Hapi-Hapi Progress

Haven't posted in a bit since we've been busting as on the construction.

The last week we got the roof on and 99% of the sheathing done, windows cut out, etc. Still a bit panicked about finances (under $2k left) but whatever. We'll get done what we get done. If the rest has to happen in stages over the coming seasons, so be it.

As of today wiring is 90% done! Only 90% because I ran out of 12/2 wire and both auger bits were dull (is auger bits the right term?)... of course, I had gone to Ace to get some other stuff and some new ones, but since they weren't on my list -of all of three things- I completely spaced on them.

That's okay, my arms are jiggly-feeling from drilling/pulling wire through the holes, so I was ready to be done anyways.

Thankful for leftover Indian from saturday, so no cooking need happen tonight, just some reheating and some movie-watching.

Thankful that the movie we're watching won't be Annabelle. Started that one last night and turned it off halfway through. Thankful that it was free, so I didn't resent it as much as I would have if I'd payed for it.

Of course, we have all the leftover Indian, but a friend had to go and post about pesto, and I had just been eyeing all the chickweed  going crazy in the garden and thinking how c'weed pesto sounded really yummy and now I want chickweed pesto!

Some progress pics and a random hellebore.

I Felt the Earth Move...

Day three of kooky sleep patterns... not cool. Been falling asleep easily and soundly, then waking up about 2-3am and tossing/turning for hours.... usually falling back into real sleep right around sunrise. You know, about when it's time to get up. Not sure if it's because of the crazy-bright moon, some anxiety about the house, or some residual soreness in the arms... or a combo of all three. I'm guessing the latter.

Regardless of the cause, today is going to be Self Care Day for me. Charlie's headed to Missouri for the weekend with his mom to see his uncle(s)... I think I'm going to run a load in to the scrap metal place in Murf, pick up a few comic books w/the scrap metal money (yay, getting rid of junk *and* getting comics in return!), do a bit of grocery shopping... then call it a day on anything productive. Except maybe sew a bit/get some faces ready.

But hey, look! Bulldozing is done! (I don't know why I call it "bulldozing" when it's "backhoe-ing" but whatever) Now it's all about figuring out where the pylons are going to go and digging the holes for them... and pouring the concrete into them... and building the subfloor.... and.... putting up the walls.... and... andddd. (did I mention I'm having house-building anxiety?)

I need to try and remember to share more of the items in our "benefit" Etsy shop here... I forget to do that a lot. What can I say? I'm horrible at promotion. So, on that note....

This is "Grain of Fabric" a mixed-media piece that I did over the winter. It can be found here: Grain of Fabric

How to get really sore arms in three easy steps:

Step 1) Replace the cord on the weedwhacker with the blade from a circular saw. Proceed to clear out the hillside of brush.

Step 2) Remove the overly-attached [come would say codependent] joins from old section of house to new section of house.

Step 3) Move 300lb wood stove into the bed of a truck.

Ta-da! Soreness achieved!

In other news, we're now 100% ready for the bulldozing to start tomorrow.


Charlie surveying the damage....

Resolvulotions. Or something.

Okay. It's for real. I need to start utilizing this space more. Again. For real this time. I swear. Both for creative purposes, and for sanity.

So, yeah, first post of 2014!

We'll start with a Charlie update: In many regards he's progressing well. He's regained a lot of the usage of his leg and can get about fairly well as long as he has his cane. He's still quite slow, but he's coming along. Slowly. Like I totally win every race we have. With his arm, he's gotten a lot of flex back in his shoulder, though there's still very little in his elbow, and almost nothing in his hand. This is a normal progression, though, as usage returns in a pattern travelling downward (shoulder first, then elbow, then hand).

Language is still challenging him a LOT, and is the aspect he finds most frustrating. He does occasionally pop out with a full sentence (we'll say an average of one a week), and can come up with a lot of words on his own if given the time to do so. Cuss words come out quite quickly. Shocking, that. His reading, however, has improved dramatically, and this gives him hope. While he's still a long ways away from reading a book, he can work out many simple sentences with a minimum of assistance.

This is an aspect we work on for several hours a day... from the time we wake up when I ask him how he's doing, to having him say "I would like some coffee" to going over flashcards and various sentences repeatedly.

In a fit of complete and utter fucking insanity, I decided that the week before Christmas was the perfect time to hang drywall and repaint the living room. You know, just because sadomasochism is fun and all that. I'd kind of hoped to have it done by the time my parent's visit was over, but that didn't happen... tho it did give my father something to do while he was here so he didn't drive me (or my mother) crazy.  We finally finished it up about a week ago, and I got to paint it and hang up some art work! Love having a wall full of the work of friends!



One of the pluses of this project getting completed (except for the ceiling trim) is that I could move all the stuff back out of the studio room, where I'd stored it during the drywalling...  which means that after a several-week break, I can get back in the studio and get back to work. Here's a little sneak peek of a larger (about 4ft) piece I have in progress.

No more excuses, back to work beyotch.

As always, there are new(ish) items being added to the Charlie's Spot store, including a custom-built electric guitar by our friend Gwen using recycled barn wood from her barn, and some paintings by Jacqueline Myers-Cho. And, as always, feel free to spread the word about the shop and the reason for it!

Curveballs: Returning Home

Waiting to hear from the docs about post-stroke acupuncture (just to err on the side of being safe, since I know Ginny is cautious in these things, especially involving her son).... but anyways, looking around online, it seems to be fairly well-accepted as a treatment, even by the "normal" medical journals. Though of course they follow with a "well, we can't *necessarily* approve it/back it up, but it *does* seem to work. We just can't prove why" kind of statement.

Having lunch with him and then going home tomorrow afternoon. Going to be weird... my first night alone in our bed, and likely to be the first of many. It will take a lot of work to get our home finished and ready for him to be able to use it... but I know that he will eventually want to live in the home that he designed, planned and built himself. It may be a year or more down the road before he's able to be out there full-time, but whatever. A year goes by pretty fast... and there's lots of work to do to fill that year. Thankfully this happened BEFORE we started the renovation/building, not AFTER, so things can be planned around.

For the somewhat immediate part, it's simple stuff like moving a bed downstairs that he can access if he wants to come out for an evening (though even that is still a ways out, most likely).

For the long-term, it will mean redesigning our home/planned home. Things like removing half the wall in the living room into what had been planned to be a studio room, but will now be a bedroom instead. Using what was the upstairs bedroom as the studio instead.

Things like moving our parking area to the other side of the house and putting in a sidewalk (again, if need be -we don't know what his walking capabilities will be in the end- hopefully he returns to full mobility)

A deck outside the future kitchen with a ramp down to said sidewalk.

Things like "indoor plumbing" as far as the toilet aspect goes, though we'll do a composting toilet, since a "regular" toilet would mean a septic tank... which would mean having "regular" electricity brought in. (I'm still not sure why a septic tank needs electricity, mind you.

Truthfully, the thought that he will one day return to our home is all that keeps me going most days, keeps me on the sane edge of breaking. It may not be next month, or in six months, but eventually he will be able to sleep in our home, in our bed.

Aren't they just big holes in the ground, anyways?) Personally, I think that indoor toilets are kind of gross  -I'd rather my shit [and the attendant bacteria] be in the outhouse, physically removed- than in the actual house with me, but whatever.

FAF: Mel Odom, Mushrooms, Sheds and Snails

I first discovered Mel Odom as a young teen, maybe even pre-teen, it's hard to say. That was a while back. I do know I was familiar with his work from an early age via assorted book covers, though it wasn't until I was a little older.... sixteen or so... that I found a book of his work, and fell in love a little bit. Maybe even a few times. Not sure what it was I liked about his style (sarcasm)

In other news, we started on the shed, so we can start on the deconstruction of the original shack/reconstruction of the future kitchen/bathing room. Gotta have a space to put all the stuff in the shack while the kitchen is getting built... I have zero desire to have it all crowded up in the living room for the next 3-5 months. So, yeah.... new shed!

We got the floor base up over the weekend... had a slight rain delay... then got the actual floor done tuesday. Hopefully the rain lets up a bit, and we can get some walls up this coming weekend, maybe even a roof?

I'm not holding my breath on that last part, since one thing  we've had PLENTY of this spring/summer is rain and moisture. Enough that we have some rather cool fungi popping up in the houseplants. (don't worry, even though it's a houseplant, it's outside for the season... not so keen on random fungi indoors, however cool they are)

The snails in the goldfish pond are happy as well. I saw some Snail Sex going on last week (which is pretty cool if you've ever seen it), then the other day I discovered an egg sack on the side of a plant that sits half-submerged in the pond. 

We're about to have a bajillion baby Golden Apple snails... assuming the goldfish don't eat them. I kinda hope they eat some of them, though because while I think they're rather lovely...

They also get rather large. And I don't have room for a bajillion of them.

Garden Goodness and The Hum and the Shiver

One of the benefits of actually being home this spring/summer? Getting to be here for the growing season... flowers aplenty, and veggies out the wazoo. Zucchini, anyone? Weeds?

 

 

Speaking of gardens in the woods, a book I read recently (and enjoyed) was The Hum and the Shiver. Ignore the cheestastic tag "In this valley, songs kill," it's not about a bunch of killer fiddlers... it's not about much, really. Well, it is, but there's not a whole lot that happens, not a lot of action. And it works.

 

 

 

What it's about is a broken (in the literal and metaphorical senses) young woman returning from war in Iraq to her home in rural Tennessee, and how she adjusts to being labeled a "hero," and seeking to find her place in life again... with mixed success. She also happens to be a Tufa, a race that may or may not be exactly human.

One of the things which I enjoyed about this book that made me giggle a little, was that it could kind of be summed up as being about a group of "faeries,"  fond of drink and sex and internal bickering, misunderstood by the other locals, who live just outside of Cookeville... just off highway 70... near Cripple creek.

If you don't know, I live in a rural community... of self-described faeries... in central Tennessee... just outside of Cookeville... off of highway 70 (some of us, anyways)... near Cripple Creek. It make me wonder if the author (who is from Memphis) heard about "the faeries" in the area (or perhaps visited) and just kind of ran with the idea.

Regardless, the book is enjoyable, pick it up!

The Hum and the Shiver

 

Okay, Okay!

No, really... okay! I SWEAR I'm going to do better at keeping up with this blog thang. I know I said that a few months back, but this time I mean it. Really.

Quickie Catch Up:

1)  We've been home for many months now, which has been nice. It's supposedly coming to an end in mid-September, when Charlie will return to the road. I'll be leaving my job (anxiety-inducing... no paycheck!) and staying at home with a new job... finishing our home. We currently reside (primarily)in the 20x20 "existing living room" section, with an additional upstairs bedroom, and the Original Shack (which is where the future kitchen/bathing room will be)... which is primarily use as a tool room/storage right now.

It's going to be a LOT of work, but I'm looking forward to it. Moving into the modern century is kind of exciting. You know... indoor showers, a stove... a refrigerator. Thoe kinds of things are pretty nifty. We started construction on a 12x12 shed this weekend, so we have a space for all the stuff that's in the Original Shack to go when we tear it down (hopefully starting THAT in a week or two)

2) Since there won't be a paycheck coming in on a regular basis any more (did I mention anxiety-inducing?) I've been contemplating various ways of making some $ching$... which led to me breaking out the sewing machine for the first time in forever. Since our space is going to drastically decrease for the next 6 months-a year, I have to focus on *small*. There aren't any photos yet, as I've just starte, but I'm working on a series of abstracted felted dolls called Travellers, as well as some felted ornaments (just in time for the holidaze!) that I'll be putting up on Etsy, as well as at our local art/craft center (which, conveniently, a friend of ours just took over the management of).


3) Speaking of said arts center and the new management of, they're also looking for ongoing shows, so while I still have the space I've been working on a series of abstract paintings. Not to slam a style (or myself) but abstracts aren't really thing... or haven't been my thing, I should say... but I also need something that has a wider audience than Weird Alien Women, which probably wouldn't move well in Woodbury, Tennessee. But I have to admit to actually enjoying the process of them, in the end! I have to figure out how to get color-true photos of them, mind you. They don't "read" correctly for some reason.

 

4) We also have a new addition to the household... a foster who became a permanent resident. Meet Ripley, AKA "The Behemoth." She's going to be huge... already she's twice the size she was in this photo  --she's now 23lbs--  and it's just a few weeks later.

 

 

All righty, off to see what everyone has been up to in my absence!

Why Yes, I Do Suck

At keeping up with blogs. It's 100% true.

I'm not even going to go into all the details about what's happened since September, which is when I last updated... I'll just do the Quickie Bullet Points Update.

1. Worked Cleveland, which I totally dug. (I think that's where I was at my last update.)
2. Fled Cleveland just as winter set in, and came home for Thanksgiving.
3. Fled Tennessee just as winter set in, and headed to Florida.
4. Enjoyed a month of sunshine and warmth down south, then headed back to Tennessee for the holidaze.
5. Made the decision to no longer travel for work, and am now going to be home full-time, except for trips that *I* want to take.
6. Caught the H3N2 flu, got laid up in bed for 2 weeks... THEN had the pleasure of it morphing into pneumonia, which I'm still dealing with. I've managed to stay out of the hospital thusfar, but it's been tiring.

 
So, yup... that's the sum of it! Now that I'm home, I hope to keep up with the blogosphere a bit better.... for one thing, I hope to have things to share in said blogosphere. I haven't done anything art-related in almost six months, but just today I started getting the studio back to a functioning space again.

Finding unfinished projects, some of them upwards of two or three years old.
Ideas for paintings running through my head.
Ideas for dolls, as well.

Listening to new(ish) music (Cold Specks)... life is feeling pretty good right now, really, all things considered, pneumonia or no pneumonia. Of course, that could be me trying to distract myself from the fact that Charlie left for St Peterburg this morning, and I won't see him until he comes home in 2-3 weeks. I'm a little jealous that he's in Florida, where it's warm, and I'm home, where it's not warm... even though it's nice to be home. I have another doctor apointment tomorrow, and then a follow-up the next week, so I'm here, like it or not.

Oh yeah! We also built a new outhouse for ourselves! (well, by "we," I mean Charlie, Dashboard, and JB built it.... I supervised)

"Our downfall was, it was so beautiful. For us, who had replaced religion, family, society, ethics with Beauty, who saw ourselves as in the service of Beauty, no warnings were understood, no traps anticipated. To go down, in the service of That — that was the ultimate grace.”
(Diane di Prima)

On The Road Again

Someone should write a song about that.

Oh, wait....

But yup, it's been nice to be home for a while, but it's time to head back out. We leave for Phoenix on the 18th, and will be there for the next two or three months. Just in time for summer. WOOOT! (that's sarcasm)

I'm hoping that while we're there, we at least get to see a haboob. Given that this photo was taken on this exact day last year, it seems like there's a good chance of seeing one!

I mean, seriously, how cool/intense do these look?

I'm dreading the trip some, I have to say. Mainly because we're flying out there, since the new company cars are being delivered there. 1) I hate flying. It's the same kind of thing with why I refuse to be a passenger in a car, amplified 20x. I just have issues with people other than myself being in control of my life. Logical at all? Nope. Still there anyways? Yup.  2) Since we're flying, it means I have to seriously downsize what I take with me... including cooking instruments and studio stuff. My usual Modus Operandi is to just take anything I might possibly even think I may want. Sewing machines, paint and easels, collage stuff.... you name it, I bring it. Not this time, though. Going to have to focus on specific things and plan ahead! Ack!!

Speaking of art, two nifty-keen things I received this week:

The first is a book of self-portraits from a swap hosted by the lovely Jen worden, featuring a portrait of a devilish Amy on the cover...

The other thing is a little Poe-inspired tin shrine from an exchange hosted by Lisa Vollrath, and created by Katie Cahill.

One thing which I'll be hauling half-way across the country with me is this thrift-store painting. I'm hosting a swap inspired a recent(ish) show where a bunch of different artists took a bunh of paintings, and added monsters, robots, etc into them. Seems like a fun idea, and lord knows there's plenty of base material out there!

I haven't decided yet what's going in there. Kind of torn between some Cthullu-esque creature, or giant robots. Or things in the water. Or... or.... or...

Anyhooo,  how about some random garden(ish) photos?

These guys wanted a little privacy, but they didn't get any. That's what happens when you have sex on my porch. Expect voyeurs.

Teeny-tiny mushrooms, sprouting up at the base of a rosemary bush... they were glowing in the early morning light, and by noon they had melted to little piles of moosh. (given how hot it's been here this year, I frequently feel like melting into a little pool of moosh by noon myself)

I'd been anxiously awaiting the opening of Snow White and the Huntsman. I LOVE some Charlize Theron, and I love some darker fairy tale stuff.

Sadly, it was pretty disappointing. Visually, it was beautifully done, Theron rocked it out as the evil queen, Raevenna, especially when she took it completely over the top. Kristen Stewart, however, seemed hell-bent on sucking any sort of fun out of it. I'd never seen her before, but I now get why people were booing her even before they saw the movie.

Apparently she just came out of the closet as a pot-smoker, and while I have no issue with that whatsoever, perhaps she needs to put the pipe down before going to work. Or only take on roles in zombie movies...as a zombie.

I wouldn't say it's a horrible movie... far from it, actually... but it was a let-down. Watch it, but don't expect a whole lot. Perhaps that was my problem... I'd gotten myself all psyched-up for it beforehand.

This, however, makes me LOL... literally.

All righty, hope everyone has an excellent weekend!

All Together Now

Okay, so Amy wants us to toot our own horns on these posts, but I have to tell the truth. I have no horn to toot. See, when I was about 8 or 9, I joined band class. I'm not sure why, even, besides maybe to get out of P.E. I didn't have any particular interest in music... at that point, I hadn't even bought my first cassette. (I was 12 when that happened, and it was Janet Jackson's Control, followed by Petshop Boys' Please, which probably should have been a tip-off to my parents about my orientation)

Anyways, so I decided I was going to play the clarinet. I quickly discovered that there were some things almost as bad as being forced to play football in the south Texas sun. Namely, trying to produce something akin to music from a clarinet. After months of never moving from the shameful Last Chair, and irritating every cat within hearing-range, I "accidentally" dropped my horn case in the middle of the road on the way home from school, and never looked back.

So yeah, no horns here.

That's okay, though, I discovered my talents lay in other areas.

Oh, I should introduce myself, I suppose, since I don't know a lot of the folks coming to this lil' partay. I'm Judah, and I tend to make goofy faces when taking pictures, as evidenced below. I can't help it, it just happens.

I live on 67 acres in the backwoods of Tennessee (as in it's 45 minutes to the nearest city) with my partner of 15 years, Charlie, and our dog Ajakx Einstein. (A.K.A. "World's Smartest Dog") We're in the process of building our home entirely by hand, which is both rewarding and sometimes frustrating.

All righty, intros are done, so on with the (non)horn-tooting!

I like animals a lot. Like, a LOT a lot. Our home is full of them, most of them rescues of one sort or another. There's Coco the conure, Larry the lizard, the aforementioned Ajakx, the cats Una and Decimal Decimator, and numerous fish. Those are just the regulars. I also work with several no-kill shelters, so the number of dogs can range from 1 to 10 (or more). It feels really swell to take in an abused, neglected, dog that's scared of people or angry, and work with them until they turn into big, slobbery, love-givers.

I LOVELOVELOVE comic books. They make me happy. I've read them since I was a little kid, and I think they help me maintain some of my kid-ness. Which anyone who knows me can tell you, I've maintained a lot of. I like that about myself.

My favorite book is Uncanny X-Men, and my two favorite characters are Rogue and Storm, pictured above. (and no, Rogue isn't a big meanie, she'd been possessed, obviously... duh) As a kid, I SOOOO desperately wanted either a white stripe or a white mohawk. As an adult, I frequently have a white mohawk.

Anyways, I "blame" comics for my love of art. They're what made me first pick up a pencil and start drawing.

I spend a lot of my time in the gardens that surround our home. If I'm not reading or making art, I'm in the garden, oftentimes taking pictures of the stuff there. Like my outdoor reading spot.

Or the bugs that reside in the garden, of which there are plenty.

I make art of all sorts. I'm a little A.D.D. in that regard, which I think is both a good thing and a not-so-good thing, but mostly a good thing. "Art dolls" are a particular love, and one I return to time and again.

I also paint. I used to paint a lot, but took a break for many years, mainly because I travel for work, and have just started getting back into it the last couple of years.

I play in the ever-popular "found object" mixed media realms as well. It gives me a reason to pick up rusty things off the ground and pile them up in drawers.

I sew... though my skills in that area are minimal and mostly self-taught. Some day I'll learn the finer details, but probably not any time soon!

Right now, I'm working on a series of mixed media (in the most literal sense... they consist of collage, sewn elements, wood, metal, paint, ink and other stuff) pieces called "But is it Art" playing with that tired old argument about "art vs pornography." See, I'm also sex-positive. I hate that our culture has created such shame and disgust around the most natural of acts. Much like breathing, eating, shitting, and dying, it's the one thing that everyone does. Or most everyone. I think. I hope.

I like that one of my "missions" in life is to get people to stop feeling guilty about their bodies. Whatever their shape or size, whatever you do or don't do with it, it's an amazing, beautiful thing... celebrate it!

These are still WIPs... eventually they'll be sewn onto fabric or canvas and altered even further.

I like that I encourage others to make art, and not to judge themselves or belittle themselves. We're ALL artists. Each and every single one of us. It doesn't matter if "all" you can draw is a stick figure... you're still an artist!

All righty, that's all for now... off to meet some of the other folks in this lil' partay!
Everyone enjoy the start of their weekend! That's an order from Ms Jackson.

Oh! And the giveaways! Just leave a comment, and on monday I'll do a drawing for the winners of a shrine, and a little 4x4 painting! (see previous post for an example of the shrine... it won't be that exact one, but one made just for you... you can even send me a theme if you want! Or leave it up to me, your choice!)


Oh #2! If you just happened to stop by here and *aren't* one of the party-goers, stop by Amy's blog to check out the fun she's put together!
http://butterscape.blogspot.com/