Happy New Year!

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

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

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

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

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,

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

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.