For Mom

I came across this pattern which I thought looked pretty cool. It's a combination of a cardigan and wrap and I thought it looked nice and cozy. I also thought it would make a nice gift so I decided to make it for Mother's Day. I just finished it this past weekend; what do you think?


I still need to finish weaving in stray yarn ends and do a little blocking for shape. I don't think it will need much, but I'm thinking about using a little steam on the front panels to bring out the stitch detail a little more. I'm really pleased with it. I love the way it drapes and I think it will be cozy without being too heavy. And hopefully there will be a little time for her to enjoy it before the weather gets too warm

And Now A Word From Their Sponsors

Overall I don't mind commercials that much. I could wish there were fewer of them and more of the few programs I want to watch; but for the most part I'm not bothered by ads. In fact, sometimes I find the commercials more entertaining than the scheduled broadcast. One of my still favorites was for the HP photo printer. You know the one I mean? This guy shuffles and manipulates photos like a magician with a deck of cards. It was a very clever use of special effects and, I thought, visually entertaining. Even though I knew it was all done with computers, my eye couldn't resist trying to discover the 'trick.' It evoked in me the same sense of wonder I felt watching David Copperfield perform locally several years ago.

But now and then there is a commercial that I find especially dumb or even offensive. There was one that played for years in my area, and maybe it's a regional thing, for a bathroom remodeling company. This woman walks into her bathroom and throws back the shower curtain only to discover that the tub and tiles are filthy with mold and mildew and who knows what else. So then the woman has this company completely refit a new bathroom for her and extolls the speed and efficiency with which it was done. But I have to wonder how she let her bathroom get that bad to begin with. I mean clearly she hadn't bothered to clean it, or even use it, or it wouldn't have come as such a surprise to her. And if she hadn't bothered to clean it in the first place, would she bother with the new bathroom? Or was she planning to get it refitted every six months? Okay, I know it was just a commerical, but it was a dumb commercial and did not in the least make me want to rush to the phone and order a new bathtub.

The most recent addition to my list of all time idiot ads is a new one for Brand X paper plates. It starts out all warm and fuzzy with this woman saying how she has decided that spending time with her kids is more important than spending time washing dishes. This commercial bothers me on several levels. First, because it implies that if you wash dishes instead of using paper plates that you must be an uncaring parent who isn't interested in spending more time with your kids. Second, it completely ignores the fact that (a) there would still be dishes to do if only in cooking the food, and (b) washing up a few plates takes only a minute. Apparently she doesn't begrudge the time it takes to scour pots and pans. Another woman appears in the commercial marveling that Brand X plates are even good enough for her grandmother's recipe. Which makes me think that her grandmother's recipe must not be very good. And then there's the fact that if these women weren't spending so much on paper plates they could probably afford automatic dishwashers.

Just how dumb I found this commercial is clear; all I can think of when watching it is how much it offends me. I couldn't even tell you what brand it's supposed to be advertising. Which is pretty bad marketing if you ask me. Or even if you don't.

Still turning pages

In case you missed my earlier comment, Jan Karon's latest addition to the Father Tim series Home to Holly Springs was fabulous. I love getting pulled into her world, or Father Tim's world, I suppose. Warm and fuzzy feelings I've got for that series. These books are written for adults, but there's an almost child-friendly feeling to them. Gentle, I think is a good description. I'm a terrible cynic, myself; but sometimes escaping into that more simple world works better than any prescription drug for soothing whatever ails me.

Also recently reread Terry Pratchett's Making Money which I also have listened to the audio twice. Moist Von Lipwig is my all time favorite Pratchett character, second only to Lord Vetinari. Neither one is the most sterling example of humanity. Moist is a thief and scam artist, Vetinari is a tyrant, literally. But sometimes the best person for the job isn't the guy with the cleanest motive. Pratchett's books are great fun. He might set them in a fantasy world, but it only serves to underscore the familiar aburdities of our own culture.

Just finished Driving Over Lemons by Chris Stewart. If you like Bill Bryson, you might want to give this one a try. With much love and humor, Stewarts tells how he and his wife came to live on a small farm in rural Spain, the people they came to know and the life they obviously fell in love with. Charming and quixotic would be a good description. It reminded me a lot of James Herriot's stories, actually.

Another One Wrapped Up

Ta da! Here's another project, hot off the hook. Please ignore the wrinkled t-shirt. This one is a cropped jacket from a Moda Dea pattern I downloaded for free. Not bad for free, huh? Okay, the yarn I had to pay for. I actually used Cascade Sierra for this one, as I think I mentioned before. I know, in the photo it looks more like a melon color, but it's actually a bright magenta in real time. Despite the open work design, the jacket is actually pretty warm which makes it just about perfect for spring/fall. Also, the yarn is mostly cotton with a little Merino wool for elasticity which means the fabric should breath well and be comfortable at a variety of temperatures.

I was really pleased at how quickly it worked up, and how well the pieces fit together. A sign of a good pattern, I think, when it all goes the way it's supposed to. The only thing that I did differently from the pattern was at the back of the neck, which you can't see here. I believe I mentioned in an earlier post that I had been reading up on techniques to create crochet garments that don't look homemade. The book is Couture Crochet by Lily Chin and I highly recommend it. One of the things she mentions in the book is the difference that a properly fitted neckline can make in the way a garment hangs. Go to your closet or dresser and pull out a shirt, any shirt. If you lay it flat and examine the back, you'll see that the neck area is cut about 1/2 inch shorter than the shoulders. This is because the back of your neck slopes slightly before it meets your collar bone. If the upper back is cut straight across, the garment will have a tendency to hang heavier in the back requiring the wearer to constantly jerk at the front to keep the garment hanging correctly. By cutting out the center, about 5 inches wide and only 1/2 inch deep, you clear the collar bone and the back hangs properly. Learning about this was a real eye-opener for me. It's not something I've seen mentioned in crochet patterns, and it wasn't written into the pattern for this jacket, but I figured out that I could accomplish the same idea if I switched to a slip stitch for those middle 5 inches of the last row. And it worked beautifully; the jacket hangs almost flawlessly. I'm so pleased with how it turned out that I might do another one before long, maybe as a gift.

But while I was finishing up the jacket, I was simultaneously working on this cardigan for my mother. Since I intend it to be a surprise for Mother's Day I've had to sneak working on it during lunch hours, sometimes working a row or two at night. This pattern is from a book called Style For You! from the folks at Leisure Arts and uses Caron Simply Soft yarn. Soft and inexpensive, it's been very nice to work with. I have the back and sleeves done, and have started one of the front sides. The interesting things about this pattern is that you don't work the pieces separately and then sew together. Instead, each section is worked out from the last. For example, when I finished at the upper back I continued on, creating what became the collar and sleeve. Once I figured it out, I really liked the idea because I hate stitching pieces together. I'm crossing my fingers, but I think the fronts should work up fairly quickly as it's all double crochet and chain spaces.

A Good Yarn

As I'm getting more involved in crochet projects I've been trying to learn more about yarn. This is turning out to be more complicated that I thought it would be. One of the reasons I've really dived back into crochet is the greater variety of yarns now available. In the old days yarn was yarn. You had acrylic yarns and you had wool. You had yarns of a weight suitable for afghans and you had the thinner pastel yarns suitable only for baby blankets and sweaters. The issue for crocheters is that a crochet stitch uses a bit more yarn than a similar knit stitch, which meant that crocheted fabric had a tendency to be bulkier and so were less likely to be turned into garments (except for those ugly granny square vests of the 1970s ... don't get me started on granny squares).

But fiber arts (that's what they call it now) have exploded in popularity in recent years and along with the interest (like the chicken and the egg, I'm not sure which came first) we're seeing yarns in an amazing array of fibers and thickness, although not necessarily at my local Michaels or WalMart which, contrary to the trends, have been stocking less yarn than ever. I can't figure that one out, but never mind. These newer yarns use fibers and spinning techniques that work up into fabrics with much better weight and drape than ever before which has been a boon to all the fiber arts, but most particularly to crocheters. With yarns spun finer and with more elastic fibers, the extra bulk in a crochet stitch is negligible. And as the variety of yarns has increased and improved, patterns have been written to take advantage.

All of this is fabulous for the craft, of course, and great fun when it comes to shopping for yarn. Let me loose in a yarn store and I'm like a kid running wild in a toy store. But more choices mean having to choose what yarn will work best for each particular project and that means learning more about the characteristics of fibers and yarn weights. There's a little information out there, but you have to really look for it. I have not, so far, found one inclusive source on the subject. I'm thinking that I might actually have to start compiling what information I find and create my own resource file. Daunting. Especially as I'd much rather being working with the yarn than researching it.

Desperately Seeking

Lost: Inner Peach. If found, please return to owner.

I had it here somewhere just recently, I know I did. And then I turned around and it was gone. Pfffttt! Just like that. But it's my own fault. I wasn't keeping a close enough eye on it. I got lax and lazy. I got comfortable thinking it would just always be there when I needed it. And now it's gone and I'm not even sure when it happened. I'm hoping this is just a bid for attention. I'm hoping that if I show true remorse and make a real effort to change my ways, that Inner Peach will come back to me.

My new plan is to retrace my steps and see if I can figure out just what went wrong. I can't fix it until I can identify it, yes? I think I see part of the problem already. Too much clutter. I've been letting other people leave their issues in my head, trying to be a helpful, caring person, you know? But they just leave them there! They just dump them and go on about their merry business, leaving me to sort it all out and find someplace to store it all. I don't have that kind of room in my head. I barely have room enough for my own issues. I don't mind helping out, really I don't. But angst and insecurity are like guests and fish ... they start to stink up the place after a while. I mean, most of this is not even my mess, and yet I'm losing sleep over it. No wonder Inner Peach left.

It's even possible that Inner Peach isn't gone, just misplaced temporarily in the mess. So I'm going to spend a little 'quality time' reorganizing. I've got my boxes ready: Box 1 is for stuff that just needs put back in its proper perspective; box 2 is for old stuff that no longer has a place in my life and that I just need to get rid of; lastly, box 3 which is for other people's junk. I should probably alert them to come collect what truly belongs to them; except it occurs to me that in all this time if they haven't noticed that it was missing, its possible that I was placing more importance on this stuff than they were. No, I shall round up all those stray issues and problems from every dusty corner of my psyche and get rid of it all. Maybe I can find someone else to take them on. Someone, there's always someone, who takes pleasure in worrying about other people's problems. One man's trash is another man's treasure?

The trick will be to take it step by step and not let myself get overwhelmed by the size of the job. I can break it down into zones, maybe. First this relative, then that friend. Or maybe I'll start by sweeping out all those current events droppings left all over the floor. There are people who are paid to think about this stuff, why don't I just leave them to it?

Okay, I've got a plan. You know, I feel better already.

The Sum Of All Fears

Today I had to do math at work. I had to figure out currency exchange rates which meant percentages were involved. Percentages! I can never, never remember how to do that. Every time I have to start out with something I already know the answer to and then work backwards to figure out how I'm supposed to come to that answer. Yes, folks, not just percentages, but percentages done backwards! Ugh. And it's not like I enjoy doing math at the best of times.

My dislike of math goes way back to childhood. Third grade to be exact. Halfway through the school year we moved and I changed school systems. This would not have been an issue except that at my old school they were heavily into teaching us "new math." New math. What the heck is that? Who came up with the idea of reinventing math? It's numbers, for crying out loud. We've had the same math since the first caveman sat around trying to figure out how many clubs he had, and it worked just fine for a few millenia until some earnest young thing got a bright idea. Geez.

So there I was the new kid in a new school that was doing math the old way, the way every generation since cave guy had been doing it, and my first math class they might as well have been talking physics. I didn't even have a clue about times tables, that's how bad it was. Mom worked with me and got me up to snuff on all that stuff, because she learned her math the old fashioned way too. But in the meantime I had some self esteem issues because, hey, new kid, new school isn't bad enough I have to look ignorant too? No, my teachers weren't big meanies; we just didn't any of us have clue one where the other was coming from.

And I never really recovered from that. I mean, I went on to do just fine at all the basic math stuff and even took some advanced math classes in junior high. Well, to be honest, that was my counselor's idea. I was considered fairly bright so they kept trying to shove me in AP classes. So there I was this math phobic teen expected to play nice in first algebra and then geometry class. Again I say, ugh. Fortunately for me I had a great teacher, Mr. Mewborn, and was fast friends with another girl in class who suffered similarly.

Here's the biggest problem with math classes. It isn't enough that you know how to do the problems. They want you to do them fast. Why? What kind of instant, life altering decisions do they think you're going to encounter? Only McGuyver was ever in that kind of position. In real life, nobody's life or death hinges on how fast they can figure out the length of one side of a triangle. It just doesn't. So what's the big rush?

Back to Mr. Mewborn, Bob bless him. If it wasn't for him I never would have made it through. Talk about underappreciated teachers. He used to let my friend and I stay after on days when there had been a test. Then he would put a tough problem up on the blackboard and sit there listening while we worked out the answer. If we could prove that we knew how to answer the problem, given enough time, and came up with the correct answer, he would factor that into our test grades. Because he realized that all that really mattered was that we had learned what he was trying to teach us. I don't say it stuck with me, but without him my math phobia would have been much worse.

So thank you, Mr. Mewborn. I still don't give a rat's behind about theorems; but if I'm given enough time and a big enough blackboard, probably it won't kill anyone.

I'm Listening

You already know by now that I love books. I read across genres, having my favorites but not completely distaining any. My favorites are romance (when it's done well) and mysteries. I got hooked on mysteries when I was a kid and ran out of things to read that were suitable for my age. So Mom turned me on to the likes of Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh and Rex Stout.

A few years ago I got turned on to books of another sort: audiobooks. Funny to think that audiobook publishing is so big now. Initially they were intended for the visually impaired. Then folks who had long commutes, or just a long drive ahead of them, discovered them. And now, each year, the audio offerings at the local book store keep getting better. Audiobooks have gone mainstream, offering a welcome distraction to anyone who, well, needs a distraction. Need to exercise more? Reward yourself for your discipline by listening to a book while you sweat. That pile of ironing threatening to take over the house? Use it as an excuse to "read" for a while.

And these days you can even download them from the internet. And you aren't limited to listening from your PC, either. Many sites allow you to upload onto your mp3 player, in rare instances onto your iPod, and frequently allow you to burn the audio onto CDs. My county library system has that. Of course you have to pay for the CDs you burn them onto; so, although the service is technically free, it can still end up costing you. I'm actually collecting quite the library of audiobooks.

My favorites to listen to are the old standbys - the English cozy mystery. I have discovered that not all books translate equally well to audio. It helps if there is a lot of dialogue and a fair amount of activity in the plot. And the pacing must be good, otherwise it's much too easy to become distracted while listening. But a good, character driven mystery is perfect. Currrently I am obsessed with listening to all the Ellis Peters Brother Cadfael books that I can get my hands, or my ears, on.

But if the kind of book is important, equally so is the narrator. If the voice is too lyrical, too musical, the words get lost. Too flat and the characters won't come alive in your head. Good pacing and inflection are vital. I was listening to a book not long ago which was fairly enjoyable except for a tendency on the part of the narrator to insert odd pauses. It reminded me of that old grammar joke "what's that on the road, a head?" I've come to the conclusion that good narrating is an artform in itself.

If you haven't given audiobooks a try yet, you should. Doesn't everyone have that one dreaded task looming over them, that one that they keep putting off until it, like the ironing, keeps getting larger and more daunting? Go ahead, check it out ... possibly from your local library.

Oooh, Shiny!

I gots new toys. Well one is new but it works with the other toy so nicely it's practically like having two. And they're interactive, and I get to channel my inner child and say "whee!" while I crank it. Wanna see?


This is my yarn ball winder, which is not my newest toy, but still pretty neat. It allows me to wind up loose yarn into center pull skeins ... no more tangles! Now when I have a half-used skein, I can wind it up, nice and neat, and save for future use.


And here is a picture of my brand new yarn swift. Isn't it cool? Oh, come on, you know it is. And what, you might ask, does a yarn swift do? Well, I can take a long hank of yarn - which is yarn that is not wound into a ball or skein - and fit it around the extensions,
attach a loose end to the yarn baller, and then start cranking on the baller. With each wobbly revolution it pulls yarn from the swift, which in turn spins as the yarn hank unwinds. That's where the "whee!" factor comes into it: I can make this baby hum!


And thus another nice, neat skein of yarn is wound, ready for use or for storage in a compact, tangle free little package.

Admit it; it's really cool, isn't it? Feel free to come by any time and I'll let you play with it too. But you'll have to bring your own yarn because I used up all my loose stuff playing last night.

The Revolution That Isn't

There was an article today in the Washington Post about an invention called the Book Ripper. Apparently if you have lots of money and nothing else to do with your time, you can buy this device and use it to copy your home library into a digital format. Pointing to the Napster hullaballoo of a few years ago, the author of the article questioned whether the publishing industry was worried about wide-spread pirating. The answer from the publishing industry is: not so much.

And really, why should they? There is a market for digital book readers, but that market is fairly small. Although publishing has been offering books in digital format for years, readers have been fairly slow to jump on the bandwagon. The reasons are many. In the past reading a book digitally has meant dealing with eletronic scrolling, awkward font sizes, screen glare and so on. But the electronics industry keeps trying. Amazon.com recently joined in with its much ballyhooed Kindle which it markets as (and I kid you not) a "New Wireless Reading Device." Um, not exactly a new idea. I think they call those things BOOKS.

And therein lies the reason that the publishing industry is not worried about pirating. Books might not have whiz-bang gimicry to entice techno-geeks, but that's about all they lack. Think about it. The Kindle measures 7.5" x 5.3", or roughly the size of a paperback novel. So it's not going to win over readers based on size. It's supposed to weigh only 10.3 ounces. I don't have a scale handy for my latest read, but I feel fairly confident that the weight of the average paperback is comparable. Unlike an electronic reader of any kind, a book doesn't require batteries or a power adapter. You don't need to tinker with a scroll setting because you turn the pages when you're ready. And most books are remarkably sturdy, even the paperback versions. I have quite a collection of my own and they've held up through several rereads over more than 20 years ... heck some are probably twice that old. How long, you have to wonder, will that nifty $400 electronic thingie last you?

When you really think about it, the only upside of digital readers is that they can hold the contents of several books. Perhaps helpful for academics and researchers; but personally I'm usually only reading one book at any given moment. I may be in the middle of several books, but I usually keep them where I am mostly likely to reading them: the paperback in my totebag for reading on the subway, a hardback next to the livingroom chair, and something of a nonfiction nature at my bedside. The nice thing is, they stay right where I need them. That's another downside to e-readers that I can see: you would have to cart the thing around with you from room to room; you can't leave it at the bedside when you leave for work in the morning or you won't have anything to read on the subway.

And just try to use that button covered plastic thingie to even up table legs, or press flowers. I bet you can't tuck a photo or recipe inside for safekeeping, either.

And the answer is ...

You aren't cheating, are you? I hope you at least tried to answer the questions before heading over here.

1. Scope, CMS, and Jen-T (although I don't know if Jen says "aboot." CMS does, although she denies it.)



2. Pittsburgh (And she left it in favor of Men In Kilts, can you imagine?)



3. Carpeting (which has never been satisfactorily explained)



4. Mary (it sounds just like her, doesn't it?)



5. Canada (they were supposed to have dinner with Scope and CMS)



6. Elizabeth Bishop (I've got nothing on this one)



7. A hole in the wall (Actually, the advice wasn't so much re the hole as what she should hide behind it. And I don't think she's ever said.)



8. University of California, Santa Cruz (and the mascot is a banana slug ... you have to wonder about the message that sends)



9. CMS (there should be some kind of medal for that, don't you think?)



10. Twinkle Toes (now that I think about, I believe the nickname was thrust upon her rather than chosen.



11. Lee Child (That was CC's doing. By all accounts he was a good sport about it. Could be he's fan experiences even more bizarre than that.)



12. The Moles (Tal, Tal, come back Tal!)



13. the dip (Probably she didn't mean BCB. Probably.)



14. Regis (nobody ever explained that one to me, either)



15. Speen (it even sounds evil, doesn't it?)

So how did you do?

It's That Time Again

Yesterday was Super Tuesday *shudder*. From now until November rational conversation with rational people will be impossible. I work in the Nation's Capital and the entire region is caught up in a political fever and this town is insanely political at the best of times. At least this election, for the first time in my own voting memory, is a true contest. It will still be nuts around here, but at least interesting.

One of things that makes me craziest about politics is the whole notion of party politics. One guy is supposed to be better than the other because of the color campaign button he wears? Oh puleeze. The whole idea of voting a straight party ticket, or of backing a candidate solely because of the party he represents makes no sense at all. In the first place, no one political party can hold all the answers to every issue. There are things that need dealt with conservatively, and things which would benefit from a more open minded (dare I say liberal?) approach. Sometimes we need to lean a little more to the left, and sometimes a little more to the right. In truth, most things need dealt with from somewhere in the middle.

In the second place, how can you judge a leader by nothing more than his party affiliation? Isn't the individual more important? What does it matter what his party stands for if he's incapable of standing up for anything, abuses the power of the office, can't think for himself? Doesn't the ability to govern conscientiously matter more than whether someone's tie is blue, red, or polka dot?

And last on my list, but certainly not least, are the voters suffering from tunnel vision regarding one issue or another. It's great to believe in something and to be involved, but to focus on one thing to the exclusion of all others is just ignorant. The candidate with a history favorable to your pet cause can still be a lousy leader; and the candidate opposing your particular issue might still govern more wisely than the other guy. People need to get their heads out of their posterior regions and look at the whole picture. Saving a tree is good. Saving it only to have the entire forest around it burn down is pretty damn pointless.

Inspiration

I'm still crocheting. What with the holidays and just trying to keep on top of day to day stuff I was having trouble finding blocks of time, but the need and desire were there. I did work on some pillows, just simple 14inch throw pillows. Picked up the pillow forms a while back, and bought tons of yarn. But even though this was a fairly small project it was a while before I could block out time for working on it. I made some mistakes with the first one because I tried to be creative instead of just following the pattern. Bad McB. The second turned out much better. I'll try to remember to post pics later.

Another project that I started, but had to take a break from, is a scarf to go with Mare's hat which Jenny Crusie made and which I won in a contest she, Eileen Dreyer and Anne Stuart were running to promote their collaborative novel The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes. Here's the hat ... Isn't it gorgeous? So of course I decided that I needed a scarf to go with it. I emailed Jenny Crusie, asking what yarns she had used and she very graciously replied with brands and weights and colors which I was able to order. Got the yarns and started on the scarf and it was coming along quite nicely until I goofed. I thought I could just unravel my goof but it got tricky because of the kind of yarn. It's beautiful stuff, incredibly soft and perfect for a warm winter scarf; but it's a two-ply yarn, partly ribbon-like and partly similar to fun fur. Anyway it became very tangled up and I decided I neeeded to put it aside before I ruined the whole thing with my frustrated attempts. I'll come back to it when I'm in a better frame of mind for it.

Along the way I've been reading this great book I picked up at a local yarn store. The book, Couture Crochet Workshop by Lily Chen, has some wonderful tips and tricks for making homemade fit and look like made-to-order designer fashions. It also includes some wonderful patterns and charts that are very inspiring. I'm not sure I'm quite ready to tackle them but I want to, very much. So I've got some incentive to keep practicing, keep improving.

And in the meantime I've switched over to working on this cropped jacket in hopes of having it ready for spring. Don't tell the Moda Dea people, but I'm using their pattern with somebody else's yarn. Specifically a fabulous pima cotton/merino wool blend called Cascade Sierra in a gorgeous fusia. I did a swatch (something I learned in the above mentioned book) to check the yarn's fingering (how smoothly it works up) and drape. The book advised putting the swatch to the test so I balled it up and stuck it in my jeans pocket for an afternoon, steamed it, let it dry, soaked it and let it dry again. The idea being to find out how well the yarn will hold up in an actual garment. If it stretches too easy, pills up (you know how some sweaters will do?) or develops other problems, better to know before you've spent all those hours on a project. It seems to have passed the test so I dived right in.

This pattern is rated at intermediate skill level. Intermediate means that they give you some of the instructions, but not all of them; they leave out bits here and there for you to figure out on your own. It's a lot like working a sudoku puzzle in that respect. And like a sudoku puzzle, you don't know if you are doing it right until you get a ways in and it all starts going wrong. Huh. But I think I've got that part figured out now.

Only You Can Save Mankind

The title of this post is also the title of a YA book by Terry Pratchett. It's been on my mind this week because it's been an especially busy week at work.

It's a matter of pride for me to do the best I can in return for a regular paycheck. I sometimes grouse because I know there are people who do decidedly less and get away with it. But I guess it's just how I'm wired ... I know what I'm capable of and I can't lie to myself and justify doing less than that. My boss has gotten used to the idea that I am capable and efficient and she can safely put matters in my hands, knowing it will get done. She's gotten a little too used to it. Her immediate response whenever there is a project that needs doing is "McB can do that." I don't think she even considers whether I have the background or training for whatever, the words just come out. I can see it now: aliens invading, nuclear holocaust imminent, volcanic activity under our office building. And what will her reaction be? "McB can handle it." Next job I'm going to start screwing up right from the beginning and save myself some stress and anxiety.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go save the universe. And then do my filing.

Listening to the voices in my head

I have a good life. I have good people in my life and I've made some good decisions in the past. From the outside I think it sometimes appears to other people as if I've just been lucky. I think we make our own luck. And I think most people could be 'lucky' if they listened less to their ego and more to their inner voice.

So much of life is timing. Too many people are in a hurry, as if having everything now will bring them happiness. Nuts. Happiness has little to do with what you have or don't have, it's all about appreciating the now. Having a new car is fun; it has nothing to do with happiness. And if you rush out and buy that new car with no patience or planning, you could come to regret that rash purchase down the road. Where would that leave you? Decidedly less happy.

I've been there. I've jumped on bandwagons and rushed into decisions that ultimately were not in my best interests. Chalk that up to life experience. And from those bad decisions I've learned a few things. I've learned that it's okay to want those nice new things as long as I'm willing to be patient. If I listen when that inner voice says "not yet" instead of listening to my ego say "oooh, shiny" I might wait longer for what I want, but I'll be happier with it in the long run. Because eventually that inner voice will reward me by saying "now." The ego might get me into trouble, but the inner voice hasn't steered me wrong yet.

The ego is tricky and tempting. It will always be pushing you towards the quick fix, the easy way out, the immediate gratification. Ego is the serpent in the garden, seductively waving that apple in front of Eve's nose and hissing "why not?" It's been a few, what, millenia? And you'd think we would have learned something from that, and all the other snakes and apples that have come along. I've always wondered about that story. I've wondered what would have happened if Eve hadn't listened to the serpent and in turn tempted Adam. I think it's possible that, if they had resisted, God would have let them have the apples eventually without punishment. Maybe, if they had just been willing to wait, they could have had the apples and been able to stay in the garden too. We'll never know, but you have to wonder.

Or maybe I'm the only who hears that voice. I hope not.

She's Gonna Blow!

I have PMS today. Oh shut up.

It's been coming on for a few days, but I realized in the grocery store today that it was here, big time and in living color. There was this little kid behaving the way little kids to when forced to endure really boring grown up stuff like grocery shopping. He was a normal kid behaving normally. So why was part of my brain convinced he was the spawn of satan? PMS.

I'm the only one who is allowed to say it. That's the rule. If it is "that time of the month" and anyone other than the woman affected dares to mention it, they get their faced ripped off and fed to the neighbor's schnauzer. I think it's a schnauzer, anyway. It's some kind of annoying little .... deep breath .... better.

PMS makes me feel schizo. Even while I'm envisioning grabbing the neighbor's yipping little fur ball and doing my version of an Olymic discus throw right over the rooftops, I know that what I'm feeling isn't logical. I like dogs, really. And the little &&^% was just expressing his perky little personality. I know this. And next week I will be at peace with the little *&^). But that's next week. Next week I might run into that same kid in the grocery store and realize that his eyes aren't actually glowing red and, no, those aren't horns he's sprouting.

But this week it's best if you don't look at me the wrong way. In fact, just don't look at me. No matter what expression you are wearing, I'm going to take offense. No matter what you say it will be the wrong thing. And even while I'm envisioning just how to go about feeding you to Fifi, or Fido or Frank or whatever the little &^%#'s name is, I'll know that you don't really deserve that. And I'll feel guilty as all heck about it. Next week. This week, not so much.

The Laugh Line Revolution

I'm supposed to be working right now. I've even got a list of Things To Do. I'll get to, really. I just need to work up a little enthusiasm first, get my head together and aimed in the right direction. So I don't really consider this procrastinating so much as a kind of stretching exercise before getting serious about my list.

I'm in my 40s. Like anyone else my age when I look in the mirror I notice that there are things about me that just aren't quite the same as they used to be. Overall I have been very lucky in the genetics department. I have no grey yet. As my mother, at 67, has very little grey herself, so little in fact that's it's barely noticeable, I feel fairly confident that I won't need to worry about covering my roots for a while yet. My jaw line is ever so slightly softer than it used to be, the skin on my face, in general, not as tight as it was perhaps 10 or 15 years ago. But I comfort myself with the thought that these things might not be so apparent to other people.

I do have a few faint lines. The ones that bother me are by my upper lip and make me look like I've spent my life with my lips puckered around a cigarette. I don't smoke and never have. In my case it's the result of 40-some years of scrunching my face up in my sleep. They used to disappear when I'd been awake for a bit. Then it was okay because a little face powder covered them. Now, well now they're just there. But like the softening of the jaw line, I tell myself that nobody else notices. Really it wouldn't bother me at all if they didn't look like the result of a 20 year, 2 pack a day habit. I hate it that, to someone who doesn't know me, they might give that impression. Otherwise I really would be okay about it.

If that sounds like I'm protesting too much, please take note that I also have those little crinkles at the corner of each eye. Slight yet and perhaps not obvious to anyone else, I know that over the next few years they'll slowly become as much a part of my face as the shape of my nose.

Those little crinkles are laugh lines. When you laugh, if you really put your whole heart into it, your face sort of spreads out and causes the skin to crease, usually up by your eyes where there's less 'give' in your face. Don't believe me? Go head, take a piece of cloth, pinch on either side and then pull apart. See how the fabric between your fingers creases up? That's what happens to your face when you smile really big. If you smile a lot, especially as an adult, they become more obvious and even take up permanent residence.

I know some women are bothered by this, although I've never understood that. Our faces, over time, reveal to others who we really are inside. And even with botox and plastic surgery, you can't escape reality completely. Something about you, the look in your eyes or the set of your shoulders, will give you away. Personally, if I have to carry some symbol of my life around for all to see, I don't want the first impression I give to be one of bitterness and fear of aging or, almost worse, a complete lack of emotion. This is why those little creases by the corners of my eyes don't bother me at all. In order to achieve those, in order to have them be a permanent part of my features, I have had to laugh and smile a lot in my lifetime. Hell, those lines are a badge of honor ... I've earned them. I only hope that, as I put another decade behind me, people will see them for what they are. Signs that I've laughed a lot my life.

As I said, I know that some women fear those first tell-tale lines. This is just so wrong. We should celebrate those little clues that ours has been a life well lived and filled with joy and humor. Rather than pouring money into magic potions and creams to delay or hide that evidence, we should be emphasizing it. If the world was more logical, young women in their 20s would be devouring magazine articles on the art of creating laugh lines. They would be penciling in fake crinkles in an effort to convince the world that they, too, have laughed and enjoyed life. And then the rest of us could sit back, smugly superior, because we have the real thing.

The Big Brouhaha

You've heard, I'm sure of the big storm over the books of Cassie Edwards who allegedly - although there doesn't seem to be much doubt - committed plagiarism. If you haven't heard about it you are probably a member of an obscure tribe on an obscure island in an obscure ocean ... and possibly living in an obscure cave. As I said, there doesn't seem to be too much doubt about it, but I'm not going into all that because, to paraphrase Honest Abe and the Gettysburg Address, it's been discussed far beyond my poor powers to add or detract. Plagiarism is bad. It is theft of someone else's work, their words and their research, their efforts. So it's just wrong. But I think there is a larger issue here that everyone seems to be missing.

Although Ms. Edwards sin seems to include several of her books, it first came to light when someone read a passage in her book Shadow Bear and noticed a discrepancy in the narrative tone. A little sleuthing was done and it turns out that she took whole passages from a story (nonfiction) by nature writer Paul Tolme on the plight of ferrets. Yeah, you read that correctly. Now, Mr. Tolme had every right to be angry over this issue. It was his words, the results of his research, that she took and used as her own. That's bad. But as I said, there is a larger issue here that has yet to be addressed.

As Mr. Tolme himself said, "Wow, that is some bad dialogue. It stands out as clunky and awkward even by the standards of romance novels. " And that, my friends, is the problem. As a result of this tempest millions of people who have never read a romance novel before ... well, okay hundreds ... a lot? Somebody, anyway, somebody who has never read a romance novel before, is going to take a look at Ms. Edwards' book to see what all the noise is about and will assume her work to be an example of the entire genre. In other words, they'll skim a few pages and decide that they were right all along to avoid them.

*Sigh* The genre has come such a very long way towards legitimacy that this kind of bad publicity is almost physically painful. However will we get serious readers of serious books to take it seriously now? We shall have to choose, oh so carefully, a few authors whose books truly do shine as an example of the progress the genre has made and do our utmost to move their names and their books to the forefront. How to accomplish this? Fight fire with fire. We should launch a counter-scandal that will have academia scrambling to research the issue, thus forcing them to read and, hopefully, become fans of romance fiction. It will have to be something big though, something that can top the ferret story and steal the limelight from it.

I can only appeal to big names in romance fiction to put aside their personal concerns and do their duty to their genre. Go forth and sin. And make it a big one, huh? Time's a-wastin' and we need to catch this wave before it moves on.

Something To Look Forward To

The year is only a week old. This means the 51 weeks to come are still a clean slate. That's the thing with beginnings; the possibilities are still out there. I'm not one for resolutions, but I like the idea of a fresh start. I don't have a list of things to attempt, I have no specific goals. Instead I'm going to focus on simplifying, decluttering, streamlining. Life got overwhelming and I am so ready to ditch all that stress. This, I hope, will be the year of finding some peace of mind, some inner peach.

I'm going to put some of what I've learned from Fly Lady to good use. I'm going to try to declutter my life, get rid of stuff that's just taking up space and making my life more complicated. I'll hopefully get some drawers and closets cleared out, and maybe do something more useful with the finished basement. Um, that last one might be overly ambitious.

I'm going to bring more color and texture into my life and I started this past weekend with a visit to a local yarn shop, WoolWinders. I was very wary of visiting this store because I know how dangerous it can be. This is not yarn you find at your local craft store or Walmart. To be fair, it wasn't all exotic stuff either. But there was a wealth of color and texture that just made my fingers itch for my hook. Imagine for a moment that you have just come upon a conference table covered in one long sheet of pristine white paper. And in the center of that table is a brand, spanking new box Crayolas, the big 64 colors box. You can't resist, you just have to draw something. That's what it felt like when I walked into this store. Overall I behaved, indulging in just one skein of a lovely cotton/wool blend in eye-popping magenta. Gorgeous. It's just one skein because I have two more projects lined up before I get to this stuff, and I figure in the meantime I can play with it a little and figure out what the possibilities might be. It's nearly 200 yards, so I can have a lot of fun with it before I get down to a serious project.

I'm taking my youngest nephew to Disney World. His older sister and brother have already been, and now it's his turn. It will be just me and him and the exciting thing about this is that for a few days I'll be living in his 10yo world. Hey you, over there, sitting in your corner and scoffing at the idea. You don't know what you are missing. I've been to Disney World numerous times, but not for a few years now, and I can tell you that it doesn't matter what your age is, there truly is something there for everyone; and if you come away from a visit still jaded, there's clearly no hope for you. And maybe I'm alone in this, but I rather enjoy an excuse for acting like a kid again.

There's been talk of a biggish CB meet this summer. There's also been some debate over exotic locales to hold it in. The issue is Moot, really because we tend to spend so much time talking we probably wouldn't get around to seeing or doing anything other than eating, drinking, talking and buying books. My people. :sniff: I love my people. :~) Wherever we end up, I really hope we can make this work. Where there are CBs there is love and laughter.

So, no goals or lists. But maybe some good times, some small pleasures, some fun. Something to look forward to.

10? I dunno.

Happy New Year.

This is a time for reflection and for looking ahead, for making lists. Lists of things accomplished or goals to achieve. I got through the year; that's what I accomplished, and it was such a big accomplishment that it's the whole list as far as I'm concerned.

For some reason 10 seems to be the default number for lists. Why is that? Why do we have to struggle to come up with ten of anything? If you can't think of ten does it make you a loser? If you've got more than that, should you be embarrassed? This doesn't seem right to me. It's like setting the bar too high, you're pretty much planning to fall short. So I'm not going to set a number, I'm just going list a few of last year's highpoints (no need to list the low ones, is there?):

• I met a lot of CBs. Not all, but a good chunk. And I adored each of them just as much in person as I have online. I'd like to say here that CherryBombs are strong, intelligent, responsible people ... I'd like to say that, but it would ruin a hard earned reputation so I won't. What I will say is that behind the zaniness, the snarky humor, and the bad puns is an incredible group of people who probably could TOTW if they put their minds to it, and the world would be better off for it.


• I got hooked again on crocheting and accomplished a number of projects, most of which I've shared with you here. I need to continue doing this, continue putting aside the time to just quietly sit and ply my hook, perhaps listening to some music or an audio book, but nothing more stressful to the mind than that. It would be easy, in the bustle of things needing to be done, to let it slide. But I know that I need that quiet time and I need the soothing methodicalness of handwork. So I'm going to let other things slide here and there, and make sure I do this for myself.


• I tackled a few small chores around the house and confirmed to myself that I am capable, and can still learn a few new things. Anything needing strength and size might require assistance; but for the most part I know I can do pretty much anything I put my mind to.


• I did read a few good books this year. Mostly I did a lot of rereading, needing the comfort of old friends. But here and there were a few new ones that proved up to the task. Books and friends - new or old you can never have too many good ones.

As lists go this one may not seem very long, but sometimes it really is more about the quality than the quantity. And as to goals for the coming year, that's another list for another blog. Stay tuned.