Osiyo~

So as I said a while back, I’m on hiatus from writing. I needed a break to focus on family and personal lives for a bit. That doesn’t mean I can stop thinking about writing and my characters, who sit surprisingly quiet and patient as I take this needed break. 😆

As some have seen in a couple of recent posts, I dragged my other favorite pastime back out after nearly ten years. Jewelry. I’ve taken that one to a new level this time around though, adding polymer clay to my creations.

Jewelry IS fun!

As with all creative outlet ideas, some things work, some don’t. This yellow and purple piece started out as a necklace pendant, now…well, I’m not sure what it is other than interesting since it took on a life of its own. 😆 What does it look like to you?

But then, this army green pendant turned out perfect and the dusting of pearl glimmer powder really lights it up and shows off the subtle texture I added to the flattened center.  It’s really more even and centered than this picture makes it seem. I’ll make something simple with this so as not to detract from the laid back focal.

I returned to my beads for this next project, and this has to be one of my favorites to date. I don’t know who made the glass rocks, but they are beautiful (unlike this closeup photo!) and so earthy that I fell in love and had to make earrings to match. I call this set Red Dirt Craze.

I have more items but these are a few I made most recently. I’ll be selling “Lisa’s Pieces” once I have a nice base stock pile, but for now I do take special orders and I will try, and have made, jewelry items to match with some (romance) books for authors and promotion as well. I’ll reveal some of these at a later date. It’s such a relaxing craft, much like writing a new book can be, before the editing phase, which all writers know is NOT relaxing as we yank out hanks of our hair! LOL

But, as with writing, we also need to get in some physical activity and I was introduced to a great one yesterday. My son in-law discovered Frisbee Golf this summer. In fact, we had a big tournament held in our little town here back in April that sil played in as his first. Wow! My sil was practicing a couple of weeks ago and ran into the world’s champion disc golfer (his actual title!) and autographed one of sil’s pro discs with that guy’s name on it. He saves that trophy on a shelf in his office now. LOL But I digress. So my daughter has also gotten involved in this air-form of golf and I get to watch my little Kia a lot more while her parents play. Happy gramma days there!

Frisbee: it’s not just for kids anymore

Well, yesterday was one of those days I never want to talk about, much less repeat…EVER! My darling daughter took pity on me and invited me to get out for dinner at her house. She made roast, one of my favorite dishes, so I couldn’t say no if I’d wanted to. I brought leftovers home and had it for lunch today. 🙂 We were just finishing dinner when her husband called her into his office and when she returned she said Kris wanted to know if I would like to go play Frisbee. Why sure. I’d played with Fribsees all the time as a kid. Who hasn’t?

I actually couldn’t understand the big deal with the tournaments and a kids game that attracted thousands of adults. After all, you throw a disc. Period. Right?

Wrong!

We went to a “9-hole” course not far from home (they live just five minutes from me so the course is close to us both) for a short game because our town’s course is 18-holes and very long. Kris said it generally takes 2-3 hours to complete that one, and we didn’t have that much time to play since it was already after six. First thing my daughter handed me one of her discs and Kris began telling me to hold it like this, do this with your fingers here (the bottom), then press down with your thumb like this to bend the disc… Wait. Bend the hard plastic disc? With my little, weakling hands, with my thumb and wimpy fingers? I laughed. Riiiiiight.

I was after Stephanie and Kia (remember she’s five years old. lol). So I stood on the approximately four by eight foot cement Tee pad surrounded by pretty green grass and dubiously eyed a steel basket draped with chains and cemented into the ground. It looked like it was at least 100 feet away. How in hell was I supposed to throw my Frisbee that far? Into that little basket?

Surprisingly, it wasn’t as difficult as I knew it would be to grip and bend my loaner disc, aaaaaand throw! OMGosh. It went all of ten feet. Pathetic! My second throw wasn’t any better as my disc smacked a pole on the black top, then rolled half way across the parking lot! In the opposite direction of that little basket. Ugh I don’t remember tossing a Frisbee as such UNrelaxing WORK! Well, I was in it for the exercise, right?

We walked over to my disc, remember the parking lot? The rules are that whomever’s disc lands the farthest from the basket goes first on each throw (unless you throw past the basket I think). Oh- and I wasn’t expected to make a basket in one throw! Like golf, that would be a hole in one (throw or swing). Cool, yes, but rare. I think it took me at least four throws to make my first hole. LOL And so our game went; me going first at every round and last in every basket .

This image to the left is the course we played. You’ll see where #1 begins (at the top of the picture in white, we didn’t use the pro tee in red)) and the basket at the fuchsia dot, in relation to the parking lot. The green dot on the gray in the image (parking lot area) is my disc on my second throw. There was probably 30 feet of grass between the black top and the basket and I missed it by a long shot. LOL

On the second hole a man I’ll call “Roger” caught up to us and we offered to let him “play through” but he declined and said he’d just join us if we didn’t mind. Hey, what’s one more? I’m sure Roger could use a good laugh and I was the one to give it to him with my less than stellar form! Do you know, there’s a certain way to hold the discs for different effects? Three that I used yesterday.

Alternative throws: one of which you hold the disc sort of like a knife thrower tossing at a wall of balloons (or a brave soul). I used this to get over the shrubs I landed in the middle of  on the second hole and couldn’t throw around.

Fore hand: Gripped between middle and forefingers and the thumb and thrown from the outside position, arm tucked against your side and then extended. I used this as it gave me the most force and control in my throws.

Back hand: How we all throw a Frisbee, crossing our chest and coming around as we throw…that’s the one that got me into that parking lot. 😆

Unlike those for regular golf, disc courses are cluttered with trees we have to play around and between and I did pretty well avoiding them. To all our amazement, I was good at using my left hand–I’m right-handed–to get around trees and into clearings. Mainly because I can’t aim or throw worth a damn, I fear! Although, on #4 I did land in a batch of poison ivy or oak because that park is chock full of the stuff! LOL After about an hour, lots of laughs and water to rehydrate, and the offer of a little “herbal” pain relief for dd’s headache coming on near the end of the course (which she declined lol), we finished our game. I humiliated myself, laughed at me, enjoyed family and had a blast and got good exercise doing it. I can’t wait to play again! I’m told by Kris that after a few rounds I’ll get better. I’m not so sure about that because, seriously, I was horrible! But I’m up for the challenge. I think I’ll try to convince Mitch to play too. 😛 Miraculously, and best of all, I didn’t hurt afterward with my arthritis. I actually felt invigorated. 🙂

I’ll let you know if I play again, maybe get some pictures for whatever reason and a few laughs. LOL Until then, I’ll make jewelry and host bloggers and live. 🙂

Dodadagohvi~