I'm sitting in Barnes & Noble, trying not to be overwhelmed by another materialistic holiday. I used to love Christmas, but these days it seems to have become one giant shopping/marketing frenzy. Makes me want to give everyone mathoms.
I want to withdraw from the madness and try to remember what the season's supposed to be about. I don't have kids, but if I did I'd want to take them to someplace beautiful, emphasize togetherness, and teach them charity for the poor by going to work at a food bank or something. I think I'd emphasize making crafts for presents, defining them as tokens of meaning, remembrance, and craftsmanship. That's what you do when you don't have money. Often a much more appreciated gift, especially now, when the economy is on the skids. Or (and I have many treasured gifts of this nature) hit the thrift shops and recycle.
All the spending makes me want to throw up.
This Thanksgiving, look around the table at your friends and loved ones, look into your heart, and give thanks for just how lucky we all really are.
This is my 4th Thanksgiving since being diagnosed with terminal cancer. I'm grateful beyond belief to be here, and thankful for all of you.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Sent from my iPhone
Of TypePad Micro? Is it just another Facebook contender?
It seems like we're all in Reader's Digest mode these days. Has Vox lost its freshness, or are we just reticent to discuss the darkness that frames the days, or both? Are we wandering away to other networks? Facebook seems compelling, but once there I feel like, Meh-- Who cares? I don't post anything, but visit to see photos and goings-on of various and sundry friends. Sometimes it's more painful to get in touch with people I haven't seen in ages. When they ask what I've been up to, do I say, "Trying to stay alive for the past 3 years...hanging on for a cure to cancer?" Yeah, that's a real conversation starter.
(And am happy about it!) The folks at Artbeads.com came across my creativity blog and offered me free stuff if I’d blog about their products. So I agreed, why the heck not?! They suggested I choose $35 worth of supplies so I did. (Score!!) They sent them and I opened them and LOVED them! I didn’t get around to doing anything with them for a while but then sat down one day a while back to make some earrings.
I’ve made two pairs of ultra sparkling earrings now and worn them both to compliments, thank you very much! Today they sent me a card with a $20 gift certificate in it as a way of saying thanks for the blogging… which reminded me to uh... blog something. (Check out the blog post I wrote here) Plus, there is a little coupon code worth 10% off your purchase if you should decide to pick up a few beads at Artbeads.com. The code is: “SCF10P-ARTBEADS-0424” and it is good through 12/31/09… so pop on over and pick up a few things for your Christmas projects.
It's 4:30 on Tuesday, Nov. 3rd, which is significant if one plans to participate in NaNoWriMo. I've spent most of the day organizing Hub's maddening sock drawer and uploading photos to Facebook. At one point I considered discarding FB - it's a time sucker and my brain's not geared that way (I barely even get on). FB's immediacy is scary - the instant I post anything, there are comments (not that it matters). I'd be better off posting a cry for help on FB than use a cell phone. I'd achieve greater simultaneous coverage and have a better chance at being rescued. So I'm keeping the account, removing the privacy cloak, and actually trying to be social. Sort of. I posted some photos, a drop in the bucket compared to my Vox posts. Coming here to read my long-winded rants seems to pain non-Voxers...but I like that about it. And I like this format (even though it seems increasingly unstable, Vox!)...so until I figure out my WordPress situation, here I stay.
...at Feel Good Bakery in the Alameda Marketplace!!!!
I finished up baking the wedding cake… in a range that now has a (temporary I hope) wooden handle, that’s right ladies and gents, my kitchen range is sporting a 2x4 where the handle should be. One side of the handle came off yesterday as I was putting the first cake in the oven. Later, the other side came off as well, right in my hand. With the new chunk of wood, I can get in stuff in and out of the oven much easier. And that was all that mattered while I was baking the wedding cake. Tomorrow I will ice the wedding cake, Saturday morning I will deliver it and then enjoy my cousin’s big plain Mennonite wedding.
Just about the time I was headed off for a nice leetle nap, I saw that the USPS had delivered my box of broken NASA glass… which sent me downstairs to the kiln. I played with the pretty bits of dichroic glass and put a round in the kiln to fire up. I spent some quality time with the whammer, making broken glass into more broken glass, managed to wham my own finger like the genius I am. Owie! I just finally pulled that batch of glass out of the kiln just now, they were still 102 degrees, but that’s better than 1500 that they were earlier. I think they turned out beautifully in spite of the fact that three of the six have crack marks in the center. I’ll ask a glass friend what that was about but I’m pretty sure it’s because I opened the kiln door to peak at the wrong temp and the glass just couldn’t contain it’s joy at seeing me and it's heart just burst right there in the middle. Or something like that. Temperamental stuff, peaking in the kiln at the wrong time is a bad idea.
I was serious about getting that nap so I tried again. This time the phone rang just after I had
dozed off. The hubby was on his way home
and bringing the father-in-law with him.
He was just passing through but we managed to talk him into staying the
night. I would have cooked but he just
wanted food, a shower and off to bed with him.
He’s driving some kind of big rig through the area. We ordered a pizza and that was that. I like to cook, and I would have loved to
cook for them but they were looking for something a little more instant. To bad, their loss.
I managed to put some glaze on a series of wine
glasses. It seems like wine glasses were
good for me this month in sales. The
second round of glazing will come tomorrow and then I’ll get a feel for whether
or not I like them… so far myeh. That's how they always look after the first round, the second round is what makes them beautiful.
While I was working on the glaze my friend Michelle called. She was here for a few nights last weekend and I made home made hot poppers. She was making them and trying to remember what I'd done. Just cut the peppers in half, remove the seeds and membranes. In a microwave safe mug put half a block of cream cheese in the mic for 30 seconds. Stir in some salt and peppa, onions, paprika, garlic and some swiss or sharp cheddar (in fine chunks) or whatever your favorite cheese is. Stir it all together and put in a pastry bag (or a ziploc bag with the corner clipped if you don't have the other) and pipe it into the pepper halves. Line a pan with foil, put cracker crumbs in the pan so the peppers don't stick, top the poppers with more cracker crumbs and some parsley. I popped them in my toaster over at 400 degrees for 20 minutes, served with cold sweet n sour and duck sauce and YUM! Michelle was trying to remember what I'd done, she'd been watching while I made them when she was here. She'd found a recipe online from Emeril... but she said it was too complicated. Michelle liked my recipe better than Emeril's!! *wistful bits of happy joy and smug self approval*
I just put another round of glass in the kiln and set it off. By morning I hope it is back down to a temperature that I can get in there and see what they look like. I love working with glass, you never know what is going to come out of the kiln, but honestly, waiting to pull them out after they are back down under a hundred degrees is really hard. I am curious and impatient.
It’s time for full tilt production for the holidays. I want to get my work into a few more galleries and see if I can rock this holiday season. I hope so. That would be cool.
Then maybe the first of the year I can work on transforming my kitchen. I’m thinking a new floor – which I think means the old vinyl will have to come up. And since it’s been down there since 1975 I don’t know how hard it will be to get up. And everything needs a coat of paint. The walls, the cabinets… everything. It’s going to be a really big job but it will turn out fine, if I can ever make up my mind on the colors. I fear that I don't really want to live with the gray I've chosen. It would be beautiful in someone else's home, but other people can live with colors I can't handle and the opposite is true. (I remember well my fuchsia bedroom - it rocked - but to be fair it was mostly concrete, steel, glass and hardwood... but still the one fuchsia wall ROCKED!) Hmm...
I still hope that we can get the adoption in by the end of
the year, mainly for tax reasons but honestly, hope is waning for that. And the possible financial repercussions of
that kind of suck. But whatcha gonna
do? There isn’t anything I can do but
wait. Well... I can blubber over it, but I've already done my share of that. Honestly I don't know whatever possessed me to say that I'd pay thousands of dollars and wait hundreds of days for something I'm not sure I can handle when it comes. I'm just sayin.
That's a day in the life of an artist. Never a dull moment.
I pulled up in front of my house to park and *bump…* uh… what was that? Did I hit the truck? So I parked Vincent and got out to see if
there was some damage. Yeah. There was damage. I ran over a turtle with Vincent Van Go. And the shell was broken, the bits had
squirted out and a puddle of blood was forming as the lil bugga looked up at
me.
I felt like a horrible human just
then.
Later when I visited the site he
had tucked in his little head and died.
Sigh.
And now there are
flies.
I have told hubby, he shall visit
with a shovel to remove the remains when he gets a chance. I told the lil bugga that I was very sorry
but it didn’t help. Hubby said some apologies
are like that.
I love turtles.
La Sigh.
