In the past 6 weeks I have worked on around 60 thumbnails, 15 rough comps and 6 final presentations, back to back without a break,  along with some tweaking of each design thanks to a very particular but inspirational professor! I had to contend with an Adobe Creative Suite that is not that happy on a Mac and nearly obsolete (must buy the updates soon, can’t afford to yet!) and the usual things life throws at you when you just don’t have the time to deal with things.  Its no wonder I feel dizzy. But you know what?  I love it. I prefer this kind of motion to sitting around twiddling my thumbs.

My next class is going to be even more exciting. Another studio class, this time its page layout. I feel like I’ve done this before but this class looks like it will focus on professional work flow rather than teaching a software program. That starts today. And here I am updating my blog instead of worrying about that. I need a half an hour to breath before I take it on.

While its been a whirlwind, I feel great. My instructors wife is an art director and he had shown her my work. He came back with “she is impressed”. Cool. Its hard to work on a piece so intensely that you can’t tell if it works or not. Another set of objective eyes mean a lot.

The result though is that I’ve been neglecting my garden, my mushrooms and the house. I don’t care about the house so much but the other stuff I do. Because I haven’t been doing much as far as homesteading, I haven’t written much about it. On the other hand, being in this extreme creative mode, I did have thoughts in the back of my mind regarding the world at large and my own little corner of it.

And the final say? Its over rated. Yes, that is correct. Over rated. Not life but homesteading. Its hard work. Its  a challenge here and there, but once a task is mastered, it becomes mundane. What I mean is, its come to the point for me that I have to see it as yet another  Stepford Wife thing. I hope to never become one of those! But even as I expanded my repertoire as a homesteader, the rest of my life began to narrow. I live outside a box but what has started to happen is that I created my own box in which I dwell. I do go to extremes. Its just  who I am. Unfortunately, I had come to feel trapped again.

I needed this class to help me break out. Did I break out though? Not yet.

So why continue to do it? I suppose because I must. I never felt like an actual homesteader. My roots were far more into the survival aspect of things without the guns and ammo and pseudo patriotism. Because I have been so busy, I feared that I had lost the connection to the survival instinct. But realizing the error of my ways is a survival instinct in itself.
And what is that error?

I have been so down on the future that I wasn’t taking all scenarios into consideration. I have all the doom and gloom stuff covered. What  I don’t have is “what if the world rights itself against all odds” covered. There maybe a spot for people like me in that world and as a family, we have to be able to survive there as well. As an artist and as a designer. These two subjects are highly under rated in society at large. So my focus shifts again. Towards art and design. The person I was before I started getting really worried. That person is me. I let that person smother and it was painful. But I never let it die completely. Even more painful.

Where this will lead is anybodies guess. I’m just waking up now. I will still “homestead to survive”. But there is more to life than surviving. I’ve always been focused on ultimately thriving.

I came across a great quote for my most recent project (designing an insane clock believe it or not).

“They say time changes things, but you have to change them yourself”. Andy Warhol no less.

Toria at Unfinished Business ran a short contest recently. I was number two to correctly answer a question she asked but since she is such a great person, she still gave me a prize anyway!

Wonderful dish clothes that she knit herself and a parachute silk  shopping bag!  Thanks so much Toria. The bag went straight into my purse since forgetting to bring along cloth bags has been an ongoing issue for me! I used this one today and its perfect.

I had been thinking that I need to knit more dishcloths but haven’t had time lately. These two will be going to the “hope” chest for our farm. In fact the color scheme is just right. Red is my favorite color and most things I make or buy for both kitchens have red in them. Perfecto!

Muchos Gracias, Amiga!

In September, I started the elderberry wine. My first tentative steps in what I thought would become a nagging  habit. I’m still waiting to proceed to the second siphoning stage. I know it has a name but I have a headache and can’t think that well……

Garry by the way has gotten into Skype for overseas calls and once a week he forces us to sit in front of the web cam to talk to his cousin Lyndsey-a brewer, who in turn makes his family stand behind him while we all talk.   I showed him the fermentation bottle. In an attempt to guide me in the right direction he asked, “Did it stop fermenting yet?”

I actual do not recall it fermenting at all. It looks like it rises while we are not looking since there is a ring  around the bottle about two inches higher than the “wine” but it doesn’t do anything in obvious ways. There is a rather wimpy foam on top that looks like yeast but it hasn’t changed a bit in a month. Other than that, not a thing has happened. The scary thing is that the foam doesn’t move!  If I turn the bottle it just goes back to where it was before and carries on doing whatever it’s purpose in life is. I don’t think it should move alot but it should at least bubble, no?

Then I was checking in on Blagger. Low and behold, they are making wine for Christmas. They mention that their airlock is    ” burbling to itself”. Say what? My airlock is just collecting dust,  quietly of course.

I’m thinking that its time to call it a day. One good thing is that it was a simple process.  However it was a waste of good elderberries. I’m a bit miffed.

Okay, I know most of you don’t like the subject of deadly viruses but the chatter is that there is something big brewing in Ukraine right now. Its not the same as swine flu. People are dying of pneumonia and so the speculation is that its pneumonic plague. WHO is there and speculate that this is what swine flu does in the Northern Hemisphere. Is that a crock of shit or is it real science? I don’t know.

The point being that the Ukrainian government called in WHO last Sunday. Today is the first day I have heard of it and only thanks to a newsletter that I receive from Survival Acres. I did a search on Google  and found that no large news agencies are covering the matter. Lots of blog posts and some independent press, translated.

Ukraine is under martial law and quarantined.

Patients are not presenting with known symptoms of swine flu.

Death toll is rising.

Some mention a “hemorrhagic nature” to the virus but no elaboration.

Much is unverified at this time.

Know anything?

Last spring, I wrote about how the children applied for jobs with the city and that the position they applied for was presented by the school as a volunteer one. They hadn’t bothered to inform the kids that they could actually get paid. They applied online and surprise surprise, neither child was ever acknowledged. It was as if they didn’t exist. The school didn’t fill the positions, not the paid or the voluneer ones. But some children did get hired. I assume there was a freeze at some point. But it doesn’t matter. I’m now happy that my kids didn’t get a job with the city.

After sacrificing an entire summer to make some extra money, the kids were anxious for their first pay checks. The agreement was that they would get paid every two weeks. The first check didn’t come and excuses were offered. The next one didn’t come either. Months later, this group remains unpaid with no explanations.

One student got a lawyer since nobody else could give her answers. The lawyer then decided that this would make a great group lawsuit (not sure of the extent of it). So now the city is getting sued by a group of students at one school. I bet they will find others across town who would love to get their paychecks before Christmas.  Each is owed 500 dollars. I wonder how much the lawyer is asking for?

And can you imagine that this city is all about getting kids on the right track by providing “opportunity” and yet don’t bother to actually pay as promised? In this city? Why, what could have gone wrong?

Two terms to explain what I mean and then the rant.

Honors. Classes in which students who apply themselves get elevated  in order to get more credits on the GPA for the same effort.

Regular. Classes that students take and the state must provide no matter what. Plain old regular school.

The rant.

Physics class started out really well for my girl, mostly because of the boy who sits next to her. She actually played dumb for a week so he could help her but I made her knock it off. She stopped that ploy only to find another challenge awaiting.  This class is a regular class which means the general student population attend. No known geniuses. Just the same, regular or not, the subject is a challenge because a group of students are disruptive constantly, deliberately disobey class rules and when the teacher puts her foot down (every day) they become belligerent and disrespectful towards her. The girl and her friends then can’t concentrate and neither can the teacher.The children are now 16 and a half. You would think that the behavior is that of a slow maturing  five year old.

The girl came home yesterday and announced that the school is suddenly giving a midterm (with 1 days notice, another issue) and that the teacher was trying to go over it with them but the other students, led by one girl in particular, wouldn’t be quiet and they wouldn’t sit in their seats and they wouldn’t listen to the teacher. They went as far as calling the teacher racist.

The teacher happens to be ethnic herself and got very angry. But she didn’t send the little twits to the discipline office. She just made them shut up momentarily. The girls are multi ethnic by the way, no one race is represented as a majority. The girl says that they  are stupid based on previous yet similar experience in other classes with the same group. Stupid is a very strong word but she was very angry.

The point is that we explored ways for her and the other good students who are completely stressed out by all of this  to discuss this with the teacher, their counselors and the principle. She doesn’t feel that the teacher should be held responsible but I do to a point. The school can’t know what their students are doing if teachers are afraid to report that they are having a hard time managing the classroom. Poor classroom management gets teachers axed.

I therefor don’t think the girls are stupid. They know that they are not going to  be reported by their teachers. They haven’t been suspended yet no matter how nasty they have gotten. They haven’t even visited the discipline office for a warning. Now I hate rules that are written in stone.  If you want to act like a banshee though,  then what the hell, somebody should use those written rules to make sure that you don’t continue to act like a banshee. If the rules  are there then use them and if you don’t use them get rid of them for Gods sake!

In fact, the girls could all be arrested for disrupting another students education. That is in the rule books. If a parent went in and yelled at a teacher in front of the class while the teacher was trying to teach, that parent would be arrested immediately. If a student went in to another class and decided to stand up and tell jokes while the teacher is trying to teach,  that student would be arrested too. So why are teachers so shit scared?

Because they are being attacked by administration and being blamed for everything that goes wrong in education. I have a friend who was attacked by her students and they also accused her of being a racist. Her story made the headlines and she got fired without due process. She filed a lawsuit but then got slapped with a gag order. She has never been able to find another job in the school system and she can’t even clear her name!  I am sure that my daughters physics teacher is well aware of this situation. What she isn’t aware of perhaps is she is in the same boat as my friend was. The signs were all there and my friend refused to heed them. Many of us saw it coming. I see it coming in this physics class.

I explained all of this to my daughter but none of this solves the issue. I think I have to talk to the  teacher first but it looks like a job for Super Mom. Again. I had laid low for the last three years. But my girl is going to fail a class that she is perfectly capable of excelling in. If she fails, I have to pay for summer school and that wastes our entire summer break. Why should it be allowed to go that far?

I don’t want my daughters teacher to bare the brunt of this at all, but if she doesn’t do something, my daughter is contemplating cutting class and only showing up for tests. I obviously don’t condone that. Instead, we have thought about proposing independent study. And yet, why should we? My kid doesn’t do anything wrong. She deserves a good environment in which to learn.

I averted disaster a couple of times this morning thanks to rotten drivers. I’m a good driver, don’t take chances, but tend to speed just a tad bit,  not enough to lose control of my car or actually get ticketed.  In each situation I had the right of way. And each time I had to swerve in order to avoid being bullied off the road by others. And with each swerve I barely managed to avoid side swiping parked cars.

The first offender was a man in a Nissan truck. That means he saw me coming since trucks afford a good view. He tried to take a turn just as I was within a couple of feet of him the idiot. I didn’t have time to yield. What a frigging idiot! I did see him but I can’t read his mind. What would of made me stop if I thought he was waiting until it was clear for him to turn like nice people do? Bully and an idiot.

And then a woman came out of an alley. This I didn’t see. By rights, she should of stopped at the sidewalk, honked and then crawled forward until it was clear to turn. But instead she came out of the alley at full speed and made half her turn. Again I had to swerve to avoid an accident. Another idiot. And she only did this in order to park her car. Would it have been worth it?

My adrenalin is pumping. Coffee is overrated. Just go for a drive in my neighborhood if you need to wake up.

On Halloween, we were privy to the news that some man in Indiana was arrested after police found 6 bodies in his house. It turns out that the man is a repeat sex offender and the news wanted to know if he was ever monitored. Yes, he was. Infact, sheriffs had visited his house just a few days before his arrest.

The neighbors had smelled something. But they thought (and this is the really gross part) that the stench was coming from a near by sausage factory! So when the sheriffs went to do a check up, they must of thought the same thing. And the moral of the story? First, read the Jungle by Upton Sinclair and then never ever touch a sausage again unless you make it yourself!

I will spare the morality lessons on the actual crime for another time.

And so, the kids now want to be vegetarians again. Me too.

The blog has been finally launched by my friend Beeba. Now don’t be afraid, this is not a political blog at all. Please go read about the project and see if its something that might interest you. Like all blogs, it could use some comments! Nice ones. Nasties will be deleted. But nobody reading this blog is going to be nasty right?

To remind you, the idea is to knit and/or crochet hats for Gazan children. Like all children, they do feel the cold. Gaza gets cold. It gets wet. Children deserve better. Yes, even Gaza’s children. Human like the next child. I can’t see why people who can knit or crochet wouldn’t at least try.

At any rate, we are getting more members daily so it seems that we can actually have something to offer with this round. The worry was that we would get just a couple of hats. It looks more promising than that though.Participants as far as Korea, Norway, New Zealand and many from the U.S. A few from the Middle East. Several religions, multiple ages, wide range of  political leanings…………….very cool.

This is a holiday I always enjoy. I actually met Garry on this day oh, about 20 years ago, at a party. I was a flemenco dancer and he was not in costume but for some reason he had a balloon tied to his wrist like a child:) I remember that there was a man with a paper bag over his head, in a plaid suit at the party. The bag was tied around his neck with a rope. Not a noose, just a rope. He stood there with his arms crossed over his chest all night long not moving. We thought and still think that it was the elusive host of the party, a famous attorney who made his name by defending  the Hells Angels, but we were never sure. Creepy.

What I didn’t know is that me and Garry had been set up for a blind date by my best friend who knew that if she even suggested such a thing I would of had a fit and gone elsewhere. Smart lady. The rest is history I suppose.

This year, the boy is going to spend the night over at his best friends house which is innocent enough. Originally, the boys were going to watch scarry movies in the parents funeral home which is just across the street. Or so they thought. I refused to let it happen out of respect for the dead who may be just in the next room after all. The parents obviously agreed. Even funeral directors have professional ethics.

The girl is going to a haunted house. Garry wants to go. I have a dozen assignments due so am staying put. No trick or treaters will ring our bell.  We live in an apartment building and children have never entered here. When we were kids we would only go inside apartment buildings on a dare and if our parents ever found out they would be furious. Back then, Halloween went on for a long time.   We would come home from school, raid our parents closets and makeup and go out dressed differently everyday for about a week. Our favorite places were the little old ladies houses because they would come out and toss pennies at us. Some were nice enough to wrap the pennies is plastic but most just tossed them at us and screeched-”Go away!” I wonder if that wasn’t some sort of old world tradition now? But back then it was just something that made us laugh.

When you actually have kids who don’t have a use for costumes anymore  Halloween just creeps up on you all of a sudden. I used to make the kids their costumes every year. We would start in September and I would cater to their every whim for a month. I never used patterns. Just fitted the outfits to their little bodies. I would build things like swords and shields. And the kids would love it so much that they wore their costumes for about a month later until they got another idea of the next years costumes.  I sold the entire lot  to a woman at a garage sale for 40 dollars one year. Her children loved to dress up and she was thrilled. I think she got a great deal.

Are we yanks just complete idiots on this day or do the festivities carry over to other countries in as big a way as they are here?