wallpaper Friday Forays in Fiction: Quote

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There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story. You can never quite tell where they will take you.

Mine took me here.

--Beatrix Potter in the first line of the movie Miss Potter

wallpaper One Step at a Time

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Have been reading David Allen's Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. I'm beginning to envision a future not too far off in which completing one of my novels will be as doable as completing an afghan such as the one I'm currently working on.

Since I continue to work apace (nearly) on the baby afghan, I continue to see the daily progress and the end product gets clearer and clearer as the stitches accumulate.

I was already thinking how nice it would be if I could make similar progress to that of the afghan on my stories, blog improvement, other needle/hook work, research and the myriad other projects I got going or want to get going on even before I picked up this book. Now, after reading less than fifty pages I'm beginning to see what I was doing right (so far) with the afghan project and how those behaviors can be translated to other projects.

Some of those 'doing it right' behaviors:

• I had a clear idea of what the finished product was and what each interim step consisted of.
• I had a deadline and knew how to spread the daily quotas of work somewhat evenly across the days available.
• I had the supplies I needed.
• I had a work-station conducive to the work.

Allen says that most of our stress is caused by trying to keep too much information in our memory and like a computer with overloaded RAM we will start malfunctioning.

His solution is to collect all of our To Dos--100%--in easily input and retrievable and regularly reviewed filing systems whether notebooks, PIMs, electronic or paper. And in those systems the outcome of each task/project should be made clear and each action/step toward that outcome defined as well as each dependency--tasks whose completion must precede the start of other tasks.

So far all I'm doing is picturing in my mind what such a list will begin to look like and it is quite daunting. But I realize after four weeks of steady progress on the afghan that what is missing in order to see similar progress on other projects, including the novels, is a clearly defined list of 'next actions' so that whether I find an unanticipated free time block or set designated ones, I will have a specific doable task to apply my attention to and be able to not fret over all of the yet-to-do tasks for I can be confident that each of them will have their appropriate turn.

Just as I don't need to fret about iteration 14 of the ten row pattern in the afghan while I'm working row 5 of iteration 11.

wallpaper String Theory

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Today I hyperfocused on the baby afghan again. Worked six 36 inch rows in pretty much one sitting while watching two movies and three Heroes season 4 episodes. The two movies were Spiderman 2 and Air Bud Golden Receiver. I was hoping to make up for some of the the quota that didn't get done during Bloggiesta this past weekend and the library visit yesterday. I was behind by ten rows. Since the first four rows I did today count for today's quota only, I've made up only two rows.

I think I better lighten up tomorrow though and probably should stop altogether tonight. When I was dishing up my dinner tonight I almost dropped the serving bowl and I was nearly holding my breath all through doing dishes for fear of dropping something breakable. For my thumb and index finger and wrist on my right hand were not dependable and an electric sizzle shot up the inside of my left arm from pinky to armpit every time I raised it above the level of my lowest rib. The uncooperativeness of my right hand was not a surprise but that sizzle in my left arm was quite disconcerting. Apparently holding the growing afghan steady at the right distance is as demanding on the physical structure of the arm as is plying the hook itself.

The afghan is now bulky enough to be be in my way as I work on it which is a problem with no obvious solution. The thread is constantly getting trapped under it or in the folds. I now have 95 36 inch rows. I'm aiming for 155. It is now 36 X 18 inches.

Watch for a picture on Thursday for the end of week 4 progress report.

BTW I learned yesterday that my niece may be bringing the baby this way in late February. So I am highly motivated to have the afghan finished by then. If I can maintain the pace getting the rows done should be no problem. I'm concerned abou the fringe though. There are to be 150 or so per side and I have no idea how long that will take. I was planning to fringe all four sides but am now considering doing only the two sides where the rows begin and end which is where the start and finish thread tails are. I'll decide after I've got most of one side done which will give a better idea of the time involved.

wallpaper Sunday Serenity #213

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I have accomplished my highest priority Bloggiesta goal!!!!!

I changed templates. And I did it myself.

Of course I had my techie husband sitting across the table from me to answer questions and make suggestions but I made every final decision and every mouse-click and keyboard tap myself.

wallpaper I made the graphic for the header myself too. But I must give proper credit for the photo which I adapted to my sister-friend Jamie who made the shot out the car window when she came along when my sister delivered me back to Ed at Rice Hill OR last winter. Probably in late January.

I have loved this photo so much that I've had it as my desktop since July.

Light coming out of the dark can stand as a theme for my life so this may end up being a long term look and not the temp graphic I set out to make this weekend to stand in until I could create one that had images representing all my passions: reading, writing, needlework/crochet, cats....

I've been contemplating such an all encompassing image since last summer during the last Bloggiesta. But I couldn't come up with a concept that didn't overwhelm me with clutter and I have enough of that to deal with in the room I spend 90% of my time in.

At the moment, I'm pretty happy with the way this looks. Any thoughts?

Of course, all my new sidebars and footer columns still need a lot of work. I have fiddled with them some but I've still got a lot of reorganizing to do. Especially where the images are too big for the new sidebar widths. Also many links I know are defunct and I'm sure there are more I'm unaware of. And there are many many more I want to add. I've been putting off working on my side bar because I knew this template switch was in the works.

I'm probably going to be changing fonts and colors too but that will have to wait until my eyes have had a rest. And my brain. I've been awake nearly 20 hours now and have been working on this non-stop for eight.

Oh yes. A great big thanks to Ourblogtemplates.com for the free template. I chose The Professional Template

wallpaper It's Bloggiesta Time!

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wallpaper PEDRO
Plan. Edit. Develop. Review. Organize

That's what this party is all about. Blog improvement. Three days in which to devote time and attention in the company of like-hearted people who bring to the party buffet their knowledge, expertise, experience, enthusiasm and encouragement.
That's a lot gathered into one virtual place for 72 hours. But it ain't all. There is also FUN. Games (mini-challenges) and Prizes.

Join the fiesta at MAW Books.

Below this paragraph right here is where I'll be posting updates on what I'm accomplishing throughout the weekend.

Umm been doing a lot of lurking. Need to break that habit.

Did My Friend Amy's mini-challenge on goal setting. Made that my Saturday post.

Have accomplished my main goal of changing templates as of 4pm PST Sunday. See my Sunday Serenity post for more detail.

Involved in that project and a project in its own right was a good amount of fussing and fiddling with sidebar and footer widgets--organizing and cleaning up defunct stuff etc.

Also involved and a major project in itself was creating the graphic for the header myself.

Since Friday morning I've clocked nearly 20 hours of Bloggiesta doings.

I think maybe it counts for Bloggiesta that I just finally uploaded a picture for my Twitter profile. The same one I'm using here now and the same one I am using at facebook since a couple weeks ago. I think it was during the last Bloggiesta that I learned that having a common look across the platforms is helpful.

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I'm so late getting my kick-off post up because I'm still sleeping days even tho Ed has been off swing shift since Xmas eve. Since I'm a natural night owl the sleep schedule I settled into while he was on swing was more like staying up a bit later than usual than a complete change for me as it was for him. But instead of returning to my normal bedtime of 4 to 5 am and sleeping til noonish I've tended to stay up even later than the 9ish I had been, pushing my lay down time closer and closer to noon and then waking for dinner.

Thus work on my daily post usually begins after dinner but today I had intended to put up this post before I lay down. But while preparing the post I got side-tracked into doing some of the PEDRO stuff instead of just writing about it. Next thing I knew it was past noon and then waaaaaaay past noon.

I didn't lay down until after 3pm and then Ed woke me for the dinner he was preparing me at 8:30pm. Salmon on a bed of citrus, mango and hickima. Mmmmm.

This is my second Bloggiesta and I was so ambitious last time the list of improvements I made was long enough to need four Bloggiesta's to complete. So I'll continue to plug away at it and add to it. But I have two primary goals for this weekend: First to take advantage of the collective knowledge and experience to learn, learn, learn. Especially to learn what it is I don't yet know I need to learn. And second, to change my template to a three column.

That last was one of the biggies on my list last June and I almost got to it. I'd found the template and downloaded it but I needed a photo or graphic for the masthead.

That's what I was fiddling with this morning. I hunted down the template file and the website where I got it and where the instructions for implementing it are and I played with graphics until I'd made one that I think I can live with for a few months or even years. Years is more likely since I am so averse to change.

Many if not most of the tasks on the very long list I made during the June Bloggiesta have been on hold until I got this template changed over since so many of them involved sidebar and other template or blog organization work that would just have to be redone after the template switch or promotion which I thought should wait until my blog had had its makeover.

wallpaper Having One of Those Days

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Ever had one of those days you'd like to put back in the box marked return to sender?

I pinched my left pinky finger on the tender inside skin right where my engagement ring rubs. Pinched it between my netbook and something on the tray it sets on or possibly between lid and keyboard as I tried to stop it from falling.

Later I yanked my netbook off my desk by the headphone cord as I tried to rush in the other room when I heard alarming sound from the room where Ed was watching TV. First he was coughing which morphed into choking or gagging then a few loud thumps or stomps then dead silence.

He was fine. Turned out he'd started coughing as he was standing up from the recliner and lost his balance and fell back into it.

Had to take out row's 77 and 76 on the baby afghan after finding an error in the early part of row 76 as I neared the end of row 77. Most frustrating about this is that it wasn't the first time I've had to take out parts or all of rows 76 and/or 77. In fact I've had to do it more than once to every row since row 74. Since Monday afternoon at the end of that triumphant twelve hour push that netted me ten good rows, I've done the work of ten more rows but have only 2.5 to show for it.

Tomorrow noon is the three week mark. After the 33 row first week I'd hoped to be on row 99 by then. Not going to happen. Obviously.

Then this evening I spent a couple hours preparing the fifteen library books that were due on Tuesday for their trip to the library in the morning. This involved a lot of regret and sadness and self-recrimination over all the reading I didn't get done in the nine weeks I'd had them. There are several more due tomorrow and I'll be sending some of them back but hanging onto some of them until Monday morning in the faint hope I'll still do something with them in spite of the fact I haven't since the day they arrived nine weeks ago..

wallpaper Sunday Serenity #212

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see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Snuggles and Cuddles
Oh yeah.

wallpaper LOL-e-gaggin

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I'm busy playing with my string. So let me share with you a couple LOLs I captioned at ceezeburger.com

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wallpaper Can You Find Your Kitty?

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You'll have to click on the image and open it to an enlargable version to make it readable. I just found this endlessly fascinating and spent nearly an hour lost in it. I just saved a copy of it for reference. Just for fun, yes. But more for those many occasions when I have cats in my stories and want to be sure I describe something that isn't impossible unless I'm writing fantasy or sci-fi.

It wasn't hard at all to find my Merlin on here. His orangy-tan tabby coat is rather common. But I wondered if I could find my Gremlyn (d. March 2007) whose coat was so distinctive I have never seen another quite like it. She had tabby markings but only on her tail, face and lower legs. the rest of her from back of head to base of tail was like a dense mixture of salt, pepper and paprika floating on coffee tinted cream. Well I learned on this chart that she is a ticked tabby with the ticks scatter uniformly over the coat in a flecked or freckled pattern which is a coat found only in the Abyssinian, Agouti and Somalian breeds. I'd known Gremlyn had a mix of Abyssinian and Siamese and Tabby but until now I hadn't know how to talk about why she could look the way she did while her sister Shekinah (runaway Sept 2000) had the full on long-haired blue-eyed Siamese look with just a hint of the Tabby stripes on her face, legs and tail.

wallpaper Haz Yourself a New Year Happy

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Wishing all a wonder full year.
Colored in joy
And wrapped in cheer

wallpaper Sick

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I'm having one of those days. I want nothing but sleep but when I close my eyes I feel like I'm falling. And falling...

And the light inside my eyelids is brighter than a summer sun.

I haven't [picked up the afghan since I woke up so no progress today. I made it half way through row eight before quitting near dawn and I timed row 7 at 55 minutes which really changes the math in yesterday's estimate based on 90 minutes per row.

Today also changes the calculations based on daily quotas too as it reminds me I can't always count on getting to work at all. So an average quota of 4 rows means occasionally doing 6 or even 8 in one day.

wallpaper Have a Meowy Christmas

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After two days in a row that were go, go, go and full of good-byes and hellos voices chattering in crowded rooms, I'm ready to sit in the stillness and listen to the sounds of breathing.

Don't think I'm complaining. I had fun. I loved seeing all those a get to see so seldom. I was grateful for family, for giving and receiving gifts and hugs, for food and laughter. It is just

time

to

breathe.



Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas full of all possible blessings.

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wallpaper Tick Tock

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tick tock


Where DID the time go?

Gotta get back to work so I'll leave you with a reposting of a poem I wrote over a decade ago when I was frantically prepping handmade Christmas presents at the last possible second:


Coverstory

by Joy Renee

Sorry, this poem does not relate.
I’m running a little bit late.
It’s already half-past eight
And I’ve got still to do
Many stitches times two
And the wrapping of seven plus four.
It’s got to be ready to go out the door
Not a minute later than one.
And I’m afraid I won’t get it done.
If I continue to fiddle
With riddle and rhyme
I am sure to run out of time.
So I’ll have to forgo my remarks
On the silliness of making
A thing for protecting
Worth more than that which it guards!

############

This poem was written in 94 or 95 to slip into the gift bag with a needle-pointed book cover for a paperback which I had been frantically putting in the last stitches on the morning our gifts for Ed's family were being picked up by his brother as they left the Longview area on their way to Phoenix, Oregon.... [the rest of the post]

wallpaper LOLing About

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Just took my daily LOLcat break. Captioned several myself this week and thought I'd just share a few of those that didn't head an earlier post.

I've been crocheting like mad all week--30 bookmarks from the new thread acquired since Monday. Yeah, I know I said I was supposed to set the new thread aside after Wednesday and return to the work on the Xmas gifts which now consists mostly of tail tucking and fringe applying.

Sigh.

Just did not have the will to resist the siren calls of the 16 new colors and textures.

Well I now have two left to crochet to meet the goal of two of each new thread color and type that joined my rainbow this week. Altho I've only worked single color patterns and am itching to start combining them in the multi-color patterns, I think once I get these last two done I can set aside the new thread and return to the Xmas gift projects with resolve. I have until Friday afternoon to have them ready for our family todo.

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wallpaper A Slice of Joy

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This afternoon while making my lunch, the knife sank unexpectedly fast into the over ripe avocado and sliced across the first knuckle of my left index finger.

It was minor as far as knife injuries go. Little more than a paper cut tho it bled enough to need a bandage. But a bandage wrapped around the first knuckle of a finger makes typing a challenge. Forget speed.

Worse than that (tho I'd probably ranked it differently last month during NaNo) is the awkwardness it lends to crocheting what with the very finger that's supposed to control the tension on the thread and dole it out at the proper speed being hampered by the bandage which prevents bending and blocks the sense of touch (I can't feel the thread) and provides a slick surface right where the thread needs to lay on which it slips and slides any which way but the right way.

I can't take the bandage off until I'm sure the rubbing of the thread won't restart the bleeding. Since I'd loose several times as many minutes as I saved in washing the blood out of my work or redoing it entirely I must either accept slow and awkward or set it aside entirely for another pass time. Say reading one of those library books due next week.

Or sleep....

wallpaper Delivery Delayed

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Still waiting on that Joanne.com order of 13 crochet thread balls. It is nearly a week beyond the original expectation. But have been keeping myself distracted with the new thread I got yesterday at Wal-Mart and Michael's. Made several bookmarks. Aiming for two of each of the new thread's. Was going to take pics of the half dozen I have so far but my camera batteries died.

Well, at least I know the package has arrived at the Phoenix post office as of 5:30 this evening. I'd been following its progress through online tracking since the beginning and was quite frustrated when there had been no new info since it left Kent, WA the evening of the 10th.

So tomorrow then. Look for pics. I think I cans scrounge up batteries. My palms are fairly itching to get hold of those 13 thread balls and skeins. Only one is a replacement for one I've had before. Thee Parakeet Blue. The rest are new in either color or thread type or both. My hook will be flying over the next week.

I've still got finishing touches to put on the several Xmas gifts I have on the hook though so I've got to exercise a bit of discipline. Do not want a repeat of last year when I was working the hook for the last twenty hours before heading out the door for the family get together.

wallpaper Sunday Serenity #208

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wallpaper Disappointment

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The Joanne.com order I made two weeks ago tonight has not yet arrived. It was originally supposed to come in 7 to 10 days from the moment of ordering but I didn't get the acknowledgment from FedEx until the following Tuesday and they started the 7 to 10 day clock at that time which should have made it between Tuesday and Friday of this week. Considering the season I had not hoped to see it before yesterday anyway but when it did not arrive by today I started feeling the creep of disappointment. That sinking sadness of let down. I know it is silly. I know it is childish. But there it is.

And it is not like I don't have plenty of thread to work with. And technically I don't need any of the thread in that order to finish the Xmas gift projects I have going and since there is only two weeks left for those to be finished I really shouldn't even be playing with my newest rainbow in a box until those projects are wrapped up--in both senses of that word.

Still I pout.

It looks promising for Monday though as the tracking says it left Kent WA last evening in the hands of the postal service.

So Monday. And just in case it doesn't arrive Monday I do have a substitute anticipation. Ed has promised to take me to Joanne's and Michael's to shop for replacement thread for several colors I'm running low on. Most of them needed for the Xmas projects. My red is nearly gone. I see more cardboard tube than thread. My yellow, purple and orange are low but only purple is needed for the Xmas projects.

Another source of my sadness is the discovery of a mistake in one of the Xmas gifts. I left out two rows from the middle of one of the purple coasters and will have to take out 8 rows and put them pack in after putting in the missing two.

wallpaper A Toy Story

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Sometimes I feel like someone's favorite toy. Like live entertainment. Or a cartoon.

This afternoon I was making my lunch. A sandwich and coffee. I started the coffee maker first thinking I could have my sandwich made and cleaned up after by the time it finished. But as I was putting away the cheese and mustard and bread, I noticed the lid atop the coffee maker was still standing up. I'd forgotten to close it. The heated water can't get up into the grounds when that lid is open but it sits there burbling and hissing same as when it's doing it thing.

So I had to stand around in the kitchen waiting for enough coffee to fill my cup to percolate through to the pot before I cold return to the room where I'd anticipated starting up a DVD to watch as I ate.

Upon return to the room I found safe(ish) places to set down the coffee mug and sandwich.--the latter on top of my closed netbook--while I got settled on the bed and got the DVD started. I reached for my glasses which I'd left on my netbook lid when I lay down this morning about 5. I had to reach over the sandwich which was blocking them from my view and I miscalculated their position and instead of picking them up I knocked them off and they tumbled behind the printer upon which my netbook set.

I had to get up off the bed to reach over the printer and fumble around on the back edge of my desk (aka TV tray table) but I couldn't find them with my fingers. Now I had to assume they had fallen off the back of my desk and into the closet and to get to them I would have to pull the bags and boxes out from under the desk. Bags holding crochet and sewing, boxes serving as desk drawers and craft misc storage.

I piled all this onto the bed and got on my hands and knees with a battery powered LED lamp and again fumbled around among miscellaneous objects identifying them by feel if I couldn't see them. It was hard to have both arm and head under the desk at once so I had to alternate between looking and reaching.

I was in this position when Ed came in to get ready for work. He told me to get out of the way and he would find them. So I got up on the bed and he looked under and behind my desk, moving more of the boxes out before declaring them not there and replacing the boxes. I suggested they might be under the printer than in the hollow space behind the paper tray.

I decided that I ought to move my net book off to make it easier for him to look there. To maybe lift the printer up. So I slid the netbook on its board with mouse and external DVD onto my lap. The sandwich going along for the ride.

My mistake was in reaching over to steady the printer as Ed tipped it up to looked. This unbalanced the board across my legs and netbook, papers, DVDs, headphones, mouse, and of course the sandwich, tumbled to the floor. The sandwich landing milimeters from Ed's feet.

So he had pick all of that up and put it back on my lap before he could continue looking for my glasses. He did finally find them under the printer. He handed them to me and then headed for the shower. I set about reassembling my netbook lapdesk and getting the DVD started before picking up the sandwich Ed had set on top of the printer to examine it. It had landed on one of the Netflix envelopes instead of directly on the floor so it escaped any obvious harm and I decided it was still edible.

But before I started the DVD and my lunch I decided I needed the fan turned up as all of that activity in a room that heats up near 80 when my in-laws have the heater at 73 in winter had me feeling about ready for a shower myself. So I set the lapdesk on the bed and started to get up but as I jostled my desk the box of often used books and desk misc tumbled off it onto the floor. Upside down. Spilling books, notebooks, pencils, camera, USB cord, ear buds, bookmarks, remote, LED lamp, library card, receipts, debit card, squeeze ball, and sunglasses onto the floor across my path to the fan and Ed's into the room.

I heard the shower on the other side of the wall go off as I knelt to start gathering it all up but I was still at it when he returned and once again had to help me find stuff that had slid out of view or into the shadows, behind or under something. I think we got it all. But I'm not sure I remember every last thing that was in that box. I'd been dropping things into it since the beginning of NaNo or even before Halloween.

So the stuff picked up, the fan turned on, Ed dressed and gone, I settled back on the bed and fired up the DVD, put on the headphones and picked up my sandwich off the printer. The top slice of bread was dry as toast.

Oh and my coffee was lukewarm.

I hope someone was having fun.

wallpaper The Stories Are Calling

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I may have sounded like I was complaining about all the pressure exerted by the slough of library due dates in the next three weeks but really I'm eating up the stories so I can't really have too much resentment. In fact it is quite possible that I set myself up for it so I'll have an excuse to spend the extra time with the stories--both DVD and books.

Well. Enough chit-chat about it. The stories are calling me.