slowly she turned

Living the Slow life in North Carolina

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  • Sunday morning coffee pot post

    I can’t upload to Flickr right now and I’ve been worried for a while about the change in ownership of the platform. I have so many photos on it – over 10K – and over the years I have linked here to my photos stored there. I would be wrecked if the platform changed its code or went bankrupt and dumped my photos. Anyway, I’ll just move along and deal with it later, since it is much too beautiful outside to fart around on the computer. I am writing this on the front porch on my laptop, but I will lose power soon.

    One thing that I am trying to be more conscious about these days is my use of plastic. Once you start paying attention, it is stunning how much plastic is in almost everything we use. I don’t have time to avoid it completely. That would require me to commit to buying almost all my food directly from the farmer, and only certain ones at that. I’d almost certainly have to stop buying dairy and meat products. There are some packaged foods that don’t use plastic, but you kind of have to figure it out by buying them and keeping it in your head. Sandy and I decided to start eating vegetarian at home a couple of weeks ago once I cook what’s left in our freezer. However, I don’t think his resolve will last long. He’ll go out and buy something to eat if he doesn’t feel the urge to eat what I’ve cooked.

    I really loved the look of Leslie Marsh’s studio when I went there for a book workshop earlier this summer, and my friend the fabulous Zha K was getting rid of most of her possessions to sell her house and get the hell out of North Carolina, so she gave me a lot of baskets and cigar and wine boxes and candy tins. I’ve slowly been transitioning my studio storage over to these boxes and baskets and, most importantly LABELING THEM, and I’ll give the plastic bins to Goodwill or Salvation Army or wherever. This is mostly an aesthetic feel-good action, but I’ll take my feel-good where I can get it these days.

    My depression has lifted, THANK GOD, and I hope that I won’t see it again for a while. Or forever, but I’m pretty realistic about the fact that it’s probably something that I have to deal with for life. That’s not to say that there has been an absence of stress or sadness in my life, but depression is not about that. I can cope with stress and sadness when I am not depressed. People who have depression will understand this.

    I’m going to work on my tapestry diary this afternoon on the porch. I finally came up with a simple design for June and July that reflected my main focus, although looking at it now makes me realize that I need to reduce the size. Otherwise it will overpower the rest of it. We removed the swing from the porch to make it less crowded. A front porch swing is lovely in concept, but we seldom used it and it divided the space. Now there will be more room for company on the rare occasion that we have more than one visitor.

    The groundhogs are back now that the tree removal is over. I’m still getting plenty of tomatoes, especially the ones inside the wire cages. Figs are ripening on the tree, but the few that have ripened so far have been nabbed by the birds. Reflective tape and all. I’ve been buying bicolor corn from Rudd Farms every weekend, enough to eat some and freeze some. Tomatoes, onions, peppers, and some eggplants have gone in the dehydrator. The squash overtaking the back forty turned out to be tromboncino. I’ve got to start putting markers in the garden. These photos are from a week ago so the tromboncino is in the tomatoes now. I should pick the flowers and try cooking them. I’ve never done it.

    Soon we will hear if our solar panel installation will be approved by the Historic District Commission. I will be surprised if it is not, but usually there is some caveat that is expensive to add. For example, we have wanted to replace our front door for a long time and our certificate of appropriateness for that has expired because we haven’t been able to find a door that fits and satisfies both of us and the city staff that we can afford. So we still have this wretched hollow 50s ranch-style door.

    If and when we get that approval, it will be hooked into the meter so that it should provide all our electricity and we will only have to pay a meter fee to Duke Energy. The cost is not much more that our current electric bill (we pay an average amount monthly on a budget plan). In a few years, if the price goes down for whole house batteries, I’d love to go off-grid totally.

    I finished reading Salvage the Bones this weekend. A very difficult book, but I persevered through the uncomfortable content and was swept up in the story. At one point I did not think I would be able to finish it. I’m glad that I did because it is brilliantly written. I found her afterword about her experiences growing up and her experience going through Katrina to be helpful in my understanding of the culture and why she chose Medea of Greek mythology to be a touchstone throughout the book. It also reminded me a little bit of my childhood growing up in rural N.C. even though my black friends were not so poor, my best friend’s father was an alcoholic that raised his family in a falling down house with junk cars and stray dogs all over the yard. The black family I tried to hang out with (the parents on both sides were not pleased) had a Skeeter, and I was reminded of the disconnect between our cultures.

    This was an accidental photo but I like it anyway.

    Okay, time to cook and freeze corn and weave tapestry on the porch.

  • Planning ahead

    I’ve reached the point in life where everything must be written down or lost, which seems a little bit scary and sad, but when I look back at my blog posts, I think that the ones where I plan are my favorites. I get to think, “hmmm, well THAT didn’t happen,” or “this was perfect planning (pats own back)” or “next time, I’ll add this.”

    The next big trip, because if I don’t get in one trip out west per year these days, I get mighty antsy, will check off three national parks and monuments and two new states for us: Craters of the Moon National Monument in Idaho, Grand Teton National Park, and Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming.

    I’ve been planning this one for almost a year, and most of it has been paid for except a little bit of housing, parking, all the meals, car rental, and gasoline. Originally the tax refund was going to cover it, but we decided that the tree removal shouldn’t wait another hurricane season, and the tornado that hit Greensboro three miles away in April put this issue on my mind.

    We’re doing AirBNB again for the most part, and I used Southwest points for most of the airfare to Salt Lake City and back to Raleigh/Durham. I was a little surprised at how much the airfare was, but I tweaked it best I could. I probably missed my calling as a travel agent, because planning a vacation is one of those things I really enjoy. I’m already looking at options for the big trip next year.

    Because I started early, I found a relatively inexpensive room at Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel in Yellowstone for three nights. We have to go outside for the bathroom, but the room is nice. Before that, we found a super cheap AirBNB room in Twin Falls, Idaho for the first night – the nearest affordable place to Craters of the Moon, which is REALLY in the middle of nowhere. Craters of the Moon will be a short stop on our way to Driggs, Idaho, the closest town we could afford to Grand Teton National Park. That AirBNB room is in a former assisted living home, and it has a bathroom but the showers are on the hall. It seems nice from the reviews and the photos. It’s about an hour’s drive from Jackson.

    There is a large wildfire near Craters of the Moon, so I might change this plan if the smoke is too bad. There’s no point in going if we can’t see, but it would be rather fitting if we couldn’t breathe the air at Craters of the Moon, eh?

    We’ve made a reservation for whitewater rafting on the Snake River in Grand Teton. This time of year it should only be class II and III, and it’s a big raft so I can sit in the middle and ride. I love paddling, but my left elbow does not. We’ll rent wetsuits since it should be chilly but that is not expensive.

    We won’t be doing much hiking, given our physical shape. Honestly, I’d be better off hiking than sitting in the car so much – that is what really makes me miserable. But we’ll stop at least every hour or so to let me walk around a bit.

    My friend Judy is meeting us at Yellowstone and I am so looking forward to seeing her again. We had hoped that she might visit in North Carolina but it didn’t work out this year. Judy is one of the many friends I have made through attending art retreats, and the closest of those. We met at Journalfest in 2009 and have met up again at Focus on Book Arts a couple of times since then. She is an avid backpacker and one hell of a book artist.

    Usually I visit my aunt and cousin near Denver in September, and I couldn’t work out the budget to visit on the way or back because I had to be frugal with the airfare. I’m going to try to go out there for a long weekend sometime in the next six months. I miss my aunt and cousin. They are close to my heart. It’s wonderful that I can get a direct flight to Denver from Greensboro fairly cheap, as long as I plan it for certain days.

    Anyway, I’ve managed to figure out a fairly cheap way to travel by practice and the magic of the Internet the last few years. I use my Southwest card for everything to get the points. Southwest is my favorite bargain airline partly because you don’t have to pay extra for a small amount of baggage, and we travel light. There are a lot of things that add up behind the curtain when you shop for cheap airfare. Another is that once you set your schedule, they don’t monkey around with it; at least they haven’t in my case. When I’ve had to cancel, they gave me credit to use for the next year. I volunteered to get bumped once, and I got an $800 voucher! Even the gate agent couldn’t believe it and had to check on it with several people. I am not affiliated with Southwest in any way, by the way. They have earned my business.

    After we come back, I’m going to Stamford, Connecticut for a long weekend over fall break to take a workshop from Sharon Payne Bolton, one of my favorite teachers, at the Art-is-You retreat, which is one of my favorite art retreats. I have never been to Connecticut either, so I’ll mark off another state. I found a roommate through the Facebook group and we are taking the same class and seem to be totally compatible. I have made so many friends through art retreats and Facebook. It’s one reason I’ll probably never give up Facebook. Unfortunately I’m flying American on this trip, but it was cheaper to fly to White Plains airport than to take Amtrak or fly to LaGuardia or JFK or Newark and take the train, which surprised me. They have already changed my schedule once, grrrr. I don’t like American Airlines, however, I am on a budget. Honestly, I shouldn’t be doing this at all from a money standpoint.

    Then in November we are going back to Topsail Beach for another wonderful book arts workshop with Leslie Marsh and Kim Beller! Another 3 day weekend, this time in off-season in an oceanfront hotel, the Jolly Roger. Susanne, Joseph and I are taking the workshop and Sandy will just hang out like a beach bum while we are there. It will be his birthday present. Often November’s weather is still nice at the beach here.

    I’ll add links later. It’s time to go do something else. Expect lots of travel posts this fall.

  • It was a tall silver maple

    with a double trunk. It was huge when we bought the house in 2001. It provided lots of shade for two houses, and homes and food for squirrels and birds. The squirrels loved munching on the maple seeds; I found the husks of the seedless “helicopters” everywhere. Now it is gone for safety reasons. It was too close to our house and the house next door, and it was showing signs of decay. Now the Back Forty’s ecosystem is changed, because there is an enormous amount of light that could not get through before. We have enough firewood for the wood stove for a few years, depending on how cold it gets. The trick will be getting it split.

    I tend to fall in love with trees. For some reason, I did not fall in love with this one. Still, I am a little sad to see its life ended. It wasn’t the prettiest tree on the block, but it had inner beauty. Thank you, silver maple tree.

  • Back Forty Update

    Lots of flowers are growing in this new hugelkultur bed in the front at the end of my driveway, along with lots of volunteer “mouse melons,” tiny watermelon-like fruits that taste like cucumbers. I’m using them as a ground cover – did not plant them. I believe that is a Juliet tomato there that I didn’t have room for anywhere else so I just popped it in there. It might be a Roma. There’s not any fertilizer in this bed. There is mint and parsley and feverfew and calendula. I’ve pulled out the ageratum in this photo. For next year’s bloom there is hollyhock and evening primrose, and the garden balsam blooming now which should reseed freely.

    So many cherry tomatoes! And a few Roma tomatoes, although quite a few have blossom end rot despite me putting Epsom salts in the planting holes. Maybe I forgot on that particular one. We have had so much rain and it has been muggy hot, so the new garden bed in the back is lush. I gather tomatoes every day and I try to pick them just as they start to ripen to keep them from splitting, and so that they don’t tempt hungry birds and critters. The ground cherries don’t make it indoors. I eat them on the spot.

    ^^^Ageratum grows everywhere, and I like to keep some to bloom for the bees in the fall, but it’s one of those plants that is selfish and wants all the land for itself. Now that I’ve pulled out most of the ageratum, this bed is devoted to herbs this year. There are three kinds of basil, mint, feverfew, tarragon, borage, and parsley (which was overwhelmed by the ageratum and did not grow well this year). In between there are a couple of dozen foxglove seedlings that volunteered from last year, and a few rudbeckia that survived the groundhog attack by hiding in the ageratum. The celery and kale did not survive the critter attack. The motion sensor spraying device there is out of business, and didn’t work except on humans. There are a few lamb’s quarters left in there that I eat for greens. Next spring this bed will look awesome with foxglove flowers and the bees will love it. Herbs will be shifted somewhere else next year.


    ^^^If I get any candy roaster squash from these vines (I see the harbinger of doom in the back of the photo) they will be huge, like pumpkins but oblong. Right now they seem hellbent on Back Forty domination. No squash in sight so far, just flowers.


    ^^^Butterbean Survivor – there are a few bean vines that survived the groundhog feast, and some of the damaged ones are trying to play catch-up. I’m picking beans now, but only enough to add to other dishes.

    ^^^”Rudbeckia Survivor – The groundhogs think that these flowers are very tasty so I’m proud of this tough little survivor that made it to full bloom.

  • Saturday midday coffee pot post

    Normally I don’t drink coffee past noon, because of my sleep issues. Today I am breaking that rule. I’ve got a spurt of energy going for me today and I don’t want to lose it!

    The tree removal has been moved to Monday. He started on Thursday, and stopped after taking down one big lower limb and the bottom of the sky fell out. I mean flash flood warning heavy rain. I watched from the back door and the white clouded sky behind the limb was like a flash of light as it fell to the ground. I can already tell that these two guys are gonna be good at this, which is a very tricky job. A double trunk, about 80-100 feet tall as I estimate, covered high up in wild grapevine attached to other trees, and way too close to two houses. It’s not a good idea to climb trees with a chainsaw when everything is wet and slippery.

    One secondary benefit, because we did not have this in mind when we decided to take down the tree, is that we have a perfect roof for solar panels. The quote we got from NC Solar Now impressed us. We will have to tie in to the power grid through Duke Energy’s meter and pay a meter charge, but in the optimistic view that big storage batteries might get cheaper and we will still have a reliable operating national power grid, it will be a few years before we can think about going off-grid. It’s probably a good idea to try this first anyway. They think that because our power usage is pretty low, twelve panels could cover most or all of our electric needs.

    This is one way I can help make the world a little better, and it makes me feel better too. Although I strongly feel that it is too late for us to turn around the tidal wave of climate change – of course it is already here – I believe that we need to do what we can to adapt to the new reality.

    It is a good day today. It’s not raining at the moment, which I’m grateful for, and even though I had an awful recurring dream in which I have somehow married an old boyfriend who stalked me for years and I am bewildered and horrified as to how I got into such a predicament, such dreams do make me grateful for the opportunities I have had in my life and the choices I’ve been able to make. I often wonder how things might have worked out if I had made different decisions at key times in my life. So many times I didn’t know it would be a major fork in the road. For example, what if I had chosen UNC Chapel Hill instead of UNC Greensboro? My life now would be entirely different. What if I had not dated another old boyfriend here in Greensboro? I would not have met Sandy, my husband. What if I had not gone to Oregon to take a tapestry workshop with Pam Patrie? I would not have the wonderful friends and connections in the tapestry world that I have now.

    Then sometimes I think that what I thought were important decisions really weren’t. For instance, I don’t think that my degree in Studio Art is worth all that much, although that is where I first learned to weave and do woodcuts. I’ve learned much more going out into the world beyond Greensboro and taking classes.

    What if I had decided to head out west or emigrate to another country? Who knows how completely different, for better or worse, my life would be?

    It’s too late to emigrate to Ireland. I’ve had to accept that. You have to have an income of $55,000 individually or $110,000 as a couple combined. We will never make that much money. Canada doesn’t want retirees at all. There’s not even that option to check on the application. I don’t want to move south. We’ll check out Portugal next year, but I’m realizing that nothing is a given in this world – we can’t know that any place in it will be better than here by the time we are ready to go.

    These days, I am looking at aging in place. I still hope to move west to Washington or Oregon, but that will be a while. I am not willing to give up a good job that is secure for now before I get to age 62, and I might have to wait until 67.

    In the meantime, our house value is going up, up, up. The house next door sold immediately for an insane amount of money. The new neighbors are currently in Bangkok, where one is teaching at American University. They plan to move in in November, and have arranged for Armando, a young man who worked for them for several years, to take care of the yard. I might employ Armando myself. He thinks very highly of our new neighbors. It all seems good.

    Today, it is still humid and the mosquitoes unfortunately did not drown in the deluge. The temperature is still below 90 so we have the doors open and the fans on. I have been to the Greensboro Farmer’s Curb Market and bought peaches, corn, eggplant, yellow squash, potatoes, and sweet peppers. We have lots of cherry tomatoes and some Roma and Better Boy tomatoes ripening in the back, although the groundhogs have eaten a few that are not protected by wire cages. They don’t bother the ground cherries or herbs, so I have those. The candy roaster squashes are taking over the back – if they bear fruit and the groundhogs don’t eat them, they will be huge and a nice source of food for this winter. Not all the butterbean plants were eaten and a few that were damaged are playing catch up. I’ll have a few but probably never enough for two servings or freezing. The few I’ve shelled have gone into soup.

    I’m about to slice and dice and fire up the dehydrator, maybe blanch a few veggies for the freezer.

    I’m toughening up. I’m thickening my skin. I’m getting ready. I’m also being kind to myself when I need downtime.

    Halfway through Bella Poldark, the last of the book series. I will be sad to see it end. Then I will catch up on the TV series. I canceled Sling when the price went up this month, which included HBO. I will miss AMC but I’ll figure that out. That, along with the 2% raise I’m getting, will pay for the solar panels.

    Only one photo this time – my new steampunk loom, Rosie, which I need to warp up once I catch up on my Fringeless online class.

  • Sunday morning coffee pot post

    We’ve been home from the lake a week now, and it was a good time. I finished my stitchery for the Gardens of the Heart project at last. We ate a lot of good food and enjoyed good company. I ate at Dale’s three times!


    It was fun sitting on the pier and watching this heavy rain storm come through. Most of the time it was perfect weather. It was a bit humid but stayed in the 70s/80s. We turned off the air conditioning for most of the week.

    Yesterday I bought the pieces and joints for my new pipe loom. It will add a steampunk flair to the studio. Putting it together is the next thing on my agenda for today.

    We went to Ed McKays used book store and I don’t know what happened there but it was a very good thing. Lots of new old books, some that I would have grabbed in hardback if I was still collecting certain authors. Prices were lower…the bargain shelves had much lower prices for better selection of books. We bought a copy of The Passionate Vegetarian by Crescent Dragonwagon for $1.50, now the biggest cookbook on my shelf. HUGE, and don’t you love her name! Also two prequels to the Mists of Avalon, a quarter each. And The Painted Drum by Louise Erdrich. Yes, I know I swore off buying books this year. Some others will go to the little free library to make room.

    Finished Four Souls and found that it wasn’t depressing as I feared it might be. It was actually very funny in parts. I don’t think I’ve ever not enjoyed a book by Louise Erdrich.

    When we finished errands yesterday I sat down with my t-shirt scraps and worked on the t-shirt blanket. Or I should really say played, because I got into it so much that I lost all track of time and didn’t want to stop! I finished putting together one of the panels for the back side – it will be reversible, but I think of this as the back side. And played with sewing all these little scraps together. So much fun, and I made myself throw away the teeniest scraps instead of hoarding them for paper or whatever. There was a while when my intention was to use up every bit of everything. Nice concept, crappy reality in a small house. I don’t think that I will put a batten between the two layers. I’m going to just sew the layers together in a grid.


    Groundhogs have started eating the tomatoes, even the plants, that are not in cages. Okra is gone. I’m amazed that they haven’t gone after the ground cherries or the huge candy roaster squash vines, but I probably shouldn’t have written that. Tempting fate. I still have lots of cherry tomatoes and the Roma tomatoes under the wire cages. The fig bush is loaded with fruit. With all the rain, everything looks lush but the skeeters have come out.

    The silver maple is scheduled to come down this Friday. Mixed feelings. I love trees, but not necessarily this one. There will be more sun for gardening and for solar panels. It will be safer and a good thing, eventually.

  • Raining at the Lake


    I love rain at the lake. There are two old gliders on the screened porch and the sound of the water dripping off the eaves is heavenly.

    Today we have a few friends coming to visit. This will be their first time here, and I wanted to show it to them in case it ends up being sold.

    Weezer has changed very little about this house since my cousin Fred died. She added central AC and heat and new mattresses, but all the old furniture is here and the odd mix of prints, paintings, and funny signs are still in their places. Fred wouldn’t tolerate even a bar stool moved out of place so I’m glad in a way that she honors him this way. I did move a stool and looked skyward and promised him that I’d move it back.

    We’ve done little since Monday. My family came in and we’ve enjoyed hanging out with them. On Monday afternoon my brother visited and then my sister came back from Chapel Hill with a surprise…my niece Brooke! We sat in the lake in folding chairs and drank beer and mostly talked about retirement plans. Politics was mentioned only as he was leaving so we dodged that bullet. My brother is a Trumpie.

    On Wednesday we drove to Wilmington and ate lunch at Indochine. Totally worth the drive. We stopped briefly at Trader Joe’s so now I know where that is. Still need to find the local co-op so that I can support them. Unfortunately Big W in Whiteville was closed yesterday, so the pasture raised pork brats are not an option. I hope it is not closed for good. I know he could not have been making much profit on selling that quality at competitive prices.

    Yesterday Lisa and Brooke and I played Sequence. I really love these kind of strategy games so I may have to buy it for myself.

    I finished my re-read of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and a new book, Girl Waits With Gun, by Amy Stewart. I look forward to reading more in this series. Now I am tackling Four Souls by Louise Erdrich but I’m not sure it’s a good book for the lake. I need something that is not depressing right now.

    Not getting any artwork done, other than the slow finish of this project for India Flint’s collaborative “Gardens of the Heart” project.

    Sleep has still been elusive and this is becoming a serious problem so I will need to search for other solutions when I get back.

  • Monday at the Lake

    Yesterday we snoozed and read and stitched and drew and drank adult beverages and sat on the beach and sat in the water and ate corn on the cob and watched Poldark and the mystery after it and got a good night’s sleep.

    Every time I come here I find more photographs, even when I think that I have exhausted all the photographic potential after literally hundreds of photographs over many years.

    My eyes focused on small things on the beach. What made these tunnels? What made these tracks? I haven’t seen a single anole yet, which is disturbing.

    I sat directly on the sand and watched the ants scurrying around. There are still several different kinds of ants here and as far as I can tell they live at peace with each other.

    One large black ant was carrying an insect wing a little larger than he was. He would circle around and around with it over a pile of driftwood and bald cypress needles and other flotsam. Whenever he left the pile to walk across the bare sand he scrabbled about with his legs and it seemed that he couldn’t get a firm foothold, so he returned to the pile. I noticed that the other ants who were not carrying a load had no problem walking on the sand. He wouldn’t let go of his burden and he couldn’t get where he wanted to go while he was carrying it.

    Take what you will from that. I found it interesting.

    If there are duplications or mistakes in this post, the corrections will have to wait. My connection is wobbly.

  • Another Week at the Lake

    Of course, I mean Lake Waccamaw. I might not be here now. This could have been written one week ago and scheduled to post this week. Ya never know with me. I like monkeying around with dates and times. Wish I could do that on Facebook!

    We rolled in mid afternoon yesterday. I meant to leave earlier but I’m having serious insomnia problems. Hopefully that will be corrected down here but not yet. At least I will be able to take a nap whenever I need it.

    Today will be a quiet day. I brought down projects. I’m missing some key components, though, so I’m happy I brought more than one. Dyepots, indigo kit, madder, cochineal, watercolor paper, iron, little loom, alchemist’s apron, pockets and trinkets, check.

    Reading: “Girl Waits With Gun” by Amy Stewart. A historical female crime fightin’ novel from an author that I began following online a long time ago. I love books set in the early 20th century and this one hooked me from the first page.

    Next on deck: “Four Souls” by Louise Erdrich, another favorite writer.

    Finishing up: “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.” I think that I will put a folding chair in the water and read this one. I always bring one small paperback that I’m willing to sacrifice to the Wave Goddess if she demands it. This has been a deeply satisfying re-read.

    “A person filled with gumption doesn’t sit around dissipating and stewing about things. He’s at the front of the train of his own awareness, watching to see what’s up the track and meeting it when it comes. That’s gumption.”

    Love it.

    Family rolling in tomorrow and maybe today. A few friends dropping in later this week. One of them is only a week out from a family tragedy so I hope this place will be healing for her too.

    The house has air conditioning now but we turned it off and opened the windows. So far the weather forecast is great, but we know by experience that the lake creates its own weather.

    My old Kindle is not playing nice with Flickr right now so more photos will be added later.

    More tomorrow. Or was it last week? Ah, a mystery!

  • Saturday morning coffee pot post

    It is technically still morning. I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do this morning. The cool breeze on the front porch is delightful and it is so nice to share that space with my cats. Pablocito has taken to sleeping on the swing since Diego has won the battle of territory over the cat tower. I set up a table with a cushion next to the cat tower and Diego has claimed that too. It is odd that Pablocito rules the cat food bowls but Diego is Top Cat in all other things. Anyway, I’ve been re-reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and I made another pot of coffee.


    Mr. Wiggleworm wouldn’t hold still.

    I managed to make even more room in the studio this week, and several of my plastic containers are heading to Reconsidered Goods or Goodwill, thanks to a gift from ZhaK of several cigar boxes and tins and candy boxes and a basket. I tackled the dreaded top drawer of my mother’s dresser which I have been filling with whatnot on top of her stuff, and as most objects of dread are, it was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. After four years I think I am coming to some peace about my mother’s passing.

    Fringeless, the online class by Rebecca Mezoff and Sarah Swett, begins on July 9. I took apart my copper pipe loom with the idea that I’d use the pipes for dyeing, and then realized that I would need it for this class. This is the pipe loom that I had the problem of it torqueing under tension. I glued the joints back together with super glue, except for the connection with the feet, which I want to be able to remove or adjust, and I hope this will help the torqueing problem, otherwise I will be be looking for someone who will solder it for me.


    My mind is calming down. I’ve been able to sleep better. Thinking about aging in place more as I’ve realized how difficult it would be to emigrate somewhere that is not hot and humid. We still plan to visit Portugal and Spain next year. I will try to talk Sandy into limiting it to Portugal. I’ve learned that the temptation to do more often leads to me feeling frustrated and exhausted. Sandy has always “had eyes bigger than his stomach” in most things, and while it is easy for him to convince me to go wider (who doesn’t want more of a good thing?), I am more of the opinion that it is better to go deeper.

    The silver maple tree was supposed to be in the process of coming down today, but we had a miscommunication with the arborist, so it has been rescheduled to August 2. That was probably a good thing since a big storm came through yesterday and blew a lot of my tomato cages over. I will need to go out and stake them today. The high is only supposed to get up to 77 degrees today! So nice after days of 90 plus and humid, and we get to give our AC and fan motors a break.

    I can’t decide what to do next in the studio. My hands are hurting from too much mouse use at work and game playing and book holding so I think that I might get the sewing machine out, see if it forgives me after the accordion book project. If not, maybe it’s time to open up my mother’s Singer cabinet. I will head down to Lake Waccamaw for a spell later and that will be a great place to hand stitch and dye, if I am good to my hands now.

    Okay, that’s enough. The church bells are playing hymns (ARGHHHHHHHHHH) and so I know that it is noon. I also know that the name of the song is “The Church’s One Foundation” and I see and hear the inside of Bear Swamp Baptist Church, my mother and father next to me in the pew. This might seem comforting to others. I hope that one day it might be that way for me, because I do not foresee us moving from here nor do I foresee the church stopping its twice daily hymn playing.

    But the day is beautiful, the flowers in the hugelkultur bed are beginning to bloom, and the garden is calling. This is a good place. I am lucky to live here.