My Small Gardens

 As I  may have mentioned already (my memory is definitely less than perfect these days), I have a small vegetable garden, four 4x12' raised beds, with some space on the sides where I have a mixture of plants, often experimental.  I have  large hollyhocks this year, lots of cosmos that kindly reseed themselves every year, whether in the right place or not, some struggling raspberries, and some daylilies that I've been trying to eliminate for years.  And finally, I'm trying something new:  I used to live in Oregon where delicious blackberries grew wild and often out of control, so finally, this year I have bought two thornless blackberry bushes that are resistant to the extreme cold winters here where I've lived for the past 10 years.   So far, so good.  They even have a couple of flowers on them, so that's encouraging.

My flower gardens are a grab bag:  I have some plants that thrive and some that I never see again.  I've learned to embrace and support the plants that get along with me -- within the constraints, of course, of their tiny plot of land that they inhabit.  I've learned that columbines, Icelandic poppies, sweet William (dianthus barbatus), coral bells, pinks (dianthus fuchsia), red peonies, rose campion, a lychnis chalcedonica (sorry, I don't know its common name, a tall spiky plant

one of my roses after a light rain

a mixture of flowers

dianthus fuchsia (bad pic)

with small red flowers on top), my beloved rose bushes, and, of course, the cosmos, which grows everywhere.  I'm sure I've missed mentioning many more, but these are the ones that stand out and that are most likely easier to grow than other flowers.  

Then my trees and bushes.  I have my hydrangea is barely hanging in there after two full years, two hawthorn trees that grow like weeds, a beloved redbud that has trouble with the awful spring winds here but otherwise grows well.  I have cottonwood, lots of willows, even a couple of small apple trees that I am growing from seeds I gathered from a "feral" apple tree in the woods about a mile away (its fruit is huge and so so sweet, but the deer usually get to most of the fruit before I get there.)  I have one group of three aspen that has made it, sometimes barely, through two winters so far.  I have a beautiful maple that I started from a tiny sapling many years ago, and one pine that I don't even remember where I got it -- a plant sale a few years ago, I think.  I have 15-foot tall lilacs and a large "snowball" bush.  Oh, and way too many currant bushes.  And two grapevines, only one of which produces small but delicious grapes.  And as with my flowers, I'm sure that there are many more that I'm failing to mention.

Oh, my, I must sound so boring!!  But I love all my plants, and we take care of each other.  I tend toward depression, and I can go out and spend some time with my plants, veggies and flowers, and start to feel better right away.

A group of Clay Newbies over the weekend came by my daughter's house

 Some friends of my daughter came a couple of days ago to learn a bit about working with clay.  I set up a few simple projects for them, and I think they had a lot of fun.  Just little dishes with plant matter pressed into them kind of stuff.  One person made a small vase that was rather nice but quite thick.  I forget how much some things become naturally acquired over time until I see someone make this mistake.  the walls at the bottom sides are probably 3/4" thick, but the clay I work with is very, very forgiving, so I'll keep it in the sun for a week, and it should fire ok.  I also made a really cute sitting bird from a single flat circle of clay, but I guess it was too intimidating, so no one tried.  I didn't hang around after I brought all the materials and tools over, so I wasn't there to guide them.  They all were impressed with the kiln room, its two kilns, and the slab roller, though  :)  I let them roll their own slabs.

What surprised me the most, though, is that although I made the wheel available to them, no one wanted to try to throw something.  Maybe I'll post some of their little dishes after they're glazed and fired.  

I've always enjoyed teaching one thing or another throughout my "careers," so I enjoy just getting to do this little bit.  I taught undergraduate students while I was in graduate school, I did substitute teaching for a while, I taught some people the basics of writing on a stenographic machine (in one of my careers, I was a court reporter), and finally, I've casually taught some English to French people and French to English-speaking people, both enjoyable as well.

Update on Last Post about Driving

 Ok, I think I overreacted in my last post about giving up the car key.  I don't think this one incident should have any relevance to that decision.  My daughter and I went back to the "scene of the crime," and I saw things much differently this time.  Yes, I might should have waited for the car that blew at me as they passed, but I didn't realize there were two lanes in that area and they could easily have passed with no problem at all, so they were just being jerks, I think.  

I do realize that at 79 my reflexes, judgment (distances, speed, etc.), vision are obviously not as great as they were when I was younger, though, so it's something I'll keep watching out for.  

When Should I Stop Driving

 I didn't expect to be addressing this topic so soon.  My chats so far have been on the bright side of aging, but I had an incident a couple of days ago that has been keeping me up at night.  I had an incident on my way home from picking my granddaughter from school Friday afternoon, and in all honesty, I see a pattern.

On our way home, there's a place where I have to turn right off a quiet street onto a busy highway -- but just for a hundred-or-so feet, and then I have to turn left onto another street.  I got to the intersection, looked both ways, saw a distant semi off to my right and a reasonably distant car off to my left.  So I turned right, then realized that the truck was coming faster than I thought, so I had to put on my left-turn signal and wait for it to pass to turn left.  The car coming up behind me wasn't expecting someone to pull out in front of them and then stop, so they almost hit me, but instead passed me off the road on the right, horn blasting.  

This situation alone possibly isn't enough for me to be concerned about my driving judgment skills, but it's one of several recent incidents where I've put not only myself and my car's occupant(s) but the occupants of vehicles surrounding me -- or even maybe pedestrians -- at grave risk.    It frightens me and even kept me awake last night worrying about it and whether it's maybe time to relinquish my car key.

Of course, I looked online asking something like at what age is it time to quit driving.  And sadly but not unexpectedly, I got a lot of responses such as when to take the keys away from your parent!  Not when should "I" decide but when should someone decide for me!!!  (I'll cover THIS topic in much greater detail in the future.)

I have no answer to my own personal dilemma at this point, but I do intend to give it a lot more thought and drive a lot more carefully until I make my decision.  I also may ask my daughter and son-in-law to take over driving my granddaughter to and from school until I've made a definitive decision, too.  

Driving has for almost all my adult life been something that I absolutely adore.  I have driven cross-country  (literally from "sea to shining sea" - actually, ocean, but I'm "like that.")  more times than I can name, not because it's cheaper than flying (which it's not) but because I love the excitement of going around curves to see what's around them, staying in off-the-freeway motels and relaxing until I start the next day's adventure of seeing unknown, or pleasantly familiar, roadways.  

So what do I do?  I do not know.  But I feel a day of reckoning is near.  I do know one thing:  It will be MY decision, and I won't hang on until someone else has to make the decision for me.  Maybe it's my perfectionism looming.  I have always had to be perfect (or a total failure) at every single thing I've ever done.  Maybe other people, younger and old, have made similarly bad judgment decisions when driving.  I don't know, but it is something I need to address.

What I Eat to Stay Healthy, as a Vegetarian

 (As I've mentioned before, I have been vegetarian since 1991.  I have never even once wavered from my choice.  I won't go into the reasons for my choice again, but they were ethical reasons, period.)  

But I am not a militant vegetarian in that I don't make any public show at all about not eating "dead animals."   I know that term is annoying to my family, who are the only ones who have to hear it, but it reflects how strongly I feel about not harming other sentient beings.   And most people don't even know that I or any of my family are vegetarians.  Also, I don't preach to others about whether they should or should not eat other beings.  And while my family are also vegetarian, they're not as strict as I am.  They eat fish, and I don't, but I don't preach to them about their choices. 

Off the subject, but "militant vegetarians" for whatever reason they're vegetarian really annoy me and make us "normal" ones look creepy to non-vegetarians.  Usually, they're people, too, who have not been vegetarian for long and who probably will not stay with the diet, for whatever reason.  There's no need to make a fuss about it. 

To be clear, I am vegetarian, not vegan, because I do eat my daughter's chickens' eggs from time to time.  They are pets, and they lay eggs, and sometime even eat their own eggs.  Her oldest girl, Paddy, turned 10 years this spring, and we have many more near her age.  I don't even like eggs, but I try to use them in cooking because I do have to work to get enough protein in my diet.  I don't feel guilty about eating these eggs under these circumstances.

Here's my rather simple daily food intake:  Breakfast:  Every morning I have a high-protein large dense muffin which I make from a very modified banana bread recipe I found years ago on a flour sack.  I use more than twice the eggs the recipe calls for, plus a very, very generous supply of nuts, usually walnuts, sometimes some chopped almonds as well.  In addition, around 2/3 of the flour I use is whole wheat, and I add almond and oat flours, too.  The tasty ingredients include chopped candied ginger, which I loooove,  and a small amount of dark chocolate.  Sometimes I also eat some raw almonds with my muffin.

Lunch:  I buy frozen broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots and use those, along with whatever veggies are ready in my small vegetable garden, which right now are mostly greens of various sorts.  Later in the season, I will mostly stop buying vegetables because my garden feeds not only me but my family as well.  

Okay, back to my lunch.  I cook all my various veggies and add some sort of protein (super-firm tofu is my favorite, but also I use many vegetarian/vegan protein products such as fungus-based proteins, which sound awful but are delicious.  I also rely strongly, when I can find them, on shelled soybeans.  Rarely, I'll steam an egg or two if I'm out of my usual proteins.   For a carbohydrate, I use Asian either rice or wheat noodles (rice noodles are my favorite) or cooked rice, which is even more of a favorite than the noodles.  I make around a pot of rice a week and keep it in the fridge.  It heats up very nicely in the microwave.  To all this mixture, I add various seasonings, again mostly Asian ones because they taste best to me.  Oh, and for a good fat, I absolutely love both olive and sesame oils.

Dinner:  Most of the time, a repeat of lunch.  I usually make enough lunch to be able to heat up the remainder for my dinner, to which I might add more vegetables if necessary.  

Snacks:  I love the old-fashioned peanut butter (which I grind myself at Winco), with either apple slices or celery -- and, yes, I add "ants" to my snacks in the form usually of dried cranberries.  I also snack on small handfuls of nuts throughout the day.  

It's a simple diet, but I enjoy it.  Sometimes with my family, we'll make sushi, theirs with fish, mine all veggies.  (If you're interested, by the way, we've made our own sushi for decades, and I would be happy to describe how we do it and what we use, and where we get the ingredients.  Drop a note if you're interested.)

Recently we all had "decorate your own" pizzas, which my daughter made the amazing crusts, and we chopped a large number of options to put on the crusts, which we then cooked on the outside grill.  

I've followed this same diet, by the way, again since 1991, and I'm extremely healthy and full of energy.

Sometime, I'll talk about how we celebrate Thanksgiving with, of course, a totally vegetarian dinner.  It's delicious!

Again, Being and Getting Old and Still Working

 Note:  I posted a couple of photos of my studio in my May 26 post if you're interested.

I could just retire if I wanted to.  I don't have much of a nest-egg, but I have enough to live comfortably.  Granted, I don't want or need much, and my expenses are extremely low.  BUT what would I do with myself all day?  I love my gardens and reading and taking long walks with my dog and visiting with my family members, but for me that's not enough --  I LOVE my work.  I'm not a socializer at all, either.  Including my work, I have a full life. So I intend to work right up until I'm not able to anymore -- or until, oh my!, no one wants my artwork anymore.

I do feel, though, that my works are unique enough and in these days of a plethora of "art" that has never been touched by a human hand, they will always appeal to those who appreciate the work of someone who still does artwork by hand.  Plus, I have many regular collectors of my works, and I think those and other similar-minded people will always want what I produce.

So, to me, there are numerous reasons why I will continue to work until I no longer can, but I think that time is most likely in the relatively distant future (considering my age, my "distant future" is shorter than the average younger person's).

How I Price My Artwork

 I've been making ceramic pieces for over 30 years, so I've had a lot of experience with pricing.  There are many factors that go into what I charge for a piece.  I'll try to cover some of them.  And maybe it's because I've done this type of work for so long, but I don't adhere to any of the many equations floating around that tell you what to charge for a piece.  It's much, much, much more complex than any simple formula. The point is you (I) have to make a living but get reasonably paid for your (my) work.

• First, complexity of the piece, how long it takes to make it, how long it takes to paint it.  How much work goes into it.  How hard was it to make.  While some complex pieces aren't necessarily hard to make, some other apparently simple pieces are very difficult to make.
• Second, its weight and size; so how much kiln space does it take and what it costs me to package it and ship it.  
• Next, (not third, because these following considerations have no real order) how original is the piece.  How unique is it?  Is it a one-of-a-kind that I most likely will never make again?
• How much I must clear after all costs per piece to make a reasonable profit (I have bills to pay, food to eat, etc.)
• Referring to my original, standard pieces such as the animal masks and similar wall pieces, their popularity, literally how much people are willing to pay.  These pieces have survived and evolved over the 30-something years I've been making them, so they have over time a lot of work in them, if that makes sense.  
• How much do *I* like and value the piece?  This is a big one for me.  If I love a piece, I am going to charge more for it, whether or not it makes sense to others, because it's a one-time creation from my mind.  Even if I make similar subsequent pieces, which I may even charge less for, that first one is extremely important to me, and I think it deserves a higher price.
• Lastly, the "going rate" for similar items, in quality and style.  This one doesn't concern me very much.  I have seen some people asking what I consider a ridiculously high price for a piece, and maybe that works for them.  I've seen other people asking way, way too little for their work, which I feel devalues their entire body of work.  So there's a bit of "magic" going on in this last consideration.  There's a saying called "what the market will bear,"  which is variable with time, popularity of a certain style, the zeitgeist of a particular time, even larger, world or political circumstances, what's going on currently, has gone on, etc. 

I think this list probably only covers a small part of how I price my items, but it's a good start.  It's worked pretty well for me.  I know that up to the recent past, I've made some really large pieces that I alone could not sell and earn a decent income from them (the online market in which I have to sell won't bear the price I feel the piece deserves), but the "brick-and-mortar" galleries who bought them were able to make more than I would ever dream of making for them.  But they have the real estate, the clientele, the "scenery," etc.   So that's why I no longer make those pieces.  The risk of a flaw that would make one in my opinion not salable, plus the sheer weight and size of them, made them not worth it for me.  Oh, and the cost of materials, the cost of shipping, etc., to me is not worth the income from them.  I am a single person lucky enough to be able to do a job I love, but I can't afford to create pieces that would be too costly to create, to sell, and to deliver to the buyer.  

And one final thing:  I love, love my work, so to me that's the most important thing of all.  I can pay my bills, have some left over, and know that I, and the loyal buyers I have, love what I do. Especially those buyers who have collected my artwork over sometimes decades!

A Bit About my Studio

My worktable, a bit messy at this moment.

My painting area, very messy, all the time.

 Well, first of all, my studio is rather small, just one room where I actually make my pieces.  In it I have three main stations, plus a storage closet where I put in-progress pieces and pieces that are drying, waiting for the kiln.  First, I have the "building" area, where I keep my clay, hundreds of pounds of it,  and have a work table where I actually make each piece.  I have way, way too many small tools, but each one is useful in some way.  Some tools I keep in a small jar, and they are the ones I use every time I build.  Others, and there are many, are kept within reach because you never know when you need just the right shape to tweak a spot on a piece.  

Next, beside my building table,  is a smaller area where I keep my potter's wheel.  I don't like to just throw bowls, mugs, etc., but the wheel is very useful to throw, say, a dog or cat, or bird's body, a head of an animal, or sometimes just an odd shape that I need to support a complicated piece I'm making.  I might add that while my studio appears messy, I am very scrupulous with recycling nearly every dust-grain of clay.  

And finally, my painting area.  I have a largish round table, around 4 feet in diameter, that turns.  On it I have eight 12" turntables.  I put a single piece to be painted on each small turntable, so I can efficiently paint up to 8 pieces at a time just by turning the big table and the small turntables as needed.   

To the side, I have yet another turntable, around 2 feet in diameter, where I keep as many of my underglazes as it will hold (the material I paint onto the bisque-fired pieces), which I paint onto each piece before I glaze and fire it again.  The underglazes are I think the most expensive part of my business.  Each pint jar of my underglazes costs around $60, usually plus shipping, and I go through a LOT of underglaze.   I have to paint a minimum of 2 layers and most often three onto each piece I make, so I waste nothing in this area! And my brushes are quite expensive, too, and wear out rather fast because of the coarseness of the bare fired clay surface. 

Also, I have to add that I am clean but rather disorderly in my studio ("messy-desk syndrome"), but it works well for me.  I try at the end of a day of building to reorganize my worktable for the next day of work.  Same with my painting area.  I have "lids," clear plastic cups, that I use to cover each underglaze jar, and I'm scrupulous about being sure that I cover everything at the end of a painting session.  

In addition to my studio, I have a packing/shipping room, where I store and pack for shipping each piece that I've made and sold.  I also keep some boxes and packing materials in there, but the bulk of my packing materials are kept in yet another room, which is often packed to the ceiling with boxes, bubble-wrap, peanuts, etc.  Very expensive stuff!!  But I recycle as many packing materials as I can, too.  It's good for my costs, good for the earth.  Various galleries in my vicinity, in fact, call me when they have a reasonable amount of packing materials I can pick up and recycle.  

Finally, I have a kiln room, where obviously I keep my two kilns, my slab-roller (for rolling out large sheets of clay to an exact depth),  more shelves for in-progress pieces, and my glaze buckets (my least favorite of all my jobs, I think).  It's messy, fussy, often unpredictable.  In fact, it's the one area where I'm most likely to ruin a piece -- or at least make it less than what I'm willing to accept as a "good" piece which I can/will sell.  (Although, my granddaughter recently gave me a practical way to keep some of these pieces out of landfills:  I can offer them, a couple of times a year, at a greatly discounted price.  We shall see. I need to think about it more.)

This "Old" Theme Again -- Continued

 Anyway -- I tend to talk too long -- I got my master's and started my doctorate program.  Unfortunately, I had some major ethical problems (something that was recurrent throughout my experimental psychology/neuroscience studies) with a demand by my advisor that I do exploratory brain surgery on animals that were not anaesthetized.   I refused, released my lab animals (pigeons at the time), and left the university, never to return.  Further, from that point on, I became vegetarian and have been so up to today, and that's around 35 years now.  I won't get all preachy about it, but it's my firm conviction that I chose the correct path in this instance, even if it ended my neuroscience career.  (Looking back, I think it was the best outcome, even if I do feel awful about having given up on a goal I had set for myself.

On how I became an artist:  It turned out around this time that I realized my daughter needed to be home-schooled for a while due to some problems she was having due to her rather severe dyslexia, so being a single parent (her father died when she was 7), I realized I needed to be able to work from home.  Soooooo, with no training, I started making papier mache animal sculptures.  I chose this path because while she was still at school, she brought home a school project, a half of a milk jug, covered with newspaper and glue and painted.  That little thing inspired me so much that I began right away learning to sculpt with papier mache.  I did that for quite a few years and made a pretty good living doing so.  Some years later, I switched to ceramic clay and have been doing it -- and doing paintings as well -- ever since.  I did quit doing the paintings only very recently because I just found it too stressful, and I did prefer working with clay anyway -- and still do to this day.

Ok, on being old again now:  For you younger people, it really, really isn't as awful as it may seem -- really!  At 79, I feel physically fit and strong as I felt a couple of decades ago at least.  I'm sure things have slowed down a bit more than I'm aware, but I still do pretty much what I've always done.  My clay work is quite physically demanding (not so much as it was when I did the large sculptures, but I quit doing those for another reason besides weight, etc.), I walk at a quite fast pace at least a mile and a half a day, most often more.  I do strength-maintenance exercises daily, do physically demanding gardening daily -- because I love it! -- I eat well, focusing on getting enough protein and calories especially.  

My interests are wide, and for the most part, my mind is the same, although I do admit there I have mostly good days but sometimes some "slow" ones.  I especially forget what I was about to do -- all the time!  

And all these things are just normal things that an active person of any age would be doing without thinking about their age.  Oh, I do have a tiny bit of arthritis in my fingers, but they don't ever, ever hurt, just look funny.  Also, speaking of looks, that's the one thing that is absolutely different!  I think I've mentioned it already, but it deserves being mentioned again, I guess.  I look old!  It's that simple.  I used to be vain, so it serves me right!  Now I'm still learning to accept that it's okay to look old; I'm still the same person, so it really doesn't matter.  And I do struggle with keeping my weight up, too, which I hear is a common problem with old people.  But I've already mentioned that.  I need to make myself eat enough food each day.  

Medically, I guess you could call me lucky, but I like to think it's because of the lifestyle I live, I have had no major age-related problems -- so far, anyway.  I injured both a shoulder and a hip somehow but refused medical intervention and chose my own physical therapy instead, and the range of motion in each is a very little reduced, but it's no problem at all.  

Okay, that's enough story-telling and bragging, I guess.  It makes me think of my great grandfather, whom I used to spend hours at a time listening to him talk about the old times.  Those are some of my best life memories, in fact.  He was born in the late 1800s and lived to 98 (my great grandmother lived to 97), so I was lucky enough to know them both very well and have them be a very important part of my life.  My daughter even got to meet her great-great grandmother shortly before she died.

This "Old" Theme Again

 Well, tomorrow is my birthday, 79th.  I always get really really down when my birthday rolls around (way too often!), and I end up poring through all the years of my now longer life.  And I do realize that each day is another day gone, but birthdays are a milestone (yearstone?) when we take stock of what we've done, what we've not done, what we wish we had or hadn't done, etc.  I'm in that mode now.

I've taken paths that, looking back, I shouldn't have -- or should have seen them through, even though extenuating circumstances sometimes made me end some paths.  I've not taken paths that I looked at and chose not to follow.  What might I have seen/done down those paths.  

One path that I took I've often had a lot of regrets about.  First, let me say that I've had many "lives" in my life.  I was not the person who knew early on what I wanted to do and followed that path, straight and narrow, up to either today or retirement.  I was never cut out for that sort of life, even if it would have possibly given me a lot of satisfaction and a lot more financial security than I have today. 

  The path that I have regrets about is when in my late 30's I decided to go back to university and get a doctorate in neuroscience, which was still in its infancy but had already caught my eye. I already had a BA in English literature, but that was of no use to me with this new path, so I went back to school and got a BS in psychology, with a focus on experimental psychology.  With that degree under my belt, I went to graduate school for a doctorate in neuroscience.

I think this is getting too long now.  I'll continue it tomorrow.

Today, a Couple of New Listings on Etsy, and Gardening

 I listed the large dog with the stick in its mouth (in the photo a couple of days ago in the bottom of my kiln) and a small dog figurine that was in the kiln, too.  I try to list a couple of pieces every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  

Here's my Etsy shop if you're interested:  

https://www.etsy.com/shop/DottieDracos?ref=seller-platform-mcnav

I also still sell prints of my paintings from years earlier on Fine Art America.  At this time, I'm not doing any more paintings, but I'm known for changing my mind sometimes.

https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/dottie-dracos/shop

Gardening:  Lots of weeding and watering.  I have the usual veggie starts going well already, such as tomatoes, eggplants, serrano peppers (I love them!), and cucumbers.  I also always grow lots and lots of greens of every sort, and of course beans, onions, herbs, and garlic.  Oh, and radishes for my granddaughter - she's addicted to them.

Glaze Kiln Firing and Opening

I just opened a new glaze kiln firing this morning and thought I would show you a before and after shot.  I forgot to photograph the pieces after they had been painted with underglaze.  Maybe another time.

This firing was in my small kiln, so things are very crowded.  These days, since I don't make the large volume of  pieces that I used to, I most often use my small kiln.  To fill the large kiln would take me almost a month, so it's not often worth using it.

The top photo is taken after I've glazes the pieces.  They're still wet.   The second photo is after I fired them.  This is just a photo of the bottom shelf. 

 

Musings on Getting (Being) Old

 I'm old -- 79 years old in less than a week and want to talk about what it's like to get/be old.  I'll start with my typical old-person daily routines.    First of all, it's not nearly as bad as you younger people think it will be.  In fact, the only really bad part is that I can see the end of my life a lot more clearly than I did when I was younger.  The other pretty bad part I'll cover in depth later on, but it's the sad fact that younger people don't "see" older people.  Oh, and I'm always stunned when I look in a mirror and see an old person staring back at me!  I like what a famous actor, I think it was Helen Mirren, said a few days ago - she's 80 already.  Someone asked her how she felt about being old, and in a nutshell, she said great, that she was still alive.  I think that's a good attitude, and I can identify with it myself, too.

For now, here's what a typical day is like for me.  I wake up early because I usually go to bed early, have breakfast while I watch a couple of youtube videos that interest me.  Then most days I take a walk, about a mile and a half usually, unless it's horribly windy.  I can't bear the wind!!  I live in a beautiful rural area where walking trails are in every direction, so it's very enjoyable.  I always take my also-senior dog Ruby with me, too.  

Later, I do gardening (I have a great smallish veggie garden just outside my door).  I also feed hummingbirds and a large variety of seed-eating birds every day.  My flower garden in front of my house also needs taking care of, too, so I spend a lot of time with it. Oh, and I have a side yard that I take care of, too.  It has several trees I've grown myself, so I like to spend a bit of time looking at them.  

The rest of the day, I work.  I am passionate about my ceramic artwork, which I've done now for around 30 years.  I continue to explore new ideas and to learn something new nearly everyday, whether it be a better way to build a piece or some entirely new subject.  Lately, I've been creating some sculptures of both my granddaughter's or my own doodles.  They're so much fun!  I don't know yet if they'll sell.  If not, I'll keep them for myself  :)

I'm more fortunate than many single old people in that I live next door to my daughter and her family, so I do have interactions with them all day long, until around 4 in the afternoon, when I withdraw to my own house.  It works out great.  Having been a loner for all my life, I don't feel the need to have any other friends.  I had a friend for several years, but we have drifted apart, and that's okay with me.  There are times when I'm lonely, I admit, but I stay so busy that I don't think about it very much at all.  I feel that my life is quite full.

Every single evening I spend at least an hour reading, and it's one of the most pleasant times of my day.  I'm currently reading three books:  one by my favorite author, Emile Zola, and I don't even remember its title because I have his entire life's work and just start reading a new book when I finish an old one.  It's about a French priest who is in Italy for priestly stuff.  So far, it's rather boring, but many of his books are in the beginning.  

I'm also tackling the "world's longest book," A la Recherche du Temps Perdu" (In Search of Lost Times).  I've been reading it for months, and honestly, it's most often a total bore -- great for making me fall asleep -- but there are very often great parts that make the boring ones worth it -- he's really quite a funny guy!  And finally, I'm reading a current, non-fiction book called "Inside the Box," by David Epstein.  It's really interesting and covers a subject that has always interested me:  creativity and efficient work methods, too.  It rambles a bit, but it has a lot of interesting ideas in it.  I usually rotate the three books, reading an hour of each.

One more thing that I do and have done for many years is I spend part of every day keeping up my French language skills.  I was fortunate enough back when I was in my forties to be able to live and go to graduate school in France for about a year and a half, so I managed to learn a lot of French then.  I spoke no French when I arrived but learned very quickly how to speak well enough to get by quite well.  Also, I did come home from my lab at the university every day and study French language books, which helped a lot.  Anyway, since that time, I've only been back to France once, around 9 years ago, which was great.  But now, I continue to study, read French news articles, watch endlessly videos in French (by French people for French people) French novels, ((I'm currently reading the seemingly endless A la Recherche du Temps Perdu by Marcel Proust, etc.  It is literally the longest book ever written -- look it up!)  

I had intended to go to France this autumn, but this being 2026, but I don't think I'm going to be able to.  Glad I wisely hesitated on making reservations this spring.  I don't know anyone who speaks French here in my small isolated town, so it's just something I pursue because I love it.  And you never know.  It does make me sad, though.  I was so looking forward to going and taking my granddaughter again, who hasn't been there since she was 4 years old.

I guess what I'm saying above is that just because you get old doesn't mean that your life has to be smaller; it doesn't at all. 

Still Kind of Retired

 I'm still both painting and working with clay.    Definitely choosing to play more and work less than in the past.  As my clay/painting pendulum continues to swing, I'm at this moment leaning more toward painting than clay.  As I often do, I have begun to burn out on clay for now.  I still have my commissioned work and am using my pottery wheel more all the time in my sculptures.  I have reached a point with my large dog, cat, and rooster sculptures that I can throw almost all the body parts (entire core of the animal, legs, and head) on the wheel and, with a lot of "finessing" assemble them all into a pretty good dog sculpture.  I still build the tail, ears, face parts, etc., but all the rest is thrown and assembled.  I won't say it's much easier, but at least it's different and thus more enjoyable.

I've (kind of) retired

 As I stated in my last entry, I have finally turned my wholesale business over to my daughter, Lara Mogensen.  I will still be selling a few ceramic pieces on Etsy,  (https://www.etsy.com/shop/DottieDracos) but am now doing "whatever I want to do!"  

In addition to making one-of-a-kind ceramic pieces, I'm also still painting, including doing custom paintings.  I have one going now, in fact, an absolutely gorgeous English springer spaniel, liver, who should be finished in the next week or so.  And I am painting a pretty little black-and-grey tabby cat next for another customer.  I'm not going to take more than a few custom paintings a year, though, because again, I want to do whatever I feel like doing on any given day.

Gardening has become a renewed passion for me now, too, and I've created a small but beautiful and tranquil front-yard garden.  I would do more in the rest of my yard, but the wind here in Ellensburg, WA, has other ideas.  Every time I've tried planting anything outside my small protected front yard, the wind literally blows the plants to pieces.  I just this summer bought a lot of tree starts that I hope will eventually give me a bit more calm in my yard.  Barriers such as fences provide almost no protection because the wind just blows over the top.  If I stand within around 5 feet of the fence, the air is calm.  Beyond that, it's ferocious still.

Also on the gardening subject, except for the very wet, very cool summer up to now, my vegetable garden looks better than ever -- except that my poor tomatoes and peppers are all huddled up together to try to stay warm.  I have a few little knobs here and there that under a normal summer would be nearly ripe fruits by now.  Oh, well, I have already gotten enough other goodies to call my garden this year a success.  All my "greens" and herbs have been thriving in this unusual weather this year (thanks to La Nina, I hear).  

Things are about to change, though:  The forecast for the next week is over 100 every day.  If my fruiting veggies aren't too shocked by the sudden heat, perhaps many of them will actually grow and ripen.

I also have some goodies going in my little front yard, finally.  My white seedless grape vine is overloaded with grapes this year, the raspberries I planted early this spring are finally fruiting, I have had a smattering of strawberries, and for the first time this year, my black currant bush is loaded with very yummy tiny fruits -- perfect for picking off the bush on an early evening browsing tour of my year.

All in all, (semi)retirement is a good thing.  I do get a bit lonely, but that's because of my tendencies toward being a loner.  My only friend outside my family has moved away, so I really don't socialize outside my family at all anymore, although I am considering doing some volunteer work at the local Habitat store, not only to help them out but also just for getting out among people more.  

I continue to immerse myself in the study of the French language, as I have for many years.  I don't know a single person who also speaks French, so it's a rather lonely endeavor, but I guess you could call it one of my "hobbies."  I have finally graduated to watching pretty much any streaming movie or show I can find dubbed in French with no subtitles of any sort.  I can't say I understand every single word, but I certainly follow the story perfectly well.  Plus I continue to read books written in French by French authors every single day.  It's a very rewarding pursuit. I should add that there are no French language groups or organizations such as l'Alliance Francaise, anywhere near Ellensburg, by the way, so I'm totally on my own.  That's okay, though.  I can handle it.

I had planned way, way back in 2019 to go to France again in 2020, but we all got sidelined with all our plans back then.  This year, I just still don't feel comfortable going yet.  Maybe 2023 will work for me.  We'll see.  

Not that anyone's interested, but more to come, anyway.  Just my musings.