Falling in Drafts Again

Let's pretend that it's fall for a moment ( which I'm sure we all wish it was, to get away from the baking heat of the summer sun ).  Smell the turning leaves, feel the crisp air on your skin, and look at all the fall drafts I finished.

Yes, this is the reason I want you to come frolicking through the leaves with me.  I don't want pumpkin pie or a leaf pile; I want to celebrate having finished all seven of the children's short stories I have set in the fall season.

Hopefully I was able to put you in the fall mood even though it's summer.  It's kind of a tricky thing to do when it's out of season, but I had my handy dandy drawer of pressed leaves and some other dried flowers and drift wood to help me set the tone.

Now wether or not these photos look even remotely fall-ish to you ( if they don't please give me some slack and remember that it is actually summer right now ) isn't the point of this post.  We're here to celebrate, people!  Do you remember the editing slump I was in?  And I mean severe editing slump?  Well boy oh boy am I coming out of it now.  I have my summer and my fall first drafts done now.  Winter and spring are both half done.  I'm so close now to having all 28 of my stories edited.

When I finished my summer drafts I suggested we celebrate together with ice-cream.  This time, let's go with pie.  Apple pie, peach pie, blueberry pie, whatever kind of pie.  Just pie.  It really does't matter, because honestly, if it's pie, how can it be bad?  It goes so well with fall, too.  Though if you want to go back to the ice-cream and sneak a scoop of vanilla on top of your slice, then that's fine with me.  I won't tell anyone.

Em

Inky Tangles

I've been doing quite a bit more Zentangle here lately then I ever have before ( that's not to say I'm doing a lot a lot of it, but just a lot for me ).  This is because I have made it a part of my new schedule to do one new tangle a week.  This gives me a solid reason to set time aside specifically for my doodling, which I love, and it gives me plenty of time to spread out the hours it takes to make one tangle throughout the week.

I thought I'd just show the ones I've done since my first tangle of this year that I showed you here.

And there they all are.  Like I said, it's not much, and it's not all that professional or clean looking, but I'm very happy with them myself.  I really enjoy making these tangles, and I'm glad I made the decision to make it apart of my life on a regular basis, because it is something that relaxes and de-stresses me as well as makes me smile.

With practice I'm sure my hand will grow better, and my ink strokes will become more uniform and clean.  I'm sure the practice holding and working with the pens will help my hands when I finish editing my 28 children's short stories and I go to start doodling little animals to decorate their pages.

Em

Hot Air Balloon Blanket Completed

I would just like to shout a bit and share the fact that I have now finished my hot air balloon blanket.  Which blanket might this be?  Why, it's this one, of course.  The one that's made up of 285 individual rectangles.

I finished it this afternoon and I am so pleased with how it turned out.  Above are some photos showing how I put all those separate rectangles together.  I had to crochet ( yes, crochet, this is not knit ) all the columns together first, and then go back in the other direction and close the gaps by crocheting the rows together.  I could have done it the other way around, too.  It doesn't matter which direction you go in first, just that you have to do all of one direction and then do all of the second direction.

Not really sure what I'm talking about here?

That's ok, you don't have to.  I don't expect everyone, or even most of everyone who reads this know all the technical crochet stuff I throw in here from time to time.  What you should be doing though ( or least what I hope you're doing ), is shouting along with me at the fact that I finally got here.  At the very least I hope you're excitedly clapping your hands or something.

From beginning to end this project took me about two and a half months.  All to make a 48" by 56" blanket.  Yes, those are some slightly strange measurements, but it's what it turned out to be in order for me to get the design I wanted.  This is one more blanket towards the goal of getting an online blanket shop open, so it really is a big deal for me to have finished it.

I am now going to go and eat some ice-cream to celebrate.  You should too, to celebrate with me!  Don't feel like celebrating all that much tonight?  That's fine, don't worry about it.  I still give you full permission to use this post as an excuse to eat ice-cream, though, because really, ice-cream in the summer is just a fundamental part of life.

Em

My Favorite Book?

So I took this silly little internet quiz just the other day saying that it could guess what my favorite book is.  Normally I ignore these sorts of things, but I was bored, had nothing better to do, and it was really the only thing left on my Pinterest feed that I hadn't looked at yet.  So I took it.

The result I got was a book that I had never actually heard of before.  "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath.  I was intrigued.  How was it that I had never heard of this book before, yet the quiz said it was my favorite book?

( Now the obvious answer to this is the fact that it is a silly little internet quiz that doesn't know me at all and has only a limited number of books to chose from based off of the choices of whoever made the quiz, and all paths are predetermined by the small number of questions there are, of which were also chosen by the person who made the quiz, who we can assume is not in fact a psychologist or a master at 20 Questions. )

I decided to check the book out from my library and read it for myself, to see if it really did turn out to be my Favorite book, or at least one of my favorite books.  I have lots of favorites, you see, but there is only one Favorite.

Now you'll have to wait to find out if it ends up being one of my favorite books, because I haven't actually started reading it yet.   I know, I know, but you can't be too mad at me.  I was busy reading my first Egypt book ( which I've finished now ) for my myths and legends study, and I had some important catching up to do on "A Darker Shade of Magic" by V. E. Schwab that I sadly had not gotten around to reading yet until this week, even though it's been out for over a year ( don't worry, I won't take so long to read the second one ).

Sylvia Plath, though, is a name that I have heard before, even if I've never read any of her work.  She was a poet in the 1900's, who tragically committed suicide in 1963 at the age of 30.  After divorcing her husband and moving to London with her two children, she had some issues getting this book published.  But it finally was, just a few weeks before her death, under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas, though everyone in London knew she was the real author.

"The Bell Jar" is an American classic about a woman descending into a mental breakdown, and I can't wait to read it.  There's something about mental health stories that I can't seem to get enough of.  Sylvia's story makes me want to read it even more, because of how the plot of the story ( at first glance ) appears to be an insight as to what happened to her, in her mind.  It is said that her first suicide attempt is chronicled in the summer mentioned in this book.

So now I read, and maybe you will, too.  I think it's important, in a way, to try to understand what it's like for people who are hurt in this way, so that maybe one day there will be a better chance of helping them to save themselves.

Em

After the Drafts of Summer Are Gone

It is no easy, or particularly fun task to self-edit your own writing.  It's that first time you look at all the sand you shoved in the sandbox and realize that now you actually have to make something with it.  With this mess.  A beautiful mess, for sure, but still a mess.

I may or may not have mentioned it before, but I am currently in the process of working toward self-publishing a collecting of 28 children's short stories for you and the rest of the world love and devour ( because you will, of course, finger crossed ).  I have done 7 stories for each of the four seasons, and now all 28 of those rough drafts are staring at me, judgmentally, almost, waiting for me to stop procrastinating with everything else I don't really need to be doing and turn them into 1st drafts.

I got a whole boat load of writing done in March, then took a month off from writing to give my eyes a break from staring at these stories, and then I had planned to do all the rough draft editing in May.  Easy peasy, right?

Well now it's July and I'm just over half way through them all.  They're still staring at me, and I've begun to stare back, or just ignore them all for as long as possible.  But this method isn't going to get me published by summer next year.  Especially since I have do all my own illustrations, too, and I haven't even begun with that task yet ( I'm not actually good a drawing, you see ).

I am happy to say though that I am staring to get out of this editing slump and get some real work done.  I have all the first drafts for the first season, Summer, done and filed away for me to work into my files on my computer once I finish the other seasons.  Fall is nearly done, and all Spring really needs is some expanding.  Winter is going to be the most challenging.  I have found that at least 2 of my winter stories are no longer to my liking.  

That's going to take me some extra time, having to come up with 2 new stories before I can even start editing them, and I'm not sure how much winter inspiration I can find in the middle of summer.  Perhaps I'll just have to finish all the other drafts, then work on my drawings for a while, till winter comes back around and I can write those winter stories that I need.

I'm just going to celebrate the completed Summer first drafts for now and try not to glare at myself for all the procrastination that I did over the past two months.  The drafts of summer are gone, and it's time to keep moving forward toward the end of my goal.

Em

Myths and Legends: a Study

Ok, so I've been a bit off my game this past week.  You might not have noticed this from the other two posts that I did on Sunday and Thursday, but guess what?  That's because I  didn't actually write them this week.  I know, can you believe it?  I wrote them last Saturday, and then set them to post this week.  Perhaps I should not be giving this secret out, but I tend to break all the rules anyways so oh well.

On Monday I actually woke up thinking that it was Thursday for some reason.  I almost walked out of the house before 8 in the morning thinking I had to be somewhere when really I didn't because it was not in fact Thursday yet.  I spent one super late night this week being almost overwhelmed by a somewhat threatening swarm of small children soaking me with plastic fish for three hours.  Just this afternoon I randomly started drinking from a molasses bottle because I wanted to see what it tasted like instead of just maybe dipping my pinky or something in it like a normal person would ( it was super sweet and kind of sickly tasting all by itself, if you were wondering ).

So yeah, just a bit off my game.

But amongst all this off-ness there has been one thing that I've been enjoying immensely.

My study of myths and legends from around the world.

I have taken it upon myself to do a nine month study of nine different cultures that I chose for myself based on how curious I am about them.  They are Rome, India, Japan, Iceland, Egypt, Russia, England, the Celts, and the Vikings.  How exciting does this sound?!

It's not anything professional or a collage course or something.  It's just me being curious and wanting to know more about the old stories that have always fascinated me.  I spent a few months collecting books from used book stores and even antique stores that contained collections of myths from the cultures and peoples I wanted to learn about.  I also picked up at least one history book on each of the cultures as well, because the more I thought I about it, the more I wanted to learn about the people who actually came up with these stories as well as the stories themselves.

So now I shall read.  And read, and read.  I take notes, mark pages with stickies ( but never dog ear ), compare information, etc., and when I've finished with one culture, I'm going to take the opportunity to practice writing reports and essays ( just for me ) on the information I have found for myself.

I gotta tell you, I am so super excited for this.

You might be thinking, "Ehh, what a nerd.", but hey!  At least I'm a happy one!  Or perhaps you are reading this and are now thinking, "Hey, that sounds like fun.  I am suddenly inspired to learn more about something I love, too!!!"  If that's the case, then go you!  You definitely should go do some learning, because guess what?  You are actually never too old to learn something new.  And who said you can't teach yourself?  I mean really, the only teachers I've ever had are my parents and myself, and look how great I turned out.  I have my life so together.

( You might wanna ignore paragraphs 1-3 and then that last statement will be much easier to believe. )

I'm studying Egypt right now, staring with the myths before the history book.  One thing that I'm realizing though is that there is actually a lot of history you find inside the myths that people used to tell.  How they thought, how they acted, what rituals were present in their day to day life because of these beliefs that they had.  It's all been very fascinating to read, and I only starting doing this last week.  I still have nine more months of all this wonderful learning to go.  It's just, well, wonderful!

Now I know this going to be consuming quite a good bit of my free time, but don't worry!  I will not stop posting on my blog, because I know that you would just be absolutely devastated if I didn't post a few times a week.  I will not neglect you.  You don't have to miss me any more than you already do on the those few days when I don't post already.

So here is to reading, learning, and being self-taught.  May these three things never be stopped!

Em

( Oh and here are the molasses cookies my mom made with the very same molasses I was drinking earlier.  They taste great. )

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285 Rectangles

How many rectangles does it take to make a blanket?

In this case, it's 285 of them.  In 7 different colors, mind you.

I started making these rectangles back at the end of May, if you remember that late night post, and the terrible ( awesome ) joke about body parts ( you might want to go read the post just for that strange joke ).

It's no surprise it took me just over a month to make all these little rectangles.  I had to experiment with the stitches first to get them to be the size I needed, and then I only had time to work on them in the evenings while watching TV a few times a week.  I do enjoy working with yarn though, whether it be crochet or knitting, so all the time it took seems well worth it to me.

The inspiration for this blanket came from one of the many hot air balloons that you can see floating about in the skies during the spring and fall months.  There's this one that has colored rectangles arranged in a diamond shape against a black background.  They all sort of look like they're radiating out from each other as the colors stack and make diamond-shaped rings.  I didn't want the black, though, so I replaced it with gray ( which I love ).  And I upped the number of colors.  The hot air balloon only has 4; I went with 6 ( aside from the gray ).

I have this issue, you see, that even though purple and mint green are my favorite colors ( in that order, just in case you ever want to buy me a gift ), I love color in general, so that when it comes to making blankets, I have a hard time deciding which colors to use.

So I end up using all of them.  Or at least most.

I have never used less than 3 colors on a single blanket.  And even then the number of colors was so small only because a friend of mine picked them out for me.  Had I been left the task of choosing the colors all by myself, it probably would have been some mix of all the colors again.

Now comes the part where I have to stitch all 285 of these little rectangles together.  Thankfully I had the sense enough to weave in all the loose ends as I made the rectangles, so I've spared myself the pain of having to weave in all 570 of them at once ( that's 2 loose ends or 'tails' per rectangle ).  There's probably an easier way to make blankets that doesn't involve having to make hundreds of separate pieces and then sewing them together, but what the heck?  Nothing great is ever easy, right?

Em

Summer Garden

Carrots and asparagus, tomatoes, lettuce, and peppers.  Herbs and onions, strawberries and rhubarb.  Lots of green sprouts and ferns nestled happily in our garden beds, growing away, getting bigger, while we wait for the right time to pull them out and enjoy them.

By no means has my garden ever been big enough to actually replace the need to go to the grocery store for a certain item, but still, there is something nice about seeing it all grow, even when half of it doesn't grow right and you don't really get anything from it.  The strawberries, for instance, haven't given a single berry yet.  They seem far more concerned with growing runners to root more plants then they are with giving me berries.  World domination is clearly more important than jam to them.

On the other hand, some plants take off.  There are two giant rhubarb plants sitting at the beginning of the garden that are over 6 years old.  I can get 3 harvests from them in a single year.  The growing season here isn't a very long one, either, so this makes that fact even more amazing.  Similarly, there is a potted chive that I just can't seem to kill.   Usually I'm very good at killing plants.  But this chive is stubborn.  It keeps coming back in it's pot each year without any help or encouragement, and despite how many times I forget to water it, it just doesn't die.

I'm very proud of my chive.

Getting out in the dirt is something that just makes me feel good anyways, regardless of wether or not the plants end up being useful or not.  Still, there is something about my small garden that does seem a bit, well.... small.

I almost think it would be better to grow an herb garden.  Something that perhaps you could keep inside your house and use all year long.  Or, for the outside garden, to just pick one plant you really love, and I mean really, really love, and just fill all the garden beds with that single plant.  That way you could eliminate the need to buy that particular produce from the store.  It just seems like it, the garden, would be a bit more useful that way, like there would be more of a reason to grow it, instead of planting handfuls of a ton of plants that don't really grow anyways.

It does make me a bit disappointed that my garden isn't exactly as useful as maybe I would like it to be.  But, I must remember that it isn't really my garden, either.  It's our garden, my family's garden, and we all have our plants we love and would like to grow.  We have to share and help each other, just a family should.  So really, in that respect, I can be very proud of my garden, of our little garden.

It may be little, but it certainly is very green, and varied.  As much I would like to strive for a more 'useful' garden in the future, I can be happy with what we have now.  There is a very summery feel to it.  You can't deny that.  The rhubarb and the chives continue to flourish, and so perhaps the rest of the little experiment plants don't need to be quite so fruitful as they need to be there just make the gardener smile.

Over all, I love going out water it in the summer evenings when it's cooled down a bit, checking to see if the plants have gotten any bigger, going barefoot in the dirt, and sometimes just sitting there in middle of it imagining what it would be like if we just had a little more room for things to grow.  It's very good starting place, our garden.  A very good little place, in the middle of it all, to sit and just be happy to look at the life that you grew.

Not everything in life really needs to be 'useful', I think.  Somethings just need to be there, for no other reason than to make you smile at life.  That's what our little garden is for me.

Em