I'm Back

Well, this blog certainly got away from me. I don't know if anyone has even been checking this page anymore. I had some reader friends but I imagine they have given up on me by now, but here goes. Eighteen months, hmmm. A lot of things have changed for us. We are settled into farm living now, it feels like home. I have mostly let go, emotionally, from our city life and the home we left behind. I don't have time to think about it anymore. About a year ago we moved my aunt, my mother's sister, here to the farm to live with us, from her home in Minneapolis. She has Alzheimer's disease and was no longer able to live alone. The three of us, myself, my mother, my husband, share in her care, which seems to be increasing on a daily basis.

This living situation has diminished my free time somewhat but it is worth it. What free time (=internet time) I do have is divided between website design and something else I found since I last posted here. I had been a member of Second Life for a while before we moved but was not active in it until about 15 months ago. Second Life is an internet-based, three-dimensional alternate world. Think "World of Warcraft" without the war. It is not a game, it is a virtual reality, a place to have another life. After we moved here I kept in touch with the friends I left behind, as best we could, but everyone is busy with their own lives, and none of my RL friends use the internet as actively as I do. I didn't realize how lonely I was, how much I craved conversation with peers, until I found friends in SL. Then everything changed. SL gives me the balance I need, a way to detach from my day-to-day tasks and obligations, a place to do things I cannot do in RL (Real Life). I will blog more about this soon, and include some photos.

I will try not to let this blog drag in the dust any longer. Now I am off to visit some of the blogs in my faves list and see what everyone is up to.

BDT Studio is online

We have been back home on the farm for a while now, and my time has been spent scrambling to bring my internet business enterprises up-to-date before the Christmas shoppers start coming. It occurred to me that this blog is something I could use to help promote my projects. I'll start with my fine art gallery.

I've been using Photoshop for ten years now. It has served me well in many respects, including giving me back something I thought I had lost: painting. Many years ago I was in a chemical accident which left me highly sensitive to certain chemicals, several of which are necessary in the pursuit of fine art. In addition, I currently have no funds for art supplies and no good place in the house to set up a studio. Photoshop allows me to create watercolors, oil paintings, and some images that would be impossible with pigment, all without turpentine, fixatives and other things that would send my sinuses into a tizzy.

Before we moved, I had access to high-end printers and artist-quality papers, and my employee discount made them affordable. I have found an online replacement of sorts in ImageKind.com which allows me to upload my images and offer them for sale to the public, including mat and frame options, at a decent commission. Three of my watercolors are now in my IK Gallery:

This Way to the Beach

Poppy




Magnolia

I have several more to upload. Doing these paintings was one way I found to pass the time and use it constructively, when we were in Minneapolis so long this fall.

Ramblings from Mpls

It was 86 degrees F. yesterday. In Minnesota, in October. This is crazy. We are still in Minneapolis, it will be four weeks tomorrow since we came for a few days. I only brought three changes of clothes, and none of them are shorts. I have depleted the supply of quarters and Tide, doing laundry more than once a week for DH and myself. We have been here so long the residents know us in the halls and say hello. They probably think we live here now.

Mom is home from the hospital, and doing well, so we are now biding our time at my aunt's home until the doctors say Mom can go back to the farm. Meanwhile, we are four family members trying to make the best of being cooped up in a small two-bedroom apartment in a high-rise senior center. The biggest hurdle so far is climate control. Mom (87) and Auntie (91) both have glaucoma and the lower metabolism and circulation that comes with living a long life. They need the windows closed ( too cold, too windy), the shades drawn (too much glare) The ceiling fan makes it too cold, too; forget the air conditioning.

Then, here I am, having hot flashes. I share a bedroom with Mom; she sleeps with extra blankets on, I sleep with all the covers thrown off and a fan blowing on me. Our daytime solution is for me to sit in Auntie's bedroom with the AC on and my computer in my lap. I am sitting in the same rocking chair she has had for years before I was born. I remember sitting snuggled up with her in this chair and hearing her say, "I can't believe you will be starting second grade already." I'm glad she was able to keep this chair when she moved in here.

Our friends here in town have been wonderful. Invitations for home cooked dinners, overnight in a guest room, tickets to the theater. . . Jennifer and Susan, Debbie and John, Carol and Avis, if any of you are reading this, THANK YOU.

I have to say more about the performance we saw last night. If you are in the Twin Cities area, you must go see Amy Salloway in Circumference! She is a one-woman dynamo of entertainment; she blends humor, drama and her personal demons into a monologue which draws you so fully into her world that you are amazed to find yourself in a theater at the end of the performance. If you have ever fought the weight battle, if you were one of those humiliated in 7th grade gym class, you will especially identify with the themes in Circumference. This is a work-in-progress; Amy is still fine-tuning the script but is courageous enough to perform it as such and allow the audience to give her feedback in its development. There are only two more shows currently scheduled; see her web page for details. I also have to say, Amy is as delightful in person as she is on the stage. She is a friend of the friend who took us to the performance and so accepted the invitation to join our group for a late after-theater supper. Thank you, Amy, for sharing bits of your personal life and an insight into how you weave those events into your performance. I was the one down at the end of the table who didn't say much, but as a fledgling writer I was fascinated by your creative process.

Our internet access is sporadic up here. Minneapolis is in the process of being wired for wifi, but the nearest working node is not really close enough, and it does not reach up to the 11th floor very well. I'll try to squeeze in a post here and there if I can.

I have a coffee mug at home that says, "All I want is a normal life." When I ever get home, I am going to start using it.

Other Plans

Who was it that said "life is what happens while you are making other plans"? I had plans to get back into regular blogging but life had other ideas. We are in Minneapolis, about 200 miles from home, with very little internet access. We were here for some routine medical appointments when my mother developed a severe headache. It turned out she had fluids pressing on her brain which required surgery to drain out. This is serious business in any case, and more so for someone who is 87. She is still in intensive care but is doing very well, all things considered. There is still a risk of stroke until she has recovered sufficiently to resume her blood thinner meds.

I have some blog ideas that I may be able to post if I can get access again. Maybe life in a senior highrise community, which is where we stay for the duration. I am thankful to have family to stay with until this is over.

Picking up where I left off

I have not made a post in over six months. I'm not sure how that happened, but after doing some catch up reading, on some favorite blogs and some others new to me, I have a renewed determination to revive this one.

I know one cause for the writing gap is that I got caught up in our new life. Mom had surgery for carpal tunnel in March. She is very independent, especially for someone who is 87, but until her hand healed enough, she needed much more assistance with personal things than usual. This was a strange reversal of roles. Every morning for many years when I was a child, she brushed my hair and put it in a ponytail. Here I was, doing the same for her. An inside-out deja vu.

Another factor was, once the snow melted, the farm work commenced. Even thought we no longer have farm animals or field work, there is still much to be done, inside and out. Minnesota has such a short fair-weather season, we have to scurry to achieve all the outdoor projects on our list. I had forgotten how physical effort can burn up your day, and leave you crashed in the recliner with no energy left for intellectual pursuits.

I have to admit, another reason I put off writing here is that I did not want my blog to become too maudlin, or worse, one big long whine. Too many of my posts were about sad things, it seemed to me, and our summer has been filled with more sadness. I wrote about the pain of losing a pet. Since I wrote that post we have lost three more cats, including my beloved Norm, the inside cat, which broke my heart into a million more pieces. Last October we had seven cats, one indoors and six outdoors, and now we are down to one. I might still write more about them, especially Norm. He was such a remarkable creature, his story should be recorded somehow. I will postpone that project until it is balanced with more positive writings, and also until the pain of his loss has healed enough that I can write about him without the tears starting again.

So, I'm back. I look forward to finding time to get back to my blogging friends, whom I was just getting to know, and making new ones.

Lock Your Doors!

This video is making the rounds on blogs. I decided to jump on the bandwagon because it is so important it needs all the publicity it can get. Out here in the rural areas we get careless because we mistakenly think these things only happen in the cities.

Personally I think the best tip of all is not to leave the keys in the ignition. My entire family was nearly killed in a highway accident that would not have happened if a local teenager had not found her neighbor's car with the keys in it.

Please consider either posting this on your blog or directing readers here or to YouTube to see it. And stay safe.

Five things that made me smile

I've been tagged by JTL to write five things that have made me smile this week. After writing the Goodbye post, I need some cheering up. Here goes.

• Finding a recipe for avocado pie and then being told by the grocery man that avocados are going on sale next week for 68 cents each. Avocados are like gold in Minnesota. Anything under $1.50 each is a steal. I am so jealous of folks who can go out in the backyard and pick as many as they wish. I once stayed in a California home where the avocado tree was groaning with fruit. Standing under it was like standing under a money tree. I felt like those were dollar bills hanging down over my head.
  

• Playing Neopets with my eight-year-old niece. Her parents want her to be older before she has her own internet accounts but they are allowing her to play Neopets on an account in my name when she is here visiting, which is every Friday night. This is more interactive for the two of us than it probably sounds. Our only working computer at the moment is the laptop. Lacking a desk, we have to balance the unit on our laps, on top of a piece of wood (for air circulation) and a pillow (for comfort). She just does not have enough "lap" to manage it. So, when she and I play on the computer, I sit in the recliner and hold it all in my lap while she sits on an ottoman at my side and plays her games. In such close quarters, definitely quality time.

• My current cross stitch project. It is my most ambitious piece so far, and I am pushing to finish it for a friend's birthday party, with less than a week left. With every stitch I picture the look on her face when she opens it. We have known each other for over 30 years, and she has been such a steadfast friend through all our recent difficulties. I will have a progress photo posted later today on that blog. Of course I realize I will now have to start friendship pieces for several other friends who have been just as steadfast and supportive. That's part of the joy of doing cross stitch: giving it away.

• Listening to J playing with the outdoor kitties under my window. He has never been around kittens before. His mother did not allow their family to have any pets when he was growing up. I had a cat when he met me but she was full grown, so this is new to him. He has taken on the task of feeding them every day, which now entails dressing in layers of warm clothes (it has been below zero here for several days now and is expected to stay there for a few more days) and hauling water and catfood to the former chickencoop where the outside cats live. They follow him around like the Pied Piper. He picks up each one in turn and loves them up. It is so sweet to watch. Smitten with kittens. More about the cats here.
  

• This website. I check it every day to see if there is anything new or any new concerts scheduled. If I need cheering up I just browse the photo gallery. I may blog in the future about what this guy has meant to me and how he has changed my life.