Trying

I am trying to blog more often. I seem to try really hard but get nothing done. I have the attention span of a goldfish. I don't know if it is the meds I take of the things wrong with me that I take the meds for. Either way I get distracted very easily and forget to even go back to what I was doing. I haven't been doing anything worth writing about anyway. Sue Ann has a terrible cold and cough and now she has shared it with me. I can't breath laying down in bed so I am sleeping in my recliner. There has been no drawing, painting or any other artistic endeavor for the past few days.

I am reading a lot because that is one of the few things I am up to. I have been reading several books at the same time. When I am in a fog I have been reading 'The Chase' by Clive Cussler and when I am feeling sharp I have been reading 'The Jesus Papers' by Michael Baigent. I can't say that I agree with all he says but there is a lot of fascinating history in the book. So far other than a few minor dates being wrong all he has done is postulate about errors in the Bible. I am still waiting to see what the big deal he talks about in the foreword is. I need to get hooked up with the places my sister is with so I can get free books to read.

Nearly Forgotten

I really have nearly forgotten my Blog. It has been forever since I felt like sharing. It has been too personal and too painful. I still have not gotten to see a decent psychiatrist. There is one my pain specialist has recommended but I have to go in and do a 60 to 90 minute intake session before I can even get an appointment. Then , if I qualify, it will be at least 2 months before I can see the doctor. I have to find out how much my disability will pay also. If it leaves much I will have to try to find another solution. I am going to try to get back to writing this again but right now bed would be the best thing.

Larry

More of the same.

I found a web site describing the difference between psychologists and phychiatrists. It says that phychiatrists earn more money for 3 or 4 15 minute medication management sessions than he does for a single session of actual therapy. I think I have gotten a phychiatrist who is more interested in the money than in his patients. I doubt that I have ever spent even 10 minutes with him let alone 15. It certainly does not give you any great feeling of confidence in a doctor you never get to know. Worse he speak with an accent and snacks while he talks to me. I don't know what my choices are but I am going to do some searching. My phychatrist failed to call my pharmacy this last moth to make a needed change to my prescription. He still has not done it and I am not scheduled to see him until August. How can a doctor properly manage medicine with appointments 3 or 4 months apart and no way to get ahold of him. I already feel like a lab rat with out a doctor who has such an attitude. I don't think there is much risk in offending him because I do not think he would read my blog and I am not using his name Even though it wouldn't be hard for anyone to figure it out once they knew where I see my councilor. This isn't even what I was going to write about tonight but it is what came out. Maybe I will feel better after I voice my opinions, but I won't feel better about some things until they get changed. There are other things that would only cause a stink if I said what I thought about them.

I didn't write last time about geting a kitten as an early Father's Day present. I named her Annie and she is either into everuthing of sleeping. There isn't much in between. I have been enjoying herto the dismay of my black lab who doesn't like to share..

Finally a New Post

First I want to apologize to everyone who actually reads this and missed it. A good share of the reason I have been gone is the doctors experimenting with my meds again. The 1st one didn't work at all and the 2nd left me like a zombie until the does was cut way back and I am not sure it shouldn't be cut back even more. They have collectively decided that I am bi-polar. I now understand why bi-polar people do not want to take their meds. The worst you are when you are riding the roller coaster of up and down is better than being a zombie with no feeling about anything. IT just makes you easier to live with, I am very close to quitting this one even with the very small does I am taking. I don't get depressed much anymore, but I also have no creativity left in me. It scares me that it might not come back when I quit. It hasn't gotten much better as I have cut back. I am scared that if I quit altogether I will get the deep depression, but none of the creativity again. The doctors are just experimenting on us. They even say so. They tell you that the stuff they give you helps some people. They are pretty damned vague about what it does to the others.. I have to talk to my dear sweet wife about it though. She had to live with me when I ride the roller coaster up and down. This is not easy to write about your self being bi-polar. It still has a stigma attached to it in our society and the doctors are still using us for lab rats with the meds. Now you know why I haven't been posting and why there has been no art. There has not been a bit of creativity left to get me drawing. I hope my wife can live with me if I quit talking the meds because I don't really have a life right now. The next time someone who is bi-polar says they can't not take their meds try to be more understanding. The meds may be robbing them of who they really are.

Your prayers, best wishes or what every you believe in would be appreciated so I can get my creativity back without having to spend half my time so depressed all I want to do is cry.

Larry

Photo link

I made the link to the hawk photos live now so they are easier to get to. The link is: http://lhartfield.pho.to/albums/golden_eagles/index.htm. I have yet to rename the albumn form eagle to hawk.

My sister Kathi has convinced me that my eagles are red tailed hawks. Still no small bird with a wing span of over 4 feet. I should have done more research, but I guess I wanted the birds to be golden eagles. I still plan to keep watch over them during the summer. Unlike eagles they may have as many as 5 chicks. Red tailed Hawks do not have to have any red on them at all depending on which sub-species they are.

Not so Golden Eagle Nest

Sue Ann wanted to go check the Golden Eagle nest tonight before it got too dark so off we went. We got there just in time to see the changing of the guard. One landed with a full crop and the other took off to hunt. I actually got one picture of both birds at once. The last time we took photos both were flying at once so there were no eggs in the nest. That was March 23 so we have a close idea when the eggs will hatch and then when they will take flight. I posted the full size images along with the normal album images this time so you can get a better look. Feel free to download them and then zoom in so you can see even more. These were taken with a 24x zoom and a 2x digital zoom for a total of 48x. I can't get any closer and that is all the camera I have. I don't think there is even a tree I could climb to get more height. There are about three photos of an old barn that I couldn't resist taking as well. You can see the birds at http://lhartfield.pho.to/albums/golden_eagles/index.htm Hopefully we will get many more photos over the summer. I will have to change the name or the link as I have found out they are red tailed hawks and not golden eagles. They are still quite large birds. I apologize for misleading anyone if I did so.

What I have in common with goldfish

Got your attention didn't I! The answer is my memory. I am all the time making people feel that I slighted them. Not because I don't care, but because I don't remember. I forget to call my mom most of the time. I don't mean to offend anyone if I forget about a birthday or something. I would gladly change posistions with nearly any of them if my memory would work right no matter what else they may have wrong. Please, if I forget you don't get mad at me. Stop by and see me once in awhile or at least call me. I forget so much I can not afford to get upset that I forgot your birthday or aniversary or what ever. Put your self in my place for a few minutes

Golden Eagle & New Quilt

Today we took a new quilt we had made for my sister Kathi for her birthday. On the way there we saw a pair of Golden Eagles out flying on on the way home we found the nest. I couldn't get a picture of both eagles at once because they never got close enough. Here are pictures of the quilt and of one of the eagles. The quilt is covered with pictures of cats because my sister is a cat lover. I didn't post a photo of the next on purpose because some people might know where it is and bother them just by being around too often.

The Golden Eagle is the largest eagle in North America weighing up to 20 lbs and have wing spans up to 7 feet wide. This is the 2nd pair we have seen already this spring.

I stopped and looked around at a local art gallery the other day and while I was there I mentioned that I draw and had a website. When they looked at the website I realized that it had been quite some time since I updated and some of my better drawings were not on the website at all. Because of that I went home and updated my website and all of the links except photographs are live now. I still haven't chosen which photographs I want to put on Internet.

The name of the art gallery is madhausgallery and the link to their website is http://www.madhausgallery.com. If you enjoy art of any kind it would be worth your time to take a look at their website. I immediately felt like I'd made two new friends when I began talking with Robin and John. They both have full-time day jobs, teach art at night and run a gallery. If you live in Winterset or close by you should stop in on a weekend when they're open and get to know them and look at some of their work. Their gallery is in the old Madisonian building.

I finished the drawing that I showed on my last post and it is one of those that is now on my website along with the barns that I drew for the quilt Sue Ann is working on. The quilt is coming along quite nicely by the way. She has a design firm in her mind and it is just cutting and sewing. I shouldn't say "just" because it's quite a chore in itself trying to keep everything square. She does a really good job of it and I'm sure it's much better than what I would do. I'm looking forward to her finishing another quilt so I can tie it and sew the binding. I find sewing even more relaxing than drawing. Probably because sewing is less mental effort.

I haven't said much if anything about the economy on my blog but I can't keep my mouth shut any longer. Time after time you see people refuse a pay cut or even refuse to bypass a future raise even when they know that it may cost someone their job because there's not going to be enough money to pay everyone's salary if they do get their raise. To me that's like playing Russian roulette. Everyone has to be betting that it's not going to be them who loses their job. You see it happening all over. Local unions are doing it as well as car manufacturers unions. If any of the American car manufacturers disappear it will be simply because of the greed of the unions. If any local jobs disappear it will also be because of the greed of the unions. People don't seem to really believe that we are in a recession. I don't know if they've stuck their head in the sand and refuse to see what's going on around them or if they're incapable of understanding what is going on.

LARRY

Here 's quilt I was talking about creating in the last post.I'd been working on this for nearly a month and I couldn't post any of the work that I was doing because I didn't know who might read my blog and I didn't want the persons who I was creating it for to find out. It isn't very large but it is the first quilt that I have done myself. I have to give my wife credit for making and selling them for side of the binding on. I did everything else by hand.

The second image is a scan of the current drawing I'm working on. When I finish working on it I will post both the drawing and the photograph. The drawing is graphite on can send 120 pound watercolor paper. I draw on the back side of the paper to get a smoother surface.

worn out

Do you ever notice how emotional stress wears you out worse than physical work?one of my best friends spent most of last week in the hospital with pneumonia and since she is in her 80s there was some doubt about her going home even in her own mind. It's very stressful when you think that you may lose what has become a very good friend. Having chronic fatigue syndrome I do not deal with stress very well at all. One doctor told me that having chronic fatigue syndrome was the same as being allergic to stress. Everyone knows that allergies are bad news.

I finally finished a sewing project that I've been working on for the past three weeks or so.I'm going to take photographs of it tonight and hopefully can deliver it tomorrow. Like anything that you create for another person you get very anxious to see their face. I'm not done working on quilts by any means because my wife has the quilt with my drawings in it. A quilt for a family member. The quilt she's working on just for herself. And last but not least the quilt that I bought blocks for when we went to the quilt shop last time. I don't know how many of my readers are interested in sewing techniques and materials but I've been learning quite a bit. For one thing I've been learning that the Coats and Clark thread that I've been using since I was a little kid is pretty much garbage any more the thread tends to unravel one for a if I try to sew with a single strand.

I've also been finding out how expensive it is to make a quilt. I thought $15 or $20 for material, some thread and your time and you'd be ready to go. What a laugh! Double that might get material for one side of the quilt if you find a good sale. A spool of good thread cost three or four dollars minimum. And being a picky person it has been quite an experience trying to find good needles also. The only thing I didn't have to learn new since I started helping my wife with quilts was how to make a good stitch. I can make a stitch that is even as a sewing machine stich.

That is enough rambling for on day. Especially when no one probably cares.

Larry

MY OLDEST SISTER

I placed a new link on my blog to my sister Kathi's blog. Kathy is the oldest of my three sisters but two years younger than I am. She has been writing posts about everyone in the family. She even wrote a very nice one about me although I remember being fairly ornery toward her when we were little. Like mine her blog has a little bit of everything in it but hers is a kinder gentler blog and mine is.

Family Hobbies & Government

Sue Ann and I have found a lot of enjoyment and hobbies that we do together. In the wintertime those hobbies are restricted mainly to indoor sports. Not actually sports but it is sewing, my art, and little projects around the house. As old as this house is we will never run out of projects. Sue Ann has just finished one small quilt which she plans on using for herself. She's working on the quilt using my drawings. I'm doing one for a friend and Sue Ann is doing one for a family member, but I can't post photographs of either one of those because that would be letting the cat out of the bag. Yesterday we went Creston because Sue Ann heard there was a very good quilt store there and we found out that she had heard right. We didn't do too bad because it only cost us $60 to get out. I hate to admit it but over half of that $60 was mine. I bought some needles still trying to find the best needles for the embroidering and a package of precut quilt blocks large enough to make a full-size quilt. I'm going to post three pictures with this entry. One will give a rough idea of how the quilt will look with my drawings and the other is a rough idea of what the blocks look like that I purchased. Third is a small brown quilt that Sue Ann made for herself. We worked together on each one of these quilts to different extents.

Best of all sue Ann says that she does not need any more drawings for the quilt using my drawings. That means I can draw what I wish now instead of more buildings. Considering how much I like to draw buildings that may be what I draw anyway. I've been concentrating more on the quilt that I'm working on that I have been all my drawing the last few days because I need to get it done. I'm anxious to see someone's face when they get it and I'm anxious to be able to post photographs of it here.

I just received a letter from my state representative letting me know what the state government has accomplished so far this year which is basically nothing. It appears to me that the two-party system in this country is broken. They seem to be more concerned with preventing the other party from getting credit for anything than they do with actually accomplishing something that would help the general public. Our federal government is just as bad and I believe the city government in Winterset is worse. The people aware set deserve what they get though because they keep reelecting the same people over and over and over again. If someone new does run they do not get elected. What really disturbs me about this city government Winterset is how they raise taxes and come up with new taxes without the citizenship ever having a chance to vote. If the people who live in Winterset vote to re-elect any of the current members of the city Council they're showing either a complete lack of understanding of what is happening to them or possibly just plain stupidity. I find it really hard to believe that they wanted to continue their streetscape project in the middle of a depression. Of course that's just one example of the things that have been happening and a complete lack of fiscal responsibility shown by the city Council, the mayor and city administrator. Of course this is just my opinion but I've not heard differing opinions from anyone I've spoken to. I would really encourage people to comment on my thoughts and leave their own thoughts about Winterset city government. You did not have to identify yourself supposed to comment if you're concerned about disclosing your identity.

Larry

where did all the energy go?

We have had our granddaughter Ashley for the last three or four days and I think both my wife and I are totally exhausted. I know one thing for absolutely certain is that I don't get anything done while my granddaughter is here. Either I'm spending time with her or I'm sound asleep trying to recover.

Chronic fatigue is been acting up again with or without Ashley here. My wife's car put worrying. It had been acting up for some time. When it did not want to start I could thump the floor shifter forward in the car would start. Naturally when it did not want to start I thought there was something wrong in the shifter mechanism. That meant pulling out the console only to find out there was no switch of any kind attached to the gearshift. Just a cable running up to the steering column. My wife kept telling me check the fuses but no the fuses didn't make any sense. I took the column apart and found that the cable ran to the ignition switch so I replaced the ignition switch. Of course it still wouldn't start. Left with nothing else to do I check the relays like Sue Ann wanted me to do in the beginning and of course it started right off. I still had put everything back together though. I think without the chronic fatigue and the fog comes with it I probably would have had it fixed in 15 minutes but instead we were with one car for three days. I think after all these years are no better and just listen to Sue Ann to begin with.

Double Feature

I finished one of my quilt block drawings and I got a pretty neat sunrise photo both this morning so I decided I would do a double feature. I guess I shouldn't say that I'm entirely finished with the drawing because I'm not. It is close enough to show though. We had seven or 8 inches of snow last night and it was nice enough to stop just in time for me to run this know more before got totally dark. Then I had to take Sue Ann to work this morning so I was up in time to see a sunrise for a change. If her car hadn't broke down I still wouldn't have seen the sunrise. The ignition switch went bad and the new one will not come in until Monday afternoon. It would be putting it mildly to say that we don't share one vehicle very well. Monday afternoon better come quick. Enjoy the sunrise and the quilt block.

Larry

Once upon a time I dreamt of posting on this blog daily. Then I thought at least I can post the weekly with no problem now it appears that I may not even be able to post monthly. My biggest problem is a limited amount of energy which I have been expending on other things. One of them everyone knows about and that is the quilt that my wife is making. She has changed her mind three or four times about how it's going to be laid out in the present all I can tell you is that each drawing is going to have a picture frame around it. What this frame looks like I have no idea. I haven't had time to see it since she told me that she changed it again. Here are a few of the latest drawings I have done for the quilt. A word of caution. The images are quite large so if you have dial up it might take a long time to down load.

a new project

My wife came to me last week with an idea for a quilt.she wants to print drawings that I've made the old buildings on white cloth and make a quilt which is black and white squares. I'm pretty picky about which ones of my drawings I want everyone looking at so that means I'm going to have to draw five or six more buildings in order for her to be able to finish the quilt. the photo posted hereis of some of my photographs laying on the floor with squares of black cloth. For some reason blogger turned the photograph 90° and I can't correct it. Anyway it will give you a rough idea what my wife intends to do.