Lucy's Buzz

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

What’s a Girl to Do?

I knew when I came back to the US from Sri Lanka that I wouldn’t have a job waiting. My photo partner in Sri Lanka wasn’t coming with me, so I had to find a different way to make an income with my photography, writing and design skills.

Since I moved to a very rural area, where the internet is slower than in Sri Lanka, and without a car, my chance of finding a job using my skills is very limited.

Until…

My daughter brought up a truck load of my goods; goods that I haven’t seen since I migrated to Sri Lanka in 2002. My little beauties; perfume bottle collection, blown glass paperweight collection, antique mirrors, a ‘signed in pencil’ lithograph by Gordon Grant that I had been carting around since 1967, which my parents had had for decades before that. Beauties that I can sell online.

Thanks to my daughter, I now have a job; researching the collections and putting them online for sale. Oh, and photographing them first (using my photography) and writing about their provenance (using my writing) and using my sales abilities (that’s in my DNA).

My friends knew I would come up with something, even when I couldn’t see the forest for the tress, or is it the trees for the forest?

Watch this space for the ‘for sale’ announcement!!

I put up a new FaceBook page as soon as I landed in California. It’s https://www.facebook.com/Pets-People-Portraits-by-Lucy-Llewellyn-Byard-1596010617391039/?fref=ts

If you want a portrait of your pet, yourself, or your family, please email me at: llbyard@me.com.

Check out our Sri Lankan wedding photography and videography, travel photography, portrait photography, female photographers, commercial photography on our FaceBook page: https://www.facebook.com/ShadeTreeProductions/

Our website at: http://www.shadetreeSL.com

Tuesday, September 13, 2016

A Poem by ME! - Oh, Go Ahead and Read It!

Some of you have asked me to publish my poetry online.
Here is one from Rattle Magazine.

--The poem was up for one day. Here is the permanent link
http://www.rattle.com/the-whistle-blew-at-the-usual-time-by-lucy-llewellyn-byard/

Please click and read. And share!
Cheers,
Lucy

Monday, September 12, 2016

What You Store Will Come Back to Bite You!

Two weeks ago, my son-in-law delivered a truck load of my things that had been stored at his and my daughter’s house while I was in Sri Lanka for 14 years. Oh yippee.

My daughter warned me that there were 28 boxes. What she didn’t warn me about is that in those boxes were memorabilia from my childhood onward. In the first box I opened I found my ponytail that I had chopped off in 6th grade. Back when my hair was dark brown with red highlights. There were small notes that my stepfather had written to my brother Mark and me when we were just 4 and 6 years old. Letters from my father that made me sad for three days. A letter from my mother writing about Mark several decades after he died. I couldn’t talk after reading that one. There were copies of wills of my dead relatives. Letters from old beaus, ex-husbands, my granddaughter at the age of 6 and my grandson at the age of 5. And ashes of my dogs…and my mother…and my mother's aged cousin that I took care of for 13 years. My mother told me (before she turned to ash) that I should put all the ashes into my garden and call it ‘The Family Garden.’ But I didn’t. I wasn't ready. Besides I sold my house, with the garden. Couldn’t leave the family behind.

This room used to be empty!

Wallet-sized photos of high school classmates that I had lugged around for 50 years!

I actually sent them to this year's reunion and reunion-goers pinned the 50yo photo on to themselves so people could remember who they were/are.

I can't believe I still have this. I won first place at the

4th of July races when I was 5yo. I was the only kid in the race -

I was the only kid who could swim the width of the pool!

Who still has these?

Wedding videos? Poetry readings?

A small version of the mess each box made!

Two boxes were full of old income tax returns. Stuff to shred. Lots of stuff to shred. I put the shreddable into the super clean, empty garage. Oh yippee.

Several boxes were full of framed photos - some dating back 150+ years.

Each time I finished a box, I had to go lie down and take a nap. The stress of all the emotions was like the time I tried to clear my mother’s things from my garage in Whittier California. She had died 5 days before my birthday and I found her birthday present to me among her things. Crying, I closed up the garage and eventually cleared it two years later.

No wonder people never tackle the things we store in closets, attics and garages. No wonder my daughter sent my stuff with my son-in-law. I’ve sorted all but eight of the boxes and had to buy a shedder for the taxes and other items with my data on them. I’ll continue until I’ve culled out all the unnecessaries and photos I don’t remember taking. I’ve thrown out probably 1,000+ photos. The ‘good’ stuff will go into the second bedroom’s closet. And guess what? My daughter will eventually get them back when I croak! And then she can add my ashes to the bunch!

This is the best I could do. It's down to 10 (so far).

I put up a new FaceBook page as soon as I landed in California. It’s https://www.facebook.com/Pets-People-Portraits-by-Lucy-Llewellyn-Byard-1596010617391039/?fref=ts

If you want a portrait of your pet, yourself, or your family, please email me at: llbyard@me.com.

Our website at: http://www.shadetreeSL.com

Friday, September 9, 2016

Trash Talk!

Upon coming to California, I lived briefly in San Francisco at a friend’s house. Shortly after that Toby (you all know Toby) and I moved to Northern California, to a friend’s house that had been vacant for two years. In the four months that Toby and I have been here, I’ve cleaned up the front and back yards, dragged a gigantic pile of junk to the driveway and tried every which way to get it hauled to the dump. Three people promised to haul it. No one showed up. The junk sat in the driveway for 3 weeks until I found someone to do a dump run. I was so relieved, even though he gouged me on the hauling price.

The second bedroom in my ‘new’ house was crowded with three mattresses, which (with permission) I gave to a neighbor. Under the mattresses I found a darling wood-framed futon. Perfect! Bring on the visitors!

My first visitor, Penny, a friend of many decades came to visit for three days. During that time we checked out the garage. It was stacked high with MORE junk. Dust. Carpet samples, construction goods and on and on. Penny owns three resale shops in Minnesota and knows what thrift stores around here would take or reject. She made it all so easy. We piled her rental car full of things for the local thrift shop and I managed to salvage a few things for my kitchen; an old blender, glass pie plates, wonderful mixing bowls, and a garden claw rake. The rest was bound for the dump!

I also found a neighbor who would do a dump run for a reasonable price.

After two trailers full, the garage was miraculously empty! Okay, so there are some paint cans, but that’s about all. When I sent Penny the photos of the empty garage, she about crapped her pants!

How have you dealt with a similar situation? Send me your comments - I love them!

I put up a new FaceBook page as soon as I landed in California. It’s https://www.facebook.com/Pets-People-Portraits-by-Lucy-Llewellyn-Byard-1596010617391039/?fref=ts

If you want a portrait of your pet, yourself, or your family, please email me at: llbyard@me.com.

Our website at: http://www.shadetreeSL.com

Friday, August 26, 2016

The Fresh New Look!

Lake County

I thought I should create a new blog since I’m now living in California instead of Sri Lanka. It was a struggle to think of a new name - the list started out simply enough and then got downright silly - Lucy’s Letters, Lucy’s Lake and Latte, What Next, Lucy in the Sky, Nap Time!

Choosing the name for a new blog made me want to STOP!

The name drove me crazy until one of my faithful followers wrote to me, “The reason the blog helped the wedding business was it was interesting. Not all your blogs were wedding related...you wrote about a lot of things and it helped draw attention to the wedding business...directly and indirectly. I think it would still work that way. And you could still write about weddings or about your life, alternating.”

That felt right. So I chucked the new blog and gave Lucy’s Buzz a fresh new look. After all, that was the fun part of making a new blog - designing it. It took me two days and a major headache to get it how I wanted. The fun had quickly turned mean on me - too many variables! Font type, size, background colors, how to let people make comments, a new photo for my profile updating my google account. The list went on. And on. And on.

I will still write about the weddings that Lipton Jayawickrama, my partner-in-crime, is doing and I’ll write about living in the land of drought and sunshine - the Great California!

Clear Lake, California

Love getting your comments!

I put up a new FaceBook page as soon as I landed in California. It’s https://www.facebook.com/Pets-People-Portraits-by-Lucy-Llewellyn-Byard-1596010617391039/?fref=ts Not much has been done to it, but look at it and like it. It will transform along with me transforming into this next chapter of my life.

Continue to check out our Sri Lankan wedding photography and videography, travel photography, portrait photography, female photographers, commercial photography on our FaceBook page: https://www.facebook.com/ShadeTreeProductions/

Our website at: http://www.shadetreeSL.com

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Two Sexy Girls - Decades Later!

Disneyland 1983

Now!

How can it be that my dear friend Penny Bracken and I hadn't seen each other in at least 25 years?

Thank goodness for Facebook, we connected through our good friend Ray Gorman. Ray, Penny and I were a force to be reckoned back in the 1980s. Through a serendipitous turn of events we were brought together to do business and design and sell jewelry. Ray was the brilliance behind the Gorman Design Group and Penny was the driving force. I just went out and sold the hell out of a wonderful product.

The three of us would meet and laugh like crazy, for Ray was on the level of Robin-William-funny. We also bantered back and forth ideas for a new line of jewelry to add to the others. We did this over the years and made memories that we will never forget.

Ray and me at the

San Francisco Gift show 1983

Penny and Ray (left, center)

While I was in Sri Lanka, I connected to Ray through Facebook and he told Penny about my overseas adventures. A month later Penny wrote me with the sad news that Ray had died. How could that be? I had just chatted with him the week before. Penny and I were both devastated. The planet had just lost one of its best humans.

Now that I’m back on California terra firma, Penny came from her now home in Minnesota for a three-day visit. WOWO! Our first hours together were filled with histories, laughter and Toby wondering why the hell we were making all that noise! I talked so much my voice got hoarse. I listened so much that I got excited from all the freshness of my friend. We had shared a lot of history! History that took us both on different paths. History that was inexplicably linked.

We’ll need another rash of visits to really catch up. Of course during this first visit Penny offered me help for anything here at my new little abode. She owns three successful resale businesses (and the buildings!) in Rochester, WN, so when I showed her the garage full of stuff, she knew exactly what to do. We ended up taking a car load of goods to the Lucerne thrift shop and then drove around Clearlake just to inhale the views, the communities and the bus routes that I could explore once she’d gone.

View from Konacti

After the jam-packed day, we sat watching (actually talking during) the Olympics when the earth rocked! Jolted! Two hard ones. Penny and I looked at each other and blurted “Earthquake!” As Penny bolted for the door, I said, “Put your shoes on.” She did. Then she said, “Get Toby’s leash!” I did.

Outside, the neighbors gathered and waited for an aftershock. Toby, excited with his leash on, thought he was going for a walk. We calmed down in the ensuing minutes, somewhat confident that was all we were going to get. Penny called a friend, and I took Toby for a walk just up to the corner where we talked to the neighbor and his dog. “The epicenter was over the hill. It was a 5.1,” he told me. I looked online and sure enough the epicenter was only 22Km away. Gulp.

So we not only had a fun adventure with Penny here, she rocked our world!

Toby loved Penny as I knew he would. I think he’s sad now that she’s gone. I am! But I know she’ll be back and the adventures of the two sexy 60yo+ chicks will continue!

Morning love!

Toby's scoping out Penny's biscuit.

They talked the same language.

Penny's departure

Yes, she's really leaving.

Sad me.

Sad boy.

Friends really are forever.

To check out Penny's very hip resale stores go to FaceBook:
https://www.facebook.com/KismetConsignment/?fref=ts

Stay tuned for my next adventure!

Monday, June 20, 2016

Open Mic Night!

When I moved to Sri Lanka in 2002 from Southern California, I lost my poetry manuscript ‘Women Stuff’. It stayed lost for the 14years I lived there. I mourned those loss of my words, thinking I would never get them back.

I moved to Northern California in April this year. Just last week I unpacked some things and found the manuscript! How fabulous is that? Could you hear my sigh of relief?

My new neighbors. Ciarrighi and Larry, and I became friends immediately. Yesterday they invited me to go to Open Mic Night at the Community Center. Why not, I thought. It would be a good way to meet people. Closer to the evening I wondered if I should break out some poems to read. Why not?

Lots of people showed up. They were friendly, the food was good and there was some great music. One man from South Africa, songwriter Fletcher sang stories. Wonderful stories. The band Fogg played all my favorite oldies! Fogg got the crowd on their feet and onto the dance floor. One musician, Jim Arvantis, spellbound the audience with his playing and singing!

I was so glad I went!

In case you're curious, I’ve added some videos to this blog.Thanks to Ciarrighi for my videos!

Lucy Llewellyn Byard - A Thousand Tsuru
https://www.youtube.com/embed/FJnlITutnh4

Lucy Llewellyn Byard - When I Think of You

https://www.youtube.com/embed/fZDcWTmkeJo

Lucy Llewellyn Byard - Scene From a Restaurant Window
https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZNKZUiCYcDI

Singer Songwriter Fletcher - Homegrown Tomatoes

https://www.youtube.com/embed/NmRPQXP6n2o

The FOGG

https://www.youtube.com/embed/KiuBTVvS2Sc

Jim Arvantis - Tears of Heaven

https://www.youtube.com/embed/ABJd-MNI9KM"

Jim Arvantis solo
https://www.youtube.com/embed/iPV0CsihDew

Cheers!
Lucy