Karen DeQuardo is our secret shopper today, or is she?

Today was the first day of the Handwoven Holiday Sale which happens every year the first week end of November and runs clear through to the next weekend.  What a fun time for the Guild. It is held at the Historic Vail Hotel and what a beautiful back drop this is for the work these women produce.  Oh, yeah, I do it too, but not like these women.  They are artisians.  I am a klutz.  See that towel I showed you yesterday?  Look real close.  It has a big yellow mark on it so it is in there soaking in some bleach water right now.  Some times I amaze even myself.
So I had to set up the craft show at the church this afternoon and after I checked out the black bear stuck in the tree down in the blocks, dropped a package in the mailbox, I headed down to the Vail.  I got there at exactly the same time as Karen DeQuardo.  Think way back to when I took the pine needle basket class at Colorado Fiber Arts and you will remember Karen.  She is the one that owns the place now.  She and her friend Winnie were taking turns; one minding the store and the other shopping at the sale.  Karen was shopping for a rug.  Well, that in itself is an undertaking because there are some works of art on the rug wall this year.  Hell, there are works of art all over that Vail Hotel!
So back to Karen.  I asked her how many times she had visited the sale and she told me every year for as long as she could remember!  I watched Karen wander around the sale and I think I can safely say that she touched everything in there at least once. Some of the pieces got an extra groping.  Made me laugh.  I just love to watch a woman who loves to shop and this girl does.  And she knows quality when her fingers and eyes encounter it.  And there was a lot of that going on in there.
See, if you had visited the store like I told you to, you would know that she carries some of the best fibers in the state.  Colorado Fiber Arts, located at 121 Broadway here in Pueblo, Colorado carries about anything you could want in the line of threads, yarns, wools, batts and stuff I know nothing about.  I do know there are skeins of hand spun stuff that I would trade an arm or leg for, but she does not take body parts, so I am out of luck.  And if you want to learn how to do something she can fix you right up with a class, or teach you herself.  I learned how to felt there.  Oh, and the gourd classes. And the basket weaving.  See I know a little about a lot of things.  What was it momma used to say, "Jack of all trades and master of none!"  Yep!  That is me.  Course she also told me "Do what you do, do well, girlie."  Well, mama, I am trying!

Whoops, back to Karen.  Never let it be said I have a one track mind.  So, if you wonder about anything fiber related, pick up that phone and dial 719-543-1161 and tell her or Winnie that Lou said.  Now sometimes that "Lou said" will get you in  a world of hurt, but these people like me.  They like every body and nothing would make them happier than helping you turn out a lovely piece of knit, crochet, tatting, felting or weaving.  I like to just go in there and feel stuff.  Some times I just pick up a button that is handmade for the purses I make.  I think they also have groups that meet and set around and knit or crochet and shoot the breeze.  Hope they are not talking about me!
Back to business.  Why do I call Karen a secret shopper?  Because she is very quite and unassuming and is very quietly gathering her treasures and stashing them up at the cashier so it actually looks like she is not even buying anything, but in all honesty, she did buy all three of the rugs that T.L. draped on her.  That is why she draped them on her!
So that is it for today.  I have decided to spotlight a member every day. I may expose the people who work behind the scenes one day.  But for tomorrow, I am going to do the craft show at the church and then pop over to the sale and see who is hanging out just wanting me to interview them.  Be sure and make some time for the sale! And stop by here daily and see if I have your face on my slide show.  That will be changed daily also.
Damn!  I am good!

The Weavers Sale is going to start tomorrow and I am there!

 




This is what my towel looked like on the loom. This is the finishing end of it. I made this one with a cotton warp and Pigtail Cotton Chenille. It is 100% cotton and weighs 2 pounds and 4 ounces. This sucker is big and it is soft and I thought about keeping it myself, but I am so money hungry it makes me sick.

This is what it looks like after it is washed, blocked and then tossed in the dryer for a little fluffing up job.  My daughter has a towel I gave her three years ago that I made out of Island Cotton.  She is going to bring it over so I can see it.  She says she uses it and loves it and washes it and it is just like the day she got it only it is softer and more absorbent than ever.  Sure makes me feel good when some one actually likes something I do. 
Course it is a little hard to beat anything that is home made whether it is a tea towel, a shawl or a bowl of mashed potatoes.  I had a friend once named Judy and she always brought mashed potatoes to the pot lucks.  I think that pound and a half of butter that she added finally caught up with her because she moved to California and promptly died.  And what all that has to do with the Weavers's Sale I have not a clue, but here is the deal for you!
I am going to stop by the sale tomorrow afternoon and take lots of pictures.  Then I am going to download those pictures into my Picassa.  Then I will spend three or four hours trying to figure out how that slideshow works.  And when I hit the publish button I will also hit the notify button and send it off to Joanne Caldwell who will send it out to her contacts.  So you ladies better be ready because I am going to snap your little pictures for the next week and then all my friends out there who read this will get to meet you.  This is going to be so much fun!!
But if you are a reader of my blog and not a member of the Handweavers Guild of Pueblo, and you live in this area, I fully expect you to pop in and visit at the Vail Hotel,  217 South Grand (at Union), in Historic Pueblo, Colorado.  Hours are from 10:00 AM-6:00 PM.  And keep a sharp eye out here cause I am going to devote a lot of digital snaps to this sale this year.
I love these women in my Guild and never cease to be amazed at what wonderful work they do.  Oh, and hey!  They let me sell my soaps and lotions at the sale.  I feel so special!

Halloween is a bad time of year.

Yesterday was October 30.  Had I remained with my kids dad we would have celebrated or in some way acknowledged 51 years of marriage, but I did not, and since he is no longer in this world I am assuming he did not either.  1964 marked the one and only time he took me out for our anniversary.  Took me to Saint Catherines Hospital in Garden City, Kansas and I gave birth to my third daughter, Dona Marie.  One year later to the day, he took me on a trip back to Hutchinson as my only brother was in a coma from a car crash the day before.  He died the next morning which was Halloween.  So you see, Halloween is not much fun here at my house.
But I do recall the Halloween's we had in Nickerson and they did not even faintly resemble the ones I see here in Pueblo County.  See. we did not buy a costume.  I had never heard of a costume shop.  We did what is know as improvise.  If mother happened to come across an old sheet in one of her cleaning jobs that was cabbaged on to and brought home and saved for Halloween.  Cut a couple eye holes and you were good to go as a ghost.  Old clothes were never tossed until after Halloween.  Hell, they were never tossed.  More about that later.  So when we left the house we were dressed as a ghost, a farmer (overalls), or a hobo (a stick with a bundle on the end of it), or a little kid going to school. The inside of the old wood stove gave us the black paint necessary to smear on our face so nobody knew who we were.
Brother Jake always led the pack with strict instructions that he was to watch out for the little ones and not let them get lost out there in the dark.  Hell, we held on to each other and if one of us got lost, we were all goners.  We knew that this was Halloween and that meant the real ghosts were out there and the Gypsy's were camped on the edge of town and we might not ever get home again.  Halloween was a very dangerous time.  I do not think sister Joanne went with us because she became interested in the boys very early and married an older man from town before I was even old enough to really know what marriage even was.  I just knew he had a black and white car and it was really nice.  But back to the streets.
"Oh, look Elmer, it is all six of them!  Let's see what we got here for these little ghosts and goblins."  And we would all hold out our brown paper bags which were saved just for this occasion. See back in those days there were no plastic bags.  Those came much later and were considered a luxury.  And she would smile at each of us and put a home baked cookie in our bag.  Or a piece of cake, or fudge or a hand full of store bought candy corn if we were really lucky.  Some times we would each get an apple.  Or an orange.  Most times they were just wrapped in a piece of wax paper or maybe nothing at all.  But that was back in the day before people started putting stuff in the home made cookies to kill little kids or sliding a razor blade into an apple so when they bit into it their gums would be sliced.
Yeah, that was back in the good old days of front porches, happy neighbors, good clean fun and everybody watching out for the little ones.  And as much as I miss those days, there were signs then of what was to come.  Nickerson was a little town with maybe 1200 people, but even then there were signs of what was to be.  We knew we needed to be off the streets and home before 8:00 because then the bullies came out.  Only one year did the bullies get our candy.  They just ran out of the dark and grabbed out bags and ran away.  My God, mother could her us wailing as we came home and thought surely the Gypsy's had gotten one of us this time for sure.  But my mother was wise beyond belief.
She knew who the bullies were and she was not even there.  The next day she left the house early and when she returned she had a big brown sack full of goodies for us.  Of course we immediately ate enough to make us very sick.  But the point here is this;  small towns are open books.  You just kind of know who the trouble makers are.  There were three of them in our town and they hung together.  Now whether my mother went to the bullies homes or just did daylight trick or treating and explained to every one what had happened,  I do not know. 
And trick or treating and Halloween aside, I would not trade my growing up years in Nickerson, Kansas, for all the tea in China.  While we were poor, we were rich.  I had a guy tell me just yesterday that he is rich beyond beleif because he has friends and a home and a dog and what more could one man need.  And he is right.  As I get older I find it takes less to make me a happy content woman.  Nickerson is always in my head.  I can travel to the ends of the world and meet Kings and Queens, but I will always be the little ragamuffin girl from Nickerson, afraid of my shadow and always needing my momma.  I can bury my brother, but I can never bury Louella Bartholomew because she will live forever my heart.   My hope is that some day, some one will pick up one of my journals and actually read it and think, " I would love to have met this woman.  And her mother.  And her brother.  And I wonder where her kids are today."
But right now, this is just another day to get through and I can feel my brother over my left shoulder as I write this, and I can see his lopsided grin and the long scar on his left cheek where the horse kicked him when he 9 years old and he snuck up behind the horse and "goosed" it.  He changed the date on his birth certificate and joined the Army at 16 years old.  That was before computers.  I sure do miss that boy and can not help but wonder about the man he could have become had he stayed on this side of the veil with me.  I guess today I will mourn the "what could have been." 
Happy Halloween.

And here is my sainted Mother when she was a Senior in high school.

I look at this picture and I can see a lot of myself in it.  Our teeth were identical; the same smile lines.  We both have the blue/gray eyes that change from one color to the other depending on what we are wearing and our mood.  My cheek bones are higher than hers.  We both had auburn hair.  In later years her's was completely silver.  Mine is still salt and pepper.

Mother worked hard all of her life.  I never knew a time when her hands were not busy.  I guess the first recollections I have of mom and dad were when we lived on the Alemore place in Nickerson.  It must have been located about a mile Southeast of town.  I had not started school yet.  We lived in a 2 bedroom shack with a kitchen and front room.  I call it a shack because it was not painted, not insulated, no electric, the water was in a pump out the back door.  Sister Josephine was in charge of us little kids while mom worked in town cleaning houses for the rich ladies. 

Now I am sorry to tell you this, because I know her kids read this sometimes, but my sister Joanne, as we called her, was very mean.  I recall once when my brother Jake and I walked up to Bull Creek and caught the biggest bull frog you ever seen.  I put it in my dress tail and ran home to show her so she would give me a box to put it in.  Well when I opened my dress tail that damn frog leaped out right in the front room.  She went ballistic and started beating me with the broom.  "You catch that damn thing and get it out of here!  Hurry up!  Hurry up before it pees on my clean floor!"

Well, I do not work well under pressure and crawling around under beds trying to catch that jumping frog was definitely not something I was good at.  But she solved the problem by whacking it with the broom and then beating it to death there in the middle of the bedroom.  And guess who had the honor of cleaning up that mess?  Thirty minutes later my beloved frog was in the field out back and the floor was once more spotless.  She did not know that Jake and I buried the frog and I cried.  Seems like I spent most of my childhood in tears over one silly thing or another.  Jake was always my friend.

Up the road from us was the Rumble's house.  They were an old couple who always waved at me when I went by and sometimes I stopped.  He taught me the words to Buttons and Bows  and when I sang it alone the first time he gave me a shiny dime!  Back in those days a dime was a lot of money.  I lost it and that was that.  Across the road lived the Barthold sisters who were school teachers.  They had a forest behind their house and Jake and I used to crawl through the underbrush when they were in the back yard having tea and spy on them.  Damn!  That was exciting!

Back in those days we had phones and we were all on party lines.  The way you used the phone was pick up the earpiece and then crank the handle on the side for what ever the person you were calling's ring was.  That is if they were on your party line.  Other wise you cranked a long ring and got the operator, Mrs. Humphrey.  We were fond of picking up the ear piece and cranking in someone's ear who was talking on the phone.  Got a lot of lickings over that little trick.

My dad liked to drink in his younger days.  One year he was going to the fair in Hutch and mom made him take all of us.  Well, as soon as we hit the fairgrounds he found the beer tent.  He lined the three of us up on a bench ( little kids had to stay home) and told us to stay there for a little bit.  Hours later he bought us each an ice cream cone before he went back in to have "just one more and then we will go home."  As I recall that ice cream it seems like it was probably pineapple sherbert.  It was not good.  I was hot and tired and kept falling asleep, but we were all three scared to move cause where could we go?  Let me tell you, see that sweet little woman up there?  She damned near ripped that man's head off his body when we arrived home and she found out we had spent the whole day on a bench while he drank.  I actually think that was the end of his drinking days!

Our stay at the Ailmore house ended when a tornado (but they called it a cyclone for some reason) hit and blew everything away except the house and the big cottonwood tree at the end of the drive.  But what does any of this have to do with my mother?  I will tell you.  That period of our lives was spent in abject poverty.  That was the period of time when I learned, although I would not realize it for many years, what a real woman must do to survive with her children.  My mother had a will of iron and a spine of steel.  She went without so us kids could eat.  She worked all day and mended our clothes at night.  She foraged and canned food for the winter.  She could wring the neck on a chicken and have it plucked and in the pot with out ever losing the ethereal quality that shone from her eyes. 

There is a passage in the Bible that tells about my mother.  It is the one that says "Her husband shall call her blessed and her children shall adore her.  She shall rise up early in the morning."  That was my mother.  If I could be a fraction of the woman she and my grandmother were I would die a happy woman. 

I recall the very last time I saw my mother.  I had gone for my usual 5 day visit and when I left she was having some problems.  I remember looking into her eyes and seeing the my soul reflected back at me.  I recall thinking "I will never see my mother alive again."  And I was right.  I talked to her every Sunday at noon.  I always called her at that time so she would not be confused about whether I had called or not.  We would talk for about an hour about everything under the sun.  I rarely told her my problems, and she was always fine. 

As I begin to face my mortality it is the memory of those blue/grey eyes that makes death almost a welcome relief.  It is her down to earth common sense that has helped me over the hills and through the valleys of life.  I could fill a book with things my mother taught me, and never cover all the lessons.  So, I say this to you....If you have a mother cherish her.  If you don't then learn to cherish life, because some where some one gave life to you.  God did not put us on this earth to just take what it gives, he put us here to prepare it for those who follow behind us.  I hope I am doing that in some small way.  As I transition from Louella Bartholomew to Lou Mercer and back to Louella Bartholomew, I have remembered all you taught me.

And so,  Good night, dear Momma, you did a wonderful job and I will be there one of these days, so watch for me!

My world is slowly tilting back to the level mark, but not 100%.

Before I can continue with my mother and father, I have to wait for a part to arrive from the Philippine's for my new printer/copier/scanner.  In the mean time life rather goes on here on South Road and on the Internet.  Kids are settling into their house and getting ready for an open house on the day I have to work at the weavers sale all day, but that is par for the course.
Today it is snowing but not sticking.  I went out and planted Rye for the geese and they should be very happy in a few weeks.  See the rain will fatten the seeds and the sun will warm them and they will sprout. Hooray!  I can see better days ahead.  I have been in a terrible funk, mostly of my own doing, but you know me, I never accept all the responsibility for anything.  Wiggle room abounds in my world.
My eBay is chirping right along and I hope you read about my string of plastic pearls getting 16,000+ hits.  My products are all ready for the November sales here in the real world except  for putting the bottoms in some purses and finishing weaving the big bath towel.  Patty came and helped (did) with the packaging of the lotion and body butter. 
I am currently alone and think I shall remain that way.  I had a fellow on the East Coast that I had met in the chat room over a year ago and that was perfect, but alas, all perfection is in the eye of the beholder and apparently I had a rather cock eyed view which was way different than his.  I figured he and I and Amy would continue our friendships until we grew old or the hard drive got a virus.  Well that was kinda what happened.  Amy and I are still tight and she and her husband are coming out to Colorado next month.  Course I have to lure her with cookies, but it will be a very fun time and I am looking forward to the visit.
But see the online romance was perfect.  We talked and laughed and everything was hunky dory as long as that was all there was to that.  I made the mistake of thinking that mayhap the guy ought to acknowledge my birthday or the fact that I was going on a long trip alone and he actually chastised me for feeling that way as he was very busy.  OK, now you people who deal with me in the twilight world of reality know how well I took that little rebuke.  You know like when I thought the Fourth Street Bridge should be straight and not curved in the middle.  I was right and you all know I was right, but the engineers just would not see it my way.  I am still pouting over that one and the bridge has been open for over a year.  Or when the AIDS walk did not go my way.  Well, you see what happened there don't you?  I pulled out and then Karma sent all that snow and they had to close the Garden of the Gods.  I am not saying I was right or wrong on this one either.  But you all understand Karma, don't you?
But this is how it goes in my world.  I always get what I want.  If I don't I don't play.  So I have had to kill him.  I hated to do that, but I just can see no other solution.  If two people disagree the game is over. Should I apologize for being a needy neurotic woman?  No.  that is what I am.  Should he apologize for not wanting to be bothered in his busy little life?  No.  He has his life  and I have mine, but in order for everyone to win, he has to die.  Course he has the option of killing me also.  And the joy of it is no one ever knows.  He does not know he is dead and if I am I do not know that either.
But then the Internet is a big place and I know there are a couple little fellows out there who are waiting in line.  Just a word to the wise, be very careful what you wish for cause you just might get it. 
For now I am content to set here in my little world and dream up things to do.  I want to write a book and have the blog set up for that.  It is called  Chapter One and as soon as the Weaver's Sale is over I am going to jump into that.  It is going to be about an online stalker and I am making notes!  I have the notes made on the stalker and he is a hunk and a half,  just a little off in the head.  And Meg is a very sweet woman.  I hate to see her have to go through this, but hey!  She should not have gotten in my head!!  LOL

Well, that printer did not last long, did it?

I went off to Staples about a month ago and bought a new printer.  The last one is now setting over there with the last three that I am sure would work if they just had a little tweak here or there.  So this time I got one of the little higher priced ones.  This one has the individual colors which the man assured me was the wave of the future.  Big mistake.
Did I want the extended warranty?  Nope.  I figure it has a one year warranty and that ought to be good.  So I bring my little printer home and man am I proud.  Got me a new printer and I am stylin'.  Well, about the first thing that happened was I ran out of black ink.  So off to buy that.  Few days later I am out of blue ink.  Actually it is called Cyan.  By now I am wising up.  I buy all three cause I know what is going to happen next.  By this time about 10 days have passed and I am off to buy black ink again.  This time I splurged and got the one that has lots of ink.  Another week three colors later I go to print a mailing label.  Well all went well until about half through the printing it decides to print in pink.  Post office ain't buying that I am here to tell you.  So I go into the maintenance program and find I need to clean my print head.  Two labels and it is now printing orange.  By now I am wiser.  I put the label which is half black and half orange in the copy place and make a black copy.  Day 15 and I am now off to buy more ink.
Now I am spending more money on gas and ink then I am paying for rent.  Now the maintenance program recommends I do a deep cleaning for the print head.  More ink.  But we are making progress, we are now printing in blue.  I have now had it with this thing so I call Staples.  "Did you buy the extended warranty?"  "No".  "Too bad because you have to deal with Hewlett Packard now.  If you had bought the extended warranty we could have handled it, but you didn't so now all you have is the HP parts and labor warranty and we don't do that."  OK, well thanks Mr. Staples guy.  Gonna buy my next one from China.
So I made myself be calm and dialed the HP friendly help center.  I got a wonderful guy named Michael who lives in the Phillipines and actually spoke pretty good English. I explained my tale of woe and guess what he had me do.  Clean the print head.  More ink.  Unplug it.  Plug it in.  Clean the print head.  While it was cleaning for the upteenth time he offered to sell me an extended warranty.  I asked him just why in hell would I want to buy an extended warranty on a printer that does not work?  Michael got the idea that I might be getting testy so after 1 hour and 6 minutes he sent me to his supervisor.  He had me take all the ink out and remove the print head.  He then had me clean it with a lint free paper towel and replace it.  Put the ink in and prepare to print.  Nope.  The printer now knew I had put in a used cartridge and was having none of that.  So I poked the ok button a couple times and must have pissed somebody off inside that printer, because now it rejected the ink as counterfeit.  But the supervisor knew how to outsmart it so I printed out an email. Beautiful black email.  But now I could get no color.
To make a long story short, Farouk is going to send me a kit with a new print head and all four inks!  I can hardly wait until it gets here.  Total time on the phone was 1 hour and 58 minutes.  But I made 2 new friends today; Michael who I shall never speak with again and Farouk who has promised to call and check how the printer is working when the kit with the new stuff arrives.  That was my day.  And how was yours?

Nostalgia at this time of the morning? Sure, why not?

For some reason I decided to go back and read some old blogs.  I know what it was!  I wanted to download the pdf. of all of them as I want to have a record when I turn toes up and the kids are remembering me fondly.  I started out just pretty boring and mundane, but as time went on I managed to actually hit my stride there for a while.  So rather than tax my tiny brain this morning, I give you one of my first that I wrote about my mother. 

 

Friday, September 25, 2009

My Mother

My mother shaped my life by example and a lot of her down home wisdom. I am going to tell you some of these at this point and what my thoughts at the time were.

1. "Get that pencil out of your mouth. You don't know where it has been." (Where did that thing go when I wasn't looking?")

2. " Do you want a lickin'?" (Oh, yeah! That is exactly what I want, a lickin'!)

3. " If Beth stuck her head in the fire, I suppose you would too!" (How is wearing my socks rolled down comparable to sticking my head in a fire?)

4. "Eat that mush! There are people starving to death in China." (Well, I sure wish they had this mush!"

5. "Get that coat on before you go outside and freeze to death!" (Wonder how long it takes to flash freeze.)

6. " Do not stick your tongue on that metal pole, cause it will freeze there." (Of course I am going to do that if I can just make it to the pole before I freeze to death.)

7. "Break this candy bar in half and give your sister the biggest half so you do not appear greedy." (Yeah, give the big half to her because she is greedy.)

8. "The early bird gets the worm." (And why do I want a worm?)

9. " Stop running around like a chicken with its head cut off!" (There is a visual I do not need.)

10. "Keep your legs crossed or some little boy will look up your dress." (And what will he see?)

11. "I am going to knock your block off!" (What is a block? Is that possible? Where will my block land and can I put it back on?)

12. "Keep eating and you are going to pop open!" (So that is what that belly button is for! To hold me shut.)



And there is not a day that goes by that one of her idioms doesn't pop into my mind and jerk me back to the straight and narrow. Today this would be called child abuse, but back in those days it was just called "doing the best we can."

I would not trade my roots for any other roots in the world. I came from good, hardworking, honest German and I am sure this has helped shape me into the person I am today.