neat green things: home-made musical instruments

This article from Planet Green tells you how to make a Rainstick, a Balloon Drum, a Cigarbox Guitar, a Pipe Flute and a Key Chime, all of which seem easy and wonderful, and I think I might have to start making them soon. I'm sure I can scrounge materials around town, and I love noisemakers-- I've literally got a box of them in my room, and a jar full of several pipes I don't really know how to play but periodically attempt to learn, which confuses the dog and makes the cats all bugger off.

I love the idea of making things for myself. I love the idea of reusing things that have been declared 'junk' by our society to make something beautiful-- not just a junk sculpture, since those usually are sort of ugly (though I do like the ones in Ripley's lobby that have sheep with old rotary phone heads), but something that continues to create beauty and have a further use for the society. Especially since there's nothing saying you can't decorate them after they're made, and especially especially since people keep cutting music education from the schools (which is what I'm blaming for the boringness of so much modern music).

So there I am. And I knew I shouldn't have thrown away those old keys I had laying around...

i can't make it to icfa...

... because of my recent family trauma that made me miss a week of work, which made me have to use just enough of my savings that I just can't afford it anymore.

So if you're going, my dear friends, I'd like to ask a favor. First, print up this accurate and detailed portrait of me:

Then, take the picture with you. While you're at my favorite place in the world, be sure to start the day with more than one cup of tea, have two or so vodka and crans for lunch, pay too much for at least one ethnic dinner, stay up too late and wake up too early in the morning, say at least one thing you regret for the rest of the conference, and, most important, take pictures of yourselves and our friends holding this silly picture and send them to me. That way, it's almost like I'm there, too.

Please?

etsy lets you shop locally!

Etsy is one of my favorite online shops. There's so many wonderful things there, beautiful things made my fantastically talented artisans from all over the world (try a search for 'hammered silver bangles' or 'stacking rings' or 'swedish' or 'bellydance' and see what I mean).

And now they let you shop local! In my area, there are 57 recently updated shops. The best of them are:

Hunter Glass- really neat hand-made glass sculptures

Muse Belts - fun leather belts that aren't like anything sold in stores

Jasmine Scott - contemporary and hand-made resin rings

Matt Ewing - super-interesting and complicated, almost Steampunk rings

Dandelion Wish - Hand-embroidered felt stuffies and adorable little notebooks

AJs Jams - neat local flavors of home-made jam

Lotus Hoops - Hooping hoops from right here!

the ultimate gadget: 2-28-2010

I have in my head an idea of what the best and most perfect gadget would be like. Sometimes, it gets updated as I learn of new cool things that people are making and I'll want them incorporated into the Ultimate Gadget. The current list of features is:

- A big, clear, very well-lit touch screen, with that nifty multi-touch navigation

- The ability not only to write on the screen, but to convert that writing into text in a format compatible with Word or Open Office docs

- A webcam and a mic, and the ability to use them online and as a regular phone, maybe the way Skype works on both platforms

- The hugest harddrive I can get

- USB ports all over the place, and the ability to dock it to another computer, as well as adding dongles and flashdrives

- A gyro so the screen knows which way the thing is pointed, and the ability to play games that way

- Bluetooth, RF and WiFi; maybe also 3G, but that's not really necessary if it has full WiFi-- at a fast and reliable speed

- Natural-looking and working book and magazine reading

- A stand to prop it up when I don't want to hold it myself

- An on-screen keyboard that can be typed on like a regular one, or switched to the edges and split to be thumb-typed while held like a phone

- The usual helper-functions: clock, timer, schedule / calendar, calculator, address book, a weather widget, all those sorts of things, and all as simple and useful as possible

- Apps. All the apps.

- A really long battery, even when using the interwebs.

- Real word processing

- Maybe a decent camera, or at least a way to interface with a camera, like a plug or a card reader. (but, really, a DS can take pictures so why shouldn't this?)

- Really good video playback for watching movies, and an optical drive that will play them in the least amount of space possible

- On-the-go TV-- and I mean real TV, not the way Verizon only offers clips and interviews and trailers

- GPS, and the ability to find you when you're lost, as well as being able to tell you the closest restaurant and suchlike

Random things that would be nice:

- A barcode reader, or some other visual-recognition thing that lets you scan something and it brings up the data on it

- Voice activation

- A portable scanner, or camera resolution equivalent to it

- An assistant that actually helps

- Screencaps

- A recognized and well-respected OS

garden: the great sunflower project

Last year, I signed up to be part of the Great Sunflower Project, where people all over the world plant the same kind of sunflowers at regionally similar times and then count the number of bees visiting them a few times a week to see how much pollination we're getting and how the bees are doing. I never did get around to collecting the data; my Lemon Queens died, and the ones that did grow grew much later in the year. But they've loosened and expanded the requirements, and I think I can do it this year!

Here's the letter I just got from them:

Welcome to 2010! Thanks to your help 2009 was an epic year for The Great Sunflower Project. With over 50 thousand participants we are reaching our goal of documenting bee pollination in the US and developing strategies to protect and restore native bees where they are threatened. Building on the momentum from 2009, we are excited to get going this spring! We have made some changes that I want to share early in the year. I'll send out some results in our next newsletter. First, we are simplifying our sampling protocol There are now three steps: 1) count the number of flowers on your plant with pollen; 2) record all bees (not just the first 5) your sunflower for 15 minutes; and 3) enter the data online. You do not need to write down temperatures or the number of other sunflowers in your garden. We have very few people who see five bees in 15 minutes and the analysis of the data becomes much simpler if everyone samples for the same length of time. So, if you can, grab your favorite beverage and write down what time you started and a time for each bee that visits. We are in the process of modifying the data entry form on the website to reflect these changes. It isn’t quite finished though.

Order sunflower seeds here. The second big change is that we are asking that people get their own Lemon Queen sunflower seeds. With 85,000 people signed up, it is becoming difficult to raise enough money to mail seeds. So, we are asking that you get seeds from a local store or from us for $3.00 Click here to get them from us. Three dollars covers our cost for shipping and packing. Many of you wrote to say you were receiving crushed seeds so, we changed to using padded mailers and we also increased the number of seeds in a packet. This more than tripled our cost of mailing. If you do pick up Lemon Queen variety sunflowers at a local nursery, you candownload instructions and data sheets here and on the home page. Renee Shepherd, our seed guru, says sunflower seeds shouldn't be planted until night temperatures stay above 55 degrees so, we'll start sending seeds out in March but will time it so you get them a bit before it is appropriate to plant.

Free seeds for children. We have set aside money to support kids programs and school groups participating. Contact me at sfbee@sfsu.edu and we’ll make arrangements to get you seeds for free. We don’t want cost of seed to be a barrier to participating - yes we haven’t been able to raise money to sustain supporting free seeds for all, however, if you can’t find seeds locally or afford to get them from us, send us an addressed stamped envelope and we’ll send some seeds back to you. I’ll be sending out some summaries of last year’s data in the next newsletter and some updates on what we are learning about bees. Think Spring and Bee Well! Gretchen The Queen Bee

It's gone cold again here, but we're almost at Last Frost Date, and I'm already planning my tomatoes and such, and the community garden is close to up and running, so planing is on my mind. Dereck wants to plant the front garden, where we had the sunflowers before, so I think I might have to find somewhere else to go-- maybe in a big pot round back, or in a corner of the community box (if I keep getting herded out of my own yard by the boys' cleaning bent)-- 25$ will buy me my own box for half the year, and that, I think, is awesome. I might pop for it just so I can have so I can get me some space. Most of our yard is shaded by trees and houses, and has really crappy soil anyway; we talked about putting in a few planter boxes to fix this problem, but then we'd have to find a way to pay for the dirt-- the boxes themselves could be built from cinderblocks and would be moderately cheap and fine.

meme: swedish furniture name generator

I love IKEA as only someone with a fascination with Sweden who has never lived there can. So I did this:

lykke li makes me want to take off my glasses and put on fake eyelashes

Specifically in this video that I can't embed, but also all the damn time.

shonagonisms: ways i know the universe wants us to be happy and decadent

One of the beast sources of antioxidants is a chocolate covered strawberry.

The existence of chocolate at all, and how well it goes with coffee, which comes from so far away.

The fact that baby animals are so soft and feel so nice rubbed against your cheek.

Fermented things are better for you and tastier than the sum of their parts. Wine and beer and cheese and bread and yogurt are all fermented.

Soft grass and warm sunshine, and the joy of laying in both while bees buzz around you.

Rose oil is one of the best oils for skin, and is a naturally intoxicating perfume.

Kissing someone you love is almost better than anything else.

Swimming naked in the ocean under a full moon in summer makes everyone beautiful.

The sheer variety of tea.

Beauty is everywhere.

tribute

The Priest said that we should think of Gramma's life and what she taught us, what we think is most important about how she lived it, and incorporate that lesson into our own lives. It's been almost two weeks since That Day When I Was Brave Enough Not To Leave, and I still don't know what I would choose.

I like that she would never complain, but the fact that she didn't is what led to her massive heart-attack: she didn't tell anyone that she had a clot they were trying to treat, and she never questioned the doctors who put her on a medication that might dislodge it. Which is what happened.

I like that she always helped everyone who needed it, and I'd like to do the same, but I'm still in a position of needing help myself.

I like that she was always smiling. Maybe I can manage that one-- smile more, frown less, and the thought processes that lead to each.

I want to be as settled as she was, never having to move because I have the home I want in a place I like, even when the neighborhoods around it aren't so nice anymore. I want to see trees I plant growing up into big towering things. I want to be that content.

I want to be loved like she was and is.

I want to be free to make blankets because I like to.

I want to not have to worry about money.

I want to be surrounded by family when I go.

100th post!

Look at me talking about myself for a hundred posts! And look at all of you being so sweet as to let me! Because in this ever-unfinished work in progress that is who I am and where I'm going, this little blog is a vital piece of figuring out how to get there, and it's lovely that I have it and everyone helps me plot the course. I hope I'm helping you guys even a little as much as you're helping me.

It's been a rough February, hasn't it? All this crazy weather (which, of course, has nothing to do with climate change, because, as the crazies keep telling us from where they've hidden their heads in the sand, there's no such thing), and then all the family concerns. I won't say it isn't hard. It's the hardest February I can remember, because usually this time of year is just weeks of rain and tea and sleeping.

But March starts spring, and spring is all about new beginnings. Again. I have Projects in the pipeline. I have a month and a half until I can apply for Financial Aid and get myself back to the Ivory Tower (and then about two years before I go back again and get myself a Library Science / Archiving degree and never have to leave said Ivory Tower again). Sunday I have an interview to work at a B&B. Tonight, I have time to catch up on my posting, and maybe to read and write some. Yesterday, we started the countdown to Mardi Gras with Jambalaya and Beignets.

I've given myself five years to get out of this hole, and I'm going for it.