Great finds at the Buddhist Church Rummage Sale

I've been on the look out for some nice coffee cups for the ladies down at the Akiyama Wellness Center. Every Tuesday morning a group of ladies(Coffee Club)come over to the center after their early morning workout class. I started serving them coffee in fine china (I have a huge stash from my auction house finds) but now the group has gotten so big, I don't have enough matching cups. Yes, I know I don't have to use matching cups but this is old school stuff.
I walked around the church rummage sale and there were several sets of nice china but I didn't need the dinner plates or bowls. On top of that, none of the sets were bigger than eight place settings. Finally I found 10 cups and 12 saucers. Two cups were missing,so I'm going to try and find them at the auction houses. Guess whoever donated the cups kept the plates.

The other super great find was 30+ sushi serving trays.It had to have been donated by a restaurant. AWC doesn't have a whole lot of extra cash but we finally agreed on $30.00, which was all I had in petty cash. I plan to use the trays for the next Sake San Jose event in 2012. If things go as planned, I will also using the trays for the upcoming culinary night fundraisers.

San Jose Buddhist Church Rummage Sale

The San Jose Buddhist church rummage sale is today and if you have time you should stop on by.  The entire gym is full of stuff and priced super cheap.  I picked up this vintage (1950's) glass pitcher for  .75 cents!  I went to the sale to see if I could find anything for the Akiyama Wellness center. I will post again with the super great deal I got for the next Sake San Jose. 

Mr Purrcy my metro cat

Mr Purrcy is such a "metro" kinda of guy.  He loves to be groomed. It's been a long time since he got a good brushing. His pile of fur was almost as big as he is. Annie barked the whole time I was brushing Purrcy. She hates to be brushed and I guess she feels the need to defend Purrcy. He just ignored the noise and rolled around making sure I didn't miss any spots. 

From the Garden

Today is a domestic diva day. Been on the run since 5:00 am.  Little Miss Squeak has made it her business to wake up Annie who in turn makes it her business to wake me up. Went for a quick run with Annie then off to the airport to drop off some friends.   Got home at 6:30 am and started to washed the car which lead to Annie getting a bath. One of Annie's favorite things is to attack any source of water. Decided to have a late breakfast with the tomatoes that are now ready in my garden and the bacon I always have on hand. Not sure what type of tomatoes these are since a friend gave me several seedlings without any label.
Almost done with ironing and wash, then off to clean up my studio. I would vacuum but that will set  off Annie's auto alarm system and she will wake up everyone in a 10 mile radius.

No Tennis Ball Left Behind

I walk A LOT at home and for work. When I run Annie, I don't have her bring the tennis balls back to me that I throw. Early on I realized that if I did that, I would be standing in the same spot for an hour and not get any exercise. So I throw the ball and Annie chases it,picks it up and then lays down and waits for me to throw the second ball. When the grass at the park is tall I can't always see where the balls land. I have to give Annie the command to "find the other ball". This morning I must have had that lost ball look on my face because Annie started the search without being given the command. When she tracks down the ball she will put it next to the other one. Such a smart little puppy. :) 

What I love about my job

 Free physical therapy program for our seniors

One of the things that I love about my job is what we call "program development" and it's an on going process. When I first started the job one of the major goals was to get everyday of the week filled with programs for the seniors. Last week I reached that goal having full programs running Monday - Friday. The next goal is to starting filling in the evening time slots with programs for our local community. So tonight I will be doing what I call "field research". I would like to host a jazz night at the AWC serving just coffee and brownies along with jazz music. Bring in artists who play jazz on non traditional instruments, like the ukulele. Dolce Bella(my favorite chocolate spot) has a jazz and chocolate night on Saturday. I'm going to check it out and see if I can develop it something we can do down at the center.  It's a tough job but someone has to do it. :)

Perks of the job at the Akiyama Wellness Center

One of the many perks of working at the Akiyama Wellness Center is having the seniors bring in flowers from their gardens. I'm a big fan of fresh flowers and made sure one of the first things to have on hand were flowers vases. I saved some (OK a lot of empty sake bottles)from Sake San Jose. My pics from my cell phone don't really show the deep rich colors of the roses or how great they smell.

Lastest Project



Full Circle Farms

 It's been a busy last couple of weeks. Now that my center is booked solid Monday thur Friday (one major tasks on my to do list when I was hired) there isn't much down time.  My home computer also got the blue screen of death and had to go into the shop.  Got my computer back but my spell check is in French. I can't fix it from home and the computer guy wants me to bring everything back in.  Really, can't he just walk me through it on the phone?  I'm guessing there is a language issue.  Tough to get off of work in time to get it down to the shop when Borhan is there, but I'm happy to have my computer back.
One of the projects I'm working on right now is setting up a community garden at the center.  It's proving to be an uphill battle. I hope to team up with Full Circle Farms in Sunnyvale. There are many issues outside of our control since the property is still owned by the city. With all the budget cuts and staff layoffs, it hard to find anyone at the city who can help. Even if we raised the money to build the best senior garden in the country we may not be able to break ground.    

Prototype invitation in the works

Ginkgo leaves

I've been working on the invitation design for an upcoming donor appreciation event. It's a team effort with several people working on the project. A frog was picked be the theme for the card (has something to do with giving back or coming back in Japanese)and making one out of origami was requested. It took a few days to find a pattern easy enough to do(thank you Wen for finding pattern) but still look like a frog and not a cockroach.

prototype invitation

It's important to make the invitations look nice but not cost a lot since our big donors prefer the money they donate go to help support the senior services. I decided to use real ginkgo leaves(theme of our donor tree at the Akiyama Wellness Center)which I found out was not as easy for me to find. I do have some great friends and volunteers who found a ginkgo tree and dragged in several branches for me. I really like the green color but I know they won't stay that way. I will be spray painting them gold. The photo is the prototype I make when doing big jobs so everyone has some idea what it's going to look like. I also make a pencil sketch but most of the time it's all Greek showing it to a non card maker. The only thing on the prototype that won't change is the frog. The base card will be gold StarDreams, washi paper will be more ornate red (can't wait to go shopping for that) and the leaf will be gold unless I can figure out how to keep it dark green.  Once all the parts are ready, everything goes to a group of volunteers who will assemble everything.
If you would like to receive one of the these invitations all you have to do is make a really BIG donation to the Yu Ai Kai. :)

Day to Day Stuff

It's been a challenge working full time and also keeping my other two side business going.  It's really showing in the bottom line that I have not been paying enough attention to my vintage/antique booths or greeting card racks.  I do miss going to the auctions (bargain hunter withdraw) but I also enjoy my work down at the Senior Center.  Just not enough hours in the day. I'm pushing to get out of the office at a reasonable time and be home with Annie too.  I squeeze in my creative work when every I can but right now it's not so creative.  I have to go for volume since I don't have the luxury to spend hours designing one card.  For those of you who make cards you know what I mean. :)

Kimono Card - Michael Strong

It's hot and Annie really wants to go to the park and chase her tennis balls.  I know once we get there she will over heat and run for any shady spot she can find.
Working out in the studio waiting for it to cool down enough for our walk.  I spent days looking for my Michael Strong kimono die.  (Mike if you read this, remember I put the die in a CD case and filed it with your other stamps) and final found it buried under a stack of scrap paper.  The background paper is from Hanko (no I did not air brush) and I used a Cuttlebug embossing folding.  Makes a super fast card.

Miss Lisa the black widow spider



One of the down sides to working 40+ hours a week is that I don't spend as much time with Annie anymore. Not that we do a whole lot other than chase tennis balls, but she does miss not having me home. Last night I was tired and the tennis made a bad bounce up over the chain link fence at the school. I'm not a good fence climber so Annie was very unhappy to be able to see her tennis ball but not get it. She even went and got a stick to see if I could use that get her ball. No really she went and got the stick for me to throw since we didn't have a tennis ball anymore. 

Miss Lisa - Black Widow Spider

At work in the outside storage shed there is this SUPER BIG black widow spider. I mean steroid type big. Two volunteers who were moving bags of dirt (for my container gardening project)decided to name her "Miss Lisa". Really one volunteer thought it was funny to name her after me. I decided to keep Miss Lisa in place until the next time we have to clean out the shed. She's has volunteered to be door security (remember how to use volunteers post) and she will keep the shed insect free. I was trying to get a better photo of Miss Lisa's red hour glass belly which you can't miss when you open the shed door but I could only get so close her.    

What super good boys get.

I do have the best group of volunteers working down at the Akiyama Center. One of the skills a good volunteer coordinator has to have is to be able to find the passion or skill each volunteer has and how it can best be used for the organization.  Many times, groups will try and stick a volunteer in a position they need filled without really seeing what skills the person has. 
I'm lucky enough to have a volunteer who can and likes to handles numbers and spread sheets that would make most people go screaming into the hills. He also has a super sweet tooth, so I got him a box of the best handmade chocolates in town. This was just a little thank you for crunching the numbers I needed to get some projects passed by our board.   

Perks of the Job

One of the volunteers, Robin down at the Akiyama Wellness Center brings in lunch on her volunteer day. She really likes to cook, which is a good thing since most of the time I don't have time to sit down and eat. Robin brings in lunch, heats it up at noon and has it waiting for me.  Sadly it may be 3 hours before I can get to it but it's nice to know there's food in the house.  She made some super basil pesto a few weeks ago and I just got around to using it.  It was super good and I would have eaten all of it if I had more bread.   I'm not a big pasta eater, too many carbs and too hard to eat when running around.  I know bread isn't much better but I don't need a bowl to carry it around while I try to eat it.