The Thin Ice

Okay, I know I'm being overly dramatic, and that it's very common to get called back in for more pictures after a baseline mammogram, but that doesn't mean that I'm not still wigged. Apparently I have an area of density in my right breast. I thought I was pretty dense all around, but whatever. They warned me at the appointment before the pictures were taken that they might have to call me back in and I should not panic or worry about it at all, but in what world is that possible exactly? Since I got the call this afternoon, all I can think about is Liz, and that it will be six years in January since she left us. So I'm having my little spaz, venting here a bit, and then I'm going to pretend that everything is fine and that I don't have that pit in my stomach until I get the results after my new appointment on Monday. It's okay, you can move along now, nothing to see here, show's over :)

The Rainbow Connection

It's morning and I have to be in the shower in 15 minutes so I'm not late to work, but I wanted to post pics of my friend Alison modeling my shawl. There were some funnier ones, but I'll spare her. Plus the shawl looked fuzzy in them (I do have my priorities here).









I also wanted to give an update on the writing, although I have on Facebook already, so some of you may have heard this already. I broke 10,000 words! I currently have 10,238 in the computer, which doesn't count the pages I've written in my notebook when I'm out and about.

Okay, gotta run, but hopefully I'll post more soon.

At Last!

At last the freaking swirl shawl is done. It's on my lovely $10 foam insulation blocking board improvised with duct tape (even in my color) which works really well. I'm hoping that it will dry quickly so I can get some pictures with someone wearing it, but for now, I'm just happy the damn thing has been put to bed.

For the knitterly among you, the next time I start one of these projects where you all roll your eyes at me and ask me if I like punishing myself, will you remind me of this moment and threaten to take my needles away from me??? I know, I know, I probably won't listen since I appear to be a masochist knitter, but try okay?

The Long Way Home

I'm continuing with the titling the blog with song titles. I feel like I ought to give a prize if you guess, but I know all of you will just google it, so it doesn't count. And yes, I mean you, don't you look all indignant!

I know I haven't posted in a millennium. Okay, I know that's exaggerating. Things have been odd and interesting at the same time here. Shawn has been doing a lot of training for work and has spent most of the last two weeks in Chicago. Which he has apparently not enjoyed much, although he did get to go to two organized sporting events. Which makes him happy, so good. Thank god I didn't have to go.

I've been writing quite a bit. Not this weekend because my mother was here, and that forced me (and poor Shawn) to clean for hours on Friday night. I know many of you deride my lack of motivation in the cleaning arts (Laura V, I mean you), but I just don't think I'm going to be on my death bed thinking "I wish I'd cleaned more." You know, I have a hell of a lot better things to do with my time than clean. I'm not talking about filth here. Filth gets cleaned. I'm talking about clutter and laundry, and possibly dishes (until they become icky and I must clean them.) I think we all have to choose our priorities, and let's face it, cleaning is damn low on my priority list. Why clean when I can knit, spin, read, write, or do almost anything else?

To some extent it'd be nice to have beautiful space with everything in its place when people come over, but not if I actually have to do it, pay for it, or sit in it. I live in my space and I use my stuff, and it doesn't always get put away because I'm going to use it again. I have always felt uncomfortable in house beautiful type spaces. It's not lived in, it's not relaxed or home. (I think the bad guys from the Stepford Wives are going to jump out and get me.)

I think most of my friends like me for me, and not for for what my living room looks like (yes, Laura V, probably in spite of what my living room looks like, just getting that out before you do ;) ). And to some extent, my obnoxious, rebellious nature thinks that if some really care all that much what my living room looks like, to the point they'd judge my character over it, we don't probably share the same world view and it might be better to keep it to yourself, because mine's not going to change any time soon. Now, you might be getting the idea that my Mom cares what my apartment looks like. She doesn't, but I do prefer that my apartment is in the minor pit state, rather than major catastrophe, when people other than those that live here come into it. So I do cave to some societal pressure to have the place somewhat presentable for the comfort of those visiting, but this does not occur very often without such prompting.

I don't know why I'm blathering on about this, but recently someone asked me how much I sleep because I seem to do a lot. (Although I'm always lamenting how little I get done of that I actually intended to do.) Well, I sleep much more than I used to after recovering from my former life. I now am able to get between 6 and 7 hours a night, but it's still mostly six hours a night. But the thing is, I tend not to clean unless necessary either. So that gets you a lot of time. Now I still waste it on dumb things, Facebook, trashy novels, Cartoon Network, Ravelry.com and random shows which are not edifying (Monsterquest) on the History Channel, but those things still outrank cleaning every time.

So, speaking of not getting enough done, let's talk about the writing progress the last couple of weeks. I feel oddly amazed that I have 9,236 words and about 30 double spaced manuscript style pages. I have been a bit lax this week about writing, but I did purchase a blank book for my purse that I can just leave in there and jot notes here and there. I did manage to write some pages by doing that. It's weird because I then have to spend time typing them, but it gets me to write more later as well. This week I do need to get more back on track.

We had our first writing group meeting and I was very happy with how we conducted the meeting. I also think it was very helpful to have other people's perspectives on what I wrote. It makes it easier to remember that I do have to explain things to people who have not seen them. For example, at one point I had to go back and add a description of Moody's Diner, because I forgot that not everyone knows what Moody's Diner looks like. Oh, the novel's set in Maine. There's too much material and too many stories I've been telling for years not to fictionalize some it and use it. I might finally benefit from my childhood :)

In other news, I'm plugging away on the swirl shawl. I have 69 swirls done out of 82 and I only have 13 left to go. I have to say, I'm ready for this one to die. It's been interesting, but I'm ready to move on to the next project. I'll post pics when it's blocked.

This has been an editorial and probably reflects this station's opinion at this moment in time.

Message in a Bottle

This week seemed to be pretty busy. I didn't write as much as I should have but progress was made. I'm up to 4,138 words, and we had our first meeting of the writing group. Six people showed up and I think it will be fabulous. We even came up with a name, and a possible funny hat, but we did not get to the secret handshake. I think it will be helpful. We have our next meeting set up, and two of us volunteered to provide material to review at the meeting.

The night before, I went to my monthly knitting meeting at the Ewe. Angie got a practical knitting tattoo. I tried to take a picture with my cell phone, but my phone really sucks. Just at the base of her toe, you can see a black line. This line is to tell her that if the sock she's making is at that point when she tries it on, she's to start decreasing for the toe. I thought this was great. I'd probably just use a permanent black marker, but I have that needle thing, so a tattoo is just out.

I am still working on my swirl shawl, I am on the third row and have 38 out of 82 done. I'm closing in on half way finally. I like it, but I think it'll be much better when it's blocked out. Right now it looks kind of blobbish.

I tried to write for a while this morning, but I didn't really get anywhere. Well, I did, but I didn't. I began the story with some material I had from an online writing class I took just before I left Bianco. I've changed the direction and added stuff, in particular, making a side character more of main character and adding a character althogether. So I did their character development sheets this morning. It's a little three page long set of information about the character, both to help me figure out who they are, and to remind me what I've already decided, so I don't say he has blue eyes in one part of the story and brown in another. But I did it for two characters this morning. So no net writing, but good work done today. I have Monday off, so I'm planning to use to write.

From this Moment On

I'm thinking about titling all my future blog posts with song titles. Just to see if you all get it, but I'm not sure if I can be that structured. Anyway, this is what we've been up to lately.



















My husband Shawn and I had breakfast with Kristie, Chris and the kiddo for Shawn's 32nd birthday (yes, I know he's a young'un.) We went to Mary Ann's in Derry and had a good breakfast and watched Zach destroy his father's pancakes. I think he thought they were like play dough. It was fairly amusing. There was an awful lot of throw the toy on the ground and make the parents pick it up going on too. Reminded me of Kiwi. Kristie took a picture of us at the diner, because I'm usually the one with the camera. I'm not thrilled with it. Bad angle for my face :)

We also had a visit with Shawn's parents and his grandparents, Shirley and Al. We had a really nice dinner salad with shrimp and chicken, and his parents got Shawn a sugar free angel food cake with sugar free cool whip and fruit. That worked out pretty well for Shawn.










He also got a GPS for his birthday from his parents, and I got a lovely hand me down rocker that didn't sell in the yard sale. I'm happy about it, because I keep almost buying rocking chairs at furniture stores, and then I don't because I'm cheap, and now I have one.










Shawn and I also went to Gaucho's for his birthday dinner. It's a ridiculous meat fest. But that's what Shawn wanted. At least it's something he can over indulge a little bit, once in a while. He's doing really well weight wise. He now has lost 60 pounds. Anyway, it's one of those places where they bring you 11 different kinds of meat on skewers all night. This is picture from their website.

I did write quite a bit over last weekend, but until yesterday, I was kind of in a holding pattern. I had the flu last week and it just drained me for creative pursuits. All I did was knit last week, in between being ill and sleeping. I do have three swirls on the third row of motifs of the swirl shawl though.

This past weekend we went to Shawn's Aunt Debbie's wedding reception in Manchester. It was really nice and they seemed really happy. It was nice to visit with Shawn's Uncle Scott and Aunt Anita and to see Shawn's other grandparents. It was too bad that it rained like hell, but it didn't seem to dampen anyone's enthusiasm, just their clothes.

Yesterday, I wrote for a couple of hours before I headed down to Boston to see Laura. Laura and I shared an apartment my last year of law school, which makes it just about 13 years since we met. How crazy is that? We spent the day shopping and buying random stuff. I got some really cheap shirts at JC Penney ranging from $4.97 to 13.00 and I bought a lot of tea at Teavana. So did Laura. I'm still not sure what that was about. We had lunch and dinner pretty much at the same time give the amount of stuff we ate at The Cheesecake Factory, and then we headed to Trader Joe's. I didn't get much, but they did have some saffron that was inexpensive so I got that, some almonds, some Riesling, and some apples and tomatoes. Again, the theme of the day seem to be random acquisitions.

This week is the organizational meeting of the Writer's Group that Sally and I are trying to put together. I'm very excited about it, and hopeful that it will be helpful to all of us. Cross your fingers please.

Progress on the Plan

Last Sunday was a watershed in a couple of ways. First, the universe decided to offer me up the coincidence of Sally coming to knitting. I love Sally, and I love when she comes to knitting, and she doesn't often as she is very busy with teaching and her small human, Beatrice. Sally also shares my desire to write. So I mentioned to Sally that I was making a writing schedule and I was determined to make it work this time, and we came up with the idea of forming a writing group. Both of us seem to need some level of accountability and deadlines, otherwise, we don't write as much as we should. I was so excited! After a long chat on Facebook on Monday, determining a organizing meeting date and an agenda for the meeting, I drafted an invite to our soon to be formed writing group. After Sally reviewed and approved the invite and agenda, we sent it out to our knitting group and knitting acquaintances, as several of them have a literary bent. We have several takers, and we're looking forward to the organizational meeting on September 3. YAY!!

I also implemented the schedule, Part 1 of the plan this week, and I was scheduled for two hours of writing between 7-9pm on Tuesday and Wednesday. I wrote. The first night, I wrote about 1,500 words on a random story that I probably won't do anything with, but I just needed to practice doing it a bit without any pressure. The second night, I took a piece I had written for a class that I had taken in the past, and realized it was pretty good, and that since I already had a start on it, and I liked, it, this could be the novel. I expanded it, and I now have 1,500 words towards what I think will be the novel. Only about 85,000 or so words to go!

The other reason that Sunday was a watershed is that Shawn, my father-in-law, and I went for a bike ride in Bow. It was hot and humid. I cannot overstate how dumb this was. My mother-in-law very sensibly bailed. Also, Bow is very hilly. The pictures below are the before pictures of Shawn and his dad in the background there. The long inclines killed me, and the last hill was 3/4 of mile and at about a 45 degree angle, but at least it was quick. I sweated so much, my clothes were just soaked completely (get it, watershed?? haha! Yes, I know I'm a loser.) I really thought I was about to have a stroke. Luckily they have a pool, so I went straight into the pool. Afterward I was not putting those clothes back on, so I drove down 93 in my bathing suit and a towel, which was hilarious. It was starting to get dark, so hopefully people didn't notice me. However, it did cause me to drop another 3 pounds. I'm down 17 now.

Wednesday before writing, I dropped into knitting with the Manch Vegas group so I could see Gina's designs that are coming out in a new book, The Joy of Sox. She had an advance copy and it was really nice. The photos of her designs came out beautifully.

I spent Thursday evening with my knitting group. I love them. I had a really good time, and I worked on my swirl shawl project. I'm up to 23 swirls out of 82, and I've started on the second row of swirls. There are only 5 rows of swirls, but still, given how fiddly the project is, I'm doing well. I can't seem to to get good pictures. The first one is with the flash, which washes out the colors, and the second two are too rich for the actual colors, but this the closest I can get with Photoshop.

As an update, Mya's Jacket pattern has been favorite-d on Ravelry 99 times for the red version and 6 times for the blue version. I'm very pleased, and I'm thinking I need to put my designing hat back on after this project is done. I have had a request for an adult version of the sweater, but I'm not sure how interested most people would be in the sweater. Knitterati, please leave an opinion for me in the comments.