First Frost - October 31, 2023

Cold weather has arrived in southwest Tennessee.  We woke up to frost and 30 degrees this morning.

BOOOOOO!

Yesterday I officially moved my back porch workstation into the sewing/craft room.  

Double BOOOOOO!

Leaves - October 29, 2023

Yesterday morning as I was admiring the beautiful, colorful leaves carpeting the yard, I said to myself, "I need to rake those up and shred them for compost."  The weatherman said it would rain, and I wanted to grind the leaves while they were dry.  I went inside and put on my yard boots.  When I told The Husband what I was going to do, he asked if I wanted him to get the leaf blower and blow the leaves into piles.  Of course I did!

Our leaf grinder has been in the back yard since spring, as there is no room for it in the shed.  The same goes for the limb chipper, and not only has it been exposed to the weather all this time, but its cover had blown away during a storm.  I figured that before I did much raking, I ought to drag those machines out and see if they even still worked.  I was a bit afraid to do it, fearing wasps and snakes.  Thankfully, nothing attacked me, and the leaf grinder still worked.  I parked it right in front of the compost bin and spewed the leaf bits right into it.  

While I was doing this, The Husband was working on the leaf blower.  It would crank but not continue to run.  After a while, he gave up, got the wheelbarrow and a rake, and joined me in the yard.  The gas line had split, he said.  I dropped my rake and went to a cabinet on the back porch where I'd stored an extra carburetor for the tiller, thinking it might have come with a gas line.  Sure enough, there was a gas line in the package, but it was not the right size.  

The Husband went to the hardware store for a gas line.  I went back to raking and grinding.  I'd finished about a quarter of the yard by the time he got back.  He installed the gas line and the leaf blower cranked, and he went to work.  For a little bit, I thought we might actually finish most of the yard, but soon it began to sprinkle.  The leaf shredder does not like wet leaves, so we hurried to grind what we'd already raked up. 

It rained for the rest of the day, effectively stalling the yard work until next weekend.

Saturday, October 28, 2023

Yesterday was a busy day from the get-go.  Daughter-in-law had asked me to drive her to a 7:30 a.m. medical appointment.  I'd need to be at her house by 7.  I woke up early and got up, showered, dressed, and was ready to go by a little after 5.  

We arrived at the appointment on time, but the office wasn't open.  When my daughter-in-law re-checked her notes, she discovered that the appointment wasn't until 8.  We drove to a nearby convenience store for some breakfast and ate in the car while we waited for the office to open.  It was close to 11:00 by the time we finished at the doctor's office.  

Meanwhile, The Husband was texting me about picking him up from an appointment he'd made to have his truck tuned up.  And the daughter-in-law had asked if I would drive her to a store in town to pick up a t-shirt, and if she could come back home with us so that she could use my t-shirt press.  So when we left the doctor's office, we picked up The Husband, went to the t-shirt store, and came home to do the t-shirt pressing.  I had to straighten up the sewing/craft/office room before she could start, as all of the surfaces were littered with my half-finished paintings.  It was about 3:30 by the time I took the daughter-in-law home.

A few minutes after I got back home, The Sister-in-Law texted to see if we wanted to go to the Mexican restaurant with her and her husband.  We did, as we do nearly every Friday night.  And since everyone was already off work for the day, we were able to get there a little earlier than usual.  Our waitress was new to the restaurant and had a little trouble getting our order correct.  She brought me a margarita on the rocks instead of the frozen margarita I'd ordered, and when she brought the food, there was no dinner for my sister-in-law.  We cut her some slack, knowing that she was new to the job.  We did notice that our margaritas were not as strong as usual (our "regular" waiters usually hook us up with stiff drinks), but that was okay with me, as last week's margarita had nearly laid me out.

We were home by 7 p.m., which is about the time we usually sit down to eat.  I would have gone straight to bed if it hadn't been so early.  I managed to hold out until 9, when I crawled in bed with my book.

I am reading the newly-published book about Mitt Romney, am about halfway through it.  Most of my reading occurs at bedtime and usually last about 10 minutes before the Kindle hits me in the face or falls to the floor, so getting to the end of any book is slow going.  This one is pretty interesting, though, and might even get a little daytime attention.

Plans - October 24, 2023

In case you've been wondering how the greeting card project is coming along, it isn't.

I had all the ingredients but never baked the cake, metamorphically speaking.  

The event happened this past weekend.  In all honesty, until Monday of last week, I thought the thing was to happen THIS COMING weekend, and I had an "oh shit" moment.  But, really, all I had to do was print out 24 cards, put them in the envelope rack (which is still in a box in my entry hall), and deliver them.  I could've done that in a couple of hours, barring a power failure, or something.  I put off printing the cards for so long that, by the final day, I'd talked myself out of doing it, altogether.  I had not promised anybody anything, so there was nobody to disappoint but myself.  And I was okay with that at the time.

Can you believe it?

Part of the truth is that I let myself get distracted by the brother/daddy painting.  Part of the truth is that I was afraid my cards would not sell and I would be embarrassed.   

I am mad at myself about it now.  Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

This is painting class day.  On my kitchen table is a piece of stretched watercolor paper, taped to a sewing room cutting mat.  On the paper is a very light pencil sketch of the brother/daddy painting (minus the faces).  It's going to class with me.

Monday - October 23, 2023

The little town near us held its annual community celebration Saturday.  The Husband and I drove over there Saturday around noon, looking for something sinfully good for lunch.  We had heard that the local FFA chapter would be selling shredded roast beef sandwiches, and after shopping all of the food trucks, we went for the roast beef.  They were also selling lamb sausages from sheep that the FFA kids had raised.  We tasted a sample and came home with two packages of brats and two fried pies - pecan and chocolate - from a local church group.  We were a little disappointed with the chocolate.  Our childhood memories of chocolate fried pie filling did not involve pudding.  Instead, our mothers filled our pies with dry cocoa, table sugar, and butter.  

A couple of hours after we got home, The Husband discovered that his wedding ring was missing from his hand.  It has been loose ever since we lost some weight.  We looked for it all over the house, in his truck, in the yard.  We feared he might have lost it at the community festival.  I emailed a friend who was involved in organizing the festival and asked her to let us know if someone turned in the ring.  Yesterday we did another search, digging down to the improbable places.  He could not remember the last time he saw the ring.  I remembered that earlier in the week, he had dug through the cedar chest looking for something, so I went through the cedar chest contents piece by piece.  It wasn't there, but digging through the other keepsakes was kind of fun.  

Friday, my niece texted me to ask if I would help her turn up a hem on a dress she'd bought.  Her proposal was that she and my sister would come over with breakfast ingredients Sunday morning, and we'd have breakfast together and then mark the hem.  I told her not to bother bringing anything, as I had Sunday morning breakfast ingredients on hand.  I woke up early Sunday morning and had already fried the bacon by the time they arrived.  My sister disobeyed my instruction and brought a loaf of delicious pumpkin bread to add to the meal.  We made her take it back home with her (after shaving off two thin slices to keep).  I think she was planning to stop by our brother's house and pawn the rest of the loaf off on him.  

The dress that needed hemming was a floor-length black & white striped knit gown.  She intends to wear it as a costume at some Beetlejuice event at Halloween.  I didn't ask any questions.  We cut 6" off the hem.  She said she would hem it by hand, but that was ridiculous when it was only a costume and there was a sewing machine set up in the room.  I ran a straight-stitch hem around the bottom, and she was good to go.  

Not long after they left, a cousin texted to ask if she could come over.  She is the daughter of Uncle B (age 93) who lives across the road from us.  She lives in Texas and makes monthly trips here to see him, usually staying 3 or 4 days at a time.  Almost every time she visits, she will come over to see us, partly for a change of scenery while Uncle B naps.  We enjoy her visits.  She has had an interesting life and tells good stories.

(I'm on the porch.  It's chilly.  The birds just woke up.  There's one in a tree outside the porch, chirping its head off.  I don't recognize the call.  Its friend is chirping back in the distance.  Maybe they're strangers, just passing through.)

I don't know what I am going to do today.  Unfinished drafts of the brother/daddy portrait are laying all over the porch and the sewing room/craft room/office.  They look like a two dozen different people.  Not one of them is a keeper, and I would throw them all away except that I can practice or swatch on their unpainted backsides.  They leer at me as I walk by them.  By Saturday, my frustration with the faces had reached its breaking point, and I decided to turn my attention to the background and foreground to figure out colors and procedures.  The practice was a good idea.  I did not expect the background and foreground to present any serious challenges, but my practice washes revealed some pitfalls that I might avoid in the final version.  If there ever is a final version.  If I ever get the faces right).

Addendum:  While I was writing the above blabber, The Husband came out to the porch and showed me his hand, with his wedding ring on it.  The ring was in the shower.  

Those faces! - October 19, 2023

It is lovely on the back porch today.  Sun is shining.  75 degrees.  Slight breeze.  I have been out here since 7:00 this morning trying to put faces on my brother and my daddy, and it just ain't happening.

There must be a dozen drawing variations, plus another dozen disembodied faces all over the backs of discarded paper, and none of them look like my subjects.  My reference photo is blurry, but I have other photographs of them that are clear enough for me to see the construction of their faces and have come up with acceptable head shapes.  But their smiles in these other pictures are different from their smiles in my reference photo, and it is the reference photo expressions that I want to capture - the ones I can't clearly see.  

The faces on the paper will be about an inch tall, crown to chin.  That's not much space to work in.  At that scale, one pencil stroke too many will change the whole expression. 

After several hours and several hundred sets of ears, eyes, and lips, I suited up for yard work and went outside.  The phlox bed is kaput for this year.  I've been leaving the fading blooms for the bees and butterflies, but they're not interested anymore, so I cut the phlox down today.  Almost chopped down two of my new hydrangeas but managed to rein myself in before doing much damage.  

The hydrangea limb that I stuck in the ground amongst the phlox has rooted and has sent up a shoot about 6" tall.  It is spindly and pale from having been shaded by the phlox all summer.  Maybe, now that it's uncovered, these last few weeks of sunshine will beef it up a little bit before the leaves fall on it for the winter.

  

Family Portraits - Saturday, October 14, 2023

I woke up at 4 o'clock this morning and finally got up and turned on the coffee pot about a quarter to five.  My brain is fidgety today.  I over-worked it, and frustrated myself, yesterday and the day before, and the day before that.  And maybe even the day before that.

Monday, I decided to start a new drawing/painting that I've been pondering.  Back in the summer, when all the kids and grandkids were here, we had an impromptu concert on the back porch.  One of the daughters-in-law snapped a picture of me, The Husband, and our two sons playing our instruments, and from the moment I saw the picture, I wanted to paint it.  So I decided to give it a go.  

I did a #2 pencil drawing on an 11" x 14" sheet of mixed media paper.  The plan was to ink over the pencil lines and then paint with watercolors.  By the end of the day, the sketch was mostly finished, but I wasn't quite satisfied with it.  The reference picture did not show our legs and feet, so I'd had to imagine them, and something about them in the drawing was "off."  Also, Son #1's face (mostly in shadow and harder to see in the reference picture) would not cooperate.  

This was supposed to be a preliminary study that I would re-do on watercolor paper.  After spending so much time on the sketch, though, I dreaded re-drawing the whole thing.  Watercolor paper has a lot more texture, which is harder to draw on than the smoother mixed media paper.  I thought I might just paint the sketch, but I was worried that the mixed media paper would buckle when wet.  It seemed like a good idea to scan the sketch, print it on mixed media paper, and test-paint the copy to see how the paper held up.  

Well, guess what?  My scanner/printer isn't large enough to scan an 11 x 14 picture.  

The Husband said he believed the copy machine at his office would scan and print something that large, so Tuesday morning, I sent him to work with my original drawing and two sheets of mixed media paper.  I spent the rest of the day trying to fix the faces on the sketch I drew some time ago of my brother and father.  

The Husband had issues with copying the other sketch.  He used all 4 sides of those two sheets of paper and did not end up with one complete copy.  I took the sketch and two sheets of mixed media paper to work on Wednesday and managed to come home with one decent copy.  

Thursday, I discovered that the mixed media paper isn't ideal for the large, wet background washes I'd planned to do.  The painting either needs to be done on watercolor paper, or I need to use another medium.  I got out the light box and traced the sketch on watercolor paper.  Son #1's face still wasn't quite right.  I tried to amend it as I traced it, but it didn't work.  By Thursday night, I'd re-traced it again, but still wasn't quite happy with the faces.  And I'd decided there needed to be a dancing baby in an empty spot in the foreground.  (There was one running around here when the reference picture was taken.)  And perhaps something on the wall behind us instead of the tacky cabinet that actually sits there.  I did these experiments on the tracings to keep from ruining the original.

I ended up with a sketch and four unusable copies.  On one of the watercolor tracings, I tried to fix faces and ended up rubbing the surface off the paper.  And with each revision, I aged myself 10 years.  By the time I looked 90, I thought I'd better quit before I turned myself into a corpse.

The faces are still not right.  I got frustrated with the back porch pickers and set them aside and went back to work on Daddy and my brother.  Still haven't gotten them right.

MEANWHILE, next weekend is the charity event that inspired me to do animal drawings for greeting cards.  As of today, I do not have ONE usable card ready to go (though I do have some ready to print).  If I am to follow through with my plan, I will have to spend next week in high gear. 

If I had not already ordered a card rack, I might just ditch the card project.

I might ditch it, anyway.

Smokin' - Tuesday, October 10, 2023

For years, The Husband and I have planned to buy an electric smoker grill.  We say, "Let's get ourselves one for Christmas," and we shop online or in a store, and end up not making a decision.  A month or two ago, Son #2 gave us his old one.  Saturday, we put it to the test for the first time by grilling a pork butt.  It turned out great.  

Before the meat came off the grill, I texted The Sons and invited them and their families for dinner Sunday night.  When the allotted grilling time passed, we opened the smoker and discovered that the butt had seriously shrunk and would never feed as many people as I had invited.  So Sunday morning, I started a pot of bean soup, thawed some tamales, and made some slaw, then I went to the grocery store and bought some chicken strips for the kids who would likely not eat anything on the menu.  It was a bizarre smorgasbord, but we all got full, with enough leftovers that I won't have to cook for a night or two.

* * * * * * * *

Today (Tuesday) is my paint class day, but the shop owner is on vacation this week and cancelled the classes.  

Today is also the second Tuesday of the month, my former boss and I have a standing date to meet for lunch at noon on the second Tuesday of each month, but she is at the beach.

Got stood up twice in one day!

Since I had nowhere to go and nothing to do, I spent most of the day working on my brother's face.  A couple of months ago, I tried to recreate (in ink and watercolor) a black and white photograph of my brother and my dad holding a stringer of fish between them.  My dad was probably in his early 40s, and my brother was in his mid-teens.  My first attempt at drawing them failed pitifully.  Daddy looked like Daddy, but when he was 80, not when he was 40.  My brother looked like some random 10-year-old.  I re-drew the picture, scanned it, and tried to edit the scan on my computer.  I successfully younged-up Daddy, but the brother gave me fits.  In the original picture, he's not quite a kid, and not quite an adult.  Each new version of his face looked like someone in the family (particularly my Aunt Janice), but not him.  I kept trying.  At one point, Judd Hirsch appeared (erase), then PeeWee Herman (erase), then Dash Riprock (erase).   I finally hit on something that looks *remotely* like the original picture and am gonna roll with it.  Maybe.

Cool Spell - Friday, October 6, 2023

When I staggered through the living room this morning on my way to the coffee pot, I heard the weatherman say, "...so don't call me when you're out tonight and it turns cold all of a sudden."  People in a local garden chat group are asking if they should bring their plants in tonight.  

I am not mentally ready for cold weather, and I don't know what to do with the two plants - a cyclamen and a mother-in-law tongue - that have lived on the back porch this summer.

We have been fighting gnats in the house all summer, catching them in bowls of apple cider vinegar mixed with dish detergent, a tiny bit of sugar, and water.  I understand that there is a gnat that feeds on soil fungus, and I am worried that when I bring the porch plants inside, more gnats will come inside with them.  

I raked my first wagonload of leaves this week.  The tulip poplar in the front yard is shedding leaves, and they collect along the edges of the driveway.  I raked them up and put them in the compost bin, which is almost empty since we moved its contents to the vegetable garden a couple of weeks ago.  Yesterday's rain should help the decomposition process.  

I am keeping a close eye on the sweet gum trees this year.  In March, a tornado took out the giant sweet gum tree in our side yard, and while the tree cutters were here, we had them take out five other ones that were growing around it.  The removal of these trees should put a serious dent in the number of sweet gumballs that we contend with each spring, but there are still sweet gums growing on the other side of the yard, and they drop a lot of gumballs, too.  The Husband and I don't agree on how to deal with them.  I think we ought to clean them up as they fall; he thinks we should wait until spring and get them all at once, since they don't all drop at once.  I'm watching them this year to see what they do as the fall progresses.  They're still green and hanging tight to the trees for now.  If they suddenly dump a big batch of gumballs at once, I'm going after them before they get pounded into the ground by rain and snow.

* * * * * * * * 

This week, I spent some time analyzing where I am on the greeting card project.  So far, I've printed, like, TWO suitable cards but have used up most of my cardstock.  In my defense, there are more cards ready to print, but I'm waiting to print them until all of the test-printing is done using the off-brand ink in the printer.  This morning, I ordered more cardstock.  When everything is in final form and my new cardstock arrives, I'll install the new ink cartridges and have a print-a-thon.

After thinking about how they might be displayed, I ordered a 24-card tabletop display rack.  

See how this charity project is draining my craft funds?

But I am thinking that if the cards go over well, I might try to actually sell some at other venues.  This will at least give me something to do over the winter.  

Rain - Thursday, October 5, 2023

Yesterday was a busy day.  I left the house at 6 a.m. to pick up my daughter-in-law and drive her to a doctors appointment.  After a bit of unexpected detouring because of construction, we arrived at the doctor's office on time.  I sat in the waiting room, planning to read my Kindle book, while she met with the doctor.  A few minutes later, more people began streaming in.  

As I sat there reading, I heard a big snore from behind me.  I tried not to turn around and gawk, but all over the room, people's heads raised and looked in my direction.  I turned around, too, so they'd know it wasn't I who had made the noise.  Behind me, a man wearing a baseball cap with the brim pulled down over his eyes, was slumped in his chair with his chin on his chest.  

All of us on-lookers smiled at each other and went back to our books and magazines.  The guy continued to snore.  Big, gurgling snorky sounds that wo uld embarrass you in church.  I felt sorry for the guy, for he had not been there more than five minutes; he had to have been exhausted to have fallen asleep that fast.

After a while, a nurse came out and called, "Mr. Rogers?"  (Seriously.)  No one answered.  She called his name again.  Still no answer.  When it looked like she was about to give up, I waved to catch her attention, and when she noticed me, I hooked my thumb out and motioned behind me.  I mouthed, "He's asleep."  The nurse smiled and came over, touched him on the knee, and woke him up.  He startled and said, "I work nights!" and followed her to an office.  I hope he made it home okay.

The Daughter-in-Law got a good report (and was cleared to drive).  Before we left the big city, we made a quick stop by the hobby store.  I just needed one tube potters pink watercolor paint.  The store did not have that color - in fact, their watercolor paint selection (a store brand, I think) was pretty unimpressive - but - well, you know how it is.  A person like me doesn't walk into a store like that a come out empty-handed.  I got a pen, some nice hot-press watercolor paper, and a tube of olive green paint.

Yesterday was to have been my regular "office day," and I had expected to go to the office after returning from the doctor visit.  I'd left my office laptop at home so that it wouldn't get stolen from my car, so after I took my daughter-in-law to her house, I had to come home to gather my work materials.  Before I could get out the door, my phone rang with some business calls, and I ended up setting my stuff down and just working from home for the rest of the day.  

Toward the end of the day, I swatched. It was the new olive green tube of paint that started it.  I wanted to see what color it was on paper.  This led me to dig out all of my olive greens to compare them.  They were each a different color and texture.  This led me to do the same comparison with all of the colors in my tube paint stash, and then I added some from the paint pan sets.  I even did the swatches on a nice chart, labeling each color and brand.  It was good exercise, good practice.  

* * * * * * * * 

A nice, gentle rain is falling this morning.  We need it.  Last week when I went to the vegetable garden to get dirt for a soil test, the dirt was dry as a bone.  The mustard greens I'd planted a week or two ago were starting to come up, but not as thickly as I had expected.  Also sprouting were purple hull peas from the dried pea vines that The Husband had tilled into the soil when we cleaned up the garden.  Maybe this rain will bring the mustard on up.  Unless we have a r-e-a-l-l-y long, really warm autumn, the peas won't have time to make; we'll just till them and the mustard back into the soil, come spring. 

As I was roaming around the yard yesterday, I noticed that there was a large brown section of limbs in our pink spirea bush, and for probably the first time in the 20 years since the bush was first planted, I watered it, well and deeply.  

I'd just been pulling weeds from the flower bed along the north side of the back porch and noted how dry the soil was, and since I was standing nearby with the water hose in my hand, I decided to give that bed a good soaking.  When the water hit the soil, a little pencil-sized snake slithered out from under the leaves of that bed and into the bed of monkey grass that edges the patio.  The snake was too quick for me to get a good look at it, but it was tan, with some sort of pattern on its back.  It was likely either a rat snake or a copperhead.  

I HAD JUST BEEN TROMPING AROUND IN THAT BED.  In sandals.  

I turned the hose on full blast and aimed a jet at the monkey grass, trying to run the snake off, but if he left the vicinity to escape the pounding, I did not see it.  

For the rest of the season, I shall not be working in the yard without my boots.  

Horsemanship - October 2, 2023

Our weekend road trip to watch Granddaughter #1 ride a horse was fun, certainly something outside of our regular routine.  

We were on the road by 4:45 Saturday morning.  It was a 4-hour drive.  We followed our daughter-in-law and Granddaughters 2, 3, and 4 to Bowling Green.  Granddaughter #1 came from college with her equestrian club.

Earlier in the week, #1 discovered that she needed chaps to dress properly for the event.  She ordered some online and they arrived in time but were a tad too small.  We stuffed her in them, anyway.  After Saturday's event was over, we learned that a strap - one that holds the chaps together - had broken.  Since it was a 2-day event and #1 would need the chaps again the next day, I decided that I would try to fix them.

We went to a hobby store and bought leather needles, hand-quilting thread, and a thimble.  The chaps are black; the store did not have black quilting thread, but I had a black Sharpie in my bag and figured I could disguise the repair with it.  It took a bit of elbow grease, but I sewed (and glued) the strap back on and colored the thread with the Sharpie so that the repair was invisible.  

The chaps held together for Sunday's event.  When it was #1's turn to ride, we stuffed her into them again, and she won her first ribbon for horsemanship.

We pulled in our driveway at 6 p.m. Sunday.  After having sat all weekend long, either in the truck or on the hard, dust-covered bleachers in the arena, and having climbed those bleachers multiple times in pursuit of an energetic 2-year-old, we both groaned in pain as we slid out of the truck.  

It was a fun and interesting weekend.  The Husband grew up with horses, and he knew a little bit about riding etiquette, but I did not, and so I learned something.  And getting to hang out with The Granddaughters all weekend was fun.

I think there's another event coming up this weekend, one that's maybe only 2 hours away.  We will probably go to that one, too, in case another strap breaks.  ;)