true value

I am like a kid in a candy store.

Daughter one is a talented fiber artist. She has a large room stuffed with fiber stuff. I am hardly qualified to sweep the floor in that room, but she continues to find tools and gadgets and fabrics that work so well on my projects.

Daughter is also a MOM (capitals intended), a worker (she is caretaker for two challenged ladies), and a genuinely good person.

Sometimes we think we are doing art/craft people a favor by requesting a piece of their handiwork. Might be and might not. The problem is that it is easy to undervalue the final piece.

Right now she is working on an afghan that has a couple hundred in yarn and a month's full time work (there is no big blocks of free time in her life).

Will the receivers properly value the product?

Reminds me of an artists once who gave one of his favorite hand made pots to a friend for a wedding present. He visited later to find that they were using this prize ceramic gift as a water dish for the dog.

"Never again" said the artist.

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

water and cold

The NW is just exiting a cold snap.

Portland was as cold as it gets, low teens. Idaho was below zero and E Oregon and Washington were as cold.

I think we have some frozen pipes in our house (they will be thawed out when we get there!) Friend David could not get water in the kitchen sink during the coldest part, so I had him shut off the whole system.

Daughter two lives on an acreage. There was a small leak from the pressure tank. The water got the insulation wet, so when it got good and cold, there was no insulation and everything froze up.

They have water now, but they were without any running water for well over a week while Cliff and the boys made repairs.

Meanwhile, Arline's house is warm and cozy but the washing machine broke, and a new part has been ordered.

So water wise, it has been an interesting week.

The hot tub worked well though.

We sat in the hot water one evening when the temps were close to single digits. Nice and warm, but get your hair wet and it freezes quickly, and watch those steps, they are covered with ice!

We had a good time.

I think that occasionally being without one of the things we think of as essential is good to remind us of how much we depend on them.

Which brings me to my computer. . .

back sorta

We are still 4 hours from home and will be until after Christmas.

I am writing on my daughter's PeeCee which has a strange feeling keyboard, so I will write slow and awkwardly!

We finished our "grandparent" duties on Monday, but a major storm landed. We have two passes to go through on the way home, and during a storm they can be treacherous. The grandkids pushed on me to promise to be here for Christmas, which I agreed to.

But with the storm, we could not go until Friday, and then we would need to be back here by Wednesday or so next week. Hmm.

Not the best use of time or resources, I figured.

So, we decided to stay here over christmas.

I will post daily, but my photographs are in my MacBook, so there will not be any here for a while.

We are well are having a good time with our grandkids, and I have a pretty complete book and paper box making studio setup, so I am busy and happy. Miriam works on a rather complex jig saw puzzle.

The complex puzzles take her longer, but she works on them steady until she works them out, even if it takes a month of 10 hour work days.

Yesterday the whole world here was covered in a quarter inch of ice and everything came to a stop. No schools, no work, no go. Today it is warmer and if you go off pavement, it is MUD, so today is a "normal" day. School, work and all of the usual.

Writing for some of us is a compulsive act and it feels great to be back at it here, even if it is with a crutch and an eye patch!

To miss quote Tiny Tim: "Have a roaring good day."