Daily Archive: August 11, 2003

Some people may not believe this, but one of the few things that I really dislike about our new house is the dishwasher. Not just because it doesn’t do a good job (or as good a job as I would do), or because something is wrong with it and it has to be re-started several times during the wash cycle, but because IT’S THERE. It’s taken away one of my guilty pleasures: washing dishes. Oh, I admit it’s nice to have it the morning after a big dinner party, but otherwise, on a daily business, I miss my suds. There’s...

I’ve spent the morning looking up altered books on the web, and I must say I don’t know whether to be intrigued or appalled. I guess I have a deeply ingrained feeling that books should not be harmed or destroyed or “hurt” and some of the things I’ve seen are perilously close to all three. On one hand, I can see the attraction in taking an old, unloved, unread book that is headed to the dump and using it as an artistic background, but a great deal of the altered book examples I saw used famous, worthy, classic books. One...

Not so much going on in the office today, despite my boss being back from vacation. One can only surf the web so much, I’ve found. But I have some things to look up and find more about: ephemera sheets, altered books and scrapbooking fabric bit names. We live “out in the country” and are surrounded by farmland, and all the fields right now are full of either amber waves of grain or haybales. What is it that is so comforting about the sight of a golden field dotted with huge perfectly rolled balls of hay shining in the late...