Helping the Homeless

Aside from being really busy with work, school, baby bunnies everywhere, and garden building, Mr. Hiver and I have taken on the task of rehabilitating a little homeless puppy we found in an empty lot next to the grocery store. He was in really rough shape when we found him, with an injured leg and a large, open bite wound on his neck.

You can read all about our story on my Pawsworthy blog. We've been trying to raise funds to help pay for his medical expenses, and we are nearly there! If you can help with a donation, we would be ever so grateful. We only need 230 more people to just donate $1 each and we will have made it to our goal! If you can't help out financially, it would be a big help if you would share our story to help raise awareness.

After this experience, we don't want to see anymore homeless pets wandering the streets, and we are going to do all we can to keep these efforts going, especially for those homeless animals that are in such poor condition that they might be automatically euthanized at a shelter. We believe that animals deserve a second chance, and that most can be brought back to good health and appearance with a little time, a little help, and a lot of love. Thank you for reading! I'll be back to blogging regularly soon.

And The Next Project Is...

Now that the days are getting warmer, and paint is more likely to dry faster, I have been scouting out the paint chip isles.

It's amazing how long you can stand in front of paint chips, darting from one color to the next. Although I love so many different colors, I know that there are a small few that I could actually live with on a regular basis. Most of those shades fall in the green-blue range. Particularly sage-y or gray greens and teal or aqua blues. The more inspired by nature, the better. I definitely lean toward the organic rather than the manufactured, so no brights, bolds, or neons for me. At least not for my walls.

Yesterday I had a look at what Home Depot had to offer, which wasn't all that impressive, really. I do find it interesting, as I look over the chips I picked up, that the a lot of the Martha Stewart hues I chose have names inspired by the garden, like Arrowroot, Endive, Hemp, Fennel Seed, and Timothy Hay. Or something that reminds me of being in Big Sur in Autumn: Blue Fir, October Leaf, Beach Sand, Tidewater, Thunderhead, Morning Fog, Gull, and Pink Sea Salt.

In December I was all for painting the walls dark, but now that Spring is here, I feel all light and airy for some reason. I am toying with the idea of doing all the walls stark white, which makes it easier to change out artwork. I often find that I will be enamored with a certain color at first, only to become tired of it when the next season rolls around because my mood for colors change often. Therefore, changing out artwork (especially when I create my own) is a lot easier than repainting walls. I can create a set of light and airy paintings for Spring and Summer, and a set of dark ones for Fall and Winter to satisfy my need for seasonal color changes.

What color are your walls? Do you prefer white or color? Do you have the urge to change your wall colors often?

The Man in the Picture

I just recently finished The Man in the Picture by Susan Hill. I requested this from the library at the same time that I requested The Woman in Black, which I finished about a month ago. I think I preferred the latter story, but they were both fairly good.

The Man in the Picture, like The Woman in Black, is an old fashioned ghost story, written in a very favorable style with strong character development and thick description of setting. Ms. Hill, in my opinion, really knows how to put across the images she wants you to see.

Those who like to read for thrill and sensation only, not for writing style and words, may find this story to be boring, especially those desensitized by stories and films containing graphic violence and boundary pushing. If you can appreciate it for it's simplicity, you will enjoy it. It is a very quick read, for the most part a page turner, and if you have the whole afternoon to yourself you may even finish it by the time you go to bed!

I preferred The Woman in Black, simply because I liked the setting better. The old haunted house in the deserted marsh is more along the lines of my idea of a ghost story, as opposed to Venetian paintings, but once again this was not a story of terror for me. It had a few moments of spine tingling anticipation, but in the end I think the film trailers looked much more terrifying than the actual book. That said, do not discount the book because your heart does not stop from fright, but appreciate it for how well it was crafted.

I wanted to be sure that I had read the book, The Woman in Black, before the film comes out on February 3, because I always feel I appreciate the book more that way. On the flip side, it does make me more critical of the film. In the end, I think individual imagination is more important than Hollywood dictation, so it's okay to be disappointed in films. Films don't allow you to exercise your own thoughts or imagination. When you watch the film first, your impression of the book will always be tainted with the film's imagery and not your own thoughts and ideas to fill in the blanks that books magically offer. So really, you lose out by seeing the film first. Go get the book instead!

Productive Weekend

I was a bit under the weather this weekend, despite the sun and warm temperatures, so I spent the last few days making a whole raft of decorated clothes pins, while stealing glances of period dramas. I watched three Catherine Cookson mini series, Dinner of Herbs, The Dwelling Place, and The Glass Virgin, all of which were very good.

Naturally, today when I was feeling better, the outdoor temperature, while still sunny, turned bitterly cold. So I gladly stayed inside again and posted all of my new goods in the Etsy shop.

Hand Made Wednesday, Co-hosted by Yours Truly Again!

I'm so excited that I was chosen to co-host for Handmade Wednesday once again, this time for the blog hop! Check out some of the fantastic blogs included in the hop above, and add yours! A big, huge thanks to Julia and Cori for hosting these awesome hops! P.S. My shop Turn of the Spade was also chosen this week (how lucky am I?) to host the shop hop, stop by the Turn of the Spade blog and check out all of the awesome shops that have linked up!

Books vs. eReaders

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.” ~Marcus Tullius Cicero

I confess, I'm a bit of a gadget-phobe. I don't carry a cellphone, I've never owned an iPod, and I tend to use the same computer long after it's officially fossilized. Therefore, it's probably no surprise that I don't have an eReader. This Christmas though, it seemed that people all over the internet, on blogs, facebook, twitter, etc, were jabbering away about their new Kindle Fires or Nooks. I began to wonder if perhaps I were missing something, so I started asking them what the big deal was? I just didn't hear enough information that left me feeling like this was an item that I absolutely needed to have, personally, and I'll tell you why. First of all though, I'd like to say that I am sure this gadget works well for some people and there are pros, but you have to make sure those pros are going to be personal pros for you, and that they weigh out your own personal cons.

I found a list of pros on the net and ran through them, so here's my responses:

1. Instantaneous book delivery. I actually find no trouble in exercising patience. There's excitement in anticipation! Waiting for my requested books at the library makes it Christmas every week.

2. Saves trees. Sorry to rain on your Green parade, but eReaders are not saving the environment. I'm all about saving trees, but not at the cost of polluting people in third world countries or women getting raped in the Congo. Gadgets are not worth that. Watch this video to learn about the cycle of electronics and their environmental impact, and this video to learn about the horrible things that happen to people in the places where we source the materials to make our electronics.

3. Immediate information. Same issue as as question 1. Oh, the redundancy.

4. eBooks are sold with bonuses. Yes, we all fall prey to this clever marketing tactic, don't we? Most of it is probably stuff you don't really care about.

5. Space saving. I actually prefer having a few tangible books around. I don't see public libraries as a waste of space, either. They bring the community together. People don't interact with each other enough these days without gadgets.

6. Portability. I don't care that I can carry hundreds of books because I have never had a need to. I read one book at a time. Carrying a gadget wouldn't be much different from carrying a single book, no?

7. Read anywhere. Books can be read anywhere, so no contest there.

8. More safely carried than books. Coming from a marathon gadget dropper, I do NOT believe this at all. I've never broken a book by dropping it. On a completely different note, you are more likely to get robbed carrying a gadget than a paper book, therefore rendering books to be the safer item to carry.

9. eBooks show links. I'm really glad that paper books don't have links. You can stop blaming Sesame Street for ADD now.

10. Searchable. I don't think I've ever had the need to instantly search a book, especially a novel. Maybe this would be useful to some people? I can see how it might be useful with textbooks.

11. Audio, video, animation. Again, I like real books because I can escape from overstimulation and use my imagination. Those are hard to come by these days.

12. No packing and shipping expenses. My library doesn't charge for these either.

13. eBooks are printable. Doesn't that sort of defeat the whole purpose? And don't try to tell me that it's going to be cheaper to print an entire book yourself with your printer.

14. Font resizing. I can't deny that this wouldn't be good for someone who has a hard time reading, but for me it's not something I need.

15. Easy to sell and distribute. This is only going to appeal to authors trying to peddle a book. You also don't need an eReader to do this.

16. People everywhere, even in remote villages, can download an eBook. Provided they have an internet connection. That's the key. What about all of us in remote "villages" who don't have access to decent internet for quick downloading?

17. Purchase a book 24 hours a day, anytime. Sigh. This list was a bit redundant. See question #1.

18. You're already in front of the computer several hours a day, why not read an eBook? Or why not read a book?

Let's not forget that books don't require batteries.

Oh, and they didn't mention anything about the cost of eBooks, which appear to be cheaper than the paper version, but the library is completely FREE. You are already paying for the library with your taxes, so why not take advantage of it? I guess you can get eBooks free from the library too, but that still doesn't make up for all of the other things listed above, and I can't help but think that this could contribute to the extinction of libraries as we know them today. Less books means less jobs at the library.

So, anyway, if that's the best you can give me, then I don't really see an eBook as a very smart purchase, particularly for me. As for those notebook style ones where you can surf the net and do other things? You already have computers and iPhones for that, why on earth do you need all that on another gadget?

New Year's Eve Bonfire

"One can enjoy a wood fire worthily only when he warms his thoughts by it as well as his hands and feet." ~Odell Shepherd

Interestingly enough, the word bonfire comes from "bone fire." Bone fires were Celtic, and they were used to discard the bones of slaughtered livestock they had prepared for food. People and their livestock would walk between two bonfires and cast the bones into the fire as a cleansing ritual. However, there are different customs involving bonfires all over the world that still continue on today.

Fire is related to the sun and symbolizes change and purification, so it seems fitting that we had a bonfire on New Year's Eve to say goodbye to the old year and ring in the new.

When I called my mom early last week to find out what the plans were for New Year's Eve, I was only mildly excited to hear that there was going to be a bonfire since my mom has a fairly large fire pit outside where they hold campfires on a regular basis. When she explained that no, this was going to be an extra large bonfire in the field, my interest was piqued.

When I arrived at the ranch early that afternoon, my mom was still busy piling more wooded debris on it. Apparently they had been saving up limbs all through Fall, because the stack was enormous!

We lit the fire fairly early in the evening around 9 PM and it burned out fast and bright, which isn't surprising considering how hot it was. It was so cold outside after the fire went out, that we were all quite happy to move inside, where we spent the rest of the evening watching movies and waiting for the ball to drop. Unfortunately, not all of us made it to that hour, but it was a great evening regardless.

I hope all of you had a fantastic New Year's Eve in your neck of the woods, and that you are looking forward to 2012!