So what is a POLYHISTOR?  I am a polyhistor!  But I do not think I am a polymath since there are areas of learning that hold no interest to me such as philosophy.  And because of my age I am a Opsimath too.

Please refer to this image of the definition of a polyhistor, then keep reading for more background and understanding.

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​When the Covid-19 pandemic started, I was doing some metal work and temari; reading. After a few weeks into the lockdown I was still making temari and started a weaving project; the metal work was set aside. Now one year into the pandemic I have set aside the weaving and I am spending my evenings mostly working on temari and yubinuki. 

It was during this past year I began to ponder my penchant for learning which to me was a bit odd considering I did not enjoy "school" as a child. That's not to say I did not like going to school or all of the things I was told I had to learn; what I did not enjoy was some of the things I had to learn and the more I thought about it I realized I did not enjoy the subjects where the learning was difficult due to my then unknown dyslexia.  The subjects I did enjoy were home economics, physical education, art, poetry, the sciences except the heavy math parts, and many after school activities like stage crew, (more) sports and Girl Scouts. It was the math, spelling and learning French - all for a while until I learned, on my own, how to make a game of learning and mastering the rules. 

What can be even more confounding is that I chose to pursue an engineering degree after high school.  I decided on the degree because I am a "natural engineer" and my father was one too and he said I would have a more difficult time trying to follow my dreams without a degree, like him, than with one (being female in the 60-70's being the other).  College was extremely difficult and my undergraduate grades where crap (gong to a very difficult school did not help) but I did graduate. 

NOTE: A natural engineer is NOT a person who engineers nature or natural resources. A natural engineer is someone who is an engineer but has no formal training and exhibits the ability to see and solve problems at a young age. I was telling my father how to fix things, he was working on, starting sometime around 5th grade.

Since then I have had this desire to learn new things - embroidery and crewl work, weaving and spinning, quilting (which is very different than sewing clothing which I do as well), knitting, temari and yubinuki, metalsmithing, raising and sinking vessels, constructing boxes, chasing and repousse and learning to make the tools for metalsmithing - all subjects that are, in a way mathematical and engineering related while allowing the person doing them to be creative. I say they involve engineering and mathematical aspects because all do require the use of math, some more than others, and they have a technical aspect to them; when you know the basics there are challenges and problems to be solved when an idea presents it self.

As I said, I realized this past year that I like learning and specifically learning where I can solve problems or processes. When I find a subject that piques my interest, I am ALL IN.  I find ways to learn at my own pace, I acquire the books, tools and other aqutromonts to master it. Many of the skills I have listed I really enjoy and have done for 30, 40 or more years And yet.... I realized that for some of these other subjects, which I also enjoy(ed) I have set aside and never come back to.  So do I enjoy the learning and gaining the understanding MORE than the act of doing it?
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I present to you as an example my 10 year foray into Metalsmithing, shall we. I first learned how to cut and polish a cabochon, then I moved into basic jewelry so I could wear what I had made. I enjoy making the odd piece of jewelry but it did not inspire me to make more.  I like working with metal because of the underlying science and engineering which most metalsmiths have no interest in. From there I tried chain maille which I found boring after a while and from there I moved into raising and sinking of vessels - now that challenged me and continues to do so.  To do more with the vessels I made, I then learned chasing and repousse; to color my work I delved into the alchemy behind patina and the construction techniques of making boxes and hinges. 

Throughout all of this I realize that I am very good at the technical aspects and can make some wonderful things many of which are my own original ideas. What I lack is the continuous flow of creative ideas that would make me a true artist in some things I have learned but not in others.  I am OK with that which is why I am an Artisan not an artist.  

I know I can find a subject I enjoy, learn it, become proficient in it and make and be creative and sell these items as a polyhistor and an artisan.

As a child I learned embroidery, crewel work (embroidery with wool) and to sew which I really enjoy. As I got older I learned and became quite good at quilting while still sewing clothing.  

And with a love of fiber, I learned to knit, spin (but not really enjoy) and weave. I can weave rugs or "fabric" to then use as the basis of a garment. 

Along the way I have collected many things - Fraternal Organization pins, Scandinavian Enameled Jewelry, early 1900 chain maille purses used by the flappers as well as collecting gems and minerals.  Along the way I learned how to "cut" a cabochon and eventually how to set them in metal of copper, brass, silver or gold (very rarely) and then how to make jewelry, raise vessels, and do chasing and repousse. 

10 years ago I started learning about Japanese Temari and Yubinuki.

I have  plethora of books covering all of these subjects.

With the pandemic and being home for 170+ days I have been looking at all I do and I have come to the conclusion that I need to simplify my life

Let's start with the sewing. I have a good sewing machine which is big and bulky and a smaller machine which is good for workshops. I don't do a lot of workshops these days so I think it is time to sell the portable machine.

I had/have 3 looms - a rigid heddle, a 8 shaft 30" wide table loom and a large 8 shaft 40+ inch wide floor loom. At one point I also had a 4 shaft folding floor loom which I sold to my friend Yuko when she returned to Japan plus a 16 shaft table loom which has also been sold. Recently the rigid heddle loom has been sold and the 8 shaft table loom will be traded/sold this weekend.  I want a small portable loom for sampling so I don't have to setup the big floor loom and I settled on the Ashford Katy Loom which has a 12" wide weaving width and is 8 shafts plus it folds. I put the table loom up for sale and found someone who wants to buy it and she mentioned that she had a Katy which she thinks is too small. I suggested a trade and she went for it. 

Some of the knitting, quilting, and other books will also go. 

Some of the antiques I have collected over the years will also be sold.

It all comes down to do I need this stuff anymore?

Here I am almost done with December and 2019. 
Earlier this month I was down with the flu, for about a week and then recovery took just as long. I canceled a metal workshop I was to teach and just slept, read, and zoned. I had not caught the flu or other bug that floats around during Winter in several years so I guess my time was due.

The year has flown by. 

We have been here for 2+ years now and we have settled into a route of sorts - I go to work weekdays and Erich takes care of the house, the cars, Cowboy Boots and me; on weekends he relaxes and I am in my studio.

Friends from California are getting ready to move to the area, early next year which will be nice as we have know them for as long as we have been married. 

I am planning my retirement from the day job - 2 years and counting. I will work for a while to take advantage of medical insurance, socking money away in the 401K, and of course the extra income. Eventually I go to part time work so I have more time to do what I want while still having some extra income coming in. 

​Here's a calm view, from the studio back door that I took last month. 

​Wow, it's been three months since I posted. So much has happened.


A friend from California has visited in May and he and his wife are getting close to retirement and have decided to relocate to this part of Texas. They are here this week now looking at home and will hopefully mover by April of next year when their lease runs out and she has retired from her job.

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Then my sister came for a visit in June. She was in San Antonio for work and we spent the weekend seeing the area. One thing she wanted to see what an H.E.B grocery store. She use to teach marketing research and H.E.B was one of the case studies she covered, so she found it very interesting so actually see it in comparison to what she knew of them from on paper.

And I was feeling betting an working in the studio and getting deep into projects at the day job. I now lead a team of off shore developers for one project and we are pushing to get it finished before October but there was a lot of code clean up to do which I took on while the off shore team worked on other things.

​Then just over two weeks ago, while making my lunch one morning, the knife slipped and sliced open my right thumb; I was removing a pit from an avocado. Yes, I was doing it "correctly" as everyone has proceeded to tell me or send me to links on YouTube. The avocado was VERY ripe and so the pit slipped and the knife came out and went into my thumb.  Oh it bled and it was deep.
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I now have what is called Avocado Hand. It should be noted that Bagel hand is something else.

So I wrapped it up and when to urgent care. They first cleaned it, gave me a tetanus shot, and took x-rays because there was a chance I nicked the bone, but did not, it was that deep. No stitches were put in cause I had to see a hand surgeon next.  Later in the day I was on my way to the surgeon who said I did not knick the tendon as I could flex it without pain but may have nicked the nerve since I had tingling along the side by my nail. Again no stitches were put in as they have 14 days to do surgery and IF they  had to go in, stitches would have to come out; so I butterfly bandage closed and wrapped up in elastic gauze tape and told to come back in a week.  I have now seen the doctor a second time and still have a bit of tingling along the side of my thumb but I can grip with no problem, confirming tendon is fine. So at this point it there are no guarantees the tingle would go away and since the area where it is like that is so small, the doctor doubts he might even be able to put in a stitch. This means the time and expense to do it plush the healing time are just not worth cutting my hand open. 

Let's must move on.

..get my life back under control and other times, I am learning to let it go. 

I realized that the move to Texas was more stressful than I though and I was not listening to the signals that I am (was?) ill. 

I haven't been sleeping well; I'm stress at work for no reason; I can't focus on what's being discussed and I let me mind wander to other non-work related things; I wanted to cry for no apparent reason; and what I was eating was/is crap so I put on all the weight I lost 3 years ago PLUS more - see below  

So last week, after a month of reading a book, I started a new eating regime (It is not a diet).

Since I had thyroid cancer, it has been exceedingly difficult for me to loose weight. 2+ years ago I started walking and found that if I walked for an hour every day and really limited my calories (and was always hungry) I was able to loose weight; I eventually lost about 20 pounds. But over time not only has that 20 pounds come back but I put on a more and trying to loose it has been a horrible struggle.

Last month a friend told me about her thyroid issues and how a nutritionist told her to read a book and follow the plan detailed in the book. She has since lost 40+ pounds and the sluggish and tired feeling have gone away. So 3 weeks ago I read the book and started the plan, I was feeling good and excited to see some changes and result in the next few weeks!

So what is it that I doing?  I am following the Plant Paradox by Dr. Gundry

I do not have some of the heavy autoimmune issues many have nor do I have diabetes but as I have said, I suffer from a very sluggish metabolism. I also have tinnitus (this appeared after my torn rotator cuff surgery and a bad reaction to the anesthesia), constipation, along with feeling sluggish, brain foggy, and depression.
  
I am now one week in and so far so good. I have not done the cleanse and there a just a few minor things I have been eating that I should not per the plan, but for now, it is more about small changes versus radical one.  I am still using a small amount of soy sauce to make my roasted veg, regular milk Greek yogurt, and a vegan, gluten free, salad dressing.

I have made the decision to cook a big meal on Sunday's and eat it as "left overs" for dinner during the week. This is so I don't have to cook every night nor will I resort to frozen meals. This past week I had roasted veg (cauliflower, brussel sprouts, fennel, and asparagus) with wild Alaskan salmon; for lunch I had a spinach salad with avocado, tuna, and sheep's milk feta with that vegan salad dressing; for breakfast I had yogurt with either fresh blueberries or strawberries; and for a snack some mixed raw nuts (walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts). 

So how was my first week? Pretty good. I don't feel hungry and I am enjoying what I am eating without worrying about tracking what I eat nor how many calories and grams of protein/fat/carbs or points I consumed!  I seem to be sleeping a bit better though having the sun come through the window at 6:30 am has and will be an issue since the bedroom window faces east but with the days getting longer it will resolve it's self until next summer roles around. And yes, I had THREE amazing bowel movements this week too.  I weighed myself and I am down 4 pounds. I will now not weigh myself for a month; this is so I don't obsess over it. 

Today I am back to the supermarket for this week's shopping and then I will make a beef stew for my week's dinner and get some other cheeses to add to my snack. 
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Two weeks ago, a metals friend called me; she was distraught need help. She called me because she did not know what to do but I might be able to. 

Here is the background... 
Months ago she had her website redesigned but it wasn't until this month that she realized that her sales had not only fallen off, a lot!; but her position in various search engine results had gone from the first page to page 7 or higher. After a few hours of research it was apparent that the website redesign killed the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) because the pages had been renamed and redirects had not been setup; the website description and keywords had not been configured correctly and more geeky stuff. 

To put it nicely, her web programmer (I will not call them a developer, see below for more) gave a lame answer about not knowing how to fix it. 

Note: a programmer, in my book, is someone who will do what you ask without thinking off the consequences and as a result bugs and other issues can result. A developer will do what you ask and more; they will make suggestions about possible improvements, will raise a flag if an issue is found and will also care about your final product and business. 

So there were two choices - either I fix it or find someone who could.  I was asked to fix it. 

It took a week of working for an hours or two in the evening and a full Saturday but the changes and a few improvements were made and they were published.

Then we waited.... 

..Slowly over the course of the next two weeks, her website rose in the rankings and now, depending on the search terms, her website is back in the results and traffic to the site in 15 days was double that is was for the entire prior month. 

Being a good developer and consultant (in a prior life) I have now sent a follow up document on my thoughts about how the website should be moved to a more advanced platform (it is currently just HTML and JavaScript) and what enhancements could be implemented with the platform change.  I did this on my own time 'cause that's what friends and good consultants do and we don't expect to be hired because of it. 

This is York, a micro elephant that Bunny Bravehart met when we were in New York City a few years ago. Turns out Bunny Bravehart was hiding York in my sewing closet among all the fabric.

So what's York story? 

It turns out that York was born when her parents were in NYC with the Ringling Brothers and Barnum Bailey circus. Because she was so tiny - peanut sized; she got lost in the straw and eventually found herself in the sewers of the city. The alligators and crocodiles who were there showed her the ways of the city and eventually she developed the ability to camouflage herself and blend in with the subway tiles in various stations.  Where she foraged for food along with venturing out into Central Park to feast on nuts and cotton candy sold by the vendors and dropped by the tourists. 

It was during our visit in November 2016 visit, that Bunny Bravehart met York and she hid in my messenger bag. Here is Bunny Bravehart surveying the park.

30 days ago I arrived in Texas to live and work. I am now settling into a routine.

Weekdays, I am up a 6:30 am, get ready for work, make my lunch, and head off to work around 7:30 am. The drive is about 21 miles and it takes me thirty some odd minutes to come out of the hills, on local roads, into New Braunfels and to arrive at the office.   

At work I am working directly with Marty, and we maintain the current production environment and code for a large number of applications, databases, services, and reports. The entire IT team that I am on consists of 8 people and they are a nice bunch of guys (yes, I am the only woman, as usual).  I start the day looking at error logs and tickets that have come in over night and address them. Then I move on to fixing any code. In my first two weeks, I found code that had been "lost" (not checked into source control) and then rewrote it since it was last touched in 2007, so we can deploy it to a new server next month. Along the way I also removed swaths of dead and obsolete code which saved at least another week of work. This application is now on the testing server. 

After work, which is 5:00 pm (yippee, no long hours!) I usually head back up the hill to the house; but at least one day in the middle of the week, I do my grocery shopping and get gas.  Friday nights, I am going to a knitting shop for a 2 hours "knit and bitch" get together. 

Speaking of gas, right now it is anywhere from $2.09 to $1.88 depending where you are around town. I am also only filling up once per week since my drive is so short - time and mileage.   

After dinner, I sit, watch some TV and do a bit of knitting, chat with Erich and head off to bed by 10:00 pm.

On the weekends, I am still unpacking, putting things away, running other errands, and more.   Three weekends ago, I drove up to Austin to go to the IKEA to get some stuff for the house and went to a knitting shop. Two weekends ago I cleaned up the property as there was lots of construction garbage everywhere; that took 4 hours. Then last weekend I met up with a Facebook friend and we went to two knitting and weaving shops in the area and I also found a great place to go swimming in the Guadalupe river such that I am not paying for parking or river access AND it is only a 15 drive from the house.  This weekend, well just more stuff that has to be done in the house. 

Here are some pictures of the wild life - Deer and Gray Fox plus some of the river.

25 years ago I began my real foray into software. 

I say real because I did learn how to program when I was in college but that was disaster.

Yes, I will confess that not only did I hate programming, I failed quite a few of those classes.

I learned to program on a Univac 1108 using punch card and chads. The first language I learned was ALGOL then it was FORTRAN-IV and COBAL.  I could do the logic diagrams that were required as part of our assignments; I could write up what I thought the program should be but being dyslexic and having to type out punch cards did not help either. 

But all those strange problems to be solved (Imagine a bull in a circular field 12 feet diameter and is fenced. The bull is teathered on a 6 foot chain to the fence. What is the area of the pasture that the bull can eat?) had no relevance to anything I was actually doing and so I just "did not get it".

I gave up on programming.

Advance 13 years in time to 1991; I had a programmer working for me and she was modifying the ERP software at the company where I was the manager of manufacturing engineering (a medical startup). Once day I was looking at the code and I was "reading the code" and I realized there was a bug staring me in the face.

WHAAAAA??!!!

I was reading code and I "couldn't do that". Over the next few weeks I realized that even though I had failed those programming classes, I really did know how to program. 

I then came across Visual Basic 1.0 and got a copy to play with plus a teach yourself to program in 21 days type of book.  I went through the book in one weekend and tt was then that I realized that "I GOT IT". 

I never looked back. 

I then went to work at the company that produced the ERP software because we had modified it to meet certain FDA requirements and the software company wanted to go after the medical manufacturing business and what better way than to have a Biomedical Engineer as one of their consultants who had not only worked in that industry but had experience with the software. 

Then I earned my Microsoft certifications and moved into Big-Six consulting (Coopers & Lybrand, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, BearingPoint); then software and engineering consulting and then full on software engineering and software development at various other companies. 

And here we are, this is the 25th anniversary of the release of VB and I have seen it in all it's variations. 

It has been a fun and wild ride. There have been times I have questioned if moving into software was the right move and should I have stayed in manufacturing engineering. BUT, then again maybe not as I have been able to learn so much, traveled so many places, and it has paid me really really well.

This idea came from Wendy over at Hammermarks where she posted 40 fun facts for her 40th birthday.

Since today is MY birthday and this is a biggie, I have posted quite a few fun facts to celebrate mine. How old am I?? Well you will have to read them all to figure that out.

1. The earliest record of an eclipse was recorded way back in 3340 on this date. I am not that old and I wonder if this is adjusted for the corrections made in the calendar (Julian/Gregorian) back in 1582.
2. Billy Idol, English singer-songwriter and actor and I are the same age. Are we long lost twins?? 
3. Winston Churchill, English colonel, journalist, and politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Nobel Prize laureate was born on this day. 
4. 1782 – American Revolutionary War: Treaty of Paris – In Paris, representatives from the United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain sign preliminary peace articles (later formalized as the 1783 Treaty of Paris).
5. 1900 Oscar Wilde, Irish essayist, novelist, playwright and poet died
6. 1982 Michael Jackson's second solo album, Thriller is released worldwide.
7. 1940 – Lucille Ball marries Desi Arnaz.
   
8. November 30 is the 334th day of the year (335th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 31 days remaining until the end of the year.
9. Krypton is not the planet where Superman was born it is actually an element here on earth and should not be confused with kryptonite.
10. Neodymium is a chemical element with symbol Nd and atomic number 60. It is a soft silvery metal that tarnishes in air. Neodymium was discovered in 1885 by the Austrian chemist Carl Auer von Welsbach.
    
11. Pinocchio is Italian for “pine head.”
    
12. Months that begin on a Sunday will always have a ‘Friday the 13th’.
    
13. A duck’s quack doesn’t echo, and no one knows why
    
14. The word Pennsylvania is misspelled on the Liberty Bell.
    
15. Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise.
    
16. The king of hearts is the only king without a mustache.
    
17. All the swans in England are property of the Queen.
    
18. The largest U.S. state (Alaska, 665,384 square miles) is 431 times bigger than the smallest (Rhode Island, 1,544 square miles).
    
19. Sonny Bono is the only member of the United States Congress to ever have a number one single on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 music chart.
    
20. Over 2,500 left handed people a year are killed from using products made for right handed people.
    
21. Multiply the last fun fact by 3 and you have my age as of today!!