Catching up... Part 1

I made a conscious decision as I sat down to write this not to look at any of my previous posts. In particular, I made a decision to avoid checking the date of my last update. I knew that if I actually confirmed for myself how long it had been since I had last written, I wouldn't be able to actually write anything. I'm like that sometimes... I allow myself to become so overwhelmed with the imagined scope of a project that I cannot find a starting point or a piece of it that I can begin to accomplish.

I have this whole list of things that I want to write about. Some of the posts would be long, possibly even epic, others would be short. I need to write about the process that my husband and I are going through as we try to make a real decision about Sprout's schooling next year. We are 90% decided on a course of action but I think that we each have a couple of minor issues that we want to iron out (and at least one really big issue...) I feel like I know what would be best for Sprout in terms of her academic development and we're not really worried about her social development. (For reasons that we cannot understand, Sprout is extremely social and we make a real effort to give her appropriate outlets for her social impulses...) For me, the big issue is that I'm not sure that what is best for Sprout is the best thing for me. I can't help wondering how much benefit there is for her in doing what is academically best for her but (in some ways) the worst thing for me.

The other big news in AndiLand is that I'm going out of business... This probably comes as little or no surprise to anyone. There are several reasons for the decision. The first, and probably most important is that I suck as a business woman. I just don't have the right mindset or organizational skills. More importantly, I don't really feel inspired to get into the right mindset or learn the organizational skills. I love making things, but beyond that, I'm just treading water.

What that means for the blog is... If you're following me for business reasons and you haven't been so discouraged by the lack of any real developments before now to run in the other direction, this might be the time to depart. I do hope to return to my studio, someday... For now, I'm content to knit or crochet (lately I've really enjoyed crocheting lace trim on doll clothing) or needle felt or whatever. I have hopes that there's a job in ceramics for me somewhere on the horizon but for now my focus will be on Sprout, my health, my family, etc... The truth is that most of what I've created in the last 6 months to a year has been work that couldn't possibly pay. I've spent countless hours working on felt dolls with no hope of ever being able to sell them for a price that would pay me for any of my time. But I have made them because it makes me happy to make them and keeping track of time and trying to put a price on them is a sure-fire way to ensure that I'll loose interest in short order. For at least the next year, I hope to concentrate on allowing myself to follow these impulses. Spend the time, make the things that I want or need to make, and try to drive all thoughts of saleability out of my mind.

So, yeah, I mentioned my health above and should probably follow up on that. I have a new family doctor and will probably be seeing a new prescribing psychiatrist/therapist in the near future for dealing with my depression. For the last few weeks, I have been trying to adjust my family schedule to allow me to return to bellydance and/or water aerobics. This morning my doctor informed me that in addition to the rapid heartbeat that I've just considered a fact of my life since jr high school, I have some alarming irregularities in my heartbeat and that she doesn't want me to return to bellydance or water aerobics until I get an all clear from a cardiologist. This is priority 1, according to the doctor, and we can begin to look at other issues. (Issues including but not limited to the potentially addictive miracle drug that the pill sherrif put me on to make up for the failings of the two anti-depressants I was already taking. I have to admit that I don't want her to take me off of the provigil because I feel as though it has given me back my life.)

How long 'til Santa files for unemployment?

From: A Kidnapped Santa Claus
by L. Frank Baum

Santa Claus lives in the Laughing Valley, where stands the big, rambling castle in which his toys are manufactured. His workmen, selected from the ryls, knooks, pixies and fairies, live with him, and every one is as busy as can be from one year's end to another.

It is called the Laughing Valley because everything there is happy and gay. The brook chuckles to itself as it leaps rollicking between its green banks; the wind whistles merrily in the trees; the sunbeams dance lightly over the soft grass, and the violets and wild flowers look smilingly up from their green nests. To laugh one needs to be happy; to be happy one needs to be content. And throughout the Laughing Valley of Santa Claus contentment reigns supreme.

As children, so many of us are taught to believe in Santa Claus. It's a tradition that I'm wrestling with now in regards to how we will raise Sprout. The debate over what we should or shouldn't tell our children about Santa is not, however, the point of this blog entry. (I may write more on that later... There's a lot that I should write about but I'm trying to take this just a little bit at a time...) Back to the point... Through stories and songs, we learn that Santa works lovingly in his northern workshop making toys by hand with the help of elves or other magical creatures. This idea that the toys are made by hand is an important part of the Santaverse...

We live in an industrial world. Increasingly, the objects in our lives have very little contact with human hands before we remove them from their pristine (and excessive) packaging. I'm probably biased on this point, as a craftsperson and as a fan of the Arts and Crafts movement. I love objects that are handmade. I feel, when I hold them and turn them in my hands, a connection to the person whose labor and vision created them. A handmade object always feels warmer to me, as though some trace of the warmth lingers from the craftsman's touch. When I look into the eyes of a handmade doll or toy, there seems to be a spirit looking back at me and I find myself thinking that the sparkle I see there was ignited by the spirit of its maker.

I feel compelled to write about these things at the moment because the future of handmade toys in the US (and indeed any handmade object sold in this country for use by children) is questionable. You see, in response to repeated saftey recalls of toys and other items intended for use by children, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission has created new guidelines which will go into effect in February of 2009. These guidelines require that any product marketed to children be subjected to exhaustive testing and stringent labeling. On the face of it, this sounds like a good idea. But lets take a closer look at the issue.

The testing required costs $4000 per toy. When this cost can be spread over tens of thousands, if not millions of identical toys, it doesn't seem like that much money. The expense is simply passed on to the buyer at a cost of mere pennies per toy. On the other hand, for a craftsperson (i.e. Santa) who labors in his workshop making one of a kind toys, $4000 per toy is not a cost that can be passed on to the consumer. Even if the artist is making several hundred nearly identical toys, the expense is still well above what the consumer will be willing to pay.

And, really, is this safety testing really necessary? The standards being set by the commision exceed those in any other country in the world, including Canada and the European Community where existing production standards prevent the types of problems that prompted these reforms. In fact, looking at the safety recalls that resulted in this new legislation, the vast majority (very nearly 100%) of the products were mass manufactured in China.

Over the last few years, I've been asked over and over why I don't make more puppets to sell. My answer has always been two-fold. First that the puppets are extremely labor intensive and that I'd rather teach others to make them so that they can give them to the people they love. Second that the legal requirements for toymakers are byzantine and that I feel ill-equipped to meet those standards. I admire those artisans out there who have dedicated themselves to continuing handcraft traditions and ensuring that another generation of children experience the joy of playing with toys that are lovingly handmade. I am greatly saddened that the new standards being proposed to protect children will allso serve to ensure that, unless their mother/father/grandparent/or other beloved adult is a skilled craftsperson for whom toymaking is an enjoyable hobby, future generations of children will not enjoy the opportunity to experience the pleasure of a well crafted toy.

For more information, please take some time to read some (or all) of the following links:

Eco Childs Play

Cool Mom Picks: Save Handmade

The Handmade Toy Alliance and their Proposed improvements to the CPSIA

I'm sure that you'll find a great many links from these pages to others with more information and more insight. In these difficult financial times, many people are turning to handcrafts to supliment thier incomes or to brighten their lives. There is a growing cottage industry of artisans producing small quantities of lovingly made work to humanize an increasingly impersonal world. It is difficult, at best, to run a small business and many of these artisans are struggling to by materials and cover their expenses. This legislation threatens to drive most (if not all) of them out of business. And to what end? To protect us from a threat that comes not from individual artisans making the best objects that they can with the best materials that they can afford but instead from huge conglomerations shipping millions of cheaply made mass-manufactured disposeable goods from half way around the world where the labor is cheep and the standards are non-existant.



TITLE: Santa Claus
CALL NUMBER: SSF - Holidays--Christmas [P&P]
REPRODUCTION NUMBER: LC-USZ62-113695 (b&w film copy neg.)
SUMMARY: Man portraying Santa Claus, half-length, facing front, in snowy scene.
MEDIUM: 1 photographic print.
CREATED/PUBLISHED: c1895.

Politics: Fair Warning (aka I've lost my resolve)

I'm finding that, the closer we get to the election, the more difficult it is to separate my political passions from the rest of my life. Frankly, I don't really want to. So I have to ask myself, why am I trying so hard to keep the politics off my blog? Am I afraid of offending potential customers? (That can't be it, I'm doing nothing to attract customers and have little to offer a customer when they stumble across my work on their own.) Am I afraid of loosing friends? (Everyone who knows me in the "real world" knows where I stand. I seldom have conversations with any of them that don't touch at some point on something related to current events.)

I'd like to offer a compromise. I will make every effort not to sneak politics into "regular" blog entries and will try not to put other content in my political posts. This means that, if I have a studio/life issue to write about, it will be in its own post rather than mixed with a post about politics or what I've been doing at the Obama office. I will also, promise the following:

1. I will write life/studio posts first and political posts second so that if time is short the "on topic" posts will not loose out to politics.

2. Political posts will be easily identified by subject line and with a clearly political image. (i.e. The Obama logo above right which I've modified to add the Dayton skyline for use in conjunction with my local campaign activities...)

3. I will try to continue using my blog on my.BarackObama.com for the majority of my political blogging.

That said, I'm prominently placing a pro-Obama/Biden graphic in the sidebar of this blog and adding a link to the my.BO blog in my blogroll. I really want to be respectful of those with opposing views but I'm afraid that lately I've felt that avoiding these subjects is disrespectful of my own very strong feelings. (Just because we disagree doesn't mean that we have to venture into unpleasant territory.)

Past Due

Sprout has had me running almost non-stop since the arrival of her beloved "Rosie" in our driveway. This week is a great example. Monday, we went to visit our friends the E., A., & B. Since B. runs a home daycare, Sprout loves to be there during the day. Not only does she get the chance to play with her friends E. (age 5 1/2) and A. (age 7) but also with the 3-5 other children who might be there on any given day. So Monday, after the daycare kids were picked up by their respective parents, the 5 of us... B. and her girls, Sprout and I all went to dinner at CiCi's pizza because on Monday nights kids eat free. From there, we went to a park with a cool playground where the kids played until dusk.

Tuesday went much the same way. We went to B.'s house to play, then to kid's night at Fazoli's for $0.99 kids meals (and their free craft project) followed by the library where Sprout received her "Library Champion" yard sign, and other summer reader goodies. After the library, we went back to B.'s house where the girls played until dark.

Today we were.... you guessed it, at B.'s house. Today it was all girls so B. painted finger and toe nails while we treated the 4 young girls in the house to Hans Christian Andersen with Danny Kaye. (Ok, we forced the girls to watch the movie... it was really more of a treat for us. They thought that it was too slow and too long.) After the primping and the movie, we headed our separate ways. B. had plans with her sister-in-law and E. & A. were looking forward to time with their cousins. Sprout cried for a full 1/2 hour because she couldn't be with her friends.

Tomorrow will be a home day... Maybe, if the weather is really great, we'll go over to the park or I'll take her to the Y or McDonald's to play on the climbing structures in the AC while I knit. It's not like B. and the girls haven't invited our visits, but when I begin to feel like maybe I should show up with suitcases and start paying rent (my problem, not a feeling that I'm getting from them...) it's time for a change of pace. The problem is that B. was working a full-time job for the first part of the summer and Sprout and I missed spending time with them. I'm just really enjoying having my friend back and that's nothing compared to how my daughter feels.

In other news, I had hoped to start Sprout in preschool this fall and simultaneously homeschool her with a commercially available curriculum. It looks like that will probably not happen. We've had some financial upheaval and will probably not be able to invest the extra money in the commercial curriculum. Given that Sprout is reading at a very advanced level for her age, homeschooling has certainly looked like one possible option for ensuring that she gets the best possible education for her needs. It is for that reason that I'm a little disturbed to learn that the Ohio Department of Education is contemplating a review of their homeschooling guidelines (pdf link) that, given the current climate, could seriously complicate any plan that I might have in that direction.

The ODE is currently soliciting feedback from "Stakeholders" about the guidelines and the potential review. My comments are posted below.

My 4 year old daughter is, according to the current state guidelines, 1 year too young to begin school. Unfortunately, that doesn't take into account the fact that she is already reading at a 2nd or 3rd grade level and is doing basic mathematics. Homeschooling currently offers the only suitable option that I see for providing her with an education which meets her needs and provides her with the challenge required to keep her engaged.

The research that I have done leads me to believe that my daughter would not be well served by the current model of public education. Students who are not challenged are a disruption to the classroom environment and the atmosphere becomes hostile to learning for all of the students, not just the accelerated student.

The current rules have served Ohio parents and students quite adequately for almost 20 years. While parents reasons for choosing homeschooling as an option for their children are extremely diverse, the guidelines as they stand enable all of us to make the choices we feel are in the greatest good. Changing them now will inevitably throw obstacles in the path of parents trying to ensure that their children get the education they feel is most appropriate to their specific needs and places a great many students with special circumstances into a school system that is already struggling to meet the academic needs of their students.

Please do not disrupt a system which is working well for families for Ohio families who feel that their needs would not, or perhaps could not, be served by the current public school system.

Thank you,

Andi Fasimpaur

Well, I'm wiped out and ready for sleeping... I've got a bunch of notes in my palm about things that I want to blog, but no energy to type them up. I'm feeling a bit like I can't move forward without posting them so I may just decide to delete the notes and let the post(s) go. There's nothing life shattering... The political stuff goes elsewhere and that's a large part of where my head's at right now.

Meme: My life in images

Meme: My life in images
Originally uploaded by MysticSpiral

I'm participating in a handmade spindle swap on Ravelry. There are so many talented people involved in the Ravelry community and I find new and wonderful things each time that I venture into a new person's projects, blog, or flickr stream. I found this meme at The Fiberfairy's Haven. She's one of the spindle swap participants. I was curious about what I'd end up with and figured that since I was going to do all the steps anyway, I might as well post an update to my poor neglected blog. I'm waiting to post pictures of what I sent for the swap until I receive my own spindle.

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

The Questions:
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name.


1. Vivien, Evelyn & Kenneth Calene, 2. Korma spices, 3. Gun slot at Historic Fort Wayne, 4. Orange garnet, 5. Law and Order: Criminal Intent on Location in NYC with Vincent D'Onofrio, 6. Bitter, 7. Marakesh museum, 8. creme_brule, 9. Ladybug on my shirt at the Peace Rally, 10. asheville mica factory sandy window, 11. "Creative Hands" - Mindy, 12. Bruce Nauman, 1967. "The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths"

Politics

In the past, I have avoided discussions of politics as much as possible. Since politics touch on many of the things that are important to me, this has often required a Herculean effort. The people who talk to me regularly are used to hearing about my thoughts on everything from the state of public education and the inherently unequal way that schools in Ohio are funded, to electoral reform or the racial inequities of the justice system.

It may not come as much of a surprise to anyone that I fall on the liberal side of most (ok, maybe all) of the issues which come up in politics.

It is for that reason that I wanted to mention that I've been writing a little bit on a blog on the Obama website. I'm not going to say much about it and will resume my efforts to keep politics off this blog.

So, I'm working on a series of needle felted finger puppets. So far, I'm pleased with the results and will be posting sometime in the next few days specifically to show off what I've been doing.


TITLE: Hoyt's A contented woman
CALL NUMBER: POS - TH - 1898 .C66, no. 3 (C size) [P&P]
REPRODUCTION NUMBER: LC-USZ62-10861 (b&w film copy neg.)
RIGHTS INFORMATION: No known restrictions on publication.
MEDIUM: 1 print (poster) : lithograph, b&w ; 72 x 49 cm.
CREATED/PUBLISHED: Cin., U.S.A. : U.S. Printing Co., c1898.

Another Minute of Fame

Andy Warhol's quip about 15 minutes of fame comes to mind every time I see my name in print. My own 15 minutes seems to take the form of 10 seconds here, a minute and a half there. In November of 1994, I managed to track down and post the portion of the US Armed Forces Military Chaplain's Manual of Religious Requirements and Practices that pertained to the practice of Wicca; Witchcraft. For a number of years, probably until the relevant materials were revised in 2001, I would occasionally run into someone who knew my name in association with that document. I met several people who had used the document to support their religious freedom in custody hearings and anti-discrimination suits and who said that it made a real difference for them. At this point, it takes a bit of digging in a search engine to connect those dots and it's not something that I bring up on a regular basis.

My fame in the field of ceramics is based on a bit more history. Whether it's posts on the CLAYART email list, links to the handbuilding lessons that I wrote and posted on my website, ceramic beadmaking techniques and firing information, the article that I wrote for Pottery Making Illustrated, or the tips that I've submitted to Ceramics Monthly, I have a reasonably high profile.

I'm contacted frequently by people who are interested in using my written materials in one way or another. I've received email from teachers in Europe, South-east Asia, South America and throughout North America asking for permission to use the handbuilding lessons in schools, rehab facilities, prisons, community centers and home school environments. I'm thrilled to know how people will be using these lessons and to know that the material is out there helping people. I almost universally approve the use of the lessons for teaching purposes and have only ever denied someone who wanted to combine them with other materials for sale on a CD-rom.

That article from Pottery Making Illustrated, on the other hand, has been reprinted by the American Ceramic Society in the book Pottery Making Techniques: A Pottery Making Illustrated Handbook and again on their website as part of their Ceramics Daily Feature. These reprints have come as surprises to me and as such I have mixed feelings. I found out about the book because I saw it at NCECA the spring following its publication. I found out about the Ceramics Daily reprint because it popped up in a google alert. (As an artist, I have several search notifiers set up so that I'm notified when new information about me is archived in Google's search database.) Sure, the reprints are good and keeping that information in front of people can only help my name recognition, etc. On the other hand, it would be nice if a publisher were kind enough to contact the authors whose work they were reprinting and let them know what's going on. Afterall, I feel like a complete idiot when someone says, "Congratulations, I saw your ______ on the web." and my response is "Huh?!?! Where? When? Are you sure?"

My Little Red Wagon

The Radio Flyer* died Monday on the way home from the Knitting Guild Meeting. The mechanic says that the water pump failed (rather dramatically if you want my opinion) and that he can't pressurize the cooling system to determine what else may need attention. This repair is going to cost a lot of money that we don't have. Alternately, not making the repair (how much is a 93 Escort wagon worth anyway?) means acquiring a car. If we don't have the money for the repair, where's the money for a car going to come from? So much for my dreams of ever becoming a 2 car family.

I had hoped that I might have a summer job which would allow Sprout to spend the summer in 1/2 day pre-school day camp and give me a bit of extra money. Unfortunately, the employer is currently confronted with a spending/hiring freeze so it looks unlikely. I may do some volunteer work for the summer, just to start re-building my resume to maybe get some small teaching gigs. (Classes at the Boonshoft might be fun. Maybe some classes at an art center or something. Who knows?) The money from paid gigs would certainly help but volunteering and teaching would both be easier if we had a 2nd car...

The long and the short of this post is, Watch This Space for a preview of items to be uploaded to Etsy. I don't expect to finance a car payment or the repair bill out of my Etsy shop but I'm very hopeful that, with a little help from my friends, I can make enough money to buy milk and maybe pay the internet bill.

Other than the car, life is gradually moving toward "normal." Everyone in the household is having some difficulty adjusting to our new 3 cat status. Sprout goes for most of a day without any mention of Shado and then will comment on how much she misses him and how sad it is that he's dead. The cats seemed, at first, to take the loss in stride. Shado had long since retired from the pecking order and passed the throne to Hephaestus. Alpheus, our youngest male, has never really seemed to have much interest in a hierarchical order except as applies to who gets to sleep on my body pillow and get affection from me when I can't sleep. Unfortunately, both Alfie and Fuzzy have felt the need to show Mintaka (our only female) that, as far as they're concerned, she's at the bottom of the pecking order.

'Taka would so love to be an only cat. Shado was 6 months old when we brought her home and the two of them always got along beautifully. It would now appear that even after his retirement, Shado was an important ally for her and his calming influence made a real difference. I think that she may be acting out to show her disapproval of the situation by peeing in the laundry. As much as I think that this habit will prove to be a powerful motivator in the direction of sorting clothes (the ones that no longer fit can be donated) and getting them washed and put away, I'd really rather she didn't embrace this habit... If she doesn't have laundry to pee in, I'm afraid she might choose the bed.

Well, I'm putting off photography, for no good reason, so I'd better get that done so I can upload pictures and then begin working on text for the Etsy listings. If you see something in the pictures that you want, drop me a note. I'll be happy to mark it "Reserved" when I update the shop.


*You mean everyone doesn't nickname their cars... ok, red escort station wagon = little red wagon = Radio Flyer -- Clear as mud, I'm sure

Farewell, Space Monkey

If I know you offline, chances are pretty good that I've mentioned my cats and told you silly stories about one or more of them. Yesterday morning, Shado (our eldest cat and the one that I sometimes referred to as our "Radically Altered" male) passed from this world. It was not an unexpected event and we'd spent quite a bit of time over the last couple of months trying to prepare Sprout for the inevitable.

Shado was 14 years old, which is not particularly ancient in the world of domestic cats, but which was a miracle considering that he had complete renal failure 3 times when he was 4 years old. In the course of a 6 month period, Shado had to be taken to the emergency vet and placed in feline ICU twice. The third time that his urinary tract became blocked and his kidneys shut down was actually the day that we were supposed to pick him up from his 2nd ICU stay. We walked in and the vet told us that he felt Shado needed surgery. The procedure, called Perineal Urethrostomy, was done that same day and his recovery was amazingly fast.

His medical misadventures left him with some loss of kidney function (he recovered to about 80%) and a heart murmur. These are health problems which we have managed for the last 10 years with minimal problem. I will never forget bringing him home, after the surgery, with his abdomen shaved from just below his ribs to the base of his tail and down the backs of his legs. Shado was an amazingly agile cat and to prevent him from disturbing his incision, the vet extended the standard white plastic funnel collar with a 3 inch band of silver duct tape, to add to the effect, we were instructed to apply a zinc-oxide cream to the area around the incision to prevent irritation. As a result, he looked less like a cat and more like... Well, that's probably obvious from the title.

Sprout is handling the loss well, mostly. She's having some trouble wrapping her head around it and is alternately sad that he's gone and curious about when he'll be back. When I told her that he had died, she wanted me to take him to the vet so that they could make him better. When we talked about how much we were going to miss him, she suggested that we get another cat who looked just like him so that we wouldn't.

Mr. Andi is ready to bury the cat. I'm not quite there yet. I feel like putting him in a box in the ground is not the closure that I need. I'm still trying to figure it out. This isn't the first time that I've lost a pet, but it's the first time that I've guided my daughter through the loss of one and I want to do right by both her and Shado.

IMAGE: Original caption: "Fig. 75. '''Schädel der Wildkatze,''' ''Felis catus'; in halber natürlicher Größe" Translation (partly): "Skull of ''Felis silvestris'', 1/2 of natural size" Size: 2.2 x 1.4 in² (5.5 x 3.5 cm²) Originator: Hubert Ludwig Source

Spring is springing

The weather is beginning to warm which means that I'm able to return to my studio. I'm really excited about some wheel thrown spindle whorls that I've been working on. They're time consuming, but I have fallen head over heels with each and every one of them even though I'm sure that they're not saleable. (Of course this means that I'll be making a lot more of them...)

It's more than a month since I had hoped to have the Etsy shop back up and running. I mentioned in my last post some interpersonal drama. No sooner had it passed than our house was hit with some form of awful plague. The coughing has lasted more than a month and we ended up taking Sprout to urgent care where she was diagnosed with bronchitis. It's hard to believe that at 3 1/2 years old, we had never been required to give her any kind of medicine. We'd given her some infant tylenol when she was first teething, but she quickly decided that she didn't want or need it. Unfortunately, this meant that the antibiotics they prescribed for her illness were grounds for quite a few contentious battles.

I really do intend to re-open the shop. I have realized that I'm really not a business woman. That said, I have said before that I'm afraid of being buried alive by my own work. In the interest of seeing that work into the hands of those who will love and care for it, I will post pictures of the items I'm planning to list here on the blog at least a day or two before I update the shop. If you see something that you are particularly interested in, leave a comment, or drop me a note and let me know. When I list the item, I'll list it as reserved for you and give you 3 weeks to finish the transaction before removing the "reserved" label.

Well, I'm only awake and typing because of hellish leg cramps. In spite of my desire to stay up and watch the end of the PBS Masterpiece Theater presentation of Sense and Sensibility that I taped on Sunday, I must get some sleep. Tonight is "Night at the Museum" where I will be playing the role of a frontier woman spinning the night away as her babes sleep. More on that later...

The best laid plans

New Spindle - Old Whorl
Originally uploaded by MysticSpiral

Obviously, in spite of my desire to do so, I did not re-open the shop on March 1st. To explain the delay, I need to go back to some of the circumstances that led me to close the shop in the first place.

I've mentioned (once or twice) that I have been diagnosed and am being treated for major depression. I've learned that I'm vulnerable to downward spirals. When I sense that one of those spirals is approaching, I need to take the time to address the underlying issues. In this case, the issue is one that started 2 1/2 years ago with the loss of a significant friendship. I was devastated by that loss, and would have given a great deal to "fix" things.

A few weeks ago, this lost friend contacted me out of the blue. In the last 2 years, she has moved and has dealt with a lot of personal trauma and some major transitions in her life. I kind of admire her for doing it. She had no way of knowing what to expect when she contacted me. She couldn't have known whether I would even respond to her since I honestly didn't know myself when I saw her email.

There have been a lot of things going on in my life that I couldn't put on hold. My parents have had some ongoing health problems. They were offered a rather unconventional (and perhaps extreme) opportunity to address several of those problems simultaneously with "minor" surgery. There was quite a bit of uncertainty as the date for the surgeries approached. My sister was going to come "home" from Germany to help take care of our parents. My mom's sisters came up from the Louisville/Southern Indiana area to help care for them. It was a really scary thing for me, but they're doing great and if everything works the way that it should, their health should be dramatically improved and their life expectancy extended.

While all of that was going on, Sprout and I were both a bit sick. It's like everything happens at once. It's not so long ago that all of this would have sent me into some kind of dark pit. Instead, I took a look at what was going on in my life and identified some things that I didn't **HAVE** to do deal with right then. The biggest thing that could be postponed was getting the shop set up. I've got everything that I need to start taking pictures when the time is right. I've got a couple of new designs that I'm about ready to launch and a little extra time gives me a bit of a chance to refine them a bit further before they debut.

My parents are recovering fine. Sprout has been diagnosed with bronchitis and we've started a course of treatment. (she's not very cooperative and I hate forcing medicines onto her but we'll do what we have to to make her well) I have a book review that got lost in the shuffle and should be ready to post in a couple of days. Etc...

The situation with my "friend" appears to have reached its conclusion. For the sake of my mental health, I just came right out and asked to put all the cards on the table. My request was met with a passive-aggressive "Sorry I bothered you." and I have decided to just let it go.

Through all of this, my spinning has been a constant comfort and an act of meditation. Remind me to post soon about the spinning demonstration that I'm doing at the Springfield museum. It's forcing me to dust off the wheel and explore an interest in historical re-enactment/re-creation.

Happy Belated Holidays

Wow! The winter holidays were upon me before I knew it. Between my parents decision to go on a cruise to celebrate the 40th anniversary of my conception their wedding, and small illnesses and a general lack of enthusiasm on my part, I'm not surprised that the space between Thanksgiving and this week passed in a blur.

I'm currently reading a fun book called Journal: The Short Life and Mysterious Death of Amy Zoe Mason. I found it because Lisa Vollrath wrote about it on the blog for the Go Make Something website, which I've really been enjoying over the last few weeks. It's got me thinking about paper arts again, which is kinda fun. I'm actually considering pulling down an altered book or starting another. I've got some fun seasonal ideas which are largely inspired by the Free Printable Images that Ms. Vollrath offered as a sort of electronic Advent calendar on her TenTwo Studios website. The next time that I find myself with some disposable income (amazon gift certificate credits don't count) I'd love to buy a couple of her How-To CDs. I've gotten so many ideas and been reminded of so many underutilized techniques from reading her sites.

Well, I need to get to bed. We had an early morning and Mr. Andi goes back to work tomorrow. I'm hoping to hitch a ride to grandma's house so that Sprout doesn't go into complete fun and festivity withdrawal.

My new spindling book

DSCF2059-A-book-spindle-11-17-2007
Originally uploaded by MysticSpiral

Ok, maybe that's deceptive. It's not like I've written a book on spindle spinning. Instead, I've turned a small, otherwise useless book into a drop spindle. I found the book at the annual Planned Parenthood book sale held at our local fairgrounds. I had fun making it and am thinking about doing a tutorial, if there's any interest.

I've been doing a lot of spinning recently. Between that and the sweaters that I've unraveled, my yarn stash is getting out of control. It doesn't help that I haven't been doing any knitting or anything with the yarn. I'm currently taking my first uneasy steps toward using some of the incoming yarn.

A series of sock tutorials is being posted on Lime & Violet's Daily Chum. I'm working through the first tutorial using yarn reclaimed from a Gap sweater in a truly unfortunate color. There are 4 skeins total and I'll probably overdye the other 3 but I was so anxious to get started knitting my first pair of socks that I decided to jump right in with the eye-poking really should glow-in-the-dark yellowish greenish yarn exactly as it came off the hanger after washing and blocking.

The only down side to spending time over at the Daily Chum is that if I hadn't stopped by I would have been blissfully unaware of this.

Review: The Right Words at the Right Time, Volume 2

As a writer, I have an inherent fascination with words. The idea that words have the power to change lives, and even the course of history, was probably one of the most intoxicating realizations of my educational career. Reading about the great speeches of important men and the impact of their words on people and nations made history more real, and more interesting, to me.

It wasn't until I reached adulthood that I realized how often we find ourselves looking at another person and wishing that we had the words to soothe their pain or ease their mind. The death of a loved one, diagnosis of a serious illness, the loss of a job or the end of a marriage are all situations that can change a person's life forever and times when most people find themselves at a loss for words. When the right words come, they offer comfort or inspiration or direction while easing the burdens and soothing the wounds of some of life's darker moments.

I wasn't certain what to expect from this book. I saw (and passed over) a well thumbed copy of the first volume at a library book sale about a week before hearing about the sequel. I found myself thinking about it again as we were preparing to check out and went back to the table only kick myself for not picking it up when it caught my attention in the first place. The thing that stopped me is that I have a serious dislike for glurge and have found that many of the anthologies of this nature that I've read definitely fit that mould.

When the book arrived, I flipped it open and read one of the essays more or less at random. The story of a father visiting ground zero and encountering a young man whose late father had been in the second tower was touching but I felt grateful that the title of the essay telegraphed so much of the contents. I'm sure that it is a personal failing, but I've had about as much as I can stand of having the personal tragedies and experiences related to 9/11 put forward to support or justify some agenda. I'm experiencing a backlash. Even when there is no agenda and no attempt to manipulate me into supporting some new atrocity.

Overall, I enjoyed most of the essays. "Jane Austin Meets the New York Giants" struck a particular chord for me and I really felt like I could identify with Nancy Roman's 5th grade experience even though I'd never been to Catholic school. There were love stories, and stories of courage, but there was an ordinariness to most of them that gave them an authenticity and a neighborly quality that removed them from the realm of manipulation. I appreciated the sincerity. It was a little like being stranded in an airport with a bunch of people of diverse backgrounds talking and sharing stories to pass the time and distract themselves while they wait.

I can't help feeling that the over-representation of 9/11 stories will leave the book feeling dated much sooner than it might otherwise, but if you are a person who loves to read heart warming stories, or you're looking for a gift for someone who is going through a rough time, this might be a nice book to tuck into a basket with some great tea, a cosy blanket, and a soothing cd.

This is the third of the sponsored reviews for Mother-Talk.com that I mentioned here. You can see the others by clicking on the review tag at the bottom of this post and following the links.

Fold, spindle, mutilate

I've been dragging my feet on this post for a while. To be honest, I don't like the uncertainty of all of this and it's taking so long to figure it all out that I'm feeling very adrift.

The status of things so far... I've had 3 physical/occupational therapy appointments. She gave me 6 pages of exercises intended to help with carpal tunnel syndrome, cubital tunnel syndrome, de Quervain's tenosynovitis, and trigger finger. In subsequent visits, we've discussed modifications and variations of the exercises to relieve some of the discomfort and other problems that I've experienced doing the exercises as illustrated.

Last week, I met the orthopedic surgeon to whom I've been referred. Since appointments almost never start when scheduled, I brought my drop spindle to the appointment with me so that I could spin while I waited. I managed to spin for about 45 minutes in the waiting room before being escorted back to an exam room where I spun for another 20 minutes while I answered questions for the patient history and then waited for the doctor. (Met an interesting woman in her late 60s who told me with tear-filled eyes that she hadn't seen anyone spinning since visiting her grandmother as a child.)

When the doctor looked at my hands, I had the weirdest impression that he was disappointed. He reminded me so much of a young boy who opens the door to go outside after the first snow of the year only to find it disturbed by someone else's footprints. He performed a quick physical exam, gave me some instructions while he tapped on my wrists and elbows and then ordered a nerve conduction study and EMG.

The test is scheduled for next week and sounds like a laugh riot. I can't imagine why people aren't lined up around the block to have teflon coated wires poked into their muscle tissue so that electrical current can be zapped directly into the muscle to simulate nerve commands.

Between doctor's waiting rooms and my weekly depression support group, I'm getting quite a bit of spinning in. Enough that I felt justified in purchasing a "real" spindle instead of the CD drop spindles I'd mostly made do with until now. (I have a spindle that I made using a toy wheel and a dowel. It works quite nicely, but still feels somehow illegitimate.)

My new baby is an Ashford Turkish Spindle. What I love about this, and the reason that I just ***HAD*** to have it and managed to justify the purchase to myself and anyone else who would listen, is that Turkish spindles break apart leaving the spinner with a center pull ball from which to ply or knit. After spending more hours than I care to think about hand-winding 300 and some odd yards of handspun singles into a center pull ball using a make-shift nostepinde fashioned from disposable chopsticks from Sprout's favorite Chinese buffet, I realized that my hands/wrists are not equal to the task of regularly winding singles for plying. I know that I could just use my ball winder, but I have found that I lack the patience to wait that long to move forward with the next step of my spinning.

The next addition to my spinning arsenal... A Golding Aromatherapy Spindle... I've heard nothing but good things about Golding spindles from other spindlers and I can tell myself that this one has therapeutic benefits on top of the meditative benefits of the spinning itself.

On a completely unrelated note... to balance my whining about medical stuff... here are the results of an online quiz that I stumbled across thanks to Ravelry.

What Kind of Knitter Are You?

You appear to be a Knitting Apprentice. You've got the basics down pat and you might just be falling in love with this hobby. Big needles, funky yarns and simple shapes are the name of the game shudder, but it doesn't mean you don't experiment a bit, here and there. As an apprentice, you probably fall back on other people to get you through those rough spots, and if you don't know anyone who knits, you probably have a few books or online sources to tap.
http://marniemaclean.com
Take this quiz!

Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Galvani%27s_legs.gif

My head is spinning

RavSpinOctChallenge
Originally uploaded by MysticSpiral

I'm currently working on spinning up about an ounce and a half of black superwash merino which I've blended (in the loosest sense of the word) with glow-in-the-dark spiderweb from one of the 1,000,000 Halloween stores that has suddenly opened in the greater Dayton area. I've visited more of these stores than is my usual custom (I generally try to avoid them) because I specifically wanted phosphorescent spiderweb rather than black light spiderweb. On some level, it disturbs me that these shops spring up to sell fetish costumes to 7-year-old girls and then they pack up and disappear for another year on Nov. 1st. I actually tried to find what I needed at one of the Foy's stores in historic downtown Fairborn, Ohio. I always kinda liked Foy's and I like that they are a small, locally owned company with strong ties to the community in which they're based and that they operate their stores/businesses year round instead of only seasonally.

I've learned that glow-in-the-dark spiderweb doesn't draft well at all. Spinning with this stuff is a little like wrestling with a toddler while you attempt to brush rubber cement out of her hair. (or at least that's what I'm guessing, so far Sprout has stayed away from the rubber cement...) I don't think that I've ever spun anything this inconsistent. Heather may joke that i'm some kind of spinning prodigy but I'm tempted to post pictures of this stuff, once I finish it and get it posted for the spindling challenge, to the beginning spinners forums as an example of the kind of drafting challenges that will be overcome with practice and well prepared fiber.

Don't get me wrong... Part of me looks at the masses of this stuff that I'm going to have left over (I bought two bags of the stuff when I finally found it at the 5th Halloween store that I went to) and thinks, "Surely this would work better if I had access to a drum carder and could incorporate it into a nice fluffy batt."

I should write something about the results of my hand adventures but since I'm still processing and I won't actually meet the specialist until Wednesday, I don't really feel like I have much to report.

Likewise, my adventures in random psychopharm roulette have yeilded a combination/doseage about which I feel mildly optimistic but I don't want to say too much too soon. I've been attending meetings of a support group for people dealing with depression (including family, friends, care givers, etc although none of those have shown up yet...), but don't really feel like I can blog about that except to say that if I get nothing more out of these meetings than an uninterrupted hour to spin each week it will be better for my mental health than almost anything that I have yet tried.

Give a girl a hand

I started having problems with my hands when I was in college. Pain... loss of sensation... loss of control... As a 22 year old, during a particularly bad period, I went to the campus health center and was told that I was most likely dealing with arthritis. I was a child and it never occurred to me to ask for a second opinion.

In the spring of 1999, after spending an intense period of time working on some hand-built porcelain vessels that I wanted to use for a grant proposal, the problems with my hands reached a new extreme. I felt as though I had lost all fine motor control. When I tried to hold something, my grip was so tight that the item would crush in my hands. A tiny vessel, which had taken hours to build and was nearly finished might be crushed to dust in my hands when I thought that I was gently holding it. At the same time, I would try to grip things tightly and they would slip from my grasp to the floor.

Within a month, I had the first of 6 hand surgeries which were spaced out over a period of 8 months. The diagnosis was Carpal Tunnel, Tendonitis and ancillary nerve damage. From diagnosis to the first surgery, I was so busy with blood tests and surgery prep that I didn't have time to think about what was happening.

Soon I will be seeing a hand specialist for a "pre-surgical consultation." I don't know if we will ultimately choose surgery, and I know that it is unlikely that we would have to repeat all of it, but I'm a little freaked out. I don't want to repeat any of it. I honestly don't know how I'd manage life with Sprout during my recovery. I can't manage life with an energetic, high-needs three-year-old as it is. I've had the number for the physical/occupational therapist for almost a week and haven't scheduled my first appointment because I just can't seem to find a childcare solution. We considered enrolling her in preschool. The problem is that preschool is 3 hours 3 mornings a week. I would spend 1/2 hour of that driving her daddy to work after we dropped her off, another 45 minutes driving to the physical therapist's office, it takes another 1/2 hour to get from the physical therapist's office to the preschool which means that if the appointment is an hour, I have exactly fifteen minutes margin for delayed appointments or traffic problems. I'm not sure it's possible but I am almost certain that the stress will drive me around the twist.

Of course, the way that today has been going, I'm probably going to run away from home. As an indigent living on the streets in the midwest, scheduling medical appointments will probably be the last of my worries. What is it about 3 year olds that inspires them to bite and hit when they don't get their way. It's not like ***We've*** ever modeled that behavior, although I will admit that I really, really wanted to hit her with a rolled up newspaper when she bit me the second time in less than a minute.

The good news is that tomorrow is my bellydance class. It's the thing that I look forward to all week and the thing that really gets me through right now. Between dance class and trying to find my way around Ravelry, I'm starting to remember that there's a world out there that has nothing to do with preschoolers.

Image: Georgia O'Keefe: Hands with Thimble photograph by Alfred Stieglitz

Too long no post

Last night I arrived home from the family Florida vacation. Sprout had a great time and really got the opportunity to get to know my sister who was visiting from Germany. We had a small family birthday party in the condo and Sprout got to swim in the ocean and in the pool at the condo at least twice a day. Her swimming is improving by leaps and bounds.

While there, I found the time to read the first book that I'm reviewing for Mother-Talk.com. I'll be posting my review on Wednesday. In the interim, some of the 100 bloggers participating in the blog tour have posted their reviews and you can read highlights or pop over to the blogs themselves from the blog tour post on the Mother Talk website.

Running on Empty

When last I checked in, I was feeling a bit sleep deprived. Some research online and a conversation with my therapist helped convince me to try switching when I took my new medication from the evening to the morning. I also switched to a slower release formula which we're going to try for a while and see how things go. I'm doing much, much better with the combination of the slower acting formula and the earlier dosing. In fact, the only cloud on my horizon right now is that I'm so busy with swim lessons and the things that I'm doing in an effort to improve my health and well-being that I've no time or energy left at the moment for the studio.

I'm so glad right now that I've taken some time off. My sister is coming to visit from Germany, Sprout and I are going with my sister and our parents to Florida for a week of swimming and fun on the beach. There just hasn't been much time left and probably won't be any in the foreseeable future for blogging and updating on my personal life. There's nothing going on in the studio at the moment, so I can't really give much info there. How boring would it be, for everyone, if I posted regular updates that said something to the effect of "Playing and having fun with Sprout. Dieting and exercising. Nothing going on in the studio. Took Sprout to see her grandparents. More later."

On an interesting side note, I've decided to re-visit my desire to do some professional writing. I'm going to be starting slow, with some book and/or media reviews here on my blog. I've answered a call for reviewers. I will be receiving the items for review from the publishers at no cost, and the network that I'm working with compensates reviewers with Amazon.com gift cards. My goal is to write honest and, hopefully insightful, reviews of the material I'm sent. It is not a completely random process. I will receive email from the blogging network with information about the materials available for review. If the material looks interesting to me, I can choose to throw my name into the hat as a potential reviewer. After that, they either send me the book or they don't. Should be interesting.

Radio Silence

I'd like to start by apologizing for my prolonged absence. The end of March, first of April, I went to Bowling Green, Ohio by myself to visit a friend and check out a fiber festival. It was a great weekend but a bit of a whirlwind. It was immediately followed by a quick trip to Louisville and then Indiana for photos of Sprout.

Prior to leaving for Bowling Green, I finished sculpting the last of a series of agateware goddesses for a Beads of Clay group bead swap. The beads were left for the weekend in the food dehydrator in my studio to ensure that they were bone dry for firing when I returned. Since I was pressed for time, I single fired the goddesses to cone 10. I didn't glaze them because I wanted to fit them all into a single firing, so I actually had some space for some colored porcelain beads that I stained with a wash of albany slip and blue stoneware glaze mixed. After firing, everything got a trip through the rock tumbler to clean it up and smooth away the burrs that sometimes result when beads temporarily fuse in the high temperature firings. (That albany slip/glaze wash can sometimes run slightly and glue the beads together. They pull apart easily enough but there is sometimes a rough spot where the beads were fused.)

This week, I've updated the MysticSpiral Etsy Shop and done a bit of metal work at the torch in an effort to be ready to make more shawl pins as soon as the current batch of faces, spindle whorls and other raku beads have been fired. Part of my motivation in this, as those of you who are here from the Lime&Violet podcast or message boards probably already know, is that I've been spending a lot of time hanging out on a knitting forum and was recently the recipient of some beautiful compliments from the lovely and fabulous Lime and Violet.

It's an odd experience to sit down to work while listening to a podcast that has become a part of your regular routine and to hear yourself mentioned by voices that have become familiar companions in spite of never having met. Such was my experience about 38 minutes into Episode 32 of the L&V podcast.(link to actual MP3 of the podcast) I'd read the show notes when I downloaded the podcast to put on my mp3 player, so I knew that they had received the shawl pins that I'd sent and that they were using some of them as half-way through prizes in the L&V Sock Marathon. Let's just say that it is probably not a good idea to be startled (or pleasantly surprised) while holding hot metal in the flame of a propane torch... I am certain that I sat there for a full minute and a half with a stupid grin on my face while I held the bronze rod in the torch flame and the heat gradually spread to my fingertips... I know from past experience that the ridge pattern of my fingerprints will grow back, but for now, my prints have interesting voids where I singed my fingers with the hot metal.

Well, I could continue typing and linking and typing and linking for quite a while so I'll cut this off here and maybe have something left for another blog entry sooner rather than later.