slowly she turned

This week I’ve relaxed into my new lifestyle for sure. Tuesday we went to our big used bookstore in town, and we absolutely hate that it will be moving about 40 miles away – grrr – and traded in a few books for credit. We immediately used the credit and I bought two books on wire working, The Searcher by Tana French, and a Robert Parker book for Sandy. On the way out, I noticed some nice looking stand alone shelf units beside the dumpster, and a few were narrow and tall, perfect for several spaces in our house but particularly my studio. After checking with the manager, one of them came home with us in the Honda Fit. My wire baskets fit into it perfectly!

I still need to get rid of stuff though. 😦

I decided to finish warping the Macomber floor loom and it has been so long since I started doing this that when I ran into a problem almost immediately, I have to wonder if this is why I stopped this WIP in the first place. The problem is that I didn’t write down what the problem was! Basically, I don’t have as many warp bundles as I thought that I had. The ones left in the project basket have been cut at the cross – I do not know what I was thinking but #$%&!!! So I think that I will thread this narrow warp as double weave and weave it double width as a rag runner, get this thing off the loom, and start something new. And I need to get back to Miss Sissy’s tapestry.

Wednesday I walked over to UNCG to join in the Rally Against Cuts with my former co-workers and students, where I picked up a sign that I did not make, but was perfect for me, since Dean Kiss was the person who cut my position in order to add it to a different department which had its position cut after several people have come and gone in it over the last few years. Not a lot of thought went into this. It was totally about position numbers and pressure from the Provost not to hire any more staff, not the people involved. Others in his office and my department head argued against it and he would not budge. Now the Dean has announced that he is moving to a provost position in Florida, and my friend, former department head, and current associate dean RESIGNED his associate dean position in protest over the whole messed up process of determining the program cuts.

Now, if you knew and worked with this guy, you know that this was an incredible action on his part. He has always been cautious in judgement and a consensus seeker, and willing to give the benefit of the doubt. I decided to go sit in the gallery of the Faculty Senate meeting where a friend who is our Faculty Senator read his letter into the record. Let me tell you – it was blunt and powerful. It made all the local news outlets. I am so proud of him.

I am proud of all my friends, staff, faculty, and most of all the STUDENTS, who are standing up for the UNCG community. The Faculty Senate is voting to censure the Provost and Chancellor today, and I hope that a no confidence vote for at least the Provost will follow. She is like Trump in that she will double down on a wrong decision rather than admit a mistake. She also doesn’t hesitate to get rid of those who oppose her decisions.

My first pension check hit my checking account yesterday. I completed the next step in the application for the part-time temporary remote job. Now I’m really considering going to Focus on Book Arts for real in June.

Right now I am reading The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles in my Libby app and Fellowship Point as my print read. I think that they are suffering from my finishing Demon Copperhead just prior to beginning and during these, but I’m starting to get into both.

We’ve got two more seasons to watch of Doc Martin, and Sandy has gotten me into watching Loudermilk. I want to start watching All Creatures Great and Small next, and finish The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, which I somehow left behind in the middle of the last season.

Tomorrow I get to meet my nephew’s wife and child for the first time! Our family tree is a dwindling one, so I only have one grand-nephew and one grand-niece in this generation. We chose to be child-free. It is a decision that we never regretted.