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So one of my long-standing stories ambushed me about a week ago yesterday. I don’t know what happened; one minute I was spinning and knitting and doing my thing and then WHAM–everything hit me at once. Huge things, like characters’ motivations and plot points and gender issues and strategy and just…everything.
I’ve been sorting through my thoughts and just writing constantly since then. The task before me is, as I mentioned to a friend, huge as religion. It takes up every moment of my waking time and then invades my sleeping brain. I go grocery shopping and instead of my list, I see the world of my story swimming in front of my eyes. I sit hunched over my laptop for hours and just write, write, write. It has been a long time since I felt this way.
Don’t get me started on how much I’m drawing again, too. It’s like it’s 2004 all over again.
Normally when I write something, I spend a lot of time talking about it but never really Sit Down And Write. I make charts and graphs and character sheets and notes but no actual writing. The story is there but it’s just so much WORRRRRRK. But this time it’s different.
I have pages and pages of scenes and dialogue and character development. I have a plot, a real plot, not just a MacGuffin Hunt or a Romance For The Ages but a real honest to goodness plot with intrigue and subplots and reasons for WHY.
Since what I would really prefer to be doing is, you know, writing, I am going to end this here for the moment. But I figured I should check in and let everyone know that I’m not dead, I’m just really, really busy.
Writing, writing, writing. Please let this one stick.
Ten Things to Do Instead of Watching TV
1. Knit
2. Spin
3. Weed and check on my garden!
4. Bake bread…mmmmm
5. Play with the cat
6. Read a book
7. Draw…which reminds me, I need to draw something for Bunny…
8. Work on my novel
9. Chat with friends
10. Get stuff done around the house
I actually had way more than 10 things this time; sewing and weaving didn’t make it to the list, among other things. That’s pretty cool! :D
Several years ago, my friend Sandra brought over a CD by a Celtic Rock band she enjoyed. There were some fun, energetic, catchy songs and we enjoyed it, but didn’t think about it much beyond the moment. A few months later, she mentioned they’d be playing at a small Hartford pub called the Half Door, and would we want to go? What the heck–Bunny and I said yes.
The pub was tiny. We got there early enough to eat and the waitresses were entertained by my knitting by candlelight. Then the place started filling up…the band took the stage…and there was this wall of just pure SOUND. The crowd seemed to know all the songs. The band seemed to know everyone in the crowd. The bagpiper changed from shorts to kilt on stage. The bass player held his axe up to the drummer, who hammered on the strings while the bass player changed chords. By the end of the night, we were completely won over. We bought two CDs on the spot.
Enter the Haggis puts on a high-energy, insanely skilled show. While they’re often labeled as Celtic Rock, their sound is more far-ranging than that. (Not to mention, they’re Canadian, so maybe, Canadian-Celtic Rock? Heh.) I’ve seen them probably 10 times over the past few years and each time I am utterly amazed at something new. Last night, at Agawam Summerfest, I sat there with mouth agape during one of leader Brian’s fiddle solos. He plays it like Jimi Hendrix, coaxing out wails and stutters that one never expects from such an instrument, then slides easily back into the violin’s usual sweet voice a heartbeat later. This also should take nothing away from the rest of the group; I can’t imagine EtH without Trevor, Mark, Craig, or Seamus throwing everything they have into their own parts. They all sing, they all play each others’ instruments, they all move and dance and emote and have a grand time.
This is all cool enough, but then after every show, the band comes out and mingles with the audience. They’re exhausted, hot, dead on their feet, but they man the merchandise tables or chat with fans or sign autographs like they’re some small local band and the audience is made up of their friends from school. This is a good thing. The guys are dedicated to their followers, thankful for the support, and they never seem to take the goodwill of their fans for granted.
I will continue to see EtH at every opportunity. I will buy their CDs and tshirts (got one last night!) and I will always recommend them to my friends. Check them out when they come to your area–I say this as a fan and as someone who has a vested musical interest in seeing them succeed. Rock on!
I used to LOVE camping as a kid, partly because when camping with my dad, even though we always had tents and stuff, we were far from roughing it. This list is based on what we would bring that I consider absolutely necessary to enjoy the Great Outdoors:
10 Things to Bring on a Camping Trip
1. Bug spray.
2. Sunscreen and a big floppy hat. (They go together so they count as one thing to me.)
3. A box of matches.
4. A sturdy pocket knife or Leatherman.
5. A tent–I don’t like completely roughing it!
6. My old brown sleeping bag. Each of us had our own bag growing up–my dad didn’t believe in sleeping bags with cartoon characters on them because they weren’t ‘real’ bags. I have to say I’ve never been cold in my plain brown bag, even if it’s always been pretty ugly! (Though I bet some embroidery might look cute…hmmm…)
7. A frying pan and a medium sized saucepan of decent quality. VITAL for cooking over a fire, plus the saucepan can do double duty for boiling water for coffee, tea, or cocoa.
8. A plastic storage bin of non-perishable food. Marshmallows, Chocolate, and Graham crackers are a MUST, but also–beef jerky, raisins, peanuts or cashews, whole apples, packets of cocoa, tea or instant coffee, potatoes, and some spices.
9. WATER. I like the gallon jugs of store-brand water; bring one per person for a weekend trip.
10. Something to knit–something simple on circular needles with one yarn is best, so I don’t lose a needle or have to deal with multiple yarns.
Fellow SnB-er, blogger and all-around lovely lady Weaselmomma recently took in a stray kitty named Matilda. At Tilly’s first vet visit, they discovered she was carrying some bonus features in the form of KITTENS. So the ‘Momma did what every good blogger does in this situation–she took pics of the very plump kitty and offered a blog contest to guess how many kittens there would be and when. The right number winner would get some Koigu sock yarn and the right date winner would get 2oz of gorgeous pale blue bombyx silk top.
Guess who got the right answer on both pools? OH YES I DID!!
Now, I was the only person who guessed the date right, so the silk is going to be mine (MINE ALL MINE BWAHAHAHAA), but several people won the number pool. I imagine there will be a runoff contest or random number or something. I was really hoping for that silk, though…I never win stuff like this so it’s kind of a big deal. :)
To celebrate, I have commissioned a new spindle from Two Tails Woodworking in blue mahoe and either yellowheart or canarywood. Gotta have a blue spindle for my new blue fiber, right? :D
I really should have gotten back into doing this when I saw the topic a few weeks ago–the favorite books you grew up with. I think I might have to just go back and do it anyway. :) Honestly, the reason I stopped originally was the topics were kind of weird and I didn’t feel a connection to lots of them. Like, my favorite sports moments? Really? But then Carole started up with some sweeter topics, and I read my friends’ blogs every week and think, “ohh, I should do Ten on Tuesday again sometime.”
Thus, with 40 minutes left of this particular Tuesday, my take on this week’s topic:
10 Things You Like About Where You Live.
1. It’s MINE! I live in a condo, that we will have owned for one year as of July 22. :D After renting all my life, it feels wonderful to finally own something.
2. The neighborhood is within walking distance of a grocery store, restaurants, Target, the pet supply store, a dollar store, a video game store, two pharmacies, and a gas station. We could get everything we need without driving if we wished.
3. Our condo has a pool. And a swing set. Love them both.
4. From my kitchen window, I see nothing but trees and green. Just beyond the chain-link fence that borders our property, the land drops steeply away until it reaches the Farmington River. This means no neighbors to see in, and an uninterrupted view of nature.
5. We have a garden for the first time ever. I have always wanted vegetables and boy do we have them now! Nothing tastes better than a salad I grew myself.
6. A washer & dryer I don’t have to drive to!! I get to do the laundry in my own basement, without any quarters!! OMG. Ditto on the dishwasher. Always wanted, finally got.
7. Watching the planes coming in for a landing at the nearby airport. We see some really cool ones!
8. Our commutes are each under 15 minutes now. I can make it to Bunny’s work in the evening in 10 minutes if I hit the lights just right.
9. The town I live in has a beautiful green in the center. You can park nearby and then walk to the library, some town buildings, and a bunch of little restaurants and shops. It’s not flashy but it feels cozy.
10. I can still hear the train sometimes at night. I thought I would not get to once I moved away from the tracks. Our old apartment used to be across the street from them, but the new place is farther away. I love the sound of the train going by.
This is the first year I have ever had a garden of my own. We planted romaine lettuce, garlic chives, purple sage, spearmint, oregano, and lots of basil. Oh, and four now-giant tomato plants.
The basil has become pesto twice (and will be again!), the oregano and sage have been picked and I’ve been drying herbs all along, but the tomatoes take a lonnnnnnnnng time to grow. I was a little worried, to be honest, because I didn’t see any tomatoes (even babies) for a while. But then each of the Jet Star plants grew one tomato apiece…
They were DELICIOUS. I didn’t bother photographing the second one because honestly, it got picked and eaten very shortly after this one. :) Oh, tomatoes, how I have missed you.
Lots of baby tomatoes on the Jet Stars now–the Brandywines (the other two plants, an heirloom breed) have a couple of tiny babies but nothing major yet. One of the Brandywines looks a bit peaked and may in fact not live long, but I’m hoping the other one does. Nothing says “Summer” to me in a good way like fresh tomatoes from a garden. It’s actually one of the very few things I like about this time of year.
I have learned a lot about gardening–next year, they’ll be spaced further apart and I’ll be keeping a closer eye on them as they grow. Two branches escaped the cage and it’s too late to get them back in without hurting the plant; I have tied them up instead. I will also plant the romaine in a different spot, because once the plants got tall they started to shade the basil and chives too much.
So anyway, yay for tomatoes! I can’t wait to see the crop I get in a few weeks!
If I have been surly (which I know I have been) or defensive (yep, that too) or generally out of it lately, I apologize. I seem to be in a situation that, while not major or life-threatening or even somewhat serious, has caused a lot of extra strain. Part of the problem is that I feel like the issues I’m facing are not particularly horrible to begin with, and taken individually, they’re quite minor, and therefore my first reaction is to just ‘deal with it’ and put on a game face. Unfortunately, this means I’m internalizing everything to the point where it’s all piled up inside me until something minor or completely unrelated puts me over the edge.
I’ve snapped at people I love, been unfairly judgemental of others, and I’ve been mean and snarky about things that I would normally just ignore or let alone. That is not “me”. I can chalk up some of the nastiness to the meds I’m on because they are mucking up my hormones, but not all of it can be blamed on that. If I was just worried about me or just worried about Bunny it would be easier, but I’m worrying about both of us at the same time, and I’m not finding the answers that I think I need.
It’s unlikely that I will get into much detail about any of this, partly because I think it’s boring when people talk about their medical issues to people who are not their a)parents or b)doctors, but also partly because we get into the TMI factor and I don’t want to burden anyone else with this stuff. BUT…you guys are all suffering the results of my stress, and I don’t want that to happen anymore. I will talk about it if you ask privately, but again, there’s a TMI warning. A lot of it will not be news to some of you, either.
Please take any snarky or jerky or irritable comments from me with a grain of salt. I will try to get back to being the real me soon; with any luck, the next few weeks will garner some answers for both of us here Chez DivineBird. Until then, know that I love you all and really do appreciate that you haven’t kicked me to the curb. Yet. :)
Yesterday, Bunny and I packed up some spinning and the laptop and went to the coffee shop where my knitting group meets on Thursdays and Saturdays. I hadn’t been at the Thursday meeting so didn’t realize that most people had other plans for the day, so we stayed an hour or so and left. I found myself with several hours open before we had to go to a family party. Nothing felt good to me–I didn’t want to knit, didn’t want to spin, and I certainly didn’t want to clean the house. I was distinctly Out Of Sorts.
Then my gaze fell upon the tightly-packed plastic bin of fleece that I had washed in preparation for the Tour de Fleece, and I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I put on an apron and a straw hat, picked up a chair and the bin and a bag and went outside to sit in my backyard.
The concept of a backyard is still something new for me. While I see the front yard every single time I leave the house, I have not had reason to go to the back at all since we moved here last August. However, the other night I had an urge to clean off the back stoop, sweep away all the twigs and spiderwebs and open up the door again. This meant that, suddenly, I had someplace new to sit while I teased and picked open a box of wool for carding.
A pair of young jays screeched in the branches above me, and I could hear the faint shouts of kids playing somewhere in the condo complex, but beyond that, the air was peaceful. There is nothing past the chain-link fence that borders our property but a steep, lush, tree-covered ravine that leads down to the Farmington River. I sat in the shade and just enjoyed the light breeze while I worked.
Wool has a distinct smell, not unpleasant when it’s clean. Every so often, I would catch a whiff of it. Each time, I could feel myself grow calmer and more at ease. All the stress I had been feeling just fell away, leaving me content. I was up to my elbows in charcoal-black clean wool that slipped apart with nearly no effort. My hands became coated with lanolin. Bees buzzed nearby and every so often I’d hear a woodpecker or one of our local hawks, or see a chipmunk rushing past and darting into the underbrush.
And that is how I spent my official first day of the Tour de Fleece 2010. Today, I took off as my handicap day since I accidentally got started on Friday by mistake. Tomorrow, the Tour resumes, and there should be more pictures. Hope you’ll enjoy the ride along with me!
Wow, is it already time to start this year’s Tour de Fleece*?! Guess I should get my butt in gear!
This year’s challenge for me is to wash, process, spin and ply the utterly gorgeous, black, BFL/Wensleydale fleece I bought last year at the Coventry Fiber Twist. Dragonmaille and I split the fleece because we both wanted it, neither could afford the whole thing, and it was HUGE. When we got it, we unrolled it on a tarp and split it down the center back so we’d each have the same selection. This half fleece was almost as big as the full-size grey Border Leicester fleece that’s currently waiting for processing in my yarn bathroom.
I’ve washed a small section of the fleece and combed it with excellent results, but once I acquired Edna Mode the drum carder, I decided to make batts instead. Because this fleece is so dark, I want to experiment with blending in some brightly-colored mohair locks. I think the colors will gleam dramatically against the dark; how cool would it be to have some flashes of citrine, bronze, cobalt, or red on black? The possibilities for color are staggering.
My goal is to update my progress every day that the Tour runs, even if it’s to say I didn’t make any progress. I hope to get lots of pics, too–drum carding is still a new experience for me so this will be educational as well. To start you off, let’s see what the fleece looked like before I started:
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| Not the best photo, what with the flash and all, but you get the idea. |
Half of this has now been washed and is drying on screens set across the tub in the yarn bathroom. Going to start on the second half when the first half is dry; so exciting!
*Ravelry link, only visible to members. If you haven’t joined yet, WHY NOT?? :D
ETA: OH MY GOSH YOU GUYS. I have been going around alllllll day thinking that today is the 3rd. It’s not. It’s July 2. I started the Tour early. I feel…wait for it…SHEEPISH.
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