Monday, May 22, 2006

I thought you were back?

“I thought the hiatus was over?”

Well, it was and then I turned around and sprained my ankle, right after my car broke down! It’s not a bad sprain enough that I have to keep it elevated and bandaged for a few ore days, as well as visit a podiatrist. I can walk on t and I’ve been on light duty at the day job. Today I’m getting in half a day until my buddy comes in to cover for me. After which point I’m heading home where I’ll rest, ice and elevate my bruised and sore ankle and foot. I must ay that this is the weirdest sprain I’ve ever had; it’s not overly swollen and not overly bruised (not like last time where I was bruised from my toes to my knee, and the whole thing was twice its normal size.) It’s just kind of stiff and sore, with occasional stabbing pains when I over do it.

Because I stand when I cut leather and paper I’m not able to do much in the studio. I also am unable to sit at my table; I can’t comfortably elevate my foot. I am able to sit on the couch with my laptop, so I’m working on the web page!!! I’m not going for drastically different, but it will be much smoother than what I have now. I’ve planned this page out much more than before. I also have a much stronger understanding of DreamWeaver and a handy dandy guide to walk me through all the steps. So now I’m not leaving a title or keywords out. So when you google my page, you may actually get one of my pages. Amazing!!! I’m hoping to get the majority of that done over the next 2 days, the images will take me longer but the main pages should be running over the next few days. I’m pretty excited, as my web page hasn’t changed in 4 years now!

I‘ve got a few books ready to sew and when I get tired of staring at the screen I’ll start working on them.

Monday, May 15, 2006

the hiatus is OVER

It’s been awhile hasn’t it? Some of you may be wondering where the heck I’ve been; in fact, I know some of you are wondering this, as I’ve gotten several emails wondering if I’m okay. Well, I’m okay. Here’s the story:

My DayJob, as much\ as it doesn’t drive my heart, like bookbinding, does pay my bills and gives me insurance, so when it required extra hours I felt it necessary for me to do my part and work those extra hours. So over the last few months that’s what I’ve been doing, working at the DayJob. It hasn’t been especially fun or enjoyable, but it is what it is, a way to pay my bills.

I now know that probably every year I will have to take hiatus from binding around this time of year, essentially Christmas to Mother’s Day. It sucks, but it has to be done. Of course that only stands if I stay with this job. Which depending on what happens over the next few months with my significant other’s position and our buying a home may or may not change my ideas for work. Without going into too much detail I’ve been told by the higher ups that if things continue to go the way they have been that I should think about other locations. This is their way of patting me on my back and saying “Good Job.” It works for me.

Starting this week I’m off my self imposed hiatus. I apologize to those of you who haven’t heard from me in the last few months, but I can tell you that you wouldn’t want my work rushed, it’s much better when I take my time.

In addition to this, I’ve been ill. I was seriously hacking and coughing and sleeping when I wasn’t at work. I had what I would describe as a sinus infection/chest cold thing. It sapped every ounce of energy I had and required to me to spend what little free time I had asleep. I’m still recovering. Not being able to get the rest that I’ve really needed to get well has extended the length of my illness and I think it’s severity.

The cherry on this sundae of a life I’ve been having is the flooding in my area. I live in New England, Boston area and the weather has been insane. It’s rained pretty much for 4 days straight and many areas are flooded. Parts of my town are flooded but it’s not bad. The town where I work; well, that’s another story. There are 4 routes to work and they all have some sort of flooding. It’s dangerous driving and there is some etiquette to this weather. Usually what happens when you come o a deep puddle is that you slow down and either go through slow or let the other person go, especially if the other car is a low slung car. While my little Honda is not that low it is much lower than most vans or SUVs. Now, my head tells me that if I see an SUV headed for a puddle to stop and let it go. Well, I would have done that if I had been given the chance. I was halfway through a puddle when a butthead in an SUV decided to cut the line of traffic and plow through the puddle, fine for him, not so good for me. The wave of water and the resulting wake went high on my car and made it sputter, but not stall. I was barely able to make it to work. Now my car won’t start.

Then to top all this off was that on the way home, C’s car started to over heat and has to be taken to the shop. Now I’m renting a little cracker box on wheels. It stinks of cigarette smoke, BO and the cleaner Enterprise uses to clean their cars. It isn’t a pretty car but it runs which is more than I can say for mine right now.

So expect some book updates in the next few weeks.