Friday for me is usually a light day, a kind of limbo-y go-with-the-flow and deal-with-miscellaneous-stuff day. I work hard so that I don’t normally have a ton of editing work to do on Friday, and if there is any, I try to make it the kind that doesn’t require a lot of super concentration (formatting references, applying style codes, prepping manuscripts). Friday is my day for marathon errand running (Costco, Heinen’s, Trader Joes, libraries, Target, recycling, Lowe’s — whatever needs to be done). But I try to leave it a little loose, too, so that if the whim hits I can check out a new shop or walk on the beach or take myself out to lunch or whatever strikes my fancy as a special little treat. Especially when the weather is nice, as it is today, it’s good to be out and about in the big world where you run into other people instead of playing hermit in my office.
Spring, finally. Real spring, not simply calendar spring (the advent of which is usually followed by at least one snowfall). Spring for me is the day the daffodils pop open, this year coinciding with the day the “Nana plants” start to bloom. (“Nana plants” because Nana had a lot of them, and some of those offshoots have made it through a number of years and a number of gardens to my own garden, and I can’t ever remember the real name of this pretty, spready plant with the cool leaves and pretty white flowers.)
Nana would have been 104 this week. Papa would have been 103 last week. We buried Aunt Vera, Papa’s sister, earlier this week, at age 93, the last of her generation that I’ve had the pleasure of knowing. My family tends to live good, long lives, full of adventures and opinions and guts and general good health. I hope I’m as lucky.
Love of the garden runs in the family, too. When I was a kid, a visit to a family member’s house also meant a walk around the garden to see what was blooming and what was thriving and what was next up — and it is still so. We pass around cuttings and divisions and help fill in each other’s gardens with the bounty and overgrowth from our own. Our garages harbor rafts of extra pots and trays to throw in the trunk of the car to capture a cousin’s unruly hosta or an aunt’s choking iris.
I was thrilled with the progress I had made on my little gardens at my little house; here in the bigger house there are more gardens to fill, in worse condition to start with. There’s so much to do that it can be overwhelming, so this year I’m focusing on only three smallish areas: digging out the rest of the invasive vine from the little hill next to the driveway (started last year); the garden around the back patio; and the little garden right outside my office window, which is the one I see for most of the day most every day. That latter is actually part of my plan for my office. Since I spend so much time looking out those windows during my workday, I think that garden should be particularly nice.
And because today is such a lovely day for work in the garden, I think it’s time to get to it.
I’m calling my own snow day today. The snow is blowing sideways and it looks just miserable out there, so I’m going to hibernate and not go anywhere. The author proofs I was expecting to receive yesterday didn’t arrive — not sure if UPS gave up after the snow started yesterday afternoon or if they were just delayed, so there’s no editing work that can’t wait until Monday. I’m still fighting the headache from yesterday, and I think I slept wrong, since my neck is really stiff. I’m declaring today a day for puttering and flitting from this to that as the whim strikes.
I started out with catching up on the women’s figure skating from last night. The winner totally blew the others out of the water — just gorgeous! My husband will be thrilled that the skating is over, though, if only because it will stop me from yelling “Shut up, Scott Hamilton!” at the TV until 2014. (Seriously, someone get to work on the technology whereby one can turn off the inane and negative commentary and hear only the music. You’ve got four years: GO!)
The rest of the day, who knows?
Our little white friend over there walked right by my office window the other day. I grabbed the camera, opened the front door, and took that shot a split second after he started to take off. His coloring is called skewbald, and it is caused by a genetic variation. Originally, I thought we had three different skewbald deer, but in looking at earlier photos, this one, which I thought was a female, has the same exact pattern as a one-antlered male I photographed a few weeks ago. (I didn’t know until today that deer lose their antlers over the winter and grow new ones in the spring.) I can’t lay my hands on the photos we took of the one with the huge rack of antlers soon after we moved in, but now I’m curious if it’s the same one after all.
I’ve been a bit challenged for material to write about here lately, so when I stumbled across Gwen Bell’s Best of 2009 Blog Challenge, I thought it was just the thing to give me a nudge. No promises that I’ll be able to chime in every single day, but I’m going to give it a try.
Today’s topic: What was your best trip in 2009?
We took only one big trip this year, which was to my cousin’s wedding in Las Vegas in May. We were happy to be there, and had a nice time, but both of us are pretty much over Vegas after having been there several times before. We’re not into nightclubs or spectacle, neither of us gambles or shops for recreation, and the party-party-party atmosphere gets old fast. The trip came in the middle of crunch time for both of us, too, so while it was good to get away for a couple of days, it was still a little stressful, even before dealing with plane travel and airports and fisticuffs in the hallway outside our hotel room at 3 a.m.
While I wouldn’t call it a trip per se, we took a wonderful drive back in October on a Sunday afternoon to see the changing leaves. We’ve both had a completely crazy busy year with work projects and other stuff, and it was nice to take a few hours on a sunny afternoon and just get out into the world, away from the computers and the papers, and take it all in. I’d have to say that that nontrip was the best trip of 2009.
Yeah, I’m still working on the entry about how much I love my iPhone. It’s taken off in a direction of its own however, and it will not be rushed. I’ll get to it eventually.
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It’s about the company and the food, without the crazy consumer pressure of Christmas. We had a nice, low-key Thanksgiving yesterday at Mom’s. We hosted the whole extended family gang here last year, which was fun, but we just couldn’t do it this year, what with the mid-renovation state of the house.
Considering how friendly I’ve become with the wild turkeys that wander about our neighborhood, I thought I’d have a very difficult time this year feasting on the bird. I didn’t. I enjoyed my share last night, then had some again this morning with my bacon and toast. I saved the stuffing for lunch.
I’ve got another couple of crazy weekends in front of me. Tomorrow is the Summer Market — for the Holidays at Bar Symon in Avon Lake. Next Friday through Sunday is the Laurel School Artisan Bazaar. The first is a holiday incarnation of my favorite show each year, and the second is a great show that I’ll be doing for the first time. I have high hopes for both.
Thanksgiving might be a little difficult for me this year.
I took a little break from a book I’m working on to take some photos of the changing leaves for a friend who lives in Hawaii but misses the fall colors on the mainland. (The colors are just spectacular in the rain.) I was working my way around the back of the house when I turned the corner and found my turkey friends in the herb garden, snacking on some worms or bugs or something in the freshly turned soil. I was almost on top of them before I noticed them (see how they’ve got that sneaky dirt-colored camouflage thing happening?), and one of them actually started to approach me. I snapped a few pictures, then switched to the movie setting and followed them around the yard for a few moments. You can hear the low sounds they make in the video, something between a gurgle and a bark.
They weren’t quite sure what to make of the fence; the other end of the fence by the gazebo isn’t quite so low to the ground, and they’re able to easily duck underneath down there. And it occurs to me with Halloween approaching that the clip of them near the playhouse might make a good horror film — the scale makes them look ten feet tall.
The herb garden is right up against the kitchen window, which now that I think about it explains the mysterious knocks I’ve heard a couple times today when there’s been no one at the door. At the last office job I had, the turkeys would come right up to the window and peck at their reflections, and it sounded like someone knocking. Mystery solved.
In other news, I have a nice stream of projects coming in, a good mix of scholarly and fun, light and bring-on-the-machetes, quick and long term. I really am a project person; I thrive on being able to work on something and then put it away as done. I don’t do so well in environments where you have to do the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Or I have to work really hard to find some way to make each iteration different somehow.
I had a great time with the Cloth•Paper•Scissors Studio Tour last weekend. I visited every one of the stops on the tour and found something interesting or cool or beautiful or inspiring or otherwise worth my time at every one. And I found some intriguing new blogs in the process, too. (If you didn’t get a chance to take my studio tour, it’s the October 2, 2009, entry.)
And speaking of new blogs, Chris of Copper Leaf Studios is doing a wonderful job with her new-ish blog. She has such a wonderful sense of humor and writing style, and her personality shines right through. Give her a visit if you haven’t yet.
It’s started to get really chilly in the evenings here in Northeast Ohio. I’ve dragged out the extra blankets, and I have to admit that I really enjoy sleeping with the windows open to the chill as long as I have all those weighty blankets on me. It really does make it even more difficult to get out of bed in the morning, though.
I’ve been accepted to the Rocky River Fall Arts Festival, which will be happening two weeks from tomorrow in the Old Detroit Road shopping district. This is a brand new show, and I’m hoping it ends up being a good one for everyone. A number of Cleveland Handmade artists will be there, and there are some really good restaurants within a couple of blocks; check it out if you’re in the area.
Work has been incredibly busy. I had hoped to coast through August, but a long-awaited BIG project finally came in and morphed into a super-rush project. I’ve been nose-to-grindstone for the past two weeks, and will probably be so into next week. Thankfully, we have a very low-key holiday weekend ahead with no major plans, so I’ll be able to make some progress over the weekend and take next weekend as my very own holiday.
Earlier this week I got notice that the Cat Lover’s Daily Companion has had such strong orders that it’s going into a second printing before it’s even out in the stores. That makes me happy. And Kristen and I talked about doing some local signings before the holidays; I’ll post info here if we get something together.
This time of year always makes me nostalgic for the return to school. Yes, I was one of those uber-geeky kids who loved school so much that I begged to go to summer school. I was a little sad to learn that my elementary school is in the process of being torn down. It was built in the forties and just two blocks from the house I grew up in. They’re replacing it with one large elementary school that will serve the entire town. Kind of a weird concept for me to wrap my head around, as someone who walked to school most of her life.
So, anyway, back to school. I have the urge to buy new pens and notebooks and other supplies. Which I did this past week, stocking up on my beloved multicolored Uni-Ball Vision Elite Micros and my new favorite, Sasquatch Ideal Books. I broke down and bought a new laser printer to replace my rapidly failing HP LaserJet 1200; it’s supposed to be here next week. I was briefly tempted to splurge on a color laser or one that would automatically duplex, but I just couldn’t justify the extra $250 or more. I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of the 2010 Moleskine Weekly Notebooks (my calendar of choice) at the bookstore. Yes, I am one of those uber-geeky adults who is already scheduling stuff into 2010.
I still indulge my love for school with taking classes and workshops. Sunday I’ll be taking a class in stone drilling, something I’ve been wanting to learn for a long time. I just heard that Keith Lo Bue will be teaching here in Cleveland sometime next year, so I asked to be added to the info list for that so I can sign up when it’s officially announced. I’m stalking the Bead Paradise site, waiting for their fall class listings, and I’m still on the search for enameling classes.
Wednesday the FedEx man suprised me and brought me the advance copy of my book nearly two months earlier than I was expecting to receive it. I’ve been walking around with a really stupid grin on my face ever since.
I say “my” book, but it was a huge team effort, and I was most definitely the junior author on this one. Kristen and Iris both have loads of book-writing experience; I have loads of book-making experience, but not a lot of writing-for-publication experience. It was a really weird exercise to put on a completely different hat and sit in the writer’s chair, but it was also energizing. I hope to do it again someday.
And I have to say that everyone I’ve dealt with at Quarry has been a joy to work with, and they’re putting out some really beautiful books (I had to go peek at some of the others in the series at the bookstore yesterday).
Ah, coolness. I’m so happy to have the windows open again after a few days of blasting the air conditioning. I’m not a big fan of the A/C most of the time — I much prefer fresh air, and my body is happier just acclimating to whatever the temp is than being super hot one minute and super cold the next — but wow, we needed it the past few days.
Of course Sunday, the hottest and humidest and nastiest day of the year, I had an outdoor show. Now I can’t complain too much, since the show before that had rain in the morning and the one before that one was unseasonably cold, but I’m sure the heat kept quite a few people away. Still, those who were there were buyers, and I had a couple of nice sales and even more compliments, all of which I am grateful for. I was even a little surprised when I got back home and counted up my earnings, and it was more than I thought it would be.
This week I’m the Spotlight feature over at Lillyella; go check it out. (Pssst: You can enter to win one of my etched pendants!) I’ve been a fan of hers for a long time, so it was an honor to be invited to be featured. I love the feedback and inspiration I’m getting over there.
To prepare for the feature, I listed a TON of new stuff on my Etsy shop this past Saturday. There’s still more to come, too. I’d love to hear what you think in the comments.
Click to subscribe with RSS
