I’m ready to hit the road – my flights in a little over 2 hours, I’m 20 minutes from the airport so I’m enjoying my last few minutes of cable on this trip by watching The Dark Horse, an old Bette Davis movie on TCM – some unlikely story about an idiot who’s elected to office, imagine that…
Last night I taught the second of 2 classes at Creative Fibers, and I had such a nice time! Bonnie has a lovely shop – I’m very impressed with the spinning, weaving and dyeing supplies she carries – and it was wonderful to have a nice room in the back to hold the classes. We did color last night – and I always work my color students rather hard. I’ve found the students here in MN tend to be hard on themselves anyway – an odd mix of “I should be able to do this, darn it!” and “Of COURSE I can do this, darn it!” It’s that farm work ethic, I think, and I have it in spades myself. But it can make us frustrated when trying something new – it can make us feel tense, and that makes it impossible to really learn anything. I’m very familiar with the tight fist in the stomach feeling, all clenched up, that seems to block any new thoughts from entering the stomach.
My job is to slowly unclench that fist – as well as providing the education – and sometimes I feel that I’m better at it than other times. I wish I would have been more skillful in that last night.
The plaid is not easy. But it can be broken down into relatively simple steps. The trick is to get the class to trust me so implicitly that they trust that I trust them to get it. Just about everyone got it last night – and their swatches looked lovely – but of course I have the nagging feeling that I could have done better. Oh, well…
I’ve been asked by the MN Guild to come back next year as the keynote speaker at the Yarnover event, and I’m so thrilled to be able to say YES!. And maybe I won’t even have to travel far to get here…
I’m happy to be going back to see the kids, the husband, the dog, the cats, and my wonderful house and neighbors. I’m sad to be leaving the Twin Cities, because I’ve really grown to love it in a short period. I think my commentor had a point, though, and a return with the family for a vacation would make the most sense to see how we ALL like it here.
And the job thing. We’ll see how that pans out – if it’s meant to be, it will be! One thing is for sure, Gerry certainly couldn’t be any more unhappy in his job than he is now, and that makes me very sad, which is a terrible thing to be on such a beautiful day!
The parks here are amazing – and yesterday was perhaps one of the most beautiful days I’ve ever spent! I visited parks, sat and read a bit and walked, played with some dogs and talked to some nice folks. It’s absolutely amazing here. Obviously I don’t understand the ins and outs of Minnesota politics, the history and back story, but from a visitor it appears that the money (taxes) have gone to make life a little better for everyone.
We pay unholy high taxes in NJ, and at times it just feels that they must be going into someone’s pocket because certain important parts of life are always underfunded. It just feels that for $14,000 a year in property taxes on a relatively modest 3 bedroom house, we should have a higher quality of life. There are a LOT of reasons for that (NJ is broken into such small little villages and towns and cities, all with their own small fiefdoms. Many kingdoms mean lots of tax. I’m happy and proud to pay my taxes, I feel it’s the sign of a civilized society that we share with each other to raise the level of life for all, but what we pay in NJ is simply insane. Even more insane is that taxes in our county are so much higher than 15 miles down the road in a different county – the burden of caring for poorer areas isn’t evenly distributed across the state, and that is hard on those of us in Essex County.
The highest property taxes I saw listed on the many brochures I picked up on my travels this week was $4,500. And that was twice as much as the next highest tax amount. The average was around $1,800, which seems like it must be a misprint. I could tell, talking to Gerry on the phone, that one of his reservations about moving is the cost of the move itself. When I told him about the taxes he said, “Geeze – what we’d save in one year would more than cover the move!” – life is funny, huh?
But all of this dreaming and planning is moot if Gerry can’t find a job here – so that’s our next consideration.