Mel Rocks!!

This is my youngest niece, Melody, holding an Important Family Rock. For this heirloom-quality family photo (which I like to call "Mel Rocks!!"), please notice that she is wearing a lovely hot pink frock. She has chosen to accessorize it with a wild and crazy scarf made and given to her by her Aunt Sally. A delightful splash of contrast is provided by a wad of neon green bubble gum.

Seaman Randy Knight Checking In on 4/29/06 (#2)

Randy and I talked on the phone for awhile this afternoon. He emailed this evening with answers to a few questions I had.

Sally: I'm happy to know you survived training. Who trained you all? Who got trained?

Randy: Various ship officers did the training. Everyone who hasn't been on the ship before has to go through training. That's all Cal Poly students, me and Stacy [another Poly faculty member onboard TSGB for the first time], and a group of CMA students studying business. The CMA students studying ship-type stuff have already had much more extensive training.

Sally: Will you have to row yourselves into ports of call?

Randy: This is a modern ship. We don't row ourselves to shore. The ship has several motorized launches for that purpose. Rowing is for life boats.

Sally: How's the food?

Randy: Fair.

Sally: Sure you don't need a cat???? There's still time to get one.

Randy: Of course I need a cat. Today I met the "boathouse cat" on campus. ... Missing most of one ear and generally looking rather ratty - I suspect from fighting with other cats or other wildlife. But he or she didn't mind a scratch behind the ear-and-a-half.

Sally: How did you spend your liberty day?

Randy: I hiked to Starbucks after talking with you. It wasn't easy. A nice tour of the trailer parks and back alleys of Vallejo. I estimate 5 miles round trip. But I did succeed in getting a French press [which he had forgotten to pack; a crisis!], so I think it was worthwhile.

A quiet evening before we put out to sea. Students seem to be trickling back on board. Curfew is midnight for students, but I think CMA faculty and officers can still come aboard in the morning by 7:30. Then 8 days to Zihuatenejo, or however you spell it. I figured straight sailing time shouldn't be more than about 6 days, so I suspect we'll be practicing various ship maneuvers along the way.

I still have a bit of class prep to do, since I needed to learn the lay of the land before knowing how I wanted to handle various activities. So I think I'll work on those tonight and tomorrow. ... With luck, you'll get an email tomorrow or Monday from aboard ship.

Two Canadian geese just flew over, honking away. I think they're a little lost. In my first birding triumph, I've identified the gulls hanging around the ship as Western gulls. Unless they're something else. But I'm 99% sure.

That's it from dockside. We'll probably go sliding past you at 3 or 4 in the morning on Monday. I'll see if I can get the captain to honk.

Seaman Randy Knight Checking In on 4/28/06 (#1)

I got an email from Randy via his laptop and the wireless network on the CMA campus late Friday afternoon. Here's what he had to report.

" 'Training' is complete. We have liberty until midnight tomorrow. They cancelled our rowing training this afternoon because high winds through the straights here made the bay too rough for us novices. But yesterday [Thursday, April 27] we did - in the pool - practice getting in and out of life rafts. And had to jump off a 10-foot-high platform with our life jackets on. And since life jackets are a lot more buoyant than people, the life jacket tries to take your ears off when you hit the water. But all survived. Otherwise, a bunch of training videos, a ships tour. And we got to shoot a firehose on the dock.

"Most CMA faculty and officers have been staying at home, so not too many in the 'officers mess.' In fact, when I went in for dinner last night, there was just one guy there! But the total contingent of faculty and officers is nearly 50, so the dining room should be full once we get underway. We have fairly nice round tables that seat 8 each. Blue table clothes, real glasses. The students eat on plastic table tops with plastic dishes. Ah, the rewards of class!

"I spent Wednesday night cleaning the room - even down to partially cleaning the upholstery on the chair with a sponge. And cleaning some of the worst areas of the carpet, although it's rather hopeless. But just vacuuming helped some. All in all, it looks vastly better, and also looks better with the bed made and pictures up, etc.

"Not sure what I'll do for liberty day tomorrow. The ferry runs from Vallejo [actual location of CMA] to SF, but the forecast is for fog and drizzle and pretty cool in SF. In fact, I can see the fog bank looking down the bay now. May just hang around, read and finish class preparations, hike over to Starbucks."

Whither Thou Goest... I'm Staying Home

Wednesday my darling husband Randy moved into his cabin on the Training Ship Golden Bear for 2 months at sea.
Basically, TSGB is used for hands-on training of students at the California Maritime Academy. Each year, CalPoly-SLO sends along about 35 of its students and 3 faculty members for a learning-at-sea experience. Randy will be teaching Oceanography, Astronomy, and Energy and the Environment. For 2 months. Six days a week. Their training route will take them south along the west coast of Central and South America and back home. As I become more blog-knowedgable, I'll post the link where you can read the captain's log every day. This is the ship.


It's a long hike across a pier, up a gangway, and then up 3 flights of stairs to haul all of the stuff a professor needs to live and teach 3 classes for 2 months on a ship.

But at last he's finished with the onerous chore. I'm going to miss him something fierce. However, being in a marriage means doing what you can to help your partner achieve his or her goals. Randy's wanted to do this for years. He's going to have a great time. And I'm happy to help him.

Make That One for the Road

It's kinda late at night. Randy is installing some bathroom closet shelves for me before he leaves tomorrow for his 2 months teaching on the Golden Bear. What a guy; he's trying for Sainthood. *** Just to leave something really cute at the top of my blog until I'm home again in a few days (I'm taking Randy up to his ship in San Francisco), here's Shasta Sue Latte, our classic tortie-tabby and white cat. She's a real character and a real beauty.

Oh yes! My doll, "The Christmas Gingerbread Cookie Fairy" tied for second place at my quilt guild's Bendi doll challenge tonight. (First place was won by a doll made by an entire friendship group. I'm sure all the members voted for their jointly-submitted doll. I would have.)

The Perfect Boiled Egg

All the credit goes to the Georgia Egg Board and Julia Child. I swear this really works.

Eggs go into a pan in a single layer (I boiled 12 in a 5-qt saucepan), just covered with water (I used 3.5 qts). Put on high heat and just bring to a boil. Remove from heat. Cover pan. Let sit EXACTLY 17 minutes.

At about 15 minutes, prepare a bowl of ice water (that's water with lots of ice cubes) to hold the eggs. At 17 minutes, transfer the eggs (tongs work good for this, or a slotted spoon) to the ice water where they will chill for 2 minutes. As soon as the eggs are out of the hot water, turn the heat back on under the hot water, bringing it back to a boil. THE 2 MINUTE CHILL SHRINKS THE BODY OF THE EGG FROM ITS SHELL!

Transfer the eggs back to the boiling water, up to 6 at a time and let them boil for 10 seconds. THIS EXPANDS THE SHELL FROM THE EGG. Put the eggs back into the ice water, preferably for 15-20 minutes. Then refrigerate the eggs. Chilling the eggs helps prevent that dark line from forming and makes them easier to peel.

I haven't even made hard boiled eggs for a long time because i just hate picking the shell off the white and watching the egg practically disinegrate in the process. No more! The free-range farm eggs we've been getting have the most beautiful bright yellow yolks. Their speckled beige and robins-egg blue shells would put a smile on Martha Stewart's face. Don't you just love the simple pleasures of life?

Is Ironing Randy's Shirts Being Creative?

I figured this would be another day given over to Making a Life. Randy is leaving for 2 months tomorrow, so I'm busy helping him get ready. Which, at the moment, means doing laundry and ironing his shirts. (Meanwhile, he's outside weeding, so it's really not a bad trade off.) The doors are supposed to arrive later today. And I need to visit one of my pet-sitting clients for a few minutes after lunch. Tonight is my quilt guild's regular meeting. Last night I nearly finished putting the border on a new quilt top. And part of the ironing this morning consists of some new batiks and Japanese indigos, so I guess there is some creativity going on here today.

Here's one of my very favorite quilts. I started it in 1997 when I took my first quilting workshop. Which was with Alex Anderson when she was heavy into her Star Period. Thanks to Alex, I learned to make really accurate stars very early in my quilting life. This quilt epitomizes what I love to make best in the way of quilts. It's a modern, very scrappy, take on a traditional pattern. In this case, a group of patterns. Since it was one of the first quilts I started (finished in 2001), it is VERY scrappy! I didn't have much of a fabric stash at that point. (New quilting fabric is expensive!) So I was haunting garage sales, rummage sales, you name it, for scraps and old shirts to deconstruct for the stash. Consequently this quilt has everything in it, including drapery samples, new flour sacks, and those dreaded cotton-poly blends. The "focus fabric" is the striped border, a vintage fabric that makes my heart sing.

Still Life: Veggies with Spike

In my continuing effort to become a bona fide computer nerd, here is a photo of last week's vegetable haul from our Clark Valley Farm Community Supported Agriculture Harvest Share. Tons of lettuce with a nice assortment of other stuff including organic strawberries and lemons. Two of our cats love fresh lettuce, and even Spike is fond of beet greens.

Making a Life: Recycle, Renew, and Relearn

Yesterday was a Making a Life day, not a Making Stuff Day. As a result of all these house fix-up activities, the garage is a disaster area. Close to a chaos meltdown if not a nuclear meltdown. We're talking Out of Control! Getting it cleaned out is one of my major Life Priorities. Saturday, being Earth Day, there was a big recycle program locally for electronic stuff. Got rid of the big old clunky TV, my old studio stereo system, an old clock radio and a busted CD changer--all of which have been replaced by newer, sleeker stuff. I'm oh so grateful the old junk is going where useable component materials will be recycled, but oh so worried about where most of our obsolete electronics end up, with household technology evolving faster than mold on leftovers in the back of my refrigerator. In any event, the garage is one step closer to being cleaned up. Yippee! I did my bit for my earth, my garage, and my sanity.

Our CSA Harvest Share veggies for the week arrived; they're all cleaned and ready to eat. We also got 18 fresh free-range eggs. Using the eggs remaining from last week, I learned how to properly make hard-boiled eggs so the shells just pop right off. It's the Georgia Egg Board method and works like a charm. Randy and I had lunch out at our favorite fish-and-chips place on the Bay. After dinner (big salad with hard boiled eggs; surprise, surprise), we went out for lattes and then to a play. Since Randy (he's my husband) is leaving Wednesday for 2 months teaching at sea on the Golden Bear, I was damned happy to have lots of time with him yesterday. I have such mixed feelings about his being gone so long, but this is an opportunity he absolutely should not miss.

Today's goal is to figure out how to get photos onto this blog. Just when I finally learned to take good slides with my SLR. Dang. -- I think I just did it! This is Spike O. Reilly, The Pissing Cat, in a photo taken about 7 years ago. He's looking fierce, but he really isn't fierce -- he's just starting to yawn. Okay, now I have to learn how to get my photos from the camera into my computer.

Life Lesson: Be Careful What You Ask For

Wednesday night, as I sat in my little studio/sewing room, I had 2 thoughts. (More than 2, actually, but these 2 rose like cream to the surface of my consciousness.) One: this room is a mess and I need to clean it (with 6 housecats, the dust bunnies can take over pretty fast). Two: I want to spend tomorrow (that would have been yesterday, Thursday) at the local bead shop, just chatting and working on my current beading project, a locket made of Delicas. Apparently, out in the Great Cosmos where these things are decided, my 2 thoughts were at odds with one another. And apparently, the first was more critical than the second. As was another issue that's been tugging at me lately.

Thursday morning, as I was gathering my materials and equipment to "go beading", I discovered that our old cat Spike (aka The Pissing Cat for reasons that will quickly become obvious) has been using a corner of my studio/sewing room lately to make his territorial statements (he's had a lot of territory issues the last few months). This discovery necessitated an immediate and drastic change of plan for the day, i.e. a major cleaning of the studio, especially the drowning-in-dust-bunnies, and now kitty-whiz, floor. While I was at it, some reorganization, moving furniture around, and so on. And, tangentially, some reordering of my creative priorities. Which was the real cosmic point, I think.

You see, I've been really trying to get my life back lately. After 2 ankle surgeries, some house redecorating and remodelling, lots of travel, and a few other crises, I've gotten really off-track. I've lost my focus. Lately I'm viscerally aware whenever I'm wasting time doing stuff I'm not supposed to be doing. And just as aware when I'm heading in the right direction. Yesterday, apparently, I was supposed to be cleaning my work space and reprioritizing my work. I got what I asked for and what I needed. The beaded locket project will still be there tomorrow.

Patience and Persistance, Part II

Subtitle: The Continuing Saga of The Doors (and I don't meant the rock band)

Fourth trip to the door store?? Closed again. But at least there was a sign on their front door this time. This place is a branch office/store and so far there is only 1 employee. Who sometimes has to leave the store on business. The 1 employee is really good, but he's not getting the support he needs from his employer to make this branch office/store a truly credible retail outlet.

Let me tell you how good the 1 employee, Steve, really is. Sensing that we had missed a connection again, HE called ME! And on my 5th trip to the door store, he already had my whole order written up. He went over it with me line by line to make sure everything was accurate. Throughout this whole process he has made several phone calls to check on various things. He plans to be a general contractor. I'd hire him!

The doors and hardware are scheduled for delivery Monday. Yippee!! All this in only 5 trips to the door store. Like I say, patience and persistance.

Nothing is Easy: a Lesson in Patience and Persistance

We've been remodeling our master bathroom. Since November 2. It's now April 18. That's six and a half months. It's not a large bathroom, nor a particularly complicated (or so I thought) job. But even with using a general contractor, I'm continually amazed at how much patience and persistance it is taking to get this thing done. The last major thing to be done is to install, with frames and casing, 4 new doors: 2 for the bath, 1 for the bedroom, and 1 for the downstairs bath.

The general's price for doors and staining them was outrageous, and I wasn't sure he was hearing what I was telling him I wanted. So, I decided to put the project together myself. I've got the painter lined up to stain the doors (he painted the outside of the house 2 years ago and did a fabulous job). I've got the general contractor lined up to install the doors. Now to buy the doors and hardware. Sounds simple, right? No such luck. It's another lesson that nothing in life is easy.

There was the first trip to the "door store", after extensive web search, to see what they have and make sure they could get what I want. Then a second trip to actually order the doors-- but the door store were closed, with no explanation (construction people are just a little flakey). Yesterday, a third trip to order doors, BUT existing doors are substandard size, so today I need to tear off existing door casings to measure stud-to-stud and stud-to-floor to see if standard size pre-hungs will fit into the existing door spaces. Then there will be a 4th trip to the door store to finalize the order and give the nice man a check. Please note this: the door store is not nearby. Even when you're trying to give people money, you must be patient and persistant.

Another Maunder (Look THAT Up in Your OED!)

Progress is slow. I thought the Christmas Gingerbread Cookie Fairy was finished, but after taking some photos, I realize her wings need more work. Back to the old drawing board.

Another cloudy, rainy weekend. Worked on cleaning the garage yesterday. That stuff is mostly going to the Woods Humane Society's Twice Sold Tails thrift shop. Our friend Alice came over for dinner last night while her husband took a supply of blood bank products to Salinas (he works for our local Tri-Counties Blood Bank). Our first Community Supported Agriculture spring/summer season vegies arrived yesterday morning from Clark Valley Farm. I'm overnight pet-sitting with Lee's two toy poodles, Meg and Chloe. So far today I've been a bum. We had breakfast at Kitty's Restaurant with the Sunday New York Times and the local rag. When we got home I napped in my favorite wing chair with Spike O. Reilly on my lap. (Spike's our oldest cat.) Now I have one brief shot at the computer while my husband, Randy, has his afternoon caffeine-in-a-cup. Then back to the Fairy wings. So, today's blogger lesson is simply to publish a new post. I warned you that progress would be slow!

Oh yes! You might think of subscribing to the Oxford English Dictionary's on-line Word of the Day. It's great fun. Maunder, n.: idle, incoherent, or rambling talk or writing; an instance of this. OED says this word is now rare, but given the new age of blogging, perhaps "maunder" should be making a BIG come-back!

Where to Begin? Why Begin at All?

The internet has forever changed the way we communicate, at least until our technological civilization collapses (have you seen Kevin Costner's old movie, The Postman?). I've come to love reading about and seeing what other creative people are doing, using this fascinating technology; I want to share my creative journey, too. Honestly, maybe I just want to admire my own work on the computer screen. Whatever.

Yes, this is a case of teaching an old dog new tricks. I'm basically a Luddite. (No annoying cell phone for this chick. We don't have a DVD player [yet]. Why anyone over the age of 24 would even want an iPod is beyond me. I watch movies at the movie theater.) So it's going to be slow going at first. But I do have my new digital camera. And the blog book at my side. I love to write. And I'm a very visually-oriented person. If nothing else, this will be a journal for me -- to chart my progress, to motivate me to keep going and do more. This blog will also be a tool for all those people who want to see what I'm doing (both of them). Let the show begin.

The sky is totally cloud-covered this morning. Drizzle and rain off and on. It NEVER rains here in April! Except this year. The weird rainy weather is driving our county's vegetable-producers nutz. By now we should be having lengthening warm sunny days to have the veggies growing like mad. No such luck. I have 2 creative goals for the day: to start this blog, and to finish a chocolate-colored bendi doll who is becoming the Christmas Gingerbread Cookie Fairy.

One more thing. The name of my blog. People always ask me, "What do you do?" Like I'm supposed to have a regular job. Which I don't have. Hardly anyone who isn't one knows what a "fiber artist" is. I'm not even sure I am one. So I just answer, "I make stuff." If you make stuff, you understand that it's all a seamless whole with what you do to make your life. So this is me: Making Stuff, Making a Life.