Monday miscellany

in which our plucky heroine remembers that a hole is to dig...

Today, went and did outdoor/yard tasks first, once awake and before breakfast. There is much research that getting outdoor light into eyeballs first thing when starting the day is helpful for better sleep hygiene and sleep/wake cycle. Actually doing this has been an unrealised goal of mine for ages. It was less awful than expected, better for mental health than screen time and shall work on turning it into a daily habit.

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~ informative, not failure ~

The secondary concept for this project was as "a blue print on a yellow background", but the next proof (once carving and detailing the print block finished) was unsuccessful. My blue ink is translucent, I discovered, yielding green-on-yellow instead. While at first impression it felt like failure, further thought shifted to "what did I learn here"... a much healthier point of view. to find a place where the desire to try is stronger than the fear of failing

It is very much the maker experience that not everything attempted works out as initially hoped. I'd never used the blue ink before. Indeed, straight out of the tube it was more of a cyan color, and even with some violet ink mixed in, it didn't turn really blue. I shall need want to do more experimenting with both ink color mixtures and possibly a different brand of ink, but in the meantime, this print must needs remain instead as a counter-changed black and white design, as my initial concept called for.

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So what did our plucky heroine actually do in the yard and garden this morning: the biggest thing was to empty and move the large blue planters (made from a 55 gallon barrel cut into two halves). Dug out the weeds and dumped into compost, dug out the dirt and added to raised bed, then moved the planters away from where I want the FoT tree planted. I also picked up and stacked the random empty pots. And removed the entire temporary backyard clothesline so no one gets tangled in it. (I'm short, most folks less so) Finally I repotted the baby rhubarb into a larger and deeper pot, so it can continue to expand it's roots... eventual plan is to put it in the ground.

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As the tiny crock pot was busy turning the corned beef into dinner, I also cooked a batch of quince pieces on the simmer burner. Once those were well softened and turning pink, they were mashed to a rough puree, measured out in 1 cup increments and put in the freezer, ready to turn into several batches of fruit bread. The banana bread recipe from my childhood works just as well with other fruit puree, as I have made it with persimmon pulp and with various sorts of squash puree. Banana is so strongly flavored that it needs no additional spices, but most of the others get some form of poudre douce (usually cinnamon and nutmeg, those being my favorites, sometimes ginger, and never cloves, because I don't want food that makes my mouth numb)  ancestral banana bread recipe

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March SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	6 dozen cookies	grey pinafore	art exchange
2	lino block carved	pruned marjoram	many dead weeds
3	tiny faux patchwork quilt	slipper soles	recycle bin
4	quince pie	bicycle derailleur	yard waste bin
5	multiple lino proofs	"a-y-a" replaced	recycle bin
6	x	worm bin bedding	recycle bin
7	x	cleaned hallway air grilles	x
8	x	x	x
9	x	x	x

today's gratitudes -
1. two hours of body doubling via zoom this morning with Karen, and I was able to do the most currently vital admin tasks I have been putting off for months. It took less than an hour. 
2. past past me put a chunk of corned beef in the freezer; it is in the crock pot and destined for dinner tonight, along with yellow potatoes and green cabbage turned into colcannon.
3. sometime today the hole digging volunteer(s) obviously arrived and did their digging, as the spot for Future Persimmon now has a hole (with a flag next to it), instead of just bare ground with a flag

Time of Isolation - Day 1703

the banana bread recipe:
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
¼ cup dry milk + ⅓ cup water
(or ⅓ cup wet milk)
½ tsp salt
⅔ cup sugar
1 cup mashed banana
1 egg
1 teaspoon vinegar
⅓ cup melted butter
½ cup chopped nuts (optional)

9 x 5 x 3 loaf pan (or 2 mini loaf pans), lightly greased
bake at 350F for 50 to 60 minutes or until done

Preheat your oven.
Sift all the dry ingredients together (not nuts, though).
Mix all the moist ingredients together in a good size bowl.
Add the dry ingredients to the moist all at once, and mix
Quickly mix in the nuts (once wet and dry are mixed, the sooner you get the batter into the pan into the oven, the lighter your bread will be.)
Fill the pan(s) and bake.
Begin testing as for cake at about 50 minutes.

Let cool before slicing, very important.

Sunday snippets

in which our plucky heroine wants the headache gone...

but despite that, a whole assortment of things happened today.

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~ repair ~

The wrongly carved letters were cut away (along with the "y" between them) all the way through the lino block. Then looked through my lino scraps for a piece that was perzactly the same thickness, and transferred that part of the design to the surface. Inked it very carefully before carving them, cutting the "a-y-a" out, and making sure everything fit together properly.

The last step tonight was cutting a backing of thin plywood, spreading wood glue over the surface, and aligning the lino/plywood sandwich with the repair in place before weighting it down to dry overnight... Tomorrow I will paint a few layers of acrylic paint over the plywood for water resistance, and then it will be ready to attempt printing proof number two!

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Last night I had a dreadful headache, so made sure of abundant hydration and went to bed early. Woke up still with a headache but not as bad? WTF? (usually a headache means I've a fever, but my temp is normal) It seemed to be intermittent, but quite persistent, so I gave up by midafternoon and tracked down a bottle of aspirin.

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"Botanically Unhinged Gardening" was the title of a pair of zoom meetings on Saturday. Sharon explained a new-to-me idea of stacking planting pots vertically to get more space; basically plant something in the upper pot, and cut away the bottom of that pot placing it into a lower one that is also filled with soil and compost - lots more root space without taking up more square footage. Brilliant!

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Started on the flooring for Caer Cardboard Art Gallery - gluing coffee stirrer sticks to a piece of black bristol board cut to the size of the floor. It isn't at all fast to do, but will look very good when finished. The larger wire cutters are just right for cutting bits to length. This project is doable handwork while zooming.

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March SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	6 dozen cookies	grey pinafore	art exchange
2	lino block carved	pruned marjoram	many dead weeds
3	-	slipper soles	recycle bin
4	-	bicycle derailleur	yard waste bin
5	-	"a-y-a" replaced	-
6	x	x	-
7	x	x	x
8	x	x	x
9	x	x	x

today's gratitudes -
1. aspirin - which can be swallowed without being tasted. I gave up after a day and a half and took one. It toned down the headache quite a lot.
2. Neighborhood has a new manga cafe, and a beautiful new pottery studio. I rode past them both yesterday.
3. the bundle of coffee stir sticks is finally being used

Time of Isolation - Day 1695

wishful Wednesday

in which our plucky heroine wishes that there was some way to shift to a better timeline..

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~ partly carved ~

Slowly but steadily, progress is happening with the new block, now almost three-quarters of the way carved... Not yet sure if I want to give the block a wooden backing, or leave it as is. A backing makes it easier to handle, but thin lino is simpler to register on the paper. Don't need to decide yet, and can always add a backing later on if that seems like a good idea.

I've decided to share my progress on FB, despite my media diet, so as to reach more people and hopefully generate more interest. I wasn't sure what organisation I was going to suggest to folks, but it will probably be World Central Kitchen, as their good works are world wide, and they are highly rated (A+) by Charity Watch. Though of course in these times, there are many many organisations that could use our help...

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Did a modicum of gardening today, by cleaning up around the marjoram plant in the front yard. It was becoming overgrown by dreadful lawn grass, and needed all the last years flower stalks trimmed back as well. The new garden kneeler/seat works well. Weeding this one plant is such a small thing to take me over an hour, but "proficere lente sed proficere"... I salvaged all the little leaf clusters from the pruned marjoram stems, and dried them in the dehydrator, so now my herb and spice shelf has a small jar with a tiny label "marjoram"

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I mixed up the dough for Nena's "chocolate crinkle cookies", which is cooling overnight in the fridge, so I will have treats to bring to the bike store boys... Tomorrow I will bake and the house will smell delightful.

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I've tried, but I still can't skip, though my body remembers the motions, it just remains earthbound. I can do the other thing, that is sort of like flying lead changes, but I can't skip. Maybe if I keep practicing, I will be able to again. There is hopping involved in actual skipping, and my legs don't want to do that .

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I cooked both the zucchini from the previous grocery order, some as roasted chunks, and some as long roasted wedges. This condensed them considerably. My intent is to make a tomato-y cheese-y bake from them, so I hope I have some tomato sauce in the pantry

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March SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	-	grey pinafore	art exchange
2	-	pruned marjoram	many dead weeds
3	-	-	-
4	-	-	-
5	-	-	-
6	x	x	-
7	x	x	x
8	x	x	x
9	x	x	x

today's gratitudes -
1. Ursula Vernon's book Swordheart just hit #5 on the NYT Bestseller List!
2. Rainbow heart chime in my pocket all day.
3. today I learned that hashtags are a thing on Blue Sky. I will use them, going forward...

Time of Isolation - Day 1691

proof of concept

in which our plucky heroine zooms along...

Sundays and Tuesdays are my most social of days, when I need to balance my time visiting in the pixel world well, and remember to eat in a timely way. Fortunately I've done well at making up meals, or parts of meals, ahead. Tonight's dinner had all the parts, being the remainder of my tiny meatloaf, some tasty mutual aid squash, and steamed bok choi.

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~ quite legible ~

I was concerned that the counterchanged dark/light would reduce the text to unreadable, so decided to do a more detailed iteration of my sketch, to test. Much to my pleasure, and as I have checked with various other folks as well that the words are easy to decipher, I can carve the block with confidence in the resulting print. Now to locate linoleum of the right size...  

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February SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	"wing it" vest	more broach handles	recycle bin
2	tiny valentines	black keyboard covers	recycle bin
3	heartfelt ornament	turtleneck collar	-
4	-	laptop drivers	-
5	-	rainbow fibulae	-
6	x	bucket handle	-
7	x	x	x
8	x	x	x
9	x	x	x

today's gratitudes -
1. Helga offered me a Costco run, which is sorely needed.
2. we now have nine folks in the Spring Art Exchange (I am so softhearted, when a message came today saying that they had all their pieces ready and could they mail them tomorrow, I had to say of course!)
3. My proof of concept drawing shows that the counterchanged text is very readable.

Time of Isolation - Day 1682

Friday fragments

in which our plucky heroine is full of designs...

and today I trust that my cold is really fully on the mend, as my energy is beginning to return. Since it was the last day for a while without rain, I chose to head over to Ikea for a most self-indulgent treat, a whimsical glowing Dala horse lamp. Which turned out to be a fairly frugal indulgence, since it was marked down to $7.99! It will make a good nightlight for the hallway here at Acorn Cottage

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~ believe ~

The random carousel that is my designerly brain tossed this image to me earlier this week as I was drifting off to sleep. I had to immediately leap out of bed and do a quick sketch, lest the concept be lost before the next day. This idea will become number 4 in my "Making Art For A Change" series...

I did three postcard size block prints back in 2020 and 2021 as the start of the series. My idea was to have folks contribute to a particular cause, and in exchange, I would mail them an art postcard. A sort of triangular good works... they get a bit of original sart and can deduct the donation, a good organisation gets some extra money, and I get to help facilitate more donation than I could on my own, by sharing my creativity

Back then I had folks donate to "Don't Shoot Portland" which was a black led group working for social justice, while PDX was in the middle of being occupied by police and paramilitary disruption because of the protests happening

Nowadays, there are so very many directions that are being damaged both on purpose and from inherent change to the planet I am a bit at a loss to suggest just one group... I have some time to think about it though

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I was surprised to find out that John D. MacDonald, known for the Travis McGee series, as well as other writings, wrote a book "The House Guests" about the two cats he lived with! I had no idea, and when it turned up in my Libby app in the "if you liked James Herriot we recommend these other books..." I was curious. Turns out that I have no cognitive issues with reading at all, I just get bored and DNF if the writing is poor. MacDonald is an excellent wordsmith and storyteller (I already knew this), and though I would not normally have put "cat biographies" as one of my preferred reading genres, it was a most enjoyable book.

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I'm wanting to rearrange various storage aspects here, but being stymied by lack of infrastructure, which has been a sore point for nigh on the last twenty years, ever since I moved here. Part of the solution is to discard or give away what is not being used, but for things that are in regular use, needs must to somehow rearrange current spaces and create some small cabinets or shelves to better use the easy-to-reach spaces towards the back of the countertops. Were I taller, the upper cabinets would be more accessible. As is, I can barely reach the back of the very lowest shelf, or the front of the next, so am forever folding and unfolding the stepladder.

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February SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	"wing it" vest	more broach handles	recycle bin
2	tiny valentines	black keyboard covers	recycle bin
3	heartfelt ornament	turtleneck collar	-
4	-	laptop drivers	-
5	-	rainbow fibulae	-
6	x	x	-
7	x	x	x
8	x	x	x
9	x	x	x

today's gratitudes -
1. Whilst zooming with Ursel, we somehow stumbled upon the whimsical Dala horse translucent light from Ikea
2. the self checkout attendant at Ikea was not helpful at all, but the customer service clerk was a gem... able to track down my venerable "Ikea Family" card, (issued before I had a mobile phone) and thereby saved me more than half the cost of my purchase (two Dala horses - one for me and one for a friend)
3. creative designing brain is conjuring up various possibilities for artwork as well as for small home improvements.
4. - Stef's surgery went well today, huzzah!!

Time of Isolation - Day 1680

Tuesday tidbits

in which our plucky heroine does assorted housey activity...

After an unsuccessful attempt to attach a hasp to the aluminium screen door using the included screws (which the store clerk assured me would work on metal as well as on wood, ummm nope!) I decided to give the Gorilla Glue construction adhesive a try. My reason for such a peculiar action in the first place is to try and create a weight based door closure, as the former spring loaded closure mechanism broke years ago. My hope is that some small eye bolts, some cordage, and a robust weight will serve the same function. The adhesive needs to set for at least 24 hours or more, so further efforts on this particular project will wait until Monday, though I may try out the same idea of the back screen door...

Next step in the bathroom trim project is to cut more of the mouldings to the correct lengths, and to glue shims to the pieces that must bridge the uneven portions of the wall. The craft/popsicle sticks will be ideal for this use, as I have many more of them than needed for miniatures.

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~ creativity challenge ~

first trial proof printing of new Making Art For A Change block... I'm right pleased with how well the fine details in the border printed. Actual size of the block is 2 3/4" x 4 1/2". Design is inspired by the 15th c "Black Hours" manuscripts.

I am not "selling" these, but rather these are part of my "Making Art For A Change" series. They are available to people who make a donation to Don't Shoot PDX, which is a 501c3 organisation doing a variety of social good in the community... There is little I myself can do to effect change, I cannot march, but I can make art. And by encouraging others to donate to those doing work in the community, hopefully some resources go where I would wish to see them allocated, (and those who donate can deduct their donation and get some handmade block printed art.)

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there were only these few, and they needed picked a bit early, as the rain this late causes splitting of the cloves if they are left to their own devices... but once I peeled away the dirt and outer layers, I have eight good sized garlics! (I've now cut away most of the long and slimy stems, and strung the garlic on cord to dry down a bit.

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beauty in the time of isolation:

This morning, before opening the kitchen window shades, the plant light was somehow making these complex patterns on the countertop as it shone through the cucumber starts, which are patiently waiting for me to get them in the ground outside...

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June SMART goals (x=extra)

#	THINGS MADE	THINGS FIXED	THINGS GONE
1	baby clutch ball	otterface needlebook	paper recycling
2	Nandina leather vest	cleaned iron soleplate	rogue garlic plants
3	baby blanket	dollar store mini table	yard waste bin
4	miniature sofa	single bulb garlic strings	recycling bin
5	Nandina Chinese food	repair broken bowl	-
6	garlic scape pickles	1 trim attached shower	x
7	6 mesh laundry bags	garlic pulled and strung	x
8	BLM print	x	x
9	x	x	x
10	x	x	x
11	x	x	x
12	x	x	x
13	x	x	x
14	x	x	x
15	x	x	x

today's gratitude - There were two people today that liked my blockprint #3 enough to make a donation. I will be packing those up and taking a bike ride to the post office later this week!