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.

Miss Jazz is hanging out on Sandy’s lap as usual…

Theo and I are playing with the camera. I have not changed out of my pajamas or brushed my hair today.

I made my bread dough in the bread machine and let it rise, shaped it, and baked it in the oven. I’ll make cauliflower carrot cheese soup (Moosewood recipe) and lasagna a little later.

Hope to finish up this embroidery this weekend. I have begun the design for the next one.

I am not a fan of pink. But these comfy slippers were given to me by a dear friend and have been nearly worn out with love.

That would be “Save College Hill.”

Probably about six inches - it’s sleeting now.

Treat me like a fool, treat me mean and cruel, but love me…

This week has been consumed by studying (I’m pretty sure that I aced the final exam) and the arrival of my new laptop. I’ve been limping along for a long time on old computers that can’t quite handle the new technology, at least not well. My husband loves to gather up old computers and reassemble the working parts together to make a new computer. He bought the laptop I previously used for $60. It was a good deal, but it was just about to kick the bucket. Now I have a CD/DVD player that works and a battery that charges and a processor and memory that can handle more than one thing at a time. I can use iTunes again. The only thing left to do other than finish transferring my files (in progress) is to hook up the wireless to our router.

It finally turned cold here and the Back Forty is done except for broccoli, kale, parsley, and various lettuces and mustard greens.

It has been funny watching the competition for Top Cat play out. The social hierarchy is different for the various cats. Jazz is the tiniest and the oldest. Lucy is the biggest and the youngest. Theo is the newest and next to the youngest and next to the heaviest. Poor Guido is just confused.

Jazz and Theo’s new pecking order:
1. Jazz
2. Theo
3. Guido
4. Lucy

Guido and Lucy’s new pecking order:
1. Theo
2. Guido
3. Lucy
4. Jazz

I’ve been exceptionally lazy and a bit depressed about my continuing problems with pain. Last night I managed to get it together enough to do some cleaning and some laundry, make a soup that is kind of like clam and corn chowder, but low-fat, fire up the woodstove, and read some good books instead of watching Hulu or farting around on Facebook all night. I finished A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman, and began Ordinary Magic, Everyday Life as Spiritual Path, a collection of essays and excerpts from some of my favorite authors such as Thich Nhat Hahn, Natalie Goldberg, and Frederick Franck. I hope that this will give my spirit a positive boost and improve my perspective, which can only be described as kind of blah. I don’t really feel much of anything.

I do feel some irritation toward people who have totally equated Christmas with shopping. Maybe I’m more sensitive to it this year. It’s hard for me to keep my smart-ass mouth shut. For example, a woman from my childhood on Facebook is outraged because a Walmart near her has not decorated for Christmas and is not playing Christmas music. Doesn’t sound true to me, but whatever. She is a Sarah Palin fan, if that explains anything. I want to say - Miss ******, what does Walmart have to do with Christ’s birth? Isn’t it actually LESS offensive if they are not tying in with Christmas? But the paranoia of the folks who have been convinced by the right wing that the libs are trying to take Christ out of Christmas is deep-seated now. They don’t trust anyone else, so I try to stay out of it, other than voicing my opinion here. But it is hard, and sometimes I don’t succeed.

I am a little excited about some woodcut ideas that I have, and I hauled my woodcut and printing supplies from the studio in the back (which I think will be converted over to storage) to the second bedroom where I have set up a workspace. It has to do with family history and autobiography in visual terms. I want to make some Christmas cards too.

Tomorrow is supposed to be a cold rain again (we are weary of it here, but our drought seems to have been broken) and I plan to get together with a good old friend that I haven’t talked to in years. So I do have a bright spot on the horizon to look forward to.

I picked these in the Back Forty yesterday afternoon from the vines that I didn’t pull down in October. Can you imagine how many I would have gotten if I hadn’t picked every slightly filled out bean and pulled out half the vines then? You can never quite be sure what the right gardening thing to do is in North Carolina in October. A couple of years ago I picked an eggplant on December 1.

Now I’m trying to decide what to take to this potluck tonight. I have asparagus left from the casserole I made for Thanksgiving, and I could buy mushrooms and recreate that. Or I could add butterbeans and field peas from my freezer to these fresh butterbeans. Or I could buy more goat cheese to add to this really delicious farro salad. I plan to make a big pot of chili for the week ahead.

Other than that, I’m reading a Dennis Lehane novel, loving my kittehs, working on photography projects for this online class, and binding some books over the weekend. I’m thinking about thawing out some paper pulp and making a small batch of paper tomorrow. What are you doing?

Guido was chasing his tail, and now he is chasing Lucy back and forth through the house. You’d never know that he was an old man. Theo decided to join in the fun, which effectively stopped the game. How sad. Miss Jazz hisses at everybody, including me. But they’re getting there. It’s much better than it was - they all sleep together which says a lot about the progress.

Here’s a couple more photos from the beach. The pampas grass has naturalized through the area between the dunes and the houses.

I don’t know why it is so much more compelling this year, but the leaves have really caught my attention in a big way. There are many varieties of oaks and maples around here, and the differences between them fascinate me. I bought some gelatin yesterday and hope to spend some time after Thanksgiving making gelatin prints.

Something else leafy has come to my attention through the papermaking list - gingko leaves make great paper. Cooking for a few hours in soda ash, beating with a mallet, and a quick trip through the blender will produce a nice pulp all by themselves. Since I’m lucky enough to pass a gingko tree on my walk to work, I’ve been gathering leaves. It is a female tree, and what they say about gingko fruit is true - it smells extremely nasty. Gingkos are so interesting - they are ancient, totally in a class by themselves and have gender. I’ve pressed some leaves for future use in monoprints and embedding in paper too.

Theo is now in my lap. He is a sweetheart, but he is a normal cat too. I’ve accused him of faking the angelic personality to infiltrate our home only to release his inner demons after settling in. Among his sins: stalking and attacking Sir Guido, sticking his butt in our faces when we sleep, scratching the furniture, and pawing at the mini-blinds behind the bed to wake us up when he wants something. Actually, these things don’t happen every day, but I just thought I’d let everyone know that he ain’t no saint. He does play and cuddle with Lucy, and all the cats are as relaxed around him as they are with each other, which doesn’t mean that they are good buddies, but they aren’t hostile either. He is a real pleasure, other than the occasional sins, which we are training him out of, hopefully. He wasn’t all over me constantly yesterday, so I take that as a good sign that he now feels at home.

When I wasn’t food shopping, cooking or doing laundry yesterday, I finished up preparing the pages for my next journal. I decided to save the mining camp book cover and maps for another book idea, and used a 1964 “Geography of the World for Young Readers” that matched the colors of my pages nicely. It was almost in new condition and had maps on the inside covers. I collaged the book jacket and other maps on a few pages and will bind the cover on just as it is with a tape binding. I think that I have a woven inkle band that will do nicely. Binding the book is my favorite part but it is hard on my hand to hold anything for long. Once I punch the holes for the bindings, I will have two books ready to be bound.

I also printed out a lot of small photos to go into my little Alaska travel journal and had fun pasting them in. I started to make a larger altered book that would hold this journal in a niche in the cover, and have larger pages to hold brochures from the trip and niches for pebbles inside. I have some great glacial pebbles and quartz crystals that I gathered at the Skagway River. The crystals are very delicate and break apart easily.

I wish that I could make paper. The weather is still fine enough that I could wash out my equipment with a hose. I have a plethora of already made pulp filling up a small freezer, and Charlie brought me okra stalks and more artichoke heads. I can make paper inside, but it is the cleaning that is the issue - you can’t wash this stuff down a sink without clogging up your drains. I know that my hand will not be able to take the pressure of holding the mould and deckle and couching. I feel very impatient about the slow progress of my healing.

Speaking of the weather, last month I picked all the green tomatoes and butterbeans of any meaningful size and began pulling out the plants until my hand stopped me. Now I’m finding relatively large green tomatoes and butterbeans that are filled out on the remaining plants. We did have a frost in October but apparently not in my back yard, which has its own weird little microclimate. I have tomato plants merrily growing out of the compost I laid down in one of the beds. I’m so tempted to dig them up and pot them inside for the winter, mainly because I am curious as to what they will become. We have enough broccoli to have for a side dish a couple of times a week. This is the broccoli that I grew by seed and planted this past spring, so it has taken up a lot of valuable space in the garden. I’m glad that it is finally producing but it will be only planted in the winter beds on the shadier side next year.

Ah, how I love the first couple of hours on weekend mornings, when I am allowed to slowly transition from dreams to reality. Theo is playing by himself with a wine cork, and another cat, probably Miss Jazz, hisses from under the bed each time he passes by. I have not had another dream about Squirt since Theo came to live with us. I hope that he is now resting in peace.

Now with the holidays approaching my dreams tend more toward anxiety dreams about family and dinner preparations and clean-up. If you had been at my mother’s house last Thanksgiving and Christmas, you would understand. This year my sister has rented a house at Sunset Beach so hopefully since she will be in control it will be less stressful for everyone.

Anyway, (I’ve noticed that leading a sentence with “anyway” is a habit that I picked up from my mother) this weekend I will try to get some painting and bookbinding done, but the main thing that I need to do is study for my medieval art history exam on Wednesday, a source of great anguish for me since the best that I’ve been able to do is a “B” so far, and I’m used to making “A”s. I mean, this is a 200-level undergrad class and I have a masters degree, for God’s sake. I waver between not trying as hard and settling for a “C” or “D” or studying as hard as I can for another “B” like I did last time. It wouldn’t bug me as bad if there were not plenty of people making “A’s in the class. There are plenty of people failing too, though.

I think that I’m leaning toward the settling option since I really couldn’t care less about the minutia of how one Romanesque church differs in floor plan from another.

Next semester I am taking Modern Art, then I’ll take a 20th century art class from George Dimock, and then I’ll be done with my art history requirements for the degree.

I took Theo to the vet on Tuesday. He had a large bump on his tail with a very thick odd looking scab on it that kept growing. It made Sandy and I both nervous enough to take him in. He saw a new vet there that I liked a lot, and she thought that it might be a spider bite and gave him a steroid shot. I was a bit afraid that it might be a tumor, and she wasn’t sure that it wasn’t a tumor, but she said that it seemed to be on top of the skin. It has almost gone away now so whew! He acted unhappy all week so I am very glad that he is playing and purring again.

I enjoyed journaling and playing with photos again last night and here is the latest page. I’ve also been printing out small photos of our Alaskan trip and pasting them into my little Alaska travel journal.

Can’t do a whole pot of coffee this morning, although I did have one cup with lots of milk and sugar and fair-trade organic cocoa mix in it. So I’m substituting a bowl of homemade soup. This is the post where I write whatever comes to mind until I finish my pot of coffee bowl of soup.

My stomach is stating its objections to the loads of meds that I have been taking in the past six months for pain and sinus infections and allergies. Seems like my physical problems just go on forever, but I’ve still got the proper perspective. It’s not unbearable, and one day I will feel good and it will be fantastic because I will know the difference!

I’m going out later to get some good probiotics to take daily - I eat yogurt every day but this has been recommended to me by several folks whose opinions I trust. My main dietary concern this week was Sandy’s, since he has developed gout and was told that he is pre-diabetic. I should be on a pre-diabetic diet myself, since I’m overweight and there is a lot of diabetes on both sides of my family. Now that my hip is better I am walking more and I could step up the exercise.

So, Mr. Theo. He’s a character. The other cats have accepted him now, except for Miss Jazz who hasn’t yet accepted Guido who came here 13 years ago, so that’s no surprise. He would much rather be with one of us, though. He has become quite attached to the “cat-free” room, so this weekend he’ll be weaned away from it. At first he wouldn’t eat unless I put his dish in there, so now his dish is just outside the closed door. And he is quite a talker. Lots of vocabulary. So far the only down side is that he wants to lay on my pillow and I wake up in the middle of the night with a face full of orange fur. This is not acceptable.

I have gone from seeing him as a reincarnation of Squirt to his own being, which is similar enough to Squirt’s to make me incredibly happy, but pretty darn good in the differences too. He is an excellent cat.

I’ve been working on the finishing touches of my Journalfest journal all week and will post a few pictures of some of the pages.

I did get to the farmers’ market this morning, and bought a French pumpkin among my normal groceries of milk, hydroponic lettuce, soap, beets, turnip, garlic, and potatoes. I’m looking forward to making pumpkin soup. Last year I bought these pumpkins and they were incredibly delicious. I’ll save the seeds and try growing them but my property is not ideal for any kind of squash.

Since I still can’t make paper I’m going to finish my journal and paint some pages today. I have LK’s Point and Shoot class prompt to do also. But my next move (after I remove a loving Theo from my lap) is to go to Leon’s Beauty School and get this shaggy head trimmed up.

Timmy has a new name. I’m calling him Theo, a name I’ve always liked, and it suits him. Sandy can call him what he wants but I knew that if I didn’t change his name right away he would be Timmy forever, just like what happened with Mama Kitty. We already have a Tim in the family.

The other cats are not too happy with the situation, but Theo seems to be right at home. Last night he explored the whole house with Guido hissing and growling at him at about a six foot distance. Finally Theo walks up to Guido, bends his head so that Guido’s nose touches Theo’s forehead, looks up, hisses back at Guido, and walks away from a stunned Guido. It’s like he’s saying, Hey man, I don’t want no trouble witchu, but I’m not gonna take your crap either. Cool, Theo, way cool.

He lay on the corner of our bed for a while as if he was relaxing and taking in the sights on a balcony, while Miss Jazz and Guido stared and hissed at him. Miss Lucy jumped up on the bed and seemed distressed about his presence, but stayed on the bed, civil but wary. Theo is clearly interested in being friends. It will happen, except for Miss Jazz, but even with that you never know. She lets Miss Lucy groom her from time to time now.

Theo and I slept in the other room last night and he was an absolute cuddle-bear. I hated to go to sleep because, well, I have had so many dreams about Squirt being with me again, and woke up to a Squirt-less reality, a very hard start to the day. I was almost afraid that this was a dream because Theo is so surreally identical to Squirt. But he slept on top of me and woke me up with a meow and a lick on the nose this morning, much like Squirt would have done. I can’t tell you how deliriously happy this made me.

Today I came home for lunch and let him roam around again for a little while. I put him back in the closed bedroom, and he seemed fine with it. He seems fine with anything, except he’s not thrilled about the cuisine. I might have to go back to Petsmart and pick up some of the dry food they fed him. He loves Whiskas treats. He’s been scratching a lot since we picked him up so I gave him a dose of Revolution.

Now he’s on my lap, and Guido has been nosing around and gave him a little tap, no growling or hissing. Theo didn’t even react. I petted them both at the same time. I think that the situation is getting rapidly better. He might be sleeping in the big boy bed tonight.

This fine lookin’ fella’s name is Timmy. He is eight years old and was given up for adoption five months ago. I first noticed him at Petsmart several weeks ago, but a note said that he was in the process of being adopted. Last night we went shopping there and I noticed that he was still there. The family didn’t follow through.

So he came home with us today and he is staying in the “cat-free” (heh) room for a couple of days before becoming assimilated with the rest of the gang.

My question is, since Squirt spent his last days in this room, when Timmy comes out, will they think that it is Squirt, healthy and resurrected? Nah, Timmy smells way better than Squirt did.