Category: Personal

Happy Birthday, Robin!!

Some of these things are new, and some got relearned. 

1. If you have an indoor/outdoor cat, don’t get too attached. Nature is just out your door, and it is brutal and wild. Bye-bye, Samson, the bitey Bengal boy. Still, we think it is better to let a cat be a cat instead of trapping it inside.
2. If you don’t have a cell phone, it is harder to order from Amazon. They want you to sign in, receive a call and then sign in a second time with a code that comes through the phone. This doesn’t work when you are at your mom’s house, wanting to order something for her. Still, I think it is better to not have a cell phone.
3. The Blackwing Colors colored pencil set of 12 can be used to obtain almost as many colors (via layering) as either Polychromos or Prismacolor sets of 120 colors. Score another point for simplicity!
4. There is a very fine upholstery and wood-working shop in downtown Visalia called Quality Upholstering. I’d heard of them because they have been there 40 years!! They do great work with quick turnaround, and are a pleasure to deal with. 
5. Lifesource Water Systems is The Answer To Bad Water from your household tap. Why did we wait so long to deal with the excessive chlorine?? Don and Shelley Lovelace have the franchise in Fresno and they are a pleasure and a delight to work with.
6. I am more vain than I thought. A stranger referred to me as a “blonde”. My hair is brown, but the gray in it was deceptive to the stranger. I thought this would never enter my mind, but I have been considering hiding the gray.
7. The History Chicks is an excellent way to learn some history. This is a podcast with 2 women telling the stories of various women, just talking as women do. Eavesdrop and learn (and they DON’T CUSS!)
8. I learned how to make a secret book safe – it was harder than I expected. You can see the instructions here: Little Vintage Cottage. 
9. As a bonus to #8, I learned how to make ModPodge. What is this? It is 1 cup white glue with 1/3 cup water, sold as a specialty craft product, but not at the local hardware store. (We used it in the 1970s to decoupage cut up posters onto grape trays; this was an important decorating skill.)
10. There is a little battery pack charger thing. . . a friend jump-started my car from this little dealie, which put the stereo in a coma and temporarily disabled the automatic locking system (or maybe that was the dead battery). But, it was so compact and handy! (My amazing mechanic, since 1983, Mark at Foreign Auto Works in Visalia got everything repaired and I got a new battery.)
11. The definition of middle-aged is 45-65, according to The Google. Who cares? A friend my age (58) and I had quite a discussion about it. She insisted we were old, and I was certain we are still middle-aged. Again, who cares? It was an interesting discussion, and caused me to think about the differences in our lives that give us differing views. She is a grandmother, has no living parents, lives in a college town in a wealthy area, to name a few; I am not a parent nor a grandparent, have a mom who is doing quite well (thank you for your concern), and live in the 3rd poorest and 13th least educated county in the state. Those things all influence one’s perspective.

1. By the Book is a fun podcast by two women friends who pick a self-help book, read it, follow it for 2 weeks, and report about it in 2 episodes. They either do or do not recommend the book to their listeners. Then they tell what the next book will be. WARNING: They cuss a lot!!
2. Did you know a crown on a tooth costs $1232. I learned this in December. Ow.
3. I’ve been wearing contacts for 42 years and just learned that the reason for 2 pair of lenses is to rotate them. I thought the 2nd pair was to be stored in case of loss. 
4. I pretend that my advanced drawing students have to bully me into teaching oil painting, but in December I realized how very enjoyable these workshops are for everyone, including me.
5. My website looks out of date. Do I care? Do you? Finding a webdesigner who is responsive, careful, doesn’t want to change platforms, knows how to install and operate a shopping cart, can preserve my almost 10 years of blogging, and who can teach me how to maintain my site is a very daunting task. I’ve had two very wonderful designers, and each one quit for the sake of their children. Here I go again.
6. Not everyone can listen to and feel music. While being heavily involved in a Christmas musical, this came as a new piece of information to me. I thought anyone could learn music by listening, and just know without being told exactly when to start after hearing the introduction. I learned that this just isn’t so.
7. After a year without a cell phone, I know now that I truly don’t need a cell phone. 
8. I read over 100 books this year. I learned that by keeping the list on my GoodReads account that I don’t feel the need to put the best ones on my blog. Does anyone care?
9. People don’t notice earrings. Many times I deliberately wore a mismatched pair just to test my theory, and no one noticed.
10. Blue is out of style in home decorating. I bought denim to recover the armchair because there were no other navy-type blue fabrics. None!
11. Wax-based colored pencils by Blackwing are stronger than the ones made by Prismacolor. Too bad they only come in 12 colors.

Did you learn anything in December? Want to share? Comment or email me. . .

1. The fall time change is so much easier than the spring one, but it still makes me tired to have my internal chronometer jerked around.
2. There are more ways to measure the success of a show than by the $ I earn. Reconnecting with old friends, meeting other artisans, talking to people who might become drawing students–all very rewarding. (I already knew this but it was reinforced in November.)
3. I found a new podcast that really holds my attention. Its tagline is “for the curious mind with a short attention span”. It is by Mike Rowe, the “Dirty Jobs” guy with a fabulous voice. My favorite episode so far is “It is good to be the king”, which he published in July of 2017.
4. In reading The Pencil Perfect by Caroline Weaver of C. W. Pencil Enterprise, I am learning all sorts of history about pencils. Did you know that Henry David Thoreau’s family had a pencil manufacturing business? 
5. Did you know it takes 7 yards of upholstery fabric to cover an armchair? I learned this; next I hope to learn how to choose and buy fabric without actually going to town.
6. By being an organ donor, one life can save eight lives. Remember, souls go to heaven; organs don’t. (My friend is waiting for a pair of new lungs.)
7. Almost no one gets married in churches anymore. Almost every wedding, reunion, and public event has an audio system and a DJ that is deafening. I keep earplugs with me, but when I forget, it is stunning to me that no one else seems to mind the noise level. Are people not supposed to converse? Is this because so many people just communicate by texting that it doesn’t matter?