Early August was recovery from my road trip.
Then I applied myself to finishing the quilt for my Grand-Nephew Gabi. Here is a picture of the fabric which is from a line called "Space-Bots" which is flanel. The backing is the same as the border and it was quilted in a shooting star pattern.  Since it is a fun space theme, I used my 3D printer to also make rockets and astronauts so Gabi can play with them.   

The box with the quilt and the toys was sent and has been opened. He and his parents really liked all of it. 

Last week I was at the John C. Campbell Folk School for a fun class (click link for a trip report). Since I was in North Carolina and not that far away, I also visited my cousin Amy; our fathers were brothers.

We are using this time to catch up since it has been 2 years since I last visited. We are cooking family recipes, reorganizing her quilt room and sewing, and I am helping her husband with his website.  I stayed for just under a week then it was a 2 day drive home.

Here is a picture of my mom's cheesecake. It should be noted that cheesecake is not really cake since it does not have any leavening and almost zero flour; it really is more of a cheese custard. 

Here it is November 25, and it's our anniversary - what would be our 37th.  Well it is our 37th, but half the team is missing.  I think this day is going to difficult every year, from now on.

This picture was taken on one of our many trips to see Mike & Elisa in Scotland. We took the train down to Montrose to go agate hunting. This picture was taken was along the train tracks as we were coming back, we came upon this stone entryway, all by itself. 

I knew about the Solar Eclipse wayyyy before I moved here to Texas but it was when we were making the actual plans to actually move that I looked it up and found the house would be in the path of totality. For fun I sent invites to an Eclipse party, on April 9, 2024, to about a dozen friends and family. Only my sister made plans to come and she made arrangements for us to visit the Johnson Space Center and get a private tour from a former student of her WHO happens to also be a Flight Director!!! Note - The Johnson Space Center is not the Space Center Houston which is open to the public. The Johnson Space Center is where the day to day operations are for all manned missions; planning, training, and on going.

During the tour we saw mission control for the ISS and was able to walk around the control floor area where the various stations were explained; what all the plaques and stickers were and their significances; how the giant monitors are used; how the personnel shifts work for continuous interaction with the ISS crew also happens. Then we went into the Artimus control room. Along the way we also were given stickers and patches for the current ISS expedition number 71 plus a sticker, designed by the Flight Director, for that Mission Command shift.  Next we walked above the training floor which has all the current ISS modules along with space suits, Soyus capsule, future modules and Artemis capsules.

Afterwards we went to the outdoor exhibit of the various recovered capsules and Saturn V rocket stages. THAT SUCKER IS HUGE!!

When we go home we spent the days wandering around the area and evenings watching: a PBS NOVA episode on the Eclipse and what various projects hope to find out; and space movies - The Martian, Mission to Mars, and A Million Miles Away. 

Monday was the Eclipse so we went to the library which had some activities and the New Braunfels Astronomy club with their telescopes (with solar filters) so we could watch the sun and eclipse. We made our own viewing party T-Shirts and waited for it to start. Well we saw the start but the clouds moved in and never saw totality - which was a BUMMA :-(( though I thought talking to everyone who was there was enjoyable.

​Tuesday my sister went home and I cleaned up the house.

Note: the pictures are NOT in any order.

First - My nose is healing well but with sudden weather changes in temperature and pressure my face still hurts. The doctor says that I have to give my nose time and eventually it will be less but probably not fully go away.

​I have started to work on Erich's workshop. The workshop building is at the back of the property; I can get to it easily by going out the back door of my studio and then walk across the yard. The space is almost 1000 square feet and it filled with STUFF, cobwebs, dead bugs, and dust. It has 2 main areas with one larger where there are cabinets and a work surface along one wall; all the cabinets are empty. Then the other space has shelves and a work surface and there is a side storage area with shelves.   

I started in the small area - opening boxes that were on the floor or the shelves. It's open, think WTF, put stuff on the floor and sort -  does it go in the garbage, what do I want to keep, does it go to Goodwill or Habitat for Humanity (H4H). If it is going to be donated, then I log it in my spreadsheet. At the end of the day the garbage get's bagged and put in the bin for pickup on Wednesday. Donations go into boxes and put in the car and taken to the drop off places either that afternoon or the next morning.  When I am truly done for the day I go take a hot shower and relax before making dinner provided I don't fall asleep in the chair

Rinse and Repeat  - Note the pictures below are in no particular order.

When I finished the small room I started on the larger room. I put a message out to my knitting friends that I had a gas powered generator and some small solar panels that could be had for free. Judy's husband Frank wanted it and so they came over with their truck to get and assist me in delivering Erich old kitchen table and chairs to Maddy; she and her husband just moved into the first house and needed some furniture. I put the coffee table in my car and delivered it. It was over lunch that I asked Frank to come back and help me and what every he wanted, provided I didn't, he could have. He's like a kid in a candy store being told he can have what ever they want.

I am about halfway done. All the tool boxes from the large room have been emptied; I first sorted all the hand tools by type, then went through each pile and decided what I wanted and then assembled another pile for a metal friend's daughter who has NO tools (and she's an engineer no less) and shipped them off in one of the plastic tool boxes. The remainder will go to H4H. 

Two of the bicycles have been given away and the third, my blue touring bicycle with 21 years that I bought in Santa Barbara in 1981, I took to the local bike shop to get it cleaned and maintained -  chain cleaned, new brake pads, new tires and tubes, and a new handle bar set and brake levers. 

Yes there were many WTF moments - the old Navy WWII surplus tubes; more propane; more ammo; more EVERYTHING.

With focused attention I think I will be done with clearing the workshop by the end of April. And then I can work on the re-org of my studio.

Yahrzeit refers to the anniversary, according to the Hebrew calendar, of the day of death of a loved one. Alternative spellings include yortsayt, and yartzeit. On the anniversary of a death, it is the custom to light a candle to commemorate the departure of a loved one.

How does one observe this day?
"Despite the Germanic origin of the word yahrzeit, the designation of a special day and special observances to commemorate the anniversary of the death of parents was already discussed in the Talmud. This religious commemoration is recorded not as a fiat, but as a description of an instinctive sentiment of sadness, an annual rehearsing of tragedy, which impels one to avoid eating meat and drinking wine—symbols of festivity and joy, the very stuff of life."

Erich passed on January 12, 2023 so the observance would be on January 18th of this year to match up with the Jewish calendar but I am also observing it today; actually I lit the candle last night.  And if you don't know any candle can be used provided it burns for 24 hours.

So what am I doing today - I will be reflecting on our time together and moving forward with my new life.

Last year at this time I decided to make a temperature blanket for the year Erich (aka the Shop Elf) we were married. I was building a spreadsheet to hold the historical high and low temperature info and selecting my yarn colors and the manufacturer for each temperature band. 

Then Erich passed away and everything in my life came to a grinding stop. 

Several months later I decided that I was still going to do a temperature blanket but it would be for my first year without Erich - January 12, 2023 through January 11, 2024. I considered adding, somehow, the amount of rain on each day but each idea could not be integrated easily and then I saw a temperature blanket that used the amount of daylight and darkness such that the high temperatures were daylight and the low temperatures were the darkness.   I used the Weather Underground to locate a personal weather station near the house so I could get the temperature data. I used Time and Date to get the sunrise & sunset data and built out the rest of the spreadsheet to calculate the number of stitches based upon minutes of each.  I even added some conditional formatting so the recorded temperature would show the color of the yarn for that temperature band.

For the yarn I chose an acrylic from Lion Brand because the blanket will be on the couch and will probably get washed a lot plus the yarn is not very expensive!  Being the geek I am, I also set up a page in the spreadsheet to calculate the amount of yards yarn I would need based upon a test gauge swatch for the number of stitches and then calculated the total yardage using the number of stitches over the course of the year for each temperature band...   

Once December started I went and ordered one to 2 skeins of each yarn and cast on the first rows of black on New Year's Eve.  New Year's Day I started with January 12th.   It takes about 2-3 hours to knit each day while watching TV; today I am working on finishing January 14th and maybe all of January 15th. 

​Yes, it will probably take me all of 2024 and some of 2025 to finish it but it will keep my hands busy in the evenings

Despite finishing the Big Snuggly Sweater over Thanksgiving week, things since mid-November have/had been a real downer for me. 

• First there was Erich's Birthday.
• Then there was what would have been our 35th anniversary's
• Add to that Thanksgiving which we usually just have a nice meal and spend the day together watching movies.
• And to round out the month was my birthday.

I didn't want to see or talk to anyone and I backed out of all events and get togethers for the duration.

As December started I felt the same way.
There's still the loom room and my studio to clean and reorganize PLUS there is Erich's workshop to tackle. Of course there is also the standard stuff to do around the house - cooking, cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping, and getting out of bed because a certain cat wants to be fed.

Then last week, I got an email from the Lawyer that things are moving forward, finally, with Erich's estate and was as if a 1,000 weight had been lifted off my brain. Suddenly

Thirty-Six years ago we eloped having only met each other two month earlier.
It was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.
​
In September of 1987 I was invited to a bicycle ride get together by my friend Gylver; he lived in Laguna Hills, California and I was living in Temecula, California.  Other friends of "ours" from Santa Barbara would be there as well as some other friends that Gylver knew.  

The plan was to ride down the coast for a while, stop and have lunch then ride back and afterwards have a dinner of home made chili.   

Not as many people showed up as expected but one was a good looking man named Erich Kern.  

We spent most of the ride talking to each other; and we talked all through dinner. Before I went home Erich asked for my phone number.   To be honest I don't remember much of the ride except for talking to Erich.

Several nights later Erich called to talk and ask me on a date; we ended up talking on the phone for six hours!
Yes, we took bathroom breaks.

Erich suggested we move in together in, in October but having just started grad school I said no; I needed time and space to do my course work. 

At the end of October he proposed.  I said yes cause when you know, you KNOW.

After much thought and reflection about what my sister went through with our parents when she got married I knew I did not want a formal wedding and so Erich I decided to elope over Thanksgiving weekend as I also had a small break in my course work. 

We found a Rabbi to marry us and we made reservations in Santa Barbara at a B&B for the weekend. We would take our bicycles and spend the weekend doing some rides and on Thanksgiving day I would work on a paper I had due the next week. 

Gylver was the Best Man and my friend Kathleen was the Best Woman; we met at the Synagogue and were married and then went out for a nice dinner and afterwards Erich and I drove up the coast. 

The rest, you could say is history.  

This picture was taken many years later in the 2000's.

I am feeling rather normal these days and so I am going to try to resume a normal life and not mope around the house and do only what's necessary. 

Last week I vacuumed the carpets which I admit hasn't been done in 6+ months. I also vacuumed and washed the main floor tiles.  The next big task on the list is (was) to clean/organize the walk in closet in the bedroom. I am leaving that for next year as I have maxed out the amount of donation dollars I can claim on my taxes. I am moving on to the Family room now which has bookshelves, my knitting and sewing stuff but I am not going to spend 2-3 solid days on it. Over the next week I am going to only do about an hour and then relax and work on my knitting.

To also return to normal, I am going to speak to the nutritionist I worked with in 2021/2022 to get into shape before I did my walk in Scotland.  Let's just say all the gains I made have rolled back and then some. We are talking next week and I will attempt to get some early morning walking in despite the massive heat wave and drought we are having at the moment. This will also help me when I am at the gorge as I am quite tired after a work session and can't keep up with the guys.

I am also going to do a very short term web project for a friend and get paid!

To close, here's a photo of Cowboy Boots