2010, The New Year

Let's just see what happens.

Namaste, y'all ...

Enough already ...

Just when I'm starting to relax about the whole "SNAKE IN MY HOUSE!" drama I get another jumpstart to my morning. Dragging myself out of bed, 56.7% still asleep, my head-cold in full swing, I stumble into the bathroom with visions of a nice hot shower and a fervent hope that at some point in the process I'll start to feel better.

What I find, to my horror, is my cat, Tuck, hunched in the 'I'm going to attack and kill it' position beside the vanity cabinet. From the angle I'm approaching I can't see what he's looking at. Naturally the first thought in my sleep and cold fogged brain is ... "OH F&$@! The SNAKE!" I almost did the girly scream. I'm instantly awake, shivering, and ultra aware that I'm buck-naked and shoeless. Not good at 7:30 am if there is a snake in your house.

I'd finally started to relax a bit since the SNAKE IN MY HOUSE! adventure a couple of weeks ago. I've stopped jumping at shadows, stopped thinking about the little bastard slithering into my bed while I'm sleeping. I was making progress. I was even beginning to analyze WHY there was a snake in my house on a 'message from Spirit level'. After all, Snake is my totem. It's my power animal. It's the animal representing my time of birth in all cultures. It's my greatest phobia. I am Snake and Snake is me. The Divine Comedy/Tragedy of my entire life's story.

But let me back up and tell the first of the tale ...

A couple of weeks ago I started collecting boxes to hold all the stuff I was clearing out of my house for a yard sale I was planning with my friend Rena. I had a few of the boxes stacked beside the back door. One morning after I had come home from a short trip of doing errands in town I decided to get busy cleaning out one of my closets. I reached for the boxes beside the door. An odd movement beside the box caught my eye.

It took a couple of seconds to register that I was staring at a snake. Half second later it clicked in my brain 'King Snake', harmless, small one, IN MY HOUSE ... OH HOLY MOTHER OF ST. PETER!!! A SNAKE IN MY HOUSE!!!

I felt all the blood rush from my head to my toes. For some inexplicable reason I thought about the fact I was wearing flip-flops instead of solid shoes. I made some weird squeaking noise. I started backing away, trying not to faint, trying to remember to breathe.

I rounded the dinning room table and moved toward the kitchen. My mind going ninety miles and hour over anything and everything I might have in the house to catch the thing. Somewhere in that few seconds it crossed my mind I'd probably have to get close to it again to catch it. Standing there, shaking and on the verge of hyperventilating, I turned my head back toward the snake just in time to see the last five inches of its' tail disappearing in horrifying slow motion down into the heat/ac vent in the floor. I proceeded to have a nearly full-blown panic attack. Why I didn't faint there on the spot, I'll never know.

A snake, alive and loose, in my house. A nightmare turned real. I called my best bud, Sue. Sue knows how to kick snake ass. It was a glimmer of hope in a dizzy, heart-pounding ordeal. In two leaps I was on top of the living room chair, frantically dialing the phone, gasping for air and trying not to cry. "There's a snake in my house!", I squealed into the phone when Sue answered. I swear, I think she laughed.

I babbled the whole episode into the phone, my eyes glued to the vent, feet tucked up as far under me as I could get them. She says call Animal Control. This meant I had to get off the chair, cross the living room to get to the phone book. Though my eyes never left that vent, I managed to do it. She said she would call her son Chris and see what he suggested while I made the call to Animal Control.

I couldn't find the phone number so I ended up calling the Sheriff's Dept. to get it from them. Nice woman answered the phone, listened with sympathy to my slightly hysterical chattering, and told me she would call for me since no one worked at the A.C. on Saturday. She promised she would call back. While I waited on the chair, Sue called and said Chris recommended closing all but that one vent and turning on the A/C full blast. Snakes are cold-blooded and it would seek heat, meaning that hopefully the thing would crawl back out of the vent.

I can't begin to describe how hard it was for me to go around the house, reaching my hand toward those vents to close them. There are twelve vents. The thing could have made it to any one of the others. Eleven times I had to stand and scan the area around the vents before I could get near one. I think I had eleven mini panic attacks.

About this time my sister, Glenda, called to tell me she was on her way over to help me with the yard sale stuff as we had planned a couple of days earlier. Didn't take her but 1.3 seconds to realize from the sound of my voice I had a problem. "What's wrong?", she asks. "SNAKE in my HOUSE!", I whined into the phone. Like Sue, Glenda laughed. She said she would bring tape and we could tape the vents closed.

That sparked an idea. With it being summer here, I couldn't very well close those vents off indefinitely. I needed an alternative, and I had one.

The husband had recently completed a 'honey do' chore of replacing the screen on the front door. There was screen material left over. By the time Glenda got to my house I had cut pieces of screen to fit over the vents. She taped them in place with packing tape. The one vent the thing went down we left open, but covered with a box and netting to catch the thing if it came back out. Turned the A/C down as far as it would go. Waited for what seemed like eons. No snake. After a couple hours or so Glenda went home. Not going to accomplish much with the yard sale stuff with me freaked out over the snake.

All the rest of that day I was a nervous wreck. Anything I caught in my peripheral vision made me jump. Shadow on the floor, I jumped. I kept a hawk eye on the snake trap. I couldn't do much but wander around the house, fidgety and completely ill at ease. By nightfall, I was exhausted but still highly anxious. I wouldn't go into a room without turning on the light and scanning the floor for some slithering dark shape, anything out of the ordinary. I didn't sleep a wink for jumping at every noise. Kept the covers tucked around me like a burrito, visions of the thing crawling under the covers seeking warmth. For the first time in years I went to bed wearing pajamas.

At one point, around 3:30am, I heard what sounded like the cat whacking the cardboard of the box I had placed over the vent. I literally levitated off the bed in fright. All I could imagine was the snake had come up out of the vent. That Tuck, being curious of the scent of the snake, had knocked the box aside and let the thing loose in the house. I'm still not sure how I got my nerve up enough to go check to see what happened. Fortunately, the box was still just as I had left it. Didn't see Tuck anywhere. It was an awful, sleep deprived night.

The next morning I made a bee-line to check the box. Still no snake. And while I'm standing there contemplating the situation the thought crosses my mind that the packing tape Glenda had used might not hold up so well against the cold air flowing from the vents. It damn sure wouldn't stand up to a curious cat.

I needed Duck Tape.

I searched the house from top to bottom. No Duck Tape. I had to make a trip into town. A 20 mile round trip for a $3 roll of Duck Tape was well worth it. I was showered, dressed, gone and back with Duck Tape in hand within an hour. I took a minute, got into as close to a Zen place as I could, then started re-taping the screen over the vents. I couldn't let myself think about the thing possibly crawling up and out of a vent while I was taping it. I couldn't think about anything but taking my time and covering those vents as methodically and completely snake-proof as I was capable of. I even took away the snake trap and taped up the vent the thing went down. It was only after I had finished that I sat on the sofa and cried. Big ol' sobbing, from the gut crying. Fear, stress, no sleep. I was due for a good bout of boo-hooing.

Over the next few days I stayed on high alert. I wouldn't go into a dark room without turning on the light and scanning the floor as I did that very first night. I watched the floor as I walked even in the daylight hours. I dreaded opening a cabinet door or dresser drawer. I poked my shoes before I would put them on. I tried not to think about HOW it got into the house. I tried not to think about it being trapped in the ventilation system. I slept in pajamas.

I've gotten more at ease in the last week. I still scan the floor as I'm walking. Still turn a light on before I go into a room, but the pajamas are back in the dresser drawer.

Then this morning happened. Tuck in attack position in the bathroom. Me naked and barefoot. I'm sure God got a big laugh at me at 7:30am this morning. A foot long King Snake reducing me to a whimpering girly-girl. I didn't think it was very funny. It took a full ten deep breaths before I could peek around the corner of the vanity to see what Tuck was fixated on.

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing there but air and carpet.

Furry little feline vermin with their totally bizarre behavior. And I swear he actually had the nerve to look up at me a grin.

So that's my morning. Hope yours started better.

Namaste, y'all ...

Open Hands Online!

Okay, the most important news of the day is I finally got the Open Hands Reiki Natural Healing website online. We are officially www.openhandsreiki.com. Happy days, I'm tellin' ya'. Been one of those monkeys on my back, needing to get it done and only able to tinker some here and some there with it for months now. Granted, it's a 'canned' template to start with, but it's something. There is still the work of getting it plastered all over the internet with search engines and such, but again, it's functioning as is and that's a good thing. The nitty-gritty of a "real" website with our logo and all that jazz is down the road a little ways.

Other news in my world is that I finished a painting (!) but haven't had time to take photos and get it on my website. Shoot, I haven't even put the picture hanging wire on the back of it yet either. I'll tell ya' the truth, just having a brush in my hand again was nice ... really nice. I'd have no problem running away to Bora Bora to do nothing but paint for a few months.

Like everyone else, times are tough and it's been living a day-by-day thing for me for awhile. Although things are difficult, I'm grateful I have so many good things in my life. I have a good, kind man as a husband. I have food, clothing, and a roof over my head. I am humbled by the wonderful friendships I have. I have Open Hands. I have the sweetest cat in the world. I have my studio and my art. Today is a beautiful, sun-shiney day. Yep, blessings abound.

Remember to hug somebody today ...

Namaste, y'all ...

Rainy days are meant for snoozing ...

Take a good look at this photo. It's exactly what I wish I were doing right now. It's Saturday morning, it's raining, I'm chilled, I'm sleepy, I'm at work. *sigh*

I've been thinking about my lack of blogging. I miss sitting down and "talking", telling about what's going on. I've blamed it on my crazy schedule. Never seems to be enough time to sit and write about current events and/or what's on my mind. I realized that isn't entirely true.

Some time ago I found out a few people I know read my blog. While having readers IS the intent behind any blog, it still sort of wigged me out. I got paranoid about what to say - or not to say. My blogging cramped. Something like 'performance anxiety' kicked in. I know it sounds bizarre, and well, a little foolish. I can't even really explain it. It simply is what it is. I just have to get over it. I miss blogging.

My most exciting news is that Open Hands Reiki Natural Healing is now, officially, a non-profit organization. Yee-Haw! We're going to be applying for grants, etc. to help us financially move forward with doing things we want to do. Things like working with veterans, the elderly, Hospice, and others. While having anyone walk in off the street for a Reiki session is always nice, I know there are so many people out there who could truly benefit from it and are unable to pay (even though we are 40% less on our prices than anyone else around) because of the fact that insurance companies have yet to list it as a payable alternative therapy. (That day will come!)

Honestly, it breaks my heart to tell some sweet little old woman with a host of problems, "Sorry but no, we don't accept Medicaid or Medicare." I know what Reiki would do for her yet there isn't really anything I can do to help. Open Hands still a business with expenses and unfortunately, we can't give sessions away for free. We offer a senior citizen discount and hold a Reiki Night the third Wednesday of every month where the general public can come in and get free 10-15 minutes sessions to 'check it out', but that's about the best we can do. Hopefully, with an influx of grant money, our ability to help those with financial limitations will be vastly improved.

Artwork-wise, my paint brushes are still on hold and dry as a bone. I can't seem to get my mind in the right space to paint. As usual, I have all kinds of ideas floating around in my brain. Getting them from mental canvas to physical canvas simply isn't happening. I'm torn between repainting Orange Kimono in a different style, re-working the current Work-In-Progress for the bazillionth time, or just mucking around with an abstract for snorts and giggles. It's frustrating. I wish I could just shut myself away in my studio for a couple of months, but that isn't likely to happen. I've got to figure out a happy medium soon.

Knitting is going a little better. I've got several things in-progress. One of them is this cute little project ...


Acorn ornaments! Aren't they adorable!?! I found the pattern on Ravelry.com from Carmen Rigby. They are really easy and quick to make, which is giving me some of the 'instant gratification' I've been needing lately for completing projects. I think I'm going to knit some plain, but with others I may add little feathers to the top and eyes on the nut part ... little acorn elves! I've also got a 2x2 rib, tri-color scarf and a cardigan sweater on the sticks. Oh!, and funny little bookworm and mousie bookmarks as well. Don't have photos of those to show right now.

Unfortunately, that about it for today. Duty of working is calling and I'd best go be productive.

Namaste, y'all ...

When you need a bit of happy in your day ...

Courtesy of CuteOverload.com

It's been rough day today. Just looking at this face makes me feel better.

Namaste, y'all ...

Making a dent.

For the most part the housework is done. Done for now anyway. The ceiling fans and lamp shades will just have to wait 'til another day, or five. The studio, however, gets my attention again later this evening. I made the mistake of venturing in there this afternoon and had an attack of the neat freak issues. This was not good considering there is a month of Sundays' worth of cleaning and straightening to do in there. It's appalling. It's housed stacks of magazines and whatnot over the past few months. Whatever I couldn't stand looking at stacked up in the other rooms of the house got shuffled back to the void of the studio, piled on the drafting table, piled on the light table, piled on the floor ... you get the picture.

For some inexplicable reason the urge to start weeding through the piles overtook me around lunchtime. Maybe it's a subconscious nudge to make me get back to some painting. Maybe it's the realization that unless there is room to work no work will get done. Maybe it was an avoidance tactic. I'm inclined, I shamefully admit, to avoiding doing some of my To Do list for the past couple of days. I just needed time off. Down time. Non-work related. Now, don't get me wrong, I love my store, my part of running the business and all that goes with it. I love being there even if nothing is going on and no customers or clients are there. It's a nice place and I'm proud of it. But it is true owning a business is virtually a 24-7 kind of job. Sometimes you just have to say 'when' and take a breather.

Not that spending most of the time breathing has been devoted to housekeeping, as I've done for the past couple of days, could technically be called an official breather. Work is work no matter what form it takes. Although, housework, while physical, can be a meditation if you let it. A "wax on, wax off" with the polish kind of thing. The physicality of it is good for you, too. It feels productive and there is the instant gratification of a nice clean glass-topped coffee table with just a swipe of a lint free rag and some custom-made vinegar cleaner. Yep, I make my own cleaning solution = White vinegar, hot water and some essential oils. This, too, gives the instant gratification of making the house smell fresh and clean even with the heat pump running and the windows closed against the winter weather outside. I love fresh air, having the windows open, and the house smelling clean helps a lot through the cold weather months.

I can't say I've made much of a dent on the To Do list, but a dent in my level of frustration and aggravation was achieved. I feel more relaxed and less overwhelmed by so many things needing to be done ... and feeling so overwhelmed that I didn't feel like I was getting anything done. That's a miserable place to be.

For the next hour or so I'll work on those piles in the studio. I don't see much getting done past that for the next several days. Maybe this coming weekend will grant me some more time to be the Domestic Goddess of Clean. I'd like to get in an hour on the sweater knitting if possible this evening, too. Then, it's off to bed. Tomorrow is another day for attacking the To Do list.

I'll leave you with a perfect picture of Zen ...



Namaste, y'all ...

I've tried and tried but I just can't get the house to do it's own housework.

My lack of blogging is not due to an excessive amount of housecleaning. Quite the contrary. The house has been relatively ignored for over a month. Oh sure, I've kept the dishes clean, the laundry done (if not all folded and put away), swept the kitchen floor, made a quick swipe of the toilet bowl with a brush ... just enough to get by but not pass any Happy Housekeeper inspection. My time has been spent wrapped knee deep in bookkeeping for the store, computer work, and other stuff. (Yeah, okay, all right - knitting - I confess!) The housework slid waaaaay down on the list of priorities.

I can only take dust and clutter and an un-vacuumed carpet for just so long before a combination of guilt and previously habitual neat-freak tendencies crawl up my spine and have me wigging out in a not so pleasant way. One more day of looking into a toothpaste bespecked bathroom mirror would simply send me, walling and shrieking like a banshee, over the edge. So, today, I cleaned. All day. Cleaned. And cleaned some more. Not pleasant, but it made the house cleaner and made me feel better. I really do hate an untidy house.

I decided to temporarily ignore the three dozen other things on my To Do list. I'm not a very good multi-tasker. Granted, I didn't get every cobweb out of every corner and scrub the tile grout with a toothbrush. No, I didn't get that deep into my Domestic Goddess duties. Even a Goddess has to draw the line somewhere when she's faced with the mountainous tasks of housekeeping left undone for far too long. There's always another day, sometime in the future, to wash windows and dust the pictures on the walls. Besides me, the husband and the cat, not many people see the inside of my house and one or two dust bunnies under the bed won't bring down 200 years of karmic bad debt. At least, I don't think so.

The frenzy of house cleaning did play havock with the sanity of my cat though. Reasoning out why I would polish the glass on his coffee table or vacuuming up his fur off the carpet was beyond him. Tuck, like most cats, isn't a fan of the vacuum cleaner. Poor fella' spent most of the day, wild eyed, behind the sofa. Can't say I blame him. I would have much preferred hiding back there, too, instead of polishing the coffee table. But now it's time to take a break and get back to the serious things in life ... like knitting.

Oh yes, knitting. I'm wallowing in knitting. I am making another sweater. Lovely heathered-brown cardigan. Caron Eco-Simply Soft yarn in the color Twig. Knitting Pure & Simple Pattern 994 Neck-down V-neck Caridgan. This is the "big" project. Suffice it to say it will take me awhile to finish. Will be worth it.


The other things are small, relatively quick to finish (I am a slow knitter) so that I get a little completion gratification in the face of knitting a sweater. The exception is a scarf I'm working on with the same yarn as the sweater, only it's a 2x rib with three color changes; Twig, Charcoal, Black. No photos of it just yet. The other things I've finished are ...

Lovely bubble-colored fluffy scarf of Lion Brand Homespun boucle' and matching eyelash yarn. Extra long fringe just because I could! This is so pretty and warm, too. How can you beat that?


Scarf and hat with Lion Homespun boucle' and novelty eyelash yarn. This Homespun is a pretty colorway of soft dark beige to various shade of browns. Has a few twists of a spicey rush color as well. The eyelash is a chocolate color with a threading of sparkle to it. Nice long fringe on the scarf.


Scarf with Red Heart baby yarn and eyelash yarn. Had this stuff for a couple of years now and couldn't decide what to do with it. I like pink, so a pink scarf worked for me. Didn't get too wild with the fringe.


Chenille and novelty ribbon yarn. The soft but bright and happy butter yellow worked well with the rainbow colored ribbon. I decided I didn't want it as a traditional square-ended scarf so I decreased the ends into points and tied on a little fringe for fun.


Boucle' scarf with color 'tufts' woven in the yarn. I bought a single skein of this a couple of years ago because I thought it looked fun and quirky. I made it a simple scarf to play up the interest of the yarn.


Tarot Bag(s) with Lion Brand colorway acrylic yarn. I found this pattern via Ravelry from NicolaKnits. After I sent her questions on how she knit it Nicola was kind enough to post the instructions on her blog. They have an interesting star shaped decreasing on the bottom. Made one to size, then made another slightly fuller but shorter just to see if I could. I was thinking about making some of these up - with some alterations to the pattern - to sell in the store. They would make good Tarot bags, medicine bags, crystal bags or whatever. If I can get faster on the knitting part it might indeed be something I do. They are worked on DPNs and I'm as slow as a sloth with DPNs.


There is another Tarot bag in the works but it's a different shape altogether. Again, no photos of it at the moment. It's more of the Lion Brand colorway acrylic in different colors than the ones above. I'm thinking I may do a cotton lining for it. Haven't decided.

So that's what going on here. Store and business stuff. Domestic Goddess stuff. And knitting stuff. The studio and painting are at a complete standstill save the ideas in my head. Hopefully it won't be long before things happen in that area as well. While I certainly enjoy the knitting I do miss having a brush in my hand.

Namaste, y'all ...