2021

Holy shit, this month's been exhausting and we're not even half way through it. We're getting the after the holidays rush at the funeral home. One of my coworkers is out sick and I'm covering her office, and it's been crazy busy here, which is not at all usual. I can't wait for this pandemic to fade away. There's a vaccine now, that's starting to be distributed so hopefully things will get better sooner rather than later. I'm getting really tired of seeing COVID-19 on death certificates.

I'm so very glad that the Trump presidency is almost over and he's finally conceded and agreed to turn over power peacefully. Whether or not his cultists will go along with that has yet to be seen. It's a great disgrace when his followers are allowed to storm the federal capital and disrupt the election validation process. Even worse is the picture I've seen floating around with the dude in the fur skinned and horned hat thing with a very big valknut tattoo (the three intertwined triangles). That is not the way of the modern Asatru religion as I understand it and is insulting to anyone who is interested in the Norse gods and belief systems. Hell, it's not the American way. Why is it that the more people throw around the US flag and the more they shout about patriotism, the more I see them as a potentially violent asshole? When I drove a school bus in the Elk River area, I would see a bunch of teenagers with their trucks with giant American flags attached and a cold chill would go down my back. Rabid 'patriotism' isn't very patriotic when it instills fear in the people who share their own citizenship.

I am still in a holding pattern when it comes to crafting. Being super busy at work and in the process of trying to buy this house still is very exhausting. We're inching closer to closing on the house, though. We've contacted a contractor for the quotes we need. I'm just hoping we can finally move in before spring.

I keep looking at the picture of my hopefully new craft room and hope that it'll be mine soon. We're getting closer to the quotes we need which is getting us closer to closing on the house. I'm going through my usual winter craft slump, and with moving on the horizon, it's difficult to get motivated to do anything anyway. I've been listening to a lot of books on Audible. Lots of true crime, WWII, science, and cat behavior.

The transition back to being a DA at work is reminding me how out of shape I am. I'm just not used to standing for hours at a time, moving furniture, and keeping my full attention on a room full of people. That last part is really exhausting, since I'm a huge introvert. But, I enjoy it, and I'm happy I'm back working services. The best part is I don't have to answer the phones as much as when I was an admin. I hate phones, they cause me a lot of anxiety, but I must admit answering the phones did get easier over time.

I'm hoping that by summer at the latest, we'll have settled into the new house and I'll be ready to really start work on art.

Why is renting a RV so expensive? We wanted to go on a cross country road trip to the west coast and back. Instead, we're going to go on a few day trips around Minnesota. We'll go see Duluth, maybe find some pretty rocks, play around the Cities, maybe go to Wisconsin Dells. Or we'll get really lucky and the last quote we need for the house will come in and we'll spend our week off moving. That would be awesome.

One of the last services I worked was a tough one. A young woman took her life to escape from an abusive boyfriend. In circumstances like this, I feel like it's not a suicide, rather a form of murder. She wouldn't have taken her life, I'm willing to bet, if she was in a healthy relationship. Abuse is such a terrible evil. She reminded me of my brother's old girlfriend who died in a car accident. She was brilliant, full of life and laughter, and it was whisked away at a moment's notice.

I am drying flowers from that service. If they dry right, I think I'm going to try resin dipping the individual petals and making earrings out of them. I really need my new craft room. Come on, painter, get us our last quote!

We finally bought the house! Riding the Fox is officially moving to a new permanent location! Right now, the craft room is full of boxes and things waiting to be put away, but once everything is all sorted out and settled, I will finally have the craft room of my dreams! It took us 8 months to buy this house, but every moment was worth it. Construction is moving along so fast. The roof needs re-shingling and there are some other repairs throughout the house that need to be done, but once it's all finished, it'll be glorious! This 120 year old house is already starting to feel like home. It has such a welcoming feel to it.

I have no idea what I'll start making, once I get the craft room set up. There are so many options. I am looking forward to building up a garden and taking out as much grass as I can so I have lots of ingredients for crafting. No more scavenging the funeral home's donated flowers for materials. (sometimes families can't or don't want to take flowers home after a funeral service, so they donate them to either us or to churches or assisted living places. I don't take any undonated flowers. :) ) So far, I've planted columbines and phlox by the apple tree (we have an apple tree!) and foxgloves next to the house. It looks like the previous owners had rhododendrons? or azaleas? planted by the house along with what I'm hoping is a whole mess of lily of the valley. They haven't bloomed yet, so I'm going to have to wait and see. In the front yard, I plan on doing a whole big cottage garden with flowers everywhere. The side/back yard will be all fruit and veggies. We don't really have a back yard, that's all garage, so the side yard counts as the back yard.

Today's project at the house was to paint the dining room/office. It's a room just off of the kitchen and attached to the living room and also goes to the front entryway. It's a room with a vague purpose so we're most likely going to use it as an office and possibly holiday dining room. The color we chose was a greyish blue, but it's turning out a lot more blue than I thought it would. It's not bad, but I'm not fond of blue in any case. The living room is going to be a green that goes well with the grey/blue. I'm going to leave the woodwork in the craft room as it is, but I'm going to paint the ceiling maybe a grey with a gold compass design on it.

Stay tuned for more house and shop updates!

I am living in a maze of boxes and paint cans and tools and stuff everywhere. I love it. Once all the work is done on the house and everything's put away, I'll be able to work on crafting again. I put the shop in vacation mode, since I currently don't know where I put my inventory. Like almost everything else, it's in a box somewhere.

The cat has been so happy, having a whole house to wander, instead of a couple rooms in a tiny basement. She's been almost constantly purring, when she's not meowing for food. I can't wait to get a couple kittens and have lots of tiny feet thundering through the house. The lizard is as happy as a lizard can be. I just ordered him new paper food cups so I can toss them into the compost after he's done eating out of them. It's so much better than the plastic ones we've been getting.

I have a good start on the garden. I put in some supporting plants around the apple tree, in the hopes of developing an apple tree guild. I have a Marquette grape vine and a raspberry plant, 4 blueberries around the pine tree we plan on keeping. I want to create a kind of permaculture food yard thing. I waited too long for the fruit trees I want, so that'll have to be next year. Plum and cherry are part of the permaculture plan. Next year, I'll also rip up the grass for a proper veg garden. I have tomatoes and herbs in pots this year, but it's just not the same as having an in-ground garden.

It'll be fantastic once we get the electrician in to upgrade the fuse box and get the proper outlet for the fridge and the dryer. Hanging clothes to dry is nice, but man, I miss having clothes ready to wear an hour or so after washing them. We need to upgrade the washing machine too. It's probably from the 70's and is horribly inefficient. Thankfully, there's a working fridge in the upstairs kitchen, so it's just annoying to have to go up to that kitchen to get supplies and bring them down to the working stove in the main floor. These are the things I get to work with when I bought a 121 year old house.

It doesn't feel real sometimes. I'll look around and think this can't possibly be mine. How the hell did I become a homeowner? It feels like I'm on vacation and soon it'll be all over and I'll be back in that awful basement at the in-laws. This is the longest I've been without being irrationally angry and stressed out in about 5 years. I'm so glad it's not a vacation. I'm so glad it's all real and mine. It's been a long time coming.

I've had spoons on my mind lately. Carving spoons, I mean. I have a set of spoon carving tools, and I keep seeing beautiful pictures of hand carved spoons on Reddit. I just need some wood. I've been eyeing the birch sticks that are sticking out of the planters at work. They're the perfect size for a whole bunch of spoons, so I might have to nab at least one when they change out the planters for the season.

Progress is moving along on the house. We have all the contractor work done and are down to painting inside. I kind of wish I had more vacation time so I can just get it done so we can finish unpacking, but I don't so I have to try to get as much done as I can when I'm off. This is surprisingly difficult, since I now have a hour and a half commute (one way). Even though I don't mind the drive, it's still very long and tiring. I've had to stop many mornings to take a 10 minute nap at rest stops so I don't fall asleep behind the wheel. The Husband wonders why I don't just sleep in an extra 10 minutes, but I think it's the drive that's making me tired. I can get about halfway to work and then I just get exhausted. Coffee makes me jittery and overly anxious, so that doesn't help. Once I get to work and am up out of the car and moving, I'm awake. Even if I spend my work day driving to different chapels, I'm awake. There's just something about that long drive down the endless highway that lulls me to sleep. Music helps, even though I prefer audiobooks and podcasts, so I've reacquainted myself with Abney Park and Flogging Molly. I'll probably play around with Spotify for more variety, but at least with those two bands I know I won't mind getting something stuck in my head all day.

I need to finish finding all of my dishes and kitchen stuff soon. I'm starting to feel the itch to bake bread and things. I like my kitchen, but I could use more storage and counter space. Or at least cupboard space that I don't need a step ladder to reach. I have really tall cabinets. I need to research how to do epoxy countertops. The counters in the kitchen have a really cheap laminate? on them that is not only ugly, but probably not very hygienic either. I think we could do something really fun with the counters with epoxy. Maybe glow in the dark? A garden theme? Bees to go with the walls we're going to paint yellow? Anything is possible.

Work on the house is moving along. I almost have the bedroom painted completely, then we can move the bedroom stuff out of the office and into the actual bedroom! Next is painting the trim and the living room, I think. I'm going to use the same grey paint for the trim in the office and living room, tie the house together, I think. The living room is going to be a light to medium green that will look nice with all the plants I've started collecting. I just got a lime tree to go with my new banana. I have yet to find another Meyer lemon to replace the one that died at the in-laws. That was a fantastic tree that grew the best lemons.

Crafting is still on hold, but I'm still thinking of what I can make once the house is put together enough to work in.

We have a new family member! Pumpkin! She showed up at K&M's house one day, but didn't get along with their cats, so she came home with me. She's about a 3 month old orange kitten, just in time for Ginger Cat Appreciation Day, and she's the biggest cuddle-muffin I've ever seen in a kitten. She loves belly rubs, plays fetch with soft toys, and is a talkative little thing. So apparently, we're going with a Halloween theme for cat names, Bones, Pumpkin. She bonded immediately with Alex, which makes me so happy. I'm just hoping that she will get along with Bones. We're doing a very slow introduction, with Pumpkin living upstairs and Bones downstairs. They get their wet food twice a day on either side of the door, so they can get used to each other's smells and sounds. Soon, we'll let them explore each other's territory so they can further get to know each other. Then, if all goes well, we'll let them see each other. I really hope they get along.

The shop is still in vacation mode. Painting is going slow on the house. I should work on finishing up the trim in the bedroom today. It's just so hard to have the energy to work on the house when I have a hour and a half commute almost every day. Hopefully I'll get the job at the library (interview was today) and can cut back my Funeral Home time to a couple days a week plus work from home stuff like the Facebook posts. I don't want to leave the Funeral Home. I love the people there and the work is so fulfilling, but I've always wanted to work in a library and this would be the nudge for me to go to grad school and get my masters in Library Science. Archives here I come (hopefully)!

The storms we've had recently have knocked down many branches. I should be able to scavenge some for spoon carving. I'll have to research how to prepare fresh wood for carving, especially since we're planning on taking down some trees.

So, Pumpkin (the kitten) isn't a kitten. The vet estimated her to be 1-3 years old, and she's pregnant. That means we now have 5 cats and who knows how many on the way. Yes, we have 5 cats now. After we brought Pumpkin home, her energy levels were way too high for Bones to deal with, so we thought we should get a kitten to be her companion. Well, the Humane Society had a buy one kitten, get one kitten sale going on. We ended up with a brother and sister pair, who we named Hex and Charm, and then A. fell in love with another cat, so we had to bring her home and named her Ghost. All this was before we knew that Pumpkin was pregnant, of course. It should be very interesting in the coming weeks.

On another life note, I started a new job at the library. I've always wanted to work at a library! Now I just need to start looking for an online accredited library science graduate program to do so I can really develop a career.

I'm still working at the Funeral Home, just part time now. I love what I do at the Funeral Home, and I love everyone I work with, besides, it's job security in case the new variant of Covid gets really bad and we have to go back into quarantine. Besides, I just got my 5 year pin and plaque.

The work on the house is going well. I've got the bedroom all painted, and I'm finishing up the trim in the office. I'll be doing the trim in the living room before I paint the rest of the walls in there. I really need to finish priming and painting the front porch, though, especially before winter hits.

So, I've been forgetting to do my monthly blog post, but not much has happened in the past month either.

The kittens are growing fast and have the run of the house. They haven't found the stairs to the second floor yet, so that's good.

I've made four rosaries recently for the funeral home. Two each for two different families. It's nice to be back to some sort of crafting, even if I'm in my living room trying to keep the cats from thinking the beads are toys.

I've picked up my knitting needles and am playing with some color changing yarn. The one I'm working with turns from white to yellow in the sunlight. I'm making lace washcloths right now. Once I either buy a new circular or find my needles, I'll make an entrelac hat I've been wanting to knit forever.

It's December and it's still 44 degrees (f) outside. While I'm enjoying the warm and I hate the snow, it's still very weird.

The kittens are getting so big and their personalities are really starting to shine. Hex and to a lesser degree Ghost and Charm all play with them. They're really starting to chow down on wet and dry food and are getting pretty good at using the litter box. This is our first time raising kittens from birth and it's so much fun. Challenging, when they want to crawl into the bed, under the covers, at night, but fun.

Rosary orders are coming in from the funeral home and that's wonderful! Once I find my stash of flower petals I can make a couple sample rosaries for the funeral home to help people decide what flowers they want their rosaries to be made from. I also want to make a deluxe version with bead caps on the flower beads and maybe gold crucifixes and centers. I'm just glad the families like them. It makes making them so worthwhile.

Even though it's not as cold as it should be, I'm totally into knitting mode. I wish I were good enough to make my own patterns, so I could sell some knitted products. I don't want to infringe on anyone's copyright or intellectual property by selling something made from someone else's pattern.

I'm worried about getting the house painted. That's pretty much all we need to do to turn the loan over into a conventional mortgage. P. finally has a local job that he likes and pays enough for us to be comfortable, but I can't stop stressing over this construction loan. I know we're going to be ok, but my anxiety is driving me crazy. We just need to buckle down and finish it.