I must have done something good

life moves in interesting ways

a couple of years ago our doctor had a fire in her office -- for about a year every time we saw her we joked about Dr. R's traveling medical show -- while she wound her way through insurance adjusters and rebuilding her office

when I found out what colors her new reception area was going to be I created this wall hanging specifically to go there

when I went to see her in July, I took a picture of the piece and told her that as soon as it comes home from the State Fair, it will be coming to her

she seemed really pleased

yesterday the DH had an appointment with her

while we were there we told her that we thought something in her bookkeeper's office must have been missed because I hadn't yet received a billing for my office visit

she thanked us for thinking of her welfare and said that we should count it as "Divine Intervention"

it feels like being paid twice -- doing the piece was a pleasure, and I got to experiment with a lot of techniques, and not getting that bill in the mail?

Priceless!

don't fence me in

it has been a frustrating week

about a month ago my neighbor told me that she wanted to replace the fence between our two properties

we had talked about it before, and originally this was not going to happen until the fall -- but she decided to do our side first, and I've given her some of the money already, with the agreement to pay as I can -- and after I see receipts

so on Thursday of last week, we went out and helped her take out the old fence -- everything except the posts, which were sunk in concrete and we needed some help with -- which we got on Friday from another neighbor and so Saturday morning when her "help" showed up, all they had to do was run a string line from back to front and put in the new posts

and since two of the three of them work for a developer here in the state, I thought we'd be ok

not so much

the post line was about as straight as my dog's hind leg

and they trampled my dahlia even though we had our trellis standing there to give them a clue and they were told about it

and they knocked down some of my garden

oh yeah, and yesterday, all of those posts came back out -- which turns out to be good from more than the "not a straight line" standpoint -- they didn't really put in enough concrete to hold in the 60 mile an hour winds we get through here when it storms -- which is why my neighbor could get them out so easily

in the process of trying to help, the DH hurt his arm, so for the rest of this week at least he won't be doing much that requires him to lift his arm -- and hopefully this won't require a visit to the doctor and more serious treatment than ice and rest

next weekend someone else will come to work on the fence

I hope they get it right this time -- we're going to our daughter's next weekend so neither of us is in the way or tempted to go tell them "you're not doing that right"

and I'm wondering just how much this is going to cost

another small victory and facing the inevitable

the endless saga of the medical bills continues to haunt me

on Wednesday afternoon (just 3 days shy of a year after my surgery) I got a billing from the pathology lab

not a big surprise that the envelope had arrived, I get a monthly billing as I've made an arrangement with them to pay this

the big surprise was when I opened the envelope -- and a bill that I expected to say "total due $180" said "total due $672"!!

WHAT!!??

and of course it was after 5 pm when the mail man brought this little bundle of snakes, so I couldn't do anything about it but stew until Thursday morning

so I called them, and by then I'd figured out that the difference was that for some reason they had backed out all of the payments made by the Colorado Indigent Care Program -- and I was not pleased

the person on the other end was pleasant -- and just as puzzled as I was -- she simply couldn't see anything on her computer screen that gave her any reason they had done this

she told me she would look into it

yesterday morning I talked with them again

seems they had experienced a little computer glitch and that now all of those CICP payments had been reposted and the actual balance due is $180

makes me wonder how much money they actually rake in because some folks don't watch as carefully as I do and wouldn't have challenged it

it's another small victory!

and then there is the inevitable

earlier in the year I spent some time fussing over rather or not to continue paying for the domain name for my website

I decided to do it mostly because I've had it for a long time and because I don't want someone else putting X-rated stuff on it if I give it up

the deal is, however, that if I'm going to pay for it, I really should do something with it, even if I can't see much happening with it

so I'm starting to think about what I should do with it and what "look" it should morph into next

a good idea would be great here, I just don't really have any

What might have been

Even if you're not a country western fan, you've probably heard this song by Little Texas -- it was written more about a male/female relationship, but it can be thought about in a broader sense

I try not to think about what might have been,
Cause that was then,
and we have taken different roads.
We can't go back again,
there's no use giving in,
and there's no way to know, what might have been.

No, we'll never know....
What might have been.

so the past few weeks, since I've had access to the Studio Arts Quilt Association website, I've been reading the back issues of their publication -- clear back to 1991 -- (heh, this is not the way I usually do things, usually I just jump in and fake it, but I'm trying to get an education here -- and my $60 worth!!)

in one of those old publications (newsletter number 2, I believe) there was a write up about a huge (14 by 14 FEET) quilt that was being hung in a public building

and there has been some discussion about folks beginning with a book that was written by Ruby Short McKim and using that as a spring board to the new art quilt movement

back in the 1970s I made this quilt for my grandfather

it is based on patterns in that self-same book by Ruby Short McKim

and that 14x14 foot quilt?

it hung in the convention center of the town I was living in back then

I guess it's okay for me to wonder if I had just kept making quilts back then where my art would have gone by now

it's not too often you see clearly what another path could have been

it's even less often, if ever, that you actually get a chance to walk there too

and there's no way to know, what might have been.

no, but I'm happy to see what might be -- taking what I know now and stepping timidly onto the path --

Beating the system

sometimes it is possible

earlier this week I received our annual analysis of the escrow account that takes care of the property taxes and insurance on our mortgage

their analysis showed that there would be a shortfall, and they wanted me to send along a check to "make up" the shortfall -- or they could just increase the monthly payment

either option is a royal pain, but the increase would be easier to deal with than coming up with a lump sum that was not planned for

and then on Friday I got the paperwork from the insurance company showing that the rates were going up - AGAIN - despite the fact that we didn't even get to put in that claim on the fence

it just hit me wrong -- what the heck?!

so yesterday I called them

why did the rate go up? because there was an increase in claims in the entire state, so they feel justified in raising my rates --

but after some whining on my part the representative on the phone told be that the company has recently started using a new method to determine what rates to charge and that using that evaluation -- basically writing a new policy with exactly the same riders, conditions, etc. -- might lower my premiums

I figured "why not" and told him I'd like to find out if that would help

(oh and while he was putting data in his computer I could hear one of his co-workers tell someone "we don't just automatically reduce a rate -- we wait until the customer asks" -- suspicious confirmed!!)

the bottom line?

the re-write is going to save me $514!

this week I'll be calling the mortgage company and asking them to re-review the escrow with the new rate in there --- I don't think I'll need to worry about the payment going up

I'm feeling good!

little things

my mother is getting rid of things

in the process, she has been giving some of them to me to sell on eBay

and some to keep

these were Mammy's

I remember them sitting on her desk in the bedroom of the house that served as what we would call an office now days -- her desk was there in the corner, and the sewing machine was right next to it on the same wall

the sewing machine that I learned to sew on in the table that Pappy built for it

there was just enough room to scoot your chair back then there were boxes of items stacked behind -- they didn't have a basement, that room held the trunk with her childhood doll in it (and a lot more, I just don't really remember what)

its officially summer, and there is something about summer that makes me think about Mammy and Pappy

maybe it is because I spent so many summer days with them as a child --

the garden with the corn and okra

the smell of starch and hot cotton when the ironing was being done

the sound of the sprinkler running in the yard and the fan running in the house

the hot concrete of the sidewalks and the cool tickle of the grass on my bare feet

I recognize now the work that summer was -- I am now the age that Mammy was when I was four years old -- I see her in my mind that way, and I marvel that I am now that old and still feel in ways like I am four

yes, it is the little things -- Mammy collected those little vases -- and I had forgotten about them until my mother pulled them out of a box of dishes

and they go well with a collection of little vases I've gathered on my own

full circle

heart broken and enraged

the pictures that are coming out of the Gulf of Mexico are heart breaking

birds being killed by the horrible thick sludge that has been gushing out of the BP well for 46 days now

we've seen devastation on the Gulf Coast before, but that was from the storms and there was something we felt we could do -- like donate to an organization that was working there --

but this?

this is murder most foul -- being done to the wetlands and the birds and the sea animals by a giant international corporation

who most likely will not even begin to do what they have promised -- make the area "whole" again

because they can't

no one knows how, especially those who are responsible for this "accident"

how many miles and miles of wetlands and beaches will be unusable for months or years or decades?

how many species of plants or animals will simply cease to exist because of this

and what of the human suffering?

the financial ruin (as if those folks hadn't had enough of that) and the illnesses that are sure to follow the exposure to all that petroleum and all those chemicals in the water

and the families of the eleven men who were killed by this "accident"

I'm angry, really angry, about this whole mess -- and truly sad that a close look at this through reality's eye seems that there is nothing any of us "mere mortals" can do to make it better

can you hear me now?

mumbling that is

on Monday we had wind -- as in BIG WIND -- 68 mile an hour gusts

and that fence that needed replacing -- heh, obviously our "patch" applied the last time is not going to hold it until later in June when we might have had some help doing the work

so here's the picture of what the wind did -- totally broke off the fence post right there at the top of the stairs and took the whole panel down into the yard behind us (oh look, there's a fire hydrant right there in case we ever needed to know)

since I already had a metal mesh nailed to the posts back there for my peas to climb up at least I didn't have to worry about the dog getting out of the yard
so yesterday, when the wind finally slowed a bit, we went out to examine the situation close up

we took out pry bars and hammers and the limb saw and took apart the panel that had been laying on the ground

of about 25 fence boards, I was able to salvage 10 that we will reuse when we put the fence back up

the panels on either side of the one that is down will also have to be rebuilt, but you can see our "props" there holding things together temporarily

the broken post is the only one we will have to replace, which is good news -- so the shopping list is only 2x4s and cement and fence boards

and we'll be doing this a little at a time since we're doing the work alone -- at least I have the money to do it thanks to a generous gift from my sister (pulled my butt out of the fire AGAIN!)

I was thinking yesterday as I was pulling the nails out of those fence boards that the outdoor work, like fencing, was about the only thing we didn't do ourselves when we remodeled the house we lived in in California -- guess that's why I'm getting to learn how here ---

nuts

Mammy and the molasses

A while back someone reminded me that there are a lot of stories that Mammy (my grandmother on my mother's side) told me that no one else who is still around knows.

She used to tell me a story when I'd go to bed at night -- sitting on the side of the big tall bed (the one that lives at my house now), in the dark with just a little light coming in from down the hall, and she'd talk about her girlhood -- where they lived and what their life was like

So I've decided that every so often it would be good for me to share these stories, and it's interesting that in a lot of rural areas nothing has changed about how this is done
In the fall, after the harvest, they would make molasses

She would talk about taking the cane and putting it in a big long pan over the fire

She described the pan as having little "doors" between the dividers in the pan, saying "the cane went into one end to cook and by the time it had been moved and pushed down the pan to the last section it was molasses"

Since she said cane and I had seen sugar cane in the grocery store occasionally, I thought that was what they were growing

I realize now that it was actually one of the varieties of sorghum -- they were making sorghum molasses -- they used it to sweeten cooking and to spread on bread -- they didn't keep bees, they had sorghum

Her story makes the process sound easy, it really takes hours and hours of work even before the cane can go into the pan to start cooking.

Those must have been sweet memories indeed for her, and it must have been before she was 14 years old, because her father died in 1910 when she was 14.

(NOTE: this post is being written on May 18, 2010 --- EXACTLY 100 YEARS after his death -- and no, I didn't plan that!!)

No wonder there was always a jar of molasses at Mammy's house -- and I learned to love it -- just stir it together with a little butter and spread it on a piece of warm toast

sweet indeed

what if?

two really big words those --- just six letters, but the question forms a huge open space to consider infinite possibilities

sometimes this is a bad thing --

what if I fall down the stairs?
what if the fence falls down?
what if something bad happens?

those kind of what ifs have been a constant fiber in my life, and in a way I battle with them every day -- just some days more consciously than others

but more recently I've been thinking about what if in a more positive way

what if I try putting that fabric with that fabric
what if I print that rubber stamp on that print fabric
what if I use beads on this piece -- or embroidery -- or markers
what if I try to talk my artist friend into doing a collaborative piece of art

part of this more recent "what if" thought is because I've been looking at the websites of other artists in the last couple of weeks

looking at their work and thinking "wow, how did they do that" or "how did they come up with that idea?" followed with "what if I tried ___" (fill in the blank with many things there)

at least it is more positive "what if" thought!

Mother's Day Present a week early

my daughter has a beautiful soprano voice

it is one of the things I most miss now that she is married and has a home of her own

I loved listening to her sing when she was at home

she's been working with a teacher near where she lives

this weekend was their Spring Recital

and for the first time since 2001 I got to hear her perform

AWESOME!!

what a great mother's day present -----

encore! encore!

the doctor will see you now?

there's been a lot of discussion the last week or so about bartering

back before we had a health care system (or big insurance), this was an accepted way to get things

course this was back in the day when they used ether on a rag over your face and took out your tonsils on the kitchen table

but I'm wondering what I might possibly be able to barter with to get some of those medical bills paid down

oh yeah, and how many chickens would it take to get a fence repaired?

geesh!

home owners insurance isn't what it used to be

ok, you'd think that wouldn't be a big surprise

after all it is an insurance company and since I've had lots of experience with health insurance companies, why did I expect any thing different?

time was when you had a piece of a fence blow down they'd come out and take a look and say "yup, this fence needs to be replaced" and write an estimate for the entire job

but those days are gone

they took a look, estimated for only the portions that actually came down, took off the "depreciation" then took the deductible

the bottom line is that I told them to just withdraw the claim -- I don't want it on my insurance history when it isn't going to pay us anything

{sigh}

just one more thing to try to work into the budget

and it's heigh ho off to the fair

the health fair, that is

I went this morning

driving through the fog at 7:15 on a Sunday morning

at least I had a pretty good idea where I was going!

by 8:45 I was all done

blood work done -- the gal doing this job was GREAT -- kudos to her, since I'm a hard one to get blood from (haven't I said you can't get blood from a turnip!?) results will take about 4 weeks

bone density scan done -- a new experience for me -- in this case we get instant results, and this could have been better -- I'm on the low side of normal for my age -- guess I have to try to remember to take more calcium supplements since drinking more milk is definitely NOT going to happen -- can't stand the bloat

stop off at the Susan G Komen booth -- and get totally angry that I'm still making payments on the bill for having my mammogram done since it turns out I would have qualified to have it done for free -- have I mentioned lately that I think the health care system in this country is seriously screwed up

truth is I'm not looking forward to getting the results on this year's blood work -- after last year's tests my doctor told me I should occasionally test my blood sugar since those levels were a little high last year

confession time: I haven't done that -- it's just a pain to have to share equipment with someone else, and I don't think of it first thing when it should be done

add to that having not done much of anything in the form of exercise since about this time last year when I started having the problems that ended in my surgery and now having issues doing much walking because it bothers my knee

well, I'm just not looking forward to being told AGAIN that the magic elixir is exercise -- yeah, right, how would you suggest I do that

I know -- it's the same story and the definition of insanity -- doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results -- but I just haven't ever been good at exercising, and there's really nothing of that stuff that I enjoy, so it really is like drudgery

so add in the guilt factor too

ok, I'm done whining for today

I think

waiting for the other shoe - er, fence - to drop

why is it that just when I'm thinking "yes, I can handle what's happening" life throws me another little reminder that I have absolutely no control over anything

I've been moving along, trying to keep the finances in order so that I could come up with small amounts to do painting, etc., so we can put the house on the market

feeling pleased that I was whittling away at the medical bills

yeah, right

this month I blew that up by needing to have a tooth pulled -- a $240 expense that was totally unplanned and also totally ate up the little amounts I'd been setting aside for six months

and the day before yesterday I got the final determination on yet another lab bill from last summer's surgery -- right, the whole bill -- another $492 -- is entirely my responsibility

nothing like feeling like you're going backwards

so yesterday afternoon I was going to let the dog out into the yard and looked out to see this

yup, the wind had knocked down two sections of the fence -- actually broke off the post in the center of that section right at the ground

lovely, this wasn't even a section of the fence that we were planning on working on -- it had looked fine until yesterday

so great

strike any ideas of getting anything done INSIDE the house -- we're going to have to do something about the fence

I'm trying to figure out who to call about the possibility of putting in a claim on our homeowner's insurance -- except I can't even remember who that is since it's paid by the mortgage company, I never even see a bill --

and knowing we have a $1000 deduct able, but it might get us enough to buy materials

but what will it do to our premiums -- and so our house payment -- afterwards

oh, yes, and there's still that other section of fence, the one with multiple patches, that we're watching

geesh

some days I'd really like to not be an adult any more

or to just run away from home

are we out of focus here?

over on my studio blog someone commented the other day that they didn't know how I could work on so many different things at once.

it's that whole issue of focus

as in, I have a very hard time doing that

and thus has it ever been -- in fact it is that inability to focus continuously on one thing that has brought me to realize that I will never write the world's great novel

writing anything longer than a letter to a friend or a blog post requires more focus than comes naturally to me, and at this point in my life I don't see the advantage to it

I want to try things

lots of things that have to do with art

which means one successful project leads to experimenting with another -- then another -- until what the original project was is completely lost but I've found half a dozen others that are successful too

I've learned over the past two or three years to stop beating myself up about that

not that I don't regret from time to time not having focused while I was in the corporate world -- if I'd done that I might have an income and (gasp!) maybe even health insurance now

but then as now, I didn't have the patience for the "ordinaryness" of it -- once I'd done it once, I wanted to move on to something else -- not do the same thing over and over and over

the one place I was able to focus was in trying to keep my daughter on track -- food on the table, roof over the head and telling her not to make my mistakes --- I think I did a pretty good job of that (not to brag on myself here, but she's pretty damned awesome!)

so, about this time of year I think about this whole issue (my birthday's coming, what have I accomplished, blah, blah, blah)

this year I'm feeling okay with that

I'm making art, we're surviving financially -- at least for today, and right now neither one of us has any new major health issues -- its a whole new definition of success

I'll take it

Census

we've been counted

our form arrived in the mail yesterday

it took us about 10 minutes (just as advertised)

as someone who has done family history, I can tell you that this census asks for almost no information

from the questions you will have no idea 70 years from now (when it will be available to family history searchers) what we did for a living or where we were born or even if we were citizens of the USA

pretty small information for future family history

but it is important none the less

when you get yours, spend the 10 minutes, send it in (you don't even need a stamp!)

don't make the census workers have to come and knock on your door (consider that your contribution to helping the cost of taking the census a little less)

just DO IT!

1000 Posts Give Away

Over on my other blog, I have posted 1000 times (how amazing is that!?)

To celebrate, I'm giving away this piece of my hand made Rocky Mountain Beach Glass jewelry

You can use this link to hop on over and see more about it and enter to win.

(Come on, you know you want to!)

Confessions of a 3rd generation pack rat

it is truly scary what a mess one can create when one lives in the same place for 8 years at a stretch

we've lived in this house for longer than I've lived in any one place my entire adult life

and there are two other bad things happening here --- I don't like to clean -- the kitchen and bathrooms are clean enough to be healthy, other parts of the house, well, you can walk through there

and the DH is not a cleaner either (guess that's my job)

and he collects stuff too -- maybe worse than I do

so there you are

but we really want to put our house on the market, which means I need to get it ready

so I'm starting in this room, a bedroom that at one time had a bed and a dresser and a desk and a bookcase and a bench in it -- and now all of that furniture (except the bench) is in my daughter's house, so this became the place to stash stuff

and last year at this time I had a table and grow lights in there so we could get seeds started for the garden

and I'm not leaving that color on the walls

which is why these paint chips came home from the hardware store and they are on the carpet in there so I can pick a very pale color to paint it

I'd like to get this done in the next week or so then get this room "staged" and move on to the next one

not really my favorite thing to do all the way around, so I'm trying to think about the creative side of the project

oh yeah, a lot of that "stuff" in this room is going to be going to eBay, so I'll be putting up notices about that here, just in case you might want some of the goodies that are stashed here

Do I or Don't I?

The bill arrived yesterday for the renewal of my domain name

Last year because I didn't know if I wanted to keep the website up I only renewed it for a year thinking that would give me enough time to figure out where it was going

uh, right -- or not

so here we are again, trying to figure out if it's worth the cost of keeping the domain name registered and paying the monthly hosting fees

or should I just let it die

I'm thinking about it