depression/anxiety, old couple, Reading

Thinking ahead

Laurie

Now that I seem to be out of my depression hole, I’m capable of thinking more clearly of what’s ahead of me without shutting down. That’s great timing, because I am very sad about my brother-in-law’s change in prognosis. I’m angry at the world in general. I’m frustrated with the bureaucracy at work and its dependence on systems that don’t work for every problem and certainly don’t provide the efficiency that they claimed they would. I’m disappointed in my own change of life plans. But, all those emotions are different from being depressed. I think that only someone who has experienced depression understand that. I hope that I stay well away from the rim of the hole, but I don’t seem to have a lot of choice in the matter.

We’ll head down to the lake this weekend and I’ll visit with my family. A few friends are coming with us who all need some LW healing. If the weather cooperates, I am going to coerce these people into making cyanotypes from objects found on site and then I’ll make an accordion book with the prints.

Artist residencies are on my mind, which means that some time soon I’ll need to do a re-haul of the website here and make it more art oriented with my gallery at the forefront in order to have it more professional looking for applications. I won’t get rid of the blog…but it may not be on the front page. I’ve got more ideas for books than I have brain space for, and honestly, I don’t see how I’ll be able to work full-time and get the best ideas underway. I can’t focus when I get home at night.

I noticed that a business that I used to work temp projects for is still in business and is now doing all remote work. I was good at my job there and was offered a promotion during my last project for them about 17 years ago, but I didn’t accept it because it was a sick building. It was always difficult for me to finish a project because I would get migraines and my back throbbed from sitting on folding chairs at tables. It amazed me that they kept hiring me back but like I said, I had a real knack for the work, which was grading writing competency tests for state public school systems. So I will definitely look into working temp jobs for them again if they remain remote after I retire. Then I could take my job anywhere, and would have most of the year off.

My plan is to put off taking Social Security as long as possible and just live off my pension and 403B savings if necessary. We have no debt (knock wood) so at this point it might work. I’ve lived poor before – it won’t be a big shock. Sandy has been able to pay his part of the bills and save his Social Security and invest it instead of spending it. The hard part will be that the cats are reaching the age when they will probably need a lot more medical care. I will be able to keep my insurance at the same rate I am paying now until I am 65 and Sandy is on Medicare. Even though our cars are old, we don’t really need two cars any more. If we needed a second car after one of them dies from old age, we could rent as needed.

So my retirement plan is still on for June 1, 2023 – maybe pushed out to July. I’m no longer fixated on emigration, but we’ll travel as much as we can afford. I’m doing the airline points collecting again, and in the US we’ll take the train and drive as much as we can. It’s nice to have that to look forward to.

Now that the Infrastructure Act has passed, I might add a couple of solar panels to our array. The twelve rooftops panels that we have now almost cover our electrical needs, but not quite.

Reading: I finished The Shipping News and The Midnight Library this week. I think that both of these books significantly affected my mood.

Also affecting my mood: Ted Lasso. I am in love with this show. We are still watching The Last Kingdom, you know, the show about my grandparents. LOL. I’ll have to name our next tomcat Uhtred.

coffee pot posts, Cyanotypes, Printmaking

Sunday morning coffee pot post

Laurie

It has been a weekend of absolutely fabulous weather. Low humidity, highs in the lower 80s. The kind of weather that makes me wish I had gotten up earlier this morning. Of course, sleepy me would have disagreed – she wasn’t thinking about the weather; she was dreaming about hanging paintings on the wall. My husband’s paintings. That was a sweet dream. We had a room of blank walls and a whole stack of paintings, both mine and his. Almost as good as the reoccurring one of my tapestry weavings, in which I am cranking big ones out in a day, and weaving on unusual looms that I warp and weave in all kinds of crazy ways.

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Yesterday afternoon Sandy and I took a free cyanotype workshop from Thea Clark, who is doing an art residency at the City Arts Center. It was fun and got us outside some and Sandy enjoyed it a lot. We’re going to get some supplies and take them to the lake. It will be an easy art project and we both have a lot of ideas. The only issue that we’ll have is the wind, but we’ll figure that out. I think that Sandy’s first cyanotype is frameable. He made it with a silk flower and money plant seed pods and bird feathers. On the second set of photos, I had less spectacular results on my first cyanotype because of having to move it around more, and the breeze blowing away some of the elements, but on the last one I piled on a lot of different objects and fibers and was able to leave it alone in the sun.

Days like these don’t lend themselves well to doing art inside, but I’ll go to the print studio for a couple of hours this afternoon, as I’ve promised myself I would do. I’ll spend some time on the hem of my tapestry.

I did some weeding in the back yard yesterday, but by this time the task is overwhelming and I’ll need some help. Maybe I’ll let it go until after the first frost because of the mosquitoes. I harvested some figs, which have been infested by Japanese beetles, but it is such a huge tree that there are plenty for the birds and bugs and humans. I noticed that a lot of the overripe and half-eaten ones are gone. I pulled up the rest of the evening primroses that had big stalks. I guess I’ll need to dig the new ones up. They are beautiful but too invasive if I can’t work enough back there to keep them under control. The guy who mows our “lawn” is interested in working more in my garden and at some point I’ll talk to him about what needs to be done.

Pablocito caught another mouse this weekend. He caught one about a week ago too, but my husband rescued that one from him and put it outside at the back of the lot. I wonder if it was the same one. I’m glad that Pablocito is a mouser, but we always feel for the little critters. Diego looks on with interest, but he was found in a ditch when he was about a week old so he never learned to hunt. We’d probably be overrun by mice if we didn’t always have at least one cat that was a mouser.

We’ve eaten outside a few times in the past couple of weeks, and it is nice to take advantage of the outdoor spaces. Yesterday we went to the Taco Bros. food truck at Oden and listened to The Mighty Fairlanes, a great blues band that has been around for decades. I noticed this on the back of the Taco Bros truck and knew I had to have a photo.

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coffee pot posts, Coronavirus Chronicles

Saturday morning coffee pot post

Laurie

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Cloud porn.

This week was not so bad, but it felt very, very long. The weather is hot and humid, like it is so many places in the world, but it is not as hot here as it is in the north, where people aren’t prepared for it like we are in North Carolina. I will rue the day that we ever have to give up air conditioning. My philosophy about the climate crisis is that of the Deep Adaptation folks…it’s here and irreversible and the best we can do is to make humanity’s descent into oblivion kinder and gentler and less painful for us all.

I’m also making a huge effort to forgive myself when I do not do all the “right” things as an environmentalist. Right now I have to deal with our physical limitations and health with the tools that I have at the moment.

We have figs, and I should be out back picking them right now, but the weeds and invasive plants are so tall around that tree that I dread stirring up the mosquitoes. At some point I’ll throw on some long sleeves and pants and tackle it. We also have peppers in my container garden. Not enough to have leftovers to freeze, but enough for us to enjoy with meals.

We shopped at Trader Joe’s last weekend and I bought plenty of food that was either already seasoned and prepared or cut up to be plopped into a stirfry or a baking sheet to roast. So I’ve been able to cook some healthy meals this week without a lot of standing at the stove or counter. I’m making more of an effort now to cut back on meat, mainly because I really do like eating vegetarian and so there’s no reason not to if I don’t have to chop vegetables.

When I went to my gynecologist on Monday, a long delayed visit, I had my tits squeezed in a vise and my cervix scraped and my bones scanned. I had lost some weight, not a huge amount but made it to a manageable weight that puts me under the obesity line on the BMI. I’m almost the same height, and I have osteopenia in my hips, which is no surprise – that’s been developing for decades. He said that my spine was actually a bit better, which I ascribe to the extra calcium, fish oil, and Vitamin D that I’ve been taking for the last two years.

On the art front, not much this week. I can’t even weave the hem on the tapestry for very long. Sitting and leaning forward aggravates my back, and standing aggravates my feet. So a slow process is much slower. However, if I keep plugging away a little at a time, it should be finished long before my deadline to send it to the Tapestry Weavers South exhibit scheduled at the Folk Art Center on the Blue Ridge Parkway near Asheville in January. As part of this exhibit, I am also weaving a postcard sized tapestry to be part of a collaboration. Each weaver is weaving a letter in the phrase “Follow the thread.” I’m weaving an O, and I made the design for it this week. Because I can weave this on one of my small looms, I should be able to do it sitting and without pain.

I rejoined the Print Co-op at the City Arts Center. I figure that as long as the temperature is managed in that room, paying $40 a month is worth it to have a large work table in a room without distractions. I’ll take my collage and bookbinding work back to there. If it gets roasting hot again, I’ll leave again.

I finished “The Grove of Eagles,” which I thought was great. Winston Graham knows how to write characters with complex desires and vices and virtues and still make the reader feel compassion for them. I started re-reading “The Shipping News,” which so far is every bit as wonderful as it was the first time when I discovered Annie Proulx’s amazing use of similes and names.

At work I am resisting the calls to go to in-person meetings. Too many people are not wearing masks, and unless they say that masks are required, I have to protect myself. Our department is still smart about it. Other administrative departments say that “we are trying to get back to normal” or nothing at all when I ask if they will have Zoom available. This boggles my mind since Covid cases are on the rise at almost certainly a higher number than reported because many people with mild cases are self testing. Another tic in the “yes” column for early retirement – the refusal of our leadership to protect its employees.

I plan to head down to Lake Waccamaw again for a weekend about two weeks from now. It will be nice, even if it is hot, to look out on the lake and see my family. Another reason I am very, very careful about masking and not being in maskless crowds indoors. It would be wonderful if this pandemic was over, but to behave as if it is not is reckless and encourages variants to develop even if it is treatable now.

agoraphobia, coffee pot posts, Reading, whining

Saturday morning coffee pot post

Laurie

Really, really trying to stay positive. I was in a great mood on Tuesday. I resolved (knocking wood) a sticky problem at work that took WAY too many emails to too many people. My foot finally felt better and I walked home from work, which felt great despite the stifling heat and humidity. Sandy fixed the leak in the kitchen sink, which required breaking off a part that had been glued on, and so I was extremely wary of this effort. The number of ants still appearing are down to less than 10 a day, when they were swarming the kitchen a week ago.

I am working on NOT retreating to my bedroom when I get home from work. This is part of my agoraphobic tendencies and it is a very hard habit to break. My bedroom is my little nest of comfort and safety from the room. But I have been well aware that spending so much time in bed reading and online, even propped up sitting, has been a big factor in my sleep issues. It is difficult, but I’m making my own little “spot” in the living room and bringing my books and Kindle and laptop there.

Today we are going to the paperback book sale at St. Francis Episcopal Church which is always great. Not that I need more books, but it looks like we probably won’t move anyway. Tomorrow I’ll go do some art playtime with friends. I wanted to do a serious deep clean of our kitchen and my bedroom, but it looks like that is not going to happen.

“The Grove of Eagles” by Winston Graham is really great and if you liked the Poldark books you would enjoy this too. I am even enjoying the long descriptions of a sea battle and attack on Cadiz, Spain. We are still watching “The Last Kingdom” together and I am still watching “Mom” and now the latest version of “The Kids in the Hall.”

Sandy started going back to his water exercise classes early in the morning at the aquatic center, so he’s been giving me rides to work and home when I need it. And I’ve needed it. Not only has the steroid shot worn off on my right ankle, my LEFT ankle and foot is now painful. Thursday night I was awakened by what felt like a yellowjacket sting between my ankle and my heel, and it continued to sting me at intervals of about 70 seconds for an hour. When I realized that it was not going to stop, I got up, took a meloxicam, wrapped it in a soft brace, and iced it.  The meloxicam does not last 24 hours.

So now I’m hobbling on both feet, and I switched back to my worn out Brooks sneakers (in case the pain is due to the new Merrill Moab2s, which I don’t believe is the case). I made an appointment with my podiatrist two weeks from now. I think it is my very high arches, since I stopped wearing uncomfortable shoes with no support many years ago. I do love to go barefoot, and this is also a very hard transition to make as far as being at home. I’m doing the best I can to wear shoes inside, except for getting up in the night to go to the bathroom or for other reasons. One of the things I plan to do today is visit The Shoe Market where they have an employee who makes custom orthotic inserts.

I’m beginning to understand the dilemmas that disabled people face. Being overweight has a huge impact on your body, but when your body is in pain, it is nearly impossible to get the exercise that will help you lose weight or at least not to gain weight. If you don’t look disabled to the rest of society, they are going to judge you for being overweight and suggest that you go for a walk or to the gym. If you’re depressed, as many disabled people are, you don’t have the motivation to exercise anyway, and exercise is proven to help depression. It’s a tough spiral.

I’m doing chair yoga exercises and that is about as far as I can go.

Since I’ve walk to work since 2004, I may have to buy a parking permit now and get a handicapped placard for my mirror. And here’s my other complaint and then I’ll stop. I’ve long thought that it is a slap in the face to charge exorbitant parking rates for employees to park on UNCG’s own parking lots. It would do a lot for employee morale to provide free parking at UNCG, yet when it is brought up all you hear is excuses why it can’t be done. It can be done. They just don’t want to lose the revenue. Before this job, I never had to pay for parking at my own job. It’s ridiculous. People are leaving in droves and they better come up with some reasons for their employees to stay because it’s about to get bad.

Now, onward. The new academic year begins soon, and I will be training my successor, because I can’t see that the advantage in waiting to retire is that great. I’ll get 91% of my pension and the same deal on my medical insurance. I’ll try to wait to take my Social Security for as long as I can, but I’ll be eligible to take it early if I need to. Next year at this time, I’ll be retired and looking for either a part time or temp job or recovering from foot surgery or in an artist residency or looking for something else to fill my days. It will be an exciting transition, but I hope not TOO exciting if you know what I mean.

Oregon, Portland, Reading

Portland, July 18, 2022

Laurie

On our last day and night in Portland, we moved over to McMenamin’s Crystal Hotel in downtown Portland, just a block away from Powell’s City of Books.  We Ubered over for the second time with a driver with a Tesla…that was fun! It was a beautiful car and the window on top went all the way back.

If you’ve followed me very long, you know that the Crystal is one of my favorite places. We dropped off our luggage at 11:30 a.m. and spent the next three and a half hours at Powell’s. How I would love to work there, but I’d probably spend more than I made. We did not check luggage on this trip so I had to keep my book buying impulses under control.

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I’ve been trying to purge my book collection, but the urge to collect books by certain authors is still very strong. One of my holy grails has been a hard cover copy of The Shipping News by Annie Proulx, so I went straight to those shelves. Yes, they had it! It’s been so long since I read it it will be like reading it for the first time again. They had another hard cover of hers that I don’t have, but I was good and didn’t buy it.

The other three, well, come on.  Textile Landscape had been on my list a while since I love Cas Holmes, so I bought it new. Plus I just adore the feel of a Batsford book. At least there was no shipping or sales tax! Mixed Media Books by Gabe Cyr has interesting ideas about what a book is and can be. Lark Books never let me down – there was a time when any book they published would tempt me, no matter what the subject. I’m sad that they’re out of business.  Metal Craft Discovery Workshop is a basic metal working book by Linda and Opie O’Brien, and since I’ve been playing more and more with metal and adhering things to metal, it will be useful.

We walked back to The Crystal and checked in to our rooms. I got the Lionel Hampton room, which delighted me because I used to play mallet percussion in our high school band.

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We ate lasagna for dinner at the Zeus Cafe outside where the street has been blocked off. Then we changed into swimsuits and enjoyed the salt water soaking pool in the basement, then we slept well and the next day, we were flying home.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2bTJwEcJBc]
Oregon, Portland

Portland, July 17, 2022

Laurie

After a leisurely Sunday morning, we took an Uber to Cargo, a fun import store on Yamhill St. Cargo has a mix of antiques, gifty stuff, art supplies, clothing, and Japanese food. Right after I discovered this cabinet of old Japanese books and papers, I had to sit down. I was blown away. We decided to go get lunch and come back.

Around the block was a highly rated restaurant named Shalom Y’all. I was intrigued with how they might combine Mediterranean and U.S. Southern cuisine, but that wasn’t the deal at all. We ordered takeout and it was brought to us at a covered picnic table on the street. It was one of the best meals we had, and it was vegetarian. Roasted beet tahina spread, hot puffy pita bread, fried cauliflower atop a salad with hazelnuts, olives, and fresh mint tea. If I ever go back, I will definitely go here again.

I realized the potential for me to go completely nuts over these Japanese papers so I limited myself to a $30 budget. I picked out three small books, and two of them had bookworm holes and tunnels, which made me ecstatically happy. The holes in the accordion book looked like snowflake or paper doll cutting. The open book on the right bottom is full of illustrations and maps on very thin paper with lots of fold-outs.

We noshed on the leftover olives and Japanese snacks with ciders in the side garden that afternoon, then wandered back over to Mississippi Ave. to figure out where to eat our last meal in that area, since we’d be leaving for the Crystal Hotel across the river in the morning. During our wandering, we happened on Mama & Hapa’s Zero Waste Shop. I am fascinated with the idea of zero waste, although I’ve given up on the effort to achieve it personally. Our local food coop is working toward the goal of bulk bins with zero waste. Anyway, I could not leave without buying something so I bought this dental floss and two refills.

Dinner that night was inside for a change, but we felt safe enough. We had a small pizza and a green risotto at Lovely Fifty Fifty and I swear to you, the vegetarian food last few days in Portland made me seriously consider going pescetarian. I won’t give up seafood until it is unavailable to me but I could eat a lot more vegetables and be happy. Then we decided to share one scoop of salted caramel ice cream, and that scoop was grand. I wish I could remember what was in the risotto. Basil and umami, for sure.

art, Oregon, Portland

Portland, July 16, 2022

Laurie

After we arrived in Portland, Susan and I decided to see if there were spaces available in Jill Berry’s Layers and Lines workshop at her studio there. We didn’t expect there to be, since there was a limit of 6, but there were! So on Saturday morning, we got a Blue Star Donut and then called an Uber to take us to Jill’s house.

I had taken a very satisfying three day workshop with Jill at FOBA in 2015, so this made up a little for missing out on our art retreat.

One other student joined us, and we had a lot of fun playing with mark-making and Golden acrylic paints. Jill mixed the heavy body Golden acrylics with methylcellulose to use on Arches text wove paper. This mixture made the paint bond with the paper fibers better, allowing many layers to be painted and best of all, it dried fast without stickiness!

Jill’s renovated house and gardens were filled with artwork, flowers, herbs, vegetables, recycled materials, great style, and a cute little dog named Poppy. She served us a delicious salad with bread, cheese, cookies, and fresh fruit.

Okay, here are the photos of the workshop, then my finished papers.

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Here are most of my finished papers. We did three other exercises as well.

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The one on the left was stamped with silk flowers and leaves in my gloved hand (until I absentmindedly removed my glove and then got acrylic paint all over my hand). The one on the right had salt sprinkled on it and brushed off.

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The one on the left had my original marks in black gesso. The one on the right was a ghost print of the one on the left. Then the paints were added.

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My intention for all of these are for collage and book covers and pages, but Sandy wants me to frame the one above. I don’t know. We have a whole stack of artwork on a chair that we need to find places on a wall to hang.

Jill graciously drove us back “home” and we got take out sushi from a place a few blocks away, ate it in the garden, and called it a good day.

coffee pot posts, depression/anxiety

Sunday sweep

Laurie

Just a quick update to say that my migraines are gone and my ankle is much better, although I am still babying it today. The ant situation is much, much better now too. Only a few confused ones are still showing up for dinner, and finding Terro on the plate.

Watched the first episode of Ted Lasso last night, and I can see why everyone likes it. T-Mobile gave us a year of Apple TV free and we had yet to use it.

Other than weaving a bit of the hem on Cathedral, doing laundry, and making a pitcher of peach tea with honey and mint, I’ve been extremely lazy and I’m fine with that. My mental health is stabilizing and I’m able to focus on reading and watching TV for a longer period of time. I’m finally beginning to accept that we probably won’t move out of the country. Note the word “probably” and not “definitely” though! This was a difficult thing to let go, since I had become obsessed with the idea.

My therapist floated the idea that I may be ADD, and as crazy and surprising as that sounded at first, I sort of see her point now.

I hope to go down to Lake Waccamaw for a long weekend next month or in September, and I signed up for a workshop with Leslie Marsh in late October at her studio in Topsail Beach, but that is the only travel on my agenda right now, and it’s all in-state.

Oregon, Portland

Portland, July 15, 2022

Laurie

Do forgive me, because I know how much I preach about consumerism and slow living, but I went a little crazy shopping in Portland. I did, however, manage with difficulty to refrain from buying the black truffle salt and bergamot bitters at The Meadow, although I bought a packet of hot dark chocolate mix that made our following mornings with coffee special. Photos are of a few shelves in the shop. There were tasters for the bitters and I have to say that I was very, very tempted.

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We started the morning at Blue Star Donuts, and hobbled our way up and down Mississippi Avenue for a few blocks in each direction. The Meadow was the first stop. We drifted through GiftyKitty which was as cute as and a bit more artsy and twisted than the name implies. At PDXchange, we both bought rings and I bought this absolutely awesome coffee mug, even though I had sworn a solemn oath not to buy any more coffee mugs. I had planned to buy a new ring in Portugal and didn’t, so that was my excuse to buy this beautiful silver labradorite ring.

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A few doors down, Flutter was aptly named because its mix of new and vintage definitely made my heart twitch. I was very good here, only buying a long length of lace from a $10 basket, a little of it shown here hanging down around the light bulbs that I bought at Sunlan the day before. Susan was also very good, because she really really really wanted this parasol, and it was SO SUSAN, but she left it behind. It was awesome inside and out.

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We then hit Rock Paper Scissors, a stationery and card shop with some art supplies, and Susan bought a few pencils and I bought a couple of felt pens and a few sheets of printed lokta paper.

At this point, we were D.O.N.E. So we ate a margerhita pizza at Tartuca at a streetside table. Nearly everywhere we ate had outdoor seating, extremely helpful when a particularly contagious Covid strain is making the rounds. This was one of several vegetarian meals that were amazing.

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We collapsed for several hours and then walked up N. Williams Ave. in search of banh mi. The restaurant that we were looking for didn’t sell banh mi anymore, so we kept walking and discovered Dick’s Primal Burger, and Susan ordered a wild boar burger and mine was venison, goat cheese, and mushrooms. It was the best burger I have ever eaten.

The next day we would be getting our art on at a day workshop in Jill Berry’s studio.

coffee pot posts, Reading

Saturday afternoon coffee pot post

Laurie

Finished off the coffee, though.

Today will probably be a wash. My bone spur is punishing me now and I’ve had cluster migraines since I got back from Portland. I feel sure that it is weather-related because I didn’t have a single headache that I remember in Oregon. Yesterday I had an ocular migraine which doesn’t happen often. It’s so weird and hard to describe. Sort of like I’m looking into a pool of water that is being stirred, but no pain. Thankfully, it was short and the headaches don’t last more than a couple of hours, generally.

Anyway, I’d planned on getting a lot of house cleaning done this weekend, but now I know that I’ve got to rest this angry ankle. It is in the high 90s today so I have an excuse to stay inside, at least. Sandy just went out to get us lunch and a few basic groceries because not only is there not much food in the house, we’ve had a major invasion of ants, the worst I’ve ever seen. So I have little squares of Terro set around the kitchen where the cats can’t get to it, and the bread will have to go into the fridge when he gets back. The cats are being kept off the front porch because they freak out if the door is closed, and we need to keep the house cool. I am so grateful for air conditioning and count my blessings in that respect.

I can sit down to weave the hem on the Cathedral tapestry, so I’ll work on that this weekend. Maybe I’ll have a cutoff party when the time comes. At the very least I will have Sandy video it. I’ve also joined a collaborative postcard tapestry project with Tapestry Weavers South in which we each weave a 4×6 inch tapestry with a letter on it. The tapestries all together will spell “Follow the Thread,” which is the name of our exhibition at the Folk Art Center next year. I chose the letter O. I was awake several hours last night because I could not turn my brain off with ideas for this! I need to sit down with pencil and paint and do some sketches.

We have been watching “The Last Kingdom,” which is a lot of fun, not least because at some point in exploring my family tree on familysearch.org I have found both Uhtred the Bold and Alfred the Great as ancestors. Now, I do take all this with a grain of salt, but it is exciting to find famous people in my tree, whether the research is correct or not! From what I understand, the Mormons are pretty good at genealogy though.

Not only that, but I’m reading “The Grove of Eagles” by Winston Graham (author of the Poldark books) and it turns out that my direct relatives the Arundells are characters in it. It could be the most boring book in the world and I wouldn’t know it because I keep stopping to look up a character in my family tree.

That’s the news from Greensboro, and I’ll get back to blogging my Portland trip, which was so much fun and exactly what I needed, despite what my foot says.