I've been working on a baby blanket since January for Jill's third child Bodhi, who will be born April 5. I finished it in time for the baby shower that I was the slacker-host for. I'm really proud of it so I'm posting a rather extensive set of photos.

Crocheted with Lion Brand Yarn LB Collection Cotton Bamboo in Magnolia, Snapdragon and Chocolate Dahlia using my great-grandmother's size G hook. It took 25-30 hours. Please note, crocheting and reading law texts are incompatible activities. However, crochet and hot chocolate at Cafe Taza are highly compatible.

Early February.


Finished - detail




A's shoe box was too big.


One of the shower games was the most eco-friendly packaging. Since I was judge I couldn't win, but you know I totally did. The 100% compostable Sunchips bag is shiny on the inside. It was A's idea.


Squished it in a box I found at Uncle Dudley's so the Sunchips bag would fit around it.


All wrapped - I crocheted the rosette and string, too.


I didn't put a label or card on the box, and it was the first present Jill picked up to open, so she's asking who this is from.



"You made this??" In our six years of working together, I had never mentioned that I crochet. She was astounded.


She later said, "This is my dream blanket! I might have to hang it on the wall."


Some table decorations from the shower. Kelly and Jill had spent lots of time planning the shower and then Kelly's son Christopher (one of the triplets) ended up in the hospital with pneumonia for nearly two weeks so she couldn't even go. And since I'm a slacker and have no idea what to do for or at a baby shower, Jill ended up doing all the work. She's still a little grumpy at me, although the blanket helped win me some points.



All I really did for the shower was buy some bamboo plants in cute elephant pots at Wang's 99 Cent City on Sheridan. Honestly, who thinks it's a good idea to have a single, childfree late-thirties woman host a baby shower?

Nisha and I went for a little picture-taking walk at Big Pond, the former reservoir for the village of Morris Run. There was still ice on the pond. I used to ice skate there as a kid. An older man who lives in one of the two houses and one camp around the pond saw me taking pictures and came out to show me the photos he had recently gotten printed at Walmart. They included close ups of a yearling deer that comes right up to his back porch. I'm pretty sure his daughter used to baby sit me but I've forgotten their names. (gmap: )

The chopped off bushes are blueberry bushes - so yummy!


Nisha walked out on the ice, luckily she trotted right back up on the shore when I called her. It would have been really difficult to rescue her if she had fallen in.








Nisha was muddy up to her knees by the time we were done.


Part of the water treatment facilities.



(Yea for autostitch: www.autostitch.com - now for iphones!)

The creek below the reservoir - Morris Run.


This is a classic saltbox-style company house built for coal miners who owed their souls to the company store. Uncle Dudley lived here when I was a kid. My other aunt and my grandparents lived in saltbox houses just up the street. My family lived in the company office. When my brother was born, we needed another bedroom, so Dad took out the double brick wall (about 12" thick) between the big and little safes and made a bedroom for me. He put in a normal door, but there wasn't anywhere to put in a window because the outside wall was connected to the garage so I lived in a windowless safe.

I drove to Bloss today, met with a client, and I also talked to someone who's been a client in the past and would like to be again, about a cake or two for Jill's baby shower, which I stupidly scheduled for the same day as the St. Patrick's Day parade! Argh!

Then I went to the office and Jill & I strategized about several of our projects, and then went to A's house, since even tho we are no longer involved, my doggie still lives there and I wanted to pick her up. I hung out with his bratty little brother and showed him how to properly hook his laptop to his tv without frying anything. Then Nisha and I went to Uncle Dudley's. Uncle Dudley, her bf Bernie and I went to the American Legion Post 572, a fav drinking hangout, which happens to have been my great-great grandfather's home. My great-great grandfather, William B. Wilson, was the first U.S. Secretary of Labor, and one of the very few (only?) Democrats elected to the House of Representatives in what is currently PA-5, a completely red area save the blue-ish dot of State College. Several years ago I wrote a biography about him for our website (even wikipedia references it ) and that got him re-noticed by the Dep't of Labor and we all went to DC one day to celebrate his induction into the Labor Hall of Fame where we met Elaine Chao, GWBush's sec'y of labor, and Roy Blunt, ew-Missouri, and the Anheiser-Busch heir Adolphus Busch IV or something because his granddad was being inducted into the labor hall of fame, too.

But in addition to being a total overachieving immigrant with only two years of formal education, GGGdad William B. Wilson was a teetotaler. And I drink in his living room. Life is good.


(Most of the time I really appreciate the google-friendliness of estrip, but I know tomorrow when I get a google alert about this post, I'm going to regret it.)

(e:mike)! glitter glue $1 a bottle @ joann fabrics!

I've been volunteering with Westminster Economic Development Initiative since last summer helping low-income people start up small businesses on the West Side . It's really neat work that helps people become financially independent and create wealth-building assets, as well as stabilizes the neighborhood by occupying previously empty storefronts and creating economic activity where there wasn't any before.

In collaboration with MicroBiz Buffalo, Councilmember Rivera's office, Grant-Ferry Association, and other West Side groups, WEDI is working on a bazaar, a kind of retail incubator. We're providing one-on-one mentoring and workshops to help wanna-be entrepreneurs do it right from the start. This includes a creating business plan and cash-flow projection, getting a sales tax certificate of authority, health dept licenses, other permits & licenses that the biz might need, working on customs/import issues, etc. The location is still up in the air, but is starting to get settled. We plan on opening in June. We hope to have about 20 vendors at opening - we're currently working with about 33 vendors but when June comes, 20 ready vendors would be great. Vendors are eligible for Individual Development Accounts through MicroBiz Buffalo & the Belmont Shelter - they put in $500 from earned income and get $2000 back after six months and use it for start up costs for their new business. (About IDAs ).

Vendors have a wide variety of backgrounds - refugees & immigrants from Rwanda, Somalia, Uganda, Sudan, Burma, Arabic-speaking and Latin American countries; African Americans, Latinos and whites. They're interested in starting businesses with a wide range of products: food, electronics, imported crafts, locally produced crafts, books, gift items, other stuff.

This photo is of one bazaar vendor who will be selling baskets made in refugee camps in Darfur. How freakin' cool to help someone set up a business that not only helps her but also helps alleviate some of the most awful conditions in the world.



I'm posting this to ask if any of you would be interested in mentoring. Mentors don't have to actually know the business stuff in advance, they can learn business how-tos along with the vendor-to-be. Mentors are supportive and helpful and know how to ask questions/get answers - kind of like a link to the mainstream. I'm particularly asking (e:jason) & (e:joshua) to consider this - it's helping people become capitalists, right? ;-)

For more information, comment here or message me and I'll connect you & my colleague Bonnie Smith, economic development director at WEDI. Bonnie's the keeper of the mentors and has all the info you'd need to start as an effective mentor.

I gave a presentation on recordkeeping to the vendors & mentors last week that included the basics of sales tax, the point-of-sale process, banking process, and the concepts of a profit & loss statement and a balance sheet. I'm not going to directly mentor any of the vendors, but I'm available as a resource on many of the aspects of the business start up process.

To support the West Side Bazaar, WEDI is holding a fund raising event tonight at Westminster Presbyterian Church, 724 Delaware Ave., $15 per person. Doors open at 6:30, music by the Sugar & Jazz Orchestra starts at 7. Hors d'oeuvres, cash bar, silent auction, raffle. Some of the bazaar vendors will be set up to sell things.