vanilla

Just for fun, I've been making my own vanilla for the past 3-4 years, and now it is about used up. So I ordered a pack of ten beans recently for new batches. The easy thing would be do it all at once, but like the song says, I've never done anything (nice and) easy. You just slit some of the long beans to expose the seeds and put them in a bottle or smallish glass container with your drinking alcohol of choice. Six weeks ago I started some with rum. Today I started another with vodka. It will take months for the vanilla beans and their tiny seeds to permeate the alcohol with enough flavor to use in baking. During that time, the bottle needs to stay in a dark place and be shaken daily. I wonder which base will make the better vanilla. I will take another pic in a few months when it becomes brown.

pretty lizard

Pretty with that blue tail, but I do not want it in my gallery. It is a five lined skink

 

Enjoying some time at the beach

It was a blue sky, sunshiny day, I didn't have to work, and I really wanted to go to the beach. Any beach. The Carolina Beach strip is easier in many ways so that is where I headed. I left my camera at home so I wouldn't be distracted, but I did put my cell phone in my pocket. I choose the cool place at FF where the tide pool is. The pelicans are awesome there and so entertaining. This is a pic of part of the public walkway that leads to the water. So glad I went. 

working

 This crazy year has had crazy weather, too. The gallery where I spend about thirty afternoon hours a week has big windows across the front and part of the side, so I can see what's happening from the sky on down to the occasional mushroom. Today as with many other days, I drove in under sunny skies, parked and with the assumption that the day would remain dry and beautiful, I put my windows down a bit to let the summer heat out. You know what they say about assumptions. Last Saturday was the craziest. I think only about five minutes passed between the sunny sky and the grim grey one. The thunder and heavy rains hovered over my place, and I decided to close and leave early. First time for that as I am blessed/cursed with this strong sense of duty.

Sometimes I enjoy the gallery and other times not so much. Just like my other jobs, sometimes I have to psych myself up to start the workday. Like yesterday. But it turned out great with an actual sale of a painting. And then a couple of other small items. Yay! 

I get followers on my instagram site, and one of them, a potter, contacted me about selling her things. I do love pottery. We made arrangements, and she brought in some pieces right as I opened. She and her husband create some cute hand built things. The husband also works with wood and iron and makes furniture. I had a question about the live edge table I have; it was looking lighter and drier. He made recommendations about oiling and waxing, and I am thankful. I love it when something works out. Now I need a bookkeeper to appear. They are harder to find than artists. 

This week I got some small painted pieces from a younger woman who originates from Costa Rica. She works with a palette of pretty bright colors we do not usually see here. Most art in my place is full of the blues and greens of the sea, the sky, and the river. 

Now that I have practiced writing, maybe I will send out a newsletter.

ginger lily

Interesting and wanted to save

According to political theory, a republic requires its citizens to cultivate virtuous behavior; if the people are virtuous, the republic will survive. If the people become corrupt, the republic will fall. Whether republicanism succeeded or failed in the United States would depend on civic virtue and an educated citizenry. Revolutionary leaders agreed that the ownership of property provided one way to measure an individual’s virtue, arguing that property holders had the greatest stake in society and therefore could be trusted to make decisions for it. By the same token, non-property holders, they believed, should have very little to do with government. In other words, unlike a democracy, in which the mass of non-property holders could exercise the political right to vote, a republic would limit political rights to property holders. In this way, republicanism exhibited a bias toward the elite, a preference that is understandable given the colonial legacy. During colonial times, wealthy planters and merchants in the American colonies had looked to the British ruling class, whose social order demanded deference from those of lower rank, as a model of behavior. 

Benjamin Franklin’s Thirteen Virtues for Character Development:

In the 1780s, Benjamin Franklin carefully defined thirteen virtues to help guide his countrymen in maintaining a virtuous republic. His choice of thirteen is telling since he wrote for the citizens of the thirteen new American republics. These virtues were:

1. Temperance. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
2. Silence. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.
3. Order. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
4. Resolution. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
5. Frugality. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.
6. Industry. Lose no time; be always employ’d in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.
7. Sincerity. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
8. Justice. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
9. Moderation. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
10. Cleanliness. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.
11. Tranquillity. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.
12. Chastity. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.
13. Humility. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

mushroom frill