I will have handbound books, matted woodcuts, and a few cards (see below) on handmade paper. Susanne Martin will share my table and she will have handbound books and handmade paper. The event lasts from 4-9 p.m. Since the beach is probably a bad idea, come to downtown Greensboro instead! You’ll be safe from Hurricane Earl and have lots of fun at First Friday!

“Squirtly”, copyleft Laurie O’Neill, 2010

I am living proof that stress and negativity can make you sick. I try to be a duck, but I tend to be a sponge. Usually by the time I realize that I need to protect my open, welcoming pores, I have absorbed the damaging energy. The effects generally show up days later. I seem to be hard-wired this way, and it takes great awareness to avoid it.

Yesterday was not a good day after a stressful week. I ran into a situation in which I, yet again, overreacted. I realized when I came home that part of the reason I got so upset was that the situation is very much a reflection of our polarized world. I sent out an email to some folks which I have copied here, with a few edits that take that realization into account:

I have decided that I’m not ready to quit yet. But here are my thoughts on how I can continue. I had a therapist once who gave me the best advice I ever heard. Concentrate on what you can control, not what you can’t.

We cannot do anything about obsessive, destructive people who are bent upon destroying the country. Paying attention to them sucks our energy away from what we can do and feeds their frenzy. We have nothing to be defensive about. We should not worry about people who are deliberately trying to break our will. We are in the right. Period. Let them spend all their energy on this while we continue to move forward. We know that the majority of the world and its citizens are on our side.

On the anniversary of Dr. King’s famous speech, I thought about how he exhorted his followers to practice non-violence in the face of beatings and murder. Surely we can overcome this handful of energy vampires. Let them burn themselves out.

Really, I’m just putting off having to change out of my jammies and leave the house.

This week was the first week of classes. It was frustrating at times, but I probably made too much of the aggravations due to sleep deprivation. Last night was tough again due to itchy insect bites and a lingering background headache that was hours old. Plus Theo yowling every hour or so. Once he settled down I slept until 9:30 this morning and it felt so good.

Last Sunday I finished peeling and cooking the pears, and froze most of them. They were so good and it wasn’t hard to do at all. My hands are much better, and this proved it.

I worked on cutting down a flower bed that is overrun with soapwort and laid down a thick layer of cardboard, to be covered with pine needles. This soapwort is a curse. Don’t plant it unless you have a place for it to spread that you don’t plan to use for anything else. It sends out runners like mint and breaks off when you try to pull it up. Nasty stuff, and not pretty enough to be worth it unless you plan to use it for its herbal properties.

The garden produced another round of field peas and butterbeans, and the peppers are going gangbusters. I could probably pull a bunch of carrots too. The fig tree is full of a second round of unripe figs. I picked my sole seckel pear, but it wasn’t quite ripe. It has gotten dry enough that the critters are stealing my tomatoes again, but at least I got a few before it happened this time. I had to water yesterday and unless we get some rain from Earl I’ll probably have to water all week. My rain barrels are full so I’ll try to use the water from them.

On Monday I finally heard from the instructor of the class I was going to take. I looked at the syllabus, and after about five minutes of thought, dropped the class. So I do not have any college classes this semester. I guess that the Library Information Studies program really does not have anything to offer my interests, which is disappointing. I was interested in conservation, but this class was all about organization. I might talk to my art advisor again - I could easily switch over to art history if I took a few more classes, and maybe I could do an internship in the summer with Don Etherington’s book conservation studio. That would be an awesome opportunity, since they are close by. My advisor had mentioned that briefly the last time I talked with him.

Tuesday I took Theo to the vet - he apparently is extremely allergic to fleas. I couldn’t find any on him or the other cats, and the vet found scant evidence of flea dirt. Poor thing licked himself raw in places and had rashes in others. I doused everybody with Advantage and Theo got a steroid shot. He is going to be an expensive cat if I have to keep them all on Advantage or Frontline year round. The good news is that the blood work showed a very healthy cat. He has gained 1.8 pounds since we adopted him on Oct. 31.

The rest of the week I pretty much worked, came home and puttered in the garden for a few minutes, watched an episode of Mad Men (I love Peggy Olson!) on iTunes, and went to bed early. I’m back on a vitamin regime and taking probiotics, so I hope that my flagging energy will come back this weekend.

Wow, this was one long week with little to show for it.

I work with history graduate students and faculty at UNCG and classes begin Monday. The week before classes begin is always a busy one. My class this semester will be on Tuesday nights: “Intro to Archival Management.” It is a crosslisted class between Library Information Studies and History. I have considered getting a M.L.I.S. way back to my first year in the M.A. in Liberal Studies program. Considering my deep love for books, both structure and content, it seems like the perfect match for me. But alas, that is not what Library Information Studies stresses these days. They moved to the 21st century without me, with a practical focus on digital databases and web site construction. The art department is the same - it has a book class, but a prerequisite is a design class, using Adobe on a Mac. This class might be the closest one at UNCG in the kind of content that I’m most interested in.

I left web design behind several years ago, when I decided that I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life playing catch-up to the developing technology. Plus, I noticed a lot of web designers applying for jobs as secretaries.

Sandy and I visited my friend Ginny and her husband Cecil briefly on Tuesday night. She gave me a big box of pears, and I got to see her preserving closet firsthand and her studio!!!!! which was like a good dream. They had converted their garage to a studio room with windows, so it is spacious and contains a large loom, sewing machine, spinning wheel, worktable, and plenty of room to move around. We made a deal that I would help her with weaving questions and she would help me learn to wrestle my sewing machine into submission. I would love to be able to quilt and since hand-stitching is problematic for me, machine quilting could be the answer to quenching my quilting/mixed media/fabric design craving.

I printed some cards on handmade paper and made handmade envelopes to go with them to sell at the First Friday Indie Market on September 3. Steve finished matting some of my woodcuts, so those will be for sale also. Susanne has agreed to join me at my table so we’ll have her wonderful work for sale and I’ll have some good company. I need to make some more new “stuff” though.

Now I need to finish putting up these pears. I was going to can them but I decided that I don’t have the time or energy to deal with a water bath, so I am freezing them instead. And eating them of course - yum! I love pears.

But Will It Make You Happy?

On the bright side, the practices that consumers have adopted in response to the economic crisis ultimately could — as a raft of new research suggests — make them happier. New studies of consumption and happiness show, for instance, that people are happier when they spend money on experiences instead of material objects, when they relish what they plan to buy long before they buy it, and when they stop trying to outdo the Joneses.

This was a very timely article in the New York Times, considering the new mattress and refrigerator that I have craved and really needed for so long and bought just this week. I spent a pile of money, but I’ll pay it off in one or two months from my savings, since I try very hard not to carry any credit card debt.

And it is a nice segueway into my other pieces of life this week. A little over a year ago I wrote this post about how I planned to live out my life. And I’ve held myself true to it. I wring out all the goodness I can out of this life, although it has not been as easy as I would have hoped this past year or so. Regarding the statement from the article above, it is possible that I spend a little too much time anticipating the future rather than living in the present moment, but so be it! I’m pretty happy, happier than many people, I think. Much, much happier than I used to be.

I signed up for Albie’s class at An Artful Journey in Los Gatos, California in February 2011. I’ll be able to spend three whole days working with her at a beautiful retreat in the redwoods. This is a done deal. The first night there I will be celebrating my 50th birthday!

And I signed up for Art & Soul Hampton again in early May 2011, although I’m just going for the weekend this time. I wasn’t planning to, since the Embassy Suites screwed up my billing so bad the last trip and staying there is expensive. But I’ll see if I can find a cheap hotel nearby for two nights, drive up on Friday night and come home on Sunday. It is a terrible time for me to take off work, and there is almost always a family reunion that weekend. Still, I really wanted to take this class and this class, and since it is within driving distance and I won’t miss work, I decided to go ahead and do it!

Because anticipation is spicy and juicy and keeps my energy and hope alive!

Oh, there were other things that went on this week that I was going to write about, but writing this made me want to get up off my butt and do something else.

Ah, a sweet comment from Albie Smith. What a wonderful way to start a Saturday.

So many things have happened this week. After I posted on Sunday, I messed around with my woodcuts and used my printing register for the first time. The two new proofs (Jake and a Spannocchia scene) were not to my satisfaction, but now I see what I need to do once I can carve again. They were pretty good, actually. I got the sly expression in Jake’s face in just a few lines. It was subtle, so I’ll have to be very careful when I refine it.

I printed off a couple of Mama Kitty and named it “Waiting for more.” Then I went to the studio, dug through the books and stuff on the floor from the shelf crash a few weeks ago to find my woodcut prints. Luckily they weren’t damaged. I piled these books up on the metal shelves next to the door. This will end up being a hassle later. Steve is framing a few items for us and he is matting my woodcuts from a couple of years ago. So I should have them for sale at the Indie Market Sept. 3. Susanne is either going to share the table with me or I will put some of her work out for sale, so it will be an interesting array of book and paper arts.

I opened the refrigerator and saw something that I noticed early in the morning but didn’t make a connection. This time it was obvious - there was water dripping from the top of the refrigerator. I opened the freezer and almost everything was thawed out. I’d sort of expected this to happen soon because it is older than our stay here (9 years) and it has been making clicking noises for a long time. But I hoped that it would last until the next Energy Star appliance rebate program in the fall. Luckily I had the little chest freezer that I bought last fall for paper pulp, and it had enough room for the few things I saved.

When I opened the refrigerator part again, it was warm and I hustled to get what I could into the dorm-sized fridge in the studio in the back. We had just enough time to get to Sears and order a new one that would be delivered Tuesday. I am very happy to have the excuse for a new Energy Star refrigerator with a lot more room. And I added a lot to the compost pile over the next couple of days. It was a bit sad to lose so much food but that fridge was badly in need of a purge anyway.

Then we drove to Summerfield to have dinner with Steve and Rita Maloy, and had such a wonderful time. Steve gave me my first full-time bookstore job and I worked with him for 6-7 years. We have so much in common with them both and they both are so funny - I laughed so hard. Almost everything they served for dinner was local - either from the Greensboro Farmers Curb Market or from their garden - and so delicious. Sandy normally would not eat eggplant and he asked for seconds on the eggplant parmesan. And blueberry sorbet! I never knew that could be so good!

Okay, so the next few days are spent going in and out of the studio a lot, and the door tends to stick. Finally I got most everything back into the house. I was finally able to get to making paper with the cotton/corn shuck pulp, and when I opened the bucket, it smelled bad and was beginning to rise like bread! Well, it wasn’t so awful that it was undoable, but it wasn’t pleasant. I didn’t want to waste it. Susanne’s husband told me on the phone that it would be okay after I dried it in the dry mount press, and it was. I added dill to the pulp to help with the smell while I was pulling it, and it was a lovely addition.

I cleaned up everything and took some items back to the studio to store, but huh? The door won’t open. The aluminum shelves had fallen down behind the door. I finally got back into the studio this morning, and I have another big mess on my hands. I had to push the door hard enough to bend the frame of the shelves to get inside. I was worried that I would break the door, but the only other way I could see to get in would have been to cut the bottom panels out of the door. With our mosquito problem, I did not want to do that.

Anyway, that is the saga of my totally screwed-up studio situation. I think that the only thing I can do is to 1) seriously purge to make enough room to move things around and 2) move the yarn to more lightweight shelves and put the heavy books and supplies where the yarn and light items are now.

And really, all I want is to spend this time making stuff. Really, universe, is that too much to ask?

OK, this is too long. I’ll start another post with my second cup.

Lately I have fallen in love with Hand/Eye magazine. Their website content is absolutely awesome, and they send out emails and Facebook updates with the most fascinating articles. I decided that I wanted the print copies so I subscribed. The Central Asia issue blew me away. The magazine is gorgeous, with color from edge-to-edge.

And best of all, Hand/Eye introduced me to India Flint. She has a book coming out, and you can bet that I’ll be right on top of it as soon as it is published.

With Theo in my lap. He is one hot kitteh. Yesterday I called him Goldilocks in the ruse that we were searching for a mattress that was just right for him. We found one, and we now have TWO real beds in our house! I guess this means that we have risen up in ranks. Theo responded by throwing up a hairball on the comforter.

As a result, I don’t feel like I’ve been pummeled with a bag of bricks this morning. Instead, I feel like I’ve been pummeled with a bag of old tennis balls. I hope to reach the point when I feel like I’ve been pummeled with a bag of mashed potatoes.

I gazed out upon the mess that is the Back Forty this morning, and noted that the fig tree is nearly 20 feet tall. I think that we’ll need to cut it back by half this winter. My second crop of field peas will be ready to pick this week, and I’m getting a few okra to toss it with them.

This morning I plan to make some woodcut prints, some on handmade paper and some on Stonehenge paper. I have some rubber block prints that I’m going to make some cards and bookmarks with too. I decided that if I set up in September’s Indie Market I want a few less expensive items for sale. I have a couple of woodcuts that I’ve never made prints from, and some prints that I made a couple of years ago that just need mats.

I still have a bucket of cotton/corn shuck pulp so depending on how my hands feel I may pull sheets of that today too.

One thing that I’ve been working on a little at a time is the Friends of the Greensboro Farmers Curb Market website/blog. Others have been entering the information and I’ve been monkeying around with the format and structure and links. Please link to it if you have a blog or website. We need to raise our presence on search pages. After I finish here, I’m going to try to figure out where to put some meta tags on that site.

Yesterday, Sandy and I went to the market and bought corn from two different vendors, milk, boiled peanuts, watermelon, walnut/pomegranate spread, pita bread, ground beef, and a Cherokee Purple tomato. We ran into old friends there, and Sandy remarked as we walked out what a great social place it is. One of the reasons that it is so special is that people are so friendly - it really is a community of like-minded spirit. Mornings like this make me doubly proud to be a part of the Friends group.

Based on one of our interactions yesterday, we are visiting some good friends in Summerfield for dinner late this afternoon. I’m bringing corn on the cob and I made whole wheat pita crisps yesterday to go with the walnut/pomegranate spread (both from Zaytoon’s table). If you are doing an Eat Local Challenge this month, as I know that a lot of people are, and you are suffering for crackers or chips, pita crisps are easy peasy. Buy your pita bread from a local baker or whip it up yourself from local whole wheat flour. Then divide it, tear or cut it into pieces, drizzle it with olive oil, and bake it on a metal baking sheet at 350 for 10 minutes.

Okay, since I just winged away to post the last paragraph on Facebook, which also has a Friends of the Greensboro Farmers Curb Market page - please join - I guess my coffee pot post is over. Have a great day, y’all. I plan to.

This has been a pretty good week. Susanne made lots of pulp for me in her beater, so I have made three batches of paper this week.

I used so many ingredients in these that it is a little complicated to describe. From left to right:

1. Abaca (a type of banana fiber), okra, daylily, joe-pye weed stalks. Mostly abaca and okra. I added a bunch of dried rosemary because I wanted a paper that had a lot of texture. I only pulled a few sheets with the rosemary.

2. See above, without the rosemary.

3. Cotton and corn shucks. I embedded maple leaves near the end of this batch, when the pulp was very thin. I laid down one thin sheet, sprinkled these pressed maple leaves from last fall, and then laid another thin sheet on top. The leaves are bleeding brown into some places, so I may be painting this sheet with a wash.

4. All the above ingredients, minus the rosemary, plus a small batch of recycled paper pulp from my blender. I added onion and garlic skins to the blender.

So here is what I did with the last batch. I had saved and frozen some #2 pulp. I made the recycled pulp (#4). In the meantime, Susanne had made the pulp for #3 for me. So I began with #2, added #3 and #4. As the #4 pulp ran out, the paper became lighter and lighter as I added more of the cotton-based pulp. I’ll never be able to reproduce it, but it is one of the prettiest batches that I’ve done. I will be using more onion skins in my paper.

The cotton and corn shuck paper (with tiny flecks of the previous batches throughout) is very thin. I have another bucket of it, which I will use without any additions. It should be slightly green and creamy colored, almost white. I’m going to try to make this batch thicker.

I received this comment from SESE on a February post and I am re-posting it here for the benefit of my NC and Virginia friends. Southern Exposure Seed Exchange is my favorite seed supplier. And if you’ve never visited the gardens at Monticello, well, my friend, you need to go and take care of that.

Thank you for including information about Southern Exposure Seed Exchange in your blog, we hope this growing season is proving a fruitful one for you. We are again involved in hosting the annual Heritage Harvest Festival and thought you and your subscribers would be interested in this event…… HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE—IRA

The 4th annual Heritage Harvest Festival, hosted by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation in partnership with Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, is a fun, family-oriented, educational event promoting organic gardening, sustainable living, local food and the preservation of heritage plants. The 2010 Heritage Harvest Festival will be held on Saturday, September 11 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the West Lawn of Monticello in Charlottesville.

At the heart of the Heritage Harvest Festival are over 40 educational programs, lectures, cooking demonstrations, and food tastings that include the ever popular Tomato Tasting. Including workshops from two members of Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, “Heirloom Garlic and Onions: How to Grow These Culinary Essentials with Ira Wallace” and “Fall and Winter Veggies: Zero-Degree Gardening” with Ken Bezilla.

To kick off the event, Rosalind Creasy, founder of the edible landscape movement, will host a Preview Lecture and Local Food dinner on Friday, September 10 at the Monticello Visitor Center. For more information on the Festival, visit http://www.heritageharvestfestival.com or call 434-984-981 for tickets.