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.

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.

Wow, at 10:20 a.m. the heat index here is already at 105 degrees. It will definitely be an indoor weekend for us. Sandy is not supposed to go out for long in temps above 85 and I’ve never been able to take the heat. One of many reasons I’d like to move to northwest North America, but it would be a extremely slim chance that I would give up my great job willingly. Something terrible would have to happen, like what happened at Greensboro College, and I can’t foresee that possibility at all. I loved my job at Greensboro College, too. It’s just that its leader at the time didn’t care about his employees. I’m so glad that they have turned things around, but I’m sad that it was after so many good people either were fired unjustly or driven out by outrageousness.

Whoa, how did I end up there? Well, the coffee pot post is supposed to be stream-of-consciousness, an exercise in writing constantly until my little 4 cup coffee pot runs out. I do it on weekends or holidays when I have plenty of time and I try to do it at least weekly.

Now that that lil bit of angst has been blown out of my system, I can report a much better week with the hand problem.

I’m planning to make paper today if Susanne can make my pulp this morning. It’s so hot and the mosquitoes are so bad that if she can’t do it, I’ll hope to do it tomorrow. Lifting vats of water is the only problem here, and Sandy can help me with that. The rest I should be able to do without much pain as long as I take lots of breaks, because I’m doing it with both hands in balance, rather than holding a needle and my hands in tension.

I’ve been preparing okra stalks all week. These are stalks that Charlie brought to me last fall when the Montessori school garden was cleaned up for winter. I broke some up to store in the studio, but most of them I left on the ground on top of pine needle mulch under the pear tree to break down over the winter. Then I forgot about them.

So, the first step was to remove all the ants and pillbugs that had taken up residence in them. I busted them up into pieces small enough to fit in my canning pot, and didn’t notice the ants until the frantic exodus when I filled the pot with water to soak the stalks. So out they went to the deck for the first night, ants carrying the eggs of the colony to find a safer place. I hate ants, and I love ants. It’s complicated.

I noticed a few paper fiber-capable plants around the deck to add: joe-pye weed stalks, day lily flower stems, and a dracaena-like houseplant that never made it through repotting. So I added those to the mix. The black fibers on the outside of the okra stalks were literally peeling off on their own.

I soaked the stalks the next day, and boiled them that night with soda ash for a couple of hours. Inside, so it was stinky even with the range hood fan on. It was too stormy outside to do it, and I was determined to get this done so that I could scratch my itch to do something art-wise. Sandy helped me put the pot on the deck, and I left them to soak in the soda ash water for the night and day.

The next night, I rinsed the stalks and poured the soda ash water out in a part of the yard where I’m trying to kill the undergrowth. You do not want to pour soda ash water in your garden, too caustic. I did this just until the water ran mostly clear, as I could not deal with the skeeters having me for supper any more.

The next night, I took the stalks inside and worked on them in my kitchen sink. I cut the tender stalks down to pieces of 1-2 inches and pulled the outside fibers off the tough stalks, then rinsed them until the water ran clear through a screen. The tough stalk pieces went into the compost pile.

Last night, I took them to Susanne, who will beat these along with some abaca fiber into pulp in her hollander beater for me.

That’s the saga of the beginning process. Now maybe you know why I charge so much for my handmade paper books! Recycled paper is much easier, but there is something appealing to me about getting down to the essentials of a thing. I love the earthiness of natural paper.

Pictures later? Maybe. Stay cool, y’all.

Just to let you know that I’m still around…a very short post. A very frustrated and depressed post, but I’m trying.

Last night was a bad one with my hands. A lot of numbness, and that disrupts my sleep. Plus, I’ve started getting these frequent muscle twitches in my neck - not painful, but disconcerting. I’m still seeing my chiropractor, so I guess that we’ll address this on Monday and decide what to do from here.

Anyway, this means that it is difficult to type. In fact, it is difficult to do ANYTHING. Anything except walk, so that’s what I did early this morning. I’ll keep this up until my hips say no. Which is a real possibility, unfortunately - I had some major pain yesterday in that region that felt suspiciously like bursitis again.

I’m reading Anne Lamott and Pema Chodron, trying to figure out how to get through this with my sanity intact.

I started Weight Watchers last week and lost 1.8 lbs my first week. I figure that my weight is something that I can do something about, and it should make it easier on the rest of my body not to carry thirty extra pounds around. The short time that I spent in therapy several years ago taught me one good thing - focus on the things you can control.

If I don’t post for a while, I’m probably still here, thinking about all the artwork and gardening that I’d like to do.

Sandy and I enjoyed roaming around downtown for First Friday. I had decided not to set up a table at the Indie Market for July and August. Of course, if I had had a crystal ball to tell me that the weather would be cooler than May and June’s events, I might have done well to jump on it. I’m sticking to my decision to wait until at least September to sell again, though. For one thing, I’d like some play time. For another, my hands are going numb as I type this.

I’m going to visit my chiropractor next week. During a visit down home with my old friend Cristy, she told me that she had identical symptoms and it turned out to be a spinal issue in her neck. She saw a neurologist and had surgery to correct her problem. I hope that won’t be the outcome here but wouldn’t it be nice if Dr. Lewis could fix it? I had a neck problem a couple of years ago in which I couldn’t turn my head to the left, so this really is plausible.

On the Back Forty front, we were beyond dismay when every single last damn green Cherokee Purple tomato disappeared over night. The only one I found was on the path half-eaten. I was so looking forward to these tomatoes, and if it is raccoons, it will probably take a lot of work to stop them from getting to them again.

On the positive side, I harvested my first batch of butterbeans and added these to the field peas that I picked down at my mother’s farm earlier this week. (I also got enough corn from Mama’s garden that I cut two quarts off the cob.) We have lots of basil and the field peas here will probably be ready next week. The peppers are producing well and one of my potted eggplants is putting out little tender ones. I made an omelet yesterday with green peppers, Vidalia onion, eggplant, basil, and feta cheese.

Over at UNCG, they tilled up the iris bed where I have been gleaning iris leaves over the winter and planted a tree. In early July, they planted a tree. You’d think that they would have learned from the experience of all the other dead trees from their previous summer plantings, but enough said about that. It was an unsightly bed for their campus, so I suspected that it wouldn’t last much longer. I snagged some of the bulbs on my way home and planted them in the strip between the sidewalk and the street at home. I guess I’ll plant more irises because the leaves make great paper.

We put in a lot of work outside and around the house yesterday, taking advantage of the cooler temperature. Sandy is not supposed to do any outside activity when it is over 85 degrees outside. He did a lot of pruning that I can’t take care of, and we cleaned up the front porch and inside the house too, although someone who doesn’t live here probably couldn’t tell it. Now Sandy is fretting because he thought that Fun Fourth was today, and he’s ready to go play somewhere. I’m very happy at home right now - I have artwork to do, peaches to slice and put in the dehydrator, and I’m getting rid of about half my clothes to donate to charity. The studio is a wreck and I’m trying to be ruthless about getting rid of most of the stuff I’ve hoarded for collage, papermaking, and mixed media uses. No wonder my hands are a mess today.

Okay, coffee’s gone and I’m ready to start my day. When I remember that I have tomorrow off too, it makes me smile.

Ewww - 90% humidity this morning. Yuck, yuck, yuck. Fortunately I will ensconced (my new favorite word) in the studio with the little window AC unit. We try to wait as long as possible to turn on the central AC in the house, partially for sustainable living reasons, partially because we can’t get into the #$^^&*@ basement to change the filter.

The Back Forty looks lush after the rains, finally. I tossed out a French pumpkin that I bought last FALL and never ate it because it was so pretty I couldn’t bear to cut it. I had a couple of old pots that I didn’t dump the soil out of from last year, and since I doubt that I’ll be able to do all the gardening I wanted to this year, I threw some of the seeds in those pots and left the rest for the squirrels and rabbits to eat.

Our lettuce garden is beautiful, and I’ve eaten the few peas that managed to produce in the dry hot spring. The Nanking cherry bushes are bursting with fruit that I just now noticed - I doubt that I’ll do much with them so if anyone wants them, come on over. They are small and delicious, but have pits that have to be dealt with. I usually just snack on them and spit the pit out. The tomatoes are growing like crazy, the okra germinated under plastic juice bottle covers, the Genovese basil germinated but I don’t see the other varieties, the Dixie Lee field peas are coming up under wire protection. LOTS of little figs and blueberries. Beets, as usual, have given me the finger. Why, I ask. Why, when I love you so?

My attention is now turned to making books for the First Friday Indie Market. I’ll have a table on the corner of South Elm and MLK Drive with other artists on Friday, June 4, from 4-9, weather permitting. This weekend I’ll be tearing, cutting, and folding papers, sorting through my leftover paste papers from Diana’s class, painting more papers, printing with the rollers from Traci’s class, making book cloth with the batiks from Melanie’s class, and using the instructions for Albie Smith’s class in my bookmaking this weekend. I haven’t forgotten the metal book covers from Leighanna’s class, but I’ll save that for later when I get the Crop-a-dile that I ordered. I’d say that Art and Soul was money well spent. Life is good.

Our trip to Colorado is coming up fast, and it looks like one of our days will be spent rafting in Idaho Springs with my cousin and her husband. I’m getting very excited about this trip, since these are fun relatives we’ll be visiting and I’ve never been to this part of the country.

Okay, gotta go to the farmers’ market and get out to the studio. Next, I’ll be blogging Albie Smith’s, Melanie Testa’s, and Traci Bunkers’ classes at Art and Soul.

Every day is shedding season when you have four indoor cats in a small house, but right now it is almost intolerable. I swear, Theo has lost half his weight in fur. We will definitely have to make a dent in it this weekend.

My trip to Art & Soul in Hampton, Virginia is almost here! I’ll leave on Wednesday, and Sandy will be stuck with the Tercel, ha ha. So I have to spend a lot of time this weekend getting my supplies packed. I have six classes, five day classes and one evening class! Whew! What was I thinking? I’m going to be completely exhausted, but I hope that it will be happy exhaustion. I am considering taking the laptop and blogging it, since my roommate paid for Internet connection last year we can split it this year.

I have been trying to save my hands for this trip. My physical therapist yesterday told me that I would need to choose my battles, find other ways of creativity when one way hurts too much, and stop doing what I’m doing for a while when it begins to hurt. Basically, what I didn’t want to hear. I started naming a few of the things that I don’t do anymore that I miss: pottery, crochet, tennis, paddling, bowling. Am I going to add gardening, cooking, stitching, tapestry, bookbinding and weaving to that list? Jeez. I guess that I’ll try to add whining to it, but this has been a major kink in my life journey. I’ll see the doctor again on Tuesday. My hands ARE better, but I haven’t put them to a real test.

I bought our plane tickets and reserved a car rental for our trip to Denver in June. My original plan was to go to Prince Edward Island for a papermakers’ gathering and spend several more days exploring the area from a beach house rental that was quite inexpensive. However, Sandy was not interested in going at all and I had promised him that he could pick the next vacation. Denver was mutually agreeable to both of us because my lovely Aunt DeLaine and first cousin Cherie live outside of Denver, and Sandy’s first cousin Donna lives there. Neither of us have been there before, and we have wanted to go for a long time. We’ll go to see Kenny Perkins, Cherie’s blues musician husband, play the first night we’re there. Cherie did his website, and the animation is so cool that you really should take a look. Then we’ll explore the Denver area, have dinner with our families. Other than that, I think that we’ll drive south to see some Anasazi ruins, maybe raft if I can find a trip where I won’t have to paddle, maybe ride a train…suggestions are welcome!

My experience at the Shindig on the Square was so positive that I signed up for a table at the next First Friday Indie Market on June 4. The one on the corner of MLK and South Elm - I wasn’t aware of the second one in Center City Park. But I love that area - it is my kind of city place. We’ve spent a few evenings at Vintage 301 on MLK at Southside now and I’m very fond of it. They buy from local farmers and the chef is inventive and talented.

The semester is over. I am joyful that the summer season has begun for me. Here’s hoping for some rain between now and Wednesday, when I hope that it will conveniently stop.

I rose later this morning because Betty White, my queen, was on SNL last night, and she rocked it, y’all.

It’s a busy time for me, but even so it has quieted down from a month or so ago. This week my main duties at work include grade entry for independent studies and helping with our department graduation. Thank God we hired a wonderful co-worker two years ago who handles most of the event planning and she is absolutely great. Last year around this time I was stressing out about budget cuts, and the main thing that I feared was losing Dawn. I’ve been told that we won’t have to worry about that this year - our dean is a very good planner.

I went to physical therapy twice this week and I don’t think that it is really helping. They are concentrating on calming down the tendinitis pain and numbness, and it is frustrating trying to explain my pain to the therapists and the doctor. It tends to jump all over the place between my fingers and my elbow, and only hurts when I’m doing some random task, and when anyone pokes me and says, “Does this hurt?,” I have to respond, “Well, it did an hour ago but not now.” Then of course, later on it may or may not hurt. However, wearing the splints at night help enormously, so that was definitely worth the money. I just don’t want to have to wear braces long-term again, especially in the summer because they are so hot and sweaty. I’ll get the cortisone shots if I need to do it.

We have at least figured out the worst villain - holding a needle definitely is a no-no right now. As you might imagine, that TOTALLY SUCKS since I got all excited about weaving and stitching and fabric art and integrating it with my books. I have my loom halfway warped but to finish warping I have to tie a lot of knots, and anything that requires me to grasp something with my thumb and forefinger will ratchet up the problem. I bought wonderfully inspiring books on art quilting, embroidery, weaving, beading on fabric, new yarns, and a small portable copper tapestry loom. Now I just look at them and try, try, try to stay positive. Auughhh! I have so much creative energy bottled up!

Mama, on the right, talks with her cousin Grace at our recent family reunion.

It’s Mothers Day, but I asked my mother if we could move our Mothers Day to next weekend. I have some photos that I want to scan and put into a book for her. That’s what I’m planning to do this week - Mama doesn’t like my books, but I don’t think that she’d mind if one was filled with wonderful old photos of her and her family that I picked up at the family reunion. She does like my handmade paper. Sigh. I HATE trying to find or make a gift for Mama. She loves presents but she is picky - it is a matter of showing respect to her. And at 83, she has everything.

But, yesterday on the phone we had a very sweet conversation, in which I told her how much everyone loved her in the community, and how much I have in common with her, and that I can see that I’m becoming more like her every day. Which is a great thing, because my mother is AWESOME. She is Betty White AWESOME. She has great genes, and if I’ve inherited them, I could not ask for more.

So much has happened this week. Sandy began his cardio rehab classes and he has a great attitude about it. I am thankful that he will finally get some education about nutrition, because I worry about his eating out without understanding a heart healthy diet. He was eating nothing but salads for a while, and now that we have oodles of delicious lettuce in the Back Forty he is tired of salads. The other problem is that he is pre-diabetic, and I find life very difficult without pasta and bread. I don’t like whole-wheat pasta, and I LOVE good bread. It is hard for me to chop veggies now so I am buying some of my veggies pre-cut in bags - needless to say I do not like having to do this instead of buying directly from farmers or the co-op. So cooking is a triple challenge right now.

For lunch yesterday we had an omelet with sauteed sweet onion and green pepper and Goat Lady Dairy smoked goat cheese. I have almost mastered the omelet, I am proud to say.

Bottled marinades and dressings have become very good friends to me. I marinated a couple of trimmed pork chops from Bradd’s Family Farm for a couple of days in Annie’s Gingerly Vinegarette, seared them in a cast iron skillet, then finished baking them in the oven with just a dash of freshly ground pepper. I dumped a bag of broccoli florets in the skillet juices with a couple of pressed garlic cloves and a couple of tablespoon’s worth of cashews and stir-fried them with a little tamari sauce and a couple of pinches of five spice powder, then served it over brown basmati rice. It was very good, and more importantly, it was NOT SALAD.

We received the check from the secondary critical illness insurance policy that I took out that started in February. If it hadn’t been for this bit of intuition, I would surely be banging my head against a wall right now. Hopefully, if all goes as it should, this hiccup in our financial life will enable us to live as if it didn’t happen. I may even be able to pay off the car, but we will wait until all the bills and insurance settlements come in.

My sister gave my mother a used Buick from her mother-in-law’s estate. If Mama decides that she likes it, we will probably buy her 1996 Chevy Lumina, in which she just dumped a lot of money into repairs and new tires. I will miss my little 92 Tercel, but it is very raggedy and Mama could use the money, and I know that we would save her a lot of hassle and give her a fair price for it if we buy it. I rarely drive the Tercel since I walk to work, so we just need a second car for Sandy when I am out of town on my art adventures and my doctor and dentist appointments.

I was able to hire the guy who mows and trims my neighbor’s yard to do my tiny little bit of yard that is in the public view for $7 each time he comes to do her yard. That is a big relief to me - Sandy will let the grass and weeds grown three feet tall without noticing it and I have taken care of our “lawn” (mostly “weeds”) with an electric weed trimmer for the last couple of years. Seven bucks is so totally worth having this chore taken off my poor hands and not having to nag to get it done. We do have a lot of nasty work left to do in the back since I wasn’t able to take care of trimming back the vines this spring like I normally do. Now the tiger skeeters have emerged. As badly as we need rain, it is surprising how many have hatched out. They are wicked creatures from hell, I’m telling you.

Okay, this has become WAY too long and I’ve finished the coffee pot. I’ll do a Back Forty Update later.

My coffee is sweetened with a little bit of dried stevia from the plant I grew three years ago, since I ran out of sugar and hot cocoa mix. I am not a black coffee woman, oh no.

But I do have the blues. Both of my hands have gotten progressively worse at a time when Sandy is not supposed to lift more than five pounds (that’s NOT MUCH) and we have four cats and a litterbox. I changed to clumping litter a week ago and that has worked out well, except that it is really expensive compared to the other. It makes the box much lighter at cleaning time though. Today Sandy will have been out of the hospital for a week, so he can take on some heavier duty housework.

This week he felt great and walked a lot despite the sometimes hot weather and what seems to be a record amount of pollen in the air. They say that heart patients often do feel much better after getting a stent or a bypass. I worry about him doing too much because even if he feels good, he still has heart damage. We had a friend about his age die just a few years ago who had a second massive attack and simply fell where he stood, so it is hard for me not to think about that. I’m going to try to let that worry go and live in the present.

In the past couple of days the stress caught up with me and I was barely functioning at work yesterday, so I came home early and slept all afternoon and went back to bed early. I had nightmares all week and I was exhausted. I had gotten off schedule enough that I wasn’t taking my medication regularly. Physically I feel much better today, but not having the ability to make art or garden or cook without pain or numbness has taken away a major source of comfort for me, and quite frankly, I am depressed. Not nearly as much about Sandy’s situation, since that has actually relieved my mind a great deal. My depression concerns my HANDS, HANDS, HANDS, and related independence, aging worries.

One of our electrical circuits has shorted out - the one that my little freezer and washing machine plugs into, and other wall outlets. I don’t know if running the fans tipped it over the edge or whether one of the cats sprayed the outlet next to the litterbox. There is some evidence for the latter. I shouldn’t have let Sandy talk me out of calling an electrician yesterday. Now I can’t do laundry over the weekend and I guess that I will try to make some paper since the freezer is about half full of paper pulp. I guess that it is lucky that this didn’t happen in late fall when all my freezer space was full of veggies for the winter.

I bought some watercolor paper to make blank artist books for sale and I ordered bookboard and Stonehenge paper for one of my Art and Soul classes in May, and there will be extra. I’ll have enough to make books for the Shindig on the Square now, although I won’t have a lot of handmade paper as I had planned. I painted some papers with old credit cards last night and last weekend, just scraping the paint into the paper for the most part, and using a few handmade and vintage stamps. I hope to have a small variety of books for sale, mostly blank, with mica covers and collaged covers and upcycled book covers. That is what I am about to get started on today, as soon as we get back from the farmers market.