Why is my house in such disarray?

Oh, right. It's because I've been out having fun. I'm not to the point where I'm grossed out by the floor or anything, but the clutter around here is getting to "must do something soon" levels.

Saturday Mr W and I joined some friends for swimming at our local reservoir. Due to it being a wet year (for around here) the reservoir is really full. Gloriously full. I guess the rain has made it so farmers (the primary users of the water) aren't drawing down as much water for their needs. It was nice to float and chat. 

I went to a party, we saw a movie, and I had dinner with new friend M. We are both content with seeing how it goes. He's got a different life than I do, much less structured. But it's been fun to get to know someone new and it looks like we'll do something this weekend. It is NICE not to be fretting about it. Nice indeed. 

Something has shifted in my outlook/confidence, and I think it's due to my starting this jogging thing. I started, ostensibly, for Mr W's sake, so I could help him establish the habit of running and then get something out of his participation in cross country this fall. We were two weeks into the C25K (couch to 5K) program (an app on my phone) and I was so sore, I didn't think I could do it. I could feel his interest waning if I was going to quit, so I kept at it and figured out that I need to stretch, daily, to feel good. 

And here we are, about three months into it. He wants to just concentrate on getting faster and faster at running 20 minutes (which is something like the 2K they do for CC races), and I want to do my shuffle (12 minute mile - woot!) for 25-30 minutes. So, I've been going out just with the dog, and riding my bike when he does his run. It works.

We did it!

We did it! The dog (who was a willing but unwitting participant), Mr W and I completed our first 5K yesterday. This is shortly after the finish. He finished a couple of minutes ahead of me, but my one and only goal was to jog the whole thing without slowing down to walk. It's all kind of relative because my pace is slow and I can walk almost as fast as I can jog. No matter - I jogged the whole 3.1 miles, in about 38 minutes :-).

Come to think of it, the dog was pretty much briskly walking the whole time as well. But she's still a tired pup, so I'm sure it was a big deal for her too. She's been along for the whole training thing for the last nine weeks, and I imagine has also gotten in better shape. 

This started ostensibly as something we were doing for the kid, as I mentioned previously, but has become a thing I really want to do. I was going to quit after a couple of weeks because my back and hips would get so stiff at night, while I was in bed, that I thought I was injuring myself. 

Rewind to 1992, when I worked as a camp counselor and during the first day of camp, was chasing another counselor during a game of Capture the Flag and fell just so, dislocating my hip with such force they had to do surgery to remove a ligament that had torn. I was never a regular exerciser until I was in my mid-40's (I know, I know) so I only had youth and not any kind of strength from an exercise regimen on my side.

Anyway, I remember them telling me that I shouldn't do downhill skiing (check, no problem) or sit with my legs crossed, which I have taught myself to do. The problem with babying the injury site for all these years is that my hips are TIGHT. So when we started running nine weeks ago, I didn't know if the hip would stand for it or not. Having the pain after a couple of weeks made me think I was going to have to pass.

As a mom, I could see that the kid just might really take to this running thing if I could help him a bit over the very beginning part. This has happened - woot! - he wants to see how good he can get at it. So one day around two weeks into it, I had the bright idea to go to a Saturday yoga class. Maybe I could begin to loosen up and it would help. I dutifully put on my stretchy black pants and went off to the 4:30 class.

That class has always been at 4 pm, and I have shown up at 4:30 about three times. Oh well. This motivated me to go to the library to get a couple of books on yoga. I also searched online for "hip openers" and long story slightly shorter now have a set of five stretches I do daily that has helped tremendously.

I still get sore, and I still have to take some Advil occasionally, but the stretching really has been a game changer for me. The cool thing about this is that my body has given me what I've asked of it. I don't have aspirations to go for much longer than 30 minutes when I jog, and Mr W's cross country races are two miles (about 18-22 minutes when he gets better at it), so we'll concentrate on getting better at those distances/times rather than pushing for more more more.

Things to do, places to go

I seem to oscillate between letting inertia keep me home in the evenings and having things to do. Sometimes just staying in is enough, maybe even preferred, but I do notice that I get a little squirrelly (is my term for it) if I'm alone too much. I work alone for a good part of the day, so unlike people who have to constantly deal with co-workers, my work time is usually a solo thing unless I go out and talk to people (which I actually should do more. See above about inertia...).

Anyway, there is a program at our science museum that I'm attending, and I'm looking forward to that. It's funny, I fully intend to become a member but for two small things. First, they don't have a way to do it through their website (they are kind of a new/young organization), so you have to print out a form to fill out and mail it in with a check (maybe credit card info). Second, and this is such a nit-picky thing that I'd like to believe it's only the first thing that has kept me thus far from joining: they don't have memberships for a parent and a kid. There's individual, there's family, there's grandparent, but unlike the science museum in Denver, nothing for an individual plus one. Small things, really. I'm making a note to myself to print the form today and bring it and a check with me tonight.

I'm hoping to get together Friday with a friend who I don't socialize with enough. Hopefully that will happen. Then Saturday I've been invited to my banjo instructor's place for some picking and socializing. This means a lot to me because I have not been playing, and stopped my lessons back in September. I just picked up my banjo again last week after a couple of months, and was relieved to see I haven't lost everything (except my calluses, but they'll reform). I still want to get to a point where I can hold my own while playing with a group, even if I don't know the song. I need to get comfortable playing (finding the chords!) in A and D tunings. But I digress. I'm grateful that my instructor thought of me to invite me and I'm looking forward to seeing those folks again.

In other news, I'm getting close to starting a sweater. It's called Derry Raglan (that's the Ravelry link). It's knit with aran weight, and is easy and fast and has a little bling down the sleeves. I waver on the yarn, though. I'm always looking for that sweet spot in yarn, where it's good stuff - not scratchy, not droopy, won't pill right after I get finished - but doesn't cost me $150 to get enough for a sweater. Good yarn is not cheap. I think you kind of get what you pay for.

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.

It's going to have to wait

I guess the idea for my next project started with seeing all of the colorful wool things people are wearing at this time of year. Many of them appear handmade, and I think that people like wearing handmade stuff.

Then I saw this Facebook page from Fairysteps and it blew my little mind. Their shoes really strike me as beautiful and all the better because they are handmade. The ones with the buttons are so very cute. Here's a picture from a recent post of theirs:

Wow, huh? Love the low boots, especially. 

I don't know how to work with leather, so my mulling process eventually wandered over to something like this:

There's a site on Etsy (of course) that sells both the soles and the lasts for making stuff like this (well, the shaped bottom part, anyway). I like this idea so much that I'm going to sign up for a wet felting class held in January at one of the local yarn stores. I'll see how much I like the process, and go from there. 

The prospect of making stuff with a depth of color like this from Rosiepink is very appealing. 

They have lots of fun stuff on their site.

HOWEVER.

I've had some angst lately about spending so much time alone between work and hobbies that I don't think I'm going to rush headlong into the wet felt thing immediately. You know, another thing that has me working by myself at home. I spend enough time by myself at home.

Last night I went to a concert by the music director from our church in support of his new CD. I knew many of the people there, but ended up sitting by myself because I guess I didn't look hard enough for someone to sit with. It may have also been the case that I was waiting to be seen and invited to sit. This internal dynamic gives me a lot of anxiety sometimes. I feel like I forget how to be social. 

Fast forward to the intermission, and I easily find several people to chat with. The key? Asking about them. How's things? How's the new house coming along? Duh. It's not actually that hard at all. Yet I struggle. 

But the holidays are hard for me sometimes. I trot out my losses and run them back and forth through my mind. I think about the stuff I want, not the stuff I have. It's frustrating to me that I can't run through a list, check stuff off that is safe and in place and be satisfied with that. It has to do with letting go and trusting the process and I need to work on that. 

I blame part of this on the weather. The cold snap has had me on edge, hoping that everything in my old little house holds together, but it's been fine and it's finally warming up. Still, I'm restless at night and haven't been sleeping well. We might get above freezing today, and I'm grateful.

As far as the wise use of my free time goes, it seems I yearn for more connection, and so should try to do things that get me out of the house. I'll take the wet felting class in January, and see how that goes, but at the same time find some more social things for me to do. There's always people who need volunteers.

Are you familiar with Brene Brown? Really good stuff this week from NPR's On Being show about how being what they called "whole hearted" means showing up and being uncomfortable sometimes. You can't have the highs without the lows. That it's in the times that we struggle that result in the stuff that gives life some of its meaning. So I'm going to do some showing up. 

Hope your Tuesday is grand!

$74

After the table fee for this past weekend's craft show, I made $74. That's how it goes sometimes, and this time the weather (frigid!) kept people away. I also had a less than optimum spot in the arrangement. The house is in utter disarray, but things are overall fine.

Here are some pictures from my getting-ready process. I put my pieces out to see if I had "enough" (not a quantity, more like a feeling).

Then I made a few more bookmarks.

 And a few more bracelets.

Here's Mr W and the booth. I thought we had a nice display, and he was a big help schlepping stuff to and from the car. 

And at this point, after selling so little, I get to get philosophical and think about what to do next. I got really positive responses to my stuff from a lot of the people that stopped. Fun, unique, cool because it's got the watch parts. I think there are people out there who would buy the stuff, but I need to connect with them.

And is selling what's important? Or creating? Finding the balance there is hard.

I'm going to photograph/rephotograph everything this weekend, get it up on my Etsy site and then consider whether to just pay for more Facebook advertising, or seek professional help. I know several folks who do internet marketing, search engine optimization, etc., and maybe I should pay for some good advice. Funny, as I was typing the previous sentence, I can imagine FB has its scanners out, and now my rate for advertising will go up...

I'll do a separate post on this, but had an ah-ha moment yesterday when I came up with a new something to make and perhaps someday sell. I'm still finding out the feasibility, but I'll post more about the convergence of seeing what people are wearing, talking to people, looking at super cool FB pages of artists, and my own desire to create stuff. 

Hope you're staying warm - we're finally pulling out of our cold snap and it's going to be 20 today - yea!!

Shuffle

No new kitchen pictures today. They've installed a new ceiling and put in the wiring, but the room doesn't look much different. I met with the flooring person here yesterday and don't know how they'll manage to get it all done in the time window the contractor planned for.

We are reasonably comfortable, though. Sally has been dropped off at the local doggie day care, and I don't think she minds too much, although she'd rather sleep on my bed all day (me too, now that I think of it). Mr W's been shuttled over to his dad's house. And while that has come with some drama, as they've got a new puppy and Mr W grows weary of the responsibility, I was very proud of the kid for coming up with a plan that involved tethering the dog to the tree in the yard, and camping out close by with his computer. They just stayed outside most of the day.

I have felt really busy lately. Not quite frantic, but overextended and hoping I don't forget something that has to be done. Most certainly not enjoying the ride. And my back has hurt lately. It is, I believe, related to my old hip injury, which has left me with a stiff back a lot of the time. Stretching helps a lot, but I don't do it regularly enough.

I've also not been finding the time to practice my banjo. The last two weeks have been so hectic that I either forget, or put it off until the end of the day and then decide not to do it.

I have decided to shuffle the deck a bit.

I've suspended my banjo lessons for a month or so. Also, when it was time to sign up again for another three months of spin class yesterday, I did not. I'm going to join a local health club that has a lot of group fitness options, as well as yoga and "body flow" type classes. My employer will reimburse me up to $30 a month for a health club, so I'm going to give that a go for three months. I'm hoping it will make my back feel better.

Last thing is that I'm going to close my Etsy shop until the end of September. I haven't made anything new for a while, and will use the time to get my stock back up and think up some new things. My muse did visit a couple of months ago, and I need to follow up. I hate feeling like "OK, I've got an hour and a half to be creative, then I have to go to Target". That shuts down the process pretty fast for me.

It is amazing to me how these things mill around in my headspace for a long time, and then - bam - it's time to do it and the decisions come easily. Especially the banjo. I feel guilty for not keeping that up, but I just need to throw my free time up into the air and reschedule it.

I leave you with a recent picture. I can't remember what I called the post, but I wrote a few months ago about the people who empty my garbage.  They regularly leave the bin right in my driveway so I have to get out of my car and put the thing away before I can pull in. I thought it was accidental, but now think otherwise.

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. 

The anticipation

I've been pretty good about going to my spinning class. It's twice a week, and unless I have a meeting for something I volunteer for, I get there. My reward for going to spin class is that the next morning, I don't have to do the reasonable amount (IMO) of sit ups, push ups and planking I do other days.

Have you done planks? There's a picture of one below.

It's good for your core and it's got this funny mental thing about it for me that if I can distract myself, I can go for longer periods of time. I've worked up to 90 seconds at home, and we've been recently increasing the amount of time that we do it in class.

I'm pretty sure that if I didn't do planks regularly at home, there'd be no way I could keep up in class. Well, someone thought we should try a two-minute plank, so we did and it was hard. The next class, we did two minutes, 15 seconds and it was really hard, but some of us (me included) did it. We had a substitute teacher (who is one of the long time students in the class) so our regular instructor wasn't there.

Fast forward to yesterday's class, where our regular instructor is there, and we're not sure if the sub has told her that we did the crazy long plank. I admit I was a little anxious, because our instructor is pretty competitive, and I thought she'd have us try for an extra 15 seconds. So we get done with the spinning part of the class, and then do our floor work with weights and mats, and there's no plank. I think, "She's being especially crafty and saving it for last when our muscles are tired from hoisting these hand weights". Nope. She gets to the end, and says, "That's all I got."

It was funny how I was sort of dreading having to do the long plank, and then disappointed that we didn't get to try. Perhaps next time.


Image from here.

Saturday's reasonable to-do list

It's actually never reasonable, the stuff I want to accomplish on a Saturday, but here's the stuff I'd like to have happen. Oh, but first, here's a totally unrelated picture from a couple of weeks ago. We were getting some weather coming in, and I snapped this on my way to work. That's the building across the street from us.

It was super swirly. 

OK, for today:

1. Start some seeds! I just read something from a gardening blog I follow (A Way to Garden) and while I'm sure she's not the only one saying this, she had a nice little interview with an expert about how to keep seeds from getting leggy. After reading it, I won't be putting my seedlings in the basement and think the grow light is enough. I'll put them in my bedroom, in front of the west-facing window, with the light and the heat mat. We'll see if that does it this year. 

2. Pull up carpet in back hallway. I was at Home Depot yesterday to get something to pull up the wooden ruler-like carpet strip under the carpet, and found a smallish curved tool that is supposedly made to do the job. I will report back.

3. (maybe) Paint trim in back hallway. I need to retouch a few areas, and also go over the white trim back there. I thought the kid might like to help.

4. Hike. It's going to be a beautiful day, so Mr W and I will get out some time this afternoon and go for a hike. May or may not bring the dog, as only some trails allow them off-leash. 

I think that's enough. I need to work on making a bunch of new clay tiles for the brooch order I received, and that will be a few hours of work there. 

Happy Saturday!

My Ignite talk

They posted the videos from the Ignite talk I gave on our microbiomes. Here it is!




I was crazy nervous, but I think I did pretty good. I'm glad they shot the videos so I could see it!

It's big

Mr W's on spring break this week, so I took Monday off and we went down to the Forney Transportation museum in Denver. We had gone when he was about five, and I took a similar picture. Here he is with his friend P, who joined us for the outing.

I really liked how they had things set up so we could get down on ground level with these trains. This is a Union Pacific Big Boy, the largest locomotive EVAH. It was massive. Apparently used mostly in the mountain west. I was pleased (relieved?) that in this age of video games and screen input, kids are still wowed by big stuff like trains. 

In the middle-right of the photo, you can see another train car, which was at the level of the rest of the museum, about four feet higher than where the boys are standing. They had lots of vintage cars, as well as a selection of station wagons, of all things, and it was fun to recall going places in my aunt's old wagon. 

We ate lunch at a 50's-style diner, and the boys had questions about Elvis, juke boxes, and the decor of the place. It was fun. 

Success!

Not sure if I mentioned it here, but I signed up to do a talk with a group in town called Ignite Fort Collins. They organize quarterly events where 14 people talk for 5 minutes on topics of their choice. The motto is "Enlighten us, but make it quick!" I volunteer for them, doing a bit of communication stuff, and think it's a great organization. I think I've been doing this for almost a year, so it was time to do a talk.

They'll put videos of the talks online, and I'll post it here when that happens. It talks a surprisingly long time to prepare for a five minute talk. I spoke about the human microbiome. The trillions of bacteria in us and on us that call us home. It was a good experience to speak in front of 200 people. I was nervous, but did my power poses, and doing them helped. The lights were such that I couldn't really see anyone, but they laughed at my jokes, so that was good.

Preparations for the talk took most of my evenings this week. Mr W had a band concert at school last night that I missed, but his dad took him, attended it and kept Mr W for the night. I took Mr W to his rehearsal the day before and heard the two pieces they played. They've improved since their first concert in December. I'm thinking of framing Mr W's percussion activity as something that he just does as part of school. As in, if he's liking it well enough, he'll do it through middle school.

And, it's Friday! I am going to make a big push to get rid of basement stuff this weekend. I've got bags of trash, boxes of recyclable paper, and bags of stuff to give to Goodwill that need to GO. With all that stuff out, I'll get a few more plastic boxes for the stuff that needs to be stored well, stack those puppies and get my finished room back. Yea!! I might not be able to resist getting an area rug and some new lights from Target, and then wait for good deals on a couple of chairs to go down there. We'll see.

Slog, but now with more progress

In a continuation of Saturday's activities, I headed back down to the basement yesterday and spent several hours going through boxes and putting things in piles. It snowed some (6") and it was blowing around, so I decided to stay put, cook (cookies and soup) and keep going on the basement boxes.

I'm pleased to say that it wasn't as hard emotionally to get through the rest of the boxes, and that I have indeed looked inside and sorted every box down there. Phew! I have a tally:

7 boxes of files from school and previous jobs that will get recycled
8 bags of trash
12 bags/boxes of stuff to be donated to Goodwill

I need to buy some more plastic boxes, amazingly. There were things that were in cardboard boxes or just in bags, like Mr W's stuffed animals and artwork from school, that I want to put in plastic for long-term storage.

An aside. A couple of years ago I went to one meeting of a book club here in town. While there, I was chatting with a guy whose apartment was in a building that had caught fire (big story, still unresolved). His stuff didn't burn, but a lot was damaged, A) by smoke, and B) by the SPRINKLERS. He said he had stored stuff in flip-top plastic boxes, and that if he had used the kind that have a solid, one piece lid, a lot of his stuff would have been OK. That thought has stuck with me and if I have to buy plastic storage boxes, I get the ones with the one piece lid.

The plan is to move as much as possible into what I call the furnace room, which is dry, but dark and cellar-like. I have a (more or less) finished room as well, that's about 12 x 20, and I want to turn that into usable space. The ceiling is kind of low, but it think it will be nice to finally have another room that Mr W can use if he's got friends over.

This is an idea I saw on Pinterest for making a rug on the cheap out of carpet samples:

She bought some good seaming tape and taped the wrong sides together. I imagine there are bolder colors out there that would make a fun rec room rug.

Feels good to be making progress, but it'll feel even better when it's done. And then I can move the contents of my kitchen down there when it's being remodeled! ;-)

What the weekend is for

Poof! There goes another weekend. It was my kid-free weekend, but Mr W had his birthday party over at his dad's, so I helped shlep kids around and watched the opening of the presents. It was fun.

I went to lunch both days with friends I haven't seen for a while. Everyone is busy. It is cool to see several of my friends moving up through the ranks of their professions. Friend J's dad recently passed after five months of hospice care for neurological decline that I don't know was ever defined to everyone's satisfaction. She (the youngest of four kids, two of which are local, as were/are the parents) was the highest-functioning one in the scenario. Discussed things with love, but not sugar-coated with her dad. Supported her mom who in her stress and grief didn't take as good of care of herself as she should. Informed her located-elsewhere sister (who tends to be a bit eccentric anyway) that plans after her dad's death would not include any of the things the sister wanted, but all of the things the parents wanted. Eesh. She is strong, my friend J.

My other friend D is an assistant principal at a high school. Keeps her busy for sure. She had wanted to sell her house and move this year, but after looking around in her price range, it seems people are staying put and there is a dearth of options for what she wants. It's a problem that will likely fix itself in the next year or so, but the situation was such that she's going to stay put and have some renovations done so when she sells it, it's worth a little more than it is presently.

It was good to catch up with friends.

I've been trying to make some jewelry, but have sort of stalled. There's plenty of stuff in my Etsy shop, and I haven't had a sale in a month. I tried some new styles of necklaces, but I'm not sure if I like them. After the holiday push, I feel a little ambivalent about pouring as much time into the process (much of which is promotion). Whereas before the holidays, I spent a lot of time getting ready for craft fairs, I feel freed from that and haven't had trouble finding things to do.

I want to put more time into practicing the banjo. I'm reorganizing the stuff I have stored in my basement. That project is only about 30% done. I have lots of paper stuff from past school and work that seemed important at the time and should now be gone through and recycled. I have to be in the right mood for doing it (not just papers, but all this stuff) because I can tend to throw it all out, or save too much. I want to be somewhere in the middle.

So my kid-free weekends have lately been spent on this stuff: socializing, banjo practice, cooking for the week ahead, exercising the dog, doing house stuff. I guess that's all good. The proportions need to be tweaked so I can get done with the basement because I'm going to be putting things down there if/when the kitchen renovation starts. That should be some motivation.

The next level

I have enjoyed learning how to play the banjo. I feel like between my fun riot of an instructor and the group of people who jam together weekly, I have made social connections while I am learning something new. As far as I'm concerned, that's what this life thing is all about. 

I've thought about how I ended up playing old time music, and it's one of those funny things. A friend from the dog park just happens to play fiddle in this kind of music. My goal for learning to play the banjo was to be able to play as part of a group of people sitting around and playing. I don't need to solo and as yet can't quite swing singing and playing at the same time. It's a good fit.

After a little over a year of playing, I can tell that my beginner banjo is just that, a beginner banjo. When the third string is pressed over the second fret, it's supposed to be an "A" tone. Play that string open and it's supposed to be a G. My banjo cannot be tuned to do this. Tune to the G and the A is flat (or sharp, I can't remember, but it sounds funny). Go the other way, and the G is weird. I use both a lot, so this is a bit of a problem. 

Enter dad's Christmas gift money. Looks like it's time to buy a new banjo, so I've been looking around and I think I have found what I want. With dad's gift and some of the craft show bucks, I can throw in a some money and get a new plunker. The above picture is what I'm thinking of - isn't it nice? You're thinking, a banjo is a banjo is a banjo. Here's what I like about this one. It's an open back banjo. There's no resonator like in bluegrass banjos, so it sounds more old timey. It's got what they call a scoop neck, so the first part of the neck up from the pan is a little lower than the rest of the neck. This makes it sound plunky, too. Finally, look at the neck. It is largely unadorned, which I like. It's got a little shooting star motif by the fifth peg, but otherwise nothin'. Some banjos are almost gaudy in the neck inlays, IMO, and it doesn't affect the sound. 

A friend is looking around to see if there are any vintage banjos for sale right now that might also be what I want. Apparently some of these old instruments (100 yrs or so) can sound really nice and they are in good shape. If he doesn't find anything in the next couple of weeks, I'm going to order this one. 

My geeks and me

I classify myself as more of a nerd than a geek, but I'm geeky enough to want to participate in these pub quizzes that have recently come to one of the local breweries in town. Yesterday I finally got my chance, with two friends recruited from the group of board game people (themselves a veritable well of geekdom) that I play games with a couple of times a month.

I had a great time. We had to label parts in a frog dissection, and answer all manner of questions. I guess the questions for the week are the same for all the many locations where the quiz is held. We were almost the oldest table of people there, but that's OK. All the better to answer questions that aren't about current TV shows or pop music, although we do need to find a couple more people who might know some of that stuff.

Yea for doing new social stuff! I also had a vanilla porter beer - yum.

The December 2012 Sweater Bonanza

I buy most of my clothes at thrift stores and garage sales. Not underthings, but the overthings. Sweaters, shirts, pants, sometimes shoes. If it doesn't work for me after I bring it home (although I do try most things on), I release it back into circulation by putting it in the donation pile. I admit I have bought a couple of things I thought might look good on me because they were really cheap. I seem to forget that olive is not my color. I tend to wear cardigans to work a lot during the winter. The lab is really warm sometimes and we have to wear lab coats and gloves, so it's nice to easily take off a layer when I'm in there.

I have to be in the right frame of mind for shopping this way, because one does have to sort through a lot of unacceptable things. But I look around online for clothing occasionally and can't quite bring myself to spend $50 on a pair of jeans. This is better for the planet anyway, and I do like the thrill of the hunt.

Someone mentioned that a thrift store in the next town south of here had good stuff, so I drove the 20 minutes and did some shopping there this morning.  They had a 50% off sale on items with certain tag colors, so I got most of my items for half price.

And did I find some items! Holy moly, I hit the sweater bonanza. Above you can see the SEVEN sweaters I bought after I soaked them in a gentle no-rinse soap and have laid them out to dry in my basement. Everything does seem to have a certain smell to it from the thrift store and I like to give everything a wash before I wear it. It's funny, four of the sweaters are from Christopher and Banks, a store whose clothing I associate with teacher-wear. But I like the styles and the fit so it works for me.

I also found two tops, a pair of shoes and a pair of snow boots. The snow boots I think are snowboarding boots. I don't snowboard, but I think they will work just fine for $5, thank you.

How about you, do you shop second hand?

One small New Year's resolution

I saw this idea and thought it would be right up my alley with regard to New Year's resolutions, which I don't tend to make. I'm put a jar, a stack of scrap paper, and a pen on my hutch and make the effort to write down when good things happen.

I'm not going to have too many rules on what qualifies, but want to have a jar full of stuff to look at at the end of next year. Sounds simple enough.

Things have been good here, busy like most everyone. I've rolled some kid essentials like boots, slippers and socks in Mr. W's Christmas present haul and I'm not ashamed to say that whatever arrives before Saturday (the day we'll do our Christmas) will be wrapped in festive paper and put under the tree.

He's getting one big gift from me this year, and a couple of small things. I wrapped this thing last night. I set the box that the gift came in into a larger box, and secured it with some styrofoam pieces that came as packaging for something else. Then I put four cans of black beans into the box, filled the rest with newspaper, and wrapped that. Ha! Now, to work on the scavenger hunt clues for him to find his gift. Yup, when the number of gifts is small, ya gotta make them work for it.


Image from here

Post-Big-Craft-Show Thoughts

I am relieved the big craft show is over and am looking forward to getting my house put back together and getting my kid out from behind the computer to make some cookies and put up the tree today. It was a large chunk of time to get ready and do this thing, and I wanted to get my thoughts down so I can come back later (maybe next year when it's time to sign up!) and read them.

What sold best was my watch parts bracelets and the bookmarks I make from buttons and clay tiles. As a last minute thing on the Wednesday before, I made about 15 bookmarks with my clay tiles only and sold all of those. All told, I sold about 50 bookmarks, 20 of the watch parts bracelets and about 10 button bracelets. People are looking for something different.

I sold small numbers of magnets, buttons, brooches, earrings, and ornaments. These were my lower-priced items that I figured would sell well because they were inexpensive, but it didn't go that way. The bookmarks were really cheap at $3 and it's hard to tell if I could have charged $5 and still sold as many, or people would have not bought them because they didn't look like they were worth that much. As far as time and materials went, $3 was fair as long as I didn't have to ship them.

People either liked my stuff or didn't and this was very interesting to me. Many looked as they went by and didn't slow down as they passed. Others stopped and I could tell my stuff connected with them and that was really neat to see. One woman wearing a bright blue and purple sweater stopped and looked at the button bracelets. I looked at which button bracelets I had out, and after she passed fished around in the box where the extras were and put out one that was purple blue and green. She came back around, zeroed in on that very bracelet and BOUGHT IT! I was very pleased and told her what I had done and she thanked me. That was pretty cool

I am lucky and fortunate to be in a position where I am not dependent on the sale of my stuff to put food on the table and pay my mortgage. So why am I doing it? It was fun to interact with people, and I get a kick out of having people like my stuff. It was also fun to see people I knew who stopped by because I was there, or happened to be passing through. Without thinking too hard about it, my goal should be to cover my expenses (including my time) and maybe just a little on top of that.

I was talking to the woman in the booth next to mine and she wasn't shy about telling me that I wasn't charging enough for my bracelets. More to the point that I wasn't charging for my time. I do spend a lot of time finding the right elements to buy, and that time is done and passed and I'm not sure how much time it was, but that was time spent making pieces that I made and will make. I guess I need to come up with some way to estimate that, and also to keep track of my time going forward.

With the money I have made at the three craft shows this year, Mr W and I are going to take a vacation. I believe we will go to Washington, DC some time in the late winter/early spring. He's just the right age for it and I'd like to go as well. I was talking to my dear SIL who turns 50 next year and she's organizing a long weekend in Las Vegas in April to celebrate. Looks like I'll have to make more bracelets to pay for that airfare as well.