The rewards of getting older.....

Yesterday was my birthday. I spent most of my day just chilling out -- reading, playing on my laptop, doing some quilting and just generally not working.

The DH cooked a lovely pork loin roast with a b-b-que flavored spicing, and it was quite tasty!



My daughter got me this book mark -- its metal with a ribbon at the top, and stamped into the metal is a quote from George Eliot "It is never too late to be what you might have been"

She's good at giving me a swift kick in the butt and letting me know I should not give up on dreams (and I in turn try to return the favor!)



She also gave me Sarah Brightman's newest CD (which I am listening to as I write this) -- its lovely










My sister gave me this way too cute little critter! Being's as I'm the "black sheep" she got me this tape measure to keep in my knitting bag -- on the far left is the sheep with the tape retracted -- the cute little tail is where you pull the tape out!

Amazing timing in this gift! Just a couple of days ago the pull out tape I had been using decided that sometimes it will retract and sometimes it doesn't want to. It won't get thrown away, but it will no longer go in the travel bag because it could become a big tangled mess. So I was quite delighted to get the sheep.


This was quite a weekend. On Saturday the DH and I went into downtown Denver (not something we do everyday, but we'll leave that story for another day!) and picked up my cousin at her hotel. She is here for a music convention, and we had made arrangements to pick her up and take her to my parents house for a family gathering. I had not seen this cousin since 1975, and we had never spent a lot of time together as her family lived in Nashville. What a sweet time to be together and discovered those things that we have in common. I will be making a stronger effort to stay in touch in the future.

Thoughts on what Obama and I have in common

I know, you’re all thinking – “what, are you nuts?” and I understand that train of thought. After all, I’m a white woman over 50 with no college degree. He’s a younger bi-racial man with a law degree. So just what could we possibly have in common?

Well, let’s consider some of the things he said in his speech the other day. He said “I have…nieces, nephews…cousins, of every race and every hue”, and we share that heritage. In my extended family between my husband and I there are cousins, nieces and nephews who are Japanese, Vietnamese, Mexican (as in born in Mexico, not just of Hispanic background), Black, Eskimo, and American Indian. My husband is a first generation American; his parents were from England and the Netherlands. My family (or at least part of it) has been here since the days of the founding fathers. We are as a family perhaps as “melting pot” as it gets. My daughter says she needs a T-shirt that says she’s “Western European Mutt!”

He said “…we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction – towards a better future for our children and our grandchildren.” And here I say a rousing “Amen, brother!”

Obama speaks of the blacks of the generation before him that grew up in a Jim Crow environment. As a white woman I can not possibly know the ultimate humiliation that generation of blacks endured because they simply looked different. Surely that kind of humiliation is an explanation for some of the frustration and suspicion that they look at whites with. I have had the rare opportunity of hearing the bigots on both sides, from whites that had never actually known a black person and from blacks that had never actually known a white person.

He speaks of the idea that a lot of “working class…white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. …They’ve worked hard all their lives…they are anxious about their futures…your dreams come at my expense.”

We continue to deal with others as if they are either “one of us” or “one of them” without understanding that those of us who are simply the everyday folks, ordinary Americans with concerns about our families, we are all “US”. As Obama says "this nation is more than the sum of its parts - that out of many, we are truly one."

The big “THEM” are the presidents and CEOs of the big corporations that are using us all like so much expendable machinery that can be easily replaced. “THEY” live in their $16 million mansions and sit in the board rooms and decided that your little family is costing them too much to pay you a living wage or keep your pension or your health insurance or to even work for them when they can get it cheaper elsewhere.

Do I think that Obama will be the magician that will make all of this instantly better the day he takes office? No. Nobody can do that. But he has a vision of a better America for his children and my grandchildren that at least tries to heal some of the wounds. He speaks of hope.

We need hope to recover from all that has been done to us everyday folks by “THEM”. We need to learn that no matter what color our skin is or where we worship on Friday or Saturday or Sunday or where we were born, we are all the same. “THEY” have successfully used divide and conquer to make us fight each other and not see the real cause of our misery.

I hope he succeeds in redirecting our vision as a country and turning us again to hope.

The next time you use your cell phone....

say a little word of thanks to Arthur Clarke.

You know, the guy that wrote 2001, A Space Odyssey

He died yesterday, at age 90, and it seems writing is not the only thing he ever did.

"Clarke also was credited with the concept of communications satellites in 1945, decades before they became a reality. Geosynchronous orbits, which keep satellites in a fixed position relative to the ground, are called Clarke orbits.

In the wartime Royal Air Force, he was put in charge of a new radar blind-landing system.

But it was an RAF memo he wrote in 1945 about the future of communications that led him to fame. It was about the possibility of using satellites to revolutionize communications — an idea whose time had decidedly not come.

Clarke later sent it to a publication called Wireless World, which almost rejected it as too far-fetched."

(ok, to those of you who sometimes are cursing at the driver talking on the cell phone, be kind, Clarke is not responsible for world stupidity!)

Ugly Email

A few days ago I received an email from someone I've known for a number of years that shocked me. It came from an educated person, someone that before retiring taught school.

It was ugly.

I'm sure that many of you have seen the anti-Obama stuff that is floating about on the net.

I will not give the whole thing a repeat display, but there are a couple of parts that I want to address (just so I'll quit "stewing" about this)

Here then are the parts that bothered me the most:

Item #1: "we are AT WAR with the Muslim Nation"

There is no such thing as "the Muslim Nation”. The individuals that were responsible for the terrorism committed on our soil in 2001 just happened to be part of a radical Muslim group.

We are in a war of aggression in a country that had NOTHING to do with 9/11 even though that is constantly referred to as the reason we are there. As a result of this we have totally forgotten what it was we were supposed to be doing in that part of the world and along the way we have sacrificed the lives of thousands of young soldiers and their families and totally wrecked our own economy.

Item #2: ”when he was sworn into office he DID NOT use the Holy Bible, but instead the Koran”

This is a flat out lie. There has been only one person that has ever done this. His name is Keith Ellison (D, Minn).


It strikes me that part of the reason that all of this raw hate is circulating is that we are standing on the threshold of new and unknown territory. Remember how much uproar there was about JFK being Catholic? Now we have a black man with a dream and there seems to be a lot of fear about the idea that he might actually become president.

Are we going to just keep going in the same wrong headed direction we have gone the past few years, watching our jobs dwindle away because of NAFTA, watching another generation of young people have their lives destroyed by an unjust, unwarranted war?

Remember – without hope the people perish – if ever we needed hope it is now

explanation

if you are one of the folks that regularly reads my Studio Blog, you may notice this morning that the countdown ticker to Nevada City has been removed.

Now it might seem more appropriate for this explanation to be over there than here, but because this is something with a lot of emotional baggage, I decided to do it here instead because this is the blog where I "let it all hang out"

For 16 years in a row we had begun our show season with a trip to Nevada City. For a good number of those years it was a financially successful trip, and it was a great way to "fill the well" creatively.

In addition, it has been a wonderful place to "connect" with other artists, and renew friendships.

Since we moved to Colorado it has been the trip every year that has allowed me to visit that "other life" I wish I could have -- {"another life, I want another life,...and every where I ever go, I'm someone who they want to know"} -- and that is the most difficult part for me of making a decision that is practical here.

Since for the past 4 years we have take huge losses by attending this show (it costs us about $1000.00 to do it), and since on our otherwise fixed income with ever increasing costs, we have made the smart business decision and will not be making the trip to California.

I am heart broken.

Please excuse me if there are no posts on the blogs for a few days -- I need time to grieve and try to find some purpose for doing stuff

Just wondering......

why it is that I've started on this project that involves a large cloth doll (that I've been working on for 6 months and its not finished yet because I haven't figured out the rest of the design yet) and a large cloth winged horse (which is so far just the horse because I haven't figured out the wings yet) are we sensing a theme here?

anyway, I had originally thought I would try to get this all done for a show I'm doing in about a month, and I realized yesterday that because I need to finish pieces that might actually sell, this piece will go to the back burner for now (rats)

which lead to "so why am I doing this"? the second thought of what show it might go to was the Jubilee which is held in Kansas City in September, but yesterday after a look at our budget we regretfully scratched that show off of our list for this year because there is no $$ to apply

so the giant flying horse with the large cloth doll is a project in limbo -- I'm thinking that if I actually get it finished whenever that might be that I might just pack it up and send it off to the Art Doll magazine and see if they'll use it in their publication -- we'll see

sort of sad sometimes how projects I get excited about doing turn into just another unfinished object..............

I'm still here

but nothing to show you today

Saturday morning I woke up feeling kind of "off" -- little did I know I'd spend Saturday afternoon, Sunday and Monday alternating between dozing in my recliner and running to the bathroom -- needless to say, I've had better weekends!

So today I'll try to catch up with the house chores -- do some laundry, etc., and maybe even work on something.

All this after being just mad enought to spit nails on Friday when I talked to my mother.

Seems the "village" they live in has decided that they are in violation of the city ordinance regarding driveways. They have been told that they must put in concrete, asphalt or 3 inches of gravel in their driveway.

Now they have lived in their house since 1956. It never had any of that stuff and neither did anyone else in the neighborhood. Gradually over the years, the neighbors that could afford it have but those things in. And evidently at some point the city passed an ordinance that said every house had to do it.

I looked up the ordinance to try to find out when this little lovely was passed (and why they weren't told something then) -- the web site doesn't give any date on it.

All that and I guess it never occurred to the city that if my folks could afford to do that to the driveway they would have -- DUH!

Sometimes I get so annoyed at government that thinks its more important to butt into our personal property than to actually provide some services (you know, like clearing the street in front of my parents house)

Geesh!

Mind Muddle

I hate mid winter

its so.....well ---- GRAY!

I think as soon as its warm enough for the snow to be gone things should be green

Alas, such is not the case -- {sigh!}

And of course it seems that right now I'm in that "working on a dozen things and nothing is finished" stage of getting ready for shows, which does not help

I think I need a play day, but I don't even have any ideas for what I would do on one

Really I should be spending some serious time working on the website re-write, but this year I just haven't been able to get into it

I spent some time this morning surfing around in fabric websites looking at possible stuff for the back of the quilt I'm working on right now -- I found some neat stuff that is a lovely red batik -- and added it to my wish list

(have you noticed my wish list at the side of this blog? I know, there are a lot of mundane items there, but after all a wish list should be those things that you want but won't/can't buy for yourself right now!) Mostly this list was added because my daughter asked me to give her some ideas for what I might want for my birthday/mother's day/Christmas or whatever occasion seems to call for a present. I'm happy to oblige her.

perhaps today I'll get back to that website writing......and figure out a day to do "play" activities

now I've done it...

the newpaper we get on a daily basis did a "call for writers" this month

I polished up two posts from this blog and submitted them

There's no pay for this activity, but it would be cool to be able to add it to my "resume"

also a certain amount of pride accorded to beating out all the grad students

and a bit of a flying in the face of "the critic" that makes me remember so well the line from Gypsy when she says "me, with no talent, as you've reminded me every day of my life"

Take That!

anyway, I will fall over in a dead faint if they actually accept me, but its good to enter any way

keep on keepin' on!

Still needing to go green

Here in our little village, I feel like we're living in a time warp of 20 years ago.

A few weeks ago I decided to try to find a new trash company with the idea of:

1. saving a bit of money
2. having our recyclable materials collected instead of going into the landfill

I called every company in town, including the one I currently have service with.

Keep in mind that where we lived before the recycle pick up was part of the weekly trash collection at no extra charge. They didn't need to charge extra, the materials were being sold to companies that actually used the materials in new products.

They took paper (including junk mail and magazines), glass, metal, aluminum, and plastic (ALL kinds of plastic), you were told to pile yard waste (tree trimming, grass clippings, etc) in a specific place in the street and they came by, scooped them up and they were recycled too. And the local stores there encouraged you to bring in your own bags (in fact now in that area they charge you if you want a bag from them).

Anyway, here was the conversation with one of the local companies:

Me: I'd like some information about your recycling service.

Company: We pick up recycle items every other week; it costs an extra $3.25 a month.

Me: What kind of materials do you pick up?

Company: newspapers, aluminum cans and plastic marked 2 and 7

Me: What about glass or magazines?

Company: No, we can't handle those

Me: So do you bring out bins for things to be sorted?

Company: No, you just sort your stuff into the plastic bags you get groceries in

Me: I don't get plastic bags

Company: Well, you could use the paper ones I guess

Me: I don't get paper bags

Company: How do you bring your groceries home?

Me: In cloth bags that I carry in with me and reuse over and over

Company: Well, we have to have the stuff sorted into bags

Me: So do you recycle those too?

Company: I don't think so

Me: Never mind

It’s enough to have me mumbling and swearing I can tell ya!

On becoming part of the political system

Let me be clear first off here. My parents always voted. I have always voted. I was delighted when the 18 year olds got the vote even tho' it was just a little too late for me to take advantage.

But aside from having an opinion and going to the polls, my family was never all that involved in politics.

And frankly, during the time that I was working full time and being a full time mom and trying to run a small business all at once, I just didn't have much time to think about politics much more than that.

During the last seven years, however, I've become something of a political junkie.

For one thing, the current administration's bungling of all the good will we had right after the day the world went mad is so sad. Then all the evil things they have done since have made me so mad.

So, during the last election, I went to a caucus meeting for the first time.

Last night was my second time, and I can tell you, it was a whole new world.

For one thing, at the last meeting we were in this little basement class room of our local high school, two precincts in the room and all of 6 of us there. I can tell you that was a very quick meeting, but in truth, all of the deciding on the candidates had already been done because that race was so lopsided.

Last night we were in that same little basement room, but a whole world away. For our precinct alone there were 24 of us. The majority of us over 55, but some younger ones as well including one mom that brought her two elementary school aged children with her to see democracy in action -- now that was neat!

And, because there actually was a race to be decided, we actually did break into groups (although not as many as there would have been two weeks ago), and we had to "do the math" to get the right proportion of delegates selected.

It was exciting!

And so, by the end of the meeting, the DH is the new Precinct Chairman and a delegate to our county assembly which meets on Feb 23 where more business will be conducted and delegates chosen for the state convention later in the spring.

Oh yeah, I'm an alternate to the county assembly (which means I get to go even if I may not get to vote) and the new Precinct Secretary (I get to handle the emails and the paperwork -- like that's anything new!)

WOW!

Big Brother again? or something MORE sinister?

"The Massachusetts legislature approved a bill that would require all residents to purchase health insurance or face legal penalties, which would make this the first state to tackle the problem of incomplete medical coverage by treating patients the same way it does cars.

Gov. Mitt Romney (R) supports the proposal, which would require all uninsured adults in the state to purchase some kind of insurance policy by July 1, 2007, or face a fine.

All residents will have to provide details about their health insurance policy on their state income tax returns in 2008. Those who do not have insurance would first lose their personal state tax exemption, perhaps worth $150, and later face penalties equal to half the cost of the cheapest policy they should have bought. That might work out to $1,200 per year, officials said."

[source of the quote is an article dated April 4, 2006, in The Washington Post, this link will take you there for the full article.]

So, this seems to be the latest direction our great "Christian" nation is taking.

Let us review -- even if you are poor you still MUST buy health insurance or the state is going to fine you like what happens when you have a car and don't have insurance.

Ok, when you don't insure your car after a while they take away your driver's license -- so what will the end result be here -- they'll take away your license to live? Not having decent health care already does that.

As with everything else, health care is only about the "bottom line" for insurance companies, for doctors, for hospitals. Its the great capitalist system.

and its killing us

[PS: its also why I will NEVER vote for Romney]

What next?

I can't believe the depths to which what passes for government has fallen.

Just prior to being sworn in as a representative for my area of our state, Dennis Bruce kicked a newspaper photographer for the offense of taking his picture (to read all of the ugly details, use this link.)

Now this guy has been causing trouble in the city government for quite a while and he is the author of the now infamous TABOR tax bill that has been the downfall of public schools and other services in our state as well.

I can hardly wait to see what he will do next -- hold his breath until they let him introduce a bill for something?

makes me ashamed to admit I live here

I want Cheney Care!!

In yesterday's USA Today there was a full page add from the California Nurses Association and the National Nurses Organizing Committee pointing out that if Cheney were anyone else, he'd probably be dead by now.

He (and the members of congress) all enjoy government financed healthcare with very few restrictions and no prohibitive fees. They are never refused payment on treatment for pre-existing conditions or for care that the insurance company labels experimental.

WE ALL DESERVE THIS KIND OF HEALTH CARE!!!!

If you want to check out what the nurses have to say, use this link to go and check it out, sign the petition or share your horror story about insurance companies.

Thanks for listening (and I'm now stepping off my soap box for today)

End of the Year Reflections

Happy new year
Happy new year
May we all have a vision now and then
Of a world where every neighbour is a friend
Happy new year
Happy new year
May we all have our hopes, our will to try

I've heard this song for a while, never knew it was Abba.

Here in blogland we have found new friends from all around the world.

May we have a vision in 2008 of how to put an end to all the chaos in our world
may we have less conflict and killing and more peace

may we all have a happy new year

Reaping the Whirlwind......

Quite a week it has been for American youth and guns.

Omaha, Arvada, Colorado Springs

In shopping malls and houses of worship

Our society has become meaner, more unfeeling, more violent

We are our own victims, our children have become killers

Our politics are all about the terrorists from without

We are creating our own terror within

"They that sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind"

now more than ever we need to pray for peace

Creating in a vaccuum?

I have battled for a while with a huge case of "why bother" .... and today it occurred to me that its hard to create in a vaccuum....the well goes dry quickly when there is no rain, and this applies creatively too.

I admit, I like the "strokes" of having someone say "isn't that awesome" or something similar about something I've created -- and even more I appreciate the ones that will whip out their check book or their credit card and actually PAY for some of my artwork -- mostly the latter because without it I very quickly will have no way to pay for materials to make new things.

But there is in itself a certain amount of "loneliness" in creative pursuits. It does not help that at least in my little corner of the world, every group of people that I might find something in common with wants to charge a fee for the pleasure of joining their group.

I realize that if I could make the decision about where I would live I would go back to the beginning of my time living away from my parents, where my apartment was on a main bus line and close to groceries by walking and near enough to the main library and the art museums that I could go there every weekend if I wanted to ... in short, I would return to the city, away from the suburban sprawl and the responsibilities for every little problem with the property and shoveling the sidewalks when it snows and mowing the grass.

I guess the "American Dream" of home ownership was never really my dream, but the other half of this pair still wants that -- don't ask me why. And I guess what that really means is that I'm just being selfish.....at least according to current prevailing attitudes.

Ok, that's my little rant for today ..... back to work

Amazing Sound of a Boy Choir

The other evening I caught just the end of a performance on PBS of this amazing boy choir from England called Libera. If you haven't heard any of their music, I highly recommend you use this link and take a listen to some of their stuff.

My favorite of the ones on line is one titled I am the day....here are the lyrics...............

I am the day, soon to be born
I am the light before the morning

I am the night, that will be dawn
I am the end and the beginning

I am the alpha and omega
The night and day, the first and last

Illuminosa, immortalis
Sancta gloriosa
Illuminosa, immortalis
Sancta gloriosa
In aeterna

I am the life, soon to begin
I am the new hope in the morning

I am the darkness, soon to be light
I am the rising and the falling

I am the alpha and omega
The night and day, the first and last

Illuminosa, immortalis
Sancta gloriosa
Illuminosa, immortalis
Sancta gloriosa
In aeterna


I'm hoping the program will be rerun and I can record it for future listening pleasure!

nothing without a reason?

Over at Clarity of Night (a blog I read regularly), Jason has posted 2 very interesting items this week.

On Wednesday he talked about a marker in one of the cemetaries near him and drew a lot of comment about the idea of "coincidence".

Today's posting was about a very special incident that happened to him after he had read some of those comments.

Fascinating!

Do you believe in coincidence?

Are people rewarded or punished here for what they have done?

Do you think they're right when they say "no good dead goes unpunished"?

This much I do believe -- everything we do has an impact somewhere -- if we had not made every decision we have ever made, we would not be exactly where we are -- perhaps the ultimate expression of the rule of unintented consequences

What do you think?

Fiber as an art form, and how much is too much?

Yesterday morning I started in on the annual "clean up the house for Christmas decorating", albeit slowly (very slowly due to the cold meds, etc.) when I was summoned to the TV by the DH and told to "sit, stay, watch this program!"

He had stumbled into a program on PBS titled The Art of Quilting, and he thought I might be interested in seeing it......well, let me tell you, I was GLUED to that TV screen through it all!

Now I can tell you that I have made a few quilts. To me quilts were functional, useful objects (guess that goes to my grandmother's telling me to be frugal with materials), but I have found ways to make my own sort of "artsy" statement with some of the ones I have done.

Lately, while the pieces I have worked on have been intended as gifts and intended to keep the user warm, there has been a certain amount of experimenting going on. In fact the piece I'm currently working on is another combination of piecing, applique, embroidery, embellishing and my current plan is to quilt a design over it that does not following the design on the front which will be a real departure from anything I've ever done with one. (All this from someone that two years ago was a confirmed PIECER -- no applique -- too difficult, etc., etc.)

Anyway, regarding the show -- I was fascinated by the work of a group of women who call themselves The Chicago School of Fusing -- a technique that I know a little about and have not previously been interested in doing anything with because I can't see it as a good technique for something intented to be a cover to be wrapped up in. However, as a technique for something to be hung on the wall, that transformation of quilt to art form to be VIEWED it holds a lot of fascination.

The project I'm working on now features a dragon on a water/mountain background, but after seeing that show I see the potential for a smaller hanging version with more than one dragon -- all of which would be possible if I used that fusing technique....

hmmmmmm, perhaps an idea for a later time!

Meantime, I'm considering rather my idea a few months ago to split up my areas of art into several different blogs was such a good one.

Sometimes, less is more, and after all, anyone that knows me, knows my work or has even randomly read my ramblings knows that I have this whole issue of focus -- or lack thereof -- multi tasking seems to be my middle name and I'm not sure at this point in my life if its a good idea to fight what has worked (ok, most of the time!) by trying to split it up into little bite sized pieces.....

We'll see