a visit from the land of Blog

House clean, mostly, by Wednesday evening, still need to do the floors and wipe down the kitchen cabinets which maybe I'll do this weekend. It's so sparkly! So, ready for Joanne's and Laura's visit Thursday when Bill the plumber and Rocky descended on the house yesterday morning. Bill wasn't supposed to get to me til next week at the earliest but Wednesday afternoon Rocky dropped by to say Bill had had a cancellation and slipped me in the open slot. Water off, water on, water off, water on, water off (I'm hoping it's on by the time my guests arrive). Marc asks how long til the water is on again, Bill hollers up to Rocky in the attic...you almost done up there, the man has to take a shit. So water back on and they actually finish up and are gone before Joanne and Laura arrive.

gone are the old galvanized pipes replaced with flexible plastic tubing

And the weather also cooperated, the big rainstorm with attendant lightning and thunder (and a trembling dog) during the night gone by morning leaving us a cooler but nicely warm day with a blue sky and flowers in the yard intact.

I don't remember how long I've been reading Joanne's blog, Cup On The Bus, but it's been years. Joanne is a small feisty woman in her 70s who took on raising three of her grandchildren, rescuing them from certain dismal futures, the last of which is Laura still in residence, the other two having gone on to college and their adult lives. For some unknown reason, Joanne and Laura decided to take a road trip from Ohio to Texas during Laura's spring break to visit Joanne's cousin and a commenter on her blog and me. Her cousin and Rose live outside Dallas which is a near 5 hour drive from here and they arrived around noon.

This is the third meet up I've had with fellow bloggers, people I have read for years and feel like we are good friends but still, you never know how these things are going to go and so I was a little anxious. Silly since the other two meet ups were like seeing old friends after a long absence and meeting Joanne and Laura was exactly the same.

After lunch at the house I showed off my work, we checked out the shop, did a little driving tour of this Podunk town, and then sat out in the big back yard enjoying the weather and talked and talked and talked until it was time for dinner. 

16 year old Laura entertained herself wandering in and out of our conversation 

picking up rocks and looking through the pots of seashells which she was really interested in that sit outside having told her to pick what she wanted to take with her and to pick one of the glass totems scattered about the yard for their garden as well.

I had invited my sister to go to dinner with us so 6ish we went to get her and Laura took pictures of my sister's extensive shell collection acquired during the 5 years she and her husband lived in the family beach house before we sold it. When we dropped her off after dinner she had us wait a moment and came back out with a 4” spiral shell and a shark's tooth for Laura. Joanne told her she made out big time or, as we say down here I said, you made out like a bandit. Bandit?, Laura queries. Yeah, you're making off with all the goods. 

So back to the house, Joanne and Laura headed back to their hotel and off early this morning for their long drive to get home in time for Laura to get to school on Monday and Joanne to go play cards with the Methodists.

Once again I have a good friend who lives very far away. Would that she and I lived closer and could get together regularly.

some questions and answers

As you all are no doubt aware, I don't reply to comments much and when I do it is via email and it seems most my commenters don't make an email address available so when you ask a question, I have no way to answer it. My inbox is crushingly full and it is time to delete delete delete but first I thought I would try to winnow out some of the questions and answer them here.

On 'shop work and yard work' glnroz asked: do you do these designs by hand?

Yes, 99% of the time. I will have a design consultation with the client or designer and then do some compositional sketches in 1” to 1' scale. Details get added in as the drawing gets closer to full size. However, in this particular piece, the architect picked a border out of a design book of borders and small frames. We worked out the techniques together (the lace references the owners grandmother as does the diamond motif in the border). I had to figure out how to convert the knot into a series of lines we could work with.

Tabor asked a similar question on the same post: did you do the design or did they ask for this?

The architect knew what look he wanted but I provided the books we looked through for borders and I selected the font for the words. Still I had to do a scale drawing rendered to reflect the decisions we had made to present to the client.

On 'up on a roof' Ms Moon asked: when you are finished there, would you like to come work on our roof?

Uh...No.

On 'whites, yellows, and oranges' Tabor asked: is bulbine a lily?

Bulbine is an herb found originally in South Africa. It's also, apparently, a very popular extract with body builders. I had to look it up. While I knew it wasn't a lily, I didn't know what it was. The foliage is very succulent-like though. I have it in two location and they are two different varieties. One of them has just been spectacular this year.

On 'epic battle' Joanne Noragon asked: is that an orb spider?

Well, it's an orb weaver, in that it wove what is called an orb web, the traditional spiderweb that radiates out from a center spot. Lots of different spiders build webs like that though. When I did an image search for 'orb spider', there were lots of pictures that looked like my spider.

Marty Damon asked on the same post: what were the pearls?

Dew drops!

On 'foiled work and finish work', Stephen Hayes asked, well it wasn't really a question: I don't recall seeing the blue one with yellow mushrooms(?)

Not mushrooms but pistal and pollen covered stamens of a blue flower which I don't know what it is. If someone could identify this flower for me I would appreciate it. And yah, it was in a previous post.

On 'a day trip to the Bayou City Art Festival' glnroz asked: where was your booth?

I was not participating, only went to enjoy the art of others. It's seems like fun to do those shows but I have done those shows and it is not fun for me. That's a whole lifestyle, traveling from one show to another to sell your work.

If I went back any further I don't think anyone would remember the post much less that they asked a question. Hell, y'all probably don't remember asking these. I do appreciate all the comments and feedback from the peeps.

still more misc blog poop

Consulting my little notebook I see I have several awards and mentions to acknowledge.

Hilary over at The Smitten Image has twice graced me lately with a Post Of The Week mention, May 18 for L is for... and June 15 for Play Date (the titles are links in case you missed them). Obviously, she must not have been reading any of my excellent posts for July and August. hee hee, just kidding Hilary. Hilary is an awesome photographer so you should all go over and see the world through her eyes, or eye as the case may be.

And Linda from Blue Skies Sunny Days has recently awarded me the Liebster Blog, for blogs with fewer than 200 followers (or members as blogger calls them now). And yes, I still qualify for that. She's a fairly new reader of mine and obviously doesn't know what the rest of you have already figured out, that this is the Hotel California for blog awards (they can check in but they can never check out). She has recently left San Francisco and moved back to the part of isolated Oklahoma near where she and generations of her family grew up searching, like the rest of us at this point in our lives, for peace and tranquility and wondering why the hell she thinks she will find it in this “godforsaken state” (her words in case you couldn't figure out what the quote marks were for).

I'm supposed to recommend 5 other blogs with less than 200 'members' but when blogger introduced the new dashboard they did away with the 'manage your blogs' function that let you see at a glance which blogs you follow and how many members they have so I would have to visit every friggin' blog I read to find the appropriate ones and, well, I'm just not gonna do that. The real reason, though, is that I'm not very good at following rules. But do go visit Linda at least.

The last thing on my little agenda here is I noticed yesterday that my last post before this one marked 500 for me. And still I ramble on. That's gotta be some kind of milestone, right?

even more misc blog poop

long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away...

Well, OK, it hasn't been that long.

Anyway.

Linda over at Ye Olde Crone's Gazette (or it could have been Olde Baggs 'n Stuft Shirts, I forget), some indeterminate time ago, bestowed upon me the Sunshine Award. I know this because I came across a piece of paper with this scribbled on it:

Sunshine Award

Linda Old Bagg

If there were conditions or instructions, I don't remember what they were besides saying thank you, which I am sure I did, and acknowledging it, which I am doing now. And then there's the whole sending it on thing. This I cast to the wind for sunshine to fall on any and all.

Thank you Linda for thinking of me.

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I don't usually enter giveaways and when I do, I don't win but for some reason I entered these two and ended up the lucky recipient.

SueAnn of SueAnn's Journey gave me a $40 gift certificate to the CSN on-line store.

From Linda Sue of ALL I EVER WANTED I received a lovely little triangular box filled with some dreamy chocolates.

Unfortunately, I had to share the chocolates before I got my new knife.

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I was pleasantly surprised to learn I am Blog Of The Month on R.A.D. Stainforth's blog, Black Dogs. Apparently I impressed him with how culturally astute I am with my post on Hahn Bin.

Anyway, thanks RAD. I am stupidly pleased.

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And then, my darling poetess extraordinaire Shay over at Word Garden, who even though she knows I am the black hole of awards, gave it to me anyway, bless her little heart, selected me for the Stylish Blogger Award. This was recent enough for me to still remember and I am supposed to tell you 7 things that you may not know about me. (finally! I made this list ages ago. I thought I was going to have to make up my own award and send it to myself to be able to use it.)

So here be it:

1. The middle toe on my right foot is still 6 years old.
2. I have been concussed 3 times. (I know a lot of you are going...ooohhh, so that explains it...right about now)
3. I have a talent for untangling knots.
4. I love roller coasters.
5. The wind literally blew me over backwards once (or maybe twice).
6. I could sit and do jigsaw puzzles all day.
7. I've never worked as a waitress.

As usual the task of selecting one over another is not something I wish to undertake as I feel everyone is worthy.

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And finally, I see I have gained a new follower here and there, so welcome. I'm not very good at replying to comments but when I do it's usually via email so if you are one of those that have the 'no-reply' blogger address, you won't get them. Heck, I won't even write them. Sometimes, though, I will respond in the comments. You know, just to keep you guessing.

Just so you know.

resting on my laurels

I have a couple of honors to recognize...

First, last Wednesday Hilary of The Smitten Image, who does a feature every week called Post Of The Week in which she recommends half a dozen or so posts, selected my post 'D is for...' for the top spot. If you don't know Hilary's blog you really must go visit. She has an incredible eye and her nature photos, and most especially her bird photos, are just amazing. Thanks Hilary, for selecting my post last week and for your beautiful photographs.

Another blog that is new to me, Everyday Goddess, also does a similar feature called Toasting The Posts Of The Week. I was browsing around and popped into her place yesterday and was stunned to see that my post 'ice, ice baby' was among her list. Thank you Everyday Goddess.

As long as I'm sending people on to other blogs, here's a few more you should go visit if you don't already know them.

Fireblossom at Shay's Word Garden has been my little secret since I first stumbled on her. She writes poems that are really stories and constantly blows me away. She's getting discovered now and my measly comments sometimes get lost in the hurrahs. Not that I'm jealous or anything.

I've recommended John Kurman's blog Random Walks before when he was first getting started. It's still one of my favorites. That said, I'm not really sure how to categorize his blog. He's an intellectual type who teaches sculpture at an Illinois university. And he's not shy.

Cynthia (her name and her blog's name) is a glass artist and computer techie nerd and gear head who shares everything she knows. And she comes up with the greatest human stories. I swear she makes some of them up. Like this one.

I know, I know. I'm supposed to be getting people to come to my blog, not send them away but it's still frozen out there and I've promised myself that I would work in the studio on my waxes all weekend so you're getting nothing new from me.

going viral

image by Allie Brosh from Hyperbole And A Half

A new bit of slang has made it into the vocabulary, an example of language in motion, this one based on the fact that viruses reproduce quickly. Of course, when people say something 'went viral', they don't mean it got infected and overcome with disease. What they mean is that something spread throughout the population quickly.

I saw a good example of this phenomenon recently. My daughter sent me a link to this very funny post on a generally funny blog. I clicked on it and it had me laughing out loud. It's cartoon-like and the drawings are very child-like except they are so clever and expressive. So of course then I glanced at the list of comments...over 600 at the time (today 905). WTF?! So I looked at the follower list...28,600 (over 29,000 today) and some odd. Holy cow!

Now I am astounded and look to see how long this blog has been up for it to have nearly 29,000 followers. 16 months. It's been up for only 16 months.

My blog has been up for 22 months and I have 137 followers.

Her - 16 months, 29,000 followers

Me - 22 months, 137 followers

Her – 29,000

Me – 137

sigh

Story of my life.

Oh well, it's a good life nonetheless.

I poked around in her archives some and this one also had me laughing.

No, I'm not really jealous. I yam who I yam and she are who she are and I wish her all the success she can squeeze out of this phenomenon.