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Talking Oak, Aspen Hill, MD (2026)

04/09/2024

Alternating rays, overshadowed by a dark circle. Like a solar eclipse–that brief moment when the warm, comforting rays of the sun are blocked by the comparatively tiny little moon.

Kind of like when you’re having a good day and you stub your toe and suddenly you’re having a terrible day and you hate the world and you hate whoever put that thing there and you’re convinced that your toe will never stop hurting and you wish you’d never been born.

And suddenly your toe stops hurting. And you realize you may have slightly overreacted.

Center made from staghorn sumac from Idaho Falls, ID. Perimeter made from various types of wood from Aspen Hill, MD.

02/29/2024

The princesses were a given. The rockstars weren’t all that surprising. What wasn’t expected at the Halloween party for all the budding little gymnasts that fall day was the sheepdog. Brenly was the sheepdog. She was the only sheepdog that year. Probably the only sheepdog ever at that gymnastics center.

That is just who Brenly is. While so many of us grew up trying to fit in with the crowd, Brenly decided to be her own crowd.

Consider her approach to student body elections in middle school. On election day, while her opponents were vying to be the most popular, Brenly strutted through the front doors of the school as a walking billboard. A giant poster board in the front with her name on it, a giant poster board in the back, also with her name on it, straps connecting them over her shoulders. A veritable Brenly sandwich. Unfortunately, she lost.

Or consider her choice of a job in college. While her classmates were working in traditional jobs, or not working, there was Brenly in her hazmat suit. Sorting garbage from on-campus trash cans. It was part of a professor’s research project. And Brenly loved the job.

Later, she became a lawyer. But will you find her in the courtroom or the executive boardroom, doing typical lawyering things? Of course not. She tried that for a bit but decided to go a different route. Decided to work in bar prep instead. Not preparing bars, mind you, preparing budding lawyers to take the bar exam. Which is also not about bars. It’s about laws.

It was around this time of career change that she found herself walking the streets of Berkeley, California one evening. She came upon what she thought was a large dog. With the permission of the dog’s owner, she began petting it. The gentle animal stood obediently as she stroked its soft fur. As she turned to leave, the owner mentioned in passing that this was no normal dog. This was a wolf.

Why had the wolf been so gentle with Brenly? It’s simple. A wolf knows better than to mess with a sheepdog.

Pictured is Brenly, who lives in Indianapolis, wearing the Margaret design.

Talking Oak: Unique designs, unique people who wear them.

02/20/2024

Wavy, multicolored streaks traversing a circular surface. Kind of like our largest planetary neighbor.

Unfortunately, we’ll never be able to live on Jupiter because it’s basically just one big round cloud. That’s why Jupiter has all the pretty swirls in its pictures. They’re made up of clouds, spending their days just dancing around.

But it’s not all fun and games. Apparently deep, deep down it has a solid core. Or maybe it’s a liquid core. NASA doesn’t actually know. And since no one knows, it means it could be anything. Maybe it’s a candy core. Or, better yet, a dark chocolate core. That seems nice.

Jupiter. Made from wood from a white oak tree from a backyard in Aspen Hill, MD.

02/10/2024

It takes most folks decades to fulfill their dreams. Some of us never do. And then there are people like Jessica who accomplish their life goals before they finish high school.

Jessica’s first dream was fulfilled within the walls of C Milton Wright high school. It was there, at age 15, that her years of physical, mental, and emotional preparation paid off. She had made the cheerleading squad. A venerable accomplishment.

But Jessica was far from done.

The next step in her journey found her behind the counter at Friendlys scooping ice cream. At the end of each night, her arms were a sore, sticky testament to the hundreds of delicacy-seeking customers she had served.

But this was not her dream. This was her biding her time, gaining the customer service expertise she would need to achieve the true pinnacle of accomplishment. That pinnacle was reached at a coffee shop nearby, aptly named Coffee Coffee. It was there, among the caffeine-seeking customers of that iconic establishment where Jessica’s other dream came true. The accomplishment she had dreamed of since she was a little girl: she had become a cashier.

We understandably wonder what it is that allows some individuals to reach these heights. One reasonable theory is that the secret is beets. As a child, Jessica loved them so much and ate so many she turned purple. Maybe there’s something to be said for eating that relatively unpopular purple powerhouse.

So how does one spend their adult days, once they’ve fulfilled their dreams? Listening to Stevie Nicks, obviously. And going on motivational speaking tours. Around her house. To her three kids. And cooking for, cleaning up after, and chauffeuring those kids around so they can also achieve their goals. And working as an acute care occupational therapist where she finds ways to help her patients to (you guessed it) achieve their goals.

One thing you won’t find her doing, though, is watching Star Wars. As it turns out, she’s never seen it. Says she has no interest in it. Probably because there are no beets in it.

Pictured is Jessica, of Olney, Maryland, wearing the Promise of a New Day design.

Talking Oak–unique designs, unique people who wear them

02/03/2024

The talent scout only saw Carrie at the airport for a moment. It was enough. He knew talent when he saw it. He approached Carrie’s mom and made his pitch. Carrie could be in a Huggies diaper commercial.

Carrie’s mother declined. Carrie was destined for greater things.

The stage, not the screen, was where Carrie’s acting prowess would be put to use. Fiddler on the Roof, Into the Woods, The Music Man. The list of musicals in which she performed as a child is extensive.

Eventually Carrie grew up and needed a job. She traded out the spotlights of the theater for the fluorescent lights of the classroom. But her acting career is far from over. Instead of performing for audiences of excited fans, her performances are now for hormonal pre-teens as she tries to teach them language arts. The educational world is her stage.

And one particular performance stands above the rest.

It was Valentine’s Day. An innocent sixth grader handed her a wrapped gift. But inside was not the G-rated, candy-filled mug the girl’s mother had picked out for Carrie. No, this was one of the “Galentines Day” gifts her mother had bought for her gals. For her besties. For them, the gifts had been a bit more risqué. And it was one of those gifts the girl had mistakenly grabbed as she left for school that morning.

But Carrie did not know any of this as she started to open the package. And as she unwrapped the gift, her eyes almost widened. Almost. But Carrie was unflappable. She was cast as the cool, collected teacher, and this little surprise was not going to make her break character. She asked the little girl if she knew what it was. No, the little girl did not. Her mom had picked it out.

Carrie inconspicuously slipped it back into the box and thanked her for the nice gift, deftly avoiding the questions that would inevitably come. It just did not seem like the appropriate place to explain that, apparently, some adults also shop at toy stores.

As the sweet student left the room, innocence intact, Carrie imagined the curtain dropping, and mentally took a bow.

Pictured is Carrie, of Ogden, Utah, wearing the Tears of Gold design.
Talking Oak: Unique designs, unique people wear the designs.

02/02/2024

Horizontal pieces of wood, progressively getting smaller as they go up. Almost like a wood suspension foot bridge fading off into the distance.

Years ago some researchers found that meeting someone on a scary suspension footbridge can result in feelings of attraction towards the person. Turns out terror feels enough like love that some tend to confuse the two. The researchers called it the misattribution of arousal.

It seems that marriage counselors could incorporate this into their work with couples. Maybe when a couple thinks they’ve fallen out of love, and thinks the spark is gone, instead of focusing on boring things like better communication, counselors should just coach them on how to scare each other. It’s so simple. Husband hides in the closet. Wife opens the closet door. Husband jumps out in a clown costume. She screams. Voila, the romance is instantly rekindled.

Unless her fight or flight reaction is more on the fight side of things and when the adrenaline kicks in she punches him in the stomach and he falls over and breaks their favorite lamp. That could be a problem.

The Bridge. Made from wood from walnut, white oak, & holly trees from Aspen Hill, MD & with wood from a birch tree from Nobleboro, ME.

01/28/2024

A hint of light purple running across the earring. Like a wispy cloud at sunrise.

A beautiful sunrise, marking the dawning of a new day. A day that holds endless potential. Potential for you to help old ladies cross the street, save the lives of baby kittens, and cure cancer. Or the potential to forget where you parked your car, accidentally drop your phone in the toilet, and trip over the curb and split open your favorite pair of pants.

In reality, it probably will be somewhere in the middle. But for now, it’s a nice sunrise.

Made from wood from a lilac bush from Idaho Falls, ID.

Talking Oak. Unique designs. Unique wood.

01/20/2024

Order next to disorder. Calm next to chaos.

Like that friend many of us have who makes us realize that we don’t quite know how to be an adult. The friend whose life is organized and who does responsible things like keeping a budget and flossing every day and remembering where they put their keys.

Maybe you are one of those friends . If so, maybe you can help the rest of us figure life out. But for now, let’s celebrate such friendships that pair the responsible with the not-quite-there-yet.

The Odd Couple. Made from wood from white oak, holly, and black walnut trees from Aspen Hill, Maryland. See link in bio for availability.

01/06/2024

S’more Please

Light brown, white, dark brown, light brown. A veritable wooden s’more.

S’more stands for some more. Supposedly because they’re so good that you want more. In reality, it actually means, “I need some more marshmallows because I dropped my first in the dirt, and the second, third, fourth, and fifth I lit on fire because I’m too impatient to wait for them to toast, and the rest I just ate because I was so angry about my first 5 marshmallows.”

Made with wood from holly, white oak, & black walnut trees from Aspen Hill, MD.

Link in bio to purchase.

Talking Oak

04/09/2024

02/29/2024

02/20/2024

02/10/2024

02/03/2024

02/02/2024

01/28/2024

01/20/2024

01/06/2024

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