Rock on Fab 14!

Obviously I’ve been completely focused on this mess the glory hole also known as Scotty Walker has created and think of little else. I don’t sleep anymore. The long-term, wide-spread devastation of this poorly informed move on his part will be destructive beyond words. While I’ve spent a great deal of time up at the capital, and I’m very proud that Dej has also, it feels quite pointless at this point in the game. Power concedes nothing without demand. These non-violent protests are nothing more than asking—a far cry from demand. Until they are stepped up and one or more of these evil individuals is made to face the consequences of such destructive behavior, nothing will change. Still, I wait for the revolution. How much worse will it get before the masses of the lower and middle class folks demand what is ours? We have the numbers. We have the power. Do we have the determination to step it up as necessary? That remains to be seen.

We will continue with our protests by boycotting Koch Industries (Kochs & Fitzgeralds are Walker’s owners) and those who have donated to this devastation of WI by financially supporting Walker. This means avoiding many companies and local businesses but most notably for us means we will not spend any more money at Woodman’s. They have contributed thousands to this war. We do 95% of our shopping at Woodman’s, mostly due to their large veggie/vegan selection. That will have to change now, so we will be in a bit of a grocery upheaval until we track down all the products we need and find new ways to shop for our groceries. Farm & Fleet is also high up on the donors list, so we will not spend any more money there, as well as the Armory. We, as a community need to turn on them as they have done to the working families of WI.

Solidarity rocks and the firefighters in our state are awesome! I’m really far too angry to discuss this matter any further for a while at least, so that’s the end for now.

On to new and brighter topics. I am working on a new project—I started it during better days (BW-before Walker’s rape of the state) and have been plugging away at it when I’m home and should be sleeping but can’t. I’m slightly embarrassed to say that I purchased this antique letter press tray several years ago (three or four probably) at a flea market with grand intentions of creating something with it. I looked at it for years then, because it just seemed like an overwhelming project to start, and I only had a very vague, general idea of what I wanted to do with it.

I decided to just jump in a few weeks ago. The biggest project was actually scraping off the old stain. It was chipped and peeling, so I had to scratch and peel all the stain pieces from each of those little nooks (seemed like thousands!)—it was a long, unpleasant task. I knew that I ultimately wanted to be able to put photos in it, but didn’t know of what, what size, how many, etc. I decided then to back each little nook with a piece of patterned paper. Since they were such small areas, I was able to use up lots of scraps.

At some point, late at night while thinking about this, I decided that each and every little paper rectangle should have a gold embossed border. This is probably not something that anyone would notice without being pointed out. It also was a very long, laborious task. Each of the 89 squares of paper had to have all four sides’ edges inked, then sprinkled with gold embossing powder, then heat set to melt the powder. Though probably nobody else would notice, I went ahead with it, because I knew if didn’t, it would always bother me when I looked at it. Once that was done, I secured each paper inside its corresponding nook. This is the stage it is currently at.

After pondering for ages, I finally settled on filling it with pictures of my girls together—photos that capture their sister relationship. I went through all the old photos and ended up selecting 45 that I like. I converted each to black & white and digitally cropped as necessary. Now my big job is winnowing those 45 pics down to a more realistic number. I’m not exactly sure what that number will be, but probably under 20. All that remains then is to print the photos, cut to the size to fit the nook(s), secure them (I’m hoping to do so in such a way that it’s fairly easy to swap out pictures in the future if I want to do so.), and then add some little pretty things/embellishments to some of the nooks.

Sometimes I lose interest in a project before it’s completed and put it aside until I feel inspired to work on it again (like the photo album of our 2005 San Diego trip that I just finally finished). I don’t think I will end up doing that with this one, as I’ve got the least pleasant tasks out of the way and have already put so much time in on it. I’m hoping to have a photo of the finished project up within the next month.