Big Red Ball

Grandpas are guys that search numerous stores for just the right red ball and then teach the baby the joys of tossing, bouncing, rolling a big red ball around the lawn. Sofia loves her grandpa and the big red ball.

Chair repair

Look at my poor, sad rocking chair. We brought it over to the new house so we'd have something to sit in and one day one of the strips of cane popped, then another and another and within a day or two it looked like this. I have had this chair since the Bicentennial, which happened to be the year Emily was born. A friend of my mother gave me her old Boston rocker when Andy was born, so I could rock my baby. It was a medieval torture machine. Every time you rocked back one of the spindles would do it's best to crack little shards off each vertebrae as it rolled up your back. I couldn't stand the thought of rocking another baby in that chair. My mother took pity on me and bought me this bentwood, that I had been yearning for, for Christmas that year. The first time I sat in it I screamed because I thought it was going to go over backward. It doesn't, and you get used to its very generous radius. Very comfortable chair.

This is not the first time I have recaned this chair. If you want to impress your friends with something that looks daunting and difficult, recane a chair seat. It's actually really easy. The hardest part is getting the old cane and spline (the strip of reed that holds the cane in place) and all the old glue cleaned out of the groove around the wooden frame of the seat.

I bought a piece of machine-woven cane and new spline at a woodworking shop. You need to soak the cane in hot water for about 30 minutes to soften it up, then lay it over the opening where the seat goes.

Then you start working the cane down into the groove. I started at the back in the center, then moved to the front center, then to the centers of each side, then worked between those areas. You can buy something called a caning wedge at the same woodworking shop, but half a wooden clothespin works just as well. (I got that great tip from a web site—yeah! for the internet) Tap the wedge gently with a hammer, forcing the cane down into the groove.

When it is all fitted into that groove, take a sharp utility knife and carefully trim the excess cane away.

Here it is all trimmed. I've squirted wood glue into the groove all the way around. The final step is to tap the spline into the groove to cover the cut edges of cane and hold it in place. The glue keeps the spline from working itself out.

All done. I wiped the excess glue that oozed out off with a damp rag. Now it needs to dry well for a day or so before anyone can sit in it. Cane darkens as it ages, so the seat is lighter than the back. Maybe I'll put something on it to darken it a bit. Maybe I'll just leave it and let it age naturally.

Shelter

Today is the reveal of the latest work by the Twelve by Twelve group. Be sure to click on over and check it out. The theme for this round was "Shelter."

The theme of "Shelter" could relate to only one thing for me—home. If you've been reading this blog, you know we spent the past year remodeling and moving into a new-to-us home. It has been a difficult year and discouraging in many ways as the housing market deteriorated and more recently the decline of the entire economy has thrown us all into a state of anxiety. Much of my anxiety revolves around the house we have not been able to sell as well as the new house that we are now unable to complete to our satisfaction. Still, home is and must be, a shelter from the outside world and a refuge from anxiety and fear.

I planned to use the words "my home is my shelter from the storms of life" in this piece. I started a piece using these words. In it I depicted a woman looking out a window. My intention was that she would look safe, at peace and secure inside her home. As I worked on it I realized she was, instead, reflecting my own feelings of anxiety and a degree of sadness. When I showed this in progress to my quilt group, one of them said, "well, you can save it for when the theme is 'Melancholy'." By the way, the pieces that make up the window frame are actually straight. I didn't take this far enough to even fuse them down, so they are just laid together for the photo and I didn't do it very carefully!

I moved on to another idea—the welcoming front entry to our new home. I finished this piece and stood back to look at it and realized I hated it. It felt overworked, jumbled, chaotic. Again, I'm sure, a reflection of my own mental state.

"Breathe," I told myself. "Relax." I closed my eyes and what I saw was simple. The basics of shelter. A roof, walls, support and space. Clean, uncluttered and solid. So this is my final and official response to the "Shelter" theme.

It has been a process and I think it has been instructive. I have recognized my anxiety and worked through the details and distractions to come to a realization that shelter can be both a structure and a feeling and a state of mind. And I really kind of love this piece. It feels optimistic to me and I hope that is where it has taken me.

Two cats in the yard

Gracie is thriving at the new house. She loves the yard. The pretty black and white cat belongs to someone in the neighborhood, but has been spending a lot of time in our yard. The two cats tolerate each other. When I looked out the front window earlier and saw the two of them sitting there I was reminded of one of our favorite songs. It is schmaltzy, but it has a history.


It was a beautiful day today. We went out to the garden center to buy arborvitae for the backyard. I post pictures of the front yard, which is vast and very pretty. I haven't really shown you much of the back. It backs up to a subdivision, though thankfully, none of the houses behind us have windows that look into our yard. But the view is unlovely straight out the back. We see the side of a house, with their garbage cans, utility meters and a little bicycle that doesn't seem to have moved all summer. There was a falling down fence that Ray hauled away. The fence posts remain.

The arborvitae will grow quickly and screen that view. Ray will make the yard wonderful. Here he is getting to it.

It's been a hard week hasn't it? What is happening with the economy is so scary. We haven't sold our old house. We don't have money to finish doing what we want to do here. Who knew? But if I have learned anything it's that nothing is permanent and things will improve. Meanwhile, we have a beautiful day, five fluffy arborvitae and two cats in the yard. Our house is a very, very, very fine house.

I don't know who this guy is . . .

But I sure do get what he's saying.

Steve's Studio and Stuff

My brother, Steve, knows I am planning to build a studio at our new house, so he invited us to take a look at his studio. His first piece of advice: "Trust me, you really need a bathroom in your studio. Really." He didn't include one. Here he is pointing at the door and the long trek up to the house.

Second recommendation: "You really need a coyote hide to hang on the wall."

I'm taking the recommendations under advisement.

Steve's studio is a music studio and a bicycle studio and a tool studio and has the space and potential for whatever his next passion turns out to be. He's in a band again and they practice here. Note that Ray made himself at home at the drums.

Bass guitars and amps line the walls and unicycles hang from the ceiling. (Steve rides and builds unicycles.) That's a photo of Steve playing bass in his younger days. He and Ray played in a band together years ago. They treated us to a little impromtu version of "Wipeout." Pitiful.

There's a lot of old stuff hanging around on the walls and on the shelves. The coyote hide you saw in that first picture was something my Dad killed and mounted. That's an Eisenhower campaign poster you see behind Ray's head in the photo above. And Lance Armstrong, of course.

Funny old postcard (I assume it's a comment on FDR), one of my Dad's business cards and the previously noted, cool '70s Steve photo.

Old stuff rescued from Dad's engineering office. The blue and grey "box" on the top right is an Altair computer, built, by Dad, from a kit in 1975. As interesting as the computer itself, is the manual that goes with it.

There is a note in the introduction saying if you have any problems with the software, feel free to call the authors Bill Gates, Paul Allen and Monte Davidoff, with a phone number given.

Ray decided to try calling the number to ask to speak to Bill Gates. When he actually got somebody's voice mail he panicked and hung up!

Beyond the houses

Our Pocatello walk continued from the old neighborhood, called Indian Hills, across the highway and down toward the river and the Edson Fichter Nature Area.

After I was in Pocatello a couple years ago I posted pictures of this area here and here. It is a place I love to visit as it really reminds me of my childhood and the beauty of the country where I grew up. The Nature area was named for our family friend, Edson Fichter, a biologist, writer and artist. He was quite special and this beautiful place is a fitting tribute.

The trail winds through the valley, along the Portneuf River. At the end of the valley is the Portneuf Gap, the opening in the mountains where the river flows through. The Oregon Trail comes through the Gap and up this valley, as well as the Union Pacific rail tracks.

The dusty blue-grey Russian olive trees grow along the riverbank. I recently learned that they are an invasive, non-native species, but I still think they are beautiful.

The tangy, sharp smell of sagebrush is one of the best smells I know. I wish you could smell this photo!

This kid said he had caught a few trout that morning.

Those are the railroad tracks over below the lava cliffs. Eventually a train came through.

Growing up so near these tracks taught me to sleep through all kinds of train noises. Train whistles in the night make for great dreams.

Pocatello houses

We made a quick trip to Pocatello for my cousin Billy's memorial service this weekend. It's a long drive, but good to get back from time to time, even for such a sad occasion. On Sunday we took a walk through our old neighborhood, where my brother still lives. this is the house my parents built when I was in Junior High and lived in for the rest of their lives.

After my parents died my uncle bought the house. Just a few years ago my cousin Billy and his wife, Lesley, bought it. Billy was an avid gardener and kept the yard looking beautiful. It is an odd feeling to go back to this house, as we often do, but the family connection and their loving care of the place warms my heart. Of course we don't know, nor does Lesley, if she will stay there.

This house, just a block away, was the house Ray and I owned 30 years ago. It looks pretty seedy. Sad. It was such a cute house. I loved this house a lot.

I don't think it has been painted since we lived there. And it looks like one of the house numbers was replaced with homemade replacement. And the yard—sigh. I wish we hadn't walked by.

Here's something you see in Idaho. Giant butterflies on the sides of houses. This one is a couple doors down from our old house.

Some of the butterflies are even bigger than this one. Some houses have a couple. Never cared much for the look, myself. Do they do this in other places? SE Idaho is the only place I've ever seen them.

Here's another butterfly, just around the corner from my brother's house. This one isn't as tacky as the big painted wood ones.

I had just taken this photo and the door to this house opened up and a woman stepped out and called out, "Terry, is that you?!" Busted. Turned out to be someone I went to college with. That was embarrassing. I wonder if she reads my blog. Uh, hi Betty!

Cousins

On my Dad's side of the family I am the oldest of 13 cousins. This picture is of 8 of us. It was taken more than 50 years ago. This is a picture of people who grew up and became teachers and accountants and artists and scientists and parents and grandparents.

I'm the big one in the middle of the back row. That's my sister Becky in the bottom left hand corner. My brother hadn't been born yet. The distressed little boy is my cousin Billy. I don't know why he looked so unhappy here. Maybe it was being the only boy among all those little girls. Generally he looked a lot more lighthearted than this, despite being the only boy with 5 sisters. His sisters all adored him, though, so I think he had it pretty good.

I look at this picture tonight and I feel old and I feel sad. Billy died this morning. Sweet, smart, clever, amusing guy. He beat cancer once. This time it beat him.

So the cousins will gather again to say goodbye to one of our own. I hate this.

Stuff I like

Isn't it really the little things, sometimes, that make you happy on a day to day basis? In the spirit of Martha's "good things" and Oprah's "favorite things", I thought I'd share a few of the things I am disproportionately pleased with these days.

I've always been a sponge person. I know, they say they are germy and nasty, but nothing cleans up a sink or countertop like a sponge and I maintain that if you treat them right they are more hygienic than any old soppy rag hanging over the faucett. The thing is, though, that they are ugly. The cellulose ones that work the best have always come in assorted yucky colors. Emily discovered Trader Joe's sponges first and after using them at her house I am a convert.

This is how you buy them—in a package of twelve little compressed things that look like crackers. You soak it in water and it looks like this:

They are wonderfully absorbant, just the right size and a nice sponge-ish color that is not offensive. They are quite cheap (I don't remember the exact price) and since you have that compact package of twelve right there in the drawer, it's not a big deal to toss it when it gets mungy or someone fails to rinse it well and squeeze it out and it gets stinky. (who would do that?) Every time I go to Trader Joe's I am tempted to buy another package. I never want to run out of these.

I have tall cupboards with top shelves that I can't quite reach. In my old house I had a stepstool that I used, but it was a pain. For one thing it was a finger pincher when you folded that step down and back up, and secondly it took up a lot of space. Look what I found a couple weeks ago.

This very inexpensive little guy folds completely flat, opens easily and holds up to 300 lbs. (no comments, please) It is exactly the right height and it stores under the lazy susan in the pots and pans cabinet. Handy!

My next find was also thanks to Emily. (how did she get so smart?) The other day I mentioned to her that I was going to buy a new Swiffer and she got very excited and ran to show me her new "better than a Swiffer" purchase.

It's called an OMop and is, indeed, superior. The handle is ergonomically curved with the oval grip. The business end is a little bigger and is grippy like velcro. In addition to the fibery covers that pick up all the disgusting hair and fluff from the corners, it comes with a microfiber pad for wet mopping that sticks by means of the grippy stuff and then peels off to be tossed into the washing machine and reused endlessly. Got it at Target. A little more expensive than the Swiffer, but oh, so worth it!

This next item actually was kind of expensive, but I love it, despite it's intended drudgery. This is my new ironing board.

I had no space in my new utility room for my ancient, rusting harvest gold ironing board. So I went looking for a folding ironing board that mounts on the wall. Sounds like something we've all seen, but not so easy to find. I found it here. There is a Rockler store here and they did not stock these, but were happy to order it for me and didn't charge me shipping. (this baby is heavy!)

When you fold it down, you can swivel it around to wherever it's handy for ironing. You can't believe how solid and sturdy this thing is. Gerrie liked mine and got one for her new walk-in closet.

And last, and probably least, I ran into K-Mart today to get some trash can liners and spotted this nice waste basket. It is perfect to use in our office for paper recycling. I love that it is shiny and black and a sleek, simple design. It has hand holes for carrying it, full of paper and catalogs, out to dump into the recycling bin. It will hold a lot. And it was cheap.

My needs are simple. I don't need fancy cars or expensive jewelry. Just give me nicely designed stuff for helping me get through the day.

Fabric teapots

Remember when I told you about High Fiber Diet's teapot challenge? The resulting teapots were revealed this week at the Columbia Stitchery Guild's quarterly meeting.

There weren't very many, but I think the members really enjoyed them.

Here is Gerrie's. Isn't it wild and crazy? I love it. Sorry I cut off its spout in the photo.

I really liked Karen Miller's teapot too. It is a reproduction of an antique Japanese teapot her grandfather brought from Japan. She said it was a family treasure. Her indigo dyed and Katazome stenciled fabrics seemed perfect for teapots.

She sent me this photo of her creation along with the original and gave me permission to post it here.

Here's a closeup of my teapot.

This was really a lot of fun!