A scientific reason why Rob and I can't talk politics

It's obviously 'cuz neither of us LISTENS to the other!

Paperwhites today

See? What a joy blooming plants are, huh?
(Even alongside a dusty rack of CDs...trust me, it's been dusted now! lol)

A NEAT kitty

Sometimes one of these kittys just looks so COOL:

....and who better to share it with than YOU, Faithful Reader? Here's the size it actually is, too:

The finished kitty, just for Lemony:







(The EF remains always responsive to readers' requests...)

What's new?

Just a quick update: my paperwhite is about to bloom, and I'm working on my webpage of KittyRocks while I make more of them. Gawd, creatin' is FUN!
Ok, ok....since dear Son fixed my camera (!) here's a paperwhite picture:
















You know me--there WILL be more of these!

Bolivia

Here's a cool article about Bolivia's new president--the first ever indigenous person to be elected there. FLOWERS were an important part of his campaign and inauguration!
Thanks to Julie at Human Flower Project

Have you noticed this?

Once in awhile, there's a smell or taste or music that's so evocative, one that reminds me so much of something that I'm lost for a few seconds, shot back to another time in my life...

For me, the smell of broom straw...bean soup cooking...sawdust...a hot attic...fresh gas and cigarette smoke....crayons...marigolds...dry firewood..new doll plastic....fresh tar on the street....take me to 434, the first house I remember living in.

The taste of anise and boiled eggs and dried apricots are primal for me (not to mention the memory of cod liver oil. I can conjure that bitterness in the back of my throat right now...ack.) I haven't eaten Cheerios in years, but that's a childhood flavor, too, with as much sugar as I could sneak into the bowl...lol

Last night, I had a 50's radio station on on the computer. It would have been the music that Mom listened to on WCCO radio when I was a preschooler.
No specific memory came back except for the image of the curtains in the living room at 434...a cross between these two, sorta:



Yup, huge open flowers on burgandy...the music did THAT?? lol

Then, this morning, I was checking my favorite blogs, and I clicked on this link from the Presurfer blog:

"Marla Olmstead is an abstract painter......Marla enjoys reading, cooking and gymnastics but is at her most joyful and expressive before the canvas.

Marla Olmstead is 5 years old".

Now THAT music is a more recent and has much sweeter memories!

xoxo

Question

So, I'm making KittyRocks alot lately . I keep the computer "radio" on for entertainment and Yahoo IM for 'just in case'...but I make myself get outside every day, even for a short time, ya know?

Daud'll be here tomorrow night (this semester it's Tuesday nights) and Wednesday I'll run down to Son's house to see if he can fix my camera. (He thinks it probably needs cleaning. I hope he's right...lol)

(Quick update: It really pays to have a son who's a skilled engineer. He took it apart and now it works just fine. THANK YOU, J! xoxo)

What's the question, then? Well, it's a series of them, actually:

• Do you have Yahoo Instant Messenger installed on your computer?
• Do you like to play Scrabble?
• Would you consider playing the Yahoo version ocassionally with a person with clay on her hands and glitter on her mind?
• (What's a blog for if ya can't ask for something like this, huh?)

(I haven't played Literati since Christmas day, and I'm having withdrawal symptoms....my VERY favorite partner seems to have fallen off the face of the earth, so if you don't mind being second best, let me know, ok? My e-mail address is over there, under my picture.....)

LOL.....Thanks!

(Another quick note: FavPartner IM'd yesterday, and beat me....again ! It's ok....I'll win next time, maybe. lol)

Today's the day!

Ok, you can both breathe again...yes, I've decided to try
~~~~Glittering a KittyRock~~~~
(Aren't tildes cute?)
Beyond the question of "How much will glitter improve a kittyrock?", I've worried that you might not be able to SEE it glow-in-the-dark under the glitter...but, not to worry, the stuff I'm using is more like a sugar coating--teeny tiny glass balls.
(BTW, the close-up function on my camera doesn't work (damn!) so this will have to do for now. Still, you'll get the idea).

The experimental kitty...the forerunner, the trail blazer, the sacrificial lamb!

Oooooo! I LOVE it! (Are you really surprised? lol)

Still, I think I'll charge ALOT more for a GlitterKitty....no doubt it'll be incredibly popular, right?

(Later: Well, those tiny glass balls pretty much cover the glow in the dark parts (except for the face), and the very reason I have it is BECAUSE it comes off fairly easily...it came from 'sugared grapes' at the shop and what I have is what I swept off my counter there...lol

So: SheddingGlitterKittys?

Possible big seller, or 'um...no?')

Refreshing

Every once in awhile, I change the color of my e-mail page and my Windows...it's like a new paint job, or like I added glitter, ya know?

Try it, you'll like it!

Webpages?

Have you ever wondered HOW to go about setting up a webpage? Right, I hadn't either, before this week.
Then there's the issue of a "domain name"--an address on the worldwide web that ALWAYS brings a surfer to your site...is it necessary? And, is it a matter of "first one who wants it"? or, do you need to buy it, and from whom?
I found out that the name-I-want dot COM is twice the price of the name-I-want dot BIZ for a year...(we're talking $19.95 vs. $7.99...lol)...so is it a worthwhile investment? And why is that company authorized to SELL it?

Anyway, I have a webpage started through a free site (yes I CAN opt for their premium services eventually thank gawd) and once it's ready, YOU'LL be the first to know, promise.

That oughta thrill the pants offa both a' you...

Words found under the pasta machine

Downstairs in my former "craft room", I had my clay stored neatly and well. It was protected from the air with plastic wrap and stowed in a plastic shoebox. No sweat.
My pasta machine, however, was still clamped to the table....right where I'd used it last. (No, it's never been used on FOOD, and never will be used for anything but clay, ok? Umm, it has impossible-to-remove clay-turds inside).
When I unscrewed the clamp and lifted the thing, I discovered a list I'd forgotten about:

"Words that are Written but Seldom Spoken"

Whoo-whee! Exciting, huh? How can I NOT share it with you?

Taut
Copse
Inchoate
Eschew
Accidie
(I know, that last one? It means sloth or torpor. Two more for the list!)
Sloth
Torpor
Oeuvre

Ok, do you have any to add?

I need your opinion, ok?

I have the first new crop of KittyRocks ready to glaze, and I'm debating this in my head:
I've always signed the bottom of each one with my initials, adding a star if it glows in the dark. Then, I've added the year...like 95 or 96. 'Course now they'd say 06...so, does that make the ones I have in the garage "old stock" or just "vintage"? lol...does 95 strike you as a "collectable", or just ancient history?
I NEED feedback here, ok?
Thanks!

Whew

I'm very left-handed, ok?
It's 4:30 AM, and I'm up 'cuz my RIGHT hand woke me by tingling and throbbing...lol I'm here waiting for the aspirin to kick in...

This just in from a friend in Florida:
What's round and red, and whispers?

A hoarse raddish...

Ba-dum-bump!!

Sensory overload

LOL...my hands are stiff and a little swollen this morning. The palms especially feel like they've been spanked, but I know going back to the clay today'll help. That, and aspirin......

When I worked in the silk department, I needed breaks because there was simply so MUCH to choose from in there. When I looked around at the colors and textures and possibilities, I couldn't make a coherent decision about 'what next?' so I needed to get away for a few minutes to sort it out in my head. (Really, the cig was just an excuse...lol)

Now, I have all this clay to play with again, and I don't know where to start. I bought a pound of black, a pound+ of white and seven more regular blocks of colors...so what's the problem? LOL....waaaay too many choices!

And, I'm finding that old canes are too stiff to use as they are...but I have a trick or two to try before I abandon them.

I'll report back later--I know you can't wait to hear, but just remember how MUCH you enjoy delayed gratification, ok?

********************
Later: Sheesh...sometimes what seems like a great idea at the time turns out weird...lol I stacked an old, reduced and flattened cane with white, then cut it lengthwise and re-stacked it with more white on the outside. Should be cool, huh? But I just can't use this one:










Thing is, it has glow-in-the-dark in it, so I'll just re-work it somehow...
BTW, my hands are much better now, thanks
xoxo

Oooooo!

Looking at the pictures below TICKLES me!

New/Old fun!

Whew!
I wondered if six year old polymer clay would be too stiff to 'work'--but I only had to pitch the chunk of white. And, I did have to sand a little rust off my pasta machine. Gawd.

Here's the re-constituted clay I have left, and yes, some of it did need a touch of baby oil to make it workable--do you care? lol
The range of colors are curious, hmm? But I realized that what's left here were my least favorite colors, in inverse proportions--I love bright primary colors, metallics and glow-in-the-dark, blues, greens, oranges, pinks and the contrast of black and white...lol

OK, is there a color I don't like??

Below are the canes I made back then, and they seem to still be 'sliceable'--if not, they'll join that fat ugly colored log (left above--my scrap clay, used for...ahh, that's a secret ...)

Yeah, those are face-canes down in front. Once you've build one , you've invested so MUCH clay in it that you end up with yards of the thing. These are mere shadows of their former selves...lol

Now, I'm off to the craft store to buy some GOOD colors!

Creativity

If you're here, you sorta consider yourself a "creative person", right? Not necessarily a creative floral person, but someone with an interest in making something cool, whatever it is.

I'm curious: are there times when you're bursting with the need to create, and then other times when you couldn't care less?

When I worked in the little flower shop, my daily contact with flowers and silks and paint and dried stuff wasn't enough for me, so I did crafts in the evenings--salt clay, cornhusk dolls, sewing, grapevine wreaths, drying flowers, and eventually polymer clay beads and wall hangings and...cats.

Every one of them sold well at shops and craft sales and music fests, but it was the pleasure of making things that really thrilled me: the idea that I could come up with a better material to use for a body for the dolls, or figure out how to make my own tools for the clay, ya know? And that other people liked what I made even more than I did! It was disgustingly satisfying.

Then, I went to work at the big shop. I had 10 times as much to play with there, and 20 times as many customers to buy it. That was pretty satisfying, too.
But eight hours a day of Creativity stripped my 'evening craft urge' completely away.
My last projects from 6 years ago have been gathering dust downstairs all this time.

But ya know what? The creative urge is BACK!
It's been bubbling up in me for weeks, trying to get my attention

....and I finally (finally!) noticed only yesterday...lol

Why not haul it up here to my office and start again?
AND, why not put together a website to sell what I make?

YES I'll need to make a trip to the northshore as soon as possible this spring....(hooray!)....anybody wanna go with me?

BTW, here's what I'll be making more of:










(No glitter yet, but some DO glow-in-the-dark...lol)

It's 7:12 AM...not even dawn yet. The coffee's brewing so I'll be more lucid soon.....
I feel this obligation to write something so that both of you know I haven't fallen off the planet.

Have you ever had the feeling that all's RIGHT with your world? Yeah, money's tight, but it's ok. I'm getting by, and when I admit that I'm not working and "on unemployment", the most startling people say, "Yeah, that was the best time in my life!" or, "I really enjoyed those months. It was such a gift"....

I'm beginning to understand.

I'm discovering my personal 'default settings': I wake up around 6 every day without an alarm. After watching the sunrise with my toast and coffee, I wait til I'm hungry before I have lunch. Sometimes that's 2PM. There really is a natural 'low' time in the afternoon (and yes, sometimes I NAP then.)

Traffic on the highway this time of day is mostly frantic people heading to work, with a travel mug and business clothes and a name tag. I'm thrilled, for now, not to be one of them.

Now I have a respite from it, and I look back at a 38 year blur of activity every day....scrambling to be out there...be on time...get it done...what about the wedding...do we have the right roses....will I have time...can we make it work....? Argh.

When I'm in a store or other business, I see various people who work there and think: how did she get that job? Does he like what he's doing? Would I be happy doing that? Could I do that, too?
LOL...for now, it's all academic. I'll be back, but not yet...