Archive for the ‘moving’ Category

So we are a week away from being on the road….and lots of thoughts to process. This is different from many of the other moves (22 since we’ve been married – and we’re not even military!). Social media didn’t exist 21 years ago when we left Vermont, so it wasn’t easy to keep track of people. That has changed, and I’m glad of it. Now I can stay in touch with teachers, students, family friends – keep up-to-date with people I may not see again. Plus it’s the longest either of us have lived in any one place (state, that is….). Twenty-one years here and we’ve seen much of the southwest we didn’t the first time around. Still a few places we missed Canyon de Chelly, Acoma Pueblo – have to save something for another trip!

Yes, winter will be hard, but at least this time neither of us has to go out for work. We can hibernate throughout the winter months – but we must buy a natural light lamp to mimic daylight to help with SAD. And there’s nothing to say we can’t hop Amtrak and head west – or south, for that matter – people to visit along the Atlantic coast.

We did have a bit of a good-bye celebration last weekend – teacher friends, students, our second family – lots of laughter and very few tears. The world is so much closer together.

Raquel and her teachers…..

The Utterback crew……

“Little brother” George – the most gentle man….

Always leave the hilarity to my sarcasm twin Michelle….

Strawberry daiquiris….. blurry then and blurry now…..

Oy, we are in the midst of serious boxes…and packing. A little each day, sort and clean and plan ahead. Lots going into the recycling can! We do not know what we will have for accommodations on the other end, but we anticipate it will be considerably smaller space. We are looking into some of the senior living communities in Chittenden County, of which there are many,. We are on the waiting list for several – the one we would like has a two-year waiting list, and we’ve been on the list since this past September. Trust the universe – it worked out perfectly for our last move!

Once again I can turn to the internet to check out what accommodations are like for senior living around the country – and Canada, should we decide to go even further north and east. If nothing else, we get great ideas on possible amenities and questions to ask. For example: Wallace Living  (http://wallaceliving.ca/)– a place in Nova Scotia – an area we are seriously contemplating. Since it will be COLD next winter, it’s nice to see that a lot of complexes are including all utilities.

AND NOW –  for the SALE!!

For sale: A gorgeous hutch (you can tell we are collectors, but we are getting tired of moving this large piece. 4 glass shelves with plate grooves, lighted top and bottom. Asking $200.00

Baker’s Rack – 4 plexiglass shelves, great for indoors or out – asking $35  SOLD!!

Hoover vacuum cleaner – with bags – asking $35 – SOLD!

Two desks that can be re-purposed for craft tables, asking $5 for the small one and $10 for the large one.

Large one SOLD!

Lamps – two hand-turned wooden lamps with shades (which could stand to be replaced), asking $25 for both

Lamps – two smaller bedstand lamps in a coral shell motif – asking $15 for both

One blue loveseat, microfiber, sits two easily – comfy – asking $50

One filing cabinet – asking $5 SOLD!!

One white dresser, 4 drawers – old, painted, (would be great refinished) – asking $25.00 SOLD!!

2 dining chairs, roll on the floor, lean back in them – asking $20.00 for the pair

2 desk chairs – larger black chair is free, small one is $5 (see picture of large desk)

television (needs a speaker repaired) – free (Phillips model, “old-style)

2 ladderback chairs with woven seats – asking $20 for both

Send a message via the blog or email us at deanm at marbledfab.com.

Grand Canyon

(Admit it…if you’re of a certain generation, you hummed along to the title……)

Ah, moving. We’ve been in Tucson nearly 21 years (it will be exactly 21 years the day after we leave town), and we have moved 9 times within the city. Different kind of packing as opposed to cross-country. To move here, hubby came out several months ahead of time, and I finished packing. It seemed like I would NEVER finish with boxes. This time for the major move, we have already started the packing, despite my wanting to wait until the beginning of April so I wouldn’t feel like I was living in boxes…no such luck. Once the urge hit, we started – BUT I am saving the studio for the second week in April – I still have a quilt to go for my great-niece.

In 21 years moving has changed a lot going cross-country, so we set out to do our research. Age and bad backs and other assorted maladies have eliminated U Haul and most any major packing ourselves. Since the internet has just about everything on it, we decided to just shop around movers and moving companies. It cost us $4000 last cross-c0untry move, and we wanted to keep expenses in the same range, even though we know movers would be more.

So we started shopping around for pricing. Thing is, things have changed so much. we weren’t really quite sure what to ask. So we checked out a couple cross-country movers, just to get an idea of what all was involved. Since we’re moving back to New England, we didn’t neglect Canadian movers. Titan Transline  (http://titantransline.com/) is actually in the southwest. We used them to see about questions we should ask: like full load, partial load….we just assumed we would be paying for a whole truck, and we are divesting ourselves of a lot of bulky items. We are still investigating, but we are going into this whole move with far more information than we ever had…and we’ve moved 22 times since we’ve been married (39 years).

If you want more information on places we have lived, I remember a year or so back doing a blog post, using Google Earth, to look at various places I have lived. It was cool two summers ago to actually revisit some of these places. And…some of the places no longer exit….like the teacher cottages in Paia on Maui. They have saved one as a historical museum….wonder if all the termites are still there……You can check the post out here.

So it’s back to some of the many loose ends involved in a big move – changing our basic email, since Cox is not in Vermont, cleaning out old passwords – today’s task is to get the code book up to date, as well as revise parts of the website – long time since I’ve done that. Happy Monday!!

Marketing is taking on a different feel, what with the big move coming up the end of April. We are planning a large tray marbling session the end of February, for specific orders and also to load the Etsy shop for a bit. So I need to get a newsletter done and out. I am beginning to research guilds and shops in New England and the mid-Atlantic for marbled presentations – would love to work out one a quarter. That said, I need to look at marketing materials. I have a couple of places I’ve used, but I like to have a wide variety, especially since many of the online resources do good sales.

As a side note – I finished my NOVEL! Now it’s time to activate the site for the novel and all things related to it. So this becomes a priority, as well as  my digital work initially for art, and to that end I am looking at some new ways to market. What’s nice is I am planning that whatever print materials I need, I will need them for both the book and the artwork. So I’ve been searching the web looking for sites that offer printing. I stumbled on this one today, and I want to put it out there for you to check out. Sometimes it just helps to have back-ups and new sites to use. Printing Peach(http://printingpeach.ca/flyer-printing/) is both in the US and Canada, so that is nice, given we will be two hours from the Canadian border! Check it out and let me know what you think, especially if you’ve used them! Here’s a sample of what they’ll do:

Concerning the digital work, one of the “must-do’s” before we completely pack up is get a new external hard drive to back up this computer, especially since the hard drive program I had for the old computer (3 years ago….) won’t work with this one. So along with have the Apple Store wipe the hard drive tomorrow, I’m picking up 1 terabyte of memory….who knew? I/m going that large because of all the digital work I’ve done so far, and all the photos, and all the many layers of work – you get the idea. The digital piece is going to become important, so I don’t want to lose anything.

It is a glorious day today in the desert Southwest, much like June in Vermont. We are prepared for the snow and cold of January, but there are so many advantages to moving back to a more rational state. The politics of Arizona – and the dwindling water supplies – do not make this a sustainable state. Plus, we’re both New Englanders at heart, and I really want to walk the Atlantic coast again. So let the packing begin!!

  So we’ve been in our new place for nearly two weeks, sleeping through the night, and hubby is about to start cutting back on his insulin, since his sugars are coming more under control. What is it about a place to live that appeals? I think I can kind of speak from experience, as I’ve lived a lot of places. When we bought our first home, that’s what young people did. The American Dream – you own a home. We were not employed regularly – I was substituting, and hubby was working on commission for an employment agency, but we qualified, and our first house payment for $325. Ten yeas later we were trying to sell in a depressed market….we’ve done that twice, now.

This home was about 1500 square feet. We couldn’t afford furniture for the whole place. We had three bedrooms…because that’s what everyone did. One was an office, and one was a spare room, even though we rarely had visitors. But it was a great open floor plan, and something we have looked for ever since. Of course we also had the autumn harvest gold appliances and green sculptured carpet…….

Our town home in Maryland also had a nice layout, open, good kitchen. We had a downstairs that we used for caning and sewing, as I was just getting in to quilting. The only thing we wished we had was an outdoor patio. We like sitting outside. Plus, nice walking in the area. One of the things we will always treasure about that place is that my in-laws spent six weeks with us there, with my father-in-law walking around most of Ellicott City.

The house we bought in Tucson also had an open floor plan, nearly 1300 square feet. We had a small backyard, and we were actually able to do some nice landscaping. Turned out quite lush, and with the spa, we really enjoyed being outside. But again, the neighborhood went down, and we were stuck in a slow market trying to sell.

After this house, we kind of got out of owning a home. Too much work and upkeep, so we looked at renting. We rented a house  that was HUGE – space for a wet marbling studio, a dyeing area, and a separate sewing room, plus a designated office. Old house in need of a lot of work. The rent was beyond us, for just having left the learning center and going back to teaching full time. That pretty much told us we needed to look at rents that were around $750, maybe a little more as my salary increased. Back yard here was worthless; pool had been filled in, no trees left, and just not comfortable.

What makes this new place so nice is what we decided we actually needed to be comfortable: a good studio space, in a second bedroom. We don’t have company a lot, and if our good Vermont friends come out, we’ll close up the cutting table and rent a double fold-away. Good light is critical, especially since we both have some decreasing vision issues. A kitchen that we can work in together: we just came from a galley kitchen where one person couldn’t get past the other. Open floor space, and a good outside area. We don’t need the upkeep of a yard, just a nice place to sit out. And – good wall space for our variety of art work. We actually have some space left over right now, and now we can look to buy some larger art work when we’re traveling.

A garage!!! More storage!

Our first breakfast nook - with tulips from our Cornville friends!

The Studio

A separate ironing area - no more setting up and taking down....

I have reclaimed my sewing table!

The energy feels just great – lots of light, good nights’ sleep, and room to move around. I’m going to start some vegetables when we get back from Seattle in our backyard, and if it works, we’ve got room for a compost container. Love this place!!

Maybe it was always the new sense of adventure, but we have moved a lot since we got married. Of course, the biggest move was Vermont to Phoenix….in retrospect we probably should have gone to California, but we thought housing was too much. 36 years later, hmmmm….. So we loaded the U-Haul truck the last day of school, got married that night, and headed to Phoenix in the morning. We spent a few months in an apartment on Camelback – seemed the height of luxury, with a pool and spa. We had a fun time looking through all the home developments. Seems like we could always tell when a house was over $50,000….

Oh my goodness. I just looked on Google Maps….you definitely can’t go home again on this one…..

We spent HOURS on the landscaping for this house. All desert, lots of trees. Look at the junk cars, and that seems to be a police car out front……We lived here for nearly 10 years, poor as church mice, but we had a really nice front yard and two beautiful cottonwoods in the back. We were close to Metro Center, and we watched the west side of Phoenix develop over the years. For a few  years we could still smell the orange blossoms until all the orchards became housing developments. )shivers….)

From here we moved to Maryland, and we had a fabulous townhome, with lots of room, and about the same rent we are paying now……right across the street from the local library. We really enjoyed Ellicott City. We got there just before Christmas, and on Christmas Eve we drove into “downtown” historic Ellicott City during a snowfall – it was a fairy land.

There was a lot we loved about Maryland, including Sunday drives, which in Arizona……not so much……We were there for two years before heading back to Vermont. Then we really started moving around: Pine Street apartment for a few months till a fire, the Brown Motel for a few months because of the fire, and then down on Lake Champlain….a townhome about a quarter mile from the lake. Great bike paths, and one summer spent swimming a few times in the lake.

From there it was a townhome in Underhill (lease ran out) for two years, and then a small basement apartment in a house in the back woods, as we were planning on moving back to Arizona.

We’re in the lower left for the townhome. I loved walking the road along the Brown’s River, named for hubby’s family.

 Loved being in the boonies, except for the year before we left and our first true mud season…..

Then it was back to Arizona, Tucson this time. We’ve been here almost 18 years: Mona Lisa apartment (limo parked below us that had a car alarm that went off ALL the time, especially at 2 AM), Wilmot North apartment (the first time until we bought our house), our house on Nastar (for 5 years, until the neighborhood started really deteriorating), the rental on Paseo (which we loved because of all the space, especially for a studio, but way too expensive), Wilmot North again (until the major drug deals and Section 8 housing), Pantano apartment (obnoxious children upstairs), townhome on Esperanza (barking dogs and drug deals across the street), Carondelet apartment (NOISE!), and now finally this townhome. I think we can safely say no more apartment living for us. And…no more moves for us. We see some place around the country that we like, we’ll just visit and keep Tucson as our base.

However, I can pack and unpack a house in no time. Those are some definite skills, but this last move was a killer in terms of physicality. We are too old for all this packing up and moving around……

So it’s been a week of a lot of exercise, as well as reflection on all the moves in my life. the earliest I remember is the house on Staten Island, kind of a mansion to this five-year-old. The reality when I saw the address again when I was in college was that the house seemed so small. 214 Demarest. Great back yard, balcony stairs, a cool basement with a coal bin, an attic, and a butler’s pantry. There was a great tree in the back yard – actually two trees, because my dad put up a  hammock. I remember a small store about a block away, and I was able to walk to first grade. I have one picture of this house, but the rooms live on in interesting dreams.

The place I consider my home, where we lived for ten years, was Stratford, New Jersey. We moved in first grade (good ole Mrs. Ross), and we moved again the beginning of my junior year in high school. Tough time to have to change schools. My most favorite – and influential teacher – was during those years: my Latin teacher, Joan Daniels. I loved everything about Sterling High School: band, drama, orchestra, Latin. Lots of school buddies now on Facebook. I was a nerd, and I was bullied, but I consider that place home. I also dream about the house. My folks bought the lot next store – I remember my mother mowing the yard. They wanted to keep the town from paving through the woods behind the house. My grandmother had quite the green thumb – loads of trees and bushes.

If we get east the end of this summer, I really want to stop and see the house. The trees have so grown, and the lot is still protected. Lots of dreams…..redone downstairs, my dad’s workshop, my bedroom upstairs, a small kitchen, the swings in the back yard, and the wonderful woods with the stream, but I was never allowed to go in the woods – “girls didn’t do that.” Wow. I can check property values. My folks paid $8,000 when they bought the house in the 50s. It’s over $150,000.

Sterling will always be my high school, even though I wasn’t able to graduate with that class.

From there the move was to Glens Falls, NY, which for two years I disliked tremendously. It’s really hard changing schools. It was a nice house. It was a long walk home from school, under what is the Northway. I used to enjoy walking downtown from the high school, but I never really fit in. I bumped the doctor’s daughter from the top five in our graduating class, which was not the best thing to do to be popular. And I never really had a chance to walk around the reservoir and explore. We didn’t live in the city itself, so that also set me apart.

I loved college

I loved college, and in my senior year the family moved to Vermont, and I had to set up residence in Oneonta, NY, in order to maintain my state scholarships. Two years in the dorms, and two years in two different sorority houses. I student taught at the high school. I’ve often thought I should have moved back to either Stratford or Oneonta. Hartwick College is on a hillside, and the picture below was taken in autumn, one of the most beautiful times at the college. I loved the place – it was so perfect for who I was at the time.

There’s been a lot of growth since 1970. I’ve been back once, and again, if we head east, we’ll definitely make that a stop.

My folks lived in Northfield, Vermont, and it was a nice house. Northfield was typical Vermont, and since I was only spending summers there, I was definitely an outsider. I do have some memories of the house, particularly the porches and my going-away party when my sorority sisters came to Vermont. It was interesting trying to find a place to go drinking the Saturday night they were visiting!

From that point, I think the moves on my own really began to increase. My first teaching job in on the island of Maui, and I moved a lot. When I arrived on the island, I was taken to one of the teacher cottages, up in Paia. These were small cottages on the grounds of elementary schools. This exploring through Google Earth is really pretty amazing……you kind of “fly” from one place to another. It’s pretty cool to see an aerial view of Maui.

The teacher cottages were unique, held together by termites, and if you took a sick day, the kids were looking into your bedroom windows. I had my first experience with cane spiders.  I just checked on Google and found that the elementary school is now on the list of Historic Places….and the teacher cottages were torn down. I would love to have had a picture of those.

“The first enrollment at this new site was between 150-200 students. Due to the increase in enrollment from 1914-1924, 14 more wooden classrooms were built, of which, only two remain. Several teachers’ cottages were built during this time, but none remain today. Two were burned in1 918 and the remaining cottages were torn down in 1989 due to poor conditions. In the late 1920’s to 30’s, the school population increased to a high of 1,300 students with 43 teachers. This was about the time most of the existing buildings were erected, including the first model cottage built on Maui for housekeeping training built in 1928.”

And we had rent of $17 a month! This is a sample, but this place looks to be in far better shape than what I remember! Three bedrooms, a “kitchen,” and definitely a new roof….. but I don’t remember ever really cooking anything……

From there I moved into Kahului, with two other teachers, back to the teacher cottage when my folks came to visit, and then into an apartment in Wailuku, all in my first year of teaching. I was able to move all my belongings in one trip in my white Volkswagon Beetle. The second and third years I lived in a house outside of Wailuku (Waikapu) with another teacher – again, held together with termites. Small kitchen, small shower and bath, with a garage that had been made into a living room. I do wish I had pictures of some of these places! I dream about this place a lot. It was on the road to Lahaina, up from Kihei, and I have very fond memories of the two years there. Waikapu used to be just a few houses. When we went back to Maui in 1996, there was a lot of growth of new homes from all those cane fields.

So after the first year, I pretty much stayed put until I moved back to Vermont, at the end of three years of teaching on Maui. Back in Vermont, I eventually got a job in the Chittenden East School District and moved into Richmond, in an apartment across the railroad tracks…..noisy, more so than the apartment on Maui that would have the 6:30 AM flight from Honolulu come overhead. This apartment was a dump. It has since been totally redone, and it looks quite nice. I paid $20 a week in rent in 1973.

I met my new roommate, who became my best friend and maid of honor. We lived in Essex Junction, in a two-bedroom apartment, and we had a LOT of great parties to show for our three years together.

And then I got married, and the moves really started!!

 Pun intended. I’m back, and the back is bad again…all that moving. We are actually marbling this morning, trying to finish everything for the northwest trip in less than three weeks. The move cost us a month, plus money that could have been spent on fabric. Expensive in several areas. If I hadn’t been doing yoga, I can’t imagine how sore I would be now. It’s sore, but I think that’s because I tried a few too many stretches unsupervised yesterday.

This move really did us in. Now, we are experts at the moving process, having done it numerous times. But this was more condensed – three weeks from signed a new lease, giving notice, and packing. Plus, we transported a lot more boxes than we normally do, and we set up a lot of things ahead of time: kitchen, bathrooms, closets, pantry. A week and a day later, most of the art work is up, and there are a few boxes of books and miscellaneous (my purple fabric….) that are still waiting to be unpacked.

Speaking of fabric……there are pros and cons to having a fabric stash when you’re moving. Pro – lots of soft fabric (no grimy newspaper) for wrapping all the precious items in the hutch. And you get to fondle the fabric. Con – lots of soft fabric that you can fondle again, as you refold and store.

It’s been interesting the reflecting I’ve done over the past week on our various moves. That needs to be a post in itself……got to get the rest of the boxes broken down for the recycling truck tomorrow.

Where is the first quarter going? We are leaving March 25 for Seattle and still have fabric to make. Life is taking a few twists and turns that are unexpected. The upstairs noise finally got to us, so we are moving – a week from today. So lots of packing, and still trying to make fabric and sew. Not a great combination.

Most marketing is on hold. I will need to put the Etsy store on inactive until we return. There’s just too much to do to keep it active, as well as bring the additional stuff with us in case we sell something. Need new business cards and new postcards as a marketing tool. Plus lots more fabric. And hardly anything for a tax return, so funding the trip up is going to be an interesting proposition.

Still no newsletter, but I am getting regular with the blog again. Numbers are up on the blog, and I hope to keep them growing. I made my first major deadline, but the other one for the beginning of March won’t happen, and I’m not sure the Fish Follies entry will happen – due the day we get back home from Seattle, which means it has to be done before we leave…..maybe, if the move goes well.

Can’t keep up with either Google Reader and the blogs – deleted some that aren’t strongly art-related.  Can’t keep up with updating the Facebook fan page. Don’t even ask about Twitter. I see that Pinterest is really catching on, but because of copyright issues, I am avoiding it right now – mainly because I can’t keep up with what I’m already trying to do.

But…..there is another potential commission in the works for end of April, Ebay is still going strong, and I have so many ideas for art pieces I’ll never get them all made. Right now I need to free up my schedule, which now has something every day. I’m tutoring a great kid, and the=at will continue, as will my yoga lessons. The new teaching gig will end in mid-March, and I probably won’t teach again for them. Too much like what I just retired from: worried about who’s passing, who needs more work, and the like.

So it’s hectic, but here is an interesting article from Fine Art Views, about what to say to a customer who wants to know if “you’re as good as so-and-so.” Enjoy! Hopefully you’ll have productive and not especially crazy weeks!

PS – I’m working on my iPad cover and practicing my free motion at the same time. Very soothing – I love this lesson on feathers!

Cotton fat quarter trimmed to fit the iPad, a thick left-over batting, I’m thinking a fusible batting, kona cotton for the back, and Superior Thread Art Studio green, and a #90 titanium needle.

Tension was workin’ good!

Overall  pleased with the stitch length.

Ai, yi, yi….the brain is overflowing with thoughts about all kinds of things in life right now – some artistic, most not. First of all, we are having to move….again……..Since the new neighbors moved in the beginning of December, it has been horrible living under them. Stomping feet at all hours of the day or night, running/barking dog, absolutely no consideration for the people underneath them. Including a domestic dispute complaint one Sunday night that was so loud we had to go and stay in a motel.

So what does management say? There’s nothing they can do….dogs bark, that’s what they do. Dogs run, that’s what they do. It’s their apartment, they can vacuum when they want (including at 3 AM)……management has done nothing. We finally got “doctor’s notes” about the stress and inability to sleep, and we are out of here. Our days of apartment living are done. We drove through one neighborhood about a week ago and saw a “for rent” sign – we’ve never seen anything available in that neighborhood unless it’s the occasional home for sale. This is perfect, meets our three conditions: more space, better light, and a total price not over a set amount. So we’re set to move the 29th…..the same day we just found out that management is replacing carpet in the stairs near us, so we won’t be able to use the stairs for the movers. Between tomorrow and the 28th, we plan to move a lot of boxes and set up things that we can. So it will be a crazy two weeks….but that’s how our lives seem to go.

Why is it we are living in such a culture now of rudeness and incivility? Drivers in Tucson have got to be among the worst in the country. When we went cross-country two years ago, we got out of Arizona and saw none of this – no changing lanes unexpectedly, no creeping along. In fact, east of the Mississippi, it’s like we were in another country. All we are asking for is some peace and quiet to live our lives, do good when we can, and be kind to people we meet. We’ve lived in apartments long enough that we know how to walk with a soft step. Turns out laws – both state and federal – keep apartment managers from taking more action against tenants who create disturbances. Management has to be very careful not to violate any freedoms…like putting people with children – or pets – on bottom floors. That takes away their rights. Well, we’ve been in this complex over a year, perfectly content, until new people move in. And now we are the ones paying the penalty. Well, not when it affects our health.

And now to the news…..oy, so much there. Hearings on contraception, and nary a woman in sight to give her views. A photo of our soldiers with the symbol of the Nazi party. Trying to plead ignorance that they didn’t realize the symbol had other meanings. Well, that’s what comes from not being able to teach American history in any depth. History of any kind has lost ground since NCLB and having to teach to specific tests. And in Arizona, now the state legislature wants to make teaching anything “controversial” grounds for being fired as a teacher. Arizona is more and more the sewer of this country.

The Arizona legislature is debating the availability of guns on college campuses. Yeah, that’s going to help. Which brings me to the latest going round on Facebook and YouTube of this one father’s response to his daughter’s gripe about her parents. He proceeds to verbally rip her a new one, which she probably deserved. But when he takes the gun to the computer….well, I disagree with the message that sends. A brick would have accomplished the same thing.

The Personal Excellence blog has been running a fitness challenge that I have been participating in, in an attempt to ramp up my physiucal activity. It also has coincided with my beginning practice of yoga. I LOVE yoga. Working one-on-one with a trainer us really helping. Now I have to get over this cold so I don’t keep having to screw up my breathing. I have progresses enough in three weeks that I now have some flow patterns that I can do on my own at home. Celes, who runs Personal Excellence, has some great stuff available to peruse.

Check out Fathom Events. Last night we went to the local movie theater and saw a behind-the-scenes tour of the Leonardo da Vinci exhibit at the National Gallery in London. Absolutely amazing, with lots of in-depth analyses and looks at curating this type of exhibit. This is the second event we have been to, and we are looking forward to many more. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s sequel to Phantom of the Opera plays on February 28. You can believe we’ll be there – great seats, up close and personal, and way cheaper than theater tickets.

Reading a really interesting book, Quiet by Susan Cain, about introverts and extroverts. Explains a lot about me, and it’s very interesting to see that the amount of extrovertism expected in today’s society isn’t necessarily productive. I recommend the book. From the description:

“At least one-third of the people we know are introverts. They are the ones who prefer listening to speaking, reading to partying; who innovate and create but dislike self-promotion; who favor working on their own over brainstorming in teams. Although they are often labeled “quiet,” it is to introverts that we owe many of the great contributions to society–from van Gogh’s sunflowers to the invention of the personal computer.”

May you have a quiet weekend!!

…and what a month it was. Busy with moving, opening the museum, entering shows, creative festival, daily plans and kid issues – there are 13 school days left- not that I am counting….

The art of moving – oh, yes, it is an art. I figured out that in the almost 32 years that we have been married, we have moved…Vermont to Camelback in Phoenix, changed apartments in Phoenix, moved into a house, moved to Maryland, moved to Vermont on Pine Street, then into a motel because of the fire, then to Ledgewood, then Raceway, then Sleepy Hollow, then back to Tucson in an apartment, changed apartments, bought a house, sold the house, moved to a rental, moved back into an apartment, and this move – just changed a new apartment location. Not to mention the moves when I was in Hawaii – teacher cottage, house, apartment, second apartment, house, then back to Vermont to home, old crummy apartment, new apartment, and then the first move to Phoenix.

So I think I’m probably good at this. But this time – ai…I used to be able to set the place up in a weekend – in four years I have really slowed down! Two weeks later and we still have boxes, but I got the spare bed set up, the closet set, the bathrooms, finally found the iron…but still need to work on setting up the studio.