Let's take a walk down memory lane

The other day my daughter the fabulous Rachel Pie was here and as she is studying Chinese medicine and acupuncture she was working on me.  The next day we were heading out and about and I pulled out a winter pair of shoes that are kind of a stone colored suede Earth shoes to wear. That evening I noticed that my arthritis in my knee was much better and whether to attribute that to my acupuncture treatment or to the wearing of the Earth shoes I did not know.  Maybe both?

That got me to thinking maybe I need more Earth shoes in my closet, not just the suede winter ones.  I used to have a fabulous pair of red Earth shoes that I wore constantly but one of my asshole dogs chewed on one and ruined them and out they went.  So I looked online to see if Earth shoes has something nice, cute, and available.  Which led me down some rabbit holes of 1970s footwear. Which I am about to share with you!

And now, let's take that walk down memory lane and see if you remember these beauties:

First up, the ever popular desert boot or Chuka boot as we called them.  They STILL make these things!!

Then the tennis shoes that were also jogging shoes, basketball shoes, track shoes, pretty much anything athletic you did you did in these.  Whether they were Converse or PF Flyers this was the shoe.  I had red ones that I put purple laces in and I wore them to marching band practice for YEARS.  I kept those shoes until just a few years ago.  Loved those shoes.

And then came Candie's.  Iconic shoe right there.

Jellies!!!  I loved my jellies!  Mine were root beer colored, not regular clear.  Lord, I loved those shoes.

Now, I would have never been caught dead in this shoe.  But my mother wore the hell out of these in many different colors.  Grasshoppers.

And who remembers shopping at Thom McCann?  Might have been one of the first mall stores I shopped at, along with Casual Corner and the 5 7 9 shop.

Check out these wooden platforms!  You know you had a pair.

When I was in high school some of my best friends worked at Kinney Shoes together and we went in there all the time.  Kinney Shoes.  I wonder when that quit being a thing?

Yoyos!!!!  Do you remember Yoyo shoes?  I swear I had these shoes right there.

And here they are, the original Earth shoe.  Most people considered these ugly.  I looked at these and thought "OMG, there is a shoe shaped like my foot!  It might feel good!  It might not even pinch or hurt or be uncomfortable."  I have been in love with the Earth shoes ever since.

Famolares!!!!  Such a ridiculous concept that we all bought in to.  Wavy shoe bottoms, what the hell were they thinking!

Here's a nice platform shoe.  If you are a 1970s pimp, maybe.

And even more decorative platforms.

It was an interesting time in footwear, wasn't it?  Makes me wonder which of today's choices will be laughed at in 20 or 30 years time.

Hope you enjoyed this trip down memory lane!

Mishaps in the Craft Room

This story would be better with some pictures of these mishaps.  But when you are in the midst of things sometimes you are overwhelmed and stopping to take a picture of your own stupidity isn't first thing on your mind, you know?

I had the bright idea to make some weighted blankets rather than purchase them.  That way they could be the exact fabrics that the kids wanted.  Etc and all the other reasons why I have a craft room in the first place!

Then it was on to Pinterest to research how these things are made.  You have to know how much weight is correct for the size/height/weight of the person using it.  Then it was a matter of figuring out what to use for the weight; the plastic weighted things (like in Beanie Babies) or something else.  Rice, flax seed and corn are good things because they are natural and can be heated or stuck in the freezer for cooling treatments, too.  But those items are not washable.  If they get damp they can mold inside the blanket and have to be thrown away.

Then I discovered cherry stones.  They are also a natural product, they come from Michigan the land of cherries, and believe it or don't they can be washed and dried.  Who knew?!

Cherry stones sounded like the perfect answer to the question.  I was really intrigued to try this project.  Anyhoo, we got the fabrics and I washed, dried and ironed them while waiting on the cherry stones to arrive.  And I watched tutorials on how best to sew these up.

Basically, you sew the fabrics together on 3 sides with the right sides facing in.  Then you trim it and turn it right side out.  You will then decide how many little segments you want to have with the stones evenly divided throughout the blanket.  Got it?

For the size I am doing for a 2 year old who weighs 30 pounds the weight of the blanket should be between 10 and 20% of total body weight.  We were shooting for 4 pounds of total blanket weight.  The size of the blanket evenly divided into 6 x 4 squares.  Six segments down the long side crossed with 4 going across.  I then took the blanket sewn on the 3 sides and marked it into the six and sewed there creating six channels.  I took the cherry stones and divided the 4 lbs into 24 equal-ish bowls.

So far, so good, right?  But I looked at the fabric and thought how flat the color was.  And then it dawned on me that I had NOT FLIPPED THE FABRIC RIGHT SIDE OUT!!!!

Oh good Lord.  So I got my seam ripper and carefully took out all the channels that I had just sewn in. And then I cleaned up all the bits of thread and flipped it correctly and remarked all the six channels again and sewed them in place.

I took the first 6 portions of the cherry stones and poured them in and pushed them down to the end and pinned across to sew them in place.  This is working out!  Yay!

I did the next row up and pinned and then sewed that row.  Then on the third row I started having a little trouble because of the weight of the whole thing and the stones wanting to shift around.  But I got the 3rd row done and as I lifted it and cut the thread from the machine I heard the sound of falling cherry stones.  That was closely followed by the sound of my heart also falling into my stomach.

That whole 3rd row was not closed because I had run out of bobbin thread.  Son of a BITCH!

So I got down on the floor gathered up all the cherry stones and divided them up again and set all of this on my work table.  And I got my bobbin out and refilled it and got my machine ready to rock and roll and turned everything off and left the room.

You can only make so many mistakes before you realize it is time to take a break and come back to this project tomorrow.

Random thoughts

I have had so many different things swirling in my head that I thought I would get some of them down in black and white.  Here goes!

1. My son has a lovely girlfriend who has 2 little boys, so they are like my almost-grandchildren. I went and picked up the 5 year old and spent the weekend with him. He had finished kindergarten on Friday and had his very first graduation.  We played Legos, colored, drew pictures, read books, swam, counted fireflies, and made homemade ice cream. 

It was a pretty perfect weekend, actually.

2. This whole debate in social media about the child who climbed into a gorilla enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo and the gorilla was shot and killed is horrific.  Everyone is vilifying the mother of the child.  From the accounts I have read BOTH parents were there, why are we blaming just one?  I don't like the blaming and judging that goes on from women on other women and their parenting.  We are all guilty of it.  My first thought was  "why did the mom allow her child out of her sight?"  I took a step back and can see all sorts of judgment and blaming in my own mind.  It's a fucking tragedy with enough responsibility to be spread around.  Let's hope all the parents who know of this will now educate their children on how to act appropriately in a zoo setting, and that the zoo officials will find more ways to keep the animals safe from this happening again.

3. While thinking about this zoo/gorilla/parenting debacle I have been going over and over in my mind how would I have acted.  What would I have done differently so that my kids would not end up in that life threatening situation?  I don't know.  I do know that I was really strict and clear about what behaviors were appropriate in public venues.  I see friends and family who parent differently than I do/did and I try not to compare.  But we all want to justify and validate our own decisions so some comparisons are going to happen.  My hard and fast rule with little ones was always if I am not touching you or holding your hand we have to be able to see each other's faces.  If you can't see my face you are too far away.  I think for me this came from living in a city on the border where we were told on the news damn near weekly about children being abducted from under your nose and taken across the border before you could blink.  So a fair amount of paranoia and fear were at play here.  I hope like hell that my kids don't feel scarred and smothered by this.  They haven't ever said so and they are both pretty great and well-adjusted adult people now.  That's the thing with parenting, you really just have to go with your gut and good intentions and hope that the love and care come through.

4. Are any of you watching Outlander on Starz?  Season 2 has been confusing me mightily so I have started reading the books.  I am now on book 2 which seems to be different than the show.  Jamie is fantastic, both in the books and the show.  Why Claire would think twice about that dry, boring Frank especially knowing his psychopath great grand relative Black Jack is beyond me.  But Claire does bug, irk and annoy me.

5. And while on the Scotland topic I am doing more and more research on Ancestry.com. And Scotland and Ireland are both difficult countries to do deep research on.  I need to get more details on names, locations and dates so that I can plan a trip to see what all I can find. I am more than a little afraid that I will get to Scotland or Ireland and never want to return. It does call to me.

6. After getting my DNA done on Ancestry I came up with a vision of a tattoo I would love to get.  I keep picturing it in my head of what the components are and how to do it.  Then I get on Pinterest and what do I find?  A whole bunch of people have come up with similar visions!  WTH???  I was so thoughtful on what I imagined as a very original idea.  Good Lord. Now I am unsure about it.  I don't want it to be what everyone else has since I may be chicken and it could very well be my one and only tattoo.

7. It's been a month since my good and dear friend Jon died.  It seems like yesterday.  The pain and grief are still so very fresh and my feelings so raw.  I need to find a positive way to honor him and deal with my sadness.  Any ideas?

That's it for now.  This is my closing thought.

Saying goodbye

I don't even know what to say here.  One of my very best friends has died.  No, that isn't even a good description of what our relationship was.

We were friends first, then he was my first love.

Then he broke my heart and I thought I would never recover.  And of course,  I did.  I was 15 and he was 18 at the time.  And I know it's easy to look back at that say "you were just 15, what did you know of love?" But I can tell you now looking through the lens of 42 years that yes, this was my first love.

We didn't see each other for a really long time and our lives continued on their independent paths until one day about 6 or 7 years ago we reconnected via social media.  And we have spoken to each other at least once a week since then.  He lived in the same town as my Grandma and when I went to be with her and care for her he became my support and cared for me while I was there.

In 3 days time he would have had 40 years of sobriety to celebrate.  40 years.  Let that sink in for a minute.  And in the past 40 years you would not be able to count the number of people he helped, he saved and the ones he impacted through the ripple effect.  And one of them was me.

There was nothing he enjoyed more than helping someone else.  I could never have gone through the therapy that was our phone conversations with anyone else.  He led me gently (or forcefully) to the place I needed to be whether I liked it or not.  And I was always grateful.

When he saw that I needed help he got me in touch with a therapist that he knew and trusted and I spent years with her working through issues.  When my Grandma needed me he made sure that I was cared for so that I could care for her.  And when my brother was in need of help and intervening, my friend dropped everything in his life to come facilitate that for our family.

He came to visit a couple years ago and we had such a good time just being together.  I think my favorite memory of that trip was us sitting on the couch watching Jeopardy and yelling the answers together.  We were more than friends, more like kindred spirits.

And we had plans to see each other again.  We were going to go to a concert this summer that would have been a revisit 42 years later of our very first date.  Now, how fucking awesome is that?  My heart is shattered over his death.  Not for him, but for me.  And for his children and his precious granddaughter who will no longer have the sweetest, kindest, funniest and most interesting person in their lives.

When I said my heart is shattered over his death and not for him what I mean is that we had many conversations about what death would look like and how prepared he was to meet his Lord.  I know that he was not ready to leave his family but was very much looking forward to knowing an afterlife. He had become much more spiritual in recent years and always thought in terms of what God would want him to do. How his Higher Power would expect him to respond was always uppermost in his mind.

The last couple of years have been terrible years, health wise for him.  He has been through so much. And he endured it with very little self-pity.  The hardest part of being sick for him was that then all the focus was on him and not on others.  He always wanted to turn the focus back to helping someone else and not about him having to accept help.  I told him several times that this was going to be his most difficult lesson.

I would like to think that our relationship was reciprocal with me giving joy, love and friendship to him and not just him always pouring out to me.  He frequently said it was, but it was so natural for him to keep shifting things around so that he was giving.  It's hard to know.

I love you Jon.  Now and forever.  You are my friend.  My kindred spirit.  My guide, my mentor and my sponsor.  You have done for me what I didn't know needed to be done.  And I am a much happier, saner and healthier person now and my family is directly impacted by this.

I don't know when I will be able to stop the tears flowing.  I can't imagine how I am going to get through without you and our talks.  Even if it was 20 years from now I would still say it is too soon.

Antique Chairs Revisited and Refinished and Reupholstered!!

Do you remember a few months back I took my beautiful antique chairs from my Aunt Bea down to finally be refinished and reupholstered?  If not, please go look back for the post titled "Antique Chairs" and check out the BEFORE pictures.

Then come on back here and see the after photos.  They are even prettier than I pictured they would be.

Here we go with the photos!!!

Above is chair #1.  There are 3 chairs and chair #1 is a regular standing there with it's 4 legs kind of chair.  It has the needlepoint on the front of the back with the new edging stuff that I found out is called "gimp" and then the nutmeg color velvet on the seat and the back of the back.  I am so in love with the way these turned out I can hardly stand it.

This is chair #2 which is almost identical to #1 except it sits on a base with a rocker spring and is a rocking chair.  It has the matching needlepoint to #1 as well.  Love this chair!!

This big beautiful chair is #3 and it is essentially a chair-and-a-half or a settee.  This is the first time I have seen it with the springs tied down.  They had become untied over the years and talk about bouncy!  Just sitting on it was like taking a roller coaster ride!  This settee is just spectacular now.

This little guy is the one and only foot stool that came to me with the set.  I don't know if that is the way they were sold originally or how it is the only one to survive with the chairs.  It is topped with the fourth and final needlepoint that I was given by my Nana.  It fit perfectly. And can I just say how lovely my rug looks in that photo?

Another shot of #1

And some close up views of the needlepoint and the velvet on the settee.

So, please go check out the before photos and now the afters and let me know what you think. I am beyond thrilled with them.

Now my only issue will be which of my children will get to inherit them.  Because I am not breaking up the set.  No way, no how.  They deserve to stay together.

And stay tuned for my dining chairs to be reupholstered!  The fabric is ordered and due in any time now.  I will post some before photos of them as well.  How on earth that current fabric got so stained is beyond me.

Thanks for reading!  Hope you all have a happy and restful Thanksgiving!

Reading

I just finished a fantastic book.  And since I am always on the lookout for new reading material I thought I might share with you in case you are doing the same.

This is the 3rd of her memoir books.  And let me just say that if I had Mary Karr's gift of stringing words one after the other and creating the most amazing mental pictures I would die happy.  So many times I read a book/article/poem/whatever and nothing, no emotional response.  But Mary Karr's work?  Well, that is something else entirely.

Here is what the cover of her first book looks like:

The one in the middle between these two chronologically is called "Cherry".  Also amazing.

There are very few writers who by their very words can reach in and touch your heart.  There are even fewer who grab your heart and twist it into pieces and rearrange it in a way you never knew was possible.  Mary Karr is one.  Salman Rushdie and Margaret Atwood also do this for me.

If you are not familiar with these books, take my recommendation and give Liar's Club a try and work your way through to Lit.  Then come back and thank me.  I sincerely hope you enjoy her books.

Customer Service or Dis-service, you be the judge

Y'all, I really hate to be the person who just rants and bitches but unfortunately someone has to do it.  And once you turn 50 you lose that little part of you that just gives a shit what other people think. So, there's that.  It is now my job to call people on their bullshit and not to take any.

I was on etsy or pinterest or one of those sites that leads you down a rabbit hole of websites and found my way to a website that is selling some really cute, cute things that I thought I needed for Christmas gifts.  Really cute.

And so I looked at the website for the "about us" to see who these people are, where the money is going to, etc.  And there is a whole bunch of photos of the people who own/operate/run this company, but no information as to where they are geographically.  No physical location.  I clicked on the "contact us" button to ask a few question regarding a couple of items and it opened up an email.  So I went back and looked and yes, only email, no phone.  WTH?  No phone number?

I emailed and explained what my questions were and said I would like some customer support.  I got a really prompt return email with these words Thanks for reaching out! Unfortunately we don't offer all call center at this time, as we are an online business only. But I can help you via email!


Okay, that seems odd to me that because you are online you don't think people will ever need to talk to you.  That makes it even MORE likely that people will have a phone inquiry.

After several more email back and forths with the customer service person I placed the order with the choice of using Paypal for my payment since I didn't feel great about giving my credit card information to people who don't even have a phone.  And I sent her an email saying that I had ordered and to let me know if there was a problem.

And you'll never guess what!  

There was a problem.  She didn't get the order.  So I spent a ridiculous amount of time going all over their website trying to figure this out. And the website order form kept giving me a gigantic yellow yield sign saying I am required to give them my email address.  On the paypal payment page it had a square to check if I wanted them to share my email with the company or not, so I went back and checked that box and filled everything out again for the FOURTH TIME and you will not believe this but where they wanted me to fill in my email address?  THERE WAS NO SPACE TO PUT IT!!

If I put my cursor in the tab above it and hit my tab key it dropped right down past the email question to the next space.

So I sent off yet another email to the customer service person describing the situation and said please have someone call me to place this order or I am just going to forget about it.  And gave her my phone number.

And you'll never guess what happened next!

SHE EMAILED ME AGAIN!  She didn't call me!  Here is her reply to my request for them to call me:  Thanks for keeping me updated. So sorry the websites being difficult! Just to let you know I am going to do, I am forwarding this conversation to the owners so they can try to troubleshoot.

And if I can get your order via email, we will send you a PayPal invoice and order that way!

Are you believing this?  I got that one last evening and I had to sit on it overnight to not reply "Are you fucking kidding me??"

This is the email that I shot back to her today "I appreciate you being so prompt and getting back to me right away.  Because customer service is such a big part of the shopping process to me, I am going to say that it feels really awkward to me that there is no way to reach a person on the phone and try and resolve the issues i am having with this order.

I have gone out on a limb and trusted leaving my phone number with a total stranger and said that I would prefer if someone could just call me and we could get this ironed out.  And I get yet another email instead of a call.

So this makes me suspicious of a company that doesn’t have a responsive way to help customers through a website that has some issues.  No phone, really?  I just don’t think I can give my credit card and home address information to a company that doesn’t have phone support.

Sorry we couldn’t have done business together.  Your stuff looked really cute."

What do you think?  Are these people on the up and up?  Will they respond?  Will I ever get a phone call?  Would you try to work this hard to spend money?

I just don't understand the whole "one size fits all and this is the ONLY way we do business" mentality.  Every person has different needs and if you are dealing with the public you are going to run across loads of different kinds of people.  And all I wanted was a few questions answered and then for them to fix their stupid order online form that wasn't working.  

My guess is that they will not reach out to me to try and rectify this and I will not get to purchase these cute things and I will have to go to Plan B on the Christmas gift list.

Let me know your thoughts on this or just how you feel about customer service in general.