Last week I was feeling rather disenchanted with all my projects. I knew I had to do something new and different, in order to get my mojo back. But I had no idea what my new and different thing should be.

I went to bed thinking about it, Friday night, and I woke up thinking about it, Saturday morning. I got nothin'. I didn't want to get out of bed, ever.

And then suddenly it hit me.
Crochet!
Boing!

I literally jumped out of bed and started tearing thru my tubs looking for my favorite crochet hook and some fun string.

I made two dish cloths last weekend. It was exactly what I needed. The thinking time. Keeping my hands busy. And making something.

I'm not sure when I last crocheted, but my last crochet blog entries were posted in 2011. Well, I don't think I will continue crocheting... it was a one weekend deal and now I'm done. I think!

So this week, I am back to my postcard projects. I won't be able to get my letter writing goals attended to before the end of the month like I wanted... but that's okay. I've got some other stuff going on anyway.

Including the Community Garden plot. I've eaten yellow zucchini every day this week for the first time. and today I brought home the first significant haul of Sun Gold cherry tomatoes.

Sun Golds are the yummiest. The first Lemon cucumber is about ¾ grown! And I think we will be overwhelmed with butternut squashes! Oh, and I'm bringing home an occasional beet, as well. I'm not sure how they have organized themselves so perfectly, but one is ready to be pulled up about every other week. Just the one, and that is all. nice!

And... someone else's art, which I noticed on the walk home from the garden...

"Pick up garbage = ♡"

Tag: july, garden, art

July Mail Goals
Greeting Card: may june july
Letters: short short long long short
Postcards: 25 50 75 100

My mailbox is happy most every day, but when I receive a letter from a friend whom I've not heard from in a while, I am especially happy. I've received two such letters recently... but when I went through my records, I realized that I have not sent any such happy letters to others in months! oh dear!

So, I am here making a public statement of my mailing goals for July: Catch up with my Greeting Card project; Write at least four reply letters, two short letters and two long letters; and Keep up my usual postcard pace of about 100 per month...

Sat, 12 Jul 2014 16:28:46 PDT July Mail Goals Greeting Card: may june july Letters: short short long long short Postcards: 25 50 75 100

The community garden plot continues to be awesome... I've been eating zucchini for every meal on the weekends, and I was able to add one week day meal this past week! (I know: soon I'll be sick of zucchini and I'll want to pay people to take them off my hands! ha! meantime, I am enjoying them immensely!)

Ate 3 cherry tomatoes this morning... I wish they would hurry up! Will gather another beet tomorrow. The butternut squash is taking over the plot, it's leaves and vines are covering about 6 square feet (almost 2 square meters) and I'm a little concerned about how many butternut squashes I'm going to have to eat!

And the "Odds & Ends"...

• Green Life, Claymation Sensation: Artist Animates John Muir
  I love the squirrel and the drawing! The sound isn't perfect, but it's a great art video.
• Postcard Happiness
  This is an interesting project, if you are interested in sending a bit of mail.
• I have not added to my art journal! I need some inspiration!

Tag: july, mailings, garden

Yep, we went out to see the fireworks. I had fun, but think next year we'll have to find a new place to watch... The fireworks didn't seem to go up as high this year, and most of the explosions were half hidden by the trees at the bottom of this pic! disappointing!

Plus, I need to remember to study my camera settings before I leave the house! ha. I just guessed on one of the night settings, since this cam doesn't have a specific "fireworks" setting. humph.

And this morning, a trip to the garden...

We've got a baby butternut squash! Ate a couple cherry tomatoes today. And the lemon cucumber plant is finally getting serious about growing. Couple more beets will be ready to pull up maybe next weekend.

And I'll be picking the 4th yellow Gold Rush zucchini tomorrow...

It's a little bit hard to see in the above pic because of the morning sunlight, but that is a volunteer tomato plant on the right! ha!

We had a volunteer tomato plant last year as well, but it didn't amount to much, tho it did make a few tomatoes. This one looks much healthier! It's interesting because the only tomatoes we plant are hybrids, which shouldn't be able to reproduce. But, I guess "Life Finds A Way"! :)

Tag: july, garden

I try to avoid politics, but this thing annoys me so much, I feel I should type something about it.

On Monday, the US Supreme Court ruled that corporations may claim religious rights to be exempt from Obamacare's mandatory coverage for birth control. Basically, Hobby Lobby will not cover certain forms of birth control in the health insurance they provide to their employees.

This is horrifing on so many levels. Not paying for birth control in your health plan? What century do we live in? And then, we are granting ever more individual rights to corporations. And also, it is opening the door a little wider on the "war on women".

bleh.

I am not happy with the Hobby Lobby decision, and I am not proud to live in a country where corporate rights trump the rights of people.

Enough of that. Here is some cuteness relief...

That's Ethel eating some beet greens and Lucy who has snubbed the beet greens and wonders what she's supposed to eat. haha.

Update: 12 July

Thanks to Aimee Dars for the link...

I am supporting this campaign!

Tag: july

It's been over a month since my last post here. I miss this. Typing up a post, and uploading my photos is enjoyable. I should do it more often!

Garden!
The snow peas were not very successful this year, only a couple handfuls were gathered. The beets (a new experiment this year) are good -- three pulled up so far, and a bunch of little ones that still need to grow up! I ate my first (Gold Rush) yellow zucchini today! and the Sun Gold cherry tomatoes will hopefully get going soon. The butternut squash (another first year experiment) is nice and big and thinking about some blossoms.

Mailing Projects
I have managed to fall behind on my personal mailing projects... which is to say, more behind than usual! ha. But I'm working on it this weekend, want to get the "May" postcards out the door. I have abandoned my Amnesty International writing again, and I've not even written any Animal Letters either. Not to mention my LetterMo replies. I guess I was taking a break, but I'm ready to get writing again now!

Art Journal
Decided I should occasionally use some of the art tools I buy! I'm aiming to work in my new blank book once a week. Last Weekend: Copics + Tombows. I think I would like to focus on illustrating some quotes... Mostly working on the lettering. maybe some drawing too?

House Projects
I have been taking a year-long Space Clearing online class. It's going amazingly well. It's amazing because I'm still looking at the daily lessons! I typically start ignoring online classes after two weeks, and here I am, still going strong six months into the class! ha!

Little things, here and there, get cleaned or taken care of. With house stuff, I have learned to ask for help and my partner has done some amazing things around here. My big goal, tho, is to take care of the piles in my bedroom. well... the best I can say about that is that it hasn't gotten much worse. *shakes head* At least I'm on the path!

Tag: june, garden, mailings

Last weekend, we bought some vege starts at Saturday Market and planted them right away. I meant to go back to the garden plot the next day (sunday) to get some weeding done, but it rained all day.

So I was very eager to visit our community garden plot this weekend. Not only for the weeding that needed to be done, but also to see how the starts fared.

Status of Starts: two out of three are growing happily. The lemon cucumber might need to be replaced.

Status of Weeding: yes, lots of grass got chopped and hoed and generally killed. I was feeling very pleased with my efforts and when I returned the hoe to the tool shed, one of the community gardeners called me over...

"Do you have lettuce?" he asked. "No, I don't," thinking what an odd question.
"Would you like to take some lettuce? I'm taking care of a friend's plot, and all this lettuce is ready to go." "heck yeah, I'd love some!"

Funny thing is, I was going to plant some lettuce seeds after I put away my hoe! Instead, I brought back several whole lettuce plants, thank you Marilyn! I stuffed them in my backpack and decided I had to walk home immediately or else they would wilt!

I got a bit distracted on the way home tho...

I had discovered an invasive red-eared slider turtle at the creek mid-April. And yesterday I saw her again, a little further upstream.

and then the ducklings! A mom with 5 children. Then the mom with the 2 older kids, that I saw last weekend. And a mom with 6 babies! Delightful! but hard to get decent pictures of them swimming...

And then I got home and shared the lettuce with the piggies...

Tag: may

Does it get any cuter than that?! This bunch -- mom with 11 babies! -- was wandering through the parking lot at the day job. There isn't a pond or any water nearby so I was a bit worried about them.

But our resident birder said the mom mallard would feed them bugs from the fields... maybe mom was waiting to cross the street later in the day.

Also, at the day job... There is an osprey nest at the top of a cell tower. It's probably a couple blocks away, but we set up a spotting scope in the upstairs art department and watched them last spring. Unfortunately, they lost the babies. (Predation from other ospreys?) And then even more unfortunately, in the autumn stupid humans tore down their nest. Arg!

Well, the ospreys came back this spring and complained loudly. They went away for about a month, but now they are back. They've decided to rebuild!

(just hoping the ospreys didn't want baby duck for dinner!)
and it seems a bit late in the season to be building a nest. Will they try for some late babies? Or is this prep for next year?

And, in my own neck of the woods...

some much older mallard ducklings. Just the two, and mom was close.

It's been years since I've seen baby ducks at the creek... the ducks get fed bread by misinformed human parents at Ducky Hill. The ducks gobble it up, but it's not good for them. None of our ducks have the deformed feathers that have shown up in other local park duck populations (Angel Wing, incurable). But a lack of babies is definitely a sign of malnutrition via bread.

So two mallard younglings is cause for celebration!

Tag: may

Turns out, the weekends are never long enough.

ha! Oh well. For may I've decided to go forward -- and not have any guilt for the projects I've abandoned!

So. Here is something that caught my attention today, that I wanted to type about...

Going through my feeds this weekend, I came across this post at UPSP Stamps: Latest Issue of USA Philatelic Now Available.

I realized I had somehow gotten off the USPS mailing list, so I signed up for that again. But then I noticed the author bio in the right sidebar:

Mary
Favorite stamp: My favorite stamp features a black-and-white photograph of designer Ray Eames holding a Christmas ornament over her husband's head. The stamp is from the 2010 Charles + Ray Eames stamp pane, and it always makes me smile. I love how joyful they look.

Well, I don't have the cool drawing of myself, that Mary has... but I do have an urge to answer the questions posed in that sidebar!

Favorite Stamp I really love the current postcard stamp, a hummingbird. But my absolute favorites are from the Nature series: the Kelp Forest...

Three things I always have with me My camera, no matter what! I carry my back pack with me most of the time. Inside: my backup camera, the current magazine I'm reading, pens and mechanical pencils, some cash, and a clif bar or two.

Favorite way to spend my spare time Spare time? That would be nice! If I had some I'd be: Reading, Making postcards from my photography, and Internetting.

The last book I read Just finished The Golden Notebook it was very long and rambling, but I enjoyed it.

One thing I can't live without ha! my printer and computer? But when civilization crashes, I will really miss hot showers. But "can't live without"? I have more books than I can read in a lifetime... I think it's the books that I can't live without!

My favorite place in the United States My former life involved moving every 3 or 4 years... but I have finally found my Forever Home in Eugene Oregon.

The best meal I ever had an All Vegan restaurant here in town called Cornbread Cafe... every single item on their menu is complete and utter bliss!

Life motto Get Away From Me, You Stupid People!
(Yeah, I'm a little bit asocial!)

Tag: may mailings

I had other things I was going to type about today, unfortunately my printer gets precedence.

The printer died suddenly this afternoon. I am annoyed, but not as frantic as I was the last time it happend. Which was last July. Which means the printer is not even a year old. Which makes me further annoyed, since the first one lasted at least 2.5 years.

But I know what the problem is and I know what the solution is. It's a bit expensive, and there is a good chance the replacement won't work properly either and I'll have to return it for another. Whatever: been there, done that, no big deal. However...

I use my printer extensively and having the printer down, completely disrupts my life. I print my own postcards, and I make and send 25 or 40 every week. Not being able to do that for a week or two?

Yes, I'll survive. But this is the hobby that gives me joy. This is the hobby that makes me excited to get out of bed on Saturday mornings.

A week or two of store-bought postcards. ugh. I'll probably survive...

Tag: april, mailings

Okay, nevermind about the long pause in the blogging. Just re-arranging some stuff in the life!

And also I got bored with the mail related blog posts, here. I never meant for this site to be about postcards and letters only, and that's what it has become. Yes, making snail mail is a big part of my life... but I am a well-rounded human with many interests! :) And Static8 should reflect that!

So today I want to type about World Day for Laboratory Animals. The British National Anti-Vivisection Society dedicated a day on 24 April 1979, which is the birthday of a former NAVS president. The day, and now the week, is celebrated by demonstrations and protests by animal activists who want to end the use of animals in research.

As a vegan who cares for two sweet guinea pigs, animal testing is a topic that is important to me. Adopting guinea pigs is part of my animal activism.

(sorry for the terrible pic, but they are both in it! Lucy in front, Ethel wondering what's going on.)

Please take a moment and think about some of the products you use. How about switching your shampoo to one with the leaping bunny logo? Don't give any more money to charities that experiment on animals. Support Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine instead.

Yay Vegan!

• World Week for Animals in Laboratories

Tag: april, vegan

Weekly Mail Check-in
Total Mail: 21
Reply Mail: zero
Amnesty International: zero

I had to take a break from the daily mail this week. But still... not a bad week with 21 postcards sent!

Weekly Mail Check-in
Total Mail: 23
Reply Mail: 3
Amnesty International: zero!
Instead, I worked on an Animal "Urgent Action" case last weekend: Oppose the Sportsmens Bills

Weekly Mail Check-in
Total Mail: 29
Reply Mail: 3
Amnesty International: One case
(Total AI cases this year: 6)

I joined Amnesty International in December 2011 with their Write for Rights campaign, and shortly after that I joined the Urgent Action letter writing campaign. In 2012, I wrote letters for 40 cases. In 2013, I wrote for 37 cases.

My tentative goal for 2014 was to write for an Urgent Action case every weekend. Except, I've not been very dedicated: I've only written for 5 cases so far and this is the 9th weekend of the year!

Well, it doesn't help that I've not been receiving the emails... I'm signed up for a weekly message, where they send one current but random case. Since I've not been getting the emails, I've been going to the site to pick out a case.

And there are just so many to choose from.

I like the fact that I can choose a case that I'm interested in and passionate about. But the whole process takes longer: sifting through all the current cases, then writing longer letters because of my interest, and really hemming and hawing over the words and language I use because I want to get it right. ha!

I print my letters on coloured paper... today it was green. and I always decorate my Urgent Action envelopes. I hope it catches their attention. But I sometimes wonder what they actually think about it. :)

I'm hoping to get 2 cases written this weekend. Today I am writing for a Syria case... a Kurd postal worker was disappeared by the government in March 2012 and has not been heard from since. Unfortunately, the postal system in Syria is so unreliable the case sheet only gives fax numbers. It's sad and ironic that the postman they took is probably dead of torture.

It's hard, being confronted with these life and death situations, and people really are being tortured to death right now and every day. Sickening.

But I can't ignore it, and writing for Amnesty International is my way of dealing with it.

And then I go for a walk.
Nature cleanses my mind and soul.

Tag: march, mailings

Weekly Mail Check-in
This Week: 26 mailings
Total LetterMo Mail: 150 mailings

Now the replies need to be written!