Misfits, spinning and a puzzle

 Misfits arrived promptly yesterday, with all kinds of welcome food, because the larder was pretty bare.

I included sugar this week, and added it into the container, where I toss empty vanilla essence bottles, to make vanilla sugar. Since it works for every use I have for sugar, it's an easy way to do it, and smells wonderful.

Breakfast this morning is a toasted walnut cranberry muffin and strawberries. 

Handsome Son and I did some great decision making on his recent visit, including moving some responsibilities for the condo where he lives as my tenant,  over to him that I've been doing. 

This is a great relief to me, because these are new experiences to him, which he's taking on and will get used to. He'll own the property when I die, so there won't be a mad scramble to get the various payment obligations switched to avoid late fees, at a time when it will be much harder to do. And as long as the bills are paid, I doubt if the authorities care whose account is paying them. We're adjusting his rent so he won't be out of pocket. It took a bit of time and online searching.

I was glad we checked into the HOA account, which is one of my direct debits. Turns out the management, without mentioning it, had changed banks, changed passwords and website, and we had to go all round the houses to get in. HS took care of switching that, so all's well. But that would have been a big deal if he tried to accomplish it after my death, everything financial shutting down then, and death certificates etc, needed to get access.  

I think we did well, and we're both a bit wiped out from the emotional work. After next week's cremation appointment, I plan to live a life of total frivolity!

Knitting group today, and I'll cast on a new knit as soon as I decide what.  Meanwhile I did a bit of spinning.

This is my 3D printed spindle, really well balanced, and it's become my favorite.

And here's a poll you won't see around the media very much, just sayin.  Not paid for by T###p, like the Wall Street Journal, nor weighted in favor of Republican opinions, like the New York Times. Just a straightforward bit of polling.

Then, since it's Friday, and we haven't had a puzzle for ages, too busy with solemn stuff, here we go.

Happy day, everyone, enjoy your day, especially blogistas invaded by new tiny kittens!

Between the publishing mixup yesterday and things on my mind, I'm late to wish  happy Hanukkah to observers, but I do wish you light and life

Textiles and Tea, 365 poems, cosmic joke

I published this yesterday, but found it seems not to have published after all! So here it is now.

Tuesday's Textiles and Tea was probably better suited as a podcast, nice spinner and weaver and teacher, Michaela McIntosh, chatting interestingly about other weavers, with few slides, but here they are. 

She's holding up the scarf she's wearing, which she wove. Behind her is a favorite loom, but the wall tapestry is one she bought in South Africa as an inspiration, and aspiration, piece.

She also made some good points about giving handmade items. She's had the experience of spinning and weaving a piece as gift, to have it go unappreciated as "homemade"! She cautions only to give to people who know what they're getting. So it turns out there's a weave worthy category of people, as well as the knit worthy well known to knitters.

The episode was low-key, but I still felt like a bit of spinning after I saw her basket of yarn, so there's that, now that the Izzies are on their way and there's no immediate knitting. I'm still musing about the weaving of the skirt. I'm thinking of converting the panels, too, to another use.

Yesterday I baked as planned, half and half chickpea and AP flour, walnuts and cranberries. The chickpea flour adds a lot of protein, as well as a nice golden color.

Hot from the oven

Cooling on a rack, with crumbs for the birds, now long gone, patio pecked clean. These muffins toast very well, too.

And yesterday the birthday book arrived, so my year began. I decided that I've reached the age where you don't put things off, so whatever day the book arrived would be Day One of reading. Accompanied by one piece of candy, a daily small event to look forward to.

The candy is very good, and as you see from the poem of the day, I think Somebody is playing a cosmic joke on me!

Happy day, everyone, Handsome Son is coming today for tea and muffins and bringing a box of free cycling for me to do, and let's hope no further cosmic jokes will happen. Ed note: he did, we got a lot done, no jokes.

 

Embarkation portrait and other thoughts

 So before I leave for the post office, here's the group of Izzies I'm sending to their new little owners at the Pine Ridge reservation.

For the moment, the doll related materials can be stored and I'll see what's next. 

Meanwhile back in the life of Boud, I've set up an appointment next week to prepay my cremation and set it up. I'll invite Handsome Son if he's free, to make sure he's completely informed. That sounds so businesslike and matter of fact. In fact, I slept all afternoon, from the emotional impact of doing it, filling out online forms, all that. And all night. It's not easy.

To be clear, I'm perfectly well, not under any medical deadline, but my impending birthday reminded me to do this. I'll be 85, so it's not premature to be planning.

Tomorrow Handsome Son is visiting so I'll get into that then. I also have other ideas about changes that will simplify his post-Mom life. I'll see how he feels about that, too. 

Meanwhile I will send off the parcel of dolls and bake a batch of cranberry walnut muffins, ready to give HS a little something with his tea tomorrow.

Happy day, everyone, do hard things. You got this.

Freecycling and the circle of life

The art I've been free cycling is part of my end of life planning, as you probably observed, seeing the winnowing around here to make it easier for Handsome Son after I die. The art falls into a different category, though, since free cycling is a way of getting good original art into new homes. 

The latest round went to the same person who took the last group, and we had a great exchange about it. Here are the pieces, from my black gesso, handmade paper and copper wire period.

it's a series of faces, where you can change the narrative by hanging them differently. Here it goes from realistic to abstract. Hung in reverse order, it brings the realistic out of the abstract. 

The recipient is hanging all my art on one wall, very happy with it. This series was bought from an exhibit, and I found the buyer left it to me in their will, so it eventually came back again! I hope it will stay put in its new home. The new owner has been an art docent at MOMA and the local art museum, so, good hands.

I'd far rather my work go out like this than have a  scramble to get it out after I've gone. People might as well be enjoying it. And I have three floors, so the upper stairwell, where these pieces were hanging, isn't a daily view. I won't feel deprived.

I'd offer choices to local friends, but I've found they're very reluctant to take pieces they like because it feels bad, pushing me off the stage! I don't mind, but they feel a bit weird. 

Meanwhile, the Izzy gang is growing

And the Christmas/Thanksgiving cactus is happy

While the rain has finally stopped, after days of downpour, leaving the Japanese maple wearing diamonds

Hard to see here, but a lovely sight. Take my word.

Finally there seems to be enough water in the ground, but I've been frugal with water ever since I learned from Jane Goodall about the lives of women and girls in Africa spending most of their days carrying  water for daily use. Girls can't get to school because they spend hours daily just securing and carrying water.

I don't live where this happens, but I understand why digging wells is important work for incoming helpers in those regions, how life changing it is to have water here, literally on tap. I assume the planet's supply must be finite, so I economize. 

I quit using running water to rinse dishes and wash fruit and vegetables, a bowl uses less,  finally started taking my doctor and a rehab nurse's advice to shower less frequently, and briefly. The showering is about aged, delicate skin, rather than water economy, but it fits into conservation.  I can see from my water bill how it's working.

I'm listening to the audio book of

Where Tey's detective Alan Grant, temporarily out of action from injury, detects a historical puzzle instead of current crime.

It's about the bad rap Richard III, the last Plantagenet king, has had, showing that the depiction of him as a villain is largely based on  hearsay and the writings of a later regime. 

The Tudors, with a tenuous claim to the throne, and much to gain by blackening Plantagenet memory, were the main perps. Shakespeare gleefully fell on the popular myths because -- more dramatic. More clicks. Sounds  familiar in this age of disinformation. And it's surprisingly timely to read this now, when people are still credulous and willing to believe what suits them.  

Happy day everyone, don't believe everything you hear, well, you don't, this is a self selected thoughtful group.

No ice is good news and food happens

 An older person's view of the weather forecast

No ice! This is big.

Lately I've been cooking good meals but not photogenic ones. Ground turkey with cannellini beans, that kind of good stuff, and my food designer never turned up, again, so you didn't get the benefit.

Yesterday I did make something to show you, very simple, not up to anything elaborate at the moment, a tired time of year.

Broccoli/tomato sauce with penne and a lot of Serrano peppers diced in, big grind of long red pepper.  Enough for three meals, always a plus, that I can heat and eat.

This probably has an Italian name, penne primavera or something. 

Yesterday saw a bit of free cycling, lights which I've had around for ages, wrong size for outside, my original intent, wouldn't charge adequately indoors, my backup plan, too late for a return for refund, my backup backup plan. 

So they went to the first of a horde of requesters, within a couple of hours of posting. Even without pictures, sometimes the site won't, though when that happens I offer to email them.

And, the Izzy dolls moving right along, I did send for a different shade of possible face-colored yarn, and this arrived

Looking like clay or something, and at first I didn't realize what it was, since the package was so shrunken you couldn't read the words. I did find "yarn" and all became clear. Vacuum packed! After I managed to find a way in without cutting the yarn, it sprang to life

 

Made in Turkey, like a lot of yarns. It seems to be a  thriving Turkish industry.

Happy day, everyone, whatever mysterious packages it holds for you. Like the surprise big Izzy, the result of picking up the wrong, too big, needles, but what's a manufacturing glitch between friends?

Knitting group, and a lottery-winner calico kitty

 Yesterday's group

General clutter created by Boud

See the sweater and the waiting felted bag

Now in action, that bag is great,  both made by M who loves the blue, grey end of the spectrum.

And for a change of pace, here's K with fine-gauge cross-stitch, for a new grandchild

Chat ranged across the Civil War, recent deaths of very old people, also A.S.Byatt,  Henry VIII, Car Talk, Izzy dolls, for whom I found a couple of different face colored yarns in the library stash, gong bathing, Gwyneth Paltrow, why women lie about their age,  and  other family arguments. The usual wide range.  There was also some incidental chat about the projects we were engaged in.

Happy day, everyone, go to e's blog Life in Progress and admire her beautiful calico  kitty, newly arrived chez e.

Bread, cheese and winter, oh, white rabbits, too

Lovely mail lately, starting to look festive around here. Note one of the cards is a handmade and stitched artwork. Thank you!

And the latest newsletter from CSJB included a shoutout.

This is how to keep your volunteers cheerful say thank you! I don't do it for that but have to admit it definitely helps.

Yesterday's misfits box was very basic

Bread, cheese, honey, cocoa. All you need when you think about it

And in the course of breaking down and tying up the misfits box for the recycle, the Leaning Tower of Sisal happened.

Symbolizing  the eternal human  struggle for permanence, defeated by the inexorable destructive powers of nature. Bear with me, I get a bit carried away in the presence of Art.

Happy December, everyone. This is when I  start to think of all the Sagittarians, to wish them happy birthdays, Quinn, Gary, Janee, Tarang, Mare, Anthony, for a start. Happy trip around the sun, everyone.