Simple kindness

So much of the time in my day to day activities, I put my head down and do the work. Or put my head down and go to the next thing. Yesterday I was making my way to spin class and was entering the building at the same time as another person.

She picked up her pace just a little, got the door, looked me in the eye and smiled. It made me realize I don't look people in the eye enough. I probably get the door for plenty of people, but the eye contact thing must sort of intimidate me.

That sort of action has ripple effects, to be sure. I felt like someone had just done something nice for me and I wanted to pass that on. There's a saying out there that I will not get right but goes something like, we can be judged by the way we treat people who can do nothing for us.

I'm going to make an effort to practice (and it IS practice) doing the door-eye contact-smile thing.

Another list

So long, 2013! It was a good year. 

We just got back yesterday from visiting family in Charleston, SC. It was good, as always, to see them, and the visits go so fast. We had relatively uneventful plane rides, although our plane was held for 30 minutes in Atlanta while some snowy weather in Denver (our destination) blew through. What a difference a day makes, as I've read today about travel delays all over the country due to the severe cold weather across much of the country.

While in SC, we visited a town/island called Folly Beach, and drove past the house we rented in 2007, my sister's last summer. It was bittersweet. She loved the beach, which is strange given that her siblings really shy away from being in the sun. She loved the fancy house we stayed in and we talked about how we were so glad that we splurged to rent it. 

Other activities included a Japanese steakhouse, where they flipped the utensils around and cooked the meal on a big grill in front of the group. The kids especially enjoyed it. We also went to a new bowling alley/restaurant downtown, and the picture below shows my younger brother and Mr W doing their respective things. Older brother and I played pinball too, and I was reminded that younger brother and I spent a lot of quarters on pinball when we were growing up. I earned two free games, btw :-)

Although I'm not one to make resolutions because I don't keep them, I've been thinking of some changes I'd like to make regarding my free time and some other aspects of my life. 

I'm backing off of the jewelry thing (again). I've been making things for the wrong reason, namely making things to stock my Etsy shop, and they don't sell well enough for me to justify the time (at this time) to promote and try to drive traffic to my shop. The poor sales at the craft show I did last month really drove it home that this is not how I want to spend my free time right now. I'm going to clean up the area of my living room where I do my crafty stuff, and put things away for a while. 

I'd like to cook more. It takes more organization and planning than I've been giving it. Mr W is getting older and his palette is expanding such that I feel like I can stop making two things each time we eat. I know, I know, I should have never gotten into the habit, but it is what it is. While we were in SC, he shucked oysters and thought they were quite good, and ate shrimp as well.

I'm going to accept the way I look right now. This is a biggie, and I'm not going to bore you with details about the path I had to take to get here, but it was residual divorce stuff. I feel progress has been made, and my perspective is more that I'm grateful to be healthy.

I want to save to take a big trip. Related to this is to get better at staying on a budget with my finances. I've always pictured myself as someone who would benefit by a little overseas travel. I decided that if I didn't have anyone to travel with by the time I turned 50, I'd book a trip to the UK with Road Scholar. I I have a year and a half until then, and it's time to start saving. There is the possibility that my brother and SIL might go to Spain this summer with a couple of friends, and I would try to tag along on that if it worked out. 

And those are good starts. The last thing isn't a goal so much as something that needed to happen so I could continue the goal of getting regular exercise. My lower back has been hurting for the last couple of months. I thought originally that I hurt it doing yoga. All well and good, and I've successively backed off of doing things that I thought would aggravate it. The act of standing for more than 20 minutes or so (like I need to do for working in the lab) hurt quite a bit, and I was taking Ibuprofen for the pain most days. I bought a new pair of Danskos, which helped, but I was getting concerned that I had done something serious to my lower back.

Fast forward to the Charleston trip. I was nervous about sleeping on anything other than my Tempur-pedic fancy shmancy mattress. Mr W and I each had half of a trundle bed. I borrowed several of my SIL's quilts and along with a couple of pillows, was able to sleep with my shoulders elevated a bit. Lo and behold a couple of days go by and I'm waiting for the pain to start and it never does. Huh. The working theory now is that it's my damn bed/pillow configuration. I propped myself up a bit last night and it seems to help. I wondered whether the fact that a certain dog sleeps in my spot most of the day has anything to do with this. As in perhaps the mattress is getting compressed there? I don't know, but I'm going to try to rotate it and see if that helps too. I am relieved to have made progress on figuring out the cause (hopefully) of this back pain, and am looking forward to getting back to spin class and yoga.

Post Thanksgiving stuff

Thanksgiving is a tricky one if you are single and your family is not close by, in my opinion. I've made arrangements to go visit my brother after Christmas, so didn't really think about traveling for Thanksgiving. 

Growing up, we had a very traditional gathering and meal. The responsibility for hosting would rotate among 3 or 4 households of local family, and we'd have a big meal, and a kids' table, watch football, all that. When I was married, we'd do a mix of having small gatherings at home and traveling. 

Now that I've been single for a while, I am fortunate to get picked up as a holiday orphan. I have to say I'm really thankful for that. This year, we were invited to the parents of friends and I had a really nice day. 

These folks live out of town, and have bought into an arrangement where they have a couple of acres, upon which they've built a totally awesome passive solar off-the-grid house and are part owners/users then of a much larger conservation area that functions as a gated community.  The picture above is what we saw on one of our two walks that day. There's a pine tree growing out of the boulder, but it's a little hard to see in that light.

Mr W came with me. He'll do another Thanksgiving tomorrow, and we talked about the pros and cons of living out there. The preparation, yet the independence. 

A's parents are retired academics who worked in science - biology, I think, and it was really refreshing to hear the awful (in a good way) sciencey puns and to get into a discussions about hot button topics in a friendly environment with like-minded people. 

I even got leftovers. It was a fine day.

We have a winner. For the moment.

Well, the vast array of choices has been kind of daunting, but I think I found a way to make the two things I really liked go together.

This is the backsplash tile I like. It's $35 a sheet, so I will be cutting each sheet into three strips, which makes it a better deal:

It was/is really important to me (for some reason) to not get locked into one color for the walls, and I wanted tile that gave me that flexibility. I'm a blue-green nut, so this tile gives me the choice of those two, plus olive green, or khaki for the walls. Or white, but that's not really an option :-) This picture is oriented so I'd cut the tile into strips vertically, and then could orient them one of two ways, so I've got 6 different strips. 

OK, then I loved this countertop, Waterford by Cambria. The blue flecks are bluer than the blues in the tile, though. I blew it up XL so maybe the flecks will show. These pictures never do justice to the real thing. 

So my solution to bring these together is to get sheets of this:

I ordered samples of about six different shades that are close to this, and will pick the one that goes with the blue flecks in the countertop. It should go with other glass tile (hopefully). I'll then use this as a 1"border (i.e. cut a sheet into 12" strips) applied to the top and bottom of the 4" x 12" piece of the multicolored glass tile. The rest will be (much cheaper) white ceramic subway tile.

That's the plan, anyway. If I wait too long to order, I'll start considering other options, so once I've got the light blue tile picked out, I should just commit and order the glass tile and counters. 

Another thing that was important for me was to make the shapes of the tile easy to work with, because I haven't done a lot of tile setting and didn't want to have to rent a saw to get it done. I think I'll be able to cut any pieces by hand. Carefully. 

In other news, yesterday was my birthday, and I had kind of a trying morning continuing to remove paint from my front porch so that I may repaint it, BUT, had a fabulous rest-of-day. Went out to dinner with friend D, who is also remodeling, and we talked about cabinets, flooring etc. Then I went to an outdoor production of A Midsummer's Night Dream with some other friends and that was really fun. I feel blessed and grateful. 

30 years

My 30 year high school reunion was this past weekend. I couldn't attend because I was traveling for work, and it would have required a trip to Ohio. I sure was tempted, though, and wish I could have made it. I went to a Catholic girls' school, and our class had about 150 people. From the pictures, about 30 people made it to the official event, and then out for the purely social outing to a local eatery the following night.

I think Facebook has a little to do with it. It's been a fun (and easy) way to keep up with people. I am (despite my kvetching about not having found my prince charming) in a good spot in life where I feel like I've got a good social circle and am blessed with a healthy kid, a good job and even my goofy dog. It is no doubt easier to show up for a reunion when you feel like you've turned out alright.

We also lost several classmates in the last year, and I imagine that motivated a few people to attend. A couple of accidental deaths in the mix: house fire, a car accident. It's the stuff that makes you count your blessings.

I'm lucky to be near a couple of classmates who live in Denver and married brothers. We had our own little mini-reunion a week or so ago.

We reminisced a bit, but mostly talked about our kids and families. It's a cool and valued thing to have known people for so long. 

You may have noticed that I cut my hair. *sigh* I'm not thrilled. It looks fine, but it's fussier than I wanted it to be. I suppose when you want it to fight gravity and have it sweep to the side instead of fall into your face some fiddling is required. I'm not exactly counting the days until it's long enough to put into a ponytail, but I won't be maintaining the cut. Did I get exactly what I asked for and what the picture showed? Yes, absolutely. But I just don't like it as much as I thought I would. Boo-hoo. Time will solve this one. 

Just a little out of my comfort zone

So I'm traveling for work, attending a conference. I wanted to note that it's worth the risk. It's worth approaching people and trying to strike up conversations. It works to say, "So, what do you work on?" People like to answer this question.

I wasn't going to go out to the pub tonight with other attendees and I'm so glad I did. Nothing particularly exciting happened, but I had fun. Around me at the table was a woman from Colombia, one from Costa Rica, two guys from China and a woman from Kenya. We talked about mundane stuff like small town America, but also talked about their experiences here.

Did you know that in Costa Rica, they usually have about a 12-12 light-dark cycle because of the proximity to the equator? It always gets dark around 6 ish. Freaky. I'm in the western part of the Eastern time zone, so it was just getting dark around 9:45. She was amazed.

It's good to meet folks from other places, it makes the world a little smaller, in a good way.

The Muskie Tank

I don't know if it's a sign of anything in particular, but a few times lately when I've been concentrating on something, usually at work, I get a little random memory pulse. Usually associated with good memories, and if not good then neutral.

I should write them down, as they seem to go as quickly as they come. It seems like a new kind of thing, and it's happened maybe a half-dozen times in the last couple of weeks.

Yesterday, it was the muskie tank at the fish hatchery in western PA. Let me back up a bit. As a kid, my parents had a small cottage that we shared with my aunt and uncle. We'd go there during the summer, and the adults would do a lot of fishing and we kids would roam the fields and forests and swim and it was fun. time. I remember spending time in the little streams flipping rocks to find crayfish, and trying to tag along with my sister, who was too cool for that kind of thing.

We'd go on occasional field trips, including to one of the state's fish hatcheries. They had (have) an educational center with the aforementioned tank, and also a spot outside where the vast numbers of carp gather and people feed them with stale bread. I have no idea if they still sell bread onsite anymore (it can't be good for them), but in the 1970's they did.

We have a family memory where my dad was bending over the fence to retrieve a piece of bread that landed far enough away that even the most ambitious carp would not get it, and in doing so a pair of dice fell out of his pocket. We watched in fascinated horror/delight as they tumbled down the incline and were promptly swallowed by the carp.

The tank has windows for viewing, so one can go downstairs and look up and see the fish. One of the fish there are/were Muskellunge (Esox masquinogy). They are big, and in the pike family. I remember thinking that if these fish were in the water where I was swimming, I might think twice about that activity, but I was assured that they preferred the deeper water and I was unlikely to encounter one.

So the memory flash was me looking through one of the windows and into the green water to see the fish. Funny how that has now cascaded into the dice story, and I do believe I'll give my dad a call today to see how he's doing. As I recalled the dice story in bed this morning, I smiled.




Image from here.

Blast from my past

I ran into an old friend at the grocery store yesterday. I marvel at coincidence, how I can decide to make  a run by a store I usually only go to for small things, take my time getting my items (Easter basket goodies), stroll to the check out and see someone I know. 

We chatted briefly about what our lives are like at the moment. This was off the cuff, I wasn't expecting to account for the five years or so since I had last seen him. I said something like, "I'm good! I'm still at the CDC, still in the same house. Life is good. I started playing the banjo." 

I've been mulling the content and intent of my words, and thought as I got into the car that I sounded like nothing happens in my life, which isn't true. When you see someone at the grocery store and you've got about 2 minutes to catch up, I guess you try to hit the high points and convey that yes, things are good and that you are OK. He was a friend from the time I was married, and was around during my divorce. I feel compelled to show people from then (maybe now, too?) that I've done OK. 

It's Friday! This has been a very busy week. I need to start some seeds, and would also like to finish pulling up carpet in my back hallway and getting the peel and stick tile installed. 

I've had a nice experience on Etsy lately. A couple of weeks ago, a woman who owns a yarn shop (!) bought a few buttons and brooches from my shop. Then I listed more brooches, and she bought those. then I listed a few more and, you guessed it, she bought those too. She emailed asking about the possibility of buying 20 more, in colors that go with certain yarns. How cool is that?? I've been sort of blah about mixing new clay colors and making tiles, but this has revved me up and I'm looking forward to making a bunch of tiles this weekend. 

This is an example of one of the styles she liked:

Me too. I like all the textures doing their thing, yet there is a rhythm to it. Yea!!

A bit of a slog

In preparation for these alleged home renovations that may be coming, I've been going through the boxes in my basement. I took a lot of boxes when my dad moved out of the house where I grew up. I also have several boxes of pictures, letters and mementos, and have saved a bunch of Mr W's stuff.

It has added up to a lot of boxes.

Since I haven't gone through the stuff since my divorce, I have just now thrown away (or given away, or recycled, as appropriate) things I didn't want anymore that pertained to shared memories from when I was married. This has been weird. I saved pictures of me and Mr W's dad, and put them in the box of his mementos, but I don't want them. I mean, he should be able to see his parents' wedding picture, right? At the same time, it feels like throwing away a part of 15 years of my life. A bit of conundrum, but it felt like the right thing to do with all the things I jettisoned. I still had all the response cards and some invitations from my wedding. And all of the greeting card-type cards we received. I recycled all that stuff.

One thing I'm particularly grateful for is that when I was away at college, I exchanged letters with people. My sister, and my mom too. I'm so grateful to have these kind of mundane documentations of our lives. I have lots of letters from friends too, and kept just about all of them. It makes me want to try to get back to writing letters. It's such a deliberate thing, writing letters. I found a picture of my younger brother and our mom at his high school graduation, and will send it to him and write a little letter to accompany it.

I also found a copy of the last thing my mom wrote, when she was very sick and knew she wasn't going to make it. It was divided into practical things, saying to return things to stores that she had purchased (that's how fast it happened - six weeks. We were blindsided), the songs she wanted at her funeral, her request not to have any heroic measures to prolong her life, and then a couple of lines saying how sorry she was that things ended up like they did and that she loved us all very much.

I felt like someone punched me. I howled in my empty house. But it doesn't change anything. It's in the past and it is done. All I can do is honor her memory (my sister's, too) and live a well-lived life. I was still very sad for a while.

It was a lot of loss to feel in one afternoon. Although I've been working on the boxes for a while, there were a couple today that just got to me. But I keep telling myself there are a finite number of boxes, and once I've gone through them, I can put them away and be done with it. But the process of going through the boxes and organizing the basement, as well as proceeding with the remodeling, they mean something. There's a process underfoot and it's supposed to happen. I don't know if it's finally an acknowledgement that I am really truly on my own (but taking care of myself) or what, but suspect it will become clearer in hindsight.

Thanks for reading this ramble.

Back to work

Mr W and I had a really nice Christmas. I feel a little bad that he doesn't get a strong traditional Christmas when he's with me, but we end up doing what we feel like doing. I suppose that's not a bad thing. This year we had a good meal on Christmas Eve (spaghetti) and Christmas Day (ham and roasted veggies), and those made yummy leftovers. We were supposed to drive to Denver to join friends at their traditional Polish feast, but it there was snow forecasted, and I didn't want to chance it in my old Civic. Instead we drove around town and saw some lights, coming home when the roads were getting a little treacherous from said snow.

We went to the Denver Botanic Gardens and saw the lights, which were fab, plus it wasn't too cold and we got in before the crowds. We went to a winter solstice service at my church in lieu of the Christmas Eve service and that was good. Reflective.

He got me up on Christmas at 6 am, and we had a nice time opening presents. My family sent several things for us and it was fun to open all the loot. SIL L got hardback books for each of the families made from the vacation pictures she took when they were out here in August. It's really cool to have hardcopies of the pictures, in a book - I know, sort of like the old days. Just about all my pictures are digital these days.

And when his dad came to get him yesterday, so Mr W could spend time there and celebrate Christmas with them, I fought back the melancholy, like I always do. I get used to having him around, and when he's not, I miss him. I can't to go back to how things were, so the only option is to move forward, and thinking that way helps. I've got plenty to do around here - thoughts of remodeling projects are sloshing around in my head...

I'm working W-F this week, and will take a couple of days off next week. Not too many people at work, but I've got plenty to do. I'm trying to get some background (via the primary literature) of the genetic work that's been done in insecticide resistance in the mosquitoes we work with. I find it really interesting, so that's good.

One of the people from the group of old-time musicians that plays together weekly is having a New Year's Eve party, and I will likely swing by there. I've decided to start saving for a new banjo. My dad sent a generous Christmas check and I've got some craft show proceeds that could go toward it. Twang, twang, twang.

Things are good.

Coincidence

As part of what must be one of the most bizarre coincidences ever, I received yesterday this picture from my dog park friend M. He took it while visiting his mom in the central NY town where he's from.

This is the house my mom grew up in.

I'm still trying to grasp the chances of someone essentially random knowing my mom's family and the very house where she was raised. M didn't know my mom, but knew my grandpa (Oompa, we called him) who was a veterinarian and a well-regarded member of the community. His cousins lived across the street from my mom.

My mom's been gone for a long time now, so I need to grill my dad a bit and see what he remembers about the place. He only went up there a few times. 

Life's a strange thing sometimes. 

Some of my history via houseplants

I've been meaning to do a post on houseplants for a while now. A lot of people keep them in their homes, and I would wager that most people's houseplants were propagated as cuttings from other people's houseplants. I've thought about how cool it would be if we could look at them genetically, and see how swaths of people in certain areas all own what is essentially the same plant. 

Not to mention the connection that a person can feel because they have a plant that was given to them by a person who is no longer around, or is around and the plant just reminds us of them. 

For example, the original plant that the cutting in the middle came from, a Swedish Ivy, was given to my mom by a neighbor who passed away young. It must have been the early 1970's as we had just moved into the house where I grew up. I've got three versions of this plant in my house at the moment, and just started this one. I don't want to be the one who breaks the chain and lets the plant die, you know?

The plant on the left was part of an arrangement someone sent to the funeral home after my mom died. My SIL, who ironically is not a plant person, had the foresight to grab a cutting before the rest of the arrangement was tossed, and they propagated it in their home for a few years. I then took a cutting a few years ago. I've got a couple of these, too. I don't know what the name of it is, but it's a vine, and there is a tremendous plasticity in the leaf shape, depending on how much light it gets. Lots of light makes large (8" x 6") leaves. Not so much light makes smaller, rounder leaves. It's pretty cool. 

You'd recognize the plant on the right if you saw good examples of the leaves. They unfurl with cutouts on them, and they can be large (8-10" across). This one's also a vine. I just looked it up and it's a Split-leaf Philodendron. The Biology Department where I went to school has a large specimen of this plant, and when we started holding classes in a new building next door, the office ladies moved it to the end of a hallway. It was quite an effort, as various parts of it had to be supported either with sticks or from wires hung from the ceiling. Somewhere in the process, a leaf and a bit of stem broke off. Someone put it in a large lab flask, put some water in it, and there it sat in the lab where I taught as a grad student, for most of my last year of school. When I was nearly done with school, there this sat, one tired leaf in a swirling mass of roots. It was an orphan I need to rescue, and it likes its new home. Almost too much, the thing wants to be a really big plant. 

Every summer, I move to the front porch the half-dozen or so houseplants that are in my bedroom. Sometime in October, I move everyone back to my room, which happened this past weekend. I recently moved to a new office space that is direly in need of some green stuff, so in the usual cutting back to tidy up the plants, I made a few starts to eventually take to my office cube. I love how the process continues, that I can utilize these plants to make my new space prettier. And that they mean something to me.

I've also really liked having the starts on my window sill. I don't know, plants have always done that for me. I look for signs of root growth as I do the dishes. It's supposed to be warm for the rest of the week, so I might take one or two of these to work today while the weather's nice. I can then just bring a pot with a bag of soil once the roots are ready. 

Do you have any plants with a past? 

Pilgrimage

Last night I watched the movie The Way, with Martin Sheen. It's about a straight-laced, follow-the-rules kind of guy who gets a call that his wandering adventuring son has died on his very first day of a pilgrimage that starts in France and goes through northern Spain to the sea called the Camino de Santiago (The Way of St. James). This link shows the route and has info.

Sheen's character flies to France to identify and claim the body, and decides on a whim to take the pilgrimage in his son's stead. The movie is about the people you meet along the way and how we make choices about how we live our lives. I really liked it and recommend it.

This is a picture I pulled off the internet (link below). Amazing scenery, with this pastoral-small European village feel - really nice. The movie has made me think a bit about folks who have the wanderlust in a big way, those that most definitely don't, and the rest of us in between.

I found myself thinking about my assumption that, sure, I'm in good enough shape to do an 800 km walk over the course of a month. Well, I think so. And thinking that I could do this kind of thing if I really wanted to is an assumption I carry with me that makes me feel better about not doing it. I've always figured I'd get to Europe someday. As I've mentioned before, it's something I don't want to do by myself; I'd like to go with the wonderful guy I hope to eventually meet. 

But I feel sort of this nagging feeling that I should be making contingency plans so I don't wait too long and miss the opportunity. This thought isn't necessarily new, but I figured I'd put it down on the blog. If I hit 50 (3 years from now) and still my match is taking his sweet time, I'm going to Europe for 2-3 weeks on my own. Saying that makes me feel better.

It's a big world out there, that like it or not we are part of. Ack. I'm a little embarrassed to say I've never been further out of the U.S. than Canada, and that was 20 years ago. Life kind of happens, you know? It's more in my nature to do things locally, I guess. I was chatting with someone the other day, saying how, when you own a home, you could work on home stuff during almost all of your free time and not be finished. Ergo you need to back off a bit sometime, yes?

Hmm. I need to cogitate on this a bit more.

image from here

Nice weekend

We had a really nice weekend up in the mountains. We stayed at the YMCA of the Rockies in Estes Park. When my family was here in August, we stayed at the YMCA in Winter Park, which was also really fun. Estes is closer to my house, and I'm looking forward to visiting again when it's snowy. 

We were on a retreat with the church I attend, and I liked how they didn't over-schedule us. There were several fun activities, including a "To Tell the Truth"- like game where people had weird or unlikely things happen to them and there were three people up there saying the same story. We had a relative of Evil Knieval in our midst. No lie.

I guess it's human nature, but there are people at church who I see often, but we never connect. I spoke to a few of those over the weekend, and it was a positive thing. I need to remember that it's totally worth the effort to make those connections. 

Another weird dream

My family got to town yesterday - hooray!! They started at my little house for dinner and refreshments and then we drove over to the condo we rented for them and that is going to work out well, I believe. It's so new, this condo. Funny - the doors close evenly, there's texture on the walls and ceilings of the rooms, it has - get this - a DISHWASHER (whoa). Very impressive. It is configured as three small layers stacked on top of each other, so there's a den and one garage space at ground level. The kitchen/living room is the second level, and the bedrooms are on the third. You'd be pretty fit if you lived there, with all that stair climbing.

Anyway, I'm writing to share this dream I had the night before they got here. The thought had occurred to me that the last time they all came out, it was my summer of discontent, seven (!) years ago. I had just made the decision to file for divorce and my life was  totally upended. I can remember Mr W misbehaving and feeling, "I'm going to have to do this alone. I don't have any backup". Well it's all worked out, and we are doing fine. Better than fine, actually.

So in the dream, I was back in that time, and had been trying to make things work between the ex and had just realized it wasn't going to work out. Even though the events that set the divorce in motion weren't my doing, I still felt like a failure (I don't anymore :-)). But in the dream, it was that heavy feeling of dread. Then in the dream, he and I were sitting in two carts, like toy pedal cars. He went off in one direction, and I went off in another. However, I ended up going through a bunch of people who were eating at an outdoor cafe. I had to back up, go backwards (I think that is pretty darn metaphorical) to get to where I needed to go. Here's the thing, though. People were really nice about it as I backed up my goofy little pedal car. Then I woke up.

Oh, and the van is finally done. I'll at least pay for it today, I'll see if they'll put it on consignment. It will be nice to have that done.

The one where you discover something in your house

I have this dream occasionally. Well it's not the exact same dream, but the theme is the same. I'm at my very own house, which is not the house I live in now, but you know how that goes in dreams. And I discover that there are drawers and cupboards with stuff that the former owner of the house has left behind. The joy of discovery follows, with the hope that maybe there's something of monetary value. For me, these dreams assume the former owners have passed on, btw.

In last night's dream, there was someone with me, and I was showing them all the spots where there were things left behind. There were lots of slide carousels, and little junk drawer things.

Now that I think about it, the usual dream I have with this theme is discovering clothes in drawers or closets, where I open drawers of my dresser and discover all these nice clothes that are clearly mine, but that I don't remember having.

No, this one was about discovering someone else's stuff in my house, and the stuff needed to be gone through. There was the potential of something valuable, but I couldn't get to it because I had a visitor over. Oh, well I think I see, as I'm typing. Yes, it's stream of consciousness blogging...

Mr W's dad has been out of town for the last couple of weeks, and he's been staying with me. I love having him here, and part of me wishes we could just continue this arrangement indefinitely. But I've been feeling the pull to get more things made and listed on my Etsy site so I can get some momentum and start selling more things. It's a whole other post (or two) to delve a little more into why I'm selling this stuff, but I do feel at the moment that I still need to build inventory. I think the dream reflected how I feel my time is divided lately.

In other news, we had a break in the weather yesterday, and it was in the low 70's and drizzling by late afternoon. It felt great, and I took advantage of the lower temps to turn the oven on and make some stuff.

Button pitch

I'm taking a sample of my buttons to a fabric/sewing store downtown today to see if the owner is interested in buying some. Yes, I know a few don't have holes. I'm going to use those for bracelets, and wanted to give some samples of color blends I've made.

It's been a busy week with getting Mr W to his Percussion camp every day. I've been working on my laptop while he's in the school and actually getting a good bit of stuff done, so I don't feel like I'm wasting that time. I also attended a volunteer meeting for the next Ignite Fort Collins, which is fun and I'm happy to help out with them. Banjo practice was last night, and Mr W and I went to one of the music stores in town and got him a rental Percussion kit. The thing comes in a suitcase with a handle, on wheels, which is good because it easily weighs 30 lbs. It's got a snare drum, a thing you and I would call a xylophone, sticks, a stand, a practice pad, all in one zipped up case.

It all makes me appreciate that my kid has a dad that is involved. I have taken advantage of the half-time parenting schedule by getting my grocery shopping and Target runs largely done when Mr W's with his dad. Since his dad's been out of town for the last couple of weeks, it's been a different thing. I'm grateful the kid can stay home by himself ("I'm not a little kid, Mom") for an hour or so at a stretch.

But things are good. I've been playing board games with people from church who get together weekly and have really enjoyed myself. It's largely the same people every week, so I'm getting to know people a little better and that's good. I joked last week that one of these days I'll play a game for the second time, and then they had all better watch out. They play so many different games that for the half dozen or so times I've attended, we've always played something different. I sincerely appreciate that a couple of them have taken a lot of time at the beginning to explain things.

Did you hear of this story? The one about how hard it is to make friends when you're over 30? I confess I didn't read it, because I feel like I've had some success through simple persistence. It did make me think about my efforts though, and feel appreciative for the friends I have made at the dog park, my Spin class, through playing the banjo, and by playing board games. Getting out and doing stuff.

There are no original ideas

After a busy few days of social stuff, it was nice yesterday to stay out of the heat and work on crafty stuff at home. I had seen some cool polymer clay buttons on Pinterest and wanted to see if I could recreate them with what I had on hand. Many polymer clay people use canes, (here's a link to some pictures showing how one is made) and the process leaves a lot of trimmed ends behind. Some clever clayer came up with a way to use these bits and ends to make new things. These are the Pinterest buttons (and the link to their source):

Not having done really any work with canes, I tried to get some bits of coordinating color, so I made a blend, which turned out to be two blends because it got too wide for my pasta machine to roll out.

I then used my cutters and cut out a big and a small square and rearranged the pieces. This was to get a lot of color combinations in a small space.

I then cut one of the blends into little pieces.

And applied those pieces to a sheet of black clay. This was pretty time consuming, but I wanted to get a nice distribution of colors. I might make longer pieces next time.

I then rolled the whole thing once more through the pasta machine to smoosh it all together, and then cut out the buttons. 

I still need to poke the holes (except for the test one in the bottom left corner), but I'm pleased with this first go. I'll put a layer of glaze over them to shine them up a bit, too. I love how creative ideas build on other creative ideas. 

We're havin' a heat wave here for the next week or so. I've got my two window air conditioners in place, one in the living room and one in my room, and last night alternately baked and froze until I got the settings right. We actually got some rain last night. It's so rare lately and very much needed. The fire is still going. 83,000 acres burned, almost 200 homes lost. It's moving north and west now, and there are still many homes in its path. 

Trying to beat the heat

It's supposed to be hot today, so I'm finishing my coffee and getting ready to do some yard work here at almost 7 am on a Saturday. I'm almost always up by this hour, so it's not that big of a deal. I have been BUSY, hence the lack of posts. Many of the other "just folks" blogs I follow are in the same groove right now.

I attended a volunteer meeting for the Ignite Fort Collins organizers last week and I'm going to be doing a little more social media stuff for them. I really want to learn how to get the word out for stuff without being a nuisance to people, and thought I could also use it for my jewelry stuff at some point. It's a good group of people and I really like how everyone is a big fan of living here.

I spent last night mixing clay for buttons. I'm still figuring out the best way to replicate colors. I bought a kitchen scale and it supposedly goes down to the nearest gram, but it's dicey at that low of a weight. Maybe there's a sweet spot on the surface of it that I have yet to find. I thought I had the ratios just right and made a big batch (for the equipment I have) and it's too pink, so I need to adjust. It's not hard to do, a little this, mix mix mix, a little more that, mix mix mix. There's no subtracting, though, so it has to be a gradual process. I'm happy with the results so far and want to end the weekend with the first batch to send off.

It was Mr W's first week of camp this week. He's at the top of the heap age-wise, and they laid the hammer down early on the discipline stuff. Here's how that can go wrong (with verification from the counselor). The group is playing a trivia game with two teams. Mr W gets a wrong answer. Camper A calls him an idiot, Mr W vigorously disagrees. Camper A gets into Mr W's personal space. Mr W gives Camper A a shove (the degree of which is unclear - not enough to knock him down, enough for the counselors to notice). Since Mr W made physical contact with another camper, it's an "automatic three strikes", which results in the parents being told about the incident. The other kid got two strikes (and perhaps knows how to work the system...).

Um, really? The expectations are that my kid is supposed to walk away when someone gets close to him and is verbally abusive. Since Mr W's actions were all defensive and not offensive, I told him not to worry about it. He didn't know if he'd get in trouble or not. I don't know if I would have handled it differently if I were in his shoes. The counselor later said that they're having trouble already with this kid.

Otherwise, he's having a good time there.

Lastly, here are my Delphiniums before they got blown around by the wind the other day. They are almost six feet tall. Very impressive. 

WebRep

currentVote

noRating

noWeight

Bittersweet

 

Mr W had his 5th grade "Continuation Ceremony" this past Friday. It was a nice ceremony, and at the end, a teacher read this little piece about how kids are like dogs, and teens are like cats. I hadn't heard it before, and when she read the final line it brought tears to my eye. The mom in front of me actually wept briefly. 

We went to a graduation party, and I don't know many of the parents very well, so I wasn't talking to people very much. I looked around and some moms were filling water balloons. I have to say that this will be my mantra from now on in social situations where I feel a little awkward. I will try to find a job to do. I stood there and tied water balloons for an hour and a half and chatted with a group of moms. It made the experience very pleasant. 

Saturday, I volunteered at the old-time music festival that a couple of my dog park friends (and the people who told me about the weekly jams) helped organize. Again, I didn't know many people there, so walked around a bit, and then sat at the ticket desk for an hour before my shift started, chatting with the other volunteer and people who were coming in and milling about. There were two jams that were held right in that area, so I got to listen to good music too. I'll feel more confident next year participating music-wise, and left my banjo in the trunk. I do enjoy doing that kind of volunteering. Keep busy, chat with people, and have a job to do. 

We took Sally to the dog park in town that has a pond, and she loved it. We've been there a couple of times, but it's farther away from our regular dog park so we don't get there often. We threw the ball into the water for about 30 minutes and it wiped her out (in a good way - she was tired). I had felt bad because I left her alone all day Saturday to go to the festival. When I got home it was raining, so I didn't walk her that day. I will definitely remember the pond for hot days this summer. The water wasn't something I'd want to swim in, but for dogs it was fine. She ended up looking cleaner than when she went in. Not surprising, as I've had to wait an extra month for a grooming appointment due to one of the groomers quitting. 

I got my sample buttons sent off to the button lady. I like the colors and how they turned out. I improved my method of poking the holes in the buttons after a bunch of trial and error, and feel capable of turning out 800 in a relatively short amount of time. Fingers crossed and I'm glad for offers of help from a couple of friends. 

WebRep

currentVote

noRating

noWeight