Burning Man 2008 - To go or not go

I've been going back and forth for sometime about whether I want to go to the Playa again this year.

Last year was my first trip to Burning Man and I had a pretty good time. I loved the art. It is amazing to me that people spend so much time, money and effort to carry these large (and I mean very large) art project out to the middle of the dessert and build them only to tear them down or worse burn them at the end of the week.



I really enjoyed meeting all the unique and fun people that I met throughout the week. The weather was hot but not too unbearable. The fire truck was so awesome. Yea we had a fire truck that shot fire instead of water. It was pretty cool and the New York folks that owned the truck were awesome.

Honestly we camped with a pretty cushy camp. We had really good meals every evening, snacks, food and drink available 24/7, our own camp porta potty, showers and nice comfy chill space to hang out in during the hottest hours of the days. For the first couple days we even had our own coffee bar until our espresso machine finally gave up the ghost. Yay lattes!

Richard and I had a really cool tent setup. We two identical square tents that we connected together with a fabric tube. The outer tent was our dressing and storage tent and the inner tent was our bedroom. The whole structure was covered with mesh shade structure. The whole setup was pretty nice and we even had fans in the tents to keep it cooler than normal and blow the hot air out.

From what I have been told 2007 was a great year to go for the first time. Many unique things happened in 2007. The man burned early, there was a lunar eclipse and an amazing rainbow over the playa after a rain storm.

Burning Man is a photographers dream and my best memories were of going out first thing in the morning while the sun was still low with Richard and visiting the art projects and taking photos.

Those were great times. Richard and I had some great bonding experiences on the playa.

But there were also some negative things that happened. There were some emotional things that I really don't want to spend too much time thinking about but I think it's fair to mention that I had a few emotional and even lonely moments.

The day we left, the transmission went out of our van one mile down the road from the entrance to Black Rock City. That was a traumatic thing in one case but it also proved to be a great bonding experience for Richard and I. We managed to get home to Seattle that night thanks to our dear friend Barry but Richard and I had to turn around and drive back to Black Rock City 2 days later to empty the van and arrange to have it towed to Reno for repair. So I guess in a way, I went to the Playa twice in one year. :-)

I definately know that I want to go back to Burning Man again someday. I just don't think I have the energy to do again so soon. The amount of thought and preperation that goes into this event is mind boggling. I can't believe that some people do this every year. I know a lot of people that live and breath burning may 365 days a year. I just can't be one of those people. Besides, I have a limited amount of time off each year and there are other things I want and need to do with my time off.

Maybe every other year would be good.

BTW did I happen to mention that on our return trip to the playa to take care of the van, we ran into Larry Harvey, the BM founder, at the cafe in Gerlach? Yea that was kind of cool.

Is someone trying to tell me something?

Last night I was tired pretty early so I went to bed around 9 and turned on Oprah. Maria Shriver was the guest and she was there to promote her new book, Just Who Will You Be.

She talked candidly about growing up in the "fairytale" family that she did, her relationship with her mother, her marriage and her career. She told how when Arnold ran for Governor of CA she had to leave her job and how she felt lost and uncertain for a long time after that. The book is about her finding herself again. Or as she put it, trying to figure out what she wants to be when grows up.

I found it refreshing to find that someone who has spent a lifetime in the spotlight and always appears to have it together and a perfect life struggles with the same issues that the rest of us do. I have been struggling with the same issue for some time. I feel lost. I need to learn to say no and I need to learn to stand up for myself and for what I want. I too often find myself putting myself. It's what a mother is supposed to do right? I have a tendency to let people tell me what I need to do and I have a hard time saying this is what I want and this is what I am going to do. I guess it comes from a fear of losing the people I love if I don't do and say exactly what it is they want me to. That's not ok.

I don't want anyone to think that I am unhappy. I'm not. I have a great husband that loves me, a beautiful smart daughter that I have a great relationship with. I have an awesome close family, even though the all live on the other side of the country and I don't see them that much. I have an amazing group of friends who are loving and supportive. I have a job that I like with people that I enjoy being around. But I still feel that something is missing. I often feel stuck. I don't know what I want to be or do when I grow up.

Bees Pleazzzzz

My father used to have many interesting hobbies. Every year he had the most amazing garden and we had the best fresh vegetables all summer long. My mother would spend long days canning beans, corn, tomatoes, etc. for the winter so we rarely had to buy vegetables from the grocery store.

When we moved to the country and had lots of property, he started a small orchard which was something he always dreamed of having. Now in addition to the fresh veggies, we had all the fresh peaches, apples and pears we could ever want. Again my mother would can peaches and homemade applesauce to store for the winter.

His most fascinating and “exotic” hobby was beekeeping. He kept anywhere from 2 – 6 active hives and had them located in our orchard and on my uncles farm. I spent many fall days helping to box and jar honey. For a long time after I left home I simply couldn’t stand the thought of eating honey. I was just so sick of it. Luckily I love it again and always have a container of honey in my house.

Recently Richard has taken an interest in keeping bees. This past weekend he went to a bee shop in Snohomish, WA and picked up a starter hive. He has the hive painted and set up in the back yard and today he goes to pick up the bees. It’s a very strange flashback for me and I’m not sure how I feel about it. If you want to read more about his adventures in beekeeping, check out his bee blog.

Unfortunately my father's health doesn't allow to keep any of his hobbies any longer but he is happy, I think, to see someone in the family take an interest in at least one of his hobbies. We are getting a large package soon from my father containing a lot of his unused bee equipment.

A healthy horse is a happy horse

As anyone who knows me knows, I love horses. I have my whole life. The last few years I have been interested in herbal supplements and remedies for horses. I have several books that I refer to often when we have a problem with Beauty. I had thought about a year ago that I would like to get into the business of packaging herbal remedies to sell locally to horse owners. That turned out to be rather daunting. It was difficult to find the herbs that I needed in bulk at prices that would make it worth doing.


The practice of herbal / holistic healing for animals and humans has been much more popular in other countries around the world than it has in the US and it has just recently started taking off here. The books I have were all written by Vets in the UK or New Zealand.

There is a company out of the UK called Hilton Herbs that does exactly what I wanted to do and their recipes are almost identical to the ones I wanted to make. I contacted them recently and made arrangements to become a distributer in the Seattle area. Currently there is only one place that I have found that sells them and the prices they have are unbelievably high. I can sell at a slight discount and still make money.

I don’t imagine for a second that this endeavor will make me rich by any means but I am hoping to make a little extra money each month with not a great deal of extra work. This is something I believe in and I have seen the effects of feeding herbal supplements on Beauty.

For now, I am going to try to keep it local and not have to ship items as that could get costly and time consuming.

In addition to Equine herbal supplements I will also have access to Canine supplements but I will mostly be focusing on Equines.

If you would like to learn more about Hilton Herbs here the link to the website.

Grabbing the bull by the horns or Living Life to the fullest

This may seem like a bit of rambling but I’ve been wondering about a lot of things lately.

1. Why do we wait until someone is gone to tell them how much we love and appreciate them?
2. Why do we become trapped by the negative in the world and forget to see the magnificent beauty that surrounds us every day?
3. Why do we put off doing the things that make us happy, “the things we’ve always wanted to do”?
· There isn’t enough money
· There isn’t enough time
· There isn’t anyone to do it with and I don’t want to do it alone
· I’m afraid to try
· I’m afraid I will look like a fool

I certainly don’t have answers to all of these yet but I am working on it.

When we are children we believe that the people we love will always be here and we’ll never have to be alone. We take for granted that if we have a “boo boo”, our mommy’s will kiss it and make it better or if we need help with our homework or we are having trouble with a friend our parents are there to give us help and advice. When we become adults and have our children of our own we become the “boo boo” kissers but we never really stop depending on our parents for help and support. When I cooked my first Thanksgiving dinner completely on my own, I wasn’t really on my own. I called my mom what must have been 25 times that day to ask advice and get her recipes. Whenever I have trouble with growing tomatoes or planting flowers, I call my dad for his advice.

My parents are aging and their health is slowly deteriorating. My father has been pretty ill for some time and is now undergoing dialysis 3 times a week and has a pace maker. That’s pretty serious stuff and a real eye opener. I have to come to grips with the realization that my parents aren’t always going to be here. It’s a fact.

My father has always been an inspiration to me. He is one of the most affectionate people I have ever known. He is always hugging and kissing people he knows when he runs into them on the streets, sometimes to my mother’s chagrin, and is always friendly and kind to everyone. He is very passionate about the things he enjoys: gardening, hunting, beekeeping and his orchard. He is deeply spiritual and peaceful and it shows in everything he does. He’s never been one to talk just for the sake of talking so you know that when he says something it is from his heart. I like to think I’ve inherited some of these traits.

Some acquaintances of ours had twin daughters in November. One of the twins was seriously ill from birth and spent her entire short life in Children’s Hospital. After 4 months of surgeries, infections and illness she passed away 2 weeks ago. Her parents kept a blog of the experience and I find myself reading the blog every day. It is very sad but at the same time uplifting and inspirational to think how this little person gave so much love and touched so many people in so short a time on earth. I couldn’t possibly do her story justice so if you would like to read more, here is her blog.

Last week I was at the barn visiting Beauty and hanging out with my “horsey” friends. It was about 7:30 and just after sunset. As I was standing in the pasture letting Beauty graze a little bit and watching the sky change from brilliant gold to red to pink and then finally to dark I was awe struck by the beauty. Later I asked one of my friends if she saw the amazing sky a little earlier and she replied that she had not. She said she didn’t have the “Photographers eye” that I have. I was flattered by her remark, mostly because she thinks of me as a photographer and that makes me happy, but I also think it would be very sad if only photographers could see the beauty in a late evening sky, a bee on a sunflower or any of the wonders that I marvel at on a daily basis. There is beauty in absolutely everything on this planet if we only look. That is why so many times I am compelled to take photographs of rusty chains, a drop of water dripping off of an old rusty train car or an old bottle stuck in mud. To me those things have as much beauty as a beautiful flower or a sunset.

I’ve been hearing from a lot of people lately that they are doing things they have always wanted to do. My niece is getting a Harley, Richard is starting to keep bees, friends are traveling to distant lands, and the list goes on and on. I’ve always been a firm believer in doing the things that make you happy. Don’t put them off. You may not have the opportunity tomorrow. As for myself, I’ve just recently discovered this. I am starting to do more of the things I’ve always wanted to do like photography and writing and will continue to do more and more. Next on my list is riding. Tori has been riding for 9 years and has her own horse. When she started taking an interest in horses and riding it was always my intention to ride with her. I wanted it to be something that we could do together but 9 years later I still haven’t started. The biggest reason for it is the expense. It’s an expensive endeavor and a long term commitment but it is something I have wanted since I was a little girl myself and I am going to make it happen. If I don’t do it soon, I may never have the chance again and why risk that. Tori will be going away to college in a few years and I want to be able to spend as much time as possible with her doing the things we enjoy doing together before she goes.