Fearless

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Don't worry. If you're afraid of heights, there's only a couple of
places you'll have to white-knuckle through. Mostly, it's amazing.

I found this video through my pal, Ashton Kutcher who Twittered
it recently. Please note I was following AK before it was newsworthy. :-)

Sparkling Clean

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This is a good-bye card for employees to sign for a man who was laid off a few months ago. He's a veteran so I hope he enjoys the red, white & blue theme.

I don't know the particulars but when he was laid off, it was decided he could stay on until the end of May and we'd see if sales improved and he could stay. I guess? At first I thought that was good financially for him but bad in a mindset kind of way, you know? Should I look for job or not? That seems tortuous to me. He's 63 but he wasn't sure if he could afford to retire. This "stay of execution" has given him time to get his affairs in order and now he is retiring! He's totally at peace with the decision and is very excited about retirement. I'm very happy for him that it all worked out - and insanely jealous.

~ ~ ~

I hired a house cleaning service last week and yesterday was her first day. She'll come every 2 weeks. We tried this once before, having a woman come once/month, mainly because I was too cheap to have her come more often and honestly, I still struggled with my thinking, "I should be doing this myself, working harder, trying harder, I should be able to do it all." Even though I knew intellectually that was stupid thinking, I still felt very conflicted about it. In the interest of full disclosure, Simon and Steve do stuff too but, for all my strong thoughts of equality and men/women roles, etc. I found myself still feeling the burden of the traditional "housewife" role. I think that's really weird of me. Really weird.

This time around? I'm totally at peace with it - in fact I'm ecstatic about it. In the time that's elapsed since our last hiring of a house cleaner, I've embraced the fact that I don't like cleaning. At all. Love to declutter, organize, purge. Hate to clean. I've learned, from women at work, that there are some people who enjoy cleaning. Foreign concept, but whatever.

This way, we're stimulating the economy and Kerri and I both get to do work we enjoy. This isn't a luxury, it's a necessity if I want Pine Tree Designs to continue to grow. I put around 30 hours/week into PTD, on top of a full-time job. Not that I'm justifying or anything. Okay, maybe a little, because really, it is a luxury and I'm extremely grateful.

The house is so clean, poor Reggi wouldn't even sit in her favorite recliner, Simon told me. Guess it didn't smell like her anymore! Simon had to coax her back into "her chair". That cracks me up. I had left a dog treat for Kerri to feed Reggi when she got here in order to make friends with her faster. She said Reggi never barked or even came to the door. Reggi turned her head and glanced at her when she arrived but that's it. Reggi had met Kerri last week, but still, I think Reggi was hip to why Kerri was there and she didn't want to discourage her in any way. :-)

Kerri says next time she'll work on the walls, baseboards and the tops of the doors. Huh? Those things are supposed to be cleaned?? Who knew? I still can't get over the blinding sparkliness of the chrome in the shower this morning.

It's all good.

Friday, June 5, 5:00-8:00

Saturday, June 6, 10:00-8:00

Sunday, June 7, 10:00-5:00

Genesee Valley Quilt Club's Garden of Quilts

RIT Gordon Field House

One Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623-5603

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Turtle Magnet

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This magnet is 2-1/2" in diameter. I love the way it turned out, with the paper and thread suggesting ripples of water. I made similar pins too - they don't have the black final circle.

I took last Friday off to work on more product for the Quilt Show. Love a good 4-day weekend, that's for sure. I worked my butt off and still don't feel like I have enough to show for my time. I kept wondering, "What am I doing wrong?" I finally just gave myself a break - things take as long as they take, you know? I keep feeling like the show is next weekend, so I'm always relieved to know I have another full weekend to devote to it. (Plus all the days in between of course.)

I knew I really had my head down working when both of my parents had to send repeat emails to me, that I had not answered the first time. That's not like me. They understand but I still felt bad.

I had decided to not buy many flowers for the deck this year because I know how I am about watering them as the season progresses and figured this year would be worse, with big shows on the schedule. But I bought one hanging basket a few weeks ago and I've been really excellent with watering it.

Steve's family came over for a cookout yesterday so I decided to fill the two big pots that had wintered over on the deck. And I couldn't resist one of the nursery's combo hanging baskets. But that's it, I swear. That's 4 things to water. Surely I can keep on top of that.

I would take pictures of the flowers but my camera is on the fritz. It takes pictures fine, but I'm unable to download them to my computer or my printer. I took it the camera repair store on Friday and the guy told me I need to reformat the memory card every so often. So he did that and reset the camera to factory settings. I came home 100% confident that that was the cure. Nope. I'll call them and see if buying a new memory card might help. The thing is, we could see the photos that were on the camera on the Kodak self-serve machine they have there and he could see them on his computer. I don't get it. I'm open to suggestions if anyone has any.

~ ~ ~

When I see a new comment has been left on the Bruce Jenner entry, I always open the notifying email with one eye closed, half afraid of what I'll read. Here's the latest:

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Bruce Jenner":

shadddddappppp............

all u sons of bitches..

so he had a lift....

and he's trying to fix it...

you can all go suck a fat toe...

Besides feeling like I want to explain that I'm really a nice person, I didn't mean to be unkind, I really like Bruce Jenner . , . I want to state that I won't be sucking any fat toes. Ever.

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Accordian House

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There are more slides of this house here. I love houses and especially interesting architecture so I think this is really cool because it's so different from anything I've seen.

This, however, is not so cool:

Anyone who talks about their own legacies, is a little suspect, in my mind. And "I'm not sure what I would spend the money on,"?? That's really bad. How about helping others less fortunate, for starters? Oy.

I consider myself pretty anti-clutter (kindly avert your eyes from my desk and my studio!) - but this place is unappealingly sterile. Some of the comments left on the article are pretty funny. "I once dissected frogs in a room almost identical to the kitchen, in a lab class at college."

So yeah, it would be a nice place to visit but I don't want to live there.

~ ~ ~

Yesterday around 3:00, I realized that I had not whined (internally) about my little broken toe once! I've turned the corner. It's not 100% yet but it's stopped hurting all the time. The first sign should have been that I forgot to take Ibuprofen. I'm relieved because I was wondering how long this healing was going to take.

~ ~ ~

I slept pretty crappy last night and it's all my fault. I usually do a little surfing on my iTouch before I go to sleep. Last night I realized it was just after 10:00, which is already a problem since I'm supposed to be asleep by then, if not earlier. So I checked the American Idol results. I'm a big Adam fan, but I'm very happy Kris won. They will both have nice careers. As a result, I feel like I had Idol-related dreams all night! Mainly I remember that a young man, not unlike Kris I realized as I woke up, moved in with my roommate and me. My roommate was a woman at work with whom I discuss American Idol. Then more wackiness ensued, which I won't bore you with.

The good news is that today is my Friday. On Monday I decided to take Friday off to give myself a 4-day weekend. Lots of "paperwork" to be done!

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Lime & Navy Quilt

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8" x 8" Framed Paper Quilt

~ ~ ~

Dude. The hate mail on the original Bruce Jenner post just keeps rollin' in. I'm resisting the temptation to reply.

Anonymous:
I think your all ASSHOLES for saying dumb shit like this! the man prob accomplished more in his life then you will ever...... to all you people who talk shit like you do KARMA IS A BITCH you'll be old,fat. and ugly one day you watch .. HAHAHAHAHAH

My witty retort:
Me? Old, fat & ugly? Honey, that ship has already sailed.


(Don't worry, I don't really feel that way about myself.)

~ ~ ~

Friday, June 5, 5:00-8:00

Saturday, June 6, 10:00-8:00

Sunday, June 7, 10:00-5:00

Genesee Valley Quilt Club's Garden of Quilts

RIT Gordon Field House

One Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623-5603

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Paper Quilt

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I made this 8" x 8" piece for Pam for her birthday. She's a quilter so she loved it. I also made her a matching gift tag and magnet but I didn't scan those and for now, they are one of a kind. This looks better in person - the stitched squares show up better. Now I'm working on a lime green & navy quilt.

I worked on my new hand stitched quilt series all weekend and I'm so excited about it, I literally can't sleep. I couldn't turn my brain off to fall asleep last night when I wanted to. Then I woke up 20 minutes too early this morning so I reset the alarm to sleep a bit later. Again, I couldn't stop seeing paper quilts in my head so I didn't think I ever fell back asleep. But the alarm woke me up so clearly I did.

~ ~ ~

My stupid pinky toe still hurts and the swelling has not gone down so I called the doctor's office on Friday. When the nice woman who called me back told me everything I already knew, I told her I just wanted to hear it from a professional. And then she told me something that made me slap my forehead, "Duh!" Take ibuprofen for the pain. I swear, I never considered that once in the 2 weeks since I banged it up. My defense is that it just hurts a little, but it does hurt almost all the time. Anyway, I started taking ibuprofen this weekend and it feels better. And I'm told it will take weeks to heal and feel better.

~ ~ ~

Bruce Jenner does look better after his plastic surgery touch-up. Hard to tell since this isn't as close up as the first one but altogether, it's definitely a more flattering photo. Maybe he needs a different hairstyle. Heck, what do I know?

To save you some clicking (and artificially inflate my stats - ha!), here's the before.

And here's the way before. Wonder what he would have looked like had he aged naturally and gracefully like the rest of us?

~ ~ ~

Friday, June 5, 5:00-8:00

Saturday, June 6, 10:00-8:00

Sunday, June 7, 10:00-5:00

Genesee Valley Quilt Club's Garden of Quilts

RIT Gordon Field House

One Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623-5603

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Collage? Me?

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The other day one of the guys at work was cleaning out a desk of a former colleague and found this card in an envelope and gave it to me. I made it in a class years ago! I have no idea how it ended up in this desk. The only remotely plausible explanation is that I sold it to him. If so, now that I have it back, I can resell it. Wonder how much money I can make off of this one card, over and over?

Seriously, I'm not going to sell it, but I do recall one time I offered for sale at work a bunch of stuff I didn't want anymore and this was probably among those things. I've generally kept all the stuff I made in classes over the years, unless I was in one of my purging moods. Since discovering that my brain flat out refuses to do collage, I probably figured I had no need for this.

Now I'm happy I have it, to prove that I actually did true collage once. Although I can guarantee this is probably an exact replica of the teacher's card. I remember taking a journaling class from her once and we were collaging a page. My stuff was so lined up and organized, it left her literally speechless. It still makes me laugh because I didn't realize I was doing it until I saw the look on her face.

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Paper to Pearls

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Women in Uganda make these beads out of recycled paper.



I wish this You Tube video showed the beads up close. But if you stick it out to the end, check out the collar! And there are a few moving stories at the end.

~ ~ ~

Friday, June 5, 5:00-8:00

Saturday, June 6, 10:00-8:00

Sunday, June 7, 10:00-5:00

Genesee Valley Quilt Club's Garden of Quilts

RIT Gordon Field House

One Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623-5603

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Prison Paper Art

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My fellow crafters will appreciate this familiar notion that prison artists are using up their current craft supplies before obtaining more. (Be sure to click on the related stories link to see the photos of all the work featured.)

~ ~ ~

I'm not sure how many people go back and read the previous day's comments so I'll post this here too. From all I can find, Bruce Jenner's new mug will be unveiled on the next episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians, which I understand is on Sundays. I'll post a photo of it here next week, stat-ho that I am.

This morning, while looking around the Internet to see if the Jenner photos had been leaked, I ended up spending way too much time looking at photos of other plasticized celebrities, like Lara Flynn Boyle. This is so bad I fully expect it to come out that she has a disease or condition of some sort. Poor woman.

Friday, June 5, 5:00-8:00

Saturday, June 6, 10:00-8:00

Sunday, June 7, 10:00-5:00

Genesee Valley Quilt Club's Garden of Quilts

RIT Gordon Field House

One Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623-5603

.

All Things Paper

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My new friend Ann Martin wrote such nice stuff about me and my work - check it out! You really should become a regular reader of her blog, btw - she truly loves paper and posts a lot of neat stuff. Obviously she has exquisite taste. ;-)

Here's a funny related story. I noticed that my blog stats for yesterday shot up 5 times their usual number. Holy crap, I didn't know Ann had such a large readership! So I went to Sitemeter.com to check it out - turns out Bruce Jenner had another face life to correct the previous one. People are Googling him and up pops this page. Figures, the only mean thing I've ever posted and that's the entry that gets the most comments and most hits.

Friday, June 5, 5:00-8:00

Saturday, June 6, 10:00-8:00

Sunday, June 7, 10:00-5:00

Genesee Valley Quilt Club's Garden of Quilts

RIT Gordon Field House

One Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623-5603

.

Riesling Festival

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I post this as a community service to my fellow artists - a brand new festival this year! I'm applying for what would be my 3rd outdoor show this year. Must buy tent soon and start practicing putting it up. And figuring out my layout within. (Mom, I don't anticipate any more custom tablecloths!)

I was sure thinking of my fellow vendors at this weekend's Lilac Festival when those strong winds kicked up Saturday afternoon. It rained too, briefly but quite hard at times. But the wind! No place for a novice outdoor show person like me. Reinforces the need for heavy weights - must give that serious consideration.

Because this festival was on my mind, Steve and I celebrated Mother's Day a day early by taking Reggi for a nice walk along Canandaigua Lake, where this festival will be held. It's one of our favorite places to walk since they fixed up Kershaw Park a few years ago.

I realized though, as soon as I put on my sneakers that I had not had tight shoes on since I broke/sprained/whatever my little toe last weekend. It hurt a bit but I could live with it - and it went numb after we began walking, so it was fine. Except now it hurts like mofo. It's not really that bad but it's definitely swollen and slightly painful.

Steve had asked me to pick when and where I wanted to go out to breakfast or dinner for Mother's Day. (What? No lunch option?) Simon worked all weekend so that's how we ended up taking my favorite child with us - the furry one that doesn't cost me a ton of money and does whatever I ask with a smile on her face and a wag of her tail. Just sayin'.

We weren't sure where we'd end up for breakfast since we had Reggi with us so after our walk we drove down Routes 5 & 20 to see what was available. I picked Panera Bread which I know made Steve a little nervous - he's not one for "girly" food, which is wraps and paninis and such. Being the true geeks that we are, we sat in the parking lot, connected wirelessly to their website and perused the menu. Steve thought he could live with it - so we both had smoothies and breakfast sandwiches on ciabatta. He loved it! We took our food to the City Pier and sat in the car by the lake and ate. It was delish!

A fine day was had by all.

Sunday, I awoke to find flowers and a giant mushy card from Simon sitting on my laptop in my studio. That kid knows one of the first places I head in the morning! I love that kid - he's a good son.

~ ~ ~

Saturday afternoon my friend Vickie came over to take photos for a brochure she's putting together for me. We wanted, in particular, a shot of my hands stitching. So after a tour of the studio and the house, etc. we got set up. I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille! Then I notice blood on the paper I'm stitching! Apparently I developed a paper cut on my hand sometime, don't even know when. Figures. Luckily it was the hand that was not in the shot and the blood was on the backside of the paper so we got what we wanted without problem.

Check out the tons of events offered.

Friday, June 5, 5:00-8:00

Saturday, June 6, 10:00-8:00

Sunday, June 7, 10:00-5:00

RIT Gordon Field House

One Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623-5603

Fine, You Win!

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I love these designs and hope they appeal to the quilters at the next craft show. These are 1-1/4" and get mounted on a coordinating colorful scalloped & embossed circle.

~ ~ ~

A nice woman at Wednesday's craft show asked if I had any magnets. She doesn't wear pins but really liked my work and picked out two she would buy if they were magnets. So I said I would make them for her and took down her contact info.

She's not the first person to mention magnets to me, including my crafty friend at work, Jen. But I've resisted and I wasn't sure why until I was telling Jen about the conversation yesterday and she asked, "What is it about magnets that you don't like?"

I finally realized. "I hate clutter on the refrigerator!"

Alrighty then. Seems I have issues, eh??

So now I've gotten over myself and ordered 250 magnets from a wholesaler yesterday. For every pin design I make, I'll also make magnets. I even already have a metal board on which to display them.

Btw, I have anti-clutter issues in general, but our refrigerator . . . oy. Steve has a bunch of magnets on our refrigerator that annoy me. Some are from businesses from 30 years ago that he's probably never used and probably long gone by now. (My other annoyance with his inability to let go of things is he keeps his college textbooks. Why??)

I can't even remember what else is on the refrigerator because I've apparently successfully blocked it from my mind. I'm okay with a few "tasteful" magnets, which would of course be, according to MY taste only. So annoyed was I by his helter-skelter collection of magnets that I moved my select few tasteful, useful magnets to the side of the refrigerator so they wouldn't have to associate with the likes of his.

Oh! I just remembered something else! He gets a free advertising magnet with each purchase of chemicals for the hot tub. So he kept putting them on the refrigerator. As they accumulated, I'd sneak 1 or 2 into the garbage occasionally. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore so I took all of those down and put them on one of the metal lockers in the basement. (They came with the house, a row of 4 metal school type lockers.) He has stuff in the lockers, I don't, so now I don't have to look at them anymore. He can collect to his heart's content.

I crack me up.

Check out the tons of events offered.

Friday, June 5, 5:00-8:00

Saturday, June 6, 10:00-8:00

Sunday, June 7, 10:00-5:00

RIT Gordon Field House

One Lomb Memorial Drive, Rochester, NY 14623-5603

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Blues & Greens

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I've been playing around with combinations of green variegated thread and turquoise variegated thread. Sometimes I try to match the variegation, light to dark, like the bottom one, but usually I let the colors fall spontaneously where they will. (I know! Me? Spontaneous? I usually prefer to plan my spontaneity.)

And it's off to the show! I'm feeling good about this and will definitely have fun hanging with my fellow vendor friends.

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Green Box

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How clever!

So two exciting things have happened lately.

I broke my little pinky toe on Sunday. I did it the usual way, walking into furniture. It hurt but no more than you would expect it to. I noticed a few hours later it still hurt, which seemed unusual. After I sat at Spot Coffee Sunday night for hours, the first time I got up to walk around, it really hurt. Limping hurt. I noticed that night it was pretty purple.

I consulted Dr. Google and found what I expected. Do nothing unless it gets worse.

Here's the bummer. It's practically healed! How is a girl supposed to garner sympathy and be waited on hand & foot without a cooperative toe?? Seriously, by mid-morning it really didn't hurt at all and even I have to look really hard for any discoloration.

This morning though, when I put my shoe on, it hurt a bit. So maybe there's a little hope for complete servitude towards me after all. Go me!

~ ~ ~

I've been accepted for the Letchworth craft show! This has me scared shitless and really, really excited. This is a major 3-day show about 45 minutes from here, held Columbus Day weekend, so it's Saturday, Sunday, Monday.

I know seasoned artists who don't feel ready to apply for this show. And you can choose to exhibit 1, 2 or 3 days but I decided to be all go-big-or-go-home about it and asked for 3 days. Oh my.

The thing I didn't pay attention to, but wouldn't do any differently anyway, is that the following weekend is the Junior League of Rochester 2-day show. It was my 2nd best show last year.

So I have to be ultra-prepared. Which I am, each year is better and better, but still, yikes!

And I received an application for the brand new Finger Lakes Riesling Festival to be held in Canandaigua in August. It's a 2-day outdoor show. I have nothing planned for July (except vacation with Steve) or August - so I want to do this one too.

I'm feeling so motivated! (And Pam, I'll be in touch with work to do!)

After not being allowed to use my own table at Spot Coffee I checked with the Nixon Peabody people yesterday and was told yes, I can use my own table tomorrow and yes, I'd already asked that. Oops. Once bitten, twice shy.

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Spot Coffee and on to the Next Show

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Spot Coffee went about as well as I expected. Sales weren't terrific but I had fun; it's a cool place to be. I had to use one of their tables instead of my own so thank goodness I had the two black squares of gabardine with me that I could fake into a table cloth.

I got a lot of stitching done so that's always fun. As I sat stitching, looking around the room, it dawned on me that I was old enough to be the mother of every vendor there. I always forget that I'm 53 so I felt like I was among my peers until that mother of a thought entered my brain.

I was also cracking up at the notion that here I was at Spot Coffee, home of the crunchy granola/backpacky crowd, sporting my birthday gift Vera Bradley purse. I felt like I wanted to explain, "This is my first and only Vera Bradley! Deep down I'm a hippie chick too!"

I bought a cranberry raspberry smoothie that was outstanding. I'd go back just for that, actually!

I had fun hanging with my friend Vickie, of In My Head Studios. It was the first time I got to see her new textured domino pendants in person - they are fabulous!

She's also a graphic designer. She's working on a tri-fold brochure for me so we talked about that some more. She's coming to my studio Saturday to take photos of my hands stitching, for the brochure. And we had fun comparing iPhone/iTouch apps. Free wifi!

My other favorite thing was meeting John Ballou of JackBear Stamps. He hand carves rubber stamps - with incredible detail! I'm going to steal Vickie's idea and commission John to carve a Pine Tree Designs custom stamp that I can use to stamp on my paper bags. It will probably be the same logo/words I use on the back of my cards.

And it's on to the next show, day after tomorrow. We left most of my stuff in Steve's vehicle. Just a little readjustment and I'll be good to go!

Wednesday - May 6, 10:00-3:30

Nixon Peabody Art & Craft Show

1100 Clinton Square, 14th Floor

Rochester, NY

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