Why Is It ALWAYS Just One More Thing?

When we moved into our duplex last year, we painted every room which would have furniture in it.  That left painting the kitchen and both bathrooms for this year.  Well, I wish I could say we just finished painting the kitchen, but, alas, it seems like in this project there's always just one more thing to do.

It started with more than just painting.  First, we had to take off the wallpaper back splash and the ceiling border.  Initially, we were saying things like, "piece of cake", "been there, done that", and "at least it's just a LITTLE BIT of wallpaper; it's not like all the walls are covered".  Yeah.  This professionally done wallpaper job prepped the wallpaper hanging by sanding the texture off all the back splash wallboard portion of the kitchen (one entire wall above the sinks and counter tops). After spraying and scraping up the wallpaper, now we have to re-texture the wallboard on one side of the room and blend it to match the texturing on the adjoining walls.  OK, can do - did an entire great room in Hurst.  Oh, and once the vinyl wallpaper was gone, one more thing became obvious:  We had to dig out the old silicone caulk running along the top of the cabinet back splash the length of the kitchen in preparation for re-caulking.

One more thing...the 'pass thru' from the kitchen into the living/dining room has also been wallpapered, and it's not just the walls - it's the ceiling too.  Spray, spray, spray, scrape, scrape, scrape.  Oh, and one more thing....paint the pass thru with Kilz since they didn't take the texturing off in this area before lathering on the wallpaper glue.  

Meanwhile, as I'm re-texturing, Drake is spraying vinegar and chipping away at the wallpaper border up next to the ceiling which was put on with either magic spells or superglue.  And it's not enough to get the vinyl top off, then you have to attack the paper under layer, and then the magic glue under that.  One more thing:  We had to go buy some Kilz because the professional paperhanger first drew a thick blue line with some material guaranteed to bleed through paint as his guideline prior to hanging the ceiling border.  Now, prior to painting, we had to run brush fulls of Kilz over the blue line around the circumference of the kitchen.

Time to paint, you ask?  No.....one more thing:  Somebody, (like to get my hands around that neck), painted the entire kitchen in glossy paint.  For those of you unfamiliar with this type of paint, it has two characteristics:  (1)  It's shiny, and (2) if you try to paint over it - the new paint won't adhere.  Another trip to Home Depot scouting the shelves for deglosser.  That's the new name for liquid sandpaper.  Of course, it has everything except a skull and crossbones on the label.  Time to wipe down the entire kitchen while holding our breath and wearing funny glasses.    

Finally, time to paint.  Right after we tape.  And one wall is going to have to wait.  Someone has cut a 3x4" hole in the wallboard.  Time to break out the mesh patching.  That patch has taken me three days and one entire 'do over' before I am marginally happy with its appearance.  Painting for sure....tomorrow.  I really, really would like my 30 year old body to return for the next few days.  This stuff just seemed easier when most body parts and joints didn't ache or throb at day's end.  

One more thing....now we need to wash the windows.            

Fluency, Flexibility, Originality

Today I got a letter from a friend who is thinking about taking up cake decorating again.  She claims the reason is because she needs another creative outlet, and oh, yes, she wants to be able to create roses out of icing.  It seems that unbeknownst to me, she used to create cakes for her family.  Remember when it was a 'mom' thing to make cakes shaped like cartoon characters or action heroes?  It was a talent to be able to make a ninja turtle.  As she pointed out, most moms in the 21st century don't have the time to spend half a day (or more) baking, cutting and icing creatively.  

One of the many things I love about this friend is she believes that creativity is important.  Her main creative outlet is card making.  She's right about creativity.  I can remember getting really depressed staying home with my infant daughter.  Everything that didn't involve the baby seemed so pointless - cook, clean up, mop floor, load dishwasher, empty dishwasher, make bed, dust, vacuum, on, and on, and on.  Way, way too much of my day was spent doing mindless repetitive chores.  Never once did anyone say,"WOW, what a clean floor!"   That's when I found needle crafts and sewing.  Creating clothes for the baby - after teaching myself how to sew - made all the difference to the stay at home life for me.

When I went back to teacher school, I actually took a class about Creativity.  It floored me to learn that after passing the age of seven, most people decide they aren't creative.  Our perception of creativity continues to narrow the older we get.  Here's the definition of creativity:  There are three components:  Fluency, Flexibility, and Originality.  The fluency element of creativity basically means you can generate a lot of ideas about a specific topic or problem.  The flexibility component means you can take an idea and rework it in unexpected ways.  Nevertheless, most of us continue to only consider the third component, originality, when we think about creativity.  In truth, everyone has the ability to be creative.  The trick is to convince yourself you are.

I think women give themselves more freedom to be creative.  Perhaps it's because in the not too distant past, most of us were stuck in either low end repetitive chore jobs, or home with people under three feet tall for years at a time.  Smart women figured out pretty quickly they would go bonkers or develop a love affair with alcohol if they didn't develop a talent or a skill.  Being creative makes you feel good about yourself.  It's a rush to make something, or exercise a talent.  Ironically, what you produce doesn't even have to be very good to get those positive feelings.  All you have to do is improve - even if it's only in your own eyes.  Looking back, my first sewing efforts and my first embroidery efforts were pretty pitiful.  It didn't matter a bit.  Solving the problems, understanding the patterns, developing the skills were all part of doing something that mattered to me in way that housework or cooking never did.  Creativity fosters passion.

Once you accept your personal creativity, then it naturally blossoms.  I'm more likely now to embrace the creative spirit when trying to solve a problem, and I often let it loose to come up with solutions.  For example, I'm so tired of the drabness of Arizona.  Everything is some shade of beige.  Bland, blah, dingy, and finally, depressing.  I like color.  I like being surrounded by color.  Inside the house, it's pretty easy - paintings, pottery, even furniture has color.  But once you step outside, beige and tan everywhere.  Well, this week I planted a complete flower garden in the front of my house - it's a riot of flowers of every shade and hue.  I spent the better part of an afternoon 'planting'.  I have tall flowers and short flowers and two dozen varieties; they span the entire front flower bed.  They are, of course, 100% silk, and they look marvelous, darling.  Creativity to the rescue.

I'm very interested in how other people tap into their own personal creativity.  What's your creative outlet?  How did you find it?  Did you specifically set out to find your creativity, or did you fall into it?  This inquiring mind wants to know.  If you read this blog, let me know how you are exercising your creativity.  And if you're not, why not?  (P.S.  -   "I'm not creative."  isn't an acceptable or even a true answer.)          

                

And the most famous quote about the weather is....

"Everyone talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it"......Mark Twain.

In my opinion more than half the interest about the weather is TALKING about it.  In Phoenix this week, everyone has been in a state of breathless anticipation.  The local weather station meteorologists have almost been peeing their pants with excitement over the freezing weather we've been experiencing.  Just to let you non Paradise Valley people into the loop:  Phoenix and surrounding environs are experiencing overnight temperatures below 32 degrees for four nights in a row.  Now, the record for most consecutive sub-freezing temperatures overnight in Phoenix was set in 1916.  That year there were 14 consecutive days of night temps below freezing, and we certainly aren't approaching that.  Four days, however, is unusual enough to send the area residents into a tizzy.  

When I first started coming regularly to Arizona, I was extremely amused to note year rounders  use the term 'freezing' anytime the temperature fell below 70 degrees.  They appeared in heavy coats or layered in shirts, sweaters, and coats even in 60 degree weather.  The accepted mantra: If you stay here over the summer for a few years, then your blood 'thins'.  Scientifically, this is not true, but Dr. Robert Lavender, a professor at the University of Arkansas, noting that blood is part of our thermoregulation system, has an explanation.  Our blood doesn't either get thin or thick, but rather the surface capillaries next to our skin either expand or contract more efficiently based on the prevailing weather where we live.  (Hot climate?  Surface capillaries expand to release heat.  Cold climate?  Those same capillaries contract to send blood into our body core to keep us warmer.)  When we suddenly arrive at a drastically different climate, our bodies are slow to adapt.  I think that means Sarah and Jay are going to be feeling cold this winter in Connecticut, and Paradise Valley residents also feel cold during their winter no matter how mild.  

I also suspect that expectation of a certain type of weather is a game our minds play with us. Seasons not only involve flowers and leaves but also temperatures.  Part of us wants winter each year just as we want Spring to come at the end of cold weather and leaves to change colors in the Fall.  I've lived in a seasons location and a non-seasons location - seasons are better.  Somehow, they establish a rhythm to the year that some hidden part of self misses when the seasons are absent.  Initially upon moving to the Gulf Coast, I was enchanted with the 80 degree Christmas day, but I tired of that quickly and came to resent warm winter weather and particularly holiday winter weather that involved wearing shorts.  Even here in balmy Phoenix, people are hopeful for a cold snap over the holidays.  You hear it expressed as, " I want to wear my Christmas sweater."

In some locations it's all about rain.  Overcast weather is some of my favorite because I've always been attracted to the cloudy day.  People who grew up in Arizona would have a hard sledding adapting to constant clouds.  New Orleanians get antsy if it stops raining for any significant period of days.  Their expectation is for it to rain every day during the summer.  In Portland it doesn't rain - it showers, drizzles, drips, spits, mists and fogs.  Portlandians are pretty defensive about their damp climate.  The overall sentiment is, "If you don't like the rain, MOVE SOMEWHERE ELSE!"

Wind is an inexhaustible weather topic in Texas.  How many times have I heard, "Yeah, it's definitely springtime; the wind is blowing 30 miles per hour."  In Lubbock, Texas Tech students carry their goggles to protect their eyes from the springtime ritual of dust storms.  In the winter, 'wind chill' is discussed in reverent tones in the northern panhandle.  Wind always adds that unforeseen element to all Texas weather, and ruins more outdoor activities than rain.    Homesteading women committed suicide because they couldn't tolerate the seemingly constant wind one second longer.

My favorite poet is all about the weather.  William Carlos Williams, a doctor who scribbled his poetry between patients, is all about the image.  The images created by the seasons, and by the weather interacting with the landscape or the people living on it were favored topics.  Speaking of wind, he created a gem of a poem about wind:   

January

Again I reply to the triple winds

running chromatic fifths of derision
outside my window:
Play louder.
You will not succeed.  I am
bound more to my sentences
the more you batter at me
to follow you.
And the wind, 
as before fingers perfectly
its derisive music.

I also fell in love with his definition of summer:  Yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow!  It's not a color.  It's summer!

So, how's the weather where you live?  I'd bet $100 you know exactly what it is and what it is going to be for the next day or so.  I just glanced outside.....and realized I've got to hop up, and rush outside to put a cover over my poinsettia bush.  After all; it's going to freeze here tonight.

               

Happy New Year

It's six days into the new year. Since I lived one-half of my life in the 20th century, I'm still struggling a bit to accept that now I live in a different century.  I decided to go back into history and find a list of 'what happened' one hundred years ago in 1913, and think about the impact of those events on 2013.  I discovered that there were major floods, fires and storms, and that it was really dangerous in 1913 to be a coal miner - lots of major coal mine explosions.  Additionally, there were lots of political events - treaties, conferences, elections, and revolutions.  What I looked for were things that resonated with me.  These are the ones that just jumped out of the list I found in http://www.hisdates.com/years/1913-historical-events.html    

1. The income tax amendment to the US Constitution (the 16th) was ratified, and the first Federal income taxes are collected by the Internal Revenue Service - at the rate of 1%. 
2. The the first minimum wage law is instituted in Oregon. 
3. Woodrow Wilson holds the first presidential press conference; 
4. Ebbets fields opens in Brooklyn (April 9th the date of my anniversary). 
5. The ballet, The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky, premiers in Paris and the audience comes to blows, with punches being thrown by the end of the first act, on account of the avant garde nature of the music and choreography. 
6. The first Balkan war ends and the second begins with lots of side conflicts throughout the region.    
7. Arabs attack a Jewish community in Palestine.  (Sigh.....)  
8. The first pilot parachutes from an airplane as well as several other aerial 'tricks' (like the loop to loop) first happen in this year.  
9. Stainless steel is invented.  (Oh, this is a biggie - look around your house.)  
10. Lincoln Highway opens - the first paved coast to coast road in the US. (We've actually driven on this.)  
11. Henry Ford begins the first moving assembly line in his auto plant.  
12. The modern elastic brassiere is patented. (Love/hate relationship for most women)  
13. The first drive up gasoline station opens in Pittsburgh  
14. The first crossword puzzle (with 32 clues) is printed in the New York World.
15. There are suffragette marches and protests throughout England and the United States - the English suffragettes are much more militant than their American sisters.  (My Grandmother Sartor was a suffragette, and actually 'marched' for the vote.)  

If you look over the list, there are several portends (signs of the momentous).  These are the ones that jumped out at me:  

• The gasoline combustion engine as represented by cars, a burgeoning distribution system, and infrastructure direction is definitely starting in 1913.  
• A region in the world that is in continuous conflict can spawn the unthinkable:  World War I starts in the tumultuous Balkans
• As changes appear challenging the customary; violence often follows as a backlash.  People feel threatened by ideas that challenge long held societal opinions.
• What we accept as the commonplace was once a new invention. 

Hop back another 100 years to 1813, and once again, you can spot the portends:

1. Pineapples are planted for the first time in Hawaii
2. First raw cotton to cloth mill opens in Massachusetts 
3. Steamboats begin to carry US mail
4. Rubber is patented (Another biggie.)
5. Pride and Prejudice is published.

Every year there are thousands of notable events; it's fairly easy to look back 100 years and pick out the important ones.  However, since it's not so easy to spot the portends as they are happening, I think I'm going to adopt the word copacetic as my watchword for 2013 because in truth, life ticks on both for the good and for the bad.   The only judge of how copacetic 2013 is going to be will be in the hands of the historians.  (Yes, if you want the definition of the watchword, you're going to have to go look it up!) Happy New Year.

Wedding Hair!

Here's a new wedding wrinkle:  Wedding Hair Preparation.  Enter Tammie Garza, owner of Divine Weddings in Austin who Sarah and I met this past week.  The idea is to hire a professional to come to the bride (and bridesmaids) on the day of the wedding to 'do' their hair.  I was fascinated by a person who has made wedding day hair her life's work.  Tammie has an interesting story:

She was a regulation hairdresser for sixteen years when she realized that in order to send her son to college, she needed to make more money.  We can all identify with that.  A financial planner friend started asking her what did she REALLY like about the hair business.  Her answer:  big hair, pageant hair, wedding hair, and the idea for starting her own business bloomed.  Initially, to jump start the new business,  she did a lot of free work.  This meant going to hair shows and wedding shows and 'doing' twenty to twenty-five heads in three or four hours.  She built up her name recognition as well as her speed, and her ability to do snap hair evaluation.  The first thing she did when Sarah sat down was to run her fingers through Sarah's hair.  She immediately realized that Sarah's hair was going to be tricky.

There's probably no more important hair day than a woman's wedding day.  It's not a day to accept bad hair.  In fact, having a bad hair day on your wedding day could cause an extreme meltdown that would put the worst bridezilla into the shade.  Having a wedding hairdresser reduces the possibility hair unhappiness.  As further insurance, the hairdresser does a trial run in which she works on the bride-to-be and, with the bride in consultation, actually creates the hairstyle that will be used the day of the wedding.

On the consultation day Sarah settled into the beauty chair with her laptop fired up, and pictures of her desired hairstyle sprang to life on the computer.  The person wearing the style is so famous that her hairstyle was photographed from all angles.  It made it much easier for Tammie to understand what Sarah wanted.  Now, Sarah has fine, uber-straight hair that won't hold a curl and slides right out of almost every hair decoration, hairpin, or barrette.  Tammie was AMAZING.  She achieved what Sarah envisioned in about 40 minutes.  I won't give the style away, but her hair was special, beautifully done, and it's going to hold up for the wedding day without a lot of fussing to keep it nice looking.  One could say that we are going to have a Divine Wedding.

   

On All Our Minds and Weighing on All Our Hearts

Our elementary school teachers lost their virginity on Friday.  I, for one, would have preferred these mostly women who wear goofy clothes and don't seem to mind disgusting substances wiped onto their persons to have remained immaculate.  Every high school and middle school teacher has been sullied since Columbine.   Every single day I walked into my classroom after April 20, 1999, I was hyper-aware that this could be the day where I would have to make life and death decisions for myself and for my students.  This latest school shooting should make at least one undeniable point: There's no such thing as a 'secure school'.  Another depressing outcome of Friday's catastrophe is more talented people will shy away from choosing teaching as a career.  No school district pays hazard/combat pay.

We are currently 'on the road' driving from Arizona to Texas.  I've been talking, talking and talking to people about this latest shooting atrocity.  For the first time  I haven't heard 'guns aren't the problem'.  Instead, what I keep hearing is 'enough is enough'.  I've heard many people today preface their comments with, "I'm a hunter, but the second half of the sentence has surprised me:  To paraphrase, I've heard:  "This is 'fucked up', and 'something needs to be done'.  I'm trying to be cautiously optimistic that at least conversation among us can be opened.  If we are actually going to talk to one another, then our preconceived, knee-jerk reactions need to be jettisoned.  The real question is this:  What needs to be talked about?  

At this point, I can hear your thoughts:  Gun Control.  I say that's not the topic.  Those two words are loaded with so many connotations people stop listening  and, thus, no dialogue.  Am I personally in favor of assault weapons being banned in the USA?  Yes.  Would I like multi-ammo clips curtailed?  Yes.  Would those actions stop these senseless killings?  No.  You see, we need to also be talking about mental illness as well as assault weapons.  Profilers postulate people who perpetrate these horrific crimes show specific mentally ill behaviors, and those behaviors aren't the obvious Hollywood stereotypical crazy.  Factor in easy access by the mentally ill to weapons that fire so damn many bullets in a few seconds, and Newport happens.  Nobody can stomach this kind of atrocity.

This kind of violence against our children can't be shrugged off anymore.  I think that's why I'm hopeful the Newport shooting is the mythical tipping point where the American public finally unplugs from The Voice and their smart phones and their video games and TV sports to coalesce at a consensus about how we are going to deal with this unacceptable level of violence being evidenced by dead children.  I haven't come across a single person who has intimated that 20 dead first graders is a price we are willing to pay.  Freedom to own unlimited guns shouldn't have Friday's price tag.  

It's easy to be sad, baffled, or resigned.  We need to transfer our sense of outrage, sadness, and feelings of helplessness into positive action.  So, the question again is what needs to be talked about?  Here's my answer:  (1)  mental illness, particularly mental illness among young adults.  We need to find an avenue which allows parents or their siblings not only to force treatment upon the young adult in their family who is mentally ill, but also to direct it and control it.  Mentally ill adults should not have the responsibility for their own treatment decisions.  (2)  We need to get our hunters in this country to help the rest of us decide what guns are acceptable and necessary to this sport, and which ones are not.  (3)  We need to standardize our gun and ammunition laws across state lines.  (4)  If you are going to be a gun user, then you should be required to have training.  I mean, for crying out loud, you have to jump through more hoops to own a car.  

I'm sure there are other factors and difficult issues to be discussed, but if we could even start here, I think it would go a long way to make every public school teacher feel like they are not facing life and death jeopardy just by going to work every day.  It would help the rest of us to feel like we are doing something positive to head off a repeat of Newport.  I'm ready for conversation and solutions to be seriously proposed and adopted.  Twenty first graders can not have lost their lives for nothing.  I'm tired of fatalism and tacitly accepting that nothing can be changed.  Enough is enough.    

Ho, Ho, Ho. It's Christmas Card Time

     I have been updating my address book since it's time to send out Christmas Cards.  I know, I know; I still send out snail mail cards because I like getting a little Christmas spirit in the mail box.  I make the assumption everyone else does too.    I've been sending Christmas Cards since 1972 and  for the first 18 years, I wrote a personal letter in most of them.  I can still feel the hand cramps.  My card list kept growing, and I began to dread doing them.  

     However, in 2000 I smartened up and started sending out a printed Christmas Letter detailing our yearly news to friends.  My right hand was so grateful.    In 2008 I started writing this blog.  This year only the people who would (1) be disappointed not to get the letter, or (2) aren't wired up with email will be getting the snail mail Christmas letter in their cards.  You blog readers will get the same letter, just in pixels instead of ink.  If you are on my Christmas Card list (did you send me one?) will still get your snail mail card too.  If you want to send us a card use the address found below embedded in the following 2012 Smith Family Christmas Letter.

     Perhaps, sending Christmas Cards is going by the wayside as electronic communication erodes snail mail.  Even I use electronic cards for birthdays and other occasions.  This year I'm still a dinosaur hold out and am sending real paper Christmas cards.  I can't promise for next year since I've found an electronic greeting card site I think is dynamite.  I'd like an informal poll:  a)  How many of you will send more than five snail mail Christmas cards?  b)  Are electronic Christmas cards as good as paper?  c) What makes a really good electronic card?  If you're reading this blog - weigh in:  Snail Mail Christmas Cards:  Yes or No and Why.  Meanwhile, here's the pixelated form of the Smith Family 2012 Christmas Letter.   

December, 2012

     We've had another exciting year. We kicked off the year by deciding to buy a house. We never thought we'd own another property, but that just shows: “Never say never”. We bought a duplex in a condominium development in Sun City, Arizona. We were gratified to learn we made smart choices when we downsized, and the furniture we kept from our Hurst house fits perfectly into the new digs. Even better, the house is less than a mile from Drake's mother, and we have access to all the great Sun City recreation facilities. Our address in Arizona, which will generally be good from Christmas through April, is: 10309 West Corte Del Sol Este, Sun City, AZ 85351. (The five word street address made Drake gnash his teeth, but since the house was perfect for us, he decided to overlook the annoyance of the long address.)

     The second most exciting news of the year is that Sarah Lynn was accepted by Yale University for graduate work. She began a three year course of study in August which will result in dual Masters' Degrees (an MBA and a Master's in Environmental Studies). She and Jay packed up with cat in carrier and flew to Connecticut where they will be for the next three years. She loves the program and is taking advantage of the plethora of classes, activities, speakers and symposiums that Yale has to offer her. She will be going to Indonesia this spring for 'an international experience'.

     Our biggest news of 2012 is that Sarah Lynn is engaged to be married to Jay Alton Wilson. He's a UT grad, a software engineer, a pianist, and the love of her life. He's a really nice guy who loves her, and he comes from a lovely family with whom we are becoming fast friends. The entire extended family are busily planning the wedding which will be in Austin over Memorial Day Weekend, 2013. Sarah and Jay came to Phoenix at Thanksgiving, and we managed to eat too much, watch football, and buy a wedding dress. We'll all be together in Austin for two weeks at Christmas celebrating the season, enjoying our children, and planning the wedding.

     Our travels this year took us from Spring Training in Arizona, to Logan, Utah where we spent the summer, and I took Creative Writing: Non-Fiction at Utah State University. Hopefully, my blog writing has improved. Next, we spent some time touring. First, southern Idaho, then to the Grand Teton National Park, on to Yellowstone National Park, followed by Glacier National Park. Then we rode the Hiawatha Bike Trail, did a mini tour of Portland, Oregon and wound up spending two months at Seal Rock, Oregon watching the Pacific Ocean roll in while bird and seal watching and eating fresh seafood.

We hope you all have lovely holidays and a wonderful 2013.

Merry Christmas

Jan and Drake