Crafty Cousins

The Krafty Cuzzins have now become the Crafty Cuzzins. More visually alliterative.

Today was scheduled to be Cousins Day, but Peach's husband slashed his right hand open the other day (he's right handed) while helping them get ready for the craft show and has 12 stitches. Peach really didn't want to go off and leave him alone.

Instead the three of us got together at Peach's house, where we started working on a web site for The Crafty Cuzzins. In the wake of the disappointing results of the craft fair, they have lots of inventory to sell and are eager to get into making more and hope to get a following. I also suggested that they make a video where they could show how to put the baskets together, for those who can't quite visualize it.

When I first arrived, Kathy's daughter Karen was there with 4 month old Brandon. I got a little wistful watching Grandma playing with her grandson, realizing that Bri is now a toddler and how distance prevented me from having this kind of playtime with her when she was this age.

They grow up so fast. It sucks to live so far away.

We spent a lot of time admiring Brandon, who laughed and chuckled and enjoyed being tossed around. 3-4 months is my very favorite baby age, and I think we missed it entirely in Bri's life because we didn't manage to get down to Santa Barbara.

Peach and Bob's two dogs were particularly interested in this strange little alien.

Anyway, after Karen and Brandon left, we got to work on the web site and on making a video where Peach and Kathy demonstrate how the baskets go together. You can see the video on the left there, and the web site is under construction, but the shell of it is visible at http://craftycuzzins.com. I will be working on adding things to it over the coming week, but take a look and give me feedback.

I'm trying to decide right now if they need PayPal or not, or if people can simply send them an e-mail to order and pay by check, while they are trying to decide if they will have enough business to justify taking it to the next level.

Right now they are just selling the bread baskets (and now they can make matching napkin-shaped baskets too) and acrylic coasters that they made. Soon they'll be adding this cool little basket that they are in the process of making.

This is a small bowl, but will be part of a set of (3?) nesting bowls, probably not available before Christmas (but what do I know--I don't even sew buttons!)

Anyway, whether the web site is actually FINISHED or not, the shop is now open and if anybody is interested in buying any of the baskets, as some said they might be, feel free to write to Peach and place an order. There are lots available for immediate sale!

PS--I Love You

Ben Willmore is homeless.

Well...not exactly homeless, but three years ago he bought a 40 foot touring bus bus, sold 95% of his household possessions and bought camera gear, and started traveling around the country, taking great photos, editing them with PhotoShop, and teaching classes in PhotoShop.

In his time (thus far) he has taught over 80,000 Photoshop users, authored numerous award-winning books and was inducted into the PhotoShop Hall of Fame.

Today he gave a seminar at the Sacramento Community Center ... and I was there.

Actually, this was the second of Willmore's seminars that I've attended, and my third seminar hosted by NAPP (The National Association of Photoshop Professionals). His seminar three years ago was my first. I remember feeling so jazzed when it was over. He spent an awful lot of time working on "curves," a function of PhotoShop that up to that point I had never understood.

I went home from that seminar understanding Curves for the very first time. Ben made it so easy I couldn't understand why I hadn't seen it before. Then I sat down at my computer and tried putting what I thought I had learned into practice and was right back at square one...but I have since worked with it and while I still don't understand Curves, at least I know better what I'm trying to do!

I really enjoyed last year's seminar too, though it wasn't designed for what I wanted to do with PhotoShop. It was given by a PS artist, who creates photos from scratch using PS. Spectacular pictures with amazing effects all created in PS. I learned a lot from him, finally joined NAPP and looked forward to my whopping discount for this year's seminar, as a NAPP member.

When I saw that this year's seminar was going to focus on photographers rather than artists, I was thrilled and signed right up. Today was the day. As I have in all the other seminars, I came awayso jazzed about everything. I want to go out and do light painting.

There were several things that went on today that made it all worthwhile. For one thing, I was amazed at how much I already knew. There were several techniques that he taught that made people in the audience gasp and go "oooooo" collectively...and I realized that I'd been doing those things for a long time.

But there were other little tricks that he showed that solved two of my biggest frustrations with PhotoShop....if they will work for me when I try them.

I missed Peggy so much today. One of the best things about being with her was that we were both learning PhotoShop and excited about all the new things we'd learned. It was she who taught me about the "healing brush" tool, which significantly changed my work on almost every photo I take in PhotoShop. I wanted to be able to turn to her today and say "did you see THAT?" and have us rush off to our own computers to try out all the new stuff.

But she's not here, and there is nobody I know who is excited about PhotoShop, so I'll just take my workshop book and see if I can remember all the good stuff I learned in the seminar today.

As I believe I posted to Facebook at least three times today--I just love all this stuff!

Pigs and Primadonnas

Not that I needed one, but I think I have developed an eating machine. It has 12 legs, 3 mouths and is focused 100% of the time on food.

It's no wonder these puppies have grown so big. They will eat anything and everything and are constantly on the hunt for More Food. They have turned this house into a canine version of Little Shop of Horrors.

This makes feeding the primadonas in the family very difficult.

I guess maybe it's the return from daylight saving time to to normal time, but the puppies are demanding to be fed somewhere between 4 and 5 a.m. these days. I think if there were only ONE of them this would not be the case but they feed (pun intended) off each other's demands. One wakes up, perhaps thinks "Feed Me," and comes to find me. If I'm lucky, I will be blissfully asleep. Puppy will whine and perhaps paw at my leg. I will ignore him. BUT, the noise and the activity will wake the other two, so rather than be discouraged and go back to sleep, now I have THREE puppies jumping and pawing on me until all hope of staying asleep is gone and I get up to feed them.

Now here is the problem. I feed them and they dive into the bowl (knocking half the food on the floor as I try to get it to the floor because they haven't eaten in like three hours and are about to die on the spot this very minute if they don't get fed), inhale whatever I've given them, and are finally happy and may actually go back to sleep. But it's 4 a.m. Dexter, who used to eat breakfast with the bigger pups, kind of looks up bleary eyed and says "you've gotta be kidding me. It's the middle of the night!" and, sensibly, goes back to sleep. Sheila and Lizzie, who are in the other room don't even bother to wake up because it's like, you know, FOUR FRICKIN' A.M.!

But peace is momentarily restored. Puppies have full tummies and are happy. And sleepy. And except for the fact that they all want to sleep on me, we are all happy and go back to sleep, except me, because by this time I have one puppy on my face, one with his butt end aimed at my face, and one clawing my legs trying to figure out how to climb into the chair to get with the other three who are already there.

But that's OK because it's cold in the morning and at least I am warm, if not able to sleep and we all finally settle in usually until Walt comes downstairs.

Now Walt, being up in a bed behind a closed door AND a gate that keeps the dogs off the steps, has had a nice night of sleep and by the time he comes downstairs there is actually light in the sky and this is a good thing.

All the dogs run to the stairs and he sits down and greets them one by one. Sheila and Lizzie yawn and stretch and get their morning skritches and then go outside to do their morning business and then they look at me and say "OK. Where's my breakfast?"

By this time Dexter, too, has come awake and, not having had any food when the other puppies ate, is ready for breakfast too.

Lizzie has always been the worst dog to feed, but when there are no puppies here, it's OK. Lizzie would do well with feeding on demand, always having food available that she can snack at throughout the day, because she leaps and leaps and leaps and comes to get me if she's hungry, standing behind my office chair and putting her paws on my shoulders. "Hey, remember me? It's time to FEED ME." She does an impatient little dance while she's waiting for the food, but you put it in her bowl and apparently she didn't want to actually EAT it, she just wanted to LOOK at it for awhile. You'd think I'd arranged it decoratively and put a sprig of parsley in the bowl for her to admire.

But of course, the 4 a.m. puppies are now awake again and ready to attack anything that smacks of FOOD so they dive into the bowl while Lizzie stands by and watches, in disbelief, as her breakfast disappears. You'd think that by now she'd know that was going to happen, but it seems to surprise her every morning. I try to wrest the bowl away from the puppies while there is still food in it, hoping to sneak it to her when they are busy elsewhere.

In the meantime, Sheila, the only really nice dog around here these days is very patiently waiting for HER food in the other room. I take a scoop full of food and pour it in her bowl and Dexter, who has been aced out of Lizzie's bowl by the other puppies, tries to sneak in a bite of Sheila's.

Sheila is a lovely dog and a wonderful dog, but nothing comes between her and her food, so she growls her loud, scary "I'm not kidding...get out of here, kid" growl at Dexter, who thinks that he is about to have his head bitten off and runs screaming and trembling and won't stop screaming until I pick him up and comfort him.

(I'm now thinking that Sheila may have done
a bit more than just growl at Dexter)

So now I have three dogs who have had two breakfasts and two dogs who have had NO breakfast. If I put Dexter in the playpen, as I used to do, with food that he can have without interference from the other dogs, he feels he's being punished and he cries to get out and completely ignores the food. I'm not nearly as concerned about Lizzie who could stand to lose a few pounds and I figure if she doesn't eat this morning she'll eat tonight, when I feed all six together.

And the puppies have now had too much food to eat, but it's like trying to herd sheep to get them away from Lizzie's bowl. They are getting much too strong, especially when working as one body.

The only good thing about their voracious appetites is that they will do anything for peanutbutter, so the pills that they are taking this week go down without any problem at all, deeply imbedded in peanut butter. Give them a glop of peanut butter and they think they've died and gone to heaven--and then spend the next five minutes licking each other's mouths to make sure they get every single bit of peanut butter they can.

I love these dogs, in an "I hate you this morning" kind of way (let's not even talk about last night!). But it's definitely time for the puppies to have their own homes.

Pigs and Primadonnas from Bev Sykes on Vimeo.

Krafty Cuzzins

In a way I kind of feel a little bit guilty,but it's not really my fault. Honest!

Some time ago, Peach and Kathy, the creative wing of Cousins Day, decided to pool their talents and go into the craft business. They both cross stitch beautifully and had some really beautiful projects they wanted to work on that they thought would sell well at a craft fair and make them some money for Christmas. They started a business called Krafty Cuzzins.

Every time we went to Cousins Day, Kathy would drive to and from my mother's and Peach would sit in the back doing her cross stitch.

Then Jeri and I went to Europe.

I had a great time shopping for gifts in France and one of the things I brought back from Arles was a bread basket for my mother. I wrote about this before.

You can see it up there in the right hand corner. The thing lies flat for storage but when you tie up the four corners, you have this great little bread basket. Kathy leaped on that thing and decided she could figure out how to make it and that it would be a great craft project, since she was getting burned out on cross-stitch.

At our next Cousins Day, she had a prototype to show us. She was so excited about how they were coming out and how much she was enjoying making them.

She was particularly excited about it because every time she showed a basket to someone, they liked it so much they bought it and she was afraid she wouldn't have enough time to make the 50 baskets she wanted to make in time for the craft show.

We got all carried away talking about their use beyond just a bread basket. We thought of making up a gift basket for a baby shower present, filling it with powder, rolled diapers, pacifier, rattle and anything else that you would give a prospective mother. Or a sewing basket, a place to keep all your sewing supplies. A nice basket to store your Christmas cards in. We talked about marketing it for the RV-er, since it folds flat so there is no storage problem, and it's both reversible and washable. The uses seemed endless.

I remember that when I talked about the baskets here on my journal back in September I had at least two people write and ask me for information about how they could order a basket.

And so today was the day of the craft fair. Peach and Kathy, and Peach's daughter, had managed to make fifty baskets for the fair. They also had made some very nice framed cross stitch pieces, some coasters, some pepper jelly, some bread-n-butter pickles, and a little book-type thing that you can keep earrings in when you're traveling. And the fifty baskets.

I found them easily enough in the crowd.

As small craft fairs go, it seemed to be a well attended one, though I am no expert in these things. There were lots and lots of tables set up. Peach and Kathy were next to a lady selling blankets, which seemed to be just big pieces of cloth with pieces of fringe cut into it. But she seemed to be selling some because some of the patterns on the cloth were very cute.

The fair started at 9 a.m. and I got there between 9:30 and 10. Peach and Kathy hadn't sold a thing. In fact, hardly anybody had even LOOKED at the display. By the time I left they had dropped the price of the baskets and one woman had bought one. I had bought three of the other things on display, and so by noon, when I left, they had made a grand total of four sales. They were very discouraged....and they had a huge box of bread baskets left over. I don't know if there was a big influx of customers between noon and 2, when it ended, but what they had sold by the time I left would not cover the cost of having a table at the craft fair (to say nothing of the investment in materials and labor making the things!)

It's a shame because they are really high quality baskets, and while I sat there several people seemed to like them. I know for a fact you can buy them at Williams-Sonoma, and they cost more than what Peach and Kathy are selling them for.

So the next step is that I'm going to design a web page for them, including a video on how to put them together and showing possible uses for the basket. We'll get that up, as well as establish a site on Etsy to see if maybe they can get some customers there too.

This all sounded like such a perfect project in September and it's disappointing that it is looking like such a dud in November.

Only 10 Days Left Til Christmas

No, don't go running to your calendars and don't think I've finally gone off the deep end, but if you want to participate in what seems to be a nice program to help make a good Christmas for kids who might not otherwise have a good Christmas, you only have 10 days left. Let me explain, and then at the end of this entry, I want to talk about my guilty feelings about this and about Compassion International.

There are lots of ways to give to underprivileged kids at Holiday time, but I kind of liked this organization that you may have heard of. It's called Samaritan's Purse and the idea is that you fill a shoe box with goodies for children for Christmas. You wrap the box and take it to a drop-off site and it is combined with all the other boxes and they are shipped to children around the world.

This morning I went to give blood (successfully, this time...yay!), then had my hair cut, and then went to the Dollar Store to see how much bang I could get for my bucks. (Ironically I saw my "real" hairdresser down an aisle, and tried to hide so he couldn't see that I had obviously just had my hair cut!)

I had four piles of things in my basket -- one for me (just a pair of Christmas socks, since I don't think I have any to wear this year), one for the Compassion kids (coloring book, stickers, and a puzzle), and then a stack for a young boy and one for a young girl.

You really can get a lot for a little amount of money. I bought coloring books, crayons (64 pack, not that cheap 8 pack!), Christmas pencils, warm gloves, kid-patterned tooth brushes, brightly colored bandaids, bubble soap, kazoos, and Christmas candy for both boxes. Then I got a little car, ball, and Spiderman digital watch for the boy and a little stuffed puppy (of course), and headbands for a little girl. I will add more things after I fill a shoebox and see how much room is left over.

I wanted to do this last year, but by the time I found out about it, it was too late.

This is, of course, a non-denominational Christian group which is running this program, as is the group which runs Compassion International.

I got my second letter from Fred, in the Philippines, yesterday and I must admit to feeling some guilt about the whole "Christian" thing. One thing that is stressed over and over again is how important our sponsorship is in the Christian development of our sponsored children and we are always encouraged to pray for our kids and to encourage them to go to church.

Well, my problem is that I believe there is a supreme being, who may be God or may be Allah or may be Buddha or may be Mork from Ork (or is more probably "S/he who has no name" because I also believe that s/he has no gender either!)

I believe there is more to existence than this one life and I believe there is an afterlife. I have to hang onto that because I'm determined to ground Dave and Paul for all eternity for being so stupid (tho s/he who has no name may have already taken care of some sort of "Stupidity Consequence" by now).

But the last time I actually prayed was after Gilbert died. I took his relatives to lunch in Chinatown, dropped them off at the restaurant, parked across the street from my favorite Catholic church in San Francisco and stopped in to say a prayer for him. I don't think I've officially prayed since, though I may have said words in unison with other people when the time was appropriate.

I feel I am a spiritual person, but I've had such problems with organized religions -- lots of them. So I don't go to church, and I don't create an alternate church-like "thing" that I do on a regular or irregular basis to ritualize any sort of worship of a higher power. I just try to live a good life, do what I can when I can do it, and hope that this is the plan that I'm supposed to be following.

But I do feel like I'm kind of an in-the-closet non-Christian. It's not that I'm a non-Christian. I think there are lots of wonderful people who are Christians, just as there are lots of wonderful Jews and Muslims and atheists, etc. I believe that Jesus lived and died, whether he was actually "god" or simply "god's messenger." I just have not, to use the proper terminology "taken Jesus Christ into my heart as my Lord and Savior." That doesn't mean I haven't unofficially done so. It's just that I haven't had that religious transformation that so many speak about.

But I admire what these missionaries are doing for children in need and I think that they probably need my money more than they need my piety....and you don't see a lot of non church types out there running schools for poor children.

But it makes it feel awkward to speak in "tongues" (as it were) and to answer Fred's mother's question, which was "How's your life for being Christian. What year you've been a Christian?"

I think I'm going to tell her that I was born into a religious family and learned about Jesus in school. And then I'll send Fred a sheet of stickers that I found at the Dollar Store today, which are designed for religion school kids. Think that will work without actually lying about anything?

What Constitutes a "Man"?

On the heels of my "things to be depressed about" entry, I got a note from Peggy yesterday alerting her friends to a very depressing situation in Denmark.

The waters here aren't red from any bizarre climate change or overabundance of marine life that is feeding along the shores. This is the result of human cruelty. I suppose the Danes would not classify it as cruelty, but they slaughter hundreds of the "famous and intelligent" Calderon dolphins.

Apparently this takes place in the Feroe Islands and the main participants in the slaughter are teens. Why? As a right of passage into manhood.

It becomes a big spectator sport.

Quoting from the e-mail, "Is it necessary to mention that the dolphin calderon, like all the other species of dolphins, is near instinction and they get near men to play and interact. In a way of PURE friendship."

"They don’t die instantly; they are cut 1, 2 or 3 times with thick hocks. And at that time the dolphins produce a sound similar to the cry of a new born child."

While I understand (while not exactly condone) a slaughter in order to feed or clothe a family, I don't find anything honorable about mass killings just to prove manhood. If you are as appalled about this situation as I am, there is a web site where you can go to register your outrage.

Psychic Woman

I've mentioned before that over on Flickr, I've been doing this "take a photo a day" project, which I'm now continuing into year 3. After 2+ years of taking your own photo every day, you are desperate for new ideas. In September I discovered that there are actually holidays to be celebrated in this country every single day of the year. Wonderful holidays like National Step in a Puddle and Splash Your Friend Day (January 11), National Garlic Day (April 19), Wiggle Your Toes Day (August 6), etc. It's wonderful reading.

So I've been using my daily photograph to celebrate that day's holiday. Many of them have been fun to work on, with the help of PhotoShop, like this one for "World Smile Day" (October 3)

A couple of days ago was "Increase Your Psychic Powers" Day and I did my best to represent that.

It was the next night when I had the dream I talked about yesterday, which began with my being so depressed that I drove off the road and into a body of water. This morning I'm thinking that maybe I actually did increase my psychic powers, 'cause I sure am depressed this morning.

Maine joins the host of other states where gay marriage has lost by only a few percentage points. How would you like to have only 5% of the population of your state decide whether you can be married or not? Think it can't happen to a nice heterosexual couple like you? How about that judge who decided that he shouldn't marry an interracial couple. Who is next? Maybe some day they'll decide that since the bible refers to left-haned people as "evil," only right-handed people should marry...and my nearly 45 years with Walt will be dissolved. Civil rights should not be up for a vote, or be decided at the whim of someone else.

(Someone is collecting signatures to get a petition on the ballot to outlaw divorce in California. Let's see how serious those right wingers really are about preserving the sanctity of marriage!!)

I'm not listening to the news today. It's all too depressing. I'm one of those who had the audacity to hope and I haven't given up hope yet that Obama can be viewed by history as one of the great presidents, if he manages to follow through on his promises. But we live in an instant gratification society and everyone expected him to "fix everything" overnight. ("it's been a whole week since the inauguration and he hasn't done anything yet!") Remember the Patriot Act? And how aghast we were to discover that this sweeping intrusion into our cherished freedoms was passed without anybody having the opportunity to read it? It is my fervent hope that the slowness with which Obama seems to be doing everything comes from his wanting to get it right. I continue to hope, but talking heads make it difficult.

Then I watched Al Gore on Letterman last night and heard about the continuing erosion of our earth, the probable irreversible death of coral, the animals species which are on the brink of extinction, the island of garbage twice the size of Texas floating in the Pacific ocean, the sinking of the entire country of Bangladesh, and most of humankind's indifference to it all.

One of my blogging students from the other night has started a blog about the conditions in Congo right now. Reading that is also enough to make you depressed. I have friends from Congo who have family there now.

This morning I listened to NBC's financial expert talking about the astronomical rise in interest rates and annual fees that banks have decided to charge and how we are essentially helpless to do anything. Call the banks and protest, but if they ask you for information, don't give any or it can be used against you. Don't start a new charge account because it can show up as a negative on your credit report. Don't stop using credit cards because that can show up as a negative on your credit report. It's the ultimate Catch 22 situation.

No good news ever comes out of the Middle East.

Sometimes it just seems like there is nothing good to live for...and maybe that drive out into the wilderness and into the body of water was prophetic.