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!!

Choices choices choices

I've received the bids for the home renovation work and will go with a company I'll refer to as DJ. It's a bit more than I have refinanced, but he said that he was aiming a little high and that there will be lots of choices to make that can bring costs down.

Here is the drawing of the new layout that we will start from. The current layout has the fridge and stove switched. I'll take a bunch of pictures as it progresses. I'm excited to have a dishwasher (besides myself, I mean). 

The only thing I've seen so far that I really like and think might be worth the extra cost (and this of course will change once I meet with the designer again) is recycled glass countertops. They supposedly cost about the same as granite, and I think they look really cool. Here's a picture (from here):

You can choose from six or eight different edges on these things. These are the kinds of choices that will need to be made. I just hope I can tell the difference between the ones that matter and those that really don't. 

Project in progress photos

I wanted to post a couple of before and after photos from painting my back hallway this past weekend. I really like it, it's so much lighter back there.

Here's before:

Yeah, the purple was not a good idea, and the original orange WAS pretty orangey, wasn't it? I also have too much stuff back there, but that's a project for another day. Here's a couple of "after" shots:

I did take a stab at pulling up the carpet, but need to get a smaller crowbar/wedge thingy to get the carpet strip up. It was as I suspected underneath, a layer of no-pile indoor/outdoor carpet that I'll lay the peel-and-stick vinyl tiles over. There was a sense of satisfaction involved in hooking my big crowbar under the carpet and pulling. It'll be nice to get the gross carpet out of there in favor of something that can actually get clean.

I took three coats of paint to cover that purple! I bought the "primer and paint in one" kind of paint and it covered for all the world like regular old paint. Oh well, it looks nice. 

Next up: the back hallway in Torchlight

Well, we're expecting more snow, so in what feels like a repeat of a couple of weeks ago (when we were supposed to get a big storm, although it totally fizzled) I went to Home Depot today to pick up some paint. I figured I might as well do a project if I was potentially going to be snowed in. I bought paint to repaint my back hallway. The color I chose is Behr's "Torchlight".

I wanted something colorful, but that also felt light. When I bought the house, the back hallway was part of the space where a porch had been added after the house was constructed. The kind of porch they build so the entrance to the cellar is enclosed. It was a very orangey orange. Glossy. The sellers said something about it being stimulating for the new baby. 

For reasons that escape me at the moment, when the wall was put up to make Mr W's room out of the porch, only half of the area got repainted. I chose a medium-dark purple, and the guy was absolutely right. The dark color makes the space feel like a cave. But it's only half dark purple, because the other half is still the orangey orange color. Why I never finished the job is what I can't quite recall. 

No matter. Tomorrow I make it all better. Yes, I'll take pictures. I should say that what precipitated this particular project is that I've had it up to here with the nasty carpet in said back hallway. I figured I should paint before a new floor is installed. Why, oh why do people put tan shag carpeting in one of the highest traffic spots in the house? It's permanently dirty. I went over it a lot with the rug cleaner before my family came out last August and I don't think it made much difference.

Here's where I feel I have made progress in some grown up, self-reliant kind of way. Whereas before my thought process logically went something like, "I need to hire someone to rip up that carpet and put some vinyl flooring down," now (for whatever reason) it occurs to me that I can rip up 40 square feet of carpet myself and buy tiles of peel and stick vinyl flooring and install them myself. So I bought a box of it when I got the paint.

It's in 12" x 12" squares and has some orange tones that will go with the paint. I don't have much on the schedule this weekend, and we are supposed to get a bunch of snow, so I'll see how much I can get done. My goal is to at least have get the walls painted and the carpet ripped up. Yea!!

Image from here.

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. 

Mostly before and mostly after

I should have taken pictures of the absolute beginning of this venture, when this room's floor was mostly covered with boxes. It feels like a big accomplishment to have gone through and sorted, pitched and given away things, as well as to rebox the stuff I'm keeping and put it away in the adjoining room next to this one. The boxes weren't more than one layer thick, but there were still lots of them. The above picture is after I've prepped the room for painting. 

There are two small windows along the wall on the right, and you can see the far one in the upper right corner of the pictures. The room is about 24' long, and I'm standing with my back against the wall in both of theses pics. The ceiling was previously a dark peach color, and the walls used to match, but a coat of primer was put over them by the previous owners. Both the ceiling and walls were so DULL.  

So here's an after shot where things are coming along. On the far side of the dresser on the right there are a few boxes of books I need to rehome, and a box of old phones and electronics that need to be recycled (there's a place in town that will take the stuff, and they charge by the pound, I think. I need to find out more about it). 

I used semi-gloss white for the ceiling and I LOVE it. The walls are satin finish and a bright yellow green that I'm very pleased with. The room looks fresh and bright and despite the low ceiling, it feels spacious. On the far end is the old desk I use to glue my jewelry together. My supplies are boxed up and in the other room.

This is looking from the other corner on the same side of the room. You can see the table I moved out from the adjoining room (that was holding boxes) that will now be the site of games and puzzles and flat-surface things we don't have room for upstairs. This part pleases me a lot. I'm glad I got to this point before buying a rug. The couch-coffee table-TV combo takes up more room than I thought, and whereas I thought I needed a big rug for this space, a 5' x 8' will do fine. I just need to decide whether I'll put the remnant that is currently on the floor under the table or what. Plenty of time for that.

Parade Photo

It was a so-so St. Patrick's Day parade this year. Not sure why. Maybe because we got there a little late and had to jostle for position. Maybe in this age of instant gratification the stop-start nature of the parade participants was a little annoying. Maybe the floats this year were kind of *yawn*. 

One of the solid traditions of this parade is that a lot of candy is passed out. They used to just throw it on the ground and kids would grab what they could. It has evolved into more of a Halloween thing, where kids have bags and people walk down the line and put candy in bags, one at a time. 

Mr W likes getting candy from the parade, but had his feelings hurt when he was passed over often in favor of the littler kids near him. At one point he said, "I'm only 12!" I guess that's about the age when the candy stuff ends, I was sorry to note. I don't know, he's about five and a half feet tall, maybe they thought he was even older. 

One definite high point of the festivities was seeing this group of storm troopers. I don't know who they represented, but it was fun to see the group. 

Unexpected shoe windfall

Spring is coming, which means summer is coming, which means I need to get a summer pair of shoes. I prefer to go without socks during the summer, and we have to have our toes covered in the lab at work, so over the years I have sought out shoes that meet these requirements.

I had a pair of Keens for a couple of years that were almost perfect. They were like t-strap shoes, except they were slides, so there was no back. Easy on and off and I loved them! Wore them until they fell apart, which doesn't take as long as it used to, unfortunately. As these things go, that style isn't made anymore, so I've had to look for other things to fill the bill.

These shoes are made by Jambu. They've got the same black toe cap that I think you either love or hate but some really fun styles. This one is called Blossom, and I like the cutouts and the flowers. Yea!

I went to order these shoes yesterday from Zappos, which I've used over the last few years because they ship for free and have good customer service. I was about to check out when I saw I had a store credit. Huh? So I looked further and the credit was for $80 and was from 2009. Huh? Well, OK. I believe that I would do something like that, leave the credit and then forget it even when I have bought shoes subsequently. Dufus. 

But yesterday, I used that credit, and spent all of $9 on these shoes. I felt triumphant, and just a little foolish for not noticing the credit before.

Extra credit

It's just about the end of the quarter for Mr W, and he came home Monday saying he needed to do two small projects. The first was to demonstrate the different densities of various liquids, so we hauled out the (from the bottom) molasses, pancake syrup, dish soap, water (they mixed), and cooking oil. We later surmised (actually he did with his teacher) that some of the soap reacted with some of the oil, which is the cloudy stuff above the green. Pretty cool, huh?

The other project, which I don't have a picture of, as it's on my phone, was to build a model that was an example of Mayan residential architecture. We rose to the challenge with polymer clay and he'll present that today. 

I lament the fact that Mr W loves to do stuff like this, but it is rarely a part of the curriculum, especially in science. At one point, he was so turned off by how his science teacher taught ("she has a LAB in her room, and we never USE it!") he said he was never going to take science again. I told him he'd get a good one one of these days. 

80%

I am about 80% done with painting the basement, and I feel so accomplished! It feels good and right to be transforming a place that just held boxes from my past into usable space that will make my little house feel bigger.  Not sure what got me going on this, but the metaphorical implications have me thinking about personal growth and all that stuff. It's good. And good to have a bonus room.

I forgot to upload pictures from my phone, but I did take a couple of before shots that I'll post tomorrow. I am especially happy with the ceiling. As I mentioned before, it is a low 6' 2" or so, and was painted this sort of darkish peach color. And there was a thin coat of white that barely covered the fact that the walls used to be the same color.

I read somewhere that painting a low ceiling with semi-gloss white was the best choice, because it reflected light or some such thing. The paint department woman at Home Depot said they didn't have ceiling paint in semi-gloss, so I said to just give me the semi-gloss. Paint is so thick these days that it didn't spatter all that much. I am so happy with the results. Going down there the next day, even with no lights on, and it was a brighter, happier space.

I've cut in around the top and corners with the Pear color and it's going to work great, too. I'm glad I didn't go with anything more intense in color. This is light, and fresh and just what I wanted. I'll finish cutting in around the floor this weekend, and I figure Mr W won't mind rolling the walls as long as I've done the detail work. "Stay away from the ceiling with the roll- D'oh! Nevermind, we'll repaint that part later..."

I like the idea of a couple of low-to-the-floor chairs. Maybe like this in a different fabric:

It's fun to think about decorating options. 

Image from here.

"Pear" and some thoughts on weather forecasting

We have a winner in the basement paint decision making. It is Pear, by Behr. Here's a picture pulled off the web (source below) with a rockin' blue ceiling that I'm not going to do this round, but really like.

I intentionally picked something kind of bright because the basement only has a couple of small windows. It's funny how different the paint chip looked at Home Depot vs. in my car driving to work (stopped at a light, of course), vs. when I was in bed with the compact fluorescent bulb lamp illuminating things vs at work. 

Compared to the color of this on my screen, the paint chip has a bit more yellow than the picture. I figure it will match nicely with browns, as well as blues, and yellow as well. I'm going to finish my coffee, have some breakfast and get to it.

We are supposed to have a doozy of a winter storm today, and so far, it's been a bit of a disappointment, although it is snowing steadily at the moment. We had temps in the high 50's this week, so surfaces are pretty warm to begin with, and the temperature is in the low 30's now. Even if it just rains, we in CO are so grateful for moisture, as it has been a very dry winter. 

It's time to think about starting seeds, and I'm on the fence about what to start. The chances of me being able to grow lettuce starts comparable to those I can find at the local nursery are slim. And it helps that they satisfy, in that I buy a red leaf, a green leaf and a spinach and like my salads just fine with those. I have a packet of seeds that is a variety of spring mix things. Maybe I'll give that a go. I can always buy the starts if if doesn't work out.

One thing I am most certainly going to start is several varieties of zinnias. They've consistently done well in my hot, south-facing alley garden, so I'm going to take advantage of that. There are so many kinds, too. For the rest of the growing slots in my little bit of seed starting space (one heat mat and one 2' grow light) I'll have to ponder and see what appeals to me.

I have had the great good fortune to cross paths with a super-gardener. She's in the gamer group I joined about a year ago, and growing food is her thing. I am so inspired by her, and look forward to talking garden stuff as this season progresses. She's also come to most of the trivia nights that I've been organizing, so she is a friend as well. Win-win!!

And speaking of trivia, it has been a lot of fun to get some friends together and participate. The music is too loud sometimes, and we probably don't drink as much as the bar would like us too (I say that facetiously) but I have really enjoyed it. This past week, there were people from three different parts of my life there, and that was really cool. 

Image from here.

So many choices

My basement purge is pretty much complete, and it does feel good to be done going through boxes that evoked some strong emotions. I still have a lot of stuff, but it all fits in the unfinished furnace room in my basement. That leaves the finished room, which I envision as a TV room (if I had a TV, which I'm almost considering, but not there yet), place to play board games, etc. It wasn't until I had gotten the stuff out of there and arranged the few pieces of furniture that it actually clicked in my mind that, "hey, this will be a good usable space". It was as though I had received a bonus room all of the sudden.

Well, before I procure any more stuff to put in this room, I want to paint it. The ceiling is low (about 6' 2") and I want to paint it white (it's this peachy color at the moment, which draws your eye up to see how low the ceiling is...) and then paint the walls a nice fresh color. 

The website Design Seeds, as I think I have mentioned here before, has tons of color combinations and I've listed a few here. It's looking like bluish green, greenish blue, yellowish green, something like that. I'll just have to get some samples to tape on the walls, and sit with a glass of wine to decide. 

Purple is always a possibility. This is one good thing about living alone. The color choice is mine all mine, and I don't have to negotiate to get the color I want on the walls. Do you like using color on your walls, or do you like to keep it neutral and then decorate around that?

Sheep dog

Submitted almost without comment, except to say that she swam in clean water after this, and had a blast.

Project pictures

This is a picture mid-project of the table that Mr W and I are tiling. Here, the tiles have been set, but we haven't put the grout on yet, as he was sick over the weekend (poor kid). He stayed home yesterday and will hopefully be back at it today. 

This is totally my kind of DIY project. Want to include some glass beads? No problem. They don't fit well? Just put them how you like them. The black and white tiles don't exactly "go" with the iridescent tiles? That's OK, it still looks good. 

Up at the top of the bottom photo, it's hard to see, but there are is one regular sized bead set next to one globby, kind of double, bead. Mr W wanted to include it so it didn't feel left out. I thought that was a great sentiment. 

The iridescent tile sheets we picked up at Home Depot on sale for $7 each. I LOVE this stuff. I'm looking forward to getting the rest of it done next time the kid is here and will post pictures. I want to include some glass tile in the kitchen redo. 

Thanks, Target

I'm not one of those people who is at Target the day after a holiday to scavenge the newly-discounted post-holiday goodies. I do swing by the sale shelves occasionally, though, and picked up an Amaryllis bulb in its own pot sometime after Christmas for around $5. 

The interesting stuff:cost ratio on this purchase has been really high. It doesn't exactly grow in front of your eyes, but almost. It's provided us with a couple of months of observation, and is now on its way out. I have researched how to make it all happen again, and am going to try to get this thing to rebloom next year. It involves lots of sun, then getting it outside, so I'm going to have to repot it into something that has a water reservoir because I'm not that good at remembering to water pots daily. 

I have another Amaryllis that is at least 3 years old (post bloom, probably got that on sale, too) that consists of two leaves that limps along in a darkish corner of my living room and yearns to bloom again, so I'll bring it along for the experiment. 

Mr W was suitable impressed with the growth of the bulb, and asked questions about what was going to happen, which I could reply with, "This, but wait and see, too". Totally worth the $5. 

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! ;-)

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.

Lucky me!

Sniff-sniff (in the good way). I am the very pleased beneficiary of Susan's generosity. I entered her Valentine's Day poem contest and was picked as the winner (randomly). Here is my Valentine's haiku:

I've seen so many

pictures of hearts and flowers

Almost the 15th

I WAS weary of all the mushy stuff this year. Anyway, I received a fabulous-smelling bar of handcrafted soap, as well as a handknit towel! I know the stuff is supposed to be used (fer cryin' out loud) but it's hard to use stuff that is so nice. I'll try my best.

When I first opened the package, I had the soap close to the edge of the table. This was like a magnet for Sally the dog, who is tall enough to have her nose on the table. She paused for several seconds, "drinking in" the smell with interest. Funny. 

So, thanks, Ms. Susan! You made my day. Now I shall think of a way to pay this forward.

It begins

I'm having two contractors come to the house today to give me estimates on my home improvement projects. Hopefully there is common ground between the three things I want done and the resources I have to do them. They both do work on old houses in my neighborhood, and come on good recommendation.

The first project is to update the kitchen with new cabinets, probably a new stove (but I could keep my fridge), a dishwasher (which I don't currently have), new tile, new floor, new window.

Second project is the deck on the side of the house I've been going on about for years.

Third is to fashion another bedroom out of the existing unheated (but enclosed) front porch, and a bit of the living room.

If there's anything left, I want to cute-ify the front of the house by adding some wood trim. Probably need to paint the house, too.

We'll see how far the money goes. I'm meeting with a money person tomorrow to file the paperwork to refinance and pull some money out to pay for the renovations. If I do these projects, it's going to add an amount equal to the cost of the projects to the value of the house. Maybe more.

I like the last part best

I agree with the sentiment of this xkcd comic. But I really identify with the nerdy group who are talking about giant squid. Am seeking more such groups to chat with. 

Small thing garbage can update

Picture perfect placement yesterday. This is the end of the day and the cans were put back exactly where I set them out that morning. I'm standing in the alley, my little driveway is on the right, as is my back door.

Maybe because it was Valentine's Day.

Geesh, my alley and gardens are not pretty things this time of year. 

Small things like my garbage can

This is a small funny thing. It's Thursday, which means it's garbage day. I live on an alley, and haul my garbage can the short distance from over by the garage, to a spot NEXT to my driveway and on the alley. You know, so I can get out of my driveway and go to work.

About 80% of the time, the garbage-takers will put my empty garbage can not in the spot it was in, but right in my driveway. This means I have to stop in the alley, get out of my car, and move the garbage can so I can pull into my driveway.

It happens with such frequency that there's a little paranoid part of me that thinks they do it on purpose. Then I think, "No one is that petty, are they?" It's these little things that present us with a choice about the degree to which we will get tweaked out about the stuff that happens to us, methinks.

Stay tuned.

I'm trying

I am trying, with this Valentine's Day thing, not be one of those people. You know, one of those people who (as I joke that I will do) wear a black arm band on February 14th. Or host/attend anti-Valentine's Day activities. Or generally badmouth love in general, and romantic love in particular.

This year it is HARD. My goal is to let the day pass unacknowledged, and for some reason all the declarations of love bug me a bit this year. I don't think people are being particularly obnoxious about it, but that I'm sensitive to it.

Instead, I'll try to broaden the kinds of love that can/should be acknowledged on Valentine's Day, so my kid and my dog get a few more smooches on the tops of their heads.

But I'll be glad when it's February 15th.

Here's a bit of heart art I found. It's embroidered. Link is here.

Edited to add:

This is my weekly horoscope from Freewill Astrology:

This Valentine season, I suggest you consider trying an experiment like this: Go to the soulful ally you want to be closer to and take off at least some of your masks. Drop your pretenses, too. Shed your emotional armor and do without your psychological crutches. Take a chance on getting as psychologically and spiritually naked as you have ever dared. Are you brave enough to reveal the core truths about yourself that lie beneath the convenient truths and the expired truths and the pretend truths? 

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.

Bargains that are not

This is a post about underwear. Nothing untoward will be said, but I'm going to talk about bra purchasing, so you've been warned.

I shop for bras rather infrequently. I find a style that works and wear it. And wear it. There comes a time, though, when things must be replaced, so I went down to the fancy "lifestyle center" (i.e. mall) to shop at Macy's. They, surprisingly, didn't have much of what I needed, although if I was willing to spend $50 on a bra, they had me covered.

I ended up at good old JC Penney. They recently redid their pricing model so that they don't really have sales anymore, but purport to have "low everyday prices". Thus I have stayed away, thinking that the prices probably aren't that low. I was pleasantly surprised, although I thought it was quite possible that after seeing $50 bras, seeing ones for $21 seemed like a bargain.

Even better (so I thought) was that they had a big rack of clearance bras for $5. Five bucks!! Long story short, I tried on about 150 bras (that may be a slight exaggeration) and ended up with four sale bras at $5 apiece and one regularly-priced one for $20. I was smug.

Fast forward to actually wearing them over the last couple of weeks and it turns out that the style of each and every one of the sale bras is such that the strap on one side slips over my goofy shoulder and down my arm. I hurt my shoulder a few years ago, and since then my left shoulder has a bump on it, that once the strap goes past that, it sliiiiiides. *sigh*

The one regularly priced bra is fantastic, though, and this weekend, I'll go back and get a couple more of those and then I won't have to think about buying bras for another couple of years!!

Me and the boys

I've been playing boardgames with a group of people (many but not all from the church I go to) for the last few months. This has been a lot of fun, and I love the table talk and social aspect of it. I also like the brain exercise to learn the strategy and have confirmed over and over to myself and others that I am more of an altruistic player than a cutthroat ruthless competitor. Maybe over time I can work on this, but winning doesn't seem to be the point for me as much as others, so why not just enjoy the game?

I've wanted to have some games around the house since I started playing with the group, and yesterday took Mr W to the local game store to get a few. He had one in mind called Munchkin, which seems to be aimed squarely at teenage boys (and pre-teen, too) so I bought that. We played it yesterday, and it was fun. 

I also bought one of the Timeline games. Actually not the one pictured above. There are several and I think I got the original one. I love the idea of it, it's educational without being pushy, as you learn the dates of important discoveries and also where they fit into the scheme of things because the point of the game is to guess where your card fits into the timeline (without seeing the date). 

And I also bought a game called Carcassone, which is described as a "tile-based, German style board game". Funny. I saw it being played once by others in the gaming group, and it wasn't too pricey (some games were $70.00!) so I got it. 

But what struck me was that Mr W and I walked into this shop, and there were perhaps 8 tables set up for people to play games, and they were everyone of them, occupied. By males. Teens and adults, but all boys. I was the only girl in the shop. I know this likely isn't news to people who love board games and have done them for awhile, that board games are largely the bastion of geeky guys, but it seems to me there would be much to gain from getting girls/women involved. Social skills and interaction, and for the girls (I'm thinking teen girls) strategy stuff. Something for me to think about. 

Teamwork

It's almost the weekend! This week has flown by at work. Things are pretty busy, but good. I go at my own pace most of the time, so I don't feel like someone is breathing down my neck waiting for me to finish so they can do something.

I did have sort of the opposite happen though. Something that can happen when four people are working on the same project. We are processing mosquitoes that had blood-fed, so one part of the project is for someone (not me) to dissect off the abdomen and analyze the blood to see what kind of animal it came from, and another part is for me to get the rest of the body, shake it in a tube with a copper BB and this liquid, and extract DNA to do my population genetics thing.

I've got a process that I've made little improvements on over the years. It's something that I can turn on a podcast or audiobook and chug through for a couple of hours and do what I need to do. Yesterday, I'm about 20 tubes into the process (out of about 100) and the numbered tubes in one box end with 393. The numbers in the next box start with 401. Hmmm.

I look in all the boxes again. I go downstairs and look in the freezer where the boxes of tubes are stored. I cannot find the tubes. I email my coworker and she says she'll try to find them. She's busy with other things, so I didn't hear from her for the rest of the day. I'll try to track down what happened and we'll figure out whether to just skip those, or wait and see if they can be located. It doesn't really matter. As long as the parts of an individual are in tubes with the same number, things will match.

Having just read this post, it's pretty boring, work related stuff. Ha! Oh well, more exciting things will be posted about the weekend. I'm thinking of dragging Mr W to a squaredance...

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. 

The dog has no idea

It was a busy week at work last week. The big presentation went well and I was pretty stressed out about it, so it's taken a few days to get back to feeling normal. I'm grateful that as a (mere) contractor, I was given the opportunity to make my pitch in the first place and to talk about that value of what I do.

I stayed later than I usually do on Thursday and Friday, and wasn't able to do my usual after-work trip to the dog park with Sally because it was dark. I've noticed, now that she's six, she does OK with a walk instead of the good running around she does at the dog park. As an aside, I'm pretty sure she's likes the dog park for the human interactions too, as she will go up to everyone in the group of people that I hang out with and stand there until they pet her.

Anyway, usually after two days (I walked her Wednesday as well, instead of going to the dog park) of walks, she's a little restless around the house, which can lead to mischief on her part. But it was close to 6 pm Friday when I got home, so we walked again. The funny thing was that I felt kind of bad because she got "only" a 30 minute walk. Poor dear. Without the head collar even, as she dislikes it so much that usually all I have to do is show it to her when we're walking and she's pulling, and she'll stop pulling on the leash. Smart cookie.

I tried to tell her how good she has it, between the good chow, treats, no siblings, use of the bed all day in peace and quiet, but she has no idea. There are dogs, I tell her, that have to sleep OUTSIDE, whose owners actually hit them for normal dog behavior, who run around loose and get hit by cars. She, having no frame of reference (sleep at night? outside?) has no idea of how good she has it. I guess that's how it's supposed to be.

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.

OK, now that that's done...

Sorry for the blogging silence. I've been working on a presentation for work for the last few weeks that has occupied a big space in my mind. The presentation was yesterday, it went very well, and I'm hoping that my boss will tell me in the next day or two whether I'll have my contract renewed and whether my status will be changed from contractor to a "fellow", which would be a little more secure.

My boss and I met with his boss and his boss's boss, who is the Director of the division. There were also two high-up administrative folks there. It was a friendly crowd, but my task was to detail the projects we've done, what we're working on and then talk about future projects to sort of show that I'm valuable to the organization.

My boss and I started talking about these projects a few months ago, and they have to do with genetically characterizing insecticide resistance in the mosquitoes we work with. Yeah, I don't really know that much about it either. But I downloaded about 40 papers and read most of them, and got enough of a basic grasp of the research (it's actually pretty darn interesting) to come up with three ideas for projects we could do.

They all seemed to think these were good ideas, and I was really happy to hear my boss's boss expand on the things I said, making the connection between what we do and the mission of the division.

Things are going well at the moment. It's good to have this thing done and turn my attentions elsewhere. Once I hear for sure that I'll be renewed, I'm going to embark on some home renovations (updated kitchen! new windows! the deck I've been whining about for 4 years!) that I'm sure will provide plenty of blogging fodder. I'm still making bracelets, but still bouncing back from a holiday push I'm not sure was necessary. It's time to start thinking about the garden, and I need to redo my irrigation system this year and shore up those old bookcases I've got for raised beds. I think I can get one more year out of them.

I'm going to try to blog more, and set a 15 minute limit to post. There may be pictures or there may not. Here's one from one of the greenhouses at the Denver Botanic Gardens when Mr W and I went there in December to see the lights.

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?

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.

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

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. 

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.

Puff puff puff

It's been busy!! Not much time to write. I'm participating in a big craft show tonight and tomorrow and have spent the last couple of weeks' worth of free time getting ready for that. All is good, though, and I'm excited to see how my stuff is received.

Mr W had his first ever Band concert, and did fabulously. I'm so glad he plays percussion - I could actually hear him!

Work is super busy at the moment too. Hope things are good in your part of the world and I'm looking forward to catching up on blogs next week some time.

Linda