Cost of Goods Sold - April 9, 2026

This morning, I've been window-shopping (online) for wire.  

When I decided to have another go at making jewelry, I bought a few spools of wire expecting to "waste" much of it in the process of re-learning the craft.  And that's what happened; when that first round of spools was gone, there were very few finished jewelry pieces to show for it and a bucket full of twisted scraps.   When it was time to replenish the wire supply, I wrote in Sharpie on each spool the cost of the wire per foot.  It's hard to calculate the cost of a thing you had to make three times to get it right.  It turns out that the real cost of making fashion jewelry is not in the materials (unless you're brave enough to use "real" stuff), it's in the time.  

It's hard to put a numerical value on time.

* * * * * * * * 

Last evening before dinner, I reminded The Husband that we needed to deal with the fire ants at Nanny's.  I'd bought mound destroyer earlier in the week.  It was in my car, along with a watering can.  There were probably 10 good-sized mounds around the edges of the yard and in the garden.  We treated most of them last year (and the ten years before); it doesn't eliminate them; it only slows them down.

I went into the garden to survey the situation.  Last year, we'd carpeted the garden with cardboard and landscape fabric and wood chips.  It was just as we'd left it, ant mounds, weeds and all.  

I lifted a corner of some landscape fabric, and it came off in my hand.  All of the fabric was like that - rotten and mostly fused to the ground.  We pulled up what we could.  It will take a whole summer of raking to remove all the tiny bits.  If we decide to plant a garden this year, we will probably just till it into the soil.  Hate to do it, chemicals and all, but what's done is done.

Before we left, I asked Nanny if she would rather we not plant a garden this year.  She didn't much care, one way or the other, but she made it clear that she cannot be expected to help.  I silently thought, Hallelujah!  For years, I've begged her to leave the gardening to me.

Whether we plant anything or not, we've got to do some clean-up - remove the tomato fence, get rid of the cardboard, mow down the weeds.  

This looks like a job for The Grandson.

Easter dinner - April 6, 2026

Friday morning, The Husband asked, "Do we want to do Easter dinner?"

I gave him an honest answer:  "Not really."

I'd been grocery shopping on Thursday but had not bought stuff for a big Easter dinner.  In fact, I hadn't fully realized that Easter Sunday was THIS weekend.  

The Husband shrugged and said, "Okay."

Later that day, I went out to pick up a prescription, and while I was out, I decided to stop by the grocery store for a ham.  We hadn't had ham for a while.  A good-sized ham would provide breakfasts, lunches, and dinners for several days, plus we could share some with Nanny.  

Saturday morning, Nanny called to see if we wanted to do Easter dinner.  I caved, and spent the rest of the weekend cooking.  Made dressing, sweet potato dumplings, green beans with mushrooms, pasta salad, and a pineapple cream cheese pie.  Nanny committed to a corn casserole and three pies.

It was all delicious, if I do say so, myself.  ;)

But I was pissy the whole weekend.  Dinner was not my idea, and I knew who of the "we" would be doing the cooking and cleaning.  And there were other things I wanted to do.  

Dinner came off without a hitch.  We had a good crowd.  There were few left-overs.  

I baked another ham yesterday.

* * * * * * * 

Some of the ginseng I planted is coming up!  

Two of the lantanas I planted last year have come back!

It's time to turn attention to the vegetable garden.  Last year's landscape fabric and cardboard are still on the ground and needs to be taken up, regardless of whether or not I plant a garden.  I should get to that this week.  First, I'll have to deal with the two fire ant mounds in the garden.  The Husband has agreed to help me with that this evening.  I can think of a few more garden chores for him while I have his assistance.

Rudbeckia - April 2, 2026

My sister, my niece, and I share a running three-way text   The topic is mostly gardening-related.  For example, all of us intend to cut back our garden phlox when they are about yay-high, but we always forget about it until they're about ready to bloom, so we skip it.  Yesterday, I took my clippers on my afternoon walk-about and lit into my phlox - not all of them, just the ones in front.  (I'm shooting for a layered effect.)  Remarkably, I also remembered to text the others that I did it so that they would be reminded to prune theirs.

If their phlox don't get cut back this year, it ain't my fault.  😉

Today's exchange included plant offerings.  Sister has phlox to share (I declined), niece has rudbeckia.  I spoke up for the rudbeckia and picked it up on my way back from the grocery store.

Niece works hard on her yard, and it shows.  

I planted the rudbeckia the minute I finished putting the groceries away.  Put some in the "new" sunny bed, started last year when the tree collapsed and let it some light; some went at the edge of the phlox bed. There is no telling how many times I've bought and planted rudbeckia.  Not one has ever come back or made babies, that I know of (I could've pulled them up, thinking they were weeds).  Niece's rudbeckia has come back bigger and stronger than last year.  Maybe this variety can survive here.

When it was time to water the new plants, I decided to hook up the water hoses.  Last year, I made an effort to rig up enough hoses to water everything that needs watering.  Bought new hoses, and a double-barrel diverter.  The hoses where right where we'd left them last fall, still attached to the diverter.  When I finally got everything connected and turned the water on, it blew a piece off the diverter, and water spewed all over me.  I said some nasty words and turned the water off.  

I was about to get a watering can when I realized that it was sprinkling rain.  It's raining slowly now.  Looks like Mother Nature might take care of the plants today.

Wednesday, April 1, 2026

The back porch is a fine place to be this morning.  The temperature is perfect, the sun is shining, the birds are singing.  Around sunrise, I heard turkeys gobbling in the bottom behind the house.  

About the time I heard the turkeys, I heard some thrashing around in the leaves at the edge of the gulley.  I got up to look.  The light was so dim I couldn't see very well, but I believe it was Jose, the armadillo.

Jose can thank his lucky stars for my intervention a couple of weeks ago.  The Grandson came hurrying into the house and said he'd just seen the armadillo in the yard, and he asked if he could use the shotgun to off it.  I said, "Well, let's think this through."

It was 8 p.m.  The neighbors are accustomed to hearing gunfire after dark, but only after hearing distant hounds bray in pursuit of a raccoon (at which point some will think, Got 'im!).  Nanny would be dialing our number within seconds of a blast from our yard.

"Plus," I said, "I'm not sure I want Jose offed."  I told him about the fire ant nest built last summer against a stump at the edge of the yard, just down the hill from the shed under which the armadillo resides.  The day after I discovered the nest, I discovered that something had dug into it.  I poked it with a stick and didn't see ants boil out of it and concluded that Jose must've had a midnight snack.  I applauded his work.  I had intended to poison the ants but hated to do it because the stump is just up the hill from the pond where the frogs, turtles, and snakes live.

"So maybe we need to let him hang around.  I'd rather have holes than fire ants in the yard and poison in the pond."  

The Grandson whole-heartedly agreed.  Jose lives on.

But I digress.

After such a pleasant early morning, things went downhill when I tried to pay a bill electronically.  This happens EVERY MONTH, and it is NOT ME; it's the outfit's janky web site.  I'm waiting on a voice call to straighten this out.  

While waiting on that call, I accomplished a "round tuit" task.  The Husband and I have agreed that we need to replace our bathroom tub with a big shower that will accommodate old persons with physical or mental issues.  We're not there yet, but it's coming one day.  There are a million things we'd rather do than live through a renovation, and so we haven't been exactly diligent in pursuit of someone to do the work.  Today, I finally called somebody to come give us an estimate.

Go, me.  

I had planned to go to the grocery store today, and maybe scope out the garden center, but I may have talked myself out of it.  

Might make jewelry, instead.  

I got the info for the local farmers market and fall festival.  I'll have to be deciding soon whether to go for it.  As of today, my inventory is such that if I sold every single piece on display, I might make enough to pay for one hobby store trip.  Better get crackin'.

Recharging - March 30, 2026

Mid-morning Saturday, as The Husband was watching videos in his recliner, I said to him, "You should go crank the lawnmower."  

Our yard was getting plumb scary; I'd resorted to watching for snakes as I moved about.  

Note that I did not say to The Husband, "You need to mow the yard."  I just suggested that he crank the lawnmower."  And went back out to watch videos on the porch.  

A regular reader might remember that last year, I vowed to stay off the lawnmower after being driven crazy by Nanny and running over a mole trap in her yard, the same day I also vowed to stay out of the vegetable garden.

Surprisingly, it wasn't long before The Husband came out and said he was going to crank the lawnmower, which lives in the big workshop at Nanny's.  

Despite my vow, I said, "Well, if it cranks, drive it up here, and I'll mow the yard, if you want me to."   

It cranked.  He mowed our yard and then said he was going went to mow Nanny's yard.  

I said, "Good luck!!"  😁

He came home about two hours later, dropped into a chair on the porch, and said, "I wanted to choke Nanny."  

😁😂😄

And I just laughed and laughed.

* * * * * * * * 

The Grandson and his BFF have volunteered to till the vegetable garden plot at Nanny's.  The BFF reportedly wants to try out the Big Black tiller (who can fathom what goes through 18-year-old boys' minds?); The Husband figures The Grandson wants to drive the tractor.

I gave The Grandson a list of obstacles they would face:

1.  The tiller pull crank broke last year, and although I bought a new one, no one has installed it.  However, it has an electric starter, if they can get some electricity to it; 

2.  There is a buttload of cardboard in the garden, which probably could be tilled into the soil, but also a buttload of landscape fabric which must be taken up before any tilling is done;

3.  The t-posts holding up the tomato fence has to be taken down;

4.  The tiller probably has a flat tire; and

5.  There are probably fire ants in the garden, probably some under the cardboard and the landscape fabric.

The longer I talked, the more his face drooped.  

We'll see if any tilling gets done.

* * * * * * * * 

Last week, I made several nice pieces of jewelry, mostly earrings and bracelets, that I deemed worthy enough to sell.  As I finished each piece, I put a tag on it and priced it, in case I get up the nerve to actually try to sell it.  The collection is growing, and I'm feeling motivated to make more, so this morning I made a call to the local park & rec to inquire about vendor booth space at the Saturday market (I'm waiting on a call back).   My BFF says I am pricing things too low, but her demographic market isn't the same as mine.  

Junk Drawers - March 26, 2026

I'm on the back porch, trying to twist up a tulip poplar leaf using 20 and 26 gauge wire.  

There's something about this activity that opens up a little-used chunk of my brain, where fragments of old home movies are stored.  Today, it showed my 5-year-oldish self, sitting in a chair in front of the kitchen junk drawer, twisting wire.  I hadn't seen that movie in quite some time.  ;)

In my recollection, the junk drawer was about a foot deep and very hard to open, and when it did open, it did so with a monstrous squeak.  (One could not sneak into the junk drawer.)  It must have held all sorts of things, but what I remember most are colored wires and nuts/bolts/washers and wire pliers.  Daddy was always working on something; those things lived in the junk drawer.  There was entertainment value in them - a "matching" game and a "make something" game.  Daddy probably didn't mind me putting bolts and washers onto nuts, but he wasn't particularly happy about having his wire twisted up into primitive sculptures.  

End of movie.  :)

But while it was playing, I did manage to make a passable tulip poplar leaf.  There are things I'll do differently the next time around, but it's not bad for a first try.

Speaking of kitchen junk drawers, in ours I recently found a disposable 35mm camera that was labeled "use by April 2009."   All of the film had been shot.  I'm guessing the pictures were from a cruise I'd gone on with my BFF.  I'd run across that camera before and had always said, "I need to take these to be developed."  I finally did that yesterday.  The drug store film counter guy raised his eyebrows when he saw the label.  I said, "Yeah...I know."

Knotted up - March 24, 2026

Time for a break.

I am trying to make a macrame bracelet with leather cord and hemp string that have lived in my craft stash for upwards of 20 years.  The leather has spent all this time wrapped around a 2" wide cardboard spool, and it is somewhat set in its ways.  The hemp is coming from a ball that came unwound in the drawer and attached itself to a bundle of pipe cleaners; it is somewhat frayed.  I should have cut 2 feet off the end before I started weaving, but I didn't, and I frayed it even more taking stitches out.  But I am pressing on with it and calling it "organic" or "rustic."    Heh..."primitive."

Yesterday, I made two other bracelets (no macrame) out of that leather cord.  They came out rather nice.  I then tried another of a different style, but that one got the better of me.  It uses four 8-inch cords.  The leather wanted to curl, and I could not corral the ends long enough to tie the knots.  I finally just walked away.  It is on the kitchen table, mocking me as I walk by.  Maybe I'll give it another shot tomorrow.

But, regardless, I'm done with this leather cord.  With this macrame bracelet, I have used it all up and have several pieces of jewelry to show for it. Check mark in the "win" column.  

Next, I will tackle the roll of suede leather cord, which will be a whole new ballgame.