Chris Konstantino

When I was 21, I was dating my husband and he took me to New York City for St. Patrick's Day.  On the evening of St. Patrick we went to a bar on Times Square, I think it was called Smith's.  We were going to have a drink and people-watch and possibly meet interesting Irish characters.  My husband spotted an old man, sitting alone, having a drink and he was sure the old man was Irish.  But he wasn't.  He was actually a Greek/Macedonian, he was from the same parts as my grandpa and was about the same age as my grandpa.  Chris and I became good friends, exchanged addresses and telephone numbers and spoke a couple of times during the year.  The next year before St. Patrick's day I sent Chris a letter telling him to meet us at the same bar on the night of St. Patrick.  And we met again. We had a drink or two that night.  We spoke once or twice on the phone during 2002.  After that we exchanged Christmas cards and I just found one as I was going through some shoe boxes of cards.  There is no date on it, and I can't quite remember when it was sent.  Maybe 2005 or so.  I can't remember the last time I heard from Chris, but it has been several years at least.
This morning I decided to call the number I used to have for him.

Me: Hi I am looking for Chris Konstantino.
Voice (in an East Asian, middle east accent): Who?  What's the name?
Me: Chris Konstantino.  He used to live there in unit number....hm....
Voice: Oh my Gosh!  Chris Konstantino!!!!  He's been gone, long time, maybe 10 years ago.
Me: 10 years, couldn't be.
Voice: Yes, he checked out, long time.  His health wasn't good, he couldn't breathe, he was on oxygen.  He had to go, you know.....
Me: Are you saying he just moved out, or he is gone as in he passed away?
Voice: No he moved, but I tell you he was sick so I don't know.  He may be in a nursing home, but that was long time ago.  He was sick.  You are a relative you need to find him.
Me: I am not related, no.  He was a friend.  He was where my grandpa was from, and he was about the same age. I didn't think he had family so I used to write him sometime, you know for Christmas and such.
Voice: oh yeah, yeah.  I don't mean to break your heart, but he may be gone.  His health, I tell you when he left......yeah it wasn't good.  If you find him let me know OK.
Me: I will, thank you. Bye.

So how do you find someone that you only have a name for and an address that is no longer current?  I am not sure of exact age, 70+ I think.  White Pages or 411.com didn't give me much.  I have a scribble in my address book of a friend he had in Colorado with a phone number.  I called the number but it's been disconnected. 

60/40

60/40 is a type of solder that I like a whole lot better than 50/50.  From a chemical standpoint these two differ in the proportion of tin/lead they each contain.  From my standpoint 60/40 flows better, sets in quicker and shinier.
50/50 is cheaper, so I started with that because I needed practice and didn't want to spend a whole lot of money.  I struggled with it a bit and kept thinking I am doing something wrong, until I met again with my friend Josie, who taught me how to solder in the first place.  I discovered that it's my solder and not me doing something wrong.
And here I am working on some stuff for a crafty party this Saturday.  The theme of the party is 'Wish you were here' so I used an old airplane paper ticket to embellish these charms.  They are ready to be soldered in the picture below.

Disappointed amateur mechanic

That was me today, a disappointed amateur mechanic.  My car has been sitting on my driveway for the last two months.  It was overheating at first.  When that problem disappeared on its own, one day I noticed bunch of wire looking stuff hanging from the bottom of my car near the front passenger tire.  I thought I picked up something during driving, but it didn't take long to discover that it was my serpentine belt.  My car died as I parked one night coming home from work. That was two months ago.  Since then my car hasn't moved, my battery dead, unable to recharge itself without the missing belt.

My dad usually comes to my rescue in situations like this one, but this time for various reasons it hasn't worked out that way.  After trying to get a schedule worked out with one of my neighbors who offered to help, today we got the belt on with the help of my other neighbor.  I had oil and grease under my nails when it was all done.  I felt good!!!  I left to go to work using my husband's car, while the battery was plugged in and charging on my car.  I was happy, I was looking forward to having my own car again. 
But all that was short lived.  My husband informed me that he tried to start the car while I was at work and it was smoking.

Coffee machine

Here is something that melts my heart and makes me look forward to a time when my son is old enough to build real things that are functional.  He had noticed that I drink coffee in the morning (just a cup a day) and he made me a coffee machine out of legos.  Sweet, no?!

Maggie's vehicles

She's been drawing again, my little artist daughter has been drawing cars.  They look more like campers than cars, but she calls them cars.

Maggie, the Dark Knight and two American citizens

The above things have this incommon:
1.  On the day that Maggie was born we went to the movies to see The Dark Knight.  That was 4 years ago.  She was born few hours after we left the movies.
2.  Maggie and I became citizens on the same day, 4 years ago.  Me in the morning by naturalization, her in the evening by being born in this land.
3.  We are going to see the Dark Knight Rising later this afternoon.

We had to add something a bit lighter than the Dark Knight in this mix.  Soooooo she chose to have Hello Kitty cupcakes for her birthday, with Angry Birds candles.
Happy Birthday my little bird!!!

Wizard of OZ, just for practice

I keep practicing soldering, and I keep having issues.  Too hot, solder's running and dripping, escaping from my iron like it was mercury and not tin and lead.  Or too cold, creating this 'pointy mountains' as I call them.  I am not sure who to blame: the rheostat, the iron, the solder or my inexperience.
Here are some new ones I worked on last night.  I found this cool Wizard of OZ paper at Archiver's, a store a mere mile from my brother's house in Omaha.


I stamped the backs, but couldn't quite fit the words in one line.

Dust storms

An afternoon in the back yard

I could have gone to a park, or the water park, or the neighborhood pool, but I always feel like all this going to places stuff can't compare to the time that can be spent in our own home, in our own back yard.  My husband is more the 'going to places guy'.  I could be just as happy hanging out in my house, my yard or as of lately the workshop we have in the back yard.
So today while I was cutting some glass (well yes for soldering off course) in the workshop, I filled up the kiddy pool, the water table and got some misters going for the kids to play.  This way they can be entertained, while I get some crafty work done.  I kept watching them through the workshop window, to make sure they are OK.  Not that I couldn't hear them, they are sooo loud.

And off course they wanted to tend to my garden, so we watered the plants too.  They are doing so well.  Check it out:

Parsley


Chocolate Mint


Watermelon -already crawling out of the garden box


 Basil - I never thought I'd be able to grow it, but it's doing so well I am putting it in everything.  Try swiss and feta with basil as a panini sandwich.  Yum.


Heirloom tomatoes, getting big and hopefully red soon.


Zuccini the big leafed plant, and the crawling leaves in the back is the cucumber.

Scrap, stitch and solder

Note to self: 'do not take an online course that involves more than reading and writing.  And whatever you do, don't  take a computer course online.'

So my Photoshop class that I am taking is not going too well for me.  I am getting OK grades on the assignments etc. but this is really not what I am made off.  Give me something tangible, a sewing machine, fabric, paper, solder, glass and other scrap and stuff that you can touch and feel.  All this talk about clicking buttons here and there and everywhere.  And did I click the right buttons?????  I don't even know if I did it right or not until I get my assignment graded. I am beginning to feel the frustration my dad has when he is trying to fill an online job application. 

On the bright side, soldering is fun even though I probably get moments where I am equally frustrated with it as I am with Photoshop.  But somehow it's keeping my interest more than the computer stuff.  And here is a giveaway, you get to receive a gift as a part of my learning to solder process.
I've been using a deck of cards to practice making some charms.  These are not the best I warn you, but you are welcome to have a charm.
I'd like for you to leave me a comment, say anything you want.  I would also highly appreciate if you follow my blog.  And then off course give me your address so I can mail you a charm.  For your privacy please email me your address to my personal email: becha4779@hotmail.com

Enjoy, here are some samples.

Helen Miller

It was over two years ago, in the spring of 2010 when we first noticed that something was not right with Helen Miller - my mother-in-law.  My mom noticed it first, she noticed Helen's speech was a bit 'slurred'.  At first we thought maybe she's had a drink.  It wasn't too noticeable really at first.  But over the course of the next year it got worse.
We asked her about it, she tried to hide it and find a 'reasonable' explanation for it, such as it was her teeth causing the slurred speech.  We thought that perhaps she's had mini-strokes and encouraged her to go to the doctor.  But she didn't.  Then her speech got worse.  She complained of not being able to swallow and found another 'reasonable' explanation: her allergies were really bad that were causing all this build up in her throat and giving her difficulties with her swallowing.
She also seemed physically weaker, for example she couldn't open the car door, or the front door, and she blamed the carpal tunnel surgery she had years ago.  Last fall when I visited (she lives in Omaha, we live in Phoenix) we went to the pumpkin patch, just like we do every fall when I visit with the kids.  This time she fell flat down, scraped her face, her nose.  As I helped her up and cleaned her I 'blamed' the heels she wore and the uneven dirt/mud/gravel that is not suited well for heels.
But when I went to visit this last Spring (2012) and saw her body shrink some 30lbs at least, her speech so distorted no-one could understand what she was saying, I could not ignore it anymore, nor I could stand her excuses and self-diagnosis from her teeth are falling to having bad allergies.  It was then that I heard that she's been surviving on Boost shakes and yogurt for the last several months.  So we went to a clinic despite her objections.  Her long time boyfriend Joe and I tried to get her to cooperate with the nurse.  They needed to do some testing to pin-point the reasons for her condition.  They recommended an MRI and some other tests, but Helen never followed up.  That was in April 2012.  In May, Joe called an ambulance, and after she fought with the paramedics for some time, she finally went with them to the ER, but checked herself out the same evening.  At that time an MRI didn't show any signs of a stroke, which is what we all thought she had.  Her heart seemed in good health as well.  The doctor at the ER wanted her to stay and do some more test, but she won't have it.
So on July 6, after she hasn't been able to eat or get out of bed very much, Joe called an ambulance again.  She got admitted at Lakeside Hospital in Omaha, NE, she was too weak to fight and they kept her overnight.  The very next morning, she had a respiratory failure and cardiac arrest.  They revived her.  By the time we got there on July 7th she was surrounded by machines and tubes probing in and out of her mouth.  Her eyes opened, unfocused, she could not respond with a blink or a squeeze or a mumble or anything.  Her body laying there, limp, swollen, weak.  She wasn't there.  This was the first and only time the doctors could do some test on her, and her prognosis was not favorable.  They suspected and later confirmed she had ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), also known as Lou Gehrig disease.
Years ago when I was in college I read a book called 'Tuesdays with Morrie' (by Mitch Albom) and that was the first time I heard of Lou Gehrig disease.  And a month or so ago I was reading a book 'Body of Work'  (by Christine Montross) where the author, a medical student mentioned a patient that she met during her medical schooling who was dying of the disease as well.  I recall her saying this of her patient:
'He is the embodiment of what I never, ever want to experience.  What I never want a loved one to know.  Give me cancer, if you must.  Give me Alzheimer's.  Give me emphysema, congestive heart failure, diabetes.  It is this disease that I fear each time my eyelids twitches, each time I feel numbness in an unexpected  place.  Ist it...?  Could it possibly be..? Mr. L, please do not ever let me be you.'
So when I learned that this is what Helen has, and she's had it for a long time, undiagnosed, it made me sick to my stomach.  The disease affects the cells in the brain and spinal cord that control voluntary muscle movements.  Over time the body slowly gets paralyzed, and when it reaches the muscles in the chest area, it's impossible to breath on one's own.
The disease is terminal, there is no cure.  Did she know this?  Did she suspect it?  Did she not want to know in fear of waking up every single day with the question if this would be her last?  Would knowing make her remaining days frightening and she'd rather not bother?  If I knew, if we knew, how would the last couple, few years of her life been different?  Better?  Worse?  I cannot tell.
Helen never regained consciousness after they revived her.  And because she couldn't respond with a blink or a squeeze, it's hard to tell if and how much brain damage she suffered when her breathing and heart stopped and they brought her back.  We hoped she could hear, so when her eyes were open, signaling that she may be awake, I'd play music for her.  I spent one night with her and after I couldn't sleep myself I was reading her a book 'The Last of the Tribe' by Monte Reel.  We took turns visiting her: Joe, her daughter, her son-my husband, her brothers, me and the kids.
Helen did not leave a will, so on Wednesday July 11 we met with palliative care doctor and we made a decision to take Helen off life support.  She died on Friday, July 13.  She was 63.
I wasn't her daughter, but she treated me as one and I cared for her as if she were my mom.  I will miss her.

Soldering

I took a soldering workshop this past weekend at Frenzy Stamper in Scottsdale.  Josie,  the very same Josie that taught me shrinky dinks last year at Art Intersection in Gilbert, taught the workshop.  And once again I learned a technique that I love and can't wait to experiment with it.

(Josie)

These are the samples I made during the workshop.

Some soldering equipment will be arriving at my house in a few days and I will be ready to make gifts for you my friends.  

Maggie, Batman and Crochet

I learned the basics of crochet from my mom when I was very young.  I watched my mom making countless pretty doilies, the good eastern european mom she was, making dowry for her daughter (me).  But I never really applied, or were interested in applying these handy skills I inherited from her, until several years ago when I was in my late twenties.  The first thing I made that was more complex than just a long chain, was a baby blanket I made for my uncle's Pavel daughter Athena.  It was constructed of granny squares.  Then a year later I was pregnant myself, so I made my son a blanket, booties, and a teddy bear.

He looks pathetic, even though I did follow a pattern and he was supposed to look a lot neater than he does.
Then my husband requested that I make some superheroes, so I made Batman, The Flash, and The Demon.

I started making scarfs and bags and gave them to friends as gifts.  I learned new techniques from a book called 'The Happy Hooker'.  I made jewelry with fine crochet thread.



I accumulated so much yarn and thread that I still have three or four boxes stashed up in the closet.  At that time there weren't many crochet magazines out there.  My mom gave me her old 'Magic Crochet' magazines that were no longer published, my mother-in-law got several copies of a Spanish crochet magazine called 'Muestras y Ganchillos' which luckily had the patterns in a diagram form because I don't speak Spanish.  The only cool crochet magazine was 'Crochet Today' and 'Interweave Crochet' and I used to subscribe to both.  So a week ago when I was at Joann's Crafts I noticed a whole bunch of new crochet magazines.  Imagine this: VogueKnitting - Crochet.  Vogue has a crochet magazine?????  Then there was: 'Inside Crochet', 'Crochet!', 'Irresistable gifts to crochet'.
I am glad to see that interest in crochet has grown, and maybe people won't mistake us 'hookers' for knitters.  We don't knit, we hook, ok?

This Heat

It's been unbearably hot, but I am afraid it has not reached the hottest yet.  And the thought of this being just the beginning of summer and the following three to four months it will be hot every day...ah...I try to find comfort in the fact that I do not have to shovel snow.  But snow, I miss.  Not the shoveling part, but the part where you watch it fall and hope for a snow day to stay home and cozy up.
I was used to the heat in AZ, it's only been the last couple of years that's been bugging me.  The drastic change in temperature between inside (depend on the household or business 76-79F) and the outside 110+F.  That's almost 40F difference.  It gives me a headache.

We go out at dusk, because it's a few degrees cooler.  We stumbled upon a sunflower field right in the heart of downtown Phoenix.
Or at the Environmental Education Center in Chandler.

Or on Saturday morning, Maggie and I hiding in the shade while watching Patrick's soccer practice.

Or hiding inside making more handbags.  After selling my first one, I felt encouraged to make more.

I don't have any vacation coming up.  For now the one thing I have to look forward to is a soldiering class I signed up for at the end of June.  More heat, ha ha.  I will try to stay cool and think cool thoughts.

Challenging myself

I think most of my readers are people that know me, individuals I can call friends or family.  So I don't need to explain that my husband is a photographer.  He went to school for it and has a degree.  He's uses all types of cameras, from high tech digital, to old fashion large format ones.
I on the other hand, relaying on his technical skills have left myself in the woods.  Lost!  I am embarassed to say that I do not know how to move digital photos from a camera onto a computer.  If it wasn't for my 'smart' phone, everyone will know that my smarts are not in the tech world .  At least not with cameras and fancy programs (by the way, all the photos on my blog are from my smart phone, just so you know.  I use the blogger app to load them, then I open the unfinished post on the computer to add text.  Smart eh?).
But I have to learn.  So I've signed up for an online Photoshop course through a local college.  I hope that the fear of failure helps me get through it.
The class starts tomorrow.  I was reading the syllabus tonight and it said that on average I will need to spend 9 hours per week on course work and assignments.  9 hours!!!!!!!!!!  Where will I find 9 hours?????

Making handbags

I had no idea how much time it goes into making a real handbag, a purse, with lining and pockets and all that.  I admit I have a new developed appreciation for handbags.  Depending on the complexity of it, one must cut at least 8-10 identical pieces for the front, back, and lining together.  All the ironing, basting, it's all time consuming.  I should have known this, because I had the similar realization when I took my sewing class two years ago and learned about all the labor that goes into making a shirt with collar and buttons and cuffs.  And then there is time spent on planning, the fabrics, the color, the design, the embellishing.


I cut enough for 4 bags, but I only constructed two over my days off.






And I learned that cutting and managing a 5 yard piece of fabric can be challenging if you have to work in a limited space with no real cutting table and having to use the floor.  But here you have them, the two bags I made and now contemplating on making more.

It's never too late to find out who you want to be

My friend Lisa from The Pink Zebra Boutique said she was looking to sell bags at her boutique.  She asked: 'are you a good seamstress?'.  And I thought, why didn't I get a degree in something practical like that.  I thought of the sewing class I took 2 years ago and the shirt that I made with two left sleeves.  I wanted to say I am a good seamstress, so I said: 'let me work on it'. 
I came home and looked at a couple of patterns I had bought at Joann's Fabric at about the same time I took the sewing class.  Lisa's question was the challenge I needed to take a closer look at these patterns.
It required a great deal of concentration to work on this.  I didn't have too many fabric choices and materials and I couldn't really afford any at the moment.  I had to work with what I had on hand.  I was feeling stressed, the kids weren't helping with their constant demands for food, or drink, or to look at this or that, or to spell words for them.  This was definitely one time I wished sooo much that I had a family or friend who could help me and watch the kids for a few hours.  It was one of those 'mom' days, where mom really needed a break from kids, but it wasn't going to happen.  It was a 'bad' day for mom, because I wasn't getting done the things that I wanted to do.
I stayed up late on Saturday night, working on this.  My husband encouraged me to stay up, even though after getting the kids in bed and reading them a story I was ready to go to sleep myself.  I made a pot of coffee that I never drank.  My husband was going to stay up too, but I found him asleep on the couch.  I kept making mistakes, ripping the pieces apart, and putting them back together, until I had to admit that I was too tired to even think logically to avoid mistakes.  So I went to bed at 1am.

This morning after breakfast my husband finally took the kids off my hands for a couple of hours. They went to Bookmans.  It was exactly what I needed to finish my bag, just a few hours of peace and quiet.

Perfume

Hobby Lobby got some new stamps.  There was a set of about 10 cling stamps of old perfume bottles.  I loved them, so I used my 40% off coupon and got them for $6. 

I couldn't wait to try them.  I know that I will find more uses for them down the road, but right now I made these cute tags.  I think you are supposed to stamp the name labels on to the bottles, but I didn't.  Instead I cut them out and tied them with a crochet thread around the bottles.