Summer Day

 

 This is what I saw from my bathtub this morning.  Big, beautiful, cumulus clouds that later brought us RAIN, BLESSED RAIN!  

Hubs is in New York for two weeks and I'm batching it.  It took me a little while to get used to it, which I didn't expect because I pretty much live for the chance to be alone in my own house (which never happens), but I'm acclimating to it nicely, now.  

Yesterday I dug out this beginning of a quilt from 1981 and ironed and lint-brushed all the pieces and rotary cut some new ones while watching a segment from Birdman of Alcatraz that I must've accidentally taped instead of Gunsmoke, years ago.

I've been on a VCR tape kick ever since I found a bunch of nice ones at a junk store last week.  I've been back once, already.  To the junk store, I mean, for more VCR tapes.  I got a set of 10 episodes of The Red Skelton Show, The Sound of Music, Urban Cowboy and some other stuff I can't remember right now.  Got some train tapes for Hubs' birthday next month.  Essentially spent all my allowance on those and an ice cream freezer that I made a batch of peanut butter ice cream in when I got home.  It feels like summer.  

Say It Isn't Sew

I was out in my studio the other day, waiting for my next massage client to arrive, as I so often do, and looking around at all the art supplies I've accumulated over the past couple of years and not done anything with.  Cool how-to art books, empty journals,

  a craft pasta machine, acrylic paints in little bottles,

little pointy and rounded tools for sculpting polymer clay into food and dolls heads and recognizable characters from real life,

watercolors, brushes, a new sewing machine I HAD to have after seeing it at Penny's in 2003 and on which I've never sewn anything save one straight line 7 years ago just to make sure it worked and that I still remembered how. 

 

As usual, I felt little jabs of remorse and failuredom for having had so many plans over the past 10 years and accomplishing so little.  And it's not really even about failure or accomplishment, it's about not doing the things I love to do and doing, instead, stuff I care less about than this stuff.  It is so hard to push through the resistance to change the way I spend my time.  Not able, somehow, to connect the dots between what I do and what I get.  Wanting one thing and doing stuff that will never get me there.  

A week ago, I went to the store and picked out fabric and batting and matching thread for a baby quilt for a girl I work with whose shower is TODAY.  (I told you I bought the stuff ONE week ago, right?)  I thought, while taking these pictures on Thursday, that I must be out of my fucking mind to have thought I was going to start and complete a baby quilt in, what was then, 4 days.  And not even whole days, either.  And one of those days I was scheduled to work 12 hours in the ER.  (To give you a little point of reference on my timing, I started a quilt for my first grandson when his mother was pregnant with him.  I finally finished it and gave it to him when he was 6 years-old).  

And not only that, but I already had all of this that I bought to make a quilt for the 4th of July.....1997.

And this that I cut a skirt pattern out of like 20 years ago and never sewed together and now, who would wear this?  I'm not opposed to the color or print but it's all cut out in the pattern of a skirt that's completely out of style, now.  Arghhhh! 

 And this fabric that I bought and never did ANYTHING with.  I totally love it, still, and probably should have made the baby quilt out of it, now that I see it again.

This one really hurts.  It's a pile of partially assembled quilt blocks that I started to replace a quilt made for my sister by her close friend that I destroyed when I lived with her in 1981.  NINETEEN. EIGHTY. ONE.  That's 30 years ago.  Right?  Yeah, 30 years. (Math's not my forte, okay?).

 

So Thursday, after my client's massage was completed and the place was cleared out, I locked the door and started working on that baby quilt.  The one for the shower today.  (I thought it would be best to start from the present and work backward). 

I didn't think it could be done.  I really didn't.  But I worked all the rest of Thursday and 10 hours on Friday and when I got off work last night at 7, I started working on it and finished it at fifteen minutes after midnight.  I tossed it in the washer on the delicate cycle and went to bed.  This morning, I dried it, (then rewashed it and dried it again because there were two little dark spots on the hem that, oddly, appeared darker when the quilt was wet than they did when it was dry and that turned out, after all that, to be two little pieces of something brown stuck inside to the batting where they are entirely irretrievable).  Then I ironed it.  And this is what I ended up with.

I even dug the gift bag and tissue paper out of a stash I've been rat-holing for years.  Ironed the tissue paper and that's that.
It feels really good to be sewing again. 

Chat Hell

I just got off an online chat with my website provider.  After I disconnected I thought how incredibly well the whole interaction epitomizes the plight of Americans today.  Everything is so friggin' complicated.  Everybody is so frustrated and it's no damn wonder.  See what you think. (By the way, I was trying to be funny at the last but I think he may have misinterpreted me.  Whoops!).

Just a second while we connect you with a web advisor.

You are not currently in a chat session.

Hi, my name’s Mike. How can I help you?

Mike: Hi! Thank you for contacting Intuit WebSites. My name is Mike. How can I help you today?

Ann: I want to add a Paypal button to sell gift certificates online

Mike: Thank you for waiting. I'll be with you in just a moment.

Ann: Okay

Mike: Do you already have a paypal account?

Ann: Yes

Mike: Great from Sitebuilder click Ecommerce icon at the top

Ann: Do I have to reload sitebuilder every time I use it? I can't figure out how to get into it without downloading it every time.

Mike: Just clicking the icon on your desktop if you're using the downloaded version

Ann: That's funny. Okay.

Mike: You will then click the Ecommerce-->paypal button. The right side will then have a button "Add" to add the product information.

Ann: I can't figure out how to make a drop-down menu because I offer so many different things and also how to set it up to print out a gift certificate. On the PayPal site I can do all that but I can't get the gift certificate to look right and tech support said to have you guys do it. ???

Mike: Our paypal button feature doesn't allow that. You'd have to login to paypal and use their button creator.

Mike: Then it generates html code for the button. After that you can paste it into the html box within Sitebuilder.

Ann: It wanted html code for the gift certificate "logo". That's where I got stuck. That's when tech support said you guys would have to do it.

Mike: Html for the gift certificate?

Mike: It doesn't work like that

Mike: Html is website coding

Ann: Yes. For the logo, otherwise it looked like...I know it's coding.

Mike: But it's an image right?

Ann: It wanted a website to go to to get the logo. Right. An image

Ann: So I called tech support and they said a web designer has to do it.

Mike: Well that is actually incorrect. Sorry for any misinformation.

Mike: Our design team only builds complete websites and not graphics for a logo only.

Ann: How do I give them a website address with my logo on it?

Mike: Give who your website address?

Ann: There is a field into which I was suppose to type a web address "http: etc" for my logo to be added to the gift certificate.

Ann: On paypal.

Mike: Oh ok thanks. So you need to create a page with a link to download or print the gift certificate. Then provide them that page. For instance www.mywebaddress.com/giftcertificate-50.html

Mike: and create a page for each certificate amount.

Ann: Oh, maybe.

Ann: How do I do that only make it only accessible to people who have already paid for a gift certificate?

Ann: And when I clicked on that link it was a website and not a gift certificate.

Mike: Well there's nothing to stop people from printing out 50 or sending the link to friends if they know internet basics.

Mike: When you clicking on what link?

Mike: I'm not sure what link you are referring to. 

Ann: The for instance link above.

Mike: That's an example

Ann: I know. Can you tell me how to do this some way?

Mike: You need to create pages with the gift certificates

Ann: How do I do that and not have them look like webpages? How do I make a page that looks like a document?

Ann: So that I can then link to it via paypal to create a button like I want?

Mike: Did you upload the gift certificates to sitebuilder?

Ann: I don't think so.

Mike: Ok so your other option is to upload the gift cert. images into the file manager and then provide that url for paypal.

Ann: Will there be a way to restrict access of that url by other people?

Mike: There is not with our system and that is a complex task to protect the page.

Ann: Suggestions?

Mike: Without advanced web capabilities the best option is paypal. The other option would be our storefront that allows sales of downloadable products. This provides the file download once the person purchases. But same issue, people can print multiples.

Mike: I don't know of a way to not allow more than one printout

Ann: I just went back to Paypal's site and looked again. It didn't want a page with the certificate on it. It wants the logo. Can I create a page with just my logo on it?

Mike: logo=image. So you need to just upload the image. But that's not for the certificate.

Mike: That's the logo at the top of the paypal checkout page to look more custom.

Ann: Okay.

Ann: The field where it asks for the logo says, "http:". That sounds like it wants to go somewhere for the image, not just have me upload it, right?

Mike: It's the url of the image

Mike: You would upload the image into the file manager of Sitebuilder. Then the url would be http://yourdomain.com/image-file-name.jpg

Mike: That's just an example and you would use your domain and file name

Ann: How do I do that?

Mike: Go into the file manager of Sitebuilder and import the image

Mike: Then publish/upload the image

Ann: And then how do I know the web address to give them?

Mike: Check above URL I provided as example

Ann: I know but how will I know what mine is, specifically?

Mike: You use your domain

Mike: Then the file name

Ann: And what else?

Mike: That's all

Ann: mywebaddress.com?

Mike: That's your domain right?

Ann: Yes but if I go to that site I don't just have an image, right?

Ann: Image=logo

Mike: Correct it's an image

Mike: It's not a site

Mike: just the url to the image itself

Mike: That's what paypal requires

Mike: And I said "logo=image" because when they ask for "logo" they just mean the image

Ann: Dude, I know that.

Ann: I just don't understand how I can tell them to go to mywebaddress.com and they're going to go right to this image I upload.

Mike: I am only trying to help you so please do not be rude.

Mike: Again, http://yourdomain.com/image-file-name.jpg

Ann: I'm not trying to be rude. I totally get that you're trying to help but I don't know how to explain it.

Ann: Okay. I'll try it. Thanks.

Mike: Have a great day

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No Better Place

There's nowhere on earth better than my kitchen in the morning.  Today while I waited for my tea water to boil I grabbed my camera out of the closet and started taking pictures.  I'm not sure what it is about a kitchen, in general, that is so comforting and consoling.  There's no place better.

No place better.

Independance Day

That pretty well sums up my 4th of July.  Hope your's was colorful, too.

Is this Heaven? No, it's Iowa

Just got home from Iowa last night.  Took my daughter's furniture and household stuff up in a borrowed stock trailer.   It was a quick trip with detours due to the God awful floods.  Parts of I-29 closed and in it's place, lakes with big, white barns and farmhouses seemingly floating on the surface. 

And yet, the countryside was gorgeous as it is mostly in June.

Some day I'll have an old, two-story farmhouse up there with a barn where I will spend every single June from then on, on high ground of course.

I don't know why but I feel like crying.  Coming across a book by Roy Underhill The Woodwright's Shop while ordering books online, I got tears in my eyes.  Simpler times.  My childhood floating away on the Missouri River this week.  My Mom out of town when I went back to Lincoln to visit my brother and his wife.  This is how it will be when she's gone, I thought.  My brother drove us through her back alley on the way to a Middle Eastern grocery to get cardamom seed and yogurt soda.  Grass growing amongst her tomato plants.  This is why I bury myself in Gunsmoke reruns and PBS sewing shows on Saturday mornings.  I can pretend I'm a kid, again.  Like nothing has changed.  Those fields dry and people still living in those houses.

For now I'll just sit here, a western on tv, the sound turned down, and listen to this. 

 

Just Do It

I'm sitting in my studio listening to the rain falling outside.  It sounds like a relaxation tape with nice, nonthreatening thunder and the tapping of drops on the metal roof.  I'm waiting for a massage client who I realize now isn't coming.  It was a gift certificate so, so be it.  I'm already paid and this way I get to listen to the rain instead of work.  And behind all of that, Pachelbel on the CD player.  Not a bad way to earn thirty bucks.  Did I mention I'm also a massage therapist? 

When I still thought my client was coming, I busied myself searching for a lavender cheesecake recipe.  I printed out a couple of them and have one selected for a go tonight, if I can get hubs to go to the store for cream cheese and graham crackers, later.  I bought a gallon bag of culinary lavender earlier this week when we went out of town for a couple of days. 

 I've also got a lavender shortcake recipe I desperately want to try.  I may have to do that tonight, too.

I worked a couple hours out in the barn on my log cabin dollhouse, this morning. 

I've wanted to make one of those for years and years.  Finally, a couple of weeks ago, I just went out and started cutting it out.  Today I attached some of the log facade to the walls. 

It's going to be gorgeous.  And flawed.  It's my first attempt at a dollhouse and I'm making mistakes but I refuse to subscribe to perfectionism.  I won't be stifled by my own expectations.  Action is the key, at this point.  Getting out there and doing something I love, is my goal.

What kind of a goal is that, you probably wonder.  You probably think it's easy to do things you love, don't you?  But it's not.  Most of the time I think about doing things I love or write about them or talk about them.  I'm better at buying books about the things I love (that I never read).  And sometimes I buy the materials I need to do them but I rarely manage to ever get around to the actual doing of those ever important things I love to do.   And it was only in taking an ecourse from Tama Kieves titled, "Creating the Work You Love" that I ever got out there and started doing anything at all.

I'm proud of myself for finishing that course, by the way.  It's not unlike me to sign up for something like that and then never do it.  Just print out the materials, telling myself I'll do it later and then never doing it.  Like $1200 worth of online herbalist, energy work and nutritional courses I haven't completed.  That was in 2007.  It would seem that my challenge isn't in getting the necessary materials to do things I'm interested in but in just getting off my ass and doing them.  Sometimes I feel like I'm in one of those fair rides that go in circles and you never get off and you never get anywhere, either.  But not this time.  This time I finished the course.  This is the 12th week and I'm doing it.  All of it. And I think I've found the work I was meant to do, by the way.  Just so you know.

:-)

I'm an ER nurse, among other things.  I've done it for 22 years.  Nursing and I have a love-hate relationship.  I can't quit it.  I guess I love it more than I hate it.  Maybe it's like the mafia.  Whatever the reason, I just keep going back when I quit.

Right now, I work prn which is on an as-needed basis.  Fortunately for me, they need me pretty regularly and it helps supplement my small, not very financially successful massage business.  I can't seem to quit either one of these endeavors no matter how hard I try.  This is one of the reasons why:

Today I get a "chief complaint form" through the slot in the triage door saying "I fell into a patch of bamboo".  I open the triage door and call the name on the sheet and here comes a guy with a perfectly round, quarter-sized, red circle right in the middle of his forehead. 

How do you quit something like this?

Sandhill Cranes

Earlier this week I headed for Nebraska to visit my family and travel with them to Kearney, Nebraska to view the migration of the Sandhill Cranes.  We all ride with my brother who has the largest vehicle (that uses the most gas).

We drove out one afternoon, took a side trip on the way to the motel via a dirt road where the cranes are feeding in fields on corn leftover from the Fall harvest.

 After checking into the motel and eating supper at a local restaurant, we returned to the same area where we walked out to an old railway bridge turned walking path over the Platte River and waited for nightfall when the cranes would come in to roost (?) for the night in the middle of the river where predators are less likely to reach them.

 

 We weren't close enough to see a lot of them but we could hear them up and down the river.




My sister brought her dog, Laska, so she and her husband stayed down nearer the bank of the river rather than on the bridge closer to the onlookers.  The rest of us went back and forth between the bridge and the bank.
 

 

 While we were hanging around talking, waiting for the sun to go down, an eagle flew over our heads...

...and then disappeared down the river to the west.

Next day we headed out to the blind at Rowe Audubon Sanctuary at 5:45am to watch the cranes wake up and fly away for another day of corn scavenging.

If you've never done this, you need to.  At least once.