blog!!! (with apologies to my instructor)

I'm a bit late on responding to the blog assignment from a week or so ago... but I assume my instructor will view this with compassion and understanding. (I know, I can hear the rest of my family and friends saying, "blatant kiss-up!" - but then a few of them have spent time in "Elaine's World" and are still trying to forget it. :) )

For example, sister Becky had a few days we could spend together one-on-one last fall; it'd been years and a few family crashes since the last time we'd had this. Wonderful visit, talked ourselves out and didn't sit still too much. She thought she'd try 'lounging' at my house, but while I had a pair of extra hands here, I thought it'd be a quick-n-easy (always a set-up in 'my world') project to unroll the leftover chain link fencing I had here and nail it to a few trees, thus fencing in the front yard so the dogs could 'come lounge with us'. Rather-warm (i.e. dripping sweat) day and had to drag the fencing through the brush, but with a couple of hammers, scrap nails and innovative methods, we managed to get it up before she had to leave that day. She even bought a loungin' chair so she had a pleasant seat for breaks.

So - back to the blog and class. My impressions of the last meditation series... (unit 7?) I enjoyed it, but I don't think 'enjoy' is the right word. The 'mental break' from daily activity is astoundingly refreshing in my world, even though I tend to 'zone' with some ease. If I can get through the mental chaos of things like late assignments, survey work, how to zen a roof, fetching wood home, vehicle repairs, sick grandkid, things I want to do / have to do and potential body aches -- I zone like a zombie? I know I'm highly suggestible already. Just the sound of steady fan or pattering rain 'huuuuuuuuuuuum's' through my brain, and visuals like gentle waves on a lake or branchy shadows on a side-road drive can dope me out - I constantly have to 'snap my attention back' if I'm driving and watch for these influences when the timing is wrong. 'Enjoy' seems like the wrong description then for the awareness and insights combined with relaxation in my world -- in my own way, I'm saying it was positive and a tool I'll continue to use.

And now for all the things you're all curious about... :)

Some durn fool (yes, me) submitted a 20-page assignment when 3-4 pages were required; the topic obviously absorbed me? It also absorbed my time! Highly interesting stuff, though, and I'm sure my instructor would agree.

While I was jamming on that, I managed to get my brake shoes and blower fan replaced and son Matt's truck fixed (set-up, I need to borrow it to haul home the wood for the addition-that's-not-an-addition (legalities, I hear in MN you can build a double garage, slap a fish house license on it and argue an honest case... you should see some of our 'fish houses'). I'm delighted to report I received a graphics design / print job for labels for a new business (Miracle of Joy - her name is Joy, and how sweet is that to design?) and... the new printer handled this beautifully. I'm still on a learning curve on using it, non-tech that I be.

I took a break over the 4th and joined the local peace coalition in the parade; Sunday I was not-working so wore my good tenners and jeans into the yard - another mistake in my world. Sera mowed so I meandered over to my shovel and the area I need dug down to pour cement to build "an entrance-that-isn't-an-entrance" by the door to my room. Clay is like rock to dig when it's dry, but if you add water, it's like soup. Rocky soup in this area, in that two years ago we put down river rock to help with the drainage. Due to a serious blow to my head in my youth (I assume this) I wanted to 'reclaim the rocks' from the clay soup. Best way I could figure to this since raking was tough and a bad option was... washing the clay off. I wanted the clay to build up a side by the pond that was low, so I 'captured' it in the wheel barrow and tipped the water off as I strained the rocks out.

I am not sure why I want these rocks or where they'll go, but there's about a truckload of these strategically placed that I can find a new purpose for. "Muddy good day." Except then I needed to wash my jeans and shoes. And washing my shoes peeled both heels loose, and this is one of my most comfortable pairs. So I glued them with glue-all and stuck them under the legs of a chair with it propped against the wall to weight them down overnight. Except I put them on today and found the glue hadn't dried, so one sole was flappity-flapping and they both were squishing glue. So I put them back under the chair... and put on my 'grubby tenners' which I should have done yesterday. (Hindsight is perfect, and generally useless in the face of unyielding optimism.)

This is a family trait. Sister Becky (totally not in the Catholic sense, sibling!) called Saturday; she's spent her time off work working on her house. She flew out to another base camp today at 4 a.m . - Alaska, only way to reach camp is by plane. She complained about the ungodly hour of flight departure, but I comforted her with the practicality of this: if they do ditch the plane in the ocean, there's plenty of daylight left for the search crews to find them. She's basically worked through her break from work. Our best plan is to meet away from either of our home-units so we can visit and relax properly; I thought this would be somewhere in Canada as a half-way point, but being from Alaska, 'half-way' is Hawaii in her world.

Today... I got out a late assignment that I'd worked on until 2 a.m., caught up other assignments, printed and cut labels - got them mailed, met up with friend Bill-who-has-the-wood-I-can-have, had a weed-whip dropped off by friend Pete for me to borrow (forgot to mention mine quit yesterday half-way through the brush; despite taking it apart into little pieces, I couldn't get it to work - and I chopped up the extension cord thinking that pulled wires were the culprit - rather time-consuming, hot-wiring the wires, running up to plug it into the wall outlet, carefully testing it, unplugging the wall outlet, repeat -- about 20 times as I took out more and more screws. I did find 'a Tesla coil' inside it, and first time I've taken one of these apart. Now I need to patch the cord back together?)

Bill scoped out my slightly-warped plans for the roof - i.e. a deck-that's-not-a-deck - and began to see the logic of my thinking. There is a touch of genius in it, but one does have to search for it? Friend Dan from the gas station called to say he had some reusable wood if I wanted it, and Matt said I could borrow his truck tomorrow night to pursue these endeavors.

Val went shopping at Menard's to get a laundry hamper for her room, and came out with a dog collar, two dog toys and a pop -- the laundry hamper failed to materialize. I swear it's genetic! Bill passed over a microwave to be donated on freecycle or to Habit for Humanity and a used computer is waiting in my car to be unloaded tomorrow into Val's room.

Oh. And I did a completely new first! I registered a business name with the state that lapsed two years ago (Picklehead Press Publications); it needed to be printed in a local paper 'of my county' - my county being Cass and the closest 'legal' newspaper a half-hour away from the direction I travel in. But... I picked up a free fax machine last week (under Val's influence) and managed to send my first fax ever by myself - and from home! (I feel so mature!)

While I'm pursuing this, I bit the bullet and purchased ISBN's for 10 children's books to offer through Amazon. They do print-on-demand, and having my own numbers means my company (Picklehead PP) is listed as publisher and I can take the ISBN's anywhere. If I let them supply these for me, they'd own the numbers and the #'s would be locked into Amazon.

While I'm mentioning that, I can toss in another 'minor miracle'. I 'should have' had these numbers ordered a few weeks ago, because it takes about 15 business days to receive them. (Pricing, only one source for these: 1 ISBN for $125 or 10 for $275.) I waffled on dropping this sum of cash, but decided to pursue it... However, in the few weeks there was a price change, and it now cost $325! And express shipping cost another $50 - sigh. And I wanted these by July 20, since we have the library presentation on that date - sigh. The 'minor miracle' is that this price change was reflected in their system - the numbers are now sent online instantly after payment!

Whoa! I have the numbers already, and with my tight schedule, a wonderful 'delay' of waffling / procrastinating turned up roses. :)

My world... it's a wild world? If I find the time to absorb it, I have a book on building an electro-magnetic generator. I am sadly lacking in the techno-electric information field, but one never knows what one can do until one tries. I think this project will have to wait until later in the season, same as doing my own car body repairs.

There is a reason my sister hesitates to visit me soon, but -- Becky, if you're reading this and finding yourself a bit bored, I can send you the book on generators as a download and you can brush up on this fascinating field. That Tesla was able to build a 'sound-vibration machine' that could topple buildings and bridges... History channel, one of his early experiments started the whole building shaking like an earthquake, panicking people and cops rushing in -- the switch stuck and he was trying to cut if off? (I can learn a lot from Tesla!)

After all this, the blurb today on earthworms growing up to 22 feeeeet long is kind of minor (South America, I think?). My mind will never forget this useless bit of knowledge, because I can't wrap my brain around the image of this. It's like such a totally foreign concept, part of me is repulsed, which seems unfair to the worm. Trying to see things from the worm's point of view doesn't help me at all, either. I just don't know how to react to such a thing, whereas aliens or angels I can handle.

Kid-related happenings: Val sprayed her room for ants last night, thus proving she is not old enough to do this herself. She about fumigated it, so to save the caged rodents / pets, Sera put the fan in her doorway... blowing into the house - go figure. One might think putting it in the window and 'blowing out' might have been a better people-option. I doubt the ants were affected.

Today this child was spotted on the roof, strangely drying chocolate stars her mother had purchased yesterday with a kitchen towel (I didn't ask). Tonight I heard the logic of this: she had them by the pond (thank God filled with clean water yesterday, muddied today by said child) and Jake-dog knocked them in, so she rinsed them off and was drying them. I'm rather glad I let Bill eat the stray that she left behind.

Now I'm going to go back to reading "Transformation" by Whitely Strieber. It's pretty interesting, and not quite as mind-boggling for me as 22-foot worms. For the fishing folks out there, it's a brain-breaker on what you could possibly be baiting this one for; maybe in a really big fish's world, this would be like spaghetti? I don't want to meet those fish, either. (My strangest evolutionary "what if" morphing - if sharks had grown legs and hunted like wolves, it'd be a really nasty roving pack.)

I'll stick to aliens! And if your mind isn't a little boggled by this blog, then I suspect your prescription is too strong... Blessings, all!