tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-279391002024-03-06T23:40:42.558-05:00The "Dismal" LifeSoutherners aren't known for their irony, but they should be. Dismal is a lovely little corner of TN, hidden away in the hills and hollers. It's barely a hamlet, more the name of the watershed than anything. We live up Pumpkin Hollow - also a real name, and equally ironic, since our squash bugs are so fierce I have yet to grow a pumpkin.meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03682967197214632750noreply@blogger.comBlogger80125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939100.post-61337080090302259762010-10-23T19:23:00.023-04:002010-10-23T23:36:54.208-04:00Glass in the grass<div>Yesterday, Meredith, Morgan and I went to <a href="http://www.cheekwood.org/">Cheekwood Botanical Gardens</a> to see the amazing Glass sculpture work of <a href="http://www.chihuly.com/biblio/artist.html">Dale Chihuly</a>. I have been trying to convince Morgan that he is a pirate, but to no avail. The exhibit was mostly outdoors, in the beautiful, rambling gardens and ponds, with spritely, colorful pieces of glass such as this:<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixl4b5pTHbbYVlmK_crpsfIGI2YQXqISDqeVAaRCJ0S-c2FWjfSP8GExujoL3l_EnTZuA6OE80zxUjHNMfZcnslg0lnR1QOCU5zBiMwpDKWaqMWrmklULShsDYaXVzl0bNNuQ5ZA/s1600/glass12.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 240px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5531395404625448098" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixl4b5pTHbbYVlmK_crpsfIGI2YQXqISDqeVAaRCJ0S-c2FWjfSP8GExujoL3l_EnTZuA6OE80zxUjHNMfZcnslg0lnR1QOCU5zBiMwpDKWaqMWrmklULShsDYaXVzl0bNNuQ5ZA/s320/glass12.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />placed amongst trees, shrubs and flowers like this:<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvFexj129WgrmQVBpbvfExL2T5iZrECDigULvHUQeGdtmAful3kWw8AhMDMBGuORUmAeoWm3w1h1ZLIEkyF9FfNFiFyu2hjM_6y1j6U9FJyvMDE5eZ8f7BlUUoYBaHQqZ4tY91Lw/s1600/glass6.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 280px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5531395998107226498" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvFexj129WgrmQVBpbvfExL2T5iZrECDigULvHUQeGdtmAful3kWw8AhMDMBGuORUmAeoWm3w1h1ZLIEkyF9FfNFiFyu2hjM_6y1j6U9FJyvMDE5eZ8f7BlUUoYBaHQqZ4tY91Lw/s320/glass6.jpg" /></a><br />Making for a very nice composition like this:<br /><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqG_6lC4qOOXdw_VYv3S2BoDuNWFLxRrJQkw1lJOtpU7BvU079ZQB2NzjOBHVHb8y384il6El6sFP4eDL8KKBEMhsG7p5ILuWTHqZkpHnEzqLgznnZIuHAIfi171u6KEhGsoigYQ/s1600/glass.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 236px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5531422817855681298" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqG_6lC4qOOXdw_VYv3S2BoDuNWFLxRrJQkw1lJOtpU7BvU079ZQB2NzjOBHVHb8y384il6El6sFP4eDL8KKBEMhsG7p5ILuWTHqZkpHnEzqLgznnZIuHAIfi171u6KEhGsoigYQ/s320/glass.jpg" /></a> </p><br /><br /><p>Even the Sphinx at the gate was enthralled with the display, and so we were able to sneak in without answering the customary riddle.</p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ0Aoc3mCoCamzs8ReFdQ6obAprWs4s3CNpCNWHOR8MsTpxeC_zepPdsbLvUJMrlP5fEO8oVlabykzjd4EzaDsHXX2CVhtbCoIILrqFZ2H95bNuYI42vLLgu7UQO_fDI0VUbxE9Q/s1600/glass4.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: center; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 261px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5531424423433502674" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ0Aoc3mCoCamzs8ReFdQ6obAprWs4s3CNpCNWHOR8MsTpxeC_zepPdsbLvUJMrlP5fEO8oVlabykzjd4EzaDsHXX2CVhtbCoIILrqFZ2H95bNuYI42vLLgu7UQO_fDI0VUbxE9Q/s320/glass4.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8hvnjoCciH73a9w36KI8e-PYGAaqjsLvjOl64PHwFOAtjqPs5YDZa_ZbZa8NrYpV0IWDJqNgGb10fec_vaLInbOrR1YVWv2ftAwOx5njN2AglSMlmfC1WtfB7UdNRmXN9OIpByw/s1600/glass11.jpg"><img style="FLOAT: right; WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 270px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5531427069898298578" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8hvnjoCciH73a9w36KI8e-PYGAaqjsLvjOl64PHwFOAtjqPs5YDZa_ZbZa8NrYpV0IWDJqNgGb10fec_vaLInbOrR1YVWv2ftAwOx5njN2AglSMlmfC1WtfB7UdNRmXN9OIpByw/s320/glass11.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br />As Meredith is pointing out, these "Bamboo Reeds" have rings like the real bamboo.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />We saw The Sun and The Moon~<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtjm2iS0Mn_-bRu-E9bt-hbpzCuhCEcehrlstfnQm_nktbwXuelba81HkMYQoIzmcrsiWQ3u3iFK6g2fVaVRU-eHWlxje9acCIGO7gzwuAkPzsXJU4k-ZENDpZ755Iu4ynWKTiTA/s1600/the+sun.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: left; HEIGHT: 266px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5531428380187457698" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtjm2iS0Mn_-bRu-E9bt-hbpzCuhCEcehrlstfnQm_nktbwXuelba81HkMYQoIzmcrsiWQ3u3iFK6g2fVaVRU-eHWlxje9acCIGO7gzwuAkPzsXJU4k-ZENDpZ755Iu4ynWKTiTA/s320/the+sun.jpg" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmhm-jJy80h11YgPT4v0Yx9oifd_PBhxbNdrIrQX5O_QQh0Njb3QEDAmHUblU4VDRg1wdY_mPnetZFjczLS9OwTIhplU5tgFr8jA1gOgDFkP7KrrEIHW0mB4S_s-DGWKRdntF_VA/s1600/glass9.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 253px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5531428728080867650" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmhm-jJy80h11YgPT4v0Yx9oifd_PBhxbNdrIrQX5O_QQh0Njb3QEDAmHUblU4VDRg1wdY_mPnetZFjczLS9OwTIhplU5tgFr8jA1gOgDFkP7KrrEIHW0mB4S_s-DGWKRdntF_VA/s320/glass9.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />And what looked to be many different planets,<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRIsHWX0WfiJXIIW7_nTYzhlZLJcNiKERw2IKk0meK6LID7sK9Il8ojhf8px0N0a0Gst5-zMoug8as_LCvX8th5C7izc_pZwx1qyRIR9MI7KjtKqSy-ctsUFUiWlJ8SVE53c1bQg/s1600/glass16.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 250px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5531430081820271698" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRIsHWX0WfiJXIIW7_nTYzhlZLJcNiKERw2IKk0meK6LID7sK9Il8ojhf8px0N0a0Gst5-zMoug8as_LCvX8th5C7izc_pZwx1qyRIR9MI7KjtKqSy-ctsUFUiWlJ8SVE53c1bQg/s320/glass16.jpg" /></a><br /><br />Being used as marbles. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSPoQwUWolZ3PqIMf-CE1Yd3un4cCkFhFsf5u-8RTKTzgs3wd1r4Z8fgiHHRFKK639SoPq0tieWcxrD_KxWOqhXrDWqOSNfAWi7iTB3amHx00vPEqtld8IryNqzn3xuhNVrKmfyA/s1600/glass14.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 215px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5531432996559082834" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSPoQwUWolZ3PqIMf-CE1Yd3un4cCkFhFsf5u-8RTKTzgs3wd1r4Z8fgiHHRFKK639SoPq0tieWcxrD_KxWOqhXrDWqOSNfAWi7iTB3amHx00vPEqtld8IryNqzn3xuhNVrKmfyA/s320/glass14.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />There was literally a boatload of glass there.</div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMCXf2rDgC9z6CfoaiB5UHjWXoFKLusb8gy27UZ15mGeqA-pRnmKEIMqA5856qAkE4pzWlQJCi7Lv3XT1tdR0VmlG1NlX9QNaBY6xuh3XIqz-vjFRbsvFjgUTg7KdNT3IAw0jF9Q/s1600/glass7.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 257px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5531433989830971922" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMCXf2rDgC9z6CfoaiB5UHjWXoFKLusb8gy27UZ15mGeqA-pRnmKEIMqA5856qAkE4pzWlQJCi7Lv3XT1tdR0VmlG1NlX9QNaBY6xuh3XIqz-vjFRbsvFjgUTg7KdNT3IAw0jF9Q/s320/glass7.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br />And there was really only one thing that could make it look prettier.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO6DNnPaiBUiUeevkhQSGNIUKnvjYVE7nVY90jqu_T1kK37wezkYwb0Jc239ueT7VHRLSBo0bIa8tdrKHH1rhLmQHwqhpRbuILMPdWu9Ed1j4f1X7QYBYrSguN_VCzfViMTGqZtA/s1600/glass2.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 248px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5531435299238621346" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO6DNnPaiBUiUeevkhQSGNIUKnvjYVE7nVY90jqu_T1kK37wezkYwb0Jc239ueT7VHRLSBo0bIa8tdrKHH1rhLmQHwqhpRbuILMPdWu9Ed1j4f1X7QYBYrSguN_VCzfViMTGqZtA/s320/glass2.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />OK, well maybe two....<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzjkDvdeEAnEABYNNYSkltnoYquCdaB1TmkBwRlbc2JjF1JSQl039WPLsIwqFwrnqR_YOCHhDAvt0bo9Ii30_46TL57jgIGjo50gtvmbo3r0PiPFh-9YXTW8xQojKbgVS5JLsunQ/s1600/glass5.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 249px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzjkDvdeEAnEABYNNYSkltnoYquCdaB1TmkBwRlbc2JjF1JSQl039WPLsIwqFwrnqR_YOCHhDAvt0bo9Ii30_46TL57jgIGjo50gtvmbo3r0PiPFh-9YXTW8xQojKbgVS5JLsunQ/s320/glass5.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5531435768317474642" /></a>georgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06029772003495506223noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939100.post-32469903165393735252010-10-21T17:18:00.007-04:002010-10-21T17:52:07.220-04:00Of snakes and scams<div>OK, I'm going to try to make an actual post here, with pictures and everything.</div><br /><br /><div></div><br /><div>The cats like to hunt and show off their catches. Usually they consist of chipmunks, voles, birds, or portions thereof. The other day, the orange cat proudly brought me a garter snake, which was still alive and mostly unharmed, so I snatched it away and released it somewhere I <em>thought </em>he wouldn't notice. But about an hour later, he came strutting back with the same snake, obviously enjoying this new game. So I brought it to show Meredith and Morgan for a while before re-releasing it even further away.</div><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRL9Z5bnYHdzV3KdwUKOKZpro9bXNsNZDVYEAyNrQNimPNwd0DgeoYKztpiQo3E2Fmh61wYFOinlzF-4-mUi8C0MXlLwvt7L0YIzf9QkqSwdh_pWW04gr-KrS0sRJlaExAd8cw3g/s1600/gartersnake2.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 292px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5530614797370262066" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRL9Z5bnYHdzV3KdwUKOKZpro9bXNsNZDVYEAyNrQNimPNwd0DgeoYKztpiQo3E2Fmh61wYFOinlzF-4-mUi8C0MXlLwvt7L0YIzf9QkqSwdh_pWW04gr-KrS0sRJlaExAd8cw3g/s320/gartersnake2.jpg" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAZgQbcngzGGmuu2UtqTqWXm3x_41GdvV_zBY7gNSM7dxd46mGghqu3-lXYUmq_i-L-VQfAYzkl63M6rEeESHSuDWhim7bEKpCwWN0ju5i5v6j__zeHog1eoMtSsBwZCDC8qFzvQ/s1600/gartersnake.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 235px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5530614264242312914" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAZgQbcngzGGmuu2UtqTqWXm3x_41GdvV_zBY7gNSM7dxd46mGghqu3-lXYUmq_i-L-VQfAYzkl63M6rEeESHSuDWhim7bEKpCwWN0ju5i5v6j__zeHog1eoMtSsBwZCDC8qFzvQ/s320/gartersnake.jpg" /></a><br /></div><br /><br /><br /><p><br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dwaaOTA9-KlJurUkgCYOXJMSnd-bmzHS6Uh-hD5vMqaAXz_SLbo8RntIXKuH640rbLthRHOyitmqw' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></p><br /><br /><p>The other pictures I have here are of Morgan's latest costume creation, inspired by one of her favorite cartoons, "Ed, Edd and Eddy," which is kind of like the three stooges meets the little rascals. This is "Professor Scam:" </p><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSaOnD-KDCjrLQCZORhToVRUDo7zSf8aoaMUrHidyx5luhDUFKB9pcvsfJs2-_wJYwl090ce6NnhoKaphZXH1vAGp1VhBU_N5zft9Q9wkWbJwy_Hl_nyBLHb7xUrlQZetpPh5SHA/s1600/pscam.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 221px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5530617146595061410" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSaOnD-KDCjrLQCZORhToVRUDo7zSf8aoaMUrHidyx5luhDUFKB9pcvsfJs2-_wJYwl090ce6NnhoKaphZXH1vAGp1VhBU_N5zft9Q9wkWbJwy_Hl_nyBLHb7xUrlQZetpPh5SHA/s320/pscam.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW6_4VVXxJKmQL6Lgwvj0_ZTdthxOHEnnpYZAGE6fjOhTLRdEiS7avvWYv3KAspa9XjllcL_ZbHUHyXmm6bW9inN6o_jF0Uqr-Gr61He6D1je4PxcqekQMPF2yn0E3JrouDTJueg/s1600/pscam2.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW6_4VVXxJKmQL6Lgwvj0_ZTdthxOHEnnpYZAGE6fjOhTLRdEiS7avvWYv3KAspa9XjllcL_ZbHUHyXmm6bW9inN6o_jF0Uqr-Gr61He6D1je4PxcqekQMPF2yn0E3JrouDTJueg/s320/pscam2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5530619445682273570" /></a><br /><br /><br /><p><br /></p><br /><p></p>georgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06029772003495506223noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939100.post-77073629241362203832010-09-19T12:17:00.002-04:002010-09-19T12:26:23.720-04:00Arrrrrrr!!!!Ahoy there scurvy dogs!<br />Bein' in honor of jaw like a pirate day, I, Cap'n Woodbeard, be commandeerin' this blasted vessel.<br />So, raise the Jolly Roger, haul the drunkards off the poop deck, and no friggin' in the riggin'!georgehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06029772003495506223noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939100.post-17993877094494392462009-09-12T18:04:00.002-04:002009-09-12T18:31:53.810-04:00what I've been doing<span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#663366;">Here's a quilt I've been working on, for someone who likes "facets".<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM-NNdEjkxttvAau0Q2_iWu_XEi8GzjcHB2ie5HFfwaWRg-y7MNqUhSFT5yOl38Y5i5wNgaZrTeHLrdRROGhFhwQvCW2um5U_Zop8N_DtCOrtcMcwgvW7MHgXE_VnSIMcYuv0n/s1600-h/facets+008.opt.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 254px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5380708888510436034" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM-NNdEjkxttvAau0Q2_iWu_XEi8GzjcHB2ie5HFfwaWRg-y7MNqUhSFT5yOl38Y5i5wNgaZrTeHLrdRROGhFhwQvCW2um5U_Zop8N_DtCOrtcMcwgvW7MHgXE_VnSIMcYuv0n/s320/facets+008.opt.jpg" /></a> Good clean fun. </span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;color:#663366;">While I'm working on a big piece, I like to keep myself entertained with little bitty projects. Here's a little sample piece for a miniature quilt, something quaint and traditional, with pieced baskets and appliqued vine and leaf stuff, except the vines and leaves transform into these little guys:</span><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnfDkdE7mJi8zRpHM1IYxupt0KC-5E36ck09MkSuZmETkl9Rbp896xdUVRa5eDDKCEXf20sdEAkJbYhuweiNTEHGuhc4tBOrRvDbGKZbP-N3SnmjFsH48ita0Ts_46oXTb0Mr4/s1600-h/applique.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 66px; HEIGHT: 320px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5380708880722422098" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnfDkdE7mJi8zRpHM1IYxupt0KC-5E36ck09MkSuZmETkl9Rbp896xdUVRa5eDDKCEXf20sdEAkJbYhuweiNTEHGuhc4tBOrRvDbGKZbP-N3SnmjFsH48ita0Ts_46oXTb0Mr4/s320/applique.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#663366;">Funny how you can't tell size from a photo. The quilt at the top is 90x102" while the other is only two inches wide. </span><br /><br /><br /><div></div>meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03682967197214632750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939100.post-4676625564638619272009-09-04T08:08:00.006-04:002009-09-04T09:07:53.756-04:00travelling with a conservative eater<span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#993399;"><img style="WIDTH: 320px; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5377584505922884354" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOCi52AqxHDY1K2a7fakMluk9WZFIwY9NAWws7ukCHyq6QEq1OaqKU2ZW_MskXneK675dulnxe2Qw8Ag8zk-wY8hyphenhyphenWos-RVXAUUxtGuf7PKbIQXBoNgHczR22WsRd2RG-oW323/s320/fig.jpg" />While visiting family recently in New England, I came across fresh figs at the grocery store. I’ve never had a fig that wasn’t dried, or turned into paste. I was surprised at the color and intrigued by the shape and so bought a couple to try. Mo was intrigued too. She’s become more loquacious, lately, for her I mean. She’s still not in danger of talking anyone’s ear off but she liked the look of the figs and was happy to talk about them, ask some questions, and watch me eat one. Naturally, she didn’t want to try one, herself. </span><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#993399;"><br /><div><br />I say naturally because Morgan is a naturally conservative eater. I spent a good deal of time explaining that on our travels, since she doesn’t eat things most people associate with kids her age – not pizza or sandwiches or homemade mac-n-cheese. Most kids go through a conservative stage, but by 8 they’re usually coming out of it. </div><br /><div><br />Mo’s a bit more sensitive to looks and textures than average, and that has a lot to do with her conservatism. She still has a fairly narrow range of foods and the tend to be light and fine: cereals and pale pastas (no whole wheat, please), tortillas and pancakes, cheese and tofu, chicken nuggets, bananas. There are a few other things, but you get the idea. Milk and juice form a big part of her diet, so we don’t cheap-out on juice, we get 100% and try new flavors whenever we can. She’s most open to experimenting where juice is concerned, but she rarely samples new fruit. Like I said, texture is an issue. </div><br /><div><br />It was nice to talk with other people on my travels who have been down similar roads, either as parents or as conservative eaters, themselves. It was refreshing to hear tales from George’s mom of her passionate, strong minded children, of Liz liking things just so and George coming apart at the seams if his hotdog was cut in the wrong number of pieces. Good to know Morgan doesn’t just get it from me! </div><br /><div><br />I was the proverbial picky eater. I recall there were foods I did like as a child, but most of my actual memories of dinnertime revolve around a sense of disgust as I would steal myself, over and over, to lift the fork to my mouth. I sometimes wonder how much of my vegetarianism comes down to being finally able to avoid all the foods I despise in one fell swoop. Certainly when I go to vegetarian homes and potlucks and feel a sense of nervousness at an unfamiliar dish, I can dispel most of that with a simple reminder to myself: its okay, its vegetarian. Its amazing how much that relaxes me. I don’t recall ever being disgusted by a mouthful of vegetarian food, even if the flavor didn’t appeal to me. I’m sure there must be some, but they don’t stand out in my memories.<br /></div><br /><div>Food is such a personal issue. Some people seem to be able to eat anything. Ray has always been able to eat foods he dislikes. He may complain about them, but he doesn’t struggle to eat them. I’ve watched Mo struggle to try a food she thought she’d like only to have the actual experience prove different than she’d hoped. I’ve seen her on the verge of tears when a food at a restaurant wasn’t what she expected. We ate out a bunch on our travels, something we rarely do at home, and I did a good bit of explaining and negotiating with wait-staff as a result. They were all very helpful, even found ways to charge me less for, say, a plate of “nachos” with none of the meat, salsa or guacamole listed in the menu. One waitress brought Mo all the popcorn she could eat at no charge at all. That was sweet. </div><br /><div><br />It was wonderful to overnight at another unschooling house on the way home. I’m always nervous meeting people I only “know” via the internet, and we hadn’t really talked about food with this family. But Faith was perfectly happy to walk Morgan through their cereal collection even though we’d arrived at dinnertime, that was great. And despite eight hours in the car I was ready to do a happy-dance at the sight of real home-style vegetarian food on the stove (its okay! Its vegetarian). And its good to get back home to where Mo doesn’t have to ask if she isn’t in the mood to talk, where she knows where everything is and the microwave is conveniently located for little people. Good to get back to George’s home-style vegetarian cooking every night. Even if I can’t get fresh figs around here. </span></div>meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03682967197214632750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939100.post-19826685014068531822009-08-02T08:54:00.003-04:002009-08-02T09:32:22.158-04:00forget it<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#660000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I'd forgotten how loud airplanes are. On <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">friday</span>, Mo and I flew from Nashville to Philly to Providence, RI - two ups and two downs, next to no turbulence, just enough clouds. Great flights, especially for Morgan, who had never been on a plane before. She had a grand time, but spent the flights with her fingers stuffed in her ears. I remember that was my first impression of flying, years ago on an army plane flying to Alaska. There were no windows and it was <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">soooooo</span> loud. I'm glad Mo's first plane ride was more fun than that. </span></span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, fantasy;color:#660000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, -webkit-fantasy;color:#660000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">We were met at the airport by a sweet old lady who couldn't remember we weren't related to her - I have no idea who she was, but her daughter apologized and I reassured her it was fine. She was friendly and a decent conversationalist for someone who wasn't sure where she was or why or who I was or why we were talking. Mo and I rode the elevator with her and met up with Jane, also not related to this lady. Jane is my Fabulous <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Aunty</span>, who forgets words. There's a word for that, but, well, you know... Its cute. She sticks her tongue out and taps the tip, or makes this funny gesture, like writing on her arm while I (or whoever) try to guess what she wants to say. If you're clever, this can be great fun, as Jane quickly gets distracted from what she's trying to say. I'm not clever enough, most of the time, and simply find the word, if I can remember it. Nothing like someone else being tongue tied to make me self <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">conscious</span> about my own lack of facility with the spoken word. </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, -webkit-fantasy;color:#660000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, -webkit-fantasy;color:#660000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">I'm terribly forgetful when I speak, not so much when I write. I think its because I think in images - even when I'm thinking words, I'm thinking of them printed, or typed. Now and then I get bogged down wondering what font my brain is using and can't remember what I'm talking about. When I write, too, I can cheat and look things up, check a thesaurus, dig up a website so I seem to know what I'm talking about. I do know what I'm talking about, I swear! I have a huge amount of information stuffed into my head, but don't always remember the sources. Lately people have been asking me about child development, and I know a ton about it, but then someone wants a source...<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">geez</span>. I don't know how I know this stuff. </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, -webkit-fantasy;color:#660000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, -webkit-fantasy;color:#660000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Forgetfulness is a family trademark, it seems, on both sides. This morning George and I had breakfast with his dad, who kept saying banjo when he meant guitar, and then went back to George's mom's house, where she was wondering where the other half of her grapefruit had gone, having eaten it yesterday. Our days and lives are full of forgetfulness. I forgot I was supposed to be compiling a blog carnival, but I have an excuse for that - the whole going-out-of-town thing. My friend Lora and I were discussing forgetfulness not too long ago, about how you can walk into the other room and realize you've forgotten why. I have a whole strategy worked out for remembering in those situations, and Lora wondered why I didn't simply have a strategy for not-forgetting. I don't recall what I told her, though. George and I joke that one day we'll be a pair of old codgers living together, not remembering who this other person is, clomping around the kitchen, drinking all the coffee. </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, -webkit-fantasy;color:#660000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, -webkit-fantasy;color:#660000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">A few months back I was chatting with another parent, a school teacher and mom, who wondered how I can possibly know what my kids have learned if I don't test them. I asked her how she knows what her kids have learned a week after the test, and she conceded that it was a good point. I'd rather watch my kids forget and remember and forget again than to have the illusion that they "know" something because they remembered it long enough to spew it out on a form. I've forgotten a great deal of what I learned in school, but I remember cramming for spelling tests in grade school and then turning around and misspelling the very words I'd spelled perfectly on the test when I'd write. I recall it being a source of hilarity for my friends and frustration for my teachers. </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, -webkit-fantasy;color:#660000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, -webkit-fantasy;color:#660000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">One of my favorite quotable authors, Jeanette <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Winterson</span>, has a line about forgetting... some <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">buddah</span> like thing about there being nothing to remember... Naturally I don't recall the details, and since I'm not home, I can't look it up. I'm pretty sure its in <i>Sexing the Cherry</i>, though, if you have a copy. </span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, -webkit-fantasy;color:#660000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:verdana, -webkit-fantasy;color:#660000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03682967197214632750noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939100.post-54062297361735318312009-07-17T20:40:00.005-04:002009-07-17T21:17:48.614-04:00<span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#663366;">Recently I was at the local coffee shop and a friend showed me a picture she'd taken on vacation. It was a pretty bland shot of someone standing by a car, but in the foreground, captured in the flash, it seemed, was a wonderful glowing something - something with legs and wings. I asked if it was a mosquito. It kind of looked like one, and she'd just been to Alaska, so I was ready for a "the mosquitoes were soooooo big..." story. She kind of sighed and said "some people think so" and that was the end of that. Oops. It was one of those litmus test things. How cool is Mer? Will she say "OMG, is that a Fairy?" Nope. Sorry. </span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#663366;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#663366;">Its not that I have anything against the idea of fairies - or nature spirits or communicating with the unseen world or whatever floats yer boat. But I'm not into that these days. Its the evil little buddhist in me. I don't see any need to look for magic in the world because, frankly, I find the world pretty darned magical already. </span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#663366;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#663366;">It irks me when people do things like that, try to suss out if I'm "okay" based on some willingness on my part to Believe (or not). Maybe they're just looking for connection - probably so. And I can't connect in that way. If you want to talk about how lovely is a mosquito, caught in a flash, I'm right there. Beautiful in its articulated, chitinous majesty, possessed of the glorious power of flight. That's enough magic, right there. A normal, everyday miracle.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#663366;">Those miracles are overlooked, disregarded, belittled. That's a sad thing. Dirt is miraculous, even without gnomes and trolls to populate it. Its rich with smell and texture. Rainbows are marvels of chance refraction without leprechauns. Snowflakes are a wonder without Santa Clause or the Nativity. Flowers are sexy without sprites living in them, and the ocean has no need of sirens and mermaids. Life is a miracle and a mystery. No-one knows why its here. There are theories - theories of chance combinations over millennia and theories of supernatural intervention, but nobody knows, really. Why is there life or why is any one thing, bacteria, plant, person, alive right now. Lots of good reasons why things die, but none why they don't. That kind of miracle. The quiet every day kind that get ignored because they're so commonplace. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#663366;">There's a great bug movie, if you like bugs and other creepy crawlies, called "Microcosmos". Its got the sexiest snails ever to hit the big screen (no shit, you should see these two go at it!) and a great final shot of an "everyday miracle" a metamorphasis from a nymph, the new adult rising out of the water in a silver halo... and then you realize its a mosquito and sort of shiver all over as it flies away with that characteristic whine. Its beautifully creepy. For the record, I'll swat the little buggers in an instant, and squish fleas and ticks, and smush spiders... but they're still more beautiful than anything I could possibly imagine. </span><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcosmos">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcosmos</a>meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03682967197214632750noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939100.post-68369986599196747602009-07-01T16:47:00.010-04:002009-07-01T18:56:19.756-04:00waterways<span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#6600cc;">Summertime in Dismal is creek time! The Dismal creek isn't really big enough for swimming (its more of a brook), so we head over to Dry Creek. The pic at the header of the blog is from Dry Creek, one of the swimming holes we visit. This year, we've been exploring new swimming holes along the same creek. Its been hot, so the spring fed creek water is a welcome relief, and I've found places I can drive right down to the water and not have to lug all our snacks and floats and chairs and snorkels and knitting and books and toys.... </span><div><div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQRAx9SIF3b9bhYkuef8S0jC4NXauZdd4-ywypB_OklS3QsuQNI1Px5NInnc8hNyzeJdKMUhV9MMz8A7vDE27Woy6xVBeMXTaGCs_KU4osN4SSN7tOnP7U1wuGozVWOwgq3T_e/s1600-h/creek+003.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5353625337381551922" style="WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQRAx9SIF3b9bhYkuef8S0jC4NXauZdd4-ywypB_OklS3QsuQNI1Px5NInnc8hNyzeJdKMUhV9MMz8A7vDE27Woy6xVBeMXTaGCs_KU4osN4SSN7tOnP7U1wuGozVWOwgq3T_e/s320/creek+003.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><span style="font-size:130%;color:#6600cc;">Going to the creek is timeless. Here's a journal entry from last year that never made it as far as this blog, that meanders into some newer commentary:</span></span></div><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color:#6600cc;"></span><span style="color:#006600;">Morgan is sitting and watching the creek go by. This is the child I used to call "my ninety mph kid." She's still a busy, active young person, and has become quite the chatterbox at times, besides. Lately she's had these long slow silences, though. She's not "thinking" in the sense of having some kind of internal dialog. She's "just" looking around and taking everything in.</span></span></span></div><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><span style="font-size:130%;color:#006600;">Daydreaming is frowned upon in our culture. Its wasteful or shameful or something. I remember feeling a need to conceal my rich fantasy life as a child. Too silly, too unrealistic, or worst of all too interesting to adults - you should write that down! But if I did, of course it had to be edited and critiqued. C'mon, Mer, you're smart, you can do better than this. So I learned to write in code or not write at all. And then had to learn not to think, besides. </span></span></div><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;">I remember feeling that a good class, good book, good day was one where I wasn't tempted to daydream. Now I wonder how many parents are towing kids from school to club to activity - and how many kids are going along with that, even wanting that, to avoid that very same thoughtfilledness I eschewed for so many years.</span></div><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><span style="font-size:130%;color:#006600;">With Morgan, I have the opportunity to see different kinds of thoughtfilledness. She has long, half-vocalized conversations with her self. She doesn't appreciate being interrupted, so I've learned not to ask what they're about. They seem to range across a variety of topics, from what I can hear; puns, numbers, the motility of crawdads and fresh water fish. Sometimes her thoughts become motion, or construction, or lead her to ask a question or share a discovery. Other times these monologues taper off into one of her slow silences. The silences are another kind of thoughtfilledness - although perhaps meditation or contemplation would be better words for that. She tells me, when asked, that she's not "thinking words." She's absorbed in the movement of the creek, or the venation of a leaf, or the details of the life of Sandy Squirrel.</span></span></div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXy8yLH4IOXtk0l2tWG2ThSrgtB4COfvYkgpEA91c94bcPtqvIfHssnmpiKkCgE5vxgQ8OFE0LhlG1nFVSD_kdNlnCw-z3YiUF0vFmFh4A9EEQuz7SpuEaS-Y76TaQ7XqpembM/s1600-h/creek+001.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5353626795720995218" style="WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXy8yLH4IOXtk0l2tWG2ThSrgtB4COfvYkgpEA91c94bcPtqvIfHssnmpiKkCgE5vxgQ8OFE0LhlG1nFVSD_kdNlnCw-z3YiUF0vFmFh4A9EEQuz7SpuEaS-Y76TaQ7XqpembM/s320/creek+001.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color:#006600;"></span><span style="color:#333399;">More recently, Morgan has been doing a lot of writing, and she spends a good bit of time actively thinking about what she want to write and how she wants to write it. She paces, composing dialog or arranging plots, tapping her finger on her chin as she does so. She has a busy internal life, filled with characters, scenes and settings. Walking down the creek with her the other day she paused at each bend to view the upcoming stretch of territory and decide "this part is peaceful" or "this is the spooky part," as though she were a cinematographer looking for a setting.</span></span></span></div><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><span style="font-size:130%;color:#333399;">The periodic glimpses of Mo's inner world fascinate me, perhaps more so because she expresses them so tersely in person. She still doles out words like little haikus much of the time, although, as I said before, she's much chattier now than ever before. </span></span></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXi47O6UWfjuchwfFlg0UFH6LCcNbz1FzjF8FYSGt3XbDA8zb6_BpXZrjJ_OaRJaXlCNHtjQmFNyd_99dTL58G9uT4WvvjP60NzrJxyDK13hA622OIYv0AO5x4bKHNKCtul8Us/s1600-h/creek+037.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5353626793505352562" style="WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXi47O6UWfjuchwfFlg0UFH6LCcNbz1FzjF8FYSGt3XbDA8zb6_BpXZrjJ_OaRJaXlCNHtjQmFNyd_99dTL58G9uT4WvvjP60NzrJxyDK13hA622OIYv0AO5x4bKHNKCtul8Us/s320/creek+037.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><span style="font-size:130%;color:#333399;">Morgan's friend Iris, with whom we have spend many days at the creek, is far wordier than Mo. I enjoy her blatant expositions. At the creek, recently, she was delighted to inform me that she was collecting sticks to build a boat so that she and her mother could go sailing. At the same time, Mo was conducting and experiment with a plastic toy boat, releasing it at the top of a small "rapids" and dashing downstream to catch it. Over and over and over, following the boat with her eyes as it spun into backwaters or careened over stones, each trip a different story in her mind. </span></span></div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaTLEPPds2jYGie2DwY0NurpFAtsRKa7A1OqMNx5x1n1uS4oFq8EAVP8Gzkz6bGKzgZOEfMJfDnSkC4u4zraRNS91HvjZSFlKBNYQqKnRYnW0jKkc-6d-WPBwrZw_zJmqtduWX/s1600-h/creek+030.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5353625087236489250" style="WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaTLEPPds2jYGie2DwY0NurpFAtsRKa7A1OqMNx5x1n1uS4oFq8EAVP8Gzkz6bGKzgZOEfMJfDnSkC4u4zraRNS91HvjZSFlKBNYQqKnRYnW0jKkc-6d-WPBwrZw_zJmqtduWX/s320/creek+030.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;"><span style="font-size:130%;color:#333399;">Creeks are magical places, lending themselves well to meditation and metaphor, in addition to their more practical values - cool and wet on our dry, hot summer days. Every trip to the creek is a hundred journeys: scientific excursions to sample flora and fauna and geology, studies of physics and fluid dynamics, fantasies of sailing, of being colorful aquatic creatures, of building magical portals or discovering a Sacred Jewel shard, picnics, swimming practice and contemplative hours.</span></span><br /></div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHzuSisd5hxYTkz0bYU5_WbtiwarTvHQX-k5L6K4ZNgJrFcdWLsdD0hI77oH1nP_F7ky5h5DWYq-uHMKD3mRtVuNMGiW5beIC75quOZ0u0U4RcgW7kbmCcmCOr5mFqNU4NL8XI/s1600-h/creek.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5353625076893093234" style="WIDTH: 215px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHzuSisd5hxYTkz0bYU5_WbtiwarTvHQX-k5L6K4ZNgJrFcdWLsdD0hI77oH1nP_F7ky5h5DWYq-uHMKD3mRtVuNMGiW5beIC75quOZ0u0U4RcgW7kbmCcmCOr5mFqNU4NL8XI/s320/creek.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#333399;">George's mom loves to travel, and yet she regularly sends cards and postcards that she makes of her favorite "creek" (as we'd say in the south, in New England they call it a river, heathen yankees that they are), the Ponagansett in Foster RI. She goes there regularly, as we go to Dry Creek regularly. It was a childhood haunt of George, and we visit it almost every time we go East. Creeks make good touchstones, like that. They are ever changing - the banks alter with heavy rain, the wildlife comes and goes, the seasons are clear and sharper, it seems. And yet, that continual change lends them an air of stability, an eternal quality. Its no wonder that waterways have such symbolic value in literature and religion. At the same time, they send us onward and they call us home. </span></div></div></div></div>meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03682967197214632750noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939100.post-52729849112112507622009-03-20T18:21:00.006-04:002009-03-20T19:17:26.055-04:00Pigtailed Assault Teams Storm State Park<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj259PfCg9dE1kY_NvPCahFu29U7SeXopMDwqHj7uwnbLrRZHdvZe_-NQpevbd92VkqI3SGX7CtL3oGQhj7v9ecqLT7YUKb7Sf-8ijokGsKt8IW2qAwmiOzVCFLQ5M60WDeNWq5/s1600-h/roanmtn+021.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5315406311133161058" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj259PfCg9dE1kY_NvPCahFu29U7SeXopMDwqHj7uwnbLrRZHdvZe_-NQpevbd92VkqI3SGX7CtL3oGQhj7v9ecqLT7YUKb7Sf-8ijokGsKt8IW2qAwmiOzVCFLQ5M60WDeNWq5/s320/roanmtn+021.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#660000;">Okay, more of them had dreds than pigtails and the assault guns were loaded with soft foam projectiles, but there were teams, that's for sure! We spent this past weekend, plus a couple days, at <a href="http://www.state.tn.us/environment/parks/RoanMtn//">Roan Mt </a>State park for the semi-annual ARGH campout (that's Autodidactic Radical Gathering of Homeschoolers to the uninitiated). The theme of the weekend, for the under-12 portion of the community: Nerf Wars.</span><br /><div><div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#660000;">I was intrigued to see that the free form shoot-em-up quickly sorted itself into entire nation-states of children. They had grand names (my favorite being The Carrot Allegiance), cultural identities, alliances, feuds, and complex negotiations that lasted for days. At any given intersection of trails it was possible to find two opposing bands of armed Patriots shouting a conversation that might have sounded like this:</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#660000;">"Throw down your weapons, we have you surrounded!<br />"You do not! What team are you, anyway?"</span><br /></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#660000;">"We are the Huggers and you are invading our territory."</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#660000;">"Well, <em>we</em> are the Princess Sisterhood and we do not recognize the validity of your organization."</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#660000;">"Hah! I got you! You're dead now!"</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#660000;">"I am not, I have fifty thousand hit points."</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#660000;">"You can't have that many. You can only have five."</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#660000;">"I can have as many as I want."</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#660000;">And on and on. </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#660000;">Unschooling children are great negotiators. I've seen that before, but we don't live in an area with a plethora of unschoolers, so its not something I'm used to. </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#660000;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsTfKPPArdouWY-0oQL2OnsunnslEeuYSNATWz5YYizqVkzS9ifLMCwxK1hjQdc_JWDqFptW4_HHFwUvRsBtplr8JXXNgoChJFS4zoooAFmCdnsiPBtZuaJ_k4ICI2EJGaqCWP/s1600-h/roanmtn+008.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5315405068801003842" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsTfKPPArdouWY-0oQL2OnsunnslEeuYSNATWz5YYizqVkzS9ifLMCwxK1hjQdc_JWDqFptW4_HHFwUvRsBtplr8JXXNgoChJFS4zoooAFmCdnsiPBtZuaJ_k4ICI2EJGaqCWP/s320/roanmtn+008.jpg" border="0" /></a>That's not to say they were all little angels. There were bossy kids and whiny kids and kids who refused to acknowledge anyone else's rules. There were hurt feelings as teams formed and reformed many times over the weekend. For all that, there was little real fighting. Kids raised without rules, it seems, don't have any more trouble getting along than other kids. If anything, while many of the kids had control issues, none were actively mean. Older kids sometimes stepped in to facilitate disputes - Ray did at one point - and parents of younger children sometimes trailed along at a discrete distance in case anyone slipped in the mud and got hurt. </span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#660000;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#660000;">I confess to having spent the first day and a half fretting. I needn't have. I know my family, after all, but arriving at the ARGH gathering, I was the only family member who actually knew anyone at all (and most of those from online). I watched George and the kids lurk around the edges of groups and I fretted: surely I'd made a horrible mistake and they'd all be miserable. Silly me.</span></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS5Cn9qiJVZ0FmRAonLpbUJdlNTQo1joJSpI_mPPwiLbVjebJONP86krotpBhpvOT6663jCVksFp4H7WytaXOMrHWB6Yal2pQyL_GaeT6Vt4ep2W_JEzoCOG8jRS1KRZ2_p48R/s1600-h/roanmtn+012.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5315404761205407698" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS5Cn9qiJVZ0FmRAonLpbUJdlNTQo1joJSpI_mPPwiLbVjebJONP86krotpBhpvOT6663jCVksFp4H7WytaXOMrHWB6Yal2pQyL_GaeT6Vt4ep2W_JEzoCOG8jRS1KRZ2_p48R/s320/roanmtn+012.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#660000;">As soon as Mo settled in, she was happy to rampage through the campground with one nation-state or another, shooter in hand. Ray lurked and scoped and then all of a sudden was walking around with a group, staying up all night, exchanging email addresses. George took the longest. He didn't have alot in common with the other dads, and the kids weren't little enough to give him comfortable access to the world of moms for the most part. Eventually Mo dragged him off to a dress-up party, though, and got him settled. By evening's end he'd discovered bananagrams (have you played? its sooooo fun!) and the next day he discovered hiking trails. The pix are all from his hikes (new camera, I haven't a clue how to use it yet).</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#660000;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#660000;">I had a fantastic time, once I stopped fretting. I knit and chatted and chatted and knit and hung out and played bananagrams (gotta get me some). I got to meet some of the wonderful people I know from online and see their kids in person. In case you are on the same lists as I but haven't had a chance yet - De (Bigwylma) is warm and personable, Faith has great hair and a wonderful smile, Kelly and Gail never stop talking! Kelli is fun and wonderful and has the most adorable curly headed boy (George was a curly headed boy, once, I'm partial), and Ren's every inch a drag queen. There were many more people than that, of course and I'm awash in names and faces (and needlework projects...love that purple scarf and its knitter... whatever your name was).</span></div><div> </div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#660000;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#660000;">Unschooling teens are all gorgeous. I know I mentioned Kelli's (being partial to curls and also geekiness) but I was struck by the absolute beauty of the teenagers. It took me a couple days to figure out why, and I honestly believe its the unschooling. Without school to weigh them down, they have a lightness of spirit that schooled teens just plain don't. Even the quiet ones had that lightness. Even the ones dressed all in black, the freaks and the bad-asses. They weren't up all night knocking over dumpsters, they were up talking and laughing and... cuddling. Yeah, bad ass teenagers cuddling. I'm still reeling. </span></div></div></div>meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03682967197214632750noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939100.post-25154897902384429212009-02-26T09:34:00.008-05:002009-02-26T15:54:49.589-05:00March Blog Carnival -video games<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsosyzvaJXe3o12pwplVhdXtRc6yr1732mTFVDJa4ok1Yh7Zd8FLmGLKUay-i5kHNp9fIySLuo6jxgUMU58QzGZhYSnbwK4nzy21rVwsfMjmBFfYuoHqgSYB-Uqq_FxhN3Fugj/s1600-h/itscatmo.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5307121745166764642" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 238px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsosyzvaJXe3o12pwplVhdXtRc6yr1732mTFVDJa4ok1Yh7Zd8FLmGLKUay-i5kHNp9fIySLuo6jxgUMU58QzGZhYSnbwK4nzy21rVwsfMjmBFfYuoHqgSYB-Uqq_FxhN3Fugj/s320/itscatmo.jpg" border="0" /></a> <span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#663366;">I've fallen off the blogwagon, good grief! Its been months. Happily there's a blog carnival to inspire me.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#663366;">I had an aha moment this morning, watching Morgan play. She was playing a video game while also creating one of her paper sculptures (this one looked like a robot dragon, but she said it wasn't and didn't seem interested in explaining). Its the sort of scene that runs utterly contrary to what one thinks (what I think, anyway) when someone says: playing video games - you know, the sort of rapt attention thing. Mo does that, but she also does something else, she <em>multitasks</em> while playing a video game. To do that, she has to keep pausing the game, but otherwise it reminds me a lot of the way she used to watch tv, back when we still had the dish. Sometimes she was all about watching, but more often, she just seemed to need the background and(here's the aha part) its not background noise she wants, its background imagery and, most of all <em>movement</em>. Ahhhhhhhhh.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#663366;">That fits so well with the rest of her personality. When she's not making, making, making things, she's racing around at full speed - charging through the house, careening around the yard, bouncing and twisting and spinning around on the trampoline. I've heard more than once (although I've no sources for this other than "I've heard" so it may be one of those things "people say") that humans in general and kids in particular need a certain amount of movement in the visual field on a regular basis - it does something nice to our brains, its good for us, or maybe we're just wired to process a certain amount of movement and the circuitry goes wiggy when its not regularly stimulated. Whatever. There's some dispute over whether movement per se is sufficient, or movement in three dimensions is preferred (its amazing to me how much information is floating around in my head with no sources attached - where do I get this stuff?)</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#663366;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#663366;">At any rate, whether this is something people in general need, or just something Morgan needs, she has figured out how to fill her "background" with motion while she's doing something comparatively still (the term sedentary really doesn't apply to Mo). Its interesting to see what she likes -interesting to me, anyway. She likes rapid movement, lots of changes in direction, even jerkiness is fine with her. Her favorite game, in fact, is an Ed, Edd, and Eddy game, which is excruciatingly difficult to control. "The Eds" don't walk or run so much as careen madly around the screen. I guess its familiar to Mo.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#663366;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#663366;">In addition to her Eds game and a few others, Morgan has been playing around with some 3d programming software called "Alice" for making simple animated movies and games. </span><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#663366;">Its a free download (well, free for 40 days and then you can buy the graphics program, the Alice part is free-free) if you're interested. It works on a simple drag and drop format. The code is already pre-chunked (I don't know the technical terms) into meaningful parts like "turn left" and "take step" and there are some basic forms ready to use. No licensed characters, much to Mo's chagrin, but there are some cute furry animals, so she's made some movies with those. Unfortunately, they're in a format I can't figure out how to upload! The pic at the start is one of her game-concepts, though. That's Cat Morgan (notice the very long, sharp claws) saving the undersea world of Bikini Bottom.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#663366;"></span>meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03682967197214632750noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939100.post-68653801111969432122008-12-29T17:00:00.005-05:002008-12-29T18:41:15.585-05:00redcaps and hinkypucks<span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="font-size:130%;color:#990000;">One of the parenting/unschooling boards I'm on just had its annual Great Santa Debate - its a board for families with younger children, obviously. This is a Big Issue for some families. At the tail end of the thread someone posted an article by </span><a href="http://http//www.naturalchild.org/jan_hunt/santa.html/"><span style="font-size:130%;color:#333399;">Jan Hunt</span></a></span><span style="color:#cccccc;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color:#990000;"> </span><span style="font-family:verdana;"><span style="color:#990000;">that suggested treating Santa like any other fictional character. Here's an excerpt:</span> </span></span><br /></span><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#990000;"></span><br /><span style="color:#663366;">I found this puzzle to be surprisingly difficult to resolve. But after much thought I felt that there might be a middle ground. If a child were simply told the "Santa story" about a kindly old gentleman who leaves gifts for children in his make-believe world, but who remains within the fictional world of the story, there would be no need to undo the lie that he is leaving gifts for the child in our world. Parents and children could play the "Santa game" by leaving gifts for each other, just as Santa does in the story. This allows the opportunity for children to learn the pleasure of giving to their parents and siblings, as well as gaining the knowledge and appreciation of their parents' efforts on their behalf - an opportunity that is completely missed in the traditional approach.<br /></span><br /><span style="color:#cccccc;"><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;">Interestingly, </span><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;">we've always told Morgan that Santa was a fictional character - always in the context of one of her favorite characters, like Clifford, that she "plays" with as a sort of imaginary friend. The trouble is, to paraphrase Sartre, there are other people in the world. Other kids wanted to know if she Believed. That threw her for a loop. So we explained more directly this time around about fiction and "the Santa game" and she didn't want anything to do with it. She was pretty offended by the idea of a game where she doesn't have any input into the rules, as well as by the fact that there's allllllll this misinformation out there, aimed at people like her.</span><br /></span><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;"><br /><span style="color:#990000;">On the actual 25th she was rather put out by the lack of snow. All the holiday propaganda shows snow! I've mentioned in the past that it didn't necessarily snow for xmas, but I could tell it was one of those things where she wasn't convinced that I was right. Like tadpoles turning into frogs or corn growing on a plant - she didn't believe either of those until she saw it, either. So this year it failed to snow on Dec 25th and Morgan was affronted. The horror! The world is full of <em>misinformation! Gasp!</em><br /><em></em></span><br /><span style="color:#990000;"><span style="color:#cccccc;">This is the part where I get to say something insightful about organic learning and opportunities and not having to teach lessons, blah blah blah. Feel free to imagine I just did that.</span> </span><br /><span style="color:#990000;"></span><br /><span style="color:#990000;">We've been having some lovely times. I had five days off and will have another five this weekend. I've gotten a lot of work done on my one commissioned piece, a whole lot of cleaning and scheming, and some carefully calculated lounging around. I even had a few drinks at a party on xmas itself. Ever tried Grappa? We passed some around at the fete and most of the festive gagged over it - I actually liked it! Of course, now I'm going to have to try some of the stuff when I <em>haven't</em> already had a glass of wine and a Cosmopolitan, but I'm sure the opportunity will present itself one day, even if I have to buy some myself. </span><br /><span style="color:#990000;"></span><br /><span style="color:#006600;"><span style="color:#cccccc;">We've really only begun to celebrate. This week we get to start spending xmas money. New linoleum...ahhhhhhhh. And I'll even have time to put it on the floor, how perfect. We're also going to get another PS2 - ours is fading, and the computer is getting crowded with Everyone wanting to post and chat and play games, too. George is talking about Trains, so we're going to look into that. Mo has enjoyed the one cheapo train set we got last xmas, and she and George need more projects they can work on together. I hope they can manage to work on the trains together, opinionated people that they are!</span> </span></span><br /></span>meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03682967197214632750noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939100.post-82287744165905448212008-12-02T19:51:00.004-05:002008-12-03T18:29:24.590-05:00work-a-day mom<span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;">This month's <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">unschooling</span> "blog carnival" is on the subject of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">unschooling</span> parents engaged in gainful employment, and I thought I'd chime in:</span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;">Every morning around 430 George gets up and makes me coffee. He's sweet like that. Now that it's turned cold, he also builds up the fire in the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">woodstove</span>. We sit in bed together, drinking coffee for about half an hour, and then its up and breakfast and put a lunch together and find the mp3 player and if its Monday I grab the week's laundry to leave in my locker and its out the door I go, to change into my plaster-covered work clothes in the restroom at work, before clocking in. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;">This is where I work, if you're interested and/or have a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">hankerin</span>' for some really fancy crown moulding:</span><br /><br /><a href="http://www.castdesignsupply.com/">http://www.castdesignsupply.com/</a><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;">George's sweetness in the mornings carries me through the first part of the day, and often the whole day. Most of my coworkers aren't terribly sweet, so the thought of dear, sweet George at home with the kids is a kind of balm when the negativity starts to peak. Its amazing to me how negative some people can be. I'm not talking about cynicism, per <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">se</span>. Its more of an attitude of "I just don't give a shit". About everything. Today one fellow was complaining that the preacher at his church gave a sermon on "Love" - went on and on about it. The other guys commiserated: "You <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">shoulda</span> walked out." I stood there thinking about George, curled up against my shoulder just that morning saying "I love you" and "Thanks for being nice to me." Sweet. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;">Sweet was the first compliment I ever gave George. I remember him wriggling and glowing with <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">embarrassed</span> pleasure. He's still sweet. He's been fretting about all the things he can't do now that he's hurt his shoulder again (did I tell you? He slipped and fell on his bad shoulder and its hurting again. Bummer!) and he's kind of fallen into a rut with the kids so I've been helping him and them think of projects and games and activities and just Things to Do Together. Especially indoor things, since its chilly and damp and its a hassle to keep both <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">woodstoves</span> going (house and barn). This week I've come home to sweetness and smiles. Not as many dishes are getting washed, but I'll help him catch up on the weekend. I'll take smiles over dishes.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;">Okay, to be utterly truthful, <em>most</em> of the time I'll take smiles over dishes. There are days, though, when I come home and shudder. Not that I was a picture of tidiness when I was the at-home parent! But there are days when I'm worn out with Doing - casting and cleaning and patching and cleaning and sanding and cleaning (plaster is messy!) - and the idea of coming home to wade through the detritus of an <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">unschooling</span> day and have to wash my own coffee cup is enough to make me shudder. Some days I sensibly take an emergency chocolate break before I go home, but <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">sssshhhhh</span>! don't tell on me! </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;">I'm glad to have been on the other side, as it were - to have been the one at home. It helps me to envision the happiness that led up to the scraps of pink and yellow and blue cupcake wrappers all over the house, the pile of muddy shoes, the trail of sugar leading halfway to the stairs (or maybe <em>from</em> the stairs), the total absence of spoons. I'm lucky that way. I can piece together the stories from the scraps and smears and random comments. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;">I'm lucky, too, that I had time to absorb all the sweetness that comes from living an <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">unschooling</span> life. Not that every day was cupcakes. Not that I was (or am) always the sweetest person in the world. But to live in a home where sweetness is valued! To live surrounded by love, sometimes inconvenient, sometimes stuck all over with juice and cat hairs, sometimes grumpy or awkward or just plain tired, but love, nonetheless. It makes it easier for me to go to work, just knowing I'm supporting <em>that</em> kind of life for the kids and George. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;">Most of the time I enjoy my job, even if I'm not always thrilled with my coworkers. I like being on my feet most of the day, and I like creating things. So much of what I do at work comes down to attention to detail and dexterity - I love that. Its satisfying. I like the fact that so much of what I do teases at the very edge of what I already know - I'm always learning! I love that part. I love the fact that the Ops mgr runs up to me in a panic and blurts out questions like "do you think you could cast <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">xyz</span> in some material you've never even heard of before?" I love saying Yes! to those sorts of questions. So I have no idea what he's talking about! I'll learn! </span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;">I really like working for a small business, too. That's something I've done before and it fits my skills and lifestyle and quirky ideology all at once. I certainly can't support small local businesses by buying from them very often! The owner and ops mgr are sometimes amused and nonplussed at my starry eyed idealism. I come by it honestly, though - my parents and brother are all idealists (yeah, I'm on to you, dad) in their own ways.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;">I love the fact that I can go home to a family where optimism and enthusiasm are part of the daily life. I remember the homeschooling days of trying to shove Ray into learning, and the school days of homework and stress and above all, aversion to learning. That was ugly. That's the kind of attitude I run into with my coworkers! An aversion to learning and trying new things. Even when one of the guys gets excited about learning something new he has to temper it in front of the other guys - shrug and find something to complain about. Now and then one of them will share a little enthusiasm with me. They know I'm safe, in a way. I still jump up and down and clap my hands when I get to try something big and new and impossible. </span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;">I miss my days at home sometimes, but I'm <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">fascinated</span> by the new relationships developing between George and the kids. He's still getting his feet under him, in some ways - his troublesome shoulder combined with his guitar making keep throwing kinks in the wheels. But he's figuring out how to do what he does and be a full time Dad, too. That's exciting. In a way, its part of what makes the whole having to go to work thing more than simply a chore I'm slogging through for the sake of the family. We're all learning to do and be differently than we were before. It only looked impossible from the other side. </span>meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03682967197214632750noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939100.post-176850773362543362008-12-02T18:43:00.002-05:002008-12-02T18:47:43.546-05:00lovely evening<span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#660000;">When I got home from work, this evening, there was half a pan of chocolate cupcakes waiting for me, along with my smiling family (stuffed full of the other half of the cupcakes... ahhhh). </span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#660000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#660000;">And then later, walking out to the barn I could hear the lovely sounds of Ray and George playing music together - another ahhhhhh. A brisk almost-winter night, two really bright planets next to the moon, and the sounds of my guys jamming. It just doesn't get any better than this.</span>meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03682967197214632750noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939100.post-81176030236801524792008-11-27T18:15:00.003-05:002008-11-27T18:54:17.444-05:00Goodbye dialup, hello world!<span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;">Well, we did it, we got Satellite Internet! Wooo Hooo! No more waiting a zillion years for screens to download! We can read attachments, look at pix, even listen to music. Did you know they have this thing called "You Tube"? Of course you did! <em>I'm</em> finally able to see what my online friends look like and watch the cute movies of their kids! Hooray Hooray! </span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;">Okay, now for the bummer: we cancelled our dish service. We're not 100% satisfied with that, but we haven't found any option we're completely satisfied with. When we finally got serious about this New! Improved! internet connection we talked about a variety of options with the kids. </span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;">We're not in a position to afford all the things we want at the same time; in this case dish service, movie rentals,<em> and</em> a good internet connection (no cable <em>anything</em> this far out, not even city water, yet). We figured out we can afford two out of those three, though, and since we've all been dissatisfied with the recent tv show selection and getting sick of commercials we decided to try dumping the dish and getting the movie rentals (Netflix) again. Its an experiment. </span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;"><br />So far I'm thrilled to be able to look at pix and movies online, George and Ray are ecstatic that they can listen to and even download music, and Mo is utterly gaga over the Games! Oooooooh ahhhhhhhhh, Disney and Nick and OMG Lego games! Plus we're all enjoying being able to rent movies again - that was the first thing we cut back when the finances got tight, so re juggling the budget and discovering that we could have movies again is a bonus. So far, we're all agreed that this particular way of divvying up the funds gives us the most options.<br /><br /><br />George is most excited about the music options - that's what ended up fueling the whole push to better interconnectedness. It wasn't even possible to have a Myspace or Facebook page with the connection we had, much less up or download music, and music is important to George. Kinda goes with the whole guitar building thing. Here's a link to his website, where you can also hear a sample of one of his guitars being played:<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://dismalax.com/">http://dismalax.com/</a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmdOa5QQD7mcSM223Oy7GZuoL1X1jgjE1soW3gkP-rCG0RYrUcBJFcncuVQugLp4sNDT7toXJsKYMWl8vBoKhuKT3IdEGcSlz4JbG7z-JqKPlvD-9u8Px8HNpBdUeL0ywQWg0Y/s1600-h/dismalpromo.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5273485208382572642" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 200px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmdOa5QQD7mcSM223Oy7GZuoL1X1jgjE1soW3gkP-rCG0RYrUcBJFcncuVQugLp4sNDT7toXJsKYMWl8vBoKhuKT3IdEGcSlz4JbG7z-JqKPlvD-9u8Px8HNpBdUeL0ywQWg0Y/s320/dismalpromo.JPG" border="0" /></a><br />And oh! look! well, you can't <em>see</em> what I'm talking about so I'll tell you, it took <strong>less than a minute</strong> for this pic to upload! It used to take several minutes and then maybe it would upload, or not. This speed stuff is really great... er, I mean online.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span><br /></span><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;">He has a Myspace page or something, too... actually he has two, one just for music, but I'm behind on all this stuff, so I don't have addresses. I'll get them at some point. </span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;">Its Thanksgiving, today, and I've been employed for a year, now. I'm thankful for that, and for having a paid day off and spending it gardening - I got a spectacular deal on end-of-season plants and had dozens of hostas, coral bells and hyssop to get in the ground while its still reasonably temperate. I'm so thrilled - I got to plant borders! I've never planted a border. Usually I plant a couple plants and spread them out over the next few years. Its exciting. </span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;">George and Ray have gone to the big "alternative community" Thanksgiving potluck and Mo and I have been enjoying a quiet day home. She got the Whole Day to play computer games without three other people asking "can I have a turn?" so she's pretty pleased about that. So many games! Once I'm done here I'll go make us some coco and we'll likely snuggle up with books or projects - me knitting, her with legos or scissors. We're not the coziest snugglers in the world, I'm afraid. Lots of points and sharp edges. Its nice when George is out or up late so we can take over the bed with our prickly brand of affection. I know I have new pix somewhere - looks like still in the camera - so I'll have to post some soon. Now that I have new internet powers I can do that thing that used to drive me up the wall and have Whole Posts of Nothing but Pictures. Ahhhhhh, this is why they call it a super highway... all this time I've been driving the internet equivalent of a backroad with grass poking up through the middle.</span>meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03682967197214632750noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939100.post-66744489144547548592008-10-05T11:53:00.004-04:002008-10-05T12:13:26.690-04:00Recitation of glee!<p><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#663366;"><span style="color:#333399;">One of the yahoo groups I'm on is called "Peaceful Partnerships". Its a really lovely, inspiring board and this morning someone started a thread entitled "Recitations of Glee". I love those kinds of threads - I love reading what makes others happy in their lives and relationships and I love writing about the positives in my own life. Sure we're broke and in debt and there's a drought, but Life Is Good! I'd far rather dwell on the joys than the sorrows! So here's my own recitation, and a bit of an update after my recent blogging hiatus:</span> </span></p><ul><li><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#663366;">Last night I finished knitting my "gauntlets" - elbow length, striped socks for my arms, with a thumb hole so they cover my wrists. My hands and arms were so cozy all night long and didn't ache this morning. I've offered to make George a pair so he can wake up with warm, non-aching wrists, too. Just need to pick colors and measure his hands.</span></li><li><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#663366;"></span></li><li><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#663366;"> We're going to get rid of the darn dial-up at last! George has started exploring satellite internet options and the kids and I have been pushing around thoughts about what our wants and needs are wrt tv. We've all been craving a change for awhile, so we're all excited and optimistic about doing something different. The little bit that George needed to push him over the edge? Folk Metal. He was at Ray's mom's house, checking his Myspace and found a bunch of wacky folk metal bands from around the world - imagine guys and gals dressed like characters out of fantasy novels, playing heavy metal music with mandolins and hornpipes (as well as guitars and drums). Its like some kind of dream come true for George, but dial-up is too slow to download music and videos.</span></li><li><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#663366;"></span></li><li><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#663366;">George wants to finish the kitchen this fall. Its been half finished for a few years now - two walls are still bare drywall and starting to look really ratty. No way to clean it. I suggested paint as a stopgap sort of option, and George came back with magic words like "rangehood" and "panelling" and "turquoise formica backsplash". Glee!</span></li><li><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#663366;"></span></li><li><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#663366;">I've bleached my hair again and just tinted it pink, this time, in a sort of swirly pattern. I'm calling it "ludicrous fuschia mist". </span></li><li><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#663366;"></span></li><li><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#663366;">I'm halfway through appliqueeing the peacocks on my winter coat. They are very saucy! I'm also mostly done insetting the skeleton in my love-and-death quilt. Its turning out to be less difficult than I expected, so I'm relieved. </span></li><li><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#663366;"></span></li><li><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#663366;">Its cooler! So I'm cooking and baking this weekend. Ahhhhhhh. Coffee cake for breakfast. I dug and old crock pot out of storage and cooked up a pot of chick peas yesterday, so I'll make patties of them later today. Both kids love those, and they're handy for lunches. There's some chicken left, so I'll make some chicken nuggets for Mo, too. Today the crock pot is full of venison and veggies for George and Ray. I'm excited by the idea of cooking I can walk away from. Why haven't I done this before?</span></li><li><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#663366;"></span></li><li><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#663366;">George got the big work-truck put back together and it seems like the oil leakage is stopped. Hooray! He's been renovating the water system, since we haven't had rain for almost two months. A good time to drain the lines and clean the scunge out of the tank. The big truck lets us haul water in 250 gallon loads from the fire department, so we have water for all our needs, including laundry and hair styling for me and Ray. Phew!</span></li><li><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#663366;"></span></li><li><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#663366;">I'm thinking about grad school. After the show (end of this month) I'll have time to research financial aid and all that. I found a program that, for the first time since I left school (more than fifteen years ago) sounded interesting: historical preservation and restoration. Geeky and hands on with weird creative elements. I'm intrigued and excited about the possibilities.</span></li><li><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#663366;"></span></li><li><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#663366;">Things have smoothed out in a big way at work. I had a conference with Tim and Alex about building team spirit in the shop and then turned around and took some of my own advice. On friday one of they guys said something sweet about my raucous laugh (okay, translated from guy language it was sweet!) and I realized how much I can set the tone in the shop just by laughing at their jokes from time to time. Alex and I are also getting close to making some molds out of silicone and I'm excited about that. Friday I ran back and forth looking at masters and deciding which we should start with.</span></li><li><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#663366;"></span></li><li><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#663366;">Last weekend, at the semi annual mile-long yardsale, we scored a new microwave, and easy bake oven, an old video cam-corder, fifteen yards of flannel and assorted upholstery fabrics, some books and records for George and more, besides. It was a great sale and I think we spent less than $30 all told. At the end of it all, Mo and I walked the whole darn mile back to our car only to realize I had left the keys with George! But some kindly older lady named Martha lent us her car to go get him. That was the house where I got the fifteen yards of flannel and she and I had chatted sewing and quilting - so she knew I'd have to come back for the fabric. It was sweet and kind, though, especially since she was a very proper southern Lady and I was looking my usual eccentric self, which tends to be offputting to small townsfolk in these parts. Even more delightful, when George showed up with us to return the car, he knew her from open mike nights at the local coffee house. So it was a day of fun and loveliness all 'round. </span></li><li><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#663366;"></span></li><li><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#663366;">There's lots of music going on in our lives right now. George is playing more - at the coffee house, at drum circles, at jam sessions. Ray's been going to a lot of those, too. They've been rearranging the music area in the loft - mostly the drums and recording equiptment - so the space is better laid out for everyone. Mo's been playing the drums and also on the piano. She's facinated by the short tunes in each Ladybug magazine and asks me or George to write out the "letters" for the notes, so she can pick the tunes out on the piano. </span></li><li><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#663366;"></span></li><li><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#663366;">What else, what else? Its crisp-cool here in the mornings and warm in the middle of the day. I'm wearing more of my fun clothes and making more pants for Mo. She has a million tops, but few pants other than jeans, and y'know how jeans feel when you put them on cold? She wants <em>warm</em> clothes. So that flannel I bought will be pants for her, and for me and some sheets for her bed and mine besides. I've been digging through my stash for flannels and fleeces and velvets for Mo's wardrobe and sparking new ideas for my own. Mmmmmmm. </span></li><li><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#663366;"></span></li><li><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#663366;">I've just updated my website and its much much nicer. It was a bit clunky, before. It still needs some tweaking, but overall, it looks much nicer and is easier to navigate. I want to set up a page with the items I have on-hand but may wait until after the show. I can't afford to sell anything until then, weird as that sounds.<br /></span> </li></ul>meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03682967197214632750noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939100.post-75818981473941894432008-07-09T18:30:00.003-04:002008-07-09T19:17:24.681-04:00new look for me!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfZzVECvyaPYDlmN4TH0E11C7652kJftmUBH8tWArG_4_bxvcm0dvFmpbCDP_FJhVzqGLlYZ05qpfvwFIEIE1rjLfQwoY9s7Uz5ImE5msNvAbG2Zdcumxtavyods3O4av-QghR/s1600-h/glasses+004.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5221149797449102450" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfZzVECvyaPYDlmN4TH0E11C7652kJftmUBH8tWArG_4_bxvcm0dvFmpbCDP_FJhVzqGLlYZ05qpfvwFIEIE1rjLfQwoY9s7Uz5ImE5msNvAbG2Zdcumxtavyods3O4av-QghR/s320/glasses+004.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#993399;">Tada! Boy have glasses styles changed in the last ten years! Or seven, anyway, which is how long I think its been since I bought any. Mine were a shambles. George was an absolute darling about going and helping me pick some out - I hate picking out new frames. I'm utterly incapacitated without my glasses, so choosing new ones is usually an ordeal of wondering how much I agree with the person who's advising me. But George was being his charming best - sweet and goofy and romantic at the weirdest times, so I didn't stand around wondering if I was actually going to like how I looked when it was all over. </span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#993399;"></span> </div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#993399;">Morgan was all excited about looking at glasses and tried on a few pairs herself. She likes the idea that some day she might "get" to wear glasses like her mommy. Very sweet. She and I have been playing a new game together - one of the Harvest Moon series, which is basically about farming. Yes, here we are living in the country playing a Video Game about raising chickens and planting vegetables. <em>Snort!</em></span></div><div><em><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#993399;"></span></em> </div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#993399;">I'm afraid its sort of a dull summer for Ray, so far. Both trucks are now on the fritz, so there's not much getting out going on. Fortunately, the Pumpkin Hollow Community has been having a weekly drum circle this summer, and he's been able to get up to that. He and George are going tonight, in fact. Ray enjoys the drumming and is participating somewhat, with a drum or with his bass. He also often takes his fire-staff...OH! did I mention he's breathing fire now? One of our friends discovered how to make a mix of hemp oil and everclear that works for that without the danger if its swallowed. That's the biggest danger of fire breathing, swallowing the fuel accidentally. So now Ray has a new fire trick. </span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#993399;"></span> </div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#993399;">In a few weeks he'll be heading East to visit the grandparents, which should liven things up for him a bit. And hopefully by the time the weather cools off we'll have found a new vehicle and can start taking him to the skatepark again, or some other social stuff. </span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#993399;"></span> </div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#993399;">Our charming neighbors will be back in the fall, too - they changed their minds about hanging around all summer, since the springs haven't recovered from last year's drought. Kind of a bummer, but we're doing okay in the water department. It got a little dry for awhile but the day before George was ready to limp one of the trucks into town to get water... it Rained! and the cistern is full again. If we can get one good rain every three weeks, we'll make it through the summer without buying water. Here's to wet weather!</span></div>meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03682967197214632750noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939100.post-60770236381764919352008-05-26T10:51:00.005-04:002008-05-29T20:22:44.878-04:00gardenzilla<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy5k0T0RPQcjwpfxgYsvEWbZHzD4TxHX8vv3Y9yKGXyemXg-o8RtO9ySfJ9RpitPPaL3ENVLVMDyYynhdgo1-jR48BF7lq_HghHjodjaDCd57zwrDoKMMZsevOGGwR880Ca-BU/s1600-h/garden3.opt.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204701638254202258" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy5k0T0RPQcjwpfxgYsvEWbZHzD4TxHX8vv3Y9yKGXyemXg-o8RtO9ySfJ9RpitPPaL3ENVLVMDyYynhdgo1-jR48BF7lq_HghHjodjaDCd57zwrDoKMMZsevOGGwR880Ca-BU/s320/garden3.opt.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;">I never knew I was such a <span style="color:#cc6600;">control freak</span> in the garden! But its true, little Ms consensual living and win-win problem solving likes it My Way Damnit! where the plants are concerned.</span> <div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;"></span> </div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;">Okay, here's the deal, what with the 40hr gig an' all, I'd been thinking that gardening might be a little much this year. Maybe I'd get one or two veggies and a couple new perrennials, but that would be it. </span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;">It so happens, though, that my charming and lovely neighbors, Mirror and Shiloh, who usually do a good bit of travelling, have decided they probably won't do so much this year due to the price of gas. So they want to learn about gardening. They're complete newbies, utterly clueless but full of Good Intentions. They also offered to buy plants.</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;"><em>Right On People! Lets make a Garden!</em></span></div><div><em><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;"></span></em> </div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;">Uh huh, so here's where it gets sticky and I'm taking deep breaths chanting "its a process, its a process". We get some plants and they, my lovely neophytes Do Everything Wrong. OMG, I've made a Gigantic mistake! They Aren't Me and don't want to be me, or even have me stand over them and tell them <em>exactly</em> what to do. WTF is up with that? They want smiles and back patting and thank you very much, not</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;"></span> </div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">What the fuck are you doing? You don't put three mints in the same tiny bed where you just planted a Rose Bush!</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">nor</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">NO! Idiots! The tansy will overwhelm the lemon balm in three weeks!</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">nor</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#000099;">What part of "they compete with the tomatoes for the same nutrients" do you not understand?!?</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;"></span> </div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;">But, dear friends, I was Good. I smiled and thanked and back patted and managed to be sincerely grateful for their help. Even when they only weeded the beds and didn't mow the paths and borders, like they said they would. </span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;"></span> </div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;">I am sincerely grateful because they have given me the one thing I really wanted - the motivation to get in the friggin' garden. </span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih97q0Lg52ut9X_Q5pdOVwAZWE0r5sCBv5q2NXXWXVvRrBAHFxRbkrlzRhprsc243W6eMjHry6sqt8WaeJPFo5CkBZCHgsn7807kMFy4gIzmQa0NYxfegqxfTlfa8spsAjUg2O/s1600-h/garden4.opt.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204704395623206306" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih97q0Lg52ut9X_Q5pdOVwAZWE0r5sCBv5q2NXXWXVvRrBAHFxRbkrlzRhprsc243W6eMjHry6sqt8WaeJPFo5CkBZCHgsn7807kMFy4gIzmQa0NYxfegqxfTlfa8spsAjUg2O/s320/garden4.opt.jpg" border="0" /></a></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;">I spent Memorial Day weekend rearranging the plants.</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;"></span> </div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;">I am not a newbie. </span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;">I may not be the greatest vegetable gardener in the world, but I've been gettin' jiggy with perrennials for Lo! these (almost) twenty years and </span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;">I know that I can dig the little darlings up and move their photosynthetic asses somewhere sensible.</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;"></span> </div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;">Friggin' hippies probably won't remember where they planted half of it anyway.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZwpChV8MtusEyzV0v6vPhGhm6NzKuq-0M_yexVIX4camsjvbo0D75nUrV7W20qQMV03km8kQgFfwH6Taz2ee62KOUPCB7zqT94C7jqwLN2MEN2ZBwo_Rc14_-f_UeyKUegXbt/s1600-h/garden5.opt.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5204706100725222834" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZwpChV8MtusEyzV0v6vPhGhm6NzKuq-0M_yexVIX4camsjvbo0D75nUrV7W20qQMV03km8kQgFfwH6Taz2ee62KOUPCB7zqT94C7jqwLN2MEN2ZBwo_Rc14_-f_UeyKUegXbt/s320/garden5.opt.jpg" border="0" /></a></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;">So check it out! Ain't it <em>purdey</em>? I ended up making a new bed to accomodate all the extra mints - good lord, why did we need so many mints? And six lemon balms? And four, no five! different varieties of thyme? I moved one of those to a pot - the one with the fairy - since it was so tiny it was getting lost. The other potted dainty is a lemon scented geranium (these people love lemon, we have that, lemon balm, lemon thyme and... what was the other thing? oh, <em>two </em>lemon thymes, one varigated. Geez. </span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;">At least all those thymes gave me something to swap with the mints that were on the verge of smothering the poor rose - that bed's up at the very top, btw, and the relocated mints are in the other pic. </span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;">Now that I have more space and motivation I've been gathering free plants - from friends and the roadside and the yard by my house. That's slowly going to shade, so I'm gradually relocating all the sun loving plants and starting to think <em>fishpond</em>. It might take a few more years to get there, but its coming.</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;"></span> </div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#006600;"></span> </div></div></div>meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03682967197214632750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939100.post-27719426824246457802008-05-23T19:36:00.003-04:002008-05-23T20:20:38.127-04:00absolut smugness<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIoUV7YXtU1FoP-Ut_dqs62gKG_20cy97byUUkp7V_ucStIUkLI-u582YStnwieFaHCax2Fg9jw_1kIXIGBtU94oJdY-xo4Tbt_RI6qF7jGgH5p8NaDLiIMPq5npMiOBufeUtc/s1600-h/ray.guitar.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5203731727264583042" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIoUV7YXtU1FoP-Ut_dqs62gKG_20cy97byUUkp7V_ucStIUkLI-u582YStnwieFaHCax2Fg9jw_1kIXIGBtU94oJdY-xo4Tbt_RI6qF7jGgH5p8NaDLiIMPq5npMiOBufeUtc/s320/ray.guitar.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#333399;">I'm utterly tickled. Ray came home from a party yesterday... whoa up, let me set it up a little. We live about a half mile from a small intentional community, the Pumpkin Hollow Community, where George and Ray lived when I met them. </span><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#333399;">One of the current residents has a son who is graduating from high school this year and he and Ray are sort of friends, so Ray was invited. He walked to the party - no reason not to, really, its not that hot, yet, and we're all used to the idea of walking up there. About an hour later Ray was back, looking disgusted. </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#333399;">"How was the party?"</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#333399;">" It sucked, it was all about beer." </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#333399;">George and I tried hard not to gloat. "Really?" </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#333399;">"Yeah, I thought someone (adult) was throwing the party for Sean, but really its just an excuse for a bunch of kids to get drunk and be stupid." </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#333399;">"Oh, that sucks." </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#333399;">"Yeah. Sucks."</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#333399;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#333399;">So George an I are rolling in smugness that the boy who wanted a sip (or seven, or twelve) of every drink anyone had in hand is now saying that drunk and stupid sucks. Its not so much that we're geniuses, its more a matter of Ray being such a cool guy, but I just have to say it again: take That! public school. Nyeh nyeh ny' nyeh nyeh. Ptttttttbbbbbbb.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#333399;">Okay enough gloating. I have my first every paid holiday ahead of me - I used to work retail so holidays meant long hours and grumpy customers. Over xmas I hadn't been with Cast Design long enough to get paid for holidays, so they were a drag of anxiety about no money to pay bills. So for the first time ever I'm going to enjoy a paid day off. So I'm feeling good about that.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#333399;">And to ice the cake, "the guys" as I think of my co-workers, are going to be out of town, so I'll have the whole shop all to myself next week. Ahhhhhh. And they did a really swell job cleaning it up today, besides. Oh! Oh! another aspect of my smugness (I'm just full of it today) is that we rearranged the shop yet again, mostly the way I wanted it. </span><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#333399;">We moved a whole lot of Big Stuff - molds for making fireplace mantles and domes, in particular, and at my persistent insistence, the Ops Mgr agreed to arrange them so that I can get to every mold in the darn building and move it to the casting area myself. </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#333399;">Over the last three weeks we've determined that I can cast Anything in the shop by myself (I just can't stop gloating, can I?) something everyone in the shop, myself included, strongly doubted those three weeks ago. But I did it, darnitall. I cast the biggest mantel we have - over three hundred pounds of gypsum cement, plus water, geez it was huge - with no assistance at all. And it looks Great - absolutely the best mantel we've cast since Tim bought the company, no exaggeration. "The guys" even complained that I was going to put them out of work if I kept casting things that needed so little patching. But it was okay, Tim went nuts and told me to cast three, while I was at it, and three of another, and this weird proto-mantel that is used to make custom designs, so there's plenty of work to be done when they get back, my fabulous casting notwithstanding. </span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#333399;"></span> </div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#333399;">And now that really is <em>enough</em>.</span></div>meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03682967197214632750noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939100.post-54021683564508765882008-05-11T15:07:00.004-04:002008-05-11T16:07:37.663-04:00<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivp5AX_eK73JbtROggR7mC0QYAmG3ao3rpY3V14hc5ZAIrvxXRtqEoUNXNqJ9TyK5ZQUOQ6-F5v2UwTp3F_VhT50giOS5WM5vqIdhRAt47jJIcCTGLKZp2FxkMUiheZcBfNclW/s1600-h/hareopt.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5199214133265670610" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivp5AX_eK73JbtROggR7mC0QYAmG3ao3rpY3V14hc5ZAIrvxXRtqEoUNXNqJ9TyK5ZQUOQ6-F5v2UwTp3F_VhT50giOS5WM5vqIdhRAt47jJIcCTGLKZp2FxkMUiheZcBfNclW/s320/hareopt.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#993399;">Its been a weekend of quilt stuff for me. I came home <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">friday</span> to a pair of boxes on my doorstep - the return of my quilts from the Denver National Quilt Festival (<a href="http://www.quiltfest.com/activities_detail.asp?id=253">http://www.quiltfest.com/activities_detail.asp?id=253</a>) That was scary-exciting. My first big national quilt show. I managed to get a Judges Choice award for the quilt in the pic above - which happens to be called "Winners' Circle" emphasis on the apostrophe after the s. I know a few of my online <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">unschooling</span> pals read my blog, so This one is for Y'all!!!! Really, its inspired by all my <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">yakking</span> online about valuing our kids for Who They Are, and living with kids in the moment and finding win-win solutions. Hence the apostrophe.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#993399;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#993399;">Saturday I went up on Short Mountain to visit with Matty and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Prolivia</span> and chat about a quilt that Matty, in particular, wants me to make. That was lovely, since it involved a walk through the woods and some really fabulous Faerie storytelling. So I have another wonderful new project to start designing... something with daffodils and wildlife and dancing in a magic circle. I'll have to figure out how that all fits together quilt-wise. Fun.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#993399;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#993399;">And now its <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">sunday</span> and I'm working on a double-wedding-ring background to a quilt of Hades and Persephone sharing their pomegranate (<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">yummmmm</span>) and a lone-star quilt for Jane that seems to have endless borders.... <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">geez</span>. </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#993399;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#993399;">So my giant cutting counter is cluttered with fabrics and templates, the iron is steaming expectantly and I'm taking a minute to update the blogs, drink coffee and think about a snack. And maybe a new neckline for a red <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">tshirt</span> dress - something with turquoise and silver...</span></div><br /><div></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#993399;">Oh, and the neighbors weeded the garden, today, which doesn't have anything to do with quilts (except that they modelled for the thing with the pomegranate), but they sure looked sexy out there, all bent over and sweaty and covered in soil and bits of weeds. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Ahhhhhhh</span> spring!</span> </div>meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03682967197214632750noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939100.post-20705496757984237962008-04-25T19:57:00.007-04:002008-04-30T17:20:06.118-04:00In the Pink!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSYbNYLtHG-5dcaRXqDs9-PvikcGhNHbpRDnWiV0ECB1V-HPcTHS1JtrLlLXEaUk47BLlTI42ZAK1cIfGUR52-9SHVxqShSHHn5H-E6vvtWmj3A0T2K0DZLnbfR84whCtCgbnA/s1600-h/pink.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5195150784514768386" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSYbNYLtHG-5dcaRXqDs9-PvikcGhNHbpRDnWiV0ECB1V-HPcTHS1JtrLlLXEaUk47BLlTI42ZAK1cIfGUR52-9SHVxqShSHHn5H-E6vvtWmj3A0T2K0DZLnbfR84whCtCgbnA/s320/pink.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:130%;color:#993399;">Yup, there I am with my adorable new chairs, looking as utterly buff as only a woman with all those matronly curves can possibly look LOL! And of course the blue stripes look lovely with my hair, but then, <em>everything </em>goes with my hair! How could it not?</span></div><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;color:#993399;">I've been in Super Massive Ditz mode, lately. I have decided that I'm possessed by the spirit of my Grandma, who made ditsiness an art form. I've lost and forgotten so many things this month its just unbelievable! but through it all I've been so buoyantly cheerful its disgusting. I'm starting to think of my pink "do" as a kind of warning label: Caution! Persistent Good Humor Ahead! (feel free to groan).</span></div><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;color:#993399;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;color:#993399;">Predictably, the timid local townsfolk find my hair disturbing. Locals who know me enough to make conversation carefully avoid mentioning my hair, while strangers scowl and look away. Bless their hearts. Its energizing me to be even more <em><strong>Myself</strong></em>, though. I've started decorating my clothes with assorted leftover quilt blocks, appliqued flowers, all sorts of fun stuff. You can see some "tumbling blocks" on my jeans in the pic, there. </span></div><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;color:#993399;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;color:#993399;">Apparently, all this enthusiasm is rubbing off on George - or maybe its just time... he's been throwing himself into neglected building projects around the house. He rearranged Morgan's room and my big closet so that her bed is in the closet - its that big! and there are all sorts of shelves and general storage in her room, including the clothes bar. Its all high up - the room is taller than it is wide or long - so Mo still has plenty of space. He also built a long, narrow "desk" for her in her room, which gives her more space for projects. And! he's starting to renovate our side-porch, which had sort of been turning into a junk room. Yikes. </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;color:#993399;">All that and he cooks, too!</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;font-size:130%;color:#993399;">Oh, speaking of which, I've added a few new posts to the "Life of Rayan" blog - one about him cooking, hence the segue.</span></div>meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03682967197214632750noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939100.post-22763664619090433232008-04-10T17:15:00.004-04:002008-04-10T17:44:46.095-04:00Hamster love!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRTps0_xA7hXD9x_KNorHbWcInf0zIdOLr2fsG87UZNyyKDu6ZlMJC69AY0P9FJq6HHS8r-thANOTLxURWQnHMvULFWQk0fsckCQt_SdO2SMzGI5_KWFuuA_QuaxwxSAt7Ttf8/s1600-h/hampster+004.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5187733011746476962" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRTps0_xA7hXD9x_KNorHbWcInf0zIdOLr2fsG87UZNyyKDu6ZlMJC69AY0P9FJq6HHS8r-thANOTLxURWQnHMvULFWQk0fsckCQt_SdO2SMzGI5_KWFuuA_QuaxwxSAt7Ttf8/s320/hampster+004.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#666600;">Morgan got a hamster! She and George were at the pet store getting "feeder mice" for the snake when she spotted the hamster display. She's asked for one before, but never actually right there at the pet store, so in the past we've just sort of delayed the issue until later. Suddenly, it was later. George commented that they were ten dollars each, which was more than he was ready to spend - but Mo had ten dollars of her own, carefully saved up from holiday cards, which is quite a feat for her. Its the first time she's managed to save more than a couple bucks. So George suggested they wait until they got home, talk to me about it, and try to figure out what to do about a cage first. Morgan agreed, but sadly. She really wanted that hamster! </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#666600;">Sitting in the car, getting ready to leave the parking lot, George relented - she did have the money, after all. They were right there at the pet store, and we have a bunch of old fish tanks picked up at yard sales over the years. Okay, lets get a hamster. It took Mo another minute or so to shift gears back from disappointment - what about the cage? what about Meredith? Meredith will surely say its fine, we should get the hamster.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#666600;">So now we have one (and yes, it is fine with me). Mo decided to call him "Hamstery" and he has a lovely fish tank full of wood shavings with a wheel we had left over from having rats and a tunnel left from having a turtle. Nice to be able to re-use all this stuff. We also went out and bought a hamster ball so he can run around the house - Mo's very excited by the idea of him running around free, but in our mess, he'd be lost and most likely squished in no time.</span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#666600;"> Its kind of strange to be passing on these kinds of stories second hand, these days. I'm still not thrilled to be missing so much of the day-to-day kid stuff, but I'm glad George is able to do it and is actually enjoying doing it. Morgan is warming up to him more - she was definately in a "Mom is Best" phase and I was kind of worried that she and George would butt heads a Lot and she'd end up missing me even more as a result. But instead she's starting to feel good about spending time with George. That's good. It helps me feel good about going to work knowing my family are enjoying each other. Hooray!</span></div>meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03682967197214632750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939100.post-91779300085735879862008-03-30T18:08:00.007-04:002008-04-11T21:43:05.912-04:00happy birthday to me<div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#990000;">and George, too. We had a joint party on the 29<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">th</span>, which is in between our two days, and it was lovely and mellow blah blah blah. Okay, now for the good bit, I'm recovering my living room furniture! <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Woooo</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Hoooo</span>! Thanks to my Fabulous <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Aunty</span> Jane I have some delicious striped fabric for the chairs and some wonderful swirly purple fabric for the couch. I'm delirious. Its just perfect.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#990000;"></span><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#990000;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEito0S7wWAUEUnSDdjeRFnrROFulM3QqRGrx3E9FNKg6BFfv-yOPEFPxmMolBATGg1sYL-gvvnibd0hKa85yg9JUzdRimQ0gbfIXV_4oEiL3xAgJ-O8WKLr7G_d-oDYTYFKzrqR/s1600-h/chairs+001.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5188167486343173074" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEito0S7wWAUEUnSDdjeRFnrROFulM3QqRGrx3E9FNKg6BFfv-yOPEFPxmMolBATGg1sYL-gvvnibd0hKa85yg9JUzdRimQ0gbfIXV_4oEiL3xAgJ-O8WKLr7G_d-oDYTYFKzrqR/s320/chairs+001.jpg" border="0" /></a>My living room furniture was used when I bought it, and after more than a few years of living with children, its in sorry shape. The stuffing is coming out! Its just terrible, and with our current finances I had despaired of finding fabric that was both cheap and stylish, much less finding cheap used furniture I like. My chairs, in particular, have a lovely shape to them... sort of trapezoidal, as you can see in the pic. I like that. I'd just about come around to <em>acceptance</em> of the fact that I might actually have to replace them with something rectilinear, when voila! the perfect fabrics at an excellent price, and happy birthday from <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Aunty</span>, besides. Oh happy day.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#990000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#990000;">I'm taking a page out of Morgan's book and reinforcing the "decks" of the chairs with cardboard wrapped in duct tape.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgROiN3-BJsxomkqnNQttuwdXOZ2dH0-6RCQWrKvGMHcAb-z19jicQwVyOf7IOi1L5RXEdP8zahmm_LDz_uJr6V9PVu1Ow8O7Ex9nM4_GPvD4ooeDF78ZIbU_0Pq87kSDrc1lli/s1600-h/cameradump.202+003.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5188164879298024386" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgROiN3-BJsxomkqnNQttuwdXOZ2dH0-6RCQWrKvGMHcAb-z19jicQwVyOf7IOi1L5RXEdP8zahmm_LDz_uJr6V9PVu1Ow8O7Ex9nM4_GPvD4ooeDF78ZIbU_0Pq87kSDrc1lli/s320/cameradump.202+003.JPG" border="0" /></a> Mo, of course, is the queen of paper and tape and has, from time to time, branched out into cardboard. Snort! That's like saying I'm a traditional quilter who has "branched out" into less traditional work. She can make anything with cardboard or paper or some combination thereof, provided there's enough tape in the house. George and I are careful to never run out - good heavens, can you imagine if she decided to switch to glue? No, far far safer to keep the house stocked with tape. I nearly had to defend my roll of duct tape while making new chair decks - surely that's for me, isn't it mommy? <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Superfast</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">diversional</span> tactics involving double chocolate cookies and coco with marshmallows. Whew.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#990000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#990000;">Mo has been playing with the idea of Art lately. It seems that Art is something specific from her perspective. Its something that is produced on demand, for the consumer, as it were. All this glorious construction that goes on in my home all day long isn't Art. She has clearly researched the matter via that ubiquitous gallery of artwork pertaining to children, the refrigerator, both in real homes and via television. According to her research, adults (the recipients of Art) like pictures of flowers, houses, trees and cute animals. So when Morgan makes Art, that is what she makes. </span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#990000;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#990000;">This past Friday, Mo went with George to a photo shoot with our local artists group. It was decided that this year we'd get a professional photographer to shoot all our work for the brochure at once (I was able to have mine shot by the same guy a couple weeks ago, since I needed slides for a show before the group shoot). George managed to explain this all to Mo to her satisfaction, but didn't realize that she expected to have some of <em>her</em> work shot also. Turns out she brought a painting of a bird (adults like birds and since mommy likes red, this bird has a red tail) and was quick to speak up when things were wrapping up and she seemed to have been overlooked. The photographer, happily, was charmed - he was also shooting everything in digital, so taking a bunch of extras of a little girl with her painting didn't cost him more than an extra minute of his time. </span></div>meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03682967197214632750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939100.post-6143440426410455462008-03-26T18:16:00.004-04:002008-03-26T20:48:05.718-04:00not exactly a eulogy<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZVctE2HZLKNxMnk1GsvalPs53P_COsvcZIjOpYuYgQGQphBpzPX-ZI01mZO1sYnuZCGSgKplP4PSCXQ4Ei0zl-mwqGFS0GfWJ7kiEWrQ_cLS6nZYihHRdZvVN9QG0gwgc4YmE/s1600-h/garden1.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5182206647695716866" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZVctE2HZLKNxMnk1GsvalPs53P_COsvcZIjOpYuYgQGQphBpzPX-ZI01mZO1sYnuZCGSgKplP4PSCXQ4Ei0zl-mwqGFS0GfWJ7kiEWrQ_cLS6nZYihHRdZvVN9QG0gwgc4YmE/s320/garden1.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#6600cc;">for my grandmother, Rita Higgins, who died on Thursday, March 20. It was the first day of spring, which is appropriate, since she loved to garden. Also appropriate, given that she was a "good little Catholic girl", she managed not to die on the Holy Weekend, which is not a football weekend in the Catholic Church, go figure. You can see already what I mean about this not being a eulogy. If it were, I'd have said what everyone was saying about Grandma at the funeral, that she was such a <em>lady</em>. No, it was the Catholic thing, I'm sure of it. </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#6600cc;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#6600cc;">Not that being a "good little Catholic girl" is inherently a bad thing - it certainly served Grandma well many times, but most especially with regards to her 13 children. Many of them have left The church, but rather than disowning any of them, Grandma simply prayed to the appropriate saints for them to return. On the flip side, she really was a <em>good</em> little Catholic girl, especially on the subject of You Know What. </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#6600cc;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#6600cc;">Despite having 13 children Grandma avoided any mention of You Know What - when she could get away with it that is. And she got away with it a great deal for awhile - to the extent of having her children wait at separate bus stops so "people" wouldn't know that she had had You Know What so very many times. Unfortunately for Grandma, my mother, her second child, was a very modern, feminist Catholic girl. As in: the Pope is in Rome, and I'm on the Pill. </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#6600cc;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#6600cc;">My mother's attempts to bring the Feminist revolution home to roost centered around educating her mother and sisters on the subject of You Know What, my Aunt Jane especially, who carried on my mother's tradition of dragging Grandma into Those Kinds of conversations whenever necessary. Many family stories revolve around these conversations - feminist daughters staunchly insisting on being specific about "down there" and the ailments and happenings appertaining, and Grandma staunchly resisting. Surely, we don't need to talk about <em>that</em>.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#6600cc;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#6600cc;">Nothing like a family of strong minded women. </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#6600cc;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#6600cc;">Its interesting what gets talked about after a death. Joys and slights dominate conversations. In a family of strong minded, passionate people, there are plenty of both. Happily, everyone managed to, if not overlook the slights, keep the ire to a tolerable level during the wake and funeral per se. Beforehand and in private are another matter entirely. Passions ran high. I spent the weekend with my aunt Jane (who has played the parts of mom and older sister to me many times) while she wept and raged and vented. Despite the outpourings of grief and spleen, during the proceedings themselves she did her mother proud and was every inch the <em>lady</em>. </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#6600cc;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#6600cc;">At one point, in the midst of all the venting and ranting and raging, Jane asked me where I'd learned to be so patient. It certainly was an occasion for me to exercise my patience to the fullest, but it got me thinking. I'm not terribly patient, by nature. I'm as fiery and passionate as anyone else in that big, overheated family. Somehow, though, I've learned to channel some of that passion into a trait I think of as steadiness.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#6600cc;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#6600cc;">There's a concept in yoga,<em> tapas</em>, that means something like inner fire. Its often translated into vigilance or dedication, but it has always made sense to me, on some primal level, that in order to move into stillness, in order to be utterly steady, even in the most ridiculous of yoga postures, one needs a measure of inner fire. So in that sense, my steadiness is an expression of my passionate nature. And somehow I've learned to be steady outside of yoga. If anything, I'm better able to be steady in the midst of an emotional storm or other crisis than in the cool detachment of asana. </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#6600cc;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#6600cc;">When and where did I learn to be steady? Some of it I learned from my own mother, for sure, who could be utterly calm in a crisis, provided she could take charge of things. And some of <em>that</em> comes from Grandma, who definitely had her steady and staunch moments. Several relatives referred to her as a <em>strong</em> person, and strength, in one form or another, has been a recurring theme in the family - in a sense, it has been the root of a good deal of the disagreement about Grandma's health and care in her later years: Ma is strong and doesn't need care -vs- Ma needs care so she can continue to be strong. Its also a root of other conflict in the family: who shall be the strongest and prevail? Strength is undoubtedly a Higgins family value, especially amongst the women.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#6600cc;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#6600cc;">The strength that is the trademark of the Higgins women is expressed in me as steadiness. Its one of the better expressions, but I've worked on that, too. From dabbling in zen to yoga to the weird philosophical side of radical unschooling, I've been working on this stuff for...er... at least twenty years. It hasn't been easy. Inner fire ain't always pretty when it surges to to surface.</span></div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#6600cc;"></span> </div><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#6600cc;">So I spent several days being steady for Jane and (I'd like to think) in honor of my mom and grandma. My own garden, I'm sorry to say, is sadly languishing at the moment, but I hope to get to that soon. I'm intending to plant some more perrennials along the borders and stock the beds with onions and greens. </span></div>meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03682967197214632750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939100.post-33062906621766446872008-03-10T17:45:00.008-05:002008-03-10T18:49:15.709-05:00OMG I'm the Breadwinner!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDeq2_2JbFjHEQ9gee1DoB2MMnrjt9IARzNvGrx39uRi_TRHmVO4y0LrF5-ANoOoOyjEPh6qpmYGfSilSIu94oVDXtcjhYZlTrbRCHTG8syXkFs9XhyphenhyphenWwDw0Ph1BWLhVJRDD9a/s1600-h/crowopt.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5176259890646924690" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDeq2_2JbFjHEQ9gee1DoB2MMnrjt9IARzNvGrx39uRi_TRHmVO4y0LrF5-ANoOoOyjEPh6qpmYGfSilSIu94oVDXtcjhYZlTrbRCHTG8syXkFs9XhyphenhyphenWwDw0Ph1BWLhVJRDD9a/s320/crowopt.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#660000;">Its been a long few months, but things seem to be settling down. I'm certainly not anywhere near as stressed out as I was this past fall, thank goodness!</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#660000;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#660000;">Work is going okay. Turns out no-one in the whole shop knew a blessed thing about plaster, really, so I've been turning that around, looking things up online and asking "well duh" sorts of questions like "can we have a thermometer for the Water?" The boss thinks I'm some sort of genius <rolling>. Too bad he can't pay me a "genius" wage! But at least I feel like I'm helping a small business get itself together in a serious way as well as helping my family in a serious way.</span></div><br /><div></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#660000;">There was a little friction early on with the other employees - three rednecks with chronic drug problems and an older guy who used to drive buses and has no other skills. The rednecks were a bit nonplussed at the idea of a girl doing a man's job, so I came out to them, which actually helped quite a bit. At least it gave them a different box to put me in. Going out on an installation job helped, too - they expected me to balk at the idea of going up to the top of the scaffolding, but as far as I was concerned, it was inside! Woooo hooo! I could hold on to the damn Wall even if my vertigo acted up. Compared to working on the roof of my house it was a piece of cake. So I stood up there telling stories about building a house without knowing my ass from a hole in the ground until they were laughing so hard they could barely keep their tobacco in their mouths and that was the end of the issues with them.</span></div><br /><div></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#660000;">The bus driver is more of a problem since he was, before I came along, promoted to shop foreman. Of course, he was promoted because he can't install for love or money and the rest of the guys could fix most of his casting mistakes out in the field one way or another. So here comes Meredith, who actually seems to get the hang of this plaster thing (its soooooo not rocket science - its not even cheese making!) Around the time its starting to be clear that I can cast circles around this guy (just let me get the R9 mold) the owner of this circus finally manages to hire a new operations manager and promptly tells Busdriver he's not the foreman of anything any more. Naturally, Busdriver takes this out on me by first being a general bastard, then insulting me full volume in front of everyone else, then claiming to the boss that I harassed him. Fortunately the boss didn't buy a word of it and started sending Busdriver back out on installation jobs (just for the patching) leaving me to take over the shop however I like. </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#660000;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#660000;">Its a moderately entertaining job, as jobs go. I get to be on my feet most of the day, which I like, and I get to make things all day long, which is also okay, even if it is mostly crown molding for people with more money than taste. The best part is that the place is kind of a shambles, so I spend a lot of time saying "I know there's a better way to do this" and then figuring it out. I'm good at the figuring it out part. Most of the time, the tools I need are actually somewhere in the shop, its just that no-one knows what *that* box of junk is for. It just seemed too important to throw away.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#660000;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#660000;">How did a business get into this state, you ask? Lemme tell ya! Once upon a time there was a guy named Steve who was your basic geek with his own True Love and successful small business. He got cancer and sold the thing at a loss and this other guy named Tim <em><strong>lucked out</strong></em> and got a whole business on the cheap. And I mean everything - including a bunch of illegal alien employees who he foolishly got rid of, leaving absolutely no-one who knew anything at all about plaster.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#660000;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#660000;">Tim isn't the sharpest tool in the box. He's a veteran of the Iraq invasion, which isn't saying anything one way or the other, but he was a low level officer in Military Intelligence. Go ahead and laugh, he fits. He went to West Point but on a - oh, wait, are you done laughing yet? put your coffee down, there's another one coming. He went on a golf scholarship. Yes. He really did. His favorite story about West Point was that he was supposed to memorize "really hard stuff" (the headlines of the New York Times) every morning before inspection but found that if he got his shoes shiny enough, no-one bothered to ask him anything. Yup. Military Intelligence. Anyway, the West Point thing gives him connections, so that's how he was able to buy a business in the first place. Its his Chance.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#660000;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#660000;">Tim's first operations manager (since he at least has the sense to <em>know</em> he's not the sharpest tool in the box) was sort of a disaster and quit just before I arrived on the scene. He had some sort of brain injury - another vet - and even though he took a course of some kind on plaster casting could neither reproduce what he'd learned or teach it to anyone else. Utter shambles. The new o.m. is much better. He's been to college but, like me, would rather work on the physical and vaguely artistic side of things. In his case, cabinetry and painting interiors. He's also done photo processing. So he knows how to use a hammer, paintbrush and a thermometer, which is good enough for me. He also has a quirky sense of humor and appreciates mine. </span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#660000;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#660000;">And that's about all there is to say about work for the moment. George is settling in to the stay at home dad thing. He's getting a lot more guitars done, that's for sure, now that he's not having to worry about paying the bills. So that's good. I've shifted my energy, in terms of quilts, to entering various quilt competitions. I've done a few small quilt shows, but I just got a bunch of slides shot so I can enter big shows. The one weird thing is they (the competitions) have themes, so I can't just send any quilt to any show. I have to find one that fits the theme. Lovely. </span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#660000;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#660000;">The crow and the pitcher, back up at the top, there, are my own personal "theme" for last year. I call it "The Nature of Abundance". Forget pessimism, throw some rocks in the cup and <em>make</em> it full. </span></div>meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03682967197214632750noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27939100.post-82201240353281639152007-11-25T09:12:00.000-05:002007-11-25T09:31:33.240-05:00getting caught up<span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#6600cc;">Just in case anyone has been wondering why I haven't had anything to say for a month, here's the short version: George tweaked a shoulder and our precarious financial balance of the past year fell to pieces. So I spent a few weeks racing around like a nitwit trying to find and job and/or get my sewing stuff going well enough to pay a bill or two, all the while alternating between complete panic and overwhelming optimism. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#6600cc;"></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#6600cc;">Here's a bit of an update cut and pasted from an email to Jane:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Verdana;font-size:130%;color:#6600cc;"></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#6600cc;">Hope you've had a great holiday! Ours has been pleasantly mellow. This weekend Ray's off working at a xmas tree farm. Funny how different things are here vs the Chicago area. Here folks wait until after T'giving to buy a tree. Up there, if you don't have your tree by the weekend after, you're up a creek. Weird.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#6600cc;"></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#6600cc;">I've fallen back to an emergency back up plan I put in motion a few weeks ago. I got a job at a local plaster casting plant - its full time and I'm at "starting pay" which is crummy, but the casting and finishing isn't hard. I actually worked two days this past week and came home perky and happy to see my family both days, so that's fine. Around the end of this coming week I'm supposed to go out on an installation job, which is the only part I'm concerned about. </span><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;font-size:130%;color:#6600cc;"><br /><br />We're making those fancy decorative moldings that go way up high - ceilings and the corners between the wall and ceiling if you know what I mean. They aren't particularly light, but the big concern from my part is that all the guys are at least three inches taller than I am. I notice it periodically in the shop when I have to lift something off a table and the darn thing is just a *little* farther above my center of gravity than is really comfortable. So I'm interested to see how that plays out trying to hold something above my head while standing on a scaffold with a guy who's anywhere from three inches to a foot taller. It should be fun.<br /><br /><br />The boss dude (who has more hair than sense) wants everyone at the shop to be able to do every job - in part bc he's understaffed. So the installation part is the sticky bit. Good thing I'm creative.<br /><br /><br />Anyway, I applied for this a few weeks back and the secretary told me then that the boss dude was out of town. So I knew I wouldn't hear back right away. I kind of gave myself the intervening time to see if I could pull together a better short-term option, but unfortunately nothing has panned out in that regard. One tiny sewing gig and one tiny alteration. And George's shoulder is still complaining when he tries to do heavy stuff. So this job will pay the bills in the short run and we're working on the long run.<br /><br /><br />George has been enjoying the stay-at-home dad thing. He's a better housewife than I am, for sure. The kitchen is clean, there are plenty of clean towels, and the kids are happy.<br /><br /><br />Ray, as I said, is working this weekend. He's also been bartering work with the neighbor for fire-staff lessons and supplies. Plus experimenting in the shop. Oh, and he's back to playing God of War, which really challenges his logical thinking skills. He's so cool.<br /><br /><br />Mo is currently constructing a duck and an entire habitat for it out of paper, tape and foam. I have a feeling that once she's done it will attack the Lego city that's dominating the other end of the room. Much screaming and fleeing will ensue, I'm sure. She just love the screaming and fleeing parts. She keeps asking for a movie camera.<br /><br /><br />That's life in Dismal right now. </span><br /></span>meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03682967197214632750noreply@blogger.com1