The continuing saga --

Thank you all for your kind comments. I appreciate you dropping by.

The cleaning and sorting continued through dawn on Sunday. We’re ready for the estate agents to take over and we only have a few bits of our stuff to deal with. It was a very-productive, extra-long weekend. Trust me, fellow hoarders, throw it away now.

We had saved some of the coolest goodies for last – namely the great grandmothers’ needlework. Here’s a close up of that one I said looked like a cobweb. It’s made out of sewing thread and Grandma Rosemary probably did it in her 80s!



Further goodies (primarily by Grandma Rosemary):









Sure, this was not handmade, but how pretty is this memento of the 1922 California Orange Show. There were two of these. My sister picked this one and I haven’t taken a pic of mine yet.


Quilting was a talent of my grandma, both of her grandmothers, and both of my grandpa’s grandmothers. The first few pictures (of the fan pattern in silks) are by one of the grandmothers and were part of a show at the Worchester Art Museum in the 1970s:





And you deserve a pic of the true funny—

At some point we left the aluminum lounger in that corner of the yard, and apparently we neglected to move it before the trees developed. Lol


For the record, after exiting the train, I didn't get a single bit of stitching in! Not a single stitch. But I was calculating my stitching needs last night. I have to get to work on the Fair Square for Vicki :) I hope she like it. I spent part of last night adjusting a pattern that I think will work out right well. I'd like it anyway. And I recalculated my ornie needs and upped my total still to do to 15. I have all the patterns picked out and I schemed a campaign. If nothing gets in thge way, I'll have them done by next Friday. Ok, so they aren't the largest stitching blocks in the world -- I still think they're cool. Just wait and see.

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Currently reading: Sharyn McCrumb. Bimbos of the Death Sun (if you haven't experienced McCrumb's Bimbos, then you need to. I know there's a little debate on her and her take on fandom, but frankly I think she has us scfi folks down quite well-- damn, I know some of her characters all too well!); Pratchett Carpe Jugulm; and Simon Green The Man with the Golden Torc
Recently finished: Pratchett Guards! Guards! (I love Captain Vimes!)
Must do: Try and negotiate BBC America out of my #@&*(^@*^%# cable company. I ***need*** "Torchwood" and "The Sarah Jane Adventures"
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Things to be thankful for: audible.com :) That's where Bimbos of the Death Sun is

Sorting and cleaning. Cleaning and sorting.

So we dealt with some of the antique needlework this afternoon --

The one in the lower right corner of the above pic is one I chose . It's made out of sewing thread. It really feels like you are holding a cobweb! What can I say, my great grandmother was good!


These pics are a very tiny representation of the "non-fancy" work. Heck, they are also representative of a small amount of the really fancy work. Yeah, I have a big pile to store.

We also cleaned the cast iron stove which was for most of my growing up, the primary heat source in the house


And we tackled the picking of the trunks. The ones shown here are the ones we're going to sell. Yeah, I know. I owe pics of the ones we're going to keep.







And, just for ducks, here's a shot of my dad's field phone from WWII --


Ok, I'm taking my darn tried fanny to bed. Well, first I have to pack some stuff so I can use the bed, but you get the idea. Pleasant dreams!

Things to be thankful for: That my BIL invented Triple Sec chicken this evening -- OMG it was good.

Life might suck. I'm not sure.

I'm in "glorious" cleaning and packing mode. Really and truly we're down to misc bits (those awkward things that don't really seem to go with anything else) and cleaning. I arrived Tuesday at mom's house as the advance guard for my sister's whirlwind plans for the weekend.

So far I've done battle with a small forest of black walnut tree saplings, dusted and scrubbed both floors of my old room (I even washed the staircase) and the bathroom, boxed up 4 sets of cut crystal stemware, moved some furniture around, begun the living room dusting in prep for tomorrow morning's primary cleaning adventure in here, and I even managed a minor foothill of office work. I've been kept company through most of it by bevies of calls asking how to deal with lost/injured birds (we've tried and tired to get the Humane Society to stop referring people to us to no avail) and some misc video tapes I brought along. I've run out of video tapes and now I'm being kept company by the DVDs of Timothy Hutton's Nero Wolfe-- he's the best Archie. Actually the whole cast of A&E's Nero Wolfe was outstanding. I mourned the end of its run.

During tonight's adventures I ran across these:

They all come from the same something or another, they're all related to/from the Field Museum in Chicago, and some of them are ads for taking the "Illinois Central" to the Field. Since I'm a fan of the Field, I am intrigued. I'll have to do some calling on them to find out what they are:



Here's what I'm working on this evening (I consider it evening until I go to bed-- no bed, no morning)



What do I really want to be doing instead --

Or one of the dozen or so ornies I still need to do. Sigh.
If I had them along I'd like to be working on --









Quotes of the Day--yeah, yeah, I know, you can tell what I'm watching:
"It was nice, not dying with you."
Martha -- Doctor Who -- "42"

"And the scientific name for the disease you got is acute malignant optimism."
Archie Goodwin -- Nero Wolfe -- "The Silent Speaker"

"Don't hurry me; I'm nervous. I have the brains of a mollusk."
Archie Goodwin -- Nero Wolfe -- "The Silent Speaker"

"Admit no more displaced persons to this house. Two is enough."
Nero Wolfe -- Cop Killer

"If you shot her, send her brain to Johns Hopkins."
Archie Goodwin -- "The Silent Speaker"

Things to be thankful for: those "magnetic"/miracle dust cloths. God bless that inventor!!!!!!

Reporting in

People are so dang annoying. Mr. Guy Down The Hall wants me to buy him a book. I have a copy in the library 15 feet from his office door but it’s too hard for him to find stuff outside of his office. He just “can’t ever find anything.” Anyone remember Lyndon Johnson’s comments on people trying to pour liquids out of boots with instructions written on the heel? Yeah, that would apparently be him. But, I’m not annoyed yet. You see I have another problem. I SHOULD have the book in question in the library but when it came in Mr. But I Have To See It Right Now I Promise To Give It Right Back Honest borrowed it before I could catalog it. That was last frelling year. Now the story will certainly be – who me? I’d never! You’re obviously mistaken.
Annnnnnd, at the same time I’m researching that order, I run across the invoice from last year for 2 things that never got cataloged because my Chicago office simply had to have them right now. I need them today and they’ve never returned them. What do you suppose the chances are I get them back (or, better yet, if they can even find them since they got them last October)?

Sigh. This job would be so much easier without all the people!

Anyway, CopperCon was nice. I’ll have to just go with nice though. I went stuck in the wrong frame of reference. The smallest con I’d been to previously was 1100 attendees. I think CopperCon had something just north of 300. Every con has missing panelists, but in a small con one missing panelist can really kill the hour. And attendance at panels was sketchy too – after all, there were only 300 of us to go around, and I think some people never left the bar.

Small attendance also means there are fewer people in between the idiots and me. This is not a good thing. For instance #1: a panel on humor in the genre should be funny not an exercise in tedium. For instance #2: when attending a Guest of Honor’s reading you should not get out your own papers and shuffle through them so you can edit them for your own reading later --- honest to pete this guy did that to Charlaine Harris! We’re sitting in this circle of 10 people, he’s one person away from her and in the middle of her reading I guess he got bored or his meds ran low, he gets out his backpack, finds his papers, shuffles though them, and proceeds to start reading his own stuff (not out loud, thank you for small favors). She kept glancing over at him, everyone else in the circle is glaring at him, and he’s blithely shuffling away.

There was lots good about CopperCon –
1. great hotel (save for the fact their concierge is more interested in gossiping with coworkers than actually doing her job) – just check out the view from the walkway in front of my suite –


Check out the really cool lobby ceiling –


And I was lucky one evening during happy hour to look up and catch the great sun effects in the lobby dome –


The hotel also featured a wonderful daily, free breakfast buffet and a daily, free happy hour (I can vouch for the margaritas and gin and tonics).

2. lots of great people – everyone was so friendly and welcoming

3. yeah, it was hot – really, really hot – but it was also beautiful


4. Charlaine was GoH – you can’t go wrong there!


5. I got some good stitching in! Yeah, I know. It’s about time. Aside from getting mostly done with yet another secret project, I made headway on Vierlanden



And a little on Midsummer Night’s Dream Quaker Meetinghouse


6. I got books!!!!!!!!!!!! No con is successful without hauling home books you “know you didn’t need.” lol
The Charlaine Pile:

The Chelsea Quinn Yarbro Pile:

And the misc pile:

Quick CopperCon

Ok more later, but at CopperCon I did something I've never done before. I had my picture taken with an author. I just couldn't stop myself. Charlaine Harris is the nicest person!!!!! Now, go buy all her books -- you can find her in both mystery and SF. ... Go on! Go Shop!!!!!!!!

Catching Up (aka The Wonders of Friends)

Catch ups.

I need to belatedly share the wonderfulness of my former coworkers. My last day on campus was august 3rd, but last weekend my former boss threw a party at her house to celebrate the end of my tenure with the engineering library on campus. Her husband made two varieties of the world’s best enchiladas with some simply yummy Spanish rice (the best I've ever had) and beans as sides, and my boss made salsa to go with chips and veggies. Oh, and did I mention the chocolate fountain with strawberries, angel food cake, marshmallows, and frozen bananas (and for Daniel and I who like to try things—a tortilla chip and a black olive—IMHO, a chocolate-covered olive is better than a chocolate-covered tortilla chip). Trust me, you wish you’d been there for dinner! We sat and laughed ourselves silly on the deck (some of us sipped margaritas which may have added to the humor).

It was a lovely evening, and I’m eternally grateful—and not just because they gave me gifts! lol
Flowers from my birthday-twin, Paul

Books to help me be better at my job from my former officemate who is now so happily retired it’s disgusting!

The world’s most perfect tote for me from Cathy who will have to deal with the less-than-logical grad students on her own now

A t-shirt from my boss who I have called "Goddess" for years -- I'm so proud!

Directional fetish from the world’s most wonderful head of collection development (possibly it’s also a bribe for me to occasionally, accidentally spend a day helping her clean her office). Directional fetishes include in one piece all the animals representing the directions in the Native American pantheon -- N, S, E, W, overhead, and underground-- and yes, that's a penny for comparison and my beloved badger (representative of the south) is the center one in this view (he's between the bear and wolf)--

the other side has the cougar and eagle:

and underneath we have the mole:



Photo/memory book from absolutely everyone…. Now I can never forget all OMG 19.5 years! As if I could. If you guys are reading, you’re THE BEST. The Hierarchy sucks big time, Administration has the brains of… well… err… actually it doesn’t have any brains at all so I can’t come up with a comparison (certainly some fence posts I’ve known have been near geniuses in comparison), but even with those albatrosses, you guys are THE ALL-TIME, ABSOLUTE BEST EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!


I’m still not used to not going to a different job every other day, but I suppose I’ll adjust. I’m certainly finding more of the top of my counter. I probably found half of it yesterday. … I knew you’d be proud!

On the stitching front I have been making some progress you can’t see because it’s a secret. Sigh. Someday I’ll show you, honest. What I can show you is the bits I’ve gotten in on Mirabilia’s Halloween Fairy:


And I got some of the house filled in (with Weeks Whitewash) on Midsummer Nights Designs Quaker Meetinghouse (I did a couple windows in yellow since I always leave the light on at mom's....



You will note the absence of Christmas ornies and the Vierlanden. They are going with me to CopperCon this week. I’ll also be taking a certain very whiny friend’s RR. Yeah, I’m late, but you know what? You are not allowed to whine because you haven’t gotten your RR back when you didn’t start it anyway because you weren’t going to join at all. lol

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Quote of the day (and certainly of my week last week): “Repressing your desire to pound people into the mud is a *good* thing.” Orson Scott Card – LosCon27 – November 25, 2000
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Sorry to see it end: Ice Road Truckers
Can’t believe they nixed: Tre from America’s Next Top Chef!!!!!!
Currently reading: Simon Green’s The Man with the Golden Torc; Pratchett’s Guards! Guards!
Recently finished: Pratchett’s Wyrd Sisters and Stout’s Champagne for One
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Things to be thankful for: electric staplers (I had a couple hundred articles to collate and staple this weekend so I am greatly pleased with the invention of he electric stapler at the moment.)

LOL

My coworkers are frequently a complete mystery to me. I opened a box one of our offices sent quite clearly to me -- see:


The opening saga is documented in the following:


Yes, that there says "wet-dry vac."

And, no, I did not receive the actual vacuum in another box-- just the hoses and instructions and such.

Color me confused, I thought I ran a library not a workshop. LOL