Tag Archives: Michigan

Painting on Silk – Margriet Seinen

I went to a Margriet Seinen’s Painting a Mandala on Silk workshop last weekend. I didn’t know but one day in advance that I was going, so I had no thought to what I would do. I do not draw. I do not paint. It was challenging and totally fun.

This is something I would encourage anyone to do. It is empowering and did I say, Fun! Watching the dye/paint go onto and over the silk is very mesmerizing and the whole process could be addicting.

Even though I didn’t do what I ‘thought I wanted, in design or color’ … this is what came out of that:

Mandala - Painting with silk dye
 

The colors here aren’t quite bright enough … and I have it on my wall, but I need to stretch the silk and get it framed. And I hope to do this workshop again. For that matter, I would love to learn the mixing of dyes for the colors I really want to use, so I may pick up some dyes, resist, silk and frames so I can play with this at home!

I also got my beads out, and repaired a necklace last week. This of course inspired me to want to start beading again. (a very old page with some of my beads and baskets photos)

I am going to be laying out a palette of beads soon. I hope to work with 14s (very small) but will probably start with 11s, as I have tons of them to work with.

Need to book a flight to Michigan soon. Thinking of end of June – early July for 10 days or more. Just thinking of flying again gave me a disturbing dream/nightmare last night. I just hate giving all that control to these people who ‘claim they are making me safe’. Oh well, I will work on letting go of that stress!!

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Michigan trip – Kelly and Laurie

I finally got to spend some time with my nieces Kelly (18) and Laurie (16).

Kelly and Laurie Kensler
 

This is out back of my Dad’s house and the house I grew up in.

I wish I were closer to them. Kelly is getting ready to go to college, working, has a steady guy and doing really well. Laurie is in a bit more the the teenage angst, being 16, and wasn’t all that happy while she was visiting. We do keep up in emails and I am glad for that.

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Michigan Trip – Dad & Sue

Visited family in Michigan June 28-July 12. Spent a fair amount of time before leaving getting ready to go .. you know how it is .. I always want what I want and want to be comfortable. Any way I booked the flight in March, some time in May Dad called and told be he had a melanoma on his shoulder and had it removed. We thought/ hoped that would be the end of it. Well it isn’t.
Also at that time he was told he had type 2 diabetes. They decided to try and control that one with diet.

Here’s my Dad and his wife Sue:

Bob and Sue Kensler
 

The doctors went back in and took out more of the melanoma spot and the sentinel lymph nodes. The whole time we were there we were waiting on another appointment with a head/neck oncologist who is going to take out the rest of the lymphs in his neck and shoulders. This surgery is slated for August 8.

On top of that, they had him do a stess test on a treadmill (this is a guy who until this past year walked 5 miles a day and played 18 holes of golf regularly). He actually passed the treadmill part but the results came back that he had damage to his heart sometime a few months back.. a heart attack that he didn’t know he had.

How in the world can he go from being active healthy and strong to this???

Any way the stress of all the unknowing is paying its toll. I feel I should be there but he doesn’t feel it necessary now. Sue just retired, and its good she is there for him. Plus most of his brothers and sisters and their families are close by so he has support.

More on this trip soon.
More on the rest of life soon.

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Spring into Summer

The weather has been great.. a bit too hot a few days and then just right. Garden is evolving, put – off chores and projects are getting done.

Went to a healing circle for Carolyn last Sunday. It was an awesome empowering and powerful circle of women. I am so glad to have been invited.

KMUD has a new website, built with Joomla. I was talking with Simon, the station tech manager about all things web and actually felt some excitment in that area again. Perhaps I will get more into it as time allows this summer.

Tickets are purchased for a trip to Michigan to visit Dad and Sue and see the family. I am really hoping the Kelly and Laurie (my nieces) make the trip down from Alpena to visit. Going end of June till July 10 or so. Going to be hot, we were there the same time last trip.

Seems like my life is mostly the same, when I look back through archives, it’s mostly the same old same old, perhaps with just a few new things here and there. I am looking forward (again) to seeing Bruce Cockburn at Solfest in August.

Usually I would be looking forward to Reggae, but this is the year of Reggae hell. Too many long stories about why, if you really want to know, read from the beginning (meaning scroll down and start reading up) here and from links there to the other blogs. It’s such a fucking mess. I really really don’t plan on going. It hurts my heart the way this is. Reggae is what brought me to Humboldt to begin with, and I am a 21 year vet of Reggae on the River.

I also started a myspace space, I had so many people who wanted to communicate that way. I find it a bit cumbersome to use, I can hand code the page I want faster than I can use the ‘myspace’ method, but I am learning 🙂

I haven’t tied it to my sites or this blog yet. I really want to redo all my sites (been saying that for years now!) before I do that. Time will tell. I want to be able to blog again and have and control comments, with out the spam. If I get a different blogging tool, and transfer this site, maybe I will tie it all together.

Health wise I am good enough, the tendonitis in my right elbow is back hard, started a few months ago when I was moving tubs of stuff around. And my back and left hip are painful most of the time, but I have also weaned myself almost off the advils, down from 2400mg a day to maybe 800mg. Hope I can get those things under control.

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NYEve-part 2

So that is about it for this year. Many of our summer projects didn’t get completed, blame it on the heat (way too many days over 100 degrees) or on my recovering from the tonsillectomy and then bunion surgery, or just not enough time.
This past week Russel has been on school break with the kids, and for the first time since school started some stuff is getting done.

I am still unpacking, yesterday I opened a box that I hadn’t looked in for at least 17-18 years!! Old newspapers, letters from people whose faces I can’t even bring up! (yikes that is scary) and some art that now that I have a home I can finally maybe get framed and put up. Any way there is a lot of that sort of thing, books, crystals, rocks, shells, wonderful little things, but still no real room for them.

In early November, Russel and I went to a Bat Mitzvah for one of his Aikido students. I had never been to a (Southern Humboldt style) Jewish celebration before and it was just lovely! The songs and humor and loving friends gathering was really heart felt. I only knew a couple of people there and it just didn’t matter.

Did I say that around Thanksgiving I was so frustrated with this house not becoming ‘homey’ and pleasing to my eye, I looked into Feng Shui. Read a lot of books and got some good guidance. Although I also learned that to really use Feng Shui I must study a bit more than I want to, and that as with Astrology, there are many ways to look at it and divine it. So I took what I could use, and hope to one day dig into it a bit deeper….. when I have the time!!

I also connected finally with my neices again. Hope to learn a lot more about them in 2007.

As this year draws to a close I am thank full that we are healthy, have a wonderful home and land to support us, and are truly blessed with our lives.

As to 2007, we hope to finish all the projects we started last year, mainly the water system to electric pump, we need to paint the whole house, there is always a ton of work to do clearing the land (fire breaks) and we hope to do a better veggie garden this year. I got out the seed catalogs yesterday!

We also are planning a trip to Michigan to see my Dad and Sue, and the rest of the family. This is already stressing me out a bit. It will be sometime in August/early Sept. Have to wait to see if friends TR and Terry are coming out to visit and when, we also have to see if Reggae on the River is happening at all..what a mess that is ..I will post more about that later… and if it is happening, in what form and will Mateel Aikido do a booth? If they don’t that leaves a good block of time to do the Michigan trip, and is what I am hope for.

Ok, that’s it for now…to the few of you who come here…
Happy NEW Year!!

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Finally.. a bit of time

It’s been a long time since the last post – Sorry! We’ve been just so very busy.
The trip to visit family in Michigan (lawns and lawnmowers was a constant theme) was a good one.

Dad & Sue's back yard- where I grew up
 

Dad and Sue are good and everyone seems to be doing well.

Dad & Sue
 

We had a family gathering picnic at a quiet little lake:

at the lake
 

We caught the fireworks:

Manchester fireworks
 
Manchester fireworks
 

It was very pleasant weather the first week or so, had a full on thunder and lighting storm which helped keep the temps down, then of course the last several days were 95 degrees with a 85% humidity!!! How can anyone live like that? Wiped me out totally.

The flight home was a bit strained, perhaps I will talk about that at a later time.

And when we got back to California, it had been in the 100s for a week and basically still is (2 weeks later). We have been working at the house as much as we can. I have half of the kitchen/dining/living room plywood sub floor wood filled in the nail holes and seams, I have bought the (ugh) oil based paint with polyurethane in it to paint it. So I need to finish the wood filling, sand, vac, and then paint..on a day that doesn’t get over 90 degrees! (This is a long hard job and have working at it for weeks.)

Any way, once it is painted, it is a washable surface! and I can start moving in the flea market furniture I bought last month and finding homes for things..and start the moving out of the ‘town-house-office’ scenario.

I have also spent a few hours trying to decipher both DirecTV and DishTV services, and Starband and DirecTWay… geez what a mess, but I think I will go with Dish for TV and use my current ISP on the funky phone lines at the house for awhile. If internet is too painfully slow I will look into one of the Satellite ISP’s then.

Me and Russel at the Fair parade in Michigan:

bobbi and russel wisby
 

Yesterday was our 10th anniversary (15 years together).. we spent the day in Eureka to get out of the heat and shopped and ate and saw a great movie: Batman Returns.. check this one out, I liked it better than any of the past Batman movies, it was just full of great acting and story line.

And now, it’s getting ready to Reggae on the River time… next Thursday – Sunday.

I think we will go out to the house tonight and stay there until Sunday, next week will be full of Reggae and trips in and out the land, so this week end I hope to make great progress on my projects and Russel has been cutting and splitting wood for next season, and has lots more to do. Once I am at the land I never want to come into town. Once we have some entertainment like Dish TV and my computer there, well coming to town will be errand day and laundry and shopping and that’s about it.

Gotta go jump in Linda’s pool..it’s over 95 in the house in town right now.

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Leavin’ on a jet plane

Well I managed to be sick with a cold the whole time Russel was away at Aikido Summer Camp 🙁
This is the time I usually install / learn a new software product or do something just for me… not this time.

But just before he left we did get our electrician out to the house and have the solar panels installed, the inverter and battery array, and some more finish electrical in the house.. we can flick on a switch now for lights and fans and tv and DO NOT have to start the generator!!! Big Step.

And now we are packed (I’ve been packing for days it seems) to go to Michigan and visit Dad & Sue and the rest of the family for 2 weeks. It’s been quite awhile since I have been there in middle of summer, trying to prepare for the hot and muggy weather. I know we will have a good time. It’s just the getting there.. we drive 5 hours from here to Sacramento instead of driving into the bay area or taking a chance on fog at the Arcata airport, stay in motel and then fly AmericaWest into (this time) Las Vegas then Detroit, on the way back we go into Phoenix.
Wish us safe journey’s!!

Oh, and I forgot to mention that we have sign (meaning scat) of big bear and baby bear … haven’t seen them, but 2 bears have been around the house the week I was in town sick! Hopefully they will stay out of our garden while we are gone.

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Christmas in Michigan

I’m back !!

Well, I’ve been back since the 29th when we flew into Sacramento and we were greeted with 50+ mile/an hour winds and rain blowing sideways and coldness. We decided to spend the night in Woodland and drove the next day, talking route 16 to 20 around Clear Lake. Wish i would of gotten some pics of that, but I was already coming down with a bad cold which is still with me today.

The Michigan trip was good, but too short for the amount of energy it took to get there and back, next time we will stay longer. Russel felt good for a few days and that was really a blessing. We had a white Christmas, which for me was quite unusual, I haven’t seen one of those in too many years to count.

The snow was just starting here:

snow on clothesline Michigan back yard at the Kenslers

This is my Dad, brother and me and my nieces:

Bob Kensler family
Bobbi &Russel Wisby

It was odd, I usually was in the pictures, not taking them, so I had to spend some time in Photoshop to help them. I am thinking of using Ofoto for prints for the family to go to and get. I may get to Costco or somewhere else up north tomorrow that will take my cf card and i can get some 5x7s.

Oh, btw….. HAPPY NEW YEAR !!

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