Breaking the Ice and Sticking in the Oar (ROW80 Round 2 GOALS)

Wordcloud created at Wordle with text from this post.

An accounting of the last two months and re-commitments to blogging, writing (Row80), fiber art finishes, reviews, healthy habits and Joy (the state of being full of it, One Word and, yes, myself).

Coming out of the personal crisis that consumed late January through mid February I was felled by a series of infections.  The laryngitis I had Valentine's week segued into the flu with cough which became bronchitis with 2 weeks of  coughing fits.  One ten days in, that woke the whole household upstairs and down, warranted a visit to the doctor.  She suspected pneumonia and sent me for xrays saying if it was in both lungs she was putting me in the hospital.

But it wasn't pneumonia at all.  According to the xray it was just severe bronchitis along with visible COPD damage in my lungs.  That diagnosis has been hard for me to wrap my head around. It seemed to be the death knell to the goal I'd set myself two years ago to get healthy and eventually get off all the meds including the BP, the ADD and the antidepressants. And now I'm looking at yet another condition that is considered something you manage for a lifetime but not cure.

Will it mean more meds?  And what about my dream to start running again? At the very least it's going to mean more doctor appointments and I've about had my fill of them.

Where's the nearest hole I can crawl into?

COPD!! It didn't feel like a very fair reward for all the hard work of the last two years.

Since January 1st of 2013 I've dropped 60lb, (from 220 to160) ten dress sizes, (from 24 to 14 or from 2X/3X to 0X) and 7 inches off my waist, (from 44-37).  Losing the weight and getting active was probably why I was able to loose two of the three BP meds I was on two years ago.  And just last week my med nurse agreed to let me try stepping the Trazadone back to an occasional sleep aid instead of one of the daily antidepressants.

Between the personal drama the first six weeks of the year followed by one infection after another ever since (it's been ear infections for the last month) I haven't done much at all with my writing.  Even dropping the blog!  Between the fatigue and brain fog I just seemed to have nothing to give it.

Most of what productivity I have had since the first of the year has gone into the fiber art projects.  I have pictures I took for blog posts I didn't get around to writing which I'll be sharing in the coming weeks.

I confess that a great deal of my time since the first of the year has been given to endless hours of video watching.  About 50% of that time was shared with fiber art--mostly crochet.

In the last month I invested some of my scarce energy into decluttering, sorting and organizing with significant progress in the bedroom and office and the repacking of the boxes down in the basement from the rushed move in spring of 2013.

I realized things were improving in the second week of April when I began to be able to sustain my focus on reading for over an hour at a time and began to give up the videos in favor of the book more and more often.  Since then I've finished 5 books.  3 of them ARCs.  Which meant I needed to break the ice with the blogging again so I could post my reviews soon.  I knew I wouldn't post anything else until I'd posted something like this to explain my absence and set expectations for the future.

I got the reading back just in time for the spring Dewey 24 Hour Read-a-Thon.  Can't wait for Saturday!  I'm going to be free to do the whole 24 hours again this time! For the first time since the fall of 2012. Or at least attempt it with hope of making it since I got to ditch the zombie med.

The last four Thons just haven't been the same.  Making it the full 24 was my thing.  The only thing I did better than most since my visual impairment makes racking up impressive numbers of pages or books impossible.

I began to yearn for the creative writing again in the last week or so.  That's another thing I need to break the ice on.  I think the last creative writing I worked on was this poem I posted February 8th.

Considering one of the 11 verses, it might behoove me to put my oar in the water and start ROWing again:

There was an old woman who swallowed her words
they scratched and sliced and stabbed her innards
she wants to holler and howl and curse
perhaps she'll burst

ROW80 ROUND 2 GOALS
same as for Round 1 except for the last one and as always they are time investment rather than word count.

• Storydreaming 15min Daily (I never lost this one since instating it in my first round in 2012.  A ROW80 win!)
• Read/Study Craft 15min Daily
• Move/Breathe/Meditate 15min Daily
• Personal Journaling 15min Daily
• Read Fiction 30min Daily
• Social network activities 30min Daily (writing Joystory posts doesn't count only social reaching out like reading/commenting on other blogs, guest posts and posting to fb, twitter, pinterest etc)
• Engage with the Blow Me a Candy Kiss structural rewrite file 30 min Daily

All of this in service to the overarching goal for 2015: Regain the joy in writing that I lost sometime last year.

Let me close with another of the verses in my February poem:

There was an old woman who swallowed her story
said it was boring but she feared its glory
now they grapple in purgatory

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Joy's Reading

One of the signs that things have gotten real bad mood wise is when I stop reading.  Tho I never stopped entirely this fall/winter it had slowed to a trickle and the ability to compose my thoughts about what I was reading dried up entirely.

I find that depression is a bigger handicap than visual impairment for reading.

But, as bad as it has been. things must be looking up as I've been reading more again recently. More often, more pages per day, more minutes at a stretch, more complex material.  And finding myself as I read with things to say about it.  So maybe its time to bring book reviews back into the mix.

Last week I grabbed two 'read now' ARC off NetGalley and requested another and am contemplating requesting a fourth.  Seeing how I've not posted reviews for months and did not provide feedback on any in the last batch of NetGalley ARCs in late 2013 I'm not holding out much hope for any requests.  But my chance for future requests would go up if I read and review these two pronto:

Victorian Fairy Tales
Edited by Michael Newton
Oxford University Press


Pub Date   May 1 2015

Description

The Victorian fascination with fairyland is reflected in the literature of the period, which includes some of the most imaginative fairy tales ever written. They offer the shortest path to the age's dreams, desires, and wishes. Authors central to the nineteenth-century canon such as Thackeray, Oscar Wilde, Ford Madox Ford, and Rudyard Kipling wrote fairy tales, and authors primarily famous for their work in the genre include George MacDonald, Juliana Ewing, Mary De Morgan, and Andrew Lang. This anthology brings together fourteen of the best stories, by these and other outstanding practitioners, to show the vibrancy and variety of the form and its ability to reflect our deepest concerns.

The stories in this selection range from pure whimsy and romance to witty satire and darker, uncanny mystery. Paradox proves central to a form offered equally to children and adults. Fairyland is a dynamic and beguiling place, one that permits the most striking explorations of gender, suffering, love, family, and the travails of identity. Michael Newton's introduction and notes explore the literary marketplace in which these tales appeared, as well as the role they played in contemporary debates on scepticism and belief. The book also includes a selection of original illustrations by some of the masters of the field such as Richard Doyle, Arthur Hughes, and Walter Crane.

The Witch of Napoli
Michael Schmicker
AuthorBuzz
Palladino Books

Pub Date   Jan 15 2015
Description

Historical fiction with a paranormal twist, set in Italy and England in 1899.

Italy 1899: Fiery-tempered, erotic medium Alessandra Poverelli levitates a table at a Spiritualist séance in Naples. A reporter photographs the miracle, and wealthy, skeptical, Jewish psychiatrist Camillo Lombardi arrives in Naples to investigate. When she materializes the ghost of his dead mother, he risks his reputation and fortune to finance a tour of the Continent, challenging the scientific and academic elite of Europe to test Alessandra’s mysterious powers. She will help him rewrite Science. His fee will help her escape her sadistic husband Pigotti and start a new life in Rome. Newspapers across Europe trumpet her Cinderella story and baffling successes, and the public demands to know – does the “Queen of Spirits” really have supernatural powers? Nigel Huxley is convinced she’s simply another vulgar, Italian trickster. The icy, aristocratic detective for England’s Society for the Investigation of Mediums launches a plot to trap and expose her. The Vatican is quietly digging up her childhood secrets, desperate to discredit her supernatural powers; her abusive husband Pigotti is coming to kill her; and the tarot cards predict catastrophe.

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It's In the Bag(s)

Craft Bag Facelift

 I had this idea over a year ago and finally just got fed up with waiting for the 'right' time to do it.

The time was now.  It fits the theme of my year.

The bag was one my Mom gave me years ago--because it was blue.  She got it while working with the RSVP senior service group--one of her many 'alphabet soup' associations.  Alphabet soup was my affectionate nickname for the committees, support groups, governor's councils and a variety of other volunteer activities she was involved in from the mid 1980s  right up until her stroke in 2008.  

Now I want it to represent my 2015 focus on getting things done.

And of course that One Word.

Five cheers and three high-fives for anybody who can guess what the missing three letters are.

And a triple kowtow for anyone spotting the triple pun.

Hint: there is also a punctuation mark missing

The Materials

 7 stitches to the inch plastic canvas
white parashute cord for the background
metalic blue nylon blend cord for the rim
neon aqua nylon twine

It was all stuff I already had.  If I'd had to buy something for it I might not have got started on it now.

Frayed

The nylon twine was something I picked up at the Dollar Tree over a year ago thinking it might be fun to crochet with.  It was on the hardware aisle among the tapes and glues and bungee cords.

Working with it has some issues tho.  It frays after enough times forcing through the holes doubled over in the eye of a needle.  I can alleviate that by using shorter strands.  The strand I worked the 's' with was over a yard long.

Then there was the pain in my fingers from pushing and pulling and twisting that needle to get it through.  Until I figured out that if I could firm up the end with tape or glue I didn't need a needle any more than you'd need a needle to lace your shoes.  Same was true of the other two cords.  Goodbye needle.  Goodbye 90% of the frustration with the first day's work.

Except the tape and glue have to be re-applied frequently and they taste terrible when I forget and put the end in my mouth.

I'm wondering if melting them with a match might work better.  But I'm not sure I trust myself to do it.  Especially not in the house around all this fiber and paper.

Or maybe an iron?

I decided it was time to stop depriving myself of the nice things I designed for myself.  It was meant to be motivation for getting the gift items done first--especially that one Secret Santa project that is now two years past due!.

But there are always going to be gift items on the hook and another gifting occasion on the horizon.

I think it is possible to do both.

Meanwhile, I'm working on a slideshow of all the fiber art WIP.  I might split it in two--Joy for Joy and Joy in giving.

Any idea what's 'in the bag(s)'?  i.e. what the post title refers to?

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Indulging Joy

It Was Calling My Name

There was a jewelry display case next to the register at the restaurant where my sister and I ate after our nutrition class in Battleground Washingtion Tuesday evening.  We were admiring the many pretty things many of them handmade.  Most of them outside our price range for such not needful things.  But one wasn't.

I'd been complaining recently that I needed accessories in colors other than blue.  I especially have an abundance of auqua/turquoise/teal shades in my small collection.  In my wardrobe as well.  Pretty much all through my belongings.

I definitely didn't need this one.

But I could almost hear it begging me to take it home.  I knew if I walked away I would think about it all night.

So I indulged.

One Word 365

After consideration over the next day or two I decided that, in the spirit of the One Word 365 campaign which I joined at the first of the month, I needed to indulge more often.  Not necessarily by buying jewelry and other frivolities but by treating myself occasionally; by finishing (and starting) fiber art projects intended for myself; by pampering myself a little; by finding ways to get to some of the places I like to go instead of holing up at home because I don't want to be a bother.

I chose the word 'joy' for my 2015 focus at One Word 365.  This social network for those wanting an alternative to New Year's resolutions encourages you to pick a word that represents that which you wish to increase in your life and commit to looking for ways every day to incorporate it.

No major efforts, grand projects  or other life upheavals are necessary.  Small efforts exerted daily add up to big changes in a year's time.  Or so the theory goes.  Just contemplating that word and its significance to you is enough as such focus tends to invite in whatever you are devoting thought to.

One thing such focus is guaranteed to accomplish is an accumulation of better choices as you are drawn to make the choice most likely to increase whatever you have made your theme for the year.

I chose 'joy' because I lost mine last summer--mood disorder? lifequake? death of our fur baby, Merlin?  Who knows?  Does it matter?

With the word choice I intended the pun on my name as I was loosing myself as well. Probably part and parcel of regaining joy is bundled in with the same things necessary for regaining Joy Renee--taking care of myself, healthy choices, occasional indulgences.

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Joy Is: Getting Things Done

I spent hours over several days preparing the list and slideshow so I'll just let them do all the talking.

List of fiber art projects finished between r Sept 1 2014 and January 3, 2015:

1. finished 8ft x 11in Mobius strip for Sara's quilter's tote--my 2012 Secret Santa now over 2 years late.

2. right fingerless glove for ed for bday

3. left fingerless glove for ed for bday

4. beanie hat for ed for bday--began three items five days before bday and finished five days after but mailed four weeks late to include D's 2013 xmas gift

5. finished rooster filet begun a year ago for D's bag--my 2013 secret santa gift. sent 10 mo late

6. crocheted rectangle for wallet for D's bag

7. crocheted wrist band for wallet for D's bag

8. tucked tails, blocked and dressed wallet

9. sewed beads onto lime cotton shopping bag to mount  rooster fillet so can be washed separately.

10. crocheted silk mesh belt for Carri

11. crocheted silk tie-string for Carri's silk belt--on of two

12. crocheted silk i-cord for Carri's silk belt 

13. crocheted silk I-cord for Carri's silk belt

14. crocheted silk i-cord for bracelet

15. crocheted yellow cotton size 10  i-cord for bracelet

16. crocheted black cotton size 3  I-cord belt for Carri

17. crocheted nylon size 20 sequined turquoise bling strand for Carri's  I-cord belt for Xmas

18. crocheted metalic purple bling strand for Carri's I-cord belt for Xmas

19. crocheted metalic midnight blend bling strand for Carri's  I-cord belt for xmas

20. crocheted purple heart square for Carri's bean bag cover

21. crocheted lavender seed stitch square for Carri's microwavable bean bag cover 

22. crocheted purple dc square for Carri's bean bag cover

23. tucked tails, blocked and crocheted cover onto bean bag for Carri's  bday--3'.5 mo late

24. tucked tails and dressed lavender bow barrette for mom's  Xmas eve

25. crocheted last row, tucked tails and dressed blue flower barrette for mom's bday

26. tucked tails and dressed blue bow barrette for Mom's bday

27. crocheted navy cotton size 20 thread slip stitch ribbon for Mom's flower bead necklace for bday

28. crocheted bow tie stitch band for bracelet for Mom's bday

29. tucked tails and dressed bow tie stitch band for mom's bracelet, using a vintage button from her collection

30. crocheted second half of puff stitch square for Jamie's mug rug for Xmas

31. tucked tails and blocked Jamie's mug rug

32. tucked tails, blocked and dressed bookmark for Mom's Xmas eve

33. tucked tails, blocked and dressed bookmark for Carri's Xmas eve

34. tucked tails, blocked and dressed bookmark for aunt M

35. tucked tails, blocked and dressed bookmark for cousin H

36. crocheted lavender dish rag for Carri's Xmas eve

37. crocheted nylon cup cozy for L's Xmas

38. crocheted bookmark for Carri from Bernet size 5 polyester thread she gave me for Xmas eve

39. designed and created a wrap-around bookmark for Carri out of a previously crocheted band

40. tucked tails, blocked and dressed bookmark for Carri

41. tucked tails, blocked and dressed bookmark for Carri

42. tucked tails, blocked and dressed bookmark for Carri

43. tucked tails, blocked and dressed bookmark for Carri

44. tucked tails, blocked and dressed bookmark for Carri

45. tucked tails, blocked and dressed bookmark for Carri

46. tucked tails, blocked and dressed bookmark for Carri

47. tucked tails, blocked and dressed bookmark for Carri

48. tucked tails, blocked and dressed bookmark for Carri

49. tucked tails, blocked and dressed bookmark for Carri

50. repaired red square on Mom's wool granny afghan--made for her parents when she was a teenager

51. crocheted variegated filet square with the new Bernet size 5 for tray pad for Mom (may end up as dish rag for Carri if i can't get it to lay flat)

52. sewed six butterfly sequins and band of pink metalic thread on ribbon hanger for Be Still and Know picture for Jamie's Xmas

53. crocheted snowflake with size 30 cotton

54. tucked tails, blocked and dressed bookmark for myself--sampler of the baby afghan i made for my grand-nephew three years ago

55. Fixed a frayed cord belt for Carri

56. created a bracelet for mom out of a length of braid made by her grand-daughter years ago

57. constructed Sara's crafter's tote from two panels and mobius strip by securing edges with twist ties, clips and string.  Discovered significant design flaws.  worked them out (I hope) bought materials for fix,  mapped fixes on graph paper

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Sunday Serenity

Longview Dike

I took this picture when I went running on the dike last June.  I'm dreaming of running again.  Running was once one of my greatest joys.

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Inspiring Joy - ROW80 GOALS Round 1 2015

Inspiring Joy
The box is the second one I got for myself on Saturday.
The peacock watercolor was done by my mom when in college.

Last year I lost my joy.  Double entendre fully intended for it was both my happiness and my self that eluded me.

The cause seems irrelevant at this point.  Whether it was the first anniversary of the last hug goodbye Ed and I exchanged the previous May 11: the illness and death of our furbaby, Merlin in late spring; the ongoing stresses of the January 2013 lifequake aftershocks; the loss of my counselor in September; the disappoint as realization sank in that my husband and I would be spending second holiday season apart--missing both our birthdays, our anniversary, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years; or it was merely the latest wave front of the mood disorder I've weathered with various levels of gracelessness since my tween years--it hardly seems to matter.  At this point it is just a given.

Two incidents turned a nasty, blustering situation into a perfect storm: the one I related in my Round 3 wrap-up last September and the intake appointment with the mental health clinic at which a potential bi-polar diagnosis was revisited just a year after my med nurse at the family clinic had ruled it out, taking my hope that continuing the campaign of  healthy choices of the last two years would lead to my ultimate goal of getting off all the meds.

At some point writing stopped invoking passion and bliss and became duty, lists, goals, charts, measures, chores.  I found myself spending more time with the activities of keeping track and analyzing and writing posts about it than actually writing the creative works.

I can't go back to that.  Which creates a conundrum: How do I participate in ROW80 without getting lost in those minutia when the very purpose is to set measurable goals?

This is why I unintentionally dropped out for round four: I couldn't solve it.  Thus I couldn't write my intentions post.  There was also an element of not wanting to set expectations in order to protect myself from the inevitable failure.
I was drowning in failure already.

But I miss the community--the encouragement, the sense of belonging, the sharing, the inspiration.

Tho I stopped blogging,  I didn't stop writing altogether until after NaNo.  I completed my 11th NaNo but for the first time I didn't enjoy it.

On January 1st I joined One Word 365 choosing the word 'joy' as my focus for 2015.  This is a new social network for those seeking an alternative to New Year's resolutions.  The idea is to focus on one word that sets a theme for your year, looking for ways to meaningfully incorporate it into every day.  Nearly every post this week has given a nod to 'joy'.

In the spirit of One Word 365 I'm making regaining the joy writing has nearly always held for me my ultimate goal for ROW80 2015.  Tho one might say that is measurable in the sense that you either have it or you don't it isn't really in the spirit of a ROW80 goal since it doesn't entail actionable tasks.

So let me put it this way: I'm aiming for a return of the joy of writing.  At the end of each round and the end of the year I'll be judging success by the level of its presence instead of word-count.  The actionable tasks that I believe will prepare the soil for the blooming of joy/Joy are as before all time investment:

• Storydreaming 15min Daily (I never lost this one since instating it in my first round in 2012.  A ROW80 win!)
• Read/Study Craft 15min Daily
• Move/Breathe/Meditate 15min Daily
• Personal Journaling 15min Daily
• Read Fiction 30min Daily
• Social network activities 30min Daily (writing Joystory posts doesn't count only social reaching out like reading/commenting on other blogs, guest posts and posting to fb, twitter, pinterest etc)

That last was one of the first things I let fall by the way when the lifequake overwhelmed me in early 2013 and I now suspect it played a part in losing the joy associated with blogging and being a part of NaNo, JuNoWriMo, ROW80, IMWAYR? and other networks and support groups.  I sank into isolation and took more than I gave. 

I'm feeling quite emotionally fragile this week so I'm not going to set any expectations regarding creative writing files--fiction, poetry, essay--yet.  I'm hoping to be able to revise for that before the end of this round.

I fully intend (and am even looking forward to) returning to work on the structural rewrite of Blow Me a Candy Kiss but it would be setting myself up for failure to make a specific commitment at this time.  Sometime in the next two weeks I will make a commitment for the following week to open the file and reread the story and familiarize myself with what I was doing with it before I set it aside for NaNo. 

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Sunday Serenity

Happy 83rd Mom

We held Mom's birthday party at the Electric Bean in Longview, Washington yesterday.  I took a slew of pictures and could not narrow down to reasonable number for a blog post so I decided to try my hand at making a slideshow movie.  First time.

It took several hours. Between that and the couple hours I spent contending with my cell phone for custody of the pictures (the phone crashed minutes after I got the last picture saved to G-drive) I was unable to get this prepped for posting until the wee hours of Tuesday morning.


In the cover shot she is holding the large print devotional, Jesus Calling, from my sister. next she opens fleece pjs also from my sister.  Earlier in the vid she is opening my gifts in the little white bag with blue tissue--a crocheted flower barrette, a crocheted bow barrette, a crocheted bracelet featuring a vintage button from Mom's collection which I confiscated several years ago, and a blue flower bead on a crocheted ribbon with another vintage button for the fastener.

Maurine Coon
Mother of three, Grandmother of five
Her children (and grandchildren)
rise up and call her blessed.

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Enjoy Able

Enjoy Able

This fall was a rough ride with my mood a roller-coaster laboring up the inclines towards happy only to zip in a blink into the dips and getting stuck there for a time before beginning the climb again.  I lost interest in many of my regular passtimes but hung onto a few including the ongoing sorting/organizing project, videos (Star Trek and 3rd Rock from the Sun) and fiber arts.  I often combined videos with one of the other two.

Thesethings I still found enjoyable and thus continued to find myself still able to enjoy.  Lifesaving!  No lie.

One of my goals for 2014 was to finish more projects than I started--especially in fiber arts.  By midsummer I'd neither started nor finished many at all so in late August I set out to see how many I could finish before Christmas.  I lost count around a dozen in late October.  I've no idea if I met my goal tho as I started well over a dozen new ones between Halloween and Christmas--gifts and ornaments.

The picture above shows 7 of the items I'm making for Mom.  Some of them were in progress before the late summer push but I began several more.  With her birthday being January 3rd I had to prepare two sets of gifts.  These are not all as I gave her three small items for Christmas--a bookmark, a bracelet and a crocheted bow hairpin.  The items in the picture are the remainder of the smallish items that I still have hopes of finishing before her party begins at noon tomorrow:

1. a pad for her tray to keep her plate or bowl from sliding
2. another tray pad
3. a flower hairpin
4. a bow hairpin
5. a bracelet
6. a necklace
7. a drawstring bag for her heart magnifier

I never got close on any of the bigger items I planned for her: legwarmers, scarf, hat, muff, lap blanket, apron...

Well if I don't get with it, I won't be handing her any new packages tomorrow...today actually as it is now less than nine hours before we leave.

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One Word 365

One Word 365

One Word 365 suggests that instead of New Year's Resolutions we choose one word to make the theme of our year, to focus on daily in whatever way encourages an increase in or fulfillment of its essence.  

To further such an aim they have provided a kind of social network/support group for those who'd like to give it a try.

I'm thinking of joining and if I do I'm choosing JOY as my word.

For obvious reasons I think.  And the pun is fully intended.

JOY because it is the light at the end of the tunnel of depression which has been my struggle for decades.
JOY because it is my name and thus my sense of self, my identity, my life theme, my aspiration.
JOY because, whether having lost myself stole my joy or having lost my joy hid my self from my sight, seeking after either joy or Joy has to be the path toward reclaiming both and I've come to believe I can't have one without the other.

As you might imagine, I've been collecting 'joy' themed things for decades knickknacks, jewelry, art, quotes, songs, movies, crafts, stories, poems...

Assuming I'm about to join this challenge, I'll begin by resharing a poem I wrote about a moment of joy I experienced that happened to be captured on film:

Joy Splashed
by Joy Renee

______________________________________One
_________________________________  spring
_______________________afternoon at Seaside,
__________________Oregon, while walking
_______________barefoot upon damp sand
_____________at the edge of a rising tide,
___________dabbling my toes in timid
________wavelets and kicking liquid
_______diamonds at purple-tongued

______Tia, who distributes them freely

_____with shakes of her shaggy mane,

____I looked up to watch clouds cavorting

___over cyan canyons dodging the tickling

__fingers of shadow and light and gulls performing 

_their errant air-ballet upon the fickle breezes. With my 

gaze thus engaged, the sea embraced me round my ribs with salty 
ecstasy, lifting me for one eternal instant out of the grip of gravity.

[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]

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