Echoes in a Hollow Space

Day 64, 65, 66 of 365

Tue, 22 Mar 2022 22:49:36 GMT

Day 64

Day 65

Day 66

Sometimes the materials at hand are just boring.

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Day 61, 62, 63 of 365

Thu, 17 Mar 2022 22:47:51 GMT

Day 61

Day 62

This calendar was still in the plastic wrap it came in.

Day 63

First the Lindt, now the Ghirardelli.

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Day 58, 59, 60 of 365

Thu, 10 Mar 2022 23:16:26 GMT

Day 58

Day 59

Day 60

2 months down, 10 more to go.

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Day 55, 56, 57 of 365

Wed, 09 Mar 2022 23:49:36 GMT

Day 55

Day 56

I would like to thank my dear friend, L., who sent me some of her recyclables so I could make boxes from them. Savory, indeed.

Day 57

In honor of the premiere of Outlander Season 6 (March 6).

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Day 52, 53, 54 of 365

Fri, 04 Mar 2022 01:05:53 GMT

Day 52

See, it's not all Poptarts and mini muffins.

Day 53

Day 54

Bunny & Hare.

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Day 49, 50, 51 of 365

Tue, 01 Mar 2022 00:23:08 GMT

As I said before, I don't know how often I'll post these but here's the latest three.

Day 49

Day 50

Day 51

Freehanding with a Sharpie: not recommended

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Boxes update

Fri, 25 Feb 2022 00:34:56 GMT

I have been folding boxes every day—I'm up to Box 47 as of today—but I got so far behind in blogging them that catching up grew rather daunting. If you're interested in the ones I've been doing, you can visit my Instagram page:

https://www.instagram.com/peajaythompson/

I may start blogging them again, but I make no guarantees.

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Day 24, 25, 26 of 365

Mon, 07 Feb 2022 22:03:33 GMT

I'm still running behind on "blogging" these. I'm up to day 30 in real time, but I got sick (nothing serious) the latter part of the week and didn't have the energy for much else than folding them and posting them on Twitter snd Instagram. I'll catch up eventually.

Day 24

Day 25

Day 26

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Day 21, 22, 23 of 365

Thu, 03 Feb 2022 00:55:24 GMT

I'm running a little behind due to computer kerfluffles. I spent most of Sunday and a call to the Helpdesk trying to download OS 12.1 Monterey and get it to finish configuring. That should not have happened. It might have been because I didn't bother with OS 11 and there was a lot to plow through. It kept getting stuck at the same point. I'd turn it off and on and it would start running again and get stuck at the same point. "Less than one minute left" turned into an hour, etc. The helpful Helpdesk guy got me unstuck and back to square one and told me to let it run for at least an hour and go have dinner and that's what I did. But my desktop didn't come back up until around 9 p.m. I was very relieved to see it. By that time, however, I was so fried I didn't want to start trying to set up my new HP wireless printer (which prompted the download in the first place). The next day I spent hours trying to make it work. I had to put the IP address into the print window for it to work at all and whenever I tried to print it would print one line of gibberish then start spitting page after page of blank paper. I went through all the online trouble-shooting before I tried to contact the HP Helpdesk. To talk to a live person they required me to input the serial number of my new device so I went to the back of the printer and wrote down the serial number, checking it twice with a magnifying glass, and input it. "That serial number does not appear to be valid." So I checked it a third time, with a magnifying glass. Re-input. Not valid. My options at this point were emailing them, checking in with the online forum, or go back to the unhelpful chat bot. So I gave up instead. My Epson wireless printer was so easy to configure and I'd still be using it if the black ink cartridge hadn't stopped working. Lots of trouble shooting involved there, too. Since I rarely need anything printed out that has to look official, I think I'll hook it back up and print the few things I need in brown ink or something. See if that works. I would send the HP back but I have this ridiculous habit of letting things sit in the front hall after they're delivered and I missed the 14 day return window. I suck.

Day 21

Day 22

Day 23

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Day 18, 19, 20 of 365

Sat, 29 Jan 2022 00:15:08 GMT

Day 18

Day 19

Day20

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Day 15, 16, 17 of 365

Wed, 26 Jan 2022 01:33:13 GMT

Day 15

Day16

Day 17

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Day 12, 13, 14 of 365

Sat, 22 Jan 2022 22:18:06 GMT

Warning: if you send me a card there's always a possibility it will end up as a part of a box. If there's correspondence associated with it I'll scan it and save it, but there's often a certain ruthlessness involved with arts and crafts projects.

(I welcome all cards. ;-D)

Day12

Day13

Day 14

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Day 10 and 11 of 365

Thu, 20 Jan 2022 00:30:55 GMT

Day 10

Day 11

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Day 8 and 9 of 365

Mon, 17 Jan 2022 22:35:16 GMT

Day 8

Day 9

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Day 5, 6, 7 of 365

Mon, 17 Jan 2022 01:37:28 GMT

Day 5

Day6

Day 7

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Day 3 and 4 of 365

Thu, 13 Jan 2022 00:25:22 GMT

Day 3

Day 4

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Day 1 and 2 of 365

Mon, 10 Jan 2022 22:19:25 GMT

What I posted to Twitter and Instagram: “Madness. Some years back when I was still caregiving I folded a box a day for a year to give myself something that was just for myself. One of the rules I set myself was that I could only use paper that came readily to hand--nothing that I'd bought: product boxes, Xmas cards, calendars, junk mail. I've punked the corner of this box, but product boxes are just slightly too thick for easy folding so I often seem to punk at least one corner. I plan to turn these into a textile mixed media piece. We'll see how that goes.”

Since posting that, all the way back to yesterday, I’ve discovered that I’m a total liar. Or, at least, that my memory has holes in it. In fact, my mother had already passed away when I last did this project, but I was still working at a job that was busy and half-killing me and still a ways away from retirement. So it just felt like I was still a caregiver. I guess, in a way, I was. I was taking care of myself, putting one foot in front of the other, trying to stay alive and viable until I could make an exit.

It’s funny how memory plays tricks on you, which is why I generally try to verify my own recall before posting anything publicly. But, you know, the computer which had the information on it was a whole fifteen feet away from where I was sitting last night and I didn’t want to cover such an arduous distance. Hoist on my own faulty petard. Boom boom.

I suspect no one cares, but at least my conscience is clear.

Day 1

Day 2

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Tales of a box folder

Tue, 20 Aug 2019 21:01:52 GMT

I was having a conversation with my friend wayfaringwordhack in the comments section of one of my older posts and she asked me whatever became of the found paper box folding project that I mentioned here. Because I know everyone has been desperately curious about this (haha), I’m posting about it here.

Mainly, I said to my friend, I’m feeling shame about this. I did complete my mission of folding one box a day for a year but all the little boxes are now sitting in a large box waiting for me to do something with them. I've had several ideas, but whatever I produce to incorporate them all is going to be rather large so I haven't had the drive or the will for the next phase.

I had thought to weave them all together with fine copper wire, even bought some wire and started that process—and it promised to look quite smashing! But I soon realized that 1) it would take an entire wall to display, and 2) I don't currently have a large enough workspace to incorporate that process.

Then I bought a small airplane propeller (like one does) with the idea of hanging them from it and suspending it from the ceiling. But again, so many small boxes and not enough room to work on it. I hung the propeller on the wall instead.

Propeller in situ

(In case anyone is wondering about the rocks in that big basket—because sometimes people do—I found these lovely slate grey pebbles and these lovely snow-white pebbles and they looked so lovely sitting side by side that I filled the basket with them sitting side by side. ;-) My cleaning people gave me the side-eye the first time they saw them, but they didn’t say much. They have long-since given up questioning my many odd decorating choices. And they’ve been much happier since I told them not to bother dusting the mantelpiece.)

After the propeller debacle, I remembered that I had an old Japanese-style three pane folding screen covered in rice paper which had been damaged (the rice paper) in the Great Rat Invasion. (Apparently, rice paper is tasty?) It was composed of many small wood-framed rectangles. I thought I could remove the rice paper and display the boxes in the rectangles. It would be compact enough for display, plus I wouldn't need to lay it flat to work on it. I got most of the rice paper off—though not as much as I remembered (as I saw when I photographed it) (Did I mention what a pain in the butt it is to cut out hundreds on small rice paper squares?) (It was one large sheet of rice paper, but glued thoroughly to each square so I couldn’t remove it all at once.) (And it occurred to me just now that I might have been able to steam it off, but oh well.) The problem with the screen was that there were only 200-something rectangles and 365 boxes, plus some of the boxes were bigger than the rectangles. So that stalled.

Raggedy screen
You can see at the bottom of the center screen the damage the rats did.

But that idea may be coming back around again. I think I can come up with a work around. It's just a question of my ambition coming back around again.

So many projects, so little ambition.

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