This is what I got for Christmas last year: a Dremel tool. I’ve been waiting to use it because it is noisy and my studio is in the house. It wouldn’t be too bad, but I can’t close the door and the noise drifts down the stairs and the TV is at the bottom of the stairs and my husband is watching TV. (How’s that for a run-on sentence?)
But when he’s *not* home and I am, all bets are off.
I’m learning. I know how to change the bits easily now (that part was rather intimidating at first) and I am gaining better control of the tool.
I have safety goggles, a face mask, and a good pair of gloves that fit just right and still allow me dexterity. I have a big clamp to hold work still on my little work table. I have the little wand portion of the tool that makes it infinitely easier to handle and control. And I have plenty of things to practice on.
But what a mess!!
The mess looked more spectacular before I swept it all to the floor, dusted everything off and swept it into a pile. That’s a pretty simple clean-up.
The best part of it: today when I was practicing with it, I found myself so intent that I lost track of everything else: time, noise, the distracting Internet… I was in my “zone”. I don’t think I have been in that place for a very, very long time.
I am looking forward to a long relationship with my Dremel.
I have been very busy creatively, but the work is slow: I have to wait for glue to dry or paint to dry or I need to step back and think. Then a flurry of activity before I pause to wait for glue to dry or paint to dry or I have to step back and think.
My ogre/faerie house is coming along. I moved the details on that to my artsy blog to detail the progress: Two Crow Feather Woman. I can cheat a little tonight and spill the beans on some of it on this blog – which is supposed to be for other aspects of my life, like hunting for cryptids, gardening, birdwatching and spilling the beans about great Goodwill finds.
I spent some time at Goodwill today.
Not the drawing – the clipboard. It’s about 2×2′ (.6x.6 meters). It is made specifically to hold down large paper as demonstrated. The large rubber band keeps the paper from flapping & the two clips – well, they hold the paper in place. The handle is an additional bonus. There were two such beauties at the local Goodwill store. I’ve only seen these for sale at regular art stores and they were always more money than I had jingling in my pocket at the time. I found one here for $42.
I paid $3.99 at Goodwill. I left the other one there for another “starving” artist to find.
(aside: the sketch is of my two best friends from my childhood, Teddy Bear and Lucky Dog. Daphne the Goose – also a Goodwill find from long ago – is peeking out from behind.)
We’re divided on this item. My husband thinks it is for flowers and I think it is a funky hummingbird feeder. I’ll clean it with a bleach solution (1 part bleach to 10 parts water) and then I am going to fill it with homemade hummingbird nectar (boil 1 C water for 2 minutes, stir in 1/4 C sugar and cool). Then I will keep an eye on it to see if my resident Anna’s Hummingbirds use it or not.
If they don’t, I’ll trash that idea and the test tubes. The copper wire is artsy enough for me. In fact, the copper wire is the value: $2.99 and I probably paid just for the wire.
DANG! I saw this ugly tea pot and I *knew* it has a faerie that lives inside of it. I will set it aside and let the idea steep for awhile.
Now this was an unexpected find. I really just wanted the cow skull, but it was (before I picked it up and the hemp shredded) attached to the terra cotta planter. The planter I could live without (I have a potting shed full of planters), but that cow skull! I put my lens cap into the photo to give you an idea of the size of it. Oh, heck yeah – I can find new life for that critter.
I didn’t buy this at Goodwill today. I found it at an Estate Sale. I’d never seen it before but I got it in a bulk of items I paid $5.00 for. This little pint goes for $13.50 at craft or art stores – and it lasts forever. I didn’t start using it until I started work on the owl faerie tree house and now I am sold on it. I have no idea what the ingredients are, but it is water soluble and holds really well.
I used it to glue the yarn down on the base of the tree, to glue the tiny Morel Mushrooms to the yarn, and to glue the moss onto the side of the tree. I have more moss to attach and am waiting for the glue to dry.
Did I mention I am doing a lot of waiting for flue to dry right now?
When I started taking photos tonight, I noticed that my pastel sketch book had tooth marks in it. Hmmm. I don’t remember Harvey chewing on things. He doesn’t chew on things.
Then I remembered: he got locked up in the loft when I was on vacation. I know this because he chewed on the doggy gate. He chewed on a lot of things when we were on vacation and he was Left Behind.
I have actually been very creative lately. I have several projects stewing in my head and I am plunking along very slowly on all of them.
There’s the Owl Tree (still at about the same place it was when I posted my very last post). Well, I made some mushrooms to glue to the grass, but I didn’t take photos of them.
Well, I did paint the owlets. They came out pretty darn adorable. Tonight I am waiting for some of the other adornments to dry, so that project is stalled.
I started a Faerie House a month ago. Okay, a month ago, I took a hammer to a decorative pitcher in the pretense of starting a Faerie House. I really did have a plan, but it has stalled several times. And I dropped the pitcher which shattered it even more, and I had to glue it back together.
I did debate just trashing the project at that point, but it occurred to me that the glued-back-together pitcher would actually increase the “charm” value of the finished project.
The idea is to build a “home” for some tiny woodland creature that can live within the confines of this terrarium. The terrarium comes with it’s own macramé hanger: I purchased two of these lovely items at a yard sale in 2010. I didn’t really want them, but some other object I wanted came *with* them and the seller wasn’t willing to sell that item separately, and the price was right. So the terrariums came home with me and I have been debating what to do with them ever since.
Now I have a plan: hanging Faerie Homes.
This project is stalled because I am waiting for some of the add-ons to dry.
Those are add-ons for the Owl Tree and the Faerie House. They’ve been glazed and are drying. There may be more ivy created for the Faerie House. I haven’t decided on all the finishing touches.
What is it?!! It is naked, I can assure you of that: we’re still in the debating process of what fabric to dress it in. It wants a Hawaiian style shirt, but I am not certain that is ogre/faerie appropriate. That’s tomorrow’s project: haul out swaths of fabric until we are both satisfied and then dress it. It looks slightly worried.
(Yes, this is a project for two: it has to tell me its story as I work. I can tell by its expression that it has a story…)
Then there is the magic wand project… My husband gave me a Dremel tool for Christmas. I played around with it right away, but it’s very noisy. I planned on experimenting more with it when said husband left to go hiking on the weekends.
Then said husband had surgery and he’s been laid up in the recliner since the first of the year.
I don’t want to play with the Dremel and disturb his rest and there’s no place outside of the loft for me to go with the tool. I am not going to go play with it in the cramped and cold garage – which was home to my husband’s Bonsai trees while we hovered in temps below freezing the first few weeks of January. You couldn’t even get in the door of the garage until it warmed up enough outside for me to move the trees back out.
So the magic wand project went onto the back burner.
Ah! But it warmed up nicely into the 50’s and the recovery has been good, so the stir-crazy husband took his dog and went hiking today. I had the house to myself.
And I played with the Dremel. I sanded and shaped a branch, experimenting with speed and attachments. I think I will be OK with the Dremel tool: I can see the potential for all kinds of projects as I become more adept at handling it.
I’m not finished, but this is definitely the direction I want to go with this wand.
Yes, I think this is going to work out nicely.
This really wasn’t the magic wand I wanted to work on, but I figured if I messed up, I would rater mess up on something I didn’t actually have plans for. This particular item is disposable (not the glass ball, but the “claws”). It was just a confidence builder.
I will probably be moving my craft posts to my other blog in the near future. I have hesitated to do that, but if I am actually going to dig in and create things, then it makes sense to move over there and reserve this blog for other rantings – er, writing.
I can’t show you the whole project because it’s in my head. It’s hard to get a photograph of things inside my head.
I’m just so darn excited that this project is coming to an end in the next couple of weeks. I think it will be a couple of weeks – I won’t tell you how long it has been getting to this point, where suddenly the vision has jelled and I know how I want this to turn out.
It started out with a personal challenge: could I make a tree out of an empty paper towel tube? I wired, I scrunched, I added, I subtracted. And I gave up for a very long time. I had the base, but I didn’t know where to go from there.
I was digging through my scraps of fabric when the light came on: I had the perfect fabric to create the bark of the tree, right here. A week ago, the whole project took off again.
This is the very unfinished project (which may still take some twists and turns). It is made out of: wood, wire, an empty paper towel tube, dryer lint, fabric scraps. yarn, and concentrated liquid starch (the “glue” that holds it all together).
I have this funky little hard plastic owl that I found … um, I really don’t know where I found the owl. A yard sale? An estate sale? Someone gave it to me? Half way through the design of the tree, I decided it should be funky little owl habitat.
Then I decided the owl should have owlets.
They are in the first stage of being painted. I didn’t crop the photo because I realized it’s a bit of a snap shot of my desk: India ink, craft paint, letter opener, sticky note, paint brushes, and a pen. I made the owlets out of polymer clay.
OK, OK – a close-up of the buggers. I think they turned out pretty cute, even before I get them painted. Problem is, the cavity in the tree is only large enough for one owlet, so the other will have to be on the ground. I’m sure they will tell me their story as I put the finishing touches onto their faerie house tree.
The ground baffled me for a very long time. I stopped at the craft store and was browsing around when it hit me: YARN. Now, this is not what the ground will look like when I am finished. There are flowers and mushrooms and other things to add.
I might add moss up one side of the tree (the “north” side, of course). The block it is standing on needs to be finished (ribbon & felt sound good). I have to adhere the owls to the tree. The tree has to be coated with a protective layer (varnish, I think).
But all-in-all: I am feeling very good about this project.
Best of all, I have another one in the wings that is finally starting to shape up. I feel like I am the one with wings tonight, not just the funky little plastic owl.
I’ll post more when it gets closer to finished (or when it is finished
Well, maybe not so much mysteries as I have names that go with tonight’s photo.
The sandal is my own size 7 for size comparison. It was the only thing handy that I thought could give perspective.
For years I was baffled by the existence of the wooden shoes. They came in a box from my dad with a bunch of other stuff, most of which I don’t remember now. He gave no explanation for the wooden shoes: who did they belong to and why were they in our family’s possession?
At that time, I didn’t have the papers my dad later sent me. My family lines were tied to the British Isles, not mainland Europe. Wales, Scotland, Ireland, England.
When Dad sent me the paperwork he had that details his family lines all the way back to the first immigrants (there’s no research on the other side of The Pond that I know of and I haven’t pursued it), I discovered I have Dutch roots as well. There’s a VanVreedenburgh and a whole lot of VanEsselston/VanYsselston and Esselston/Ysselston relations who came to the Americas between 1634 and 1705. The Dutch eventually married into the English, and my Grandmother Kimmey came into the picture in 1874.
(The surname Kimmey has an interesting history on House of Names: it is one of the oldest English surnames, perhaps even outdating the Norman Conquest of 1066 AD. Kimmey is the oldest version of the surname.)
I digress. The point is: I discovered a branch of the family that was decidedly Dutch. Given the time of their immigration, they may have come over with Peter Stuyvesant or shortly thereafter. I found this link to be helpful: Dutch Immigration. The little wooden shoes possibly date back to that time.
Or they are some tourist memorabilia and have no relevance at all. I have no clue.
The leather baby shoes, however, came with a hint. Inside one of them is a little slip of card stock, written on both sides:
Aunt Mary Johnston’s
First Shoes
She was born Dec 2 – 1879
~~~~~~~Born 1775 Aug 12
Nathan Brown – her father
1850
1775 – 75 yrs. old
Ancestry.com puts Nathan Brown’s birthday in 1791. I have found a lot of disparity between the written record I have that was handed down and the records of Ancestry.com. One has to be very careful on their website to not connect the wrong person to one’s Family Tree, otherwise I like their website.
Nathan Brown was my Great-Great-Great Grandfather on my mother’s father’s side. He was Grandfather to Newton Brown, a surveyor of the Wyoming Territory (second obit down in the link). I have a collection of letters from Newton Brown to my Great-Grandmother, Mary Melrose nee Brown, his little sister.
I suppose my next logical step would be to pay for the International version of Ancestry.com and start looking up the relations across The Pond. But first I have to get myself organized. Posting these items and talking about it online helps me start to focus. I lost my focus when my dad died.
Time to get back in the saddle.
Great Grandmother saved letters. Apparently she saved baby shoes as well.
I have a few antiques. A lot of collectibles and a few true antiques. A lot more junk than I need. A lot that I inherited from my mother or my father, and some that I cannot differentiate.
My mom or my dad gave me a beat up old lock box years ago. The box’s hinges broke and it was bent up and worthless. But the contents were priceless. I still have the contents.
Among the contents was a little leather bag. And inside the bag was a bit of sealing wax paraphernalia. Part of the paraphernalia was a bake-lite handle to something, I’m not certain what. It disintegrated. I think it was part of the sealing wax holder, the rest of which is metal. The holder held the sealing wax bits so the person using it would not get burned while melting the wax.
There are bits of sealing wax, a little plastic spindle and the seal itself.
My problem is: I do not know who the seal belonged to. Or what the seal is.
I *think* it is an Old English Letter C. But it could be a G.
Note: this is a mirror-image of the photo I took of the seal. What you are looking at is what it would look like *after* it was used on the wax, not what it really looks like. The letter is backwards in reality, so that when you apply the seal to the wax, it will appear correctly. So I flipped the photo.
I tried converting the photo several ways to make out the image:
A color negative.
Neon outline.
I just like that last one, it really is no help at figuring out the letter.
I’m flummoxed. The letter C makes sense: it would belong to the Cusick side of the family. G makes no sense.
What do you think the image is? I’m open for input.
By the way, the actual size of the image is around .47 centimeters. 3/16 of an inch.
As I was ducking out the door this morning, my husband said, “Oh, there’s an article on Bigfoot on the front page of The Oregonian today.”
He knows I believe. He doesn’t believe and he spends a lot more time out there in the woods, alone, than I do.
The first thing I did when I got home tonight (while I ate the lovely dinner he prepared for me: left-over chicken, potato salad and rolls) was read the article. It’s eerie enough to make you believe that there’s a Bigfoot loose in Umatilla County, on the Reservation. You can read the full article here, but I will attempt to summarize it.
Back in November, strange sounds began to emanate from a swampy area that is close enough to a housing development that residents sat up and took notice. Some say it’s a fox. Others say it could be coyotes. Most lean toward Bigfoot. The sounds can raise the hair on the back of your neck.
One woman, Colleen Chance, even recorded the noise on her cell phone. The link is in the news article and I urge you to go read about it and listen to the cell phone recording. Turn up the volume. You can hear a stream running and then the sounds, back in the background. Over and over and over.
I was so excited! I planned a blog post while chewing on my chicken.
My husband said, “You’re going to blog about this, I know.” I nodded, being as my mouth was too full to speak.
He doesn’t read my blog.
When I settled down at my computer, the first thing I did was go to the link at Oregonlive.com to listen to the cell phone recording. And it is weird. If you didn’t read the article, at least listen to the recording.
Before I wrote a blog post, however, I wanted to get everything in order. In my mind, it is important to lay out all the facts and give the reader an opportunity to make an informed decision. I’ve heard a lot of the noises coyotes can make and some of them are pretty eerie and hair-raising. So I figured I could google coyote noises last.
I searched for fox noises first.
I decided on the spot that I wasn’t going to write the exciting blog post I had envisioned.
But the more I thought about it, the more disappointed I got: why didn’t the original investigative reporter – you know, the one who got paid to write the Oregonian article – bother to google fox sounds? Several witnesses said they thought the noise could be foxes.
I believe the whole point of researching something is to, well, research it.
Several witnesses said it could be coyotes.
I’ve heard all of those coyote sounds and more. We once had a coyote that stood outside the circle of light from our camp and barked like a lost dog. Our own dog was coyote-wise and crowded the fire more. My husband and my son sneaked off into the dark and circled around to see the coyote. (Yes, we do weird things like that when we’re camping – go sneaking around in the dark sans a flashlight in hopes of seeing what is out there.)
So now I’ve done the comparisons for you. Comparisons that I think should have been done by the first reporter, and probably could have been done by any one of the witnesses simply by typing in “fox sounds” or “coyote noises” into the search engine of their choice on the Internet. It’s amazing what a little looking will get you.
I am disappointed that I can’t come here and give you the definitive “BIGFOOT IS REAL” post that I wanted to. I was even going to invite my dear friend, Jodi, on a quest into the swamp in Umatilla County.
That disappointment is tempered with this: I haven’t seen a red fox in ages. Jodi just released one on to her property. And I am certain there’s a whole family of them living in Umatilla County, mixing it up in the swamp. And that gives me peace.
What do you think? Do you think it still could be Bigfoot? Or a cougar in heat? Or are you like me, and you find the red fox sounds eerily similar to the cell phone recording?
(I do not classify this as a hoax. I truly believe the people interviewed are believers in something out there just as I am. I am not making fun of them in any way. I just made a comparison and found myself disappointed in the outcome. That is all.)
I sometimes wonder what my neighbors think when they drive or walk by and I have either the binoculars to my eyes or a camera with a telescopic lens poking out between the slats of the Venetian Blinds. I did warn the people who live directly across the street from me that, no, I am not spying on anyone. I’m bird-watching.
The frigid weather we’ve been having has made for good bird-watching: I provide sustenance in the form of black oil sunflower seeds, Niger thistle, suet laced with nuts and insect parts, and home-made hummingbird nectar. The birds pay me back by coming in flocks.
Yesterday, I was quite concerned about the hummingbirds as both feeders had iced up. One was frozen solid and I brought that one into the house to thaw, replacing it with the third hummingbird feeder that was sitting on the kitchen counter. When it thawed, I put it out and brought in the last feeder to thaw. I keep rotating them to keep thawed nectar out there.
It is a good thing, too: when I hauled all the groceries into the house (several trips in and out), I was greeted by some very snippy Anna’s Hummingbirds. Four of them, to be exact. Three hid in the rhododendron and one buzzed in the air over my head. The male could be heard chittering at me. I was disturbing their feeding frenzy and they were letting me know.
And today when I switched out a frozen feeder with a thawed one, a female Anna’s buzzed thoughtfully in the air beside me, unsure whether she should wait until I actually hung the feeder or if she could land on it while I was carrying it. She opted to wait.
Here she is, thinking about life. Or maybe about where she’ll build her 2013 nest.
The Anna’s male looks like he has a black head and chin, but those feathers really are red and iridescent.
Really, they are. I promise.
Ah! Just a little bit of movement and light and you can see a hint of color!
“Hey! Are you taking my photograph? Paparazzi!
Can Hummingbirds look angry?
A lot of birds visited the other feeders: Varied Thrush, Downy Woodpecker, the different chickadees, 28 Bushtits (I took a photograph and counted them – it was too blurry to be kept and I deleted it, but I got an accurate count), a flock of dark-eyed Juncos…
Speaking of Juncos, I was visited by a most unusual one today. Most of ours are actually the sub-species, Oregon Junco, but they flock together: Slate colored, Oregon and Dark-eyed. The field guides lump them together.
What all of them have in common is this: they have no white feathers on their upper parts or their crown. Except for this guy, who apparently has some sort of Albinism gene in his make-up. Her make-up? Very unusual.
I am not a fan of the European Starling, but with the frigid temps and the freezing fog that has kept us below freezing even in the day time, I can’t begrudge the clever birds a little bit of food. This particular one is already showing his summer colors: iridescent black/blue/green plumage.
He was also a bit of a show-off.
Steller’s Jay rarely comes into my feeding area, but it must be cold enough to make them humble. Four of them landed in the yard together and made a great show of looking for something besides black-oil sunflower seed. One even uncovered an acorn a squirrel must have dropped in my yard.
I think of Steller’s Jays as the Royalty of the Corvid Family. They are in the same family as crows, which explains why they are so clever. Crows are the Family geniuses, Ravens are the Family tricksters, and Jays are the various royalty.
Now I have to pick a favorite of today’s photos to add to my 2013 Photo 365 project. That’s a difficult choice!
That was a silly, rambling post last night. I needed to write, so I followed the words along the screen and let them dictate the content of the blog. It is not the best way to write, but when you are faced with Writer’s Block, it sometimes helps to wake up the creative muse.
I have a number of photos to share with the Blogging World, specifically those of you who love birds as much as (or more than) I do.
But first…
I took several photos of dog prints on the frosty deck.
I just had to share that.
The little female ruby-crowned Kinglet has been hanging around again this winter.
I do not know why there is not a male Ruby-crowned Kinglet hanging around, or why they are not summer feeders. Still, this is the second winter she has made it a point to hang out in our yard.
I would like to interrupt this blog with an announcement: I do not know a lot about birds. People come to me to ask “What bird is that?” all the time. I look them up and make and educated guess.
I toggle between Peterson’s Field Guide (in print form) and Cornell University Ornithology Lab (online). And I pay a lot of attention to the details.
I still got the Kinglet wrong last winter. I thought she was a vireo based on the white ring around her eye, but I submitted a photo of her to Cornell Lab and they came back with the definitive answer: female Ruby Crowned Kinglet.
These birds crack me up. Posers!
They are Lesser Goldfinches. I suppose that means they aren’t quite American Goldfinches, commonly known as “canaries” by the non-schooled.
Canaries are little yellow birds indigenous to (hold onto your chair) the Canary Islands. They are commonly sold as pets. They are all yellow.
American Goldfinches are striking yellow-and-black birds indigenous to… Oh, you guessed. The Americas.
Lesser Goldfinches often flock with American Goldfinches. They do not have low self-esteem. They consider the title “Lesser” to be a medallion of distinction. They are not the same as American Goldfinches and they know it.
I really don’t have much to say these days. I feel a little like parched ground waiting for the rain (which is a funny thing to say since Oregon just had the fourth-wettest year on record and I really should feel half-drowned). I’m tired, but it isn’t just a physical tiredness. It’s a tiredness of the heart and of the muses. I have creative thoughts, but I haven’t had the energy to put them into existence. By the time I get home from my work day, my brain just wants to shut off.
I figure I work 8 hours a day. Add an hour for lunch and that’s nine hours. Add an hour on either end of my day for the commute, and that’s 11 hours. Some days more, some days a little less. The commute is stressful. My job uses a part of my brain and personality that is not my greatest strength: math, and a lot of it.
So, for 8 hours a day, I operate on the Left-Brain. Then I have to drive which is probably a Left-Brain operation because in order to drive safely and wisely, you have to actually think critically: how much room should I leave between myself and the other cars? Do I have room to make a lane change? How fast is the car on my left shoulder coming and can I change lanes in front of him safely or should I wait? (not to mention: Why do people get on the Freeway if they can’t drive the speed limit? If it says the speed limit is 65 and there are no external complications, then drive the freaking speed limit! Don’t drive 55!)
Sorry, A little road rage spilled over into my blog.
A little? You want road rage? How about drivers in silver cars who think that the rule about turning on headlights in rain/fog/dusk light does not apply to them? SILVER cars that blend in with the silver rain/fog/dusk. When I used to drive an F-250 Super-cab, those people turned their headlights on in a hurry when I needed to make a lane change and I couldn’t see them. Nothing like having a really big truck turn on a blinker that says “I’m coming over!” to wake them up.
Oh, speaking of blinkers. How about those people I call “drifters”? They usually drive something huge, like a Yukon or an Expedition, but sometimes they come in very small packages, like a KIA Optima. You get the first hint that they’re making a lane change when they sort of “drift” toward the line between lanes. Before you know it, they have “drifted” into your lane. No turn signal (what would be the use of that, I ask you? It’s so inconveniently located ON YOUR STEERING COLUMN where you can flip it on with a finger and never lose control of your car.).
Everyone makes a mistake or two when driving, but you can spot the habitual offenders over the “ooops! I really did not see you!” drivers. First, they show no remorse.
There are the habitual tail-gaters. They really can’t figure out why you keep suddenly braking in front of them. Oh, forget that: they’re texting! See the damn phone in their hand? or, if you are behind them: their brake lights keep going on. Um, hey: you wouldn’t have to keep tapping your brakes if you’d BACK OFF a little. Like give the person in front of you a couple seconds? A car length for every ten miles an hour?
Wait, let’s not overdo that. Ever get stuck behind someone who is so terrified of being a tail-gater that he drives a half mile behind traffic and about five miles under the speed limit? Worse, have one in both lanes, so you cannot get around either one but you can see the taillights of traffic traveling at the speed limit in front of you fading into the distance?
The merge-at-the-last-second people. They know their exit is coming up, but they’re so focused on getting ahead of everyone else by just one-more-car that they nearly cause a wreck when they suddenly veer to the right to catch the exit, in that little space between Tailgater#2 and Tailgater #1. Everyone brakes and the bubble of braking flows back for miles until no one knows why they are braking suddenly.
I could go on. This is my brain on work. I get in my car and concentrate for the nearly 1-hour commute north, hoping to avoid a collision with someone who is not paying attention and who doesn’t have a health fear of a collision while swearing at the drivers who putter along at 55 in a 65mph zone. Then I work for four hours on math problems which I can do, but which are not the greatest use of my talents.
I take an hour for lunch. I read a book, work a crossword puzzle, meditate or take a nap. Anything to relax my mind and utilize my natural talents.
Then four hours of more math and linear thinking. And a longer commute home because, somehow, that 22 miles has gotten longer at 5PM. And more dangerous.
By the time I get home, my right-brained self is totally drained and exhausted. I can’t think.
Jaci Dawn 