An Update from the Coast

Ahhh...I didn't know life could be like this again. Despite the seemingly constant rain, I told my Manager I'm determined to enjoy my outdoor area, so I picked up a portable hammock on Overstock at an outrageous discount during their Memorial Day sale.  Cheaper than a lounge chair, I can't believe the prices.  BC is not really allowed to remain outside the RV if I'm not with her, even though she's tied and peaceful.  It's a common rule.  Well, if I have to be outdoors in the cold and drizzle I'm gonna be comfy, don't be fooled by the sunshine.  The things we do for our dogs.

Life in the park continues to be busy despite high gasoline and diesel prices, you should see the monster rigs that come in.  40-feet is the largest we can accommodate because it's an older park; and at the time they didn't make such massive things with multiple slide-outs.  I often have to turn away 44-footers  wanting to make reservations.  There's a foo-foo park outside of Newport which ONLY accepts Motorcoaches, nothing shorter than 32-feet nor older than 10 years old.  I learned in Puerto Rico, while hawking my artwork, that people with money ALWAYS have money, no matter the economy.  Local shopowners hope that remains true.

Ukranian Sunflower andrea jansen

We were supposed to start our first Rock-Painting session the other day, but the weather and tile-cleaing has delayed it a week.  I'm helping to get things started by ordering some inexpensive supplies and organizing/setting things up, I used to teach at Michaels.  Oddly enough, my late Uncle Julian sent me a Rock Painting book for last Christmas. At the time I thought, "He doesn't know how I paint," as I flipped through the pages.  Who knew?

Ruff Life by Cathrine Huff

There are a number of creative people living and working in the park, and one paints on oyster shells. The clubhouse gift area has a number of Cathrine's shells on display for the weekly drawing, and the winner can select one.  I admired a fishing trawler she'd painted because it reminded me of Ruff Life, and so bartered some of my greeting cards for this beauty (painted from photos I emailed).

The rock is the first thing I've painted since arriving in April, I haven't been inspired. However, I did work little by little on the macrame curtain for my bedroom, finally finished last week.  No one could understand what I meant when describing this project, because I didn't even know what I was designing.

There's a long shelf above the bed which is handy for holding junk.  I removed the mirrored doors on either side of the bed so I could use the space along the sides, and over time wound up hanging clothes from the shelf as well, outside of the closets.

The curtain was originally meant to hide the mess, while not being too difficult to push aside to get to the clothes.  I don't want to fight with my wardrobe. This is how it looked when purchaed from India...a row of strings in the back and another in front.  I'd knot for an hour or so in the mornings, kneeling on the bed, then ripping much of it out in the evenings.  I often doubted my sanity.

When I realized it wasn't sacreligious to remove some of the strands, I was better able to fit the curtain to my RV.  The sides were knotted first, and then the center area.  

I wound up knotting the front and back separately, and then knotting some parts of each together to make small 'pockets' to hold the glass globes (fishing buoys) I'll start collecting, now that I've got the pockets to hold them, what an idiot.

I have a small TV in the LR but there was a cable connection in the bedroom I couldn't resist.  So I bought a simple portable TV screen and came up with a cockamamie way to hang it from the ceiling.  Unfortunately, it turned out that the macrame strands were in the way when I was lying in bed.  I didn't want to cut the strands shorter just to watch the Boob-Tube, so I came up with another solution.  

I had a sash-style curtain rod I'd picked up in Goodwill, so I screwed one to the shelf. 

 It's easy enough to loop the curtain strands up and out of the way if I want to watch, and then shake them loose.

I cut off the excess strands to use for another project, and finally I was finished, Ta-Da!