Inchy by Inch - Blue

An appropriate prompt for the last inchie challenge.

Yep, you read that right. The last one.

Though I haven't always been consistent in my participation, I will miss this challenge. All of the challenges I really like seem to be closing up shop.

Ah well. Life goes on.

Here is my blue inchie. I took a little bit of liberty going 'outside' the inchie box with the crown. I hope you like it.

See other participants of this weeks challenge here.

Crafty Wonderland

Crafty Wonderland is a huge craft show and sale that includes over 200 local artists. And admission is free!

This event has been going on since 2006, but this was my first time visiting the show.

Hubby and I wandered through around mid-afternoon on Sunday, and to my surprise there was still a ton of stuff to look at. I've been to shows in the past where on the last day, the last hours, the vendors are nearly deplete of their wares. Not at this show.

Just an inkling of what was there.....I was on vendor overload, so only asked and got permission to photograph a few items with my trusty snap and shoot. If you go to the website you can see a vendor listing and visit each website (click on the link above).

Lovely encaustic paintings by Amy Stoner (who also teaches locally)....

Beautiful handmade floral flowers....

Adorable felt owls....

Fabulous prints....

Absolutely adorable mushrooms (discovered after wandering on that the camera was not on close up mode when I took my shots *rolleyes*), but I didn't want to go back and wear out my welcome after having taken several shots already.

And buttons galore! There were several vendors with buttons like these, and they were selling like hotcakes at $1 a piece. I bought several at various vendors myself!

It's actually a good thing that I don't have a larger display on my camera because now I see several more I would have purchased. 

Definitely a fun show and one I highly recommend.

A tornado hits Oregon....

 

This is the evening sky. After quite the active weather day.

A tornado touched down not too far from where I live (35 miles south). I was out and about, far in the opposite direction and didn't hear about it until nearly 2:30 (it happened at 11:40 this morning). Very scary.

The weather service used the Emergency Broadcast Alert to warn people (via radio and television), but it went mostly ignored because people thought it was just a test at first. All we ever have are tests. This was the real deal.

From what I've gathered listening to, and reading news reports, the temperature took a sudden sharp drop, the sky darkened, strong winds erupted, followed by large hailstones, and then the funnel cloud formed.

This is not a usual thing for us, although we've had five serious damaging tornadoes in the past five years. This one caused quite a bit of damage. More than we've ever had from previous tornadoes. It was finally categorized as an F2, which is low on the scale, but large for the PNW.

Later in the day I saw a photo of the funnel cloud on a local news station website. Hard to believe it was in Oregon!

Also hard to believe that with all the damage there were no serious injuries!

During the afternoon there was still a lot of unstable air over the valley, but thankfully no other activity.

I'm going to freak out every time I hear the wind start to blow now. lol

I'm glad I wasn't home at the time this all happened because our weather station has an alarm that goes off when there's a severe weather change. It probably did somersaults this morning. We've had it go off before and it's kind of freaky.

I hope I never see a funnel cloud up close and personal. Just being in the same state is too close for comfort for me.

I've never understood how people live in tornado alley, dealing with this on a regular basis. They're of hardier constitution than I am for sure.