Goodbye 2011

Another year has come and gone. In fact, 2011 flew by! As I reflected back on the year, I noticed something that I am terribly guilty of - lack of follow through. I started several paintings and tutorials that I never completed. I still have those incomplete paintings hanging around and the tutorial pictures on my camera. I even had a tutorial in my head that never came to life, so that can come to life at a later time.

2011 was a challenging year. My mom fell and broke her pelvis in March after many trips to the ER earlier in the year because of high blood pressure. Once her pelvis healed, she moved in. That has been an adjustment for all of us. The cats do love having her around because she eats turkey and they love that gamy smell. They also love sitting on her lap and sleeping curled up at her feet. They don't like the fact though that she does rat them out when they misbehave!

My mom does have "chores" here that she likes doing - she folds the laundry and loads and empties the dishwasher. The evening I got busted emptying the dishwasher brought her great disappointment. I no longer empty it unless she is asleep! And only if it really needs to be emptied due to mass quantities of dirty dishes that I don't want to hand wash or have hanging out on the kitchen counter all night.

The Thursday before my mom moved in (she moved in on a Saturday) I was frantically cleaning and trying to organize things and while putting laundry away and not watching where I was going, I ran into the cat scratching post, tripped and landed, face down on my dresser! Lord have mercy. I felt the blood running down my face and ran to the bathroom. I could see my face already beginning to swell. I had two black eyes and looked like the beast from Beauty and the Beast, as the bridge of my nose rapidly expanded. Luckily, it was not broken, just fractured. My nose is still a bit sensitive I should add. I wonder how long this really will take to completely heal.

In 2011, my work hours were cut. I actually was cool with the part time hours as I have "full-time" work at home playing (or at least attempting) caregiver. I really believe the cut work hours helps with the care giving and my boss is truly amazing and understanding! I'm very lucky. Now to better organize my time so that I can make fabulous and functional screenprinted shirts and linens that will supplement my lost income. Hell, I've got the artwork ready so what is stopping me?

Major car catastrophes also happened in 2011! I locked my keys in the car one Sunday and frantically tried to get them through the small window opening and failed miserably, getting a nasty bruise on my forearm. You can find that story here.

My battery died at the post office in a 10 minute zone on a Saturday. I had taken my mom to her hair appointment and then ran to the post office to mail an Etsy order I had! Package sign, sealed and mailed and the car wouldn't start! Ugh. I needed to pick my mom up and then we were going to our friends' house for a fun Tupperware party. I called AAA and they sent a tow truck driver that had batteries with him and he replaced mine on the spot! 

Driving home on the freeway from a doctor's appointment my mom had one morning and I suddenly heard something weird and loud. It was my front tire. Blow out on the freeway! Traffic was light so it was a breeze getting to the shoulder. Calling AAA and getting a tow truck there was a bit longer! But, ultimately, I ended up needing three new tires.

I was invited to join four Etsy teams this year and that has been a blast. I have been most active (until recently) with the Etsian Artists Working Together (EAWT) team. I really love that group (although I have been bitchy on occasion with some of the members that tend to be non-responsive). I might just be bitchy in general, who knows! I love the community feel of the teams and, especially, the EAWT as they are truly connected to one another! They were my first Etsy team, for the most part super supportive and I am so happy to be amongst them! However, if I don't get  back in the groove, they might banish me!

2011 was the year I found my grandmother Lola! That was huge. After two years of research and pretty much dedicating this blog to my search for her and what I've learned about the "unknown" family, I found her. I also was also able to get the medical records that still exist on her. She was originally admitted to a state hospital in 1930 briefly for depression. Six years later, she was committed for the remaining 24 years of her life. She died exactly eight days before I was born and the doctor that wrote the justification for her commitment, was the same doctor that delivered me 24 years later!

The search was challenging because she was in the system, died, and was buried under a different name - Marie. That is still a mystery and something I am continuing to look into. Finding Lola was a huge goal, yet there are still so many unanswered questions. I kind of thought that once I found her, I'd know all the answers and could neatly wrap up the story and be ready to go on the Oprah show. But, alas, I'm not yet there.

Good thing it is a new year and now I can have new goals for 2012.

Happy Holidays

Wishing everyone a very Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Cool Yule and a safe, healthy, happy and prosperous New Year!

I had a very nice Christmas, prepared a huge dinner, and actually got everything I asked for. My sister and I got my mom a foot bath and she was very excited about that. We also got her two sweaters, a Sobakawa Cloud pillow (I got one, too, and it is very comfy), and a massage gift certificate.

Now I am so tired I can barely type this. I'll write more tomorrow (I can't believe I've been away for a few weeks). Where did this year go? That old saying is true - the older we get the faster it goes. The year flew by and I have to say it was a huge year of genealogy discoveries for me (I found my grandmother Lola), as well as being personally challenging.

Last Sunday, my BFF got my sister and I tickets for Christmas to see one of all of our favorites, Brian Setzer Orchestra (BSO)! We have gone to see his Holiday Extravaganza many times over the years and he NEVER disappoints! If you ever get the chance to go, I highly recommend it.

Until tomorrow, I leave you with one of my fav holiday songs and the best cover of it, by BSO. The only time I saw him perform this live was the year the US bombed Baghdad and he dedicated it to a buddy of his who was there. It was very moving and brought tears to my eyes as well as many around me in that theatre. Until tomorrow...

Cocktail Cat Test Print

I have been thinking that I need to turn some of my groovy cats into line art for screen prints. I can then print them on towels and shirts. I get great feedback on my cats, but not really sales. So, my thought is that if I make them more "functional" they might stand a better chance of finding new "homes".

I have been working on many, but thought I'd share Cocktail Cat. In reality, I may get nice feedback on my designs, but do I really get any view on my Etsy shop? Not really. Is that disturbing? Absolutely. I can create treasuries until I'm blue in the face, but that doesn't seem to be what works (no matter what any Etsy expert might say). I can relist until I'm blue in the face, and, well the same.

Anyway, while I try to figure out what the hell I need to do to get my handmade items out there, I thought I'd share my first test print of my Cocktail Cat. I turned my collage into black and white line art and just tweaked it a bit.  Here are the "before" and "after" results. I was actually quite happy with the test print. Now, for the fabric printing. Of course, that will come after work, my mom's doctor appointment and my trip to the vet.

Blood and Cats

I got home this evening and there was blood around the house. Not dark but still a lot. There was blood on the couch, on the chair, on the bed, in the kitty donut on the bed, and little bloody paw prints all around the carpeting in the house.

My mom had put a blanket over the blood on the couch and did say that she thought it was Petey as he had been sitting in the spots today where the blood was.

Petey

Basically, the blood was pretty much in all the areas Petey was today. Petey's little paw pad was cracked (kind of like my hands in this weather) and he left blood and blood prints all around. I have to take him to the vet tomorrow evening to make sure he's OK. He is acting normal - running, eating, sleeping, scratching on cat posts.

I called the vet to see if there was anything I could put on is paw such as aloe or something. I was advised by the receptionist not to put anything on it. I asked if it was possible that his paw pad cracked and bled like my hands do in this weather. I was told no. Naturally, I was told it would be best to take him in to see the vet. So, yeah, we're doing that tomorrow evening. If the vet tells me that is pads were dry and cracked and to put ointment on them, and then charge me for the visit, I will demand a refund.

Holidays, Kitty Drama and Caregiving

The Thanksgiving holiday weekend is now over in the US. It was certainly nice having four days in a row off to veg. On Thanksgiving eve, I began my ritual of prepping food for the big day. Generally, I have a house full of family and friends, but this year was different. Things came up which prevented friends from coming for dinner and to visit, but that didn't stop my food ritual. On Thanksgiving eve (last Wednesday) I prepared tons of food - marinated tofu, vegan green bean casserole, tofu pumpkin pie and vegan scalloped potatoes.

Since the week had been rather hectic, I was cool with the lack of company as that meant I didn't have to find the time to add house cleaning to the schedule. Thanksgiving morning rolls around and the first thing I did after making a cup of coffee was to pop the pie into the oven. I was in the kitchen and so was my sister (she was making our mom breakfast) when my little 14 year old Louie let out a loud and guttural yell. Not once, but twice, and something I've never heard come out of him before. At first we didn't even know where that came from.

My sister and I realized it was Louie and the other cats were disturbed by this sound. We followed Louie and he went to a cat box, but could not go. I said to my sister that I was going to wash my face and take him to the vet. He was "constipated" and clearly in pain. My sister washed up too, and we ran him to the vet. Being the holiday, I wasn't able to call in a regular appointment so was stuck with the "emergency" fee. That was fine as I only wanted my baby well.

Louie at the vet on Thanksgiving

We spent about two hours at the vet and then left Louie there while they did x-rays and gave him an enema. After about three hours, I called to check on him and found out that he still hadn't "gone" and they said to call back in two more hours as they were going to give him another enema. Poor baby.

Louie at the vet on Thanksgiving

My sister and I cooked the prepped dinner and did laundry while my mom kept asking for updates on Louie. When I called back the second time, the tech said he still hadn't gone but the vet said he could go home. My sister went to get him while I finished our Thanksgiving dinner. Louie came home with a huge bottle of liquid stool softener and we enjoyed our dinner and monitored him that night. The vet felt that he wasn't comfy enough to go and would probably be able to once home. He finally did! Thank God.

Louie's x-rays showed that his intestines were pretty full and needed to be "evacuated". The vet sent instructions home to give him a tablespoon of pumpkin pie filling (from the can and sans all the sugar and spice) daily as that is a good "cleanser". Turns out Louie LOVES pumpkin and will eat it right off of a spoon!

He's doing better now and I'm so happy about that. Wasn't quite how I had planned my day, but, do daily plans ever 100% materialize? The food did come together though, and was really good. The art I planned to work on, didn't really happen. Sigh. Louie's OK and I can work on art in the weird wee hours of the night. That does tend to interfere with sleeping though.

So now I just have to get my art going so that I can hopefully supplement my lost income with art sales. My day job work hours were cut after I moved my mom in. Maybe I can learn something from the "mommy preneurs"! I've got to do something! The difference between me and "mommy bloggers", probably not much. They are caregivers to little kids and I'm a caregiver to my mother and my cats. The bottom line is that we are all individuals caring for others while possibly trying to maintain our own "thing", hopefully somehow helping others, and have the means to provide for our loved ones.

Another Call to AAA in One Week, and Some Dish Towel Printing

Today marks the one week and one day anniversary of my mom's new pacemaker.  She is doing quite well and did take all of the prescribed antibiotics. That wasn't always easy as she wanted to stop taking them because they made her nauseous. It was also "fun" because these were to be taken on an empty stomach either one hour before a meal or two hours after a meal twice a day. The morning pill was hard as she had a routine down - get up and have a cup of coffee and then have a bowl of cereal. For the past week, she had to get up and have a cup of coffee with an antibiotic and wait an hour for the cereal.

At night it wasn't as tough because two hours after she took her medication and vitamins (containing zinc, calcium and magnesium), I would wake her up to take the second antibiotic of the day. She told me that she felt the pill was making her have crazy dreams and she was yelling in her sleep the other night and woke herself up. In her dream, she was with some people somewhere and a woman came in with a gun. My mom began to yell at this woman to "get out of here" and other choice words.

Anyway, she is doing quite well and today  we had a follow up appointment with the surgeon. The readings appeared to be good and the scar is healing well. I could tell she was very tired and was looking forward to getting home to have another cup of coffee. As we were on the freeway heading home, chatting away, I suddenly heard a strange noise. I turned the radio down but still heard this noise. I then thought it might be the truck next to me until I felt the car attempt to swerve a bit and I realized it was me and that I had a flat or a blow out. I immediately began to hit the brakes and was able to easily get into the shoulder of the freeway just two off ramps from home.

For the second time this week, I called AAA for a tow truck. I knew I needed to replace the front two tires, but just hadn't done it yet and was sort of pushing my luck. The tow truck arrived in about 20 minutes and took us to a Goodyear Tire Center, and in just under an hour, we were out of there with three brand new (and safe) tires! Got home and my mom's urge for coffee was gone. Instead she wanted to have me read her blood pressure and take her medication that we didn't get around to taking this morning prior to the 9AM appointment. After that she was ready for soup for lunch and then was so tired she took a nap on the couch with my cat Petey curled up next to her.

It has been a tiring week and that might be because I feel like I'm trying to come down with a cold. These past two evenings I have been so cold I put on two sweatshirts and warm socks. Even slept in sweatshirts last night because I was so cold.

I did attempt some creative stuff the other night. I experimented with iron-on transfers of a few of my cat prints on dish towels. The first towel was a HUGE experiment - the first one didn't transfer well at all and I forgot to print in mirror image! Ugh. The next one was a bit better and the third was the charm. These are cold peel transfers so the third charm transfer was a bit too glossy for me and I read that the cooler it is when you peel it off, the glossier. Excuse the bad lighting here that makes the transfer look like it has glitter on it!

I did a second towel and decided to peel it while still warm and much prefer the matte look, yet I think the towel wasn't stretched as good as it could have been so the transfer looks a bit off. Isn't this supposed to be so easy to do?

I also FINALLY printed a stencil I cut about a hundred years ago! I only did one print as it was done on another experimental towel and the space was limited. I liked the way it came out though (and again, bad lighting).

Now to see how the towels actually work and wash up before possibly making new ones to list in my Etsy shop!

My Very First Contest!

I am having a contest. Please check out my main characters in my Esty Shop - Guitar Cat, Art Cat, Mid Century Modern Poodle, The Girl Cat (Mid Century Modern Cat and others), Music Lesson poodle, and tell me which character you would like to see in a "scene" of your choice. Now, this is a "family show", so please keep it clean. If I pick your suggestion and make a collage, you will win a FREE print of it! Submissions end at 7PM PDT on Sunday, Oct 23, 2011.

I'll do my best to produce the art in a timely fashion. I look forward to seeing what suggestions people come up with (here's hoping I get some)!

You can add your suggestions/submissions here or over at the FaceBook page!

A Tabby Cat or a Stalker

I'm still trying to figure out if my little Petey is just a tabby cat or  a stalker! He had his smelly wet food tonight and has his kibbles in his bowl, but he is paying way too much attention to me. He is on the counter stalking me - rubbing on my arms and my hands as I try to type. He's also running in front of me, cutting me off as I walk through the room. He is so darn cute!

So, it is late Friday night. I am so thankful that the weekend is here. I hope to finish some pending art projects and start some new ones. I'll take my mom for her hair appointment tomorrow as she is feeling better (she wasn't feeling so good the past few days) and I really need to get the oil changed in the car. Exciting, I know, but necessary.

I also decided to put together a treasury featuring my team members from Etsian Artists Working Together! I really love that team. The philosphy behind it and the members are so cool. They really are a talented bunch. Here's the treasury I built, and I'm now in the mindset to create more with similar themes.



The other thing I've been thinking about is joining the already in progress 30 Days of Get Your Art On Challenge! Traci Bunkers is the culprit here and I am finding so much inspiration in her posts and the others participating. If I do join in, I've got some catching up to do, but I do have projects in process and just maybe I can let go of that "commitment" fear and do it!

Where Did the Weekend Go and Fabulous Finds

The weekends just go by so fast. I always have my plans and then reality seems to step in and snap me back to reality. So, Saturday I took my mom to her chiropractor and massage appointments and after that she wanted to go shopping for music. She was in the market for old western music and we were heading to Target. When I say "old" western music, I mean vintage, and nothing that Target sold. Had I known what she was after before we got there, I wouldn't have made the trip. My mom was looking for Marty Robbins and Eddy Arnold and you'd be hard pressed to find them at Target. You will find the modern "western" artists though. So I told her we'd check Amazon or a cool store in Pasadena called Canterbury's. But we did pick up (on sale) the DVD Bell, Book and Candle starring James Stewart and Kim Novak! I've never seen  that movie and have always wanted to. Lord only knows when I'll watch it.

Then while doing laundry Saturday evening, one of the cats decided to use my blanket that was on floor waiting to be laundered as a cat box. I came a bit unglued and called the Animal Hospital to make an appointment. This is a 24 hour place so I was able to schedule his appointment for this morning. As "luck" would have it, some guy "decided" to have a solo spin out in the carpool lane and we got caught in hideous gridlock. We were sitting on the freeway/parking lot and our appointment was in five minutes. I decided to call the Pet Hospital and tell them and they rescheduled me. I sighed big time. I called at 10:10 am and our appointment was at 10:20.

We were rescheduled for 11:40. There was no way I was going to turn around and go home just to head back out, so we got through the gridlock and made it to the hospital by 10:35. Well, they couldn't squeeze us in and so we sat until 11:42 when we finally got called in. Such a waste of time really (not being able to get in earlier but taking the cat was important). Tests were run and results will be in tomorrow and Wednesday. Hopefully his problem is behavior driven and not medical (note, he is my newest rescue cat and not one of my long-time house cats).

So by the time we got home after 1pm, had make mom lunch and then finish errands. Got back home and we started watching a local PBS station and they were just playing so many great show! I love PBS. We watched a show on Folk Music (my mom actually pledged to get the CDs), Malt Shop Memories, Comedians on Ed Sullivan, and the 60s Music on Ed Sullivan! We were just singing and dancing around the house all afternoon and evening! It was great! So many memories that really transported me back to a time when life was carefree and fun. Now, I'm not a religious person by any means but I am spiritual and this was one of the songs featured on the Ed Sullivan 60s music show, and I song I just love. The great Curtis Mayfield and The Impressions - People Get Ready.



I am still in the process of working on some projects and now also in the process of creating two tutorials, but I began to focus on how I wanted to do some stencils of all the great cat pictures I have and the great old family portraits. The stencils are still in the infancy stage, but, funny how things happen when you put them "out there" - I became aware of a great artist that paints with acrylics and does some amazing stencil paintings!

He's Juan Tobaru. He has an Esty shop with some amazing art! He has stencil paintings and acrylic paintings. His work is so awesome. I just love simplicity that speaks volume in art, and his stencil paintings do just that!

 I also love color and power in art, and that is completely evident in his paintings.

You can also find Juan Tobaru on Facebook where you can keep up with his art. He is really so talented that I believe he must out there even more than I have shared! He's probably in galleries and other places beyond what I have shared. I should also mention that he is owned by cats and I've seen them appear in his work! Enjoy.

Can the Weekend Really Be Over?

 Please tell me I'm hallucinating and that it isn't really Monday! Please tell me that I don't have to get up and go do something mundane when I'd rather do something creavtive and fun. Then I always hear things like, "I'm so thankful I have a job" or "you should be thankful you have a job". Surely there's some truth to that, but what if that "job" you're so "thankful" for drains the absolute life out of you or might just be taking a toll on your health? Then what? I've read that times like these are the best to start a business. Hmm. Maybe so, but what kind of business? Enough of that downer talk, but any thoughts are surely appreciated.

On Saturday my sister thought it would be nice to take my mom out for lunch and then shopping at one of her favorite stores, Merle Norman. My mom had said that she'd like to go get some foundation and lipstick. Having macular degeneration makes it hard for to primp herself into her onetime diva self and she's been feeling a bit down about that. So off we went and had a nice lunch in a very loud Chipotle. Naturally, my mom eats much slower than my sis or I and we waited quite some after finishing out veggie tacos for her to finish her burrito in a bowl. Then we walked to Merle Norman. My mom got lovely special treatment there and ended up getting this awesome tinted moisturize with SPF! It really looked good on her and brightened her complexion! I couldn't wait to try it. She also got a nice pink lipstick that is somewhat reminisent of the old Yardley Slickers!



On Sunday, I FINALLY did some test prints of my lino and soft rubber blocks! Yes, I think Hell did freeze over. I did my test prints on an unironed floursack dish towel and pretty much feel that the lino blocks did not lend themselves well at all to the fabric. Not sure why that is.

I feel that the soft rubber blocks printed much better on the "unironed" cotton, and now my little adorable Louie might just be ready to adorn kitchens worldwide. Will need to work on the prints though, prior to his household appearance. Oh, and get better pictures!

It's Been A While...

Since my last post here, I have been busy getting things ready around this place to move my mom in. After she fell and fractured her pelvis in March, the decision was made that she shouldn't live alone (although in a senior apartment complex) any longer.



Well, between cleaning up at her place, getting her house ready to rent out, cleaning around my place to make room for her, and going to a day job, my time has felt less like my own. There is still so much to do - changing her doctors, finding her meds, calling in prescriptions, making her lunches in the morning, etc. I am also looking for a place that I can take her for a few hours one day a week so that she is out mingling with people. Maybe a senior center would be good.

I also had my own accident. I was getting ready to crash one night a little over a week ago and was carrying clean laundry to the room to put away. One of the cats was laying on the bed stretched out and looking so cute and I was walking towards the dresser looking over my shoulder at him and BAM, I walked right into the cat scratching post, tripped and fell. Lucky (not) for me, I fell face down onto the dresser! Ouch. My nose began to bleed and I ran to the bathroom to stop the bleeding. Amazingly, I managed to get to the bathroom and grab a towel without dropping blood anywhere! Once I got the bleeding to stop and my nerve up to look in the mirror, I could see the swelling on the bridge of my nose which made me look like the Beast from Beauty and the Beast!

I then grabbed an ice pack and went to bed. In the morning, I had two black eyes and went to urgent care. Everything is OK. Thank God my nose wasn't broken - just a minor fracture. The swelling has now gone down considerably, the bruising is going away and the black eyes are disappearing!

I hope to get our new arrangement into a groove so that I can get back to creating art. I had ordered supplies to make glass pendants but haven't done them yet. I also tried making badges with the manual Badge-A-Minit, and they kept falling apart. I know if I can't make a badge with that thing, I'll never be able to make a pocket mirror. I may need to invest in a better machine!

I am really happy that I now have my mom with me and am happy knowing she isn't alone at night. In the past, her blood pressure spikes and her fall (all landing her in the hospital several times this year) happened at night when she was alone.

Go Cat Go

Growing up in the 60s, I was surrounded by great music. My parents listened to Big Band, cocktail music, Sinatra and the like. My older sister listened to all the groovy music of the time. We had a console stereo and we had cats.

My dad was also quite the Louie Prima fan and we did hear Prima often in our house. Louie Prima playing on the console stereo was my inspiration for this mixed media painting:



This happy and cool cat listening to cool tunes on the console stereo is available in my Etsy shop and my ArtFire studio.

Happy Friday!

Oh, and it's a three-day weekend for me! Love that. I shall spend the time creating art (I have a few paintings to finish), burning some screens for dish towels and T-shirts, making some pendants, and taking decent pictures of the handmade goods. I have several bracelets that I have not yet listed only because the pictures aren't coming out so good. Ugh.

I shall also spend time lost in the past (my family history, that is). I have some blog posts to work on that will fit with some Geneablogger prompts. I have also considered a trip to the Family Research Center and will need to find their hours. Plus, I have never been and hear it is pretty spectacular.

I'm sharing a few images of my precious Louie. The first picture is of him as a young little guy. The second image is computer generated. I first traced the actual photo and transferred that to my carving material. I then carved carved his portrait and printed it. Once printed, I scanned that image and, in PhotoShop, added the text and background color.

New Year, New Paintings

With the arrival of the new year, I have decided to really spend some time focusing on art and marketing my work. On Sunday, I spent time working on the below mixed media pieces, but I also learned (thanks to my good friend Kelly) how to add my Etsy Shop to the sidebar of this blog and how to put together an Etsy Treasury (I expect to have that finished this week)! A Treasury is a "member-curated" shopping gallery and a way to create lists of items you like as well as promoting those sellers.

Kelly even encouraged me to set up Skype so I could see her walk through the various steps of setting up a Treasury and she gave me tons of helpful hints! This was so helpful and made setting things up go so much faster than us just trying to talk it out over the phone. Kudos to Kelly!

The other thing I did was create a Facebook page for my Etsy Shop. When I began to "Create a Page" in Facebook for my shop, I followed the really easy instructions and then entered the name of the shop, Cat House Prints. Much to my surprise, Facebook would not allow me to use that name. Apparently something to do with the word(s) that might be offensive! I laughed because anyone using Facebook knows that there is a lot of "potty mouthing" going on there, yet "Cat House" might be offensive! True, cat house is an old term for a brothel, but it is also a house where cats live. Needless to say, I called it Kris' Etsy Shop. Not so clever, I know, but at least that wasn't offensive. I now have to enlist Kelly's help again to add the "like" button for that page on this blog.

The elements of each mixed media piece were cut from paper and colored with color pencil and brush markers. The canvas boards were painted. Then it was time to attach the pieces to the canvas board with gel medium.



Once the gel medium dried, I then went in with more paint, pencil and brush marker for added details.



The next step is to list them as prints in my above-mentioned Etsy shop. I also have a few other pieces in the works that I plan to list - building the inventory.

Reflecting on 2010

Happy New Year! Every new year, I feel simultaneously excited and melancholy. I'm excited about the coming year and the opportunities to grab hold of. However, I am always melancholy as I reflect over the year and what didn't happen for whatever reason, or things that did happen that were not on my list. So 2010 is no exception.

I started 2010 optimistic. I was deep in my search for my grandmother, and I decided that I needed to take some creative workshops. I did take some creative workshops - drawing, soldering, metal etching. They were all fun and well worth it.

I also began to get quite good at researching my ancestors and finding living descendants of them. That was both scary and exciting. I reached out to several and that has proven valuable. To date, no one I've established contact with knows anything about Lola. I found the living people once I found obituaries. I would then search on-line obits and Facebook. I even found someone via her website. I have received some pictures of two of Lola's brothers and am anxiously awaiting pictures of Lola's father, George!

In summary, the living people I've been lucky enough to find and establish contact with follow:

NM - A fourth cousin of my dad. She is a descendant of great great great (is that right) grandmother Leah. Leah was the mother of Wells and Wells was the father of Effie (my very interesting great grandmother) and Effie was Lola's mother. This woman had been searching Effie's family for her tree and gave me a lot of information that I was then able to run with.

WP - Her grandfather Adolph and Lola's brother William (aka Bill) were both adopted by the same family in Iowa. Turns out, WP and my sis and I were all looking for Bill. Bill outlived his first two wives and was survived by his third wife. Once I had the names of the wives, I began the search and found three people.

Bills' second wife Edith had a brother Arthur. Arthur had a son Charles and a son AS. I found Charles' obit and found his daughter via Facebook. She gave me contact info for AS. We have talked on the phone and I have sent him pictures. Will need to re-establish contact with him in the new year.

Bill's third wife Ann had a sister Ellen. They were very close. Once I discovered (thanks to WP's detective work) that Ellen was now gone, I found Ellen's daughter and had the opportunity to meet her earlier in 2010. We shared stories and pictures and she gave me pictures of Bill and Ann. She also sent me some pictures from their wedding day. Turns out, AS and Charles were in the pictures.

LB - Lola's brother George died in 1968. He had lived in Chicago and my sister thought it would be good to search newspaper archives for Chicago to see if we could find an obit for George. Score! We did and it mentioned George's daughter Betty and her husband. I then searched for Betty and her husband (Google search) and found Betty's husband's obituary. The kids were listed and a Google search led to LB's business website. I called her on Easter Sunday! I know that was a call that truly caught her off guard but we remain in touch via Facebook, as I do with WP and some others I've yet to mention.

BB - BB's mother was my dad's aunt Edna. Edna was Red's younger sister. I was going through boxes of photos that I had taken from my parents' home and came across a Christmas card. This card was from Edna and contained a handwritten letter. In this letter, Edna mentions her daughters, Edna Mae and BB. Well, I immediately googled them and found that Edna Mae had passed away in 1999 just a few months before her mother Edna did. I found BB on Facebook and made contact with her. She has pictures and I can't wait to meet her and go through the pictures. You see, her mother Edna lived in (or was visiting) my grandparents in Iowa in 1920 and was on the census that year as being in the household. I know some of the old pictures I do have of my dad as a toddler came from Edna.

GJ - GJ's mother Rosetta and Lola were first cousins. I was doing some research via Findagrave and began to find Rosetta's family in the database. Rosetta's mother Grace, was Effie's sister. My sister and I reached out and have established contact with him. I was able to send him several newspaper articles on his mother and his aunts. He also offered to escort me to cemeteries when I make my trip to Illinois. I was supposed to go in 2010, but really wanted to make contact with people before going. Now that I've established contact with several people, I need to wait until the spring when the weather is more conducive to travelling.

MD - MD's paternal grandmother was Effie's sister, Edna. I knew from the obituaries of Effie and her parents (Wells and Emma), that Edna and her family lived in Laramie, Wyoming and that one of Edna's sons, Everett, died in 1943 in Northern California but was buried in Wyoming. On a whim, I searched the message boards for Laramie and Cheyenne, WY and found that someone had posted an offer to take pictures of headstones in cemeteries there, so I replied. Well that was a good decision. This woman Kathy not only took photos, but went to her library and found obituaries for Edna, Edna's husband and other family members! She was just amazing. One of Edna's daughters had a son who lives in Southern California. I found him on Facebook and sent him a message. His daughter MD contacted me and we are now in touch.

LB - Lola's father George remarried a woman named Grace. I'm not exactly sure when they married but do know that they were on the 1930 census as spouses. Grace was a widow and mother of two daughters, Katherine and Mary. One day I began a google search of Mary and much to my amazement, I found an on-line family tree that gave the name of Mary's daughter and her sons! I couldn't believe my luck. I found then one of the sons on Facebook and one on Ancestry (he had the start of a family tree). My sister reached out via Ancestry and I did via Facebook. Contact was made and LB and I have emailed and talked on the phone. She just sent me an email and told me that her cousin (Katherine's daughter) found an old black and white photo of "grandpa"! I can't wait to see that!

DL - Lola's sister Bessie married a man named Ben. I am still trying to determine when Ben died but did begin to focus on Ben's family. Bessie's 1976 obit listed two of Ben's nieces (Grace and Lillian) as Bessie's survivors. I began to focus on them and found tons of articles and names. That led to my finding a great granddaughter of Grace and a grandson of Lillian. Contact and communication has been happening, but slow. DL has an aunt in Illinois that knows of Bessie and thinks she has pictures. He is going to look into that!

So, eventful researching, yet still nothing on Lola. I have hope that someone knows something.

I also took a business trip in July to the Gulf of Mexico. I spent one week in Pensacola, FL and one week in Mobile, AL. That was busy and interesting. The other work thing that happened was I stepped into a new role, one that I've struggled with. I was quite content with my previous role and was looking forward to expanding that.

I finally listed items in the Etsy shop I opened in 2009! So far, I've only had two sales and must now focus on marketing so that I can get more sales. I also need to list more art as right now I don't have much in my shop.

I also made contact with some cousins on Red's side of the family. They also have pictures, so I can't wait to go through those. They just might have pictures of Lola and do not know who she is.

Towards the end of 2010, three of my contemporaries (a former co-worker, the son of a colleague, and a high school classmate) died. This hit me rather hard and has really made me think about my life and consider how I must make changes in order to really live life and not just "go through the motions". I am becoming more aware of the fact that I don't have my whole life ahead of me any longer and need to stop wasting it.

I also had a milestone birthday. I turned 50! Had a blast really. Some friends threw a fun-filled birthday bash for me. I haven't had a birthday party in so long that I really enjoyed it. I forgot how much fun they are.

Overall, 2010 was good. Many discoveries and challenges. I keep reading that everything is in right order. This is in spiritual literature, by the way. So, does this mean that my work challenge is supposed to be? Does this mean I was just too complacent and this is going to make me take inventory of my life? I think so.

Here's to looking forward to 2011 and what it has in store for me.

Thick Lentil Barley Soup on a Rainy Night

 
Probably like most people, I grew having warm comfort foods for dinner on cold and rainy days. My mom was famous for throwing soups and stews together for a yummy meal on a cold night. She was also famous for her ironing skills. I never got the ironing gene, but I did get the cooking gene.

After the heatwave of last week, this week's weather is a welcome change. It is something insane like 50 degrees cooler this week than last Monday! It has been cold, cloudy and rainy. Love it. I really love to cook in this weather. I decided to make my thick lentil and barley soup with drop biscuits for dinner. That is a hearty and warming meal and suits this cold weather well.

This is one of the dishes I just kind of made up so there aren't many "measurements" here. The spices and seasonings are by taste. Start with a Dutch oven and add olive oil, 2 stalks of celery chopped, 4 cloves of garlic chopped, one chopped onion and 2 carrots chopped. Sautee until soft.



In the meantime, rinse and drain one cup of lentils and one half cup of barley.



When veggies are soft, add the drained lentils and barley to the Dutch oven and stir. Then add 32 ounces of vegetable broth plus 2 cups of water and bring to a boil. Also add a can of sliced mushrooms.



Now for the seasonings and spices. I use black pepper, dried oregano and basil, a pinch of salt, and cumin. I just sprinkle it in, eyeballing it, really. Simmer and cover, cooking on low heat for about 45 minutes. Note - no cats were harmed in the making of this soup, nor was any paint added to the recipe!



I also add Braggs Liquid Aminos. I swear by Braggs and use it almost daily in my cooking. It is an all purpose seasoning and a soy sauce alternative.



After 45 minutes (and during the cooking) taste it and adjust spices and seasonings according to taste.



I also made a batch of drop biscuits. This is an easy thing to make. Use one and one half cups of Heart Smart Bisquick and half a cup of soy milk. Mix and drop spoons of the batter onto an un-oiled baking sheet and cook at 450 degrees for 9 minutes.



Serve up in a bowl and enjoy! This recipe will not only leave your kitchen smelling good, but leaves plenty for leftovers.

Sundays Are a Drag, and Other Thoughts

How does it go from Friday night to Sunday night so quickly? Traditionally, I begin to get a real down feeling about 3:30 on Sunday. Why? Because my weekend, my free time, is ending.

While talking with my mom today, she said that Sundays are a drag. I couldn't agree more, except I know our definitions of that differ. For her, Sundays are long and boring with nothing to do and nothing on TV. For me, Sundays are a reminder of my free time slipping out of my hands and that soon, Monday will arrive. The weekend will be over and I'll be back to the grind (as they say).

I don't know why I can't seem to get good pictures during daylight, so when it gets dark, I generally think about taking pictures and then they just look like crap. Here's an example. This is a bad picture of the dishtowel I did using spray paint and the stencils I cut from watercolor paper. I do need to try some more of these to get the look I really want.



What I did here was lay the cats and words stencils on the towel and then spritz with the fabric spray paint. I think I got a little carried away and some paint landed in areas that I wanted to remain white. Oh well, it was the first attempt. I am trying to build my inventory so that I can list items on Etsy. Hell, I actually created an Etsy store a year ago and that is as far as it has gotten - being created. I really need to focus on that and really need to do it soon as that is one of my 2010 goals. Plus, I would so hate to fail at that goal (as I have with too many others in the past).

Well, the story of my great grandmother Effie's sister, Edna, is slowing coming together. I got her obituary in the mail on Friday. She died in Denver in 1948 at 72 years old. She had four children that survived, yet only three survived her. As with many women of her era, she gave birth to children that died young. From what I can tell, Edna and her husband Wes, lost at least one child very young. Her oldest son Everett died in Monterey County, California in 1943. He was 42 years old. He died from rheumatic heart failure. Edna's husband Wes had died in 1933. They lived in Laramie, Wyoming, having moved there in 1910. Wes was an engineer with Union Pacific Railroad. From Edna's obituary I learned that her oldest daughter, Rose, was from Denver, so I imagine Edna moved there with her daughter after Wes died.

Edna's younger son, Elzie, was also living in Denver when he died one year later (1949)at 50 years old. Her daughters, Rose and Hazelle ended up in Southern California (I'm not yet sure when or how) and Rose died here in 1960 and Hazelle in 1987. The sad thing is that I was living in a neighboring community to Hazelle in 1987 and never knew of her, let alone knew her. I did get the name of her son from Edna's obituary and I think I've found him living in Orange County, California. I did mention in my earlier post that I was going to reach out to him, but I haven't done that yet and will do so this week.

The Business Trip

Business trips are not something I do often. I have probably taken about four in the past two years. So, now I'm on another one. I suppose it is time.

I have been planning my research trip to Iowa and Illinois, just not getting it together, for several months now. I really wanted to go in the spring when the weather would be mild, but, just didn't make it happen. Part of the reason is that I have been attempting to make contact with family in Illinois, hoping for contacts before hitting the road. Establishing these contacts, oddly enough, hasn't been happening "overnight".

I have now been uncovering living members of Red's family, slowly, but by the time I had, the weather began to change. Summer arrived and so did heat and humidity in the Mid-West. Being a California girl, I decided I should push the trip out to the Fall when the weather will once again be mild.

Once I made that decision, I was asked to take this trip. So now, here I am in Mobile, AL and Pensacola, FL. It has been hot, warm and humid, and has been raining off and on since I arrived. Luckily cars and buildings have really good air conditioning, so the warm, humid, balmy weather is only felt when leaving a building for the car and visa verse.

I arrived in Mobile, AL on a Sunday night. When I walked out of the airport, I gasped. It was hot and humid and after 8 PM. That is NOT normal where I come from. The following day, I went to lunch with some of the people from the office and on our way back to work we saw two guys throwing blows on the divider between the highway and the service road! I couldn't believe what I was seeing!

I stayed at the Quality Inn in Mobile. There is one elevator in the place and someone dropped a piece of birthday cake in the elevator, picked it up but left tons of icing on the elevator floor. This was my first night there. The icing was still there Monday morning, but was finally cleaned up by the time I got back Monday night. Monday night was a late work night, so one of the managers decided to order pizza. I asked for a veggie pizza with no cheese. The pizza arrived and I got a pizza crust with sauce and no veggies. OK.

Wednesday night I needed to head down to Pensacola for a few days. Had to tough it out staying at the Hilton on the gulf. I had the most amazing view.



I ended up spending a week there and returned to Mobile this past Wednesday, back to the Quality Inn where my view isn't so grand; it's the Econo Lodge and the newly paved parking lot. Since being back in Mobile, I had lunch at LuLu's in Gulf Shores, Alabama. Jimmy Buffett's sister, Lucy, owns it. It was a busy place. Had a yummy salad and unsweetened iced tea.

Today, I went to a pretty cool store with a fun co-worker for a quick shopping trip. I saw the coolest T-shirts that I have never seen before. Fun designs screened on nice cotton. The line is called "Life is Good". I loved the whimsical designs and how these guys that started it are making a living doing something they love.

After hosting a short training course for a few new employees, I ran to Target to pick up the Netbook I've been eyeing since June when I attended a Genealogy convention. I couldn't believe it was on sale and selling for a reduction of $50! So, I got to Target and they were sold out and wouldn't give me a rain check. I just hope the sale will still be on tomorrow when I get home so I can pick it up and the sale price.

I ended my day and my trip with a fun dinner with some of the ladies from the office. We went to a fun place in the old downtown part of Mobile. It was quite pretty there. A nice mix of old and new, without the new being overpowering.

My time here has pretty much been non-stop work, but I did get to oh so briefly play tourist. I do like going to places where the lifestyle is so opposite of what I'm used to and I did have fun with my co-workers. I have missed sleeping in my own bed and I have really missed my cats! I can't wait to see them. With the majority of the past two weeks being pretty much consumed by work, my sketchbooks that came here with me were pretty much ignored. The other thing pretty much ignored, was my search for my grandmother, Lola. I did spend a little time working on my Ancestry.com family tree last night. A "little time" turned into a good hour and a half. As tired as I was, I couldn't pull myself away from it. I look forward to getting home and getting back on that search.

Block Printing

One of my favorite forms of printmaking is block printing.  I tend to refer to it as carving when talking about it.  I have carved many things over the years on both lino blocks and the soft rubber blocks.  I love the soft rubber blocks as they are much easier to carve than the lino blocks.  The down side to the soft rubber blocks is that they will deteriorate over time where lino blocks will last "forever".

When I first started carving, I would generally draw right on the block and then carve away the negative space (the area that I did not want to print).  This is very freeing actually and does not lend itself well to "self-criticism".  Many times you find the carved block when printed doesn't look 100% like the original drawing.  That, to me, is the beauty of it!

Being obsessed with vintage things and not be a photo-realist, my earlier carvings were whimsical household items such as percolators, dress forms, fruit bowls, wine bottles, cocktails glasses, lamps, flowers in vases, etc.  These are items that generally appear in my paintings.

Then I decided I wanted to carve landscape items and did some carvings of buildings, etc., and then found a love of carving portraits.  I started getting pictures of family members and carving these so that I wasn't in any violation of a copyright and found it quite addicting.  Some ultimately did not turn out as I had visualized, but others did.

Below are some portraits I carved next to pictures I used.

Here's a carving I did of my dad.  This picture and the one below of my mom were both altered in PhotoShop to get the high contrast look I was going after.

Here's a carving of Louie. I placed a piece of tracing paper on top of the photo and traced the positive space with a carbon pencil.  I then transferred that to the carving block.

Here's a carving of my mom.  I plan to re-do this one and give her eye more detail.

Dino the rescue cat

I have rescued many cats and it has always been pretty smooth transitioning a new cat into the mix. I think that is because my previous rescues were either kittens or indoor cats. Dino was a stray cat that began hanging out on my patio Thanksgiving Day 2009. He pretty much showed up and didn't really leave. He would be on the patio in the morning and when I got home from work. He began to trust me and I was able to pet him when I'd take food out to him. Soon, he was expressing an interest in coming indoors. I was not sure about that as the cats of the house were usually hissing at him through the sliding glass door.

Knowing the weather was taking a turn and storms were on the way, I felt I needed to do something. I couldn't stand the thought of just leaving him out in the cold rain, looking in, meowing. I called the vet and scheduled an appointment. I wanted to determine if he had a chip since he did not have a collar or tag. He was a fully intact male and the house cats are all neutered males. The morning of the vet appointment arrived. I grabbed a pet taxi and headed out to the patio. He was there and I opened the carrier and picked him up, attempting, not so successfully, to get him in. He was not happy. He hissed and growled and fought with everything in him. He was so mad that I knew if I let him go, I'd be dead. I fought him and finally won. He was in the carrier, I had beads of sweat on my hairline and my heart pounded the entire commute to the vet's office.

No chip was detected, so I knew he pretty much was a wild stray. He may have lived with people at some point and that might explain why he was rather quick to accept human contact. So, I had him neutered, vaccinated, tested, etc. I picked him up at the end of the day and brought home. Silly me, I thought that just by neutering him, he'd immediately be less wild. I was wrong. He was trying to get to the other rooms with the house cats by jumping up on kitchen counters. Naturally, I was freaking out since he had just had a (surely) not so pleasant procedure. I kept him separated from the guys that night and the following day. Then, the next evening, I thought I'd try to let him out with the house cats.

That exercise didn't go so well. I now realize that getting the wild natural side subdued would take more than 24 hours. He spent who knows how long, depending on his wild instincts to for survival. When he came out from the back room, he approached Louie, and Louie didn't take to kindly to this. Louie is older now and not interested in any interaction with the cats. With all his "charm", Louie managed a massive hiss and growl and Dino retaliated and a minor cat fight was beginning. In an attempt to break this up, I stupidly picked Dino up. He was breathing heavy and very agitated. I tried to calm him as I carried him back to the room he had been kept in. He bit me more than once on the hand. The blood flowed and it began to hurt. The next day I was at the doctor's office getting a tetanus shot and a prescription for antibiotics. Ugh.

After this little incident, I contacted the local humane society and established contact with a pet behaviorist. She has been very helpful with this situation, giving me advice and guidance on the situation. Basically, I have kept Dino separated from the other guys and have swapped out their blankets so that they could get used to the scents. I also feed the house cats on the other side of the door of the room Dino is in (again, getting them used to scents). Dino and Monkey even play (and quite rough) through the space under the doors. I have used Rescue Remedy in their water (not consistently) and now Feliway in hopes of alleviating tension and in hopes of a calm and smooth transition. The pet behaviorist even paid a visit to the house to monitor the interaction. This came about because of my frustration when I attempted to feed them in the same room and the first night, Monkey attacked Dino followed by Dino attacking Petey the second night.

When she monitored the interaction between the guys, she pointed out normal traits of cats and all things considered, they were on their best behavior, if not totally comfortable. Petey was not happy with this contact whatsoever! So, she left and things seemed smooth. Later that night when we were all relaxing in the same room, Dino got crazy and snuck up on Monkey while he was sleeping and attacked. It suddenly seemed like all progress was gone, and I'm feeling like I'm back to square one. I am not sure if this will work. He was a wild stray cat and still has that tendency. I cannot continue to lock the house cats in rooms every day when they're used to having the run of the place. I also cannot keep Dino locked up in a room for his life. Will it get better or do I need to find him a home? Maybe (and I'm thinking it is a pretty good maybe) he needs to be the only cat in a house.

Dino really is an adorable cat. He is very social and loves attention. He purrs, rubs against your legs, sits on your lap, lays on you and is like a mink stole, jumping on your shoulder and wrapping himself around your neck. I want him to have every chance at a happy life and feel that maybe my time with him has been to “foster” him and prepare him for a life safe from the streets in a loving home where he can be the star cat.  Naturally, this breaks my heart as he is so sweet and I am growing attached.  Maybe it can work out here, but either it isn't, or I'm not giving it enough opportunity to work.  Surely, this saga will be continued at a later date.  This story will require updates.