The act of creation

 When I was in undergraduate school, one of the things I heard was that you had to have a handy oven to get through grad school because you had to bake bread or you would never finish your thesis. Whaaat?  As much of a fan of folk magic as I am, this one both captured me and mystified me at the same time.  I wanted it to be true, but I didn't know why.

That is because I was not in graduate school.

Undergrad requires a sustained effort at many consecutive (and simultaneous if you don't plan ahead) tasks and projects.  However, each project has an endpoint and you just knock them down like ducks at the state fair.  Graduate school, I was told by my elder peers (all of 3 years elder!) requires sustained effort at what seems like it might be an unending topic with a million or so slight tasks and possibly a thesis.  It takes forever and you never feel like you are making and forward movement.

Dinner was Jarlsberg, pulverized olive tapanade and warm
 whole wheat bread.  Also enjoy the countertop random stuff still life.
On the plus side, I made the lovely blue tiles and laid the countertop myself.

Later, friends who were not sharing my path of starting a family right away after graduation and marriage told me the same thing.  So, while they made bread to feel a sense of accomplishment and closure while writing a long dissertation on... well, not on gardening and painting trim and being pregnant, that's for sure, I began making bread to practice feeling like the trim and baby were moving forward.

You know what?  It really helped!  I can recommend the bread baking closure technique for the long projects of baby creation as well as thesis writing.  I decided to go do that as my babies went to middle and high school.  That took lots of bread, just like the waiting for the kids.  I'm pretty good at making bread now and it has been passed down to my child.

Practice the act of creation, both long term and short.  I've decided to look for a more challenging job (I've been a bit of a chicken about this and stayed in my outgrown comfort zone for too long) and to celebrate the decision I made what I expect will be the first in a long line of bread loaves.

It's only shiny and pretty when you're warm.

It started to snow last night, just as I got home. I love snow and if it's gonna be cold and wintry outside, I think we should get snow just to cheer us up and make going outside fun and shiny.

An' it IS cold. Cold cold coldcoldcold. Brrrr "where are my mittens?" cold. Too cold to camp outside in a canvas tent dressed as a colonial camp follower. Since I am pretty tough, it has to be  COLD for me to say that.

You see, I reenact the American Revolution all year long in PA and the surrounding states from early March until Christmas day when Washington crosses the Delaware River.  If at all possible I sleep in a canvas wedge tent and weather is NO object. I'm a little bit tough that way. Rain, I'm in. Cold, hand me that straw and I'll burrow right under it. Snow... snow is like the prize at the bottom of the box! If I have to be cold when I climb out of my straw and get back into my petticoats and stays and cap I delight in seeing snow outside my tent flap! Then I go and break the ice on top of the water in our wash pans and put the pail on to boil over our open fire.  But I digress...

At home, I'm a little bit like that too with the snow. De-lighted. I looked out the window 19 times last night before bed to see if it was sticking- YES! It's been 50 degrees for weeks out there, finally we have a cold front and the snow is staying! (I am alone in my snow glee, sadly. Bearded Bob does not share my joy. We will hear SO much more about the differences in our approach to nature in the future, I promise you. For now I will illustrate our difference this way:  As we sat and enjoyed doggie time last night I said, "AH, snow for walking tomorrow morning." and BB replied, "Yeah, I heard it was snowing outside on Facebook." Then we looked at each other and laughed.)

So, back to last night. The dogs would much rather sleep on the bed than the floor but I hate when they sleep on top of the covers and pin me down. It's like being trapped in a coffin. So, I throw them off the bed about twice each night because apparently they are too dumb to stay home and feed themselves for a weekend but smart enough to tell when I've fallen asleep.

Last night at 2 am I wake up, wake the dogs up and make them get down, then hear a big crash in the wind outside and see a bright flash like lightning. Last time I saw that a tree fell and our backyard caught on fire but this time, nothing visible going on. When I turned around to go back to sleep post dog-scolding I saw that my clock is out. The power is out. I got up, the whole side of our street is out as far as I can see.

We called the power company and reported the outage and they said they had gotten other calls, they were sending a truck full of big guys. Nothing to do but go back to sleep.

3am. Third dog scolding.
3:10 am. Dogs back. Whaat? Oh, they're getting cold. I caved and let them in the bed. I then spent the rest of the night listening to them dream and feeling all eight paws chase rabbits. BB is in heaven. He loves a good dog sandwich.

Zambonie au Vin.

5 am. Still awake. I have decided that this dachshund would fit just perfectly into our crock pot.
6:30 am. Oh happy time! Everyone please jump on and off the bed while BB gets dressed to take you out in the beautiful snow while I try to cop a few minutes of sleep without my arms pinned to my sides. Oh yes, and give me a Licky Facial as soon as you finish your breakfast because I love the smell of dogfood in the morning. Smells like... victory.

Woah! no, it smells like no power! So BB goes off to work happy because there isn't enough to shovel out there because of the wind and I have two FROZEN puppers burrowing back into my covers because I have the only heater in the house inside my body. Get. me. outta. here.

But no. I am working from home all day today. Brilliant. I leave them in the bed warm and I get up because I'm in such a bad mood from no sleep and rabbit chasing and (I feel like I might be ranting a little, can you hear it?) cold dog-food-breath noses and AUUG! no coffee maker. The floor is freezing and did I mention I sleep naked and there are big linemen in bulky snowsuits on every pole at bedroom window level??? Shouting to one another.

Holy crap. Why do I keep putting off buying a robe?

I turn the shower on to drip to prevent pipe freeze, pile all the blankets on the triumphant and gloating sad frozen doggies and go down the (possibly icy) stairs thinking about dramatic thoughts of how I will work hard on something to stay warm today. I take my cold cup of yesterday's coffee over to the thermometer to see just how grave my situation is and it reads 50 degrees! FIFTY. The very number I thought was too warm outside for weeks.

Then I see a shouting bulky lineman walking through my yard toward the other guy on the pole. Red faces, they look really cold. They are at work. I am suddenly very humble in my freezing fifty degree castle with no wind. They have to stay outside where it MUST me more miserable than anything I have ever volunteered to enjoy while camping. I am not tough, we have blankets and straw mattresses and a fire! They have their gloves off and are using tools.

I'm hanging my head. There are people who live on the street, they are outside too. They. are. tough.

I sat right down and drank my cup of leftover cold coffee and began to give thanks. I have a roof. I have a floor. I can't believe it, I complained about how cold the floor was and then I put on warm shoes. I have warm shoes. Coffee in a cup. I didn't even light a candle this morning as I do on so many mornings when I sit and meditate. It just didn't feel right to have even that warmth and light. It felt right all of a sudden to be uncomfortable and thankful. I was thankful for matches and candles though.

I am thankful for cold. And for the fact that I look at snow and think its a shiny, wonderful prize.

...then, the power came on and I heard the coffee maker and heater start. Just as I was sitting there deciding that I would work in the cold house today and keep appreciating my roof and floor and laptop battery. Thank you, Goddess.

Tomorrow, I will light that candle.

New Old Loom: its own little circle

To clean rust in these very tiny gaps (15 gaps per inch) I began with steel wool, then tried wire brushing after WD 40.

I am travelling around the edge of a new circle. Eventually, I will travel the smaller and smaller paths as I spiral toward the center of it.  I call this circle New Old Loom.

Weaving is a much used and often overused metaphor for working on your life, but like so many things, weaving comes with its own WHOLE LIFE. I was gifted a wonderful old floor loom (read about it here: Asking + Action = Attraction . So, I get to weave. Grow. Create and contemplate while doing it.  I have a New Old Loom and along with it I have been gifted hours and hours of assembly and rust removal. Contemplative time.

Next, I tried other grades of steel wool and tiny strips of fine sandpaper. I can make the outside shiny but the inside remains rough. I tested the "cleaned" spaces with the little piece of 40/2 linen, and it frays. As a last resort, Naval Jelly will turn the rust into a neutral coating that I can scrub off.  I taped the wrapped-thread rails to keep the Naval Jelly off them and followed the instructions. I include all of this because when I searched the web for hints on cleaning rusted reeds I found very little. Mostly, advice that it can't be done well enough and the reed must be replaced.  Plus, I find pictures reassuring, maybe the next reed cleaner will enjoy finding these.

I am trying to make the rust work as enjoyable as possible by lighting candles or incense, visualizing the wonderful woven goods that will roll from my beams after I have my darling's parts smooth, even having a lovely cup of tea handy. This last is kind of tricky because I am wearing a dust mask while I use all the steel wool and stuff. I could probably design a tasty tea delivery system to work with the mask if I weren't so committed to staying focused on this rust until it is gone. No distraction. No project hopping.

Project hopping will take me out of this circle and make me start another circle. I want to stay put.

Those would be some legendary parties, though.

This is where the biggest obstacle to weaving lies. While I rub and polish and sand and Never Ever swear at all I have my mind on a leash so it doesn't wander completely off and go shopping for the materials to build a yacht. Or a fence around our raised beds. Or teach the dachshund to balance on my big exercise ball. Wouldn't that be awesome? She could do it at parties and our parties would become legendary! Woah- pull back... It's kind of a bungee leash, so I am always having to pull my wandering mind back from somewhere where another project looks much better than this one.

The project my mind is on is seldom a project already underway. Those projects are not interesting and my skibbly little mind has explored them as much as needed because they were the mind-wandering destinations for previous hobby activities. Hobbies can eat your house, and vice versa, but I don't want to live without either one (I have friends who would happily live without a house if they could bed down in a Hobby Lobby or Michael's at night).

So, radio. I am not a big background sound person, but keeping the radio on might keep me from dreaming up a more compelling project than rust removal. Let's face it, after 4 hours of smoothing little delicate rusted reed fins and heddles replacing all the wax rings under the toilets is more compelling.

If I am going off on a non-weaving mental stroll and the radio doesn't work I want to at least redirect my head to wander over and think through some of those half done... mostly done projects I have that fall more firmly into the category of Home Repair and Improvement than Hobby. I often confuse them because I enjoy working on the house so much. Its just as satisfying as creating, just less portable. I hope this works, because my ability to picture how good it's going to look when the last piece of molding goes into place is blinding me a little to how many little "finish-ups" there are here. Stay tuned, Divine Reader. I pledge to report honestly on whether or not I am working on new or old projects.

Back to the rust part of the weaving circle.

After two rounds of Naval Jelly, the reed is covered with a film of black ex-rust and grey phosphorus coating. I can scrub this off the outside with steel wool and brass brushes (see the stripes where I tried each one), but between the fins the metal remains pitted and rough. It seems like the advice was right- if I want a reed this fine I need to buy a new smooth one.  Drat! 5 hours of subborn effort decides it. I will send for a stainless 10 dent reed