Artsy Fartsy

I’m scared.

If any of you out there happen to be married to a UPS guy, you know that on a regular basis, your UPS guy gets to bid on a new job. UPS and the Teamsters have worked it out so that at each bid, the employees are all sorted by seniority (how long they’ve been in the union) and then they go in this order, top down, to choose what job they want. If they like the current delivery route they’re on, they bid that one and keep it. If there’s another route they would like better that someone with less seniority has, they can take it from them. They can also choose jobs inside the warehouse, like unloading and loading the trucks, or car wash. basically, if you’re a high-seniority guy, you get your pick of everything. If you’re a low-seniority guy, you probably won’t get what you want, you’re left with whatever everyone else didn’t choose.

For my UPS guy, he’s about mid-level in seniority and he’s been tying himself in knots these past few weeks, waiting to see what’s going to happen to him this year. He’s been driving a delivery truck for seven years now and he’s pretty frustrated and worn-out. He’s been hoping to get a job inside the warehouse, which would be nice for him. No more traffic or cold. No dragging a hand cart through a snow drifts. But it also means that he has to work third shift. This terrifies me and just typing “third shift”, my heart rate went up a little.

We found out yesterday that he got the third shift pre-load job, one of the two jobs he was hoping for. I want so badly to be happy for him. He works so hard and he’s been doing the same thing for seven years, wearing the same clothes day after day after day. Meanwhile, I’ve changed jobs three times and I get to put on something new and pretty every day. It doesn’t seem fair and I want him to be happy. But when will I see him? I don’t know.

We’re pretty much attached at the hip when we’re home. If I’m painting or making jewelry, he’s right beside me at the computer. If he’s working on his dirt bike, I’m helping him. We get firewood together, we do yard work together, we watch movies together. This third shift thing is going to change all that. I don’t sleep well when I’m alone in the house and he’s going to be gone the hours that I’ll be sleeping. How’s that going to work? Molly’s pretty psyched because she’s never going to be home alone now. I’ll leave for work and Luke will come home right after that. I’ll get home from work and a few hours later, Luke will leave for work.

When I spell it all out, it seems like it should be fine. As long as he comes home from work and goes to sleep, it should work out. Then he’ll be awake when I get home from work and we’ll be able to spend time together before he leaves and I go to bed. It just sounds so scary. I know there are millions of couples who have been doing this for years. I’ve just never had to think about it and t worries me. So I thought I’d tell you about it. Thanks for listening.

Ebay is a funny place.

We heat our home with a wood stove which is located in the basement. Recently, in case you hadn’t noticed or don’t live in Connecticut, it’s been really damn cold outside. The heat from the wood stove travels up the stairway to get into the main floor of the house, but we’d like to put a grate in the floor to allow more warm air to come up to the living space so that less fleece and wool need to be worn inside of the house. Which takes me to Ebay.

Two months ago I began the hunt for a cool old floor grate on Ebay. And there are plenty of them. I figured it would be a piece of cake but, once again, I was wrong. Back in November I bid on and won a grate that looked very cool. It was cast iron and in great shape. It had a flap that opened and closed and a scrollwork face. I managed to snag it for $10 plus shipping and was pretty psyched until I got it. First off, it was cracked, which I think happened during shipping. Secondly, the one free listing photo that Ebay offers was a front shot of the grate which hid the fact that it stood a couple of inches off the floor because it was actually meant to be in the wall. If we did put it in, I would trip over it and then something else would be cracked, like my ankle bone or my skull. Time to start over.

Unfortunately, December seems to be a hot time to buy a floor grate on Ebay and I couldn’t find one I was willing to pay for. The prices shot way up from the $10 I bought to at least $50. I looked and looked and then gave up. Christmas time, etc. etc. I just wasn’t in the grate-shopping mood.

Oh, and if by now you’re wondering why I didn’t just buy a new one, #1, you must not know me. I think that old stuff is so much better than new stuff (for the house, at least). And #2, you must have never shopped for a grate. We’re looking for a sizable one, at least 12″ square, hopefully bigger. These go for about $225 brand new.

So recently I sold some stuff on Ebay and had a bit of cash sitting in my Paypal account. I figured that, since I never actually held the money, I only traded it for some old junk I wasn’t using anyway, it wasn’t real money and it wouldn’t hurt as much as if I spent real money on a grate. So I was back on the hunt.

I found one I loved, watched it, bid on it, and lost it to a person with the Ebay ID of island_resident. Crap. I found another, watched it, bid on it, and lost it to island_resident. Grr! Three times, island_resident outbid me and I was mad. I wanted to see what this person (I, for some reason, imagine that it’s a man) was buying. I checked his feedback - which was very good - and checked to see what he had been buying and what he was paying for it. For the past week, at least, all he has been buying are cast iron grates. Bunches of them. And he pays a lot for them. I don’t think, in the past three days, that he had paid less that $70 for one! What on earth could he be doing with all of these expensive grates? I am intrigued.

There was one grate that I really loved that was holding at about $50. I was prepared to go to $75 until I saw that my buddy, island_resident, was now in on the bidding. I said to Luke, “I just know he’s willing to pay over $100 for that thing”. And he did. I bowed out and he got it for $114. Seriously! Where is he getting this money and why is he stealing all of the good grates?

Last night I finally found a grate that was ratty enough that even island_resident didn’t want it. It’s big and it’s all rusty with peeling paint. Perfect! I love it. We placed our bid and waited and waited. The auction was ending just after 8:00 last night and we had to pause the movie we were watching to go and keep and eye on the bidding. I had a knot in my stomach thinking that island_resident was going to swoop in at the last minute and snatch it from me but we sat and watched that last five minutes of the auction, refreshing the screen constantly, and we managed to win it. Hallelujah.

I’m trying not to get too excited, though. It’s a big grate, about 14″ x 17″ and if the Post Office could manage to break a 10″ x 12″ grate, I’m a little concerned about this one. It’s also coming Parcel Post which means a longer time in the system and a slower delivery. I just really hope that it comes in decent shape (peeling paint and rust aside) because I really don’t want to go through this all over again. And warmer weather is on the way.

And wool socks covering her toes. MAN is it cold today. But look at these pretty things I got in the mail last night:
They’re from my new, favorite Etsy shop called Color Fiesta. I would tell you to go there now and buy up all of her rings becasue they’re amazing, but I just checked and the shop is closed until the end of January because she’s expecting a baby. So wait until next month and then go shop.

These are gorgeous, handmade, glass rings and believe me, they’re even more beautiful in person. I tried to capture how they sparkle in the light but I just wasn’t doing them justice.The grey and pink one on the left has a silver/black sort of shimmer and the green one has threads of sparkly gold in it - they’re just so pretty. And the best part - they’re all about $7.99. Seriously. Less than $10 with shipping and you can have yourself a beautiful, wearable piece of art! Mark your calendar and go check out Color Fiesta next month. I certainly will again!

One of the items on my Amazon wishlist this Christmas and last was the boxed set of Breakin’ movies. I know, roll your eyes, but in the 80’s when these movies came out, my sister, mom and I would go see them over and over. I longed for the studded belts and awesome off-the-shoulder shirts. I wanted a street name like “Special K”. I even remeber that on TV at the time, Alfonso Ribero was selling a break dancing instructional video complete with a mat to use when spinning on your head, or whatever. It was $60 and I wanted it so bad.

This Christmas, when I unwrapped the boxed set, I almost fell off the couch. I wanted to see these movies again and try to remember why I loved them so much. I just never expected to really get them. Now everyone around me has been forced to sit and watch them with me and we’re all better people because of it.

Although we can all agree that the word is a better place when men aren’t wearing half-shirts and feathered ear cuffs, don’t you wish there were more movies where people got really, really mad at eachother and showed their anger by dancing? That’s right. Dancing.

Don’t tell me you’ve never seen these movies. Breakin’ and Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo starring Lucinda Dickey, Adolfo “Shabba-Doo” Quinones and Michael “Boogaloo Shrimp” Chambers. Don’t you wish more actors had nicknames? Watching the credits of these movies is almost as much fun as watching the movies. One of my favorites is the credit for the very young and skinny club MC played by Ice-T which says “Rap Talker”. Love it.

These movies are so bad now that I watch them twenty years later, but I think I might love them even more than I did back then. Everything is so innocent and cheesy and the acting is so awful. Lucinda Dickey manages to maintain a sustained, perky whine throughout both movies and still she manages to be likable. The dialogue may be rotten, but the dancing is fantastic and the music is 80’s crap, but it’s great! Even as I type this, I’m humming in my head “din daa daa, din do do…” which you, too, will not be able to get out of your head after watching Breakin’ 2.

If you’ve never seen either of these movies, you owe it to yourself to watch them. If it’s been twenty years since you saw them last, pull on some spandex, dig out your studded bracelets and enjoy. Really, they’re worth the time.

For some reason, I’ve been visiting a lot of thrift shops lately. Maybe it’s the after-Christmas no-money-to-spend situation, maybe it’s that I love to hunt. I just love old stuff and the potential of digging around and finding something really cool for really cheap. Like a bag of plastic cowboys and indians for 99 cents.

I found a new Salvation Army store on the way home from work and I seem to end up there at least twice a week. I also just discovered the Goodwill store, which I had never before been to. Big excitement. The Salvation Army store had this bag o’ plastic guys under a table, in a basket, beneath a bunch of old, smelly toys. And I found it! I thought that my nephews might like to play with them when they visit, but Luke and I had a good time ourselves setting them all up when I got them home.

It turns out that, not only do I have an assortment of small cowboys, horses, and indians, I also have a teeny-tiny assortment of the same cowboys and indians, a teeny llama, a teeny donkey, and a teeny camel. Because everyone knows that cowboys rode camels. And indians… rode llamas? There appears to be a shortage of small horses and we had to double up the cowboys on the saddles, which Luke likes to call “Brokeback-style” but which I just call teamwork.

Well she is, isn’t she?

Crap. I blew it. Artsy Fartsy’s one year anniversary was last week and I forgot. One whole year of blogging. Ya-hoo!

I’ve been busy lately but I don’t really have anything finished to show you. I’ve been trying out some new ideas and playing with new paints. I started a few little acrylic paintings on clayboard. Here’s what I have so far:I love patterns. This is just the first step of the idea I have in my head. Hopefully I’ll be able to show you the finished version soon.

I’ve been trying out a lot of new things lately and they’ve all been tanking. I tried to make a felt flower pin a friend had described to me. I worked for days on it and it looked awful. The same friend described a pair of wire and bead earrings she saw and I tried to make those - nope. Those came out lousy, too. I tried to knit Luke a hat and got ahead of myself, tapering it in before I had made it big enough. It’s a lovely, wool, hand-knit beanie.

I did manage to make some cute yo-yos like these which I turned into a little decoration to sit my Yankee Candle jar on top of. I have to finish sewing buttons on it and then I can show it off.

Well happy blogiversary-and-a-week to me and thank you all for reading!

I knew it wasn’t going to last. 60-degree weather in January in Connecticut is unnatural, I know. But I liked it. I could go out of the house without a coat and I haven’t had to shovel snow, heck, I haven’t had to look at snow since last winter. Sigh…

Tomorrow night we’re getting snow. We might even get 5 inches of the nasty whiteness. I know that I whined about wanting snow in December, but that’s because Christmas is so much more festive with a sparkly white coating. Now that Christmas is over, I’m ready for spring!

Let’s just hope that the weathermen are wrong again and maybe we won’t get any snow at all. Maybe it’ll rain flower petals. Who knows. A girl can hope.

That’s MACRO, baby! I’m really having too much fun with this camera. Geeze, are these the hands of an eighty-year old or a thirty-year old?

I also tried to take a picture of my eyelashes, which came out cool, but unfortunately, it also shows the little bitty eyebrow hairs that need to be plucked (eew!) so I thought this one was better to share.

It’s been too crazy for me these past couple of days. I can just barely manage to string words into sentences, but they’re boring sentences that have no charm. Rather than giving you more of those bland sentences, I thought I’d send you elsewhere!

I want to recommend these two websites to you so you can go and look and be inspired. I love to visit these sites to see what these two ladies are doing and enjoy their beautiful pictures and excellent storytelling and then get jealous becusue their things are all so beautiful!

Hello my Name is Heather shows off Heather’s sewing skills which make me want to cry. She’s so good. Her photos are amazing and I love the way she writes. A nice place to spend some time.

In My (Sometimes) Humble Opinion is an inspirational place to poke around if you’re in the need of a creative boost. Cori writes so subtly and beautifully and I love that the titles of her posts sound like that names of poems or the titles of songs. She makes the most beautiful papercrafts and her photos are pretty amazing, too. She also opened an Etsy shop recently so she’s a fellow Etsian, too!

So there you are. Go take a peek. Even if you’re not a crafty-type person. They’re great places to go and give your eyes a rest.