I'm an extreme introvert. Toss in some shyness and some social anxiety. Yep, that's me!

I love open space. I do not want humans in my bubble. My bubble is pretty big. I'd rather not talk to you... but if you want to type or write, I'm all for it!

Tag: april

Yep, I'm crazy for horses!

I graduated college with a BS in Equine Science... nope, I didn't go into the business: the summer jobs I had taught me that working with horses is extremely hard work for little pay. :) But I would not have done it any other way, my misdirected schooling got me where I am, and I'm quite happy here.

I do sometimes miss riding horses. I rode dressage, and enjoyed it. But now that I'm vegan, I know it's wrong to enslave a fellow earthling.

So these days, I occasionally draw horses but that's the extent it.

Tag: april

The baby guinea pigs are now 2 weeks old. They are definitely the picture of cuteness! Still no names, yet, but I am pretty sure the Big One is female and the Little One is male. We've got a vet appt next week to be sure.

Taking care of guinea pigs is part of my activism for animals. Guinea pigs, as a species, have been so abused by humans that their name is synonymous with experimentation. It is part of my mission in life to love and care for them.

And the gardening...

We have had a Community Garden plot since 2009. I still don't consider myself a "real" gardener... I just pretend: I'm mostly there for the photo opportunities, but I'm happy to get a few zucchini and sun gold cherry tomatoes out of the deal as well! :)

The Community Garden is about a mile away, and right on the bike path that follows the creek which runs near my home. It's a lovely walk, and I go out to the garden most every weekend all through the winter. During the spring and summer, I usually have to drive there because I've got baby plants or tools or compost.

Our "go to" veges that we plant every year are: Sun Gold cherry tomatoes, Zucchini, Lemon Cucumbers, Sweet Potatoes, Butternut Squash. We do have some Strawberry plants, but only get a handful of strawberries every year. After that, we experiment with new veges every year.

I practice Veganic gardening, for the most part. That means Organic (no pesticides, organic starts and seeds) and Vegan (no animal-based compost, no attempts to kill slugs or other critters).

The only non-vegan thing I do is the very occasional vermicompost: We've got a worm bin at home... keeping and using worms as pets is not vegan, but it helps the earth so much I think the "end justifies the means"... but I am quite ambivilent about it.

We started this year's garden Today! I don't have very good luck planting seeds, so we usually buy most of our veges as seedlings from Saturday Market. Today we got Snap Peas, Cauliflower and a new experiment Cherokee Lettuce.

I'm looking forward to warmer weather so we can fill up our space with plants and flowers!

Tag: april

Life is a hard battle anyway. If we laugh and sing a little as we fight the good fight of freedom, it makes it all go easier. I will not allow my life's light to be determined by the darkness around me.
~ Sojourner Truth

I am a human rights activist. I do my best to Fight the Good Fight of Freedom for everybody on the planet. My activism through letter writing and postcard sending is an important part of my life.

I am a letter writer for Amnesty International's Urgent Action Network. It's been a while since I've been super active: I used to take on an Urgent Action every weekend. These days, I am not quite so dedicated: I'm writing one case a month.

And I take on other mailing campaigns, as I see them: I've sent postcards for the blitz to Betsy DeVos to #DefendPublicEducation and I sent a bunch of postcards for the The Ides of Trump.

Tag: april

I discovered Project Gutenberg in 1997 or 98. I think the first book I read on my computer was Alice in Wonderland... or maybe it was The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. I read both, early on and it was the combination of two of my loves: books and computers!

I bought a Palm handheld device, at some point. I loved that thing! I could read old Gutenberg books, or buy new books from Fictionwise (now defunct). Plus I could play Sudoku and an awesome pinball game.

Eventually the battery went out. Instead of fixing it, I bought an Amazon Kindle. Which I'm still reading today, even though it has a couple of micro cracks in the screen and is slow as dirt. :)

When I bought the kindle, the deal I made with myself was that I would only have one (bought and paid for) book at a time. If anything else came up while I was reading my one, I would get the free sample.

This worked brilliantly for years!

I have still bought more than I can read of the dead-tree books. But my digital collection has remained manageable. I had tons of free samples, but just the one book I'm currently reading.

Until recently.

I signed up for this stupid Daily Deal thing at GoodReads. And, as I mentioned before: "A curse on those Daily Deals. The book is 2$! Today Only! and I meant to read it some day, anyway."

Lordy. And, the bought-but-unread books are piling up on my Kindle as well as in real life. But at least I'm not paying 10+$ for these books I might not ever read! *giggles*

The kindle, with some dead-tree books I've read recently.

Tag: april

Drawing is one of those random things I like to do, except, like blogging, it seems to only happen in concentrated daily challenges like this one. I usually do my daily drawing challenge in November.

(ha, I just remembered I ran out of time to upload all my drawings from last november! Need to do some scanning and pre-date a few more blog entries, I guess.)

Anyway. I usually do a half-decent job when I draw... as in you can mostly tell what it is I'm drawing! And drawing is a skill and I can easily improve, just by practicing every day. Thing is, I've got a million other projects that I work on every day as well. Just have to let some stuff go.

Tag: april

I have had a very happy relationship with computers since my Dad got a TRS-80 when I was a kid! I eventually minored in Computer Science at university. I got As and Bs, but the programming classes were more difficult... school stuff came pretty easily for me, so it was a surprise when I actually had to think.

I never wanted a computer job, because I knew if I worked on or with computers all day I would not want to play with the computer on my own time.

But every once in a while, I do think I want to try with the programming again. I'll buy a new book about some random language, and then I will realize I don't have time to read the hefty book, let alone learn anything!

ha, but some day I will get bored with my regular books, and I'll dig out one of those old programming books...

Tag: april

I love reading!

And Birds are cool too. Sometimes I read books about birds. The biggest reason why I like birds, is because they are almost always available to be photographed! Even when you don't have a bird feeder. :)

But this post is actually about books. I have a terrible habit of buying more books than I can read. I'm not sure of the exact count, but I'm positive that I have 60 or 70 books here, that I've bought but haven't yet read. Yeah, there are piles of books all over the place!

Including on my kindle! A curse on those Daily Deals. (The book is 2$! Today Only! and I meant to read it some day, anyway!) (Arg!)

Haha!

One of my piles. These are some of the books I got for xmas. A couple of the books, I have read. Most I have not! There are three bird books in this pile. :)

Tag: april

Before Piper was brought to the local humane society, she was kept with a male guinea pig. uh huh.

Greenhill Humane Society fostered Piper for a month, and there were multiple vet appointments before she was up for adoption. Her last ultrasound was on 14 feb, "Rechecked abdominal ultrasound... Unlikely to be pregnant, ok for adoption."

Well, yeah. Humane Society people were very confident and I totally assumed they knew what they were talking about!

But last thursday, I came home from the day job, spent some time with Piper and realized she was very pregnant. I could see a very active fetus on her left side, and a more relaxed fetus on the right side of her tummy. and more fetuses hanging out underneath? eek!

I looked up Guinea Pig gestation -- 70 days -- and did the math. If Piper got pregnant on the very morning that she was brought in to the humane society, the babies would be born on sunday 26 march. That gave me a time-line to work with.

Basically, SOON!!!!

ha. I worried as Piper got more round every day. And more round!

Finally: Friday 24th of March, around noon. Two babies born!!!

I am so surprised and amazed that there are just the two. It means that I have meet and become acquainted with both before they were born!

It took a couple of minutes, but soon I could tell who was the active baby, who I had called a "tap dancer" as a fetus, from the smaller, relaxed baby, who just stretched every once in a while inside Piper. Tap Dancer is much bigger, and the stretcher is practically a runt.

They are quite adorable. In all my years of taking care of guinea pigs, I've never had to care for babies, so this is new and wonderful and terrifying and anxiety producing for me!

Tag: march

Thanks to one of my friends over at GoodReads, I am going to attempt another month of daily blogging. The Blogging from A to Z Challenge sounds do-able and fun... Every day's topic is to begin with each letter of the alphabet. So rather than an infinite number of topics I could be typing about, I'll be more limited and hopefully not as overwhelmed! :)

So. Art. Yeah, capital "A" art!

Yep, I love Art. But this post is actually about me. I am an Artist. I don't throw that word around lightly, but I definitely own it.

I am a photographer and I share my photos with the world: here on my web site and on the postcards that I send out.

I am not a professional and I have never made money on my art. I don't have to worry about such things because I have a decent day job which pays me a living wage. That's not to say I'm opposed to making money on photos, I'm just not interested in it right now. And I don't consider money to be an indicator of my success.

Success, to me right now, is simply knowing that I've brought a smile to someone's face when they are standing at their mailbox. :)

P.S. I do not have comments enabled here on the blog. I just don't have the time to maintain them. If you wish to say something to me, my email and my PO box are listed in the sidebar on the right. Happy Day, rift

P.P.S. Another good "A" word, that I felt bad about passing by: Abecedarian

And Another Thing: I have Announcements to make, which I will be typing soon and post-dating. They'll be at the top of this page in the next day or so!

Tag: april

My partner and I have adopted Piper the guinea pig!

"The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" is my favorite chapter in The Wind in the Willows and I love the name Piper. I think she is named appropriately: her webpage at the humane society mentioned that she's talkative, and loves to sing!

Piper is about 6 months old. Her intake papers make me sad. This is the paperwork filed out by the previous "caretaker" who surrendered her to the humane society. They list her name as Brown. Sighs, that's not a name. That's not even a description, since she's yellow and white.

And "How often is your pet handled?" Not Multiple times per day, and Not Daily... but weekly. Which probably means less. Sad, because she is very friendly. Definitely not "shy" or "timid", which is almost a joke.

And her "Problem Behaviors" are "Chewing" and "Escape Artist"... *giggles* I wonder if they kept her in a cardboard box!!!

(In case you don't know, guinea pigs and all rodents are SUPPOSED to chew! Their teeth grow continually and they have to chew hard things like wood to wear them down. Trimming their teeth is a routine procedure at your veterinary appointments.)

Here's Piper at home, accessing the escape possibilities. ;)

Tag: march

Today's outgoing mail included a postcard protest directed at the Department of Education.

I'm looking forward to the big postcard protest of the 15th of March...
The Ides Of...

There is a mailing campaign aimed at the US White House for the Ides of March...

And I intend to participate and inundate!!!

I made a postcard which I am offering as a free download. The PDF has two single-sided postcards on letter sized paper. Print it up on card stock at Actual Size and cut it on the crop marks to create two 4x6inch postcards.

Write your comments on the back. Put a Postcard or Forever Stamp on the front... 34¢ is all that is required. Then mail on 15 March 2017.

Free Printable: #TheIdesOfTrump postcard

Tag: february, mailings

I guess I forgot to post anything here, last weekend... Yeah, that uploading a photo every day is going Great, isn't it??! haha!

So this week, I've been working on the february postcards for the postcard group I host. I like to send a postcard to everyone who participates. It was a fun and joyful thing to do when the group was small. Last year, the monthly exchanges hit 50 and 60 participants, which was more difficult: I would spend hours every evening for most of two weeks writing postcards. I enjoyed it, but it was taking over my life!

This year, the group is up over 70 players every month. I've simplified my process by typing my message on the postcards instead of writing. It has helped immensely. It's not as personal, but I can type a lot more since I can reduce the font size. And of course, things go much more quickly now. We are back to having fun and joy again!

Here's a pic of my work space as I'm cutting up the 2nd half of the postcards...

As I cut out each postcard, I arrange them by country. I send out International postcards first since it takes them a bit longer to get to where they're going.

When I cut up the USA postcards, I arrange them by zip code so I can send to the east coast first, which is the furthest away. Closest locations -- California, Oregon and Washington state -- are sent last and only take a day or two of travel time.

Before I printed all the postcards, I did stress a bit about the wordage I was typing. When I was hand-writing my postcards, I would practice what I wanted to say and my words would change as I edited myself. And that doesn't happen when I'm typing my words. I guess in the future, I need to actually write my stuff a few times over before I go to the computer to type it!

It's a big project, and I love it. The people are wonderful and kind and I always enjoy conversing with them... both online and in the post!

Tag: february, mailings

Haha! So much for taking pics of my mail every day! (I've not posted anything here for a week.) Truth be told, I got bored of the pics because I was only sending one or two postcards every day last week. And I ran out of time to get creative with the backgrounds.

So, here is what I worked on this weekend, with the standard boring background... tho I do like the Copic markers as props! :)

Sending on Monday: 4 letters
One to a friend, one swap-bot notecard
and two swap-bot "Interest Me in a Book" notes

Oh, and I love to use digital paper as belly bands when I send standard letter-size paper in the US#10 envelope... You can't see it in the pic, but the brownish dot paper is very beautiful and is included in this set, made by my friend Linda at Happy Print Club: Tea Time Stationery Printables. And yes, there's tons of free printables on the Internets... but I prefer to support artists, financially!

Tag: february, mailings

I cut up a couple world maps to make a bunch of postcards this past weekend. They came out amazingly well! I put 11 of them in the this morning's mail.

Also Sent: 2 welcome postcards
+ 2 letters
= 15 total bits of mail today!

Sent: 3 welcome postcards

Sent: 1 condolence card

sighs. Last year I lost track of how many condolence cards I sent. And this year is starting out the same. This is the second sympathy card I've sent this year, already.

It's a hard thing to do. It's sad and there is nothing you can say on a card that will help. But, believe me, it is very very important that you write and send something!

Tag: february, mailings

Sent: 1 GR Welcome PC
+ 1 Swap-Bot PC

Sent: 1 GR Welcome PC

Yay Mail! and Yay Month of Letters!

Okay, so you know the State of the Blog is "way behind"... so what is the State of the Postcards?? Well, there's good. and bad. and normal.

Good: I got a slow start at the beginning of the month because I was not feeling well... but I am catching up big time and am on track to have a regular month. During a regular month, I send out about 130 postcards and notecards! Yay Mail!

Bad: I am very behind on my mail log. What's involved here? I scan my incoming mail and type it into my mail log and then postcards need to be registered with certain websites. I'm still dealing with december mail, here! ack!

And Normal: xmas Thank You notes, not written yet. Probably won't be sent until March or so! haha! yep. this is normal.

My letter writing work space in Dec when I was writing Amnesty International protest letters for Write for Rights. I thought the Star Trek stamps were appropriate! and I'm still decorating my envelopes with my Wide markers.

Tag: january, mailings

Well. um. Happy New Year!

I have had some creative down time... I never completed the posts for my daily drawing month in November, I didn't post again after that, and, most importantly, I did not post my annual First of January "year in review".

I've been doing a Jan 1st post for about a million years, and this is the first time I've ever missed it!

My Excuses: I got busy. Then I got busy with the holidays. And then I got sick with a bad and lingering flu.

I'm feeling better now, so, here's the plan... I will fill in older posts as I get the time. I will back date them, but I will post them here on this page in the order that I type them.

I have deleted the rest of this page in order to encourage my participation in this plan: it looks kind of empty around here, doesn't it??! Look! You can see the bottom of the page! hello, rift?! Type something, rift!!!

*laughs*

for Inauguration Day:
I stand on the side of LOVE.

Looking down at an Egret in the Rain.

Tag: january