Ponder and Spoon

Ponder and Spoon Handmade wooden spoons, made with love, an axe, and some knives from local, sustainable wood.

Please donate to my recovery through chemotherapy https://gofund.me/c744c8dfa

It's been a week and a half from the surgery. Healing is much slower after chemotherapy and I hope infrared light therap...
08/26/2026

It's been a week and a half from the surgery.

Healing is much slower after chemotherapy and I hope infrared light therapy will help.
Under deep belly breaths and lots of rest, it's been quite painful.

I keep whispering to myself 'I can do this. I will do this. I will survive' to stay strong. To gather energy to do some of the day to day things, make some food, walk the stairs in my building up and down.

More than anything I remind myself of all the things I am grateful for in my life. It's been feeling good to have a loving heart through it all.

And the times I feel tired, or scared, I pray, I look outside at the trees in the wind, I breathe deeper. Today I asked dad with tears in my eyes, if he would caress me sometimes. It was a difficult ask for me, but we both cried and I hope he will. Because my body feels the need to be hugged and caressed.

Until then I let myself melt under the purrs of the kitties. I feel so grateful for them.

I feel so grateful for you.

Hello friends.I am still in the hospital. New scar on the old one. Healing.Tumors in my abdomen have produced an intesti...
08/20/2026

Hello friends.

I am still in the hospital. New scar on the old one. Healing.

Tumors in my abdomen have produced an intestinal blockage that has been cleared.

I'll be here a while longer to be well on my feet to go home. Once there I will start addressing the tumors.

I want to do radiotherapy and restart the oxygen therapy alongside what the oncologists recommends.

I need your help with any funds you have to spare.

The gofund me is in my profile info. Please help if you can. Every bit helps me with these treatments and food and all.

Thank you dear friends.

All my love.

Hello friends.It feels like a long time since I wrote a post. Two weeks of kitten care. They've grown and are ao playful...
08/06/2026

Hello friends.

It feels like a long time since I wrote a post.
Two weeks of kitten care. They've grown and are ao playful and affectionate.

And yet, I feel sad and tired. The last few days I've had a lot of pain in my abdomen, ended up in the emergency room. Felt better while there and back home I feel the pain again. A familiar pain that has me worried and has my mind wondering what if it's back.

I'll try to get answers as soon as I can, and also get relief. It's a constant pain that has me tired and a little sad.

Please keep me in your thoughts and see me get well, get strong, and live a life full of love and joy. I would so like that.

Thank you, friends.

07/27/2026

It's been a week since the kittens came into my life. I've been covered in kitten formula and running low on sleep. Also, smiling must of the day as I get to see them grow and learn their personalities.

I've never had female pets. Except one turtle that dies when I was little. Males since. And I was looking to get another male kitten. Almost did, but one day, after many failed attempts, I thought, what about a girl? I felt intimidation at a thought, the same intimidation I feel when making new girlfriends.

But it was clear to me. I want more female energy in my life. And that evening I said it out loud. I am ready for one or two girls kittens to come into my life. And they did. The very next day. Found by someone on a running trail in the middle of the mountains. They were just three weeks old.

And today they're eating like there is no food left in the world, and playing hard. Learning boundaries, learning to groom themselves. And they have the loudest purrs. My heart is full of love.

I have been making slowly, in between their feeding times. Mostly fork and spoons. Many cups are soaking in the tub.

And here is one of the ones on the website. A large one. For lattes and big cups of chai or hot cocoa. Such beautiful ripple in this maple.

Adding to the joy of the day.

I caught my reflection leaving the grocery store today and it put a big grin on my face. I have a scar I wear every day ...
07/09/2026

I caught my reflection leaving the grocery store today and it put a big grin on my face. I have a scar I wear every day under my shirt. I know its story, its colours, the particular way it feels when I touch it.

But what the mirror showed me this morning was my abdomen looking, genuinely, like I'm carrying a badass six pack from top to bottom.

What the mirror didn't show: a belly that's still quite tender. That makes funny noises when I eat. That tells me loudly and specifically what she likes and what she doesn't. That's much rounder from the profile now.

I smiled because I used to have that six pack actually. I was proud of it and felt its strength and support with every move.

I think about this with scars — how what we see on the outside of each other is almost never the whole picture. The woman who looks put together in the grocery store. The one with the quiet hands and the straight back.

We're all carrying something under our shirts that the mirror doesn't catch. On the body, maybe also deep into our hearts. Behind that frown, or those sad eyes. Behind the quick moves unloading the shopping cart.

Our often-untold stories.

There is a maple tree I have known since childhood. I could see it from the window of the place I grew up in, and I can ...
07/02/2026

There is a maple tree I have known since childhood. I could see it from the window of the place I grew up in, and I can still see it now from my kitchen.
 
This past winter an ice storm brought it down. It didn't break — it simply fell from its roots, whole, and lay down on the ground. And as it rests there, the younger trees around it are bursting into leaf, reaching upward in the space it left behind.
 
I stood there looking at it the other day and something in me recognised that.
 
There was a version of me that also had to fall. That had to stop, lie down, and let something else begin to grow. Not because she was weak. Because she had been holding on for a very long time, and the ground was the only place left to go.
 
From this tree I've been slowly making a small collection of cups. Nine of them, each one shaped by my hands — slightly tilted, slightly uneven, as if caught mid-movement. The handles are generous and expressive, made to be held rather than just carried. Light, beautifully finished, and some carrying a small piece of the underbark, so the story of the tree travels with the cup.
 
I'll be offering these for sale to help gather funds for ongoing supplements and tests that are part of the cancer monitoring and healing.

I have made three sizes.

Small - 200 ml — $175
Medium - 300ml — $200
Large - 400ml — $235
 
Worldwide shipping. Nine cups available. All unique. All heart.

I also have three cups made from local cherry plum tree (the darker ones) that have bark features and deep colors.

Seven are ready from the picture above) two are still drying, and three are in the hollowing process.

If you would like one, send me a message. I will share photos of what I have.

This morning I sat down at my desk getting ready to finish these two, belly full of the heat of my morning chai. Put my ...
07/01/2026

This morning I sat down at my desk getting ready to finish these two, belly full of the heat of my morning chai. Put my elbows on the table like I do every day, resting my face between my hands. A quick pause before the day starts. A gesture I've made a thousand times without noticing.

But this time it felt different. For the first time in weeks my hands weren't hurting and I could feel their support instead of their pain — their warmth, their shape, holding my face the way they've always held it, except this time I was there for it.

Sinking in.

Cradled, in their own gentle embrace.

I felt so young. Safe.

Tears came with my eyes still closed. Not for the pain. For the ordinary, accidental tenderness of this sweet moment, and my hands today just being the gentle hands I know and love.

I fell today.Both knees, on the edge of concrete stairs. The kind of fall where you stay very still for a few moments, j...
06/25/2026

I fell today.

Both knees, on the edge of concrete stairs. The kind of fall where you stay very still for a few moments, just breathing, waiting for the world to settle.

What stays with me is what came just before.

Twenty steps earlier I had turned a corner feeling good. Actually good. Something had quietly shifted. Ideas moving, a confidence I haven’t felt in a while, my body mine again in a way that’s been rare lately.

Twenty steps. Then splat.

I’ve been carrying fear about the future for a while now. Money, health, the people I love. And I hadn’t spoken it to anyone. Somewhere along the way I must have found a way to come to terms with it — not dramatically, not consciously. Just quietly stopped bracing.

And the brain noticed.

From what I’ve been learning in my training lately, the brain holds a conflict for as long as it feels like danger. When it no longer does, when you’ve resigned, or adjusted, or simply stopped being afraid in the same way — it discharges. Into the only vessel it has.

This body of ours.

Mine, she brought me to my knees today. And reminded me of my desire for stability, humility, and surrender.

I've only gotten three cups out of the cherry plum piece my friend gave me. Not nearly thick enough all in all but the c...
06/24/2026

I've only gotten three cups out of the cherry plum piece my friend gave me. Not nearly thick enough all in all but the center was off just right to give me enough wood to work with.

It has such beautiful grain, knots, bark. So much story and life. I've kept them all. Worked around them, with them, through them.

Three cups ready to hold moments of life, to listen to your own stories, laughter, tears. They'll be there waiting to be held, while holding you, fingers wrapped around the handle.

Definitely half cup full.

I cannot wait to show them to you.

A few more maple ones to be finished until then.

And lots of love.

I turned the corner and the sun hit my face, my eyes now squinting at the long stretch, all the way to the main street. ...
06/22/2026

I turned the corner and the sun hit my face, my eyes now squinting at the long stretch, all the way to the main street. I looked down at my pink sandals. Every step hurts a little.

I know this pain. Deep-seated in the hips, the memory of stairs, sweaty gym, 10k runs.

I bought some cherry logs yesterday — seven of them, as wide as my hips and up to my knees. It looked like an old, sickly tree. I've never wanted a healthy tree cut down just so someone can make a few bucks.

They were brought to me and my first thought was 'woah, they are massive!'

I live and carve in an apartment building. All my axing happens outside, next to the building, up on a hill with many, many stairs. So one by one, slowly, deep breaths, I carried all seven up. Every log. Every step. Put them in a pile, covered them to rest until they're a bit more mellow and easier to work with.

My hands are happy to move from maple to cherry. My heart even more so, knowing where this wood came from.

And here I am the next morning, legs sore, shoulders sore, walking to the post office in my pink sandals, every joint filing a complaint.

And deep down, all I want to do is make cups.

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West Linn, OR
97068

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