I love glass – all types: mercury, milk, clear – and have it displayed throughout my home. Now I’ve discovered glassybaby, and their story has inspired me to expand my collection. In 1998, Lee Rhodes was battling cancer when she designed the first glassybaby. Lighting and displaying these colorful, resilient little works of art around her home brought Rhodes strength. Each one is unique and handmade by four glassblowers; the color choices are vast and can be soothing or vibrant. The company’s studio is located in the Seattle neighborhood of Madrona and, besides three Seattle-area locations, there is a store in New York’s West Village. From her difficult battle with cancer, Lee Rhodes found a light to help her through and has shared it with the world. Since 2003, glassybaby has donated more than $900,000 to charities. I love thinking about how something so simple can affect so many. It makes me happy to add a little bit of glassybaby to my world.
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We are finally enjoying perfectly wonderful spring weather out here in the Pacific Northwest – time to get started with my type of gardening. Unlike several of my friends who have green thumbs, mine, in fact, is kind of brown. I am not great with plants, and my friend Stacy has made it her business to drop by my house from time to time to take care of my outdoor container pots. I think she feels sorry for them, or me, or both. But there is one type of plant that I’ve developed a love affair with: succulents. These tiny guys seem to thrive in my house (the possibility that it is because they are desert plants that can survive with little or no attention has not escaped me).
Last week I stopped by Molbak’s – an amazing gardening store in nearby Woodinville, Washington – to get some new spring succulents. My dad has huge, beautiful jade plants that he has been growing in terracotta on his back porch for years and, when I was in college, he would occasionally clip off some branches for me to bring back to spruce up my apartment. Since then, I’ve always tried to keep at least one jade going strong in my house, along with other favorites like hens and chicks and stonecrop. And it’s fun to put together combos in pretty low bowls and see how long I can keep them alive. Again, the fact that they are drought-resistant relatives of cacti with their own built-in water storage system doesn’t hurt. See, even us brown-thumbed girls can enjoy gardening!
