Ithaca Update

Ok. So we're stuck here. Not like we were planning on leaving the area, necessarily, but maybe buying a different house in a handful of years. Maybe five. But no. We're stuck. Like a lot of people I guess. Better stuck than a cardboard box. Which I would just cut up for crafts anyway. But the worst thing is the money mistakes we made, that had we been smarter, we'd be sitting pretty now.

Regret isn't healthy. So moving on.

Pillow Box Talk

I am in love with pillow boxes. Isn't that romantic? All I want to do is make them. All day long. I have been cutting up cereal boxes and hanging file folders like mad. Upcycled, recycled, recraft, repurposed. Whatever. It's cool. It turns a so-so gift into a buried treasure. What..is...in....here...?Wha?...Ahhhh!! But I'm having some difficulty with finding a piece of recycled cardstock large enough to make a pillow box for my pin cushions. This I believe would be the thing finally to get them to sell. No one wants them without the custom-sized, handmade pillow box wrapper. No one. But I believe in the potential of the pillow box. I have 15 pin cushions. Anyone want one in a gift bag? I don't want to steal anyone's images anymore (new pride in myself - artifact of new patriotism - pretty cool) so can't offer you a pic. Owell. Then here's a gratuitous baby June shot.

Oh say can you see?

a.k.a. Jose, can you see? A herald of things to come. I composed a post in my head on the way to work while listening to reports on last night's election results in the U.S. As with most times I hear Obama speak, I get the chills and tear up. (This by the way seems to make my mother craaazy. She seems to hate the idea that we would look up to a politician with sincere hope in his leadership. She's not a cynical person, but during the campaign leading up to this election, she has seemed resentful about the fact that so many of us are not cynical.) But my post was about last night's spontaneous outpouring of good will about race. I can't believe I just said those words all in a row: outpouring of good will about race. It was an unexpected joy last night to witness the joy of black America in the election of a black man. Looking back, it is a wonderful thing that Obama ixnayed the aceray subject so early on. It prevented us from making race a negative issue, for now all we have is pride in ourselves for our own risk-taking, and exuberance in the good fortune of our neighbors and the long-awaited arrival of boundlessness for their children. I hadn't realized last night, in the presence of new possibility, what that absence must have felt like for them.

Feeling Patriotic

This is my most patriotic pin cushion.

I am actually feeling very patriotic, for the first time in a long time. Perhaps it's my age. Aren't you supposed to feel anti-establishment from about 18 - 35 years old? Well, now I'm pushing 40. It could be my age. But I don't think so. After two months of kindergarten, I finally thought to ask my son about the pledge of allegiance - and was relieved down to my soul that they still ask public school students to learn it. I recited the pledge of allegiance myself for the first time in centuries. I even kept the "under God". How's that for liberal?

I miss my old phone number.

So I am considering signing up again with Vonage. I can't recommend AT&T for rural upstate New York. Maybe I'll try the local phone company and hook up a phone to my wall. Everyone's worried that if there's an apocalypse, phones won't work because of cable outages, electricity outages, cell tower destruction (?) etc. You mean my phone in the wall will work? I want a big old red one with a clear plastic dial. Like the Gotham City Commissioner.