Joy in the little things

I had a bill to bring to the mailbox.  My dog, Daphne, which is a speck in the road in this picture as she runs up towards Grandma's house, was reluctant to go out in the cold at all.  So, I brought the bill up by myself the first time, and she stayed at home.  When I saw that I had a movie to go out, as well, I remembered the beauty of the frost melting in the grasses, and grabbed the camera.  Daphne came with me that time, and still grumbled about the cold, but was more on board for walkies once I had already been up there once.  In dog language, that means there are more things to sniff.

I was using the little camera, the one that isn't super-sharp and microscopic, but the shimmering still shines through.  And as I walked back home, I was rocking to Great Big Sea's 'till Everything Shines'... one of the songs I listened to a few days ago when I had the migraine.


(lyrics to Great Big Sea 'Everything Shines')

Hey, come this May
We'll be runnin' in the sun again
Your time will come
You're just a young broken heart
And I'm sleepin' in the yard
How could you be so dumb?

All we losers stand in line
Just waiting for our time
Broken angel take that plane
And finger paint the sky till everything shines
Everything shines
Everything shines
Everything shines

well.. not the best of lyrics there in the middle... although the first part is pretty resonant with this year. Check out their video on YouTube, with the melody it kind of sticks like a dart.

day in Jackson, dentist, mandolin

We've had a long day to Jackson and back.  Esme had a dental appointment, and she gets very anxious.. but she did well.  And we're 'ok' with the exam for the next 6 months!  She has a tooth growing in 'over' a baby tooth but they think it will all work out okay... if not, then we will look at it again then.

We got some balsawood planes at the hobby store (and yes, I got a bit of yarn), and Mark and Esme made them to fly at home.  Esme and I went out in the sunshine and took some pics.  The sarvis is blossoming now, and there is some little moss on the cedar wood with red flowers.

We stopped into a music store and Esme bought a harmonica, and I bought a mandolin that was priced at such a deal!  I had one twenty years ago and I never got to do much with it - now I've downloaded a tuner on my tablet and am trying to learn the chords.  Esme has a recorder (like a flute) coming in the mail on Friday.  She wanted a musical hobby - and she asked to stop at the music store to see flutes, but they didn't have any this time of year.  She did buy a harmonica.

 

  

 

And I moved some of the bricks we still had to check the measurements for tomorrow's project.

grounded and floating bits

Esme and I walked up to the school bus stop this morning.  It is still raining, it has been off and on for a week or so.. but we saw where the lilies are starting to try to come up - I guess that must be what they are, and we planned to look for a place to put the Love in a Mist seeds we got free last year and never planted.  They say 'when ground can be worked at earliest point in spring, plant in well-drained soil'.  Mark suggested up there would be a good place, high up enough on the hill they might come back year after year.  We scoped out where we might put sunflowers later.

I came back and went into the main garden and uncovered the sticks and leaves off of the oregano.  I took a pinch of it in my thumb and forefinger and scored it so I could get a good smell of it.  It is so strong right now because the leaves are new.

I met the wild chicken halfway back from the garden and she is trying to live in the doghouse in the rain, the one I packed full of extra straw last fall.  Not a terrible place for a chicken, close enough to the house bad things probably would be worried about cats and dogs and the goat nearby.  I gave her some food scattered in the dry areas under the tree.  She walked within three feet of me to eat - so she has been having a hard time the past few days getting enough if she came that close to get the food I was throwing.  'Wild' means she runs at the sight of you - and doesn't come within six feet of you unless she has a reason.

The floating bits.
I found a great deal on  an item that could be our room divider.  We talked about that project but it seemed too expensive for something we didn't need right now.  Then it fell in my lap at ten dollars - so I get to pick that up after the rain dries up and hopefully we will find a way to install it over the next few months.

I've bound off the blanket and am tying in the ends.
Laundry, huge piles of laundry.
I need to get a bit more sleep.. but it is hard to go back to sleep for an hour or so only to get right back up.. there are so many things that could be done in an hour... like laundry... like planning ...

Someday this year I need to get the novel out and read it again, and see the next step.  I had thoughts about Paul and Isabel in the time rift and I never thought them through much because it entirely changes the story of Brian and Ingrid that was where I started... Ingrid and Paul are siblings.. and Paul has been lost since they were little more than children....the 'piece of Ingrid' he took with him, that makes her distant still.. I was going to turn that into a key but I never got there.  I need to brainstorm on paper but I never end up doing it more than just in my head.  It's been something like four years running and this  story seems to add to itself when I'm not looking but hardly ever when I actually WANT to make progress with it.  Even the title keeps feeling false.. like someday it will pop into my head and I'll know it is true, but it hasn't happened yet, so I just keep calling it the Magpie story in my head when really that is just Ingrid's nickname, and the story is so much more.

I wanted to read the Auster book again before I started.  I just remembered that was the kickpoint last time.  Something was reminding me of that book.. I bought it, read a few chapters but then got sucked into something else.  It's a slim volume.  In the Cities of Coin and Spice by  Valente made me think of the Auster book, which made me think of the writing project, which made me run in mental circles ruminating on what it was that I was trying to coalesce...

I should investigate a light for over the washing machine, even a stickup one... Esme forgot her necklace in her pants pocket last night and I had to dig through the wet clothes mid cycle with her to find it.  It was almost stuck around the washing machine agitator and was stuck partially in one of the holes in the bottom of the wash-basin... hard to get it out but we managed and it didn't even break.  So hard to see in there, though.

Made four mood playlists on my music... Deep, Rise, Bang and Scrape.   I need one more, a shortened group of Rise and Bang to make something like Fly.  I'm looking forward to getting my favorite song in the mail to add in.  I used to listen on Spotify and put those all in but after they became subscriber or you don't see anything at all (instead of subscribe not to see ads), I haven't been back.

Stage four fish painting

I've got to let this layer of color dry before I can go back in and define the tyes more and the scales.. just a bit of shading started... Esme has been at me for days about when I will finally start to paint the fish.. so I took a bit of time today.  I meant really to just go down there and start to sketch in my notebook about the colors  - but then I dove right in with the paint anyway without making a single sketch.  The top one is a bit dull, but I saw a gold scaled one with highlights I'd like to try to work with.. and maybe some actual gold flake paint as well.

Listening to Seven Nations... they are gifted musicians.  Sometimes their lyrics are a bit lacking, but they go off on these wonderful multi-instrument joyful 'tirades' again and again.. and that is amazing to listen to.

Reading Fingersmith.. vicious, terrible... I'm not sure where I got that recommendation from.. but I'll finish it out.  Mark said he saw me visibly shudder a few times reading it.

Also working on the yarn.. bought something on clearance that will make another good acrylic washable rug for Esme's room.  It is a chunky green yarn that will work up quick and let me rotate them out a bit. 

bit o bits

Still reading 'The Other Language' by Francesca Marciano.  Some of the stories are sweet, most are tragic and leave you with a sense of 'other' but 'why' at the same time... I'm not sure why I'm still pushing on through it, because it is very different probably, and the whole reason of the book is to show how all of these people change - some slowly, some drastically (and not all for the better) when they encounter a new language that separates them from something, then joins them to something, and then many of them (but not all) play a balancing game between wins and loss, change and stability, progress and regression.  I've got at least four other library books that are waiting on the queue on my Kindle..

I'm waiting on a book - Paul Auster's 'In the Country of Last Things' to come in the mail.  And a CD (used buy), Seven Nations... something I used to listen on Spotify discover back when that was free.  Both of these I bought with my survey-taking rewards... hoping I like the other songs on the CD... 'Under the Milky Way' is the one that earwormed back into my brain while I was working freight the other day - an echo from years ago.. a little piece on repeat - not even full lyrics, just the 'shape' of the sounds, then trying to catch that bit and 'taste' what song that was from, turning it over in my mind like pieces of a tangible wooden puzzle.. then suddenly remembering it and really wanting to turn up the volume and hear the whole thing again enveloping my eyes and skin until it reminds me why it has become a part of me.

I have an hour before I need to put Esme to bed.. I've started her on the early routine again.  She doesn't like it, but she isn't digging her heels in and making a terrible face as much as she did the first night.  And I'm getting her up twice during the night.  I think there is some anxiety about back to school happening.

I didn't work much on the new painting - we did grocery shopping tonight and I didn't want to get into it when I had so much to read and I knew one dip of mixing one color to fill in one space would probably be two hours.  I'm tired enough to nap now, but staying up an hour until it is 9:30.  Maybe I could do a sketch... colored pencils aren't half as addictive as paint that is one more dab before it dries, one more drop before that color is gone, one more dab, etc etc.. in repetition.

bits drawing with a Micron again

Drew this from a stock photo of a Swedish farmhouse with a stone wall in front of it.  I had a lot of fun putting the little garden out front and doing the ornate gate (which there was one in the photo, but not quite like this) and the cat overlooking it.  I'm not sure if I'll add color - although my brain already sees turquoise in the curtains and that the house was red with white trim and a red roof.

Drew this with a Sakura Micron 0.5 black pen, one of the ones in my set, and the favorite width I would always buy in the art store.  My hand will probably hurt some from all the little leaves - but they were worth it. 

I've been listening to Fortune's Favor by Great Big Sea all day... although as I finished the last of the drawing I switched back over to Something Beautiful.  Mark was kind to put all of the new music on my portable player :)

Also went out and planted the hollyhock roots to the sides of the daffodils in the perennial garden.  I'm not sure how well they'll do, but it was worth a try.  My mother always had beautiful hollyhocks - but the weather was cooler up there and they don't like the heat.  We'll see. 

Esme cleaned the hamster cage today, and is trying to build a 'car' for the hamster ball to go in. 

I thought I might write a bit in my journal about what I remember about my grandmother's family from stories I had heard.  I still don't know for certain about the orphanage in Owatonna and don't even know my great grandmother's first name because of the records being sketchy from that.. do know her father's name so it should be findable... I'm sure the info is out there if I dig some more.  But, I'll hope to write down what I remember hearing in case I never get any more info and I'm the last one who remembers any of it at all...

Guitar

Esme loves her 'instruments' - which have been a toy flute and a xylophone. She was obsessed with the idea of a guitar a few weeks ago (a pink guitar - if I remember correctly) and Grandma and Daddy found this in a closet at her house. She is working on figuring it out - and although I have shown her a youtube video of someone playing a guitar she says 'that man hold the guitar no no no I am too little I need to GROW'. She is working out how to make sounds she likes, and just basically mash on it as it is missing a string and the tuning buttons won't stay put. This one can teach her some things before we decide if we will get her one her size later.

I am off to the garden to see how many vines broke tying them up yesterday. The tomatoes were a terrible mess... and a lot of the Romas were rotting just because of their own vine weight.

Esme has school this afternoon and I need to bring her in and bathe her and brush hair before we go, too. Then she is off school until next Tuesday. I am off work today and tomorrow. That will be nice!

Survey

Survey please! : So - for my shop for Easter should I make... Lots more little handheld rabbits... Some hopkin frogs... or a few of the new rabbits? (still needs some work) What do you think? Help me decide please!

Of course, I could continue making a little of each, since Easter is in April. I'm also getting hit daily in my search results for kangaroos and sloths.. go figure ;o) Maybe I'll do a few batches of them after Easter.

Working on the second knit dishcloth for my mom's birthday present. I have a little chunk of strawberry soap to put in with it. We have new Primus albums and Beethoven's Creatures of Prometheus playing on the overhead stereo in a random mix, and 'The Dark Crystal' and 'The Neverending Story' to watch this weekend.