UNSTOPPING A TOILET: NEW TRICK

I was sleeping so hard this morning that when the phone rang I sat bolt upright, threw back the blankets, scattering my book, glasses, pencil, and a couple of hair curlers to the floor, and lunged. I must have sounded punch drunk when I answered.

"Sorry to call you so early," my tenant said. (Early? I'd just overslept by an hour and a half! My poor doggie would be dieing of an overstretched bladder by now.) "My toilet is stopped up, and I've plunged it and plunged it, and I just can't get it."

"No worries. I'll get it taken care of."

She said she'd be leaving for the dentist in half an hour, and to just walk in, so after a cup of coffee, or two, I trudged to the back house, plunger in hand.

There are tricks to unstopping a toilet.

• Wear gloves. That's number one for me.


• Use a plunger that actually fits the hole at the bottom of the toilet bowl. I had one, Connie had two, and I still ended up borrowing one from another tenant, which did the trick.


• Put the plunger down in, and try to get a good seal going, then use multiple little shoves down-down-down-down and UP! Pull the plunger out of the hole quickly, which should do the trick. You might have to do that more than once.


• Test it, to see. Don't flush the toilet! What if you didn't get it unstopped? (I have been there, done that, and bought the t-shirt.) You can lift the top off the tank, and pull up a little on the lever that lets water flow. That will show you. Or pour some water into the bowl. If the level goes down, you got it.

Well, I did all those things, several times, and no luck.

Here's where the new trick comes in, one that Mister Bruce came up with. Maybe plumbers do this, but I'd never heard of it. Get the dish soap, and pour several ounces into the toilet bowl. It does two things: First, it helps you get a tighter seal between the plunger and the bowl, and second, it lubricates whatever is causing the stoppage.

Presto! No more stopped toilet!

Goodness. It's nearly eleven. I've unstopped that toilet, talked to DH on the phone twice, glued a couple of Mega Blossoms and a Tea Kettle Character, and started to unload the van from Saturday's show.

But I forgot to eat breakfast. Maybe I'll do that next.

NEW PEEPS; NEW EXPERIENCES

I have two new Tea Kettle Characters! I especially love the one with bare feet, who is only the second little person I've made that had feet at all. Those mugs are hard to find! (The first one I found wore cowboy boots.)

I plan on listing them in my Etsy shop tonight. Here they are:

On the subject of new experiences, I had two today:

First, I got to sit in on a garden club meeting. I've wondered for years about garden clubs, and what it would be like to be a member. Just the words "garden club" conjure up visions of ladies in flowered hats, holding tea cups, and chatting in Latin.

"You should see the pelagoriums this year! Stunning, simply marvelous."

"My euphorbia griffiti is so bright, simply the perfect foil for that delightful Aconitum x cammarum Bicolor I put in last week."

And frankly, that would be bliss for me, although I'd forgo the hat. I do look awful in a hat. Once every five or six years maybe, I find one that looks good.

It wasn't like that, much. There were a lot of people there, many more than I'd expected. I'm guessing at least fifty, and everybody looked perfectly normal, and not the least bit stuffy, even if a number of Latin terms were tossed about. I loved the Pledge of Conservation they recited at the beginning, and there was an inspiring reading about butterflies, or more precisely, metamorphosis, as a metaphor for life and its transitions.

There were also two guest speakers, of which I was one. That was the other new experience. I've never been invited to talk to a group about my art before. It was so much fun! I'd been concerned I might be nervous, even though I spend a fair amount of time on stage singing. Talking, having to speak freestyle, as you might put it, seemed so much different than having lyrics memorized. But I wasn't nervous, and everyone seemed to enjoy my little talk.

One of the meeting's activities this day was a sale of garden art. I had a table, naturally enough. (As I recall, that's how Robin coaxed me into being a speaker.) People were enthusiastic about what I had, and I do believe it had something to do with talking about my art, letting people inside my head, as it were.

I'd do it again in a New York minute. (That's quick, right? No one ever seems to define that term....)

GREAT TAPE MEASURE!

Just read about this. It may be an old tool, and I just never saw it, but now that I've seen it, I have to have it.

It's a flexible tape measure, inches on one side, centimeters on the other, 1/4" wide, and encased in plastic, so if you mark against it, it won't stain. There are different lengths, depending on what you want to do, and the article I read suggested using one that wasn't much longer than the curve you were measuring/creating, but I'll probably go with one that's about 36", which seems all-purpose to me.




The lovely thing about these is that you can drape them around a curve, gently lift them off, lay them flat on your fabric or garment, mark the line, and cut. Drape one over your shoulders with one end at the center back of your neck, play with the curve until you have the neckline you want, mark that curve, cut and hem.

If you have the ruler flat, with one edge on the actual line, them marking the other edge will automatically give you your seam allowance.

I'm buying one as soon as I can, preferably online, but I'll make the trip to the fabric store if I have to.

There is one caveat: The core is lead, which is what makes them flexible. There shouldn't be any way the lead could be accessible, or affect anyone, but that seems like valuable information.

Giving a talk at the Aloha Garden Club tomorrow, accompanied by brunch and the opportunity to display my work for sale.

Saturday is the St John's Bizarre. (You read that right: It's Bizarre, not Bazaar. "Keep Portland weird!" as we say around here. Just doing my part, lol.)

TOOL O' THE DAY

Well, I certainly never expected to be posing a lawn mower for photographs, but...

Dear Husband (DH) is away for a month, and that puts me in charge of some serious lawn. He mowed Halsey before he left, which takes care of that property, which equates to about a quarter acre of grass. He didn't get this one done, and that's more.

The last thing DH told me about the lawn mowing was that he'd had to buy a new blade for the big gas lawn mower, but it was a generic blade, and doesn't fit exactly the way one made for the model would. "If you go over rough ground and dig the blade into the dirt, or hit a big rock," he said, "It's going to knock the blade loose, and you won't be able to undo the nut that holds it on. I can barely undo it myself."



Knock the blade loose?! I'm picturing a spinning blade whipping itself off the lawnmower and shortening my legs without benefit of anesthetic.



No way I'm going to use that thing. Here's my baby. I like it. It lets me hear the birds sing. It doesn't pollute or use fossil fuels, and it burns the greenest energy I can think of: my own body fat! (Oh, ick. No. I am not saying my body fat is green. Just eco-friendly when I burn it!)

Let's Roll!










Rustic Vs Rampant










I'm already tired!










Lunchtime




It really is time for lunch. Past time. It's two o'clock, and where did the day go? I've got to grab a bit, borrow a hairdryer, and get myself to the wire supplier for China and Mega Blossom stems by three.



eeek!

STRAWBERRY BLOSSOMS & FREESIAS

I went to visit my cousin in the hospital today, and on the way home swung by what used to be Value Village. There had been signs on the closed Value Village for months, announcing the new store was coming, and I wanted to see whether it had finally arrived. It had.

Virtually the first thing I saw when I went inside was a table full of potted freesias. Oh, such loveliness! Who could resist them, especially at $3.99 each? Not me!

It's been such a busy day that I didn't have time to plant them. Oh. Well, I suppose if I hadn't been so busy taking pictures of them I might have, but pictures seemed the more important thing.

Look how beautiful:

I had put the pot of freesias down next to some burgundy hen and chicks. Right next to them, the strawberries were blooming, pink beacons.










I love extreme close-ups of flowers. Always, always, I am amazed by their unnoticed intricacy, symmetry, and delicacy.

IT FOLLOWED ME HOME....

Well, okay. First I had to load it into the car, and then it followed me home. Then I unloaded about half of it, and for the past several hours I've been standing in my dining room, sorting it into color groups, oohing and aahing, and sometimes making faces. Now I'm taking a break!

AND I took pictures! (Of course, lol.)

Look what followed me home--fabric samples!

Trunk Show






Back Seat, Too







Front Seat, with more in the floor





I'm not going to get it all sorted, but I'll do as much as I can, and then it goes over to the Trillium Artisans storefront, where they'll sell it by the pound, cheap.

As usual, she who does the sorting gets to keep what she likes, but I try to keep it down to a dull roar. Mostly, I like the small samples that have paper borders glued to the backs. Those I make note cards from (Frazzles, I calls them). No one else has found a use for those yet, so I don't feel guilty keeping them. In fact, I feel good about using those lovelies that would otherwise be discarded.






A Long Shelf Filling Up







I know there's a dining table there somewhere


Well, back to my sorting. It's a SORT of party for one. (Bad pun, and I intended it, and maybe I'll apologize later, after the groaning stops!)

Does This Mean It's Spring?

This has been the coldest, wettest, spring I can remember. I've been on the verge of despair, although there've been a few days that let me dig weeds and put plants into the ground lightened the gray.

Then, day before yesterday, Lo! and Behold! it was warm enough to sit on the swing in the yard with Bob, swinging our feet and talking. He mowed the lawn. I had seen the clematis from the kitchen window, and grabbed the camera before I came out.

It's Spring, isn't it? Really, really Spring!

Arborful







Pink Clematis Blanket







Pocket Full o' Posies







Starface







Buds of a Feather



The sun is shining. I have tables full of things to make, and a shop to (re)organize, and a little SUV full of fabric to sort. Life is good.