I was able to join a morning devotion with a previous pastor, Judy Zabel. Just about ten of us, but just to meet new people and share with them was very precious.
Still didn’t get the motivation for the treadmill.
Me and Wilhelm drove to my store to check that everything is still OK there and then we did a bit of shopping. I wanted a bluetooth headset, but BestBuy only did curbside pickups – you have to order online first – so I rather ordered from amazon where I had a wider selection.
This is one of my leather pieces that hangs in my store:
In the evening we joined our small group again for a zoom get-together.
Called my mom this morning and she sounded much better and very positive. She is doing well.
Most of the call was taken up by trying to troubleshoot why she has no Wi-Fi like the day before. Turns out there is no power on her router.
Then she gave me the name and phone number of André that helped her on Saturday.
I found out I cannot get through to my mom’s cell phone or André’s cell phone – not sure where the problem lies there. So I called him, thanked him, and asked him to stop by when he goes to the store to just have a look at her router.
Called my mom back after that and spent another 45 minutes just chatting to her.
By this time I had missed the first hour of my online class on leatherwork, but that is available to catch up with later.
I sat down to some leatherwork of my own and was jaw-drop amazed at the weather every time I looked up. Within twenty minutes we had full on sunshine, clouds, snowy flurries and blizzard like snowstorms. And this repeated itself quite a few times.
Somewhere there I saw this – the falling snow only accumulated where the shadow of the house kept the ground cooler; elsewhere it melted immediately.
When the sun came out five minutes later it confirmed this visibly:
I also load software to edit videos with so that I can publish instructions again to my leather instructions blog: www.leatherlearn.com
I hopped on the treadmill early and got 6 minutes in when I got a message on my phone from a cousin in South Africa saying that her mom cannot get hold of my mom. Turns out that was about a week ago.
But it caused me to call my mom, only to hear that she fell Friday evening and spent the whole night on the floor trying to access her phones and trying to get help. I do think she had some concussion, because it was only Saturday morning when she was able to reach an angel, André Scheeres, who swooped in, helped her get up and called paramedics to take her to the hospital, where she spent most of Saturday being x-rayed and tested. She also had a gash in her head stitched up. She was able to be discharged Saturday afternoon late and André took her home again.
I fooled around a bit with leather again, played with a few old photos,
After such a beautiful sunshine day yesterday, it started to snow this morning and we got 6″+.
I took the day off from the treadmill.
We drove to church early and was greeted by our five pastors and Holy Communion; drive-by fashion outside. All very safely done! And home-made doughnuts.
And there I was struck speechless. I got so emotional that I could not speak.
We then drove home to watch the Easter Sunday service streamed live.
While watching and listening to the service, I drew this on my tablet, using the Sketcher App:
I futzed around with with leather, streamed a Facebook Live video about a leatherwork technique and watched the snow pile up outside.
This is the start of our new veggie garden that Wilhelm is developing:
I had an appointment with my diabetes educator, and absolutely delightful lady to talk to.
All over the phone of course.
I organised things a bit in my workroom, did a bit of leatherwork and EVEN took an afternoon NAP!!!!
That was the first time in many years. But I did set my alarm and got up in time to get Gina’s laptop ready for joining our small group on Zoom.
I skipped this evening’s small group to attend another online leather class I had paid for – to do woodgrain on leather. I have done a lot of different woodgrain effects on leather, but this was taught by Jim Linnell, a master I admire very much, and I see these classes with him as a kindof back-to-basics excercise. This is not done yet, but this was the subject of the class this evening:
Wilhelm has been helping us sort through some old stored boxes and one of the finds was this:
It is the 63 year old predecessor of texting! And what makes these so special, was the humor with which they were done. I scanned them all and will post in a different post – they are, of course, in Afrikaans. These were folded very small, the name of the recipient was written on it and it was then sent through a classroom to the intended recipient. I also did this when I was at school. Yes, there was an era before cell phones….!
At noon I attended an online leatherwork class again and drew this design to be used in a notepad holder that will be constructed tomorrow in the class:
Two old film camara bodies, with lenses. Expensive years ago when they were new. Now they look tattered – like two old homeless men. They have been kicked out of the camara bag.
This is the dilemma of someone like me, born in the late fifties : we were taught that things were paid for by hard earned cash – you do not just throw it away when you are done with it. Expensive things were useful for many years.
Then the cheap technology explosion hit us, hand in hand with consumerism. It amazed me the first time I read that in China they had umbrellas that were designed for only one day of use – than you throw it away…. Still you had a choice of an expensive permanent umbrella or a cheap throw away model.
When it comes to camaras, computers and phones, you have far less choice. The infrastructure of these devices, and the services delivered to them, forces you to upgrade every few years. And when you do, the old instrument is obsolete and in most cases, useless.
I enjoy new technology, new phones with the new software and new computers with new capabilities.
But how do you get rid of that technology like a tablet, that cannot even update any more? What can help us to make that mind shift?
Old computer disk drives yield nice and strong magnets when you open them up (demolish them) – so that “gain” offsets the “guilt” of throwing the leftovers away. Old camaras?? Old printers??
Beginning of February – and the sun is starting to show some warmth!! VERY positive!
Because I have to wear shoes at work – I have made my own in the past. Unfortunately, by giving up on rigid soles, heels, arch support, you also give up on the durability of the shoes. But, there is a positive side! I get to make a new and better pair of shoes! (Fancier too, this time.)
The week ended on a hugely positive note!
What could be more fun than hanging out with sixty other guys, playing challenging and fun games, listening to a good speaker and enjoying some good food. I also got to see the three masterful champions receive their trophies!
