Monday, September 29, 2008

monday musings

Years ago, back in the mid '70s, when I was living on the other coast, my friends and I drove down from Greater Boston to New York City to see Patti Smith in concert in Central Park. We spent most of the day at The Cloisters before heading down to the concert that evening. Whilst wandering around in the blogosphere, I found that The Cloisters now has a gardening blog: The Medieval Garden Enclosed Thought that all my historically interested friends might be interested, looks to have an interesting set of articles so far, with useful references for further research...
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I'm actually doing it, spent a big chunk of my weekend starting to "build" an Etsy storefront: The Artisanry of Acorn Cottage. While the web layout and suchlike is all pre-set, and some friends reassured me of how easy it all is, I find that writing descriptions of my own work, and 'specially writing about myself, is difficult. This week calls for much time doing photography, so that I can have images to show the goods I have for sale, so far all that is up is my little emery acorns, but I plan to have various sewing tools, small earrings and tiny pendants, and the toys and tiny treasures that I so love to make ...
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Sorted through two of the myriad boxes of randomised papers'n'junk that clutter my back room. Found two of the Important Lost things on my list of missing objects, hooray! Now I have a small pile of papers to be filed, a large sack of paper for recycling, and a modest stack of papers to be shredded. (must find friend with shredder)
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Tuesday, September 23, 2008

monday musings and maunderings

Autumn is here. Time to take down the canvas roof from the front of Acorn Cottage; there should be few if any days now where sunwarmth in the front window will be excessive. The days are now, happily, cooler. This weekend, during an impulsive trip to Powells, there was a spell of very intense rain, glad I was to be indoors just then, and waited, browsing the books, 'till the squall passed....

Saturdays teaparty was curiously progressive in the temporal rather than the political sense. Only a few at a time showed up, which allowed for nice visity-talky, and over the afternoon a pleasant number of friends had come by. Rois and Chance brought over their former living room chairs, to be given a good home here. I feel so "grownup" now with a pair of matching chairs; they are small, in scale with my home, and look like a cross between Norse medieval and mid-century modern. When Bill stopped by yesterday, he commented on how Scandinavian they look, very Carl Larsson...

Chance also helped attach the Ikea shelf unit to the wall in the back bedroom, which is destined to hold stacks and stacks of fabric. It fits very nicely there, and will work even better once I get a sewing table to fit underneath, which will allow me to stop using the living room as my sewing room...

After teaparty time, we four who remained (Ian, Karyn, Jess and I) went over the river to have a tasty sushi dinner. Nothing better than an afternoon of visiting followed by more visiting sushi... Mmmm crunchy crispy dead baby cephalopods on rice...
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Aaarg I hate it when I accidentally tap the wrong key and all my writing disappears
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Sunday morning, on a quick trip to a "collectibles" market with Rafny I found a circular wooden "pipesmokers" rack that fits nicely on the workbench lazy susan. Now all my pliers have a home!

As I'd mentioned, Bill stopped by on his way back north, ofter dropping off the huge coronet and caps-o-maintenance shebang with the clients. I was glad to hear that they were very happy with the results of all our hard work. Bill and I chatted about projects, and teaching, briefly, then he left to go home, and I went back to my worm bin bag project. I found the plans online here. Spent the rest of Monday building the contraption, I hope my pet worms will like it. The worm-home fits easily in my tiny kitchen, and being closer to the food prep area will make dealing with the compostables simple. There was only one error in the plan supply list, you need more cordage than they call for; a bit of a pain, but not critical. I think that I can do a better job of patterning for the fabric cone that holds the worms, rather than a flat pair of triangles, I think a four-panel construction would fit the framework more neatly, and give a smoother 3-D cone-shape. Must acquire a bit more Ecospun felt and try it out...

This afternoon I wanted to see if I could get over to the Multnomah Art Center to find out about teaching possibilities. Turns out that Multnomah Village is just one bus ride away, about an hour, but no transfers. Along the way I saw the famous Voodoo Doughnuts, and later Food Front (the co-op here I hadn't seen yet, I'll need to go check it out another day, now that I know where it is).

On the way home I stopped at the Rebuilding Center, and found enough narrow flat molding bits to start working on the chalkboard project. Yup, I'm going to put chalkboard on the walls in the workroom, will be useful for teaching, and general note making, memory jogging, picture sketching goodness. I love chalkboards. When I went to Paris, I brought home two doorknobs and a child's chalkboard as souvenirs. You knew I was weird, but how many folks go to a hardware store in Paris? Even my family thought it was pretty weird, but they humored me...

Saturday, September 20, 2008

stupid dog!!

Just got back inside from feeding the hens, and Smokey had managed to eat a good sized chunk of the cake I baked last night for the tea party! Me mad...she hasn't eaten stuff off the countertops since she has a puppy. Me worried...cake was a chocolate cake. Quick, call friend who was formerly vet-tech...she isn't home. Oh yeah, the internet...google dog chocolate toxicity...
sweet cocoa---------0.3 oz per lb of body weight
baking chocolate----0.1 oz per lb of body weight
Quickly do the math, 1/2 c cocoa in cake, she ate about a sixth of the cake, therefore about 1 1/2 Tablespoons, therefore about a little more than 0.5 oz. Smokey weighs 95 pounds. Whew! she is probably not in danger of chocolate poisoning.

Me frazzled...I have no cake for my guests. Must go clean up the kitchen and start more baking. And there I was so organised, getting the baking done last night...Sigh

Tea party later today