Getting Into My New Routine

 Large cabinets currently for sale at January's,

with fabulous cactus paintings by "Spiny Lady" Stacey Jo Harms

in the background

Since I last wrote, I've started my new job working at my friend January's art and antiques gallery.   January's shop was full to the gills with high quality stuff, and she expanded to the storefront next-door, where I work.  We sell the larger pieces of furniture in my shop, plus we've moved the vintage clothing over to my side, because the new store already had dressing rooms built into it.  

 Paintings by Gretchen Barto, our featured artist for the October Art Hop

I'm working about 20 to 25 hours a week, and it's really enjoyable.  I'm constantly meeting new people, some of them local and some of them just passing through, and they all love the store.  The surroundings are very pleasant--January had the place painted with luscious colors chosen using feng shui, and there is art on the walls by local artists who are friends of mine.  Being a shopkeeper in such a lovely environment and dealing with (mostly!) pleasant people hardly seems like work at all.

Some beautiful Persian rugs also for sale at our store

 

Even though I'm only working part-time, it's the most I've worked outside of my home for many years.  Most of my work for the past several years has been selling on eBay, which I can do at any time of the day or night, in my jammies in front of TV if I choose.  

Getting a little dressed up and going to a workplace means having to be a little better organized about meals, errands, housekeeping, etc.  I'm adjusting.  At first I found it hard to fit my eBay selling and art-making around my new job, but now in my third week, I'm getting better at balancing everything. 

A few small canvases on which I'm experimenting with pattern and color

   
Also since my last blog post, I've had some art work in a local artists show at Grapes, a very nice gallery here in Truth or Consequences.  My work has been well-received and I've gotten my first commission as a result, which I'll begin working on today.  

It's starting to get a little chilly here.  I haven't yet experienced a winter in T or C, but I understand there can be a couple of months of below-freezing weather.  So I'm beginning to stock up on sweaters and other warm clothes from the really great thrift shop that's on my block.  I used to own all that stuff, but got rid of most of it when I was traveling.

Steve is spending the winter, or at least some of it, in Arizona and will be coming back here to visit from time to time.  We're also starting to plan an RV trip to Florida in February.  My mom, sister and niece all moved to Sarasota recently.  It will be really fun to get out in the Guppy again for a long roadtrip, especially after experiencing a few months of work and colder weather here in New Mexico.   

Mixed Media and Chicken Soup

When I posted a blog last week, I mentioned my concern about getting enough artwork produced for an upcoming local artists show at my landlord's gallery for the October Second Saturday Art Hop.  I don't think I need to be concerned about coming up with enough work.  I still have almost three weeks to go, and I'm really enjoying being very productive, both at making artwork and in other arenas of my life.

The diptych above is called "Freak Flag," and I made it on two discarded shelves that I found at the thrift store.  I used scarves that hadn't sold on eBay to make the blue field and the stripes with their paisley overlay, and then I did a bunch of painting using acrylics.  A final touch which is difficult to see in the photo is that there are red glass gems that really draw the eye to the non-stripe elements.  It is a fun piece--not my best work, but someone is going to love it and take it home.  I will probably wait to show this one in November at the Trash Bash show that will feature recycled artwork.  

 For the October show, I'm mostly creating works on canvas that combine fabric and acrylic painting.  The one shown here is called "Swirl," and it's an extension of all of the mandalas I've been drawing by hand for the past six months or so.  Basically I'm just taking the mandala drawing into another medium.  This one was fun to paint, but a little more precise work than I usually enjoy.  I like the sense of being able to slap paint on something, without having to be too exacting about it.  

This one, called "Wild Thing," is a little more my style.  Yes, it's a painted mandala with fabric elements, but it's more haphazard.  This one was really, really fun to make, and I think the end result shows that.

Here's another mixed media picture that I completed yesterday.  This one has some floral scarf pieces overlaid with those leaf-type shapes from a vintage Vera Neumann scarf.  I call it "Viva Vera," and I hope it will be the first of many tributes to my favorite textiles designer.  


In this picture, I wanted to echo the flowers from the Vera scarf, but there was so much going on already that I was hesitant to paint a lot of flowers.  So I simplified it by making some potato prints of flowers instead of painting individual flowers.  The prints make the flowers more uniform in size and color than they would be if I'd freehand painted them.  

The main challenge I had with this piece was that it was too, too much!  Each fabric had a lot of color and texture, and some of the colors were really bright.  For a while, this work was so wildly colored that it looked the Easter Bunny had exploded while breaking through a stained glass window.  But I was able to tone it down and bring more unity to the picture by doing a lavender watercolor wash over some of it.

In addition to creating artwork, I've been getting a lot of scarves listed on eBay.  I also worked three partial days in a row in the new store, where we sold quite a bit of my landlord's old furniture.  Now I have some time off from working while the store is being painted and readied for being officially opened in October.  

I am thrilled by some of the developments as they have occurred.  It looks like I'll not only be selling the larger furniture that comes into January's, but also the clothing!  That will be really fun.  There are two dressing rooms already built into the new store space.  I'm looking forward to dressing up a little myself, after several years of wearing mostly T-shirts and jeans or shorts.  

Also, we're going to use a gallery picture-hanging system in the new store, so it will be easy to change out artwork.  January is open to my ideas about doing some calls for artists to put together some theme shows.  I can hardly wait!  I am going to learn so much from doing the PR and curating duties. 

My pace of producing artwork has slowed down a little the past couple of days.  I have a cold and I'm spending a few days taking really good care of myself.  Back when I lived in the Pacific Northwest, my colds often used to escalate into sinus infections or bronchitis, but that hasn't happened since I moved to the Southwest.  The hotter, dryer weather helps, and so does the fact that I use a Neti pot and give myself the time I need to rest.  Earlier this week, I made a big pot of chili with lots of garlic in it, and that seemed to help.  Today I have a big pot of homemade chicken soup on the stove.  I hope I'm back to my higher level of energy soon!        

The Materials of Life

 Sonja checking out my new dresser

Last week I wrote about wanting surfaces to paint and buying some artist boards in order to have some.  Since then, many surfaces have come into my life.  Don't tell me the Law of Attraction doesn't work!  Of course, it helps that I live practically next-door to a thrift store and make a practice of keeping an eye on the loading dock.  

I am feathering my nest.  I bought a dresser from another antique dealer, Don Hallock, who lives a fascinating life.  He's a civil aviation collector who will be starting a museum here in TorC, and his wife, Priscilla Spitler, is a nationally known bookbinder.  You should see their respective workshops!  Wow!  I wish I'd had my camera with me when I visited their home. I could write numerous blog entries just about them and their work.

But I'll stick to my own.  While Don and Priscilla are painstakingly meticulous in how they execute their work, I'm more of a play-in-the-mud splasher.  I got the dresser home from Don's, thought about making it pristine white or neatly adding a few Southwest motifs, and then got out my acrylics and just started painting haphazard stripes in some of my favorite colors.  I like how it turned out.  It's a really happy dresser to wake up to in the morning.  I particularly like how the colors flow into one another.  

I needed the dresser because I had my winter clothes packed away in bags, and it's about time to start wearing long-sleeved garments again, at least some of the time.  We've had quite a bit of rain lately and occasional temps as low as the 60s.  

 Bulletin board above my drawing desk

In addition to finding and receiving furniture for my own home, I've also been acquiring some great stuff to make into art pieces.  And thank goodness for that!  When I went to the Art Hop on Saturday night, I stopped in at Grapes, a gallery owned by my landlord.  I mentioned to him that I was looking forward to showing some work in his gallery for the November Trash Bash (a recycled art show that I mentioned in my last blog entry), and he said they could also use my work for their October local artists show.  Each artist will have about 10 or 12 feet of wall space, and so far they only had about four people signed up and needed another half dozen or more.  So I said, "Sure, that would be great."  

Then I went home and couldn't sleep that night, wondering how the heck I was going to fill up all that space!  But it's okay.  Stuff is coming to me.  I'm working on an old rococo shelf that needs rehabbing, using papier-mache to make it into a Freakishly Ornate Rococo Shelf, or a Ro-Cuckoo Shelf, if you will.

It followed me home, Mom, I swear.

 

Then I ran across a banjo case that is so beat up, it's no longer functional for its original purpose.  I'm not sure what I will make of it yet, but the idea of a Steve Martin tribute is attractive to me.

 

  The inspector at work

 

Finding the banjo case reminded me that I have a couple of inexpensive ukeleles amongst my art supplies, and they make great canvases for mosaic, collage and painting, as well.  And I ran across some old shelving at the thrift store that is quickly becoming a multimedia diptych that I'll photograph and share in my next blog post.  

 

Being in such an acquisitional frame of mind, today I am buying a vehicle that is NOT an RV.  Well, it actually could be an RV if I chose to use it as one, but it's a 1998 Ford Windstar mini-van that I'm going to use as a small cargo van.

 

I'll be able to deliver furniture for customers at January's (for an extra fee--the store doesn't offer delivery) and I'll also be able to drive down to Las Cruces or up to Albuquerque to buy furniture that I'd like to resell here in TorC.  I've used my small Class C Toyota Dolphin to do a lot of eBay fodder shopping across the country, but a major limitation to the kind of stuff I'm into lately is that the Guppy has only a person-sized door.  My van will be great for larger items.

 

And it will be another canvas.  It's got some cosmetic damage--no accidents, just peeling away of some of the paint layers as a result of the beating it's gotten from the sun here in the Southwest.  I've always wanted to have an art car!   

 

  

Hooked on Painting

 Collective Dream

Multimedia, 2012

So I have a new obsession (Geesh!  Like I needed any more!)   I love to paint.  In the past, I took some painting classes, but I've mostly just painted as a part of a larger project.  Furniture that I'm going to mosaic, for instance, often needs to be painted first.  But now, all of a sudden, I can't get enough of painting just for the sake of painting.  

The painting above is actually a multimedia piece.  I did it for an upcoming event here in Truth or Consequences that will happen in November.  An organization called Bountiful Alliance does all sorts of healthy things in our community, including heading up the local farmers market and providing a community kitchen where bakers and chefs can produce salable products without having to get their own kitchens certified by local health inspectors.  

In November, Bountiful Alliance is holding a month-long event focusing on Recycling called the T or C Trash Bash.  It will open with a fundraising exhibit of artwork at Grapes, a gallery on Main Street, with artwork made from recycled, repurposed or salvaged materials.

I'll definitely be bringing some of my mosaic works to the show, but I wanted to try some other media, too.  I literally rescued the stretched canvas for the above painting out of a dumpster.  It was an acrylic painting by an amateur artist who was giving up and throwing away his work (I also managed to wangle his left-over gesso and unstretched canvas from him).  To add to the recycled character of this piece, I also used three of my scarves that did not sell on eBay as part of the work, cutting them into pieces and gluing them to the canvas.  Then I added acrylic painting that echoed the motifs in the scarves.  Not surprisingly, in a mandala shape. 

I like the end result, and I named the work Collective Dream.  It reminds me of my dreams, which are usually never just about one thing.  My dreams are both enlightening and mysterious, uplifting and brooding.  Contrasts that somehow manage to coalesce into one entity, like this multimedia work.  

I can't wait to paint some more.  I mean it, I can't wait.  Today I need to sell stuff on eBay so I can afford to keep doing artwork, but first thing this morning I went out and bought artist board and talked with Ruanna at Hot Springs Frame Shop about board vs. canvas so I can decide which to buy next.  But, for now, I simply needed surfaces on which to paint, so I bought a couple of canvas-covered artist boards. 

I will try to abstain from painting today until I at least get a few scarves photographed and listed on eBay.  This craving to paint is a lot like how I used to feel when I still drank, and I would have to try to wait until 5 p.m. in order to be somewhat civilized.   
   

  

Sunrise photo taken from just outside my apartment door

Look at the sunrise!  How could anybody NOT want to paint?  

And then there is my cat.  Every day, she makes herself the subject of artwork yet to be executed.  

 Sonja in the big chair that Barbara gave me

My apartment is coming together.  I've become a lot more invested in it recently, now that I know I'm going to stay here in Truth or Consequences for a while.  I had borrowed some furniture from my landlord and my employer.  Almost all of this has now been returned, and I've replaced it with pieces I've either purchased or been given.  

My friends Barbara and Kathleen are moving away to Maine, to a smaller home, and they have generously given me a nice big living room chair and ottoman and some shelving.  Then I bought a futon last week to use as a couch in the living room and as a spare bed for when my son Sly comes to visit.  I bought a big work table for photographing my eBay stuff and working on big pieces of art.  I have a smaller table/desk for drawing and a computer desk.  My dining room is, in fact, an office and art studio, and I usually eat in the living room while reading or watching TV.  I've gotten a bookcase from my new employer, January, and I'll also be buying a dresser from her out of my first paycheck.  I am invested.

I have even bought a couple of really snazzy fresh design items online at Fab.com, including a wall clock and a pendant lamp.  If you haven't tried it, Fab has really juicy daily offerings of modern and vintage design, at all price points, for everyone.  If you decide to go check out Fab, please go through this link so I can get some points towards future purchases.  Thank you, and you will also thank me.  Fab is irresistible.  Like painting. 

Change

I have changed the name of my blog.  

I started a "Soaring Sun Studio" blog in 2009, back when I still lived in Washington State and was first starting to have some success as a professional artist.  Later, my personal life was unsettled and I had difficulty doing artwork and writing about it in a blog.  

In 2011, after getting a divorce, I hit the road in my motorhome.  As I was getting ready to leave, I started my second blog, "The eBay/RV Life."  Throughout my travels, I gathered readers and friends.

Now, well into 2012, I am back to being settled in one place, at least for a while, and I'm doing a lot of creative things.  It's time to focus on my artwork again, hence the name change for the blog.  

I may lose some readers who were primarily interested in the travel aspect of my life.  That's okay.  I will probably eventually gain some readers who are interested in my art journey.

Current mosaic projects

And a journey it is!  A few years ago, if you'd asked me to define myself as an artist, I would have said simply that I'm a mosaic artist.  Now my media and interests have broadened.  I still like to glue things to other things, but I've also been drawing nearly every day for many months, and I paint frequently, too.  Collage, papier-mache, and sculpture have all been calling me.  Seriously, calling me.  I have dreams about doing artwork and then I get up and do it.  Sometimes I don't wait until morning.  
 
I still sell vintage designer scarves and funky Western wear on eBay, and I still use my RV to travel.  But now I also have an apartment and job in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.

In fact, I am in the process of changing jobs.  I've worked at a lovely hot springs motel for the past two summers, but I've just been offered work by my friend January who is expanding her art and antiques gallery.  I'll have the freedom to do artwork and sell on eBay during the down times between customers.  Yay!   

I also sell antiques, vintage clothing, and my own artwork at January's.  Recently I framed and hung 10 colored pencil pictures there, mostly mandalas.

Here are some shots of a sculpture called "Better Living" that I recently completed.  It's in response to a Call for Artists that my friend James Gasowski made for his Gallery Niche.  There will be a show at Niche during the September Second Saturday Art Hop that is dedicated to National Literacy Month.  All of the works must be related to books in some way.

 
For my sculpture, I started with an interesting hardcover book called "Henley's Twentieth Century Formulas, Processes and Trade Secrets."  This book is packed with about 10,000 recipes for how to make everything from absinthe to zinc plates.  Whatever the problem...chemistry to the rescue!  


The book is fascinating.  I had thought perhaps I could use it to make some "natural" products at home such as cosmetics or cleaning products, but I found myself rather appalled by the ingredients used in the early part of the 20th Century.  A cough syrup recipe calls for heroin, and other formulas call for chemicals I wouldn't put in or on my body.  


The base of "Better Living" is recycled wood with paintings and fabric motifs related to natural earth elements and species...water, dirt, fish, birds, plants.  The book cover is flattened on top of these pictures, and the bust arises up out of the book.  Her face, head, and horn-like appendages are covered with formulas and swirly fabric designs, as if her head is spinning with too much information and is under even more pressure from the carriage bolts driven into the ends of the horns.  Poor gal!  Yet the bright colors, the unexpectedness of the horns and the sculpture's name indicate that it's not all that serious.  

My next project is going to be a table top for Passion Pie Cafe, where they have local artists paint tables that are used and sold, creating a constant flow of new artwork nearly as tantalizing as the fabulous pastries made on site.  

So...this is my new blog, and I hope you like it.

Many things change, but some stay the same.  Sonja loves boxes.

 

Vacationing Along the Jemez Mountain Trail

Ahhh, it feels good to be on the road again.  Steve and I are on a vacation in northern New Mexico.  As one of my friends observed, I really NEED a break from the stress of working one day a week at a spa.  Yeah, whatever.  I know I need to get out of town sometimes or I get a bit cranky and maybe even boring.

This trip has been anything but boring.  We hardly planned it.  We're going with the flow, taking things as they come, playing it by ear.  

On Wednesday, our first day out, we thought we'd get north of Albuquerque, but the brakes on the Guppy were mushy, so we added brake fluid.  When that didn't help very much, we overnighted at Kiva RV Park and Horse Motel, where I'd spent several nights last year before I first went to Truth or Consequences, and then had the brake lines bled in Belen by a mechanic whom we've gotten to know all too well on trips between TorC and Albuquerque.  Fifty dollars and a great breakfast later, we were back on the road.  If YOU ever break down south of Albuquerque, check out Mike's Auto Detailing (he's actually full-service) and Frances' Restaurant (menudo every day, but, no thanks, I'll pass on the tripe).  They're on Main Street, you can't miss 'em.

We still had plenty of time on Thursday after the brake repair to head up to Coronado State Monument in Bernalillo.  This is one of the pueblos that was probably visited in the mid-1500s by Francisco Vasquez de Coronado on his famous trek to find the Seven Cities of Gold.  All he found were Indians, but they were living an abundant, usually peaceful life.  Unfortunately, Coronado and his 1000+ followers stuck around long enough to change this pretty drastically.  (They wiped out at least two pueblos that got tired of feeding the entourage, and many more people died of illnesses to which they had no immunity.)  

The Coronado State Monument was established after WPA workers accidentally dug into a beautiful, rare, painted kiva in the 1930s.  Painted kivas were not so unusual a few hundred years ago, but they're rare today because they are so difficult to preserve.  

The paintings are done in a kind of fresco with natural dyes, and they are painted over and over many times.  It's thought that the process of painting pictures in a kiva was a sort of meditation or prayer.  So, in the one we saw, there were probably six inches of paintings that had been done over several hundred years.  Most of the preservation was done by an anthropology graduate student, who tried to isolate some of the most complete drawings and preserve a single layer.  

The paintings we saw inside the kiva were reproductions done by an Indian in the 1930s who got thrown out of his tribe for being willing to share something so sacred with the rest of the world.  You can still see some of the original paintings, dating from the 14th to 16th centuries, in another building where they are preserved.  

All very cool.  But the Coronado Campground just outside the Memorial was not so cool--they wanted $18 for us to park on a bit of gravel right next to a really big rig.  So we took a chance on what we'd find up the road, and it paid off!

We headed north up to Highway 4, a winding road through the Jemez Mountains that offers lots to see and do.   We got to see people still living in the old Jemez Pueblo, and we stopped at their visitor center, where they also provided information on National Forest Service campgrounds in the area.  So we ended up at a really nice little campground that cost us only $5 (Steve has the Golden Age pass).  We were surrounded by red rock mesas and we were close enough to Jemez Creek to hear a little waterfall.

After spending most of this summer in southern New Mexico, the cool evenings in the north are very welcome, as are the sights and scents of different vegetation.   We slept among the junipers on Thursday night, and then among pines last night (Friday).

Yesterday morning, we headed into the town of Jemez Springs.  It is a spa town, sort of like TorC, but smaller and up in the mountains.  It has some great little collectively-run art galleries, where I bought a couple fun things and learned lots about a top secret newly-invented media that I'll try working with once I get home.  We stopped for coffee at Hwy4 Coffee, which had free wifi.  That was great, because I hadn't had phone or Internet access for a while. 

 
We did not go sit in the mineral springs--we can go for free when we're home, and also the ones up here have a distinct sulfur odor, which we don't have in TorC.  In fact, when we were driving by that stretch of Jemez Creek, I sniffed and looked askance at Steve, because I was pretty sure the odor was his fault; but then we stopped to look at a natural dam that is the result of many years of mineral deposits caking up in one place, and that's when I realized, "Oh, it's the creek that smells."

We drove up mountains on scary roads yesterday to see about staying at Fenton Lake State Park, but the campground was full, so we just ate lunch and headed back to Highway 4.  Then we found another nice NFS campground where we slept last night.  Steve heard wild turkeys and had brought along his turkey call, so he tried to attract them closer, but there were too many people in the campground for these skittish birds to come visit us.  We did see a few other smaller critters, though, and we heard lots of barking dogs. 

I was ready for a different sort of campsite tonight, after being woken by the dogs this morning, and we have found it.  We spent part of today at Bandelier National Monument (which was, disappointingly, mostly closed due to rocks on the road), and the rest of the day at the science museum in Los Alamos (owned and run by the Los Alamos National Laboratory, just so you know what to expect if you go there yourself--very informative, but don't expect to hear ANY criticism of nuclear weaponry or energy).  Even though we weren't really thrilled by the attractions in this area, the drive itself was amazing.  Lots of switchbacks and scary mountain roads.  I love that sort of thing!  

When it came time to find a campground, we were near Espanola, and the only "RV park" in town is one of those places where people tend to live full-time.  Really run down and right in town.  So, after driving around north of town and asking some questions, we found ourselves at a fishing lake at the Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo.  We don't have hook-ups or showers, and it is way overpriced, but we are also the only ones staying here overnight (so far), I'm writing this about 10 feet from the lake, and there are no dogs.  There's a nice breeze and the evening promises to be pleasantly quiet and cool.  


We left Sonja at home in this little tiny basket (and arranged for daily visits by our friend Kelly, who is a great pet sitter!):

We plan to continue our vacation for another five or six days, so I think there will be another blog post about this trip.  We're thinking of heading east next, through some of the mountains south of Taos,  catching up with our friend Bridget at her ranch or somewhere nearby, and then circling back to Santa Fe where we know a few nice folks.

Cool Times in a Hot Town

Sonja Staying Cool

It's been hot in Truth or Consequences, in the high 90s or low 100s most days lately.  I try to get out on my bike and spend time socializing with friends over coffee fairly early in the day, then run whatever errands I need to, before I close myself up in the apartment with the air conditioning running in the afternoon.  That's when I do my eBay work and art work.  In the evening, we can open up the windows again, the time depending on whether there's any breeze.  

Some new things (cool things!) have been happening here for me lately.  So many I think I'll make a list:

1.  I'm back working at La Paloma Hot Springs and Spa one day a week, plus a few hours here and there, subbing for co-workers when they take a lunch break or go to the dentist or whatever.  

La Paloma was beautiful last year when I worked there and became even more beautiful while I was gone for the winter.  There are more gardens, some bird feeders, and lucky bamboo plants in every room.  All of the bath house rooms have been replastered and repainted, and a well-known New Mexico artist, Tracy Turner Sheppard, is painting mimbres and mandalas on the walls of each tub room.  Tracy is in town working on this project this week, and I'm delighting in getting to know her.

Another improvement, for employees, is that we now get to use the spa's laundry for just $1 per load, which is a great time and money saver.  Yesterday I did my laundry early in the morning before the housekeepers needed to start doing bedding, towels and robes used by the spa guests.

   Watercolor mandala embellished with metallic thread

2.  I'm volunteering at the Community Health Foundation (CHF) Thrift Store that is practically next-door to my apartment.  I spend a few hours each week inside the store, usually rolling up pieces of sewing fabric and pricing them.  

I also watch the loading dock at the back of the store during the hours they're closed.  I try to make sure that the donations make it into the store when they're open again, rather than being stolen by passers-by, which happens a lot.  So I stuff bags and boxes and pieces of furniture that have just been left out on the dock into the big donation drop-box, where things are harder to steal.  Sometimes I bring stuff to my house over the weekend and then take them back to the store on Monday morning.   

Of course, this means I sometimes get first pick of stuff that's donated, so I've been able to buy some pretty cool things for resale on eBay or at January's Gallery, an art and antiques store that is right across the street from my apartment.

CHF volunteers get a small discount on purchases ($1) for each hour of work.   It's a great little thrift store, and I always find something to buy for my own use or for resale.  So I always end up leaving my shift owing more hours than when I arrived!  

 Oil pastel mandala on heavy cardstock

3.  I'm trying different art media.  For the past few years, my emphasis has been on mosaics.  A few months ago, I started drawing mandalas with markers, colored pencils, and crayons.  Now I'm starting to do mandalas with watercolors and oil pastels, and I'm doing some collage and papier-mache.   It's like being a kid again, where you try all sorts of things in elementary school art.

I've also started attending a monthly art salon, where local artists get together and talk about what they're working on, what inspires them, what issues they run into, etc.  
  

I've made some mandala notecards, each one an original piece of art, that are on sale at January's and at La Paloma.  I also crafted some Scrabble tile refrigerator magnets that are available at January's.
 

4.  I've increased my coolness factor a whole lot technologically lately.  My old laptop was being kept on life support by Dave the Computer Guy, but once it got to where nothing would help anymore (not even mouse-to-mouse resuscitation), I needed to replace it.  So I got another Lenovo Thinkpad, at about half what the first one cost me about five years ago.  It's taken me a few weeks to get savvy with a newer version of Windows.  I also had to find a new way of editing my photos for eBay because I no longer had PhotoShop, which a friend had put on my old machine.  But I've grown to love PicMonkey, and now I am back up to speed with my eBay selling.

I decided that since I was on such a high learning curve with technology, anyway, I might as well go ahead and upgrade to a Smartphone, too.  My two-year contract with Verizon was near its end, so they gave me a free Droid Pro.  

Now I'm beginning to understand why so many people constantly have their phones in their hands.  I'm using my phone as a mini-computer throughout the day.  I can check on my eBay sales without having to be at home with my computer booted up, and I'm looking forward to using my eBay app while I'm out shopping the thrift stores in Las Cruces next week, to decide whether things are worth buying before I spend the money on them.  

    So true...but at my house, I'm the one tethered to the phone.  Steve will probably never need or want a Smartphone.

5.  There's a new coffee shop in TorC!  Passion Pie is a cafe owned by several local women who turn out fabulous baked goods every day of the week.  I understand they also offer actual meals, but so far I've never been able to get past the pastry case to look at the menu.  I am still a Black Cat Books & Coffee devotee and I go to the Black Cat every day it's open.  But there are days it's not!

So that's my story of domesticity in TorC.  I'm happy and productive.  I always find plenty of interesting things to do, and the heat isn't getting me down.  I am, however, going to see about trading a few workdays with a coworker in July so Steve and I can spend a week or two in some cooler weather up in Santa Fe and Taos.  We'll need to restock the Guppy with a few things, since we moved the mattress and other items into our apartment.  

All is well with me, and I hope it is with you, too.  I'm off to the Black Cat to read the Sunday New York Times and soak up the local gossip.