on becoming art educated

its funny how one acquires knowledge

not long ago a friend sent me this card

The picture is titled "water heater walking" and its one of Dada's works

Now the fellow in question is an artist in his own right, but he was just struck by the humor of this particular piece and it made him think of us after all of our water heater issues last fall

To be honest, I had heard the name Dada, but I really had no clear idea of who he was (other than an artist) or when and where he worked or what his vision was

I've been getting educated --- just plug the word "dada" into Google and you'll get an eye full (so to speak!)

In a way some of what I'm seeing in some new publications, like Art Doll Quarterly reminds me of the dadaists -- assemblage, collage and lots of statements being made about life and politics --

and I find that the more I see and think about those pieces, the better I understand them -- and might be interested in creating some of my own "assemblage" pieces

something to think on anyway

Clean enough to be healthy......

Over at Bear Naked, there's a great post about dusting.

It made me think about the time when my daughter was little -- she had some friends that had big houses that always looked like they had just been finished by the decorator -- not a thing out of place -- and no real sign that any one really "lived" there

I definately had a more casual approach to cleaning -- the kitchen was clean, the house was clean enough to be healthy -- but I wanted to spend time with my kid -- doing messy art projects (shaving cream finger paint on the formica table top!), a trip to the library or a museum or a concert -- dust will always be there, children will not!

So, my house still is not a show piece, but it does look like we live here -- there is mohair fabric in the living room next to the tub full of teddy bears; there are little boxes of yarn next to the box of afghan squares and wool hats that have been knit for charity in the dining room; there are plastic shoe boxes full of beads stacked in the kitchen and a work tray of a bead project in the family room -- yup, it looks like the studio has exploded all over the house!

When I was talking to my daughter the other day, she was talking about her house -- her comment was "I clean when I can't find something" -- like mom, her kitchen is clean enough to eat out of -- but also like mom, she has "stuff" -- I'm so glad she found a great guy that doesn't get all upset about it (he has his own "stuff"!)

But there may be "cleaning" in the near future -- we just signed up for a community garage sale for next Saturday --- now where did I put that tennis racket and the box of books?

shopping, the great speckled dog and learning to eat all over again

As I've been whining about the past week or so, I've been trying to walk every day

This is one of the liners from my old walking shoes (these babies are at least 8 years old, so cut me some slack here!)

So, after some discussion, we decided to go looking for new liners (I had bought a new pair of shoes about 4 years ago, and they always hurt my foot, so I was more interested in just making the old shoes better!)

Talk about sticker shock!!

A new pair of liners (which, by the way, I'm not even sure would fit in those old shoes) would have cost me at least $15, or as much as $20!!



So, here we are --- in the box a brand new pair of shoes -- for what it would have cost me to replace the liners!

Oh yeah, there are also new socks (let us say that my socks were in pretty sad shape, and there is no point getting blisters in my new shoes!)

And a new and healthy snack -- toasted edamame -- quite tasty actually




So off I went this morning in my new shoes, and while my feet (and knees!) felt fine afterwards, I could not manage as much distance this morning and came back feeling sort of discouraged -- not to mention panting like I'd been running for miles -- what the ????

I think I'm having some major allergy issues -- notice the white spots on the black dog?

Its COTTONWOOD!!! It is absolutely the worst I can ever remember -- it literally looks like its snowing

Ok, I'll hang in there and keep trying -- the cottonwood won't last forever

Meantime, I'm trying to learn to eat all over again.

I admit it, I'm one of those people that really enjoys eating (not to mention that is pretty much the one pleasure still available to me) -- and I like meat -- I do not think of a great meal as a plate that includes nothing but veggies -- and I'm going kicking and screaming in that direction

unfortunately, food is not like tobacco or alcohol where you can simply stop using it (well, ok, not simply, but you can stop)

Going to the grocery store has become a whole new field of land mines to negotiate.

I'm trying to be good, but I can't say I'm feeling good about it -- not yet anyway

(like the exercising -- how long does it take before you feel better anyway??)

And can someone tell me why every snack bar/protein bar type thing on the market has to taste SWEET!? Someone could make a fortune from me if they could make one that tasted like a bacon cheese burger, or a BLT with avacado

just saying.....

Thoughts about humiliation

I've decided that I need to share a deep dark secret to keep someone dear to me from having to repeat the error of our ways

It has to do with humiliation and the horrid things it can do to a relationship

Here's the secret:

Back when my daughter was about 9 (she's almost 25 now, so this was about 16 years ago), I let her have her hair cut without consulting her dad about it.

He went balistic (to put it mildly); berating me and saying some really unkind hurtful things -- now these things happen, but the worst part of it was that he did it in front of my parents.

To say it put a wall between us is a major understatement -- it created an atmosphere, mostly on my end that lead to some other very poor choices and some huge problems later.

It also took me until just recently (yes 16 years later!!) to be able to say out loud to him how that incident hurt (and scarred) me

I over heard someone the other day do a similar thing over something small. I could see the hurt in the person's eyes, and I know that person felt that same sting of humiliation.

So here's my piece of advice: you're going to have disagreements over little stuff (and big stuff) -- you'll need to discuss them -- please, for the sake of your love for each other and your future together, save it for when its just the two of you -- spare that pride and feeling of self worth in your partner by not humiliating them in front of anyone else (think about how you'd feel about it if the situation was reversed)

You'll both feel better for it

more rejection slips for the wall.....

While I was out and about yesterday, the postman deposited a box on my front porch.

Last fall I had sent a handbag to Haute Handbags in hopes of having it included in one of their future issues.

It has returned with a form letter telling me that I should consider submitting a different piece for the Fall 2008 issue -- deadline date? -- May 15 -- Hello -- the box with its form letter arrived on --- wait for it --- May 15!


I also got a letter from the show in Columbia, MO that takes place in September that we didn't make the cut for it either......course at the ever rising cost of gas, that may actually be a blessing.....who knows


sure would be good if I could figure out what it is would actually make the cut -- in either situation

oh well

so is success the opposite of failure?

well, not so much maybe

most of the definition of success now days has to do with finacial achievement, as in: Donald Trump is a big success, and Martha Stewart and Ophra

ok

I'm thinking that kind of success is totally out of the relm of possibility for my life

so what else is success?

my success has been that my daughter has grown to be a beautiful young woman that has been willing to step into adulthood and take on its responsibilities while still maintaining her passion for practicing her talents

for the last 25 years my life has largely been centered around making sure what she needed was somehow accomplished to the best of my abilities

so now what?

at the age of 57, there's a good probability I will live for at least another 30 years

it is that long span of unplanned time, yawning like a huge cat, waiting to swallow me up that is the current dragon to be slain

I envy those folks at my age that are still off doing purposeful things (at least to them) in the corporate world -- yes, my dirty little secret -- I sometimes actually miss that feeling of having somewhere to go 5 days a week and where someone cared if I was there or not

I also envy those folks that knew enough to plan well enough or got lucky enough to have the means to travel and see art and attend the theatre

it leaves me to question just how to survive another 30 years

the rebel in my make up has always taken the attack approach -- work harder (ie: more hours), change jobs, or move to a new place to start over

are some people just destined to do well? Are they "fated" to make the right choices, guided to know what to do?

is it just dumb luck?

in my experience, wishing doesn't make it so (why don't I deserve to win the lotto?)

and I haven't heard any voice from anywhere telling me what to do next to "fix" it

It makes me think of the lyric Tim Rice wrote for a song from Aida

Is it written in the stars
Are we paying for some crime
Is that all that we are good for
Just a stretch of mortal time

For some god's experiment
In which we have no say
In which we're given paradise
But only for a day

so, is the free agency to choose just punishment?

its the emergency broadcast system: this has been a test -- if this was a real emergency you would have been told where to go and what to do

guess not

being the perfect failure

This theme seemingly will not go away

Let me explain

About a month ago I went to the annual Health Fair event to have my yearly blood work done

After a year of trying to improve my diet and taking my RX, etc., etc., I can report that the numbers are


(drum roll here)



WORSE!


Which only leads me to the question ---- why am I bothering??

just saying


I'm going off now to try to resign myself to having no control over this whole thing and I guess when its my time to go, I'm gone

Slaying the Dragon -- or Not Being Afraid to Fail

Yesterday in my email box I found this link to a blog that addresses this subject.

My sister had sent it to me, and I'm really glad she decided to share it with me (what she was doing up on her computer at 1:32 AM!, is a whole 'nuther question I need to ask her about!!)

The premise of the post deals with cutting into really expensive fabric, and as a sewer, I can relate to this "fear".

I remember when I bought my very first piece of mohair fabric about 15 years ago.

It was lovely, soft, a nice cream with a wonderful lavendar tip, I paid $35 for a quarter of a yard of the stuff --- and I was scared to cut it --- what if I ruined it?

Suffice it to say I found the courage and cut it, and now, because I've made many, many mohair bears, I don't worry about cutting into fabric that costs me $150 a yard any more --- I worry about SELLING the bear when its done, but that's a whole other problem and has nothing to do with fear.

There were three things in the post that especially stood out in my mind:

#1 -- "That's just what failure is, or what it ought to be: failure is just figuring stuff out the hard way."

and

#2 -- "Sometimes when people say they're afraid of failure, what they really mean is that they are afraid of humiliation."

and

#3 -- "humiliation passes... you remember it for months; the witnesses remember it for seconds (they have their own humiliations to obsess over, and don't have time for yours)."

Erin does a great thing here -- she talks about the roots of the fear, but she also gives us some hope for conquering the fear. A reminder that most of us (especially those of us who "create" for a living) are our own worst critics.

I remember once, back in the day when I worked an office job, that there was a young gal that worked in the office with me that had finished all of the training to do a rock climb and she was afraid to go actually climb. I sat down with her one Friday afternoon and we talked about it. I must have said the right things to her because when she came to work on Monday she had a slight sunburn, a skinned elbow and a hugh dose of self confidence because she had faced the dragon and conquered it. (some days I wish I had a "me" to do this for me!)

And the point here goes back to Erin saying that failure is figuring stuff out the hard way.

I've spent some time lately wishing I could afford to go a take a few classes on techniques for bears and jewelry and quilts because in that "figuring stuff out the hard way" there is a certain amount of frustration (especially for those of us that want to run before we crawl -- or play "Moonlight Sonata" as our first piano piece!)

There is an up side to NOT taking all those classes tho' (aside from the $$ saved).

One of the things that happens to me when I take classes, is I tend to start building little boxes that tell me things can only be done with the materials and instructions that the teacher used.

By not taking a class I am freed to try things about which a teacher would say "you can't use that material" or "you can't use that tool" or "that won't work"

In the process I create things that no one has seen before.

It can be frustrating trying to explain them to an unappreciative customer at a show, and sometimes even to the show jury, but it is definately interesting.

And so, I'm going to try to consider that "the witnesses will be obsessing over their own humiliations" -- sort of like picturing the audience at your speech in their underwear --

So what dragon will you slay today?

"Go ask Alice"

Do you remember that lyric? Jefferson Airplane? Grace Slick?

I was not part of the "drug scene" of the 1960s, but the music I remember.

And this morning, as I was working away on my computer, the DH tells me to turn on the TV down here in my little basement dungeon to see the artist they're interviewing

and there she was --- WHITE hair half way down to her waist, talking about her PAINTINGS!!! (she's 68 years old -- amazing!!)

and yes, she still seems to be fascinated with Alice and the White Rabbit, but I was amazed and delighted by her drawings......they are bright and bold and direct --- sort of like her music was

In the interview she said that painting is what she does now instead of singing, and that if she couldn't do that she'd write or do some other kind of art

ah ha!! the artistic drive will always find a way to be expressed

it occurs to me (ok, DUH!!) that this is a familiar theme -- does the name Tony Bennet ring a bell? Music -- painting

it would be totally arrogant on my part to put myself in the same catagory with Grace Slick and Tony Bennet, but perhaps I'm not so odd -- not so famous, but not so odd either!!

Want to see some of her stuff? Use this link to check out a gallery that has some of her work available for sale.

(and now, I'll be humming "White Rabbit" all day long!!)

more thoughts on art

Over at The Voodoo Cafe's Blog Ricë Freeman-Zachery has been talking about her trip to California and how the pictures in the LA Art Museum just didn't do it for her

Its interesting timing that she wrote about this now as I've been thinking about the whole "what's art" thing for the past few days

I got a copy of this book for Christmas, and I've been slowly working my way through all 400 quilts, reading the artist statements with each one, examining the descriptions of the materials and the techniques.

Let me say very clearly first that I ADORE this book. It takes you WAAAAAAAYYYY out on the edge of "quilting", and challenges your preconceived notions about just what a "quilt" is.

I must also say, however that there are a number of these quilts that even after reading all the stuff the artist says, I still just don't get it. In fact there are a couple of them that reading what the artist says makes me say even more "HUHH?!"

As someone not having a degree in art, never worked in oils and can't draw a representative picture, I figured it was just that I was not educated enough to understand what was going on.

Guess what -- after reading what Ricë had to say about it and having recently had a conversation with a friend that does have an art degree -- I'm feeling much better about it

I'm thinking that art, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder --

so is my work in fabrics and beads art? I think so. Is it beautiful? Yup, or at least some of it is -- some of it also meets the other definitions of art -- it communicates ideas -- and if I'm doing that, I think I'm doing ok

coming full circle and outsider art

have you ever noticed how things go in circles?

the first thing I remember making with my own two hands as a doll made out of a sock -- she had embroidered eyes and 2 fat braids made out of yarn -- her neck was kind of floppy, but she had that soft "squeezy-ness" that made for a good cloth doll

over the years I've made a lot of dolls -- really detailed Raggedy Anns (and Andys), needle sculpted "cabbage patch" style dolls, porcelain dolls -- and now after having made almost exclusively teddy bears for 25 years I'm drawn back to the human form -- having started a cloth doll again

styles, however have changed -- beaded faces, a woman's form (OMG, she has a bosom! and a woman's hips and tummy, not a skinny pre-teen version!!) and the whole idea is pretty scary --- but fun none the less

and once again we're crossing into unknown territory -- for the past few years my every thought when I've begun a piece has been "will it sell?" -- and I'm trying quite deliberately not to think about that whole issue as I put this one together -- just to express an idea, enjoy working with the materials

perhaps this is my own little ode to outsider art

outsider art was originally defined as the art of the insane -- okay, we won't open that whole kettle of worms -- but I'm thinking Van Gogh here (LOVE Starry, starry night, and yes, I know he was in the asylum!) --

more recently outsider art has come to mean all of those of us that work outside of the standard "paint and sculpture" model -- those of us who are self taught -- those of us who work with fiber and found objects

Hurrah! at least now I'm part of a recognized "movement" --

and still crazy after all these years!

not again with the water works.......

house + water = pain in the *$$

It seems like it never ends -- the issues with water that is

Friday evening we noticed that there was water leaking around the base of the toilet in the downstairs bathroom

About 6 years ago we had replaced that toilet from what was here when we bought the house -- because it was leaking around the base (and we decided a low flow model was a better choice)

At the time of that replacement, the DH had been through a shoulder surgery, so we hired a local handyman to do the work. When he pulled up the old toilet, we discovered that when the floor had been redone, the ceramic tile had not been taken close enough to the opening in the floor, so the shifting weight of the potty had broken the wax seal -- hence the water on the floor -- so the repair man put in some "shims".

Well, it seams that his shims have now given way and we're back to the problem again.

I'm annoyed.

We went off to the hardware store yesterday and purchased repair items. Since we're going to have to tear the whole thing apart to reset it AGAIN! and because we had started to have some issues with the valve not shutting off properly and the old seat is now cracked, we got all of the necessary parts for the repair man to come and take care of it for us.

Oh yes, and there at the top left of the picture, that brown square? That's a ceramic tile of the kind the floor is made of -- purchased specifically for its thickness and the material its made of -- use your imagination -- that's the appropriate shim!

The truly correct "fix" would be for the toilet to come out and the tile redone in there, but I'm not going there, mostly because neither one of us is strong enough to set a toilet by ourselves anymore and there is no way to have 2 people and the toilet in that little room at the same time.

Anyway, I'm sure by the time we pay the guy to do the work we'll be looking at the $100 neighborhood

Remind me again why I want to OWN a house and all its problems --- geeesh! (guess I should be grateful we aren't looking at a bigger bill than that)

in need of music therapy

My daughter, bless her, knows how to get to me

I mentioned here that she gave me a CD for my birthday that I had been wanting (Sarah Brightman's Symphony)

What I didn't mention was that she also gave me 2 other CDs -- one is the sound track from the new Broadway version of The Little Mermaid and the other is a sound track from Company

I realize that one of the things I miss the most about the fact that she is now an adult with a husband and a home of her own is that there is no music in our house

Having spent the last few days in a funk (because I'm really, REALLY missing the trip to California I was supposed to have made over this weekend), this morning I decided to listen to all of those new CDs again, and I think it has actually helped lift some of the dark heavy cloud

new wallpaper

back in February I submitted a couple of essays for consideration to write for a Denver paper's Op-Ed section on Sundays

This little goodie arrived yesterday, basically a "thanks, but no thanks"

ok, one more rejection slip for the walls

nuts

the final birthday goodie revealed

Every year for my birthday my mom sends me a little check.

To be honest, most years it just goes into the checking account and is used to pay bills or buy groceries.

This year that check met with the unhappiness about a ruined sheet cake and a 40% off coupon from the local Wilton supplier, and well -- I spent it on myself -- sort of

At least from now on I should be able to produce a reasonable sheet cake that can actually be turned out of the pan and turned into a cake, not end up as trifle!

its a good thing!

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