Fifty-two

Last week one of my preschoolers wanted to know how old I was.  I told him I was old.  I was sooooo old that I couldn't remember how old I was.  Well, that didn't fly.  He looked at me with a great deal of skepticism and said, "Nuh uh!"  I relented and told him I was fifty-two.

About this time another child, who was avidly listening to this conversation contributes this little nugget--"Teacher, you aren't old!"  Then she moved on to the really important stuff..."I'm five!"  she reported, showing me five fingers, in case I didn't get it.

This little conversation started me thinking.  What if we all were to consider our age a matter of great pride?  We have managed to live to be five, fifteen, thirty-five, fifty!  What if instead of bemoaning our age--which we can't do anything about anyway--we were to celebrate it?  What if we used our birthday as a time to look back over the year and see all the things we accomplished?

Guess what?  I'm fifty-two!!!!!  I'm still married twenty-nine years later to my first husband...I bought a new camera and am learning to use it.  I learned how to blog!!!  I paid off another debt!  I tried vegan cooking!  It doesn't matter what we decide to do, we just need to continue learning new things, or maybe just being excited about the old things we know.  Or how about doing new things with our old knowledge.  I learned how to crochet dishclothes!  I started a new exercise routine--Zumba!  Whatever...just pick something.

Internet Experiment

I recently read on a friend's facebook that baking soda and peroxide mixed into a paste make a very good cleaner.  So--being the chemistry student who mixed all the chemicals to see what would happen--I tried it.  I happened to have both baking soda and hydrogen peroxide in the house at the same time.

I got my husband's popcorn popper.  We have one of the old-fashioned ones that you use on the stove and turn a little handle.  We have managed to kill several of the fancy electric poppers and so are back to a basic one which we hope will last a long time.  Anyway, it hasn't been cleaned since it entered the kitchen (I don't think) and was covered with a dark, greasy residue.

I covered it with baking soda and then squeezed hydrogen peroxide onto the baking soda.  There was none of the bubbling that I get when I combine vinegar and baking soda.  I let it sit for a while and then began to clean it off. 

For a non-toxic cleaner it works quite well.  However, it ONLY works if one applies copious amounts of elbow grease.  It doesn't appear to make everything wash off by magic--it requires major scrubbing.  I'm not sure it's any better than vinegar and baking soda.  It may not smell quite as wild as vinegar and baking soda does.

And here's my little experiment for today--frosted blossoms with sugar frit and my own headpins.

The headpins are made from rubino, light violet, and medium blue transparent effetre glass.  Since I'm still experimenting, I used a 20 gauge black annealed steel wire for the headpins.

The Lost Word

Choose a word for 2013.  I didn't.  I'm not much for New Year's Resolutions and this sounded a little like resolutions to me.  However, my word had other ideas.  It chose me.  So I had my word...it came to me while I was washing dishes...

This is easy, I thought.  I have a word.  I can do this.  Three months into the new year and I began to feel like Jane of Jane of Lantern Hill fame.  I had a word; I knew I had a word, but it was buried under all the debris of accumulated daily living.  I simply couldn't find my word.  "Create"--that's all fine, but I could barely decide what to fix for supper, never mind create.

So I made cookies...black and whites...from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar...and they were good!

Then spring started to arrive.

The apricot started to bud and then to bloom.  All that promise.  I could see the jars of jam and almost taste the apricot pineapple pie...All that promise gone in one cold night even though we built the tree a small fire.  I may still get enough apricots for a pie...I always hope.

And then Spring Break came and I got oxygen at long last.

I think that perhaps I am becoming reacquainted with my word.  The ivory beads are ivory with small pieces of silver leaf and encased in clear.  I didn't completely melt the silver off before I encased it because I wanted some of the sparkle to remain.

And finally there are these recycled earrings.  These have my very first attempt at making my own headpins.  Since I was experimenting I used black annealed steel wire (and also because that was what the store had available).  Making headpins is quite fun.  I just have to discover how to get my wire straighter and how long to cut it so I don't scorch my fingers when working with it. 

Today I decided to rearrange the studio.  It is crammed with paraphenalia from the bathroom remodel and seriously getting on my nerves (or maybe my LAST nerve).  Anyway, I got the bright idea that it needed to be rearranged.  So I did...I am quite certain that this was NOT my best idea.  But since it was a lot of work, it will remain this way for a while...at least a month.

I think that I am starting to live in the spirit of creativity again.

Has It Really Been a Month?

March.  What can I say about March?  I did have a lovely birthday.  I would say it was uneventful, but the cake we baked was an experiment and in the nature of experiments everywhere didn't quite cooperate.  The ganache refused to thicken in time and the final result--although tasty--was not lovely to look at.  We had made a peanut butter torte with cream cheese frosting and a chocolate peanut butter ganache.

We are still embroiled in bathroom remodelling.  This is likely to take some time as we are only buying materials as we have the actual money.

Spring break will be next week and I still have to get some oxygen for my torch.  I do not intend to go the entire vacation without taking some time to melt glass.

I'm hoping that the weather will cooperate long enough for me to get the early seeds into the ground.  I'm really wanting some fresh spinach and lettuce.

The laundry dryer has also decided to do its part in adding to the general chaos by burning out its heating element.  It still turns and blows air; however, it is cold air and takes all day to dry anything.  We have retaliated by drying things for about an hour and then hanging them to dry the rest of the way.  So far, it is working quite well.  It will go even better when it is a little warmer and a little less prone to drop rain without notice.

The Greys

The weather continues to be mostly grey.  This is only relevant because grey weather causes ALL my motivation to go into extended hibernation.  All I want to do is eat chocolate and read frothy, insubstantial books.  However, even a visit to a bookstore yesterday left me uninspired and I left without buying a single book.

The bathroom remodel continues.  The ruined sheetrock has been removed--and surprise of surprises--and all fit into the trash can.  Now to return the new faucet that is missing hardware and get that installed.

Our white shepherd, Polar, is not feeling well this week.  She has been getting me up at 3:00 a.m.  Unfortunately, not before she has an accident.  So my brain is foggy from lack of sleep and the most ridiculous dreams imaginable...I have been forcing myself to exercise, remembering that I usually get a better energy boost from exercising than from sleeping longer.

This morning I grabbed the moisturizer instead of my saline to put in my contacts.  Fortunately, I caught myself before I actually used it.

February Fun

I've been suffering through the February "blahs"!  I also seem to have misplaced my brain.  So the picture that was going to go with this blog, is at home--in the camera, and not downloaded...

I haven't been able to work with glass much--being about to run out of oxygen, so I've been immersed in other creative endeavors.

Yesterday I made NYC Black & Whites (from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar).  Very good and very photogenic...picture to come later.  I consider baking to be a creative endeavor.

I had an unexpected day off work, so I finished my bulletin board in my studio and sewed some more on a summery top.  The rationale being that perhaps I can have it completed in time for warm weather.

Then I figured out that if I only crochet two rows each day, I can have the body of my afghan completed in 53 days...as opposed to the over ten years that it took me to finish the last afghan I made.  Now if I will only crochet the two rows every day...I've been feeling a little tired and haven't gotten as much done as I would like.  The sun is shining today and that is always good for driving away fatigue.

I have my lettuce, spinach, radishes, carrot, and snow pea seeds purchased, located and ready to go in the ground.  If it stays nice I should be able to get them all planted this weekend.

The Best Laid Plans

I had all these grand plans of what I was going to accomplish and get done.  Ha! Now I must do something else.

Several years ago the hall bathroom shower began to leak.  Naturally, we had no money to fix it, so we all simply started using the shower in the master bath.  Recently we have been busily paying off debt and actually developing a savings account. (Yes, this is relevant...)

The master bath shower has always also leaked--somewhere.  It never leaked a lot and I could never actually discover where it was leaking, no matter how many times I pried off the plumbing access panel and had a look.  We knew we were going to have to repair this shower as well.  However, the entire bathroom is a 1970's relic (nightmare) and we really want to gut the bathroom and the walk-in closet and combine the space to make a more useable bathroom.  We were hoping that we would have enough money actually set aside to devote to remodeling before we had to start.

For some reason the master bath shower has decided to increase its leakage.  I still have no idea what is actually leaking.  But I can no longer deny that the leaking has become very serious.  We now have water damage to the floor in the bedroom!  And the bathroom floor has become rather warped.  And I'm sure that it isn't really desireable to have mushrooms growing around the bathtub.  Next, I imagine that the entire bathtub will simply crash through the floor.  Oh, and did I mention that we certainly do not have enough money saved to do any bathroom remodeling at this time?

However, demolition doesn't cost anything whatsoever.  So we have started to tear apart the first leaky shower.  The shower doors are now resting in state on the bed in my studio.  The fiberboard that someone actually thought would be waterproof is now in the process of being removed.  The good news is that the underlying sheetrock is not as water-damaged as we first thought. 

We do have a time-line for getting the first shower repaired.  First, we have to get it done before the one we're using DOES fall through the floor.  Secondly, and perhaps most importantly we have about three weeks before the early spring season hits and Kent is much too busy to do any home repairs.