bit normal and bless us with Costa Rica’s tropical afternoon storms — which should have started in May. Hey, better late than never! This means gorgeous, hot, sunny days up until about 2 p.m. when dark, rumbling clouds roar through dumping major amounts of water and shaking the ground with thunder.

So of course as we started to get ready, one of these huge storms appeared on the horizon. It looked like midnight moving in and I started to seriously doubt if a sunset session was going to be possible. That would have sucked because my southern belle Hollie was scheduled to leave the next day and not be able to return until after the New Year. Blah.

The sky opened up and the ground shook — setting off car alarms.