Thanks, SubC. I like the thought process on the lights. Again there was no judgment. I'm working on my own thought process on things. Right now, I ask myself, and then what? So if I want to buy something, I have to answer And then what? And it's helping me.

Refusing to get out of bed because I don't want to deal with cats. Although they are both so very sweet.

Happy Thanksgiving!?

Did I *need* the lights - no. I am lucky to have very few needs.

But I have white icicle lights that go around my porch. They are old. The bulbs have started burning out and I started leaving them up year round and they get warm and Dh wants them replaced.

The Halloween lights are little white led ghosts. My thought is to take the icicles down in the spring and find some different lights that can be switched around, because lights on my porch make me happy.

I hope your mom enjoys her thanksgiving tomorrow and that you do as well. And that the cat situation continues to be peaceful.

Hi everyone! Hi SubC! Good job getting four bins to your son! Okay let me ask you a question and it's sincere and not snotty: did you need the Halloween lights? Trying to help you by asking that question.

Well I have two cats now. Keeping them apart for now. Mom's cat basically hid last night and all day today but inexplicably I went to bed at 630 and the dear thing has been in the bed with me. I'm going to take this slowly. I need peace here.

A lot of dental work today. All very positive. Cleaners were here.

The worry about mom's cat is over. I don't have to worry every night about her. Mom is nearing the end. Her dementia is really sad. I'll sit with her tmr for dinner at her place (served at noon) and then will have dinner at 4 at my usual restaurant. Emiko and her BF will join me.

Okay I have to get up and feed a few cats.

Good morning. I am in Wisconsin.

Still functioning on east coast time and stuck in a dark hotel room with Dh (who is asleep). The lobby breakfast doesn't start for half an hour. If I take a shower I will wake Dh up.

Today when we go back over to ds and ddil's house I am going to make the pie for thanksgiving and wrap presents for ddil's baby shower on Friday. I also brought some school stuff to work on because ddil is an introvert and naps a lot right now and ds and Dh will be working on wiring ds's basement. Bean's family arrives tonight.

We brought ds four big bins of his childhood belongings, so that is out of my house.

Good morning

Tatoulia, I hope your mom wakes up in a better frame of mind today. And that the cat just didn't like that one other cat. It happens.

This morning I woke up too early, but I am getting a slow start drinking my coffee online.

I need to do my chores, set up a couple more things for the farm sitter, and pack my suitcase. I am not looking forward to the drive, but tonight I will see my son! It has been almost six months.

And my dd2 is coming on Thursday.

I forgot to tell you because I was locked out, that I bought three strings of Halloween lights on clearance. my Halloween decorations are Still a net reduction though. Christmas not so much with the little trees, but I will deal with Christmas stuff when I get back from ds's.

And I told dd2 that what I want for Christmas is help with my website and business cards (she has a design degree and a tight budget, so we both think it is a great idea.)

Thanks for helping me sort through it.
cat will come here. It will be tough but I'll figure it out. I may bring the carrier with me tmr. She was extremely overwhelmed tonight and feeling that I just dropped her off there and she didn't know anyone.

I'll take her cat. She's a sweetheart but does not like other cats so I'll have to figure out how to navigate this in my very small place. Sister would take her but sister has an indoor outdoor cat and I don't want mom's cat going outside. Plus the whole two cats thing. My sisters former husband would take her but to live in an empty apartment he owns and I don't see the charms of having a cat live by herself. So I have to take her.

Maybe she and kitty will get along but I distinctly remember her not liking my last cat.

Time will tell.

Tatoulia, I think that is a good idea on the blanket. I was going to suggest keeping it while keeping an eye out for something you love.

I'm so sorry about your mom. Can you find a new home for the cat?

New thought: I keep the comforter this season, and at the end of the winter, I wash it up and donate it. Then next winter I figure out what I need or don't need. Esp since I'm thinking of selling everything and going to Greece. I won't, but I enjoy the fantasy.

Things are extremely bad with my mother. We have stopped almost all of her meds. She does not have a handle of where she is. She was downstairs tonight when I got there and refusing to go upstairs. We went up and down many times. She wanted to sleep in the living room downstairs. It was tough. And she doesn't want her cat anymore.

I'm not sure what to do. Her hands and her feet looked weird like she's reached the end. I don't know how else to describe it. Praying for peace.

Sounds like the sale went very well, SubC!

I love the note, I didn't buy you a tree! Along those lines, my sister paid me a very big compliment without realizing it. She stated that after staying at my house a few weeks ago, she went home and her place seemed so cluttered. And I'm still working in reducing.

Okay I had a radical idea this AM. right now on my bed I have my blanket, my thin white quilt, and another white bedspread. I also have a down-alternative comforter that I need sometimes. But, it takes up a lot of storage space. Since I only need it sometimes, I'm thinking if washing it up and donating it. I can get myself a twin sized comforter instead. It will store better and during the winter it can just be folded at the end of the bed. Thoughts?

My posting difficulties seem to be over. So strange!

CM, I'm happy to hear that you are getting time for your writing, and exercising, and clearing things out of your space - a Christmas tree and a mattress - wow!

Everything going on at your house sounds so productive!

Tatoulia, I hope things are going well with your sister.

My sale went well. I was just a little bit short of my goal. I did not sell Tatoulia's favorite pot (which would have put me over, that's how close I came, so - a good sale) the sale is always a yardstick of the economy - people were buying, but mostly low end stuff. $20 and down was the sweet spot. In good years people will shop in the $25-$40 range and we will sell more high end pieces. I did sell 2 items over $50. I sold all but 4 flying pigs. Since I make them in batches of 9 (for firing efficiency) I guessed pretty well!

I only bought six cute little ceramic Christmas trees - a grouping of three for me and two for dd2 and one for ddil. I told dd1 I did not buy her a tree and she said "thank you. If you are feeling like I don't have enough presents you can wrap up a box with a note in it that says ‘ I didn't buy you a tree.'." She is a minimalist living with a hoarder.

I also got tips on a new technique from another potter, some ideas on things to make for my next sale, and a lead on a vendors group that is hopefully getting started soon that I can join for support and education.

I actually came home and unpacked my stuff last night. My focus for this cross quarter is on finishing things.

Dd has the whole week off, so she is bringing Bean over this afternoon. I am spending the morning doing laundry and dishes and cleaning up and getting ready to travel for thanksgiving. - speaking of which, must get going!

Lila, I am still thinking of you - take care of yourself!

Lila, sending you my support and agreeing with SubC.

I have not been able to post because captcha wouldn't load. I changed to private mode and it seems to be ok - ?!

I am mid sale and don't have a lot of time, but I wanted to speak to Lila.

Lila, that is too much. Please, please, if you can, see a counselor. You need some in person support.

I know that you want to help teen, but I don't know if bailing them out would really help. What I do know is that when my friend's son went to prison, the attempts to keep him out ruined her financially. So I am very scared for you.

And my heart is breaking for you. Also, that help sounds terrifying and overwhelming. But the end results could be really good. Not just emotionally, but also if your kids would help fix things and keep the house clean.

But most of all - counselor. Please. This is too much to carry alone.

Have been reading posts - looked at SubC's website - nice stuff, the bright colored ones remind me of Fiesta Ware.

Tatoulia, glad your sister is being of help and companionship to you. Hope this relationship can be a real boost going forward, and a help with your mom's care.

Lila, glad you were able to drop in, but sorry you are dealing with more heavy and sad things. If it works out well with the family moving in though, the company may really help you feel less overwhelmed once they settle in. There will be more tasks to do, of course, but keeping busy with happier things might be better and take at least some of your mind off the difficulties with Teen. I'll pray for all of you, how's that.

Right now, I am at the library doing the NaNoWriMo write in but I already finished my words for my stories - and actually our regional leader said count everything you write so I can add these words to my total, haha.

I am behind in the Nano word count, because for four days I did not get any writing done and it was all because of busyness and days that were chopped into pieces and/or I was tired and just couldn't make use of what segments of time there were. Sometimes I am improving in being able to do that, other times not so much. Still, I never said I was going to attempt to do 50,000 words this November - given the realities of my life it would be madness to put that sort of pressure on myself. As it is, I have been able to start establishing a more regular writing habit, and that is what I truly seek out of all this. Except that I would like it to be even more reliable so that crazy busy life times don't derail me for four days. One or two would be understandable but I didn't like losing four in a row.

What happened was that Wednesday evening into a good part of Thursday there were unexpected and some stressful things happening. Most of it is resolved now but it threw me for a loop. Sudden deadlines for printed flyers and similar items for the bunny club. Roommate's bunny having tummy trouble (he is better now). My laptop attempting to install Windows updates but it led to a Blue Screen of Death again. So frustrating. It is strange why this happens, and I hope I can get with my library techie guy to troubleshoot it soon, before Windows insists on trying again to install the update (you can pause them for a period of time but the clock is ticking...).

The "good" news about the Blue Screen of Death is that this is not my first rodeo with that, and I have still been able to use the computer as I am doing this very moment, plus I had backed up files so that was not a scary thing. Also, I had a chance to do a task that I should have done several months ago but kept forgetting, namely to make a system restore USB drive. It is a secure feeling knowing I have that no matter. Hope I won't need to use it, though.

Tomorrow we have a bunny event and in December another one. And tomorrow morning the bishop will be at our Mass to give Confirmation to some of the kids. That will be nice to see him.

I wish that the weekend was not having several things going on at once and then the run up to the holiday ensuing and miscellaneous - it gets to be too much to keep track of and I was stressing earlier. Our weather is going to change to rainy, and last night roommate and I got the leaves out of the gutters. It was actually easier to do that than it is sometimes, though, because the leaves were dry instead of mucky and stinky as they often are. And now it is done - sigh of relief.

Also got a big old foam mattress thingy out of roommate's office (where it was temporarily stashed) that is going to be going away - took it out to the garage until bulky item trash pickup can be arranged. And she said I could get down this Christmas tree that has been stored in my bedroom, to donate. That will free up some shelf space for me. It will be unwieldy and quite dusty, so I want to be careful and slow getting it down - will bag it before carrying it through the house. Don't need roommate getting sick with allergies.

We are each seeing little projects to do and poco a poco doing them - the fitness days are good so I don't want to worry about the extra time they take because I think in the long run the health and energy gains will offset this initial slowdown. I am tired, could use more sleep, may get a nap tomorrow after bunny event.

I am wondering if my tree frog is nearing the end of his days - in the last couple weeks he has done a much more faint and feeble croaking sound. If he passes away, I will get rid of the terrarium and that will free up the top of a chest of drawers. But it's hard to tell - he may just be tired and semi hibernating. He is, however, at least 18 or 19 years old. That species (White's Tree Frog) can live to be over 20, so... we'll see. Some day down the road I might decide to have a small toad again, in a smaller and lighter setup. Toad setups are easier to deal with than frog ones, because toads can just have a shallow water bowl that you rinse out by hand, and it doesn't require an aquarium pump.

Well, it's only a few minutes until the write in is due to end, so I think I will start packing up my stuff. Many things to do at home. My memory is not so good at the moment due to the quantity of things it needs to remember and the need for more sleep. Lists, lists, lists - and then try not to forget to look at the lists.

Hello friends,

I started reading a bit and will catch up on the rest soon. Just want to give an update. I was working my butt off, then went on the out of country work training for a week, then back playing catch up and adjusting to the massive time change. It was a wonderful trip. But coming home, I was happy to be home but now I am struggling.

I worked all this week and today is my only day off and then I work 12 hours tomorrow. I hope to get 3 days off next week around Thanksgiving and am excited about having family over.

But I am emotionally struggling, and physically too. Maybe I am, daresay, depressed a bit? I feel like crying all the time when I am home and sometimes at work. Teen was arrested and is in custody and calls begging me to bail them out, and I don't know what to do. It could be months. I don't know. And most of my house is destroyed, broken, ruined or cluttered/hoarded. It is extremely depressing. I feel so much better when I am working, most of the time. I get a lot of happiness from my work and I love the people. I come home and feel so alone lately, with Teen in this predicament and I feel like a terrible parent. Even though I am pretty sure I am not, I want things to be different.

I was thinking I need to start going to counseling because it is getting to be too much. But I don't really have time. I don't know.

Good but stressful news is Tot and fam are going to come and move in with me for probably 6 to 12 months. Being introverted, I worry I won't get any alone time, but also I am so excited to have them here to enjoy my family and not be alone and read to the grands at night and stuff.

Tot's Dad has offered to help me declutter and organize so they have space to move in. This is a huge blessing but also I am terrified because, well can you imagine having someone come in and they are ready to get rid of practically everything? And they are in a hurry to get it done and have a truck to haul things away? I feel like I need a month or two to wrap my brain around it, but he is coming next week so I will try very hard to figure out what can go. Tips appreciated.

I will catch up on your posts and look forward to sharing this adventure... hmm.

SubC I studied every pot and every setting. What a beautiful life you live. Truly all of your pots are so lovely. I would have a hard time choosing just one.

Thank you so much for your empathy. I could feel it.

Sister is here! She took cab straight to my mothers from the bus station. Then she came here and I cooked us a simple dinner.

Oh no Tatoulia!

I hope the DD's can take care of that right away! How horrible!

And it would be lovely if your sis ther started helping more.

Thank you for the compliments. I am very proud of the picture of that pot. I am working on taking better pictures of my work and I think I got that one lit and framed well and the background shows off the style.

(The pictures were taken next to the pasture I just rotated the goats out of. You can see my barn and part of my garage in one.)

SubC!!!!!!!!

beautiful work! Lovely! The pot I love most of all is the last pot. Appears to be brown. I love that so much!

The hippos and pig and Dino eggs etc are very sweet and heartwarming. Your work is lovely.

I haven't been here because I had a terrible infection Wednesday night. Half my face blew up like a hard and warm balloon. I writhed in pain all night then called dds in the AM and got antibiotics. It took close to two days before I felt well enough to do anything beyond the basics. It was terrible. I was worried and scared for my mom's cat since I couldn't get over to feed her on Thursday night. My sister offered to come down but the Friday bus was sold out. She's coming this week Thursday to help out with mom. She finally knows what I do for mom and how hard it is for me. I think I mentioned that she came here for mom's birthday. We got along very well. I think she was shocked at how much is required of me.

I have dds tomorrow and yes that's not great and I'm going to see if he will prescribe me antibiotics. I will promise not to take them unless my face starts to swell but I cannot have another night like that. If BF had been here, I would've gone to the ER.

Cm glad to see you are keeping your commitment to go to the gym! And great job working on your supplies!

Will be in touch soon. I'm continuing to reduce and have taken another bag to car for goodwill!

Good morning!

Yesterday I finished the wet work I had planned for my sale.

We did not go to the concert because Dh is sick and has a sniffly nose. He is still going to play golf today though - he tested negative for Covid.

I have seven little bowls that I glazed the outside of with a white glaze I use for feather prints. Before I load the kiln today I need to do their insides in red, green, and yellow. I have one more bisque load to fire, and then six more pigs and a bunch of little hippos (however many I get done) to glaze before the show. Also a lot of pots to wax.

Yesterday I also made a website. I'm not going to ship anything, so I will use it to let people know when I have a sale coming up, or if they want to contact me after a show. I made a new email to go with it, so I will make new business cards that don't have my personal information on them. It's very basic right now, with just a few pictures. I don't know if this forum will let me post the address, but I will try if you want to see a few of my pots (it isn't advertising because I'm not shipping.)

I need to get better at taking photos.

https://roots-and-wings-farm.square.site/

All the usual housework is still calling for my attention.

CM, I think those were good choices.

And I am very happy for you about the scanner!

I did not get more pumpkins today because the guidance counselor was sick.

Yesterday I worked mostly on pottery but did eat some of the peppers.

I also "cleaned up" the five empty pizza boxes by weeding part of the raspberry bed, laying them out around the plants, and covering them with mulch. The weather was so unseasonably nice!

More pottery and peppers and a concert with Dh tomorrow.

SubC, I like pumpkins, autumn leaves, cornucopias, turkeys, and much more for November! You go girl! People in my neighborhood started putting Christmas decorations up very shortly after Halloween. z enjoy Christmas lights as much as the next person but it is TOO EARLY. Give each season its own focus!

Yesterday I went out with my former roommate and we hit several stores - but I was not frivolous. I got three pairs of much needed jeans that fit me at the Goodwill (the one out further that has a better selection). I bought a gift for a baby shower this Saturday, shampoo and supplements and misc. ordinary stuff like that. And...

I bought the scanner I've had my eye on! I've just been trying it out on my dad's old Air Force photos and it works great - fast and with good resolution. And it's so lightweight - I can sit here at the computer with the scanner on my lap and get a lot done. This will make the winter evenings more purposeful and let me clear out a lot of backlog of physical items I've been wanting to put into electronic form.

Haven't gotten much writing done for 2-3 days though with all the running around. But little things that are accomplishments, I guess I need to be glad about those. The scanner will help break up a lot of logjam over time, and I'll catch up on the writing soon. And the main decluttering is picking up because of these encouraging developments.

Good morning.

CM, great job decluttering craft supplies and sticking to your gym commitment!

I went downstairs last night and found a handful of beads to use right away and I was instantly reminded that a handful of beads is an unnoticeable amount to remove from my craft hoard. But, I am using them.

I slept until 5:45 this morning, so progress is happening there.

My plan for today is a slow and steady March through pottery, peppers, lesson plans, and cleaning up the house.

The back of my car is full of pumpkins sent home from decorating the school. They are still pretty, but apparently pumpkins are not for November, so they have been sent for my chickens to eat. I like pumpkins in November, so they will grace my porch until they have been consumed one at a time. The guidance counselor is bringing me her pumpkins tomorrow.

I'll have to catch up more, perhaps tomorrow. Basically I've just been busy a lot because roommate and I have been faithful to the 2x a week gym commitment, which involves a fair amount of other schedule shifting. I have lost approximately 4 pounds. I'm also sort of doing NaNoWriMo, hooking up with the locals and writing plus writing on my own.

And I did a bit of decluttering today of craft supplies for the bunny club. Have an inspiration about how to make some items via a quicker method than hand painting, using vector graphics and the library's Cricut machine and vinyl cutouts. The items are low price point to justify the time they would take to hand paint. Plus I just don't want to, too much on my plate these days. Feasibility study to commence, e.g., I'll talk to my helpful library people about it.

More later!

Good evening.

My headache hung around all day, so I decided to skip my pottery class. Dh says he has a headache, a sore throat, and chills. I was cold all day yesterday. Today I am having hot flashes. No fever, just hot flashes. Ni managed to have a decent school day anyway.

I dropped the recycling and that bag of trash.

My order of 120 fancy hooks for flying pigs came in the mail. (I was down to my last 9 hooks). The old hooks had beads on the end and these do not, but I have a lot of beads and my plan is to glue some to the hooks. I couldn't find any that already had beads.

I made myself a healthy dinner and used four peppers. Now I am waiting for a chocolate cake to come out of the oven because I really wanted chocolate cake and instead of eating Halloween candy, I made one. (From scratch) I'm proud of myself.

I am so sorry for your mom. I know this must be a scary time for her.

The good news for the school board is that the centrist is an experience teacher - so maybe she can get enough people to work together. There are a total of six members, but we only elect three at a time.

The makeup of the school board will be tough, SubC.

Good work on the peppers! And yay for making a balanced choice on the expired sunscreen and lotions.

Off to work today.

Harrowing day with my mother yesterday. I feel so badly for her.

Good morning

I won't get into politics here, but I have mixed feelings about my election results.

The one that really has me scratching my head is the school board. We had 5 candidates for three openings, so you could vote for three. One would expect the most moderate candidate to get the most votes (true) and then either the other two more centrist candidates or a shift toward one side or the other.

Nope. We got the one left wing candidate and the extreme right wing candidate. I think a lot of people just voted for the one most extreme candidate on their side.

Yesterday I pulled all the peppers off of the plants in the basement, tossed the plants, and washed the sheet they were on. I also sorted through the peppers in the kitchen and gave the chickens a bowl that were going by, and I bagged up expired sunblock and lotions to throw out. I am not going to try to wash and recycle the plastic containers. I need to put an end to that hanging over my head. - curb toy offset.

I am still waking at 4 a.m. and my head aches.

Correction: Last paragraph is the comfort and inspiration!

I found great comfort in your last sentence. Will save it.

Good morning! I woke up really early today. I am struggling with the time change. I wish we could throw daylight savings time out the window.

good job on your errands and on avoiding the post office Tatoulia! And thank you for the congratulations. It did feel good.

Today the most important thing I have to do is vote.

Today is also the cross quarter. The actual astronomical cross quarter that all the imperfect calendars aim at - Halloween, All Souls' Day, Samhain, day of the dead, Diwali, it's strange to me that Samhain is the only pagan one that got pegged to a date.

Anyway, it is the beginning of winter. A time for drawing in and drawing down. Finishing things. Rest and focusing on warmth and comfort, family and friends, but also endings and letting things go. 44 days left in the solar year.

Congratulations on tripling your sales goal, SubC! That must've felt great! I forgot to tell you that earlier but I was definitely feeling it!

I ran to the store and bought the cat food that my cat is insisting upon. She gobbles up a certain flavor of fancy feast. She doesn't even notice that I crush up her thyroid pills in it. I forgot my phone (which is where I carry my credit cards) so I could only buy so much due to limited cash. I got the trash out and changed kitty's box. I visited mom then went to my car to carry home some of the groceries I bought on Saturday. I skipped going to the post office earlier today because I figured out how to pay BF's condo fee on line. So I did a lot. Right now I'm washing my delicates. I've showered so as soon as laundry is done, I can hang it up and go to bed.

Dentist tomorrow. It's okay. Only one appt this week.