My car is dead... long live my car

Okay, so the Subaru is being put out to pasture for the time being. We managed to get a good used car for a reasonable price, so we're taking that. I took advantage of the enforced downtime to take a few pictures of my hometown. There are some very pretty places here, and the weather has been heartbreakingly beautiful for two weeks, sunny and warm and breezy. (January is not normally like this; this is Northern California). Here we are, broken down in Blue Lakes last Friday. Nothin' to do but take picshures while we waited for the tow truck.

Alas, car trouble

So yeah. We got twenty (20) miles outside of Ukiah, and my trusty (but secretly treacherous, apparently) Subaru blew a head gasket. Poor Minnow (that's the car). We're lucky it happened right out of town--family came and helped us. I mean, if you're going to break down, you could do a lot worse than having people come tow you home and then make you omlettes. My Subaru is in distress though--we're taking it to the shop on Monday, and hoping to be out of here by Wednesday or Thursday. Of course we are frustrated and disappointed, but we will be able to do a few things we didn't get to here in Ukiah, so that is a silver lining.

We are moving to New Orleans!

Some of you may remember me threatening to move to New Orleans after visiting there two years ago... well, that threat wasn't idle. After two years in the Mendocino woods, my sweetie and I are heading out to the glamorous, clamorous Crescent City. We're leaving on Thursday, Jan. 20th, and we're road-tripping a bit on the way. Stay tuned for some photos of our trip--we're going via I-10, so expect lots of desert vistas and (hopefully) weird roadside attractions.

Winter

Here is our cat, Franklin. He's pretty disgruntled that his nice dry creekbed has filled with cold wet water.

My house in the rain

This is Mariposa, where I live. It's been raining like crazy, so the creek is really rushing. This is my house. It's not very pretty, I'm afraid.

I have also been making clothes for Asian ball-jointed dolls (which are a kind of fancy collector doll made of polyurethane resin) and selling them on Etsy. This is my favorite one so far. It's hard to tell scale from this photo, but this doll is 22 inches high.

What I've been up to

Here are some photos of the craft booth my friend Sage and I did at the Ukiah Pumpkinfest last month. (That's Sage, above.) These are my handmade dollies! I've been doing pretty well selling them--I have sold seven so far.