slowly she turned

Yearly Wrap-Up, 2023

December 31, 2023

I decided to write my yearly wrap-up here and copy it to Substack, since it’s part of a set, so to speak. I didn’t write nearly as much on the blog last year – much of what was in my head was related to grief and writing on that subject doesn’t come easily to me. I grieved for my brother-in-law brother in my heart Tim all year long and I haven’t finished grieving yet. He was not just a relative; he was one of our dearest closest friends. On top of that I worried about my sister and her grief and her loneliness and her trauma, which looked to be overwhelming. She is healing now. Then my own life transition loomed ahead of me suddenly.

It was a tough year, but it had its good times.

In January, Sandy had half of his thyroid removed. At the time the docs said it was not cancerous, and then later said, oopsy, it is, but it ain’t that bad so let’s look at it again at this time next year! He’s had a year in which he has been forced to take meds at the same time every day, which he’s never really done, so that’s been a transition for him.

I delivered my tapestries to the Folk Art Center near Asheville in early January and I did an online stitching class and enjoyed some random slow stitching for the next six months. To my shock, one of my tapestries sold even though I had put a high price on it because I didn’t really want to sell it! It was titled “A Place You’ve Never Been” and was woven from naturally dyed silk thread. It now resides in California somewhere, I guess.

I turned 62 in February and Sandy threw me a small surprise party at our latest place to go for celebrations, Elm St. Grill. I was happy to turn 62 because it meant that if something happened to my job, I could apply for early Social Security if I needed it. Dunt dunt DUNNNNN.

In March, I went to the reception for the tapestry show with my sister and we enjoyed a little bit of shopping and eating out in Asheville. I bought a graphic art program and came up with some tapestry designs using my photos and different filters. At the time I was so excited and inspired! Just looking at this post (https://slowturnstudio.wordpress.com/2023/03/05/sunday-morning-coffee-pot-post-80/) makes me want to quit writing and warp up one of the other looms for the water tapestries. At the end of March, Lisa held a memorial party for Tim at the lake.

We did our usual Easter at Lake Waccamaw in April and some of our friends joined us. It was a rainy weekend but we had a good time and when it was great weather we went to Cape Fear Winery and Distillery. I started doing collage with old book covers and parts again.

May is traditionally our big trip month. I didn’t have the money to carry forth my plan to go to Scotland but we did have the airline miles and budget to go to Mexico, so we flew to Queretaro and then stayed in San Miguel de Allende for a week. https://slowturnstudio.wordpress.com/category/mexico/ It was our 36th wedding anniversary. I learned a big lesson from our trip to Portugal in 2022 and made sure that we had plenty of time for rest and we called Ubers to take us uphill.

Here I made the acquaintance of Jorge the Beautiful Mexican Beetle, who I later based a couple of small tapestry designs on when I went to the Tapestry Weavers South retreat and the Birds, Bugs, and Butterflies workshop led by Mary Jane Lord https://slowturnstudio.wordpress.com/2023/06/04/birds-bugs-and-butterflies/ in early June at the Yadkin Valley Fiber Center in Elkin, NC.

We spent another week at Lake Waccamaw in mid June where the weather was rainy but produced some awesome rainbows.

July was a crazy month. I finished the Jorge tapestries and started “Sissy and Rascal Share the Sunbeam.” Sandy had a stroke! I took him to the ER just in time and he got that clot busting injection and made a full recovery. I went to a transformative week long workshop with Bryant Holsenbeck, an environmental fiber artist who I’ve wanted to study with for years, at John C. Campbell Folk School.

August was full of doctor appointments and hopeful garden plantings and fig picking and the beginning of a new semester at work. I told my supervisor that I was feeling so much better because they had been so kind in working with me to recover from my depression and anxiety that I thought I’d try to stick it out for a couple more years. Dunt dunt DUNNNNN.

In mid September came another really lovely retreat, this time with Edwina Bringle, that fabulous artist who has taught so many artists to weave. This was a true retreat at a mountaintop venue called Wildacres near Little Switzerland. She gathered a group of fiber artists of all persuasions and we all did our thing together – weaving tapestry, weaving on floor looms, spinning, crocheting, knitting, needle felting, embroidery.

When I returned to work that Monday, I received a call from the budget director in our college first thing that morning. The powers that be decided to move my position to a revolving door job in another department that was mainly a finance and budget job, but without the upgrade in salary. After trying to negotiate a time frame of June 30, 2024 for the shift, the compromise was Jan. 1, 2024. So first, I submitted an FMLA request for my panic disorder, and then I began my retirement application.

October: a trip to Oak Island with one of my oldest friends during Halloween. Students are marching and rallying about the budget cut process (“academic program review”) at UNCG. Note the sign in the middle, which made me cry. Faculty begin organizing in earnest.

November: a wonderful weekend workshop in Wilmington with a tiny metal cover book on a beaded chain necklace by one of my favorite teachers, Leslie Marsh. Close enough that I spent the weekend with my sister, but stayed overnight in a Wilmington hotel because the weather was so nasty. I never posted about it but here’s some photos. I entered three collages in a local artist show.

December: full of retirement celebrations and lunches. My GOODNESS. What a lot of love and appreciation I was shown. Then Sandy and I went to Lake Waccamaw for a family Christmas on Dec. 27, in which we had a very good time. https://slowlysheturned.substack.com/p/ho-ho-ho

And beginning tomorrow, I will get what I wished for on this blog for years – an early retirement. Sort of a “careful what you wish for” djinni lesson, but I think it will be okay.

Once again, the problem with embedding links. So from now on, if you’d like to follow my personal journal blog posts, follow me here: https://slowlysheturned.substack.com/

Happy 2024 to you all!
Sunday update – Substack

December 3, 2023

I’m beginning the transition to Substack for my blog posts, so if you are interested in my personal life, read or subscribe to my newsletter there at https://slowlysheturned.substack.com/.

Mainly these will be my more personal journal entries, as I work over the next few months to make this site a more professional artist site.

Archives of the blog will remain here, and I may occasionally write an art related post.

We’ll see how it goes.
Saturday morning coffee pot post

December 2, 2023

Almost got sucked down the social media rabbit hole again this morning. I’ve been trying to spend a lot less time on Facebook, but Threads is my major distraction these days. I highly recommend it as an alternative to Xitter, and it is increasingly populated by the major journalists and personalities that have abandoned that ruin of a platform.

My coffee pot takes longer to finish these days because since I am going to be home during the mornings in 2024 (so I gather at this point), I bought a larger one. Sandy likes to have a cup and I need at least two large mugfuls so now I can have three when I want to without brewing another pot. I haven’t graduated to a Keurig. It’s not that I don’t like them, but they do generate a lot of plastic waste and getting a non-disposable filter cup and filling it each time seems like a bit of a bother. I used to drink Maxwell House instant coffee all day long in my younger days and then my sister and brother-in-law spoiled me with freshly ground coffee beans and now I’m a bit of a coffee snob. I buy fair trade coffee beans and grind them every other morning or so. Equal Exchange is my brand for coffee and hot cocoa mix, which I put in the bottom of my cup before I pour my coffee. I get it at Deep Roots Market.

Speaking of Deep Roots, I need to send them a resume and application. It would be nice to have a part time job at a place that I care about. Years ago I volunteered there when they still allowed co-op owners to do so, and I loved to stock shelves and prepare bulk foods in smaller packages in the back. I think I would be happy on the front end too.

I sent Scuppernong Books a resume and cover letter about a month ago but never heard anything. I figure that if they didn’t need me for the Christmas season, they sure won’t need me in January. I checked Measurement Inc.’s website and they haven’t opened the application for remote temporary reader/evaluators yet. I had worked temp jobs for them twenty years ago. I would be a good editor/proofreader so maybe I’ll look for something like that.

Searching for job at age 62 with disabilities in January is not going to be a picnic. I’m not planning to count on it and will go ahead and apply for early Social Security around March or April. Because of my bone spur, I can’t stay on my feet all day and that is a challenge.

I applied for a scholarship at John C. Campbell Folk School in November and I have my fingers crossed that I’ll be able to get that. It would be lovely to be able to take a class in Spring and it would help keep my spirits up. I missed the scholarship application deadline for Penland and I don’t really know what my schedule might be like later in the year.

There are so many unknowns in my future and for an INTJ personality, this is difficult. We are the careful planners – the ones that have plans B, C, D, E, F, etc. My anxiety has been high and I’ve coped by cocooning in my bedroom with reading and games on my Kindle, which is not mentally healthy for a recovering agoraphobic. Even this morning, with fun activities planned for the rest of the day, I dread walking out the door. I’ve had several anxiety attacks in the past two weeks and they did not reach the level of panic, but the way of it is that I begin getting anxious about the anxiety and it starts to feed on itself.

I can say with certainty that the people that I work with in my department, staff, students, and faculty, have made me feel totally appreciated and loved. My retirement party is next week, and they gathered letters, notes, and emails from present and past faculty and students and the students presented me with a notebook of them on Thursday afternoon at Oden Brewery. And this is not the first or second thing that the students have done for me that has made me weepy with gratitude since it was announced that I would be leaving at the end of this year.

(For people who missed it, my position was cut and I was being moved to another department to a budget job that has been a revolving door, so I used the only power that remained to me by choosing to retire instead.)

Okay, reading. I have been entranced with Patrick Rothfuss’ fantasy adventure saga about Kvothe. I checked them out on Libby, and tore through the first one, “The Name of the Wind,” and I’m now halfway through “The Wise Man’s Fear.” I always have a print book that I’m reading at the same time so I have something to read close to bedtime and occasionally on sleepless nights. Right now that’s “The Wheel of Fortune” by Susan Howatch, an old brick of a paperback I found in a Little Free Library that’s falling apart. At first, I didn’t think that I would finish it because of the unlikable characters, but I think that it has hooked me now and I want to see what happens to them. I picked it up because the setting is in Wales.

I don’t watch a lot of TV or movies. Not because I have anything against it, and honestly I wish that I could pay attention for more than an hour a night. Somewhere along the line in the past few years, I stopped being able to focus on video and audio. Generally, Sandy and I pick a show that doesn’t have much gore and violence to watch. My anxiety can’t support intense nail biters – even murder mysteries are hard for me. Right now we are watching “Russian Doll” and although it does have a lot of death, very little is shown on screen and the main gist of it involves twists in time. Definitely NSFW or kids because of sex and drug addiction, but it is fascinating. Now, Sandy is a horror fan and was a zombie movie expert before zombies became cool, and he watches all kinds of screamers and shooters. I’ve had to make a rule about volume after 11 p.m.

Okay, that’s enough for today. Tomorrow I’ll try to write about my art stuff and plans, such as they are, for that. I took another great workshop from Leslie Marsh about a month ago, and it needs a post.
A Fiber Retreat at Wildacres

November 23, 2023

Edwina Bringle, one of the leading fiber artists in our region, invited several fiber artists to play with her at Wildacres Retreat near Little Switzerland, NC in mid-September. Spending almost a week with Edwina to observe her weaving tips and tricks, listen to her counsel, and getting to know her better was one of the best uses of my time ever. The cherry on top was that all of the rest of the group were fiber artists and teachers as well. Everyone was working with different fiber techniques: tapestry weaving, loom weaving, spinning, knitting, crocheting, embroidery, and needle felting. Everyone was seasoned in the arts and comfortable in their skin. It was a fabulous group of women!

Not that I need any other temptations for new crafts to try, but the spinners at this retreat spun yarns that made me salivate.

I concentrated on weaving my Rascal and Sissy tapestry, but at times it was too complicated for my brain and I needed something simpler to do. I had another pipe loom with me, and after picking up some disc shaped mica stones on one of the trails, I decided to weave a simpler place-based tapestry, with the idea that I would attach the stones to the tapestry background. I finished the weaving, and I still need to attach the stones.

One day we took a field trip to Penland. There weren’t any classes going on, and we visited the gallery, shopped at their supply store and had coffee and pastries at the coffee shop. The kitchen at Wildacres packed us sandwich fixins to go, and we ate lunch at the Bringle Gallery.

Loved their bulletin board!

On the way back, I stopped at the historic Penland Post Office. It reminded me so much of the old post office in Marietta. I wish that someone had saved it.

I’m afraid that I didn’t take many photos of the group and its work. I guess when I wasn’t focused on my work, I was entranced by my surroundings. At 3,300 feet above sea level, the mountain views were stunning and the gardens were beautiful. It seemed like there were surprises around every corner. The weather could not have been better, until the very end when we had to travel down the mountain ridge in the fog and rain.

Edwina and I chatted in the lobby on Sunday morning, trying to wait out the rain, until a staff member kindly told us that we were the only people left on the site and they were locking up. So we reluctantly left, and I had the steering wheel in a death grip as I maneuvered the Volvo down the foggy dirt and gravel mountain roads, then hydroplaned my way down the twisted paved roads to Marion, NC. Whew! I have a lot of respect for these highlander drivers. I’m from the swamplands of North Carolina, so mountain driving is not on my list of skills. I could be persuaded to develop those skills though. I really would like to live up there.
Update

November 21, 2023

Maybe I shouldn’t make any promises anymore, but a longer post is on my schedule. It may be that I am changing the blog over to the Substack platform.

My mental health has been making wild swings, but I haven’t gotten trapped in the hole. I’m feeling better and ready to get on with the enjoyment of living. However, it is a time of year with tragic memories for me.

Thus, I am doing Thanksgiving at home this year. I’ll prepare the whole she-bang, and it might be on Thursday, it might be on Friday, who knows when on this long weekend it will be. Might be Sunday. I have a turkey breast defrosting in the fridge, so that is going to happen. But my main focus will be cuddling with my kitties and getting my studio cleaned up enough so that I have space to work.

Just remember that Friday is Buy Nothing Day!

bye
Saturday morning coffee pot post

October 14, 2023

Getting my ducks in a row? Trying, anyway.

I made an adjustment to my website this morning to put my artwork on the front page. I hope that won’t interfere with how my posts go out on email. If you notice that it’s wonky, please let me know and I’ll see what I can do about it. I still need to take better photos of my latest tapestries, but since I’ve started the process of getting back into the art world this year, I figured it was time to move the art to the front. Most of the books shown have been sold or given away so I need to get moving on making more for sale. I have lots of books that I’ve made in workshops but I keep those for myself.

It’s a rainy day and I feel good this morning after a really awful headache day yesterday – I think it was a perfect storm of two vaccinations the previous afternoon, weather change, allergies, hormones, and stress. One of those headaches that lasts so long that you forget what it was like not to have a headache because you can’t think straight and you can’t sleep and you start to worry that it will never go away. I started out bravely and ended up finally with my head under a pillow and a frozen gel pack.

I accomplished some goals this week – handed in my vendor application to the Greensboro Farmers Curb Market – yes, the same one that I used to volunteer for as a board member of the Friends of the Market, that sad situation where we were beaten into the dirt by a disinformation campaign by disgruntled vendors who didn’t want to follow the rules of the market. We weren’t the rules enforcers and weren’t taking sides, but oh well. It’s been a long time since that happened and most of those people opened another farmers’ market not far away that I hear is quite good, but I still feel too prickly about those people to check it out. Anyway, I’m not sure at all that I will set up at the market since I really want to concentrate more on my artwork instead of crafts to sell, but the deadline for 2024 was Wednesday so I did it just in case.

So many deadlines are in September and October for 2024 and here I am, all discombobulated about what I’m going to do, so I’ve missed them, I guess.

I also delivered three collages to the Artists Over 50 show at the Creative Aging Network. This is an interesting organization and I might take some classes from its art instructors in 2024 since my weekdays will be free. Their building is in a former nursing home and the rooms were converted to studios, which is perfect because each room also has a sink and storage space. I almost rented one last year but stopped myself when I remembered that I could barely make myself to go the print studio downtown closer to me. It’s not that far away though. There’s a waiting list for studios now so it’s a moot point.

I received the forms for the first stage of my retirement paperwork but have not yet received the financial information of exactly what I’ll be receiving each month. It’s frustrating, but there’s nothing I can do about it. The faculty and students are getting fired up about the budget decision situation, but I’m pessimistic that as a whole they will do what needs to be done. The departments that make it might go into CYA mode as the administration pits us against each other. We’ll see. Here’s an article about it: https://triad-city-beat.com/uncg-budget-cuts/

Arrghh, I keep getting distracted and now it is lunchtime.

The other thing that I did was update my resume, which I last did in 2003 and was lucky that I even found a copy of it since I thought I’d never need it again. I did this because Sandy and I stopped by a local bookstore that I love to hopefully snag a bagel and a pastry at the coffee bar and they had none. I asked if they were looking for part-time help and briefly said that I was being forced into retirement from UNCG. The owner gave me an interested look and said to send him a resume. So I might do that. Wouldn’t that be grand to be a bookseller again! So one of my to-do items for today is to write a cover letter. I have to try to not let my inner comedian take over. I did that once and I didn’t get the job. I still think it was worth the shot.

Reading: Circe – great book and I had a very hard time putting it down last night. Next: The Ten Thousand Doors of January. I’m loving my Libby account, even though I love the printed physical book more.

More to-do list items for the weekend:

Clean up my studio workspace (almost there)

Weave tapestry

Take photos of recent tapestries

Make blog post about the Edwina Bringle retreat

Make book signatures for small books

SOUP!

Boring housework stuff
Sunday morning coffee pot post

October 8, 2023

I know, I know, I’m behind on posts and housework and yard work and most of all art work. I’m feeling better about my forced retirement situation (coming Jan. 1!) although still overwhelmed at times and I wake up thinking about work and how my co-workers are going to handle me leaving without being able to train them in the major part of my job, which happens from January to May. Which means I am still freaked out but only because I’m worried about others.

It could be worse. In the original plan I was to move to the other department tomorrow! This would not have happened though, since I have lots of sick leave saved up and my therapist assisted me in getting FMLA (Family Leave and Medical Act) leave approved. At least I now get to stay in my job of 20 years until the end of the year.

I am reminded of when I went to Guilford Tech around the turn of the century to learn computer skills and how to design web sites. They had just started an Associates degree in Internet Technology. I did all the classes for it except one: Accounting. Suffice it to say, I ain’t going willingly into an accounting/budget position. I have plenty of skills, but accounting is not one of them by choice.

It is particularly galling after watching a presentation by an independent auditor who concluded that my university has plenty of money and if there needs to be any budget cuts, they are top heavy at the higher administration levels. But, I’m afraid it is a done deal for me. I hope the faculty, staff, and students fight back. I am trying to help a little by assisting here: https://uncgreensboroaaup.wordpress.com. Not much, but I helped them get the video of the presentation on their site.

I visited my sister last weekend and we have started making plans for our trip to Cornwall and London in June.

I’ve also entered three collages in a small show here in Greensboro that I need to get hangers on and deliver this week. I picked up an application to vend at the Greensboro Farmers Curb Market that is due Wednesday. My artist neighbor invited me to put some work in his studio show in November. So if I can get it together, those are small steps that I should focus on this week.

Yesterday, after taking some photos of my work and our visit to the farmers’ market and making a nice salad for lunch and baking banana nut bread and a little bit of yard clean up, I was washing dishes and thinking, this is how my days could be.

This might be a very good thing.
Sunday Morning Sweep: The Choice

September 24, 2023

Well, it’s been a crazy week. I was lucky to spend the previous week with Edwina Bringle and a fabulous small group of fiber artists at Wildacres Retreat near Little Switzerland, North Carolina, but that post will be coming after I sweep out the brainpan.

“Be careful what you wish for,” as in when you don’t word it carefully for the djinn out of the bottle, was the phrase of the week. I was called in to the office of the assistant dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, who is the budget officer, on Monday morning. He came straight to the point – my position was being moved out of my department and I would be doing budget and financial work in another department. I did not have a choice because I “work for the state, not the department.” There was no recourse. The dean and the provost had made the decision and it was final. I was to move in three weeks.

The assistant dean handed me the position description with a list of its duties, and I have only been trained or had experience in half of them. I have no aptitude for accounting and my stress level and panic disorder doesn’t work with training for something like this. When I told him that I didn’t know how to do much of what was on the list, he said that his staff members and the current department assistant would train me.

Now, do keep in mind here that I genuinely believe that he was sad to be the one to tell me all this. As he pushed the box of tissues across the table, he said that he had argued against this move and that I was one of the best employees in the College. He’s correct. I’ve been in my position for nearly 20 years (in January) and had time to hone it along the way. I’ve won the Staff Excellence Award for the College twice, most recently during the pandemic. We shared some personal observations and I told him that I would need to confer with my co-workers and my husband and sleep on the decision, but for him to keep in mind that retirement was an option for me.

I already knew that I would not be forced into a job that I didn’t want and was not right for me.

Here’s what upsets me as much as anything – they did not bother to contact my supervisor first. The assistant dean told me that my department head knew, but my department head only had the vaguest impression that something was going to happen because the dean wouldn’t talk to him when he started asking questions the week before. This lack of communication and clarity and honesty from above has been one of the biggest sources of frustration in my job.

Anyway, my supervisor (K) and co-worker (D) are also two of my best friends. We have worked as a well-coordinated team for fifteen years. After I left the assistant dean’s office with a buzzing head, I walked a blind student to the building she was trying to find, which gave me a bit of oxygen and calm. Then I went straight to K, who was waiting anxiously to hear why I had been called over there. We were all gobsmacked and then I really broke down and cried.

Because it’s not just me. My job duties would be divided between them with no extra salary. Just as my “sideways shitty” move (as the assistant dean put it) would bring me no extra money. The faculty that we support would have to do more as we all adjusted to this sudden change because my co-workers would have no time to train in my job duties at this busy time of year, and the complicated bulk of my job happens from January through May. The students that I care for and guide through the bureaucracy of getting paid and moving through their degrees will suffer.

This is what working for an uncaring organization who has been tasked with running public education like a business is like. When the Republicans decided to drown Government in a bathtub, they weren’t concerned about the people in the tub. To them, “Government” is just some vague monster redistributing your money to undeserving people and grooming your kids to be gay and opening the borders to criminals coming over in hordes to rape your women and murder your kids and take your jobs. It’s not people.

But I did have a choice. There’s always a choice. Always.

On Tuesday morning, after meeting with my co-workers and department head to determine how to proceed, I called the assistant dean with this proposal: let me work in the department through June 30, the end of the fiscal year, and then take my position in a budget cut. That way I could train my co-workers in my job duties in the spring. He thought that was a reasonable and good response and he would take it to the dean and let me know this week if possible.

In the meantime, my co-workers went to the College annual meeting for grad directors and admins with our grad director in my place and they all informed everyone what had happened and challenged the associate dean in charge of the meeting (who, sadly, is also a friend, and I had already talked to him on the phone and cried for 15 minutes earlier that day) about what had happened.

I saw my therapist that afternoon, and she was the one who suggested FMLA – the Family Leave and Medical Act – to save my job and keep me from having to “play” sick if I was moved to the other department. Because when you have a mental illness, your sickness is not always believed, especially when you find yourself plunked down in a job in a department where nobody knows shit about you.

I wasn’t just doing this stuff, I was also racing against a deadline to get the Spring course schedule into Banner on Friday, since I had taken vacation the week before. It wouldn’t have been an issue had I not run into this emotional roadblock. However, I found it to be a leveling activity for me. This was data entry, pure and simple, with the decisions already made. It actually helped, I think.

Late Wednesday afternoon, I got a call from the assistant dean. The decision was to leave me in my current department until the end of the year, then my position would be moved to the other department on Jan. 1. A damned sight better than Oct. 9, but still wouldn’t allow me to train the others in my main job duties that happen January through May.

I told him to tell the other department that I would not be working for them, and that I would retire in four months and take FMLA leave as necessary.

K and I went to HR on Thursday morning and turned in my retirement request (it would have to be for Jan. 1, turns out) and the supervisor’s part of the FMLA paperwork to protect me in case the dean decided to renege on the Dec. 31 verbal agreement. I took the other part to my therapist that afternoon and she submitted her part.

They said I didn’t have a choice. It wasn’t the choice I was ready to make, but I did have a choice and I made it. DEATH AND ILLNESSES ARE THE ONLY CHOICES YOU DON’T HAVE. Your choice may have repercussions that are untenable to you, or that feel impossible, or may put you living under a bridge, or even be deadly, but other than death and illness you always have a choice. Never, ever, accept that you do not have a choice. This is something I realized many years ago, which is why I asked if I had any recourse, not if I had any choice.

I am VERY VERY VERY lucky that I had already been thinking intensely about early retirement and had met with a financial advisor and had done a ton of research on it. I was leaning toward sticking it out for a couple more years because my department has been extremely kind and flexible with me. My negative issues have always been with upper administration, not my department.

I will get my remaining vacation leave paid out to me. I will get my longevity bonus pro-rated. I will have the same medical insurance at the same or almost the same price. I will get a pension. I will probably file for Social Security. I will probably get a temp job or a part-time position. I will work on developing an art practice and career.

I’ll probably continue walking over to my old office and helping out and training my co-workers and friends, having lunch with them, and just sitting around and yakking. My friends on the faculty and I will still have lunch or have drinks sometimes after work. I’ll be invited to the parties. At least as long as the History Department exists, which at this time is a worry. I have made lasting friendships at work in the past twenty years.

Now, Slowly She Turned will turn into more of a web site for Slow Turn Studio pretty soon, and my blog will be pushed to the back of it. I may revive my Etsy shop, and/or I may set up shop here. I’ll probably post more to Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, which I generally do anyway. I’ve got ideas for items to sell. I’m starting to get excited about this unexpected turn of events. I will absolutely feel overwhelmed with the transition from time to time, but as I get over the shock and anger I will feel better and better. I’m sure of it.

And my focus on this blog will return to my real life, not my “job.”
Boxes

September 10, 2023

I’ve been thinking a lot about life after leaving my current job and one of the to do items is to begin applying for artist residencies and grants. That’s not something that was covered in my B.A. in studio art so I’m going to be on a learning journey, and I need to get crackin’.

One thing I know is that I will need to get together a professionalish portfolio of work and find a focus for what I would do in a residency. Because I am a mixed media artist, and probably ADD, focus is the tough part.

I may have come up with a solution. Boxes. I love and collect boxes. Boxes can be made with so many techniques and media. Boxes can be books. Can contain books and scrolls. Boxes can contain the treasures that I pick up. I started to make boxes when I was working with ceramics. I was a basketmaker for a time. I made a tapestry bag that was really a box with handles. I dreamed about that bag last night and that’s how it came to me.

It seems so obvious now and I’m excited.
Saturday morning coffee pot post

August 26, 2023

Hopefully I won’t forget to click publish on this one like I forgot last time. There’s a lot going on and not much interesting to write about, not that I feel like I can share publicly anyway. I scheduled a lot of annual doctor and dentist visits this week and next and boy is it tiresome. Especially now that the robots send me multiple texts, emails, and calls to remind me of the appointments. Really, it is overkill. I turned my phone on to airplane mode this morning to sleep late and as soon as I turned it back on, up popped another text, this time for the dentist. Our robot overlords have finally taken over, and it is a scary scenario, people.

We finally caught the edge of that heat wave beginning Thursday night and received a good thunderstorm, complete with flash flood warnings. I’m glad that we don’t live in a flood zone because it seems like we get a flash flood warning with every sizable rain storm. While it’s good to have a notification system, the story about the boy crying wolf seems applicable here. My little garden, despite the early problems with critters nibbling it, is doing better. I planted a couple of Marketmore cucumbers and I’m training them up vertically. A critter ate the bottom leaves but the rest is doing fine. One of them is on a wicker stool that I trash picked winding up a lovely metal plant thing-a-ma-jig that I also trash picked. It was full of styrofoam that I had to cut out of it and it made a mess that was hard to clean up. I stay conscious of the problem of plastics and toxic materials in our environment. I was handed a plastic cup of water last weekend so I poked holes in the bottom and transferred a couple of Sungold tomato seedlings into it, hoping to get a plant for late fall. They will need to grow a little faster!

Anyway, right now we have the problem of an awful smell in our house that I now suspect is a dead critter in the crawlspace. It is much less today, thank God. We’ve been cleaning out the bottom cabinets in the kitchen to try to find it. Either a dead critter or a rotten potato, maybe? I found a mouse nest with no mice behind some stuff under the sink. It had been pulling dryer lint out of the garbage. Pablocito probably took care of that problem weeks ago. So far we haven’t had any luck finding the source of the stink but it’s been a good opportunity to deep clean and get rid of some stuff. I boiled cinnamon on the stove last night to make the smell more bearable and this morning I hardly smell it at all, although that blessing might be due to stopped up sinuses. Ah, the joys of a 101 year old house. It’s got character and history, but there’s no way to keep the varmints out.

So, other than deep cleaning and such I’ll be continuing weaving on this^^^. I began the eye this week. I also bought an online class from Laurie Doctor. I know, I know, I’ve got a problem with buying online classes and never getting past the first week of them. I always think that this time will be different. A large part of her teaching is how to set up your art practice and make it a daily practice. I find it hard to do that because my sleep is precious in the morning and I flop after work each day. I’m going to try to find a good time to schedule an hour for studio practice each evening.

One thing good that happened amid the shitty week that we had, was that my gynecologist recommended several things to relieve my hot flashes and night sweats, and one of his suggestions was gabapentin. We have a big bottle of 300 mg gabapentin that was prescribed for Sandy when he had shingles that he said didn’t help so he stopped taking them. It is 2.5 years old but the doc said to try it and see if it helps, and y’all, this is a magical pill. Not only has it stopped my night sweats (mostly) but it has helped my restless legs. I sleep THROUGH THE NIGHT. I don’t hurt. I don’t feel like I need to turn over constantly or stretch or make sure my knees don’t touch or get up to do yoga or crack all my toes and knuckles. The only thing is that I sleep so hard that I am groggy in the morning. So I have an appointment with my G.P. Monday afternoon and I’m going to ask her to prescribe me a lower dosage, since the bottle says not to split the capsules.

I’ll close this post with a couple of photos of art from our favorite deli, First Carolina Deli on Spring Garden St. The kid’s art is in the women’s bathroom. I keep thinking that I will do a tapestry using children’s art as a cartoon.