Korean Heritage House Lunchee!

Last Saturday, Rocketman and I headed out for a fundraising lunch at the Korean Heritage House. One of my most favorite places in the world. We ate in the main room where you can take classes on different Korean drums.

If you remember, when we lived in Korea, we got a special lesson using the janggu. It is not easy to play.

 Then it was time to eat. We could smell the barbecue as we walked from the car and we were hoping it was Korean barbecue - and it was. It was sooooo good and the kimchi was some of the best we have ever had and that includes kimchi in Korea.

This was my plate but you know I went back a second time and filled up my plate with more kimchi.  We left with big smiles on our faces, and tummies full of delicious food. I found out that the kimchi was homemade from a fellow member of the Korean Heritage House. I think I need to find her and become her best friend :)

Bojagi Curtains!!

I officially started my bojagi curtains June 1st after Rocketman had recovered from his surgeries and was back at work. It took FOREVER and tried my patience sorely but it was so worth it. I finished this week, the third week of October and I worked on them constantly. Handstitching is not for the faint of heart or impatient people like myself.

                                 But they are hanging in our bedroom and I love, love, love them!

Photographing them was another story.

This is what I came home from Korea with. I ran low on the light lavender but my bojagi teacher was happy to buy me some more and mailed it to me. Love her!

This is what my kitchen countertop looked like all summer and most of the fall. Rocketman never complained about the mess.

Louie even loved my bojagi. Korean crafts like bojagi continue to kick my impatient behind but I am continuing to learn patience especially when I look at my new curtains. Do you think my countertop is cleaned off? No way, now it is covered with hanji paper. Onward!

Four Days with the Grandkids

When I realized MEA was coming up, I thought it was the perfect time to have the grandkids over and to give Mama (who is pregnant with our third grandchild) and Daddy some time to their selves. It also coincided with the purchase of a new file cabinet and we knew the box would be a big hit.

I picked up the kids on Thursday and the fun began. We stopped at Pearl Vision to get Noah's glasses fixed (a lens was missing). We had an hour wait so we ate lunch at Noodles and Company, one of Noah's favorite places. With time still left to kill, we stopped by Toys R Us for a couple of toys for each of the kids. Then we picked up Noah's glasses and headed home.

             Ezra was a little afraid of the box at first. It was really, really long and very dark inside.

                 But he quickly overcame that fear and it was all about the box the entire weekend.

Rocketman took off Friday and watched Ez while Noah and I visited a paint-your-own ceramic shop. I chose a bowl and Noah chose a kitty.

He wanted to paint the cat a fluorescent orange. It was a lot of fun even when we found out we had to to do three coats of paint. I had taken ceramic classes back in the 80's and we only had to apply one coat so I'm not sure that was all about. I helped Noah with the coats because it did get boring.

Here is Noah's completed kitty. They said that it takes a week to be fired and ready to pick up and they would call when it is ready.

                                                 Yep, the box is a huge hit every single day.

I let Noah read for awhile each night before going to sleep. He told me that's it's his most favorite thing to do. His mama and his grandma feel the same way. One night I went in to find him already fast asleep.

                                            We also had some time AWAY from the box.

                                        Sometimes Ez just needed a cuddle with Grandpa.

                               Ez also loved to read the Sunday paper with Grandpa.

I think they found something they like. Mama came to pick them up Sunday afternoon. The four days truly flew by. Rocketman and I lost a little sleep during those days and there was almost nonstop action the entire time but we wouldn't have traded it for the world. The house is awfully quiet now.

Ikebana Class - October 22, 2013

 

This week's ikebana class was the slanting style. I had ordered an ikebana vase on Ebay and it came just in time. This is my finished arrangement.

      This is a close up of my placement of my greens. You put them in first, then the flowers follow.

                              This is a look at my arrangement before I added the flowers.

 

              There was a total of four of us in the class and these pictures are of my fellow students.



This is the last class for the year. My teacher will have more classes at the White Bear Center for the Arts and she also offers them in her home. I can't wait to continue. I've really enjoyed it.

I am almost done with my bojagi curtains and I hope to finish them this week. I am attaching the tabs for hanging right now. I also need to post about having our grandkids for four days. It was crazy and fun. I am coming down with a nasty cold and I'm so glad I didn't have it when the grandkids were here but it is definitely slowing me down a bit.

Ikebana Classes

My ikebana teacher is back teaching and I am back from Korea so I couldn't wait to start again. Of course, I had forgotten everything but it came back to me quickly thanks to her handout. She is teaching at the White Bear Center for the Arts. She is also teaching a second class next Tuesday and I'm taking that one also. She also teaches in her home now again.

I had brought these two ikebana pieces I had bought on Etsy because I didn't know what to do with them. She said she would help me after the class. So I used a very large clay bowl for class.

First is the branches. For this upright ikebana, you use four branches measured according to the length, width and height of your container.

                     This is what my kenzan looked like with the four branches in their correct places.

                   Next came three sets of flowers and voila, finished. I loved how it turned out.

                                 Here are the finished arrangements of my fellow students.

We all really enjoyed class. Since most did not bring a container nor a kenzan, they had to remove the branches and flowers which they could take home and put into a vase.

                  Back to those two pieces I brought, this is what my teacher did with the first one.

This is the second piece which she called "free-form" style. I had also brought a large container to take both arrangements home and they are now in my house. We all had a great time and I can't wait for next week.

Boys Over Flowers - U.S. Version

When Rocketman let me know about this article, I let out a loud "NOOOOOOOOO!" I know for a fact that Hollywood for some time has wanted to cash in on the popularity of Korean dramas. The reason I know this is that in 2008, I was contacted by a Hollywood screenwriter. I immediately googled him to see if he was truly who he said he was and was surprised to see how many big shows he had worked on.  I have since googled him and found out that he is now an executive producer on a major television show here is the U.S.

Hollywood want to do a U.S. version of the Korean drama "Full House." This drama was wildly popular in Korea and in many countries. My Korean girlfriends knew how much I loved it and they found out you could visit the house where the drama taped and took me to visit. It was one of my best memories of Korea and that blog post was how the screenwriter found me.

The screenwriter had watched the Korean version with subtitles and had a bunch of questions, mostly cultural. Things that didn't make sense to an American. I answered his questions and was at first excited that there would be an American version until I asked some questions of my own.

I asked him if they were going to cast Asians and preferable Korean at least for the two main characters. He told me that although he wanted to, Hollywood would not cast an Asian as a lead in a television production. Of course, I went ballistic and gave him my opinion which he wholeheartedly agreed with.

I suggested at least making the lead male role which was played by Rain (Bi) be Asian. I told him that the cultural differences would be very interesting to an American audience. I had heard that Rain was learning English at the time so I offered that maybe he could reprise his role. If not, Daniel Henney, was half-Korean and had already appeared in a wildly popular Korean drama, "My Name is Sam-Soon." He thanked me for the suggestions and again said that there was no way Hollywood would allow it. Remember, this was 5 years ago.

My last email told him to tell whoever is producing this to forget it. It would never work and would be a disaster. As far as I know, it was never made.

Here is my favorite song from Full House:

Back to the American version of "Boys Over Flowers." I'm just not sure how it will be received. I just wish U.S. television would get the guts and air the Korean version of one of these dramas with subtitles. I think it would be a huge hit but until then let's see how this goes.

Here are some of my favorite songs from "Boys Over Flowers"

2013 3M Annual Boutique

I have a special place in my heart for the 3M Boutique. It was the very first craft show I ever did and continued until I burned out of production work in the late 90's. In those days the show was held in the out buildings of the Washington County Fairgrounds. It was always the first Sunday of October which in Minnesota can be a crap shoot.  I did the show with my neighbor, Jan, who introduced me to polymer clay. Some years it was in the 30's and years when it was in the 70's.

It was a huge show with 5-6 buildings involved and 1000's of attendees. Jan moved after a few years which left Rocketman to help man the booth with me. There were times when we would have lines of people waiting to purchase my polymer clay miniatures. I have so many wonderful memories of those years.

Now the show is held in the Oakdale Prom Center and still is the first Sunday of October. This year I was able to go. The first thing I bought was this hand painted picture. I inherited my love of birds from my Grandmother and I was amazed at her talent and what she was charging. I paid $35 for this painting which came in 8 x 10 frame. The artist's name is Ruth Schultz and if you are interested in her work, drop me an email and I can give you her phone number. She doesn't have a website.

The next thing I bought was a this baby blanket because it was adorable and only $6.00. The crocheting around the edges was all done by hand. This is for the new baby that will be here in March.

They also had handouts with their craft show schedule.

 My bojagi curtains are all hand stitched together and now all I have to do is hand stitch all four sides.

This is a close up of the work I will be doing. This may take me most of the month of October. I also have six tabs to stitch so I can actually hang the curtains when I done. I'm also going to make some maedeup jamjari (dragonflies) to go onto each panel too.

It's What's For Dinner

 

This weekend is the big Half Price Book Clearance Event at the fairgrounds. Our daughter let us know it was going on and we met her at the grand stand where it is held. There are rows and rows and rows of books along with DVD's. Laura has our book obsession gene which she inherited from us so we were so excited.

Rocketman and I got there about 15 minutes before opening and waited in line. Laura showed up just as it was opening. This wasn't our first time so we knew what to expect. The happy surprise was they had shopping carts this year and I grabbed one thinking there was a chance (a good chance) we (mostly me) would be filling it up.

We had a blast and indeed filled the cart up with books. It was heaven, pure heaven. I also brought my Home Plus cloth bags from Korea that can hold a lot but I forgot that we would have to get everything to the car. Luckily, Rocketman decided to get the car while we were checking out so he was right outside with the car when we left the building. We drove Laura and Ez to their car and dropped off her books and off we were.

We were just a mile or two from Kim's Oriental (Korean) Market and I was running low on kimchi so it took little convincing to get Rocketman to drive there. It is hard seeing all the Korean food and made us both homesick for Korea.  This time they even had some kimbap so we bought that and also some ramyeon and that's what we had for dinner tonight. Delicious and so easy to make.

The really funny thing was the owner, a Korean ajumma, questioned the bag of Maxim. She was surprised that we bought that. I told her that it reminded us of Korea which it does.

This week I also picked up my Su-Mi picture that I had bought from my teacher. She ran a fundraiser to raise money to fund the pieces and framing she needed to do for an exhibition she is going to be in. I think it's a fantastic way to make money and I had always wanted a piece of her work. We just love the piece.

Here's a closer look. She moved to Iowa now so I can't take lessons from her but if I'm ever in her area of Iowa, I will certainly see if I could get some lessons. Meanwhile, I get to look at this everyday.