Today was rough. My physical therapist called me "lumpy" today, and proceeded to work out all of the most painful knots. I did get one major thing accomplished today: I SWITCHED BANKS! I have been a TCF girl since college, but they have a funny way of taking our extra payments and putting them towards paying FUTURE interest rather than paying toward the principal. In this era of automatic pay and online banking, it is rather rough to change banks at all. Now that hubby will be changing jobs, we gave the new employer a new bank account to do their auto deposits......and we will phase out TCF little by little over the next month and then sever all ties. To commemorate this occasion, I made paper beads and little paper cut-outs from my old business account checks. It is less than glamorous, but I will find private justice in making a new bank deposit while wearing a lovely set of stretchy bracelets made from ex-TCF checks. I suspect that when I ever actually pay off my mortgage, I will make paper beads out of it instead of shredding it! I can just have a set of anti-debt jewelery....very fashionable in this day and age!
My real re-use of material today came from old gift cards to Caribou and Starbucks. YES, even though I can make a really tasty cup of coffee with milk and chai flavor at home, it is still my vice to overpay and have them do it on occasion. As a former teacher, my favorite teacher gift were these coffee cards. They are small, consumable, and they make my day whenever I use them. Then when the balance is zero, and they ask me if I would like them to toss it for me, I shout "NO" and then insist on having it back. I then pocket them or stick them somewhere without marking whether or not they have money left on them. This is not smart. I then have a pile of these cards, and when I actually want to use one to make a tool or something, I hesitate since I am never really sure whether I am cutting up a cup of yummy coffee. So today I got coffee at Caribou to celebrate the start of my anti-TCF movement and to console me from the mercy game I lost at PT AND to further console me for living in the frozen-sub-zero-freeze-moisture-in-your-nose-while-it-is-STILL-breathing state of Minnesota. I then decided while there to check all the gift cards in my purse and find out which ones were empty. I then decided to write TOOL on them, so I could tell them apart. I did the same swinging by Starbucks on the way home (not to get coffee, but to confirm that the TWO cards I had on me were both empty). I was pumped to find that I still had one card with money on it which I used to get my coffee today, and I had THREE cards that were soon to be cut into pottery ribs that I will try out the second I decide to hop on the wheel again. The "stem" tool is to make little stems for ice cream cups that I like. It has two sides: one for a more rounded detail and the other for the same general idea, but with more angular details. I used a heavy duty hole punch to make a texture rib to drag along slabs or to detail thrown pots. The last rib is one that I haven't tried before and I hope will work. I cut various sections to achieve two different detailed rim designs on thrown pots. I will take pics when I use them. I should find some other uses for these cards....I know I have more of them. Little did my former students know how much I love the gift cards....first and foremost, the thought is the best, then the actually product COFFEE, then the warm pick-me up that lasts all day long, then the pottery tool that I can use in my creative process....maybe even to make a coffee cup with special details that I give to them when they graduate to take to college. I miss my students a lot even though it is right for me to be here doing this right now. I don't stay still well, and teaching was very intense temptation to do things for kids even if the body couldn't keep up. So I exchange my conducting baton and my teaching hat for a 365 project and a blog.....I still love my coffee though, so thanks, bandies!
Today was rough. My physical therapist called me "lumpy" today, and proceeded to work out all of the most painful knots. I did get one major thing accomplished today: I SWITCHED BANKS! I have been a TCF girl since college, but they have a funny way of taking our extra payments and putting them towards paying FUTURE interest rather than paying toward the principal. In this era of automatic pay and online banking, it is rather rough to change banks at all. Now that hubby will be changing jobs, we gave the new employer a new bank account to do their auto deposits......and we will phase out TCF little by little over the next month and then sever all ties. To commemorate this occasion, I made paper beads and little paper cut-outs from my old business account checks. It is less than glamorous, but I will find private justice in making a new bank deposit while wearing a lovely set of stretchy bracelets made from ex-TCF checks. I suspect that when I ever actually pay off my mortgage, I will make paper beads out of it instead of shredding it! I can just have a set of anti-debt jewelery....very fashionable in this day and age!
Linda!
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