I found a jar of honey in an old supplies from the pandemic era. It had crystallized.
I didn’t want to go through the trouble of doing the double boiler thing to melt it down and shake it up but I do want it decrystallized. I can’t do the dishwasher method either. That’s where you place the honey in the dishwasher for three cycles and viola, no more crystals. However, I do have a coffee mug warmer, and time.
How it unfolded
I kept the lid on the whole time.
I saw signs of movement within three minutes.
I turned it over several times so it wouldn’t get too hot on a given side.
Give it a good shake from time to time.
The full process took about 30 minutes for six ounces of crystallized honey. The honey tastes just like I remember. 🙂 I know exactly why I buy from this particular beekeeper.
There are two beekeeping families with superior products who keep me coming back.
My wonderful full-time caregiver enjoyed the cinnamon and honey I made for her. Now for lavender and honey, lemon and honey, etc. I purchased a quart and the taste sizes are only one ounce so there’s enough to play with. 🙂
Well, I’m off to do end of the month tasks. Try not to worry they say. It’ll all work out they say. I’ve got evening care added on two days a week now, due to memory issues and others from long covid. They’re making sure I eat, too.
I don’t deserve pretty dentures after the way I treated my natural teeth, that’s the way I thought anyway. So when it came time to choose the color of my dentures I didn’t want to choose a pretty white. I was going to choose a coffee drinker white, or a color warranted by someone with obsessive compulsive disorder who could no longer brush her teeth because of issues. So when the dentist asked about color and showed me examples I said I didn’t know. She automatically picked a beautiful color. In shock I said, “Really. I can have that?”
It’s been 8 months since I had teeth. I eat without difficulty, but I didn’t look like myself. My self-esteem tanked. I didn’t know it could go lower, but it has.
I cried when I put in the new dentures today. I couldn’t believe that I look like me again. My lips were full again. And I just naturally smiled again! I couldn’t believe how different I felt about myself by putting in a very pretty pair of teeth that I didn’t even feel I deserved. Yes, I gave them back, but in three weeks time I’ll pick up my first pair of hand crafted dentures with my name in them.
I got the idea to ask for my name in them because a woman who was killed on Forensic Files was helped to be identified by the name in her dentures. No lie.
Soon I’ll start the YouTube classes for speech therapy with dentures.
I’m excited. Best of all, I’ll have my dentures before time to go on my trip.
You know what? I did better with boundaries and setting limits than I first remembered. I originally looked back at the year with the old CNA and saw how many times I drew the line.
The first thing was how she would shoo me away with the back of her hand. She’d say, “Go! ” and begin to shoo me out of the kitchen area or restroom area, wherever I was. It felt horrible. I asked her to stop but she told me I couldn’t tell her what to do with her hands. I said, when it makes me feel “that way” I absolutely can. I ended up needing to call the supervisor about it.
She began saying very racist things about two different races. It was crazy. I said, how soon you forget the very words used against you. “They’re taking over.” “They’re taking our jobs.” “They’re dirty.” How soon you forget!!
She talked about how she doesn’t eat food from certain people because she feels blacks cleaner than their race. I get tired of that mess!!
It’s insane to inflict on others what we have to endure. When I talked to the supervisor about racial slurs she was mad. Shouldn’t have kept saying it. Hatred has no place in my home! I won’t stand for it.
She told me I can’t tell her what she can say. My answer surprised her. I said. I absolutely can. I can. I did. If vitriol comes out of your mouth you will hear about it. You say horrible things sometimes!
So, thinking back, I didn’t let her run all over me. I tried very hard to keep boundaries with someone who became uninterested in civility.
While there were really good times we had many difficulties, mainly with her mouth. You know what though? It was the mouth of one CNA. I only had one person’s behavior to deal with. I didn’t have CNAs cycling in and out which made the situation manageable, for awhile.
Let me address her walking out on me. That hurt. It also hurt to find out she actually put in a 2 weeks notice and that would have been her last day anyway. She put in a 2 week notice (unknown to me) because I had to report her language. I kept asking her to stop dropping the F-bomb. Why do I need to keep asking? Why are you using that word at work, especially that much? She actually quit bc she didn’t appreciate being asked not to use that word between the hours of 10-3, three days a week.
I guess she couldn’t bring herself to be respectful to others or to love herself enough to not say hateful, racist things about others.
Early on she used to tell me she was going to leave and not come back. I asked her to stop. I don’t think it’s funny. She kept saying it so I told the supervisor. So now she’s gone. I’ve got mixed feelings.
I honestly liked her in the beginning. I still have empathy and sympathy, now with anger.
It took a month instead of two weeks to complete the painting of sunflowers with the Scripture. When the painting was picked up she ordered one for herself. The other person who saw it ordered one. I’ll be doing them on paper. I seriously do not enjoy canvas.
One of my art goals for next year is to increase the amount of art that’s based on Scripture.
I also like the idea of painting my cat, but I’m pretty bad at animals. Maybe I’ll just keep photographing him.
Michael Joseph Austin aka Joe Schmoe, is going to be 15 next year. Honestly, it kind of scares me because I worry about losing him. It’s been 2 years since he had a stroke. His eyesight was affected, other than that he’s the same cat.
There are three goals for the next creative year 🙂
Scripture based art.
Painting cats in an outsider art kind of way.
Paint butterflies in outsider art kinda way.
I’ve joined a group about butterflies and have seen some absolutely amazing creations. I have to paint them! I’ve also got a book I was given by a good friend.
Those are my new year’s goals.
Gratitude List
I’m entirely moved by the varied designs, textures and vivid colors of butterflies.
Cookies. Above any other flavor, I love big sugar cookies with icing and sprinkles. A friend brings them sometimes.
I enjoy trying new things. My CNA and I laughed so hard at how bad bison steak is. So, so nasty! The texture and taste is a catastrophic collision that may have killed taste buds. Just wow lol. I’m grateful for the ability to laugh and still appreciate the experience due to the laughter, and I’m looking forward to trying other new things. 🙂
I recently purchased a new dress for the first time in over 30 years. I’d been wanting a kaftan so I purchased a pink tie dye kaftan. That got the ball rolling and lead to dress number 2.
When I was a child I didn’t wear much white because I tend to wipe my hands on my clothes, but unfortunately my family attached my worth to the color white. Here’s what I mean –
In 1992 I was getting ready for a function so I was ironing my white skirt and blouse. As I ironed, my sister kept walking past me saying, “Whore. Whores don’t wear white.” My mother and she were cruel. They wanted me to feel low and loathsome.
My sister was truly a piece of work. I got married in white and I could hear her evil words on that day, too. Fast forward to 2022. Not only am I older, I’m mad now.
I’m upset that my family attempted to harm me in whatever way seemed good. I was shamed so terribly over getting white dirty. It was always such a big ordeal. Living in the house with those two, I knew I was out numbered.
Recently I’ve been trying to reclaim a few colors associated with abuses. I’d been working on yellow for a while. I can say with pride that I have successfully reclaimed the color yellow and restored it to its proper place; next is white.
I’ve been tossing this idea around for a bit. It’s finally coming to fruition. I purchased a long, solid white Kaftan…..to paint in… to purposely wipe my hands on and get it all covered lol. Then of course I thought, what about shoes? So in February I’ll get a pair of knock-off, high top Converse, white for about $20. Converse right now are $115. I’m not trying to make that expensive of a point. Lol
Where the label on the shoe should be, I’ll put a sunflower. To tie the whole statement together, I’ll toss in a white dreadlock wrap and some hoop earrings.
I’m going target a few areas where I have unresolved issues such as over the heart, the lungs and the tassels at the bottom.
Colors of significance will include deep shades of purple bc the purple survivors ribbon is for Lupus, Domestic Violence and Dementia. All of these have touched my life significantly.
I don’t know when I’ll say the dress is “finished”. I do know I’ll wear it around the house to paint in. My paints are permanent and vivid.
A bit of irony – the dress arrived very wrinkled. I absolutely have to iron it before I put it on.
The rest of life is as troubled and discombobulated as everyone else. I’m taking it day by day. I find the world increasingly difficult to manage. I’m worried about the havoc politicians will reek on their world playground during elections. I’m not looking forward to racism being encouraged. Thank goodness I don’t understand the joy people feel when “sticking it” to someone else. But they love it.
While living in excessively violent times, politicians gleefully spit rhetoric to inflame groups and turn people against each other. It’s like it’s a billionaire’s game where the one with the most casualties wins.
Other than that, the frogs are great and so is Joe. The jumping spider is doing well. My CNA situation is “interesting”.
I’m a bit lonely right now though I see people regularly.
Rumination is pretty bad still. My emotions get intense but not like months ago. Sleep is too much or too little. Appetite is zero still, and last but not least menopause is kicking my butt.
At least I’m not as reactive and emotional as I was. I can catch myself sometimes, before I start, but it can be difficult to stop once started. I feel shame because I don’t feel I have the control needed to maintain interpersonal relationships. I’m worried about it. We’re still tweaking medication though.
As Joe Schmoe recovers he’s getting away with murder. LOL This furry, green eyed boy seriously rules me.
Joe prefers the right side of the bed, well that’s also the side I want to sleep on. If he’s already sleeping there I won’t move him I’ll just sigh and grumble as I sleep on the left. If he’s sleeping comfortably on the blanket I’ll wait for him to get up.
When I was making all sorts of concessions and adjustments for the boy I knew then I’m wrapped around his paw, tightly.
I can get wrapped up in the blankets like a burrito hugging a pillow, but my zen moment will be interrupt by his paws walking across my back and over my head. He’ll ignore 3 other pillows just to try to fit himself in the crook of my arm hugging the pillow. Several times I’ve given him that pillow and hugged another only to have him find a way to be part of the moment. Lol
Joe, the Sundrip studio cat, is definitely improving since his stroke. He was so…. absent for awhile….. physically alive yet absent. It’s a relief to see his personality come out.
Joe is back to
thinking his food bowl is empty bc he ate a hole in the middle and he can now see the bottom of the bowl.
to standing half hidden behind a curtain in some creepy stalker way, observing me from a far, as I use the restroom.
Resumed his hobby of bombing Zoom meetings
and critiquing my art. He takes his job as studio cat very seriously.
I Can Keep Going was drawn by Robert (19) with writing by Michelle (12).
What stands out in this piece for me is the brick wall on the shoulders of the largest figure. We are feeling a lot of pressure right now.
I like how Michelle processes things: This is how I feel. This is the reality. This is supporting truth.
I’ve not been suicidal but life has felt like a burden, emotionally and physically painful. Several factors played into not getting enough sleep so that was a problem, too. Each day is a struggle that feels like a losing battle but the reality is I’ve made progress and I’m moving forward in many healthier ways. I slip up, like the other day with self harm, but I also put in place safety plans and try to find ways to help myself. Lavender in the nose and on my feet has helped tremendously, so has the art sketchbook. It feels like a losing battle but it is not. I know I can keep going, and I will.
The art piece was created in watercolor and is 7.5 x 10 inches on 98lb paper.
I’d like to discuss how I come up with the prices for dolls, original acrylics, original oil paintings, large art, small art, etc.
I had no clue what to charge when I first started offering art on Etsy or right here, however online guides have been helpful. One can google how much to charge when a person asks to put their art on the front of a book, inside a book, used on a webpage, on and on. There are artist’s guides to pricing. What I found most helpful was to think of how much I want out of the painting, add in several factors which I’ll list, then I come up with a general listing price. I look around on Etsy for art of that style and size then finalize my listing price. I try and tag / use keywords by looking at other art because it can be difficult to know what to say so people find my art. Continue reading “How I Price My Art”
