Well, I had my "GwtW" moment the other night.

I was watching Finding your Roots on PBS.  I won't go into the details of exactly what the episode was about but suddenly I found myself mad, crying. upset, and saying out loud - WHY NOW !!!

Coincidently my sister texted to see how I was doing, which as you can tell wasn't great, so she called and we had a great chat.  Somewhere during this Boots came into the room and settled on my lap so that also gave me comfort.

I know this will go on for a while but now I feel like I can start to move forward and take care of business.

Enjoy these pictures of the Shop Elf that were taken through the years during various trips we took

Someone recently asked how The Shop Elf and I met; again sit back and read on.

Back in 1987 a friend (Gylver) invited me over to their place in Orange County, for a bicycle ride, along with some other friends from when we all lived in Santa Barbara as well as some of their newer friends who also rode. It was late September.
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On the appointed day, I and my 21 gear bicycle arrived at the Gyl's home. Art, a mutual friend also from Santa Barbara, was there as well as this guy named Erich. No one else showed up during the hour we waited so all 4 of us took off and an hour or so later it started to rain so we headed back to Gyl's to have early dinner, conversation and eventually I headed home.   The next day I received a call from Erich and we spent quite a few hours talking on the phone and we decided to meet for dinner during the weekend. 

For our "date" we met at a restaurant that was equidistant as he lived in Tustin and I was in Temecula which is  60+ miles apart; it went well. When he asked about us meeting again in a few days, I had to say no, only weekends as I just started graduate schools and was very busy between work and classes; he understood.

One thing led to another and about a month later, in October he asked me to move in with him but I said no because of grad school, work and that I had lived with my last boyfriend for several months and that had not ended well. Again he understood. We would see each other almost every weekend and would talk for hours on the phone during the week.

At the start of November he proposed saying he "knew"; I also knew and so I said yes. We discussed many things and decided to elope over the Thanksgiving weekend as it was soonest for me to have a break in school and the best time to sneak off. 

We found a Rabbi and with Gylver as best man we got married exactly 2 months after we met; the rest is history.

Here he is during a road trip to the Arizona in 2010

I can't watch this movie at the moment and  no women in our family can watch it without tissues being at hand. 

Why, well sit back and I will reveal the reason.

Back in my early teen years Gone with the Wind (GwtW) was going to be shown at the local movie theatre with a 2 hour intermission for lunch. It was on a weekday any my mom said I would not be going to school that day so she could take me to see it. Note 1: I like going to school but when your mom says it's a girl day why argue. My sister had done this with my mother several years earlier and before we left she said " make sure mom has tissue"; was confused as to why and this statement went in one ear and out the other. 

The day arrives and we head into town and we get popcorn and settle into our seats and soon the lights go down the curtain was raised, the opening music starts and the intro credits start to scroll. Within minutes I hear my mom sniff and as the movie went on she was sniffling more and eventually she got up and then came back with a wad of toilet paper. Note 2: It was that thin Soviet Union type of TP. Intermission soon arrived and over lunch she did not explain, when I asked about what was going on but said she would explain on the way home and that I should just enjoy the movie. During the second half the sniffling changed to actual crying. I can and do acknowledge there are sad and emotional sections I still could not comprehend what was going on with my mother. By the time the movie was over and we headed to the car her eyes were very red and her nose was raw from that toilet paper in lieu of tissues.

On the way home, I again asked what was going on and she said something like "You might not understand now, but you will when I am gone!" - WTF MOM??!! Note 3: Being a young girl in the 60's I did not actually think that but you get get it. Then she proceeded to explain that HER mom had passed away when she was 12-ish and that she had seen the movie (released in 1939) around then; I do not know if she saw it with her mother or she saw it after her mother passed but every time she watches the movie all the grief and pain wells up and she can't NOT cry. Oh, and that is how I learned that my grandmother was her step-mom making her my step-grandmother and that my uncle was her half brother; it was a very strange day.

Years later, when GwtW was released to TV (1976) my sister and I made sure she had an entire box of tissue ready.

Then my father passed in 1988 and my mother passed in 1992 and NOW I understand; I was watching a movie yesterday, it was NOT GwtW, and someone died in the movie and I started to cry and changed the channel. 

I will NOT be watching GwtW any time soon.

Picture of Carol Burnett in the curtain dress from the the famous Went with the Wind parody (1976).

While cleaning - purging and re-organizing a hall closet that holds quilt fabric and other odd crafts I found a plastic shoe box with my pin looms. Note: All other fiber such as knitting yarn, warp and weft yarns is in a closet in the family room. I am still organizing the quilt fabric and have not finished the closet because I became distracted by playing with those little looms. 

I pulled the left over skeins from knitting projects out and have started to weave up squares for a couch throw.

BUT wait there is more!!

I joined 2 pin loom groups on Facebook. The first is just a general support group and the other is for making a Temperature Blanket. In a nutshell it is Data Visualization as Art - there are all sorts of projects like this; Google it and get lost on the web.

Well, being an engineer who loves data AND being a weather dork who likes to track rain fall I was instantly in.

I spent almost a week selecting my yarn and setting up the temperature ranges. I wanted a single color way that had 15+ colors so I could do high and low temps with most temperature bands being 5 degrees.  I went with Knit Picks City Tweed DK. Next, I had to select colors for the temperature bands and based upon historical data estimate yardage for each color; then I placed my order for it and it will be here next week. I am going to weave squares with the warp and weft being the high and low temps for the day and rain or snow I will insert a white warp thread for each inch and a weft thread for each 0.1 inch of precipitation. The last task was to figure out the layout and I settled on a modified linear calendar and I will use triangles around the outside.
Here are pictures of the yarn colorway, the temperature bands and assigned color(s), and the blanket layout.

On December 10th, I took a Temari workshop from Nicola of The Twisted Thread. Nicola is (also) working on her Temari certification(s) and has completed the Honka (Level 1) and Koutouka (Level 2) work and is currently working on the Shihan (Level 3) Certification which qualifies you as a teacher in Japan; you do not need this level to teach elsewhere in the world.

In the Temari Facebook group I belong to Nicola posted pictures of a Temari she designed and would teach it in an online workshop; the design being a swirl of Peacock feathers.  I signed up and then selected my colors and wound 2 mari in preparation.

The workshop started around 1 pm London Time (Nicoloa lives in the UK) which was 7am here in Texas. I woke up early (630 am) to get the computer ready and attached via the HDMI cable to the large TV in family room, I made a large coffee and put in my thermos mug and grabbed a quick bite. I was the only participant from the USA and there were 5 other students from England and Scotland.  
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The workshop lasted 4 hours which was more than enough time to complete 1 of the 6 feathers as well as talking about other temari things - I shared information on Rainbow Gallery threads which I use when I need a metallic, which everyone else were not familiar with. 

I finished the small temari during the next week and the following two weeks I worked on the larger temari, in the evening, while watching movies.

​Thanksgivng was a success - Here is the run down

Gylver and Joan were set to arrive around 2pm and at 1:30 pm I put the baking potatoes in the oven at a slightly lower temp so it would be over an hour for them to be done.

I then pulled out the large platter and laid out a charcuterie board: summer sausage, cured/smoked ham, smoked cheddar, cranberry goat cheese, camembert, fig jam, sour cherry jam, assorted crackers, green grapes and strawberries and a nut mix of cashews, pecan, hazel/filberts, brazil, and almonds. 

I also took the key lime pie I ordered out of the fridge and put it on the counter, it arrived last week and had been in the freezer. 

On the counter I laid out 4 of each small plates, large plates, wine glasses, forks, knives, spoons.

Gyl and Joan arrived at 2:30 with the BBQ which we put in the oven with the potatoes to warm up and we sat and talked for a while.

At 3:30-ish we moved to the table and played a crazy game called FLUXX (you start with one set of rules and as you play the rules change as does the goal to win); I have 2 version one based on Doctor Who and the others is H.P. Lovecraft's The Elder Scrolls and Cthulhu.   Some where after the first game which was longer so everyone else became familiar with how to play... I brought over the charcuterie, Joan and I opened the wine and Gyl and Erich had sparkling cider. 

At 6 pm we cleared the table and served up dinner - BBQ brisket and pork roast, coleslaw, potato, butter, sour cream, more wine, water and cider along with LOTS more talking and discussions about stocks, finances, wills, trusts, being in snow storms, etc.

THEN IT WAS TIME FOR PIE and Coffee!!!!. Joan has a love of Key Lime pie which is why i researched and then ordered a pie from a place in Key West, Florida; it is one of the best to get mail order and IT WAS SOOOooooooo good.

At 9 pm we called it a night and we packed up the pie was left over (half) and it went home with Joan as well as half the leftover BBQ. 

I was in bed and asleep by 11 pm. 
And that was my day.

I have a friend who lives in New Braunfels who is very active in the Kiwanis. She recently commissioned me to make a Temari for their holiday fundraising event.  I made two - one being in red/green/white/gold for those who observe Christmas and a Blue/Silver/White for those that celebrate Hannukah.

Afterwards I made a "very" Hannukah one for me. 

AWhere did October go?
I completed another enhancement to the Tooling Tracker and then took a long break. The shop elf and I started to binge watch some spy/mystery/action movies and series on Amazon:

• ​Jack Ryan - movie and Amazon series
• The Terminal List - Amazon series
• Jason Bourne - all movies
• Reacher - Amazon series (not the movies)

I rested and read 4 books in less than 4 weeks.

​AND I to played in the studio again. I have been slowly acquiring tools to use with the hydraulic press (thus the diversion with making the Tooling Tracker) and I spend some of each day making sample pressings of the various impression dies and texture samples using the rolling mill, of the texture plates and practiced making some small dishes with texture and impressions to learn how best to do that. Along the way I also semi-disassembled the rolling mill to clean and recalibrate it.

​ I am not done as I have to make some boxes, cups and dishes with texture and impressions.

I can't believe a month has past and I haven't update what I have been doing... Which is not much except for working on the Tool(ing) Tracker application.
I have 140 registered users but 8 have never logged in once!; gonna have to followup with them.
There are about 20 users who are really working on it with various users having created 14 Tool Types, 46 Tool Categories,  and 320 Tool Items.

And so far I have added the ability to import/parse PDF invoices to automatically create Tool items.
I have also created a website crawler to crawl the PotterUSA website to get the SKU, Name and Image of current products for a Product Image Gallery; which I finished yesterday. The crawler has already gleaned 1000+ records

I am currently working on a User Image Gallery where the users can have lots of images of the their Tool Item and even images of finished products. 

From there I add the ability of a user to attach a picture from the Product Gallery or from their Image Gallery to their Tool Item. 

On Thursday, August 18, 2022 I announced in the Potter People FB group that it was "ALIVE" and along with a link to the website I let my potential users register for an account. 

Yes, I pushed the code to "PROD" as we like to say in the coding world. The Tooling Tracker was published to the server and I felt it was time for the (possible) users to have at it.

I was done with most of basic features and I figure I would go the Microsoft route and let the users find if there were bugs I had not found, and fixed.  So far only ONE bug has been found by a user and I found 3 others all of which have fixed.

As of today I have 91 registered users and they and I are slowly adding the info to their accounts. 

As I was adding my items I came across a few things that I felt should be changed: Increase the field size for the SKU, Name, and Description on the Tool Item record; set the default page size to 10, it was 5; add the Order # to the listing page; have the quantity field default to 1.

And for an enhancement for bundles, kits, and boxes have a check box that say's the item (with purchase price, etc) is a parent item. Then allow for other (child) Tool Items to be created and tied to the parent.  I am working on this now and hope to have it released in the next few days. 

Along the way I have also made some enhancements for the Webmaster (me!) to help manage the users.

As I said in the prior post, I decided to make this dontation-ware and a few people have donated which is nice. I don't know how big this get and the database could be very big given the number of people who use PotterUSA tooling which might require subscription to cover costs but I will cross that bridge when I get to it. 

Time for me to get back to coding!