Let The Barn Raisin' Begin....

...and so it has. Preston has set the concrete blocks that will make up the basis for my storage shed. Picture, if you can, him holding a piece of pipe whilst I, in the fading daylight, use a small sledgehammer to pound it down through two concrete blocks to stabilize them. I can barely hit a nail on the head twice in a row on a GOOD day when I can actually see it. There were a couple of close calls, and Preston was fearing, if not for his life, at least for his fingers. But the day ended well, nobody lost any limbs or needed any stitches. So far, so good.
Also this week, it's the last week before the powwow and I am just swamped with work. I'm not complaining, mind you, I am thankful to have a job. I just wish there were some way I could prepare for this in January and February when I'm twiddling my thumbs.
Carol and I have entered HopArts, which happens in October. That's something to look forward to, also something for which we'll need to prepare and we should start now. For details, visit www.hoparts.org.

Chapter 81, In Which We Get Rid Of Stuff....

....yay!!! Here at "The Compound", as someone dubbed it the other day, we have two families' worth of stuff. My parents (and by that I mean my Dad, because my Mom doesn't have much stuff at all) have been accumulating stuff for going on 50 years. Preston and I have only been at it for 25, but that means there's cumulatively 75 years worth of stuff here. Sooner or later, no matter how much space you might have, you need to get rid of some stuff. This week my Dad got rid of a junk car, and I got rid of my camper, the only thing I have to store my fabric in. I know it SOUNDS like a bad idea, and it's making things really difficult to find because now all my stuff is crammed into Preston's old van, but it'll all be for the best. The camper leaked, smelled musty, and was infested with ants and mice and God only knows what else. So I'm getting my own shed. There are no words to describe how happy that makes me. My mom is also happy, yesterday she called me at work to give me the good news before the old car was even out of the yard. "There it goes!!!" she said. It was a good day for everyone.

I Knew It Was Coming....

...when the screen on Preston's phone ceased to display anything other than the black screen of death; a trip to the Verizon store. He tried to spare me by looking for online tech support, bless his heart, but to no avail. Much like death and taxes, it was unavoidable.

I hate going to the Verizon store. Hate it, hate it, hate it. I would seriously rather go to the dentist. I consider myself an intelligent person, but at the Verizon store I feel...outmaneuvered. I don't understand the pricing plans, no matter HOW many times the salespeople explain them to me, I don't understand when or why I might or might not qualify for a new phone-or an "upgrade", I believe the term is, because you can't just get the same phone you got last time now that you've grown used to it-and I don't understand the phones themselves. The last time we got new phones, Preston laughed at me for getting the "welfare phone". It was absolutely the cheapest phone I could find. But I didn't really get it just because it was cheap (and I might add that my welfare phone was still working just fine when his phone gave up the ghost), I got it because it had the fewest number of extraneous functions. Look, I don't text. I don't have the time or inclination (or the eyesight) to play games on my phone, or surf the internet, or download music, or any of that. I just wanted a phone that makes and receives calls. That was cause for some amusement at the Verizon store. I didn't even want one that took pictures, but such a thing was not available. So imagine my angst at now having a phone that not only does things that I don't need it to do, but it opens up and inside are even more things I'll most likely never use....it's got a full keyboard, because apparently it's meant for texting. And it takes pictures, plays music, etc. etc. etc. And this, believe it or not, was the current "welfare phone". It was the cheapest thing there was. The salesman was trying to impress me with the texting thing, and I told him, I don't do that, don't know how, not interested. He laughed and looked at me like he felt sorry for me, which I actually found pretty offensive but not wanting to cause a scene, I didn't say so.

So here's the thing I've come to realize about me...I am quite technologically impaired. And as I've said, I'm an intelligent person, so I blame it on simple hardheaded stubbornness. I probably have ADD, for real, because the thought of sitting still and focusing on this stuff long enough to learn it just makes my eyes cross and my brain wants to go to its happy place. I can't work the VCR and all that other stuff that's all hooked up to each other via the spaghetti pile in back of the TV (and I'm only 45 so it's not old age). And the remotes to all that stuff? Forget it. My guitar amp has way too many knobs and switches, and my guitar is not far behind. I don't see the whole point of texting when you have a phone and can just speak to each other. I refuse to Twitter. My microwave has functions that I've never used, ditto my phone, my car, my MP3 player, my clothes dryer, my camera, and of course, my computer. My husband, of course, is the complete opposite of that. He's a total technophile. If it's new and improved, he wants to know about it. And he sucks up all that information like a sponge, and retains it all for future use. I think if I didn't have him to program stuff for me (and put music on my MP3 player, cause I don't know how) I'd probably descend into the dark ages.

Buried Treasure in the back yard...

...of course, the fact that I was the one who buried it didn't lessen my excitement at the new idea it inspired. The above pieces are from an old English china pitcher that I picked up God knows where, with the intention of selling it in E-bay. Well once cleaned up, I realized that it had too much crazing to be worth anything, but rather than throw it away, I left it sitting in the yard where I had washed it, pending some thought as to what to do with it. It WAS very pretty, all delicate roses and little white something-or-others ( I told you, gardening's not really my forte).

Anyway, fast forward a couple of years, during which time it got moved over to a remote corner of the yard along with some old paint cans and the radiator that came out of PJ's car (why such things are still in the yard at all remains a mystery I cannot solve) and was put into some sort of plastic bin which eventually filled up with rainwater. Funny thing about this china, if you soak it long enough it breaks and separates into layers. I don't know how long that process actually takes, as I said it was there for a couple of years. And today I was halfheartedly attempting some yard work, and there it was. Broken. And of course I thought, wow! Jewelry! Cause that's how my mind works. Heaven forbid I should just throw anything away (THANKS DAD!!!!) So I brought the pieces in the house and nibbled away at them with pliers until they were of a manageable size. I have a picture in my mind of how they're going to magically morph into pendants and earrings, but that's a project for tomorrow because I think maybe they need to dry out some first.

It's That Time Again.....

...that's right, time to start planning the garden. I realize that some people (you know who you are, Buffy) never STOP planning their gardens, but some of us can only take just so much disappointment in one year and then, like childbirth, it's a pain we forget and so that leads us, once again, to this point.

It arrived just after Christmas, just like it does every year; the Burpee's catalog. The Burpee's catalog, for you sane people who don't feel moved to go play in the dirt, is just porn for gardeners. That's all it is. Page after page of full-color, airbrushed photos in which everything looks unbelieveably big and firm and juicy...all designed to make you think you can actually make this happen at home. But really, you just have to look at them and think, much like you might with some other magazines, that those just can't possibly be real.

Nevertheless, hope does tend to spring eternal, and I placed my order (we're talking plants now, just in case I lost you in the last paragraph) and I'm going to pretend that last year's garden was just a bad dream. My neighbor has already generously dumped a load of something magical in our garden, courtesy of the 3 bulls that will no doubt stand and snicker among themselves as we attempt to get our little patch of land to produce something edible besides cucumbers. I'm not even planting them this year, but I have the uneasy feeling that they'll be back anyway.

Christmas is Finally Over....

...just in time for spring. Finished Sparky's Christmas present the other day, just in time for her birthday. Sad, really, that it took me 3 months to get them all done, but I seem to lack the mental resources to plan ahead. That's because I'm always scrambling at the last minute to finish the stuff that should have been done already. It's what Sparky calls a vicious cycle. But it's not even noon yet, and I'm still on my first cup of tea so I'm not going to delve too deeply into my brain right now.

Since I last posted, I seem to have created a monster where my husband used to be. Because all the women in my family and some of the men were doing it (and yes, I probably would jump off the bridge), I signed on to Facebook. I found it to be a pretty cool thing, and so I suggested to Preston that he sign up. And since he did, he's spent way, WAY more time on there than I have. All his relatives from Virginia and also the ones up here are contacting him, as well as old friends and the children of friends he hasn't seen in 30 years. They're all posting old pictures and home movies to share, and I'm getting to see people I have only heard about. It's nice to finally be able to connect faces to the names! Maybe that's why they call it Facebook.

Reinventing the wheel......

...well, they LOOK like wheels anyway. Spokes and all. I realize that this has most likely all been done before, but I didn't look them up on Etsy or anywhere else, I instead looked at the orange I had for lunch. I figure if I didn't see somebody else do it (or explain to me how they did), it is, for the most part, original.
Inspired in part by the aforementioned JooJoos, and in part by the misery of the accursed winter wonderland in my back yard, the voices in my head (oh yeah, I said that. Don't act like you don't have them too.) have been whispering of fresh strawberries and summery citrus fruits. So in spite of the fact that I really DO have more important things to do (and if they just happen to be YOUR things, I'm really sorry but after all, it WAS my day off!), I dragged the old pasta machine out of its dusty hiding place in the camper-where-few-dare-to-tread and steel-wooled it in anticipation of spending the evening playing with my polymer clay. Earrings? Maybe buttons? Probably both. I definitely need to make some buttons to go with the dress that I have planned!

Since I finished the strawberry dress, the next thing in my mind was one with orange, lemon, and/or lime slices. I swear I saw some really cute, bright fabric with little slices on it at some point, but when I went back to the fabric store, nothing of the kind was there. Maybe I dreamed it. Which is ok, because the more I think about it, the more I think it needs to be a white dress with applique' fruits on it. And matching buttons. I am trying to make my stuff as different as possible from anybody else's.