Category: coffee pot posts

I’ve spent a lot of time looking at leaves this week, as have many people, I know. What surprises me is all the people who take them for granted. My young next door neighbor is experiencing autumn for the first time, after spending the last few years in Thailand during this season. He is learning what deciduous means. We got to see his Halloween costume. A character from Minecraft, and like most costumes these days, I don’t have a clue who it represents. I don’t have kids or grandchildren, and I’m not a fan of superhero movies or comics, so I am out of touch with a lot of popular culture. You don’t want me on your trivia team unless there’s a category for leaf identification. Anyway, it’s nice to have a young’un on the block again.

My plan was to do some leaf printing on paper again this weekend, but I realized that time is slipping away and if I’m going to get this other woven postcard done in time for the show in January I need to focus on that this weekend. I still have to finish the back and hem Cathedral and get it ready for display, which is always the worst part of making art for me and it’s one of the few things that I really procrastinate about.

Sandy and I voted yesterday.

We got a lot of the old newspaper and junk mail and phone books that were sitting near the woodstove waiting to be burned either recycled or burned in the fire pit outside. I saw a meteor that night. We “joked” that it might be a Russian missile. I saved a big phone book for a pad to drill into. I cleaned the wood stove and all the cast iron on it and the fan that runs on heat. I used an old toothbrush and baking soda and vinegar to clean some of the tough to reach places on the fan and the electric stove. Little by little we will get it cleaner in here. Next step is cleaning all the knickknacks and books on the mantel and shelving around the fireplace. Lots of dust and cobwebs so I’ll need some allergy meds.

My neck and shoulders were getting stiff so I had my first massage from a therapist at Kneaded Energy on Tuesday morning. I have signed up for monthly massages now, and she was good, but I really really really miss the therapist that I saw for years at A to Zen. She left massage during the pandemic, and she needed to for physical reasons too – she had carpal tunnel pretty bad.

We also got the solar outdoor lights up two years after I bought them. There’s a reason my spirit animal is the snail. Nothing gets done in a hurry around here, especially when it has to be done by two depressed people.

So I’m feeling pretty good right now. Sandy just made blueberry waffles and we are going to a used book sale.  I’ll try to write again tomorrow.

Turn on the volume for a one-section purr concert from Diego.

It’s a two-fer day, although I’m not sure how long I can sit here blogging. It’s been a hell of a mixed week. As I said in the previous post, I strained my back picking up branches at Lake Waccamaw after Ian sailed through. I wasn’t sure that I could sit on the ride home on Sunday even, but that old Volvo has amazing seat adjustments. We love that car.

I tried walking to work on Monday morning, but by 10 a.m. I was phoning Sandy to come get me. I was hurting bad. He doesn’t answer his phone, doesn’t text, doesn’t check his voice mail. This time he actually had his phone turned off. GRRRRR. Anyway, I slept and dozed most of the day and night on Monday, which proved to me that my body was saying, “let me heal,” because I usually cannot sleep that much. Then on Tuesday, I had a lot of work to do, but I found a position on our big arm chair in the front room where I could be comfortable, so I was able to work on my laptop.

On Wednesday, I had a consult appointment with the gastrointestinal practice to schedule my colonoscopy. Because of my family history, I am supposed to get one every five years, so I started when I was 40. Well, it got coded as diagnostic, and my insurance was treating it as elective, and even after the insurance staff member changed the code they STILL wouldn’t pay because they said that I should get one every ten years. Ah, the U.S. health system, where the insurance companies decide what care is best for you. So I canceled it. All four of my colonoscopies have been completely healthy, and I was a bit late on this one anyway, so I decided to wait 3.5 years until I am on Medicare. If I have symptoms, I’ll schedule it, but I’m not paying thousands of dollars for a procedure that was free last time.

Thursday I went to my chiropractor, who I adore and I don’t know why I have put off going to him, other than mental illness, I guess. He did the electric stimulation thang, massaged me from head to foot manually and with a machine, then adjusted my back, hips, and neck. I knew that he couldn’t do much for an acute strained muscle, but he really cracked my neck, which is a chronic issue for me and was much in need of care. I hope that this will reduce my headaches. This guy is so different from other practices. He doesn’t process insurance claims, he handles all the appointments and admin himself, and he spends an hour concentrating on you, for $85. He doesn’t try to sell you packages or tell you to come back for multiple visits if he thinks he can fix you on one visit. He is not an anti-vaxxer. His office is within a massage therapy business, so while I was there I bought a monthly program for a hour massage.

The big news is that I have made a decision to put off retirement until May-Julyish 2024. I was very serious about retiring on June 1, 2023, and had started looking at my options for temp and part-time jobs and remote jobs. But I was given some options from my department that I had asked for months ago and had accepted that I would never get. I won’t go into the details, but let’s just say that I’m quite happy about it. I realize that for the first time in my life, I am getting what I asked for in my job. I’ve always taken what I was offered – never negotiated for a salary – never asked for promotion although I have been offered them – and in most cases, before I landed here, I was seen as expendable. Now I truly feel valued and I think that I can definitely stick it out for almost two years. There is no downside to this. If my position gets cut in budget cuts, and that is a real possibility, I was planning to leave anyway and I’d probably get some kind of severance or service time deal.

Yesterday we both got the newest Covid variant booster and we went to a friend’s 80th birthday party. We met some very interesting people and enjoyed ourselves thoroughly.

Today, I don’t know how much sitting I can do, but I’m going to try to weave this postcard tapestry  and finish reading Telegraph Avenue. I’m baffled at its relatively low score on GoodReads. I think that it is a solid 4. I guess some people can’t deal with unsympathetic characters, but life is full of them.

I anticipate hearing some bad news today, but I am in a good place mentally and emotionally.

I haven’t written since I cut Cathedral off the loom. I haven’t done anything to it yet either – just put it in my backpack where the cats can’t get to it. It’s quite amazing how many likes and follows I got from the video (“reel”) I posted on Instagram. They are still coming in and I wonder how this happens. I started weaving the O tapestry, although I’ve been pretty worthless art-wise the past couple of weeks.

Last weekend I had headaches all weekend, then on Sunday, I went to the flea market at the farmers’ market, went to a street festival that I didn’t want to go to, had a panic attack in the middle of a book reading (my guess is that previously being in the crowd outside triggered it), and ended up not going to my studio at the arts center for the second week in a row.

I picked up a few cool things at the flea market – another wooden box, a small vase that matched an heirloom tea set that I gave to my niece, and an old Nancy Drew book for a dollar that I plan to deconstruct and reuse in collage. I was looking for a cheap old electric frying pan or griddle that I could use for encaustic, but had no luck with that.

Occasionally I look at a video for one of the many online classes that I paid for and never finished. Turns out that getting the supplies for encaustic, even though I have a few of them, is quite expensive. So I may let that go until later and shop at secondhand stores for a while to gather them.

I’ve been able to watch more TV. I know that sounds like NOT a big deal at all, but it has been a big part of my problem that I have not been able to focus on videos or TV shows or movies. I still don’t sit in front of the TV and the most I’ve been able to do was two hours one night, but it’s nice to have shows to watch with Sandy. He can binge and I cannot. I still can’t get through an entire movie.

I bought some new clothes and new glasses – a very bright blue pair that I’m quite pleased with.

Work has been quiet other than entering the class schedule and the occasional question in hiring or student process. This is the season when I am usually waiting for others to send me stuff so that I can move on with what I need to do. I usually take off on vacation in mid-September as these items are trickling in, but this September I am not taking off until this coming week, when I’m going to the lake and cat-sitting my feline niece and nephew and possibly getting the house ready for a hurricane hit. I plan to take the two weavings and the book that I’ve been working on.

For the most part I have been bored. I’m trying to be okay with being bored sometimes – flipping the switch to being alone with my thoughts instead of feeling that I have to fill my brain with something. Turns out that this is very, very, very difficult for me, and it is one reason I have a hard time falling asleep. I am absolutely bored at work. So, so bored. I don’t think I could be returned to being a worker willing to go the extra mile the way that I was for a very long time.

Listening to Radio Paradise on the Internet has helped me get through it. I have been surprised at what I’ve learned of famous musicians that I like that I’ve never connected the names with the music. Lots of Americana. Suzanne Vega. Beck. Coldplay. Even Led Zeppelin. Turns out I love Led Zeppelin now but in the 70s I couldn’t care less about them. So many artists who are new to me, often because I heard their music but didn’t know their names. I spent the 90s and 00s listening to public radio and lots of new age and classic rock and certain singers like Lyle Lovett and kd lang. In a way this makes me feel old, but then again, I’ve not able to keep up with popular music since the 70s when I was growing up.

I think a lot about retirement, and what I might do to make some money for fun stuff, and what part time or temp jobs I might apply for. I don’t think that I will stop working. This has calmed me down, which surprises me, but we’ll see if that lasts once I grind into the last few months of my job.

My neighbors have supplied me with five gallons of black walnuts in the hulls, which I’ve stashed in the freezer. There will be more. I’m considering making ink for sale, as well as using them for natural dye pots, of course. I bought a course on making organic inks over two years ago at the beginning of the pandemic, when it seemed that I’d have all the mental energy in the world to LEARN ALL THE THINGS. I don’t think I looked at one lesson and don’t know if I can even find it again.

Now I am stopping for brunch, and I think I will head over to the arts center. The weather is breezy and beautiful. I discovered a great combination for a sandwich – almond butter and spicy red pepper jelly. I’m reading “Telegraph Avenue” and the “Oxford History of Britain.” I want to understand the history of my ancestry, and unlike some people, I’m not afraid of looking at the ugly parts that make me uncomfortable. And boy, do I come from oppressors – I often look in the mirror and notice the genetics of a predator race reflected back at me. There’s no guilt here. Just awareness and a desire to make the world a better place.