Runs with Scissors ... and a Sword

Good Intentions and All That

2012-01-01T14:49:00.004-05:00

I've been posting my resolutions here for a couple of years now. There's really nothing like failing abjectly out in the open or feeling as if more people read this blog than really do and everyone knows I worry about my weight, caffeine intake, etc. I laid out the 2011 resolutions here, and offered a mid-year, birthday update here. Looking at things at year's end, did I really fail abjectly? No, though I really only succeeded at two of the overly specific resolutions I started with. I did, in fact, run, ski, bike, swim, etc. 700 miles to nowhere; the final total was right around 1,005 thanks to a valiant push the last 10 days or so of the year. I also succeeded in noting something to be grateful for or otherwise appreciate each day of the year. I did this thanks to a friend who gave me a boxed set of cards, one for each day of the year. The completed set is now moving to my studio, to my shelf of precious things. The rest of the list? Fuhgedaboutit!

My thinking for 2012 was to make much more general resolutions, a difficult task for someone who has worked in the planning field with measurable goals and the like. After I inked the list I'll put below onto the obligatory piece of cardboard, I read an article that advised making only one or two resolutions and making them quantifiable. Not this year, at least not for me. Here goes.

In 2012, I shall be healthy. I will watch what I eat and drink. I will work on getting stronger, perhaps by getting back to the weightlifting that I largely dropped when I added Myo Sim karate to my practice of Myo Sim kendo. Finally, I will try to act with more mindfulness, not flying off the handle or jumping to conclusions that may or may not be valid.

In 2012, I shall produce at least one something for which I feel a sense of accomplishment in several areas. I will write something, be it a blog post or letter or story or whatever, about which I feel pride. I will take one photograph that knocks my socks off; it doesn't have to knock anyone else's off, just my own. I will create one fiber something and one other something that needed to be created and will beautify the world. Finally, I will think of one idea, just one, that amazes or otherwise delights me.

In 2012, I shall make progress in my practice of Myo Sim karate and kendo. In kendo, I will work extra hard on diagonal cuts and sparring. In karate, I will work extra hard on kicking and channeling my anger outward, away from myself.

How will I know if I am succeeding at these? I'll figure that out, I guess, as I go along. I may not recognize the piece of writing or the photograph or the other things at the time I create them, but I'm hoping that as the year wears on, I will know which ones they are. Each day, I will try to keep being healthy near the front of my thinking. Does this mean I won't occasionally eat or drink too much of the wrong thing and that I will never skip a workout? No, but I will try not to obsess about it at the same time as I will try not to let it happen too often. In six months, when I turn 56, I'll do my mid-year assessment and hopefully feel better about the preceding six months than I do now about the preceding year. Stay tuned for details!

O, Christmas Tree

2011-12-20T14:38:00.000-05:00

I've posted here and there about our tradition of putting the Christmas Ape atop our Christmas tree. A comment on yesterday's post (the "there" one) expressed interest in seeing the whole tree. Things change somewhat from year to year because we either decide the tree looks full enough or we tire, one by one, of hanging ornaments and I decide I'd rather not finish the job myself. Here's this year's tree in its entirety. Two ornaments that always make it on the tree are the ones I showed in last year's tree post (the "here" one above), the sons in Christmas-pageant attire. As I think I said then, younger son is not quite the little angel he was then, while older son still knows what to do with a stick in his hands. We do have the odd store-bought ornament on the tree, including some given to us by the husband's now-departed mother. Most of the ornaments are homemade, though some of those were gifts from an art teacher friend. Others were stitched by my stepmother.
Others were made by the sons. And still others, I made the year we lived in the Netherlands and decorated a tree entirely with creatively handmade ornaments such as toilet paper tolls covered with electrical tape. Besides the Christmas Ape atop the tree, some stuffed animals always manage to work their way into the branches.
There are always some oddities such as the tag I took off a gift one year and started hanging as an ornament. For the first time, this year a number of "shinies," things I find and save for no reason other than I found them and think them interesting, made it onto the tree.
Finally, somewhere in the tree (you'll just have to take my word for it because I could not find it to photograph) is a set of keys that younger son found beside the road. The radio locking component is beat up to the point of suggesting the set was run over at least once. Why are they on the tree? Why not? They were sitting on a nearby shelf as we were hanging adornments, and it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Beanie Baby Mutations, Parts V and VI

2011-11-17T22:35:00.006-05:00

I didn't post any photos of the fifth Beanie Baby mutation since it was a gift, and I didn't want to spoil the surprise for the intended recipient. Since it turns out that her photos of it are better than the ones I took before I sent it off, you can see an elephant with butterfly wings here. It's not clear whether it's an elefly or a butterphant, but I sort of like elefly myself.

The sixth Beanie Baby mutation doesn't have a distinct name yet, but here it is. If that photo isn't clear enough, try this one. Or this one. It's Howl the wolf wearing the clothing (well, the skin) of Fleece the sheep. And like any good wolf in sheep's clothing, this guy knows where to fit in, too. With a couple of other sheep, in the shadow of the Bearodactyl. It's still not clear just what I might do with these creatures other than probably clear them from the mantle perhaps to rest in the branches of the Christmas tree. I have decided what's coming next, though, a rhinopottamus or perhaps a hippoceros, though I think I prefer rhinopottamus.

Beanie Baby Mutations, Part IV

2011-11-04T15:19:00.004-04:00

Being a knitter, I do like yarn, so when a friend in England suggested that it might be fun to have a sheep that could spin its own wool into yarn, who was I to argue. Crossing Hairy the spider with Ewey the sheep was actually a bit more complicated that I thought it would be, and I still have a sheep's head with which to do something, but here's what Caroline's spinning sheep might look like. I'm open to suggestions as to what it might be called.

Beanie Baby Mutations, Part III

2011-11-02T09:00:00.003-04:00

When the idea of doing Beanie Baby mutations and meldings other than SnailPony arose, the first one that came to mind (the sons' hivemind, not my own mind) was BearODactyl. BearODactyl actually arose from the mind of The Oatmeal. I'm not including the link to the specific BearODactyl comic here because the amount of profanity (words and ideas) that it contains might offend younger readers or their parents.

BearODactyl is a combination of Swoop the pterodactyl and Cinders the black bear. After taking Swoop apart, I had some help from older son on combining Swoop parts with the body of Cinders. BearODactyl differs from the first two mutations in that the ODactyl part is actually a removable costume. The wings are simply sleeves into which the bear inserts his front legs. The head attached to the wings is tied onto the bear's head like a bowtie not really visible here. In the wake of Halloween, I'd have to say that Cinders the bear is quite pleased with the power and prestige that accompany his new alterego BearODactyl. In fact, he looks ready to cast a spell that might determine the next mutation to help clean up the library floor. Can you say "conjoined twins"? "Wolf in sheep's clothing"? "Cat of nine tails"?

Beanie Baby Mutations, Part II

2011-10-30T20:27:00.005-04:00

Start with Spinner the spider and Congo the gorilla. Do a bit of dismemberment (no spiders were harmed in this process) and experiment a bit with pins and poses. Rearrange things a bit and sew with invisible thread. The result? SpiderMonkey! I still don't know if SpiderMonkey will go out on his own or stay around to see what evolves in Beanie Baby Mutations, Part III. I mean, I have to get the library floor cleaned up somehow.

Beanie Baby Mutations, Part I

2011-10-25T16:30:00.008-04:00

Take one Beanie Baby Snail. Dismember it a bit. Add a Beanie Baby pony. Insert some carefully placed pins. Sew. The result? SnailPony! My friend and BKP (Best Kendo Partner--we earned our black belts together) has a Pony named Pepsi. She also has a stamp dispenser that is a plastic snail. Somewhere in the fatigue of post-workout pizza dinners, the idea of a SnailPony was born. This plush version, a true one-of-a-kind treasure, was a college graduation present. Think it can't really be ridden? Well, you just have to be the right size.

Bye, Dad!

2011-10-12T20:10:00.009-04:00

I came to Great Falls, Montana, this week to share in the scattering of my Dad's ashes to the winds of a land he loved mightily. My stepmother brought Dad from Florida, and my brother and sister-in-law came from their home in Maine. It has been a good trip.

Today was the first anniversary of Dad's death. Although Dad did not believe in deities or an afterlife, I firmly believe that he oversaw and took part in the events of the day. I know he approved. We initially planned on taking Dad down the Missouri River to Fort Benton, as he had once taken my brother there on a hunting trip. We figured we would find someplace along the river to say good-bye but did not have any particular place in mind. If Fort Benton failed, further downriver was Loma, witha gravel road leading to the river. We figured that we could find someplace private since for all we knew (and we certainly weren't going to ask) scattering ashes just anywhere violates some sort of law.

Yesterday, we went to the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center along the river here in Great Falls. My stepmother had been there before and didn't want to go through it with us. She passed the time talking with a volunteer who gave her a cheap-looking, black-and-white flyer with a map showing how to get to the dam that now sits at the true "great falls" of the Missouri River. Since my brother and I had wanted to show this to my sister-in-law, and I wanted to get a photo for someone who seemed incredulous that there were "great falls" on a prairie river, we thought this was great. It was on the way to Fort Benton, too, so how lucky.

So this morning we headed out to Fort Benton with a side trip planned to the falls. I got the photo I wanted. Leaving the dam, my brother announced the need to visit an outhouse we'd seen at a trailhead we passed. As we each visited the outhouse, the others looked at the trail board. The trail ran pretty much right along the north bank of the Missouri, and one of the sites (sights) mentioned was the Box Elder Creek Overlook. I remembered Box Elder as someplace I'd heard Dad mention when I was a child. We all looked at each other and decided this was a sign. We started down the trail. See the spit of land out into the river on the right side? We figured that was where Box Elder Creek entered the river, and we were right.

When we got across from Box Elder Creek, we only had to go a few yards off the trail to set things up. Along with Dad, we'd brought four chocolate chip cookies, one for each of us, with part of each to be scattered with Dad. Dad loved chocolate chip cookies, and we could think of no better way to toast his release. I also brought my new netbook, with Frank Sinatra loaded into iTunes. I had my Mac with me when Dad was in the hospice a year ago, and set Sinatra on shuffle to pass the days. Even after he was seemingly unconscious, Dad would smile when Sinatra sang "My Way." Needless to say, that's what I set to playing as we got Dad out. We each took a turn throwing a handful of Dad to the winds, letting my stepmother do most of the tossing. As you can see, the winds were quite cooperative.

I think Dad likes the place we chose, overlooking Box Elder Creek. Walking back to the trail from bidding Dad farewell, we decided to continue a bit further along the trail. Not ten yards down the trail, a bit of litter caught my eye. While chocolate chip cookies were a love of Dad earlier in life, in his later years his lunch, virtually every day, was a Veggie Delight or turkey sandwich from Subway. The litter that caught my eye was a Subway napkin, which I take as a sign of Dad's approval of his final resting place. You can say it's just a coincidence and I might even say that myself later, but for today, I'm thinking that it was Dad smiling at us. Yep, even if that means he was wrong about the whole deity and afterlife thing, I'm going with that he was smiling.

There's a Reason It's Called the Big Sky Country

2011-10-11T23:16:00.003-04:00

The pedometer registered over 20,000 steps today, but they were well worth it. These shots were taken along the last 5,000 or so steps, as the sun was starting to think about setting. When I moved from Montana to Kentucky and from there to Virginia, one of the hard things to get used to was that towns never seemed to end. You always seemed to be within sight of civilization. These shots were taken with Great Falls to my back, and while there are some signs of civilization, a building here, a truck on a road there, you're immediately struck with how much of nothing but nature is really out there.

Random Tidbits

2011-10-10T19:57:00.007-04:00

I did not go to the National Book Festival this year, though I did go to Washington, DC on the first day of the festival. Yes, they made the festival a two-day event this year, and it somewhat diminished its attractiveness. There were no authors whose presence demanded mine, or that of my partners in crime for the day. We instead went to the National Zoo and marveled at the now-almost-grown lion cubs interrupting their' sire's nap, the orangutans swinging high above on their O-Line, and the pandas doing what pandas do best, eating bamboo. I would illustrate with photos were they not on a computer two time zones away from where I am right now.

Where I am right now is Montana, Great Falls, Montana, to be exact, the town in which I was born. My stepmother, brother, sister-in-law, and I are here with my Dad, well, with his ashes. Wednesday is the first anniversary of his death, and we plan to scatter a bit of him or perhaps all of him to the Montana winds somewhere in his old hunting grounds along the Missouri River. This may or may not be legal, but that's not something I plan to ask unless I have to. Dad would not have asked, so why should Dad's daughter.

Visiting childhood places well into one's adulthood is a bit disconcerting.

This was the house in which I lived for two-plus years while in elementary school. The trees did not hide the house then, and the yard stretched out forever. The park in which we used to play actually seems about the same size, though there was no jungle gym there 44 years back. Had this been there then, it would have been quite popular. As it was, I managed to have some fun with it even as an adult.
Continuing randomly, the Detroit airport is actually not a bad place in which to kill four hours. While I did not stop to photograph the pedestrian tunnel with its own light and music show, I did spend quite some time shooting this amazing fountain. There are also various shops, including one with headless figures holding Hello Kitties. For some unknown reason, I found this noteworthy.
I did recently finish and gift another quilt. Again, the photos are two time zones away, though you can see one of them here. I'll be starting another one (or two) soon after my return, or so I hope.

I realize that I have been less than faithful about updating this blog. I must admit that in the weeks leading up to this trip I have been fighting something akin to depression or at least an underlying feeling of all not being well. I hope all that was just due to the anticipation of this trip or of the first anniversary of Dad's death. If so, I hope it will stay behind when I return home. I will also try to make my next post here a bit more thought-out or at least better-written than this one has been in the midst of a myriad of distractions and interruptions. My apologies. If you are taking the time to read this, I should try to make it as well written as possible ... just not tonight.

On this Day in History

2011-09-11T15:10:00.003-04:00

I know I can't be the only person who is getting, to be frank, a bit sick of all the coverage of the tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001. What happened that day was certainly frightening, but so the ten years since have been in terms of civil liberties taken away or given up. I stood in line that day, from late morning to early evening, to donate blood they thought might be needed for victims at the Pentagon. Unlike some others, I wasn't really bothered later to hear that it might have been discarded since more than needed was collected. What happened was so unexpected that I can't fault the Red Cross or any other similar organization for not being spot on in terms of contingencies. And while it was tragic that over 3,000 lives were lost in four related acts that one day, that number is but a blip in terms of the national homicide rate or the number of people killed each year with firearms. (I'm now a gun owner, so that comment can't be taken as the frivolous rant of a gun-hating liberal.) I'm lucky, I guess, that I haven't run into anyone in person lately who has disparaged all Muslims as being evil or bad. I count among my closest friends Christians, Jews, and Muslims (I'm listing those three groups alphabetically here, for what it's worth) and have been known to refer to "our God" in conversations with them. September 11 is now called a National Day or Remembrance and Service (or something like that) or Patriot Day. When can it go back to being just September 11, the day after September 10 and before September 12?

Happy New Year!

2011-08-13T15:29:00.003-04:00

As the child of two teachers, my year always began in late August or early September with the start of school. Marrying a university professor and working at a university didn't help. To this day, I will in March or April say "next year" in reference to a date in October or November of the same calendar year.

Because of this time shift, there is something visceral about Back to School sales. I feel them in my gut, particularly this year as only the husband prepares to go back to school. The sons are, for now, done with schooling and moving on to the next chapters in their lives. I am wrestling, as I have all summer, with where this leaves me. If you've read my profile recently, you might have seen that I changed the reference to the business card I carry to deposit into contest bins at retail establishments. It didn't seem appropriate to list "mom" as my principal occupation any longer.

Trying to figure out a new identity leaves me muddled. There are various things I'd like to say. Artist? Craftsperson? Writer? Photographer? Baker? I'm not sure how accurate any of those terms are. They certainly don't describe me to the degree that "mom" did when it was more valid. "Mom" encompassed all those and more; I'm not sure what a replacement catch-all title would be. For now I guess I'll stick with the "Woman with a Sword" and "World Traveler" I had printed on my two sets of free business cards. Who knows, though? I might come up with something better this year, maybe in the spring. If not, there's always next year.

Web Winnings

2011-07-17T15:43:00.004-04:00

Mail in an entry form or a winning bottle cap, and who knows how many hundreds of thousands of other people are doing the same thing in the same contest. The odds are against your winning anything substantial, though you just might. I won a trip to Hong Kong once, which is why I never expect to win anything like that ever again. Follow the right people or businesses on Twitter, though, or like the right people or businesses on Facebook, and your odds might be better. In the last six months, I've won seven books (six in one contest and one in another) merely by re-tweeting an item or commenting on a Facebook post. I also won this image which looks like this on my wall by relating one of my crazy dreams on Facebook. The first image looks much better, because that's a thumbnail taken by the professional photographer from whom I won the print. I took the bottom photo, and I'm a rank amateur.

How I managed to win the print makes a moderately good story. When the husband and I decided to go to Iceland for our 25th wedding anniversary and try to see the Northern Lights, I decided I wanted not only to see them but also to try to photograph them. I asked one of our master kendo instructors who freelances in photography if he had any pointers. He didn't but suggested I look at the Facebook page of Karl Johnston, a photographer in the Northwest Territories. "Friend him and ask him how he does it," my kendo friend said. "He's pretty amazing." He is, as you can see here. Basically shy person that I am (blogging is really pretty anonymous when it comes right down to it), I couldn't just ask this person how he took such great photos. Instead, I called on my friend Google and read various posts that were out there, and while I in no way came up with anything jaw-dropping, I think I did okay for a rank amateur first-timer using a cheap tripod and an entry-level DSLR camera and lens. I blogged about one of the shots here.

Anyway, I kept following Karl on Facebook and checked his blog and website regularly. I probably would have purchased a print from Karl at some point as a gift for my dad; unfortunately, Dad passed away before I could do that. At one point, Karl invited people to comment with dream stories, offering three of his prints as prizes. I posted several of my dreams and lo and behold, won one of the prints. As you can see, it's pretty darn gorgeous, and it has a place of honour (Canadian spelling) in the living room. I look at it often, especially as I enter various web contests offering trips to Iceland as prizes. If I make it back, I think I might feel comfortable asking Karl for advice this time.

Checking in at Midyear for a New Year

2011-07-03T19:22:00.003-04:00

So my birthday was two days ago, meaning that I should do my annual reassessment of the New Year's resolutions I made six months ago. If you missed those the first time around, you can see them here. As to how I'm doing on them, that would be the usual: better on some than on others.

I divided my resolutions for 2011 into physical, mental, and somewhere in between. The first of the physical was to lose five pounds and keep them off. Not gonna go there. The more I resolve to lose weight, the less I lose. At least I'm not gaining it instead. Truth be told, I do not need to lose weight. My BMI is quite acceptable, and I don't look all that bad. There are jeans in my closet, though, that I'm scared to try to put on because I suspect they may not fit or will not fit as they once did.

I resolved to run, walk, swim, ski, or otherwise travel 700 miles to nowhere. This is an easy one to keep; I've gone over 500 miles already. I'm more likely to exercise every day than I am to miss a day. I get grumpy if I can't get some sort of exercise in the course of a day. I have much more exercise on a given day if I work out in the morning. Otherwise, it takes too long and too many cups of coffee to get the blood flowing.

I resolved to eat more fruits and vegetables and drink more water and less caffeine. I'm working on these. Some days are better than others, but all in all I'm probably doing better on these two than I thought I would.

On the mental front, I resolved to do one creative something weekly. While I've worked on something every week, I haven't finished something every week. In that regard, I'm now trying to document my 56th year with a daily photograph that says something about me. You can see the results so far here.

I also resolved to put up one blog post weekly. That hasn't happened and probably won't, unless I succeed at the aforementioned blog of daily photographs. I made this resolution in hopes that it would spur me to do more writing. Unfortunately, that hasn't happened. I too often let little things get in the way or tell myself that I don't have anything worth saying. I need to work on that.

Finally in the mental area, I resolved to try to learn some Vietnamese. Does it count that I learned I can probably study Vietnamese at Hue University when we return there in the spring of 2012? Learning a language on your own is hard enough. Learning a tonal language on your own is virtually impossible.

On the somewhere in between front, I resolved to learn all the material for my next rank in Myo Sim karate. I'm working on that. Sitting out for three and a half months with plantar fasciitis hasn't helped. I'm back to karate now, taking things slowly, but I fully expect that barring another injury, if I don't succeed at this one it won't be for lack of trying.

I resolved to try to finally finish the fifty things I wanted to do in my fiftieth year of life. Still working on them; still plan to finish them.

Finally, I resolved to concentrate more on needs than wants and to try to find something for which I am grateful every day. I'm pleased to say that I'm doing fine on these two.

And there we have it. I'm human. I may now be checking a new box when surveys ask my age (the box for the age range that starts at 55 rather than the one that ends at 54), but I'm not going to let that get me down. At least not today.

Creativity Ketchup

2011-06-09T14:21:00.013-04:00

It's been a while since I posted about any creative undertakings, so get ready for a deluge. I didn't want to post about the quilts until they had been given to the intended recipients, and that made it all the easier to put off writing about any of this. So, without further adieu, let's plunge in.

Readers of this blog for several years know that I often make quilts for the instructors in our Myo Sim Karate and Kendo program. The year that older son tested for his first degree black belt in Myo Sim kendo, I made our master kendo instructor an indigo quilt centered around a print of Mount Fuji. You can see it in this post; it's the third quilt shown. Two years later, older son tested for his first degree black belt in Myo Sim karate, and I made similar indigo quilts for two karate master instructors as well as another instructor who was promoted to the rank of master in the same test. You can see those three in this post. Our principal local kendo instructor was also promoted to master rank during that test, but I did not have time to make him a similar quilt. Nor did I have time to make one for him last year, due to my own testing for black belt. He got his indigo quilt this year; I fortuitously finished it the night before I was invited to test for my second degree black belt, just three weeks before the test date. Because the recipient was the final local master instructor to receive an indigo quilt, "The Last Master" seemed an appropriate title. I had and used the time to quilt this a bit more closely than I have some of my other "master quilts." You can see some of the detail here. Had I not been invited to test for my second degree black belt, I would have had another quilt ready to present after the black belt test; instead, I presented it a couple of months late. That one was first shown in this post celebrating my new studio space. Another photo of this quilt top got posted to my Facebook profile. I think I said in commenting on the photo that the recipient had yet to be determined, in response to which one of our karate instructors posted a series of "please be mes" that won my heart and earned him the quilt. Here's the quilt in its finished form, spread out on my bed. Next up on the quilting front is to quilt the top shown here as a slightly-more-than-one-year-late wedding present for a friend's daughter. First, though, I need to finish the quilted sword bag I promised younger son as a Christmas present. No photos of it in progress, but I'm at the stage of putting on straps and buckles after which I need to sew the pockets. I was actually going to do all that yesterday and today, but the noise from a basement remodel was a bit more than I wanted to deal with in the studio.

The state of having a sewing machine and knowing how to use it is similar to that of having a pickup truck and knowing how to drive it. It's always handy to know someone with a pickup if you need to move furniture or other large items, and it's always handy to know someone with a sewing machine if you need something made or mended. I traded altering two long, wide drapes into two narrower, shorter ones for a bottle of wine better than that which I typically purchase. I also made the largest things I've ever made in my life, two sets of (two each) drapes to separate a large, open space, into three smaller spaces. I started with four lengths of 108-inch-wide black flannel, the shortest of which was five yards long. After pre-washing and shrinking said pieces (Did you know that there's a Mega-Load washer that can wash 75 pounds of fabric things at once?), I made four drapes, the smallest two of which were 132 inches long and 79 inches tall. Here's what that looked like. This is the shorter of the two sets; the longer ones, 163 inches long each, did not fit, lengthwise, into the empty room I was using as workspace. While my four cutting boards taped together worked in terms of cutting the short dimension, they had to be oh so very carefully re-positioned in order to cut along the longer dimension. Fortunately, I had to do these curtains last weekend, because here's what the room in which I worked looked like last night. This is the basement remodel I mentioned above. The floor seen here was today leveled a bit. Next week, a floating bamboo floor will be installed to turn a former sunroom into a miniature dojo and exercise room, the christening of which will likely merit its own post here.

When not fondling, folding, or otherwise having fun with fabric, I've been yarning. Here's the busband and his brother; the husband is the one in the Icelandic sweater knitted by his loving wife. When people compliment him on the sweater, I tell them that I will gladly make them the Icelandic sweater of their choosing as long as they pay for the yarn and for me to travel to Iceland to purchase it at the Alafoss outlet store outside Reykjavik. I'm serious, just in case there's any question about that. I'm now working on my own Icelandic sweater in zippered cardigan form after finishing another cardigan from yarn I got for Christmas 2009. I still need to block that one, after which I will post photos and possibly run a poll as to whether the frilly style suits me.

In moving into my studio last summer, I discovered a box of wool yarn that I'd forgotten I had, left over from when younger son was in high school and I was holding an after-school group for some academic team members who wanted to learn how to knit. I've so far made three felted bags, large enough to be nice weekend bags, I think, once I add zippers and straps. Here they are, with a sample strap pinned on the first one I finished. I took this photo with my pocket digital point-and-shoot, and the accuracy of the colors leaves something to be desired. The bottom and top bags are actually more purple than the blue that appears here. I also found nine skeins of mauve wool yarn that I bought at an online sale when the mauve looked a lot more pleasant on the screen than it turned out to look in reality. Since I wasn't working on younger son's sword bag yesterday, I used grape, tropical punch, and black cherry off-brand Kool-Aid drink mix to dye those nine skeins of mauve somewhat more pleasing shades of red and maroon. Here they are hanging on the front porch to dry. These will be made into one or more felted bags, though probably not as big as the weekend bags shown above.

And what will I do with all these bags? I occasionally toy with the idea of opening an Etsy shop, but it's actually somewhat hard for me to post my works here for simple public viewing let alone post them somewhere with the intent that people give me money for them. Maybe I need to expand my Christmas and birthday lists since the people on those now may not need or want any more bags. I'll think about that later, possibly while working on one of the works-in-progress mentioned here.

Into the West

2011-05-24T20:45:00.004-04:00

The title above is also the latest tweet from younger son who left today on his post-graduation motorcycle trip to California. He describes his general plan here. He will visit 20 states and, if all goes according to plan, stand on the highest point in nine of them. He expects to be home sometime between June 18 and 20, but for tonight he should be in Santa Claus, Indiana.

Am I nervous? Of course, but he's 21 and has planned this trip more carefully than I planned the solo European jaunt I did when I was 19. Would I feel more comfortable if he were with someone as opposed to making a solo trip? Perhaps, but then sometimes two people end up goading each other on and get in more trouble than one person would. He took a test ride of about 500 miles and back two weeks ago, so he knows what a full day riding a full bike will be like. He did what appeared to be a good job packing everything securely, in two saddlebags, one backpack, and a magnetic map case. He may send things back once he no longer needs them, which would give him some room to pick up a souvenir or two.

He's prepared for bad weather; in fact, he practiced riding in the rain on his test drive to the Kentucky Derby. Having checked the forecast for today's ride, he donned his rain suit before leaving this morning from our family breakfast at one of our favorite local dives. And while I didn't cry after watching him ride off, I will admit that I came close. It's been a bittersweet couple of days here watching him graduate from college and head out on his own personal grand adventure. I feel very old and somewhat no longer needed, as if I should say, "My work here is done," take a bow, and sit down. He was a good kid, and now he's a good man. Have a good trip, okay? And here's lookin' at you!

Dear Dad,

2011-05-10T21:22:00.001-04:00

I've been thinking a lot about you lately, especially here in the week bracketed by Mother's Day on Sunday and your birthday on Saturday. I appreciated that you always sent your daughter a card on Mother's Day. You were so supportive of my efforts, some more successful than others, to help two rambunctious boys grow into two good men. While Mom always questioned my decision not to go back to work after the younger one was born, you didn't hesitate in letting me know you thought I was doing the right thing. You may have been compensating for your own feeling that you weren't there for much of your daughter's childhood; even so, I appreciated your support and encouragement.

I've been going through several boxes of papers, photos, yearbooks, and other bits of your life first on my own and, then, with the brother and his wife when they visited recently. Some of the items offer a comfortable familiarity, a reminder of the Dad I knew and loved. With many of the items, though, I wish I could be going through them with you at my side or at least in the next room, for questions and answers shouted back and forth through the doorway. The best I can do on my own is guess at the answers or make up something that pleases me and might have pleased you.

There is a silver baby ring, for example, in the smallest box I have ever seen with the smallest lid I have ever seen. I wear your gold baby ring around my neck on the same gold chain you wore; did the silver one belong to your big brother Jack, the uncle I knew only through your stories? I expect that I will find a silver chain for the silver ring and wear it in place of yours when the husband and I return to Vietnam next year. On the last trip, I left all the jewelry I couldn't stand to lose at home and wore thrift store replicas. Obviously, I would hate to lose Uncle Jack's ring, but losing it would not cut nearly as deeply as losing yours would. There might even be a cosmic symmetry if I were to lose it in Asia since that's where Uncle Jack lost his life in the Korean War.

And the papers, all the papers! More of your school papers got saved than mine, I think. Certificates of perfect attendance and excellence at basketball, tickets to football games, programs from school plays. Amidst all the papers is a program for an Initiation, with items such as "Have Jimmy Lightner dance with Miss Megill while Delores Cox plays the piano" and "Have Mr. Ida tell what he likes about the senior girls." I know that Mr. Ida was a teacher at St. Edward High School. Jimmy was your cousin, I think, your younger cousin. Was this how the upperclassmen initiated the freshmen? It would be interesting to hear if all these things really happened. Did Doris Buck really tell how to milk a cow without using her hands? And how did D. D. Iverson's "talk on the finer point of necking" go?

One envelope contained quite a collection of photos of young women. I recognized Mom in a couple, but I know about Mom. The one I'd like to ask you about appeared in three photos, two with you and one on her own. Given the way you were looking at her here, and the way she was holding you here, I'd guess you were pretty special to each other. Who was she, I wonder. She was certainly quite pretty. A friend suggested that I should harness the power of the Internet to try to find out, similar to the way I remember you trying to find Uncle Jack's girlfriend forty or more years after Jack died. I think it's better just to let this one go. Imagination may well be safer than reality.

The menfolk and I are marking what would have been your 82nd birthday by going shooting. I bet you never thought you'd see the day when your daughter owned a gun even if it is painted pink and decorated with Hello Kitty stickers. You'd get an even bigger kick out of learning that part of your grandsons' Mother's Day gift to me was registration in a gun safety class needed to get a concealed handgun permit in Virginia. No, I don't have a handgun nor do I have plans to get one. But it's kind of badass to think that I could.

I'd love to see your reaction to your younger grandson's plan for the next month or so. He graduates on May 22 and leaves the next morning to ride his motorcycle to California. He did a practice run last weekend, riding to the Kentucky Derby and back. His bike is smaller than the one you had (there were some photos of it among all those papers) but even so I'm sure you would have some stories to trade once he's back.

Time to head home from the gym now, so I'll sign off. Know that I miss you lots, but appreciating more every day what a good foundation you helped give me. I think you'd be happy with the way things are going.

Love you, Dad, and miss you.

Love,
Your little girl

TMI or Need To Know? Random Musings

2011-03-27T10:27:00.002-04:00

I'm "injured" right now in that a deep bone bruise or possibly a stress fracture in my right heel has led to my taking two weeks off from martial arts except for a few kendo things I've done from a kneeling position. The only exercise I'm supposed to be doing is swimming. I'd forgotten what a good workout swimming can be. Or perhaps I repressed it since swimming is also possibly the most boring exercise imaginable, especially if you're trying to keep track of how many laps you've swum and can't indulge in a stream of consciousness.

Since I'm not doing martial arts much right now, I don't have to be taking off and putting on the two necklaces I wear for sentimental reasons. One is a 50 kronur Icelandic coin. On the front is a shore crab, fitting in that my astrological sign is Cancer. The back,which is the same on all Icelandic coins, has tiny pictures of the four guardian spirits of Iceland. I am not sure why I do it, but I wear the coin with the back's guardian spirits facing out and the shore crab against my skin. The other necklace is the one my father wore and removed only when absolutely necessary as when he was having an MRI exam. It's his gold baby ring, which he never knew existed until his mother sent it to him many years after he'd grown up and left home. Since it obviously wouldn't fit any of his adult fingers, he put it on a gold chain. When I touch it, which is often, putting my fingers on the ring puts my palm over my heart, which I think is fitting since that's where I carry lots of my memories of my dad.

Younger son turns 21 in less than a week, followed by the husband's turning 60 four days after that. I'm trying not to let these two milestones make me feel old. It is sobering, though, to realize that I've lived more than half the life I will have were "old age" to be my eventual cause of death. I don't feel as if I'm 54, though I'm not sure what 54 should feel like. I've been told that I don't look 54, though again I'm not sure what 54 should look like. I admit that there are times when I observe the teen and twenty-somethings with whom I do martial arts and feel not only the aches of a 54-year-old body but also the experiences of a 54-year-old life. There is a wisdom to being older that I did not recognize before I arrived here.

The last good night's sleep I had, "good" in that it was deep enough and long enough and I woke up incredibly refreshed, was aboard a junk in Halong Bay, Vietnam. The rocking of the boat and the gentle slapping of the water on the hull were like a lullaby. Earlier this year, there was a night-time fire on one of the Halong Bay tourist junks, and several Americans were among the fatalities. News reports said that they did not awaken in time to escape before the boat sank. Had this been our boat on our night aboard, I would like to think that I would have been one of the survivors, but I honestly doubt it. I guess it is possible to sleep too well.

Lusting to Wander

2011-03-25T09:57:00.001-04:00

Now, more than any other season, I almost inhale the urge to travel along with each breath of spring air. I see the condensation trail of a plane in the sky and my thoughts race. Where is it going? What awaits its passengers when they arrive? Will they deplane to explore a new culture or landscape? Or are they business travelers on just another business trip who won't really look at all that is around them? If I were on that plane, where would I wake up tomorrow? The sight of two or more con trails in the sky just multiplies the process. Which one would be best? Which one is going to a more exciting destination? I don't know why, but spring amplifies my wanderlust more than any other season.

A year from now, the plan is to be in Hue, Vietnam again. To prepare for this, one of my New Year's resolutions was to learn as much Vietnamese as I could. Unfortunately, I'm not doing as well at this resolution as I am at many of the others. On any given morning, I think that I'll put in a half hour or an hour at the end of my work time and then, in the afternoon, realize that I've shut down my laptop, at which point it's all too easy to think, "I'll do better tomorrow. Right now, my mind needs a break." And when I do remember to load the software (I'm using Byki), the fear exists that while my Vietnamese-to-English answers are valid, my English-to-Vietnamese ones might not be. Vietnamese is a tonal language, and it's impossible for me to tell if my tones match those emanating from the software's audio files. In other words, it's easy to make excuses for not doing it on my own.

Remembering and acting on a shower thought (a random neural firing while one's body is covered in warm soapy water, usually wiped from memory as one's towel wipes the droplets), I recently used my search engine friend Google to look for Vietnamese language classes available in, where else, Vietnam. As the sons say, I rolled twenties. Hue University, at which the husband will again be teaching, offers such classes. They're of varying length and cost the princely (for Vietnam) sum of $5 per hour. I've asked the husband to inquire of his Hue contacts about the classes and whether it would be possible for me to enroll. It would be ideal if the language classes might be at the same time (morning or afternoon) that the husband is teaching. This would leave some time in which to play tourist, with the possibility of doing that together when he's not preparing for his class and I'm not studying for mine.

Our last visit to Hue was followed by some touring in Vietnam, a visit to Angkor Wat in Cambodia, and some time in the Netherlands and Norway. We'd like to cap next year's visit by following the yellow brick road to Oz. I have friends on both the east and west coasts of Australia, inspiring the plan to fly from Vietnam to Perth to visit my friends in that area. From Perth, we'd like to stop to visit Uluru (Ayers Rock) and possibly Alice Springs. From there, it would be nice to go to Melbourne to visit my friend there. Then, instead of last year's homeward flight across the Atlantic Ocean, we'd fly home across the Pacific. We won't be circumnavigating the globe, but I will then be able to say that I've traveled "around the world" albeit by combining trips. Besides adding 1 to the number of continents I will have been in, I'll be able to say I've been in the Southern Hemisphere. I don't travel for the numbers, but it's nice to keep track of one's expanding horizons.

In the meantime, I shall keep breathing the clean, fresh spring air of Central Virginia, while traveling in my mind. Cue Carly Simon's singing "Anticipation" and fade out.

A Boy Becomes a Man

2011-03-12T16:00:00.011-05:00

I have a running gag with several friends about the imaginary pool boy we share. He appears at each of our houses as needed for entertainment. Given that we live in British Columbia, Illinois, and Virginia, the pool boy travels a lot. The friend in British Columbia actually found "Grow Your Own Cabana Boy" toys. ("He cleans. He goes home on the weekend. He's Built ... and by the way ... he's straight.") A cabana boy is not a pool boy, but it's probably the closest we can do. You may remember these toys from your childhood days or those of your children. Here are the INSTRUCTIONS FOR USE from the package back:

Place your grow toy in a large container of room temperature water. Your grow toy may take up to 10 days to grow completely. Watch how it changes as it transforms up to 600% its size. Remove from water and it will slowly shrink as it dries. Your toy can be grown again and again.

Those are the large-print instructions. There are also some small-print ones:

The larger the container of water the better your toy will grow. The growth is calculated as a total increase in mass and volume. As your tow grows it may distort in shape. This is part of the fun and will correct when fully grown. The slimy, icky texture is normal and harmless. Your toy may take up to 10 days to grow completely. As the toy grows the paint fades. Darker color will restore when toy is shrunk back to its original size.

Here's where we started back at the beginning of February. Cabana Boy was about an inch and a half tall. He took to water like a fish. When offered the chance, he jumped right in.
I brought him up for air and clean water periodically. In the interest of science, I also measured him from time to time. After three days ... A week after that ... After six more days ... Eight days after that ... And eight more ... At the same time, when compared to the original packaging ... I have no photographic evidence to present, but he is shrinking a bit more quickly than he grew. He is also experiencing some of the same contortions shown in the photos above.

In conclusion, was he built? Heck, yes! Did he clean? Unfortunately, no. Is he really straight? That's for me to know, and you to find out by getting your own Cabana Boy.

We Now Resume Our Regularly Scheduled Blogging

2011-02-27T17:03:00.002-05:00

It's been a while, eh? That's what happens when life intervenes. Three weeks ago, I was plugging along, working a bit, creating a bit, planning a post or two for this blog and another one. (I just finally finished and put up the post for that other one.) Life was good. Then I was told that I'd be testing for my second degree black belt in Myo Sim kendo on February 26, which was yesterday. To be honest. this had been a possibility on and off for quite a while. The "off" this last time around just seemed to be more permanent than the others had been. With only three weeks, I needed extra practice. To add daily kendo practice above and beyond the regularly scheduled classes and workouts meant a few things had to give. I stopped work on a quilt I hoped to give as a gift last night, at the party following the black belt test. I stopped working on blog posts.

Now, the test is over. I did earn promotion to second degree; there's definitely a blog post in that story. Younger son earned third degree in kendo. In a surprise move, older son was awarded a second degree black belt in Myo Sim karate. He was told he was demonstrating material, but actually he was being evaluated on it. I did present one quilt at the post-test party last night; that's another blog post to be. There's also the blog post I've been incubating all along, about my Cabana Boy. Do not adjust your monitor. We will shortly resume our regularly scheduled blogging.

I Do This Why?

2011-01-26T08:30:00.003-05:00

It is almost five years since I started doing Myo Sim kendo. I told someone recently that I'd been doing it for six years, but it's really only five. I've been doing Myo Sim karate for a bit more than two years. In the five years since starting Myo Sim something, I've had countless bruises and more than once been asked in a roundabout fashion by medical personnel if I'm in an abusive relationship. I've had swollen fingers and knuckles. I've had the back of my head cracked open and one of my front teeth knocked askew (it reset into position on its own but not without a wee bit of pain). I've had minor knee surgery to be able to keep doing kendo and minor hand surgery to be able to keep doing karate. At the immediate moment, I have bruised knuckles on my left hand (from kendo a week ago but not helped by last night's karate, a bruised left shoulder (from karate a week ago), and a brand-new bruise on my right shoulder from last night's lesson on punching.

So why do I keep subjecting myself to all this? Because every now and then there is a class or workout that is so special that I grin with joy for days afterward. Such classes are rarely easy; I usually leave them soaked in sweat and drinking massive amounts of water. We've actually had one of those classes in both karate and kendo recently. The kendo one we did blindfolded. Yes, we swung bamboo swords at each other while our eyes were covered. Mind you, we were wearing full sets of kendo armor at the time, including the men or helmet. What was amazing about this was that once I got over the anxiety associated with the first strike and the first block, I knew I could do this just fine. Five years of doing head strikes have left me with a pretty good idea of where the head of someone facing me would be and where a strike coming at my head is likely to land. The instructor who did this class is a challenging one. I usually feel less than competent during his lessons, which made the feeling of competence in this one even sweeter. It was a real confidence builder.

The recent one in karate involved doing self defenses for three straight minutes. A self defense is a response to a grab. I know eight of these techniques; a first-degree black belt will know more than 20. Watching these, you might think that they involve throwing and being thrown. Actually, someone who appears to have been thrown has chosen to fall in order to avoid having something broken. Someone who appears to throw someone else has actually just put them in the position to fall or be broken, and falling is always the better of the two. We practice self defenses in a circle. The person in the center is open for grabbing by anyone on the outside of the circle in any way for which the person attacked knows the response and the person attacking knows the fall. This means someone could grab you from any direction--front, side, or back. You have to respond almost immediately. It sounds easier than it is. Take my word for it--three minutes is a long time. And it's a very physical workout whether you're attacking or being attacked. Moreover, when we did this class last week, I had not done any self defenses in over two months due to the hand surgery. I blanked for a moment on the response to one grab, but so did several other people. We all quickly recovered and completed the technique. I finished my three minutes in the center of the circle tired but confident that I could have continued if I had needed to.

You may have noticed that a feeling of confidence appeared in both the class situations I described. One of the things I like about the martial arts I do is that they offer a workout that is as much mental as physical. My performance on an exercise cycle or elliptical machine is all physical; there's no real mental aspect to it other than keeping the physical part going. One day's workout is pretty much like any other. Karate and kendo challenge me mentally as well as physically. Learning the techniques is as much a mental process as a physical one. As I understand a technique better, my performance of it usually improves. When I prepare to practice either martial art, I need to clear my mind of the day behind or ahead of me. While I may spend my time on a rowing machine or a treadmill (I actually hate treadmills but wanted a fourth type of cardio equipment to cite) rehashing things done and still to do, I want those as far as possible from my mind during martial arts. My mind gets a break from the mundane and gets to do something different just as my body does.

I'm not sure I've done a good job of explaining this, but hopefully I've done an adequate one. I know that acquaintances often see my latest bruise(s), and give me a look that suggests they wonder at my sanity for engaging in such activity six times a week. The next time that happens, I can direct them to this post for a good part of the reason. And, as our senior master kendo instructor likes to note, "If it were easy, what would be the fun in staying with it?" He's working his way through his 70s now, suggesting that I have a few more years of martial arts ahead of me.

Scar Tissue

2011-01-14T14:00:00.004-05:00

I had minor hand surgery on November 4, a procedure called a trigger finger release. I had a follow-up appointment on December 14, with a final one scheduled for January 25. Over the last couple of weeks, principally while in Florida for the celebration of my dad's life (a happier term than "memorial service"), some swelling appeared in my palm centered around where the incision had been made. The swelling was fairly obvious; showing someone my open would elicit a comment of the "what's that?" variety. Fearing it might be infection of some sort, I e-mailed the surgeon asking if I should come in earlier than the already-scheduled appointment. The fact that she asked if I could come in on her next clinic day didn't really help keep that "this is really nothing" feeling alive. Still, it seemed better to get it over with.

It turns out that there's no infection. What there is is a lot of scar tissue forming, more scar tissue than the surgeon says she's ever seen with this sort of surgery. It may not help that I several times a week grip a sword hilt tightly for upwards of two or more hours. I didn't ask her that, though, because I didn't want to hear that perhaps I shouldn't be doing that. I got some massage and stretching exercises from the physical therapist and some gel pads to wear over the scar at night, and I'll go back for another follow-up on the 25th. The aim is to break the scar tissue up to get the flexibility and range of motion back in my finger and hand.

Thinking about my distinction of producing more scar tissue than the average patient on the street led to thinking about emotional as opposed to physical scar tissue. Grudges over past slights, regret over things done or undone, the emotional luggage we all carry. I like to claim that mine is a matched set, but that's probably not the case. I have occasionally said, not entirely jokingly, that I am probably more normal than I should be given various things in my past that other people cite as dysfunctional in their own and as causes for their problems in the present. I wonder if I've done a reasonable job of massaging and stretching out my emotional scar tissue, though it could well be that it's just deeply enough embedded that I no longer feel it or recognize it for what it is.

It's a rhetorical question, really, but one to think about over the next while as I massage and stretch and try to break down the physical scar tissue in my hand. Better to think about it then than when I'm holding a sword in the same hand.

Over the Shoulder and Straight On Till Morning

2011-01-02T15:48:00.002-05:00

It's that time of year to look over one's shoulder at the year now past while stepping, hopefully confidently, into the new one. I posted my resolutions for 2010 here and offered an update here, on my birthday that falls halfway through the year. Now it's time for the final tally of the 2010 list sitting here beside me.

Lose weight (for real this time). It's not that I needed to lost weight. I am not overweight and though I haven't computed my Body Mass Index lately, it's probably quite good for a woman my age. Still, some jeans that fit me comfortably two years ago, or even one year ago, are getting uncomfortably snug. The grammarians among my readership may note a tense change there, from past to present. I accomplished nothing toward this goal in 2010, and a variation of it tops my list for 2011.

Exercise five times weekly. I achieved this and more, though I was not compulsive enough to go through my workout calendar and count just how many times I did work out. If I was in town, I did six martial arts workouts each week, ranging in length from 90 minutes to three-plus hours. Several days a week I also did cardio and/or weights in the morning. In July, I did the equivalent of an Ironman Triathlon, though spread out over the entire month. Yeah, I can check this one off as done.

Create more. I am not sure that I actually made more quilts, did more knitting, felted more bags in 2010 than in 2009, but I'm satisfied that I created enough. Besides getting my studio set up, I did projects in some areas I hadn't done before or hadn't done in a long time. While it would always be nice to have more time for my creative interests and passions, I don't feel I short-changed this one this year.

Finish The Fifty. The Fifty is a list of 50 things I wanted to do to mark my 50th year of life. I didn't make it. I still have seven to finish, including "write 12 poems." One poem a month should have been easy, but I guess I'm not a poet at heart. Several of the ones still to do are to visit or re-visit some place ... Monticello, Montpelier, Colonial Williamsburg, a winery.

Learn material for second dan in Myo Sim Kendo. This is another one I can check off. I don't consider myself ready to test for my second degree black belt yet, though that's a decision actually more appropriately left to the instructors, but I know the material I need to work on.

Better organize my kendo notebook. While it continues to be a work-in-progress, it is better and more organized than it was last year, so I am comfortable considering this one accomplished.

And the list for 2011? I must have been over-caffeinated when I wrote it, because it's so much longer than the lists of past years. Without a lot of detail, here's the new list, conveniently organized into three spheres.

The Physical
(1) Lose five pounds and keep them off.
(2) Ski, cycle, row, swim, run, walk, or otherwise cover 700 miles to nowhere. This can include the miles needed to complete another Lazyman Triathlon in July.
(3) Remember the Food Pyramid. In other words, eat more fruits and vegetables and give the starches more of a pass.
(4) Drink more water. In other words, drink less caffeine. (This typed as I have a cup of coffee out of my Journeys mug.)

The Mental
(1) Do one craft devotional, drawing lesson, or similar short creative activity weekly.
(2) Keep a journal in the same volume(s) for one year.
(3) Put up one blog post weekly. In other words, write more.
(4) Learn as much Vietnamese as possible. Perhaps try to study it five hours weekly?

Somewhere In Between
(1) Learn all the material for Myo Sim Karate Blue 5, the rank I'm currently working toward.
(2) Finally finish The Fifty.
(3) Concentrate on needs not wants. In other words, spend less money and save more.
(4) Find something for which to be grateful daily.

I hope I have not been overly ambitious for 2011. The above goals are written on the first page of what I hope will be my 2011 journal. The second page holds another list of goals that didn't make the cut or that got subsumed into the larger ones that did. I don't know where working on all these will take me in 2011, but Ill let you know if the road to hell really is paved with good intentions.

Mug Shots ...

2010-12-31T15:43:00.003-05:00

...because it's easier than writing about my resolutions for 2011 before it is here.

The coffee cups in the cupboards, like the t-shirts in the t-shirt drawer, seem to multiply and resist all attempts to be weeded. Still, when I reach into the cupboard, I tend to instinctively reach for one of five mugs, each of which probably says more about me than I might like to think.

Magic Kitties I got this mug from a quilting friend from upstate New York. She carried it to a quilting gathering in New Mexico to give to me, and I carried it back to Virginia. That's the sort of thing friends do. It's colorful and jazzy and tends to make me smile if I'm not smiling already or, if I'm already smiling, smile a bit more.

Potential
This is one of the Demotivator designs from despair.com. It reminds me somewhat quirkily that the only thing separating most of us from doing jobs that challenge us and asking "Would you like fries with that?" is a bit of work and a spot of luck. I've been fortunate enough to have had only one job that really depressed me, and taking it was by choice not necessity. It was a fairly well-paying job, too, but the mindlessness of it would have crushed my soul had I stayed in it longer than I did.

Mistakes
This is another classic Demotivator that helps keep me humble. This is often the mug I choose the morning after I have a karate class because I often feel as if I am the student most likely to be used to illustrate how not to do a technique. Of course, working through how to do something is one of the challenges that keeps me going back to karate. If it came too easily, it wouldn't be as satisfying.

Funky It's hard to do better than a mug with a monkey on it. I had a gift certificate to a local boutique, and this is what I chose after an arduous search. Like the Magic Kitties, Funky makes me smile. He also holds a sizable amount of coffee, a fact for which I am usually grateful first thing in the morning.

Journeys I saw this saying on a plaque at the local Hallmark Store and thought it the perfect Christmas present for a dear friend of long standing (some might say that we are old friends, but I prefer to think of us as friends of long standing). When I saw the same saying on a mug, I thought it the perfect Christmas present for myself. I usually initially jump at the chance to travel, then hesitate out of fear of leaving my comfort zone. The hesitations are lessening as I get older, because I look back and see how previous trips have changed me, usually for the better. The woman who returned in August 1975 from a summer studying in Spain and traveling in Western Europe was a stronger person than the girl who left on the trip in June 1975. The Jean who came back from 2009's Grand Adventure was an improvement over the Jean who started out. Journeys not only reminds me of the transformative power of travel but also usually brings back a memory or two.

Morning coffee or evening tea...they're both better with old friends.

The resolutions will come; in the meantime, Happy New Year!

Looking Back

2010-12-29T23:18:00.004-05:00

I mentioned a couple of posts back that my dad died this past fall. Most of the people who read this blog never met Dad. The people who have read this blog since its inception, or who went back to see what they missed in the early days of this blog, met Dad through this post. I can't really describe Dad any better now than I did then.

My dad fought and, for the most part, beat prostate cancer for the last two decades. He fought, but in the end lost to, multiple myeloma for the last five years. Given his age--he was 81 when he died--that his battle lasted five years is noteworthy. When the end came, it came somewhat suddenly. Early in his second round of chemotherapy (the first one had bought him another two years), he developed abdominal pain severe enough that he was sent from his doctor's office straight to the ICU. A few days later, my stepmother's report was that it didn't look good. I flew to Florida two days after that, planning to stay for five days. My brother was able to get time off from his job; he and his wife arrived in Orlando the same morning I did. Dad's sister had arrived the day before.

Our first full day there, Dad wanted to make sure my brother and I knew all the details of his estate, the location of the obituary he'd written, and the things he'd done to try to make the logistics of his death easier for our stepmother. He also wanted to talk about our childhood, how he worried that he had been absent for too many important moments in our lives after he and our mother divorced and his work took him to another city. We shared our side of that story with him, that while he had certainly missed some things, he had been there for the ones that counted most. High school graduation. Weddings. His grandsons. We laughed a bit together, and we cried a bit together.

The second full day, Dad asked for time alone with my brother's wife. He also made the decision to stop all treatments which were, his doctor admitted, only buying him time. The pain that caused his ICU admission had been traced to a clot that was blocking any blood flow between his kidneys and his liver. Dad said that the time he'd been bought had let him see his kids and his sister, and that he was done fighting. I can't say that I blamed him. The treatment buying him time was heparin, which required that his blood be tested every four hours. The night before, it had taken 11 needle sticks to find a vein from which enough blood could be drawn. They moved Dad from the ICU to a private room and began arrangements to admit him to a hospice the next day, the day before my and my brother's flights to our respective homes. Thanks to a relatively low-pressure, part-time job and a wonderful boss, I was able to cancel my flight and stay on. My heart almost broke watching my brother say good-bye to Dad. I felt a bit bad that I was able to stay when he had to go. Two days later, my aunt returned to her home in Nebraska.

Dad was in the hospice for six days before he died. He and I had several more talks from the heart. Among other things, he told me how proud he'd been that I had insisted on keeping my maiden name in addition to the husband's surname and using both though without a connecting hyphen. He also told me, not for the first time, how much he appreciated the decision the husband and I had made to have me stay at home with the sons when they were little. I was able to tell him how much that support had meant to me. Dad had always loved Frank Sinatra. I had my Mac along and set iTunes to shuffle through the four Frank Sinatra CDs I'd stored. Sometimes Dad and I just sat there holding hands and mouthing the words along with Old Blue Eyes. We needed no words of our own. My stepmother and I made sure Dad always had someone there, and we gave each other private time with him.

Dad was pretty much out of it the two days before he died, but we took turns sitting with him, talking with him, and just being there. The hospice nurses and aides were absolutely incredible. I cannot praise them enough for the care they gave Dad and for the care they gave my stepmother and me. I'm a bit embarrassed to say that I knew of hospice in only general terms before all this. It was just amazing.

I put in my Christmas letter that as deaths go, Dad's was a good one. It was. He could have been hit by a truck or had a heart attack and gone without warning, with no chance for the goodbyes my brother and I got to share with him. I might not have been able to read him the e-mails I got from the sons, each sharing the memories of him that they will cherish. He went out on his own terms, with dignity, sharing one last lesson, setting one last example for me.

Finally, I must admit that my father was an atheist of long standing. The only times I ever saw Dad in church were during my appearances in Sunday School Christmas pageants, one reason that this year's Christmas Eve service left me in tears when the candles were passed, and at my wedding. A hospital chaplain visited Dad after he had left the ICU and was in the private hospital room for one night. They evidently had quite the discussion of faith or lack thereof. Dad told me after he'd moved to the hospice that he hoped the chaplain might come visit him so that they could continue their discussion; he said the chaplain had told him that he was the first atheist he'd met who clearly articulated why he chose not to believe. The chaplain did visit Dad in the hospice, but not until Dad was basically continually sedated. He confirmed Dad's account of their initial conversation and said he, too, had looked forward to continuing their discussion.

My post of two years ago referenced above alludes to Dad's somewhat daring nature, his willingness to bluff his way through certain situations. He was a lucky fellow when it came right down to it. And even at the end, Lady Luck smiled on him. Atheist though Dad was, one of his tennis buddies was a retired Catholic priest. I'm blanking on his name as I write this, but I'll call him Father Mike. Father Mike and some of Dad's other tennis buddies came to visit during the time near the end, when Dad was out of it. As they were getting ready to leave, Father Mike asked if he could offer a prayer. I told him that I thought that would be nice. I told Father Mike that my aunt is Catholic and Dad's atheism was very painful for her, and that I knew it would give her comfort to know that a priest had offered a prayer for Dad near the end. Father Mike pulled out his pocket prayer guide, we all bowed our heads, and he read what essentially amounted to an absolution of all Dad's sins. I'm more "spiritual" these days than I am into any organized church faith, but I figure that Dad left this world with all his bases covered. If he was right, and there's no God and nothing to come after death, cool. If he was wrong, well, he certainly didn't have the chance to commit any sins after all his previous ones were absolved.

For Dad's 80th birthday, in 2009, I gave him a copy of Showing up for Life: Thoughts on the Gifts of a Lifetime by Bill Gates, Sr. In one of those last talks with Dad, when he apologized for missing so much of my childhood, I reminded him of the inscription I'd written in that book. "It wasn't always easy for you to show up, but you always managed to be there when it mattered most. Love, Jean"

He was always there when it mattered most, and I wouldn't be who I am today without that. I miss you, Dad, and always will.

It's Beginning To Look a Lot Like Christmas...

2010-12-22T20:03:00.006-05:00

I'm still struggling a bit with really feeling Christmasy. I mailed my cards today, with the traditional Christmas letter for those who aren't up on some of the latest family news. The cards we've gotten are hanging above the fireplace, making a banner between the stockings hung to each side. Various handmade Christmas things I've been given as gifts over the years sit on various surfaces around the living room. And, with less than a week to spare before the arrival of the Big Day, we did put up a Christmas tree following the traditional argument between the sons over which one to choose at the tree place.

Decorating the tree has become less of a big deal over the years, as the sons have grown. This year, the husband was jet-lagged and slept soundly on the couch while I strung the lights on the tree. He did wake up when I yelled to the sons who were upstairs that I was starting to hang the ornaments just in case they wanted to help. They did, and each hung some ornaments that are special to them. These included two that they each made in the first grade they attended at a local religiously affiliated school. (You'd never see Christmas-themed costumes in a public school around here.) Younger son is no longer the angel he once was, though older son is still known to wield a stick from time to time. When the husband and I first got married, he started stitching a star on plastic needlepoint canvas for the top of our family tree. His mother came to visit, saw it lying there, and finished it for him. He was a bit perturbed about it at the time, but I don't think it bothers him now. At some point when the sons were little, older son realized that one of their stuffed primates could sit atop the tree thanks to a zippered opening on its back. To this day, each year, the Christmas ape sits atop the tree and wears the star as a hat. As for the tree in all its glory, it's far from a designer tree given that most of the ornaments are handmade, many by small children. There's a story behind almost every one. I'm embarrassed to say that the pile of presents under the tree does not constitute all that we have. Some of the sons' presents to their father are too large to put in the small corner allotted to the tree, so they're sitting in the foyer. We'll pull them into the living room to be opened on Christmas morning.

Other Christmas traditions here include the Christmas Eve service at the church some friends attend. That comes after the Christmas Eve dinner that I have do nothing for. Some years, it's take-out Chinese; other years, the husband and sons cook. Before we leave for church, I'll make a double batch of dough for cinnamon rolls. The dough will do its first rising overnight in the refrigerator. On Christmas morning, the sons will sleep in while I get the rolls rolled, sugared, cinnamoned, and otherwise ready for the second rising. We'll open presents while the rolls rise and bake. The rolls will have to last everyone until dinner, though I typically serve Christmas dinner in the late afternoon. Most years, I manage to fit in a soak in a bubble bath with one of the books I get as gifts. The other tradition is the male-oriented movie that I annually present to "the testosterone trio." They already know that this year it's the remake of "The A Team." The sons and I saw it in the theater; now it's the husband's turn to experience the mayhem. How can you not like a movie that contains the line "overkill is under-rated"?

After Christmas Day, the tree stays up until New Year's Day. I'm usually the one taking the ornaments and lights off it and packing them up for next year. The husband cleans up the needles the tree leaves where it stood and on its way out the door. The sons are all too happy each year to hack the tree apart with whatever sharp implements they fancy at the time. Some of our traditions are a bit far up on the banks of the mainstream, but they're just that--our traditions--and what makes this holiday one I genuinely treasure year after year after year. If you celebrate it, Merry Christmas! If you observe another winter holiday, Happy Holidays!

A Mom Moment

2010-12-13T10:55:00.002-05:00

I took younger son to the local airport this morning. I asked him if I should just drop him off or go into the terminal with him. Noting that the short-term parking lot was not too crowded, he said why not come in with him. I did, and watched him confidently present his government-issued ID and obtain his boarding passes. I accepted the hug he offered, wished him luck, and told him I'd see him on Wednesday. We shared "love yous" as I felt tears start to roll down my cheeks. "Just a Mom moment," I told him. Having seen them before, he nodded, turned, and headed for the security checkpoint. I turned for the door to the parking lot, not trusting myself to watch him walk away.

Younger son is 20 though within spitting distance of being legal to imbibe. Five months from college graduation, he's sitting comfortably on one good offer of a good job. He's flying to Seattle today, picking up a rental car, and driving to Redmond, where tomorrow he will interview with Microsoft. Tomorrow night, he will red-eye back east, for two class presentations on Wednesday. Thursday, he will apparently (details still being arranged) fly to Mountain View, California for a Friday interview with Google. He'll get home Saturday, to the break he says he's looking forward to more than he has any other.

When did my kid grow up and get so confident and self-assured? I tell myself one moment that I must have done something right along his path through childhood and adolescence and the next moment tell myself that it must have been all his father's doing. I tell myself one moment that I could never have done what he's doing and the next moment remind myself that I did do similar things at a similar age though in a different world and time. One moment I want to hold him close and never let him go or go too far away, and the next moment I can't wait to see what he accomplishes next.

Being a Mom is like that, I guess.

A is for Anniversary; B is for Bras

2010-12-12T17:07:00.009-05:00

It is December 12, one month since my last post to this blog and two months since my father died, a subject I will write about here once I feel ready. So much for the Anniversary side of this post. As for Bras, they can be made into great purses, as I have blogged before, here. The purse shown in that post went to my stepmother. I made another one for the woman with whom I partnered when I earned my black belt in Myo Sim kendo; unfortunately, I forgot to photograph that one before I presented it. I have since made three more, and after being asked on Facebook about photos, decided to post photos and the story behind them here.

Several years, ago my dad and stepmom relocated to DeLand, Florida. As the years went by, a social group evolved of my dad, my stepmom, and three of her friends, all widows. They dined out together most Friday nights, saying that it was "Jerry and his harem." During the last week of Dad's life, when he was in the hospice, two of these friends saved me from having to make early (as in 4:00 a.m.) trips to the airport shuttle, first with my brother and sister-in-law and later with my aunt. They were at the house the day after Dad died, with dinner, wine, and empathy when all were needed most. They had previously admired the bra purse I'd sent my stepmom, so I thought bra purses would be one way to thank them for their love and attention, then to both of us and now, to my stepmom.

As it happened, I already had three bras in my stash of fun things, in ivory, purple, and black. The purple and black ones might better be termed "luggage" than "purses" being 46 C or D, a size I have never known not even when pregnant or nursing. I wanted each purse to be different, but I also wanted them to share something. For this, I chose one set of three embellishments--purple and green flowers with black stems--that actually reminded me very much of tattoos. I put one of these on each purse. Not looking ahead, I took no photos as I made the purses, but I did photograph them in their finished state, hanging from a hook on my porch. As I said, I wanted each one to be unique. The ivory one actually got nipples thanks to a pair of thrift-shop earrings I knew I could use for something somewhere sometime. The embellishment shared between the three purses provided really the only color against the ivory. While the ivory purse had nipples, the black purse had fringe. The shared embellishment can be seen at the top. Finally, I ended up putting, quite unknowingly, a face on one side of the purple purse. The "mouth" is the shared embellishment.

One fun thing about making purses out of bras is trying to use different parts of the bras in the construction of the purses or, to put it another way, limiting the non-bra used. Although it can't be seen in the photo, for example, the hooks and eyes that hold the purse closed are actually the pieces that would ordinarily hold the back of the bra closed. The bow on the side, which was put there to hide where the two halves did not meet exactly, was crafted from the side panels of the bra. The bow at the top of the ivory bra was made from the back straps of the bra.

Did the recipients like their gifts? Well, it certainly looked that way to me in the e-mail and photos they sent.

To Every Place There Is a Season

2010-11-12T12:56:00.004-05:00

Or, as I've been thinking lately, to every season there is a place. It is fall in the northern hemisphere now, and I can honestly think of no place I'd rather be than at home in Virginia. The air is so crisp in the morning you can almost hear it snap in time with the crunching of the leaves under your feet. What leaves are still left on the trees blaze with color, mocking the monotonous green they bore all summer. I was in Florida for almost two weeks of October (possibly the subject of another post here, when I'm ready to write it), and I worried that I might miss the best part of fall. I did not, and am reveling in it now. I would offer photographic evidence if it weren't for the large bandage on my right hand, from which only my fingertips emerge for typing. Another possible blog post, but not today's.

Fall will segue into winter before I know it, and I shall dream of being in northern Iceland, looking out on a sea of white. There was something so magical about northern Iceland in the winter last year that I would not have been surprised had an elf or troll made an appearance however brief. The cold solitude inspired a feeling of strength, of survival, of possibilities. To be complacent would be to freeze and die. The shortness of daylight is more than offset by the night's auroral possibilities, a ceiling of color over the white floor.

In a world of wealth, spring would call me to Asia, to the streets of Hue or the temples of Angkor. I would doff the cold of the north and don the heated blanket of the south. I would trade the movement required to keep warm for the stillness required to endure the heat. I would savor the smells and sounds of the market even if not enamored of the excessive attention given to a Western visitor. I would try to draw the rooftops of the city as the clouds rolled above them before a rain and find music in the cacophony of car horns.

What does it say that my summer place sits at almost the same latitude as my winter one? I would love to spend a summer in Norway, making the most of some of the best Mother Nature has to offer without the hot flashes she offers places such as Virginia. My energy would stretch with the daylight, and I could forego my usual inclination to want to go to sleep the day before I must awaken. I would love to hike through some of the mountains while leaving the hang-gliding off them to younger son. I would love to dabble my toes in the cold of a mountain stream or wash my face in a waterfall.

Awakening from daydreams now and returning to the mundanities of the day. At least it is fall and I am where my soul needs to be in that season. Yes, life is good.

National Book Festival 2010

2010-09-26T16:28:00.009-04:00

I never seem to be able to put up a post about the National Book Festival anywhere near the time it actually happens. It's been more than a month now, but at least we're still in the month immediately following the one in which the festival happened. This year's was the tenth National Book Festival, and my third. I went to my first one two years ago, with older son, and it rained. I went to my second one last year, with a friend, and it rained. This year, I went with older son and the friend from last year, and it did not rain. It was, however, unseasonably hot, close to the 90s(F) if not in them. The Washington Post, one of the main sponsors of the event, estimated that there would be 130,000 people at the Festival (compared to the 30,000 at the first one, in 2001). I would not be at all surprised to hear that they were right. This one definitely seemed more crowded than the last two. I'm sure the lack of precipitation helped. One tent at the book festival always serves as the Pavilion of the States. You can get a map that serves as a passport and then circulate among tables representing the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories or other possessions. Each table has various swag--bookmarks, posters, stickers, maps, tourist pamphlets, rulers, toys--to pop into the free festival bag. If you get a stamp/sticker from all the places, there's even a prize, which this year was a memo pad complete with pen. As for all the swag, it's great if you're a teacher or know teachers. I sent mine to my cousin-in-law who homeschools one of her children and whose family members are all very prolific readers.

In terms of speakers, we caught several authors with whom at least one of us was familiar. One of my choices was Elizabeth Kostova, author of The Historian and The Swan Thieves. One questioner began by telling Kostova that Kostova's grandmother was the librarian who has planted and nourished her love of reading. Kostova noted that the same grandmother had read all of Jane Austen aloud to her by the time she turned 16. One question concerned the writing process Kostova used. In fact, Kostova noted, her writing process was very different for each of her two books. She wrote The Historian as you would read it, in order, with no deviations. She wrote The Swan Thieves, a more psychological novel, in sections, which then took her a year to stitch together.

Older son suggested that we check out Jonathan Safran Foer, whose latest book, Eating Animals, concerns vegetarianism. He wrote the book to try to explain to his children where meat comes from. In this regard, I couldn't help but think of one rental property in which I lived as a grad student. It was a cottage on a farm and the landlord's young daughters eagerly gave me a tour of the farm shortly after I moved in. Upon coming to the rabbit hutches, they eagerly introduced the rabbits by name; the only name I remember was Napoleon, not surprising since their mom was French. I asked if all the rabbits were pets. "Oh no," they assured me, "we eat them!" While I do eat things with faces, I'm not sure I would want to eat something I had named. Finally, among the facts Foer noted was that 18 percent of college students describe themselves as vegetarian, meaning that there are more vegetarians than Catholics on college campuses.

Older son also suggested we hear Peter Straub, an author about whom I knew nothing. I loved hearing Straub describe his "hunger to read" as a small child. He noted that he was really bummed that there was no reading in kindergarten, just cutting out animals with baby scissors. Even in first grade, what reading there was, was Dick and Jane. He said he "spent a lot of time being really angry as a kid" until he discovered the school library, a situation to which I could personally relate. One of the questions asked Straub concerned the two books he had co-authored with Stephen King. The question was whether it was possible to tell who had written what parts. Straub noted that he and King had played tricks such as attempting to write in the style of the other, and that only one person had demonstrated to him a consistent ability to tell which author wrote which passage. I'll put the name of that person--it's another author--at the end of this post in case you want to try to guess who it is.

Finally, as with previous festivals, there were a number of costumed characters. If you're still working on a guess as to the author who could distinguish between Straub's and King's sections of their books, don't start scrolling yet, because I'm putting the answer right after the last of three photos.

Ready for the answer? The one person who can consistently distinguish between Peter Straub's and Stephen King's contributions to their collaborations is Neil Gaiman.

Is there a fourth National Book Festival in my future? Probably! It's an event not to be missed if you're in the area on the right day. I am still amazed that there is no cost with any of the activities. Yes, you can purchase books by the festival authors, but you can also bring your own copies for signing. Or you can just go and enjoy the experience, which is how we did it this year and may very well do it again next year.

Falling Up and into the Studio

2010-09-11T14:14:00.009-04:00

There's a crispness about the mornings, and last night I put on a sweatshirt over a long-sleeved polo shirt (a real, for-true polo shirt, with a logo of horses, riders with mallets, and the name of a polo club) upon leaving the gym. Yes, it is almost fall and as the child of teachers, I view these few weeks as the start of a new year.

Even apart from the feeling of a new year, having my own, dedicated studio space is like turning over a new leaf. I can run in and do little things, big things, just about anything I want to do. I recently pulled boxes of batik strips, cut years ago, off shelves and whipped up this little quilt top hanging on the closet door. It still needs a narrow strip of black around what you see here, and then a border which will, I think, be strips of the blues, greens, and purples but not the oranges and yellows. I'll get to that when I finish the current quilting project, which is quilting the top you could see hanging, again, on the closet door in one of the studio shots in my most recent post here.

I took a break from that quilting this past week to make a new sword bag. For years, I've wanted to have a different sort of bag for my swords. I tried knitting and felting large pieces but never came up with anything even close to an appropriate size to use. Some months ago, I purchased some Japanese fabrics from my favorite online merchant for such things, planning to try to use them for a sword bag at some point. When I set up the studio, they went into a plastic bin labeled, what else, "SWORD BAG." Last Sunday, the zipper on the bag I've been using, a real, designed-for-swords, bag purchased from a martial arts supply house broke beyond repair after years of use by three different people. The need for a new bag trumped the usual "I'm working on other things and can't do that now" argument, and between Sunday and Wednesday I managed to craft a sword bag that was quite commented upon at Thursday night's class. I couldn't have done it without the studio space in which I could work in a flurry.

If you've seen the fabric rolls in which chefs carry knives, or knitters carry needles, that's what I was aiming for as a sword bag--a fabric case that held swords in pockets and could be rolled up for carrying. For fabric, I had a dark blue Japanese canvas with ivory logos printed on it. This became the outside of the bag. For a lining, I used an ivory Japanese lightweight cotton fabric that had dark blue dragons printed on it. Here they both are, sewn together, and laid out so that I could figure out how to configure the pockets. Here it is after I've pinned some pockets into it. Before I sewed the pockets I'd pinned, I came up with a plan for buckled straps to hold the roll shut as well as a strap for carrying. My plans had to be modified a bit by not being able to obtain as much of one kind of strapping as I planned to use and only being ably to find one kind of buckle of which I could buy four. Even given all that, I managed to come up with something that seemed as if it would work. Lots of pinning, sewing, unpinning, and sewing later, I had a finished bag with four buckles into which I could put all my various swords as well as a jo staff, roll up, buckle, and be ready to go using the handy shoulder strap. The small bag you might notice hanging from the outside of the sword roll holds my black belt. It's now residing in the kit bag in which I carry my gi, tape, notebook, and other necessities.

I must admit that I do like the new bag or roll better than the bag I had been using. Several people in class Thursday night suggested I should make more and try to sell them. I pointed out that the market for sword rolls is likely a very limited one. I did admit that were I to make another, there were some things I'd do differently to make it even better. Upon hearing this, younger son suggested I should make another, new and improved one and then give the first one to him. He also suggested that I could make the second one using the raw silk he got me as a Mother's Day gift in Vietnam in 2009. I have to admit that it's an idea worthy of consideration. First, though, I have that other quilt to finish...

Where Has All the Summer Gone?

2010-08-21T21:40:00.012-04:00

So much for the New Year's resolution to blog more or blog more regularly. Here it is August 21, and my last post was on July 9. What's happened since then? Just a few things. Here, in a whirlwind, with photos, is a summary.

It being summer in Central Virginia, we've had storms, some of which have taken trees down. We tried to save the beehive in this tree that came down on the edge of our yard, but were unsuccessful. We couldn't get the tree far enough off the ground, and it didn't take long for ants to invade and take over the hive. If you've never visited us, here's our house, from the rear, in a photo taken from where the tree came down. We've done some cooking out on the deck you can see on the left, which lets us get up close and personal with the regular visitors to the hummingbird feeder there.
Sadly, we said good-bye to our 17-year-old cat, Maxwell II, and to our 14-year-old dog, Marburg. They said good-bye to us within two days of each other and are buried together in the woods beside the house. I miss both of them deeply.

The husband and I went to a wedding in Chicago. Guests were asked to wear festive summer clothing that was pink and/or orange. The husband got by with a tie that had some pink in the paisleys. I used it as an excuse to buy new shoes and a purse handcrafted by a friend in Australia. The shoes are Vibram Five Fingers. I now own three pairs and basically live, including running, in them.

Younger son worked in Pennsylvania for six weeks, but his return brought such exciting things as life imitating art, well, advertising, in seeing if it were possible to cook a frozen waffle using an iron. Guess what ... it is.

Much of my time has been spent re-arranging rooms in our basement. For the six years my mom lived with us, we used one basement room as a combined sewing room and study/office. When the stairs got too much for my mom and she moved into a condo, we got the chance to reconfigure the space. While the basement as a whole remains a work in progress, the first new room, a studio in which I can pursue my creative urges, is done. Here's the view from the door, and here's what it looks like from the back wall. The room outside the studio door, where the empty bookcase is, will be the new study/office. After that will come a guestroom in what used to be the sewing room/office, a library/reading room in what used to be a family room, and a workout room (including the 70-pound hanging bag I got for Mother's Day) in what used to be a sun room. Getting all those configured should see me into fall. Speaking of fall, if you looked closely in the first photo of the studio, you can see the top of one of my "quilts of summer" hanging on the rear wall. The bins of fabric around the sewing machine are contributing to another one. With luck, the next time I post will not be when both of those are finished and ready to be presented.

The husband just reviewed this post and said that I had to explain the fluffy white dog sitting atop the bins to the left of the first studio photo. His high-faluting name, were he real and registered, would be Gruffles Guardian of the Green, though he goes quite nicely by just Gruffles. Fluffy white dogs have been firmly embedded in the family history ever since a Cambodian one bit me. This past week, I tested for and earned my green belt in Myo Sim karate. Rather than just present me with the "legacy" green belt he once wore, elder son handed me said green belt tied around Gruffles and told me I'd have to fight him for it. I did, and Gruffles is now wearing a blue collar in recognition of the blue belt I'm now working toward. In an interesting footnote, while one of the two remaining family cats views Gruffles as just another one of her humans' stuffed animals, the other cat is quite convinced that Gruffles is real to the point that she arches her back and hisses at him before running for cover. Just one more surreal thing that passes for life around here.

The First Quilt of Summer (Though Started in the Spring)

2010-07-09T07:52:00.007-04:00

Since my latest quilt made its debut on Facebook last night, it seems appropriate to highlight it here rather than wait until the post I usually do in the fall on my "quilts of summer." This one was a wedding present that I mailed to the recipients ahead of time so that I wouldn't have to pack it in my luggage when I go to Chicago for the wedding in two weeks. Laura was one of my Girl Scouts a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. No, wait, it just seems that way. Seriously, I was very happy to reconnect with Laura at the wedding of another Scout two years ago. Laura is a wonderful young woman who seems to run at life with a smile on her face. When I heard she was getting married, I knew I had to make her and her intended a quilt, and what kind of quilt to make shaped up fairly easily. The blocks in the center of the quilt pay tribute to the colors that Laura and George chose for their wedding. Guests were asked to wear festive attire in pink and/or orange, so I chose 12 fabrics that seemed to "cry out" with each color. Through a neat mathematical trick, each set of 12 fabrics yielded 12 blocks, each of which had nine different fabrics in it.

The borders also somewhat designed themselves. The shoe border was for Laura, whose middle name perhaps should have been "Imelda." The train border was for George, whose passion for trains rivals Laura's for shoes. In a further stroke of "it was meant to be," the train fabric is for the Union Pacific, which I think is the railway for which George once worked.

As often happens, the quilt basically named itself. Besides the shoe and train fabrics on the front, you can see on the photo of the label that I used beer fabric for the backing. Hence, the name "Chugga Chugga, Chugga Chugga, Shoe Shoe." One "chugga chugga" for George's train obsession, one "chugga chugga" for the beer that brought Laura and George together, and one "shoe shoe" for Laura's footwear fetish.

I sometimes think of the quilts I make as babies that I send out for adoption to people who will love them and give them a good home. I know that Laura and George will cherish Chugga Chugga, Chugga Chugga, Shoe Shoe and give it a wonderful, loving home. They can also share it with their canine and feline children. Unless I'm doing something special, as in the quilt I made from silk ties, the quilts I make are fully machine washable and dryable. They are designed to be used, and I'm betting that Laura and George will put Chugga Chugga, Chugga Chugga, Shoe Shoe to very good use over the years to come.

Birthday Musings

2010-07-01T16:27:00.002-04:00

I share a birthday with Canada, though I am 89 years her junior. Having a birthday that falls halfway through the year makes it all too easy to reflect on those resolutions I made half a year ago to see how I'm doing on them. Here goes.

In terms of the omnipresent exercise resolution, yes, I am well on track to exceed it once again. On the martial arts front, I didn't resolve anything about Myo Sim karate, though I noted that I was still wrestling with vertigo on tumble falls as 2010 dawned. I'm proud and pleased to say that although I occasionally have a hint of vertigo, I can now do a very respectable tumble fall, the first successful one of which actually drew applause in the dojo. In terms of Myo Sim kendo, I resolved to learn all the material required for second degree black belt so that I could practice, practice, practice. I have learned 19 of the 20 forms required, meaning I am practicing, practicing, practicing. Unfortunately, I need a partner for half of the forms, so those don't get practiced quite as often as the others. I'm working hard, though, on the forms as well as on using two swords, another requirement. Finally on the martial arts front, it seems that I resolved to improve my kendo notes in 2010. While I have not quite done this, I have been pretty meticulous about making notes and recording comments on the new material I have learned.

In terms of my 2010 resolution to "create more," I probably haven't but it hasn't been for lack of trying. I've made a couple of sweaters, a quilt, some bags, and am currently in the process of setting up a dedicated studio as part of our basement reorganization. Things are percolating mentally, though, and once the space is ready, I think the soul will be, too. I have a list of blog posts I'd like to write, and will try to be more regular about those.

Finally, it appears that I resolved to finish my list of 50 things to do in my fiftieth year. Yes, I know that was a while ago. I need to update The Fifty blog, but it appears I have four or five left to do. I think I'll make that a priority in the upcoming months of summer.

As birthdays go, this one is still up in the air. I asked the resident menfolk (younger son is away at a summer job) last night if I would be making my own birthday cake, and they got quite embarrassed since they'd totally forgotten about cake. I told them it could wait until the weekend. The folks at the vet's office gave me the wrong time for the dog's blood test, so I had to kill time for an hour and then take him home on my own. Since he doesn't get into and out of the car easily, it helps to have older son along. And when I tried to kill some of the time by getting the free birthday coffee Starbucks e-mailed me that I would get, I couldn't get it without the postcard Starbucks has yet to mail me. On the plus side, the bread I made this afternoon turned out okay, the sun is shining but not too hotly, I've been getting tons of warm birthday wishes via e-mail and Facebook, and the 17-year-old cat must still have a life or two left in him since he's still moving around. I have people who love me and people whom I love. I have things I love to do and the time in which to do them and the energy with which to do them. All in all, life is pretty good as I enter my 55th year.

Deadlines

2010-06-21T16:02:00.005-04:00

If my blog had deadlines, I would probably be much better about posting things. If I had faithful readers and paid ads down the side instead of a list of the other blogs I read and the Daily Puppy, I would feel more of an obligation, I'm sure, and make the time for it. As it is, I put items I want to blog about on a list which then carries over to the daily list of things to do not all of which ever get done.

The day after tomorrow, though, is the deadline to enter photos in the photo contest being held by the Charlottesville Photography Meetup Group, which I recently joined. Each paid member can enter up to three photos. The top 10 photos will be mounted as 20 x 24 prints for the fancy reception on July 23, and the people who took the top three photos will win prizes that I imagine will be awesome. I'll actually be at a wedding in Chicago that weekend so will miss the party and the announcement of the winners. That's okay, because I don't really expect to win anything. I don't consider myself a serious photographer; I have enough other time- and money-consuming hobbies already to start taking photography as seriously as most of the other meetup group members do. The photos I entered, for example, have not been post-processed or put through software such as Adobe Photoshop or Gimp. They are as they were taken; I haven't tweaked anything. There are people in the group who will not show other people even one photo that has not been post-processed and who would likely be appalled that I am about to post three here. I just like these pictures and hope that other people might, too. Taking them made me happy, and sharing them with other people makes me happy. Would I be happier if I put in the time tweaking and fine-tuning them? Maybe, but I doubt the difference in happiness would be enough to justify the time it would take, especially on the up-side of the learning curve.

All that said, here are the photos I entered. The first comes from our month in Hue and actually made its debut on my trip blog accompanying some musings about how I used to be a better photographer than I am now. I like the depth of field in this shot, though I achieved it only by accident. Having just gotten a basic lesson in digital photography from the same friend who introduced me to the CPMG, I could probably do this shot now intending for it to come out as it did, but that doesn't mean I like this accidental shot less.

The second photo is from our hotel in Reykjavik, Iceland, in February. It was one of those quickie things as I walked up to the room and looked down at the spiral the stairs were making. Somewhere, I have a film print of the spiral stairs at the Vatican, and they're much more glamorous. What can I say? These stairs may not be glamorous, but they're fun to me.

The final photo I entered is one that appears in this blog just a post or two back, when I wrote about my trip to New Mexico in April. The hand sits on a shelf in one of the huge prop rooms maintained for In Plain Sight. I took several shots of the hand, but this is my favorite. It's a simple shot, not much color and not many things to see save for the hand and the rolls of paper beside it. Simple but somewhat elegant? Maybe that's what drew me to it.

If you want to check out the competition, all the photos entered can be seen here. I think mine are photos 61-63. Younger son will probably add three of his to the collection tonight or tomorrow; I expect they'll be better than mine. Still, you never win if you don't play the game, so I might as well play. Stay tuned for a month, and I'll post the outcome sometime after July 23.

A Taste of Adventure

2010-05-08T20:45:00.007-04:00

Travel is always an adventure, one aspect of which is trying new food and drink. When I spent a summer in Spain during my college days, I set the challenge of trying at least a taste of everything new that I was served. I ended up trying--and liking--some things I probably never would have tried at home, octopus and squid among them. When I went to Vietnam last year, I was not quite so open, vowing not to even taste dog or cat were I offered them. Different spices on meat that I consider fit to eat, fine, but meat from an animal I consider to be pet material? No way!

Meeting up with the Aussies in New Mexico gave me the chance to try something I'd only heard of and not necessarily in complimentary terms, Vegemite. For those who may not know much about Vegemite, here's the Wikipedia summary: "Vegemite is made from used brewers' yeast extract, a by-product of beer manufacturing, and various vegetable and spice additives. It is salty, slightly bitter, and umami or malty — similar to beef bouillon. The texture is smooth and sticky. It is not as intensely flavoured as British Marmite and it is less sweet than the New Zealand version of Marmite." The Aussies had some along and were all too willing to share, so I had to give it a go. They warned me that the other Americans with whom they'd spent time had not liked it, but I wasn't going to let that stop me. Diane from Canada didn't let it stop her either, and here's her reaction. She went straight for the milk, which seemed to help. I didn't have quite that reaction, though I can't say I'll be seeking out a jar here so as to have my own supply. As Wikipedia says, it's salty, and I didn't find the taste to be one I'd like first thing in the morning, for breakfast. I tend to like salty foods later in the day, occasionally or often with a beer. I think I'd like Vegemite better under those circumstances than for breakfast.

Speaking of salt, Sarah makes a mean margarita, from scratch, no margarita mixer allowed. I even helped squeeze the limes. Margaritas were new for the Aussies, and Gilly's reaction to hers was even better than Diane's Vegemite face. Here it is, in sequence. First, the preparation ... then, a sip ... then the reaction ... followed by ... and ... and then ... and finally ... I think that's relief that the first taste is over. Not to worry. Gilly survived her first margarita, just as Diane and I survived our first tastes of Vegemite. We all had a taste of adventure and lived to tell and laugh about it. Plus, the Aussies ended up with more Vegemite left than they might have had Diane and I really taken a liking to it, and some of us ended up with seconds and more on the margaritas.

And just in case any reader is wondering, both Diane and Gilly agreed to my posting their photos here. Yes, I asked them since they, after all, have much they could tell on me should I inadvertently tick them off.

Continuing Right Along ...

2010-05-04T16:11:00.018-04:00

As I was saying, I was in New Mexico with friends for a few days, and since they were very fun friends, it all made for some very fun days. Diane, from Canada, and I met up at the Denver Airport on a Friday and flew together to El Paso, where Sarah, our NM hostess, picked us up in her new-to-her Mazda 5 mini-minivan, Bling. Bling was not having a good day, though, and wouldn't let the rear passenger-side door open when we stopped for drinks and snacks before the drive to Las Cruces. No worries. Diane, who was sitting in the back, just got out the rear driver-side door. Sarah was a bit miffed since the rear doors had supposedly been fixed with the 30-day warranty period that had by then ended. Little did we know then that by the end of the trip, Bling would become known as "the Clown Car" when both rear side doors stopped working, threatening to strand six women who wanted to go places. It turned out to be a good thing all six of us had senses of adventure and humour. (I added the "u" in honour of the Canadian-Australian element of the story.)

Our first stop Saturday morning was the Las Cruces market that covered four blocks of the pedestrian mall downtown. If you wanted it, you could probably find it there, from flowering plants to kitschy purses
to dogs. This one was not up for adoption, though there were plenty that were.

I missed out on a photo of the two-level dog stroller being "driven" by a woman with also managing two dogs on leashes, one in each of her hands. Diane and Sarah stimulated the local economy at several of the jewelery vendors, while my major outlay was made at the knife maker's stand. Each son now has a hand-crafted knife chosen to fit their particular personalities and needs. I told Sarah that on my next visit, the knife I buy will be mine.

Sometime around the time we left the market, the second rear side door stopped working, so I started putting the front passenger seat down all the way and crawling through to the back seat. Diane then put the front seat up and sat there. We still had to go back to the El Paso airport for the two Terri and Gilly, the two Aussies, but we figured that we could put one of the far rear seats down, someone could go in the rear hatch and occupy the other seat next to all the luggage. The middle two seats would have to be accessed via the reclined front passenger seat.

The Aussies' flight from Dallas to El Paso was delayed, so we had some extra time to kill at the El Paso airport. They do have some nice metalwork there. as well as a rather inane message on their arrival board. What other kind of message do they expect me to watch for? An auditory one?

Fast forward to the Aussies having been picked up in El Paso and returned to Las Cruces, and the final friend, MJ, arrived from Texas in the company of her husband Wayne, who took group photos with each person's camera then beat a hasty retreat to his hotel. He planned to go hiking the next day, while we went to White Sands. With a sixth person added, the Clown Car came into her own and merited a dedicated photo sequence. (Video exists, too, but not on a camera to which I have access.) Here's how we got into the car all day Sunday. First, Gilly reclined the passenger-side front seat to "assume the position" in the passenger-side middle seat. This allowed Diane to crawl through to the driver-side middle seat. Then, with the passenger-side rear seat down, Terri climbed into the driver-side one. Of course, this all took place somewhat simultaneously. That's MJ, waiting for the passenger seat to go back up. A place for everyone and everyone in her place.

Finally, the passenger-side rear seat got raised, and I went in over the back. We only had to do this full routine for one full day, but in that day we got into and out of the car at least five times.

We were lucky that the first time was not at the "border crossing," because I'm not sure what the border patrol folks would have thought of the routine. No, we did not actually cross a border and leave the United States. It just so happens that there are at least two points along New Mexico's interstate highways at which all traffic bound away from the real border must stop. An officer asks about the citizenship of everyone in the car, and non-citizens are asked to show their passports. Our Aussies and Canadian had their passports handy, though the officer told the Texan in the car that she might want to go back and get hers. The drug-sniffing dog--at least that's what sort of dog I assume it was-- did not alert on the Clown Car, so we passed through with no problem.

White Sands was a huge draw when the chance to go to New Mexico to meet Terri and Gilly came up. I first visited White Sands when we had a similar gathering of quilters in Las Cruces two years ago. I found it to be an incredibly powerful landscape, a truly magical place. The white sand has passed for snow in photographs, and they actually remove the sand that blows onto the road with snowplows. The Visitor Center also sells saucer sleds and wax for, yes, sledding down some of the dunes. I expect that the National Park Service (White Sands is a National Monument, not a National Park) knows that people will try this whether it's allowed or not, so they might as well help it be done safely. There are signs along the first part of the road that ask folks not to sled or play in the dunes at that point, but to wait until further in. If you think I'm pulling your leg about the sleds, here's the sign outside the gift shop at the Visitor Center. In addition to passing for snow, the white sands could easily be a beach, particularly when viewed from the boardwalk from which one can observe various native flora and fauna tracks. What appears to be water off the end of the boardwalk in this photo is actually the mountains in the distance. As you walk along the boardwalk, though, you really, really expect there to be a beach and water at the end. Alas, it's just more sand, albeit beautiful sand, albeit sand in which one can make a pretty realistic snow angel. Unfortunately, the sledding photos were taken by others, so I can't prove we did sled down one of the dunes in a saucer sled. It was a blast, though, probably just as fast as snow would have been. I commend Diane on the job she did waxing the sled.

Back in Las Cruces, we stopped for lunch at the Double Eagle in Old Mesilla. Besides very good food and service, it had a side room with an amazing stained glass ceiling. Then we did some shopping, including at a shop with a room full of crosses. The next day, Monday, we headed north to Albuquerque, where another friend, Carla, is working as the set decorator on the USA series In Plain Sight. Since MJ's husband was coming along, we had an extra car, helpful in that we no longer had to do the full Monty of entering and exiting the Clown Car. But back to In Plain Sight. On a movie or TV show, the set decorator is the person who decorates the sets, which sounds much more trivial than it really is. She's the one who makes the setting that the viewer sees believable, from the loose change in the dish on top of the dresser, to the hodgepodge of junk that always seems to accumulate in one of your desk drawers, to the mismatched furniture some characters might have in their living rooms.

As you might imagine, decorating sets requires access to, well, just about anything and everything. Carla says that Google has made her job so much easier than it used to be. Still, the show keeps rooms full of life available for immediate use, everything from chairs to clocks to things that can hang to produce for a market scene. There's even the kitchen sink. There's also this cool hand, which I'm including simply because I really like this photo. Returning to the production facility after a late lunch (though not as late as the cast and crew were having that day since they don't eat lunch until six hours after they start for the day, which that day was at 10:00 a.m.), we actually ran into the star of the show, Mary McCormack (who plays Mary Shannon). I was quite impressed with how gracious she was to a bunch of random people being shown around by the set designer. She introduced herself and suggested we do a photo, not just there out in the hallway, but why not in on the set, in "her" apartment? So we did. As astute readers may have figured out, the man in the photo is Wayne, MJ's husband. And that's MJ at the opposite end of the photo. In front of Wayne is Gilly, then Terry, then Mary McCormack (whom viewers of In Plain Sight will recognize), then Diane, then me, with Sarah in front of Diane and me. Carla was the photographer. I'm still amazed at how pleasant Mary was, but then maybe I'm jaded by having read of too many celebrities who are just too full of themselves.

It's three-plus hours one way between Las Cruces and Albuquerque, plus a stop at the "border" on the way there, but it was well worth the time in the car to see what goes in to making a TV series. From the rooms full of potential props to the rooms of costumes to the shop where things that can't be bought are built, it was easy to see what a boon something like this can be to a local economy. While the actors and upper staff--producers, directors, and so on--come in from outside, much of the people behind the scenes are hired locally. And the ones that come in from outside need places to stay, food to eat, and so on.

After the In Plain Sight visit, MJ and Wayne stayed in Albuquerque, while the rest of us returned to Las Cruces. The next day, Tuesday, we figured out that the Clown Car could indeed hold five people, four of whom had luggage. Sarah drove, with Terri in the passenger seat. Diane had her usual seat behind the driver, while Gilly had her usual seat behind the front passenger. I sat in between them, on Gilly's duffel bag. All the other luggage fit in the back. Terri and Gilly got on a flight to Denver then Los Angeles and Disneyland, while Diane and I checked into the Wyndham Hotel at the airport, the better for Diane to catch a 6:15 a.m. flight the next day and for me to catch a 6:48 a.m. one. We took a walk that included admiring the amazing statue outside the aiport. What's most amazing about it is how big it is, better shown in this shot. And now I'm back home, in real life again, but hoping to return to New Mexico someday soon. I could see flying into Albuquerque and heading south, stopping to see the Very Large Array on the way to Las Cruces. Then the market and some fun with Sarah and another trip to the magical White Sands. It might be interesting to continue on to Roswell, and/or to time the trip for one of the two dayss each year that Trinity Site is open to the public, the first Saturday in April and October. It's on the list of places to which I would like to return, right up there with Iceland, Vietnam, and Cambodia. So many places, so little time.

On the Road Again...

2010-04-27T18:39:00.005-04:00

I'm in El Paso, Texas at the moment, in a very nice suite (a complimentary upgrade possibly because it was what was ready when I appeared and asked to check in early) at the Wyndham Hotel across the short-term parking lot from the terminal at the El Paso International Airport. I fly home tomorrow, leaving at the somewhat ungodly hour of 6:48 a.m. That's why I'm at the Wyndham, a class above the hotel at which I would normally stay.

I've been in New Mexico, visiting with some friends I met in an online quilting group to which I belong. Some of them, I had met before, and others I was meeting in person for the first time. I've met up with Diane, from Vancouver, Canada, several times. I first met MJ, from Dallas, Texas, two years ago, the same time I met Sarah, the superwoman in whose beloved hometown, Las Cruces, we were meeting. I also met Carla two years ago. The newly met friends, Terri and Gilly, are from Western Australia, and were on a whirlwind three-and-a-half week tour of the US, starting in San Francisco and ending in Los Angeles, with stops in Seattle, Chicago, Rhode Island (where Terri's brother lives), Boston, New York, and New Mexico in between.

And now it's later, after a dinner of free munchies at the bar's happy hour, and I'm thinking that it would be better to shower and get ready for tomorrow's 4:30 wakeup call. I'll try to post more about the trip--with photos even!--in the next few days in between a couple of retirement functions, a gallery show I really want to see before it end on Friday, and heading to Abingdon, VA, for the Sunday black belt test of a dear friend. Yeah, it's a busy time of year here.

Afterthoughts, Icelandic and Wintery

2010-03-21T17:53:00.004-04:00

Spring has sprung here, with warmer than usual temperatures the last several days, in the Fahrenheit 70s as opposed to the high 50s normal for this time of year. I shall not complain. A few days ago, on March 17, there was no snow to be seen in our yard (I could see a bit on the neighbor's lot). The last time this was true was December 17, meaning that we spent three months, or the duration of the winter season, with snow. While I remember this happening more than once while I was growing up in Montana, I can't remember its ever happening here in Central Virginia. This morning, the daffodils around the mailbox burst into bloom all at once, celebrating spring in all its finery.

Still, I can't help but feel wistful for the winter solitude of Iceland, a feeling perhaps strengthened by the news this weekend of a volcano's erupting on the Eyjafjallajokull glacier southeast of Reykjavik. We did not actually visit Eyjafjallajokull. Reykjavik was the closest we got, but after hearing our guide talk about the volcano that had erupted near Lake Myvatn, this eruption seems a bit more real than it might have two months ago.

Since I'm feeling wistful for Iceland, it seemed appropriate to offer a few more observations from our time there and perhaps even a photo or two. I am always interested in learning about the local educational system, in particular when students start learning another language. In Iceland, the magic age is around 10, at the end of the fourth of the ten years of compulsory school. This first language learned used to be Danish; now, though, it is English, with Danish coming later. Around the age of 16, or after the 10 years analogous to what we call K-12 education here in the US, students can move on to four years of "college," during which they study their choice of French or German. Depending on the chosen career path, college might be followed by "university," the length of which depends on the chosen career. In other words, by the time most students here start studying their first foreign language, an Icelandic student is working on a third and about to start a fourth. Is it any wonder US students are falling behind their peers abroad?

Completely unrelated to education, Iceland’s climate is not conducive to thunderstorms, and when one does occur it’s probably analogous to genuine snow falling at DisneyWorld. Living in a part of the country very susceptible to thunderstorms (I heard thunder this morning, as a matter of fact), I found it amazing to ponder a country without them. It certainly rains a lot there but without the lightning and thunder we so often have here.

I mentioned in the last post I put up while in Iceland that we had ridden Icelandic horses through a lava field before soaking in the Blue Lagoon as the snow fell. The day after that we went shopping as the snow continued to fall. The next day, the snow was still falling as we went to the airport to head for home. Here’s those three days in photos, starting with the ride through the lava field. That's the husband on the horse right in front of me. And here I am with my horse when we took a break to let the horses graze a bit.
The shots of the Blue Lagoon were less than impressive given that they were taken at night and in the snow. That's me a ways out in the water. They had signs in the locker room advising covering one's hair in a swim cap or hair conditioner, so I opted for the cap, though it's slightly less than fetching when it comes right down to it.
Travel always seems to drive home how attitudes differ in different countries. You'd never see this image advertising a cafe here. I loved the color of the corrugated metal siding on this house. From the central shopping area, you can pretty much orient yourself in respect to this church. I have always loved cemeteries, so walking through this one in the snow was something we just had to do. I loved the color of these flowers on the white snow. If you've read Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book, who knows who you might expect to meet walking out of this scene. This scene just seemed so very peaceful. I can only presume that this was planted right atop the grave for a reason, perhaps to make sure the dead person stayed there? Remember the chair built for the world's tallest man? It was big even for the two of us. And the bed designed for him was just as relatively big if you compare the end to where my feet are sticking up.
Note the position of the satellite dish. It really is almost pointed down.
This sign went up in the elevator on the second day of the snow. Finally, a few shots from the airport and on the plane. Here's a sign from a shop at the airport, a blurb for the latest by the Icelandic author I mentioned in an earlier post. There were moments when it stopped snowing and the sun came out. This was one of those. Farewell! Somehow, the name "Iceland" fit the land we left a bit better than it fit the land to which we had arrived a week earlier. Remember the Icelandic language lessons on the seat backs of Icelandair jets? Here are a few more for your education and entertainment.

And on that note, I will file Iceland away with Vietnam, Cambodia, Norway, Italy, and Spain as countries to which I would really like to return. Now to balance those with all the ones I haven't yet been to that I still want to visit. Anyone up for Peru or Egypt?

And This AffectsYou How?

2010-03-07T07:35:00.002-05:00

Not at all, actually, but the master bathroom mentioned in the previous post is now clean. Shiny, spanking clean and ready for another year. I would hope I might give it another deep cleaning before then. And it's actually not finished yet. The rugs are still down in or atop the dryer. The window curtains (vinyl and ancient) are still in the sons' bathtub awaiting the scrubbing the husband promised to give them. The shower curtain (heavier vinyl) has been machine-washed but still needs scrubbing; the new hooks are ready when it is. With the counters cleared and cleaned, it's so bright in there. Perhaps I'll even bore you with a photo once the rugs and curtains reclaim their proper spots.

What a Difference a Year Makes

2010-03-04T16:26:00.003-05:00

I've been fighting the blues today, probably because I'm less than a week back from the Iceland Adventure one year to the day from when we left for last year's trip to Hue and beyond. I am reminded of the French Canadian doctor in Ho Chi Minh City who administered the immune globulin shot I needed after my Cambodian dog bite. He said he had decided to work abroad when he realized that he enjoyed getting home more than he did being at home. Interestingly enough, he was going to leave Vietnam in December for a new expatriate gig ... in Haiti. I hope he made it through the earthquake safely because they certainly need his skills in the aftermath.

It is not that I actively dislike being home so much as I dislike all the little day-to-day responsibilities that being home entails. I have always been somewhat cleaning-impaired, so inhabiting a hotel room with maid service has a lot to say for itself. And while I come by my attraction to "stuff" naturally (if you think I'm a pack rat, I'll introduce you to my mother), I can actually function really well without most of it. The little things here eat at me. The dog or cat needs more pills? I'm the one who calls the vet to order them then either picks them up or negotiates with the husband for pickup. The things that need to be dealt with while away seem to be bigger things that one just deals with, no worries, boom, they've been done.

I would try to do a lot more traveling if it didn't cost so darn much. I've always been one to see a plane high in the sky, condensation trail streaming behind it, and stop to wonder where is it going? Will the people on it wake up tomorrow in another country? Across an ocean? What will they see there? What will they hear? Smell? Taste? Experience? The routines of home can be a safety net but they can also seem like bars on a window, that we can look but not get past.

I could go on, but I should probably work my way up to doing something useful instead. The master bathroom, for example, needs more than a surface wipe-down and fluffing, something beyond a quick toilet cleaning. I won't say when the last time I did the deep cleaning thing was. Let's just say we came home from Hue and beyond to a shiny, squeaky clean bathroom, and leave it at that.

All Good Things ...

2010-02-25T04:06:00.003-05:00

Yes, all good things must come to an end, and the end to this trip is tomorrow. This post will have no photos because it was late when we got back to the hotel last night, and the husband had a guest column to finish up for The Cavalier Daily, and so yesterday's photos are still on the camera.

We actually could not have timed yesterday's activities better if we had tried. We rode Icelandic horses through a lava field in the afternoon, finishing just before it started to snow. Icelandic horses do greatly resemble Shetland ponies, but they take offense should you call them "ponies." They, like Icelandic sheep, are basically very, very purely bred. No outside horses or sheep have been allowed onto the island for a thousand or so years, meaning that the bloodlines are pure. In the case of the sheep, that is said to be the reason the wool is such high quality.

The ride through the lava field was quite nice. Icelandic horses are really gentle to ride. The snow started as we took the bus from the stable to the second part of the day's activities, a visit to the Blue Lagoon. This came highly recommended by several people. One of those people had enjoyed the Lagoon during the month of June. While I am sure that it is very nice then, I would be glad to argue that the way to experience the Blue Lagoon is as the snow falls. There is something quite special about floating on one's back in water that is 37 to 40 degrees Celsius and feeling snowflakes fall on your face. I'm not sure it gets much better than that, especially after two hours on a horse for a rear end not used to such activity.

The snow continues to fall this morning, reminding us of the Virginia we left behind a week ago. Today we are off to shop a bit including to look for a CD that Jimmy was playing done by a wonderful singer from the Faroe Islands. We also have some prezzies in mind for certain people. We also plan to visit the 871 +/- 2 exhibit on life in early Reykjavik. The 871 +/- 2 comes from the dating of the materials discovered at the site. Tonight, we will be eating at a restaurant participating in the annual Food and Fun Festival. Chefs from around the world come here to cook meals using only pure Icelandic foods; what they produce is sold at a fixed price (a very good fixed price) at restaurants around town. At the end of the festival, this weekend, they will have a cookoff and declare a winning chef. We won't be here for that, but at least we will partake of some of the bounty.

After we clear up all that has likely accumulated at home during our absence, I will try to post a few more photos of the lava field ride, the Blue Lagoon, and whatever adventures might befall us today, in the snow. You'd almost believe we were in Iceland today.

Iceland as Viewed from a Large Chair

2010-02-23T16:13:00.021-05:00

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here are yesterday and today mostly in pictures. During that time we have seen some truly amazing icicles right outside our room ... decided that troll marshmallows are too big to eat in one bite or even one hundred (these are called "tractor eggs" in Norway) ... continued to marvel at Mt.Hverfjall ... hiked among snow-covered pseudocraters formed when steam caused by lava running into the lake "erupted" through the earth ... ... seen the first geothermal power plant in Iceland (it generates now, as it did when it was built, a whopping 2.6 megawatts) ... seen a hot rock you wouldn't want used in a massage, discovering in the process that it really isn't the heat but the humidity else why would we feel colder next to this than far, far away from it ... eaten some quite tasty rye bread cooked in a metal container within a geothermal hot spring such as that shown here ... done a bit of birdwatching thanks to these gyrfalcons (Iceland is home to two types of falcon--gyrfalcons, the largest falcons, as well as merlins, the smallest falcons) ... stood with one foot in Europe and the other in North America as they separate--the pipes shown here touched in 1977 but are now several inches apart ... seen the Northern Lights
... seen Icelandic horses similar to the ones we should be riding tomorrow ... and driven by houses in snowy Akureyri that have corrugated metal siding ... all but the Northern Lights viewing in the company of our wonderful guide Jimmy. Since returning to Reykjavik this afternoon, we have fortuitously found ourselves staying in a room once used by the world's tallest man who fit in a chair that we can only marvel at and get lost in. We have also trekked some 18 kilometers out of the city to an outlet store (the yellow building with the red roof in the center of the photo) to obtain two knitting pattern books, yarn for two sweaters, a CD of Icelandic music, and assorted small souvenirs for less than the yarn for one of the sweaters would have cost at home. Still to come ... riding, the Blue Lagoon, and a day unplanned save for dinner. Oh, yeah, I guess we'll need to come home after that.

Aurora Borealis FTW!

2010-02-22T17:27:00.004-05:00

The camera is still in a plastic bag, warming safely, the better to protect some (in my humble opinion considering it was the first time either Blaine or I had ever tried anything like this) pretty darn good photos of the aurora, including one or two shot directly up, over our heads. I must say that 25th anniversaries don't get much better than this. I had actually started a post on what we did today when the hotel desk called us to say that the aurora was starting much earlier than usual, at a bit after 9:00. We rushed out, losing what I'd drafted in the rush. No worries, though, since this trumps that. We will likely go watch it some more in a bit, when we have warmed up, but I expect we will just watch and enjoy the show then. Doing the photos (out in the field of pseudocraters I have yet to blog about) was pretty numbing in the cold department. I'm ready to avail myself of the hotel's heated cabin from which you can watch the aurora.

Okay, it's approaching midnight, and it appears we caught the aurora at its peak for tonight. Here's a shot that Blaine and I judged among the best.

Iceland - Lake Myvatn

2010-02-22T07:43:00.014-05:00

Lake Myvatn is where we've come to attempt to see the Northern Lights. Last night was a no-go though it was clear. We checked an aurora website with a hotel staffer and the aurora's center last night basically pulled it away from Iceland. Tonight is supposed to be better, so we're keeping fingers and toes crossed that the sky to the north stays clear.

We flew up here from Reykjavik yesterday, into the town of Akureyri. Akureyri has a population of about 17,000 people. To put that in perspective, Iceland is roughly the size of the state of Kentucky, and has a population of 320,000. Sixty percent of those people live in Reykjavik or the area immediately surrounding Reykjavik. Akureyri used to be the largest town outside of Reykjavik. It's dropped to fourth largest, but the first three don't really count since they're in the area immediately surrounding Reykjavik. Lake Myvatn, about an hour's drive from Aukreyri, has a year-round population of some 425. To help put that in perspective, there is one ATM here ... from June to September. That's because Lake Myvatn is one of the most popular summer vacation destinations. There are four hotels here, two on the north side of the lake and two on the south side. We're in one on the south. It has 35 rooms and although maybe two or three are booked now, all are booked already for the entire summer, which is also the case at the other three hotels.

Flying here from Reykjavik was fascinating. The landscape went from no snow to some snow to total snow cover. In fact, we circled Aukreyri for ten minutes or so before landing in order to let a snow squall pass.

I must admit to getting a cheap thrill out of getting off a plane and seeing a driver holding a sign with our name or the name of our hotel on it. Our driver/guide had an impossible Icelandic name but offered that he also answered to "Jimmy." While the pilot had told us our circling was due to "rain," Jimmy said it had actually been snow falling sideways. Jimmy also pointed out the father of Bjork, the Icelandic singer, who was either arriving with us or meeting someone who had. Jimmy and Bjork were neighbors once, and he says she's just like anyone else when she comes home to visit.

The drive from Aukreyri to Lake Myvatn can be done in an hour, but we took longer. Besides stops for photos, like this one of Aukreyri and the scenery just to its right. I think I mentioned at the end of my last post that part of the drive was in white-out or near white-out conditions. There were times when I could see things out the side window, while the front window yielded only white. Here's a representative side view. Fortunately, the lake itself has almost its own little weather system, and by the time we got there, it had actually stopped snowing and cleared. Right before the lake itself, we drove along the Laxa River, which drains from the lake to the Atlantic Ocean to the north. This stretch of the river is known for its trout and has been leased by a fishing club in Reykjavik for the next several years for an incredible sum of money. If you want to fish here, the first available "appointments" are in 2011. The river follows the path of an ancient lava flow, so instead of the river cutting out a channel in the landscape, it instead follows an existing channel.

One part of the south end of the lake does not freeze in winter. The crater here is Mt. Hverfjall; it's one of the largest craters of its type on earth. It's 140 meters deep and a kilometer in diameter. It was formed about 2500 years ago. It very much dominates the landscape as one drives around (or on, in the winter) the lake. Lake Myvatn (the name translates as "Midge Lake," though there are only a couple of varieties of midges out in the winter) has an average depth of only 2.5 meters, meaning that the bottom is covered with algae. Despite the relatively shallow depth, people do drown here because the water comes from underground springs and is pretty darn cold year-round. We made a quick stop at the visitor's center. It's not normally open in the winter, but the manager was there and is a friend of Jimmy, so it offered a good place for us to chill while Jimmy went home and let his dog out. Here's a fun "fact" we learned. And now, early Monday afternoon, Jimmy is about to pick us up to continue our tour of the area around the lake. We went walking this morning through the small village of Skutustaoir, an old church, and a field of pseudocraters. We took lots of photographs including some of the icicles outside our window, some of which are at least four feet long. Since Blaine is up from his nap, this seems like a good time to hit "publish post."

Iceland Day One

2010-02-21T12:41:00.017-05:00

I’m writing from Reykjavik’s Hotel Loftleidir where, as I noted on Facebook, the interweb comes at a price. If it is free or substantially less costly from the north, where we go tomorrow, I shall post these notes and possibly more from there.

Aside from very little sleep (for me, anyway; Blaine slept like a baby just as he is right now) on the flight from JFK, it hasn’t been a bad trip at all, 24 hours in. We got a pleasant surprise when the Delta agent in Richmond told us that they could, in fact, check our luggage all the way through to Reykjavik. We had thought that we would have to get it from Delta then carry it across terminals at JFK to re-check it with Icelandair. Both bags arrived with us in Reykjavik, even sitting next to each other on the baggage claim carousel.

We did score a window and middle seat on the north side of the plane for the flight to Reykjavik; unfortunately, there were no Northern Lights to be seen. I did play around a bit with handheld photography from the plane as we taxied out and after we took off. The flight itself was uneventful except for some almost wicked turbulence over Newfoundland. Icelandair offers dinner for a charge; we declined, figuring sleep was more important than food. In between trying to sleep and looking out the window for any glint of the aurora, I followed our progress on the seat-back screen.
Speaking of the seats, they were decorated with gems about the Icelandic language, such as this one for the row in which we were sitting. We landed only a bit late, around 7:10 a.m. instead of 6:45 a.m. The disconcerting thing was that it was still pitch-black. I tried another handheld shot or two as we were taxiing to the terminal; this will show you just how dark it was at 7:20 or so. Even passengers arriving to stay in Iceland rather than transfer to a flight to a mainland European city have to clear security upon arrival in Iceland, something I’ve never encountered before. Perhaps because our flight arrived a bit late, the process went quite smoothly, without any delays. We hit the ATM and then, because Keflavik Airport is actually some distance from Reykjavik, hopped a bus into the city. By this time, between 8:00 and 8:30, there was a line of white on the horizon signaling the coming sunrise. Even after our arrival at the hotel a bit after 9:00, the sun wasn’t really what you might call “up.” It will be interesting to see when it starts to set this evening or afternoon. I’m now updating this and can report that it didn’t start to get dark until around 6:00. I was surprised by this until I remembered that the fact that Iceland adheres to Greenwich Mean Time essentially puts it on a permanent two-hour daylight savings time basis. This means more dark in the morning but more light later in the day, after work or school.

In the meantime, we are about to get ready to be picked up to go whale watching. Because of winds off Reykjavik, we will be leaving instead from Grindavik on the south coast, near the Blue Lagoon we will visit later in the week. When we confirmed the pickup time, we learned that there has been a pod of orcas in the area lately, so we might cheat the “whale sightings are not guaranteed” clause in the booking documents. We shall see.

And we did, indeed, see, not orcas but two humpback whales. First, though, obligatory photos of the two of us in the sea suits provided for our comfort.
The other thing provided for comfort, mine anyway, was seasick pills. I took one as we set out and managed to get through the rather rough voyage in much better shape than some people did. I was actually fine as long as I was shooting photos. It was only when I stood around doing nothing that I started to feel disconcerted by the motion. Needless to say, I took a lot of photos. Here are two of my best
and two from Blaine.

A few more random notes. Someone on the plane from New York was somewhat dismissive about our Reykavik Hotel. I, on the other hand, think it’s delightful (except for the interweb tariff). Here’s a shot down the spiral staircase that we take up to our room. And each room is dedicated to a different local artist, as shown by the room number plate on the door of our room. There are also various works of art in the common areas. This photo is outside the lift on our floor while this one is on the floor below.
Before we came, I read four mysteries by Arnaldur Indridason that are set in Reykjavik. I mention this because I had the chance to investigate an explanatory detail given at the start of the first book. Here’s a clip from the local phone book. Yes, the listing is by first name rather than last. Iceland still uses the traditional “son” and “dottir” surname convention, which means that it’s easier to find someone by their first name than last.

Finally, I have to give a shout out to the reason I’m here on this trip as well as throw out a shot I snapped quickly at breakfast. Not bad, if I do say so myself … the photo and the subject thereof.

P.S. on Sunday, from Lake Myvatn. The interweb is free here, so I shall try to post again tomorrow. First attempt at seeing the aurora is in a few hours. Know, though, that our landing at the airport an hour away was delayed due to snow and that the first half of our drive to the hotel was in white-out conditions. That said, it then turned sunny and we toured the lake under a true-blue sky. I also broke my promise not to get a sweater when we happened on a shop in which a local woman was selling sweaters to the shopkeeper. Blaine knows my fiber obsession well enough to know that I was telling the truth when I told him that the yarn in the sweater would cost me more at home than the sweater itself would. Photo to come. First, though, I need to take today's shots off the camera and get ready for later. Fingers crossed for clear skies!

Sequels Prequels

2010-02-14T17:14:00.008-05:00

When last I posted, I included a photo I shot looking up our driveway the first morning into our last big snowfall. It's the first photo in the post. Here's the view up that same driveway the next morning. That's one big tree and several smaller ones across the top of the driveway. No, they did not hit the pickup truck shown in the idyllic photo from last time, which is not necessarily a good thing. The husband has been muttering about wanting a new vehicle, and this would have made that dream a reality. Once the husband and older son got a path shoveled up to the trees, they managed to remove them, a process involving much chain-sawing and chop-saw chopping. By the time they broke through and got to cleaning the snow off the pickup truck, they'd worked up quite the sweat. I tried to help but kept getting told to move because this or that branch might shift, something might fall, and so on. I took this as a good thing and didn't feel guilty about playing with the new 50mm lens I got for my Canon. Since it's been years since I've used anything but a zoom lens on an SLR, it took a while to get used to not being able to change the scene by zooming in or out. Here are some of the shots I ended up with.

Yes, that's a dogsled in the last shot. My mother brought it with her when she moved down here, and it looked sort of forlorn there in the snow with no companion dog team.

And here we are, a week out from when those shots were taken. The driveway still only has a footpath cleared, making unloading after grocery shopping a bit of an endeavor, but the roads we use to get anywhere are fine and were fine most of last week. The same cannot be said for many of the back roads in the county. The schools are supposed to re-open tomorrow; they have only been open one day in the last two weeks, and that was on a two-hour delay. Of course, it's also supposed to snow a bit tonight and tomorrow morning, so the possibility of another closure is real. And yesterday's newspaper called the snow coming tomorrow "a little more" while also mentioning "a lot more snow" coming a week later. That's actually fine with me since the only forecast I'm concerned about for the near term is Friday, when we drive to Richmond, fly from there to New York, and from there to Reykjavik. There have actually been several days lately on which the weather was better in Reykjavik than here. Here are links to the ten-day forecasts for Charlottesville and Reykjavik. As I write this, it will be colder in Reykjavik than here, but the daily highs and lows are much closer together. It is also forecast to be sunny in Reykjavik on Monday, February 22. Sunny means no clouds, and since clouds interfere with aurora viewing, no clouds is a good thing. Speaking of forecasts, there is also one for the aurora. It has not been updated to reflect the time we'll be in Iceland, but if you're wondering what our chances of seeing the Northern Lights are, this might help you.

Still on the "to do" list besides packing is to see, 36 hours before our Icelandair flight is scheduled to leave from New York, if I can check in online and, most importantly, get our seat assignments. It really should have occurred to either the husband or myself, but instead I found the advice on a travel forum to sit on the left side of the plane while flying to Iceland. The windows on the left face north and can offer above-the-clouds views of the aurora. Why didn't we think of that? It doesn't really matter, since we did learn it before, rather than during or after, the flight. And so, with five days to go, it really is all coming together. Here's hoping those aren't famous last words.

Finally, my last post also mentioned my making a bag out of plarn, yarn made by cutting up plastic shopping bags. It turned out that I had enough plarn to finish the bag. The instructions had the handles being reinforced with twine. We have twine somewhere in the house or garage; I know we do. It just wasn't in any of the numerous places in which I looked. I was determined not to buy anything new for a bag made from recycled plastic bags, so I rummaged through my basket of leftover yarn and used something from there. I haven't yet used the bag, but I will. I've also started saving bags for another plarn something. Working with the plarn was too fun not to do it again.

Lots of Little Things and Snow

2010-02-06T16:39:00.014-05:00

Snowpocalypse. SnowMG. Snowmageddon. We've heard them all this winter. The latest "significant snow event" wasn't quite as significant as it could have been, but it was still a doozy. The University of Virginia canceled classes yesterday; the last time they did that was in 2003. What was different this time was that they made the announcement the day before, telling all non-essential employees just to stay home the next day. I've been here 31 years, and I can't remember their ever doing that before. It was a good decision. We didn't get the three feet of snow that some of the forecasts said was possible, but we got enough. It started snowing in the 6:00 to 7:00 range yesterday morning, and it's still coming down, though barely, 34 hours later. Here's the view up our driveway this morning. And here's a shot I took of our deck railing through the window on the back door. We've been luckier than some folks in that our power has stayed on despite blinking off and on several times. As you can see here, the trees have a lot of snow on them, and that snow is wet and heavy. We've heard numerous cracks from the woods around the house, and we actually cut back a tree that had fallen across our road while we were walking. We'll be cleaning up quite a few branches from the yard when the snow finally melts, but so far no trees are down in the area around the house.

I've been taking advantage of the snow days (it's not clear if tomorrow will be a third one, since if the gym is open, we'll be there to do kendo and/or karate) to play with something from a great new book I got. I refuse to buy a knitting or other craft book just for one pattern or the instructions to make one item. Skimming through a book called AwareKnits at the local Barnes & Noble, I found eight things I wanted to try, the first of which is crocheting a lunch bag out of plarn. Plarn = Plastic + Yarn, or "yarn" made by cutting up plastic shopping bags. On the left is the strip made by cutting up a plastic grocery bag. After cutting the handles off, I cut the bottom of the bag off then cut the body of the bag into a spiral. On the right is a ball of plarn. In the center, in front of the book, is the bottom of the lunch bag. You can see some of the different color bags in there; you may recognize the green ones as being from Barnes & Noble. I don't think I have enough plarn to finish the bag, but at least won't feel guilty for a while if I stop into a store without one of the canvas bags I carry in the car for my weekly grocery shopping.

From crocheting to knitting, I finished a felted mohair bag to donate to an auction being held to help send a group of high school students to the Galapagos. Felted things are so much fun! For example, here's the bag before it was felted. Here's the bag after I felted it. It's a bit frightening to put something I made out there and up for sale. I once gave two small quilts to a school's silent auction and was downright depressed by how little they went for, well under the cost of the materials in them. I tried not to take the low prices as a comment on the workmanship, but it was kind of hard. This bag actually cost me nothing but the time it took to make it; I used yarn that I accepted in payment for working at a fiber festival. So we'll see how much it goes for; at least I know that whatever amount it generates will go to a good cause.

Continuing with the theme of lots of little things I haven't written about, I bought myself a new little toy back before Christmas, a lomographic fisheye camera. Lomography is not about high-end photographs; it's more about point-and-shoot snapshots. And yes, it's film, which means you can't correct on the spot but have to wait to see the results. The fisheye just adds to the fun, as in this shot of the husband or this one of older son's feet. And sometimes you can even end up with some nice photographs.

Finally, two weeks from today the husband and I will be in Reykjavik, Iceland, and possibly have seen whales and puffins. At least we're scheduled to go on a whale watching cruise our first afternoon there. I've been reading various resources on photographing the Northern Lights as well as a series of mysteries set in Reykjavik. I've been breaking in the hiking boots I bought for the trip, and I tried out a friend's snow pants on today's walk. It's becoming very real that we're actually going. I can't promise to put up long posts daily, but I'll try to get the highlights up while we're still there as opposed to several weeks after we get back. That's the plan at least.

The Next Grand Adventure

2010-01-19T11:12:00.005-05:00

Our last Grand Adventure got its own blog. While I don't think the next one is quite long enough to justify its own blog, I do intend to give it some coverage here. It's to the place that has long occupied the top spot on my list of places I'd like to visit. I used to toy with the idea of heading up to Baltimore-Washington International Airport, hopping on a plane, and going there for a weekend. A winter visit was always especially tempting because of the probability of seeing the Northern Lights, something I haven't done for too long. With the 25th wedding anniversary looming, several months ago I sent the husband an e-mail to the effect of "25th anniversary. Northern Lights?" I actually didn't expect him to take me seriously, but he did, so we're off on February 19 for a week in ... (drum roll) ... Iceland.

Since Icelandair no longer flies out of BWI, getting to Iceland takes a bit more planning than it used to. And working a trip around the husband's teaching schedule added even more complexity. Fortunately, we have a good travel agent (Rochelle) and travel agency (Peace Frogs); I don't think we could have pulled this trip together without them. As the husband noted, we possibly (not probably, but possibly) could have arranged everything ourselves, but it would not have been cost-effective given the time it would have taken and the mistakes we might have made or the things we might have overlooked. While we're hoping to have some lower-case adventures on this upper-case Grand Adventure, we don't really want them to be of the travel snafu variety. Hence, the need for a good travel agent, and we'd highly recommend the one we have.

But back to the Grand Adventure. We'll leave here on Friday, February 19, as soon as the husband finishes teaching, and head to the Richmond airport, about 70 miles away. We'll fly to JFK in New York City and, from there, to Reykjavik, Iceland. We arrive at 6:45 a.m. local time Saturday. (Interestingly enough, "local" time for Iceland is Greenwich Mean Time, despite their appearing to be one time zone to the west.) The first planned adventure, Saturday afternoon, is whale-watching. No whale sightings are guaranteed, but we're hopeful. If you read the fine print on the whale-watching website, the boat also passes some islands inhabited by puffins, so it might be double the fun. (If you've done any reading about Iceland, you'll know that we might also see puffins on the dinner menu.)

The next day, Sunday, we're off on the Northern Lights adventure. This will take us to the Sel-Hotel Myvatn at Lake Myvatn (Midge Lake, which is why visiting in the winter may be better than the summer) in the northern part of the country. We'll have two nights in which to look for the Lights, and one full day in which to see a bit of the country. Right now, we're leaning toward a tour described as the following: "Lake Mývatn is a wonderful place in both winter and summer. On this tour we will explore its surroundings. Volcanic and geothermal activity near the lake have created spectacular landscape and scenery. We will make many stops by the lake; such as at the thermal area of Námafjall, where you will see boiling mud pools and bubbling sulphur pits, an underground cave with hot spring, the dark city of Dimmuborgir, the lava sculptures and the beautiful woodland in the nature park Höfði. All this and many other spectacular areas awaits you on the Lake Mývatn wonders tour."

On Tuesday, which just happens to be our 25th anniversary, we head back to Reykjavik where, on Wednesday, we plan to combine my crossing off one item from my list of fifty things to do in my fiftieth year (yeah, I know I'm late, but it's taken longer than I thought it would) with the husband's possibly finding relief from his arthritis. That means horseback riding in the morning and a visit to the Blue Lagoon in the afternoon. Details can be seen here. We're keeping Thursday free for anything we might want to book while we're there or just strolling the streets of Reykjavik, shopping, photographing, or whatever.

We fly back on Friday, to Boston's Logan Airport, where we catch the last flight of the evening back to Richmond. It would have been nice to stay an extra day, but the husband will have midterms to grade, and we'll both need a couple of days to shake the jet lag I'm sure we'll be feeling. Another Grand Adventure will have come to an end, leaving us back at home to start contemplating the next one.

Ringing and Resolving in the New Year

2010-01-02T16:47:00.003-05:00

Last year about this time, I put up a post about my resolutions for 2009, which suggests that I should do the same for 2010, that is, reflect on how I did with my resolutions for the year just ended and what I'd like to accomplish in the year to come. I concluded last year's post with the comment, "I can't help but think that 2009 is gonna be one heck of a ride." If you followed along on 2009's Grand Adventure, then you know that it was one heck of a ride. Even without the whole trip thing, it would have been a good year; that just made it better.

Does that mean I achieved the resolutions I made for the year? Not really. I did better with some than with others, which is about par for the course when it comes to me and my resolutions. I didn't lose the weight I wanted to lose and actually gained a wee bit more. Yep, I just carried that one over to the 2010 list. I did exercise more than the number of times I resolved to, but then that's not really hard. Still, I left it on the 2010 list just to be safe. I wanted to make it through tumble falls in Myo Sim karate in 2009, and I almost did. I'm still wrestling with vertigo on tumble falls. Some days I think I'll be able to overcome it; other days I ponder being a terminal yellow belt. I decided not to resolve anything in terms of karate; I'll just see what I might accomplish. In Myo Sim kendo, I resolved to work toward my black belt, not really thinking I could realistically get it after being gone for two months. Black belt earned, I'm resolving to learn the material for second degree black belt in 2010. That's by no means a resolution to earn my second degree black belt, just to learn the material I need for it so that I can practice, practice, practice.

I also resolved to blog more regularly in 2009. While I certainly accomplished this during our trip, I failed, though perhaps not epically, during the rest of the year, particularly the last couple of months. For 2010, I decided to resolve more globally and simply "to create more." This covers my penchant for fiber as well as for words. Also on the writing front, I resolved to start a karate notebook and better organize my kendo notes in 2009. I did this, but barely. Perhaps because I'm at a fairly low level in the karate rank hierarchy, I find it difficult to write down how to do things. For 2010, I kept the bit about improving my kendo notes and dropped mention of karate ones. I also resolved to finish in 2009 more of my 50 things to do in or for my 50th year of life. I succeeded, with a few substitutions that I need to add to the 50 blog. For example, I wanted to see the sun rise over a beach again, but am willing to take the sun rising over Angkor Wat as a very worthy proxy. For 2010, I resolved to finish the list. I figure that five years should be sufficient for completing 50 things; when I do my list of 60 for my 60th year, I'll give myself six years in which to complete them.

Finally for 2009, I resolved to "go with the flow more." Whether I really accomplished this is probably open to debate. I think I did really go with the flow more while we were on our trip. Of course, when one is removed from much of their day-to-day responsibilities and, yes, headaches, it's easier to be mellow and take things as they come. I will admit to screaming, crying, and basically losing it when the pack of dogs was running around my legs in Siem Reap and I felt the teeth on the back of my leg, but then pretty much coped with what needed to be done. For 2010, I actually didn't put anything somewhat touchy-feely as this 2009 one was. I'm not sure why I didn't include one; maybe I feel that if I succeed on the "create more" one, I'll have the emotional energy to deal with whatever life might throw my way. I guess we'll see.

Will 2010 be the heck of a ride 2009 was? Probably not in the same way, but I have an idea it won't be too bad. More on that in another post, though, since some of those day-to-day responsibilities are calling, in particular the one about making dinner for the main men in my life and the mother (mine) who lives downstairs. And we're off!

Winter Wonderland, Day Two

2009-12-20T20:01:00.012-05:00

It did finally stop snowing last night, and we've probably got around two feet on the ground here. It's deeper in some spots than others, but here's an idea of how deep it was in our backyard. Here's what the front of the house looked like this morning. Here's a look across our back yard and out over the neighboring pasture. And this is from the top of our driveway, looking up the road, which wasn't plowed until just before noon today. Here are a few more random shots I took around here today.

Once the road got plowed, the sons got to work trying to create a monster mountain of snow in which they could excavate tunnels and more. And once the mound of snow was done, what better to do than jump off it?

The sons are hoping that the top and sides of the mound will be frozen over enough tomorrow that they can start tunneling in. They did this more than a few years ago, when they were in elementary school, and have been waiting for a chance to do it again. In that respect, this snow couldn't have come at a better time.

With the road's having been plowed, we should be able to get out and about a bit tomorrow. The dog has an appointment with the vet, and younger son has to drop a writing portfolio off at the university. The gym is supposed to open late tomorrow, so we're hoping to be able to make it to one last kendo class before Christmas. Speaking of Christmas, we could be having more of the white stuff falling then. If that happens, I just hope it's fluffy white stuff as this was and not the wet, slippery white stuff this might have been.

Winter Wanders In

2009-12-19T20:10:00.009-05:00

Winter doesn't officially start until tomorrow, but if you've watched the national news today, you've seen that it's already made an entrance here. In fact, CNN was using footage from here, Charlottesville, VA, to accompany one of their stories this morning. I'll spare you the long story of our trip home last night except to say that I had the very good sense to (1) marry a Canadian and (2) have a midlife crisis that involved purchasing a four-wheel drive vehicle (a Honda Element) rather than a sports car. I also had the good sense to heed the forecasts and do my normal Saturday grocery shopping Friday morning at 7:00 a.m. The last semi-official measurement here at my house (using one of my long quilting rulers) was 22 inches; other places in the area have reported over 30 inches. The measurement here was taken about five hours ago and ... drum roll ... it's still snowing. The winter storm warning doesn't end until tomorrow morning. While we made it back last night, late last night, it's not clear when we'll make it out again. The husband tried to get out today to respond to a call for four-wheel-drive vehicles to help get medical personnel to and from the hospitals, but the snow on the subdivision road was too deep. He said the front of the Element just piled it up until he could no longer plow through it. Four-wheel drive or not, it looks as though we're not going anywhere until someone plows the subdivision, which won't happen until the snow stops falling at the earliest.

Here's some shots, most of which I will admit to having taken through windows. I did take a couple shots outside but didn't want the camera to get too wet. Here's a series looking out our back door to the deck. I took the first one last night, around midnight, and the others at various points throughout today. Since I took them through the window on the door, there's a reflection of the living room in the background, especially in the first one.

Some other random shots. See the large rectangular pile of snow here? That's my mom's Saturn station wagon after the snow creeping down along the side met the snow piling up from the driveway. Here's the heat pump masquerading as a conehead, though the costume didn't last for long.
That's older son doing the honors. He also helped keep the front porch stocked with firewood. Older son also saw to it that the resident canine, a German shepherd-corgi-chow mix, got a walk even if it meant blazing a trail for him through the snow. There's a good chance that at least some of the snow will still be around for Christmas. And the long-range forecast has the possibility of more snow coming Christmas Eve into Christmas Day. That would be a major thrill because, needless to say, we don't get many white Christmases here in Central Virginia. Fingers crossed, and I'll try to let you know if we get one.

A Few Creative Bits and Pieces

2009-12-19T15:29:00.006-05:00

Time to tie up a couple of loose ends on the creative front. I mentioned a while back making a muff for a friend out of yarn she had spun and dyed using natural dyes. I finished the muff and had so much yarn left that I decided to make a matching hat ... and not just any hat, but an absurdly long hat. I actually still have enough yarn left to do something else but draw the line at knitting mittens or gloves. If there were enough yarn left for leg warmers, I'd probably do those, but I don't think there's quite enough. Here's the muff and hat; the back of the recliner should give a reference for the length of the hat. I can't recall if I mentioned making purses out of bras here; I know I mentioned it in a quilting e-mail group to which I belong. I've made two of these and have the makings for more thanks to a stop at the local SPCA's rummage store. Here are a couple of photos of the first one I made.
I try to use as much of the bra as I can. On this one, the handle is made out of the bra straps. The only things that didn't come from the bra are the flower embellishments and the snaps that hold the top shut. On the other one I made, out of a pink bra, I actually used the hooks and eyes from the back of the bra to hold the top shut. I made that one for the woman I partnered with at the black belt test, finishing it the day before the test, and forgetting to photograph it before I wrapped it.

Finally, I can't recall if I've mentioned my making earrings out of rabies tags here, but I designed a special pair for Christmas--two green bells and one red heart for each ear. They were quite the hit at my office's Christmas party, though no one noticed them at all at the husband's office party. Or perhaps the physicists at the husband's party were just two stunned to ask about them. Here they are, in situ and in a close-up.
The current creative endeavors include a shawl that I'm making out of a yarn I ordered from New Zealand. It's 60 percent wool and 40 percent New Zealand possum. I also hit the Christmas open house at my friendly neighborhood sheep farm last weekend and was drawn to some incredibly bright orange wool. I've started knitting that into a raglan-sleeved sweater that I hope to finish in time to wear this winter. And speaking of winter, the post I'm planning to do tonight will show its rather dramatic entrance just a couple of days ahead of its official Solstice start.

Where Have All the Flowers Gone?

2009-12-15T10:41:00.006-05:00

Not to mention, the days! Here it is the middle of December, and my last post was on Halloween. Bad blogger, Jean! Bad!

I at least have good excuses for several of the periods of silence. This time of year, I normally work gainfully for only a few hours each week; however, with the departure of another staff member at my university office, I took on responsibility for responses to surveys from all the various and sundry college guides. As a result, I've worked a bit more than halftime for the last several weeks. The increased paychecks are certainly nice this time of year: Besides Christmas, spring tuition, room, and board are due for younger son in early January, not to mention the annual car insurance premium due at the middle of the month.

In terms of my silence in November, I offer this photo as defense exhibit 1. That's me on the left with the blurred hand. I have a black and white version of this photo but am using the color one so that there's no confusion over the color of the belts these folks are wearing. Yes, they're black. The annual Myo Sim black belt rank exam was on November 21, and I was one of the four people testing for first-degree black belt in Myo Sim kendo. In practical terms, this meant that I spent the fall being in the dojo practicing either kendo or karate for two to three hours every weeknight as well as every Sunday morning for three to four hours. Saturday was my "day off," on which I only did a half hour or so of cardio. This level of training was not a mandated one, but one I chose in order to be as prepared as possible for the test. If you zoom in on the photo and look at the faces, you'll probably notice some wrinkles in my face that aren't there in the faces of the other three people. Their combined ages totaled only about seven years over my own, singular age. I figured that what I lacked in age, I could make up for in preparation. I think it worked.

I have to admit that getting my black belt probably was a bigger accomplishment to me than even getting my PhD; I at least had much more of a rush after the black belt exam than I did after my doctoral orals. I didn't cry tears of sheer happiness then, but I did after I went through the line of master instructors and got my certificate and belt. When I started grad school and throughout it, earning the PhD was something I almost took for granted. I'd always done well at academic work; why wouldn't I finish it? When I started studying kendo almost four years ago, I wasn't even thinking about a black belt someday. Only after I got my brown belt did it really start seeming like a possibility. I did not, however, expect to be invited to test this year after being gone for two months on the Grand Adventure to Hue and back. I came back from the trip thinking that I would not be considered for the black belt exam but that if I was told I would be considered then I would do everything I could to be at the needed level. From the point at which I was told that I was under consideration for the exam, I worked my butt off. I ended up being invited to test, and although all four of us made various mistakes on the exam, I don't think I was by any means the weak link among the four who tested.

I should also note that, at the same black belt rank exam, older son tested for and earned his third-degree black belt in Myo Sim kendo. He's not big on being praised for such things, though, so I won't say too much more here. I will say, though, that I felt much more comfortable with his being "on stage" along with me at the exam. Having been through several black belt exams, he was able to give me the insight scoop on what to expect, which really helped me feel ready when the exam rolled around.

Finally, to catch up on a loose end from my earlier posts, the cabin quilt, Sibling Revelry, made it to Norway via the husband's early November trip to Sweden. I put a note on the outside of the box that held the quilt asking them not to open the box until they were together at the cabin. They did, and sent this photo along with their thank you. They're standing on the porch of the sauna house. In the image I made for the quilt, the white diagonal on the left side of the cabin is actually one side of the roof of the sauna house. The man to the left behind the quilt is one of the brothers for whom the quilt was made. Needless to say, they really loved it and said that they will give it a place of honor in the cabin. It makes me very happy to see my quilt babies go out into the world into good homes, hands, and hearts.

Hauntingly

2009-10-31T19:22:00.005-04:00

I just realized that my most recent post was on 1 October, and here we are at Halloween. Time flies, I guess, when one is busy. There was much I could have blogged about in terms of my quilt-making to build on the previous Creative Process posts. If I had, though, the quilt in question, "Sibling Revelry," might not now be in a suitcase on board a plane and bound, eventually, for Lund, Sweden. Younger son pointed out to me about the time of my last post here that it would be far cheaper for the quilt to be mailed from Sweden when the husband was at a meeting there than mailed from here. I don't know how much it will cost to mail if from Sweden, but I imagine it will be cheaper than the $53.80 that a flat rate international box from here would cost. Getting it done was a bit of a challenge, but I did, with time to spare and without cutting too many corners. I might have done more elaborate quilting had I had more time, but I am not at all displeased with the quilting I did have time for. While the husband is gone, I will try to post the finishing steps of the process along with photos.

In the meantime, remember the Amazing Thing I was going to felt? It shrank from something that ran the length of my foyer to something that fits nicely on my couch. It actually ended up being too heavy to use to make a bag for my swords. Also, after napping under it, both the husband and older son urged me to leave it as it is. So I am.

And do you remember the very large jacket I planned to felt? It's shown in this post, though I still despair at how old I look in the photo. And here it is, felted, with buttons added, ready to wear. For those of you who might be wondering about the background, that's older son's wall to wall to ceiling bookcase. Here's a closer-up shot of the jacket. I managed to felt it just enough to fit me nicely. It did shrink a bit more on the length dimension than I expected, so if I make it again I will likely knit the body a few inches longer. I've worn it several times and gotten several compliments on it. It also goes quite nicely with a scarf I knitted as a possible Christmas present, so nicely that the scarf became a present to myself.

Now that the quilt is done, I'm moving on to other creative endeavors. I've pulled from the shelf a quilt sandwich (that's the top, batting, and backing together before the quilting is done) that I think I'm finally ready to quilt. I believe I pieced the top maybe eight years ago but didn't feel ready to quilt it then. Unlike almost every other quilt I've made, I made this one for me. The fabric was hand-dyed by a friend to my requested colors and shades. My brother-in-law has hinted strongly that he wants this one, so I guess I'll add a line to the letter that accompanies our will in regard to select personal belongings. That's right; he'll get it over my dead body. I've got a bag about knitted that will be felted into something about the size of a brown paper grocery bag. It's purple and light blue, in a wool-mohair blend. It will fuzz nicely, I think, when it's felted. I made a hat and muff as Christmas presents; I still need to sew the seam on the hat to finish it. Finally, I'm making a bra purse, which is what it sounds like, a purse made out of a bra. Yes, pictures will be forthcoming when I finish the first one, along with pictures of the other things I just mentioned. More immediately, though, I'm going to go fetch the laundry from the basement and curl up on the couch, perhaps even under the Amazing Thing, and nurse the cold that's claimed my voice and been otherwise vexing me for a couple of days.

National Book Festival 2009

2009-10-01T11:50:00.006-04:00

The National Book Festival was last September 26, and the conscientious bloggers (I won't name names) who were there put their posts up the next day. In the "better late than never" vein, here's my post. Last year was my first National Book Festival trip thanks to older son who wanted to hear and have a book signed by Neil Gaiman. This year's trip was with a friend who lives in Northern Virginia, the delightful young lady who walked across the stage at high school graduation immediately in front of older son. There were a number of authors there this year that sounded interesting: David Baldacci, Judy Blume, Ken Burns, Annette Gordon-Reed, John Grisham, Gwen Ifill, John Irving, Steven Kellogg, Sue Monk Kidd, Mark Kurlansky, Lois Lowry, George Pelecanos, Jon Scieszka, and Daniel Silva. As it turns out, I heard only one of the people listed above speak, but discovered several other authors whose books are winging their way to me even as I type or from whose presentation I garnered an idea worth remembering.

After arriving at the festival, we looked in at several tents. John Grisham was standing room only at the Fiction & Fantasy tent. We didn't stop to hear him. Besides the crowd, he lives here in Charlottesville, so it didn't seem all that much of a novelty to hear him speak. We ended up in the Teens & Children tent, listening to Liz Kessler, the author of the middle-grades Emily Windsnap series. Emily is a girl while she is on land but, in the water, turns into a mermaid. The fourth Emily Windsnap book has already come out in Britain (Kessler is English) and will be out here in the States in March. I thought it nice that all the people who asked Kessler questions after her talk were young girls who had read her books. One asked whether Kessler had patterned the Emily character at all after herself. Kessler answered by saying not intentionally but went on to say that Margaret Atwood once noted that "there's always a drop of blood in the cooking." What an interesting way to express that we, without intending to, reflect something of ourselves in everything we write.

We checked out the Borders booktent (if a bookstore is a store that sells book, then a booktent is a tent that does the same), but the line to pay for the book(s) selected was overwhelmingly long. Last year, the booktent was the only place to buy an advance copy of The Graveyard Book (which has now been on the New York Times bestseller list for 52 weeks, which means pie!) The books we would have purchased were already on the market. It honestly looked as though we could have used my friend's iPhone to locate a nearby bookstore, walk there, any buy the books before we could have made it through the line at the booktent. In my case, Borders's loss was Amazon.com's gain.

As you might imagine, the Festival catered to all ages. Here are a couple of examples. This was one of the many activities inside or around one of the children's tents, though it wasn't just children who were contributing to this mural. There were various costumed characters circulating. I would have gotten my photo taken with Curious George if the line had been shorter. There was a free-range penguin, though.
After a quick lunch from the vegetarian food booth, we found ourselves in the Fiction & Fantasy tent listening to Jeanette Walls, another author with whom I was totally unfamiliar. She spoke about her difficulty in writing pure fiction but her ease in writing memoirs that read like novels. I've ordered Walls's The Glass Castle, her memoir of her painful childhood. During the question period, a librarian related the story of how a teacher at his school had, for three years, read The Glass Castle out loud to her classes over the course of the year, commenting how it had touched the lives of the students, most of whom came from disadvantaged backgrounds similar to that of Walls. Walls was teary as she thanked the man for relating the story. We had actually come to hear Walls only because of the speaker who followed in Fiction & Fantasy, but I was very glad that we heard her.

The speaker we had come to Fiction & Fantasy to hear was Sabiha Al Khemir, a Tunisian-born author. According to the Festival program, "her second novel, The Blue Manuscript (2008), focuses on the interaction of Western and Islamic cultures." My friend is a dual US-Saudi citizen but had never heard of this author. In fact, the book we both put back on the table after seeing the line in the booktent was The Blue Manuscript; I've now got it on order from Amazon.com. Al Khemir talked about how her work as an Islamic art historian had influenced her writing. She also touched on the difficulties inherent in translating fiction into another language while retaining the subtleties of the original work. My friend is looking forward to reading The Blue Manuscript in both languages; I'm looking forward to hearing what she has to say about it.

There was no one we really wanted to hear immediately after Al Khemir, and it was raining, so we went across the street to the National Museum of American History for coffee and a bit of indoor sightseeing. In an exhibit case right outside the coffee shop was this interesting item. It's a Torah ark decoration from the late 1800s or early 1900s. Of course, my friend and I, both being a bit geeky, immediately turned to one another, flashed the Vulcan hand sign, and said, "Live long and prosper." Older son did a bit of research after I called him with the news and reported that Leonard Nimoy created the Vulcan hand salute based on a Orthodox Jewish blessing he had seen as a child. You learn something new every day!

We returned to the Festival wanting to hear Ken Burns speak in the History & Biography tent. We arrived in time for the speakers right before Burns, Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson, thinking that we might grab seats in between the speakers. Unfortunately, all the people there to hear Balz and Johnson also wanted to hear Burns and his co-author Dayton Duncan. It didn't matter, though, because even though we could barely see Burns and Duncan, we could hear them just fine. They spoke on their new PBS series on the National Parks. The sound bite I took away from their talk to throw out at cocktail parties or as the need arises concerns their use of music in their documentaries. Burns noted that most films are "locked" or visually finished before any music is recorded for them. For their documentaries, though, Burns and Duncan have all sorts of potentially relevant music recorded ahead of time and often in multiple versions. Later, as they are putting together the visual record, they actively work with the music. If there is a musical piece that merits longer play, then they tailor the visuals around the longer play. Definitely high on the list of neat things to know.

After Burns and Duncan, the Festival was over, so we returned to the car for a rather eventful drive back to the Fairfax area in which my friend lives. By this time, it was raining fairly heavily, making it just the right time for the passenger-side windshield wiper to break free from the arm and dangle, useless, against the windshield. We stopped three times so I could hop out and reset it, after which it held for just a while before it popped loose again. We did make it to Moby Dick's House of Kabob safely, where we had a wonderful chicken dish. (Older son was, I think, a bit disappointed to hear that there was no Call Me Fish Meal at Moby's.) After dinner, and a cup of tea at my friend's apartment, I made the drive home in the dark and rain. It was worth it, though, because it was another wonderful day at the National Book Festival. And now to wait for next year's!

The Creative Process, IX

2009-09-20T20:14:00.004-04:00

The top of the cabin quilt is done. If that's not enough, the quilt has named itself. I usually find that the name of a quilt comes to me without much conscious thought, and that was the case with this one. I just have to hope that the English language skills of the Norwegian brothers to whom the quilt is going are such that they get the humor. What better name for a quilt destined for a mountain cabin owned by brothers than "Sibling Revelry." That said, I still need to pin the layers of the quilt together, which is not an easy task and, then, quilt it and do the binding. It's not done yet, and it won't be for a while. But here's the top, a bit less than six feet by six feet. If I were making this quilt again, I would make the cabin image smaller and more subtle. I'm not about to change it now, though. Somehow, I find it difficult to imagine that the recipients will look at this and say, "Gee, it would have looked a lot better if the cabin image were smaller."

The creative work isn't over yet, because I still have to quilt this. I'm thinking of doing some black lines on the porch to acentuate the diagonal direction of the boards. The original photo had space between the boards, which I did not show here, and the black lines might serve as a reasonable replacement. I may quilt some detail into the grass at the base of the cabin of the trees to each side. We shall see. When it's done, I'll try to post some close-up shots that show what I did. In the meantime, I need to piece the backing and then do the layering and pinning. I've already cut the binding strips though I have yet to sew them together and press them.

Since it also comes under the creative heading, I have finished working in all the loose yarn ends on what I called "the amazing thing" in an earlier post. Here is it, finished and laid out in my foyer. For reference, it is approximately 9.5 feet long and 3.5 feet wide. Next up is felting/fulling it. If you're not familiar with the process, I'll put it in the washer, with detergent, on a hot temperature but low volume setting, with a couple pairs of old blue jeans and let the heat, soap, and agitation shrink it. I'll stop and restart the process until it has shrunk to an acceptable degree, after which I'll let the wash cycle finish. Then, if it's shrunk to appropriate dimensions, I'll see if I can craft a sword bag out of it. If it's too large, I'll see if I can shrink it some more. If it's too small (which I doubt it will be), I'll use it as a rug or throw. Hey, there's always a use for things like that around here.

My newest project is a muff. Remember muffs? They look like a tube. Your hands go inside and stay warm. My friend the artist and art teacher gave me a rather large bag of yarn she spun and dyed years ago but never used. Because I think the yarn should go back to her, I wanted to make her something that showed off all the different kinds of yarn. Here's the pattern I'm using. It's not going to use up all the yarn, so I may try to make three, one for my friend the artist and art teacher and one for each of her lovely daughters. The muffs are knitted on circular needles, and the first one is knitting up fairly quickly.

Finally, coming up in two weeks is the Fall Fiber Festival at Montpelier, home of James Madison. I'll be working there on Saturday, at the booth of Mangham Manor, my friendly neighborhood sheep farm. I'm not a bad salesperson when it comes to a product I believe in, such as Girl Scout cookies or Mangham Manor yarn. I will take various bags, shawls, and a sweater that I have knitted with their yarn, which reminds me that I really need to felt the jacket I mentioned in the last post, since that's also made from their yarn. The best part? I work for fiber, which means that I may well leave with all the yarn I can handle for the next year if I hadn't just discovered New Zealand possum yarn, which I absolutely must have just for the heck of it. I'm going to order some of that right now, as soon as I proofread this post and publish it.

Over the Moat (book review)

2009-09-09T18:53:00.004-04:00

If there's any question about whether a book called Over the Moat can count for the "building" category of Annie's What's in a Name - 2 challenge, the subtitle is Love Among the Ruins of Imperial Vietnam. If "moat" doesn't count as a building, then "ruins" does. I actually read The Two Towers with the intention of using it for the building category but could never get motivated to write the review. It was different with this book.

I found this book by accident while searching for books to read before heading to Vietnam. This one especially intrigued me because it was set in Hue, the city in which we would be living for a month. I got about ten pages into it in the weeks before we left on the trip before, in the chaos that was my life, losing it. I searched high and low but could not find it. I finally figured I must have left it somewhere because I remembered that I had been reading it while waiting for a doctor's appointment. Oh well, I thought, **it happens. We went on the trip, came home, settled back in, and then, about two weeks ago, there the book was, on the bottom shelf of the coffee table in the living room, a place I must have looked in my search. As I said, **it happens.

But guess what? Reading this book before we went on the trip would not have been as magical as reading it after the trip was. Having visited and experienced Hue, I could relate to the book in a much more intimate way than I ever would have before going. Before I go into why, though, let me recap the book. In late 1992, the author, James Sullivan, was bicycling from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi with a friend in order to write about the trip for a cycling magazine. When all his clothes were drenched in a rainstorm in Hue, he happened into a clothing store in search of replacements. He found the clerk there, Thuy (pronounced Twee) attractive, and ended up getting her address so that he could visit her that evening. He and his friend never did find Thuy's house--there was a mixup with the house number--but Thuy and her sister found them after going out looking for them when they did not appear as promised. Jim did resume the cycling trip as scheduled but could not get Thuy out of his mind as he and his friend took the train from Hanoi back to Ho Chi Minh City and, then, home. Hopping off the train in Hue, he decided to see where things might go. He ended up "competing" with other suitors for Thuy's affection before he returned to the States. Thuy had told him that she would never make a life with him until he had lived in Hue for a year so that she could see his real character. He did return to Vietnam and, despite those other suitors, one of whom was a policeman who handled immigration issues, the story had a happy ending.

There were descriptions of Hue that jumped out at me because I had been there. One example: "Hue inspired that kind of poetry in people. Pedaling north on Highway 1, I'd found that the Vietnameses loved Hue unconditionally. It didn't matter whether you were from the north or the south, a truck driver told me ouside Saigon. "Everybody agree about Hue." It wasn't the guidebook stuff he was talking about, not the Imperial Citadel or the Forbidden Purple City or the pagodas as much as it was something else, less easily defined, qualities better communicated by gesture, by the aroma swirling off a bowl of bun bo Hue soup and a limning of moonlight over the Perfume River, by whispers and by secret. An old woman in Danang had told me that on quiet nights gold seeped out of the ground in Hue: Believe it. Back in Hue now, I was prepared to believe that anything was possible."

And: "If Hue was the most regal city in Vietnam, it could also lay claim--perhaps mroe than any other in the country--to the Vietnamese soul. Its landmark pagodas had turned out Vietnam's most renowned Buddhist monks: Thich Quang Duc, who set himself ablaze in a Saigon intersection in 1963, hailed from Thien Mu Pagoda; and Thich Nhat Hanh, the prolific exile who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Martin Luther King in the 1960s, was reared at Tu Hieu Pagoda."

And remember Mr. Cu, the owner of the Mandarin Cafe and the person who developed a walking tour of Hue that the sons and I took one very, very hot day? He was in here, too, mentioned as having just begun the photography we marveled at in his brochure and on the walls of his cafe. Had I read the book before we went, I doubt I would have remembered the brief mention of Mr. Cu; reading it afterwards, I almost shouted with glee when I saw Mr. Cu's name.

My one complaint about the book was that its proofreading or editing was not very carefully done. I corrected more typos than I usually do in a book. Still, I would highly recommend this to anyone who has visited Hue. If you haven't visited, go first, and read the book after. It will mean much more that way.

The Unofficial End of Summer

2009-09-09T16:53:00.006-04:00

Monday was Labor Day, another unofficial end of summer as surely as the start of school is. Labor Day was also when I was supposed to collage a box or two with some of the many random pieces of paper I brought back from the Grand Spring Adventure. Alas, I worked on the proposal for the slightly more certain that it used to be statistics book I'm supposed to be helping to write. With four publishers expecting proposal packets around October 1 and a working title (Methods and Strategies for Sample-Size Analysis: Fables in Statistical Planning), it's all more real than it's been since I was first asked to get involved with it a bit over two years ago.

I am making progress on the cabin quilt as evidenced below. The cabin piece shown most recently has now been surrounded by two rows of blocks, each six inches square. Since the photo above was taken, I've added a 1.5-inch border of black. I've also pieced enough (I hope) sets of 3.5-inch long random strips that, when pieced together will form the final border. I hope to get that added in the next day or two, after which I'll be awaiting the arrival of a new bolt of black cotton from which will spring the quilt back. I also need to check my batting supply and Joann Fabric coupons, because obtaining batting will be the next chore. Will it be done in time to send it across the pond to Norway for Christmas? What's the expression--"God willin' and the creek don't rise"? Yeah, we'll go with that.

And while I'm waiting? Well, at some point, I'll be felting this large brown thing. I almost didn't post this photo because I look like crap in it, old and drawn. It was the end of a long day, and my hair was still pulled back and sweaty from karate. But back to the large brown thing. It's a jacket, knitted incredibly large to be felted or fulled smaller. The pattern came from something called the Twist Collective; you can see what the finished jacket might (if I'm lucky) look like here.

I also have what I'm calling the "amazing thing" to keep me busy. In my downsizing zeal, I decided to use up all sorts of single skeins or leftover bits of wool yarn. I started knitting bits together, with two different colors of yarn doubled together. Some time ago, I knitted a large wool afghan and felted or fulled it, thinking it might end up large enough for me to fashion it into a sword bag. Well, it didn't, so it now serves as a magic carpet on which my four-foot high stuffed orangutan sits each day. The amazing thing was for the same purpose, to be felted or fulled into something out of which I could craft a sword bag. The only problem is that I've gotten a bit carried away, and I'm betting that this one may end up too big. I'm almost out of yarn to be gotten rid of, so I'll be taking a before picture soon. The after picture will come much later since it's going to take me a while to work in all the loose yarn ends. I decided that rather than have large random places of color, I'd have many more smaller areas, so each color gets used for only a couple of rows at most. And I change colors randomly, one at a time rather than changing both colors at the same time.

And that's where things stand on several fronts. There is other news to report. I've been invited to test for my black belt in Myo Sim kendo in November, but I don't want to jinx anything by talking too much about it. I'm going sailing on Saturday. Younger son is back in the dorm and feeling quite at home there. His room here has been declared a disaster area and off limits for now. Life goes on. I need to write a book review now, after which I'll watch Obama's speech on health care, after which I shall take fountain pen in hand and write a letter the old-fashioned way.

Where Has All the Summer Gone?

2009-08-28T10:25:00.004-04:00

Happy New Year! Being the child of teachers, I have always thought more in terms of academic years than calendar ones. The start of the new (school) year means the end of summer, which makes me more than a bit wistful. While I fully accomplished one of my summer goals, getting my yellow belt in Myo Sim karate, I have somewhat failed on the others.

I do have four or five boxes packed with things--mostly clothes--to donate, and older son has done some significant work on the junk room over the garage, but my goal to declutter and downsize a bit remains largely unmet. I tell myself that it may be easier to accomplish this, especially in terms of the garage, when the weather cools off, but that may be just another excuse.

I did do some smashing and shaping of some of the rogue spoons and forks I have laying around, and I actually planned a bit on making a bird out of various and sundry items. I also sorted the masses of paper brought back from the Grand Adventure and purchased boxes on which to create collages of that paper. I tell myself that I shall set aside the upcoming Labor Day as the time in which to complete one or more of these enterprises. If I can manage that, that will take care of that summer goal. If I collage a box, I can even count that toward The Fifty, and consider the remaining summer goal to be at least partially met.

All that considered, I guess it hasn't been that bad a summer, except that it has been. I spent much of June and July in something resembling a state of suspended animation, unmotivated. I would start a single game of Spider Solitaire or regular Solitaire to pass the time while something printed and, hours later, still be playing. It did not help that I had little work-for-pay to occupy the time and that the hard disc on Mr. Mac crashed, meaning that the book proposal I should have been working on was unreachable. I know some of the reasons I felt the crappy way I did, and while those reasons still exist and probably will for a while, I'm doing my best to beat the crappy feelings. I haven't played a computer game since July 26, and I've managed to fill in the time with productive endeavors rather than reading blogs or otherwise killing time on the Interwebs. But what might I have accomplished had June and July not been wasted?

Enough idle speculation. Work continues on the cabin quilt I have been documenting. I shall soon finish the 64 6-inch squares I need to put two "borders" around the image as last shown here. I hope any readers aren't offended that I haven't shown you the process of making those squares. It's exactly the same as the process for making the 4-inch squares that I already described, so you aren't missing anything by not seeing it. I'll post another photo when I've added the 6-inch squares. After that, there will be two more borders. One will be a 3-inch strip of black all around. Outside that, I plan to put another 3-inch border made of random strips of the same batiks and hand-dyes that I've used in the squares.

And now I return to the previously scheduled morning, working on the book proposal and awaiting the arrival of FedEx with Snow Leopard for Mr. Mac. Eighty-five days and counting until the 2009 Myo Sim Black Belt Test, but that's fodder for another post.

Happy Feet

2009-08-10T22:31:00.003-04:00

I just mentioned driving 55 miles (one way) today to shop for shoes. Lest you think me related to Imelda Marcos, I should explain. On Saturday, the husband drove to Lancaster, PA, to retrieve younger son from his summer job. On the way back, they stopped in Harrisonburg, VA so that younger son could look at a kind of shoe he had heard about. He came home wearing a pair and raved about their comfort level. Older son, who claims to have been the one who told younger son about the shoe, wanted to get his own pair, so off we went to Harrisonburg today. Turns out that they didn't have the right color and size combination that older son wanted, so he has to wait a week for them to be ordered and shipped to him. They did, however, have a pair in a not too outlandish color that fit me, and after trying them on, I couldn't resist. Wondering what this is all about? Well, here, take a look. Those are my feet, very happy in a pair of Vibram FiveFingers(R). I admit to being skeptical, thinking it would be uncomfortable to have something between my toes. (Someone reminded me tonight that they actually sell things to separate your toes to help them relax; this is probably very similar.) It took a few minutes to get used to it, but after that I have to say that my feet have rarely been happier. I wore these all afternoon and occasionally actually forgot I had shoes on. I usually remove my shoes when I sew, the better to use the pedal, but I didn't today.

I showed these to a friend, and together we decided that these are the Honda Element of shoes: pretty darn ugly when you first look at them, but extremely comfortable and fun to drive or walk in. Will I be able to wear them to work or when professional attire is required? No, I'll likely have to stick to my Earth shoes then, but for daily wear, I'll be sticking to these for a while. A couple of folks have asked me how long these might last. I told them I'd let them know. I'll let any readers here know, too. In the meantime, I have very, very happy feet, which is making me very, very happy. :-)

The Creative Process, VIII

2009-08-10T22:24:00.004-04:00

I had a bit of time free today in between a shoe shopping trip to Harrisonburg, 55 or so miles away, and kendo, so I ran downstairs and stitched up the row of squares for the bottom of the cabin unit. Here's what it looks like now, graciously held by elder son. The next step is to make enough 6.5 inch squares to go all around this unit, then repeat that step one more time. It was easier to include some of the detail on the cabin by making it large; at the same time, though, I don't want the cabin to be the only thing in the quilt, so I have to make the finished quilt a bit bigger than I might otherwise have done. Will it be done in time to mail it across the pond for Christmas? I hope so!

The Creative Process, VII

2009-08-09T19:13:00.010-04:00

I actually did what I'm about to describe over a week ago, on July 30. I put the photos on my netbook and had good intentions of getting something posted while I was in Washington, DC for the Joint Statistical Meetings August 1-5, but between not being able to access blogspot from the hotel and being on the go every day between 7:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. or so, well, it never got done. Better late (now) than never.

After several seconds of deep thought, I abandoned all notions of measuring my cabin rectangle and then making blocks all the same size so that they would fit evenly. This is liberated quiltmaking, right? I figured that 4.5-inch blocks (which become 4-inch blocks in the finished quilt thanks to what's taken up in the seams) would come close enough. I'd just make one of the end ones a bit wider or narrower as need be, and it would work.

How to make those blocks? If you're not a quilter, pay attention, because I'm only gonna explain this once. This is liberated quiltmaking, so the first thing I did was go through my drawer of batik and hand-dyed fabric and tore strips off each and every kind of fabric contained therein. I tore one strip off some, two off others, basically going by how long the strips were. This is the pile of strips I ended up with, along with the CD case of the morning's soundtrack. It might be enough for the whole quilt; it might not be. I can always tear off more.

The next step was to take two pieces of farbric and sew them together. This would give me the center of a liberated log cabin block. Here are the four I started with. I cut these in half to get two centers from each piece. I took a center, then pulled a random strip out of my pile. My only requirement here is that if I pull out a strip that's already in the block I'm working on, I put it back. Otherwise, that's the one I use. Forced randomosity. To make sewing things together easier, I cut the strip to be the same length as the piece to which I'll be sewing it. Sew the two pieces together and press the seam, and I get something looking like this. I don't have a photo of it, but the next step is to trim the side to which I'll sew the next piece of fabric. You can see that here, with the next fabric. Sew the new piece on, press, (photo above) and trim the proper side (photo below). Then I'm ready to repeat the process and add the next piece. Cool, eh? Just keep adding pieces to the sides until the block is a suitable size.

Of course, even when it gets to be an appropriate size (photo above), it might look better if you add more and re-center how you cut the final block.

Look at the photo above. Before, I didn't have any leeway over where I cut my final block. Now I do; I can move the 4.5-inch template around and cut the block however I want to. Now is probably a good time to mention that I don't make one block at a time. You saw above that I started with eight centers. I chain piece, which means that I add a piece to the side of the first center, then the second, then the third, and so on. I end up with short bits of thread between the connected blocks. I snip these to separate the blocks, then press, trim, and do it all again. I took the photos above to show how I put together one specific block. If I did each block by itself, it would take a long time to make the eight blocks around the bits with which I started. Eight blocks which, when sewn together and laid out, look like this. The carpet might make it hard to see, but the strip of eight blocks needs another in order to come close to matching the cabin unit. After I make that block and sew it onto the end of the strip but before I attach the strip to the cabin unit, it's clear that I'll have to do some trimming. I'm not going to do the trimming, though, until the strip is sewn on. You get a much nicer, neater trim once it's sewn and pressed. Here's what the finished piece looks like. To take this photo, I taped the unit to the back of my sewing room/office door. I don't have a huge area in which to work, which is one of the main reasons I don't do more of this.

The next step, which might not be taken until next weekend, is to do another strip to put below the cabin unit. Then, I'll make slightly larger blocks--six inches or so--to go around the unit with the cabin and top/bottom strips. My plan, which is subject to change at a moment's notice, is to put two sets of blocks around the unit, then a single border strip of fabric, probably black, and then an outer border of random stripes. If I end up doing as I just described, the finished quilt will be about 72 inches square, which I think will be a good size to leave out on a couch for decoration at the same time it's a good size to stretch out under while reading, relaxing, or whatever. I'll take some photos each work session, but since all the other liberated log cabin blocks will be done just as the one I showed here, I'll dispense with the gory detail.

I also took the first step on a new project today by cutting up some fabric I dyed. Sounds sort of normal, right? Not! The fabric was ten terrycloth hand towels, each dyed to a differect color. Terrycloth may turn out to be a real bear to work with, but I have my reasons for wanting to do so. I don't expect to start sewing on that one until I'm done with this one, but having done the dyeing, I figured I should at least get the cutting done.

Doing (County) Fairly Well

2009-07-29T20:15:00.000-04:00

I'm not even sure we had county fairs when I was a kid, probably because the Montana State Fair was held in the city in which I grew up (Great Falls). I remember going to the state fair every year, riding the rides, seeing the animals, playing some games, but I don't recall that either we kids or our parents ever entered anything in the various competitions. Several years ago, I entered a quilted jacket in the Quilted Clothing category at the Albemarle County Fair and won a blue ribbon. It was the only item entered in the Quilted Clothing category, but since the fair rules state that "Classes with only one exhibit will be awarded ribbons at the judges' discretion" I know that I didn't get the blue ribbon by default.

This year being an outstanding one for photography, both sons and I entered various of the Photography categories. Younger son entered 13 photographs; elder son entered seven; and I entered four. We each won about one ribbon for each four photographs entered. Younger son won three red or white ribbons in the Floral-Color, Floral-B&W, and Animals-B&W categories. Elder son won red or white ribbons in the Animals-Color and Human Interest-B&W categories. I only one won ribbon, but it was a blue one, for the photograph below, in the Humor category. I took the photo at Madurodam in the Netherlands, described here for readers who might have missed it on the blog of our Grand Adventure. This photo did not happen accidentally; I suggested that an interesting photo might result if we all shot photos of the reflection at the same time. Success! One interesting and, now, award-winning photograph.

The Creative Process, VI

2009-07-19T20:52:00.007-04:00

Okay, so I didn't make it back to working on this on the "tomorrow" mentioned in my last quilt post. What can I say? An assortment of things came up between then and today. While the bread (shredded wheat bread, a new find in The Secrets if Jesuit Breadmaking) was rising, I went back to work on the mountain cabin. I thought it only appropriate to use Kurt Nilsen's Rise to the Occasion as the soundtrack since I first heard this artist, specifically, his "Lost Highway," a duet with Willie Nelson, while at the mountain cabin.

The first step was to add grass, trees, and sky to the left side of the cabin as I left it last time. The trick would be to match the two seams, that of the grass-trees and the trees-sky, with those on the cabin piece. The first one was easy because I can just trim the bottom to fit. The second one, though, would take some eyeballing. The photo shows the pieces of fabric laid together as I approximated where the seam should be sewn. As it turned out, I came close enough the first time. The next step was to put some borders on. The aim was to give the resulting, bordered piece dimensions that were evenly divisible by the integer of my choice in terms of making squares to surround the cabin block. You may find it surprising that even with my training in psychology and statistics, I'm not big on measuring. I measured. I even measured twice. I cut the side borders, sewed them on, and nailed the final length figure I was shooting for, the magic 36 inches (actually 36.5 inches, but the 0.5 will disappear into the seam). Thirty-six is a nice number, because it divides evenly into squares of 3, 4, 6, 9, or 12 inches or even some combinations of those squares. I was shooting for 27 inches for the height, figuring that I could then put 4.5 inch squares on the top and bottom, resulting in a 36-inch square panel to work out from. The top and bottom borders would be a bit narrower than the side ones, but I figured what the heck. I calculated how wide they should be, cut them, sewed them on, and, what was it they used in the transcripts of the Nixon tapes? "Expletive deleted"? The finished measurement wasn't what I had calculated it would be. I decided that I would just go ahead and make the borders the same width all around and even up the dimension with the first set of surrounding squares. Time for frog-sewing or, as the politically incorrect might say, French-sewing. That little implement in the photo is a seam ripper, as in "Rip it; rip it; rip it." Two seams unsewn, two new strips cut, two more seams sewn, and voila, a finished cabin panel. I debated for a while as to what color or colors to use for the borders here. It may not show up well in the photo, but the borders are grey. I decided on that as being somewhat neutral in terms of either dark or light fabrics working on the outside edges.

Next step is to make some liberated squares for the top and bottom, with the resulting rows of squares getting the height to the desired 36 inches. Yes, I know this will mean more measuring, but I intent to make the squares in such a liberated way that, if necessary, I can simply take a bit off the top or bottom to make it all fit. Then I will need to decide where I go from there. Should the cabin be in the center of a large square? In a corner? At the bottom of a rectangle taller than it is wide? Somewhere on the longer dimension of a rectangle, so you could see it if you had the quilt covering your lap as you sat on a couch? Should the final size fit on a bed or in a lap? The quilt has already told me that it will be too big for a wall hanging, and I honestly wouldn't want it to be that. I want this to be a quilt to be used, to be snuggled under or even sat upon. Does it sound as if I'm making it up as I go along? I am, because the quilts I make with a firm and fixed plan of action are never as delightfully fun as the ones that sort of make themselves as I go along.

One Down and Three To Go

2009-07-12T07:05:00.006-04:00

Back around Memorial Day, the unofficial start of summer, I put forth some summer goals. There were only four, some of which were more measurable than others. (I used to work in university planning, and we were very big on measurable goals.) The most measurable of this year's goals was to earn my yellow belt in Myo Sim karate. That's about as measurable as you can get; either I would earn it or I wouldn't. Well, I did.

One starts Myo Sim karate as a white belt. After that come yellow, green, two levels of blue, three levels of brown, and then black, of which there are varying degrees. There are defined requirements for each level. For yellow belt, I had to know four kata or basic forms, one tae ryun (a form done with a partner), five self defenses (responses to various grabs), three one steps (responses to a punch), six kicks (three different styles of kick done with either the front or the back leg), three punching combinations, and two partner exercises (putting together punches and kicks against an opponent). Getting a yellow belt means remembering the moves in each part or technique, doing them in the proper stances, and doing them safely. This last part is really important because not doing something safely can mean that you or the person you're working with gets very hurt very fast.

I have tested for two different belts in kendo, but this was my first rank exam in karate. One thing that is different is that the karate exams are judged by every black belt in attendance, and that the judging involves written comments on all the things demonstrated. While this contributes to your nervousness during the test, it's helpful to go over the comments in detail and learn from them. And comments are as apt to be positive as negative. Although many of the comments I got related to things I can and will change, I also got several comments that my kicking has much improved over the last few weeks. I put in a lot of extra time working on my kicking in between the time I was invited to test and the test itself; it was nice to know that the extra time paid off.

Next up is green belt. This one will be harder. There's not necessarily more material to learn, but the bar gets raised a bit. It will no longer be enough to remember and demonstrate the moves and to do them safely. Besides that, I will need to "make the punches look like punches, and the kicks look like kicks." In other words, my technique has to reach a certain level of quality. I won't make green this summer; it might be a stretch to try to make it in the fall. I will get it at some point; it's just hard to say when that might be. In the meantime, I have three other summer goals to work on during the time I'm not working on karate (or kendo), not to mention job, family, and a few other life priorities.