Tag Archives: Odds &Ends

Crafting

He got a job!

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So the boomerang child is once again employed. I hope this works out. If you sense a bit of underwhelm, it’s because he has quite a shaky employment history. The longest he’s held a job is just under two years.

More tiny paintings

I’m still painting. I have three paintings to do and the second book will be filled. That will be 50 out of the 100 paintings completed. I’m also working on some larger pieces— 9 by 12 inches.

My soap making class was cancelled due to a lack of interest. I only have one person registered for my paper making class on Saturday. Maybe my teaching fee is too high. I think I’ll make some feedback forms to find out what members want.

My own damned opinion.

Time to feed the cat and other musings.

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The Gingersnap has a routine. There’s 15 minutes until she is fed and she has already tapped my arm. Next she will touch my knee and stare up at me while licking her lips. If it were morning and I was in bed, she would do the poke where she manages to hit my forehead practically dead center with one claw.

If that fails, she bounces to various pieces of furniture and shoves things to the floor. Once I get out of bed, she will lead me to the kitchen, frequently looking back to make certain I am following. Once in the kitchen she will stare at her dish stand until I fill a bowl and set it down.

If it’s her evening mealtime, she will come to wherever I am, to do the arm tap and knee touch. If I don’t comply, she will jump up on the counter, desk, back of the couch, or table, and sit and stare until I head for the kitchen.

Right now now, I’m being glared at. How dare I leave her alone for FOREVER with only three bowls of food to last for 78 hours! She could have starved! Of course there was still food in one bowl, but that doesn’t count. The other two were empty! The amount left in the bowl was the equivalent of the amount she gets in a normal feeding, but she could have starved.

I went on a road trip to visit my now closed alma mater, Northland College (1892 – 2025). Keeping the college open was no longer sustainable, even with a reduced curriculum. One hundred thirty-three years and now shut and abandoned. From the outside, it looks like everyone packed up for the end of the week like normal, except the campus was dead silent. No people except for a maintenance person in a truck.

They didn’t stop and ask why I was wandering the campus. Honestly, I might have burst into tears if they had. There were only a couple of empty campus vehicles parked near one of the buildings.

This was my first Wisconsin home for two years – Anna McMillan Hall. The second floor window to the right of center was my first room. The second room was in the rear.

I found a Civics textbook in a resale shop up there. I don’t even know if they teach civics anymore. With what’s happened in the last three elections, I would say that Civics has gone the way of Handwriting, diagramming sentences, and Social Studies, along with Literature, World History, and Geography. We have become a nation proud of our ignorance. The great technologies that were to give us access to the world’s knowledge have made us more ignorant, gullible, and just downright stupid. We now lack the ability to sort out truth from misinformation. Just my opinion.

Crafting, Mostly me, Stuff

Still stressed but good medical news

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My last blood test results were in normal ranges. In another couple of months if all stays improved, they’ll start weaning off my meds. Yay, Rah!

I’m a little behind on my paintings. I have two in progress but I’m not satisfied. The size limitation is what gets me. I have a chance to start watercolor classes again, but I’m leery of spending money for a non-essential while the Social Security issue is in crisis.

The Melon Felon is going all out for Fascism. I’m surprised he hasn’t had a sparkly gold uniform made. Probably, there’s one in his closet with bogus medals hanging on the jacket and he’ll start parading around in it next month. Enough said.

It was Craft Night again. This time I took a new cat coloring book and some markers. I need to make a list of unfinished projects and work on them. But not too fast. I can’t die until I’m done with all of them. Given the number of items in progress, if I never start a new project but just work on existing ones, I’ll be close to 200 years old when I die.

Crafting

So here we are.

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My taxes for this year are going to be fun. The year is not over yet but I’ve supplemented my income with an assortment of classes at the maker space which means an extra 1099 tax form this year and a bit of additional tax. I haven’t participated in any sales or sold anything this year so I don’t have sales tax to pay. I will probably still have to file a form.

But the teaching is fun. I mostly teach members at the maker-space and charge a sum that covers my gas and extra supplies. I say “extra” because I have a lot of supplies and equipment for many different crafts, but occasionally need to buy extra tools.

This year, I have put together bins of supplies for teaching four to six people. For soap making, I have gathered my molds, bases, additives, and tools into a bin that I can just bring up from the basement and take to class. I did the same with the paper-making and book binding supplies.

I’m planning on teaching other book binding classes featuring different types of bindings such as binding single pages and making decorative covers for paperbacks that need repair, and making junk journals, and pop-up books.

Future soap classes will include making hot or cold process soaps, and making utility bars out of the grated and melted bits and scraps of used soap that can be used for cleaning such as the bars I use in the basement and garage for cleaning messy hands and paint brushes. In a pinch, the grated soap can be mixed with borax and washing soda to create laundry detergent.

One of my summer classes will be making paper from plants. It will be a multi-day class with the first day dedicated to making pulp by cooking the plant matter. Maybe I can find a way to get some use out of the unkillable mulberry tree. It’s basically a weed.

It can’t get properly removed because it’s in the narrow wilderness zone between my fence and the neighbor’s fence. Both fences were there when I moved in. They are both are properly within our lot lines which leaves a space between them that is not even large enough for a weed whacker.

I call the mulberry unkillable because the utility company contacts me every other year to say they’re coming over to trim the tree because it’s in the utility lines again, and they come and trim it down and it just grows back. One year, they tried to burn it. I came home from work, and the mulberry was cut back and the stump was black with char. The next spring, new branches and leaves grew. Next spring, I’m going to drill some holes with my larger spade bits and fill them with stump killer. Maybe that will work.

My side of the street has weird fencing. The property directly behind me has a six foot chainlink fence that extends across three back yards to the east. My yard is the only yard with double fencing. My fence is three feet tall and as I mentioned above, the space between the fences if so narrow that I can’t just hang over the fence to try cut the mulberry shorter.

The fence next door on the north starts a foot from the end of my fence because during installation, they discovered a buried stump of an old utility pole which probably extended too far down in the ground to be easily removed. So I attached a 12” piece of chicken wire to prevent my dog from escaping. The neighbors installed a gate at the back fence so the kids could retrieve their balls when they went over the fence. Without the fence, the kids would have had to walk past four houses to the corner and go around the corner and between two houses, and then trudge all the way up to the ball and go back around the way they came.

The four houses around the corner have very long, narrow yards. I figured that the kids’ round trip to get a ball that went over the fence would mean walking a bit under 800 feet so the gate was a good thing. Those kids are all grown up now and there is a new family next door. Periodically, I find a basketball in my yard, but the kids don’t come over to retrieve it. They wait until I notice and toss it back over the fence even though they have my permission to come into the yard to get it.

At any rate, if I can harvest enough bark from the tree, I will attempt mulberry paper. It will probably be a lot of work for a tiny number of sheets. I’ll let you know.

Crafting

The Cricut Design Space, Cricut Joy, and teaching

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I’ve been spending time watching tutorial videos on the Cricut cutting machine. My next class at the maker space is Saturday and I will be teaching several people how to use the Cricut software, Cricut cutting machine, and our heat press to create unique gifts.

I will bring a variety of glass, paper, plastic, and fabric items to show what can be done with various types of vinyl, including heat transfer vinyl with the heat press. I’ve made stencils for etching glass, a design for a bib, plus designs for tee shirts and glass objects such as plates and jars.

I haven’t checked the stash of objects I keep at the maker space lately, but there should be at least one plate, a couple of glass mugs and coffee cups. I din’t think there are any fabric items in the box, but I’ll bring a couple of tee shirts, a fabric tote, and a ballcap to make up.

Also this week, I had some students from a local high school to teach sewing to. I generally have the kids sew pillowcases as they are simple, only have two seams and a hem to sew. It seems to take them most of the two hours to finish their pillowcases.

I bought precut fabric in a variety of patterns and colors from Walmart. That was faster than my first classes where I used fabric we had at the maker space and had to cut to size. My first classes were assorted ages, either children of members or a group of students from the neighborhood.

Next week is the big project – sewing pillow cases for Ryan’s Case for Smiles https://caseforsmiles.org/. There will be up to forty students with their instructors, taking turns cutting, pinning, and ironing fabric as well as sewing the pillowcases for kids with cancer.

We’ll have ten sewing machines going. I’m not certain how many cases we’ll get done next week, but we’ll get as many done as we can. And maybe schedule a second session to finish up. I was asked by a member if I arranged for compensation for my time. I did not. But if they offer, I’ll accept it. At any rate I’ll definitely be filing extra 1099 forms for tax season with the classes I’ve taught so far.

At the end of the month, I’m going to schedule a class on how to read a sewing pattern. There are a few beginning sewers/sewists(?) who have asked me what all the markings mean on sewing patterns. This one will be a free class, but I’ll require sign ups so I’ll know if I need the classroom with the projector.

Stuff

Lawn mowers.

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My gas mower became hard for me to start. When I was still able to start it, I had to use a bungee cord to keep it running. It was just too difficult with my bad shoulder to keep yanking the pull cord. Eventually, the pull cord became too difficult for even my son to start it.

I bought a battery powered mower and have been keeping up with the front lawn until this year. We have had so many alternating days of rain and sun, that the electric mower can’t keep up. I only get 45 minutes to a charge, but it takes both batteries to run and the chargers takes at least 4 hours to fully charge them. The mower originally came with just one charger for both batteries so I bought a second charger so I wouldn’t spend all day charging two batteries.

Yesterday, I wheeled the gas mower out to find out what the problem was with the recoil starter. I disassembled the housing then pulled out the cord casing. I rotated the motor fins a few times and it was moving freely, so the motor hadn’t seized. I did check the oil and it was clean, since the mower got a tune-up and oil change when I did the snowblower.

I tried to start it and I’m not strong enough to pull the cord to start it, so I asked my neighbor if he would get it started. It was a little rough but did start. I used a bungee cord to wrap the handle and managed to get my front yard mowed. Yay me!

The mower conked out when I tried to cut the back. It’s gets like a hay field back there sometimes. I finally hauled out the battery powered one and most of the back is now done. It was too hot to finish.

Tomorrow – weed whacking.

About me, Stuff

Clearing Clutter

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I decided to clear out my file cabinet. The first thing I did was get rid of 25 years of receipts for oil changes, tires, and repairs for my former wheels. That was quite a thick folder.

Next went 10 years of gas/electric bills. Another fat folder but not as fat as the one for the car since I stopped getting paper bills when I started paying electronically. Ditto for the water bills.

I then moved on to instruction booklets and receipts. I reduced three folders to two much thinner ones. There were a lot of instructions for small appliances and tools that I no longer own. There was a fat folder of veterinarian receipts, some with rabies tags still attached.

I figured that out when I had to spend 20 minutes attempting to pluck aluminum shards from among the cutting blades of the paper shredder. I succeeded until I put too thick a sheaf of paper in and jammed the blades again.

The shredder still works. It was guaranteed to shred credit cards. It’s my third shredder — I’ve had this one maybe 10 or 12 years. I filled a clear recycling bag with two shredder bins-worth of paper shreds to go into the recycling bin. I think I can shred tax returns up until 2016 or so. At any rate, I’ll start shredding from around 2008 and fill another bag.

I’m getting better. The funky fog that trapped my brain is lifting. Eventually, I will be able to get back to weaving, bookbinding, and printmaking. But for now, accomplishing one or two small things is progress.

About me, Crafting

When Smoke Gets In Your Eyes…

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…and lungs, and hair, and the air filter in the furnace because your using the fan to help circulate air from the window AC. I left the fan on when I went away for three weeks. When I came back the filter was seriously clogged from the wildfire smoke. I changed the filer and three weeks later changed it again. It was not as bad as the first but still worse than when I run the furnace for a month.

It was funny because the filter is rated to up to 90 days. It’s only been 18 days since I changed the filter and its about due to be changed. But you know, climate change isn’t really a thing. Yeah, and my sarcasm knob is turned up as high as it goes and that’s not high enough. I’m just as at fault as everyone else.

I have two ceiling fans going on the main floor and a window fan in the half-story blowing hot air out. The furnace fan pulls cool air from the window AC when it’s on and circulates it from the air returns along with air it pulls in from outside through the ground floor.

I drive too much. I would drive less but not every bus will get me where I need to go even with walking some distance. I do try to consolidate trips and confine them to one area at a time. The city revised the bus system so there are now fewer routes that just circle the city and some of the places I could go by bus within an hours time take almost twice as long because there’s no longer a direct bus.

Well, back to business. There will be more crafting news coming. The problems I’ve been having are just about resolved. I should have more time now. There is still a lot of smoke in the air. Breathing is rough. Eventually, the fires will burn out and the air will clear, until next time.

Mostly me

Not So Cheap Movie Remake

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I was on a road trip with two of my sisters. We’ve been across the top of the country and have visited several National Parks. We visited friends of mine in Oregon and our brother and his family in Southern California. The car was fine all the way across the country from Florida to Ohio to Wisconsin to Oregon.

Nobody seemed to be able to fix the problem the damned 2017 Hyundai Sonata was having that my sister was driving us in. The problem started with either bad gas or a vapor lock and stranded us on a highway just outside of Medford OR. Since the car is under warranty, we went to the closest Hyundai dealer. We used up two of my AAA tows for that one because the car had to be stored at the tow yard overnight and then towed to the dealership in the morning. The tow driver dropped up off at a La Quinta after determining that they had a room available. The dealership got us on the road that day, but they failed to replace the dipstick they removed to check the oil.

The car had worked fine while we were in California and we headed out for Las Vegas. We spent five days at our brother’s but since two of us are allergic to dogs and he has four big ones, we had to leave earlier than we planned. California was a lot cloudier and colder than we expected with temperatures in the mid-60’s. We had packed for warm, sunny California.

Once in Las Vegas, the car seemed to work fine. We saw sights, took in a show and decided to head for home via Salt Lake City where our sister wanted to show us around. The second time the car failed happened right after we stopped for gas before leaving Las Vegas.

The car started sputtering and shaking. We barely made it onto the shoulder before the car died. We had to call the state cops who blocked the right hand lane because otherwise we might’ve gotten side-swiped by a semi, we were that close to the road. It cost me another tow. All this time my sister was claiming her roadside assistance as accidentally canceled.

The car was towed to a Hyundai dealership. The second dealership had to keep the car overnight. We got towed there late in the day and they couldn’t get to it until the next day. They called a Lyft to take us to Enterprise car rental so we’d have transportation. We made arrangements for a room at a casino in Downtown Las Vegas. We got a cheap rate for a Monday night.

The next day, we vacated the hotel room and drove to the dealership. They had not figured out what the problem was. The diagnostic computer couldn’t find the problem. One of their techs took the car out and drove it, but no problems showed up. They told us it was probably just a vapor lock and not to overfill the gas.

So we transferred our luggage and stuff from the rental to the care and went to turn in the rental. After that, we stopped to get some water and prepared to get on the road.

And the car died 100 yards away, while we were crossing the parking lot. We waited in the nice hot Vegas heat for two hours for the new tow. Mostly listening to my sister rant on the phone to Hyundai Customer Care and the second dealer did not replace the dipstick either because they were out. While my sister was talking to Hyundai Customer Service – big guts, not the locals, she found out she did have towing. Thanks a lot, because I’m out and if I need a tow before my next renewal in March, I’ll have to pay. She said she would reimburse me, but I honestly have no hope of that happening.

So there I was with my sisters in the third hotel we’ve been in, in Las Vegas, living in a bizarre remake of “Groundhog Day” minus Bill Murray, with the hotels changing every second time I wake up. Luckily we extended our stay another day because the car still is not ready. Maybe tomorrow. I kept hoping that I’ll wake up in my own bed having dreamed this entire road trip.

Home now. Finally. I decided to drive the car after the GPS took my sister off the highway and routed her 30 miles off-course because of construction on a section of the highway to my house. I hadn’t been paying attention and looked up from my book to find her driving around some small town.