putting the me in memes

My current status as visualized through Pinterest:

What i really want for my birthday.

I am 46 years old today.
That's 46 trips all the way around the sun.
Today i am starting my 47th.
To mark the occasion i have prepared a haiku about the things that matter to me, the things that i truly and deeply want for my birthday.

Not just peanuts

Our new quote comes from George Washington Carver. Though known for inventing 300 uses for the peanut - including peanut butter, which he actually did not invent - Carver's most lasting contribution to America was probably the research and implementation of crop rotation in the South.
  As a professor at Tuskegee University, he encouraged his students (all male at the time) to strive towards gaining eight cardinal virtues:

• Be clean both inside and out
• Look neither up to the rich or down on the poor
• Lose, if needs be, without squealing
• Win without bragging
• Always be considerate of women, children and older people
• Be too brave to lie
• Be too generous to cheat
• Take your share of the world and let others take theirs

Though certainly fine life goals, the list is a bit unwieldy as a quote. Luckily, he nicely summarized that basic philosophy thusly:

How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these.  

cheerful

With a new beginning comes a new quote from the commonplace book, this time from Charlotte Bronte. It pretty well captures the attitude that i am trying to nurture within:

Cheerfulness, it would appear, is a matter which depends fully as much on the state of things within, as on the state of things without and around us.

Amen to that sister, amen.

zazen

I have enjoyed a meditation group on Monday nights, but we are on a summer break.
sigh... i miss it
Meditating on my own has gotten easier, but it is still way better at the group.
So a pensive haiku instead:

bullet point bulletin

• Despite the rumors that you may have heard, i am not laying comatose in a lab at a secret military installation immersed in a brain wave study to discover a renewable energy source that will have the power to save the Earth and mankind: boon to civilization that will inevitably be weaponized and show harmful side effects after 30-50 years. 

• I could not tell you if i was involved in said completely hypothetical situation

• My winter visit to Ohio was extra long and i got to spend lots of time with my mom, go shopping with my sister, meet my nephew's girlfriend over Christmas dinner (which i got to cook - yay to my mom having a better kitchen than me!) and visit Rea's farm. 

• I did however learn that cows are quicker than you think.  When i pulled up in my car there was only one cow near the fence; by the time i got out of the car, there were four!  How did an 800 pound creature just appear like that?

• The fabled studio redo is almost done, finally.    It has been a long time coming, but Rea and I set-up an 8 week challenge through December and January to get things organized, purged and rearranged in our respective houses with a scrapbooking retreat together as a reward at the end so I was really motivated.    I have seriously sorted and purged things, getting rid of supplies or pieces of half-done ideas that have been cluttering up my studio and my mind for far too long. There are 7-9 more boxes/bags to be sorted, but i have all of the new shelving and storage in place so it is only a matter of deciding what to keep and putting the other things into the correct space.

• Tonight is the greatest night of the entire project: Labeling Night! Suzanne is coming over after work and we are going to label every box, bin, case, drawer and shelf in the studio, including relabeling anything already labeled so that all of the labels match.   MATCHING LABELS, PEOPLE! Clear, concise organization really makes my skirt fly up.

• The newest addition to Nannie Niki's menagerie is an 11 week old terrier mix named Sasza (pronounced like Sasha) and she is a cutie-patootie, reminding me of my beloved Chang.

• New Year's cards are done production and i am working on addressing and getting them in the mail. Watch your box.

• Though winter is mostly a fallow festival season, don't forget the Annual Jewlery Show at Objects Found over Super Bowl weekend. More info about the event will be posted here and on the NikCo FB page, which you should go Like right now, in case you haven't already.

• It has now been half of a year since my dad died and we have made it through the major holidays (except my and my brother's bbdays in May) without him for the first time. In no way i am through grieving, but i can feel some of the depression clouds parting.

• I continue along with the 101 Goals in 1001 Days, doing very well on some and miserably on others. Once we return from our retreat at the end of the month i have plan in the works to invest time in a few of the languishing ones, including getting back to writing on a regular basis

fresh start

Today is my favorite non-holiday day of the year.

January 1st.

01/01/

1-1-

The beginning. The start. Fresh. New. Clean.

To the jaded naysayers who insist it is just a random day, artificial and meaningless, I say.

Well, DUH!

ALL dates are artificial, the concept of marking time, naming it, is a human construct and you could make the argument that all dates are meaningless - the Earth is gonna keep spinning whether we keep track of it or not.

We imbue days with meaning for ourselves.

I happily choose to consider today another chance to re-concentrate my efforts at self-improvement 

Technically, every morning is a new start, but it is easy to be so swept up in that day's events that I forget to be mindful of that. 

Plus, it is so very easy to be critical of yesterday's mistakes (or every mistake of your life, like the time I lied to my first grade teacher - yes, that still pops into my head every once in a while) that I forget to forgive my own frailties, my human-ness, to start over each day.

New Year's Day is an opportunity to truthfully evaluate where I am and where I want to be and then mindfully make a strategy of how to make that happen.

This year's resolution is to actively work on my 101 Goals in 1001 Days. 

What are yours?

Good luck on getting there, friends.

Work hard, but be gentle with yourself when things don't quite follow the plan.

     

slowly but surely i am adjusting to my new reality

update 5 minutes after publishing:  ...but still not quite with it enough to not mix up my contraction "it's" with my possessive "its"

Baby steps, people

just a tiny thought

I was just bidding on some NikCo supplies on EBay and had an epiphany.
I like to sort by "ending soonest" and take my chances placing my maximum bid when there is less that 1 minute until it ends. There is that 2-3 seconds where your brain is like Am I going to be the highest bidder? Will the message come up green or red?
It is the same feeling that you get when you pull the handle on a slot machine.
EBay is just like going to a casino except that I end up with stuff I actually need and here in the library no one brings me Long Island Iced Teas.

i would like my reward now, please

This may be the truest thing i have ever seen on the Internet.

found at theberry.com; no idea where it originated

I love lip balm.
Every kind of lip balm.
In my possession right now i have (and this is off of the top of my head): Carmex regular, squeezy Carmex, squeezy Blistex, Chapstick, Burt's Bees with tint, Nivea, Mellaluca, Mary Kay, Walgreen's brand and some generic thing from my car dealer.
They are in my room, the living room, the kitchen, my travel bag, my purse, my glove compartment and my pocket. Honestly, you should just never be too far from lip balm of some sort.
Plus, as the picture says - they just disappear.
I use lip balm every day and don't remember even once using an entire tube.
Ever.
UNTIL NOW
Duh duh duhhhhhhh:

Yes my friends, that is a completely used-up tube of lip balm.
I realize how crazy this is, but i was insanely proud of myself for actually using a full tube without losing it.

Side note:
Years ago, when i first started at my old job, i was partnered with Brian; that is, on the road with him every single day.
And every day when i put on lip balm i would ask him, Want some lip balm?
Why would i want to blow up my lips? he would reply, every day.
After five years, i still laughed ever single time.
In fact, i might have giggled just typing that.

balancing living at home and working at home

My house is a mess.

A MESS.

Not dirty, mind you; there is just stuff everywhere.

No, not like hoarders, either: it is useful stuff that gets used on a daily basis.

Consider that it is my apartment and a full papercraft studio and a full jewelry studio.

It is not uncommon to have the dining room table set up for beading, a card table up in the living room for card making, Makes it tough to have people in for a visit.
Plus, i hate my tiny kitchen.

Over the summer, Amy and I were going to get together for tea and i decided that by jiminey i was going to host it, mess or no mess, crappy small kitchen and all.

STEP 1: consolidate in-progress jewelry projects into containers; stack them neatly to the side of the room

STEP 2: consolidate in-progress paper craft projects onto the dining room table; cover gently with a table cloth; add a pretty teapot to keep with the theme

STEP 3: cover wretchedly small, mismatched counter tops with a matching tablecloth to create the illusion of a buffet; lay out food that was prepared well in advance so that the kitchen did not need to be utilized that day, except to boil water

(from left: chips with Rea's homemade peach salsa; toast fingers with Rea's homemade black raspberry jelly; trail mix customized to my specifications (fruit and nuts have to be a 1:1 ratio, people); cantaloupe and grapes; black and white cookies (made by the grocery store because i don't really bake); 2 versions of toasted party ryes {cream cheese herbed with basil and garlic, topped with tiny tomatoes & cream cheese herbed with garlic and oregano, topped with prosciutto}; zucchini rounds with either plain or chipotle hummus; and green olives)
STEP 4: eat, drink, be merry

Tea turned out so well that i've decided more entertaining needs to happen in Chez Nicole.
Lydia and I were supposed to have a Friday adventure, but i had to cancel at the last minute so i invited her over for home cooking instead.
One of the house specialties is Nik'obo Stew: a seasonally variable stew that is loosely based on jambalaya and a bbq hobo stew a friend made for me 20 years ago.
It always has sausage and/or chicken, a sweet element balanced against a savory element and a grain of some type.

This Autumnal version was kielbasa, black beans, chili beans, sauteed onions and corn cooked in a tomato base with bay leaves as the savory half mixed with the sweet half of eggplant, butternut squash, chopped onions and whole garlic cloves roasted with nutmeg and ground cloves. 

I think it is okay to serve on tv trays as long as you have pretty napkins folded into flatware pockets, right?

no choice but to finally wash the dirty dishes

conundrum

because my middle initial -S- stands for subtle

I love striped clothes;
they offer so many accessorizing options.

For instance, last week I was wearing this long sleeved, stripey shirt under my styling sweater vest.
A girl could choose a great blingy brooch in blue or purple or yellow

or you know, all of them.

in which i give the paparazzi what for

I'm having fun editing the pictures from Amy's and my adventure to Elioak Farms and integrating them with mine to tell the story of the day.
Rea and I maintain that we need staff photographers to capture our lives so that we can be IN the pics instead of just behind the camera.
Looking at Amy's pictures of the day reinforces that thought because there are a jillion pics of me to choose from: me with goats, me with horses, me with giant shoes, me with alarming bears.
There is however one snap that makes me wonder if I would actually like having my photographer:

Wow.

I look super unamused.

Funnily enough, I don't even remember looking up at this moment and Amy had been there the whole time so it isn't like I was suddenly Why can't you vultures leave me alone on my day off? Can't you see that I am having a moment with these goats? Go earn an honest living that doesn't involve barely legal stalking!
Plus the whole day was fun, fun Laughing-ville so I was never actually this unamused.
It does however give me a good avatar to use when I need to broadcast utter disdain with an undernote of incredulous.

Don't you even...

sometimes you just have to

Earlier in the week I had my day planned:
LabCorp for quarterly bloodwork,
bank,
gas,
library,
blog post,
finish earrings that are designed and wired,
draw blueprints for new display,
Lowe's, and
build displays.

I finished and marked off the first two just fine and was putting gas in the car when I heard it.
A tiny voice.
A beautiful voice as familiar to me as my own.
A voice that has been silent for far too long.

It was the road.
Blue sky, bright sunlight, crisp autumn air and the road calling to me:
What's a girl to do?



I ran home long enough to grab my GO bag and camera batteries.
[What do you mean, What is a GO bag?
I always have a little backpack packed with sunscreen, bug spray, almonds, dried fruit, bottle of water, clean socks/undies, deodorant and toothpaste because you never know when you might have the opportunity to GO]

My favorite regional park -Black Hill, near Clarksburg- is a little over 40 miles away, through some beautiful countryside. Windows down, radio up and cruise control set to a reasonable speed instead of how fast I want to drive, it was a lovely drive.

I spent the afternoon writing in the sunshine
and taking pictures of sugar maples.


And those displays?
They'll get built soon enough.

the comic strip that most accurately captures my personality

nice hat

I've had a great, productive week getting ready for the first festival of the season -

Catonsville Arts and Craft Festival;

Sunday Sept 8th;

i'll be next to Objects Found.

I mean, I love the pieces that I've made and am excited about new displays and am generally stoked about NikCo.

Last night the productivity train jumped its tracks when I realized that a nice couple that I had talked to for about 10-15 minutes yesterday at work had actually been playing me and stole some expensive merchandise.
Nothing makes you not want to be optimistic like watching security tape to find the moment where other human beings take advantage of your basic kind nature to their own nefarious ends.
No, that does not inspire optimism.
It inspires nausea and sleeplessness.
It inspires crying for hours because how can people BE like that?
It inspires free-floating anxiety and mistrust, as well as general malaise.
It inspires lethargy and depression.
It inspires self-loathing and disdain for the entire human race.
It inspires helplessness, hopelessness and an overwhelming need to run away to New Zealand and change my name to Gertie.

Sitting here trying to cobble together a Friday Randomness post I couldn't think of a single cheerful, silly, funny, interesting or odd thing to write. All I could think about is how it always seems like whenever I am happy and on-course something always happens to make me doubt myself, my choices and my entire world view.
Cheery, isn't it?
Aren't you glad you checked out The Nikiverse today?

Then I remembered the bookmark I used to have clipped to my file boxes at work:

All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.
- St. Francis of Assisi

Optimism is a choice.
It is a silly choice.
It flies in the face of all evidence.
It is ridiculous.
But it is still the best choice.

kind of a mess

It's a miracle

that any paint makes it to

 the canvas at all.

i'm pretty sure it IS a law (state of course, not federal)

Since I no longer do a Mon-Fri 9-5 (or Mon-Fri 7-6 as was the case) I keep what is closer to my body's natural hours. That is, I sleep later and stay up later.
Night time is the right time in the Nikiverse.
Dinner, therefore, is often 8, 9 or 10pm. If I wait too much later than that I start to get a little odd as the blood sugar gets wobbly.
It is probably a good thing that I live alone because when this happens I tend to have arguments with myself or inanimate objects.
Case in point: on Sunday I was cooking tater tots around 11pm.
Tots are delicious as is, but i'd decided that I wanted them with a little cheese and a lot of Old Bay.  As the timer hit 2 minutes to go I went to the spice cabinet to get the Old Bay.
I didn't see it.

Now this isn't my house, but I am here often enough to know the kitchen pretty well and I know this is where spices are kept.
But it is a tall, narrow shelf, so maybe the can is behind something.
I move things around, lift things up, and stand on my tippitty-toes looking for the distinctive square, yellow metal container.
Nope.
Okay, I say out loud, maybe they have a bottle instead of a can; I mean I just bought a bottle instead of a can so maybe I just didn't see it cause I was looking for the can.
The shelves get tossed again, the timer rings to signal that the tots are ready and the Old Bay is nowhere to be found.
This is crazy, says I to absolutely no one without even a hint of irony.

The lower corner spinny shelves are where cooking things and staples are kept so I open it up and spy some dry rubs, including the house's favorite chili Lime from Stubb's.
This is where the Old Bay must be.
Spinning the top shelf all the way around yields no Old Bay.

Maybe they don't have any since they use so many other types of seasonings, I mused dejectedly, but then angrily replied to myself, No way, Niki; there isn't a house in Maryland that doesn't have Old Bay in it. It's like a LAW, for goodness sakes.
Come on, now; the tots are burning.

Which is when I notice the industrial sized spice containers on the very bottom, including, you guessed it:
Old Bay.
I knew it.
A house without Old Bay just isn't a home.

In case you were wondering,
the tater tots were fabulous.



ps- JP and KP you are out of tater tots