Oh dear. I have ended up joining so many fascinating social media groups that my art work remains in my head, an unacceptable situation which I hope to remedy this weekend since it is too frickin cold to work outside and we have no plans.
One good thing is that Sandino’s work schedule has changed to 10-7. When he worked from 3-12, I was asleep before he came home and gone to work before he got up, so the weekend was the only time we had to do things together. I was a little worried about this change, since I love my solitude and am pretty much already set in my ways like an old widder woman, but after two weeks of it, I think that it is a better deal. I still get two hours alone at home, and they are the two hours after work when I need to adjust and decompress. Sandy took me out on Thursday night for drinks and soup and that was nice. The weekend is the time when I feel most compelled to make art, so the guilt factor of ignoring my husband during the only time we had together is now gone.
All restaurants and bars are now smoke-free in North Carolina. If this isn’t a miracle, I don’t know what is. I think that they had to wait for Jesse to die before this could be possible.
I wonder how much, if any, permanent damage will result in the Back Forty from this extended extreme cold weather. Almost every night for over the past week has gotten down into the teens, and we’ll have a few more before it is over. We have all reached the point where a high in the low 40s feels like summer to us. I’m just hoping that my rosemary and fig tree survive, but they can be replaced. I still prefer the bitter cold to temps in the 90s-100s. I’m telling you, I would be an excellent candidate for emigration to Canada.
Canada is on my mind a lot this week, because a June papermaking gathering was announced on the papermaking list that takes place on the ocean in Prince Edward Island. That immediately got my attention, because I’m a huge Anne of Green Gables fan, and one of the trips I’ve wanted to take for a long time has been to Acadia National Park and that area. So, of course, I jump on Orbitz and the Prince Edward Island tourism website, look at flight prices (much cheaper to fly into Bangor, Maine and rent a car to drive 6.5 hours to Charlottetown, PEI) and oceanfront cottage rentals near the workshop site. I see it as doable, with a camping side trip to Acadia, if Sandy will go for it. He wants to go to the Caribbean, but it would be much more expensive to do what he wants to do in summer. We’ll need to work this out if he wants to go. I may end up going by myself for a shorter trip and rooming with some of the other participants, which would be good too, just not as extensive a trip as I would like. I did promise him that he could pick the next big vacation location, and he has been saving for it.
Critter report – everyone except Jazz, no surprise there, are great friends now and this morning Guido licked Theo on the head. They have finally let Theo play their feline games.
Signing off now to work on my first embroidery in years. I have to decide between the design of the carrots, the beets, or the lemons to start with. Probably the lemons is the best one to begin with. I can see the carrot design as a excellent choice for tapestry. Here they are, from my photos filtered through photoshop…
slowly she turned 