All Is Quiet on New Years Day...till 8:30 pm Anyway

New Years Eve and Day were pretty quiet.  We got up early on the 31st because we had to do an errand about an hour away to help out a friend.  It went smoothly and we were home by about 12:30, including having grocery shopped.  The rest of the day and night was devoted to lounging around and watching TV.  Since I had a late cup of coffee and Russell took a two hour nap at one point, I thought we'd both be able to make it till midnight to watch the ball drop and kiss in the new year.  By 11 pm we were both ready for bed! It's so hard to believe that there was a time when I could easily make it till well after midnight on NYE.  All those years of Dead shows in Oakland that ended after 2:00 a.m., then the drive all the way back to the Richmond District San Francisco, then a burger at the 24 Hour Video Cafe down at the corner and finally going to bed at 4:00 a.m.  Those days are so clearly over! 

We got up around 8 on New Years Day.  It was sooo cold out.  I had to run out to the store to get some diesel fuel treatment for the tractor, because he was going out that night, but I was home by 11.  Decided I might as well do a couple of crafts.  

First up were these little fridge magnets.  You just use a clear drying glue to stick pretty paper, pattern side up, to the bottom of clear glass blobs.  Then glue a magnet to the back of the paper.  Viola!  I would prefer to find a larger size blob though as the ones I have were so small that it was hard to find patterns to fit.

This was done with the bottom of a plastic pop bottle.  I guess you are supposed to dip the bottom in the paint before stamping, but I painted the paint onto the bottom before stamping and that may have caused the build up on the petal edges and lack of paint in the centers.  I'm glad I tried it; it works....would be an easy and fun craft for kids, but I won't repeat this particular craft.  

This is kind of a funky craft.  You just take clothespins and clip them to an empty and washed medium-size tuna can (the 4-pack size). I didn't want the grey can to show in the gaps so I adhered a rainbow ribbon with peace sign designs around the outside.  The cans take 20 pins.  I painted them in the colours of the rainbow and added multicolour glitter paint to them too.  Put a glass votive cup in the center. 

Better view of the ribbon.

And a beach themed project.  I coated the outside of the can with mod podge then rolled it in sand. Once that dried, I painted a layer of mod podge over the sand to keep it from flaking, then added shells & glass to the pins.

I've been very influenced by the beach and ocean lately.  Can't imagine why.... ;-)

We went to Dunkin Donuts to get  his coffee for the trip, a little after 8.  I went to the drive-thru, operated my drivers side window and the glass goes, 'ka-THUNK'.  Fell right out of the track and was sticking inside.  Greeeeeeat.  15* and my window is broken.  Finished the coffee order and went back to the truck where my amazing hubby got the window back in place and in the closed/up position.  I drove home thinking, 'This is sooooo not the way 2013 was supposed to start...not with an unexpected car repair'.  And 'Taking that 100k picture really bit me in the ass'.  The following day I had to take it to the glass place in Sandwich to see what they had to say.  The guy popped the whole window out and said that the glue had finally dried up, but then he discovered that the regulator was also broken.  Figures.  It went from needing some glue to needing a part that was, of course, going to take a week to get. He got the window back in and closed, and taped the whole thing shut with black tape.  At least the entire cost including labour isn't near as bad as I thought it was going to be.

Finally, here's one more quick crafty I did on the 3rd.  Double stick tape and glitter on a candle.  This is a very messy project and doing it on a dry, cold day increased the static electricity factor tenfold.  I ended up coating the glitter/tape with mod podge, which cut way, way down on the flaking.  Then I used a dry paintbrush to sweep the stray bits off the candle.

Snow Closes Out the Year

Usually the meteorologists are wrong about storms....they blow everything out of proportion and wind everyone up with their dire, worse case scenario predictions, which never come to fruition.  On December 29th, however, they were spot on.  Rain was to start in our area in the late afternoon and turn to snow by 8, and go all night.  The Cape, being so close to the water, wouldn't get hit as bad as other areas.  This also happened to be the night of my high school 30th reunion, which I'd decided not to attend due to the outrageous cost.  A small group of us decided to meet at Bobby Byrne's  Pub in Sandwich for drinks and food.  

Once the weather turned bad that afternoon, I figured there was no way I was making the trek over the bridge.  My hubby was going out that night and the plan was for him to relax at home while I was out, and I'd return in time to take him to his truck.  We spent a nice afternoon with his daughter & her boyfriend watching 'Shawshank Redemption', so he never got the chance to nap during the day. The rain started falling heavily around 4:00 pm; it was pounding against the windows.  Let me tell you, I have a wonderful, sweet and amazing man.  He knew I wanted to see my friends, and he gallantly decided that he'd rather sacrifice his comfort in order to see that I got to and from Sandwich safely.  When we drove over, it was pouring down rain in buckets.  Ice cold rain, blowing sideways.  We visited and had a lot of laughs with our tiny group of 6, and when we left a couple hours later, the snow had started.  It was a dicey drive home.  I got him to his truck and got home as thick flakes were falling fast and furious.  

Looking straight up at the sky

The next morning I awoke to bright sunshine and everything looking like it was festooned with sugar.

I was clomping around the yard in my boots and jammies when I woke up at 8:30.  It seemed like it was already starting to melt and I wanted to get pics right away.  That's OK, I think my neighbours think I'm weird anyway.  ;-)

I should have gotten them scarves and hats!

Mid-morning

Crafting Through the End of the Year

Just because it was the holiday season doesn't mean I scaled back my crafting and stuff.  I did take a quick break to bake cranberry bread, but I did this colouring book page over Dec. 23rd & 24th.  I tried to do a winter/holiday theme with the colours.  I used gel pens and adhesive blue and silver crystals.

This project was very quick.  Just cut up a bunch of fabric into 1" to 1.5" squares and mod podge them to the large end of a blown up balloon.  After they are all stuck in a bowl shape, paint a layer of mod podge on top of the fabric squares too.  Hang to dry.  Once it's all dry, let the air out of the balloon very carefully, gently assisting the glued bowl away from the balloon.  Trim the top and you have a little fabric bowl or basket.  It was a little flimsy at first but after a few days, had hardened nicely.

Been wanting to try a few button crafts so.....

First up had to be a button bouquet.  These are so easy and like potato chips:  you can't make just one or two.  I could have kept going but I ran out of copper and orange coloured thick wire.  After I made a bunch,  I wrapped the wire stems with green florists tape.

So pretty!!!

The next day,  I found some thicker silver wire in one of my tool drawers and made about 6 more and then put them in this patterned jar, which I filled with crystal marbles in pale green, clear and cobalt blue.

Here's Sagan on Christmas Day.  It was a very lazy afternoon for all 4 of us.  We visited our families in Sandwich in the morning, but were home by about 1:30 to make our own turkey dinner.  It was also a very cold, rainy day, which of course I love.  Last year we had a dusting of snow.  As long as it's cloudy/rainy on the holidays, I'm a happy camper.  It just makes things more cozy.  We ended up watching a bunch of the old 'Wilderness Family' movies that were made in the mid and late 1970s, including 'Across the Great Divide' which starred two of the main actors from the Wilderness Family series.  So it was basically a Robert Logan-Heather Rattray holiday. lol

Beansauce was hiding near the recliner.

This was another button/embroidery idea I saw on Pinterest.  Since I had all the buttons dumped out, I decided to give this a try.  Not terribly happy with my gold stitching and I may rip it out and try again, but that floss is very hard to work with.  I'm also on the fence as to whether I want to add to it or not.  This project is intended to remain in the hoop.  I need to do a backing for it first.  

I started a bunch of other projects prior to the 31st and those will be featured later.

Wordless Wednesday

2012

This year went by wicked fast again.  And it didn't end on December 21st like the Mayan's allegedly predicted.  It's hard to believe that it's already New Years Eve.  Doesn't seem possible that a whole year has gone by.  It's almost my and Russell's second anniversary too.  Wow!!!!

It was a pretty mellow year for the most part.  It had some financial challenges and setbacks, but what year doesn't?  We are very, very happy together in our little rental home, although we long to own our own home someday.  Something that's a little bit bigger so that I can finally unpack the rest of our stuff.  People hear 'three bedroom' and think this place is large, but the rooms are so teeny, and one of them is stacked with unpacked boxes & totes.  Sometimes I feel like I'm a failure b/c I don't own a home anymore, esp. at this age.  However, so many people lost their homes over the past 4 years so it's not like I'm the only one.  And mine was only lost due to a short sale and the value/sale price dropping way below what was owed.  You have no idea how much I regret letting Brian talk me into refinancing in 2005 to buy that cursed property in Neilton, on the Olympic Peninsula.  What a huge mistake.  HUGE mistake.  If we had never refinanced at all over the years, that house would have actually netted a profit upon sale, but we just kept borrowing against the equity....robbing Peter to pay Paul, as they say....and it bit me in the ass big time.  El biggo time-o.  I am very hopeful that our landlords will continue to let us rent here, as we are very happy with this area and Buzzards Bay.  I like it better in Bourne than I do in Sandwich for many reasons.

January was a damn cold month, despite it starting out extremely mild on the 1st, because we kicked off the New Year with a walk on Scusset Beach that day.  We had the one and only snow event in late January as well.  My ex was crashing and burning big time, and told me that it was time for me to fly my sweet little boy Sagan to the east coast, with the caveat that he 'will want him back in 6 or 8 months' when he 'got better'.  That was one stressful week, wondering if Brian would rip the rug out from under me and renege.  But thanks to a bicoastal effort on the part of friends that I can never truly, or fully, repay, I picked up my baby boy from Logan Airport on January 28th.  I was only apart from him for 7 months, but it sure seemed longer.  Sometimes I wonder if either he or Pepper remember anything from Washington, or if as far as they know, they've always lived here and Russell has always been 'dad'.  

Here he is about an hour after I brought him home.  Happy boy is happy to be back with mom and sis!!! 

Bean, on the other hand, was soooooooo mad.  lol

And here they are, now sharing the couch in November.  They do enjoy each other's company, even if Pepper acts like a curmudgeon sometimes.  

It was a good year, overall.  No trips out of town, but I did enjoy exploring this area and Plymouth, although I can't believe I never made it up to P-Town!  I find myself falling into that familiar excuse, 'it's too far, I don't feel like driving an hour or more' that I used in Washington, to my detriment in the long run.  In my defense, the summer was just waaaay too hot and humid to do anything outside, and we even put off the Canal Cruise to early September because it wasn't even cool out on the water.  I had great beachcombing scores when I did go out.  Awesome to see so many friends and family.  King Richard's Faire.  Walks on the Canal.

And of course, my two biggest wishes came true:  Getting Sagan back, and getting engaged to the love of my life.

I got "a few" crafts done.  lol  Just a few.  2012 was definitely the Year of Pinterest and Crafting.  I cannot thank my sweetie enough for giving me the gift of being a stay at home 'wife'.  A lot of people have been pressuring me to get a job, but I haven't felt ready to rejoin the full-time workforce yet.  I have looked around for some part time work, but nothing's available around here, although I had an interview on the 27th at a temp agency, for a part time job in Middleborough, so we'll see if anything comes of it.  I am very reluctant to go back into the legal field, although there are a couple lawyers here in town that I thought about dropping off resumes to.  Realistically, I can't get back on that roller coaster of deadlines and last minute work again: Phones ringing off the hook, clients in the waiting room, copy machine cranking, assembling all the packages & filings while the is messenger waiting....Yeah um no, think I'll pass.  We'll see what I decide to do in 2013.  For now, I am content to be a homemaker and spoil my sweet hubby & pups, go out shooting pics and making crafts.  And no, we did not get married, but we think of each other as married so yeah, I'll probably be referring to him more as my hubby.

I stuck it out with Project 365, although by the summer I was sick of doing it and cheated a bit more here and there, posting older photos or ones not taken on the specific date they were posted.  By November, I was literally counting down the days till it was done.  It was a lot harder than I thought it would be.  I'm glad I did it, but I won't do it again.  Of everyone I talked into starting it with me, only Joan posted regularly.  Everyone else quit by February.  I was even ready to quit by February but stubbornly decided to finish.  The one thing that's pretty cool is that it's a visual diary of my year (except for the days I posted something old). 

We lost a few friends and family members this year.  Our high school Graphic Arts teacher, Mr. Savino, was a presence on Facebook from the summer of 2011 and I enjoyed interacting with him; we all did.  He passed away in March from pancreatic cancer that he didn't tell anyone he had.  So it came as quite a shock to hear he had died.  For several months afterwards, I would look for his comments and then remember he was gone. Then there was my friend Cyndy, who passed away during the summer and which I blogged about at the time.

The strangest death for me this year was my ex-husband Brian, who passed away in September from liver disease.  I said my goodbyes years ago, but it's just sad to think that he's gone at the age of 51.  What a waste of a life.  I look back on things from 1989 till 2011, and it's like watching a movie of someone else's life.  The San Francisco/Grateful Dead years, the Marin County Years, the Washington State Years.... My friend Diane went to see him at the hospice place, the day that he died.  She told him that it was OK to let go now, and I'd asked her to tell him I said thanks for the memories, the dogs were great and that I appreciated his letting me take Sagan. Brian could be vindictive, and he could have easily sentenced me to a life of heartbreak knowing that my dog was sent back to rescue to be re-homed, rather than sent to me.  I am very grateful that he put Sagie's best interests first and let me take him.  After Diane left, he died.  I wonder if what she said gave him the peace to die, knowing that Pepper and Sagan were fine.  He was a mentally ill, alcoholic and could be a real jerk, but he did love our dogs.  It's just weird for me to wake up here and go about my life, knowing that he's gone.  I really thought my leaving would shake him up and that he'd get his shit together, but it was already too late.  I truly dodged a bullet.  I could so easily have taken the familiar path of staying in my house, continuing to work for Steve, etc. But instead I jumped at the chance for a do-over and I am forever grateful to Russell for finding and rescuing me.  I would be faced with being a widow now, with giant medical bills, probably the loss of my house anyway, having missed out on the best thing to ever happen to me.  But instead, I get to be with my true love and my two dogs.  I am very lucky indeed.

I guess 2012 was a year of nesting, finding myself and enjoying my new life here on the east coast.  Not sure what 2013 has in store, of course, but hopefully things will remain on an even keel, as much as they can.  I'm just very grateful to be here.

Have a great New Year everyone!  Best wishes for 2013!!

Me and My Arrow

"Me and my Arrow, taking the high road, wherever we go, everyone knows, it's me and my Arrow...."

My car reached a milestone on December 15th.  100,000 miles.  It isn't really named 'Arrow' but I should start calling it that.

Back in the spring of 2005, I traded in my Saturn for a bright blue 2004 Hyundai Elantra.  I went to Korum Hyundai of Puyallup armed with my NADA Guides and Kelley Blue Book info, credit score and downpayment, knowing exactly what I wanted.  The salesman asked what kind of a deal I wanted, how much I wanted for my car, etc.  I smiled sweetly and said, 'I know what my Saturn is worth.  My credit score is 700.  I know what the Elantra retails for... so why don't you tell me what you can offer?' He asked me what I did for a living, and I told him I worked for a lawyer in Tacoma.  Needless to say, it was a very quick transaction.....The salesman went over to his supervisor and I overheard him say, 'She's the real deal, let's just do this.'  I took the car out for a quick test drive and was pleased to see that this model still had a cassette deck.  I did not want, nor do I want, a CD player or an iPod dock.  I received a fair deal on both my trade-in and the financing of the car loan, and I drove off the lot in my new car. 

I needed this car because we had just bought the cursed property in Neilton on the Olympic Peninsula, and my 7 year old Saturn was already pushing 100,000 miles at the time I traded it in.  Neilton was just way too far away (150 miles/3.5 hours) and remote to put those kinds of miles on the Saturn, since we were up there almost every weekend that summer of '05.  Here is a pic my car and the place that we Never. Should've. Bought.  Biggest mistake ever on soooo many levels.  We sold the stupid place in 2006, and made a paltry $10,000 over the purchase price the year before, most of which went to the realtor and other fees, so we basically broke even.  But I digress.....

I loved my new car, though.  As Brian descended further into alcoholism and mental illness, I found myself increasingly on my own.  If I wanted to travel, I could count on it being me, myself and I, which was actually fine because there would be way less pressure and I could do what I wanted, without worrying that someone else wasn't having a good time.

In early August, 2006, I drove up to Vancouver, BC for a few days.  No pics of the car because I wasn't shooting digital yet and it being a major city, it stayed in the hotel garage most of the time I was there, except for the trip up to North Vancouver. 

Summer of 2007, I visited Vancouver Island for several days (2nd best trip in my life).  My car was on the Coho Ferry first out of Port Angeles, the Brentwood/Mill Bay ferry as a shortcut to Butchart Gardens and then on the Washington State ferry (seen below) back to Anacortes, WA.  Driving a car onto a ferry is an interesting experience. 

In the fall of 2007, I went to Portland OR and up to Mt. Hood.  Went back to Portland and Multnomah Falls in the fall of 2008 too.

2009 was a horrendous year, and my car faithfully ferried me to and from work as I attempted to cope with a life, and marriage, that was spinning out of control.  I made no trips that year except for a quick early morning junket to Seattle that summer.

In the spring of 2010, I took an overnight trip out to the coast, to Kalaloch and Ruby Beach, 4 hours away from my home.  Even more remote than  Neilton.  There isn't even cell service out there. 

In the summer of 2010, which would turn out to be my last summer in Washington, I finally went up to Sunrise at Mt. Rainier, and also did some day trips to Seattle.  Yes that's snow in the parking lot just below Sunrise, despite it being a very warm July day.  There's my bright blue jewel on the left.  The Sunrise parking lot is at 6,400 feet above sea level.  That's taller than Mt. Washington, the highest point in all of New England.

Here's my car, parked where I worked for 11 years in Fircrest, in February, 2011.  By this point, I knew my time in WA was coming to a rapid close. It got me to & from work many times over the years in the snow, through many, many rain and wind storms and horrible traffic.  In the first six months of 2011, I drove to Snoqualmie Falls, Olympia, Westport (on the coast), Mount St. Helens and Seattle, but unfortunately ran out of time to hit the rest of my WA Bucket List items before it was time to make the drive east.  I spent quite a bit of money on it prior to the trip too.

Pepper & I embarked on that epic cross country journey in my trusty car, much to Russell's chagrin at the tiny size of it.  He calls it 'the go kart with doors'.  We left from this hotel in Tukwila, WA. We encountered no issues at all on the way.  Another blessing.  

We even crossed the Great Divide.

My car has been to a total of 17 states and 1 Province:  British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin (below), Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, a sliver of Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, a sliver of New Hampshire....

...it's even been to Maine!

This plate is now part of my collection.  The Grateful Dead frame has moved around to the front of the car.

This is probably the only car around here with a Canadian flag on the bumper, and from far western Canada no less.  I also haven't seen very many cars  out there, of any make or model, that are this colour.

Home. :)

I love this car.  It has sand in it from both coasts.  The back seat is a mess of dog hair, with sheets on the seat, extra towels, a road atlas, ice scraper and my mix tapes case.

My squeeze has been pressuring me to get a larger vehicle because this one is really too small for a guy his size.  I totally get that.  But I am very reluctant to get rid of it yet, partially for financial reasons (car payment, increased insurance & excise tax, etc) but mostly for sentimental reasons.  Of all the cars I've owned, this has been my favourite, although my first trusty Toyota made the journey west in 1989 and to every Dead show I ever went to, both on the east and west coasts.  And the 76 Monte Carlo I had through high school and college was bitchin too.  But this car has been the one constant in a very turbulent past 7 years.  I know that my car will need increasing repairs the older it gets, but I've always been so good about regular maintenance that it's been very reliable.

So for now I will continue to baby my car, and enjoy the journey.  Me & my Arrow.