The Cedar Center

Someone said 1908, another said 1917, was when this building was built, so it's almost one hundred years old.

 It's one lot back from the boulevard, and almost everything on the boulevard is being torn down and  replaced with something new. 
The Lancaster Cedar Center Performing Arts Academy is home to an art gallery and a writers workshop, as I've mentioned before. The lack of funding, and debts accrued by previous management are issues threatening this beautiful building, but every possible effort is being made to fight that. WOOT! 

                                                                                  I have posted videos on youtube of some talented artists at the thursday night Open Mic at the Cedar Center, view them here

Let's 'ave a Bevvy

Bottled drinks  have their cons, in fact, at least to me, more cons than pros. Diet sodas aren't all that tasty, or healthy. Juice blends and bottled teas have their lists of junk ingredients and too much sugar. Bottled teas that are actually any good are usually pricey...and I like real sugar, just a lot less.

That's why I brew my own iced tea, and with some creativity, it never gets boring. Eight tea bags to a 2 qt. pitcher with 1/4 cup real, old-fashioned sugar. At $2.00 to $3.25 at the most, per 20 tea bags, bottled or powdered stuff can't compete with that, esp. when you have so much more control over what goes in it.

My favorite is the French Vanilla flavored black tea Bigelow makes. (Some of you are going,' What About the Caffeine!')
I don't have a problem with natural caffeine so much (I am a coffee lover), but then I blend the Vanilla half-and-half with fruity herbal teas, raspberry being my favorite so far. I like the Peach that Bigelow makes too. I went on a white tea kick for a while too, which is very healthy, and has a mild, refreshing flavor without the grassiness of fully green tea. I don't much care for the citrus flavored white teas, as they make it taste like Fruit Loops. Fruit Loops are okay, I guess, I just don't want to drink them. Maybe the kids?

Upgrading

My beadwork area was a horribly cluttered dining room table until yesterday, with a lipped 'cart' on wheels that I fashioned to keep my beads faced and organized on. I had been waiting for the opportunity to buy some narrow desks or tables to make an L shaped studio. Well, yesterday there was this nice man cleaning his garage who not only sold me 2 tables for a mere $25, but trucked them to my house. Ta-dah!

I dream of shelves of some sort along the wall above the tables, and I will have to get creative with the wide table at the back, but it's a start. (Note the Baskin Robbins sample spoons, very useful =)
And then there's this, which I may or may not dismantle yet:

There are some awfully blurry pictures of this in one of my previous posts. I might just transfer the blue shelves to the wide wood tabletop? Hmm...

I'm Gonna Cry

 5/21 EDIT: This bulldozing of the Cedar Center is not verified, and the person who told me this should not have; this could happen, and I hope it wont, but it's only a rumor at this point.


In my town we have a very old and much loved building: The Lancaster Cedar Center for The Arts. It offers classes and workshops for writing, dancing, singing, acting, and all that is aesthetically and culturally precious. On Thursday nights there is an open mic, which is free and uncensored, open to everyone.
But the city is in debt, and on the Open Mic 2 year anniversary I found out that this beautiful artifact of a building is going to be bulldozed, to make way for something...more lucrative I guess? They are restructuring the entire boulevard- to compete with Palmdale I suppose. I wish there was something we could do to stop it, but I guess the people are no match when it comes to big business.
Video from open mic

 This is Nina serving her 'Sexy Cake' at the Open Mic anniversary. Sorry for the blur

Good Pics are a Science

Finally getting there! This little 6.0 megapixel is giving me pictures that I did not think were possible without a fancy schmancy Nikon or Canon. What can be done with a scanner is impressive for a scanner, or just surprising. There was too much color distortion and fuzziness for online selling, and it got a lot of much needed criticism in the Artfire forums. But thanks to a lot of helpful suggestions and advice I am now taking true-to-life pictures, after much frustration trying to figure out the settings on my camera with no manual. (There is a manual online that is generalized for several different Samsung models that do not have the same features). For anyone who takes pictures indoors with little sunlight, I strongly recommend an Ott light (natural, white light) and a white sheet, tent, or light box to trap and condense a lot of light into a small area for your photographs.
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