I know this week is a short one at work for most. There are turkeys and stuffing and pies to think about, and the thought of 3 or 4 or 5 days away from your job; the myriad things you can do…shop, decorate, visit with friends and family. Laugh, relax. EAT.
So, I offer here just two things.
FIRST
A Public Service Announcement; offered with the gentlest of smiles, and the sincerity of years on the other side. (At a job I ENJOY, and believe I am good at, thank you. Despite my little rants, I am a professional and expect the same from my staff at all times.)
Be KIND to the people you meet on Black Friday: The throngs of likeminded holiday shoppers who are determined in any way possible to make Christmas dreams come true. Think back to Thursday, when you sat, stuffed at the Thanksgiving table, and remember this….
It’s your day off. As was Thursday, as will be Saturday and Sunday. While you are scurrying about, trying to locate the best and brightest (and the cheapest) don’t take it out on the unfortunate other shopper who got to the parking space first. Park in “Outer Siberia” (the ring road around any mall) and walk, breath deeply, enjoy the briskness of the season, and worry not over getting the spot closest to the door. You will be liberated by this small lack of stress.
Recall this, as well. Chant it as a mantra if you must. “I do NOT need to buy everything TODAY.” You have 26 more days to find the perfect gift. (If you can’t find it in 26 days, is it possible you have over-thought or over-bought in years gone by? Let go, and go for less than perfect.)
And please, be aware that the poor harried cashier, stock boy, sales person, or even store manager is NOT personally out to get you, to ruin your day or you child’s holiday.
Generally speaking, it’s not their fault if the advertised item is out of stock by the time you got there. (They don’t hoard things, waiting for the saddest story, the most forlorn face, before they whip the item out from behind a curtain with a flourish. They want it sold. They had it, they sold it. Sorry.)
That there aren’t any more shopping carts is really not something they can control. If all the registers are running, the lines can’t really be blamed on the cashiers. (Possibly it’s the person she is with, who INSISTS that every item is on sale, and needs price checks?)
If all the registers are not up, it may be someone came down with the flu, or is helping someone in aisle 12, or is stuck trying to get into the parking lot (or possibly just needed a pee break.)
That a salesperson can not answer to your satisfaction questions (simplex or complex) that you pose about an item is more the product of Corporate not allowing enough and early hiring, or training to the level that the store management might prefer, and that the customer would prefer.
Your salesperson was likely hired a few weeks ago, at something close to minimum wage (currently $7.25 an hour… not enough to be thinking about buying most of what you have in your cart) and has no guarantee that her job will last more than the next thirty days. It may be her first job ever, it may be a second job so that she can buy Christmas gifts for her kids.
But, yes, she is happy for the job. (For that $7.25, how much rudeness and carrying on of shoppers could you put up with, still with an almost smile on your face?)
She arrived at work at 4:30 AM or is looking at the disaster of the sweater department with the sinking realization that she will not be leaving work until long after midnight.
Speak to a Corporate entity on Monday about the fact there weren’t more cashiers or sales people the floor, if you must. But know this. The store manager was given very stringent payroll that he or she MUST come in on. And to do that, they likely have worked and will work 6 or 7 day weeks till the new year.
Remember too, that these people gave up time with their family and friends on this holiday weekend so that on YOUR day off, you could shop.
SECOND
I wish you the blessing of loved ones surrounding you, happy times, and many opportunities for you to look about you and realize all that you have to be thankful for.
(What do you mean you haven’t STARTED your Christmas shopping yet??)
You do realize that this time next week, the stores will be crawling with holiday shoppers, that you are NO LONGER AHEAD of the game, that you can’t say, “Ah, yes, well, I’m finished already,” with that superior little smile of yours…
Its getting close now… the little ticker says 34 days.
You realize that you don’t have to spend lots of money to give personal gifts to friends and family alike. You know that special is better than expensive. Carefully thought out is better than load the shopping cart, one in every size for every name on you list.
What will you do with that knowledge? Are you making intelligent decisions, or will you find yourself trolling the hallways of the mall last minute, like last year?
I have a solution! And a reward for your sensible shopping! (It’s still BEFORE Black Friday, and you can keep crossing off those names!!)
A FREE GIVEAWAY! The TENTH (10th) person to order photographic prints from my website after this post is posted will receive a free 11×14 print from my site. Any image that you want; you can gift it or give it to yourself as a reward for finishing up that Christmas list!!
By the way, this IS a win/win situation, because whether you are #10 or not, you will have made some Christmas purchases!
The little ticker on my home page doesn’t lie, folks. THIRTY-NINE days till Christmas. That’s like, a month, dude, give or take a few days!
Are you ready for the holidays? Do you have the food planned for your Thanksgiving feast? (Nope, the list hasn’t come ‘round yet.)
Do you know where you are going? (The other Green House, if dinner is early enough. Otherwise I am getting a plate of leftovers to enjoy after dealing with the masses of the well fed and football challenged who will feel the need to descend upon the store at 5 pm, Thursday.) Who you are going with? (Timmy, I hope! (see above)…)
Have you plotted out your pre-strategy for Black Friday? (My preferred strategy is to to sleep in, and stay home, but my second choice is to be at the store at 5:30 AM—the only chance of getting home at a decent hour is if I open…)
You do know WHAT you want to buy, don’t you?? Your Christmas list is sitting right next to the computer, isn’t it? With lots of things crossed off already because you have been SO efficient this year? So that every little hint of inspiration is duly noted before it fades off into the ether, right?
(Oh, wait. You were going to be CREATIVE this Christmas. You were going to MAKE everything. Better get on it, chickie…times a-wasting!)
Go to the post office this week, buy your stamps (what do you mean you haven’t finished making your Christmas cards??? Not bought, either?? Tssk tsk…. ) Come on… it’s time NOW, so you don’t have to stand on line LATER! If you are VERY lucky, you have one of those APS machines and you can leave the house right now, Sunday afternoon, and take care of this small, but important task! (HINT: the parking lot is empty…..)
AND!!!!! Not only am I pulling together your PHOTO A DAY for the month of December, I am putting the finishing touches on a gift for YOU, this very moment….stay tuned for a very special give-away …..
All of the art that I create, either to keep or to give away, holds a deep and precious place in my heart.
There is always an internal tug-of-war to the giving of something that takes so much time and energy. First there is the creative and psychic energy that is required to contemplate something into existence, and then the actual on-the-clock time to design and actually make said object.
Maybe this shouldn’t be so. Maybe as I create, I should allow that part of me to separate, and become its own being, allow it to find its way in the world, alone and without my loving arms around it.
Letting something precious out into the universe, unprotected by my hands any longer, is exactly akin to allowing your child to climb up the steps onto the school bus for the first time, watching and waving long beyond the time that they have turned away from the window to chatter with their newly found friends.
The bus comes back, and the child, victorious at succeeding at separation, but thrilled to bits to tell you every single thing that has happened from the moment the bus pulled away, runs down the steps and into your arms.
And yet, tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, you keep bringing the child to the bus stop, to the train station, to the airport. One day, they have to make it on their own.
Do you make things to give to people with an expectation of how they will use or display said object? Do you worry about whether the blood, sweat and tears that went into its creation is appropriately appreciated?
Can you gift-wrap something that spoke to you so strongly during its birthing, and know that wherever you send it, it will be happy?
Or do you worry that somehow, your baby won’t be appreciated…(That his sense of humor is not understood, that his quirky behaviors rattle other people, that your little love will not be voted ‘Most Likely To Succeed’, ‘Mr. Popularity’ or ‘Most Beautiful Baby’?)
Are you miffed if you visit the recipient one day and don’t see your masterpiece displayed with the honor you feel it deserves? Do you b#t%h that everything you’ve ever made and given to Aunt So and So has been relegated to the linen closet because it doesn’t match her decor?
Does the quilt you made your mother sit in a hope chest, because its “too nice” to actually put on the bed?
Did your grandmother knit a sweater for your son, that you grinned through clenched teeth a “thank you” and then you packed it away because the colors she chose where oh-so-not-trendy and today?
When you say that you think that handmade gifts are better than store bought, do you mean it, or does it just sound less commercial and greedy? Do you think that right up till the time you receive something that doesn’t meet your standards, but was made with loving hands?
I’ve read blogs and forum posts where the very same collection of people who carry on about how perfect their children are, how creative their handmade gifts will be and how tasty the homemade baking that they will do is, turn around and complain about the above.
They have said that they never eat the homemade gifts from a certain person because they’ve seen their kitchen; teachers have stated all homemade food gifts go directly into the trash after the children get on the bus; and inevitably the day after Christmas there will be whining and astonishment that their mother-in-law would even think that they would dress their child in such an obviously handmade sweater!
How hypocritical are you, really?
I am working on something that I may or may not turn into gifts, and if I do, I don’t quite know who the recipients will be yet.
My muse is still working out the details. (Timmy understands to the degree that he actually commented the other day on whether or not these guys had ‘spoken’ to me yet… They hadn’t then, but I am starting to hear their voices)
When something you have made returns to you, after having lived a life in the outside world, you welcome it home in the same way you accept into your arms your child, at any age, for any reason.
I received in the mail, totally out of the blue and way past the time that I would have believed it possible, the quilted wall hanging I finished for my Nana in 1999.
She died two years ago, and moved out of the home where it had hung (and had I visited her and saw it hanging) 18 months prior to that, and yet last month, a box arrived from her estate lawyer, stating the new owners of her home found this, and wanted it to be returned. I am thrilled to have it home….Machine pieced, hand quilted and probably the first thing I ever FINISHED!!!
45 days till Christmas, folks! I hope those projects are fully in swing already for a wonderful handmade holiday season!
Is there a career which would allow me to have Novembers off?? I feel the great pull of time, of the pages of the calendar turning turning turning, the pressure of all the things I planned to do this year, staring me in the face…
I want to be a part of Art Every Day month, and of NaNoWriMo but I don’t have the time, what with the escalation of pressure (Christmas music has made its way to my job) to make my Christmas lists, and then commit to the making of said gifts (which, of course could be part of Make Art Every Day…)
The great American novel may not be really floating around in my head, but I would love to challenge myself to write every day as well. (The goal of 50,000 words itself isn’t off-putting; I’ve written two fiction stories over three times that length, but the time-frame: 30 days, of which I have already lost the first 4….and the topic…)
Yet these have to compete with the new crisp visions I’ve had, the visions of quilts I would love to get back to, the desire to start new ones…
And the recipes! They come at you from everywhere– holiday cooking, holiday baking; it all looks so much more satisfying and so much less like another chore than at any other part of the year….
And of course all those things to do don’t even touch on all the time needed for pesky routine things like sleeping, and cleaning house…
So, if anyone is aware of a vocation I could take up, that would free up my NOVEMBERS, do tell!
I dislike– in so many ways it can’t be adequately described– Wal-Mart.
So much so that I can tell you exactly when I last set foot into my local WM. It was just over a week before Thanksgiving. So that puts it at what, 49 weeks ago?? I can’t say I’ve missed a thing not being there. Understand please, that it is SO convenient to my daily world that I can see the sign over the front entrance from the window of my job; that their parking lot is across the street from my parking lot….
I just am never HAPPY when I am there. The light is ‘off’, the air moves oddly, the hollow feeling of the place, even when over-loaded with (often cranky) people just bothers me. I have never saved enough money there to make it worth my while.
I have never found it one-stop-shopping enough to make it worth my while. It isn’t more than a lowest-common-denominator kind of place for me.
I have never stood on the check-out line without the thought running through my head, “WHY did I come in here?” (And all this without the first echo of the more overt political, environmental, labor and capitalistic etc. issues that cause me to simply not need WM in my life!)
Oh, back when I lived on the Island, and the closest WM was over a bridge in another state, AND was a relatively new addition even there, I thought it was a fine thing. A place I would have to make PLANS to get to. (It was before a Target became available to me, in that same out-of-state, ‘destination’ type of experience that even IKEA was.)
And when I moved here, I did on occasion shop there; before I really became comfortable with the other local grocery stores, and who carried what; before I had learned my way about the area.
It is the only place down here open 24 hours, and coming from a city where EVERYTHING seemed to be open 24 hours (even Home Depot), I felt it was the place to be. However, there is nothing I would need in the middle of the night that I can’t find at my CVS, closer to home and less of a headache.
So, with perfect honesty, I can say, I will not be doing my Christmas-ing at WM. I realize that for some, WM really IS the only ‘local’ alternative. And I feel for you. But, if you are reading this blog, you have within your reach, the entire WORLD.
Use it! Keep your UPS man in a job, and buy online! In your jammies, in the middle of the night, and think about those fools standing in WM at 3 am, cursing the 25 CLOSED cash register lines, while they stand 10 deep at the 3 lines open, waiting their turn to deal with tired, harried cashiers.
And order gifts to your hearts content; gifts far more unique, more whimsical and probably far more personal than the same red and black plaid flannel shirt that exactly 3,550,673 other tired Christmas shoppers tossed into their carts at the last minute, remembering that Uncle Jimmy would be at Christmas dinner this year!
(What? you don’t want to pay shipping and handling?? Well, how about GAS, and TIME, and all the other things that end up in the cart over and above what you NEEDED??)
Collectibles My Dad’s web-site, where you will be able to find one-of-a-kind ephemera and small household collectibles; things that you will remember from your youth, and things that will make you smile…
T-shirts My babiest brudder’s T-shirt site…(he has a more unique view on the world than most, a great site for the teens and young adults you need to shop for…)
And hey, there are a gazillion OTHER sites out there, big and small, that offer just about anything!!! (But, if I were to start picking and choosing…. well, I figure I will just advertise for Us!! LOL)
(Oh, and by the way, I am NO LONGER early, folks. It is NOT too soon to be thinking about Christmas gifting. It is 53 DAYS till Christmas, otherwise known as November 1st, AKA ‘Happy Birthday Kerin and Elaine!’)
Recently on a forum I belong to, a conversation was started about Christmas gifts, and budgets and all that fun stuff. (Understand please, that on this particular forum, a posting about the shade of blue that the sky is today is enough to cause major eruptions of anger and argument.)
The supposition went thusly: You have $10 per person, and a list of people that included children, adults, relatives, friends and a charity.
What would you buy for each person?
(Not surprisingly, a number of posters chose to stand in front of the gift card display at WaWa on Christmas Eve….)
Others began by listing toys—shopping for kids seemed easier to do at that dollar amount.
Edible gifts were good for the adults often enough. Handmade items worked well, too.
And then, another bunch of posters began by saying they’d be ‘calling the adults in the family and cancelling the gift exchange’ so the extra $10 could be rolled into the kids gifts. And their friends, too. No Gifts For You!
That’s not playing by the rules.
Of course, Christmas magic in the eye of a child is a wondrous thing! I’m no Scrooge. I can and have and do appreciate the wonder and happiness when the child sees that SANTA didn’t fail them.
But. How can one teach a child about giving if they are the only ones getting? How can a child learn about appreciation of the small things (that ONE $10 gift from above), if they are treated yearly to a pile of Christmas gifts whose value rivals that of the salary of a person in a third world country?
How can a child, who possibly threw out the orange their mom packed in their lunch last week, begin to IMAGINE that had they lived in another time and place, that that orange could have been their Christmas gift? (btw, NONE of the children of the posters on this forum would EVER throw out food. They are all angel children. Just so you know.)
If you were to say to this child, “Child, we have $10 to buy a gift for each of the people on this list, what should we get?” don’t you think that the child (especially a younger one) would find joy shopping Dollar Tree, and be bouncing up and down with excitement, waiting to watch the grown-ups in their lives open their gifts??
Can you imagine them deciding that Grandpa doesn’t need a gift so that they can spend more money on Grandma?
Children are selfless, until we teach them to be selfish.
Now, an exercise. Could YOU shop for everyone on your Christmas list with $15 per person? (I’m not Scrooge, remember??) Not counting taxes or shipping charges, could you find meaningful, unique and desirable gifts for everyone, using that as your budget?
(To keep things honest, if you spent $12.99 on Johnny, the change goes to charity, not to embellish the gift for Janie….)
Can you do it if you ONLY get to shop at Kroger’s? (Kroger’s is my downfall. I walk through there and $100 jumps out my pocketbook. I begin to think I like to cook. I am fascinated by all of their wondrous international foods. Kroger’s is dangerous.) Well, quilt stores are dangerous, too. But fabric doesn’t go bad.
However, pick your favorite upscale grocery—Wegman’s, Ukrop’s, Harris Teeter. And cross off anything that is perishable and requires freezing or refrigeration—(there goes the easy gift…ice-cream for everyone!) And it doesn’t HAVE to be food.
Could you do it?
PS Thanks everyone, for the well wishes as our two new kitties move into our home. Gandolf? and Roar-y? (Who knows, yet) But they are settling well. Gandolf especially, who has made himself quite at home, and is driving Miss Tatiana to distraction. Roar-y just hides. Pictures….
(It’s Halloween week, so it seemed appropriate)… Halloween hasn’t been very much of a big deal in this neighborhood. This year it’s on a Saturday, and I HOPE that means that trick-or-treaters will be coming on the 31st. It’s odd here, in that they MOVE the trick-or-treat day…don’t get it at all….the 31st is All Hallows Eve…not a different day.
(And who knows, maybe this year I will even have trick-or-treaters in COSTUME, not just a bunch of teens in messy t-shirts with rumpled Ukrops bags…)
What DOES go bump in the night around here are the acorns… It sounds like gunfire, a steady machine-gunning of the house; a good stiff wind in the deep dark night can be incredibly disorienting when you think you are alone in the house!
We removed some oak trees two years ago, and left others, but pruned them. Apparently the gentle pin-balling action of the acorns from the branch down, leaf by leaf till they gently and quietly plopped onto the roof has given over to a rapid-fire falling and smashing against the roof! And they fall. Fast. The squirrels can’t keep up with the feasting (…although they try, really, they try.)
(The remains of a squirrel feast on the corner shelf of our gazebo, also known to the local bushy-tailed as “The Squirrel Day Spa”)
I’m expecting other things to go bump in the night, as well.
Our two new kitties (Rory and Thaddeus, maybe? Sebastian and Delos? Dale and Squirrel for the moment) are here …somewhere. They managed on arrival to fit their fuzzy Maine Coon butts under the trundle part of the bed in the guest room. I’m being generous when I say its 5 inches of clearance, but they had to climb thru the bars to even gain that much. And yet they pulled their 11 and 14 lb bodies down there!
Since then, they have moved to the bottom shelf of the CD case and behind the living room couch. Where they are now, I couldn’t tell you.
But something tells me that in the middle of the night, they will come out to explore the house under cover of darkness…(and they may find Miss Tatiana doesn’t approve…) Things could certainly go bumping around tonight!
…and I am aware that I’ve been slacking… Did you know almost 40% of your holiday prep time is GONE gone gone… and here I am, neglecting the posting of my “Christmas is coming, the sky is falling!” blogs…
My excuses, such as they are, are as follows:
I’ve been hanging out with friends.
I’ve been traveling.
I’ve been taking photos (Almost 600 images that I have shot over the past few weeks are grinding around in the computer waiting for processing so you can buy them!)
I’ve been fondling my quilting fabrics, thinking, planning, plotting….
I’ve been buying out the book section at Goodwill, so I have many more excuses not to do housework.
Oh, and housework.
And work-work.
Yet, time waits for no woman to prepare for the holidays. I DO have my Christmas cards already. They aren’t signed or addressed or stamped, mind you, but they are HERE!
I have the gifts for that list of ‘just a little something’ people almost completed, and I do have a ‘short-list’ of gifts for the majority of the family. Which is really a SHORT list this year (No, not the family–I haven’t off’ed anyone! Just the quantity of gift$ per person…)
The biggie is always Timmy. As I usually get one REALLY GOOD IDEA. And then, his birthday occurs on December 2 and I end up giving him the REALLY GOOD gift then, and have to hit the drawing board again….
Of course, since these two beauties will be joining our family on Sunday, I may just buy him stock in lint rollers—meet …well, Nameless and Nameless Jr.- (25 combined pounds of FUR)
I posted a poll last month. You responded that you feel that handmade is better. You preferred to give and receive thoughtful (and possibly handmade) gifts.
So, share with me, and the thousands (lol) of other dedicated readers…What are some of your favorite gifts you’ve received –and why?
And, one last thing…if you are looking for a bit of spiritual whimsy to add to your holiday stocking, check these out…my brother’s newest cool venture!
(This post was supposed to be about our great adventures in New York this past weekend. That will come another day.)
We didn’t even want a cat. Not at that moment. We were newly married, living in a rented house, and more importantly –cat sitting for Michelle. The resident cat at our home was Miss Bugly. She was not—um, well (no offense, Michelle)—lets just say old age didn’t mellow her. She was a grumpy old lady.
So, we didn’t want a cat.
But when someone tells you a tale, of how when driving home in the icy, wet night, he spots a dead kitten on the side of the road, and goes home, upset, and then gets back in his car and out into the night to go back to find the kitten, and when he does, he is not dead, but so sadly abused, and he asks if you would take him as he already is over his limit at 15 cats (23? 38?)…how do you say NO?
Joe brought us this little scared, long-haired, scared, bushy-tailed, orange, scared, copper-penny eyed, scared abused boy.
For a good number of weeks we didn’t know if there had been amateurish attempt at de-clawing or if he had simply dug himself out of whatever he was locked in. His paws were scabbed and he had no claws when he came.
He came with this sock.
He took to Timmy immediately and it soon became apparent he was Timmy’s cat, although he bonded with me. Beyond that, he came out after much prodding for approximately 6 people. Everyone else was sure we were delusional when we stated we had an orange cat.
In that first home he loved to sleep on the bar in the closet that held hangers (Yes, the skinny round one…quite hysterical to watch him aim for it)
Quickly however, he was banned from the bedroom because he did not come in to lie at the foot of the bed, nor did he even simply want to sleep on your head.
He felt himself on duty, as Skimbleshank was in the TS Elliot poems. He spent the entire night on a routine patrol of the bedroom. Up, over and across every surface, continually. There was no sleep in our household.
We moved into our new home, and Miss Bugly moved back to Michelle’s, and our new bedroom door was thought to be a battering ram that he must destroy, in order to rescue and be with us.
From the earliest light (4 or 5 am on), he would begin by hollering at us, a crescendo of wails and pitiful song; then his paws would appear, pulling on the bottom edge of the door, rattling it loose. When that didn’t work (and it didn’t) he would begin with a running leap and attempt to use the door knob. Repeatedly. He KNEW that was the way in to rescue us. See?
(You may need to click on these to see the determination with which he applied himself to rescuing us from the closed door.)
There were nights I can recall Timmy sitting on the floor in the hallway with the boy, holding him, trying to calm him.
Eventually, we decided that what he needed was a pet. So we found a beautiful black little lady and brought her home to be his companion, so we could sleep nights.
(She couldn’t be bothered with him… and he didn’t get the message. It made for entertaining evenings.)
For the most part, it did stop the attempts at breaking down the door. But when you opened the door in the morning, you were sure to find him, sitting, waiting; determined to anticipate where you would head next, he would run forward and back, checking on your progress.
He was loud—he didn’t meow, but instead he chirped. The number of tales that could be told, have been told, will be told,… well, he was a funny boy. Timmy has many funny thoughts over on his blog. And there are other little stories and pictures here on this blog, if you look in the tags for KITTIES.
His name was Hamish McCloud Green.
But we called him Hamish the Red, or Hamish the Bad, or Hamish the Scared (or Fuzz Butt….)
(about) 10-31-2002—–10-13-2009
The house will not be the same without him. Our hearts wont be either.
He’ll rest just outside this window— his favorite spot to watch the world, dream about being brave enough to go out there and chase the squirrels, and to wait for his people to return. He’ll have his sock with him. (Timmy posted some of his own thoughts on his blog here ….)
It’s been a few days now, but it has been a difficult thing to get past. Oh, in the scheme of –well, almost anything, I suppose –it’s way low on the trauma meter….but still…I must share….
I’m sitting here, this very moment, with some toast, spread with Nutella. They always say, “Get right back on the horse,” don’t they??
I was introduced to Nutella back in 1988. (Thanks, Rene!) And it is one of the true wonders of the culinary world. But I digress.
Toast. Nutella. It’s the only way I can move forward.
This is what happened.
On Saturday last, I was craving a munchie. Nothing over-large, as I was saving room in my tummy for the tasty treats at the Greek Festival that night. (A sad aside…they ran out of Baklava while I was stuffing my face on Mousaka and Spanikopita…)
I wandered into the kitchen and I spied one sad croissant, lost and alone in its big plastic home. I decided to rescue it.
Popping it in the microwave for 10 seconds, I was about to open the fridge for butter, but I recalled the Nutella sitting in the cabinet next to the window. I grabbed a butter knife, swiped the jar off the shelf and removed my just warmed croissant. I opened the jar, and was very quick and generous with the slathering of Nutella. I plopped the knife in the sink, and looked down at my treat.
I spotted one of those infernal little ants that seem to like to wander around my sink at various times of the year. I never find them around crumbs, cat food, or any other left out foods; they just drive me nuts with their marching lines from outside to wander around the stainless steel sink, and I am guessing, back outside again.
One year, they had an army marching from the outside, and into the den, around the computer desk and back off to places far distant. Annoying, yes. But there has been no infiltration of late, and I have a clean, white window ledge, free of any marching armies.
I picked him up, and flushed him down the drain. And then, the trauma. The jar lid, still lying open on my counter, was crawling with the little buggers.
Glancing at the croissant, I saw they were all over it, too. I peeked into the Nutella and there were a few more walking around inside the jar!
Quelle horreur! Tossing the croissant, the Nutella, and the lid all into the garbage, I cautiously opened the cabinet again, and looked onto the second shelf. The ants were milling about aimlessly, their destination of nirvana stolen away. I spied more walking along the honey jar. Garbage.
Everything out of the cabinets, washed down and sprayed. They seemed to have found a way to walk up the ledge and along the dark grout lines I have painted, and they have been coming in small numbers, and once they found their heaven, they weren’t leaving. (They have good taste.)
But this could affect my diet! How can one live without being able to eat Nutella?? So, I have purchased a new jar, and toasted myself a slice of bread, and I am going to learn to get over the sight…bite by delicious bite.
Nutella is worth the effort. (Although I think the days of grabbing a spoon and the jar in the dark are 100% OVER)
…Well, to me, anyhow!!! If I continue paying down my credit cards at the rate I am going now, I will be 100% free of them by October 2010. That’s exactly ONE year from now.
Possible? Yes. Probable? Not really. After all, I DO still use them, but I use them far more carefully and much more as a convenience than I did in the past, when they were actually part of my budgeting.
That’s the nasty truth of being a single parent who received little to no child support for 18 years in a city with the expenses of New York.
Nowadays, I make a bit more, live in a less expense location, and have my husband’s income as well, which obviously makes a difference in the headway of my finances.
I have always had a good credit rating, and that is mine and mine alone. Which explains how even in this day and age, I am able to still manipulate my balances and move them around to get the lowest interest rates possible. It’s a bit like a shell game, but I am finally on the right side of the overturned cardboard box!
As I DO use the cards still, I fully expect to have a balance next year at this time. And I am ok with that, really. I pay something along the lines of 5-7 times my minimum each month. I can cut back to the bare minimums on the cards and try to live entirely cash, (and some have an interest rate) or I can continue to move balances to 0% cards I already own and have $0 balances on (Somehow the CC companies haven’t noticed—Shhhh!)
I am interested in how it all falls out as the regulations supposedly change in favor of us, the consumer, over the next 6-8 months. None of my cards have told me my rates were going up, (except one, and it was a date nine months from the receipt, and I currently owe them $270, so by next month that threat is useless to me) and none have cut my limits back. (Which totals somewhere over twice my annual salary! Craziness, indeed.)
Shop yard sales, or just stop shopping, quit vacations, no more dinners out (that’s on Timmy’s card, however)… there are a gazillion things we together could cut back on…. but his cards, his bills are separate. And I can not make those decisions alone.
But, once I have eliminated these beasts of burden from my back, I can begin to assist him more fully in the pursuit of his own freedom.
One step at a time. Beginning with Christmas.
Christmas is going to be spare, it’s going to be sparse, and it’s going to be about people. Not about things, but about emotion, connection, and loving thoughts. (I hope. That’s my plan. )
I can’t be Scrooge, however!! How do YOU plan to make Christmas a less ‘object driven’ pursuit this year? I’m interested in hearing about all sorts of ideas!! (successful ones, especially!!!)
Can I interest you in a perfectly unscientific little poll?
I am a gift giver. (Well, it should be more properly termed a reformed gift-giver, or a gift-giver in my fantasies). I can think of few things more enjoyable than walking through stores, fairs, museums—anywhere, all year, and wanting to stop and buy YOU something.
Something that brings to mind YOUR smile, or laugh, or some time or event we’ve shared when I spot it. And I want to stop and purchase this little token, tuck it away and wait for Christmas.
Bet you didn’t know that, did ya? It’s not for lack of wishing that I don’t have a goodie basket sitting, waiting for you.
I used to have a closet, and I called it the “Yah NEVA Know” closet. Because I worked in retail, and often in the mall, I was exposed to all the things, all the year through. I knew better than to admire item X in April, and expect to go back in late December to claim it as the perfect gift. So, if the price was right, and it seemed the thing for you as a gift, into the closet it went.
This closet, by the way, was not simply for gifting. At one point, a cousin who lived with me exclaimed that one of the most fascinating things to him was that if he felt the need to have object A, which was needed as a part for something else, he simply asked me, and I would pull the object of his desire out of the Yah Neva Know closet. (It saved many a late night run to the craft store to make a school project for Arlie, too.)
I’ve had to stop this. My credit cards thank me, really they do. In real life, my gift-giving list is relatively short, and not particularly excessive. We don’t give excessive gifts (well, except to each other), and I don’t exchange with a long list of people.
I have discovered that while I love the hunt–the thought and discovery when collecting and creating a gift, and I put myself into those expressions of love– that more often than not, the giftee doesn’t seem to appreciate the effort, to “get it”. Or we simply don’t exchange gifts with each other any more, for any number of reasons.
It takes a lot of psychic energy to defend yourself against the perceived lack of enthusiasm, so too often of late, I have become a gift card giver. And in my mind, much of the excitement and anticipation is taken from the experience of Christmas, because I LOVE to watch someone open my gifts and see their faces…I know I am usually more excited to watch them open them than to be opening my own!
There is still a small list of friends for whom buying gifts is still exciting (even IF the gifts sit unopened for 8 months, till we see each other..hey, Christmas is a state of mind!)
But in my fantasy world, I’d be driving Little Saint Nick up and down the East Coast for weeks leading up till Christmas, dropping off all manner of goodies collected and made, just for you. (I’m sorry, let me re-phrase that_ I’d be having Timmy drive Little Saint Nick; I’d be in the passenger seat, LOL)
So, now a poll. Where do you fall in this Christmas chaos that will be descending upon us sooner than you would even believe?
…just random bunches of fleeting thoughts…(they get more entertaining as you go through them….)
This past Sunday, thanks to someone linking my blog post, I had my all time high of readers. Almost 300 people visited this site that day, almost 500 over the course of the weekend—and I got ONE response. (from my husband) Just curious, folks. At the bottom of every post, there is a place to leave a comment…
Have you tried and it’s too difficult? Do you have to do something like register? (NOT be rude, I just sometimes don’t realize that it’s so difficult, because “I” am signed in….) I totally get not responding to everything I read. It just seems like pretty low percentages…
Three or four people did search out my email and take the time to privately comment….which seems like much more bother….
A few people have asked me how to Subscribe to the blog. That makes me happy. (Will they comment though?? Ah, that is the question! LOL) To subscribe there is a column to the right, titled “Subscribe Here…” If you choose Entries RSS, you can subscribe via whatever Reader you use (I have a Google homepage, with a tab set up just for blogs I follow. Whenever someone updates, it shows up. There are other types of readers that I know nothing about. But, that is the button to get you started! )
More importantly, that little countdown clock I mentioned I had on my homepage indicates that there are only 90 days left now till Christmas!! Did my post of 10 days ago shock your system into thinking about the holidays? Have you done any list making? Bought any gifts?
I have! Sitting in my studio are almost all the makings for the gifts for my employees and co-workers, my quilting buddies and stocking stuffer-ish things for the family in general. Obviously since they all READ the blog (let me re-phrase that… I guess they read it…lol.) I can’t really say what it is… but I’ll take a pix and post it after Christmas—then you can use this idea next year!
And, because he is a cute, but dimwitted creature, who has for a friend a cute, but somewhat prickly creature, here is a story about our cats.
(Hamish, ‘the Red’ or ‘the Bad’ or ‘the Scared’, hiding in the vanity in the master bathroom, because of a thunderstorm. He opens the cabinet door with his paw, and climbs in to cower behind my personal products)
(Miss Tatiana, with evidence of a recent kill beside her)
You have to go to my husband’s blog to read the story of the little excitement at our house the other night around midnight…
Anyway, back to the comments thing. (I know, let it go!! LOL)
I opened my Photo website up the other day, and have had some serious inquiries from people interested in purchasing my art!! Yippee!!!! And, although there have been in the past week or so, over 5,000 hits, there has been ONE comment.
So, to summarize. Silly Cats. Christmas—it’s coming, ready or not. Subscribing and commenting. Buy photographic art as Christmas gifts from home in the comfort of your jammies.
Remember, comments are like virtual HUGS. High fives! Or, as Sally Field once said, it shows, “ You like me. You really LIKE me!”
(I promise to come up with a more entertaining post next time. Really.)
(Totally stole the title from my best quilting buddy, E.T.)
I was at my quilting group today. Surprisingly, after an hour or so of chatter, out of all the bizarre subjects we could have touched upon with a dozen women sitting in front of sewing machines…the conversation actually turned to FABRIC!
The color, feel, texture, ownership, collection, lusting, cutting and quilting of fabric. Believe it.
This is my theory on collecting fabric.
Fabric has to ‘age’ like a fine wine…
There are so many kinds of fabrics for quilting. Solids are like vegetables; good for you and all that, but hardly sexy or desirable when you start trolling around the quilt store.
What catches your eye are the sparkly things; the bright colors, the fascinating patterns, shapes, the hand-dyes, the novelties. All the candy shop portion of your diet. You know, the tasty bits. Those are the pieces that you can’t forget if you walk out of the store with your hands full of sensible solids.
The adorable snowmen, the Bali batiks, the swirly kaleidoscopes, those are the fabrics that you’ll dream about.
I can’t claim to remember all of what I own, (and I choose to put the blame squarely on a faulty memory rather than a surplus of fabric, thank you very much!) but if I find myself on multiple trips at multiple places buying (or lusting after ) the same fabrics, chances are it will age well.
If it has been in the stash for a few years, pulled out and packed away repeatedly because it hasn’t found a quilt to call home, it doesn’t necessarily make it a bad piece of fabric. After countless auditions with so many other pieces of fabric, I will eventually bring home the right mate for it, I will find the pattern that will make it sing.
I have this secret aversion to using fabrics designed to go together together. I may like and even purchase multiple fabrics from the same line, but if they accidentally all end up in the same quilt it makes me crazy!
(If there is an easy and a hard way to do something, well, yeah…with me, the hard way wins out every time! I guess I figure ANYONE could come up with a nice quilt if the fabrics all matched!!! LOL)
I did ONE quilt, a Trip Around the World, for Arlie’s 16th birthday, and unwittingly collected a series of matching fabrics over a period of time…I did use them and it did look nice; but I had to purposefully go and find a few pieces that didn’t ‘belong’ and include them, for my own piece of mind.
So, the 401k. It’s like this. Our economy is uncertain. Times are tough, what will retirement be like in 20 years? But, a yard is a yard is 36 inches, and THAT will never change.
I rarely buy fabric because I need it for a specific purpose, I tend to buy on ‘spec’, I buy what speaks to me loudest!
…. In twenty years, those vintage pieces of fabric will be full of unique, no-longer-trendy shades of brown and aqua. Their designs, by blending them with bits and pieces from here and there, will result in quilts which will have a flavor all their own.
Oh….and having NOTHING to do with anything else except shameless self-promotion, don’t forget to go to my photo site, (to the right) and look, and BUY something pretty!
….but Christmas is less than 100 days away…. (99 to be exact, and I know this because I have a countdown thing-y on my homepage…)
What that means, folks, is that THIS YEAR, we’ll be having Christmas on December 25th. I know, I know, you are saying, “This chick has a screw loose, it’s ALWAYS on the 25th!”
But I have spent the last 19 Christmas seasons in a variety of retail endeavors, and it seems that way too many of you out there don’t seem to BELIEVE that Christmas was on the 25th last year, too.
The number of shoppers who truly and honestly stare at you dumb-founded when you tell them it’s IMPOSSIBLE to accommodate their demands at the last minute is astonishing. The number who say to you, “But I need xxxxx for a Christmas present!” Like it was a private holiday for THEM.
As if all of the other gazillion souls you had to play bumper cars with in the parking lot were all out for a Sunday drive.
Yuh huh. Bring it on!
That also means there are only 75 days till I start my second annual Christmas “Photo of the Day.” You want in on the excitement this year??
Subscribe to my blog and you won’t miss a thing, because this year, I am going to post a photo on my blog every day from December 1st through Christmas Eve. I’m even thinking of having a give-away, if I can work out all the details.
If you were on the list last year, don’t worry, you are good to go… I will send out an email to kick things off on December 1st. (Click on this to see last years images.)
Hmmm, now to get cracking on some photos…
PS… if you like the wreath above, get thee to your local Michaels Crafts store before Halloween. It’s a BLACK PVC wreath that I added bright glass Christmas ornaments to so I could hang it in my kitchen, with all my black appliances, and teal walls!
What follows below is a huge, self-serving commercial announcement:
——————————————-For all of you who have, for all these years, told me I should be sellingmy photography:
LOOK at what you’ve gone and made me do!!!
Officially going ‘live’ today is my photo website, The View From the Passenger Window.This website is my virtual gallery, for your viewing (and shopping) enjoyment!
The photographs in most of the galleries are available for purchase. (Christmas is coming–hint, hint…the perfect gift for that someone who has everything!)
Please take a few moments and enjoy a walk through my world. There is a very convenient shopping cart available to you, to make shopping a cinch. Your art will wing its way to you printed on KODAK professional papers.
I am asking you (begging? pleading? cajoling? –you choose the descriptor that best suits!) to send a link to this blog to anyone who you think may enjoy it! Or even better, simply send them a link to the site!
(You’ll tell two friends, and they’ll tell two friends….
…)
I would love to receive comments on my art; there is a comments field in each gallery…comments are like virtual hugs…and you can never overdo hugs!!!
And, THANK YOU for your purchase!
—————————————–END of commercial announcement.
(*Were there enough subliminal messages there? Do you have a sudden urge to hang a few new photos over your couch? Did you take the hint?? Or are you just repeating that silly commercial, above? LOL)
Oh, and by the way…..THANK YOU!!! For your friendship and for your encouragement!
This was my response to driving to work on 9-11-02, in a new state, far away from New York, from the people I loved. the DJ was talking about the time, approaching 8:46, a moment of silence. My lips were quivering as I pulled off the interstate; my eyes were filling with tears, as they are this moment as I write this…unbidden and unstoppable.
The need–the push and pull of desire versus horror –to hear and see the reports on the radio of the first Ground Zero anniversary.
I stood in the employee break room, the television tuned to the news, finally forcing myself to shut the damned thing off; it would take too many hours standing frozen, to hear the names I felt compelled to hear. I found myself returning time and again, while fearing I would get caught goofing off with only 9 days employment under my belt…
I was miserably alone. My husband was at work. He would understand. My daughter; she was in Connecticut, in college, alone and confused and hurting. She would understand. My brother, he was in Philly-far away from my embrace; he would understand.
But these people here. They didn’t seem to understand. I think there were maybe a half dozen references to the date during the course of the day; I remembered spending the days after 9-11 cutting ribbons; and comforting people and hugging them, and here, no one was wearing ribbons; no one seemed to care.
I spent the first months of life in Virginia having people tell me how GLAD I must be that I was out of New York!
How DO you measure a year? Now, in 2009, even ‘Rent’ is no longer. (Rent was the show we went and bought tickets to on the very first chance we had to travel into Manhattan when the ferries started running…solidarity, desire to survive, the need for Arlie to see that Mike wasn’t coming home…)
Measuring years lately has taken on the feeling of trying to measure the rush of the wind. Time flies by; we are celebrating the start of another school year, waving goodbye to another summer; and with it, the melancholy of 9-11 descends as it does for the weeks running up to it; I notice how I cringe having to tell people their order will be done on September 11; how I brush it off to ‘two weeks’ from today,’ or “on the ‘11th’,” but saying 9-11…
I don’t watch much TV; I don’t know if tomorrow is being hyped; I do know Facebook is going to open my heart to more heartbreak this year. Having lost touch with so many—and not knowing their circumstances over the past 26 years– I know I am going to find that friends still in NYC are suffering in ways I don’t even want to imagine…
I was only peripherally involved in 9-11. A witness, not a victim. And yet.
This quilt was designed by me when I came home from work that day in 2002 after work; a frenzied desire to create something, to get all the feelings and thoughts out of my head.
It took time to finish of course. (It’s me, after all.) I asked my friends and families to offer to me the names of loved ones they lost, and I embroidered their initials along the edges.
And I while I would like to say there can be no more, I will be honored to add the initials of your loved one.
Here is a bit of the original essays that I wrote in 2001, and photographs of the day itself (in the form of a scrapbook, double click on the image) Its a tough read, and a tough view. And everyone should have to read it, have to remember it.
(Another quilt, part of a triptych, called Disc/Gard Guard Aquehonga, the sun setting on Fresh Kills.)
Hugs to you, Kerin, and Jessica, and Arlie and Pokey. Love you all.
A vacuum cleaner is not a romantic anniversary gift; a blender is not a good Valentine’s Day present.
A washing machine should not be thought of as the most fantastic birthday present ever.
In fact, if something is designed to make a CHORE easier, by definition it is not gift material.
Any of the above are tools for tasks. They indicate the giver believes that the recipient has a responsibility. They say, ‘this’ is what I think of you. I think of you as my housekeeper. My maid.
(I will let an iron slide by as a good gift, but only because I am a quilter)
Now, some disagree with me. Take this guy I knew who was OVER THE MOON because his partner bought him a Dyson for Christmas. (I personally thought he was nuts…adorable and all, but nuts)
However, he says he hinted for over a month that he wanted one, and his partner was a quick study, so Santa left his vacuum under the Christmas tree and it was good. (His partner hinted for an X-box, and Santa similarly obliged.)
Personally, I would be leaving hints for something a bit more, oh, I don’t know, ‘gift-like’…. like cameras and gift cards to quilt shops and books, and music and…. well, even jewelry. But I’m not a big jewelry person. Software, now that is a good gift….and travel…. and definitely NOT a vacuum!
MY Santa knows he would NEVER want, oh, say a lawnmower for a Christmas slash birthday gift, as he HATES cutting the grass. It’s a chore.
However, if you are simply celebrating the fact it’s Friday, or the start of a three day LABOR DAY weekend, and feel the need to gift me with a vacuum, I’m not gonna argue. So, if Labor Day is now a gift-giving occasion, I’d agree a vacuum is an apppropriate gift… (I’m not gonna stay up late to try it out either, but…)
Yes, I know I was supposed to be sitting here at home, deciding on photographs for a contest, but my head was swimming with all sorts of images….
I decided a little retail therapy was in order… to help clear out the cobwebs in my head, make it all a bit clearer; you understand, don’t you??
So, it had to be a mindless kind of shopping; not fabric shopping, because then my mind would only become MORE cluttered by other possibilities….
I headed to Goodwill. My absolute favorite store, outside of a quilt shop(and Ikea—don’t forget Ikea…) Now, I do have to say the quality of the Goodwill store seems to be regionally inspired.
In New York City, we didn’t have Goodwill’s while I was growing up. There was the Salvation Army, poorly located and trashy. Give me a good yard sale, any day! And I’m not too proud to say I have shopped curbside many times in NYC either…not something that is really DONE here…(sniff…)
So when I moved here, I took a while before I ventured inside a Goodwill. I tried shopping yard sales, but I didn’t know the lay of the land, and yard sales are more a Friday and Saturday thing here; and well, frankly, living on an island is different than NOT living on an island.
While plotting out a yard sale driving list I could easily find myself in Amelia county … that’s a long way to travel to see if anyone happens to be getting rid of something I want to own!
So I gave up on the yard sale. And discovered a far better thing: Goodwill.
Here is Sunday’s take. Someone was cleaning out their music library and their reading library. I had to Stop. Picking. Up. The. Cd’s. It was getting silly. I whittled the stack down to about a dozen. Old friends, listened to for years on LP, and new names I decided to try.
Then, hands filled to overflowing, I wandered to the book section. After I balanced the 4th book on top of my pile of CD’s I had to give in and get a shopping cart.
Again, the book choices this day were phenomenal. Books I have read and lost, authors I love, new and interesting titles….
This trip, I stayed out of the clothing section… I left spending under $50 and now have all these neat goodies!(no, not yard sale-cheap, but not retail either,…)
I buy most of my work clothes here. And a good deal of my non-work clothes as well. (Mostly because I enjoy the poking about, the finding something a bit more unique, and because I think I worked in shopping malls for so many years that I have a secret aversion to them…)
Our Goodwill (of Central Virginia) is a sharp organization. They are clean, neat, organized, large, bright and generally a pleasure to shop.
Oh, by the way, it worked. The photos all kind of sorted themselves out in my head as I meandered, and I came home and was able to choose three relatively quickly. (see them Here….and here…and here! ) Wish me luck!
I need to choose THREE photographs by Tuesday, September 1, to enter into a contest. Topic of my choosing (that doesn’t HELP, btw…)
Its just not easy!!! Spread through the computer, on my external hard-drive and on my photo website, I realize just now how desperately I need to organize–for once and for all, all of these pictures!!
And doing that will not even scratch the surface, as I have over 20 years of negatives to deal with.
Yikes, it’s enough to make one just want to turn off the computer and go dig in the dirt….
…but I guess I will be uploading to Smugmug all the livelong day….so much for a quilt-ySunday…
This is a bizarre topic to be sure; its randomness-meter is way off the charts. But, here goes.
The other day at work, a customer was looking for contact paper (to use as a transfer medium in her art).
As she is inquiring about it, she says, “You know, the kind to line drawers?” Then she looks at me and belatedly decides she is speaking to someone so much younger than she that I would have no idea what she means!
(I love when that happens, by the way. I LOVE that people seem to brush away the exceedingly prolific grays in my hair as a genetic fluke and assume I am but a child. Probably what is really occurring is simply they are neglectful of cleaning their eyeglasses or their prescription needs strengthening; but still, it feels good.)
Anyway, as she realizes that in my extremely youthful state, I would have no idea that people once took the time to line their drawers and shelves, she laughs and says, “Do people even line their drawers anymore?”
I simply smiled, told her to look in Aisle 28, and then commented that I personally hadn’t lined a drawer since 1989, when someone had gifted me a lovely lavender-scented lining paper.
“However,” I continued, “my grandmother never met a drawer that didn’t need lining.”
Belatedly noting that I am indeed an adult, she laughs and we begin a little back and forth about back in the day, when people DID such civilized things as lining drawers, and we extrapolated to the final idea that the end of civilization surely was brought about by us giving up such genteel activities as lining drawers.
Happy that we had identified the source of all the world’s problems, we pondered briefly about who it was we were to alert with this momentous discovery!
I went back to the shop and I continued to let my mind wander around this subject. I recalled Sister Jane, showing up for the first eight months of school, her bonnet, dress and shoes a deep, maudlin black. Yet, the Tuesday we returned from our long Memorial Day weekend, there she would be standing, resplendent from head to toe in white. For it was AFTER Memorial Day, after all.
I recalled the little ‘rules’ of my youth in the hedonistic ‘70’s and ‘80’s; and truly have to say that over all, I think that maybe it really is the little things that changed the big things.
A New Yorker through and through, it would never occur to me to NOT hold the door for someone; it never crossed my mind that I was more deserving of a seat on the bus than an older person.
“Please,” “thank you” and acknowledging the person on the other side of the counter during a transaction with a shop-keeper didn’t remove from me the veneer of superiority that seems so paramount in people’s attitudes today.
This thinking occurs because last month we had an elderly woman crash her car into the plate glass windows of our store during the ‘gotta just grab a thing or two after work’ rush. (LUCKILY, the glass was blacked out and walled up, and the space had been turned into an office, and no one was sitting there at the time, because that would have hurt!)
The next morning a customer called, positively haranguing my cashier because of the “inconvenience” she encountered the night before, during the ensuing chaos of broken glass, police tape, fire trucks, ambulances and the building inspector; (who insisted we cut power for a short time while assessing the structural damage.)
Dumbfounded by the lack of concern and basic human decency, what more could we keep repeating other than “We’re sorry to hear that ma’am; we are just so happy no one was hurt??” HOW do you hold a dialogue with someone who believes their unimpeded purchase of rubber cement is more important than the health and welfare of their neighbor?
Or the man who interrupted the customer I was in the middle of a long-ish, involved transaction with to demand my attention. He didn’t want to ask one simply answered question, but to be taken out of turn; to brush off the woman, who with her children was deciding between this and that $500 product, so that he could then get up-in-arms that I wanted to charge him $14 for a custom product that he may need to wait as long at 5 hours for, when our turn-around is two weeks.
It is not my fault that you can’t buy something off the rack; it isn’t my fault that you were not thinking of doing this in a timely fashion and now the clock is ticking away. I’m not making up the prices and I’m not up-selling you for a commission; I’m not even charging you a rush fee. And the woman ahead of you GOT HERE FIRST. And you didn’t even say “Excuse me.” Believe me, she noticed.
In that serendipitous way that causes things to link in my mind, around the same time I was reading a book by Lisa Kleypas, “It Happened one Autumn” and in it the heroine carried on about the silly civilities practiced in England in the mid-1700’s; about how unseemly it would be, and positively horrifying, to possibly speak to a man that she had not received the proper degree of introduction to; of how a young woman would never allow her spine to rest on a seat back; and how unmarriageable one may become if caught eating a course at dinner with the wrong fork.
Last night, the door was not held open for us by a young-ish couple as we were directly behind them with my mother-in-law gimping along slowly; going into a sit-down deli for sandwiches for dinner.
The place wasn’t crazy packed, the help appeared occupied (with work). We sat for no more than two or three minutes, when one of the young-ish couple got up, marched to the cash register and asked for service. The cashier apologized for the delay, grabbed menus, and followed her to the table, again apologized and asked how long had they been waiting. She said, “AT LEAST TEN MINUTES, and no one has come to our table!!”
This morning, as I was going through old quilt posts from one of my on line groups, drawer liner was mentioned….. (this time as a quilting help!)
This quilt is entitled Emails From China. It was designed for the 2009 Hoffman Challenge. (While it didn’t win anything, it DID get made!!!!)
The story (there is ALWAYS a story, isn’t there??) goes like this.
My daughter Arlie was off on the other side of the world in China. As I would get up each morning, she was settling in for the night over there. Part of her nightly routine was to email everyone about her adventure du jour. Often, we would be passing emails back and forth at that time, checking in.
I went to the Mid-Atlantic Quilt Festival down in Hampton, VA on Saturday morning, as I do each year right around my birthday. I had been reading Arlie’s messages, and generally thinking about her and her trip, while wandering around alone being awed by the fabulous art!
I saw the challenge fabric being sold in a booth. I decided to buy a piece and see if I couldn’t finish the challenge in time this year. (The last time I attempted the Hoffman Challenge, I finished the quilt about 3 YEARS after the deadline!)
(The Cherry Fabric was the challenge that year in this quilt, SUMMERTIME)
As I fondled my new fabric, walking around the show enjoying myself, I glanced at it every once in a while. Suddenly, this brown and green and grey paisley started to take on the shape of fish. My mind started thinking about what I could do with fish. Then, Arlie came to mind.
And China. And Oriental fabric. Yes, the paisley were no longer inanimate, they became KOI fish. I started searching the booths for oriental fabrics that complemented this fabric, that reinforced the koi idea.
And so, I came home with a handful of complimentary fabrics, got it all washed and then. Nothing. Else. Happened. (Well, nothing with that fabric. I actually came home from the show with a pattern and had the resulting pocketbook finished before I went to bed that night!)
I put it to the side, in the dreary February light, and promptly forgot about it. In June, I finally decided to look at it again. Still had no idea about patterns, or what other fabrics would work.
While digging through my prodigious stash, I discovered this incredibly perfect fabric with handwriting, in the EXACT odd shade of taupe I needed. The fish…they moved. The koi pond, it radiated. Having NEVER attempted the curved piecing of a Drunkards Path, the ever-growing collection of fabrics quickly gelled into a Drunkards Path Variation, no matter how I tried to talk myself out it.
And the writing on the fabric, suddenly represented the communicating that Arlie and I did ‘virtually’ each day while she was away. The idea of the writing substituting for the typing, the circuitry of computers echoed the ripples in a fish pond, moving information and communication.
The quilt, EMAILS FROM CHINA was born! Arlie brought me a Chop back from China. It says, LOVE. I used that on the label. The quilt is 40×40, and quilted with outlines of koi over the surface extending beyond the shapes on the fabric. It is quilted with ENTHUSIASM but not necessarily skill, lol. But overall, I am very happy with it, am no longer afraid of curved piecing, and actually plan on making another in this same pattern, which is a first!
When it arrives home, I believe it will be hung in the bedroom….
((Please, leave a comment!! I love to know what people think!))
Here, for your viewing pleasure, is a work in progress of mine. This is Twitchy.
Twitchy is a doll that I have been working on on and off for the past two years.
She was named after my muse. My muse is a fickle wench, and she drags me hither and yon. I rarely can stay focused on one project (be it quilting, writing, photography, genealogy, gardening, housework…you get the idea, right??) long enough to complete it.
In the summer of 2007, I was deeply in the middle of writing a fan fiction story, when this line of prose came from my characters mouth. “Why so twitchy, Babe?”
It didn’t suit the character in that particular environment; it wasn’t working in the greater scheme of things, so I abandoned it.
The sentence continued to haunt me for a week, so I wrote a little one shot, using the same characters but a different reality. Then that took on a life of its own, and that became a 15,000 word piece!
The story, Why So Twitchy Babe, is finished. As is the story that started it, Big Chill, after a long hiatus caused by Twitchy herself.
Twitchy, however, is still unfinished. She is only the second fabric doll I have ever made (the first being Eli, about 28 years ago, for my babiest brother)
I have made a lot of mistakes with her, (her head is on crooked, and she has the hands of a half-back for example) but I have been enjoying myself!
Twitchy believes that she should be somewhere on a sandy beach (cabana boys bringing her mojitos) looking for inspiration, not stuck sitting on a shelf in my studio…
Sorry. Had to do it. I am a member of (imagine an obscene amount, then subtract 10) groups; The topics range from Quilting, to Writing, to Altered Art and Politics. I admit I have the problem. I even JOINED more this past beginning of summer. But I can say I finally did cut the cord on over a half-dozen.
Somewhere in the past few weeks, along with the general ‘vacation-being-over blahs,’ I have found myself neglecting almost ALL of my groups. Even the ones I TRULY enjoy and get so much out of!
So, the mass email delete has begun. I can’t simply ELIMINATE you… I LOVE you! I WANT to be your friend, I WANT to get to know you!
I receive most of my groups via individual mail, as it gives me the best opportunity to actually participate in discussions …(Especially since most of my groups are YAHOO and they are sorted only via order received!!!)
I sorted my messages last night. I have my email program already set to sort by Group into folders, so I went another step and sorted by Subject.
ANY message with the subject line of:
Re:Digest number XXX?? GONE!
As is anything about SWAPS (if you are a quilting group) since I don’t participate.
Any message with NO subject? Outta here!
Messages requesting prayers? Sending good thoughts to all…for every situation you are experiencing… (and I mean it; not being snarky here at all)
Oh, the ‘Where is everyone, this site is QUIET? ‘Deleted them too. ‘Cuz after all, I am part of the problem!
If it is in regards to something NEW being posted in the Files, I had to trash it…
Also deleted—any references to Wal-Mart, or What Are You Doing, or recipes (I will probably regret this last decision). Thanks, Congratulatory posts, and Where I am traveling *(if the post subject OFFERS where you are headed, AND I am interested, I MAY have saved it!!) are history, too.
I am somewhat embarrassed by the number I have deleted –(it’s in the HUNDREDS, people!!!) Somewhat more chagrined by the fact that there seem to be an equal number that, at least based on SUBJECT line, I still WANT to read left in my folders!!
So, what HAVE I been doing? Other than deleting emails and ignoring people??
I got my Hoffman Challenge quilt in the mail. Waiting to find out if I can post images.
I’ve been trying the organization thing again. Eventually, it HAS to take, right?
Working on some edits and such of photos, so I can put up some fresh, new work on ETSY.
I also got my husband to finally start a blog. He is quite the writer; if you like, for example–movies, cats, cars, and hate lawn work, you might find his blog entertaining!
The last day of July. Heading directly into the dog days tomorrow–August 1. The EIGHTH month of the year, putting us mere MOMENTS away from the Christmas crazies. (and I was so happy to see Christmas stuff only begin to arrive in the store this last week—No big CHRISTMAS in JULY themed nonsense…)
But tomorrow, we are no longer far away from 2010. We are frightfully close. Halloween and autumn leaves crowd our aisles. Shades of orange and rust are forcing away the fuchsia and yellows of summer.
This year, no garden death to lament. No, that doesn’t mean I was successful in planting, raising and keeping the critters away from my flower bed.
It means I never even bothered. For the past 6 years, gardening in the south had been an exercise in futility. I enjoyed it every March, every April, and sometimes right into May.
Then, in early to mid-May, summer would arrive. With its crazy 100+ days, dripping humidity, and my horrid soil and southern exposure. All my efforts were for naught. Anything that managed NOT to be stolen under cover of night by the voles would die.
This year I was having foot issues. I was in a boot for a month trying to heal it (Have I?? I think, a bit. Sometimes) And then we took a slightly earlier, slightly longer vacation in late April.
By the time I was home and healthy enough to be crawling around in the dirt, I had emotionally removed myself from the garden because last year, by mid-May I had been waving the white flag of surrender.
A funny thing happened this year. It didn’t get hot! So, all this time, I COULD HAVE been working at it, and I didn’t, and now, its August tomorrow, and FINALLY the heat is here….
….Forty years ago, tomorrow??? Do you remember? It’s one of the seminal ones, folks. Forty years ago– July 20, 1969–mankind stood shoulder to shoulder, that summer of love, in front of grainy black and white televisions, witnessing the impossible, the improbable, the unbelievable.
Three American men traveled to the moon. A human stood on the moon’s surface, planted a flag and left footprints.
Pretty heady stuff. Do you remember where you were?
My memory of the lunar landing is 100% wrapped up inside an incredibly real dream that I had as a child of 4 1/2 years of age.
The only television set that we owned was kept in the playroom. The playroom was next to the kitchen; it had it’s own formal front door entrance from our front porch. Like all the other rooms in that house on Ellicott Place, the playroom had many incarnations during my life. At one time it was my grandfathers home office, and my father crashed there for a few years, on and off. Joe lived there for a time, too, before he moved to the basement (or the garage??) Ultimately, it was Daddy Gus’s last bedroom.
But in 1969, it was still, or currently, the playroom (with a leather chair in the corner behind the door, with a telephone on the table. Can still see Grandma Elaine sitting there, chatting with Aunt Ursula. “Yah, yah. Yah.”
The dream and the landing go together. The house was at the top of a cul-de-sac (of the old-fashioned, legitimate variety) referred to then as a dead end or a private street.
The television was on; I can see the grainy images, but the door onto the porch is open, as well. And outside—well, here is where things get a trifle odd. There were these loins, running round the grassy islands, manes flying in the wind, and this city bus had somehow wended it’s way up the block and was now desperately trying to make the curve around the island. And all of it was in black and white.
Yeah, I experienced the summer of 69! (What year did Born Free come out? Had I ever even BEEN on a city bus at that age??)
(JANUARY 2009, From my back porch)
My other moon story comes many moons later (sorry for the bad pun, it was inevitable)…. I was a salesperson at a store that sold science-type gifts.
A older gentleman had come up to the counter and was looking at our Space Pens, nifty little bullet-like devices that could write at any angle. He questioned me about the pen, and I gave him my little spiel.
He then reaches into his pocket, and shows me his own pen. Tells me that HIS pen had actually BEEN to the moon, didn’t I know? And of course, I didn’t.
Bet you don’t know who Michael Collins is,” he then replies.
And I told him yes, actually, he is a cousin to one of my best friends. Don’t think he was expecting THAT as a reply, and I probably ruined his little pleasure of the day, but…it’s a great story for ME to tell!
To infinity, and beyond!
OH, and by the way?? The question at the top begs a response, please!!! What do you remember?
But, he has always been a part of it. His music, and that of his brothers; the cheesy Saturday morning cartoon that we watched (after eating breakfast and getting dressed and making our bed, of course), the advent of music videos; all of this can be inexorably linked to Michael in my world.
Not to mention, the purchase of my first record album. (Well, possibly the second, depending on whether Glass Houses by Billy Joel was rung up first by the cashier at the record store in Grand Central Station that day in 1980 while we waited for our Amtrak train.) I had birthday money to burn, if I recalled correctly, and Glass Houses and Off the Wall came home with me.
I played that album to death. I remember lying on the floor in the living room at night, the two stereo speakers on the floor on either side of my head,(Remember, youngsters—this was not only before the internet, and before the CD but before the Walkman and ear buds made it into common use!) blasting those albums.
I don’t have either album any longer. And while I am heading to a Billy Joel/Elton John concert next week, I have to admit there currently are no Michael Jackson tunes amidst the 3400 songs on my IPOD.
Today I turned on the television while I walked 1.3 miles on the elliptical (hey, I am working towards working out, ok??) Believe it or not, this was the first time I have watched television since Michael died. I have so far avoided all the wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth.
My first reaction to his death, and one that still stands, is that there is a sad, tortured life that has been freed.
Still, I tuned in to CNN and caught the last 15 minutes of the memorial, and they were singing We Are The World. A song that always sends shivers.
The heartbreak, however– the part that brought tears to my eyes, to mourn a man I rarely considered– was when Paris took the microphone. While I applaud Michael in his ability to shield his children from the craziness that is Hollywood, I think we never imagined him in the role that Paris and her brothers knew.
I think then and there Michael became to all of us something more than just a singer, an entertainer, a dancer; more than a late-night joke, more than a whisper of tabloid headlines.
He became a father.
And his death leaves three young, innocent and distraught children without the stability that he had yearned for both himself and for them.
…Still haven’t quite gotten this new computer to be my friend…. Nothing is where I left it on my old one, I am still trying to figure this and that out,….
…and I am truly having a hard time finding an email reader I like! Apparently I spoiled myself and good when I was merrily sorting all my messages into dozens of neat little folders….so, if I’ve ignored you, you know why….
I have probably lost your message, and haven’t been able to sync my contacts list, so I don’t have your addy…sorry!
I’ll get it all figured out…it is cutting into my quilting time, and that is bad!
Click Here for some pictures of Josh’s concert the other night…
and if you poke around that site, in the Flowers gallery you will find some new and roses, if that is more your speed…
Ok, off to consider something other than the computer OR the quilt for a little while!
A variety of random thoughts….tell me these stream of consciousness posts don’t entertain you!
First of all, thank everyone for your comments about Vivienne…as everyone else has discovered, she was special…I sent her niece a condolence card, and she replied that she felt the need to send everyone who met Viv a sympathy card, because everyone lost….
And to those who commented for the first time here, really my whining elsewhere about the lack of comments was NOT a plea for attention – VBG;)
…So, what else is up in the world?? It is JULY—can’t quite figure THAT out yet…
…Took off to NJ the other week, to see old friends and meet new ones…off to other places later in the month to repeat the exercise…
…I am finding change to be unacceptable when it comes to my computer…this VISTA thing is a PITA, although one function so far (writing and publishing this blog) seems good….although you may never receive another email, since they took away my Outlook Express!!!!……I am actually almost on target with the quilt I want to enter into the Hoffman Challenge, everyone keep those fingers crossed!!!…
…My stepson’s CD release party for their band MEMORY FADE was LOUD! But go listen to the music on their website, and buy the album! I will be putting up photos shortly….
….well, other than I am somewhat back on a genealogy kick, (so PLEASE, send me old photos and information!!)
I believe there’s not much else going on in this part of the world…
I know this week is a short one at work for most. There are turkeys and stuffing and pies to think about, and the thought of 3 or 4 or 5 days away from your job; the myriad things you can do…shop, decorate, visit with friends and family. Laugh, relax. EAT. So, I offer here [...]
(What do you mean you haven’t STARTED your Christmas shopping yet??) You do realize that this time next week, the stores will be crawling with holiday shoppers, that you are NO LONGER AHEAD of the game, that you can’t say, “Ah, yes, well, I’m finished already,” with that superior little smile of yours… Its getting close now… [...]
The little ticker on my home page doesn’t lie, folks. THIRTY-NINE days till Christmas. That’s like, a month, dude, give or take a few days! Are you ready for the holidays? Do you have the food planned for your Thanksgiving feast? (Nope, the list hasn’t come ‘round yet.) Do you know where you are going? (The other [...]
All of the art that I create, either to keep or to give away, holds a deep and precious place in my heart. There is always an internal tug-of-war to the giving of something that takes so much time and energy. First there is the creative and psychic energy that is required to contemplate something into [...]
Is there a career which would allow me to have Novembers off?? I feel the great pull of time, of the pages of the calendar turning turning turning, the pressure of all the things I planned to do this year, staring me in the face… I want to be a part of Art Every Day month, [...]
(Wally-World, that is.) I can do it, can you? I dislike– in so many ways it can’t be adequately described– Wal-Mart. So much so that I can tell you exactly when I last set foot into my local WM. It was just over a week before Thanksgiving. So that puts it at what, 49 weeks ago?? I [...]
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) the same fabrics, chances are it will age well. 
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Etcetera…
September 25, 2009 · 5 Comments
…just random bunches of fleeting thoughts…(they get more entertaining as you go through them….)
This past Sunday, thanks to someone linking my blog post, I had my all time high of readers. Almost 300 people visited this site that day, almost 500 over the course of the weekend—and I got ONE response. (from my husband) Just curious, folks. At the bottom of every post, there is a place to leave a comment…
Have you tried and it’s too difficult? Do you have to do something like register? (NOT be rude, I just sometimes don’t realize that it’s so difficult, because “I” am signed in….) I totally get not responding to everything I read. It just seems like pretty low percentages…
Three or four people did search out my email and take the time to privately comment….which seems like much more bother….
A few people have asked me how to Subscribe to the blog. That makes me happy. (Will they comment though?? Ah, that is the question! LOL) To subscribe there is a column to the right, titled “Subscribe Here…” If you choose Entries RSS, you can subscribe via whatever Reader you use (I have a Google homepage, with a tab set up just for blogs I follow. Whenever someone updates, it shows up. There are other types of readers that I know nothing about. But, that is the button to get you started! )
More importantly, that little countdown clock I mentioned I had on my homepage indicates that there are only 90 days left now till Christmas!! Did my post of 10 days ago shock your system into thinking about the holidays? Have you done any list making? Bought any gifts?
I have! Sitting in my studio are almost all the makings for the gifts for my employees and co-workers, my quilting buddies and stocking stuffer-ish things for the family in general. Obviously since they all READ the blog (let me re-phrase that… I guess they read it…lol.) I can’t really say what it is… but I’ll take a pix and post it after Christmas—then you can use this idea next year!
And, because he is a cute, but dimwitted creature, who has for a friend a cute, but somewhat prickly creature, here is a story about our cats.
(Hamish, ‘the Red’ or ‘the Bad’ or ‘the Scared’, hiding in the vanity in the master bathroom, because of a thunderstorm. He opens the cabinet door with his paw, and climbs in to cower behind my personal products)
(Miss Tatiana, with evidence of a recent kill beside her)
You have to go to my husband’s blog to read the story of the little excitement at our house the other night around midnight…
Anyway, back to the comments thing. (I know, let it go!! LOL)
I opened my Photo website up the other day, and have had some serious inquiries from people interested in purchasing my art!! Yippee!!!! And, although there have been in the past week or so, over 5,000 hits, there has been ONE comment.
So, to summarize. Silly Cats. Christmas—it’s coming, ready or not. Subscribing and commenting. Buy photographic art as Christmas gifts from home in the comfort of your jammies.
Remember, comments are like virtual HUGS. High fives! Or, as Sally Field once said, it shows, “ You like me. You really LIKE me!”
(I promise to come up with a more entertaining post next time. Really.)
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Tagged: buying photographs, Christmas countdown, Christmas gifts, comments, kitties, responding to blog post, silly cats, subscribing to blog