Making Dreams

Happiness

2011-11-14T00:56:00.002-06:00

I want you to be happy. You know, with the kind of happiness that sneaks in around the edges so that you don't always realize just how happy you are, but every time you get a quiet moment it floats in your soul and lifts you up, leaving you to recognize that no matter what goes wrong, no matter how hard life gets, you're still at the heart of it filled with happiness.

That's my wish for you.

That's the kind of happiness I feel. I don't always realize it; the pain takes all my concentration so much of the time, and the worry takes so much of it as well... but in the quiet moments when I sit peacefully, the happiness bubbles to the surface again, a gentle reminder that the real me is still here inside myself.

The house is a mess, the garden desperately needs attention, the bills are expanding to take every cent and then some. It all adds up to huge worries, fueled no doubt by the pain, but then there are moments, wonderful peaceful moments.

Saturday I stood outside between Grandfather and Grandmother Maple trees in the midst of the wind, singing the Autumn in. The song just bubbled up out of my soul like an artesian spring.

Tonight a friend posted that she wished everyone happiness and as I smiled at her post I remembered my own happiness. Gryph doesn't see it often enough anymore, so I'm posting it here: at the heart of it all, I am a very happy person. Life is good. I am beyond lucky.

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{Gryph}}}}}}}}}}}}}} Thank you for being my love.

Cath

After this long brutal summer....

2011-09-11T17:00:00.003-05:00

The cukes have given us one last fruit; it was invisible until the vines died back.

The tomato bin has proven surprisingly resilient; I expect being two thirds oak leaf compost means it holds a lot of water. Really, that bin has the nicest soil on the property! It's been subject to squirrel depradations lately and I rather think there may be nut trees sprouting come spring. I smoothed the soil back out, broadcast carrot seeds over the whole bin, and dumped half a big trash bag of mixed dried leaves over the top. So far the squirrels are leaving it alone and the tomatoes seem to have perked up even more. There are two pepper plants on the right hand end and they're just loving having their feet covered. No fruits from anything yet, but there are blossoms on all the plants.

A closer look. I am so sold now on planting in leaf compost! If there is ANY way I can manage it, I am going to be steali---errrrr, I mean SAVING, yes, saving---bags of leaves wherever I find them this fall!

What's left of my gardens after summer's brutality. The pots are mostly empty, the garden about half empty. The weeds and the sprawling tomato vines, plus the honeyvine milkweed on the fence all make it look better than it is. I never got green beans and the plants were the first established garden plants to burn out this year. The cukes produced--we had to pull them half-size, but they produced until they also burnt out. The tomatoes did not produce but have only died back by about a third. The eggplant has been a modern marvel; small seedy fruits with bittr skins but the plants just keep on growing. The peppers have been lackluster, half-dead, and the lilac pepper did die. The strawberries and snow peas died out at the beginning of July and the snow peas I planted to replace them died in mid-July.

In the pots, the herbs and rose bushes have all died, except for one mint plant (Mint Julep) and the itty-bitty remains of the bronze fennel plant. Four strawberries survived, and the kohlrabi survived. The chrysanthemum seems okay, but the geraniums have all died mostly back. The red-veined sorrell was doing GREAT and jusssst before I went to harvest it a squirrel took the whole doggoned plant, right back to the roots!!

The lilac and the blueberry died--I swear, that lialc is the queen of resurrection, because this is the third time in two years it has leafed back out again. The blue-ray blueberry has green stems yet, but no leaves at all. I cannot tell if it's just dormant or if it truly has died.

Most of the pots just need to be replanted, which is why we put them in the back yard today. Autumn sunshine and the close proximity of the hose will, I hope, work an autumn miracle and give me a good garden over the next couple of months.... once I figure out the squirrell-proofing.

The experimental garden is flourishing in late summer and early autumn. What you cannot tell from this pic is that the squirrels have already made off with the first and biggest sunflower heads; those are the secondary buds from low down on the plants. The morning glories bloom every day into the midafternoon, deeeeeeep purple beauties, Grandpa Ott's (an heirloom). That's an eggplant dangling out the side there behind the sunflowers; it has a compadre on the other side of this garden.

The pinto beans have scaled themselves way back. During early and mid-August they were lush and overpowering, sprawling all over the garden and into the yard with leaves as huge as those on the morning glories and just COVERED with white blossoms. Now they are small again and have a couple beans. Sheesh.

Did I remember to mention how brutal this summer was??

There is purslane in there.

Somewhere.

This is the eggplant in the main garden, which has finally caught up with the eggplants in the experimemtals garden. That's quite a testamonial to Dylan's Microbe Booster because this eggplant is a month older than the others and was ahead of them for quite a while, but it just didn't weather the heat as well as they did. Now it is gifting me with nodding lavender beauty and ruffly huge gray-green leaves. I think it will probably do well for the rest of the autumn.

Are they not gorgeous? I'll try to catch a picture when the morning glories are open. I love the way the purple and gold complement each other.

I started this post with what's left... here is what's coming, more snow peas. I planted them in patches around the pepper plants at the far right end of the main garden and overseeded them with parsley and cilantro, then dumped the other half of the big bag of mixed leaves on top. So far no more squirrel depredations in here, either, and the peppers in here perked up as sis the luffa. Might have had something to do with the compost I spread around pretty liberally before I broadcast the herb seeds--that huge bin of sticks is finally giving me REAL compost!

All in all I'd say we survived summer okay, if rather bruised and battered around the edges. Now to see if we can flourish in autumn. Wishing you a long gentle season of recovery and/or new growth as well!

Bright Blessings,

Cath

An August Diversion

2011-09-11T16:36:00.002-05:00

My water bill was $167. I almost fell over. But yanno, I said all summer that I didn't care what it cost, I was GOING to keep my trees and my gardens alive. I did it. It was brutal; I think Wichita set a record for the number of consecutive days over 100. At least once we hit 114 with a heat index at 122. I put a thermometer on my shady front porch and day after day after day I came home from work to see it registering at 110. I was sick from the heat constantly, our air conditioner ran constantly, my plants wilted constantly, my hose ran 24 hours a day sometimes. The plants on my front porch couldn't take it and started dying back.

And then one day I noticed I had parsley sprouting in the jog-out of the main garden. This tickled me, since I had broadcast an enormous number of herb seeds there and only gotten tree seedlings (ailanthus, thou art NOT my friend!). So I was looking forward to a long autumn full of parsleyish goodness.

And then, yanno, I saw something.... something intriguing... something busily decimating my parsleyish goodness. Oh what can I say? I can go buy parsley at the grocery store, yanno? But a swallowtail butterfly, well, it has to eat what's there.

So it did, ate both plants down to the nubbins, but I just couldn't bring myself to mind.

Isn't it gorgeous? Black Swallowtail butterflies are not as colorful as the caterpillars. They are actually black, with yellow or orange spots along the edges of their wings. The females also have blue iridescent spots on their hind wings. This link has pictures. http://www.butterflyfunfacts.com/easternblack.php

The parsley, btw, is growing again.

Catching Up In the Garden: End of July

2011-09-11T16:08:00.003-05:00

At the end of July, I transplanted tomatoes and herbs from their pots on the front porch into the gardens. Two tomatoes and a chive plant were moved into the jog-out of the main garden. Cucumbers are growing at the back of this jog-out, and Mexican Mint Marigold has been transplanted near the right front. I transplanted other herbs but they died immediately and I cannot remember now what they were... oy. It was brutally hot.

Looking across the yard past the Oops tree to the main garden. You can see it was pretty green, but still young.

A tomato set! This is the ONLY tomato this garden gave me all summer.

This tomato set and ripened on the front porch. I picked it before I transplanted the tomato vines.

The Potato Bin gave us so very little, but it did leave me compost. My neighbor mixed in a 2 cubic foot bag of potting soil for me after I pulled the potatoes (no soil in the tub, though), and I transplanted several tomato vines from the front porch. I also planted pumpkin seeds but they never sprouted, and I planted borage and nasturtium which sprouted poorly only to be immediately eaten but something. I repurposed a bed sheet and some dirty clothespins as a shade cloth. It worked pretty well for almost a month but was finally blown completely off the plants in a storm near the end of August. By that time the tomatoes were well rooted, so I left it off.

The experimental garden. Remember I said last post you wouldn't see the purslane again? It's in there.... somewhere....

This garden gets watered by putting the hose in the compost bin near the edge, so it not only had Dylan's Microbe Booster working for it, it also gets regular drinks of compost tea. This is probably one reason it survived daily wilting all summer.

One of the cucumber vines and the only two luffa gourds that sprouted. See the dark leaf veins in the luffas? They're hungry, really hungry... only me, I was still thinking everything had gotten a virus from the black walnut leaves and I FORGOT that dark leaf veins are a sign of nitrogen deficiency. Duh.

I worried when the luffas sprouted that they would cross-pollinate with the cukes but my fears were groundless; they STILL haven't bloomed and the cukes are burnt out now.

Next Up: An August Diversion

Catching Up: Mid-July in the Garden

2011-09-11T15:56:00.003-05:00

Here is the Experimental Garden. You can see my friend Dylan's Microbe Booster has the plants growing well, despite the heat. This garden lived longer and performed better than the Main Garden; it is as a matter of fact, still going strong now in September despite wilting in the heat nearly every day in August. Notice the purslane in the center of the garden--you won't see it again.

The Experimental Garden from the front, no purslane visible. Those tiny heart-shaped leaves at the back left are Grandpa Ott's Morning Glory. Pinto beans are in the front, sunflowers at the back right, eggplants on each side.

The Potato Bin, growing slowly in oak leaves but mostly making compost. Next post, end of July.

How I Know It's Autumn

2011-09-11T15:17:00.004-05:00

The morning glories are still open at 3 in the afternoon. It's lovely, just lovely.

Big catch-up post coming today; have some photos to edit first.

busy and tired

2011-07-19T09:08:00.003-05:00

Whoa, this heat... it has me exhausted lately! I kinda left y'all hanging with my two experiments, the Potato Bin and the New Garden. I am sorry to report that the Potato Bin netted me two new potatoes and a bunch of knobby lil things the size of tater tots and diced taters--nothing more. BUT the new Garden, with my friend's microbe mix, is doing GREAT! The plants caught up to the original garden in only two weeks; it was amazing. The stems are sturdier, the plants are lusher, the leaves are larger!

Well, here's the other reason I haven't posted in Blogger for quite a while--it's broken. Not only can I no longer answer comments, but I now I cannot copy and paste. Aaaarrgghh. I'm going to have to get this fixed! But I'm usually so worn out from trying to keep up with watering the garden and dealing with the housework that I don't remember to search out the help and support for Blogger.

On the other hand, I finished a doily last week, a much simplified version of the Yule Star that I did a couple years ago. It's nice to be able to do that again. And I have a commission for a dozen glue-burnt ornaments! We'll see how that goes--first I have to find my blanks and see how far I got on them.

Where are the fireflies?

2011-06-12T13:22:00.002-05:00

It's mid-June... why aren't they out yet?

I confess, I am always worried for them. You know how frogs are disappearing everywhere? I worry that fireflies will be next.

Maybe it's been too dry... if so, we had rain a couple days in a row, so maybe they'll be out soon.

Can't leaves comments, sheesh...

2011-06-09T12:56:00.004-05:00

Rivenfae, I cannot leave ANY comments now, blogger won't even sign me in as anonymous, sheesh.

To answer your question, no, I don't think Grandfather Maple was trying to tell us anything. There were very high winds in the night and huge branches are down all over the city. I never knew before that people who live with 90 year old trees have a constant supply of free firewood!

Um.... oops?

2011-06-09T08:18:00.005-05:00

It's not a tree, oh no indeed... just a branch. Grandfather Maple lost his central leader... and we have lost our clothesline and part of our fence.

That had to be an amazing wind to throw the branch sideways out of the tree and toss it across the yard. I am SO GLAD it didn't hit the roof! It didn't hurt the tomato it landed over, either, but alas, my fence, my clothesline!

My new garden experiment!

2011-06-04T20:18:00.007-05:00

Hi, y'all! This blog post is for my friend Dylan, who very kindly sent me a free sample of his Microbe Booster! Dylan is an organic gardener and landscaper in North Carolina. http://dirtydylans.com/

My new garden is next to my old compost pile. Now I'm not the kind of gardener who does the six-weeks-to-black-gold kind of speedy thing. I'm the kind of gardener who says "what the HECK am I gonna do with all these bazillions of STICKS?!" after the tree trimmer is done and the logs are cut up, and has the fabulous idea to throw them into the as-yet-empty new compost bin. And as the sticks pile up, and pile up, and PILE up, I say to myself with a certain amount of regret and dismay, "Wellllllllllll THAT'S gonna take a while..." and then I throw in what I can, a bag of leaves here, a bag of grass there, kitchen scraps and coffee grounds and last year's jack o lanterns, and let the snow sit on it all winter.

Eventually, the sticks receded below the top of the bin, compressed down until at this point the bin is actually about half full of compost ingredients which we have continued to add to.

You notice I did not say, "compost." I don't honestly know if there IS any compost, lol.... we can't stir the bin for the sticks which someone *furtive look* keeps throwing into it. I can still see the paper plates from last year as well as last week! Although the jack o'lanterns aren't visible now, so that's progress.

So. Now that you are warned about what kind of composter I am, you will understand that this new garden is on the site of the "new" compost pile, which was all the leaf remains and grass remains that got raked out of the yard before my neighbor mowed it the first time this spring. That compost pile sat there long enough to kill the grass--serendipitous, I assure you, lol--and then got moved to the new bins at the fence line.

The grass did not come back. The gardener eyed the space, and waited....

The grass did not come back. The gardener eyed the space, and waited.........

The grass did not come back. The gardener eyed the space, and waited...............

The grass did not come back. The gardener got out the garden claw! And then, yanno, she hired the neighbor to break HIS back tilling up the space and bordering it with concrete blocks. *cheeky grin*So you see the new garden as it begins. Yes, the Big Black Garden Galumpher was considering his Galumphetry. Yes, the gardener was... firm... about the garden being off limits.

No, it didn't work, and I had to smooth the soil out again. *rueful smile* But I digress. What you see here is the garden space clawed up, raked smooth, half a hundred bermuda grass roots and stolons pulled out and tossed willy-nilly on the lawn to dry up and DIE, and the microbe booster sprinkled evenly on the soil. I tried for a rate that was approximately the equivalent of one tablespoon per four inch pot, which used about half the bag. Then I raked it in and started planting: a cluster of Grandpa Ott morning glory seeds in the southeast corner of the bed, to climb on the compost fence; a few sunflower seeds in the southwest corner to shade the bed. Two "Classic" eggplants at approximately the middle of the bed, one each on the east and west sides. Two banana pepper seedlings in the center on the north side, flanked by Giles van Hees speedwell that Gryph rescued from the hardware store sans pot (and I repotted) on May 19. Yellow onion sets along the southeast and southwest sides, and "Frijole" pinto bean seeds all across the middle of the bed behind the peppers and speedwell. Garden purslane seed in the center of the bed.

Here it is, planted and watered. What an effort it took on this doggoned hot dry day!

You can see the plants better in this shot, the two eggplants and the speedwell, plus a bonus shot of the bulging compost pile fence. The peppers may or may not grow. At this point they are an entire MONTH old and yet have never done more than get their seedling leaves, so if anything happenes, I will DEFINITELY think it's due to the Microbe Booster! I had four more pots of them and when I realized that many pepper plants wouldn't fit in this garden, I decided to get all experimental about them. Two are now dusted with Microbe Booster, and all four have been watered again. I have no idea where I fit in four more pots of pepper plants--especially since I have two hot pepper plants to put in also!--but hey, at this point I will be surprised if they live at all, so I think they're a good candidate for the test.

Because I am so desperate for garden space, I've decided to use the compost pile as a raised bed, so I watered it. The run off filtered down through the pile and into the New Garden Experiment; the water was dark! I find that quite an encouraging sign. Maybe somewhere down in there, somewhere in the middle of that pile, compost is slowly happening after all! Tis a good and hopeful sign for whatever I plant in it.

The Big Black Garden Galumpher has come to lick my elbow and wag his tail, and gaze at me endearingly out of his big brown soulful eyes. It's suppertime for dogs. Good night to you all, and may you find new dreams to bring to fruition as I hope to bring my mine to frui---er--vegetablition?

Oklahoma

2011-06-03T08:54:00.002-05:00

This is Oklahoma, the first blooms. They took a LOT out of the shrub and it will need time to recover.

That Garden, May 30

2011-05-30T22:37:00.004-05:00

Hello! Time for another garden update! I've been focusing on the back yard so much that I thought I'd best take the camera out front for a change. This geranium just makes my heart sing; she's been through a lot but look how she keeps on going, look at those big leaves, those bright blossoms!

This is Raspberry Corner, where the steps meet the porch. There's a persistent redbud tree to the left of the raspberry vines; we keep trying to evict him but he refuses to go. Many weeds seem to like it in Raspberry Corner also.

The raspberry leaves are turning yellowish, and the plants need fertilized--but look at the raspberries! Pretty darned exciting!

These raspberries are fall-bearing (also called ever-bearing) and so this is the first crop this year; another will come on the new growth in the late summer.

These are the plants on the front porch steps, and also--ta daa!!--the wall our mason rebuilt for us. I like it MUCH better than the painted brick. From bottom to top, the plants are pansies with garlic and peas; Nick's lilac with pansies; the blueberry bush (also in need of fertilizer!); and another pot of pansies. I have pink petunias and pink geraniums in the wings, waiting for a chance to share space with the pansies.

This is plantain, the wonder weed. It's growing on the north side of That House, came up right through the woodchip mulch we covered the mud with. When I harvest the plantain (and there's lots more of it), I'll wash it pretty thoroughly and then dry it, so I have a good supply to get me through the year. It is a true wonder on venomous bites and stings, as well as on poison ivy--a true gift of healing from the Earth!

New Mock Orange

2011-05-23T18:29:00.004-05:00

This is a volunteer, a young shrub that I guess must have been bird-planted. It sprang up next to a tree on the south side of the yard where, paradoxically, it gets more moisture than the very old mock orange on the north side of the yard. This is only the second season for its blooms. I'm just thrilled that it has so many this year!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mock-orange

2011-05-23T17:43:00.004-05:00

Hello there on this hot and sticky May day! Do you see my pea plants, sprouting amongst the leaves?

Here are the bell peppers on either side of the teensy pea patch.

And here is my garden, not completely dug or planted yet, but all blocked off! A very nice job my neighbor did, too!

Here's what's blooming today: Philadelphus, also known as mock orange. The fragrance is overpowering in wet years, but this year it's a tease, very soft unless I water the bush that day. This makes sense to me; when I lived in Phoenix I told someone my irises were blooming and he asked how I liked the scent.

What scent?!

Then he told me that daffodils ALSO have a scent. Coulda knocked me over with a feather! Now here I am in Kansas, discovering for myself that those "scentless" flowers are actually two of my all time favorite fragrances.

The difference is water, both the amount the plants get and the amount that is in the air. In Phoenix it just isn't humid enough to allow irises and daffodils to have a noticeable scent, even if you water them a lot; but here in Wichita there always seems to be enough rain and enough humidity--probably from the rivers--to allow such things. So it makes scent--errr, sense--to me that the mock orange will respond similarly, and the more I water it, the stronger scent it will have.

More blossoms: potato flowers! Who knew they were so pretty?

This was a hard day's work in the sticky heat for the neighbor. After he finished laying the blocks in place for my garden border, he wired up the three pallets to make the dividers in the bins, moved the bags of leaves to keep the dogs away from the tree (where the fence is not as secure), moved the small compost pile and part of the big one to the middle bin, and moved a pile of sticks to the last bin. By that time he was pretty much done for the day!

In the process of moving the compost, he unearthed some of the potatoes. I reburied them afterwards, and found---ta daaaa!!!---

Our first harvest of new potatoes! Not enough to be more than a morself, but hey! here they are!

May you also find small treasures in unexpected places today.

Dogfight!! Aaaaccckkk!!!

2011-05-19T22:00:00.002-05:00

Well, it was bound to happen; I forgot to look before I let Troop out the back door, and Deagan was out with his people (next door). Troop was off like a shot, flying low, and Deagan was practically shouting, "bring it you bastard!!" They went at it through the fence, which is seriously dented now where Deagan slammed into it, and I confess that since I didn't think they could get to each other, I worried more about my new seedlings than the dogs.

Unfortunately, they DID connect. Deagan's mouth is bloody from the fence wire and Trooper's face has holes in it from Deagan's teeth. He clamped down hard and refused to let go; Troop was screaming. Deagan was holding him there so the Alpha Male could come and finish off the enemy, yanno? Imagine his surprise when the Alpha Male pried his jaws open, yelled at him, picked him up like a puppy and carried him inside where the entire rest of the pack yelled at him! Troop (who was still bounding about demanding a chance to go for it again) was dragged inside and washed up, then crated while the rest of us went back outside. One tooth hole is pretty deep, at least a quarter inch. We're keeping antibiotic ointment in it but I might have to take him to the vet tomorrow for stitches.

So I've pulled the rigid fence wire panels over to the garden fence to reinforce it from our side, and the neighbors are going to get hardware cloth to reinforce it from their side. That way there won't be any more mouths coming through the mesh to bite each other.

Trooper is VERRRRRY lucky that he only mangled one eggplant leaf, and the rest of the garden is unhurt. Mama does not take kindly to misbehaving dogs, even if the dogs don't know they're misbehaving. Mind you, they know we don't like what they're doing! They just think we aren't very smart dogs, is all. *eyeroll*

Lady was not stupid enough to get involved in the dogfight. She actually for once managed to keep out from underfoot. Do not think she wouldn't have fought if she could, though; she routinely puts both Trooper AND Deagan in their places. She may be small and blind, but she is MIGHTY.

I was going to make a garden post but I think I'll wait until tomorrow when I have new pics for you.

Gardenage! We have achieved Gardenage!

2011-05-17T21:50:00.006-05:00

Well am I ever happy this evening!! At long last we have started our garden!

It happened like this, you see. I went to the pots on the front porch to get sage and French tarragon on Sunday afternoon, and could not for the life of me FIND my French tarragon! This, my dears, is a disaster of EPIC proportions; I waited almost a year to get that plant, and I clearly remembered bringing it home and I was preeetttttty certain I planted it *doubtful look* well I must have planted it, right? Because it wasn't still in its pot, so it must have been planted....

.........but I. Couldn't. Find. It.

EPIC proportions. It kept me awake, fretting, for part of Sunday night. I mean, it's not like one can just zip out and get a new plant whenever. The season will end soon, the hardware store will sell out, and THEN where will I be? And you can't grow French tarragon from seed, because it's sterile; you have to buy the plants from a nursery. And it's already mid-May.

Did I mention the season will end soon, and the hardware store will be out of plants?

You might remember that we don't have a car. There aren't any nurseries on the bus route.

It was my only chance.

So Monday afternoon there I was, groceries bagged and in my Old Lady Shopping Cart (I love that thing!!), and I mosied on from the grocery store to the hardware store and riiight into the plant section. Now ya gotta know the plants are outside, and so here I am pushing my Old Lady Shopping Cart half-full of groceries (including perishable cheese, ooops, lol) in and out of every aisle of plants even though I KNEW where the herbs would be, just dreaming my way through the garden.

It was doggoned hard to walk away from a plant called Two-Row Stonecrop, a kind of Sedum. You see, I was wearing a green shirt and pink sweat jacket (with sequins, no less!)... and the Stonecrop was green with pink edges! The pink almost matched my sweat jacket!

Oh well, I was good, I walked away. Eventually, after much dreaming through aisles, I came to the herbs. Aaaaack!! They didn't have it!! But then I found the last two plants tucked away on the back side of the rack (see I told you they were gonna run out!!)...... and son of a gun, French tarragon doesn't look like I thought it did! It IS on my porch, snugged up against the lavender plant!

So I had been to the grocery store, right? And Gryph LOVES bell peppers, had asked specifically for yellow and red bell peppers, and I went to the produce section to buy some-------------and they were $3! *faints dead away* Can you imagine, $3 for ONE bell pepper??!!!!

And there, right across from the herb rack, are--ta daa!--bell pepper plants.

Well, you know what happened next. I pushed that Old Lady Shopping Cart home with four bell pepper plants, one each of yellow, orange, red, and (of all lovely things!) lilac. And two eggplant plants. AND four strawberry plants, because they were half-price.... all of them perched on top of my groceries. *cheesy grin*

The flower pots on the front porch are already full, yanno, and there are still three tomato plants left to pot up. What was I going to DO with four bell peppers, two eggplants, and four strawberries?!

So the back yard is newly fenced this weekend, and it's a giant thrill to the dogs to be allowed to run free. After I got the groceries put up I took them out and hooked up our new hose so I could water the rose bush and the mock orange... the BARE ground under the rose bush....

Here's the thing. No matter how disabled a gardener might be, if you hand her too many plants she is GOING to find a place to dig.

Here is the beginning of our garden. The rose bush is on the right. Monday evening I watered the ground (thoroughly, I thought), started weeding, and then dug four holes and planted the strawberries. That's when I discovered that all that water I poured onto the ground only penetrated half an inch, and also when I discovered that my soil--that I thought was the nicest in the yard!-- is hard clay! How the plants are rooting through it is beyond me, but root they do, ailanthus (I call it stink tree, lol), dandelion, grass and even a few violets.

Today I made a HUGE discovery. Gryph likes to dig!! Wooohooo! This very sore gardener was thrilled to turn the chore over! That's what you see in the above photo, the area that Gryph worked on, pulling weeds and tree roots, digging out grass, and then using the Garden Claw to loosen up that hard clay soil. I had watered again last night and then this morning too, and Gryph kept the hose available.

You can't see it, but there's much more than strawberries, eggplants, and peppers planted in that garden. I also planted seeds: Grandpa Ott morning glory, Tendergreen Burpless cucumber, Bloomsdale long-standing spinach, early white Vienna kohlrabi, melting sugar snow peas, and Oregon sugar pod snap peas. Then I watered everything in, really thoroughly. If any of them come up, I'll be thrilled, and if they all come up, well, they'll look like a little jungle and maybe the squirrels will leave them alone.

Or not. I swear, one of these days I'm gonna get a t-shirt that says "Official Squirrel Hater." But in the meantome, I have plans!!

See the bamboo lined out to mark the shape of the eventual garden? That's native bamboo, by the way, from a friend down the street. It's also called rivercane. When you read about a canebreak, that's this stuff.

Here's another pic. You can see that this side of the back yard is really a work in progress, and what a lot of work it is!

And here is my hero, the Digger of Gardens and Vanquisher of Weeds, Gryph. She was actually sorry to stop digging for the day! Am I lucky, or what?!

So now, from That Garden in That Yard of That House, good night. May you sleep well and may your dreams bring you happiness and peace!

Cath

Is this blog on?

2011-05-15T15:38:00.004-05:00

Ohhh how life has taken me away from Blogland! And now I see that I left y'all hanging. Yes, the wall got fixed, and my mason Kevin is one of my favorite people. He also repaired my porch pillars and rebuilt one wall by my porch steps, plus rebuilt the leaning chimney. Eventually, we plan to have him rebuild the entire outer wall of That House. He flipped the bricks for me on the porch step wall, so that the unpainted sides are out, and ohhh it looks so nice! So when he rebuilds the walls, he'll flip them all and we'll be back to a red brick house like it was always supposed to be.

In the meantime, I'm gardening in yet more containers. In the yard, my mock orange and my dunno-what-it-is rose are blooming, along with the funniest little ornamental allium. It has purple starburst flowers that look like firecracker bursts. The surprise lilies have sent scads of foliage up, long and lush, and are now dying back. The redbuds are long since gone past, but the raspberries are just starting to bloom.

The rose is going by quickly. I don't think I'll let the hips set this year; the birds don't eat them and neither do I, and I think the plant could use more energy for root and top growth.

This is a volunteer mock orange with the most wonderful scent, but you can hardly see it for the tree sprouts! I have to clip them back so I can take care of the shrub.

This is the mock orange which lives along the north side fence in the back. This and the rose and possibly the allium (if that wasn't bird-planted) are all that's left of the original border. It was a BRUTAL summer and a dry fall; there isn't much to the mock orange this year, and again, I'm not going to let it set seed.

My herbs and roses are in pots helter-skelter on the front porch right now, awaiting water, fertilizer, and arrangement. I have seven tomato plants, all different varieties, and lots of peas tucked into various pots here and there.... I confess, I cannot remember whether they're snow peas or sugar snap peas. Both packages are open! But it's okay because eventually both packages will be completely planted out anyway; we love snow and snap peas!!

This is a pic of my Potato Experiment. It's a metal utility shelf, sans shelves, with old cedar fence boards closing the sides. I filled it with oak leaves and a couple weeks later planted potatoes--not seed taters, but old kitchen taters left over from Thanksgiving, lol! Approximately ten sprouted and now they're blooming so I have NO idea what I'll get, if anything--but hey, I can't lose--even if they all die I'll still get compost.

My art and craftwork are on hiatus because my carpal tunnel syndrome is badly flared up.

Update on That House: fixing the broken wall

2010-04-16T08:45:00.002-05:00

Wish us good luck? 11 contractors have come and gone; we're waiting for a bid from the last one--due today--and praying it will be the same (or less?) than the amount of the tax refund to replace the bricks with siding. If not, we'll go with the mason who offered to finance relaying the wall... but it would be so nice to have it done and paid for without having to finance it!

Oh! For Pete's sake!

2010-04-08T18:03:00.002-05:00

I DID do something this Winter, filled a dream I had long had... and almost forgot to post about it!

I learned to knit.

Mind you, I cannot purl, lol... but I can cast on, knit, and cast off. I made Gryph a scarf, and myself one, too.

Unfortunately, it was knitting that started this recent flare of the carpal tunnel syndrome, and I had to stop. So much for warm wool socks, eh? *pouts*

But hey, at least I learned it!

The more things change...

2010-04-08T17:47:00.004-05:00

Well, I can't believe that when I come back to this blog I'm in the exact same space as when I last posted... but I'm STILL looking for a contractor to fix That Wall. The city refused to do anything other than plumbing repairs, although City Guy said we would be on the list for a furnace this summer; and here we are, Winter past and well into Spring, and I cannot find a company to do this work. They consistently say, "the job is too big for us," or "we don't do exterior walls, only basements," and even though I consistently say, "I want concrete, not brick" they also all say "Gee, you should talk to a mason."

Sheesh.

In the meantime, I worked on some glue-burning over the winter, not much really, and spent an awful lot of time online doing a lot of writing.

I seem to only have enough wrist stamina to either write or make art, but not both.... and I also seem to only have enough focus to do one or the other. It's interesting, eh? We'll see how the Spring and Summer play out.

Gryph and I rescued a lab mix puppy with a broken hip in early December. Here's what I didn't know about very young puppies with severe injuries: they heal better than ever! Oh my WORD, I expected to have a slow dog who needed all kinds of care and coddling and what I got instead is an exuberant wildly energetic dog who can run rings around everyone in the neighborhood and who routinely jumps four and five feet in the air! Oy!

I'll have to get some pics off Gryph's computer later.

A quick update on That House

2009-09-21T08:44:00.001-05:00

Today I have to find a contractor and also convince City Guy to pay for a concrete retaining wall... hey, he said this is a terrible danger that could get my house condemned, so it isn't routine maintenance, right? Tis an urgent emergency by his own words, right? So no long wait on the maintenance list, right? By his own words...

Anyway, our friend the mason says that a concrete retaining wall would take all the stress off the bricks and then we could just re-lay the bricks under the window, instead of actually taking the whole wall apart and then rebuilding it. From the ledge (inside floor level) up, the walls are fairly straight; they only bow out below the ledge. He says unbuilding-n-rebuilding will take a VERY long time and not be finished before the cold weather sets in, but building the concrete wall will get the whole job finished quickly.

The reason I have to do a sales job is that I already asked about building a concrete retaining wall and City Guy said it wasn't necessary... but hey yanno, he thinks my mason is a man, so maybe now he'll listen.

Please wish me good luck?

And now I have to get off the puter--big thunderstorm rolling through!

Cath, fully prepared to shamelessly beg for City Guy's help

2009-09-17T12:59:00.004-05:00

On my way out the front door what do I see, but that the Self-Installing Cat Accessory Program has initiated again. Module Three is running the "Queen of All She Surveys" Application on the "Steal Mom's Chair (and heart)" Platform.

Isn't she gorgeous? Over the past year she's darkened from a silver tabby with light ginger accents to a grey tabby with lots of caramel. Her fur is just scrumptious!

Having our own oak tree makes me happy; seeing it set acorns makes me happier yet! How exciting! This is the street tree that the city planted about ten years ago.

Next up, Elf Footprints...

These ugly mushrooms have popped up again, this time not under the oak tree but across the sidewalk in our front yard proper. Usually mushrooms look pretty to me; I don't know why I think these are so ugly, but they're just plain flat unappetizing! Sheesh.

Is it Wichita? Or is it just me? Last year my peppers didn't really produce until fall, and now this year here we go, the season has turned and once again the plant is finally loaded with blossoms and new fruit!

These two are growing about as slowly as peppers can grow. I'm very tempted to harvest them now and let the plant put its energy into the new fruit.

This is what I found when I went out to water the lilac.

Yikes! That is SOME mildew! At first I thought maybe we had splashed the plant with the rinse water from a paintbrush, but no--tis mildew. It hit every lilac in the neighborhood, and is also widespread on all the weeds in the back yard.

*sigh* I cut the stem off that ivy over two months ago, and it's still growing strong. Evidently it really IS that humid in Kansas, Dorothy...

A visitor.

Well.

Maybe a resident.

Well....

Maybe a well-fed resident.

It DOES occur to me that something has been chewing up the raspberry vine.

Sometimes weeds are just... charming. These little lavender daisies just steal my heart! And I LOVE the contrasting greens!

Till next time, adieu from That Yard!

a MOST horrendous growling...

2009-09-17T12:52:00.003-05:00

I was on my way out the door to water the lilac when I heard a MOST horrendous growling. What on earth? So I peeked into the bedroom.

Well, that seems pretty quiet, right? So out I headed again, only to be stopped by a MOST horrendous growling....

What I could NOT see? A cat making itself tiny, all snuggled into a pile of dirty laundry on the other side of the room.... sheesh! What a brat this doglet can be!

Pics of the damage to the brick wall

2009-09-14T21:27:00.002-05:00

These pics are to show the damage caused when the wall bowed out and the bricks took a tumble... the pics are from April and since then, the problem has continued. The wall is more noticeably bowed out now--although we caught the next batch of bricks before they tumbled, and propped them up.

That House gets a snow jo---er, paint job

2009-09-09T12:21:00.006-05:00

Hello again! Well, it's been a busy time for us at That House. Gryph had Labor Day off work and so we labored Sunday and Monday both. It's been slow going and we'd really like to get a paint sprayer to do the walls. In the meantime, here are a few pics of our progress!

This first pic is of the "vinyl siding" which gave Our Intrepid Heroine such a headache.

Here we are with the paint job almost finished. The teeny pocket garden there looks lusher than it should, since The Redbud Which Will Not Die has once again leafed out all over the geranium. The tall plant is our eggplant and the one in the bucket is our blueberry.

They all got a shot of fertilizer Monday, as did the bell pepper and lilac on the other side of the steps.

And now *ta-daaa!* what happens when a Gryph still has paint in the bucket! We'd both been wanting to get rid of that strange Not-Taupe-Not-Brown color on the concrete cap of the wall.

Look! Ohhhh so clean looking! I confess, when I brought our drinks, I made Gryph set them down on a plastic bag as if it were a coaster... lol!

Funny how you never know just how dirty your old paint looks until you start adding new paint; I would have sworn I lived in a white house, and that the new paint was NOT white but cream colored.... huh.... the new paint sure looks white to me now! Talk about having it all backwards!

Our painting was interrupted Monday because we had a visitor. We found this little being clinging to the inside of the porch railing, sheltered from the wind. It was just a little bigger than my thumbnail, and to me the spots looked like polka dots. How astonishing to see that they're actually triangular! And don't you just love the fringe on the wings? Reminds me of an old-time cowboy's leather jacket!

So. Gryph was quite enthusiastic about continuing on with the paint, and now we know at last what color I actually bought when I was forced to choose a stock color at the paint store. This blue is called Magic Wand and Gryph absolutely LOVES it.

Me, well... I have this feeling I'll soon be living inside a giant blue and white ice cube! Eeeep!

One of the joys of life? Being outside with your people, watching while they do incomprehensible, bad-smelling things, lol!

So. While Gryph and Lady were holding down the fort out front, I was working in the back. We have ivy everywhere, and it's really bad for the house; we've pulled it down but of course it comes back. I had finally decided that I would just have to buy some brush killer and spray all the ivy that's on the house walls.

So here I am painting away, priming the back porch and rails, totally concentrating on what I'm doing, and a skeeter brushes against my shoulder. I brushed it away and went back to painting. The feeling came again, a soft brush against my shoulder. This time I looked... and found the ivy brushing ever so gently against my shoulder.... and in my mind I heard, "Mother?"

*THUD* Okay, not only is it pretty unusual for me to hear my plants--even though I of course talk to them, lol--but to be asked if I am The Mother, the new nurturer and caretaker of the place, by a plant I have long since decided to poison?!

This certainly brings new meaning to the phrase, "toxic parent/child relationships" don'cha think? *blinking* And how am I to deal with the guilt now???

Well, I finished priming--the Great Guilty IvyQuestion had to wait for another day--and looky there--now that really IS white, blinding, glaring, white, lol....

The white you see around the door is weatherstripping-type foam sealant, btw; I filled gaps around the door frame and then sealed the bottoms of all the mudroom windows as well.

Coming back around to the front, we were nearly done for the day when I happened to notice a leaf being chewed on the lilac!! It's still recovering from Oscarpillar and cannot afford to lose any leaves.... well, sure enough, OscarMoth left us an offspring.

Gryph was absolutely jaunty, excited as a kid to be given another caterpillar to raise. "This time the caterpillar needs a girl name!" and nothing would do but Petula, after Petula Clark the singer.

Well, I confess, although PetulaPillar is MIGHTY small, she is also QUITE voracious.

Look what she did to that leaf! And so when I mention her, I say "PtooiePillar!"

Gryph says, "PetuLApillar!"

And of course, I respond, "that's what I said. PtooiePillar."

Hrumph. My lilac may never be safe!!

Ptooie.

One last pic today--here is why I didn't post on Tuesday. This coffee canister (39 ounce--the big one!) is normally a "saucer" of sorts for the lilac, but I pulled the lilac out when I fertilized it Monday and just didn't get around to putting it back into the canister.

Then it rained nonstop from 1 a.m. Tuesday morning until 4:30 Tuesday afternoon, and continued raining off and on all night and into this morning. This is what I found when I walked the doglet.

Flabbergasted is the only way to describe this Desert Rose's reaction... simply flabbergasted. Sitting out in the open, nothing over it to funnel the water or anything... the coffee canister is full of water that came out of the sky one drop at a time.....

.....I'm simply flabbergasted.

My fancy expensive supplies....

2009-09-09T11:55:00.002-05:00

The big doily on four little white towels, t-pinned to a big piece of cardboard... hey, nuthin' but the best fer me! *cheeky grin*

Seen in the Walgreen's parking lot...

2009-09-04T17:02:00.001-05:00

...two enormous shiny black SUVs evvvvver so slowly and carefully backing toward each other, for all the world like beetles about to mate....

.... ah. So that's where VW bugs come from. *eyebrow waggle*

Modern Art!!

2009-09-03T10:37:00.002-05:00

Incident with Dog and Paint Can

A Moment of Horrified Silence

2009-08-31T17:50:00.004-05:00

Ah Gentle Reader, today we encounter our Intrepid Heroine as she realizes it is the last sunny day but one before an entire week of Autumn rains. What does this say to her? Time To Paint, of course!

Having already patiently primed the porch rails and washed off the upper boards, Our Intrepid Heroine at last turns her attention to the object she has been waiting for--yes, Trim Paint! That soft and lovely vanilla cream color, all satiny in the can, oh anticipation, you are about to be fulfilled!

And so Our Intrepid Heroine gathers a spiffy brand new paintbrush, the plastic pouring lid *one size fits all gallons* and a gallon of paint, and trundles them outside along with the doglet. Fastening the doglet's leash to an out-of-the-way rail, she sets to with great excitement, and Opens The Can, then places the plastic pouring li... *ahem* then places the plast... well, it seems that "one size fits all" is no more true for gallon cans than for clothing!

Placing the plastic pouring lid aside for later Return and Exchange, Our Intrepid Heroine gazes adoringly into the paint can.

Well.

Acrylic paint certainly separates more than oil-based paint, Gentle Reader, but being Intrepid, Our Heroine stirs with a will *and a paint stick* until she has the most amazing, creamy, so-thick-the-paint-stick-stands-completely-upright-in-it, delicious looking creamy paint... almost, she thinks, like frosting, and she cannot wait to try it out!

Ahhhhh... feel the glide of the paintbrush, smoothing that luscious Trim Paint over the primer coat. Ahhhhh... see the gloss of the paint as it melds together. Ahhhhh... enjoy the rhythm of the work, so much easier than the primer was.

What's this? It seems, Gentle Reader, that we have come already to the rail where the doglet is! That's alright; we'll go around her. Painting merrily, we make great headway around the porch, until a neighbor stops by to say hello. Oops! It seems the doglet is not pleased with his presence. Ooops! It seems the leash goes farther than we thought. Oooooops! It seems we have some 'splainin' to do, Lucy! Our intrepid heroine grabs a handy painting towel!

Excuse us, Gentle Reader, we shall be right back.

Ahem, now, where were we? Ah yes, the smearily spotted doglet is now unhappily barricaded on the other side of the front door. Thinking to herself that she might as well have done it in the first place, Our Intrepid heroine has now painted the area formerly left undone in order to prevent the spotting of doglets. Hrumph.

Ahhhhh... but see how the paint has covered the wood! See all the progress! See how it looks just like....

Er. Just like....

Um.

Notice, Gentle Reader, that after the multiple coats of Patient Oil-based Priming, and the smooth application of lovely satiny Acrylic Trim Paint, Our Intrepid Heroine has successfully turned her natural, rough-cut cedar porch rails into... yes.... wait for it.... oh yes indeed..... vinyl siding.

There will be no pictures of this miracle of modern science today, Gentle Reader, because Our Intrepid Heroine refuses to let go her forlorn hope that possibly the paint will do as acrylic paint so often does, and change colors as it cures.

And now if you will excuse us, Gentle Reader, Our Intrepid heroine has a headache and is going to go lay down.

Quiet Time

2009-08-29T20:27:00.003-05:00

Quiet time... or What I Did This Summer....

This is a mat from Treasures in Crochet, Book 296 from Coats and Clark, 1981. It isn't named, although I think of it as the optical illusions mat. These are nine lucky-clover-shaped motifs joined together; see in the center it looks like four circles? I didn't crochet any circles. Makes me smile! The mat was a special request from Gryph, who saw the pattern on the cover of the booklet and asked for it. Someday there may be more motifs added, but for now I am on to Yule gifts.

The main doily hasn't been blocked yet and REALLY needs it--tis the center of a round tablecloth, extremely lacy, and bigger than I can smooth out without a blocking board. It's actually what took up most of my crocheting time this summer, before I made Gryph's mat. Once I block it, there will be a pic.

I'm calling this one "Gothic Arches" because the original name really didn't suit it. It's from a free 1947 pattern I found called "Spiderweb Lace" that I cannot find now *blink* who knew it could disappear in a week? Well, anyhow, here are two sites for free patterns.

http://www.freevintagecrochet.com/doilies.html

http://www.purplekittyyarns.com/free-doily-patterns

This edging was QUITE the challenge for two reasons. The first was that the publisher evidently assumed a high skill-and-experience level on the part of the crocheter, and the second is that it was meant to be sewn into fabric--most likely pillowcase seams. Giving it finished edges on the sides was a challenge, and so was getting it to block properly.

The way the pattern was written, the center loops are done first, then the entire bottom half is done, turning each row and working back and forth. Then the top half is done in the same manner. It was extremely awkward and I wasn't satisfied with the way it came out, especially since, in order to make the 7-chain strands arch properly the pattern called for "long treble crochets" to make the fans.

Now I ask you, who can keep the gauge consistent, motif to motif, row to row, top to bottom, when it calls for something so nebulous?! So I rewrote the pattern.

It wasn't exactly successful. *wry smile*

You can see that my attempt to make the 7-chain strands arch properly was not best served by the changes I made--look how those motifs skewed! I used double trebles to keep the gauge consistent, but I also worked in rounds rather than back and forth.... and you can see that I didn't realize I had an even number of loops in time to correct it. (That's an easy fix when you're working back and forth; you just undo the few extra stitches when you come to them.)

I think the worst problem with this experiment is through the center. One reason the motifs skewed the way they did is that the center is rigid and has no give to it. As far as I can tell, that's because I worked in rounds.

So, in the version which is on my hook now, I am making the center loops my way, a long row of them to fit my desired measurement (and definitely an odd number, I counted twice!) and I am working back and forth in rows, but instead of "long treble crochets" I am using quadruple crochets. We'll see if I have to take this one apart as many times as I did the other two!

Oh! And I bought "Cebelia" thread from DMC.... ohhhhh my.... I have never used such nice thread before! Now I see what the price difference is about... no fuzziness, no splitting, just smooth tight thread all the way. Tis like heaven!

long, long summer

2009-08-28T04:07:00.003-05:00

I was sick for most of the summer, unfortunately, but I did manage to get the porch rails primed. I've washed off the inside boards around the porch ceiling (what DO you call those, anyway?!) and we have just two more boards to scrape and prime before we start painting with the trim color, cream.

We do still have to wash off the house walls and caulk the cracks (there's a special mortar caulk for brick walls) before we can start painting the house itself. The body color will be a very pale blue.
It doesn't show very well in this pic, but I've started priming the back porch and rails also.

We had the roof patched this week--big relief! Now we can start on patching the wall where the bricks fell.

It's funny about walking the doglet. When I lived in Phoenix, I always walked on the sidewalk and she walked in the grass--it was almost always dry. When Gryph and I lived in apartments here, I walked on the sidewalk and lady walked in the grass. Even if the grass was wet, my feet stayed dry.

Now we have a house and I walk her in the yard.

The WET yard.

In my little canvas shoes.

Aren't weeds funny things? These think they are flowers. Dunno what they're called, but they tried to eat our gas meter... not so good! Anyhow, I take them down periodically with a weedeater, but dang... they come back thicker than ever! How come veggies don't do that?

No matter what it looks like, I promise you this next pic is not of Autumn leaves. Those are mushrooms! And that wasn't all of them, either; they were scattered in a diagonal spread near the oak tree. Makes me wonder if a dead log stayed there for several years! Anyhow, when these get broken open, they're a sickly sulfur yellow.

Know what this is? Amazingly enough to me, it's ivy blossoms! I didn't know it would do that!

Here's another pic to give you an idea of the scale. We thought this tree was dead because it was so smothered in ivy, but it leafed out and grew vigorously this year.

I owe you pics of the rest of what I've done with my summer, but I want to block them first. I'm happy to say I have two Yule gifts finished already, except for the blocking! And while it's been nice to have hours for uninterrupted crocheting, I really do hope that Fall's cooler temps will allow me to get back to work on the house repairs and painting.

Ladybug on the front steps

2009-05-23T21:15:00.002-05:00

Eeeep! No wonder she's so hot all the time! Poor furbaby is really furry again...

Plans for That House

2009-05-23T20:31:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I spent some time talking to the Handyman. He reminded me that duct tape will buy me some time on a leaking drain pipe, so I've got that on my mental to-do list.

He was pretty blunt with his opinion about the inspector requiring we get a licensed contractor to repair the brick wall. Like me, he believes she overreacted, since the wall is a decorative facing and not structural at all. We have plans to put outdoor cabinets and a gardener's workbench in where the bricks fell out, so that the structural wall is protected from the elements and I have the outdoor storage I need for the lawn mower and my gardening tools.... but he has to get a licensed contractor to work with us on that, and it means a higher price. *sigh* Still, he's willing to work with us on a payment plan and that is absolutely wonderful. His goal is to do the work we need done at a fair enough price that in the end, our house's value is increased more than we had to pay him for the work. I suspect we'll be keeping him and his crew busy for a long time to come.

We qualified for the weatherization program but we have to get the roof fixed first, and probably also will have to get the brick wall fixed, since the acceptance letter said "major repairs" had to be done before they would help us. It's okay because the waiting list is six to twelve months now.

In order to get the roof fixed, we have to apply for the emergency repair program. They do roofs. We'll qualify--it's income based--but I don't know if they have any funds left right now.

My first garden is in, teensy though it may be. One eggplant, one strawberry, and two geraniums now live next to the front steps. Herbs and raspberry vines are still to go. The Mystery Shrub may be a Mock Orange (Philadephus). I am utterly enchanted whatever it is, because it's STILL opening new blooms and the old ones last for days, so that small section of fence is filling with lush white fragrance!

Making Progress

2009-05-20T12:26:00.000-05:00

Things are humming along here in That House; we were approved for help with new paint; we've applied for weatherization help; the electric company automatically applied the deposit to all bills; the rose on the side fence burst into pink-petaled glory; another completely unknown to me shrub burst into intoxicatingly beautiful fragrant white bloom. Yesterday Gryph moved the heaviest boxes for me and suddenly we both have reading material AND there is open floor space in the dining room!

We've picked up a couple of garden tools and some seeds and soil at Home Depot, and I have started laying out my first garden bed: along the front of the front porch, eastern exposure, part sun part shade. Neighbor called the city to trim her street tree, a green ash that had many dead limbs, and I was lucky enough to get the biggest branches and plenty of leaves. The branches will be the walls of my raised bed and the leaves will give me organic matter. One of the new tools is called a Garden Hound (think generic Garden Claw) and I am going to be turning soil as I can today. We have some newspaper to use as a mulching layer and three bags of topsoil to cover the whole thing.

I was highly amused at myself to check out my seed packets last night and discover that I have three packs of cilantro seed and four of basil seed; any guesses on my favorite herbs? lol! I also have doubles on carrots and green beans.

I don't know what summer gardening will be like in this yard; I don't know if it will be too hot for peas and spinach or not, but I'm going to try them--tis the only way to find out, and gardening's always a crap shoot anyhow. If you don't take a risk, you don't win.. and planting seeds is about as risky as I get, lol...

I know, I know... I have this image of myself as highly risk-averse, and here I go haring off to be with someone I met online, and then we buy a house that is falling down.... and somehow those don't change my basic self-image as someone who is risk-averse, lol....

Surprise!

2009-05-18T18:22:00.003-05:00

Today we had a glorious surprise, a fragrant white flower on a shrub I (once again) have never seen before. Kansas is fun! The last one was flowering quince; I have no idea what this one is, just a vase-shaped delicate shrub about six feet high, growing on the fence on the north side of the yard. It has a scent like a fine perfume, sweet, complex, and altogether intoxicatingly beautiful!

Aaaack--it's been way too long!

2009-05-13T12:10:00.003-05:00

Please forgive me! I am shocked once again at how long it's been since I posted!

We are here; we have completely moved and we live in That House now. We've even had out of state company twice! Several family members have come to spend weekends with us. I cannot BEGIN to say how gratifying it is to finally have enough space to allow a thing like that to happen! *big beaming grin*

The bad news is that we still don't have a working kitchen sink, the bathroom sink leaks into the basement, and the diverter is stuck so we can't use the shower, only the bathtub--but hey, at least we do have running hot and cold water!

I am still very worried about the brick wall on the south side of the house. It will be quite a while before we can get it repaired, since that means taking it down completely, scraping the mortar off all the bricks, and having a mason re-use the bricks to rebuild the wall. The cheapest bid we got was $10,000 and that is way out of our reach right now.

I've begun telling the rain to go away every time it threatens, because having a river in the side yard is not good for that wall at all--and it has rained so much that water is now seeping into the basement. Dry days are my friends. Hot windy dry days are my saviors! As the water evaporates out of the yard, it also seeps back OUT of the basement.

I bought a fridge that was too big to go through the kitchen doorway, so we punted... it lives in the dining room. The washer and dryer are still on layaway and when they are delivered, they'll have to come in through the mudroom--which is okay by me since that's where they're going to live! The fridge is big and the washer and dryer are heavy duty, because I'm planning for lots of company.

We have more weeds than grass in the yard, and I'm all excited to see if the violet-looking weeds in the back yard really are violets. The ones in the front yard surprised me no end by sending up a weedy yellow flower that wasn't a violet at all. We also have henbit, dandelions, and miner's lettuce as far as I can tell.

The big trees in the back are maples.

Last night a young yellow-crowned night heron came to visit our backyard and caught bugs for dinner; we were thrilled to see it!

Forgive the blurriness of the pic; we were afraid the bird would fly away if we opened the back door, and so the pics were taken through the window without a flash. Tis a young bird; the full adults are a bluer gray with streaks rather than spots on their backs, and in breeding plumage they have long white feathers coming off their heads and draping down over their backs.

I admit I was completely enchanted! A heron... a HERON... in MY backyard! *big beaming grin*

We aren't unpacked yet and the place is a mess; we moved in without finishing the floors (I pulled forty more nails out of the living room floor the third day we were here) and it startles me that we can live like this... but yanno, we can, we are, and everything will be okay: we're Home now.

Moving Progress

2009-04-21T19:40:00.001-05:00

The Deed came in the mail. Dang, they sure don't make 'em official looking like they used to... Ours has--I kid you not--an adhesive label on it from the county. So much for fancy, lol....

So far we have taken several loads over, three in the Interstate Space Vehicular Transport Media, and one in the Matchbox Car. *thank you, dear ones!!*

As of today, That House now has a set of plastic shelves (filling in on Kitchen Duty, but soon to be doing its permanently assigned Mudroom Duty); a lawnmower to go with the weed-eater (yayness! no tickets from the city!! amazing Weed Powers that yard has!), a DVD rack for Gryph's movies (with the DVDs in it), and a bookshelf, plus numerous boxes and bags of Stuff, including books. Five boxes have even been unpacked and brought back to the apartment for re-filling.

Oven cleaner has been sprayed in the oven and is awaiting wet sponges. I left the window open--took a temporary screen over--so I do have to go back and shut the window, but mowing the lawn is out of the question for today. I'm just worn out.

Gryph has the bigger pipe wrench now. The faucet is still not replaced, although a new one was gifted to us. We need a different size wrench to get the old faucet out--one that will fit in the space up under the counter and loosen the nuts on the supply lines. This may take a while.

We have a "new" lamp also, big heavy clunky green thing, and it just makes me laugh. Pixie pointed out that it matches the upholstery on the antique chair; the lamp has a couple of the shades of green in it that are accent colors in the chair... so I thought Our Friend of the Floors had the lamp in her living room and got tired of it. Gryph found it out on the curb and grabbed it for me... come to find out, it was one someone else had given her, and not hers at all!

It won't stay green. I'm thinking black spray paint is my friend. I love that black-accented-with-gold look and already have two lamps done that way; then it will just need a white shade and we'll be good to go.

I keep looking around wondering what on earth to do next. This tiny apartment is so cluttered that I don't even begin to know where to start.... especially since That House is sooo not ready for anything.

Maybe what I need to do is go over, finish the oven, shut the window, wash out and line the cupboards so my kitchen stuff can go over... that would be easy enough to pack, but I really don't want to get into it unless I have a good place to put it... and of course once the food and dishes are in the cupboards, the boxes can come back here for the next load.

Yep. I think that's what I have to do.

I got asked for a wish list...

2009-04-18T11:33:00.001-05:00

I got asked for a wish list.... it's HUGE but here is a start. None of these things have to be new, especially the furniture. Our favorite pieces are the ones we've rescued right before they hit the trash, anyhow... yanno, solid wood and just needed cleaned.
~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~

We need a washer and dryer.

We need a new kitchen faucet, or repair parts for the old one.

Gryph needs a bigger pipe wrench!

We need smoke detectors.

We need a spool of trimmer string for our Weed Eater (Electra Lite 9)... and who knew that would be hard to find?!

We need garden tools, everything from "diggers" to "rakers" to "cutters" lol.

We need a snow shovel.

We need a storage shed for our lawnmower (which is coming none-too-soon, oh my word, the weeds are growing fast!!); a plastic knock-together one would do, just some way to shelter the mower from the weather (and from greedy eyes).

We need a heavy-duty 100-foot outdoor extension cord for the lawnmower and for power tools.

We need fencing for the back yard--one stretch across the back of the property, and two gates at the sides of the house--so that the doglet can run free and strangers will stop cutting through the property.

We need a wet-dry shop vacuum.

We need floor wax for the wood floors. We considered polyurethane, but the manager keeps refinishing various apartment floors in the building with it and I get sicker from the fumes every time, so wax seems like a much better idea. It fits the 1920s era of the home better anyhow.

We need a bed for the guest room--at least queen sized--and linens for it.

We need a dresser for the guest room and a dresser for Gryph. He's been using a Rubbermaid storage cabinet as a dresser long enough... and then I can put that storage cabinet in the mudroom for garden and household supplies.

We need new sheet vinyl for the kitchen and mudroom.

We need a sander--borrowed or bought, either one--to sand the porch railings front and back.

We need handrails for the basement steps, the upstairs steps, and the back porch.

We need curtains and curtain rods for the windows--most of the windows are 42 to 45 inches across; some are 36 inches.

We need six drawer pulls for the built-in linen cabinet; you can still see that once it had the bin-type pulls on it.

We need shelf paper or better yet permanent liner for the linen cabinet drawers and for all the kitchen cabinets and drawers.

We need a Webster for dusting, because I truly cannot reach the tops of the windows, let alone the high corners of the rooms.

We need ladders that are rated for big people, metal step ladders and extension ladders.

We need a big tub and potting soil for the seed taters, which as of yesterday have split the bag open because their sproutage WILL not be denied.

We want a bigger toolbox for Gryph's tools.

We want a freezer, a clothesline, and a compost bin.

We want a bread machine, a toaster, a food dehydrator, and a blender.

We want a couch or loveseat.... or eventually, both!

We want a better computer desk.

We want a file cabinet.

We want more and better bookshelves. (I drool over glass-front shelves and cabinets---no cats can get in to knock things down! You would not believe how often our books hit the floor.)

We want a china cabinet--again, glass-fronted, and for the same reason! (At least books don't break when they hot the floor... eeek...)

We want a bigger dining room table with chairs (our small table only seats four and we want to put it on the front porch along with the patio chairs we've been using in the apartment).

Eventually, we want all new kitchen cabinets and appliances. I think that might be pretty far down the road though.

Our colors are all Autumn colors; our white is soft white or oyster white. Our style is definitely vintage/antique.... "Our Beauty" is a 1952 Singer sewing machine in a lovely small drop leaf cabinet with turned legs, and she will have pride of place in That House right next to a 1930s era chair Our Friend of the Floors *lol* gave us.

The only real stylistic difference Gryph and I have is that I am very much the romantic florals type person, and he is um... well... very much NOT. (Someone once gave him a floral dishtowel and it eventually ended up under the coffee pot to catch drips, the floral parts conveniently hidden from his aching eyes, lol.) So we've decided instead of flowers, we will decorate with a natural theme, seashells, feathers, stones, leather, wood, plants, animals, northwoods designs... sort of a country-lodge-in-the-city look. (Luckily, I absolutely love plaids, lol.)

It fits because the driving ideals of the Craftsman Era were to bring nature indoors, to use natural building materials, and to emphasize the handmade. It also fits because of his Native American heritage and because of our Paganism, a win-win situation all the way around, yanno?

We really couldn't have found a better house for us, even though she's falling apart, than our lovely little 1920 Craftsman Bungalow.

cleaning That House

2009-04-18T11:29:00.003-05:00

Our friend up the street decided to wash the kitchen floor the other evening. Mind you, I have already washed it up SIX times.... started out with a scrub brush and eventually completely used up the mop with the Magic Eraser sponge on it.

So there she was on her hands and knees, and she scrubbed that thing for the seventh time... the water came up opaque brown again and again and again! I wasn't surprised but I WAS shocked, lol... I knew the floor wasn't clean yet but dayum, I thought I had gotten more dirt off it than that!! How the heck much dirt can a white floor HOLD?

After she wore out *lol* I decided that since she had not been able to completely get the dishsoap up when she scrubbed it either, I would take my new $2.50 mop from the Habitat ReStore and just do a good rinse. It started out okay (sheesh, though, there was yet MORE dirt on that floor!!)... but when I was only halfway through the mopping, the mop fell apart!! Brand new Rubbermaid mop, and the black rubberizing came off the squeeze handle--I put it back on, no big deal--but then the sponge fell off the mophead!! Mind you, the sponge ASSEMBLY didn't come out of the mop... just the sponge itself came off, and no way to put it back together. I guess you cannot use a Rubbermaid mop with hot water; it must dissolve the glue... who knew? Who knew? *sigh* So now I have to replace both mops, and I cannot find replacement heads for my scrubby mop (already looked), so I really hope the Rubbermaid mop will take a generic refill! After all, I still have the mudroom, the bathroom, and the entryway to mop.

While our friend was scrubbing the kitchen floor, I tackled more of the bathroom walls. They went from grunge to white... I was SO happy! The part of the tub I wiped down also went from grunge to white, this time not softly off-white like the walls, but sparkly shiny bright white. Now if only I could get the whatever-the-heck off the toilet lid (roofing tar?!), I would be SOOO happy! More comes off each time I scrub it, but I may just give up and use some Goof-Off on it, despite the obnoxious smell.

While the kitchen and bathroom were being scrubbed, Gryph went to work on the dining room floor with a heat gun, and scraped up a couple square feet more glue. OHHH how lovely those old oaken floors are! Before we left, he checked that burned-looking place where we thought Destructo-Tenant had tried to use a sander on the floor, and discovered to our great delight that we had misinterpreted what we were seeing.... Destructo-Tenant had actually spilled a bunch of VERY dark stain there and just wiped it around, then left it to dry!! It came up in small thick sheets (instead of the shavings we are used to getting) and the floor underneath is completely UNgrooved!! Wooohooo!!

I reserved a moving truck for Sunday the 26th. A couple of friends have offered to help us move, and we have GOT to get out of this apartment. The manager has repeatedly refused to repair or replace the smoke alarm, which is against the law; so we invoked the 14/30 day landlord non-compliance clause and gave our 30 days' notice. There's been no response so far and it makes me wonder if they are just glad to see us go, or if they haven't bothered to check the office mail slot and so haven't found it yet.... but we have to go no matter what happens because the pressure of living in this place is making me agoraphobic... it freaks me out so much knowing that they are spying on me, watching for me, trying to control me, that I cannot bring myself to leave the safety of the apartment. I even put off walking the dog, and that is SO not good.... I am once again acting like an abuse victim; I walk with my head down and I do everything I can to shrink into myself--staying under their radar--because I am always expecting a nasty explosion of verbal abuse to come my way.

This is no way to live. This is especially no way to live when we have a perfectly good house that we COULD be living in, instead.

The Inspector has been by again, and has left us a huge list of housing violations. She is coming down on the house like a ton of bricks again--no pun intended despite the falling brick wall, lol--and is holding us to higher standards than the rest of the neighborhood, but we can fight that battle next week.

One of the conditions of getting emergency repair money from the county is that we send in a copy of our deed--and the title company STILL hasn't sent it to us yet. It seems to me more important to get that taken care of first. AND That House has just dropped off the online tax rolls, so now we cannot even get free paint (which we already applied for), plus the taxes are due May 1st and we still have to appeal the valuation--it was $34,800, but of course we only paid $15,000 so it needs to be adjusted--so I think these things which we qualify for and which will get the repair process started need to be addressed before I call the Inspector.

We still have no refrigerator, and I'm not sure why. I'm hoping to run into the neighbor who offered me his old one soon.

doggone adorable

2009-04-10T10:05:00.005-05:00

Please forgive the blurry pic; the Self-Installing Canine Program, Module One, was running on the Steal-Mom's-Chair-and-Be-Adorable Platform the other day and I simply HAD TO take pics. She was all curled up and finally--finally!--not panting.

Here in the second pic you can see the Module is operating with the Optional Camera Flash Eye Enhancement feature.

So yesterday our friend Pixie and I were at That House, cleaning the stove (which is now in the kitchen, woohooo!) and Gryph went back to the apartment without me.

That didn't last long. The doglet insisted on finding me... it is evidently NOT OKAY for Gryph to come home without The Queen Of The Universe, lol.... Lady insisted on a walk and then *tracked me* all the way back to the house!!

Silly pup! lol!

We bought That House

2009-04-06T14:58:00.006-05:00

So, the house is ours now, and people have been asking me for pictures. There are pics back in November but I thought I would add some that are more current.

This is the view from the dining room through to the front door. Please forgive my strangely slanted camera skills, lol.... the curtains are temporary, as all the curtains in the house will be for a while. I have this stash of sheets... *wry smile*

This is the north wall of the living room, with the (currently disconnected) gas fireplace. These glass-fronted shelves are the only built-ins left in the house, as the "window seat" is something the previous tenant built over a cold-air return register for the original furnace.

We discovered pretty quickly on that we wanted our own heat gun. Here is our preliminary effort with a borrowed heat gun; it's what convinced us that this is the way to go.

Progress on the dining room floor with the borrowed heat gun. We intend to borrow it again, and use two at once to speed the work. Mostly I am working on the house while Gryph is at work, and it's slow going because of my fibromyalgia. I lost a week, recovering from pushing too hard.

A friend passed on a tip about Imperial Cleaner, telling us that we could pour it onto the floor and it would loosen the glue. We tried it. It doesn't work. The glue comes up the same way with or without the cleaner, and neither way is as effective as the heat gun. The cleaner is highly flammable so we cannot do both; we're praying that we've let enough time go by for the petroleum distillates to evaporate so that we can use the heat gun again.

The good thing about Imperial Cleaner is that it seems to leave a lovely finish behind, one that is impervious to spilled water. We might use it after the glue is gone.

Old oak floors are so beautiful to me. I go for the country/vintage/shabby chic look when I decorate, so an old worn floor is going to fit beautifully. We're seriously considering waxing it rather than polyurethaning it... how could a brand shiny new polyurethaned floor look right under antiques/vintage furniture?

So far the nicest surprise in the yard has been flowering quince; it came from the neighbor's yard and is spreading slowly into ours. It took a LOT of searching to discover what it was and my friend upstairs is the one who finally found out for me. Evidently this particular plant doesn't fruit in the autumn, although they usually do--not the big quinces that come on fruiting quince shrubs, but small sour ones that make good marmalade--but I suspect this shrub is too early to bloom and that year after year, the late March/early April freezes kill any fruit that might have set.

So... here is the reason we could afford this house. Yikes!

We propped the next section of bricks up as best we could... if it came down, it would more than likely bring the windows with it. Luckily for us, the bricks are a veneer, just a facing, and the structural part of the wall is inside the house. Isn't that a weird way to handle concrete blocks, though? I finally figured it out... I think that the concrete is for added stability, and that it is slathered onto the interior brick wall.

Friends and I did our best to cover that interior wall with plastic, since the rains were due in. This of course was BEFORE I knew about any kind of BLIZZARD being due in, sheesh... the plastic held, thanks be!

Unfortunately, the wood bracing that loose chunk of bricks did not hold; Gryph and I fixed it a couple times before we realized the problem was the wind under the plastic. So on went my workgloves (Gryph hasn't needed them so far, but I sure do!) and we piled the bricks back in front of the plastic to keep the wind out. Gryph even restacked them in part of the wall. It's worked so far and my fingers are crossed that it will keep on working until we have the money to get plywood and do something sturdier.

When the bricks fell, the pressure shattered the basement window. We bought a piece of plexiglass to fix it but the darned sheet is two inches short *eyeroll* so we just propped it in front of the window to keep neighborhood cats out.

We must be crazy, eh? But the price of craziness is right *innocent blink* and we are so in love with this house and all her possibilities. I have two raspberry vines and a 5 lb bag of seed taters waiting in the mudroom, and all my seeds waiting here in the apartment. We have a stove on the front porch waiting for me to scrub it clean and also to get the kitchen floor clean, and a neighbor has offered us a fridge. Now we need a washer and dryer and a chance to get the place clean--I already cleaned a good part of the bathroom--and we have to replace the geysering kitchen faucet and we're good to go.

That House will be a good place to live.

Update

2009-02-23T10:36:00.002-06:00

That House is still my major obsession... I have learned so much about how to buy real estate without a bank!

The owner refused to accept less than we had offered him, so the neighbor adjusted the amount of the loan she was asking for. I don't know yet whether she was approved or not but this morning she is seeing a lawyer about drawing up all the legal and financial papers. If she gets approved, we will start the title search--my fear is that there are old liens on the place--and then we go from there.

The rollercoaster has been pretty hard because I swing so wildly between "we're going to get it" and "we aren't going to get it." We keep hitting obstacles and it has me discouraged but I guess I am the only one who feels any kind of pessimism... then again, I am the only one who has so much invested in That House (emotionally, I mean) right now. Everyone else seems to be okay doing the "wait and see" routine. Me, I am planning everything from how best to refinish the floors to what color I want "my kitchen" and where to put "my vegetable garden."

This is really hard for me and I am worn out. It didn't help any that I have been sick with a cold for over a week. Yanno that old saw about a cold lasts seven days if you treat the symptoms, and a week if you don't? This cold has already dragged on for nine days and so I am a little concerned about whether I am getting a secondary infection. I'm pretty sure that part of my pessimism about whether we'll get that house is due to being at low ebb from the virus.

having trouble with Blogger this morning

2009-02-16T09:33:00.002-06:00

So this is a test to see if it will let me post... well, I may as well put some content in it, right?

The weirdest thing is happening.... we didn't get That House; I cried on and off for a month over it. We made plans to go on. There was a big (I mean BIG) hassle and dispute with the apartment manager over our new lease here. We resolved it--although it still feels like we are under siege, so I guess it is not really RESOLVED, just...quiet--signed the thing for twelve months, and made plans to go on. I gave up on the flowerpot garden and gave the pots away to a friend who is offering me a patch of her garden. We made plans for spending the tax refund.

Dear friends have made plans to move out of state in about a year and a half. It seemed like a great idea, so we made plans to go with them.

Then Winter came in after a couple weeks of Spring, and the freeze-thaw cycle made the broken area of the brick-facing wall of That House fall down. Now the neighbor is galvanized into action, and she is trying to buy the house so that she can either rent or sell it to us.

The timing of all this is incredibly weird, yanno? It's like the more we aim for stability in our lives, the more the universe sends rollercoasters. And they're the push-me pull-you type rollercoasters, too, c'mere, go away, c'mere, go away... stay in Wichita, leave Wichita, stay in Wichita, leave Wichita....

*sigh* I really hate rollercoasters, and yet I seem unable to avoid this one. I find myself calling it "our house" again and dreaming about how I'm going to refinish the floors, what to do first for moving--it's ridiculous. Even if the neighbor (bless her heart!) can get financing, there is no telling that the owner will accept her offer. It's five thousand less than ours was, really truly a lowball price... but then, had we been able to get financing, we would have offered him the same as she is. We only offered him more as an incentive to carry the mortgage.

BUT just in case... I'm holding off on spending the tax refund... we might need that money for appliances...

We didn't get That House

2009-01-25T04:42:00.004-06:00

....and yanno, my heart was just broken... *sigh* but life goes on and we will be okay.

Tax time is coming and we are looking at ways to make things better here in this apartment. A new bed is HIGH on the "need" list, since neither one of us can sleep the night through now for the aches and pains... time to replace that mattress, oh yes.

Something very VERY high on the "want" list is a washing machine. I never thought we could have one here but we did a little research and it's amazing--you can get a little hand-cranked washer that sits on your countertop for about $45, you can get a little electric washer that sits on your countertop for about $70... or you can get one of these....

http://www.target.com/dp/B0002KXMT4/ref=sc_qi_detailbutton?ie=UTF8&pf_rd_r=0BZH336RNQQGF3JQVSAK&pf_rd_p=465357931&pf_rd_i=B0002KXMT4&pf_rd_s=bottom-6&pf_rd_m=A1VC38T7YXB528&pf_rd_t=5101

It is the Haier Portable Compact Washer ($200 from Target), and it will wash and spin a 5 pound load of laundry in about fifteen minutes. It fills from and drains into your kitchen sink, and it plugs into a standard 110 outlet. I read many customer reviews and they were glowing! Several people mentioned that they no longer had to do anything but sheets and comforters at the laundromat and that's my goal. I want very much to eliminate my large laundry pile and keep us in clean fresh laundry without spending a lot of money or having to go downstairs into the dirty basement to do so.

I would have happily gotten the Wonder Wash (hand-cranked) or the Wonder Washer (plug in) but neither of them will spin the clothes; since I have carpal tunnel syndrome it's important to me that the machine do so.

Once we get the machine, I also want to get one of those folding racks for drying the clothes. Haier makes a portable electric dryer that also plugs into a standard outlet--although we do have a 220 outlet here--but it's $319 and quite honestly, clothes last longer if they are allowed to drip dry. I don't mind planning in advance and washing the day before--or maybe doing the occasional trip downstairs to dry a load of laundry.

What I am hoping is that once the constant need for quarters is alleviated, we can afford to do the sheets, towels and comforters in the big machine at the laundromat--maybe the coats and hoodies, too! Although come to think of it, the hoodies will go nicely in the Haier if I do small loads, and so will the towels. The sheets are full-sized; they might even work but they would definitely need to be dried in a dryer.

Also on the "make this place work better for us" agenda is bigger pots for the garden with better potting soil, and a grow light for inside gardening. I'm planning on getting organic fertilizer plus a row cover, some sort of shade cloth, and trellises or cages for outside--have to do it right if I want big yields.

We're also considering replacing the air conditioner with a new window unit that runs on 110 instead of 220. The unit that is here now is old and inefficient, and our apartment was hot all summer with a higher electric bill than my neighbors' upstairs. BUT the tax return will of course be limited and there is a LOT to come out of it, so I think we might try that reflective window film first. Low-e film worked for me in Phoenix very well, lowered my electric bill $15 the first month I used it and that would have been a month that normally had a $25 or so jump, so I think it probably saved me about $40 a month in a three bedroom house. If it saved me $5 or $10 a month in this small apartment I would be happy, especially since the difference it makes in comfort is very noticeable indeed! Plus, yanno, there's the added privacy factor and that matters to us, being in a corner apartment.

In the meantime, I keep looking around trying to figure out what I can do to get more space in here. Part of the problem is that the walls are plaster on concrete and there is a 1/2 inch space after the first part of the concrete; this means that there is just not enough room to open up a wall anchor (molly or toggle bolts) in the space, and that the concrete is not thick enough to support the weight of anything heavy by itself.

When you live in a small apartment and you cannot hang stuff up and out of the way, you're really crunched for space, yanno? We really have to figure this out... the apartment is too cute to go on being so cluttered.

If we have loads more money than I expect, maybe we'll even get a new computer desk, one with a hutch so that we can have our stuff up in cupboards/shelves. That's not the kind of thing that people normally throw out so I think we'll have to actually buy one... and while I have been really good at insisting on real wood furniture so far, I suspect I will have to accept knock-down furniture to get a computer desk.

We're so desperate to make better use of this space that I think I don't even mind, lol.... we'll see what happens!

I've been bad...

2009-01-05T13:15:00.002-06:00

Sheesh... I've been forgetting to take pictures.... the whole reason this blog was started was to document what I make, lol, and here I have been making things and forgetting the camera. *eyeroll at self* I took the gingerbread boys back from The Flying Pig, replaced them with beaded feathers. Dang, I had so much fun making the beaded dangles for the feathers that I wondered if it could possibly be legal, lol!

I will try to be good and take pics of the next batch, which are already painted. If I like the looks of them--they always look different the day after, because the paint cures overnight and often gets muted--then I will bead them right away, but if not, then I will paint them some more and bead them tomorrow.

Hey, I discovered that boxes other people's holiday gifts come in make mighty handy craft caddies--cleaned off part of my friend's front porch, lol. She had all sizes and my fav was a box from a digital camera; it was long and not too tall, and made easily into two matching caddies. You shoulda seen me with all my gears turning, trying to figure out how to make one set of cuts and get two identical caddies, lol...

This is not recycling, btw... this is "upcycling." Recycling is making something into the same thing it was originally; upcycling is adding value by making it into something new and different. Certainly I think free craft caddies are pretty valuable! I may tame some of this clutter yet! *grin*

Door Wreath, Incarnation #4

2008-12-26T16:47:00.003-06:00

The roses are silver tissue paper, recycled from a November birthday gift. The leaves are a few of the November leaves, gilded with metallic paints. The gingerbread boy is a cookie cutter. The added cord is red and green satin twisted with tiny gold beads.

I burned a LOT of glue this month; a local boutique has some of my ornaments, hearts, bells, gingerbread boys, snowmen. We'll see how they do. *tries not to bounce in chair, lol*

I have a crafting partner now too; we took our crafts to the boutique together and are looking for more places. *waves hello to you!*

That Glue-torial I mentioned :-)

2008-12-03T08:26:00.011-06:00

This is addictive, yanno. I find myself thinking about all the different things I can do with this technique. All it takes is an easily recognizable silhouette...

...like this fig, or these leaves. I forgot to take pics before I glued the fig together, so I will show you with a leaf. Oh, notice the wire fig-shaped framework? If you are using paper bags for this craft, you need a shaped wire like that for the bigger pieces. Since I am using chipboard (which doesn't flop about once you put glue on it), I had to use a wire right down the midddle, though; chipboard *doesn't* mold itself around wire and the framework showed very dramatically. I was surprised the center wire worked!

Make sure you have mirror images.

Bend the wire just a little to be more "leaf-like" if you wish. (The fig wire was not bent.)

Get out your fancy glue palette. *grin* Notice the lil ball of dried glue near the stem? It made wonderful texture when I was ready to glue the fig.

Spread some on and stick everything together. Line up the edges as best you can.

I think they look like little curtain rods with finials... okay, back to the fig. Now that it is glued together and dried, spread a generous coating of glue on both sides. This is messy; quite honestly, it works best for me if I spread the glue with my fingers. I made use of that lil ball of dried glue to put in some texture lines. Then, while the glue was still wet (it gives the best texture to do this with wet glue), I lit a taper candle and ran the fig through the tip of the flame. It sizzled, it crackled, it burned, it made smoke... and it made soot, oh yeah baby!

A good beginning....

You can stop here; the cardboard underneath will show through those light spots. I chose to keep burning, keep painting with flame and soot, until the fig was truly black from it.

It doesn't show very much, but the fig itself did catch fire and I had to repeatedly shake it back out. This is part and parcel of glue burning. Sometimes the glue catches fire, sometimes the paper bag or chipboard box beneath it catches fire. You can minimize it by being certain that you get a good coating of glue on all edges, but a burnt edge is actually good.

If you are using paper, your ornament may very well droop terribly as you burn the glue. Not to worry--just turn it over and burn the other side. As it starts to droop, flip it again, and repeat until you've burnt the ornament as much as you like.

Be sure you use a tall taper, so you don't automatically have to hunch over to see what you're doing. That way pain lies, lol...

Now it's time to wipe the soot off. I used that most high-tech of inventions: a wadded paper towel. Here, tis easy to see on the leaf.

See the contrast? The leaf is fully wiped off and the fig hasn't been started yet.

Ahhh, there we go, wiped off on both sides.

Next step: cut the wire to size and file the end smooth. I used an inexpensive jewelry file for this, because it was small and easy for me to control.

Bend a loop to be the hook. (The "drawing" is actually some of those wadded and well-used paper towels--YOU know, the high tech soot remover gadget.)

Follow the pics....

Now that the soot is wiped off the hook--and the "stem" is darker from being burnt twice--tis time to paint. The colors I chose were Metallic Amethyst, Metallic Pure Gold, and Metallic Copper. I dabbed them on and then smeared them around with my high tech painting tool, one color at a time at first and then multiple colors at a time, until I liked the way they looked.

Remember to paint the hook too. Notice fancy pants high tech painting tool at upper left. *grin*

Finished! This fig went to the person who inspired it, my friend who owns an antique store called... Fig. *grin*

Oh!! Too cool!

2008-11-29T11:09:00.001-06:00

http://www.numion.com/Stopwatch/

This nifty lil gadget measures how long it takes your page to load! It measures by your own modem though, so if you have highspeed, it won't tell you how long dial-up takes to load your page.

Still, tis very cool!

Cath the procrastinator... have to head to the library...

Eeeep! and Thanksgiving

2008-11-29T10:54:00.004-06:00

Eeeep! I thought I was ready to go on the glue-burning, but the pics still need to be edited, oops. I always rename them so I can tell them apart (our camera just numbers them), and I also cut out the background so they don't take as long to load for anyone on dial-up.

Well. And because y'all don't need to endure my clutter, lol...

But anyhow, I will post the tutorial after I fix the pics.

In the meantime, hope your holiday was wonderful! We shared ours with chosen family and enjoyed it very much. Now to share recipes! *grin*

That House--our dreams

2008-11-25T20:41:00.004-06:00

So I have been thinking, planning, dreaming away about That House... she (I know she is a she) has hold of my heart and my future and it's like the honeymoon stage of a long-distance relationship. Reality in a long-distance relationship might be snoring, toilet paper coming off the roll "the wrong way," favorite foods the other can't stand, friends you don't get along with... any number of things which one doesn't have to face until one IS face-to-face.

I don't honestly know what reality with That House might be. I am besotted despite having watched The Money Pit; the scars from watching the bathtub fall through the floors are not strong enough to scare me away from buying an old house.

Besides, the structural engineer has already told us the floors are sound, lol....

Tonight I am hopeful, more hopeful than I have been. The engineer's report has come in, the termite inspection and basement bid are scheduled, and although we have been flying on blind faith for a while, hoping and praying we could talk the owner into carrying the mortgage himself--which I doubt he really wants to do--tonight it seems like we might have found an agency which thinks like we do.

This has been pretty hard to do, yanno? People at housing agencies find out our income and immediately try to talk us OUT of rehabbing a home, because Gryph qualifies for Habitat for Humanity. We've been steered that way a time or two. The most common reaction I've gotten when I've talked about That House is "WHAT are you doing trying to buy that house?!"

Well, I'll tell you... I'm trying to save a piece of living history. I'm trying to find housing which we can afford. I'm trying to stay in this neighborhood which we love and where we are welcomed. I'm trying to live my deepest values, walk my talk, go green.

You might wonder at that last one; 88 year old houses are not exactly known for being energy efficient. But there's more to going green than mere efficiency. It isn't a matter of saving pennies on the dollar by choosing one insulation over another or by timing your water heater. Going green is about saving the earth.

It doesn't save the earth to bulldoze a home lot out of land which has not been for houses before. It doesn't save the earth to use mondo amounts of new plywood, new vinyl, new insulation, new concrete to build a structure that will outgas formaldehyde and other toxins for several years. It doesn't save the earth to use new construction glues and nails, screws, bolts, washers. It doesn't save the earth to have to put in new streets, pipes and sewers, electric lines, sidewalks, phone lines, cable lines.

Going green is about conservation. It's about using what is already there, rehabbing what can still be saved, valuing what is old and has stood the test of time.

My dream is to live a green life, to love an old house, to recycle, conserve, garden. My dream is roses in the front and a clothesline in the back--the umbrella type, so it doesn't take up too much room and can be brought inside if need be. My dream is asparagus and raspberries at the back fence, so passing neighbors enjoying the treat might decide to grow something also. My dream is drainage made to funnel rainwater into a small pond in the back, thereby saving the basement from shifting again while giving me a chance to grow a small willow tree. My dream is rainbarrels under the downspouts, so that I can water my vegetable garden without being a drain--literally--on the city water supply.

My dream is to take a sadly neglected yard which was once loved and cherished, and turn it into a small piece of paradise, with fruit trees, flowers, herbs, vegetables, berries, a fence so the doglet can run and play *without* a leash for the first time in three years, arbors and trellises, big planters, curving garden beds, a compost pile so that I am not taxing the landfill as much, curbside recycling so I can do my part.

My dream is to take a sadly neglected house which was once loved and cherished, and turn it into a small piece of paradise with shining wood floors, beautifully plastered walls, gleaming woodwork, comfortable furniture, room for us and for us our furbabies, room for our possessions... room for Our Beauty, who herself is 56 years old and will fit into That House as if she were made for it.

We've discovered a Revolutionary War heroine--yes, heroine--named Margaret Cochran Corbin, and we're considering naming That House for her. Margaret seems to fit the spirit of the house, and Corbin means crow... now what could better fit? Margaret Cochran Corbin had a hard life; she was devastatingly wounded during the war; it completely disabled her and she became an alcoholic after. They didn't have rehabilitative therapies back then--or pain meds--and alcohol was probably the only thing that numbed her pain.

That House has been wounded, devastatingly so. I haven't shown you the wall that is so badly bowed out, where the mason shoved it back and forth and made it shake to scare us into hiring him for a complete rebuilding. I haven't shown you the basement--haven;t seen it myself yet, and forgot to give Gryph the camera last time--and I haven't shown you the upstairs, where the last tenant did his most destructive remodeling.

What's different now is that we have rehabilitation for old houses. That House doesn't have to end its days in dissolution, like Margaret Cochran Corbin did. It doesn't have to die young, like she did. There is hope and healing for That House, if only we can find the financing. There is love for That House, if only we can live in her.

Of the other Margarets we found, Maggie Kuhn appeals to me greatly. She founded the Gray Panthers after she was forced to retire at 65, and was quite the social activist for the rest of her life. Margaret Sanger was the mother of modern birth control availability--for me, going green means recognizing that this earth has a serious overpopulation of humans, and needs birth control--and her bravery in the face of overwhelming social disapproval astounds me. There were other Margarets as well... my dream is to somehow commemorate them, maybe with small plaques on the front porch. And the name "Margaret" translates from the original Greek as "mother of pearl" so maybe I could somehow incorporate mother of pearl (or pearls themselves?) into my small memorial.

My dream is live in a house full of character in a neighborhood full of character in a city full of character, a city which values the old, the quirky, the beautiful, the neighborhood, the human connection as much as--or more than!--it values the new, the commonplace, the sterile, the technological.

Mostly my dream is to rescue Margaret, and thereby rescue us.

Cath

Rules For Glue-burning

2008-11-21T12:03:00.003-06:00

The glue burning is a little tricky. The first rule is, if it *doesn't* set off your smoke alarm, replace your battery.

The second rule is, be sure you sit up straight because if you *ow* get all absorbed in what you're *eeep* doing *aaaack* and you have hunched over side*oof*ways, you will be abruptly brought out of your concentration *EEEP* by a back spasm.

*ow*

The third rule is, prepare to be hungry for marshmallows. It makes me wonder just what in the HECK they put into marshmallows, since burnt glue smells so much like them.... *huge eyes, with eyebrows into the hairline*

The fourth rule is, don't panic when you catch on fire---er, I mean--when the object in your hand catches on fire! lol!

*primly* We shall not discuss what happened when the dried leaf I was experimenting with burst into roaring flames in my fingertips and WOULD not shake or blow back out..... hey, paper, papery leaf, same diff, right?.... NOT.

Yes, yes, I remain unscathed... except for an occasional twitch now and then...
*giggles*

Guess I'd better take some pics and do a tutorial, eh? Maybe this weekend... today I am celebrating my favorite holiday: payday. Thanksgiving dinner, here I come!!

See ya at the grocery store! *blows kisses*

Door Wreath, Incarnation # 3

2008-11-20T15:25:00.004-06:00

The color is off some; those leaves are more brown than purple and the purple cord's not quite that dark--but my photo program couldn't fix the colors so I left them. It's enough to give you an idea what the wreath looks like this month, anyhow. *smiling* Tis very ephemeral, this wreath. Everything is twisted, braided, woven... only the thread (which binds the feather on) and the purple cord are secured with knots. The leaves are just tucked into spaces between the twigs and when I change the wreath again, they'll come out so new things can take their places.

I kind of like it this way. *grins*

.........wish those leaves really WERE that purple, lol!

That House--exterior pics

2008-11-20T13:47:00.004-06:00

This is the front of That Rollercoastering House; sloppy and way too plain, but easily fixed with paint and a little woodwork. The tree on the left is in the backyard. I don't know what the street tree is, but I suspect some kind of oak.

Notice the brick street? Original to the neighborhood. Many of them have been asphalted over, but this one remains. Even one of the alleys was once brick paved.

The truck belongs to a roofer who was giving me an estimate on repairs today.

Ignore the roofer, lol; I didn't mean to take his pic. This pic is really of the north side of the house. The first two windows are above the living room fireplace; the rest are the bedrooms and bathrooms on both floors. That line on the roof is the original built in gutter. The second chimney back by the second floor is from an old gravity-fed furnace, and isn't in use any longer.

The wind is pretty fierce today and I couldn't stay any longer to take more pics. Maybe tomorrow...

Glueburning: Because everyone needs a special birthday present...

2008-11-17T17:53:00.004-06:00

Tis Gryph's birthday, so what better than a gryphon?

This is the white inside of my flour bag. I just *knew* that paper was good for something! *grin*

Happy birthday, darlin! May it be the start of your best years yet!

Glueburning: I keep going back to basics

2008-11-16T21:24:00.004-06:00

There are some crafts that just never get old for me. Have you burnt glue lately? I actually deliberately spent money on 18 gauge floral wire stems and some paint--despite our tight budget!--to be able to do these this year.

Remember what they are? Hint: Aleene's Tacky Glue.

Hint: recycled crafting.

I dangled some beads from the single hearts after I cut them from the main piece of floral wire, but the doubled hearts are on one stem which has been twisted at the top to make a hanging loop. The tassels are just crochet thread which matched the paint.

Hint: Simple craft, easy as can be.

Hint: You need ordinary scissors and a candle.

Got an angel in my pocket... Sometimes instead of dangles or ornaments, I make plant pokes. This angel was just a little too big and kept drooping in on itself over the candle flame, so I ended up picking up the candle and "painting" the flame over the whole surface.

Figured it out yet?

They're made from a USED brown paper grocery sack covered in wet glue! Remember? You glue cutouts together with wire down the middle, coat them with Tacky glue, and burn them over the candle flame. They turn absolutely black with soot (it does make some smoke; you might want to open a window), which you wipe off... and voila! antique metal! Then you drybrush, dab, or sponge them with metallic paint or gold-leafing, and there you are!

MY very expensive, fancy paintbrushes were wadded up damp paper towels. *eyebrow waggle* I used three paints, Folk Art Metallics Antique Gold, Metallic Copper and Metallic Amethyst. The ric-rac scarf on the angel, the crochet thread tassels, and the beaded dangles were all made from leftovers and/or scavenged from other projects. One evening's work total, including the time it took to remember how to efficiently use the candle and whether it matters if the glue dries before you burn it (nope).

I haven't had so much fun in an age. *grin*

That House--kitchen, bath, and laundry room tackiness

2008-11-16T19:22:00.007-06:00

So yanno, when you're looking at an old house, there's the gorgeous parts and then there's the "modern, improved" parts.... I've already shown you unimproved gorgeous. Now here is the view from the back door, all the way to the front door.

I don't know what purpose the laundry room once served, but I would think it was probably a mudroom and laundry room even before automatic washers were invented. You can see this is where they brought the electricity inside.

One wonders JUST how tall these people were? lol!!!

Ohhh my gosh, let's NOT look down, okay? I cannot safely descend into the darkness, so the basement post will need to wait until I can get up and down the steps.

Moving through the laundry room and kitchen now... remember all those doorways from the dining room?

Here is the hall closet, between the front bedroom and the bathroom. One wonders what it looked like when it was new; surely not like this?

And here is the bathroom. The window has been hidden behind the panel on that back wall. The owner did this remodel/update (presumably in 1981 when he bought the house) but the vinyl flooring is courtesy the last tenant, the one who did the unauthorized remodeling which involved so much destruction.

And now for the ultimate in tacky remodels.... here is the owner's idea of what a kitchen should look like. *sigh* If the cabinets were not cheap and broken particle board, it might not be so bad... but not only are they cheap, they are filthy with years of cooking grease and general grunge. I really don't want to put my food or dishes into those cupboards, but if we do get this house--when we get this house--redoing the kitchen cabinets will be pretty low on the priority list. Buying a stove, refrigerator and washer/dryer have to come first. We'll just have to see whether cleaning can work a miracle...

It took us a while to figure out why the vinyl was missing from this patch of floor on the opposite side of the kitchen, and why there was a 220 outlet there. It was hours before I dredged up from my memories how excited my mother was to buy a freezer that just plugged right in, that didn't need a special outlet... my best guess is that there was once a chest freezer in this corner that was SO HEAVY they couldn't move it to lay the flooring.

The wood underneath here is absolutely gray and I couldn't tell what kind it is, whether oak or pine. The next time we get to go inside I will take another look.

Till later!

Cath

That House--full size pics

2008-11-14T13:23:00.003-06:00

This is what has me so completely distracted from everything, even the internet.... Gryph and I have fallen in love with That House. Tis a Craftsman Bungalow, built in 1920, and although there are many things wrong with it, including two bad remodel jobs, there are also many things which could not be more right. This is the living room--well, one end of the living room!--with the original gas fireplace and built-in glass-fronted bookshelves. You can also see the badly built window seat a tenant installed. It was evidently the same tenant who painted the iron front of the fireplace gold, and left Christmas tree lights inside it. *eeep*

The floor is solid oak. The woodwork is original.

This is the view out the back door. The concrete is extensive; dunno whether it was a patio or a driveway originally; it might have also been the foundation for a garage, since many of the houses in the neighborhood have detached garages at the back. What the concrete would be for me? Space for flower pots, stand-alone small greenhouses, a patio table and chairs....

The doorways into the bedrooms, hallway, bathroom and kitchen from the dining room. You can see one of the original furnace vents at the lower right corner. Some of the doors are missing, but the frames are all still intact. This floor is also solid oak. The floors in the bedrooms are solid pine. The kitchen floor is covered with vinyl, so we don't yet know which wood it might be, but I suspect the bathroom floor is pine like the bedrooms.

The dining room windows, and the return air vent for the furnace. These windows face south. The top window is diamond-paned "wavy glass" although it looks flat in this pic. I don't know why it was popular back then to make a window that curved in and out.... because they could? lol!

You cannot tell from the inside, but these windows are the site of the worst structural damage to the house; the wall outside has bowed out as the foundation shifted, and has separated from the windows. It did give me the chance to peek inside the wall and see that the house is built with an inner brick wall, an air space, and an outer brick wall.

Some of the interior walls still have their original plaster.

From the kitchen, through the dining room, to the front door. You can see the windows on the other side of the living room in this pic; the fireplace is on the north wall, these windows are on the south wall. The door and the light fixture are not original... but then, they don't have to be. They're still part of the history of the house. *smiling*

Tis my dearest hope to be able to buy this house! More pics later.

Cath

Mousie, mousie

2008-11-09T10:05:00.006-06:00

Sometimes one comes across the oddest things... recently, I came across leftover felt pieces for making catnip mice cat toys. I can't make them for my cats; you might see why if you look closely at this pic...

Yes, yes indeed... Self-Installing Canine Application, Module One, running on the DogMyFootsteps Platform.

Mousies are just about the easiest sewing project I know of. You cut three ovals out of felt and sew them together with embroidery floss, using a blanket stitch. I evidently had gotten fancy here and tried to cut a snout--trust me, it didn't work the way I wanted it to.

I twisted a length of embroidery floss into a tail and sewed it into the mousie as I put the first two ovals together, then immediately joined the third oval in, starting where the tail joined. The open side is at the top in the pic above, but it didn't stay the top of the mousie. That's the beauty of the oval shape--you can flip it over if it looks better the other way, and no one will ever know that you're not a genius. *grin*

Ready for stuffing.

All stuffed now, with catnip tucked into the middle of the mousie and polyester fiberfill all round. The mousie is stitched completely shut, the "nose" is given critical inspection--and by that point I was certainly feeling critical! lol--and here you can see the first ear, ready to be sewn on. The slit is to make it easy to pull into mousie-ear shape.

One down...

....one to go. You can see that one doesn't even have to cut the thread (floss); just go through the mousie to the other side.

After the second ear was on, only the whiskers and nose were left. Again, no need to cut the floss. Tis one continuous piece from seam to ear to ear to nose to whiskers.

They always come out a little different. Wonder what this one's listening to?

Pie punkins are wonderful!

2008-11-07T09:50:00.005-06:00

Been a while since I posted here. I got caught up in drama at the apartment--we FINALLY have heat; they turned it on for four hours at one this morning--and in the election.

No matter whom you voted for, I hope you will join me in continuing to pray for the safety of all the candidates and their families. I find myself being quite worried that someone will take advantage of the time before the actual transition to attempt assassinations, so I've been praying--hard--for everyone's safety. It's taken quite a lot of energy on my part and tired me out enough to keep me offline more lately.

I just baked the second pie punkin yesterday. I had my own informal taste trial going, and made punkin bread first with butternut squash, then with cooked pie punkin, then last night with canned punkin.

There really is a difference. I don't know WHAT they do to get canned punkin so dark in color and so strong in taste; it could be the variety, I suppose (blue hubbard squash), but I wonder if it isn't the way they cook it... it seems almost as if they have cooked canned punkin down like you would cook apples down to make apple butter. Am I baking with punkin butter? I honestly don't know, and the only way to find out would be to find, pay for, and then somehow lug home one of those enormous blue hubbard squashes, then bake it and see what I'd gotten. They are SO big and so hard that I would have to bake it whole, I think.

I baked my pie punkin whole and that worked out well; slow-roasted it at 250 F for six hours. It cooked all the way through; the top part of it got darker than usual and tastes a little stronger... that's what made me wonder if canned punkin is cooked down. Plus, it was loads easier to deal with the seeds and strings once the whole thing was cooked.

Back to the taste trials---we loved the punkin breads made from butternut squash, from pie punkin, and for canned punkin. The taste varied from bread to bread, with the fresh squash/punkin breads being lighter in color and flavor, but all three of them were very nice. Now I know what to do with the occasional leftover squash!

My weekend

2008-10-27T12:48:00.008-05:00

We got that freeze and it's still pretty cold out so I am making the doglet wait a while before we walk this morning. They didn't turn the heat on--which I think is reprehensible of them; everyone doesn't have space heaters and even with one running all night, it was too cold in here for Gryph to take a shower before work--but like I said, by the letter of the law, they don't have to until November 1st. My poor friend upstairs has a cold and her apartment is running 5 to 10 degrees colder than mine. She refused my space heater yesterday but I might be able to talk her into using it for a while today.... especially if I simply drag it upstairs without asking.

I have gathered some maple leaves--yellows and oranges with occasional streaks or patches of scarlet, nowhere near the fire of last Autumn but beautiful none the less--and used Gryph's's trick of a tiny amount of hand lotion on them to keep them from shattering when they dry. I will keep on gathering; some are for my wreath but I would like to use the rest as enclosures in cards for my mom and sisters. Right now they are all sitting under weights to keep them flat as they dry.

I patched Gryph's work shoes, glued in a little leather where the heel was worn on the inside, and so far it seems to be holding up. So we spent the shoe money at the grocery store and I moved "new shoes" to next payday. It took $150--TWICE my normal budget--to buy most of two weeks' food and dammit, I didn't even buy meat except for dollar a pound hot dogs, and I kept the cheese to a minimum, only three pounds for two weeks. Normally we would go through at least six pounds. But I did buy five pounds of rice and twenty pounds of veggies. I wish I could have bought everything, including paper towels and toiletries, but there just was no way. I sacrificed them to get another canister of coffee; it went on sale for $6 and I have a troubled feeling that might be as low as it goes for the rest of the year.

Funny how inflation-caused relative poverty forces us to eat like the revised food pyramid suggests *wry smile* but really, all that has changed from our preferred diet is that we don't eat much meat anymore and it isn't the kinds of meat we prefer. I did splurge and buy two cans of tuna, not so much for us as for the cats. They're making it plain they truly miss tuna water, so twice in the next two weeks, they'll get a little of it. *sigh* I used to be able to give them two cans' worth, two or three times a week. Dang.

Oh well, I got sick of tuna back then, lol... but I miss chicken and red meat. I bought a pound of that liver I've been needing, but it's gone up a dollar a pound in the last month... it used to be almost free; twenty years ago I used to buy it for 19 cents a pound, ten years ago for 49 cents a pound... now it's $2.49 and looks to keep rising.

Today I cook my first pie punkin, to see how they do. I seem to remember that they are nowhere near as watery as jack o' lantern punkins, and that they taste much better. I'm hoping this is so, because dang, they cost just as much for half the size! I also got two Delicata squash and another butternut to go with the second pie punkin, so we should be set for squash for the next couple weeks. It's a relief to be able to afford *something* in the way of fresh produce, even if it is only squashes.

Gryph is in love with my homemade noodles. I never knew they could be so easy--one egg, half an eggshell of milk, 1/8th teaspoon salt beaten together until foamy; one cup flour beaten in a little at a time, one more half cup flour (or so... depends on the size of the egg) kneaded in to make a dry dough. Let rest ten minutes to half an hour, roll out, snip into noodles with scissors (or cut with a sharp knife... but not on your good countertop!). Boil at least ten minutes; these stay al dente. They don't break down and get mushy like commercial pasta does, so they're great in soup. I make them thin sometimes, and double-thick others. The double thick are like a cross between a noodle and a dumpling.

It is really cold in here; I had to turn the space heater back on. Dang, my electric bill is gonna be as high as it was during the summer! But we have to have heat. Now if the heater will do its job before the extension cord gets too hot and sets the place on fire, we'll be in like Flynn.

I am seriously considering that try though I might to make this apartment be okay for us, it is lacking many advantages that a house would give us. My goal is to not only have a garden space where NOBODY feels it is okay to steal my veggies from me (grrrr! I harvested what was left and gave them to my friend upstairs, who is hurting even more than we are for money), but also a living space--------

----------omg!!! I locked myself out--forgot my keys were in my jeans pocket, wore my sweats when I walked the dog because it is so cold; thanks be the manager was here!! With the plumber, and he's working on the boilers today, thanks be--okay, Lady's walked and drama's ended, sheesh... *brrrrrr it is cold*

----------also a living space where I control the heat and cooling, where things are energy efficient and we have multiple fuel sources. I don't mind living with others; I might even prefer it, at least for a while, but I really mind inefficient appliances, substandard electrical systems, and lack of living and garden space. I mind this way more than I expected to, since I had made peace with staying here.

Maybe when the heat goes on, I will stop minding so much. *rueful smile* But heat cannot make up for my lack of garden space, my lack of security that what I grow will be there when I go to get it; cannot make up for lack of privacy; cannot make up for lack of closets, lack of floor space. Heat cannot make up for electrical outlets that are burned dark brown, that overheat cords, that are simply inadequate--and yes, we do have to be careful what we run because our breakers do flip if we use electricity in the living room and dining room at the same time, or in the bedroom and computer area both at once. *sigh* Heat cannot make up for inefficient appliances that cost me too much every month, a freezer that makes my food smell like soap, a broken window, a broken toilet.... a "maintenance man" who breaks everything worse when he tries to fix it....

*reminds self of new mantra: May we prosper in all things, especially financially.*

I guess that since we are prospering in all ways, we need to prosper our way into a sturdy well-maintained house with a good fence and everything we need! Wish I knew how to win the lottery. *wry smile* Still, we are prospering in all ways, especially financially--and the more I say it in the present tense, the more true it becomes. What I ask for comes to me, so now I am going to ask to for living space that better meets our needs. "This, or better."

Lady seems to be doing better this morning. Gryph gave her baby aspirin at supper and she didn't seem quite as hot during the night last night. Her nose still runs a little but she isn't coughing so much anymore. Poor baby; I just didn't realize that she might catch a cold!

I forgot to buy the Bounce (it's supposed to be a good mouse repeller) and it seems the mouse/mice are expanding their base; yesterday I came home to find Artemis crouched intently under the desk in the dining room, her butt in the air and her head craned round the things I have stored under it. OY. My friend upstairs is upset thinking people will start using D-Con; she had a dog who ate a D-Conned mouse once, and the vet BARELY saved the dog's life; cats have no chance. I've got to get that Bounce!

My garden, amazingly, survived the frost intact. I guess I'd better water it today! I'll use room temp water so the dirt and roots will absorb it more easily. Tonight is supposed to be a hard frost, but if the heat goes on, the garden may be sheltered enough to stay frost-free since it is under my leaky single-pane windows. Who knew? Microclimates are awesome things.

I saw the news last night about the bombing in Syria. I was SO ANGRY. It seems to me that this is a blatant attempt to start a war with Syria so that a specific candidate can win the election. It's unbearable, absolutely unbearable, that CHILDREN should die to further the election fortunes of any party!!! This is beyond despicable; it is evil, pure and simple, and cannot be whitewashed over with ANY excuse.

So I did something. I did a Binding. I had considered binding the one who authorized the bombing, but that would leave others equally evil and insane to bring war... so I did the only thing I could think of--I did the binding on War, itself. I made a red spirit doll and used black thread to bind its hands and render it impotent, ineffective, stopped in its tracks, helpless forever.

There has not been a time in my lifetime where some government or other has not been waging war on its own citizens or another country's. There has not been a time in my lifetime when children have not been dying for other people's political ideologies. There has not been a time in my lifetime when Peace has had any chance at all.

Clearly, this problem must be addressed at the root. Bind war, itself, my dears. There is no room for peace in the world until we deal with this obstinate problem. Truss War up and render it obsolete. Remove it from our lives. The more of us who join together in this image and prayer, the faster it will come to fruition. Bind War and render it obsolete.

Hold fast, bind back

The bitter hands of War

Cry out, shriek out

Enough, ENOUGH!

No more, no more, NO MORE!!

Red spirit doll bound with black thread

embroidered tears on face

arms and hands tightly bound

needle left in

First frost!

2008-10-26T14:57:00.004-05:00

Whoooo! First frost tonight or tomorrow, Arctic air coming through... *shivers* The pipes were banging this morning; hope they get the system up and working soon! LOL, had to run and get everything pulled off the radiators; over the summer they became storage platforms... *sheepish look*

Someone stole my biggest bell pepper Friday evening or Saturday morning. I still haven't decided how to handle that but I believe I will just pull all the veggies myself this afternoon, cut the basil and tarragon for drying, bring the mint in, water the pansies and call it good. It's time to put the garden to bed.

*rubs hands together* That wind is sooo cold, even inside... think I'd best wash some dishes and let the water warm my hands back up! Brrrrrrr!

The COOLEST blog!!! Check this out!

2008-10-25T09:15:00.005-05:00

http://sarahwhitmire.blogspot.com/2008/07/s-journaling.html

This is a tutorial on making your own art journal. I've read this beginning post, and I'm not reading another until I get my own journal--who knows, maybe I will make one out of watercolor paper; I have the paper and now I also have an excuse!

Have y'all seen the Ning communities? I found the link to Sarah's blog here on Artful Journaling, which is part of this community http://fiberartsmixedmedia.ning.com/ Fiber Arts/Mixed Media.

OH MY WORD... I had to come back and edit this to add another one. Check this one out, too! http://rivergardenstudio.typepad.com/ This is River Garden Studio, and it was a little slow to load, even on highspeed, but oh my, so VERY worth the wait! Roxanne is an art teacher and VERY amazing artist; her blog is filled with inspiring images!

full-size pic: Autumn Wreath

2008-10-20T16:20:00.002-05:00

I hope this doesn't take too long to load; I couldn't get far away enough with the camera to take a smaller pic! My fingers are crossed that by setting the size in the post, I made it quicker for anyone on dial-up.

This is made from a branch I saved last winter for a dreamcatcher which somehow never really wanted to be made... when I wanted a door-wreath, though, there it was!

The broom at the top is made from pine needles, bound with the shed leaf-stalks of a Dracaena marginata (Madagascar palm). I made it in Phoenix the Autumn before I moved here. The stalk of grass was gathered in September while walking the doglet. The branch and leaves were gathered last week specifically for the wreath, and a sweetgrass braid was taken apart and rebraided to be longer and skinny specifically for the wreath.

I didn't intend for the sycamore leaves to curl up that way. They were flat as boards when I worked them into the wreath. Maybe some oak or maple is in this wreath's future! Sheesh.

The doily was not specific to the wreath until I recognized two things: I was making too many mistakes to give it away, and all that brown-ness needed some white! LOL, I've always been like that... I used to tell my sibs they could only have the broken cookies or overdone ones when I was baking, since the good ones went on the holiday gift trays. *made sure there were plenty of broken ones, though* Anyhow, I will do this doily again (I've already started it in that rainbow thread I used for the ric rac, just to see how it works) but probably in a larger thread. Size eighty thread gives a small doily, as you see here--tis only six inches edge-to-edge--and I would like it to be a little larger if I am going to give it as a gift.

The pattern was unnamed, from the October 2004 issue of Magic Crochet magazine. It was an issue of doilies and mats, slanted toward the Winter holidays, and I am so glad I have it! I was tired of four- and six- and eight-based patterns; a five-based pattern is so nice, and I am always on the lookout for five-pointed stars.

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day October

2008-10-16T15:00:00.005-05:00

Better late than never! I took these pics yesterday, but didn't get to blog until now. Still, I was thinking of y'all, and I did remember the camera!

You might notice how empty my lil flowerpot garden looks without the squash and pumpkin vines. Over the two months that I was sick, the squash bugs just decimated the vines... evidently they are only drawn by the female flowers, so just as bloom reached its peak, the bugs descended. Aaaaack! Well, I know better for next year. I'll just have to concentrate on different crops.

Long after I thought the plants had given up, there's one last green bean. And then, amazingly enough, there are....

Bell peppers! I have five now (one fell off), but imagine my surprise when the plant basically languished all summer long, then caught a virus--looks like peach leaf curl, actually, lol--and THEN started setting peppers! It's cold now, so I doubt they'll ripen and they might not even get to full-size, but what the heck! They're peppers!

Here is my bloom for Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day.

Yep! Indeed, that IS an eggplant blossom. What is WITH these plants? The sun has disappeared, lol! But I have three baby eggplants and, as of today, two blooms.

Combined with the peppers, this is more produce than I got all summer long. Who knew?!

Now is that a beautiful sight? The mint nearly died off completely; only one sad sprig was left. The weather cooled, it rained a couple times, and the mint started growing.... and then it leaned over and grew some more! I moved the pots one day and they snapped apart.

Huh? They weren't attached... then I realized the MINT had snapped apart, after it had colonized the adjacent pot. Now THAT'S the mint I know and love, lol!

Look at that basil!! It came back too, just like the mint, but without the colonizing tendencies. it hasn;6t had a chance to colonize anything--I've harvested it twice in the past couple weeks, and it's coming back yet again.

My wonderful brave portulaca though... well, let us kindly say it is reduced to sadness and comment no more.

*elaborate sigh upon its behalf*

The oregano and tarragon have been harvested again and again and they're still going strong, but the cosmos is another one of those which leave me scratching my head. Tis the only one that survived (I planted a dozen seeds), and it hasn't bloomed yet. Too bad the foliage isn't edible! If it were blooming, it would be wonderful; this is Cosmos sulphurea "Bright Lights" and it's easily one of my most favorite summer flowers.

The pansies are trying valiantly....

This is the original butternut squash pot and I guess that squash was REALLY greedy! Judging by the state of the pansies only a couple weeks after transplanting, there is next to no nitrogen left in that pot! I'll have to fertilize it once more, full strength this time (I had been going half-strength, not expecting more flowers on the veggies).

Here we have that amazing purple verbena, my other bloom for you. This is another plant that surprised the heck out of me. It will bloom a while longer, I think, since frost isn't predicted for a while yet.

These are the manager's strip gardens. I think the young tree in the first one might be a weed. Her gardens did nothing for most of the summer, also, so I'm thinking it must be our microclimate. This garden is almost completely in shade and I think she planted it well.

This garden has VERY little root room between the parking curb and the fence, and again, I think she planted it well... but even though it got almost as much sun as my flowerpot garden did, it also did nothing for a couple months after she first planted it this summer.

This is my neighbor's garden. She commandeered this little space between the driveway and the back fence, cleaned it up, weeded it out, and planted pansies and asters. Again, it is very slow to get started. There are a couple blooms on her pansies, though.

Walking through the neighborhood, I see that sticks are beginning to fall from the trees. It is so amazing that the trees just GIVE people sticks like that! Trees most definitely do not shed their young branches in the desert! Maybe it's because of the climate? Or because of the species... none of these trees grow in the southwest desert.

These brqanches demanded a pic. Can you see why?

Take a closer look....
LICHENS! Amazing, isn't it???
Now check this out... are they seedlings, growing in the pattern they fell?

Or is that branch resprouting? I couldn't tell!

Look at the trunk of the tree the branch fell from.

Moss, and mushrooms!!! OH, how I love Wichita!

My final pic... the mimosa tree at the back of the neighbor's yard. Those blossoms did what blossoms do. Look at all those pods!

What's blooming in your area right now?

Company's coming? Organizing all this STUFF....

2008-10-14T12:11:00.005-05:00

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{Gris}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}} Big hugs and welcome, darlin! I thought I would just post again, instead of answering each comment. I'm overdue for a post anyhow.

Organizing.... I think this might be a problem for a LOT of us "making" types, yanno? *looks around at the mess in here* lol, artist types seem to need to be able to SEE everything, have you noticed? So I have stacks and piles of stuff everywhere... because when I can't SEE it, when it's all tidily put away, I completely forget about it! I have been known in the past to buy things twice because I put the first one away and forgot all about it. *sheepish look* And when everything is put away, I can't seem to get started on making anything! I need to see my supplies in order to get inspired.

You can imagine this leaves a thrifter in a small space rather... um... floundering for organization. *now you know why there aren't many pics of the inside of my apartment, lol* Combine that with the recent grocery inflation, and I haven't got the money to buy the furniture to put everything away into, anyhow.

So what do you do when everything's a dusty mess (isn't it amazing how fast dust accumulates??) and someone is coming? Well, it depends on how much time you have. If you have a couple weeks, go to flylady.net for a plan that really works.

If you only have a day or two? Do what counts the most--clean the bathroom first. Clean the counter and mirror, scrub out the sink, clean the toilet, scrub the bathtub, then either vacuum the carpet or sweep the floor and take out the trash. Done! If your bathroom is small, you can do all that (even with tons of clutter) in less than an hour with good cleaning products. My bathtub is permanently rusty and so is my medicine cabinet, but then the building is 79 years old *shrugs* AND I am more disabled than I used to be, so I don't expect to be able to clean perfectly. If you're busy or you have health problems, you shouldn't expect that of yourself, either. Do it as well as you can and tell yourself "done is beautiful."

Then tackle the kitchen. Use a clean dishcloth and dishtowel, and get out clean potholders, too. Then start with the sink; clear it out, scrub it, fill it with hot soapy water and get the dishes done. It is AMAZING how much difference that makes! Of course, if you have a dishwasher, that's faster and easier--but in any case, get the sink empty and clean, with all your cooking pots washed. Then do the counters. Get them obviously clean, even if they're cluttered. Scrub up your stove top. (I always seem to have to use steel wool on mine; luckily it's old fashioned and not one of those glass topped stoves!) Tackle the fridge next; throw away anything that smells bad or is moldy. Vacuum, or sweep and wash up the floor. Done is beautiful.

Now, where will the company sleep? Make sure you have clean bedding and clean towels! Then--this is the hard part I bet, lol--figure out where to put everything you have stacked on that bed or sofa. Bet you're thinking the same thing I am, right? "If I knew where to put it, it wouldn't have landed on the bed to begin with!"

Remember the danger here, that whatever you put away, you will forget about--and get a permanent marker to label the boxes or tubs you are going to pack stuff into!! The best and easiest way to deal with the clutter is to put everything into under-the-bed tubs, and then just slide it under the bed. Voila! You're done! But if you have to, put the items in boxes, stack them in a corner of the room and throw a tablecloth over them. Now make the bed, dust the furniture, and vacuum or sweep the floor. Done is beautiful.

Your guest can now safely use the restroom (remember to buy toilet paper and more soap, if necessary), get cleaned up (ooops---wash that shower curtain if it's mildewed!), eat whatever you fix, and sleep. The rest of the house? Well if they're coming to see YOU, they won't care about the house. If you have time to dust, that's good; if you can vacuum up the dog hair that's good; if you can make your stacks of stuff tidy that's good---but there are only so many hours in a day and an artist needs to be making art more than she needs to be cleaning.

After the company is gone? If you have the money, buy the kind of furniture that makes storage easy. I like those clear plastic dressers, china cabinets or bookshelves with glass fronts, clear underbed tubs on wheels--anything that corrals loose items, keeps the dust out, and still lets me see what I have. If I have to use cardboard boxes, it works best to label them. I've been known in the past to sponge paint boxes, then decoupage them with magazine or calendar illustrations, fancy napkins, printed tissue paper, or greeting cards. Once they're varnished they hold up nicely and at least they don't look like I'm ready to move at a moment's notice.

I've also noticed that some things don't need to be out. For instance, if I have my crochet pattern books out where I can see them, I can put the thread and yarn away in a dustproof box and I still get inspired by looking at the books.

Paper is best put away, also, not just because of dust but also because it's fragile, easily marred by dogs, cats, or simple bad luck. A dresser drawer works great for storing paper, but plastic tubs work too.

If you're short on money and need secure petproof storage, find out which of your friends or family members buy cat litter in buckets. They're easily washed out and hold a surprising amount of stuff. I have two in my bathroom, the clear ones from Tidy Cat, to hold sanitary supplies and extra toilet paper. They aren't pretty--their labels are printed on and I never did get around to sewing covers for them--but they are totally cat-and-dogproof, plus dustproof.

If you have storage space like a garage or a storage shed, you can look around for old desks, which are usually cheap if not free. They hold loads of stuff, and if the bottom one is sturdy, you can stack them and put boxes or tubs in the empty center space. Or, if you can find two the same height, you can use them as the ends of a big worktable made from plywood or from an old door. You can stack small bookshelves on them to make a hutch, too... not exactly a china cabinet, lol, but it works great for storage all the same.

If you have an extra end table or night stand, you can stack small bookshelves or plastic dressers on top for more storage. They work the same way on a low dresser.

If you find a dresser in the trash that is missing a drawer or two, you can use a couple layers of cardboard to make shelves and then slide baskets in. If the drawer guides are missing, you can make shelves out of yardsticks (check in the hardware store's paint department) cut to the right size and staple-gunned in--or you can use fewer yardsticks and make supports for the cardboard shelves, which is what I've done temporarily. My cardboard? Boxes from the post office that I haven't used to mail things yet--double duty, shelves for my craft supplies plus storage for the boxes themselves, which after all had to live SOMEWHERE. *grin* The backs of used art tablets would work too, especially the bigger ones.

Where to find free furniture? If you live near any apartment complexes, check the driveways and trash areas every month; people throw amazing things away when they move! Watch your street when it's time for bulk trash pickup, too, and also drive past big yard sales after they close. Also let your friends and family know that you're in the market for desks, bookshelves, plastic dressers, whatever it might be that they're willing to pass on for storage.

When I recognized how much furniture is available cheaply or for free, I decided that I didn't want to take anything that wasn't made of solid wood rather than plastic or pressboard. I've still got my eyes open for glass-fronted media cabinets--GREAT for paper!!--bookshelves, china cabinets, etc. Until I find them, I'll be happily using the bookshelves a friend gave me, and plotting and planning how to rearrange the furniture once more to make the place work better.

OH MY GOODNESS!!

2008-10-10T13:24:00.002-05:00

I have SIX baby bell-peppers and THREE baby eggplants in my lil flowerpot garden, all at once! lol!! Guess my Fall harvest will give me more than I got all Summer long! I had thought the garden was done last month, and almost tossed the plants... so glad I was lazy! *grin*

I'm working on another doily, size 80 thread again. Tis a five-point star for the holidays, and there are lacy fans between the points to make it round-ish. Pics will come a lil later. I found a couple more back issues of Magic Crochet and Decorative Crochet magazines, plus my Rita Weiss book, 101 Crochet Edgings. Tis fun to look through, pick and choose, and start something new!

It's funny how things take on their own lives... I look at the doily, and it seems like something someone else has made, something completely independent of me--and I marvel at it! Then I pick up my hook and get back to work. *wink*

Struck dumb....

2008-10-05T15:42:00.003-05:00

I was struck dumb. I literally couldn't say anything, and I walked away without speaking.... a friend of ours asked us yesterday, "Don't you just LOVE Palin?" and then, with adulation in her voice, "Isn't she such a Warrior Woman?"

*blink*

*blink blink*

John McCain's Latest Beautiful Trophy Wife, a warrior woman? Um, aren't those two terms mutually exclusive? Wouldn't a Warrior have her OWN opinions? Wouldn't a Warrior live by her own well-thought-out values, rather than parroting the patriarchy and obediently falling in line with the existing Good Ol' Boy party planks? Would a Warrior Woman try to enforce one religion on a free people? This is a woman who tries to ban books. Hasn't mature adult thinking gotten a little beyond that point even in our culture... oh say... forty years ago? And doesn't it take a certain amount of mature adult thinking to be a Warrior?

Sarah Palin may think of herself as a Warrior--I don't know--but how can ANYONE look at her (or at ANY political candidate) so uncritically?

My definition of Warrior Woman isn't complete... I've never been called to articulate it before, so I know it when I see it but I can't always talk about it. Certainly it includes acceptance of a free and diverse society, and the willingness to stand up for that freedom of belief and thought which is the hallmark of a healthy society!

How can someone who wants to promote one religion--and who will fire any public employee who disagrees or resists--possibly be considered a Warrior under that definition? How can someone who would happily force her own child to marry someone unsuitable be entrusted with the welfare of all the children of America? How can someone who is bent on enforcing the already-failed ecological policies of the early twentieth century guide us into the twenty-first century? How can someone who cannot see ANY alternatives to war keep us safe in the modern world?

Here is another part of my definition of Warrior Woman: someone who knows how to avoid fighting when fighting is not necessary; someone who undertsands that fighting is the LAST resort, not the first action.

I'm not interested in debating politics (I myself am definitely not a Warrior Woman!), but I am very interested in definitions, in how we all perceive the world. So what is your definition of Warrior Woman? What do you see as the characteristics of a Warrior in this world?

I wouldn't be three again...

2008-10-03T16:46:00.003-05:00

Really, I would NOT be three again, not for anything in this world....

The Doglet Groomer has a three year old, a bright happy active exuberant boy. He tries to be good, tries to understand the world and what's expected of him. He doesn't always succeed very well, but he really does try, yanno?

This morning he tried to be part of our conversation, but she told him to let us talk without interrupting. He tried, he really did... he went back to playing (the only way he knows how--exuberantly *wry smile*) with his toy firetruck. He ran it past Lady and she objected, so I picked her up; then he moved away and I put her back down. He kept running that firetruck back our way, though, and his mom kept trying to redirect him.

He just really didn't get it. He ran the truck past Lady again and I wasn't fast enough; she bit him before I could stop her. He was pretty upset. She didn't even leave a mark, mind you--she was "disciplining an unruly puppy," I think--but oh, he was aggrieved! And his morning went downhill from there... every three year old knows what's "fair" have you noticed? And it most certainly is NOT fair that someone ELSE did something REALLY bad; Ladybug BIT him!!--can you hear his indignation?--and then *he* got in trouble! So of course he got more and more upset, acted out and then eventually he really DID get in trouble.

I felt so badly for him. I'm pretty certain he just honestly doesn't understand that he did something to make Lady snap at him. I'm also pretty certain that he doesn't understand why on earth he got in trouble when he was trying to be good.... well *wry smile* he doesn't get it that he's not very successful yet at "being good" lol... but the poor kid, and my poor friend, too--both having such a rough morning when it started out so happy!

I've been thinking about it all day. It is so HARD to be three! I've heard people envy kids their "carefree lives" and I don't think that's really it... I think kids are under a ton of stress, trying to understand how to be good in a world that is mostly incomprehensible, with rules that don't make sense and consequences that just aren't fair. I wouldn't wish being three on my worst enemy.... and yanno, I wouldn't wish going to school on my worst enemy either. I remember how hard it was, how it didn't make sense, how I didn't know how NOT to get into trouble, how scared I was when I got in trouble despite all my best efforts to behave. And yanno what? I don't want to bring that on my friend's little boy. I don't want to be part of what squashes him. He's bright and exuberant and I want him to stay that way.

I have to figure out how to explain Lady to him in a way a three year old can truly understand. He knows she isn't scared of him... but I think I will tell him she is scared of things with wheels, like firetrucks and his tricycle. I hope it will help him understand, help the world make sense to him.

.........gods, not for anything on this earth would I be a child again........ *sigh*

Weird and Wonderful Around the Neighborhood

2008-10-01T11:50:00.006-05:00

So. You think there's reason for paranoia? You get the feeling somebody's watching you? You don't trust the government anymore?

In Phoenix, they disguise cell phone towers and security cameras as palm trees, big metal sculptures, some realistic looking, some artistic looking... but here in Wichita, we have a more... homegrown.... application.

WE use maple trees. Real ones. And we're blatant about it.

What's that? Can't see it? Take a closer look.

Somebody please pass me my tinfoil hat. Oh, and you can relax; this antenna's aimed at my sweet friend the Doglet Groomer, down the street. Maybe the CIA needs to use dog-lish spies now? lol!

Coming back towards home now. Say, do ya like this fancy garden bed alongside our complex? These lovely lil lavender daisies grow all over this neighborhood--like the violets in the grass--just weeds underfoot, most of them no bigger than two inches. But this plant here is special! It found itself some space in a garden bed!

Yeppers, that's right... it's SIX inches tall, growing in a crack of the sidewalk covered with a quarter inch of dust and dried leaves!

Life... it's everywhere! *grin*

Of course, sometimes life gets a bit confused... check out the lil five petal white blossom at the top center of this photo.

And then... oh yes.... a bird's nest in this young tree! They didn't waste any time; the tree was just planted in front of our complex this summer! (You can see the blossom better if you follow the curve of the branch in front of the nest.)

Ahhhh, here we go, the marigolds by our front door. Those irises in the background were glorious this past spring, and the marigolds have finally taken root and prospered this fall. They brighten everyone's day!

Tis so good to be home! Kick off your shoes, have a sea----er.... what's this? Oh! It seem the Self-Installing Cat Accessory, Module Three, is running the "Adorable Foldy Feets" Application on the Optional Chair Platform.... and I see she has installed the Optional Camera Flash Eye Enhancement Application as well!

Oh well, we didn't need to sit down anyhow, did we? lol!

A blog to check out

2008-10-01T11:10:00.002-05:00

Here is a link to Arwen's blog--yes, Arwen of the 9 Word Poetry Challenge fame--she has a blog about Tarot, with examples, explanations, sample readings, beautiful illustrations, contests, and guest posts. She's insightful, compassionate, funny... and oh yeah--my other self. *wink* We started out as the AZ Self and CO Self, bonding online over poetry and heartbreak, each wishing the other had had an easier life and didn't have to understand what we were going through; down the road, I became the KS Self and she became the TX Self. Our lives are so much better now! It shows in our blogs!

http://tarotbyarwen.blogspot.com/

Tell her Cath sent ya... better yet, tell her the KS Self sent ya! *grin* Look for her latest guest post http://tarotbyarwen.blogspot.com/2008/09/guest-blog-artist-side-of-creating-th.html and leave a comment for a chance to win!

Whoa! What a find!!

2008-09-29T16:44:00.002-05:00

Here is a link for our times! http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/publications/publications_usda.html

This is the National Center for Home Food Preservation, at the U of Georgia. I found it through a link in a post over at Rolling in the Dough. The baklavaqueen is a true font of information and inspiration!

I love you too, TX Self

2008-09-24T10:51:00.002-05:00

Another nine word poem for Arwen. These are from her post here on her Tarot blog. I cheated; my poem's not about a Tarot card. *grin*

~Blessing~Rod~Stern~Sycophants~Keys~Pillars~Cardinal~Trinity~Gray~

Trinity

Autumn's blessing stands in state
Blue jay, cardinal, flicker
Gnarled bark brown, tan, gray slate
Blue jay, cardinal, flicker

Flaming rod of crimson hue
Flowing golds and oranges
Pillars standing tall and true
Blue jay, cardinal, flicker

Walnut balls and hickories
Underfoot with maple keys
Harvest blessing in the streets
Blue jay, cardinal, flicker

Soon enough stern Winter's call
Blue jay, cardinal, flicker
Comes to end sweet Autumn's thrall
Blue jay, cardinal, flicker

Yet till then the trinity
Blue jay, cardinal, flicker
Holds its sway in Nature's seat
Blue jay, cardinal, flicker

Mornings soft with woodsmoke scents
Afternoons of sunny bent
Evenings Winter's sycophants
Blue jay, cardinal, flicker

Colors bright and swiftly fleeting
Flashing in the trees a greeting
To a heart Autumn'ly beating
Blue jay, cardinal, flicker

Bindweed

2008-09-23T14:00:00.001-05:00

This is a nine word poem for Arwen. Here are the nine words which inspired it: Bind ~ Innocent ~ Where ~ Intend ~ Compel ~ Rift ~ Late ~ Real ~ Find

Bindweed

Late in summer turned to autumn musing deep I stand
Before the glories’ green and twining creep upon the land
Where once twas nothing now the vibrance does the drifting gaze compel
Where once twas barren now exub’rant life twines out its spell

You may seek but never find the real authentic meaning in the world
The rift can only ever bind twixt leaf and bud unfurled
And innocent though twining bud may look to passing eyes
If you intend to see the truth in weeds that men despise

Look deeper yet, a purpose find within this burgeoning life

This earth which welcomes root and seed
Which answers every gardener’s need
Which takes the cut yet does not bleed

This earth which shelters bud and vine
To an ancient vast design
To a purpose undivined

Look deeper yet, a purpose find and mend the rift within

Today I am grateful for...

2008-09-19T12:09:00.003-05:00

Cheetos, snack food of the gods....mmmmmm, thank you!

Pomegranate tea on closeout, when I actually had money to buy some--and now it is mine, all mine! *grin*

Inexpensive votive candleholders from the thrift store.

An open window.

Books by Manda Scott about Boudica, the Eceni warrior... the novels are fiction, but she was real. People today call her a British Queen but really she was a warleader, like one of our highest generals today. Reading these books made me realize the Celts were as British as they were Irish, Scots, or Welsh in the beginning. The first book is called "Dreaming the Eagle" if you would like to read them.

The feeling of roots these books gave me--something that was lacking for most of my life.

Walking my doglet, and having such a wonderful, beautiful, peaceful, charming neighborhood to walk her in.

Warm sunshine alternating with shade. (I know, absolutely AMAZING considering how I have always hated the sun!)

Living where I can appreciate warm sunshine, instead of seeing it as my deadliest enemy. (I'm very susceptible to sun poisoning and heatstroke, and living in the desert was torture to me.)

Winter's inevitability, whispered in the morning wind.

The neighborhood park, peaceful, full of birdsong, red berries, and light green pears hanging heavy on a tree. Too bad tis a TALL tree. *gentle laugh*

Brown acorns almost as big as small eggs, so that four make a big handful.

Meeting new people in the neighborhood.

Watching my newly-made social butterfly of a doglet meet new people in the neighborhood.

Green acorns almost as big as small eggs, with FRINGE hanging from the caps! They look like Cousin It... or hippies with bad haircuts.

Water carried on the evening breeze.

Black skies with an ivory moon.

Getting the laundry done.

Talking to a friend who was also getting the laundry done. *smiling*

Watching all five of the furbabies come, one by one, to greet her... she isn't my friend alone; even the Skitty Kitty (Module Four) came out to say hello, and she hides from everyone.

Making garden plans with my friend, plotting out what we'll do come spring.

Laundry finished, and bedtime at last.

The sweetness of a happy dog, leaning against someone she has come to love and trust, and who loves her just as much.

The sweetness of falling asleep as a family, people, doglet, cat all sharing the bed... well, okay, the cat was in his own private cubby in the bookshelf we use as a headboard, with his pillow and blanket for a cushion *grin* but he was holding Gryph with one paw and it made us both feel like purring, ourselves.

Blue skies with bright morning sun.

Cornbread with butter.

Milk, and Gryph's insistence that it be "whole cow or no cow".... so, whole milk without guilt--no more skim! *YAY!*

Hippies with bad haircuts drying overnight into miniature Medusas, with wildly curly flyaway fringe.

Being able to walk the dog farther than before, because it isn't so hot.

Late cannas, glowing in the sunshine.

Late roses going to hips.

Purple hibiscus.

Double purple hibiscus! Looks like a completely different flower, too--more like old-fashioned roses.

Squirrels with tails longer than they are.

Polite squirrels, who stop and wait to see what I'm saying when I t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t softly at them. Not that it makes any sense to them, mind you... I evidently only speak some sort of babytalk babble. *grin*

Flame-orange mini trumpet flowers on a lovely vine, and the internet... it's taken me half an hour, but I found it! Ipomoea coccinea, the red morning glory or "redstar." I want this vine! It self sows readily... *whistles innocently, passing by, looking for seed capsules* It should only take one.... *eyebrow waggle* I had thought at first this vine might be cardinal creeper (another morning glory), but the flowers are more orange than scarlet and the leaves are VERY different, not fringed at all, but heart-shaped like a cross between ivy and grape leaves. I didn't think to look under morning glories for a long time, because the flowers stay open all day.

Heartpods still hanging on the tree.

Yellow leaves, falling from the black walnut trees already. The trees are half-aglow, half green; the sidewalks are scuffily yellow.

The sound of leaves scuffing underfoot! *grin*

Yellow leaves on the sycamores--just a few, here and there.

The first red maple leaves! Just tinges of red on creamy yellow, three leaves and the rest of the tree covered in deep-green--the rest of all the maples covered in deep green!--but there they are, the first three red leaves of Autumn!

Cardinals, brighter red than before, winging past.

Squawky starlings, spiffy in their new spots.

Birds I don't recognize and couldn't begin to identify flying overhead.

A tiny sparrow clinging to the handle of a faucet, ever-so-carefully turning its whole body upside-down to snag a dropping drip of water.

The rest of the flock swooping around the porch and eaves, waiting their turn.

"Our backyard woodpecker," perched on a telephone wire.

Spiky seedheads on the weeds, looking for all the world like matte miniatures of those "sputnik" type holiday ornaments so popular in the 1960s.

Noticing a long thin charcoal grey feather on the sidewalk.

Realizing I had been carrying it through the neighborhood for blocks without feeling the least self-conscious.

Giving it a new home in the former squash pot, which is now a pansy pot.

A big black lab/golden retriever cross, running free through the neighborhood, deciding not to bother us.

Seeing a house for sale and thinking, "nope, not for me--tis at ground level on the low point of the street, susceptible to flooding..." and then realizing, oh, I can tell whether I'm going uphill or downhill now, even on a slope I can't really see... that's new!

Feeling and tasting new things on the wind: winter and the promise of bitter cold with snow and ice (well, bitter cold to me, anyhow, lol); water and the hint of possible rain the next day but probably not; mellow sunwarmed days staying a while.... this sense is also new!

Instructions and recipes for acorns and black walnuts, and databases filled with flower and tree pictures on the internet.... what a wonderful place it is! It has grown exponentially since I first came online. What a treasure!

Realizing that I am settling in for the winter, that it is Autumn and I am gearing myself to colder weather... and slowly over the days recognizing that I don't need to buy a house right now, that instead I need to stay in my little apartment home which will be snug and warm on high ground with the radiators going. Winter in the Midwest is not the time to become a new homeowner... so if we are meant to buy a house, it will be there come Spring or Summer.

Inner peace.

Noticing the Natural World--Late Summer into Fall

2008-09-11T12:43:00.002-05:00

Fall is coming in on hurricane wings... I realized this morning that with the storms moving through so steadily now (there's one in from Baja through Mexico right now, and they're saying Ike will be through Texas and on into Kansas by Monday), there isn't likely to be any last stand for Summer here in Wichita. It might fluctuate between warmer and colder/wetter, but it is going to remain Fall here no matter what--the Season has settled in for the duration. I'm hoping it's a long mellow duration, but I have this nagging feeling that Winter will also come in and settle early... and Spring will be a little late, maybe?.... Not sure on that one, too soon to see any signs.

I never knew I had this weather sense before. I think maybe it'sbecause I am paying better attention to the world around me now, and so I am more open to reading the Seasons and their turning. Before when I lived in a climate that didn't suit me I really kept myself closed off as a survival mechanism... although I was always right about how doggoned hot and/or dry it was going to be, and my rain predictions were way more accurate than the weather service's... so maybe this sense was partially awake even there...

I am learning to trust myself; the morning I felt Fall come to Wichita, I told myself not to be silly since it was only August... but time has shown that I did know what I felt when I felt it. I was accurate. It's kind of astonishing, yanno? I never expected that to be so. I didn't know weather watching was a skill that could improve with practice--I thought it was a gift that one either had, or did not.

Yesterday I noticed that although the leaves are still deep, deep Summer green, enough leaves have fallen to make the tree canopies more open and curiously more graceful-looking. AND we saw fireflies again! After the long heat, they have come back out... or maybe tis after the long dry spell they have come back out? Well heck, for all I know of firefly mating habits, maybe they just have two seasons, lol... but I loved seeing them whatever the reason.

My garden is much reduced. The squash bugs have almost completely decimated the vines, and so my glorious lush green "squash hedge" is gone. I miss that luxurious greenery! I haven't had to water in about two weeks, though; the flowerpots are wet clear through and now the basil and mint are finally starting to grow again. The verbena has new blooms and the oregano and tarragon are full of new growth. Ican see that summer in flowerpots on cement is hard for plants; the Autumn light is much kinder.

I notice in people's yards, the shade flowers have come into their own, the violets are putting up new leaves, and the mosses are re-sprouting. The occasional fence is covered in moss and lichens, as are some of the tree-trunks. It doesn't seem to be true that moss grows only on the north side of trees in the city, though... luckily Ican rely on the street signs if I ever get lost! *grin*

The hawks are still here, yet Summer's birds seem to be more visible again, and I am wondering if it might be the fledglings come into their own now. Certainly every morning is greeted with glorious birdsong!

The sky alternates between grey and brilliant blue, and the air between dry warmth and cool misty haziness. I confess, I never knew before that grey was an Autumn color; I always thought of the "earthtones" yanno, browns, mustards, oranges, scarlets... but I didn't know there were sky tones also, the misty greys, the warm deep blues. And although I am waiting happily for the leaves to turn their brilliant Autumn hues, I see that the deep mature green of full canopies and the intensely vivid carpeted green of new moss are also Autumn colors.

I can walk at night now with very few unsavory bugs--except those darned skeeters!--and the frogs no longer sing their mating songs (a good thing in the case of the frog that sounds like abandoned babies on the verge of death! eeep!), but the cicadas are still loud in the afternoons and evenings. A new sound has joined them, some sort of clicking beetle, and of course the crickets remain and are getting louder as the season turns.

What is like for you right now? What Season are you in? What has changed; what has stayed the same?

Curious as ever,
Cath

OOOPS--book correction

2008-09-10T09:33:00.002-05:00

Was I ever surprised! I had read Hen's Teeth and Nightmares... but they aren't the books I remembered, lol... they are set in contemporary Scotland, the heroine is a highly educated therapist, and they're mysteries.

The books I am thinking of so fondly--with nary a clue to titles now, nor to the author's name--were set in the 1800s, in an alternate America where magic was a reality. The heroine was a young girl living on the frontier.

Ooops, lol....

That Crochet post I promised you

2008-09-09T09:20:00.004-05:00

Thought I would share not just the crochet, but also the books... well, booklets. I started collecting these not long after I first learned to crochet in the very late 1970s. Fanciworks is one of my favorites... probably as much for the name as for anything. *smiling*

When I was first taking art classes, my teacher said that one of the secrets to art is not only knowing what to put in, but also when to stop. See that ordinary doily on the cover up there?

If you stop at the right place, it suddenly looks Art Deco. This reminds me very much of the Egyptian craze that swept the US in the 1920s. The pattern is called "Crocus" and you can see the flowers do look like crocuses... but they are just stylized enough to remind me of the flower-topped Egyptian pillars in the pyramids, and the pattern at the edges reinforces that.

So I stopped. *grin*

I'm not going to block this one--or even press it--because I like that slightly ruffled look. We have a small carved wooden box sitting on this doily and the ruffle frames the box and contrasts with it very nicely.

More of my fav booklets. The Starwheels are from Treasures in Crochet and the Queen's Scroll (a new one) is from Tablecloths and Bedspreads.

Edgings, oh edgings... how I love my edgings! And the Crazy Quilt book was all about lace and edgings on the seams of the crazy patches... yet I have none. So surely it is most logical to make some? After all, the sewing machine is still buried...

Here is my assortment of motifs and edgings. Starwheels are at the bottom, and Queen's Scroll is in the upper left. It's giving me a TON of a trouble and I haven;t decided yet if the instructions are wrong--it happens--or if I am not getting it yet. I finally had to give up, count the spaces in the corner loops in the illustration, and do it my way. Sheesh!

There are several different edgings in this pic, but the one I am most taken with is a simple little repeat that makes... of all things!... RIC-RAC!!! You can see it crossed through the center, and the liiiitttttttle teeeeeensy one just to the side is the same exact thing, but instead of doing it in size 30 thread--the rainbow is size 30--I did it in size 80 like the motifs. Astonishing difference.

So. I intended to make a mini-mat with four of these starwheels, but I have given up. When I finally finished the sec0ond one--which gave me a pile of trouble!--I discovered I had already finished the first one as an ornament. The HECK with it! I did the second one as an ornament too, and I am done with Starwheels for the foreseeable future! Then I went to take this pic and was I surprised! See how the right-hand side one is smaller? That's the second one, and no wonder it ghave me trouble!! I changed the gauge!! Lord love a DUCK, that was entirely too tight for my hands to be working, and it hurt. I'm not making that mistake with Queen's Scroll.

Oh, btw, I should probably mention that I took these pics by lamplight and I guess even flourescents are kind of yellow like incandescents. The Starwheels are actually pristine snow white, not ecru. That might have shown if I had used the flash, but the pics generally come out better without it.

Friday on the way home from the library, we caught a bus with Pockets the Clown (in her Muggle disguise as a bus driver, lol). We had fun talking to her about clowning. She has 19 pockets in her suit. *grin*

Well, you know I'd already been ric-racking, and when I held up the rainbow ric-rac, Gryph liked the way it twisted (as skinny crochet does before you press it).

Then I made my book review and started reading the new books (review of them at a later date)... and something was percolating in my mind....

Hmmmmm, how interesting... yes, rainbow ric-rac does go with denim... the fringed seams on the Western crazy-quilt items in Crazy Quilt Decor were on my mind.... and Pockets the Clown was on my mind....
This is the crochet project I had a little trouble finishing. That is a lot of ric-rac, two separate pieces, one to go around the pocket and the other to be the handle. It's easy but monotonous and my hands are tired right now, swollen and sore, so I got bored with the ric-rac before I finished; but I did persevere and I am so glad I did!

What's a pocket without a pal? Those are mini jingle bells, standing in for buttons. The hair is made from some of the threads I pulled out when I was fringing the denim. This little pal is handsewn--I did it last night while Gryph and I listened to the first Amanda Peabody mystery, Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters.

And here ya go, a pocket for Pockets' pocket collection! I clipped the pal in with two teeeeensy lil clothespins, one blue and one green. Hope she likes it; this one is kinda hard to give away! *grin*

Today I am thankful for....

2008-09-09T08:38:00.003-05:00

Spinach pies, and their "built-in handles." We eat them with yogurt on top, and it gets a lil messy--so the handles come in... um... handy. *cheeky grin*

My 25 cent plates. Still getting a kick out of them!

The $6 baker's rack, which is proving its worth in the kitchen day after day--lately by holding my $6 set of dishes.

The way the spinach pie filling mellows in the fridge overnight. I was, um, a little.... enthusiastic... yes, that's the word... enthusiastic with the pepper when I made it last night. *blush*

Interlibrary loan.

Bus transfers.

Finding an author whose name I had forgotten--Manda Scott--read her first two books years ago as library books in another state and LOVED them, but lost track of them (and her) as I moved from state to state. Twas happenstance that Gryph saw an interesting novel and I rediscovered the author! Tis a fun work of fiction, and Gryph likes the game on the website, too... ooops, just discovered that I like it too, lol.

The way Lady brings her toys to her food area; she knows that is Her Place, and she actually picks up her toys and "puts them away"!!

Inspiration--this last batch of library books has been GREAT fun! I made a paper teapot the other night just to see if the template really worked, and it does!

Stick-to-it-iveness.. had a hard time convincing myself to finish my latest crochet project but I am SOOO glad I did!

New friends, especially new friends with wisdom to share.

Bubba (Module One) and his tuxedo-cat handsomeness.

The bookshelf we turned into a headboard.

The way Bubba claimed himself a little cubby in the headboard. *grin*

Thenie (the shy Module Four, you haven't seen many pics of her) hopping on the bed while the dog was on it, ignoring the dog (MAJOR progress!) and getting loads of attention without throwing a jealous fit (for the very first time!). Hey, it's only taken a year...

Thrilling the doglet by giving her some leftover yogurt, since it's good for her.

Finding this a little later on--everybody wants to get in on the act!!

Being able to laugh!

today I am grateful for....

2008-09-06T08:45:00.000-05:00

Today I am grateful for....

My bright yellow rain slicker with a hood! Nothing makes me feel the wonder of rain and childhood more... tis like Paddington Bear's... *huge grin*

A happy flowerpot garden without having to lug jugs of water!

Watching the doglet shake and shake, and seeing that dementedly happy grin in her eye. *I'm wet, I've got to plaaaayyyy!!!*

Being met at the door by Gryph with a big towel, and watching the doglet do her (involuntary, lol) Yoda impression.

Watching her love Gryph and be loved in return--one of the sweetest satisfactions in life, since I was truly worried that she wouldn't accept another adult around me.

Hooks on the back of the front door, to hold coats and such.

The teensy lil clothes-drying umbrella that hangs on the shower curtain rod, and is jusssst big enough to take one drippy wet bright yellow rain slicker with a hood while it dries.

Seeing that Gryph made it safely across the street to the bus stop.

The gray morning light coming in the windows.

Having enough Mexican bean stew left over to send it to work for Gryph's lunch.

Being with it enough this morning to make some tortillas to go with her lunch.

The banana cupcakes I made last night as a midnight snack.

LIBRARY BOOKS!!! ohhhhhhh I have found some good ones!

Reading a book for beginners in papercraft--not that I think of myself as a beginner, but it had cool projects--and discovering a very good reason to get a bone folder for greeting cards, rather than a plastic folder. I always wondered....

A cat wandering through the apartment, yowing because he has his "mouse" in his mouth and all is right with his world.

The doglet warm and softly sleeping at my feet.

You.

What are you grateful for today?

Bright Blessings!
Cath

Book Review

2008-09-05T15:18:00.004-05:00

One of the things that I have always done is read craft books, and while I have recently been sidelined with illness, I indulged. *grin* We had gone to the library earlier, and I had wandered the stacks of older books this time (not the new purchases). This is how I originally found Lisa at Dorky Homemade Quilts, by reading her quilt books from the library; she's the one who inspired me to start this blog. I meant to document my quiltmaking here, but I stalled out after I learned strip-piecing.

Then I found this book.
Well! *I* have a sewing machine! I should be all set to go, right? Really cool, eh? I was alllll intrigued... until I started reading. Oh my! *dismayed look* This is quilting by the numbers, V-E-R-Y precise, methodical and mathematical.

I am sooooo not that way. Do I have a perfectionist streak? Yes, indeed I do... but am I that fussy to be so precise when I am cutting up OLD SHIRTS and such? Oh heck no! It was sooo discouraging!!

The sad thing is that I am certain the author meant to be ENcouraging, and more than likely IS encouraging to scads of quilters... but my heart just fell as I read the book and by the end I thought to myself, "forget it; I'll just never be a quilter."

So I turned to something else.

Who can't use more potholders, right? And I was hoping to pick up a lil technical detail--whatever the heck the NAME is for that stuff I've been using to pad my crafts, cuz it's the stuff that you put in the middle of a potholder--but no such luck. Still, the book was SO CUTE and this time so totally encouraging that I really enjoyed it.

One of the things that intrigued me was the history she included with potholder examples from museums. Now doesn't that make you want to giggle, everyday ordinary POTHOLDERS in a MUSEUM?

The other most intriguing thing was a crazy-quilted potholder. Hmmm!! Maybe there might be a way for me to be a quilter after all? At least on a potholder scale.

Ohhhhhhhh but then I read THIS book.....

Oh MY MY MY!!!! Here is a book which is not "cute" but absolutely fabulous, elegant, inspiring, beautiful.... And the pincushions! lol, my favorite was made on an empty salt container! It was called a sweet roll, with the tube part of the salt container supporting two pincushions at the ends.

There were more variations on pincushions than I had ever imagined, with all kinds of embroidery and beading patterns to embellish them... this book even includes that most amazing thing, patterns for fabric-covered boxes (with pincushions built in) of various shapes and sizes. The boxes were not premade, like starting with a section of the salt container, but were completely from scratch!

The whole book just made me sigh and say to Gryph, "I *want* this one!!" It belongs in my craft library. Someday I will buy it.

THENNNN, oh then.... this book is another one like the other one! Talk about inspiring! Beautiful! Exquisite! Victorian inspired sewing to make all sorts of things! And yet again, some crazy-quilting... hmmmmm...

So I went to the grocery store, and guess what I found on super close-out for $2?

Do ya think it's a message? I read this book with growing delight... I SOOO want to try this! The author separated the projects by theme--I loved the Western section, all kitschy cowboy-design looking--and she included several techniques for crazy-quilting. I loved the way she embellished her projects with snippets of lace, and I loved the patches with the seams showing--especially the denim--and her projects were sometimes elegant and sometimes too cute for words, but all of them seemed do-able to me.

See that basket on the cover of the book? It's made from a 12 yard strip of crazy-quilting. The flower embellishments are made from ribbons. The basket caught my eye at first and is the reason I opened the book, but the sheer wealth of projects and techniques is why I bought it.

And then, yanno, this author was encouraging but did not call for math and methodical precision, so I was hooked, lol...

I think I can do this!

Now to unbury the sewing machine. That might take a while; we're still finishing up on rearranging things, and of course... I want to re-rearrange the living room to make it work better. *wry grin* But in the meantime, oh have I ever got happy things to look forward to!

And, um... I got more books at the library yesterday, from the "new" section... I'll let you know if anything sparks this kind of encouragement this time. *eyebrow-waggling grin*

small world, eh?

2008-09-05T08:35:00.002-05:00

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{Pixie}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}} Welcome, welcome to my blog!! I know Arwen from the same website where I met Gryph.

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{Arwen}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}} Good morning, hon! I know Pixie from Gryph's favorite mailing list.

*grins* I remember reading Arwen's livejournal one day, seeing a comment, and saying to Gryph, "Pixie?! Is that OUR Pixie?!" LOL, I guess it was! *wink*

2008-09-04T10:25:00.002-05:00

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{Cindy, Dawn, Arwen, Katt}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

Thank you for the comments!

Arwen, you come to Wichita and I will certainly teach you to make doilies.... if we ever stop talking, that is! lol!

Dawn, this is me, the real me. I've been sick a while, and dealing with grief for a while, so I haven't had a lot of energy to put into writing--but these gratitude posts are how I really feel. Thank you for appreciating them!! *smiling*

I have to get with it and take those pics of the library books so I can return them this afternoon--they're due now--so I'll be offline for a while... but really truly there will be a review of a couple craft books coming! And while I have the camera out, I'll get pics of the latest crochet, too.

Love y'all!!

Cath

Today I am grateful for....

2008-09-04T09:59:00.000-05:00

A street I haven't explored before.

Another heartpod tree--love those!

What look like crabapple trees, loaded with little berry-like deep bright red... crabapples?

Finding a pear tree in our neighborhood park.

Having a neighborhood park only four blocks from the apartment.

Hazy "twilight" Autumn mornings, all soft and grey-skied.

Finding a pair of gloves in my jacket pocket! *brrrrr, really grateful for those!*

Talking to my friend down the street.

Schoolbus yellow.

.........not ever having to get on a schoolbus again! lol!

Long slow ambles through the neighborhood.

Feeling like I belong here, if only for a time: this is MY neighborhood now.

Living in such a woodsy place; the urban forest is alive and well in my neighborhood.

Lichens on a wooden fence.

Big houses on double lots.

The neighborhood creek, and the parklike landscaping alongside it.

Adorable little houses.

Crepe myrtles in full Autumn bloom.

The silver undersides of maple leaves.

White-flowered monkey grass.

Salmon-n-coral hibiscus, the tropical kind... so beautiful.

Getting home before I was desperate to.... getting older is not for sissies.... *wry laugh*

The peaceful silence of an apartment without an air conditioner running (at least for this morning--this afternoon I will be grateful for the air conditioner! *grin*).

Realizing that gratitude doesn't depend on happiness, that I can recognize the good in my life and be grateful for it whether I feel happy or not.

The internet.

A good computer.

And of course... YOU! *grin*

Are there things you're grateful for?