Wasting away again in Therafluville

Being home when I’m supposed to be at work is surreal. I’ve spent a lot of time sleeping and binge-reading banned books, and I spent a little time in Coldwater today, following Morgan and Holly through their first day of school post-pandemic shutdowns and trying to figure out how to weave a fantasy plot involving copious amounts of Irish folklore around the actual events of the past four years.

Thus far, my writing feels rusty, but after brain-dumping 3,500 words, I think I have a rough idea of the major and minor conflicts in the story, and I had fun recasting conspiracy theorists as the unwitting pawns of a group of Unseelie fae seeking to use human dissent as a bit of misdirection to provide cover for a conspiracy of their own.

The beauty of this assertion is that you can’t prove it isn’t true — which, by conspiracy theory logic, means that it absolutely is. There’s something very Douglas Adams about the whole thing, but I’m not sure it works; the tone feels too satirical for the world I created in Coldwater. (Whether this is a function of the content itself or the fact that I wrote it in a literal fever dream, while completely gacked on cold medicine, remains an open question.)

Either way, it’s a good time-killer to keep myself entertained between coughing fits, which is all I need it to do at the moment.

Emily

Make-It Monday

Moss-covered picture frame for Hazel. I love that teensy little frog.

My 15-year-old niece, Hazel, (yes, this Hazel, and yes, I feel unbelievably old) is really into cottagecore decor and kept talking about wanting a moss mirror for her bedroom. Our local Dollar Tree carries reindeer moss, so a few months ago, I bought a $10 mirror and several bags of the stuff and broke out the glue gun to make her a birthday present. It was a fun project — relatively quick and simple — and she was happy with the results. I ended up with a few leftover bags of moss, so when I was casting about for something to fill out a box of handmade presents I was sending to Hazel’s dad and younger sister, I grabbed a small picture frame. Then, because I was in the mood to create ALL OF THE THINGS, I bought a few more bags of moss, a couple more frames, and several cheap mirrors and set about making something cute.

The finished product was missing something, so I got on Amazon and ordered some bits of cottagey garnish: miniature mushrooms, snails, frogs (which I absolutely love — y’all know how I feel about frogs), pinecones, and real acorn caps with plastic replica acorns glued into them.

The picture frame is going to Hazel, but she already has a bigger mirror, so I think this mirror will go to my classroom; it should go well with the decor in there, which was inspired by The Nature Company, ca. 1992, and my middle-school girls will probably appreciate having an easy way to check their makeup on the way into class, especially now that we’re cracking down on cellphone usage, and they can’t use their phone cameras as mirrors this semester.

I don’t know why moss mirrors are so expensive. If you’ve got 15 minutes to spare, you can throw together a small one for about $7 worth of materials; a big one might cost you 30 minutes and $20. I really need to look into setting up an Etsy shop, because these things are fun to make, and people are commanding STUPID prices for them (anywhere from $50 for a little one to $300 or more for a big one).

Emily

Belated Classroom Reveal

As I mentioned a few days ago, I switched schools in August. I’m teaching middle-school math these days, which is obviously exactly what you would expect me to do with a master’s degree in English. (I know. I make no sense. It’s fine.)

I’ve never seen anybody fail math due to a true lack of ability, but I’ve known a lot of people who struggled with math because they were afraid of it, so during the interview for my current job, I got permission to repaint my classroom and decorate it in a way that encouraged kids to relax. My goal was to recapture the vibe of the late, great Nature Company, mixed with the late, great Hillside Nursery, the long-gone houseplant store at University Mall (the name of which escapes me at the moment), and a dash or two of the Makanda Boardwalk. Everything in the room is curated to promote learning and a sense of calm.

I think I nailed it:

My students’ final exam for the first semester was a portfolio of their work, including a reflective essay about their strengths, weaknesses, and areas where they felt they had improved in math over the course of the semester, and one student specifically mentioned the relaxing classroom environment as something that had helped him do better this year: Even if he knew we would be working on something difficult, he looked forward to coming into my room, because it felt comfortable and soothing.

I feel the same way. I spend a lot of hours in that classroom every week, and it’s nice to walk into a sensory-friendly space where I can decompress, even when I’m racing deadlines or scrambling to differentiate instruction for a group of kids whose skill levels can span nine or ten years in a single class. I don’t think I could do what I do if my classroom felt sterile and cold.

By the way, the flawed ceramic blocks you see in the first video are part of the vibe: I chose them specifically to remind the kids that mistakes happen, but that’s OK — desirable, even — because we learn by trying stuff, screwing it up, and then fixing it. (I grade math papers the same way I grade English papers: I mark them up, kick them back to the kids with grades on them, and then encourage the students to redo the work for a higher score. This approach works just as well for fractions, integers, and multi-step equations as it does for narrative essays.)

I’m still getting the hang of teaching math to middle schoolers, but I’m enjoying it, and I’m excited to see what the new semester brings as the kids return to class tomorrow.

Emily

Down time? What’s that?

I am in the throes of the longest sustained creative outburst of my life. It started in early December, when I began working on Ron’s Christmas present:

Portrait of Dashy. I was aiming for Robert Bechtel-style photorealism, but it ended up more reminiscent of Doug Quarles. I’ll take it.

I got the painting done Dec. 10 and began plotting my next move: a series of home-improvement projects to be completed while I was off school for Christmas break and Ron was visiting his parents in Illinois. Ron left the morning of Dec. 22, and I headed for the hardware store to buy paint and masking tape. While he was out of town, I completed a loooooong list of tasks:

• Cleaned and decluttered Ron’s office;
• Cleaned and decluttered my office;
• Repainted Ron’s office;
• Assembled a new desk;
• Moved my desk into Ron’s office and the dogs’ crates into the mudroom I’d been using as my office/potting shed/pet-care center;
• Broke down a bunch of cardboard boxes;
• Delivered all the usable boxes to a friend’s boutique for her to use to ship mail orders;
• Scrubbed the bathroom;
• Swept the floors;
• Dusted the house;
• Created five more paintings, a moss mirror, and a moss-covered picture frame;
• Cleaned up the backyard; and
• Set up a new bullet journal.

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When Ron got home, my to-do list still wasn’t finished, so while he’s been catching up at work this week, I’ve been busy cleaning the office closet, defrosting the freezer, repainting the back bathroom, and applying a faux-Lazure painting technique to the walls in the pet room, which used to be my office.

Amid all of that, I also found time for a routine dentist appointment, a hiking trip at Ute Lake with Ramona and the Burrito, and a Target run in Amarillo. It’s been a productive break, and I still have a few hours left to put the pet room back together (I’m waiting for the Mod Podge glaze to cure out a little bit — details on that in a future post) and whip up some handouts for next week’s lessons at school.

Hope your holidays were productive.

Emily

The Pay-It-Forward Store

If you live in or near Tucumcari, New Mexico, and your Christmas budget is a little tight this year, this post is for you. I have 100 about 30 remaining handmade gift items to give away on a first-come, first-served basis to anyone in town who is broke but feels pressure (internal or external) to buy a gift for someone.

If that’s you, look through the galleries below, pick some stuff you like, then scroll to the bottom of this page and leave a comment to claim it and make arrangements for pickup or delivery. (Comments are moderated, which means I’m the only one who will see yours. NOTE: You do NOT have to log in or sign up for anything to leave a comment, but please be sure to include your email address so I can get back to you.)

If you feel weird about giving presents you got for free, you can pay it forward by donating a few bucks or a few hours of your time to Paws & Claws, Ministry of Hope, or some other local organization. (If you can’t do that, don’t worry about it; just be nice to somebody this week instead.)

A list of available items appears below, with a slideshow for each category. I will try to update this post as items are claimed.

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Art:

Hyperrealist neon-look paintings:
One 8×10 “Budget Prices”
One 12×12 “Free TV”
One 4×12 “Odeon”
One 8×8 “POOL” quadriptych (four separate 4×4 paintings that can be displayed together to make a single picture)
Three 2×2 hearts with magnets on the back (1 aqua, 1 pink, 1 purple)
One 2×2 peace sign with magnet (1 aqua)

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Personal care:
One pint jar “Earth Mama” bath salts (scented w/patchouli & cedar EOs)
One 2-oz. beeswax lotion bar scented w/teatree & mint EOs
One 3-pack of mini lotion bars (same scent)

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Stuff for kids:

One sock monkey (lawn gnome pattern)
One bottle strawberry buttercream scented bath salts w/toy dinosaurs in bottle
One bottle berry scented bath salts w/toy dinosaurs in bottle

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Stuff you can eat:

Two ranch dip mixes (ingredients layered in small glass jar to look pretty)

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Necklaces:

1 child-sized green necklace w/Shrinky-Dink sunflower pendant
1 “Bee Kind” necklace
1 “Love is Love” necklace — black w/rainbow accents
1 small necklace w/pink & green beads
1 pink & black necklace w/clear crystal-look beads
1 “peace & love” necklace
1 green necklace w/clear stones

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Home decor:

Two fake succulents in small “weathered” green pots (comes w/earth-tone macrame hangers)
One wire-wrapped hanging jar tealight (beach themed
Two dinosaur mini-terrariums w/green macrame hangers
Two freestanding beach-themed jar tealights (1 w/stones; 1 w/seashells)

I hope to God it’s good.

“Finished this day — and I hope to God it’s good.”
— John Steinbeck, upon completing The Grapes of Wrath

It’s not likely to be as good as Steinbeck, but I have just finished the second draft of my sequel to Greetings from Coldwater. Surprisingly, it bears a closer resemblance to the draft I posted here this spring than Greetings from Coldwater’s second draft bore to its first. This probably has something to do with the fact that I was working from an outline and actually had an idea of where I was going this time.

I’m still not completely happy with the last chapter, but the rest of it feels solid, and a friend from church who very much enjoyed Greetings and the first draft of this still-untitled prequel/sequel has agreed to give it an edit. I’m looking forward to his feedback.

It’s been a ride. I know more about Celtic mythology now than I ever imagined I’d need or want to know four years ago, when Miss Shirley began bugging me in earnest for a prequel, or even seven months ago, when I sat down with a stack of real books and a Kindle full of ebooks and began taking notes. If my interior monologue is worth a damn, I owe Beverly Cleary a beer. If my fantasy elements are worth a damn, I owe J.K. Rowling and the late Rudolfo Anaya a beer. If the dialogue is worth a damn, I owe Quentin Tarantino a beer. And if the book reaches its final form before Oxford University’s COVID-19 vaccine goes into mass production, I probably owe the notorious M.L.G. (New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham) a beer. That shelter-in-place order lit a fire under me and gave me a nice block of time without a lot of distractions to get this project to this point much faster than I would have otherwise.

As the Dead once said: “What a long, strange trip it’s been.”

Emily

Work in Progress

Amid all my other projects, I decided to create a houseplant-themed mural in my office to use up some leftover paint. I’ve been working on it, a few minutes here and an hour there, for about a week and a half. Here’s how it’s been going so far:

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  The jungle thus far.

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  Burgundy rubber tree.

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  Fiddle-leaf fig. Paint kept drying before I could blend it.

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  I really like the Monstera deliciosa.

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  Monstera leaf in progress.

The big challenge of painting in the desert is that acrylic dries almost instantly, so you have to work really fast and do really small sections at a time to keep it from drying before you finish blending it. It doesn’t help that my office is hot in the afternoons, and most of the paint is several years old. The latex tends to get thick as it ages, which makes it dry out even faster. Still, it’s been a while since I painted a mural solely for my own enjoyment, and this is a pleasant way to use up some leftover paint I’ve had on hand for upwards of 10 years.

Emily

Planning ahead

“We cannot all do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”
— Mother Teresa

During this pandemic, I’ve thought a lot about the best way to leverage the resources I have to bring the greatest possible benefit to the greatest possible number of people.

Three resources I have at the moment are surplus craft supplies, creativity, and time. I am using those resources to stock a sort of free gift shop that will launch in October to make Christmas a little easier for people in my area who may be struggling financially.

My goal is to create classy-looking gift items in a range of sizes/types/apparent price points and distribute them at no charge to anybody who needs them. If people want to pay for the items, I will encourage them to donate whatever amount they deem appropriate to a local nonprofit, but it won’t be required. The fundraising component is mostly just there to provide cover for folks who can’t afford to buy gifts but don’t want anyone to know, and to give them a way to pay it forward if they wish. I use a similar approach with my obedience classes, and it seems to work very well.

Today, I took some small terra cotta flowerpots and dressed them up with leftover paint from other projects. I’m making little macrame hangers to go with them, and this fall, I’ll fill them with potting soil and tuck baby spider plants or burro’s tail cuttings into them.

I watered down some paint to get the weathered effect.

I really like this Southwestern color scheme.

Propagating plants. These will be pretty big by Christmas, but I’ll have more little ones by then.

I hope to offer at least a dozen different products, including houseplants in cute containers, spice mixes, mug-brownie kits, lotion bars, sock monkeys, bead jewelry, paintings, garden kits, hot-process soap, bath bombs with small toys hidden inside, and a few other items.

I’ll be posting recipes and tutorials as I go.

This won’t cure coronavirus, fix the economy, or end racism, but it might make life a little easier for somebody, and that’s all I really need it to do.

Emily

Free time

Here is some of the stuff I’ve been doing in my free time since I finished the draft of the novel last weekend:

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In February, I pulled up our stained, worn-out wall-to-wall carpet to find a beautiful hardwood floor hiding underneath. Instead of spending the better end of $5 a square foot on cork-look luxury vinyl tile, I spent less than $100 on sandpaper and Danish oil.

Before I could start working on the floor, I came down with bronchitis. Then the pandemic hit, and I had to figure out how to teach, put out a paper, and coordinate the production of a yearbook, all remotely, while writing the first draft of my latest novel.

I finally got a hand free Monday to start working on the living-room floor. At my dad’s recommendation, I sanded it by hand and gave it a couple of coats of Danish oil. It was time-consuming, physically demanding work, but I think it turned out well. We used part of the money we saved on the floor to buy a new wood-slice coffee table with hairpin legs. *Swoon*

To keep my neck and shoulders from completely seizing up on me while I was sanding and oiling the floor, I stopped every hour or so to stretch and spend a few minutes working on the new mural I just sort of randomly decided I needed in my office. I’m designing it on the fly, but I think it will look pretty cool when I’m done with it.

I’ve always sort of wondered what I could accomplish if I had a big enough block of time on my hands with relatively few distractions, and the pandemic has pretty well answered that question. I have several other projects brewing. We’ll see how many of them I finish before the world reopens.

Emily

 

School’s Out

NOTE: This is part of the new novel I am writing. I am posting it here as a diversion for readers who may be living under shelter-in-place policies while the world waits for the coronavirus pandemic to pass. For an explanation of this project, please click here.

School’s Out
5 p.m. May 23, 2019 ~ Coldwater High School, Coldwater, N.M.

Holly watched the last vehicle pull out of the parking lot. Her work was far from finished — it would never be finished; not until she retired, at least, and that was still a good decade away — but the year was finally over, and she could quit worrying over day-to-day crises and focus on getting ahead of the paperwork that had been trying to drown her since August.

She sank into the aging office chair behind her desk and massaged her temples, wincing. She’d been battling a sinus headache for a month, ever since the upperclassmen had decided to hold their own after-prom at the abandoned church near Cuervo and three of them hadn’t made it back alive.