mending and making

I did get out of the house on Sunday. It was sunny, no wind, and the dog wanted a walk. First though I cut back the frozen shrimp plant and the confederate rose, had already cut back all the ginger, even though the stems were still green and you aren’t supposed to cut dead stuff back until all danger of frost is gone but I couldn’t stand looking at it. Besides, both those plants are hardy and the shrimp plant would be monstrous, or more so, if I didn’t cut it back. Hauled it all over to the burn pile. Plenty of other dead stuff, the orange cosmos and the white philippine violet, to cut back. And the banana trees which is a real chore.

I still haven’t put my sewing machine away and over the weekend finished putting new elastic in my polartec pants, patched two pot holders (because I’m cheap and really they still had their padding, just the outside fabric was worn away or burnt) and then I worked on this:

I bought these two panels of Hmong reverse appliqué so long ago that I can’t remember where I bought them or when, didn’t know what I wanted to do with them, just knew I wanted them. Since I don’t carry a purse and some of my pants don’t have adequate pockets or pockets at all I finally decided to make this little bag with them some time ago and sat down and did it Sunday. I lined it with some of the blue Egyptian cotton sheet I’ve been patching my other sheets with 

and finished it off yesterday with the grosgrain ribbon. I’m pretty pleased with it.  Now I’m ready to start on Robin’s blanket so I won’t be putting the sewing machine away any time soon, just push it over to the edge of the table to make room for the blank watercolor bookmarks which I woke up thinking about yesterday morning.

All this sewing has had me looking through my tub of fabric scraps left over from all the sewing projects I’ve done with the grand girls, teaching them to sew and whatnot. My FB feed has had a lot of textile art in it lately. There was a time when I thought that would be my artistic medium. I’ve been sewing since I was nine and took a textile design class my last year in art school but then four years of life happened and I stumbled on etched glass and that was it. Now that I’m retired from the glass arts, I’m thinking about that tub of scraps and what I might do with it all. I’m also interested in bookbinding, making little art books. I’ll have to see if the new bookstore can order a beginning bookbinding book.

Believe it or not, I was complaining about the cold Sunday and today I have the door open. That’s how crazy our weather is, how quickly it can change.

A note on the chandelier: I did an image search which turned up one that’s almost the same but with only 4 lights instead of the 6 mine has from an antique dealer priced at 3,800 euros (about $5,000). Not Dresden after all but Meissen, circa 1900. The reason I thought it was Dresden is because my mother had an envelope with a couple of the leaves in it that had broken off and she had printed Dresden chandelier on the envelope. I had searched for Dresden chandeliers before but never found one similar. Now I know why.

still cold, still lethargic, and object #10

Saturday - My Earthlink mail app is screwy. Comments show up in the inbox long after they show up on the blog and not even in the right order, most of my replies to the comments on my last post haven’t shown up at all. Today is still cold, mid 40s and down to mid 20s tonight but tomorrow and the next day and the next day and so on will be better. My feet are cold. Even though I’m getting good nights’ sleep I feel sleepy all day. Another day I don’t want to go out even though the sun is shining, the sky is blue but breezy. There is nothing to be done out there, not yet. I just refilled the bird feeder after a cardinal came to the empty platform and am watching a little wren scatter seed left and right looking for I don’t know what. And now a goldfinch in its winter colors.

I finally finished the library book that is long overdue. I don’t remember what recommendation from who that I put it on my to read list and when I saw it at the library I checked it out. It took so long to read because it would get tiresome, not really advancing the story, poetic, wordy, reminiscences. The first and last quarter moved the story, the middle half about did me in. I skimmed over a lot. 

With nothing of interest to write about, here is another object, #10…

the Dresden porcelain chandelier that hung in my parents’ bedroom while I was growing up. I have always loved this chandelier from the time I first laid eyes on it and made clear to my siblings that it was going to be mine. My parents lived in three other houses after they sold my family home after us three kids had moved out. Houston was growing, the area was being commercialized. I didn’t acquire it until after my father had died and my mother moved to the PNW to live with my brother. I hung it over the dining room table in my old Houston house with 10’ ceilings. When we finally sold that property in 2014 and moved to the Wharton house permanently I wanted to give it a thorough cleaning before hanging it here so I hung it under a ladder and cleaned every petal and leaf with a cotton swab. I won’t tell you how long that took, how many years it hung there even after I cleaned it because this house has 8’ ceilings and I didn’t know where to put it. Besides I had already bought and had installed a light fixture made by an artist over the dining room table here. Eventually, I had Rocky hang it in the corner of my in home studio room to help light a dark corner. It’s lost a few leaves and flowers over the years from being moved so many times (6) but still a beauty.

Sunday - Warming trend starts today! Yay!

did I mention it's cold?

Tuesday night’s sunset. It was prettier in person, a little pinker and not so gray (also the only picture I've taken in days).

It’s very foggy this morning. Looking out my window to the east across the empty half acre between me and the street all I see is white. I cannot see the street, I cannot see Jimmy’s house on the other side of the street or the empty field that surrounds it. I can barely make out the ghostly image of the black walnut tree on the corner of Jimmy’s property. This reminds me of a night when I was a teenager being brought home from where I don’t remember. All I remember is that it was so foggy the driver couldn’t see where to turn to get onto my street and I had to get out and walk in front of the car until we came to the turn. It’s supposed to be mostly sunny when the fog lifts.

I don’t remember what day of the week I wrote the above. Two hours later the sky was clear blue and the day wonderfully temperate after the harsh polar vortex. I did not venture outside once last Saturday or Sunday, went out briefly with the dog two times on Monday. Tomorrow, Saturday, another dip down to 25˚ but then after that more normal winter temperatures for a while, maybe the rest of the winter which would be nice. I realize moaning about temps in the 20s when the rest of the country is suffering from this arctic front with snow and ice (both permutations of the word) makes me seem like a weenie especially when the folks in that northern city are out in it in force to express their displeasure with, to record and obstruct, the violence and brutality of federal masked men armed to the teeth with military gear kidnapping people off the streets, targeting children at their schools, breaking down doors and dragging people out of their homes without verifying their citizenship or legal status all under the guise of getting criminals and rapists while protecting a certain criminal and rapist even though it draws that brutality and violence to themselves.

I’m trying to avoid certain words and names again as I think my last post was suppressed in some way judging by the number of page views or rather the lack thereof.

Well, I may be a weenie when it comes to being cold (especially low humidity cold; my lips are chapped and the inside of my nostrils are raw and sore), I admit it, but the blood is thin down here and I challenge anyone who calls me thus to come live through one of our humid summers. Which (again) reminds me, back in the early ‘80s we rented an empty building that had been a grocery store at one time and had an apartment upstairs that was just a few blocks from home. This was before the economy crashed in Houston later in the ‘80s and we had to give it up and move back to our small garage studio. At the time there were two stained glass wholesalers in town and one of them sponsored workshops and I forget the circumstances but we agreed to host one of them in this building. The instructor was from up north somewhere and he was teaching a beginning stained glass class. Anyway, it must have been in the summer because the guy was complaining about bleeding when he nicked himself. I never bleed at home, he said. 

Back to winter here, today is cold and the sky is overcast though fairly bright. Neither the cat nor the dog nor me for that matter has any interest in going outside. My sewing machine is still out and I have a pair of polartec pants from my river guide days that I’m part way through replacing the stretched out elastic. Maybe I’ll finish that or maybe I’ll get out the blank bookmarks with tassels! and play with those.

Oh, here’s something new. Starting February 10th every other week Hesed House will have a Tai Chi class! According to Stephanie, the woman who volunteered to teach it had to be convinced that there were enough people in Wharton interested. She's still skeptical. 

I’ll leave you with this quote I came across a few days ago:

What each of us must realize is that our intent always comes through. - Thurgood Marshall

ice and ICE

All three birdbaths and the very small pond are frozen solid, the big pond has a layer of ice. Two more nights below freezing and then next weekend two more nights below freezing. At midday it is currently just below freezing. All the tender foliage outside is frozen. I have lost the big plumeria in the ground for certain and the big one in the pot sunk in the ground. Lots of pecans on the ground and the burn ban has been lifted. Just saw a goldfinch on the bird feeder. Seems a little early for them.

This was my mental health activity Saturday and Sunday. I finished my daughter’s name blanket (those are unicorns in the border).

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Federal agents attacking unarmed American citizens in Minneapolis - photo by David Guttenfelder Jan. 24, 2026

ICE agents say filming them flags you as a domestic terrorist.

Trump says only criminals carry guns on our streets.

Greg Bovino - “When you call us the Gestapo we have no choice but to act like the Gestapo.”

Kristi Noem is now blaming “deluded wine moms” for the violence perpetrated by her ICE goons; VP Vance called murdered mom Renee Good a “deranged leftist”; a Fox ‘news’ columnist claims organized gangs of wine moms are using antifa tactics to harass and impede ICE agents; a new acronym has appeared on social media…AWFUL - Affluent White Female Urban Liberal all in a attempt to delegitimize maternal activism, a new twist on the old tactic of blaming mothers for the problems in the world.

Pam Bondi has told Governor Walz that these instances would stop if his state would just hand over their voter roles, something the federal government has no legal right to.

Federal agents are now seizing people’s phones to stop them recording abuse and to hide the evidence.

These are just some of the responses to the unwarranted murder in broad daylight in public of another US citizen by ICE agent goons in Minneapolis. Suffice to say that all other responses by anyone in this administration or those who support it in the Republican party are nothing but lies, telling us to ignore the video evidence we see with our own eyes while they twist the narrative to make the victims at fault. 

Alex Pretti was helping a woman ICE had shoved to the ground when they pepper sprayed him in the face, wrestled him to the ground face down, removed his gun from it’s holster at his back, a gun he was legally permitted to carry which he never reached for (video shows clearly that he had his phone in one hand and his other was empty), and then shot him in the back ten times. Renee Good was trying to leave after being told to move her car when she smiled at an agent standing beside her car saying she wasn’t mad at him and then he shot her in the head three times. Both these victims have been accused by the federal authorities of violently attacking ICE agents even though video from various angles in both instances clearly show they were no threat to ICE. Apparently some perceived ‘disrespect’ towards an agent is a justifiable defense for murder and these cowardly thugs who wear masks in order to remain unidentified have appointed themselves as judge, jury, and executioner. Both these murderers have been whisked away, protected by by Bovino and Noem, and put back on the street elsewhere. 

In response Governor Walz has called up the Minnesota National Guard to help the police defend the citizens of his state from the atrocities of Trump’s personal gestapo. This is a serious step, pitting a state’s national guard against federal agents running rampant with apparent immunity for murder and other attacks against citizens engaging in their civil rights.

Where this country goes from here is anybody’s guess as long as the Republican Congress remains silent but it’s not looking good. How much more before it all goes up in flames?

Edit:  I read later Governor Walz has spoken to Trump who has said he will reduce the number of ICE agents if Walz turns over all jailed undocumented residents, turn over any the police apprehend, and have the police help and support ICE. No mention of turning over voter rolls but Trump is a liar. He will say whatever it takes to get what he wants and then he will do what he wants and has no moral conviction to honor what he says.

that was a little premature

shrimp plant in full bloom

Of course the forecast that said no freezing nights for the foreseeable future has changed now that I uncovered the ponytail palm and the night blooming cereus and moved all but the plumerias back outside Monday. Checked the forecast the next day and my hope (dream) of having a winter that didn’t plunge down to 20˚ or colder shattered. Every day since temps are colder and colder, now Saturday night 25˚, Sunday night 18˚, Monday night 25˚. High chance of rain Friday and Saturday, ice on Sunday. Well poop. The cereus must be brought into the garage, covering it won’t do. So yesterday, Wednesday, all the plants were brought back in the house in more permanent positions 

or in the garage and the ponytail is covered once again. Robin is doing child care for Harrison so it was up to me and 4 year old Paisleigh and we got it done. Mikey moved the cereus and the stag horn in for me so I’m ready. The fruit trees will like it I guess since they need a certain amount of cold hours to produce fruit.

My little project is a sewing project. I’ve had this machine for decades, maybe four as I think I bought it in my 30s. I’ve had a sewing machine of my own since my teens though I don’t remember what kind my previous one was or why I bought a new one. The brain has jettisoned that information to make room for more recent stuff. the one I have now is a Riccar, a good solid machine that I’ve only had to have a major repair done on it once but have taken it in several times for cleaning and tension adjustments. Anyway, it was working fine when I when I made Paisleigh’s name blanket and worked fine on Sunday until it didn’t. The stitching on the top was fine, the stitching on the bottom was full of loops. Something became out of whack. So I cleaned and oiled it, something I hadn’t done in a while and hoped it would self correct the next day. It didn’t. It was even worse. There is no one in Wharton and while there used to be a guy in El Campo that did sewing machine repair he closed up shop years ago. So I did a search for sewing machine repair in Rosenberg, found a guy and took my machine in Monday. He called yesterday morning, machine is fixed so I’ll go get it today after SHARE.

Cat helping me iron seams

As long as I was in Rosenberg I made it over to Shopping Mecca and to the Penney’s because I need a new pair of jeans since I only have one that doesn’t have the knees torn out. Yes, I know, people pay big bucks for brand new jeans with the knees already torn out. I prefer to get mine the old fashioned way. I thought I had two pairs but when I went looking for them in the drawer I couldn’t find the second pair. And so miracle of miracles, they had a 6S. S for short. It’s not that I’m short I just don’t wear spike heels with my jeans. I don’t wear heels, spike or otherwise, at all. Of course I found my second pair in the drawer when I got home with the new ones.

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I keep thinking of the Chinese curse “may you live in interesting times”. I have to say living in a time when the stable world order is being purposely trashed by a narcissistic megalomaniac and it has only taken a year for our allies and trading partners to start making new alliances and trade agreements excluding the United States was not on my bingo card. At the World Economic Forum in Davos Switzerland Secretary of Commerce Lutnick is lecturing European countries for investing in solar and wind in an effort to be zero net in 2030 saying they are choosing to be subservient to China because…batteries. Secretary of the Treasury Bessent in a press conference telling other nations re Greenland to basically "sit back, take a deep breath, let things play out" ie, let us do whatever the hell we want, because "the worst thing countries can do is escalate against the United States" ie we will fuck you up. The other world leaders at Davos are not having it. Trump, 3 hours late, gave one of his usual demeaning insulting speeches/tirades towards everyone who opposes him including his list of grievances and slights, full of lies and his ignorance. Apparently he got schooled behind closed doors by the other member nations of NATO who intend to protect Greenland militarily against any US attempt to take it by force because Trump has backed off, for now, saying they have a framework of a plan that gives him what he wants, meaning NATO nations are going to string him along with further talks until he either dies, Congress gets a spine, or he’s removed from office, because they have no intention of handing Greenland over to Trump. For now additional threatened tariffs are off the table.

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One more warm day and then the temperature starts to plummet. Starting Saturday you’ll find me hunkered down on the couch under a blanket.

unexpected bounty, freeze prep

I took this picture Friday when I went across the street to feed the kitties that live outside at Pam’s old house waiting patiently while I got the bag of food out of the shed; Handsome Boy (brown tabby), Lovey (gray), Twin (black and white), and you can barely see Ghost (black) waiting by the dishes where I put their food. They are very sweet boys, well, except for Ghost who still refuses to let Robin or me touch him. 

My resolve, not to be confused with a new year’s resolution, to again begin doing my yoga practice at home every day has fallen by the wayside…again. I blame the holidays. I’m just sleeping (or lazing in bed) too late to work it in. I know, I know, between meds and coffee but it just ain’t happening. Even with ‘it doesn’t have to be a lot but it has to be some’. Maybe next week.

Did I mention I emptied the truck of the accumulated tree debris on Monday and Mikey helped me load up all the metal debris, galvanized sheet metal and pipe, that was leaning against the side of the shop from all the various remodels of said building over the years before we bought it. 

This was the crap that the wild grape, Virginia creeper, briar, and other various unwanted wild growth covered that it took me I forget how long, days, weeks to clear out last January and February. Then I added the stuff I hauled out of the barn a couple of weeks ago and took it to the big metal recyclers at the end of the road my street ends at on Friday. This is not the small outfit I’ve taken scrap metal to in the past on the other side of town. They take larger scrap metal but only pay for aluminum and steel cans. This time I went to the big outfit and I mean huge, acres of scrap. When you pull into the yard you drive up onto the scale and then they direct you around this big loop of scrap metal of every description big and small where the guy unloaded the truck and then I drove back onto the scale and they gave me $38. Surprised me because I didn’t expect to get paid.

So far this winter we have not had any freezing nights, maybe a light frost judging by some leaf damage when those nights got close to freezing. Regardless I covered the Queen Of The Night both times and brought the pink trumpet flower and one of the bridal bouquet plumerias into the garage. Tonight is our first below freezing forecast, 27˚, so I’ve spent the last two and a half hours covering the QOTN and pruning back and covering the porter weed and bringing all the plumerias and other assorted tropical and semi tropical plants into the house or garage. 

Just some of the plants in the house.

All this for one freaking night below freezing. After that, one night in the low 30s; 40s and 50s for the foreseeable future. I’ll leave the plumerias in until spring since they’ve already gone dormant. The big plumeria in the ground and the big bridal bouquet whose pot is sunk in the ground are just going to have to sink or swim. If I lose them, sobeit. Still have to cover the ponytail or at least try. Debating still. The bulb won’t die but the branches might and it will have to start over, which it has done many times since I put it in the ground over in the shop yard ten years ago. Fuck, I may just let it sink or swim. It takes two people and it’s even bigger than it was last year and I’m not sure I have adequate sheets and tarps this year. (Did decide to cover it with Robin’s help, forwent the sheets and just used the tarps.) 

Here’s another resolve…I’m donating some of the big plumerias to the garden club plant sale in the spring. In fact, a lot of the smaller stuff is going to the plant sale too. Like I don’t need three pots of the nun’s orchid. I brought in, maybe unnecessarily, the japanese azalea which has buds on it and the camellia because both plants were struggling to survive in the ground when I dug them up last fall and they are doing pretty well now. Don’t want to set them back.

Here’s how covering the QOTN went. 

How it started,

how it ended (four sheets, two tarps).

Haven’t been out yet to see how the plumeria in the ground fared but this is what greeted me when I got up this morning. Two of the buds on the japanese azalea opened.

why did it have to be cold and nasty the day I have to go out

It was warm enough last week for the fringe flower trees (2 of the 4) to think it’s spring.

It’s cold out this morning which means my blood is thick and slow moving. It will warm up later but right now my brain doesn’t want to think. I don't function well when it's cold though some people find it invigorating. Just makes me want to huddle under blankets. I slept as late this morning as I’m able to sleep, rising back to consciousness a few minutes before 8:30. Not because I naturally don’t sleep later than that, or would, on occasion but because my morning pill alarm goes off at 8:30. Usually though I’m up well before that and after I feed the cat and dog, taking my morning meds is the next thing I do so the morning pill alarm is unnecessary and only functions to wake me up if I’m sleeping late. And also usually, when Marc gets up before I do and uses the coffee bean grinder, that wakes me up. Not today though. Slept right through that loud screeching noise. 

The above was yesterday morning. It turned out to be a pretty miserable day; cold, overcast and drizzly. Of course, because it was my day to grocery shop which yesterday required three different stores…Walmart, Hesed House market, and HEB. Walmart for their dishwasher detergent and while I was there I went ahead and got the cat and dog food I needed, Hesed House market for their lettuce and local honey, and HEB for general groceries. I used to buy the bag of organic mixed baby lettuce at the grocery store but it starts to deteriorate after about 3 or 4 days. One of the Mennonite families here started growing three different lettuces hydroponically and sell it through the HH market. They offer individual heads or three smaller ones in a clamshell. The difference in quality is dramatic.

Today is sunny though and rainbow prisms are being cast all over the ceiling and walls and the dog in my lap. 

Despite the sun and rainbows there was a different calamity. The coffee maker died so we’ve had to heat up water and pour it through the grounds but without the heating plate under the pot by the time it drips through for a single cup, the result is barely warm and requires reheating in the microwave.

I’m taking a break from the art journal/watercolor notecards/paintings since I’ve been focused on that stuff for several months except for the week I made Paisleigh’s blanket. I haven’t done a colored pencil drawing since the woodland violet in August and I have one I want to do for a friend for his birthday which is the day after mine. Ah, but, I do have another watercolor project for which I’ll probably use the crayons and pencils. I ordered blank watercolor bookmarks. With tassels! Plus I have another little project I’m about to start.

I’ve found a new expression of disbelief courtesy of Jeff Tiedrich…What in the hallowed name of Magical-Thinking Jesus! Now I’m just waiting for a chance to use it.

A strong wind started blowing out of the north west around lunch time, sustained 14 mph with gusts up to 40 mph. Not looking forward to the drive to El Campo for yoga class in a few minutes. I’d beg off but Mauri is bringing me two dozen yard eggs which we need. I imagine I’ll have more pecans to pick up this weekend.