Playback's a Bitch....

...and then you hit "delete" and do it again. For the last few weeks, my band has been working on our new demo. Not that there's anything wrong with the old one, we just like to torture ourselves. And I do mean torture! Nothing like examining all your little screwups under a microscope. After listening in abject embarrassment, I swore I would never sing in public again. Preston promised me, though, I don't really sound like that. It was, after all, just a reference track, and I wasn't really putting my best voice forward. At least we're doing it in the comfort of Kevin's basement this time, which is far better than in our usual space where it's bloody cold.
The first part of the process has to be the recording of the drum tracks, which means Preston has been very busy with playing and Joe has been very busy recording and dealing with computer SNAFUs.And I have been supervising, offering unsolicited opinions, and crocheting. Kevin is in the other room on Facebook. Soon, though, it will be my turn on the rack; bass tracks are next.

Preston informs me that we are setting the clocks ahead next week. I'm one of those people for whom daylight savings time represents a major upheaval. It takes me days to adjust, so I know THAT's coming, but even still I can't wait. I look forward to coming home with enough daylight left to take Myah for a walk. Both of us need to shed our winter fat and neither of us can get it together in the morning so the walks have been few and far between.

Funny thing about my new year's resolution (and I said I wouldn't go here again, but...well, I lie). Since I vowed to get off my own back about not starting new projects before I finish the old ones, I have not only started AND COMPLETED many new projects, I have finished all but a few of the old ones! Seems stress just causes you to spin your wheels, and self-inflicted stress even more so. So since I have decided to re-open the gift shop at Incredible Threads, I've got lots of stuff to fill it with. Now I just have to get the shoppers in! So now to go brainstorm some free publicity. Hmmm.....

Zombie Amaryllis

So last year, Auntie Pat gave Sparky this big, beautiful plant, a red Amaryllis. It had the biggest blooms I've ever seen on a plant in a pot, bigger than Easter lilies. And when it finally died it left this huge, root-bound bulb and Sparky was at a loss as to what to do with it (me, I was no help. I am flower-impaired.) So she tried to dry it out as I remember, and took off the roots. She stuck it back in the pot in the back room, figuring it was probably dead. Well don't you know, this winter the thing started growing again, in spite of being dried out and all but discarded. it sprouted one big, fat stalk right out of the middle of the bulb poking up at the ceiling defiantly like some sort of botanical middle finger.

It grew visibly every day, just a stalk with a big bud on the end. It was a little disturbing. No leaves, just the stalk. NO LEAVES. How was it photosynthesizing? No visible means of nutrition. I wish I had taken a pic of it at that point. Sparky put it on the kitchen table where it could get some sunlight, and every day I would come in and there it was, sitting there with an attitude. Most plants lean toward the light. Not this one, it demonstrated a flagrant disregard for the sun and in fact, seemed to lean AWAY from the window, much like any undead thing. Even the cat gives it a wide berth.

When it reached the height it felt it was supposed to reach, it stopped growing vertically and started putting all its energy into the bud, which after several days revealed 6 of those huge flowers looking a lot like 6 loudspeakers on top of a pole. (no leaves. That's just not right.) And then, just when the flowers started to die...Son of the Zombie Plant emerged from the bulb, right next to the first one. THAT's not going to amount to anything, said Sparky. But it is. Note the pen marks on the first stalk; that represents about an inch a day in growth. She's not feeding it, I don't even think she's watering it. But still it thrives. I don't know what it's using for fuel, but i notice the mouse population has sharply dwindled. I'm just sayin'.

I'm Done With Valentine's Day.

That's not any kind of statement about love or romance. It's just that I'm done making Valentine's Day stuff. This was the last idea I had, as I have a thing for valances I decided there needed to be one for Valentine's Day. This is just how I originally conceived it; although while I was making it I debated adding some sort of trim to the top or to the bottom of the scallops, maybe piping or some narrow red edging of some sort. It's unlike me not to add a little more somethin' somethin' to...well, everything...but I thought maybe there are some people who like to keep it simple. It also occurred to me that that sort of person probably would not be much inclined to hang a Valentine's Day curtain in the first place. In the end, I decided to leave it relatively unadorned and I really like it that way.

The snow we had Saturday is all but gone now, and I couldn't be happier. Although the money we paid Tom to plow the driveway now seems like rather a waste, who knew the stuff wouldn't be hanging around for weeks? It was so warm today I had the heat off in the store and I still almost had to open up the windows. Passive solar heat is a beautiful thing. And cheap!

It's Nice to Have a Snowblower...

...It's even nicer to have a neighbor with a Bobcat. Our driveway is not as big as your average parking lot, but it's big enough that I'd rather pay someone else to do it. I guess we COULD buy a plow for our tractor but years ago when we bought our snowblower it didn't snow for five years after. So maybe that would be a good thing. But in the meantime we have Tom, who is a pretty useful person to have in your neighborhood. We buy our firewood from him, too, which gets delivered in a trailer pulled by a tractor. Strikes me funny to call for firewood and within 1/2 hour I can hear the tractor leave his driveway.

So we made it through The Storm without incident. I did manage to injure my finger in a way that I shall decline to describe here, as it seems to make people squirm, including myself. I'll just say that it doesn't seem to be life-threatening and isn't keeping me from typing or sewing (although playing my guitar last night was uncomfortable).

So today it's back to work. Ah, Monday.

Woke up this morning, had them Koi fish blues....

So remember I said that ideas come to me when I'm half asleep? This morning, as I lay there not really wanting to get out of my cozy bed and get going, I started thinking, for whatever reason, about two of the pieces of furniture in the basement that I bought a couple of years ago and stripped but that's as far as I got. One is a small bureau, for which I still don't have a plan, and the other is a maple table which I intended to stain and then paint a design on. The only thing I had definitely planned was a vine going up one leg and onto the top extending into...what? That's as far as the mental picture would go, and I was never really able to clarify what I wanted on the top. This morning, though, visions of lily pads and koi fish swam into my brain. I love goldfish, in all their gaudy beauty. This design (not the one in the pic, I have something slightly different in mind) appeals to me because you would be looking DOWN on the leaves and the fish, like you would see them if you were looking into a pond. How cool would THAT be?

I am not an artist. Things like perspective and proportion do not come naturally to my brain, so I will have to find some pictures and finagle them into something I can paint. Toward that end, I googled images of koi fish and was a little disappointed to find that 99% of the pics were of tattoos. While they were truly spectacular, they did not help me. So I'll have to do some more research, in the meantime I have some staining to do.

Hearts Completed....

...in a matter of a couple of days. That's a record for me. They came out just the way I pictured them, so I'm pretty happy although I'm a little disappointed that the beads I had in my stash that I remembered as glass are actually plastic. I hate to use plastic beads, but sometimes the look is the important thing so I sucked it up and used them. At least the tiny little red beads are glass, so that's something. All in all, a success! I toyed with the idea of making a matching bracelet, but opted not to. I'm thinking I may still

Had the day "off" today, being a holiday, so I did just what I wanted to do which turned out to be not much of anything. I did begin my last Valentine's project, which I should be able to post tomorrow depending on how busy it is at the shop and whether or not I can get it sewed!

War is Hell....

...especially if R. Lee Ermey is the one barking at you every day. I watched "Full Metal Jacket" again the other night. It's one of my favorite movies and I've seen it so many times I can recite much of the dialog, like a lot of people do with the Wizard of Oz. I'm not sure what it is about this move that grabs me. I've seen a lot of war movies, but it's not really my favorite genre and in general if I'm going to watch something war-related, I'd just as soon see a documentary (BTW, the miniseries Vietnam in HD that was on the History Channel not too long ago was excellent. I learned SO much it was astounding).

Maybe my fascination stems from the fact that I never learned anything about the Vietnam war in school. I was just a little kid when the war was going on, and it was never mentioned at home that I can recall....which is not surprising, what would you tell a preschooler about something so horrible? I was ignorant of all the protests, the Kent State massacre, everything. I remember very clearly my first exposure as a child to anything relating to the war. I was watching the 4th of July parade, sitting on the lawn of the Peace Dale public library. As the bands, floats, and various military and police units went by, the crowds cheered and waved. Then, here came a group of Vietnam vets, looking ragged like they had just trudged off the battlefield and carrying POW/MIA flags and what I assumed even at that age were the boots of their fallen comrades. The crowd grew silent and every one of them stood and just clapped as the vets went by. To this day the memory chokes me up. I remember thinking that must have been a war that had been fought a long time ago. I had no idea that they HAD just trudged off the battlefield.

And that was it, nothing was ever taught in school, nothing in the history classes I ever took. Looking back now, I wonder why. Was it too controversial? Wonder what they're telling the school kids now about the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Anything?