Category: Thoughts

1. There is something called “Allergic Pneumonitis” that you can get from breathing the dust of certain tree bark and sawdust. I learned this the hard way.
2. When bad things happen, such as Allergic Pneumonitis, the best question is “What does this make possible?” What it made possible was uninterrupted time for me to work on my new website. Not ready yet, but I sure have been learning how to operate new computery things behind the scenes.
3. Roundworm makes kittens have round bellies. (You are welcome.)
4. Manx cats are an unnatural, human perpetuated “breed” of cat. There are “stumpies” with a stub of a tail, and “rumpies” with no stub whatsoever. Sometimes they happen by accident; sometimes breeders try to create these creatures. The “rumpies” often are undeveloped in many critical body parts. I’ve heard that when cats are born this way without either parent being like this, that it has to do with malnourishment in the womb. Whatever it is, I won’t be making the mistake of choosing such a creature again. Sigh.
5. One of the best memoirs I have read in awhile is Educated by Tara Westover. WOW and WOW. I must have learned something. Mostly I was completely captivated by her courage, toughness, fantastic writing, and brilliant mind.
6. Maeve Binchy has been my favorite novelist for many years (I named a cat after her). In May I discovered Monica McInerney, whose characters are as complete and stories are as engrossing as Maeve’s. (The only drawback is that she treats sex like a spectator sport. With paper books, unlike audio books, one can flip past the parts that don’t enhance the storyline.) Family Baggage might be the best I’ve read of hers so far.
7. Lots of successful people listen to talks over and over by people like Zig Ziglar, Og Mandino, and Brian Tracy, all motivational speakers who help people set and make goals. I learned from one of those guys that “We become what we think about”, and that we have to write down goals and read them every day and think about them. But what I really learned is that I am fairly goalless, just drifting along on auto pilot. This is a topic for further exploration in another blog post down the road.
8. Ever heard of “bullet coffee”? I have no idea why it is called this. People put coconut oil or butter in their coffee, sometimes running it through a blender. I had no idea why they would do this, since I am still stuck with one foot in the land of Fat-Is-Bad. But I learned that the fat slows down the caffeine in one’s system. Hmmm, why isn’t it called “time release coffee”? 

   

   P.S. I forgot my resolution to show my paintings regularly, so I’ll start again now.

1. If you don’t know how to tell a sheep from a goat, remember this: goat tails go up, sheep tails go down. (You are welcome – I’m sure this will be useful information to you at some time in your life.)
2. Glazed ceramics are porous- who knew? We have this pretty bottle for dish soap sitting on the kitchen window sill. Trail Guy kept telling me that the outside of the bottle was slippery with soap, and I just couldn’t understand how that could be. Then one morning I saw what was happening:Soap is seeping through the almost invisible cracks in the glaze. Weird.
3. Flying in a helicopter is magical. I always thought it was fun (except for that med-evac off Sawtooth when I was 16), but now I am convinced it is magical, EVEN WITH THE DOORS OFF! MAGICAL!

   

4. If you make yogurt from scratch and use store-bought vanilla yogurt for the starter instead of leftover yogurt from your previous batch, it is REALLY good. (Yeah, I know, who makes their own yogurt?*)
5. The place where the Dodgers play is called Chavez Ravine. No reason I should know this because this is a house of Giants fans (well, really only one, since I’m fairly indifferent to sports). Never heard of this until April when I drove past it and my sister, wife of a Dodgers fan, asked me to photograph it as we were passing AND a friend of mine was the recipient of the Dodgers make-a-wish type deal and mentioned Chavez Ravine. (No one in my life who loves the Dodgers reads my blog, so I could take this opportunity to really jab at them. But, as I mentioned, I am fairly indifferent to sports, so I’ll let the moment pass.)
6. I’ve been doing Roman numerals wrong. I thought you could put smaller numbers to the left to subtract, but that only is acceptable on the number 9. So, 9 is IX, but 14 is XIIII. I think IXV is more efficient, but someone else made the rules. (I am taking the word of someone smarter and more educated than I am, but I haven’t consulted The Google yet.)
7. UPDATE ON ROMAN NUMERALS: Only 4 and 9 use the “subtractive notation”. 4 is IV; 9 is IX. This means that 14 is XIV, not XIIII. So, I was right about smaller symbols on the left, but I did it the wrong way. I wonder how many of my painting series are numbered incorrectly?

*Me, that’s who. I make my own bread too. No, I don’t drive a Prius. . . they don’t come in stick. Besides, how smart is it to pay $30,000 for a car just to save some gas money? And what happens to the old battery when it is time to buy a new one? And doesn’t the making of the electricity to charge the battery have a more negative effect on the environment than burning gasoline?

This month’s items don’t have anything to do with art or my art business, but they are all interesting to me and I hope they will be to you too.

1. The 5 Second Rule by Mel Robbins says we have to parent ourselves because we will NEVER feel like doing the difficult or unpleasant things. Our brains only have two speeds – auto-pilot and emergency brake. We want to do what is comfortable, and the minute we begin something not auto-pilotish, our brains pull the E-brake. Self-parenting is when we tell ourselves to do it anyway, to think about the long-term results. That’s what I do to make myself paint when I’d rather be drawing. Do you parent yourself?
2. Crocs are coming back in style. What? They were out of style? I’ve only had mine for about 3 years, and apparently I was 7 years behind when I discovered them to be the perfect shoe for my weird little cube-like feet. Do you wear Crocs?
3. Amy Dickinson wrote one of the best memoirs I have ever read, Strangers Tend to Tell Me Things. I rank it with my two other favorite memoirs: Mennonite in a Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen and The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. Do you have any favorite memoirs?
4. “The Road Back To You” is the podcast (and book) from which I learned about the Enneagram. Now Ian Cron has another podcast called “Typology”, which is more about the Enneagram. Fascinating topic, and also the most relevant personality typing information I’ve encountered. Have you learned about the Enneagram yet?
5. Nobody want a Nordic Track ski machine. A friend listed mine on the local Facebook Trading Post at $50/ OBO and we’ve had NO responses. Are you interested in this exercise machine? I will ALWAYS choose taking a walk over doing something repetitious inside.
6. A friend told me this: all of the music we call Negro Spirituals can be played on only the black keys of the piano. (Say what? How did people without pianos know which notes were the black ones??) The slaver John Newton picked up the melody of “Amazing Grace” from the Africans in the hold of his ship, and after he repented, he put words to it. When I learned this, I went to the piano to try this theory and sure enough, if you start on D-flat, you can play the entire song on only black keys. But, The Google said the song’s lyrics were put to the music of a song called “New Britain”, so I’m not entirely sure about the origin of the melody. Still, it makes me want to find songs in this category and test the theory. Have you ever heard of this??
7. “Dx” is the abbreviation for “diagnosis”. Does this enhance or simplify your life? (It makes me feel a teensy bit smarter about medical terms).
8. Dreamland by Sam Quinones taught me about black tar heroin and Oxycontin. If you are interested in learning about the opioid epidemic, this book is very easy to understand, full of stories that explain the rise in popularity of both of these truly terrible drugs. The only good part is that Quinones is an excellent writer, so I might see what else he has written and learn more.

What did you learn in March?

I began writing this post on February 5, and was quite happily surprised that I learned the first 3 things on this list so soon in the month. I think we all learn things constantly; writing them down helps us realize it is happening.

1. Young Miner’s Lettuce tastes good. I’d heard this most of my life, but didn’t get the “young” part, and would pick it when it was in flower. Then, it tastes bitter. “Young” means newly sprouted, pre-flower stage.
2. There is a new podcast on the World Wide Web called Women’s Work. Tsh (yeah, I know. . . it is pronounced “Tish”. . . whatsamatter with her parents?) Oxenreider interviews women who work in interesting businesses. I discovered the vowelless Tsh when she was interviewed on What Should I Read Next, and I liked her book choices. 
3. Did you know there is an International Correspondence Writing Month? Yeppers. It is February, and in the spirit of creative, cute and trendy, it is called “InCoWriMo”; I learned of this from Pencils.com. They, the pencil people, said to write them a letter and they would send something in return. (Prolly just a coupon for a slight discount on a product if you spend an enormous amount first. . . yep, I am cynical.) InCWriMo actually has a website, and it is simple and beautiful, the way I hope my own will become.
4. There is a thingamajig that goes on the end of a special camera lens that allows one to insert a slide and then photograph it to convert it to a digital file. In the olden days, art was photographed onto slide film, and it was tricky business to get the light right and the image square. Now, when we want to see pictures of our old work, we hold up a little slide to the light and squint, unless we have a friend with a thingamajig on her camera. But, this teaches us that our slide photography was dismal and horrible and didn’t show off our work. Is this why we didn’t get our work accepted into juried shows? (Notice I am hiding behind the royal “we”?)
5. For some reason, Guatemala keeps appearing in my life. A few months ago, I proofread a book called Rooftop Reflections for a friend about his home-building trips in Guatemala; a few weeks ago, 2 friends went to Guatemala on a mission trip; recently, my niece announced her engagement to a fine man from Guatemala. Yesterday I met a man who is married to a woman from Guatemala.What does all this mean? (This one is more of an observation; learning will come later, if at all.)
6. The word “anthropogenic”: it means environmentally despoiled by humans. Can’t say that I’ll use it much in conversation, but it is always good to increase one’s vocabulary.
7. Cows rarely have twins. Did you know that? I didn’t. Ewes are more likely to have twins.
8. Ever seen the classic portrait oil painting called Pinkie (painted in 1793 by Thomas Lawrence, hanging in  the Huntington Museum)? Did you know Pinkie had TB and died a year later at age 12? New info to me.

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. . .