Wow Am I Glad I'm Married!

As I perused my inbox this morning I ran across this article sent to me by Knitting Daily called "Curse of the Love Sweater". It may look like a cheesy horror movie title, but apparently there is some bad mojo attached to knitting a sweater for your boyfriend. Manfriend. Womanfriend. Whatever. As I look back, I did knit a sweater for a boyfriend once, and we did break up (obviously), but I'm not convinced that the relationship was doomed by the sweater. And I do feel safe with the sweater I just knitted for Dave as it's the second one I have knitted for him and I gave him the first one over 20 years ago. Okay, bullet dodged, on with my day.

I would like to say I made something as cool as the metal clay box with a hinged lid that my friend Cynthia Morgan made, but, no. Except for my daily spinning, I seem to be on an entirely left-brain track right now. It was another day of Quicken and accounting--I even analyzed my little IRA and changed about 80% of the investments. The most creative thing I did today was take a picture 15 minutes ago for the 365 project. At first I just took a pic of Gallifrey because, hey, wolfhounds are always good for a photo op. But then I went up to J's room and took a pic of her succulent wreath inhabited by little kodama.

While we have to do a lot of cleaning and straightening tomorrow, and the administrative work for taxes and Quicken seems never-ending, there will be time not only for something creative this weekend, but also for some games of Dominion with the spouse. I love long weekends!

Bookkeeping Can Make You Go Blind

I have heard stories of people going blind from drinking hi-octane homemade liquor. Spending the entirety of the afternoon on bookkeeping--installing a virgin instance of Quicken and starting from scratch because I haven't used it since my hard drive failed a year or four ago--made me want to drink lots of hi-octane homemade liquor, post hoc, ergo propter hoc, bookkeeping can make you go blind. Or insane. Or both. C'mon Intuit, it's the 21st century, can't you list *all* of the financial institutions that have on-line banking and and their web addresses in your program? *Must* you make us set them up manually and forever enter the transactions and reconcile them manually?

I have a love-hate relationship with Quicken and, to a lesser extent, Quickbooks. That greater-than-a-little-bit of my personality that wants to be organized and on top of every bit of information needs to use something to track my finances, and back in 1990 I settled on Quicken. When I got a new hard drive after a catastrophic failure sometime in the past one to four years, I moved all of files onto it and then manually installed the software instead of doing a mirror image copy of the drive. I took the drive failure as an excuse to clean up and get rid of a bunch of apps I wasn't using. I can't remember why I didn't reinstall Quicken--it was probably prompting me to upgrade.

That's the main place the hate comes into my relationship with all Intuit products: I don't like upgrading *anything* that's working for me. I kept my iPhone One until the majority of the apps didn't work anymore and there weren't new versions for them that would work on a phone that old. Then I broke down and got an iPhone 5. I replaced my first gen Kindle several years ago after it failed with a Kindle Paperwhite, and I have no intention of replacing that one until I absolutely have to. Intuit, however, made it a part of their revenue plan that you would have to buy their new release every few years. They enforced their will by making it so you couldn't download transactions from your on-line accounts with the old software anymore. I didn't want their new, bloated features. I was happy as I was. If they had released something compelling in the software that made me want to upgrade, that would be one thing, but I hate being made to do anything.

Fast forward to today when one of our contractors asked me if I could send him a record of all the checks we had written him over the past year. Because I've just been logging into individual accounts and managing our finances that way for awhile now, I had to go to our bank's on-line system with its crappy interface to slog through everything there. That experience was enough to prod me into buying and installing Quicken again. However I didn't hunt for my old data file. It's who knows how far out of date anyway, and I just didn't want to carry around 20+ years of outdated categories and data any longer. So I started from scratch. I estimate I'm about 20% through connecting my accounts and importing all the data from the arbitrary date of 1/1/14 on.

Anyone have any homemade liquor to share?

Minions

I have come to the conclusion that I need minions. I was talking to Dee yesterday about getting the studio set up, and I realized how much faster it would be going if she were here to help. It's not that I'm averse to heavy lifting and hard work. I'm happy to just keep doing until the doing is done--when someone else is there doing too. When I'm by myself I dither... a lot. And I am very easily distracted (Squirrel!).

Yesterday afternoon I spent some time in the utility room trying to set up an area for gift wrap, bows, tissue paper, and all the paraphernalia for wrapping presents. I did get about a third of it done, but then I wandered off to buy more organizing tools to really optimize the set-up. Today as I was doing a FaceTime crafting session with Becky, I realized that I would have finished the job completely had she been here helping me with it--keeping me on task. Really, I don't need minions, I just need company--though minion is a much more fun word. Todd calls the people who help me (including himself) flying monkeys--mostly because I think he likes comparing me to the wicked witch of the west--and Judy likes the label studio elves. I like friends--or family.

Last weekend it was time to take down the Christmas tree and put away the majority of the house decorations (I decided to leave the lights around all of the windows and the red bead garland on the chandelier up till March). I wasn't exactly dreading the task, but I did figure it would easily take me all day. But Dave had other ideas: Instead of me doing it myself, we did it together, and it went so fast! Ornaments off the tree, pottery angels neatly packed away, garland, lights, stockings, advent calendars, zip, zap, zup, and away. Putting away laundry is like that too. Many hands do make light work. I almost wish I lived in a time when women from the village would get together and do their chores. But as that would entail beating clothes on rocks on the banks of a muddy creek and carrying big, heavy baskets of wet clothes back home to dry, I think I'm better off alone in the here and now.

Positive Creativity Over Negative Fear

After checking in with Facebook this morning and seeing what someone had commented on one of my posts, I was very upset and started to write a blog post about history, Donald Trump, the rise of nationalism, and the bad things that follow when someone promises to make things better for you by blaming someone else for causing your problems. And then I had to stop. I know it's true, I'm afraid worse is coming--what we've got is certainly bad enough, and my heart begins to pound and hurt at the same time. But I can't right now. I just can't.

So I choose to write about art, creation, beauty, and positive energy. Next week I start the drawing class I signed up for at the Art School at Laguna Gloria. Yesterday I bought all of my supplies for it, and I am both nervous that I'll fail--that I can't draw, and excited at the prospect of unlocking a new outlet for my internal creative voice.

While I was out running around for errands, I also did my first shopping from Facebook messenger. The messenger app on the phone has a tab for people to sell things in your area--they should call it FaceList or CraigsBook. Anyway I picked up a handmade elm bench made locally from a fallen elm tree, and cool pub table and small dishwasher that are for the apartment. I wasn't planning on getting the dishwasher, but the very nice woman from whom I purchased the table also had the dishwasher from a recent kitchen remodel, and she just wanted it out of the garage so she gave it to me.

I have to be honest: I chose both the bench and the table because of their eminent suitability for refinishing and inlay. Oh boy,  I feel the projects stacking up. We had to make a rule in the house that if you buy something for the house you have to deploy it immediately. You can't buy anything else until that thing is deployed. So, e.g., if I bought a shoe rack for the front hall that had to be assembled, it would have to be assembled and installed right away. This rule came to be because of Ikea. It's way to easy to buy stuff at Ikea and then not get it set up for months. Do you see the parallel? I am getting projects stacked up--a stash of a different sort, if you will. Now I need to start doing them. No more comes in until I do some of the ones I have. That's a good idea! New resolution: I cannot take on a new project until I complete two others. How about at least one other. Yeah, I can do that. But getting tools to do current projects, that's okay. And since I'm no longer in Atlanta and can't use Becky's, it's time to get a scroll saw.

Artistic Extensions

It's just over a week since the new year started, and I have to say the resolutions are going pretty darn well! One of the ones I contemplated but discarded was a regular zentangle practice. I decided against making it a resolution as I already had enough daily activities planned and I didn't see a way of doing it less often than daily. One of the projects I did resolve to do, however, was to extend a steer skull. I say "extend" because I think of it less as an embellishment of the skull and more as an extension of its essence. In a way, it's my own version of the Chicago cow parade.

Originally I thought to cover the surface with cut and polished stones or kiln-formed glass. But lately my vision is morphing into a zentangle skull. Don't ask. I'm not sure how my mind works some time. But I just have a picture of a series of beautiful tangles skimming across the landscape of the skull that I can't shake. I also still want to incorporate glass and stone into one or more other skulls, but I don't just want to put them on the surface. In my mind I see parts of the skull replaced by cut stone, cast glass, or even inlaid wood. And, heck, why use only technique at a time? The only medium I'm currently working in that I don't see incorporating into a skull is fiber. Maybe it's because fiber is also an animal product which makes too much similarity in theme. Whatever the reason, no wooly cow skulls.

NaKniSweMo Finally!

Though I never got around to posting about it because it was a secret from Dave, in October for Spinzilla I spun enough alpaca silk blend yarn (from my friend Ruthann's alpaca) to knit a sweater for Dave during November for NaKniSweMo--National Knit a Sweater Month. I would have finished it in November--instead of midnight on Christmas Eve--had I been able to work on it as much as I wanted. I know this because I started two sweaters at the same time--Dave's and another one I could work on when he was home--and that one is all but done too. The sweater I knitted for Dave is the first sweater I ever knitted on circular needles, and I am not as good at staying true to gauge on circular needles. Dave is still deciding whether he wants me to try to shrink it for him. I think a little tightened up would be good, but it is super soft as it is, and nice and long and slouchy. Okay, it's enormous. I need to shrink it!

The other sweater that I started at the same time is also a gift, and it isn't done because I ran out of the exact yarn I needed. It is also my handspun alpaca, and the last ball of it I have was spun at a different time and is just enough thicker that I don't get the same gauge and thickness as the rest of the sweater. This is really a bummer because it is  the softest, lace-stitch fronted cardigan, and I was knitting for my friend Stacy in Atlanta. It was supposed to be her Christmas present, but I have been stalled for a couple of weeks now because of the yarn issue. Got to get back to it before it's too warm for her to wear it. Of course, there's always a need for a snuggly sweater on a cool evening in Beaufort, SC.

Before and After

Before

Just finished a breakfast of scratch buttermilk pancakes and sous vide bacon, and I have to say we've reached a new breakfast height. The bacon cooked for 17 hours in the sous vide and then Dave finished it by searing it on cast iron. It didn't shrink nearly as much as it does when cooked in a pan--Dave says this is because you don't get the extreme protein bunching that you get during higher heat cooking. You also don't get any carbonization (bcb's). Instead it came out decidedly crisp and chewy at the same time.

While much of the accomplishment was due to my spouse's incomparable cooking, I am modestly pleased at my own contributions to breakfast. I buttered my pancake, then covered it with apple cider syrup (thank you Chris Hyams), topped it with whipped cream, drizzled on more syrup, and liberally garnished it with the bacon in bits. I accompanied it with some Foggie Morning Brekkie tea from T-WE. Oh Sweet Decadence! Breakfast was so good it got me thinking: Instead of just renting out our apartment, why not also offer B&B possibilities? Even full meal service! Oh not all the time, just as a special extra add-on. Dave has yet to be convinced. But I think it would be cool to offer the occasional full-on luxe experience. I also like to show off Dave's cooking. Well, even if we never end up doing it for the paying guests, friends and family who come to visit and stay in the apartment will definitely be fed!

After

And speaking of the apartment, it's time to get that little revenue stream on-line. The contractors are finally done in there, and it's now a two-bedroom space with hardwood floors and travertine marble throughout, new fixtures, and is fully painted. Today after putting away Christmas--except for the lights in the windows, those stay up till March, we're going to go clean the apartment, set-up the furniture that we have, and make lists of what we need to get. I love furnishing a space from the ground up--IKEA here we come! Goal: Have it on HomeAway and/or other appropriate sites by the end of next weekend. Fortunately we have some savvy connections in the VRBO (vacation rental by owner) space as three of the C's from data.world (Chief of Something Or Other) were previously at HomeAway and know how to optimize for maximum results.

Talking about getting stuff done in the house makes me itch to get out in the yard to try out my new battery-operated chainsaw, but it's only 23 degrees out there and I just don't have the clothes for it. As I'm now going to Wisconsin for my Master Spinner class next month, and the high expected there today is only 8 degrees F (with a low of -3!), as soon as I finish this post I'm going to go on-line and get another pair of Minus 33 merino long underwear. Put them on under my skirt, add some of my Dad's old wool hunting socks, top it off with the cardigan my father-in-law knitted for me and the scarf my mother-in-law knitted for me, and I'll be ready to go! Though I might want to knit myself some fingerless gloves... More on knitting tomorrow.

Where Did the Day Go?

It's 10:39 pm as I start this post, and I'm wondering where my day went! Yes, I spent a lot of time in the car today taking the dogs to and from the groomers, the child to and from school, the spouse to and from lunch, and my hair to and from the salon (I have mermaid hair! again!). I also talked my partner Todd off a ledge. I think he thinks I'm not committed to my glass work. Well I've got news for everyone: If I'm not committed, I should be... Take that however you'd like. Finally I researched and evaluated spring break vacation options and made reservations. Roatán Honduras, here we come!

On the home front it is bitterly cold (the water in the sous vide in the kitchen was 57 degrees tonight and Jessie said it was 54 up in her room). Dave and I are getting ready to snuggle under our One Dog Mr Big comforter from Three Dog Down. Even the cats are snuggling in tight tonight. Today was the second day of our solar panel installation, and I really felt sorry for the installers on the roof. If I had been home and thought of it, I would have had them inside to take a break, get warm and have some hot chocolate mid-day. If it's still cold Monday, I will.

The Siyeh Studio Website progresses apace. I hope to have the first live version up by Sunday night--complete with on-line catalog. Access to the catalog will be restricted to the store owners who carry my work. What I most like about the website design tool I'm using is that it's trivial to change the backgrounds and use my own images. Thus I have a different colorway for every page--"Iris", shown at left, is on the second page (News).

Okay, got to hit publish or I'll miss getting the post up today! Night all.

Being a Responsible Adult Sucks

I start my day with a nice cup of "Santa's Little Harlot" tea from T-WE Tea company in San Francisco. I love their teas and really wanted to gift them to my mother-in-law for Christmas, but I just couldn't see giving her "Santa's Little Harlot", "Flaming Prince Charming", "Sexpot", "Lesbi Friends", "White Girl Please", "Scandalous Manfriend", or "Boobage"--and those were some of my favorites.

It feels like only yesterday I posted, actually it feels like an hour ago which it practically was if you don't count sleep time. It's cold and grey here, and I have GOT to do something enjoyable today!!! Sadly, cleaning the utility room, sweeping and mopping the floors, and putting away Christmas don't qualify, but they're what I've got. What was I thinking last night that both sounded good and at least a little fun? Oh yeah, website development for the studio. Meh. Am I being too grown-up? What happened to the person who would say, "Screw housework, I'm going to take a day off and (insert Fun Art Recreation Time verb here) today"?

A lot of it is the sheer enormity of getting everything ready to fart. Though this house, with it's myriad spaces, will eventually be the perfect fart space, right now there isn't a single studio that doesn't need a lot of work to get usable--and that's ignoring the fact that none of them are heated. However today's the warmest it's going to get until next Tuesday so if I want fart, I had better get setting up. Meh. I can always do the utility room tomorrow when it's only going to be 41 degrees... oh, but I was going to work on *taxes* tomorrow. I hate being an adult.

The Day Marches On

Five days into this whole new year resolution thing and I'm already juggling balls! No, it's not really that bad, but I do find myself at the end of a long day and just now getting to writing. My piano lesson was this morning so at least I got that out of the way, and I both did some spinning and took a picture of it--thus knocking out spin15 and the 365 project. The rest of the day was spent on bookkeeping. I hope I can squeeze something more enjoyable in tomorrow. At least we have a Japanese language/English subtitled version of Hayao Miazaki's Princess Mononoke on the big screen tomorrow night to look forward to.

Whatever I do tomorrow will be indoors. After a stunningly beautiful day yesterday, today it was FREEZING! I am back in merino wool long johns, my dad's wool hunting socks, and a comfy cardigan. One thing's for sure--it's too cold to be in the textile, jewelry (aka the greenhouse), or glass studios. Bet it'll be a a good day to finally get a website up. After an entire day spent paying bills, and fixing broken administrative processes, logins and links today, there is is no way I can face taxes tomorrow. Friday. They can wait for Friday. Now the cat is waiting for me to go to bed so he can snuggle with me.

The Garden at Stone's Throw

It's a beautiful day to sit on the back deck sipping Earl Grey lavender tea and posting. Gallifrey would rather be at the dog park, but he'll get to go soon enough. Got a message from a friend in Missoula the other day saying it was 8 degrees there with a double digit below zero windchill. It's 62 degrees here now and will get up to 70. It feels warmer in the sun. Great day to do a post about gardening!

In the better-late-than-never category, I put in my wildflower seeds the other day, and at the end of it all I'm not sure why I dragged my feet so much about it. True, I didn't use the lawn roller to press them into the soil, but I did mix them with a bit of sand and then liberally tossed them about. I also strewed handfuls of seedballs--blue bonnet seeds in clay balls put out by the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center. Those were supposed to be put out anytime between September and Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving, New Years... So maybe I won't get as lush a bloom or maybe also as early a bloom, but surely Something will come up, and I can do better next year.

This being winter, it's the perfect time to plan next year's gardens. Over the weekend, I finished the initial design for the raised bed area of the yard which will account for about 1/3 of our property. When we moved in here, most of the yard was already done, or at least the hardscaping was in. It's true that all of the beds need to be cleaned out and replanted and everything could use use a bit of tweaking. But there was no real major design work to be done in the main yard.

Our property is odd. It's "L" shaped, or, rather, upside down "L" shaped so the short leg runs to the right on the top instead of the bottom. The house sits about 2/3 of the way down the long vertical leg. Currently there is nothing in the short leg but the well house off to the side and a large rectangular gravel patch in the middle (where there used to be a commercial greenhouse) surrounded by scrub. This is not, for the curious, where I scattered wildflower seeds yesterday. The seeds went into the only patch of lawn this property has in the very front right over the septic field.

The short leg is bounded by driveway or road on all sides: On the left is the private drive we share with two neighbors, on the top is the main street, on the right is our next-door neighbors driveway, and on the bottom is our driveway. As you can see from my sketch on the survey, the land area is about 270 feet long and 135 feet wide. My goal is to put the three beehives along the top of our property (shown on the left in the diagram because the survey is oriented to the north) screened from the private drive by ten feet of scrub, to take out everything but the live oaks, some cedar by the neighbors, the prickly pear stands, and the yucca, and to complete the gravel area with a winding path through raised beds and vertical focal points. And of course there will be a pond. The bees and other wildlife need a pond. I just hope the wildlife doesn't eat my koi.

In the raised beds will be a bee and butterfly garden, a dyer's garden, an heirloom crop garden, and an ikebana cutting garden. I'm not planning the beds to be big rectangular plots. Instead they'll be polygons that fit in between the organic meanderings of the path, and in some places they'll be layered on top of each other more a more interesting shape and even easier access.

I look forward to making a prettier and more legible plan after I've taken my drawing class! Thanks to my friend Bridget, I know I need to get ready to start planting seeds in little peat pots so I'll be ready to move them out into the garden in a month or so. Better also get the beds built...

Now off to pay bills, bring the studio books up to date and send tax info off to our accountant. Of course that all won't get done today, but I have hope for the end of the week.

I Resolve...

I'm coming to the end of the second day of January and I have yet to formalize my New Year's resolutions! I had originally started blogging about the garden today, but that post can wait till tomorrow--I need to be resolved.

As I mentioned the other day, I am over making big resolutions that are destined to crash and burn by March.  This year I like the sound of a few daily things, a couple of things based on the week, and everything else project-based--more of a goal for 2017 than a resolution. So what are these fine resolutions/goals? I give you... 2017!

Daily. Either last year or the year before I thought I might meditate for 15 minutes or so a day. Turns out I'm pretty crappy at meditation. But I like the idea of having an in-the-present, mindful time every day. Should I resolve to do a zentangle a day? I have the book. ("A Zentangle  A Day". Really.) Though I am intrigued by the concept, I can't really see committing to doing it every day. Making a zentangle project, sure. But random tangles every day? Too much, too new. Nope, for daily meditation/mindfulness/focus, I'm going to spin 15 minutes a day every day. I even started a Facebook group, Spin15, for it and got a couple of friends in Atlanta to participate. I'd like to see it grow.

Another daily goal is to take a picture and post it on Tookapic as part of their 365 project. I got this goal from Stacy Reno, and so far I'm loving it! My daily pics there have both been taken from the deck of Stone's Throw--one yesterday at sunset, and today's at sunrise. Even though I can only post a pic a day, I had to take this one tonight just because I could. It's amazing the way the iPhone can take photos even at night with no tripod.

The final daily goal took both more thought and a convoluted direction. I had originally planned to keep it simple and just blog every day, but I don't want to set myself up for failure (again), and I have other outlets for writing. Besides the blog, I have a bound journal where I put the hard stuff, the ugly stuff. The stuff that's in my head, and occasionally my heart, that I can't share with anyone, but which I need to get out of there nonetheless. That journal is carefully handwritten forcing me to take it slow because there are no erasures or do-overs. I also dabble with the idea of writing a book--no, NOT another non-fiction how-to book. I'd have to slit my wrists first. Fiction, baby. One of the multitudes of stories that run around my brain getting little, fussy paw-prints everywhere. And then there's the Artist's Way project that I tried (and failed to complete) last year (or was it the year before?). So a daily focused writing or artist's pages. More than a Facebook post or a twit, I mean tweet (which I don't do anyway).

And that's enough for every day.

Weekly. I already wrote a mini-rant about the concept of the week--how the Babylonians screwed us over and how we should just ignore this concept of time that is not based on any earthly (day), lunar (month) or solar (year) event. However we have been inundated since birth with the idea of weekdays and weekends and starting over every seven days. My nod to this completely irrelevant marker comes in two goals, and both are health-oriented (what are the odds?). For the first, I am going to work out one day a week. I can do more, I can increase to two or more in later months, but I can't do fewer. I am also only going to have a cocktail or wine with dinner four nights a week. Yeah, that seems like a lot, but right now it's probably closer to seven so I'm going to set myself up for the win with four. In February, three.

The Year. Now come the really fun goals--the ones for the year. This year I want to...

Glass: Close out the Atlanta studio and sell it; finish setting up the Austin studio, build a strong website with a good on-line wholesale store and put a marketing plan in place that replaces the wholesale shows I used to do; develop new work (potentially including glass covered books); figure out the best way of photographing it for on-line sales.

Wood: Design and build the headboard for our bed and my desk, and refinish and inlay our dining room table.

Stone's Throw: Put in the raised bed gardens and a koi pond; start keeping bees; plant the existing gardens; repair and put back into service the waterfall, stream and ponds; furnish, list, and begin renting out the apartment; remodel the master bedroom (just the floor) and the master bathroom (everything).

Ikebana: Start a study group and teach regular Ichiyo ikebana classes; continue working on my Master's certification.

Spinning: Begin the Master certification process; put the great wheel together and paint on the finish and sealer.

Farm2Yarn: Identify outlets for my roving; build an on-line store; develop a retail fiber business.

Weaving: Sell or donate the 60" LeClerc Nilus loom; finish setting up the textile studio; weave a first project on the AVL loom.

Jewelry making: Set up a silversmithing/jewelry area; Join the Austin Gem and Mineral Society and start learning lapidary techniques.

Paper: Experiment more with suminagashi and European paper marbling; learn book-binding.

Cooking: Make fresh bread and pasta at least once a month; learn to make Kombucha and ferment vegetables with a mortier pilon; strain and finish the infusions I made.

Soap Making: Make enough soap for our use and for gifts, and work though a good part of my soap supply stash.

Art: Take a drawing class (already scheduled); restart wheel-throwing pottery (sign-up for another class); cover the longhorn skull I got in December with stones or glass.

Entertainment: Dinner and a movie out with my sweetie at least twice a month; travel for spring break; summer in Montana.

Wow. That sounds like a very full, very fun year!

Happy New Year

It's a late morning for me as stayed up watching movies till after midnight last night, but I'm going to get a quick post in before I get out of bed. Maybe that should be a New Year's resolution: Can't get up till I've posted for the day. Nope that sounds like a recipe for disaster--I'd just find myself in bed all day.

The sun is shining here in Austin and it's supposed to be 74 degrees today. I'm going to get out into the yard and scatter my wildflower seeds. It's getting a bit late--especially for the bluebonnets--but I have been dragging my feet about using the seed roller--even after Dave so kindly put it together for me. I also want nothing more than to take down the Christmas tree, but I have a feeling would strenuously object so I can wait till Wednesday when she goes back to school. I'll leave the lights and glass snowflakes in the windows for awhile, but it's time for the ornaments and the Christmas towels, the angels and the garland, to be packed away for another year. One thing I will get to today is the all the gift-wrapping paraphernalia. We reuse bows and other package decoration and have literally boxes full of them. I also buy gift wrap on-sale and hadn't realized till this year just how many rolls we have. I really think we might not need to buy Christmas wrap for the rest of our lives... It's time to make a permanent package wrapping station. I took the idea from the container store and am tweaking it a bit to use some of the built-in drawers and pegboard in the utility room and the Elfa storage units I moved from Atlanta.

Before getting to the chores, however, I think I'll see if I can get the spouse interested in a little walk to the end of our street with the dogs. It doesn't sound like much, but there are serious hills at each end so you do end up walking uphill both ways. And, hey, no snow!

The Year in Review

I lay cozy in bed (there has been much coziness here in the past few days) and contemplate the year ending today. "January, you start the year off fine. February, you're my little Valentine. March, I'm gonna march you down the aisle. April, you're my Easter bunny when you smile..." Yes, I wrote all those Neal Sedaka "Calendar Girl" lyrics from memory--while the accompanying scene from "Deadpool" ran though my mind. It's been that kind of year. More so than most, it was a year of endings and beginnings. Part of that may be that I am feeling closer to my mortality than I have in the past, but the rest been hello, good-bye, wash, rinse, repeat. Data.world, the American Made Show, Atlanta, Stone's Throw, the Waldorf School, and McCallum Cinematic Arts Program, to name a few.

I could list the highlights of the year out (blah blah, blah blah), but I decided to end the year with pictures instead. Then I'm getting back to our traditional New Year's Eve of six movies. We each picked two and just came to the end of Jessie's first pick: "Scott Pilgrim vs the World". Next up (in order):

Blade Runner (Dave)
The Hateful Eight (Me)
Nick & Nora’s Infinite Playlist (Dave)
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (J)
Star Trek: First Contact (Me)

Happy End of 2016 everyone. Hope no one else dies...

Timey Wimey

I sit cozy under the lovely English wool blanket I got at Stonehenge last year sipping English Breakfast tea in a Japanese style tea cup I bought from the artist at last year's American Made show, and I cast my gaze to the year to come. As so often happens at this time of the year I reevaluate my activities, routines, pursuits and passions, and I think of how I might tweak them for an even better year. We call this "New Year's Resolutions".

I'm sure someone has drawn a lovely graph with time on the bottom and emotions marching up the left  showing how one goes from euphoric steadfast resoluteness, to anxiety at the thought of trying to live up to this monumental list, to harried just-keeping-up-with-it-all, to guilt at missing one instance of whatever but vowing not to let it bring you down, to complete and utter disgust at the time and energy wasted on resolving to change because you end up worse off than when you started! For me that cycle usually takes January through March.

As I write this post I'm having a bit of déja vu. I suppose it's not surprising that I would have railed at the urge to make (and inevitably fail at) New Year's Resolutions sometime in the last ten years of blogging. But as I don't seem able to keep myself from making them, I'll go on writing and share a couple of ways I am hoping to be more successful this year.

Start Small and Expand. Okay, (many) other (smarter) people have surely thought of this one, but it has never been in my nature to commit to do something at less than 100% so it's a new concept for me. What's not new to me is evaluating my physical state (who doesn't after the extreme gluttony of the holidays?) and deciding I need to make some changes. In the past I would join a gym, sign up for classes, plan to work out 3-5 days a week for 30-60 minutes a day and poop out within the first month. This year I am going to set a goal of working out one day a week for 30 minutes. I can do more if I feel like it once I'm at it, but 30 minutes on the elliptical once a week is enough to meet my initial goal. (I still have an LA Fitness membership that I signed up for over a year ago and haven't used since May.) My hope is that by March instead of doing nothing, I'll at least still be doing one day and maybe even have expanded to two.

Screw the Babylonians. What, who? According to the BBC, the Babylonians are probably responsible for dividing the month into weeks--the one time period not derived from the movement of a celestial body. Apparently Babylonians were all about the number seven (based on the seven heavenly bodies of the sun, mars, the moon, mercury, venus, jupiter, and saturn) and thought rituals--like resolutions--should be performed every seven days. The Japanese and the Chinese thought so too. Well I think seven is a very stressful number. It's very hard to try to squeeze a whole bunch of things into seven days and trying to repeat it is just asking for a nervous breakdown. Making things rituals or routines based on seven days has NEVER worked for me. Instead, my resolutions are mostly going to be project and seasonally driven--not regular and routine.

Project time is a better way to look at time for me. How many days does a project I resolve to do need? Days, unlike weeks, are not arbitrary. They are filled with the rhythms of eating and doing and sleeping, and even with the insomnia I've been having lately I am still physically grounded in the timing of a day as I need a certain number of hours of sleep in one, so I can only accomplish so much other stuff. If I'm smart, I can lay out a year's worth of projects and be happy and feel like I've accomplished them even as I swap one for another and let some go by the wayside.

Don't make too many resolutions. Oh well. I won't succeed at this one as there are always so many things I want to do and the thought of not being able to do them sometime in the next year is unbearable because a year seems so long and the next one so far away. That's my inner child talking. A year used to be so long it was incomprehensible: I couldn't hold the concept of it in my mind. Now I blink and a week is over (what happened to this sacred break week which every year promises a great long space of time to do things and is now over with nothing done?). I sneeze and it's the next month. But in the same way I couldn't grasp the enormity of a year as a child, I can't quite equate the brevity of a year with my adult reality, so instead I resolve to make a list of things I want to accomplish now, to revisit it often throughout the year, and to make changes as appropriate. I resolve to be F-L-E-X-I-B-L-E. Maybe I should have titled this post "Elastigirl"...

Karma

You know how I mentioned Karma the other day? Well she's not just in charge of making sure those who cut you off in traffic get what's coming to them. She's also the when-one-door-closes-another-door-opens chick, and she perks up when you invoke her name.

I got an email this morning that the Master Spinner class I am registered for in Destin in February has been cancelled for lack of interest, i.e., people forking over dough to attend. This hole in my dance card has brought up options which I thought were closed and is making me rethink my continuing education choices for the year. Or, as Dave would say, "I've got a date with Destiny, and she's ordered the lobster." I have the option of attending the same class, at the same time, but in Wisconsin, or I could see if there is still space at the Philly wholesale show also scheduled then. The show is probably full. I just went through a loooong post detailing why doing wholesale shows is not in my best business interest, and yet seeing friends, having a surety of orders for the year (if at a pretty high cost) is beguiling. Wisconsin in February, cold. Philly in February, cold. Wisconsin has SPINNING. Philly has glass friends and income instead of outgo (or at least more income than outgo--I would hope). It's a lot more expensive to fly to Wisconsin. And longer. It's a lot more expensive to stay in Philly.

It's easy in these situations (for me at least) to immediately react instead of pausing to take a few moments to ask myself, "Was my initial decision to follow this course well thought out? Do the circumstances that caused me to make it still hold true?" My answers this time are sort of and maybe. Not so helpful. I thought out the Master Spinner program in terms of do I really want to do it, can I afford it both in terms of time and money, and is it scheduled for a good time for me. Those are all still true so I guess it's well thought out--though since all the criteria are pretty much about me and not my family, business, or long-term goals I had to go with "sort of". In terms of the circumstances causing me not to do the Philly wholesale show, all the reasons for not doing shows at all still hold true, but now the change in show management for Philly does make it more attractive to me--as does the post-Christmas bank balance.

My brain hurt and I had to take a break so I called Dee to see what she knew about availability of booth space at the February show. She said she thought there were still booths available, but, having been a good friend and read my previous long business post, she talked me off the ledge by reminding me of all the reasons I didn't want to do it and encouraged me to sit this one out to see how everyone else likes it--and to give the new website and marketing ideas a chance.

So. February. In Wisconsin. Time to source more warm clothes...

A Quickie

After yesterday's marathon post, today's will be a quickie. It's also destined to be a quickie as I am waiting on the child so we can run out and do some errands. We said goodbye to our last Montana bunny (actually a baby of our Montana bunnies) on Boxing Day so one of our runs this morning will be to the Austin Animal Center, the largest no-kill animal shelter in the United States housing over 18,000 animals a year, to drop off the multiple enormous bags of rabbit food that I accidentally over-ordered. Then we're off to the antique mall so Jessie can take pictures of cool items and vignettes to use in her art class next semester--it's an over-the-break assignment from her art teacher.

And speaking of art... If I weren't doing enough already, I've signed up to take a 12-week drawing class at The Contemporary Austin. The class is Tuesday mornings from 9:30-12:00 and I'm hoping to learn how to pull the ideas that float around my head out and accurately capture them on paper. I feel like a five year-old when I try to draw, and I get so caught up in the process that I lose the content.

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We're back from an extended trip out which morphed to include picking up the license plates for Dave's car, buying some drawing and book-making supplies at Jerry's Artarama, and drooling over journals at Iona Handcrafted Books. The afternoon wraps up with a viewing of The Wind Rises, Hiyao Miazaki's last film, up in Jessie's room. Vacation is good.

Looking Forward

I sip the Adagio English Breakfast tea (gifted to me by Dave's parents) in a cup I got at last year's (and the last) American Made wholesale show in Washington DC, and I think ahead to next year as a glass artist, a business owner, a beekeeper, a gardener, a spinner, a weaver, a jeweler, a wanna-be potter, a home maker, and someone who is perennially overweight and out of shape. That sentence and the scope it encompasses are so great that my mind boggles. Today it will be enough to contemplate the first two: the glass artist and the business owner. What to do in 2017? How to navigate the changed landscape and the treacherous reefs ahead?

The biggest change for 2017 is that I am now in Austin, and my primary creative partner, Todd, is in Atlanta. Additionally in Atlanta is my studio support network of Dee and Brian. Not-quite-half my studio is also in Atlanta, and the other half is one eighth usable, three eighths a higgledy-piggledy mess, and a smidge unfinished. Another big change is that normally I would be frantically preparing for my big show of the year right now, but I don't have a show scheduled for this year so instead I sip my rapidly-cooling tea and try to figure out how to proceed.

I could just go on a hunt for the apple tv remotes that have gotten lost in the couch cushions and forget all about pesky marketing, materials-sourcing, website development, and balancing the books for 2016. Or I could go clean the kitchen, sweep out the fireplace, put away the gift wrap, do laundry, or curl up with a good book and a hot, fresh, cup of tea and revel in the utter silence of a house without contractors. But no, I am not a quitter or an avoider. I am a head-on reinventor. So how am I going to reinvent and drive my business this year?

Wholesale shows. The original lure of doing wholesale shows was that they would bring in reorders. After 11 years of doing them I can say that I could count the number of spontaneous reorders from galleries in that time on two hands. It's not a spontaneous order from a gallery if I have to contact them and nudge them into placing an order. I don't need the high dollar, physical, and mental energy cost of a wholesale show if I also have to make a nudge. Maybe I am just soured on the whole wholesale show experience. I didn't have success at the Gift Markets either in Atlanta or Dallas (I never tried New York), but maybe it's because I didn't give them enough chance by doing them for several years. Unfortunately they cost too much to keep trying, hoping to build up a clientele from them. I also can't compete in price with the mass-produced imported items which are also offered at those venues.

The alternative to Gift Shows, the Fine American Craft Shows, went through a nasty little war that ended with the dissolution of one (the better one to my mind), and the sale of the other to Emerald Expositions Jewelry Group. There is a third which has one wholesale/retail show, but the wholesale component is reputed to be insignificant to the participating artists. That condition may change however, based on the happenings with the other two shows. Personally, I'm interested to see how the evolution of the one that was sold one turns out (interested like I might be to watch a boa constrictor devour a mouse, or a tarantula wasp parasitize its host). In any case, my gut feeling is that the $6,000+ I would spend to do a wholesale show could be better spent on other things.

Retail shows. Is it time to get back to a balanced mixed of wholesale and retail sales? I have already applied for an 11-day show next December here in Austin that I have wanted to do for over 15 years, the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar. It's a show that's 41 years old and there are at least two artists still doing it that have done it for 40 years. I couldn't afford to do it if I had to come in from out of state (the main reason I am not doing the One of a Kind Show in Chicago anymore), but now that I live here again it becomes doable. It's a beast though: a marathon show that runs 10 am to 10 pm everyday with live music playing the whole time. Art shows with live music are always a tricky proposition as they can be sensorily overwhelming and extra exhausting depending on the music and how close your booth is to it. I leave myself in the hands of Karma for this one. If I get in or not, I can and will see the silver lining.

But what about more? Should I consider doing more local Austin shows or shows local to where I am at different parts of the year? What shows are even still open for application? Then there's the whole indoor vs. outdoor show thing. It's been a loooong time since I did an outdoor show. I would need to replace the canopy for my Lightdome tent and completely redesign my display fixtures for my current work. And what work would I sell? Mine? Mine with Todd? Mine with Bill (the steel stands)?

And am I really at a place in my life where I want to start a new course all over again? Let's be honest. To really be successful at weekend retail shows you can't just do one or two a year. That's how you make pocket money, and that pocket money comes at the cost of killing yourself. Unless you're lucky enough to get to set-up the day before the show starts, you get up at the crack of dawn having loaded everything in your vehicle the night before, drive to the show to wait in line to load in and set-up, stressing that you won't be ready when the show starts. After you've lugged everything to your booth location you wrestle with figuring out how to set up the tent, race to put out and price all the work, and then spend 2-3 days smiling and chatting with random strangers interspersed with infrequent potty breaks and cold sandwiches and snacks. At the end of it all is a hurried break-down of the tent--including the requisite pinched fingers--and pack-up of the work, followed by a mad dash to get your car in line for load-out before midnight and the drive home. To make retail shows worthwhile you can't just do one every so often; you would need to do them regularly and often so that you could take advantage of being packed and going straight from one to the next without the need to unpack and repack.

The show warriors, the artists who make a living by doing weekend retail shows, don't do a couple of shows a year, and they don't wing it. They have spent years honing their schedule and streamlining their processes for maximal return and minimal fatigue and cost. They have built a circuit where they are known, and their presence is anticipated by an established customer base every year. Show warriors know before ever arriving at a show where to get in line for load-in and how to make it go more smoothly. They know where their booth is located, how best to set-up their tent at the site, and have equipment to get everything speedily from the vehicle to the site. They also know where to park their vehicle for the day or the show. They know where to stay and where to eat. Routine is the show artist's friend. The rhythm and process that come from repetition make everything go more smoothly and less strenuously to keep fatigue to a minimum. Energy is saved to handle a few new things instead of a continual barrage of them. This familiarity with venue and event extends to the actual flow of the show and break-down, leaving the artist able to move through it without much thought or effort, sparing their attention for unexpected things like bad weather, near-by construction affecting the event, or traffic accidents.

I am not just blowing smoke out of my hat spouting all this stuff about show warriors. I remember building my own routines and rhythms over years of doing the Buyer's Market show in Philadelphia. I now believe that it was the anticipated effort of having to establish new routines that upset so many artists and buyers when the show moved from Philly to DC. It wasn't just that people don't like change, it was the wisdom and foresight that acknowledged how much more the show would cost in terms of energy and effort as we had to learn new processes and create new location-specific routines. In the end, the cost was just too much for the both the artists and the buyers and the show died.

It would take me 2-3 years to suss out which weekend shows worked for me based on revenue, timing, and location. It would take 2-3 years to build up a strong clientele at new shows. I had a reminder of that truth this year when I got two calls from people who had seen my work at the One of a Kind Show in Chicago in previous years who were disappointed not to see me this year. It would probably also take 2-3 years to develop packing, load-in/set-up, sales, and break-down/load-out processes that wouldn't break me. In short, if I wanted to do weekend shows and earn more than just pocket money, I would need to become a show warrior which would mean extended time away from my home and family--or dragging some portion of them along with me... We all give a collective shudder at the prospect. I'm not up for either option. And I'd need a camper or an RV. Dave's not up for any of those options. Glad we could work through that one here and save me the expense of replacing my Lightdome canopy. No weekend art fairs unless I decide to do them with the goal and expectation of pocket money or some other reward.

The Internet. Much has changed in the world of fine craft since the 1980's and early1990's. Before the Internet, people bought art and craft at galleries or art festivals. The perception--and it was mostly true--was that you could buy directly from the artist for half what you'd pay a gallery, and the artist would get all the money with none of it going to the money-grubbing gallery. The last bit was complete codswallop of course, but that's a subject for a different post on the value of galleries to an artist... Although that post might also have a bit more nostalgia than reality in it today too.

Artists communicated new work to their gallery customers with printed catalogs ranging from expensive, glossy, and professionally printed to run-off-at-the-copy-shop and stapled together by hand. They sent postcards and mailed out newsletters detailing new work. Artists who did retail shows kept mailing lists and sent out postcards to the people who bought their work at craft fairs telling them when they'd be back in the area doing another show.

Enter the Internet with Etsy, Wholesalecrafts.com, and a host of others. Welcome to email and websites and newsletter-generating services. Heck, welcome to digital photos instead of prints and slides (remember when applying to exhibit at a show meant sending them slides of your work?!?). Gallery owners--and retail customers--can browse on-line catalogs and watch videos of artists in their studios as they sip coffee. They can read the message, see the brand, catch the excitement all from their couches, and, with a quick click and a tap, they can send credit card numbers winging through the wires to purchase their heart's desire. All that without talking to anyone. There are many artists who have successfully moved (or started) their businesses online, and there is a lot to be said for that model in terms of minimizing physical effort, travel (time away from family), and cost (just saving the money from two $6,000 shows a year is a whole lot of Internet seed money).

I remember sitting around the table with a bunch of artist friends after a long day at the Buyer's Market Show and saying, "Wouldn't it be nice not to have to do set-up, and break-down, and spend all this money?" It looks like now is my chance. So what do I need to do? First thing is to decide wholesale, retail, or both.

Wholesale on-line. I already have a customer base of all the galleries I have worked with over the past 10+ years so I wouldn't need to start from scratch for wholesale marketing. Shipping is also easier with wholesale as it's big orders--not onsey-twosies--so I wouldn't spend as much time on it dollar for dollar. Making the jump from a primarily wholesale business to a wholesale on-line business doesn't seem to need such a big investment of time either.

Retail on-line. While Etsy sounds grand, I don't think it's so easy to take an established wholesale business and turn it into an equally lucrative retail business on Etsy. It takes time, a lot of little sales, and a lot of followers/reviews to build a successful Etsy store--there's just too much competition out there to even be found on their site. So I'd probably do better with my own website and maybe Facebook. An on-line retail presence would also benefit from being paired with a year or so of doing weekend art fairs to get the word out and a market going. As we've already determined that the idea of becoming a show warrior is somewhat unattractive at my current age and place in life, I'd have to have a t-shirt graphically spelling out "I'm too old for this shit" to wear everyday to every show. So it looks like just retailing on-line is a non-starter.

Wholesale and retail on-line. Short and sweet: If I started retailing on-line, that would (rightly so) piss off my wholesale accounts so I could kiss many of them good-bye. Looks like straight wholesale on-line is the way I'll go.

I need a plan. So how to establish and grow a primarily on-line wholesale business? For my existing customers, I need to engage them electronically, and put new routines and processes into place to keep my work in front of them when they are placing orders and filling holes in inventory. I need to make my work pop for them in images as well as it does in real life. I need to make it easy for them to order, and I need to make it trivial for them to share my work and story with customers looking for special pieces to commission.  Once I have all of this set-up, I need to identify ways of attracting new customers. Regular communication in the form of old-fashioned postcards, e-cards, and new work notices will need to become routine.

I need a place. There are a couple of marketplaces out there for wholesaling fine craft. I tried the one run by IndieMe (formerly Wholesalecrafts.com) for several years but was never able to make the way they designed their site work for me. It was cludgy, extremely time-consuming, and ultimately unattractive. There is another site just starting up called Best in American Made. I will give them a look, but I will not use any third-party marketplace as my primary presentation site--they are too just generic for me and the extra potential buyers are cancelled out by the extra competition. It's time for a new Siyeh Studio website with videos and text providing stories about the pieces and the studio, an on-line store (wholesale login required), an interactive map with locations of galleries that carry my work, and a blog for information about new work and artist in the gallery visits. Enter Wix.

This time I am not going to open the web design application and just start winging it. This time I am going to sit down with some paper and colored pencils and do a layout and an old fashioned table of contents. I'll also have to put on my big girl panties and splash out the bucks for a real on-line store option that will have the work viewable by everyone, but the pricing and ordering options only visible to wholesale accounts.

I need a schedule. All of these new activities that need to become routine need to be scheduled. Some of them I can tackle now, some are predicated upon others which do not exist yet, and some are part one and part the other. Take the website for example. I have images of some work. I have pieces of text that can be reused from previous sites. If I just sit down and start working on it, time will pass and it will probably never be made live. Instead, after I do my initial design, I am going to build a schedule of staged releases leading up to complete go-live so that I keep moving forward, and I have a series of incremental wins.

I need new work. Everything described so far is outside of creating the actual work. I have been very lax at that in the past few years, but luckily Todd is all about creating new work. Since he cannot be tasked with anything electronic, this seems a perfect thing for him to take ownership of in our partnership. I still need to design new glass--not difficult with all the changes in color availability occurring at Bullseye Glass--but he can take my glass pieces and make new work out of them.

I need a sandwich. Well, maybe not a sandwich, but something infinitely more tasty that involves a sort of bread, meat, and condiment-like things. There is one last piece of Dave's phenomenal Beef Wellington (rare beef tenderloin coated in butter-soaked mushroom paste, pâté de foie gras, and prosciutto and wrapped in puff pastry--there are other things in it, but those are the highlights for me) left in the fridge. I think I'll pair it with a Diet Coke (if the family has left me any) and go low-tech and sketch out a website and a plan.

Christmas 2016

As Loreena McKennitt sings Emmanuel, and Dave tells me that George Michael has died, the sun sets on another Christmas Day. Now I settle into my comfy chair to post and sip a dram of the Highland Park 12 year old single malt whiskey that Dave generously shared with me from his advent calendar . He is enjoying a dram of the Half-Century Blend Batch 1--a blended Scotch whiskey over 50 years old. I love the flavor of that one but won't be buying a bottle any time soon. I would have thought that Dave would like the Highland Park as it tastes strongly of smokey peat (really strongly), and he has been all about the art of smoking (food, that is) today.

For the food science geek in him we gave him a Polyscience hand-held food smoker and a lot of different flavored wood chips. As he played with it--smoking a Pillsbury orange roll from breakfast--he commented that back-of-the-envelope math said he could smoke over 12,000 scallops with all those wood chips. Geek indeed. As the day went on he contemplated smoking tomatoes, the Beef Wellington he is making for dinner, and bourbon. At least he admitted that smoking champagne would be odd.

Thank you again to my sister-in-law Jan for her annual gift to me of the Isabel Bloom Christmas Angel. I have one for every Christmas Dave and I have been married--22 in all. It was especially wonderful to set them up this year in our new forever home.

The opening of the Christmas presents did not begin early at our house today as Jessie and I were both up till 3:30 am finishing our gifts for Dave and wrapping our presents. Dave got up at 7:00 and wrapped his presents while we snored on. This Christmas marked a change in our family dynamic. It wasn't the first year Jessie made gifts for us, but it was the first year that we were both left in awe both of her artistic talent and her wonderfully quirky style. For her dad she is doing a colored pencil rendition of the cover of Terry Pratchett's book Small Gods--Dave's favorite of his works. She included the following Calvin and Hobbes cartoon in the box with it.

I got to open the first present of the day at the J's insistence. Her wrapping was creative, and the best part of it was the handwritten text in the middle which stated, "It's more me this way, accept it :)". The Ho Ho Ho's covering the unwrapped part of the box were also handwritten. As everyone could have predicted--and she counted on--I cried when I saw her gift. She painted a series of watercolors from Studio Ghibli movies and a watercolor postcard for me. When she asked me which was my favorite it was difficult, but I'm going to have to go with the combination of the postcard based on a bit from Moulin Rouge and the still from My Neighbor Totoro. I can't wait to go out this week and have them all framed. (Well, as soon as she finishes them!)


The chef theme carried on for Dave with a great set of measuring cups from his parents in odd sizes (2/3 c., 3/4 c., 1-1/2 c.) and a monogrammed spatula, and a data.world Chef Sparkle hoodie and set of dishcloths from me.

The creative presentation of the day award at the end of it all went to Jessie for her other gift to her father--a replacement Gundum Calling t-shirt for the one he loved and left in San Antonio earlier in the fall. We were at dinner Friday night and he was bemoaning the loss of the shirt and that it was no longer available and Jessie, with her superior Internet fu, went on-line on her phone and found one for him. I ordered it for her and it won't be here for a week or so, but she photoshopped Gundum onto an image of a flip-phone, printed it out, folded the picture around my phone--onto which she had placed the ringtone for London Calling from the Clash and associated it with her phone number--and wrapped up my phone. When she gave the present to Dave to unwrap she also called my phone from hers so it was playing London Calling as he opened it. That kid has mad showmanship skills.

After opening presents J took a nap, I took a shower, and Dave moved into the second stage of Beef Wellington prep. Then it was off to the movies to see "Sing". We all loved it. I cried. (Do you sense a theme for the day?).

It was a poignant day for me--as all Christmas days are. It's a day when I contemplate the state of the world and the people and animals in it, when I wish wish for peace on earth and goodwill towards all, a day when I cherish my family and friends and give thanks for all of them. Sadly this year it's also a time for sensing the fragility of the world and the impending, waiting, breath-held feeling of bad things to come with the new year. But we will be strong, we will rationally, calmly, and with conviction and patience, weather whatever comes. We will support those who need our aid, and we will stand for justice and fairness. Gloria, in excelsis deo. Or, as Dave likes to say, "Gloria, G-L-O-R-I-A, Glo-o-ria!"

Now I listen to Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring and prepare to feast on the most magnificent of Roast Beast Feasts: the many-times-aforementioned Beef Wellington. It will be served with a bottle of Roederer champagne and a Seghesio zinfandel, set with beeswax candles, and accompanied by part two of The Hogfather. Boy am I glad we didn't watch it all last night--it would have been 5:00 am before Jessie and I got to bed!

Merry Christmas to my Christian friends, Happy Chanukah to my Jewish friends, Happy Solstice to my Wiccan friends. Be safe, be warm, be loved and love to everyone.

A Life Lived At Warp Speed

Waiting for Jessie to come downstairs so I can take her to school this morning--I have to take the cats to the vet just down the street from her school so I figured I would spare her one way of one day of riding the bus. The cats are already in their transport carrier waiting to go and not happy about any of it. Kaiju is probably going to snub me for the next few days until he gets over his huff. Boy, that cat can sulk!

It's a grey, misty day here in Austin. The roofers have not finished the roof yet, and even though they assured me it was sealed against the rain, I spent a bit of time yesterday putting bowls and towels around the house to catch the drips and cataloguing the water ingress points. *Sigh*.

I am back from a week and a half of travel for family, for ikebana, and for bees. It was all exciting and exhilerating, and my brain is full, but now it's time to get back to the projects I left in progress here at Stone's Throw. But for the moment, I'm going to sit curled up on the sectional with a cup of jasmine rose green tea, listening to my Daily Mix #2 from Spotify (Foreigner, old Doobie Brothers and Boston--to name a few), and writing a regrouping post. It is worthwhile to note that my favorite addition to the house so far is the on-demand water heater on the kitchen sink: Perfect temperature water for tea (adjustable based on tea variety) instantly. It's more than a feeling. ;-)

A week and a half ago I headed to Atlanta for the annual Ichiyo Ikebana of Atlanta Retreat. While I was there I finished up the work for the Junior Associate Master certification. I should get my certificate from the Iemoto in Tokyo in the new year. It was an intense full day and two half days. At the end of it I had done six arrangements and regained both my confidence and my groove.

Now to start teaching in Austin! (Corrected my first post which listed teaching in Atlanta instead of Austin--thanks Bill for the catch!) Jessie is my first student--she has expressed the desire to be the youngest ikebana master on record. This is probably not a good time of the year to begin offering classes with Thanksgiving and Christmas staring many people in the face, but I don't want to wait till next year. Better to start now and give people the idea of gifting lesson packages for Christmas.

First step: a website. Actually my first step was to make sure I have the equipment and the confidence to be able to teach classes: check and check. So this week I begin the website! I own the domains austinichiyo.com, ichiyoaustin.com, and hillcountryikebana.com and the studio name will be some riff on them. Last night I practiced and made an arrangement for Jessie's birthday. The theme of the birthday celebration was Dr. Strange and the colors were red and yellow and I had picked up lilies, tulips and greenery from HEB (local grocery chain) on Friday, but didn't get the arrangement done before going out of town Saturday through yesterday.

Back from the vet, and now I think it's time for a nap...