FRIDAY FENCE POST #56

I found an interesting, if difficult to photograph, fence over at Harbor Freight the other day. It didn't help that I was trying to take pictures from the vantage point of a busy parking lot. I do let myself get self-conscious, especially when people are looking at me suspiciously, or like they maybe think I'm a freak for taking pictures of something that doesn't look like photo-worthy material.

Both of these photos are, I think, worthy of being clicked on, so as to see more detail. The second one gave me some real filter fun.



I'm looking at the photo as you'll see it if you don't click on it, and it looks almost normal. Just saying....

THE DAILY LIST: MY BEST TOOL

My girlfriend Alice, many years ago, gave me some of the most valuable child-rearing advice I ever received, all in a single eight word sentence: "Begin as you mean to go on."

Many times I've stopped to think, Do I want to start down that path? If I say Yes now, will it lead to problems later? Rarely was it anything earth-shattering that was being considered--letting the girls do, or not do, something "Just this once!" that I didn't want to become a habit and could see how quickly they'd turn that "once" into, "But you let us yesterday!" It really saved a lot of arguing later.

But that really hasn't got anything to do with my entry, except that I looked at my list and realized it was a map for "beginning as I meant to go on".


Each morning, usually right after breakfast, I pull out my notebook and make out my daily list. As you can see, I divide the page into four quadrants, with the headings, "Errands", "Call/Email", "Do", and "Write".

Those quadrants are essential to this ADD woman, and keep me, mostly, from making grasshopper leaps from one thing to another, especially important in the Errands department--I do Not want to go out and come home, only to discover I've missed a place I meant to get to.

If I leave the house, the list goes with me. Otherwise, it sits at my place at the table and is regularly referred to, and Oh! the satisfaction of marking something off! Some days I do pretty well. Other days, I look at the list in the evening and just sigh: Where did the day go, and how could I have accomplished so little?!

It's okay, though. The things I don't get to one day generally get moved to the next day's list. Some things I forget to transfer, which is why keeping the lists in the notebook works so well for me; I frequently go back through and review the pages.

My preference for anything hand-written is graph paper, preferably 5-to-the-inch. I seem to need those little boundaries to keep my penmanship tidy. This notebook has graph paper on only one side of the page, but that's handy, too--the facing page is great for jotting down notes and ideas, which is another reason I review past days.

Anyway, this helps me keep my days somewhat on track. I hope there's a bit of something helpful here for you, too!

Signing off for now,

Anitra

NOT "SHOP BEAUTIFUL" but Oooooh!

There's a fabric store just up the street from our house. It is definitely NOT a candidate for "Shop Beautiful", but it is a treasure trove of the fantastic. I've told a number of people about it, but this morning, as I prepared to run up and look for fabric for wings, the lightbulb came on: Blog this place!

This is the shop, as seen from the Safeway parking lot, at NE Fremont & Sandy Blvd. Definitely not an exterior to make you long to enter, is it?


Unless, like me, you have a nose for a bargain. I wanted to know how true that "FOR LESS" was, the first time I went in. Turns out the sign maker got it right, in spades.

Table full of trims, at mostly $1-$2 a yard, & mostly beaded, sequined, and/or embroidered.

Lots of sheers, many sparkly, at $3 a yard

Cottons, velours, knits, more sheers--$4 to $8 a yard

Richly beaded trims, with top price of maybe $5 a yard

Quite a lot of beaded evening and ethnic wear

This photo does not do these luxurious sequined and embroidered fabrics justice!
Price? Just $10 a yard!!

Need I say it? If you're looking for fabric and trims in the Portland, Oregon area, check out Fabrics for Less. It's true that there isn't much "ordinary" there, but it makes up for it, I think, with a whole lot of Extraordinary!

TAKING THE ATC PLUNGE!

Gulp. I've been reading about Artist's Trading Cards (ATCs) for years, and admiring the work done by many artists around the world, but frankly, kind of not getting it.

There are some art forms, I have to admit, that either don't make sense to me or seem beyond the scope of my abilities. ATCs have been the latter for me.

And then a dear someone actually sent me one. I have it propped up in front of my place at the table where I see it every day. It draws my eye ad makes me smile.

Oh, yeah. Who wouldn't smile?

Now, technically, I guess this isn't an ATC, because it's bigger than the required dimensions (2 1/2" X 3 1/2"; 6.4 X 8.9cm, the size of a standard playing card), but it's small, and it's art, and it draws me. I started thinking, Well, maybe I could do that!

You know what comes after that thought, don't you? Yup. From there you have to progress to, "I'm gonna try it!"

But where to start? How do I begin? Flutter-flutter thoughts. Stymied, I was. Then I got a clue: Artist's Trading Cards! These are created for the purpose of sharing, trading, swapping, and that being true, there would be places where you could find people doing that. Could I join up with them?

Over on MizMollye's blog, I found a button leading to Blissfull ATC Swap. Ooooh, beautiful. But daunting. Not a place for a rank beginner to, well, begin.

Enter SwapBot. This totally cool website is a clearinghouse for people who want to swap things--postcards, crafting supplies, handmade items of all sorts, and yes, ATCs! I'd joined ages ago, but never did any swaps. This time I looked for and found an ATC swap, with birds as the theme.

I am on it! I am in it! And the creative juices are flowing, and I can't wait to get started!

Now tell me, have you ever created an ATC? I would adore it if you'd leave a link in the comments and let me see yours!

SUNDAY RERUN: Moving Day

It's time for a Sunday Favorite, a repost of a blog post from the past. (The Blog Party is hosted by Chari, over at Happy to Design. Click the Sunday Favorites logo in the lefthand sidebar to join!) I've chosen one from about eight years ago, called Moving Day.

"The Baby" at Seven

We helped Lauree and Toby move last Thursday. Their new home is beautiful. I am so thrilled for Lauree. She really is the kind of woman who loves being a home-maker, and stay-at-home mommy. I spent most of the day over there holding Abby, who was put off by the strange surroundings. I felt kind of useless, but Laurie said not, that it was a great relief to her that I could hold the baby and let her get things done and direct the moving in. RC's mood in the forepart of the day was abysmal. So, of course, I wrote a poem!

Moving Day

How can there be so much in the world to yell about?
He shouts his way through the hours.
I mutter.
I mutter, because if he hears me
there'll be one more thing to roar about.

But then it's finished.
The boxes are stacked in the garage,
the furniture is helter-skelter in the rooms,
and we lounge, chatting,
my head on his chest,
staring at the U-Haul parked at the curb,
and suddenly I realize:
This day was perfect.

---

And while we're doing poems. This happened a couple of days later. True story!

Renovator

Standing with one foot on the top of the ladder,
the other swinging free in the air,
my arms stretched over my head,
I squint as tiny, grey Chiclets of old paint
rain from my putty knife's edge
to my face.

I have spent so much time in the sun this year
that I am as dappled as the earth under a shade tree,
tawny shoulders sprinkled with russet spots.
My legs are sheathed in short denim
and a long summer's tan.

Yesterday, a man in a shiny white pick-up
swung into the driveway and proposed marriage.
You weren't here,
but I told you about it later and we laughed together.

Today, back on the ladder,
precarious,
I have leaned around the corner just in time
to see you walk chicken-style
the length of the scaffolding.

Is it any wonder I smile as I work?

SOME SOMETHING SATURDAY: KINDERGARTEN

The Etsy Bloggers Carnival, which I missed again, had two choices this time: Tell about a favorite kindergarten memory, or a Labor Day tradition.

Well, we don't really have any Labor Day traditions, so I'm telling about kindergarten, and showing you what I looked like w-a-a-a-y back then!

This is me:


I went to two kindergartens. We moved from California to Hawaii just before I turned six, which meant a new school. (It was so close to my sixth birthday, in fact, that I had my birthday party on board ship, with the captain presiding. How cool is that?!)

I remember Dad driving me to my first day of kindergarten in Honolulu. On the way, he told me my teacher's name was Miss Chu. "Chew! That's a funny name!" I said. Dad responded by telling me that mine wasn't any less funny, which gave me something to think about. I don't think I ever again thought of someone's name as odd after that. I'd just compare it to my last name--Pegg--and remember.

The school "room" was a quonset hut. Now that I think about it, that's pretty cool, too, since it basically meant we got a whole little building for a classroom. I remember the door step, and the rounded end of it as we walked up. We were living in a quonset hut at the time, so the building itself didn't seem odd to me.

That's not ours up there, but that's what they looked like, all right!

So what do I remember about kindergarten? The arts and crafts, of course!

I remember Miss Chu had a primitive mimeograph, one where she had sort of a jelly in the bottom of a 13X9" pan, and she's lay sheets of paper face down on it to print them. It fascinated me.

But also I remember learning how to made a picture of a bear that was "furry", using a cut-out of one as a reverse stencil, laying leaves on sheets of paper and then brushing a paint-laden toothbrush over a screen to splatter paint the sheet, removing the leaves when the paint was dry, and one craft I keep meaning to try again: We cut brown paper bags into strips, almost all the way across, but not quite. One bag was cut on the vertical axis, the other the horizontal. Then we wove the two bags together to make place mats, and varnished them. They looked really good, and were sturdy, too. I was quite thrilled with the result.

Oh, and another: Dipping strings in paints, and laying them in squiggly lines between two sheets of paper, putting the sheets in the middle of a big phone book and then pulling the strings out. The designs that made were rather like the aurora borealis.

Last thing I remember about kindergarten? Cockleburs! We didn't have them in California, but they were thick in Hawaii. I spent a lot of time pulling the prickly little balls out of my ankle socks.

Wow. Hadn't thought of that in a very long time.

School days, school days,
Good old golden rule days....

FRIDAY FENCE POST #55

Got an interesting fence today, one of those, "Glad I had the camera!" moments. I shouldn't have been surprised, though; the fence is right around the corner from the ReBuilding Center, a salvage place frequented by Birkenstock-wearing, granola-eating, rampantly creative rehabbers. It was bound to rub off on the neighbors, which I consider a GOOD thing!

Urban Jumble

Oh, the spectacles of it all!

Roll 'em!

Sloppiness, or planned? Red, Green, Purple, Chrome--Oddly pleasing

Don't you love the way the peeling paint and wood grain combined to create a dancer?

Ahhh...thirsty, tired, a little hot. Time for tea, and then the bliss of sleeping near an open window of a summer's night.