7th Annual Holiday Sale - Saturday November 12 only - 11 am to 4 pm

You’re invited to the Seventh Annual Holiday Sale, a new event for me. This one-day event takes place next Saturday, November 12 from 11 am to 4 pm at the Stark Realty building, located at the corner of High Point and Old Sauk Roads, Madison. Join us and enjoy complimentary coffee, wine, hot cider, appetizers and sweet treats while you shop in a relaxing atmosphere for family and friends (or find something wonderful just for yourself).

Here’s what our artistic gang has to share at this event, with most items priced under $25:

Jennifer Blassing Hand woven scarves, belts & bags in gorgeous jewel colors.

Rose Halik Texile designs that include quilted fabric bowls in batik fabrics, sling purses & bracelets.

Gail Gladding-Pullara Wonderful jams & chocolate hazelnut Kahlua sauce plus tiny bird cottages covered with seed for your feathered friends.

Linnea Phillips “Naystalgia” is whimsical pieces made with flea market finds; bird feeders from old ash trays, mittens from recycled sweaters, candles in antique tea cups & decoupage switch plate covers.

Narra Smith Cox Versatile & beautiful pottery vases, platters, bowls & wine coasters with unusual glazes.

Debby Royston-Statz Earrings, one-of-a-kind beaded table runners, holiday table decorations.

Amy Statz Cheerful and beautifully crafted all occasion greeting cards and gift enclosures.

Edna Kunkel Pastels and enhanced digital photography compositions on blank cards, hand-dyed marble coasters and trivets, gift boxes, sticky-note packs & more.

Bonnie Wanta Bonnie’s Cottage Boutique’s pretty & practical placemats, potholders, wine cozies, aprons, baby blankets and more, all with artists touches and gorgeous fabrics.

Kathleen Ward Aunty K crochets Guyz, whimsical & colorful yarn creatures with big personalities: googly eyes, freckles, kinky curls & hand-painted eyes, so they’re all unique.

Ray Weigand Blockhead solid wood bowls, candle sticks, coasters and trays are lovingly crafted from many unusual woods such as catalpa and exotic cherry, in linear and even basket patterns.

Kris Woestman Unique crocheted women’s hats, fingerless gloves, neckwarmers, children’s hats & more. She also makes a line of hand-made soaps, lotion bars, lip balms & scented body butter.

Heidi Miller Hand woven on an old sock loom, warm children’s to adults size socks in colorful designs.

Jennifer Zarrinnam “Twinkle Toes” handmade hair lovelies, jewelry fashioned from vintage collections.

Ed Lanerud Hand crafted rustic reindeer, bears & lamps.

Bonnie Lubet “Our Three Arts” Paoli, exquisite semi-precious stone jewelry.

Giving Back to the Community

We are hosting a “Share Your Strength Bake/Nut Sale” all proceeds going to provide meals for hungry children in our area. In the spirit of the holidays and good will, we would greatly appreciate if you can donate a non-perishable food item to the St. Vincent de Paul food pantry.

More Info

The street address is 702 North High Point Road, Madison, WI 53717 (see Google Map) and has FREE parking in the back of the building. This event features a single check-out process that accepts cash and checks only.

Note

I will not be at the From Our House to Yours event this year as a vendor, but have a number of friends there, so let me know if you need details about the event (occurs the weekend after this one). The next event notices you will see from me will take place in December in the Verona area.

If you think government should run like business...

...what kind of business should it run like?

Generally, businesses are bipartisan. There may be some turnover when a person in a leadership position moves on, but usually the goal is to minimize disruption.

In many ways, government already runs like business. Albeit one that doesn't gross a 50% margin on everything. Think about how much more people would bitch if their taxes were proportional to the business worth of services that they received.

Some folks think that things would be more efficient and less prone to error. I've held jobs in the academic sector (private and state universities), in large multi-national companies, in family-owned businesses, in retail organizations, in banking-related industries, for myself, and a few more scenarios. What I've learned is that each organization has both strengths and weaknesses...not unlike each coworker I've known. Further, each person's motivation is individualized: they work for economic stability and for economic freedom, they work to keep their families together or their traveling lifestyle, they work to keep from being bored and they work to learn new things, they work because they need to be a part of a something big and noble or small and efficient, they work to create something that's never been done before or build a better mousetrap, they work to be the best or they work to be their best.

Company cultures vary as much as the individuals and groups that comprise them. Excellence, consistency, teamwork, individuality, hierarchical, egalitarian, top-down, bottom-up, and so many more business cultures thrive. And fail. Let's not forget that businesses fail. They're especially vulnerable when they have to undergo rapid change.

I'm sure at least some of you watch professional sports or have been on some kind of team before. Sometimes the combination of people turns into a stellar example of the sum of the whole is well worth more than the sum of the individual parts. Granted, this is what most companies who tout their team atmosphere want all of us to believe. But we all know that there are, have been, and will be teams that are successful because of the exquisite skills of just one or two people, and because the rest of the team is uniquely qualified to support them or because the stars would be successful regardless of whether they're partnered with a nincompoop or a genius.

Yes, the business of government has issues, but who is willing to pay someone to evaluate what works and what doesn't? You know, people with expertise at revamping business, not just the regular person standing in front of you with an opinion...

Opinions are most definitely way to easy to give...and those that are spewed out without data are the worst kind, at least in my opinion.
: )

I used to NOT express my opinion, primarily because it represented just my viewpoint. Over the years, of course, I've learned that my opinion is valuable, often because it's based more on logic and facts than on emotion and history. However, this doesn't make it any more valuable than anyone else's opinion.

So, think again about how exactly you think the government can be streamlined, identify the services that you believe can be eliminated, and then find some random person on the street and see if their opinion is a carbon-copy match for yours. We all have ideas of how things could be better, but in a good business, brainstorming is only the first part of the business process...

Let's defund the arts, they say...

No one needs the "frivolousness" of the arts, they say.

Do "they" believe that the arts are not a part of their lives? Do "they" not read? Do "they" not watch movies or TV? Do "they" not listen to music?

Are there NOT private and public businesses generating revenue from the arts?

"Oh, no," they say, "we value the arts, just we see no value in anything that's associated with our country or state that uses tax money."

"It's no big deal," they say, "private organizations and foundations have more than enough money to keeps the arts going."

"I could easily live without all this art stuff," they say.

"Oh, really?" I say with a raised brow. "Let's do it. Let's make the arts disappear. Poof! No more arts."

"They" applaud, and I sadly walk away.

The next day, all cameras disappear, in that images are art and art is frivolous. No longer can "they" celebrate their weddings with photographic memories, and they seem surprised that their cell phones no longer transmit images. As "they" browse the internet, images begin to disappear and there are boxes with big red "Xs" everywhere.

The day after, all their touch-screen devices lose the frivolous illustrated icons that help them identify the apps that they want to use. They go home and turn on their TV. Although the screen is black as now all moving images have disappearred, they can still hear the sounds.

Their phones all sound off with the same ringtone, but try as they might, they cannot find a single musical ringtone. They check their music device and are shocked when they see no files. This truly becomes the day that music died, but no one seems to remember the classic lyrics to the song that once was.

They enter the office and boot up their computer and are greeted by an eerie green screen with a c:>> prompt repeatedly mocking them to do something that they had once (or never) knew. They walk around the building to commiserate with their coworkers, but all are frantically trying to prepare for the critical meetings coming up in a few minutes and have no idea how to make a presentation without PowerPoint.

No worries, the clients for whom the presentation was intended, have gotten lost as their GPS unit can no longer guide them to their destination without map images. The clients eventually arrive so close to lunchtime, that everyone decides to change the meeting into a lunch discussion, knowing that the good food that they've ordered should make everyone feel more at ease.

The only problem is that the caterer lost all frivolously creative recipes last night, and all they could do was stop at the grocers for supplies, which they unloaded and left in the office kitchen hours ago. The group grazed some of the raw veggies and fruit, but weren't the least bit sated.

The workers pulled a verbal presentation together, but without the ability to diagram out the complexities of the concept, the clients left unimpressed and pulled the contract for the job.

They go home, dejected, to a house where kids literally have "nothing to do" except run around, play word games, or read . You know, in books or on the internet. There is no TV, TiVO or cable, video games, music, or even books with pictures in them. Of course, there is no homework, because along with those frivolous arts go all those unnecessary textbooks and overeducated teachers.

Ah, yes, the benefits of a world without arts.

Public funding for the arts offers opportunities that are valuable to all. Just because "they" don't realize the full ramifications is no reason to go toward an unnecessarily austere lifestyle...any loss of the arts affects lives in more ways than conservative politicians can fathom.

Countdown to 2011

And so it is that there are now only 33/32 days (depending on your time zone) until the next New Year reigns. How is that possible?

Intellectually, I know that time continues to pass at the same rate every day. Yet, year after year, months blend into what seems like just weeks, and each year passes in a whirlwind. Football season just started a couple of weeks ago, right, and now the bowl season is just around the corner. Halloween was just yesterday...nope that was Thanksgiving, and a couple of days have passed.

I don't feel like my life is so very routine that the days run into each other. I still feel like I accomplish a full range of tasks every day. But, the more things I jam into a day, the faster the day seems to fly. Even lazy days vaporize.

Where does the time go? I feel like life increments by a warp unit with each passing decade. I'm beginning to believe that "youth is wasted on the youth"...

Foiled morning adventure(s)

Those who know me realize that I am, without a doubt, not-a-morning person. So when I make it up and get out of the house before noon (especially on weekends), it qualifies as a major accomplishment.

So when I woke up this morning and realized that today would be a perfect day to shoot some morning photos, I flipped a virtual coin to decide whether to go back to Olbrich (after being there last weekend for an art class) or go to Vilas Zoo for the first time. Preferring to opt for something new, I chose the zoo. New animal photos with my long lens would make me really happy, right?

So proud of myself, I ensured that I had two potential routes over to the zoo. After taking the most direct route and running into an eventual roadblock because of a race, I turned around and began my approach from my alternate route. Despite a couple of orange cones, it looked clear. So despite a couple of what appeared to be annoyed looks from pedestrians, I continued toward the Zoo, primarily because I was following another vehicle. Then, as I made my final approach to the zoo, I saw the racers running toward me. Surprisingly, there weren't any race officials out there telling me to move or get off the route of the annual Zoo Run Run. They really should put up signs along the route and actually block traffic...as much as I'm sure they didn't like me on the route, I ultimately was on a one-way road that didn't exactly allow me to turn around.

So now I've spend an hour-and-a-half navigating to and around someplace that was too populated to take good photos, and decided that I'd just head home and try to shoot some local shots at my neighborhood Badger Prairie Park. Yes, I had moments of indecision where I thought about heading over to Olbrich or maybe down to Blue Mounds State Park, but those thoughts disappeared when I realized I was both a bit hungry and thirsty. So I stop at the local park and start rigging up my gear when I realize that neither my gorilla-type tripod nor my monopod were in my car. Since I'm compulsive about locking my car, I didn't think they had been stolen. After all, why would someone steal a monopod and not a more expensive tripod. Anyway, that sealed it for me. The photo gods were not smiling on me this morning, and I came home. There, on the floor where I left it after the Ironman Triathlon a couple of weeks ago was my monopod, and my little flexible tripod was in my art bag.

I've eaten a brief snack, gotten a little bit of liquid in me to wet my whistle, and will grab a sandwich before venturing out again. This next adventure, of course, will be more successful, in that it will naturally be an afternoon adventure...

You see only part of me

As I walked outside this evening to a luminous half moon, I thought that what others see and know of me is not unlike the half-phase moon. What we see is far less than what's illuminated, and all that we're capable of seeing from our position here on terra firma is limited to half of a whole.

I'm one of those dorky pessimists who admits to having a dark side. I probably relish the dark side more than the light side because I enjoy the thinking being, and I'm more contemplative when the emotions flow freely in response to the outside world. These are the moments where inspiration flows, the muses take possession of my soul, and I must express these thoughts and feelings immediately. Rarely do I find these kinds of inspiration in the company of any people. Fortunately there are other reasons to enjoy the company of people, but I find myself more and more content as I become more and more reclusive.

This does not apply to the company of my faithful companion, Crash, however. I can gain perspective from this sweet, tough, frightened, regal, and goofy creature. I write and create with this flawed and awesome life by my side. I've found that my dogs provide essential support in the most trying times and without that support, I am lost. This is one of the reasons that I don't much like to travel...

I'd rather move someplace new with my dog than travel around the world alone. How sad others think I am. But with my dog, I am a part of pack. We become an insurmountable foe and can do anything. We can go anywhere with our heads held high or run away with our tails tucked in, as the situation warrants. Collectively, we know each others moves, and sense whatever else we need. It is an awesome collaboration that continues to strengthen with time, and differs with each dog.

I wonder whether if reopening my life in a new place will help remove the sense of unsettled that I feel here in Wisconsin. I felt this before in Tennessee, but not in Pittsburgh or Chicago. I need to relocate that sense of grounding and peace. Where next will that be?

I hurt myself tying my shoe!

So, I wake up this morning knowing that it will turn into a pretty toasty day outside, and not being much of a morning person, I consider it an accomplishment to get out of the house before 11 am on a weekend day. All well and good. I figure out my shopping list for Home Depot, and I'm ready to leave the house at 10:30 as soon as I put on my sneakers.

Or so I thought...I sit on my loveseat and tie up my sneakers, and then get up to a wincing pain in the knee. No warning. No popping. No obvious weirdness. I pull out the cane that I acquired a couple of years ago for a popped calf tendon, and hobble around the house, grabbing the ice bag as I inch along.

Eventually I did make it out to the Depot...they didn't have the glass tiles that I wanted, but I was able to grab some replacement louvers for the vertical blinds in my living room, a potted orchid, a potted Gerbera daisy, and an oak dowel. I successfully work my way through the self-check out, but inadvertently miss ringing up the dowel. So I proceed to do the second transaction for the dowel, grab my receipt, and walk (or should I say limp?) out to the car. As I place my items in the car, I realize that I don't have the dowel, so I walk back in to the store and get the wayward wood. Sometimes it seems as though very interesting forces are at work. Even as I typed this, I realized that I momentarily could not locate that same dowel...

As I was driving home, I figured I could stop for about 10 minutes to shoot some pictures. The car had been air conditioned for awhile, and the plants would be fine, right? I grab a few quick shots, head back home, and pull all the goodies and wayward goodies out of the car (yes, I really did put the dowel in the house...it's on a chair next to the sliding glass door). To my dismay, the daisies all had wilted. Now I'm not a gardener by any means, but I do buy live plants as photographic and artistic subject matter. Sometimes they survive for weeks, even months before I completely neglect them. This one didn't even make it home before the blooms were toast. Right now, I've snipped the 3 flowers off the main foliage, and they're partially reconstituted in a large bowl of water...but certainly not the subject matter that I had intended.

I've rested, elevated, and iced that knee several more times today, but it's still misbehaving. I really don't want to add a knee brace to my arsenal of home medical supplies. As I noted before, I have a cane. I also have a sling (woosy shoulders), an array of ace bandages, a thigh wrap, several first aid kits, finger and wrist splints, ankle and elbow supports, and sundry other supplies...Most of these have been very useful over the years of minor sprains and strains associated with athletic endeavors. I can even peacefully justify their use when I move in some way that my body isn't accustomed. But when it comes down to things like "I must have slept in a bad position" or "I was just standing up"...I find it a bit annoying.

I started competitive athletics at age 8. Along the way, the list of sports has included softball, basketball, volleyball, field hockey, soccer, tennis, racquetball, and a little bit of gold. I used to lift weights and do strengthening with all the lovely gym equipment. Then I hit 35, and my dominant shoulder started screaming at me daily. I did physical therapy rehab twice and continued to be in pain every day. Ice was my best friend and Ibuprofen was my second best friend. My orthopedists gave me a variety of exercises that I did religiously and I found friends willing to give up their lunch hour to help me do the 100 throws a day pitching regimen, just to keep going.

A number of things were going on in my life, and depression hit big time. I gave up all athletic endeavors and crawled into a quiet, safe place. As I SLOWLY emerged from this depression months down the line, I realized that my shoulder didn't hurt. My docs had always told me to keep working, strengthening, playing. My body had decided otherwise. So technically I mostly retired from any competitive athletics...for about 8 years before playing softball and volleyball again. I still goofed around a bit and hiked and did other active things, and really payed for damages whenever a bowling ball was involved...I went from using an 11-12 pound ball down to an 8 pound ball and that was still NOT light enough for the shoulder [I did, however, have the tendency to hold on to the light ball a bit longer than I should, and did a softball pitch THUNK down the lane].

Anyway, I'm not the gal who generally stops if something hurts (usually only when forced to do so), but to have giant twinges of pain for NO APPARENT reason really chips me off. So, as I close this story to add ice to injury (again), sign all of my joints as well older than my years...

Walking in the Path of Others

I often feel that I walk outside the main stream. Realistically, I should say that I've always felt that way, and my feelings are reinforced generally at least once a day...

My actions were influenced (often most severely) by what I perceived as consequences of other people's actions. Part of this is rooted in being the youngest child in a set of five and an "observer" personality type. I watched my older siblings get into a lot of things--or heard about them as the punishments were doled out. I probably learned more from their mistakes than actually by my own--at least in my early years.

When I went off to college, I really was on my own to make a bucketful of mistakes, or in the vernacular of the marketing spin-doctoring, "learning experiences". Of course, some of the responsibility for these errors in judgment can be shared with others, but some were clearly my own lapses or naivetes.

I've been told that if I'm living my life "right", then I should be able to do so without regrets. Since I have regrets, some may say that the converse is true: I'm living my life "wrong". I believe instead that my sequence of life-changing events has played out according to someone else's script. The character in that script was slated to be far more resilient, confident, and thicker-skinned than I.

Rather than resilience, I have determination to pick myself up by the bootstraps. I can envision myself attempting this type of maneuver: falling first flat onto my face and then back on my keister in a farcical, repetitive sequence. I also can see the Acme logo on the side of the bootstraps and hear the roadrunner mockingly beep-beeping.

Confidence, or self-esteem, is an interesting concept to my internal observer. It has absolutely nothing to do with talent or ability. It often has no grounding in reality. It is clearly a state of believing "I can". I used to believe that I could do or be anything. I no longer believe this, but also do not perceive this as a bad thing.

Functionally, I might be able to learn and retain enough information to be a FILL-IN-THE-BLANK-HERE. I'm intelligent enough to put the pieces together and curious enough to learn on my own or from a mentor. But, realistically, there are some things that "I can't" do. There are other things that I won't do. There are things that I've not been able to do; and I'm not ashamed to own up to them. Perhaps that, too, is something heinous to admit...it often seems to me that many need to tell themselves that they can to help them feel better.

I have no problem saying that I've never done something before; fortunately that doesn't prevent me from trying it, succeeding, failing, liking, or disliking it. Self-esteem seems to present itself in me as an accomplishment reward rather than a precursor to an activity.

My freckled skin seems to shed light on the permeability or thickness factor. I have tons of teeny tiny freckles, maybe constituting 5% of the surface area, separated by large patches of unpigmented areas. If I'm prepared and slather on SPF100 lotion every quarter hour or so, I can handle a limited amount of damage. On the other hand, if I'm caught unprotected, I'm going to burn quickly and severely across the huge majority. I take all of my creative endeavors personally--and that includes both my art and work. I'm more passionate about my art, but I'm still fully vested in my work!

My wise and powerful introversion gene down-regulated my expression today, which is why my fingers need to take care of releasing bits tonight.

> 140 characters...

I've been off spending time on Facebook and Twitter trying to catch up with friends and family in the past year, and tonight I feel the need to write a longer passage. I'm having a temporary case of severe cynicism...

I'm struggling with the fact that the Palin twit continues to find a voice and listeners. I'm dismayed that there is so much political polarization running amuck rather than doing something productive. It's disturbing that people with the biggest egos are out there in roles of managers, executives, and other powerful positions. Luckily, I suppose, for them, their egos seem to be enough; unluckily, for the rest of us, I think we'd prefer real substance, strategy, and commitment.

Then again, maybe we don't care about real substance. We watch staged reality shows. We pay attention the the trails behind people like Heidi/Barbie. We see spin-doctoring come into play to repaint bad choices into uncontrollable addictions. We think Simon's the bad guy because he tells people that can't sing exactly that.

We hide our real feelings, or, apparently, many of us eat our real feelings to spare those of others. We fill our lives with so many activities, and then need to fill them with other activities to alleviate the stress that we're under. We hate the actual wars that go on and spend endless hours manipulating electronics in virtual war games.

We need to know the news at every given second, and with microblogging, we don't seem to question the credibility of the source. We can't leave the house without knowing the weather prediction for the day and we accept those unreliable predictions that seem only marginally better than bursitis in a shoulder. Secretly, we all wish we could have the weather person's job where we could make mistakes over and over again, and it was considered acceptable. News flash: life, in general, is not an exact science; humans are quite fallible.

There are, of course, parts of life that are pretty wonderful and, honestly, I find human foibles and flaws far more interesting than the more perfect aspects (whatever the heck those are). On those days where real life just doesn't seem enough to clear the senses, I can fall inside a book or a painting and gain new perspective. I know tonight's melancholy and cynicism can be attributed to the evils of caffeine and insufficient sleep. I can hope that tonight will be filled with a restful sleep...and tomorrow will start anew first with a big wet kiss from buddy, Crash. Definitely one of the few parts of morning that I enjoy. To bed. To sleep.

socially inept?

Now on Twitter, too. Look for ElectriKolor to follow...