slowly she turned

Living the Slow life in North Carolina

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  • The Mountains Are Calling Retreat Oct. 30-Nov. 2

    A long weekend over Halloween at the Big Lynn Lodge in Little Switzerland was another balm to my soul. I found this group of fiber artists on Facebook, and not knowing a soul there, I headed off for the Blue Ridge Mountains again. Now I have a new group of friends.

    The only requirement to attend this retreat was to book a room at Big Lynn Lodge and show up. This historic lodge provides breakfast made-to-order and a family style dinner included with your room. I booked a double room (thinking that my husband might come with me) and it was in a small duplex cabin with incredible views over a mountain vista.

    The plan was to get there on Wednesday afternoon, but with the weather forecast for heavy rain, I chickened out of driving that steep curvy 221 and 226A, which is the only way to get there. I canceled my Wednesday night reservation and the staff was kind enough not to charge me for the night. From what I heard from those who did brave it, it was a good decision. So off I went on Thursday morning, with a stop at Switzerland Cafe for quiche and a purchase at the general store for a six-pack of that delicious Lazy Hiker Wesser Evil porter, a loaf of freshly baked bread from the cafe, and a small jar of red pepper jelly. Along with some cheese I brought from home, this would be my lunch for the next few days.

    I didn’t take many photos inside…I guess that the mountains really were calling. The room in the main lodge where I settled in with my stitching had a beautiful view all around, and the other room had a fireplace, all with comfy old sofas and chairs. Next time I will take photos! My little cabin was decorated with vintage furniture and was meticulously clean, and a bed that Goldilocks would have been very satisfied with. It was quite cold, and I kept the heat turned up far past what I have my thermostat set to at home. There was a TV that I never turned on, wifi, and a small refrigerator. The porch had rocking chairs.

    There was a rainbow on Thursday afternoon!

    The theme of the retreat was embroidery on denim, a la 70s, and one of the leaders is available to teach the theme each time they meet. This was Sue McRae, owner of O Susannah’s yarn shop in Morganton, NC. She and I hit it off immediately. However, the majority of people attending brought their own projects, mostly knitting and crocheting. I brought a long denim jumper (for UK readers, in the US a jumper is a sleeveless dress usually worn over a shirt of some kind), a denim jacket, and several ideas of how to proceed. In the end, I used a couple of the stick-on designs that Sue brought and simply relaxed and stitched on the jumper, chatted with new friends, and enjoyed coffee and the view. The white part will wash out. Before I left I was working on a large moth on the back of the jumper.

    On Friday a few of us took a field trip into Spruce Pine to a couple of thrift stores, which by pure luck marked everything half price on the last Friday of each month. I did not plan to buy anything, but I found a plastic bin filled with Paternayan wool yarns for $5.50. They were a bit on the musty side so they spent the rest of the weekend laid out across the rocking chairs on the porch, and the cold air took care of that. Now I have a whole nother pile of crewel yarns to weave into a weather diary for next year – unintended since part of my intention was to use up the old Paternayan yarns I already had from the 70s – but there were a few colors in there that I had run out of for the current weather diary.

    Artist: Celia Pym

    On Saturday, a group of us took a field trip to see the Penland Gallery exhibition “On Mending,” curated by artist Celia Pym, which was as fabulous as I had been told. Edwina met us there and we stopped by the Bringle Gallery, the gallery at her twin sister’s home where they made a few sales, and then to the coffee shop at Penland for sandwiches and scones. Yes, that’s a Patrick Dougherty installation outside the coffee shop.

    I was the last to go on Sunday morning, reluctant to leave Little Switzerland and the area behind. I decided to cruise through downtown Spruce Pine, which had seen some of the worst flooding during Hurricane Helene, and by the little house I had been fantasizing about on Zillow, which had been sold and of course would have been perfect. But I’ve accepted that Sandy and I can’t move there in the short term, and perhaps in the long term, and that’s okay because our home is a good place too. I headed down the Blue Ridge Parkway after taking the detour around the still closed section around Linville Falls, stopped in Linville to buy a sack of honey crisp apples, stopped at Moses Cone Manor and used the port-a-john and visited the craft shop, and again at an overlook to have a late lunch of bread, cheese, and apple.

    Before I left I made my reservation for the next Mountains Are Calling retreat, which will be in late April.

  • Wildacres Retreat Sept. 29-Oct. 5

    Here’s a view that I haven’t seen before, possibly due to tree losses from Hurricane Helene last year. I think that it is Table Rock.

    This was the third year that I’ve attended Edwina Bringle‘s fiber art retreat at Wildacres Retreat near Little Switzerland, NC. I’ve fallen in love with this area (and Edwina).

    It broke my heart when Hurricane Helene devastated so much here last year just after I left. The people here at the time had to be airlifted out by helicopter. The destruction was not only about rivers sweeping away houses and people, but also about the mudslides coming down the mountainsides, carrying trees, houses and bridges away. Then later, as the region dried out, widespread wildfires.

    So, back to 2025. I drove up Hwy 226A, a winding road with many hairpin curves which had to be extensively repaired and rebuilt. After a stop at the Switzerland Cafe (smoked trout BLT!), and general store for a six-pack of a most excellent porter (Lazy Hiker Wesser Evil, from Franklin, NC), plus a blond brownie from Books and Beans (a bookstore with a large collection of old books, my favorite kind), I checked in at Wildacres and settled in for a week of art and healing.

    As usual, I hauled my whole damned studio with me, because I could NOT focus on what to focus on! I was in transition in my meds, and my brain was doing backflips. Once I got there, I decided to just weave the tapestry I had begun of a train platform in Edinborough. I didn’t have a firm plan on the colors and the textures that I wanted to use, so given the basic idea, I kind of followed my nose and changed my mind in some areas. I did finish by the last evening and this was the result (a bit of repair in the center will be done once off the loom.

    "Platform 8E", handwoven tapestry, wool, linen
    “Platform 8E”, handwoven tapestry, wool, linen

    I had planned to make a fabric book from some of my stitch meditations, but as I played around with some beautiful felt that Holly brought with her to give away, I decided that I would make a needle book with pockets for my small scissors and other embroidery things. I did not make any of the felt components, but I designed and stitched the book together. The thread for the blanket stitch was a luscious wool/silk variegated color blend that I bought from a vendor at the Blue Ridge Fiber Fest.

    The campus at Wildacres is incredibly beautiful, with little surprises of art here and there and the flower gardens and trails and vistas. This time I decided to hike one of the trails and take some photos. Normally I cannot hike a steep or long trail because of my bone spur/Achilles tendinitis, but there was a perfect one around the mountainside just below the gardens. I plan to do some tapestry designs of some of these photos if I can get an artist residency there. Here’s a slideshow of my other photos.

    On Sunday I hung around, as usual, until nearly everyone had left, then I decided to take the Blue Ridge Parkway home. Some of it around the Linville Falls area was still closed, so I had to make a detour. I stopped in Linville and bought apples, and at a spot before I got on the BRP to have a snack. Good choice, because I found out about traffic and parking on the BRP on a weekend day at peak leaf color! I do suggest making a bathroom stop BEFORE you get on it during an October weekend, but all was well in the end. It is a wonderful drive and I plan to make it as often as possible. I-40 may be a shorter drive in miles, but this route seems faster because of the beauty.

  • Saturday morning coffee pot post

    If you’ve been following me for a while, I guess you’ve noticed that my website has changed. Drastically. I can’t say I’m that happy about it, but I was fiddling around with some different templates, thinking that I was looking at a preview, and instead lost my previous template. It was an older one, for sure, but one that I was used to and had a lot of flexibility for change. Anyway, as with a LOT of things in my life right now, I decided to let it go and embrace it. What else can I do?

    The issue behind the change is that I am beginning to apply for scholarships and residencies, so I needed a more professional looking website for my art. This also means that I may go private for some of my more personal blog posts. This has been my journal for over twenty years, even though some of it was lost in a virus-related platform change.

    I’ll still blog most of my art retreats and travel experiences, but it’s not the focus of my time right now. I’m in an art flow right now. It won’t always show up here. For example, I spent several days this week picking through my yarn stash for colors for my next tapestry. This, of course, sent me down a rabbit hole. I have SO MUCH YARN.

    The main brain sweep I need to write about at the moment is about my mental health. I’ve always been open about my disability here. And it is officially a disability now, I know, because it is on my medical record that it is interfering with my ability to work. I took a short-lived part-time job at UNCG in the Office for Accessibility Resources for students, in which I trained to be an access specialist and I learned so much about the ADA and disability rights. However, I forgot that I am a sponge for anxiety and when I had my second severe anxiety attack at work, I knew that I could not meet with students with anxiety. I was sad to leave because the office staff were wonderful and the money was good, but it was also a relief when I made the decision.

    Here’s the good news. I went to my GP and switched medications. After a couple of months on this new med, I feel so much better. It has a side effect that made me quit this same med years ago when I tried it, but I am trying to stick with it this time. I had been off regular anti-anxiety meds for a couple of years and had been on the same anti-depressant for over 15 years! Now it is clear that it was no longer working. Granted, these times are enough to challenge any anti-depressant, but I have found myself feeling some joy, some happiness, some hope. My emotions are coming back. My art muse has returned and I hope they will stay around for a while.

    Other than changing meds, my therapist suggested that I plan some trips to work on my agoraphobic tendency. I had already planned to go to Wildacres with Edwina’s fiber group at the end of September. I had canceled my retreat with the Nature Printing Society because I thought I’d be working. So Sandy and I went to Asheville for a weekend and puttered around, including playing in the drum circle on Friday night, which was something we had both wanted to do for quite a while. I went to Wildacres for Edwina’s fiber retreat a few weeks later, and then at the end of October I went back to Little Switzerland, this time for a fiber retreat with a group of new (now) friends, focusing on stitching, at Big Lynn Lodge.

    Sometime in there, we participated in the No Kings Rally in downtown Greensboro. There were two in Greensboro, with an estimate of 3000-5000 attending both. I believe it was toward the higher end of that estimate. Cars passing by contributed as well.

    As a Monty Python fan, the sign on the left was my favorite.

    I had been fixated on moving to western NC, but I realize that it isn’t going to happen for various reasons. However, I have so many friends who live there now, and it really isn’t such a long drive. I can drive the Blue Ridge Parkway, with its detours and frequent stops and 45 mph speed limit, enjoy the drive, and spend only 3-4 hours on the road. If I’m in a hurry, it takes 2 1/2 hours to get to Little Switzerland. Boone is only a couple of hours away. The Virginia mountains are even closer.

    I’ve applied for scholarships to John C. Campbell Folk School again, and a residency at Wildacres. I’m considering applying to Penland, but honestly, even with a scholarship I don’t think that I could afford it. It’s a shame, but I’m starting to accept my financial situation more. I’ve got a more realistic attitude toward my money, and in some ways it is more positive than it was, and in others, I need to remember that we ain’t rich by any stretch of the imagination. The lottery is the only way left to that level!

    Now I’m heading to the studio to weave on my weather diary and I’ve begun the next tapestry. I need to pick up the tapestries I finished this summer that I had framed. I’ll be in Preston’s group art show again just before Christmas at the Continental Club. I don’t have any expectations to sell this time. It’s kind of amazing how little I care.

    Oh, and I also did this again. Not blonde as intended, but still fun.

  • Art and Soul Retreat, July 2025

    In mid-July, I flew to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania for three classes at the Art and Soul Retreat. It’s been a long time since I attended one of these. I enjoy them so much.

    When Seth Apter announced his classes at this retreat about a year ago, I signed up for “Within the Layers” immediately because I knew it would fill quickly. I planned to drive at first, but since I had enough miles to fly “free” on United, and both of our cars are nearing the 20 year old mark, I decided that it would be safer to fly. I registered for two more classes: “Copper Journal” with Thomas Ashman, and “Encaustics for All” with Lisa Bebi.

    Without a doubt, I was most satisfied with Seth’s class. I came out of it with a small book that was deeply meaningful to me. We were making gelli prints and stamping and stenciling and making marks on papers for the books, and one of my old papers stuck to the gelli plate. I loved the colors but I had to peel it off in pieces. When I started collaging the pieces to my book pages, I started thinking about how it is possible to see and make beauty out of destruction. Which led me to thinking about the destruction that Hurricane Helene left behind in western North Carolina and how it is still being reconstructed and rebuilt and cleaned up. The debris left in Helene’s wake also led to wildfires months later. My book morphed into these feelings about my sorrow and hope for western North Carolina.

    Here’s a slideshow of the pages. I’ve yet to bind the book and I might not do so, since I am happy with the band around the cover.

    On the third day I took a class from Thomas Ashman, hoping to improve my metalworking skills. I had a vision for this book, which in hindsight I should maybe have abandoned. I didn’t do the patinas and torching the covers that the others did, and now I regret it. Anyhow, I may dissemble this and re-do it. It’s wonky, and I’m not completely happy with it.

    The object on the front came from the flea market in Lisbon. When you remove the little pen on the right, it opens up to where a notepad would be. The pages are marbling samples that I made with my friend Susanne, with some noodling around on the backs of them. Those need some more “work.”

    In Lisa Bebi’s “Encaustics for All” class, she pretty much set things up, gave us some demos, and let us go. She brought all the supplies! I was really happy with playing in this class, especially when I found an old photograph of Betty White in the collage materials. Sadly, by the second morning, I found that I was too allergic to the fumes to continue the class and had to drop out. I was disappointed because I’ve wanted to learn encaustics for a long time. I’ll have to do it with a mask on next time, because it should not have been the room, which was HUGE with a high ceiling. Maybe at home on the front porch with fans going would work.

    encaustic collage with photo of young Betty White titled "What Would Saint Betty Do"
    “What Would Saint Betty Do?”
    alligator dragonfly

    I stayed in a cheaper hotel about five minutes away but I found that the traffic made it too dangerous to walk there, so I used Uber every day and it worked out. I made friends who I went to lunch and dinner and had drinks with. I always leave these events feeling like I’ve left my tribe behind, which is why I am friends with so many artists I’ve met at these retreats on Facebook and Instagram. It has enriched my life exponentially.

    The weather was wild on the East Coast on the day that I flew back. I compounded the wait at the airport by going straight there after I checked out of the hotel, because I felt sure that I had lost my eyeglasses there on the way into town. No luck, but they were an old pair and I had already ordered a new prescription, so it wasn’t a big deal since I wasn’t driving. Then our 2 p.m. flight was delayed again and again and again because of ground delays at my connecting airport, Dulles. Then I missed my connection at Dulles but was able to get on a later flight home. When we landed in Greensboro, it was in the middle of an intense thunderstorm and we sat on the tarmac in the plane until 15 minutes after the last lightning within five miles. Sandy was waiting inside. But I got my luggage, yay, and we got home at about 2:30 a.m. We’ve gotta expect this kind of thing with extreme weather caused by climate change already here to stay.

  • Art Catch-Up Post

    I am back to really enjoying weaving again. There’s something about laying in that yarn to fill those spaces – so simple but can be so complex.

    Here’s what the inside of my studio looks like now. Sandy has decided that he is happier painting in his man-cave where he can access photos on his computer, but he still has a space there. I decided that I want to use it for my tapestry studio so I moved a lot of my tapestry stuff back there. I’m using his easel for the frame loom that I am weaving the weather diary on. Once this weather diary project is done, this frame loom is either going to be upcycled or sent to the landfill. It’s done well in its forty plus years but it is tired and the nails are rusty and it doesn’t want to hold tension anymore. I TOTALLY GET THIS.

    ^^^JULY: I’ve kept up with the weather diary so that seems to be a good tapestry diary theme for me that cuts through the depression days. One thing is for sure – there will be weather every day. Above you can see that July was particularly hot, and set a record in this area for the average maximum low temperature at night. HAR stands for Harrisburg, PA, where I attended the Art and Soul Retreat. That will be a separate post.

    ^^^Above is the panel for January through April.

    I had to cut off the May through June panel because the tension became impossible to deal with by the last week of June. I think it was the humidity. Look at all that rain in the middle column! 38 stands for our wedding anniversary, and EL is when I went to Elkin, NC for a tapestry workshop and the Tapestry Weavers South retreat. WAC stands for the ten days we spent at Lake Waccamaw, NC. Whenever I travel, I indicate the weather in that location. It was incredibly hot that week in North Carolina.

    My latest tapestry project (above) is using the leftover warp and some of the yarns that I used in Betty Hilton-Nash’s tapestry vessel workshop in early June. It was from a design exercise she had us do in the workshop. I plan to do some extra surface embellishment – probably attaching found objects or stitching. I’m following my nose on this one.

    Below is what is on the other side of the loom – to be the side(s) of the vessel that I wove in Betty’s workshop. Once I finish up the tapestry above, it will all get cut off and hopefully I will finish the vessel, which I designed from a photo I took in Scotland at Neptune’s Staircase, a historic lock system with eight locks near Fort William that connects the Calendonian Canal with Loch Linnhe. I’m calling it “Loch Lock.”

  • Wednesday evening

    I cannot believe it is Wednesday. Wow. My sense of time is so out of whack.

    I guess it is official now that I really do plan to go to Art and Soul in Harrisburg, PA this July because I bought plane tickets yesterday. Actually, I used miles. My Chase United card sent an email that they are raising my fee next year, so I decided to use up my points and cancel it. I don’t particularly feel safe to fly anywhere right now and had planned to drive, but realized that driving over eight hours one way in an almost 20 year old car probably wasn’t the safest or cheapest way to go.

    Anyway, I had registered months ago for one of Seth Apter’s two day classes because I knew it would fill quickly (it did) and then added a couple more along the way: a copper book class with Thomas Ashman, and a two day encaustics for beginners class with Lisa Bebi. I’ve been curious about encaustics for a long time.

    I booked a room at a cheaper hotel about five minutes away, but I wonder now if it would be cheaper to find a roommate and stay at the venue than to walk or get a Lyft. I just hate to subject anyone to my snoring, which is usually not too bad according to those who have heard it, but right now with my allergies I’ve been waking myself up!

    So that’s on my mind, as well as two retreats I plan to attend at Wildacres in Little Switzerland in the fall. I’ll go to the Tapestry Weavers South retreat and exhibit opening in Elkin in early June, but that’s only a little over an hour’s drive away. I’ll talk about those later.

    Anticipation of these events makes me happy.

    I spent some time in the studio yesterday and re-watched Tara Axford’s online class in Collage Maker’s Summit and made two collages from only discarded cardboard. I like the dimensional quality and the simplicity of these, and will do the rest of the lesson. Not sure if I will paint these or not.

    What I really feel good about, though, is that I worked some more on this collage which I call “aneuch,” because it actually WASN’T “enough,” but I couldn’t figure it out. What did it need? Sometimes it is good to spend time away from a piece.

    “aneuch” before
    “aneuch” after

    It was too clean and orderly before. I’m more of a grungy type. By the way, that wood scrap is a piece of the studio roof I found in the yard.

    The window AC unit has already arrived and man, is it heavy! Sandy and I will wrestle it into that window somehow but I’m glad it is for a ground floor window. I figure that it will be good to have a back-up if our house central AC unit goes out again, because we had two very expensive repairs to it two years apart. Of course the second one came just after the warranty expired on the first repair. We could move this window unit to the house if necessary. It is refurbished but it looks brand new.

    We lived without air conditioning for years until I hit peri-menopause and that was the end of that. I can’t stand the humid heat. But I do use our ceiling fans and other methods of cooling our space when I can. This is one reason I’d have to be desperate to move south of here.

    Okay, hopefully my mood will stay stable enough to keep doing art and posting. Cheers.

  • Tuesday morning coffee pot post

    No April Fool’s today. Nothing could shock me. I would believe anything.

    I can’t seem to deal with updating this website. I don’t want to make anything for sale. I haven’t been doing my stitch meditations for the past week. I don’t feel like starting seeds or planting anything. I don’t care about cooking any more. I have been doing a few other things though, so I’m not a total wipeout.

    The weather temps are beginning to result in blocks of warm colors for the high temperature column in the tapestry diary. Pretty soon the blues in the low temp column will be set aside. Greens are coming in more often for spring, and yellow, appropriately for today, considering the record high pollen count in our already pollen-ous city. I’ve learned that the Weather Underground history is often wrong, so I rely more on my observations for the center column. I am playing chicken with that light gray and gold yarn, although I have yarns in about the same shades to replace them, I’d hoped to use the same ones throughout April.

    Mostly I’ve been working in or on the back studio building. A handy friend of ours came over and fixed the doorknob and the cracked door frame for us, as well as a door knob inside our house. The best thing was that he fixed the thermostat in our fridge that we had spent hours on! That’s a big relief. Now we don’t have to keep a constant vigil over it, and I didn’t lose too much food because I have a working mini-fridge in the back and a small freezer that was empty because I had decided that I didn’t need it any more. Well, I did, and given the way things are I might need it in the future!

    I put up a magnetic screen over the studio patio doors in the back (there’s no patio), and will put up another over the studio front door today. It gets stuffy back there quickly. So I also ordered a refurbished window AC unit off EBay yesterday. I am trying to stay away from Amazon and Paypal, but it is hard because really, the big box stores are just as bad. I’d love to find a hardware store that doesn’t support the regime. If anyone knows of one online, please leave me the info in the comments. I sure do miss the little local hardware store we used to frequent that was just down the street.

    a fuzzy photo of sixteen great white egrets roosting on Cove Canal

    A couple of weeks ago I spent a few days down at Lake Waccamaw. (On the tapestry diary, indicated by what looks like a mirror image of EL, but is actually LW.) My intention was to go to Holden Beach and hunt for fossils, because the weather forecast was great. I put it off a day and then the weather turned windy and rainy so I didn’t make it to the beach. It was good to see my sister and niece, though, and I actually enjoy watching stormy weather at the lake. I’ll get to go to a different beach with some friends for a long weekend in late April.

    ^I had video of the windstorm the next day, but the wind was pushing me so hard that the camera was wobbly. Suffice it to say that there were big breakers and the Spanish moss was flying horizontally and flipping upwards. There were even small waves on the canal. There was a brief sunny time when a huge rainbow stretched over the lake.

    I used the time inside to stitch.

    Reading: I checked out Wendell Berry’s most recent book of short stories from the library. I didn’t realize that he was still writing fiction. This one was “How It Went: 13 Stories of the Port William Membership” and they were all told from Andy Catlett’s remembrances as an old man. Andy Catlett is Berry’s alter-ego. If you love WB’s fiction, it’s for you, but it isn’t an exciting read. It reminded me of some of the old characters from my childhood in rural North Carolina, toward the end of the tobacco subsidy era.

    After that my hold of “Mistborn: The Final Empire” dropped on Libby and that was a complete turnaround. What a fast-paced wild ride! Loved it, although I did find some of the fight sequences to be overly long and repetitive. I immediately put a hold on the second book in the series.

    Still reading “Virgil Wander,” since I put it down to finish my library check-outs. Also checked out “The Killing Moon” on Libby since I realized that there are several N.K. Jemisin books that I have somehow missed.

    I went to my new dentist (sniffle – I told my hygienist and dentist of almost 40 years that they couldn’t retire until after I died, and they disobeyed me!) and he informed me that I needed two crowns, one of which needs to be done sooner than later. Since they are on the same side, I scheduled them both to be done on the same visit. One thing I learned from “Castaway” was that you should not put off dental work. My COBRA dental policy ends this summer and then I will probably go on the state retiree dental policy, which is not as good. So that’s coming up this month.

    Still not watching much TV or movies, but we began watching “Dark Winds.” I read all the Tony Hillerman books way back in the 80s-90s. And I did register for the online Collage Makers Summit, but I haven’t done much of it yet. I am excited about a couple of the instructors, so that is going to spark some art making.

    Well, as usual, when I wait so long to post, there’s a lot to catch up on as far as recording a life journal. I’ll try to do it a little more often this month so I can put some thoughts down instead of just documenting events.

  • Where has the time gone?

    Retirement is so weird. The world is disgustingly surreal. The day is over before I know it. It goes so fast. I was supposed to have so much time on my hands to do ALL THE THINGS.

    Much of it is wasted on computer games and scrolling through social media. I do focus on artists, so it’s not all bad. The dopamine addiction is a problem, but I guess it could be worse. At least I’m not drinking much or overeating. My cholesterol is down 100 points since I went on statins and I’ve lost a few pounds.

    We went to a rally for the first time since the pandemic. Sandy and I aren’t in the physical shape for marches any more. Next time we need to bring chairs. I had a back spasm and had to sit on the ground. Sitting was harder than getting up! I really need to get a chiropractic adjustment but I keep putting it off. I did get a massage this week, though.

    We were considering adopting an older cat as a companion for Pablocito. I think that a lot of his problem is simple boredom. He runs around meowing several times a day. Frida the parakeet also needs a companion since Bernie died, but that is entirely up to Sandy. He plays parakeet videos for her, and sometimes she sings. However, with the chaos going on in our “government,” I’m nervous about taking on the financial responsibility of another cat. Pablocito and Diego cost us over $3000 in vet bills last year.

    Sandy is doing better. He is able to lift his feet better and his shoulder aches but he has been painting a lot and he is very enthusiastic about it.

    One saving grace has been the Hirsch Wellness Center, which supports cancer patients, carers, and survivors with art and wellness classes. I’ve attended three classes in the past few weeks, two with Sandy. We came home with homemade bars of soap from one, painted in another, and I took a tunnel book class from Mary Beth Boone by myself in another. I was very excited about Mary Beth’s class, not only because I admire her work so much, but because I needed someone to show me step by step how the tunnel book functioned. Now I’ve got it and I see so much potential if I can only motivate myself to do it.

    sample of tunnel book with swamp landscape scene
    quick acrylic painting of Diego lounging on the cat tree. I may go back to this.

    I’ve buried myself in reading and stitching. The tapestry diary is still going, but it takes very little time. I’ve woven a little on the Tucson tapestry. The main thing I want to do is sleep, but second to that, I want to stitch these stitch meditations and slow stitch pieces. This is Liz Kettle’s annual challenge for doing her copyrighted “Stitch Meditations” for 100 days. If it wasn’t copyrighted, I would be glad to teach it, but the basics of it are so simple. See her website here: https://www.textileevolution.com/pages/stitch-meditation. Honestly, it is the best thing I have found to calm my mind. I’ve found that doing it in the evening is best, although sometimes that backfires now that spring has arrived and my allergic headaches flare up at the end of the day. Yesterday I spent the afternoon alone in the studio stitching happily, listening to Hearts of Space in the background. Here’s a slideshow of what I’ve done so far.

    Current reading is “Virgil Wander” by Leif Enger. I just finished “Mohawk,” Richard Russo’s first novel. Russo is one of my favorite writers. Before that, I finished “Dawn” by Octavia Butler, which was an extremely bizarre one. I have three books about to drop on Libby, the library app, with one that I’ve had on hold for a long time. Isn’t that the way? I’ll have to put down the physical book and make a choice. It will be nice to read some sci-fi fantasy although I do love character-driven novels and historical fiction. I tried to read the extremely popular follow-up to “Fourth Wing,” which I enjoyed although I found it mildly annoying towards the end, and gave it up early in the second book when I found that I just couldn’t take that immature main character any more.

    “Constitution”

    Still can’t make myself pay attention to video. I dropped “A Paper Year,” Helen Heibert’s online course. It’s not that it wasn’t worth it. After the first month’s lesson, I just was not doing it. I have to save money where I can. The woven paper lantern cover was fun. Then I saw the Collage Makers Summit advertised and it is so tempting, but what happens is I buy these temptations and then can’t bring myself to watch all of them. The number of unfinished online art classes in my computer is crazy.

    “aneuch”

    The depression and fear is very heavy, which is why I have not posted much. It’s been an effort to make myself leave the bedroom. But I do. I have to do it to stave off agoraphobia. I’ve applied for part-time jobs but I wonder if I have the mental health and the physical stamina to work outside the house again. Haven’t heard from my temp remote job – it was this way last year which makes me nervous that they will offer me the same project again, which I hated, or worse, nothing at all. It’s possible with the federal cuts to education.

    But I do have good friends, and we are getting together occasionally. Sandy and I go out to eat, much more often than we should, actually. Things are rolling along, so far, so good, as long as I don’t think about the future.

  • The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

    Overlooking the Altar Valley at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

    We went to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum on Sunday morning to see the raptor release, where the trainers release birds that are being rehabilitated or can’t live in the wild for a time and they fly over the crowd’s heads back and forth. The birds were released one species at a time: a pair of Chihuahuan ravens, a great horned owl, and four Harris hawks. It had a gorgeous botanical garden with winding flat trails and places where you could sit in the shade and lots of water stations.

    Chihuahuan raven in flight
    Harris hawk
    Great horned owl
    Bobcat washing its face
    the Fabulous ZhaK on the way to the labyrinth
    The aviary with its cool dappled shade and stream
    wood duck just chillin’ in the aviary
    teddy bear chula is not cuddly

    Also seen at the museum zoo: an ocelot sunning itself, a hare, and several rattlesnakes. We also saw a caracara “Mexican eagle” flying with its trainer after the public raptor release.

    If you are in the Tucson area, I highly recommend this place. Early in the morning would likely be the best time to go, especially in the hot months.

  • Tucson, Arizona, Jan. 28-Feb. 4

    I flew out of Greensboro to see my friend who lives near Tucson, Arizona on Tuesday, Jan. 28. The idea was that I would take a three day tapestry workshop with Tricia Goldberg on that Wednesday through Friday while my friend, who is a telehealth counselor, worked from home, and then we would have some fun in the evenings and on the weekend together.

    I was so glad that I got a window seat for my flights because the snow that accentuated the fields and ridges and streams and mountains made stunning inspiration for future artwork.

    But, as I talked about in my previous post, things did not go as planned. Although I masked up on my trip there to avoid getting any bugs, it turned out that I was bringing Covid with me. So I missed my workshop. At least I didn’t make anyone there sick, but I feel sure I infected my friend.

    Anyway, when she picked me up from the airport, she took me for a beautiful sunset drive through the lands around the Desert Museum. I had just seen a rainstorm from the air, and I got this shot just before we went home.

    The following two days were rainy and chilly, but I was wrapped up in blankets inside. So the weather worked out, really. We ordered delivery from Guadalajara’s – chicken tortilla soup and a veggie crispy “pizza” that I had no idea what I was ordering but it was great!

    Late Friday afternoon we went out to the San Xavier Del Bac Mission and walked around the outside. It had scaffolding in front so I didn’t take a photo of that.

    We bought Indian tacos from Popoverz, a food truck. The fry bread was delicious, but I found that I’ve become somewhat of a weenie about hot spicy food, which is funny because I used to enjoy it.

    Saturday ZhaK tried to find an outside Indian craft event but it wasn’t there so she drove me around downtown Tucson and then up along the Catalina Highway into the Santa Catalina mountains to Mount Lemmon. It had snowed up there and there were families on the sides of the road pull-outs and parking lots building little snowmen and having snowball fights. The mountains, part of the Coronado National Forest, were full of rock stacks and hoodoos.

    Overlooking Tucson
    me and my buddy
    detail of saguaro
    Thimble Peak

    Sunday was a special treat – ZhaK is a member of the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum, which is mostly outside flat winding trails through the desert. We went to see the raptor release, where the trainers release birds that are being rehabilitated or can’t live in the wild for a time and they fly over the crowd’s heads back and forth. The birds were released one species at a time: a pair of Chihuahuan ravens, a great horned owl, and four Harris hawks. I think I’ll make a separate post for this visit since I have so many photos.

    Later that afternoon we drove to South Tucson where I had to get a Sonoran hot dog, a regional specialty, and a horchata. Basically it was a beef dog wrapped in bacon, with a jalapeno sauce. The restaurant, El Güero Canelo, had a takeout window and a large indoor space with picnic tables and a well-stocked salsa and condiment bar. It received an America’s Classic award from the James Beard Foundation in 2018.

    I was supposed to fly home on Monday, but I changed my flight to Tuesday to a shorter flight and to give me one more day to make it what I think was 10 days since I was exposed. United Airlines, as usual, was terrific about changing my flight and didn’t charge me a change fee.

    On Monday I took out my Mirrix Saffron travel loom and began a little weaving with a stick I had picked up at the top and a pattern based on the many giant saguaro cacti I had seen. That night we ordered delivery from Guadalajara’s again and I had the most delicious pollo en mole!

    I didn’t fly out until Tuesday afternoon, so I spent the morning packing and roaming around the neighborhood and the wash next to ZhaK’s house. The flight home was good and I did make that tight connection in Denver with time to spare, so I was glad that I made the flight change.

    I will have to go back to Tucson sometime to explore the shops, galleries, and Saguaro National Park, and to have some indoor dining experiences. But I have to say, considering the circumstances, it was still an excellent trip, due to my friend.