Yikes

Yesterday I came home to a note from Puck saying there was something wrong with the computer. Well he was dang correct on that one. There was absolutely no power to the thing. I was freaking out since I do so much on the computer and have been terrible about not backing up my valuable stuff.

I unplugged everything from the back (without remembering which hole they needed to go back into) and hauled ass down to the computer shop down town. I raced in, but the guy was not there. We left a message (he shares the shop with the local tv guy. Later I called just in case and he had just come in. Glad I called because I was a squeaky wheel who got pushed ahead. Panic just affects people like that I guess.

Anyhow it turned out to be the power source. He replaced that. I have been a bad owner and allowed dust and cat hair to collect in there. He said it was pretty bad. I had cleaned part of the computer out, but missed the crucial part. Apparently that is the part that is causing my motherboard to overhead and some deely bops to pop out and they might start leaking and corrupt my motherboard.

He added a little more RAM and deleted some unnecessary programs. God Bless Him he got it back to me minus a large chunk of change by 5:00... good thing Monday was a half day or I would still be without a machine.

It is running nicely and I spend 5 hours backing up all my crap. He told me it could last a week or a year... rather a doomsday forcast

We took Maddie back to school on Saturday and the heater in the car was not working so we froze all the way there and back. It turns out she does not have to have a roommate as of now so that was good news. We are back in rehearsal for drama so I am going crazy finding props and arguing with actors.

My co-director went home ill today and will be out tomorrow. I sure hope he is ok. He never looks sick and I am worried about him. He did not look good.

Brrrrrrrrrrr

It has been bitter cold over the past few days and I still have not been able to shake the cold I had at Christmas. I called in sick on Wednesday and then they called off school Thursday and Friday due to below 30’s windchill. Puck and Maddie and I have been playing cards and having fun. It has been delicious to sleep in and feel a little better. On Friday morning we woke to frozen pipes though. That was a hassle. The cold water in the bathroom sink, the hot water in the shower and the drain in the shower/ bathtub were all frozen solid. Maddie and I turned on the heater in the bathroom and poured boiling water down the drain. Maddie focused the hair dryer on the pipes for a while. Eventually we got the cold water in the sink moving. A few hours later the hot water got going, but the drain was still frozen. Finally we took the hair drier down to the basement and taped it to the spot where it looked like we might have trouble. I was fully prepared to run that dang hair drier till it blew out and then buy a replacement, but after only about 15 minutes we finally melted through. All those years in old farmhouses finally paid off and now Maddie knows quite a bit about thawing pipes.

yesterday Maddie and I went shopping for supplies for school and for the play. It seemed to be warmer.

I have been photographing rugs and trying to get them up on the site as fast as I can. Working a little on the Vintage site too and Artfire. I got another entry in my weaving blog about the chair I am caning. We have one more week until Maddie needs to go back to school. That time has flown by. I will miss her when she goes. As always there is too much to do and now Puck tells me it has started snowing again.

Baby it's Cold outside Brrrrrrrrrr!

Was home sick today and slept in. That apparently was what I really needed, because I feel so much better now. The bad news is they have already called off school for tomorrow due to 35 below windchill which is supposed to continue into friday. At this rate we may be having school into the middle of June. Yikes.

a friend of Pucks passed away and he was at the funeral today. I did not know the man. He was 87 years old though and apparently well liked. A friend of mine who recently retired just had surgery for colon cancer. She came out of it fine though and is already cranky so it sounds like she is back to normal and wanting to get the heck out. I ran across a vender on ETSY Dirty Dishes and was laughing and laughing and laughing... I have got to get a couple of her mugs.

so anyhow all it seems I am doing these days is working on ETSY or my new Vintage site on ETSY AtticEmporium

I also started a freaking new blog for fiber arts... it is all so complicated and I do not have anywhere near enough time to get it all done.

We have started rehearsal for drama as well and the screaming has really started. We barely have enough kids for the show and have triple cast some of the parts. I think my drama phase is just about over!

Where does the time go?

Oh yeah... I have spent almost every waking moment that I am not at school working on photographing rugs, adjusting photographs of rugs in Photoshop, cropping, fixing color, saving blah blah blah then uploading said photo back into ETSY or ARTFIRE.. I also went nuts and started another blog just for my WEBWORKS stuff... this selling on the internet thing is complicated. You have to jump through all sorts of hoops to get noticed.

I have been doing fine on ETSY, but have only got about a quarter of my inventory up on the two sites. No sales yet on Artfire, but time will tell. They were running an introductory special and if you signed up you could have the low rate for life... that only works of course if it is profitable.

At school we have had two artists in residence from American players Theater. They worked each day with each reading class on poetry. They were amazing and got the kids to do things I could not believe. It was delightful to see that talent and skill in teaching. I am sorry to see them go.

We started rehearsals on Tuesday and the drama has already started there too. I have got 6th grade Divas coming out of my ears. We had a very low turnout this year which is sad because this is our last year and it is a good play. 45 parts only brought us 25 kids this year and we have been doubling and tripling roles. We have one autistic kid, one kid who apparently feels he is the next Laurence Olivier but can barely speak, one little 6th grade girl who bowed out supposedly because she has to babysit her little brother, but I fear she thought her part stunk. She talked to me the day before telling me she wanted a different part, one where she could act.

She just could not get the concept of a Greek Chorus being the essence of a Greek play and one of the most important roles in the show. They are on stage all the time and have the biggest line load. It just wears me out sometimes when the kids are trying to talk you into other parts and you know what they can do.

We have some very sweet kids.. our two Ladies are tiny twins with identical slight lisps and are just darling... our fierce little mouse has a deep raspy voice and the lion is a stitch of a ham. Hercules might be able to remember his lines and I finally get to create Medusa :)

I have a lot of wings and fish tails to make though, not to mention some horse masks and chorus masks

too much to do as always

Felt Art

This is Maddie's felted rendition of one of my favorite works of art. Marcel Duchamp's "Nude Descending a Staircase" it called Nuno Felting which means the bits of colored wool are needled on to a sheet of silk. Scarves are often made this way.












This is the one she made for Puck. It is Monet's "Water Lilly's"