Wishing a very Happy Birthday to the amazing coffeeem !

Hope it's a great one.

PS. Thank you so much for War for the Oaks .

Questions from Dancing Crow

1. You list crafts in general as an interest - what are some of your favorite materials, and favorite tools?

A few favorite materials include leather, beads, thread and yarn, depending on what project I'm doing at the moment. Oh, yes, and paper.

A list of my favorite tools starts off with my rosary pliers, my strap cutter from Tandy, my SusanBates QuickSilver size G crochet hook, my Olfa rolling cutter and my Ginghers shears which I use for leather. There are other scissors for cutting paper, plus a paper cutter that has seen a lot of use. And then there is the group of tools for setting snaps (both Line 20 and Segma snaps), rivets, grommets and eyelets.

1.a. what is your best completed object?
I don't have a single "best completed object," but I do have a few favorites among the FOs. In no particular order they include:
A. The afghan I made for daughter C to take to college with her. (no picture, sorry)
B. The toasting fork I made using ex-hubby's tools, because the ones he made for me weren't what I wanted.
C. Leather roses, large and miniature Click for Image
D. Crocheted bracelet with beads click for image
E. A set of three keyfobs I made for a friend to take home to Brazil click for image

2. What is your least favorite part of the day and why?

Late evening. Why? By late evening I should be winding down, and getting ready for sleep, but I'm a night owl, and that's when I have my best ideas (or so it seems) and have enthusiasm to be doing more when I should be sleeping. *roll eyes* I've also had sleep issues related to grief over the loss of my eldest daughter about a year ago.
I'm not much of a morning person, but I do love that first cup of coffee.

3. Do you find travel to be impossible, annoying, invigorating....

That's somewhat dependent on where I'm going, my reason for travel, and the company.
I rather enjoy travel by car, most of the time. Going to visit my daughters in MA is a joy: my car is comfortable, I have a companionable collection of cds to travel with and the hugs at the destination are worth the time spent getting there.

I do NOT enjoy travel by air. That falls under the heading of annoying, or major PITA, especially with post 9/11 stiffer security. It's not impossible, I've done it, and probably will travel by air again, but it certainly isn't my favorite thing.

One of my favorite car trips was in October a couple years ago. My oldest daughter and I traveled west to visit my youngest daughter and her family in OKC. We stopped in western PA for the IFOLG show (a leather craft show), in Cleveland to visit (briefly) with a lovely recording artist (and get our cds signed), near Chicago to visit an internet friend, and side tripped up to Wisconsin to visit an old friend, one of the ladies after whom oldest is named, before continuing on to OKC.

4. Pets: helpless slaves of the patriarchy or crucial to happiness in an uncivil world?
Discuss.

Either. Both. It depends greatly on the pet owner.
Animals serving as breeding stock in puppy mills, or belonging to folks who have no idea about decent treatment of their pets are examples of the helpless slaves.
On the other paw are the cats, dogs and other critters who serve as furred stand-ins for children for childless or childfree couples. I have been owned by cats in the past, and the happiness imparted by a lapful of purring cat went a long way toward reversing the stress of working in an uncivil world.

5. What should I have asked you?
You should have asked me to make you a wristband or earrings of your favorite sort from among the examples I have.
You still can, but do tell me your favorite colors, and if you have any metal allergies.

Thanksgiving this year was not nearly as hard for me as last year was.

I even made the cranberry-orange relish that my girls remembered from when they were growing up. One of them asked if I would make it, and I did. I use a meat grinder to chop the cranberries and oranges, and she asked if she could have the grinder. I said "Sure!"

To make my relish, you need:
3 12 oz bags of fresh cranberries
2 medium navel oranges
1 cup of sugar (possibly a little more sugar if the berries and oranges are very very tart)
a bowl large enough to hold all the berries and oranges, a saucer and a wooden spoon
1 slice of bread (for pushing out the rest of the oranges from the grinder)

Wash and quarter the oranges
Wash the cranberries; pick out and discard stems, leaves and mushy berries

Run the cranberries through the grinder, alternating with orange quarters, and making sure the friskier berries don't jump out.
As the grinder stops producing ground fruit, put the slice of bread into the grinder.
When bread appears at the grinder plate, remove the bowl, and place the saucer to catch the bread.
Clean the grinder, dry and put away.

Add the sugar to the bowl of cranberry orange stuff, and mix thoroughly with a wooden spoon (or equivalent).

Let the relish sit overnight to blend the tastes.

Current Mood: pleased

I have done paper folding of one sort or another for most of my life.

This post is an experiment to see if video embedding works here (or no) and to ask if I should post more little videos (if it works ok)

Current Mood: pensive

Check out this cartoon:
Frazz Comic by Jef Mallett for Sunday, October 11, 2009

I recently discovered that one of my favorite writers has a birthday the same day as my wedding anniversary.

I wonder how much that knowledge will help me remember either event.

*wanders off to wish hubby a happy anniversary*

I have my offline journal in an editor that allows multiple buffers.

I'm thinking about starting another buffer (with a file associated, of course, gotta save it when the editor closes) to put my to-do list in.

I would need to date the new items as I enter them in my list to have some idea how long it is between conception and accomplishment.  Or maybe not. It could be very very depressing to see how long it takes me to go from thought to action. Maybe I should, anyway, in case there is a deadline for something.  Useful thought.

On the other paw, I would have them all in one place, which might help, instead of having them written on little slips of paper all over the place.  I made that change for my list of things to send out (supposed to be sending out) and it ~has~ helped.  Not enough for the perfectionist in me, but enough to make it worth doing.

Maybe.

If I don't have my lists, that makes me listless.

Current Mood: listless

The day started out with a steady rain.  It's now cool, dim, dismal and drizzling, a condition an old friend referred to as "drismal".  My mood is as gray as the day.  I may hope both clear up as the day progresses.

I have a number of things I really ought to do today, after not doing a great many of them during the past week, but I can't summon up the energy or motivation to start.  A new  thing to do has arisen, the need to remove or replace the battery in the spare smoke detector, which is chirping every two minutes or so to announce its need.

Spare, you ask?  Yes.  This locale has legislated that smoke detectors must be located in all bedrooms.  This house is compliant, but the smoke detector that was here originally, on the ceiling of the hall.  The new smoke detectors are within 3 feet of it, and within 5 feet of each other.   The legislation came after two fatal house fires in March of 2008 where investigators concluded adequate smoke alarms could have saved lives.  IIRC one fire started as a result of an untended candle.  I was always taught that you never left the room with a lit candle in it, unless the candle was in a fireproof container, on a stable surface, away from all flammables, and with no agents likely to either tip the container over or knock it onto the floor.

Fire is a wild beast.  It sometimes appears to be tamed, but be careful, the feral streak is still there, waiting for its keepers to relax their vigilance, and then it will pounce, and feed, consuming everything within reach.

Be careful!

Car is back to starting just fine.  All it took was the addition of a working battery.

All is right with the world.

. . .

Well, OK, almost all is right with the world.  My knee is still bothering me.

This is one of those days, when, if my mind were a fidgety little kid, I'd put it to work pulling weeds until it could settle down and concentrate on what it was supposed to be doing.

Back some 30 years ago I had the use of a Camaro. Bright yellow with a black top. Nice car. Except if you drove through a decent puddle, it would soak the distributor. Had it happen once before I got the use of the car; I learned how to cure it, so I carried paper towels and WD 40 with me. *giggle* So here's a funny story about another Camaro.

One rainy day I was working in the shop, which had a little back road (more of an overgrown driveway, complete with DEEP puddle) that went beside it and missed a major intersection.

I saw a Camaro head up that little road, and I said to the boss, "Bet you anything that he'll be back here in 5 minutes asking to use the phone."

About 5 minutes later, the door opened, and the guy came in, very much rained on. "Hey," he said, "can I use your phone? I need to call Triple A."

I said, "How about I take a look at it. Maybe you don't need Triple A."

He was a little hesitant, but I had an umbrella, and a flashlight, and the boss said, "Let her look at it. If she don't fix it, you can use the phone," so we went back to the car.

I had him pop the hood, and then hold the umbrella while I opened up the distributor and dried it out.

"Why don't you try it now?" I said. He cranked the starter, and it caught.

"How did you do that? Are you some kind of super mechanic in disguise?" he asked.

"You got water up in your distributor," I said, "I just dried it out."

"Wow," he said, "I wouldn't have believed a girl could fix a car. Thanks!"

"Have a great night," I said, "just don't go trhough any more deep puddles," and he rolled up his window and took off, lots more slowly and carefully than he had arrived.

I went back to the shop, alone. The boss said, "I wish I could have seen his face when his car started right up," and he laughed.

When I had to deal with a roach infestation in my new apartment, first I used fumigation candles, which I think are also called sulfur candles.  I set them up in all the rooms - and the basement - and the apt upstairs (that was also vacant, and the owner thought it reasonable of me to want to reduce the roach population there as well).  The fumes are toxic, so I decided to let the next door neighbor know what I was doing in case she smelled something odd, or the roaches all migrated to her half of the house.

I knocked on the door, and as soon as the lady invited me in I knew where all my roaches were coming from.  They were migrants from next door.  I declined her offer of a seat on the sofa, because I could see roaches running on the wall behind it, and wasn't that a dark bit of motion on the back of the sofa itself?  Yuck.  The dish of dogfood was crawling.  The overflowing trashcan had its share of motion.  How can people live like that?  I don't know, but she seemed blind to the infestation.  *shudder*

After the candles had done their work, I used the vacuum cleaner to remove the many dead roaches.  And the semi dead ones.  There were a few that were running in frantic circles because only the legs on one side of the body seemed to work right.

Digression: A vacuum is a good way to deal with a fly, a wasp or a moth that's trying to be elusive.  Yes, it kills them by clogging the spiracles with dust, which is why I run it for a couple minutes after catching one.  There's always some spot that could use a pass with the vacuum cleaner, or two. /digression

When I was all done, I stuffed crumpled aluminum foil into the few small holes I found from my cellar to theirs.

 Next I set out Roach traps with sticky floors to see if I had ended the alien invasion.  I liked the roach motels, because besides being inexpensive, you could pick one up and not worry about poison.  Sometimes a very large roach managed to walk part way through, you could see his tracks in the stickum, but I checked the traps morning and evening.  If I found any live critters in it, I stuck it in a small brown paper bag, and then into the microwave for a few seconds.  I think it was 10, but that's quite a while ago.  I do remember the first time I put it in for too long a roach exploded.

Another place I lived there were a few large dark six legged beasties in the kitchen.  Mentioned them to the neighbor (it was a row house) and she said they were Water Bugs.  OK, looked like roaches to me, but whatever.  Roach traps and vacuum cleaner kept them down to a rarity.

On occasion my daughter goes on a business trip, going past my house (more or less), and lets me kitty sit for my grandkitties.

I thought this was very amusing:  Piper the cat playing " I'm on the wrong side of the door" in the wee hours. When I let him out of the bedroom, he came back in about 5 minutes later, pushing the door WIDE open! I love my friend T, (who is staying at my house for the momen) but I don't want her to walk by on the way to the bathroom and see my butt, so THANKS cat, but I'll just push the door almost closed again. Then brat cat decided he wanted to go back out, and pounced on the door, closing it all the way. He doesn't seem to have figured out that doors open differently from opposite sides. Once he closed it, he sat there going Mrow? Mrow? MROW?!?! until I got up and let him out for about the fifth time. GHAHHHH!

That time, I closed the door ALL THE WAY with him on the outside.

I half-woke to hear him meowing at the door, but I rolled over and went back to sleep again, thinking, " Cat, you are staying on whatever side of the door you are on right now. Tough."

Current Mood: amused

Borrowed from a friend on a message board:

Some good advice for thriving instead of just living...


( Read more... )

Current Mood: gloomy

I had one job minding a room full of keypunches, clearing jams, making sure there were enough blank cards available, and minding the status light on the computer that linked the card reader to the main computer. 

I didn't have to answer programming questions, (not my job *giggle) but I learned a trick while I was there.  Let the person with the programming problem explain to you what the program was doing.  Most of the time the person would get to the problem area, start explaining it and go "Oh, never mind. I see what's wrong."  I didn't need to know a thing about the language or what the program was supposed to do, the writer figured it out all by him or herself.

One time a blind man asked me to read his cards to him so he could check for errors.  No errors.

I seem to have an insanely huge number of photos to go with this, so I'm using multiple cuts to hide them.  That way, if you're on a slow connection, you don't have to wait for all the photos to load at once.

Got your rubber bands handy?  You'll need them today.

( Wires, dampening and some leaf... )

( Assembling the center, first things first... )

( Middle petal layer... )

( Adding large petals and leaf... )

Congratulations, you've made your very first leather rose.


( And a few last details... )

Current Mood: creative

This is where you dye the pieces, then let them dry.  You can dye them as soon as they have been cut out.

Current Mood: sleepy

Supplies and tools to make your leather rose - redux:

vegetable tanned leather, light weight (tell your leather source 2-3oz, 3-4oz or 4-5oz)
approximately 6" by 6" for one rose
dye or acrylic paint, green for leaves, red (or your choice) for petals
stiff florist wire (or similar) for stem
a pair of pliers (needlenose are good)
good scissors or a sharp knife and a cutting board
pencil or stylus for tracing
tracing film (what you see in the photos is the liner from a cereal box)
rubber bands (3 or 4 per rose)
spray bottle (or sponge and dish) of water
a pattern for the leaves and petals

( Click for tracing and cutting out )

Current Mood: creative

Supplies and tools to make your leather rose:

vegetable tanned leather, light weight (tell your leather source 2-3oz, 3-4oz or 4-5oz)
approximately 6" by 6" for one rose
dye or acrylic paint, green for leaves, red (or your choice) for petals
stiff florist wire (or similar) for stem
a pair of pliers (needlenose are good)
good scissors or a sharp knife and a cutting board
pencil or stylus for tracing
tracing film (what you see in the photos is the liner from a cereal box)
rubber bands (3 or 4 per rose)
spray bottle (or sponge and dish) of water
a pattern for the leaves and petals

( Let's start by making our own pattern. )

Current Mood: accomplished