slowly she turned

Sunday morning coffee pot post

November 7, 2021

I stayed up way too late last night. In my defense, I discovered that you can borrow e-books from Internet Archive for one hour at a time. I’m not talking about just public domain books – library books from all over. Every now and then I shoot them a few dollars as a donation because what they do is incredibly valuable for the planet.

After I blogged yesterday I went to the print studio and played with printing on old book pages on the gelli plate. The best paper was from a 1954 paperback on how to sight read music. After I had starting printing on it, I realized that it was a really good reference for learning (re-learning) to read music, and I regretted tearing it apart a little. It’s astounding how little I retained about reading music from all my younger years of piano and percussion and saxophone lessons, but honestly, I never had a knack for it. Can’t say that I didn’t try, though! I saved a page on identifying the notes on the page and kept on printing. We have an electric piano among the many unused musical instruments in our house that my husband has collected.

I took photos at the end of my session, which wasn’t very long because I had other things to do, such as jumping off the dead battery in the Honda and a trip to Costco, which was kind of a nightmare. I have only been there once during the pandemic, and the number of people who whipped off their masks or wore them under their noses or on their chins was shocking to me. You could see the smirk on the young guy’s face in front of me in line. He had on a t-shirt with an upside down flag declaring his love for God, country, family, and freedom and a cross around his neck. It was more offensive than I am describing. I tried to stay back from him, although the woman with him was masked and friendly. It was crowded. We bought a lot of food for the pantry and the freezer, as we finally worked through the last bit of hoarded food from last year.

They had a good deal on socks so I bought two packs and I’m taking some down to the Interactive Resource Center. Since I have become more frugal than usual these days, although not to the point where I’m shopping at Dollar General or Dollar Tree for food, I’ve been thinking about the needs of women who are really poor. Spartan Pantry is right around the corner and it serves the students and staff of UNCG. (Isn’t it sad that UNCG staff is included in this distribution center? You’d like to think that we would all earn a living wage.) So new underwear, socks, deodorant, baby wipes, menstrual supplies…I’m trying to think of things that people need but they have a hard time finding at donation centers. Sandy and I were talking about how we didn’t know how people made it with rents being so high. Our house payments were less than most people’s rent these days.

Anyway, here are photos of the monoprints I made yesterday. I will keep a couple as is and use the others for backgrounds or collage fodder. I like the “Gospel Pearls” page and a couple more of the music pages. The one that is smaller and looks solid is a page from a 1894 book on agriculture. It was interesting to see how differently it took the paint than the others. It was more fragile, too.

Most of the stencils I used were bought from Mary Beth Shaw at Stencil Girl. Her stencils are high quality and she provides so many free videos on You Tube for instruction and inspiration. She is also a delight, seriously.

I also have a few little collages on hand down there to work on as the inspiration hits. I didn’t like these much so they are works in progress. As some point I plan to use Seth Apter’s embossing powders on them, but since this studio doesn’t have a ventilation system or windows that will open I will bring them back home for that. I think that I’m done with the one on the top right.
Saturday morning coffee pot post

November 6, 2021

This is my second post this morning, and I am just putting off going to the studio until after my coffee and maybe lunch here, maybe a cup of soup at Cafe Europa, which is in the same building. I miss going to the farmers’ market on Saturday mornings, but I crave my relaxed sleeping late Saturday mornings more. Sometimes it seems like this obsession over sleep is taking over my life. This afternoon and/or tomorrow afternoon I think that I’m going to play with monoprinting and stencils on my gelli plate. Just something to get me going that is fun and not intimidating. I’ll try to remember to take photos at the studio.

Work has been dull but the stress has been down. My depression/anxiety has been better. We still haven’t heard about where the university budget cuts will be and the state legislature has not passed a budget yet. The Democrat governor and the GOP legislature are haggling over state employee and teacher raises, which is infuriating considering that we haven’t had a raise in three years and the last one was small. It would be nice, since there is a budget SURPLUS, if they chose a raise that keeps up with inflation instead of tax cuts, but that is unlikely. I honestly would support a strike if that happened. It’s amazing that anyone chooses to be a teacher in North Carolina any more.

I’m pretty disgusted with both major parties, as usual. At least Biden is attempting to do the right thing with vaccination mandates.

It’s funny that I had an ugly comment a while back – which you won’t see because I deleted it immediately because I won’t be insulted or lectured about what I write about on my own blog – that criticized my “love for Biden” and my political rants. Boy, if I wrote even one tenth of the rants that are in my head on this blog nobody from either party would ever read it again! I like Obama’s and Biden’s personalities, and some of their policies, but I left the Democrats during their administration. As for the part about me being a Dudeist priestess: Well, that’s just, like, your opinion, man. LOL

Greensboro lost a friend to many this week with the passing of Brooke Neal. She was a “character” and an artist and lived an incredible life. I knew her mainly on Facebook. We had mutual friends and I last talked to her at our artist group gathering a couple of months ago. Whatever got her worked fast. I didn’t even know she was in hospice. Her final comment to me on Facebook was “Retire.” Her friends said that she seemed at peace with dying.

The way things are going I’ve been thinking a lot more about retiring to Portugal, and our trip to see it in May. As the planning stands now, everything but getting to Boston and back is arranged and mostly paid for. We’d need to pay for train and bus tickets and meals and any tours and admission fees, but that is mostly it, and I can save up for that. The itinerary is Boston-Dublin-Lisbon-Porto-Evora-Tavira-Sevilla-Tavira-Lisbon-Dublin-Boston. (Dublin is just a stopover both ways, and Sevilla, Spain is a side trip for one night.) We have to leave from Boston because my original tickets were Southwest to Boston, then Aer Lingus to Dublin in June, 2020. This trip has gone through several changes since then! Hopefully I can use all the voucher points from my Southwest canceled flights to cover the flight from RDU to Boston and back, but the way they have been canceling flights lately it makes me a bit anxious.

Anyway, the green tomatoes and the peppers and basil have been picked, and winter is coming at last. I can’t say that I’m sorry. Daylight Savings Time ends tomorrow, and I wish that it would never come back. My body never adjusted from the change in spring! Here’s an article about its history and present.
Wildlife week

November 6, 2021

Last Saturday we drove to Elkin where I picked up the beautiful little tapestry by Joan Griffin that I bought in June at the Tapestry Weavers South show. Our neighbors here in Greensboro bought an vacation place in an RV resort about thirty minutes away close to Stone Mountain, so we met them for lunch at Southern on Main, a really great little restaurant, then followed them to see their place. It is an RV park model, so it is firmly in place with a big porch and deck and storage building, very much a tiny house rather than an RV. We were impressed but agreed that we would not like to live quite so far out. They are there about half the time now so they really love it.

On the way back the road was blocked by the biggest rafter of wild turkeys I’ve ever seen, about twenty. (Yes, I looked up the correct name for a group of turkeys. It can also be “flock,” but I like “rafter.”) Once they moved off the road we pulled over and I got a photo. If I had had a gun instead of a camera we could have easily had turkey dinner that night. They were pretty complacent about any potential danger. Later, our neighbor told us that Traphill, the little community we were near, was named for the traps that were set out for wild turkeys.

Then later this week, I awoke to hear what sounded like a little yappy dog running by my bedroom window and into our back yard, but it sounded a bit off and there was no human running around trying to catch it. I did a bit of research and confirmed that it was the bark of a red fox. I would not mind if these foxes took up residence in my back yard at all, although I feel a bit sorry for the rabbits who have almost been tame companions back there all these years. Maybe the foxes will take care of the groundhog population explosion.

Then, one afternoon just before our first frost, as I was crossing the church parking lot on my way home, the pastor was standing there with a couple of people and I saw that he was standing guard over a black racer that was crossing over to the bushes. I hope this snake got hibernated in a cozy hole soon after this. It was so long and elegant.

Last night I heard the hoo-hooing of a barred owl.

You’d never guess that I live in a neighborhood next to downtown Greensboro.
A new studio space!

October 29, 2021

We’re going to Elkin tomorrow for the day, where I’ll pick up the little Joan Griffin tapestry that I bought this summer from the Foothills Art Center gallery there. Our neighbors bought a small resort home near Stone Mountain State Park and they are up there about half the time these days. We are going to meet them for lunch at Southern on Main and maybe check out their place, depending on how we feel tomorrow. It should be a nice day and I’m looking forward to it.

I briefly considered renting studio space at the Chatham Mill Arts Center up on the floor where the Yadkin Valley Fiber Art Center is, but I quickly came to earth because I knew that whatever the perks, I would not drive a little over an hour to Elkin and back often enough to make the expense worth it.

However, since then, a new opportunity only a mile away in downtown Greensboro presented itself, and I took it. Our 50+ Artists Community group had a small get-together at the Piedmont Print Co-op at the Cultural Arts Center, which I did not even know existed. Jim Weaver talked about his printmaking and demonstrated how he prints a monograph with a rolling press there. I asked him about the co-op and how many people were in it, and it was just him! I guess when the pandemic shut the building down, the other members found other places to go.

So I looked up the information about the co-op, and it is only $40 per month to be a member. Hell, it’s worth $10 a week for me to have access to a big work table by itself, but there are other tables, two presses and a station for rolling out ink, a darkroom space (which is being used for storage right now), sinks, and storage for supplies. I signed up right away, and I have been shuttling over a few supplies every day after work. This wasn’t a great week to begin because I have a lot to do, but I got excited. Hopefully I will be able to use the space mostly on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. One other person has signed up this week as well.

I’m not going to use this studio just for printmaking – it is going to be my book arts and collage space and I might bring over the big upcycled shirt blanket I had almost finished before my last studio space was sold. Having a big table to piece the rest of the panels together will help a lot to get it done. I have no place to do that at home, but I can sew it at home. I’ve considered making another t-shirt quilt also, because that was a lot of fun and we have SO MANY t-shirts! Any fabric or fiber projects like that I will be moving back and forth from home, though – I just need to use that big table and display wall for those.

My woodcut and Speedy-cut blocks and carving tools have been moved over there, and I have ideas for my next steps. That’s really important, because lately my mind has not been able to focus in one direction.

We’ll see how this goes. I won’t move all my supplies over there, although Jim has encouraged me to. He doesn’t realize how much I have! If I use it at least once a week, I’ll keep doing it. If not, it’s on a monthly basis and I can stop. It will be nice to divide my studios and have more space in the weaving studio at home. I just have to make sure that I don’t fill it up with more stuff.
Sunday morning coffee pot post

October 17, 2021

^^^Wouldn’t this make an interesting tapestry?

Finally, fall temperatures. We sat on the front porch yesterday morning, barefoot in t-shirts and shorts. This morning is a delicious 51 degrees F.

Last Saturday, Sandy and I went to the West Point on the Eno Park in Durham to take a pinhole camera workshop given by Durham Parks & Recreation. This is something that we plan to keep up and we need to get the supplies and set up a darkroom. Here they are hanging to dry and my best print.

I am afraid of jinxing this, but I will go ahead and say it. My depression has lifted. My hope always is that it will be for good, but let’s just say that I hope it lasts a long long time. It is such a wonder the few times this has happened in my life that I am flabbergasted. This is how normal feels? I like it very much.

My therapist and I think that it could be due to the large amounts of Vitamin D that I started taking every day in mid-August. When I went to the orthopedic clinic for the injured bones in my foot, they put me on 5,000 mg per day, and said that I could stay on that dose with no worries. I had been taking 1,000 mg per day. So if you are struggling and you are already trying other things without success, you might try upping your Vitamin D. I hope that it is this simple for me. She had suggested transcranial magnetic stimulation because my depression was so chronic, but I started feeling so much better right around the time that she suggested it that I never pursued it. I am not quitting my anti-depressant though.

And if I could only sleep when my body needs sleep, my physical and mental health would be much, much better. During the week, I still struggle. On the weekend when I can get up when my body says it’s time, I feel like a champ. This is the main reason I look forward to retirement.

I had the energy last Sunday and yesterday to really go after the mess that we live in. Sandy and I cleaned floors. SO. MUCH. CAT. HAIR. It amazes me that we have a mouse problem. We cleaned up the stack of boxes and old mail meant to be burned next to the woodstove that you got an eyeful of when you stepped in the front door, and burned the mail outside in the fire pit. There is still some work to be done in that area. There is lots of dust and since I have stopped taking anti-histamines and Sandy’s cough is so bad we really have to do better for our health’s sake. This house will be 100 years old next year and it generates its own dirt.

Yesterday, I started seriously deep cleaning the kitchen, beyond washing dishes and wiping counters. I’m getting rid of a few items, and reorganizing some. For example I cleaned my coffee/tea/bar corner thoroughly, washed everything there, reappointed the vintage metal bread bin that I used to keep art supplies in to holding all the teas that we’ve gathered and been given, and filled the wooden shelves that my Daddy made for me with most of our small pottery cup collection instead of the tea. I also cleaned the shelves where the rest of the pottery plates and bowls and glasses and tumblers are. It felt so good to get all this cleaned up. I’m going to tackle the fridge, microwave, other counters, and food shelves today.

Daddy had just taken up woodworking before he got terminally ill with colon cancer. He made this shelf for me to display my glass paperweight collection. If I ever have to choose just a few things to take with me out of this house, this will always be one of them.

Hopefully this energy will transfer over to my art and garden at some point. One thing I regret is that in my cleaning frenzy I forgot to take my weavings to the frame shop.

Sandy and I finished watching The Kominsky Method and we loved it. I stretched it out as long as I could because I’m not a binger. When I enjoy something, I want it to last! Last night we watched Nomadland in absolute awe of its strange beauty and poignancy. I want to read that book now.

Speaking of books, I finished Elantris by Brandon Sanderson this week, and liked it a lot although I found it to be a little too frantic in action. The world and characters he created were fascinating. I plan to check out more of his books. Then I began Broken by Jenny Lawson, which is this great combination of hilarity and high speed nuttiness and anger and serious talk about her mental health and compassion.

My achilles tendinitis is back, so I bought a soft foot splint that I wore to bed last night. It was pretty comfortable, and once I get used to it and stop waking up to wonder what is on my foot it should help. I want to put off getting another steroid shot as long as possible. I learned with my wrist tendinitis that the doctors will only do the steroid shots a few times. The shot that he gave me in my heel did not hurt at all, which surprised me.

I also finally replaced my bras. After going so long hardly wearing a bra at all, it was tough to wear those worn out bras again, but I hate bra shopping almost as much as swimsuit shopping. I ordered them online through Kohls so I wouldn’t have to go in the store, and the shipment circled around between Charlotte and Virginia for over two weeks. Finally the routing was straightened out and I found them at my door early this morning. On a Sunday. Shipping is so weird these days. I also treated myself to a tunic and beret from Gudrun Sjoden and three more basic shirts. I have not bought any new clothing in so long, and I need to get rid of a lot of what I have that is worn out and stained. When you have a rack like mine it tends to catch a lot of drips.

Good news: we finally got our tax refund from 2019. It took a year and a half from the time we mailed it. We will never mail another tax return if we can at all help it. I immediately called the credit union for the payoff on the home equity loan and paid off the solar panels. Most of the refund was the tax credit we had been waiting on. I am totally debt-free at the moment!
Oak Island Weekend

October 12, 2021

It took me a while to get around to this, but Sandy and I spent a much too short weekend at the beach on Oak Island, NC with friends. We ate a lot of great food and played games and made some fine new friends. The house was next to the Intracoastal Waterway on the sound side and the deck facing it was shady and comfortable. I could easily have spent all my time on that deck!

I walked a little on the beach but my foot wasn’t happy about it. That’s okay. Another time.

Later Saturday afternoon, four of us drove to Fort Caswell, which is private now but they let us drive around for twenty minutes. Just down the road is the Oak Island Lighthouse and between it and the ocean was a boardwalk with informational signs about the flora and fauna of the area. Very nice. You can see Bald Head Island behind Sandy in the distance.

We really really really really reaaaaaally hope that we get invited back to this spot with this group.
Sunday morning coffee pot post

October 10, 2021

It’s a beautiful fall morning, at last. Cool, but mild enough to wear a t-shirt and leggings on the front porch. I haven’t done a real coffee pot post in a while from here, because lately I was either elsewhere with other people, getting ready to go elsewhere, coming back from elsewhere, or just sleeping late because I could.

My next door neighbor just turned off his leaf blower, which he seems to have a love for. I plan to sweep the leaves off the sidewalk and rake the others into mulch piles or to take to the compost bin today. I don’t see the need to use electricity or gas for this task, but some people love their gadgets. There’s not a single leaf in his yard. Despite this, I do love these neighbors. I know that they are good people who will help in a heartbeat if they see that someone needs it. We are so lucky to have them!

They are much better than the former out-of-state slumlord next door, who had to have a warning from the city before doing anything to their yard. Now that yard is clean as a whistle and there is a contract pending sticker on a real estate sign there. That house has sold four times in the 20 years since we sold it and it needs a lot of work. I hope that the new owner is a better neighbor than the last, who seemed to think that they could just collect rent without doing anything else.

My yard guy hasn’t been here in a while, and that’s okay. Last weekend he texted me to say that he was coming by Monday but he and his family had had covid. I counted the days since the date he said he had tested positive and then told him to wait since we were at the beach. We were really on the way home, but I didn’t want to fuss at him.

It’s not just the Trumpies who are refusing the vaccination. There are plenty of others who reject vaccines for “natural health” reasons. It’s very frustrating. I don’t know if he is one of these or not but I suspect so.

A lot of people tend to lump the anti-GMO folks and the anti-vaxxers together as anti-science fools, but as you know if you’ve read my blog for a long time, that is a generalization that is too simplistic. I oppose agricultural GMOs for the egregious and cynical power abuses from the corporations who developed them. I also know that these crops are developed to sustain high amounts of herbicides, which weeds adapt to and develop more robust strains of weeds so you need a more powerful herbicide, which the corporation also sells, and so on and so on. Soil microbes are important – we can’t keep killing them with more chemicals to fix problems that we created. We have to have healthy soil and water to survive.

As far as health reasons, I’m not as concerned about the actual genetically modified food technology as I am that the soil and food has been doused in poison. I have a niece who is a biotechnology scientist who is looking for cures to diseases. Biotech is not evil in itself. It’s the way it is used. If someone comes up with a beneficial biotech crop that doesn’t ruin the soil and water, and is freely available to the farmers without legal caveats, then I’m all for it.

Anyway, I am pro-science, just not pro-corporation lust for profit that puts scientific benefits beyond the accessibility of the people.

Technology seems to be a hassle in general, lately. For instance, I had to rewrite part of this post because it just went haywire for some reason. Now I’m being told I am offline when I am not. Facebook closed down for hours earlier this week, and although I am not so addicted to Facebook that it bothered me, I noticed it because I was trying to post an announcement on our work FB page. I turned over the TWS Facebook and Instagram accounts to someone else several months ago, and with the help of her son, she was able to figure out why some things were not working. It is much more complicated than it needs to be. Why? I’m glad to be letting go of some of this, but I have some work tech on the horizon that will fill in the gaps quickly. Retirement looks better to me every day, although I will have to come up with a schedule for most of my days so that I can turn my attention to art making instead of laying in bed reading and playing games.

Speaking of reading, I finished “Back When We Were Grownups” which was a typical Anne Tyler book. Comfort reading, nothing especially new if you have read Anne Tyler. I began “Elantris” by Brandon Sanderson and I’ve had a hard time putting it down. I look forward to reading more by him. Next on the list is “Broken” by Jenny Lawson (The Bloggess), which a friend lent to me. My therapist has suggested that I try transcranial magnetic stimulation, and Jenny has written about her experience. I don’t think that I’m going to do this yet since my depression is in regression right now.

I have other blog posts to write, but it felt good just to write whatever came into my head for a while this morning. Time to do some other stuff!
Lake Waccamaw, September 2021, Part II

October 8, 2021

The moon, the moon!

We saw a bald eagle dive for a fish while we were on the boat.

I finished off the sakiori and washcloths that were warped up on the rigid heddle loom toward the end of that wonderful week, and played tapestry with Rosie, my homemade industrial pipe loom. The sakiori pieces are intended to be book covers. Since we have a serious clothing waste problem on the planet, I’d like to weave more sakiori.
Catching up

October 6, 2021

I’m doing fine – I just haven’t felt like writing. Maybe it’s because I’ve had more time than usual with friends, so I’ve done a LOT of talking, so that’s a good thing, I guess.

I have more photos from the lake from a couple of weeks ago and a whole new post about going to the beach and making some new friends, so I’ll edit those photos and post separate posts.

^^^From Yum Yum, a hot dog and ice cream institution on UNCG’s campus.

We got out a bit and visited a hemp store in downtown Greensboro, where we bought several kinds of Delta 8 and have been sampling them since. It affects us in different ways. I wanted something to help me sleep. Sandy wanted to get high, legally. The edibles have been a disappointment for him – he seems to thoroughly metabolize the gummies and tincture. He bought a couple of big “joints” which do the trick but they are much too harsh on his lungs, which are compromised from his polymyositis. I don’t want to smoke anything at all and these stink up the house just like pot – I HATE THAT SMELL. So that’s out. The edibles make me high and really all I want to do is go to sleep. I will try lower doses. I am amazed that this is legal in North Carolina.

The same night we ate out on the patio at the Bourbon Bowl, with a rare mixed drink for Sandy. The motto “Eat Drink Roll” should have clued me in, but I guess I must have had sushi on my mind. Anyway, it turns out that there are six bowling lanes in the back. Next time I go I will sit at the bar, order a White Russian, and be on the lookout for Sam Elliott.

Food and drinks are so expensive now that even if we didn’t have to worry about getting sick we can’t afford to go out much. We’ve eaten on the patio at Cafe Europa a couple of times.

^^^Our friend William Hicks was playing music at a private party outside a cool shop next door.

Good news about my brother-in-law. His scan last week showed that the chemo is working to greatly reduce his abdominal tumors and the cancer has not spread. The doctors said that this treatment was only effective 15% of the time on this kind of cancer, so we had been braced for bad news.

I came to a firm decision to retire at 62 unless something significant changes. I don’t need a lot to live on, and my financial advisor at work says that it is doable. In anticipation of this, I started putting more into my Roth IRA so that I can both save for this goal and see if I can live on less. I am just too burnt out to continue here much longer. I may get a part time or temp job after I retire. My therapist agrees that it is a good decision. Sandy is talking about moving to Portugal again. We are definitely traveling to Portugal in May – that money is mostly spent.

And Sandy finally closed on selling the condo. He sold it cheap, as is, but at least it is done. He invested the money into his retirement account. I really believe that we will be fine. He also spent a little over $2000 in repairs on the 2007 Volvo. Turned out that it needed some major work, but we agreed that it would be cheaper to do the work than to make car payments, and we really do like the car.
Lake Waccamaw, September, 2021

September 17, 2021

I have been enjoying a very quiet week at the lake with a friend from long ago who reconnected with me pre-pandemic. This is her first time down here and it’s been fun and relaxing. We’ve spent most of our time at the house because we are both super paranoid about, well, you know. We have spent some time outside with my family, and it’s been very good for my head. I took the kayak out for just a little ride.

Usually I stay at the house when friends go to see the state park and what-not, but this time I gave Beck the tour around the lake. We went to the end of the state park on one side where there is an old dam that marks the beginning of the Waccamaw River. This is an area that has been fixed up with a lovely boardwalk and trails. I think that I will come back here when the reptiles are hibernating for the winter and take a walk.

The other end of the state park has a boardwalk from the campground to a pier with a swimming area. There was a couple of families there playing. The water was very shallow and clear, and the skies were big.