Post Viral Shawl Update -- Fiber Friday

 

Second Post Section 4/6 Complete

Can't afford to spend much time on this.  Need sleep.  So just a few comments.

I'm pleased with the progress.  Most especially pleased that there has been much less frogging since the struggle with the first post section a week ago.  Some combo of sleep and upping the magnification of my reading glasses seems to have solved that.

But I laid it against the first shawl which it needs to match so that I can make a poncho out of the two of them and there is a hint of 'shrinkage' in this one.  I think if I had been using the wrong hook size from the beginning there would be more than a hint of shrinkage so I suspect it is the tension.  To rectify this tho I'm going to switch from the 3.5m to 4.0m hook for the duration of this post stitch section and possibly all further post stitch sections.  Unless I learn to loosen up on those sections as I gain confidence that I'm not having to frog so much of them.

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Picasso Ice Yarn Hat & Scarf Set -- Friday Fiber Art

Hat & Scarf Set 2/3 Done

I started with 3 of these small balls or skeins.  Not sure what they are called.  I hoped there would be enough for the hat and scarf set.  Now I'm sure.  But it was a squeaker.  One ball barely finished the hat and one ball barely got me half the length in the scarf I wanted.  But it will do.

Since I worked the hat between last Friday evening and Sunday evening and worked the half scarf between Monday and this evening, I'm determined to finish the scarf by Sunday evening.  I broke my own rule by starting something new before finishing a WIP but I needed something quick and easy to break the ice of the two month hiatus and the WIP I had been focusing on last July were very complex and big so I cut myself some slack.  But I'm itching to get back to them now.

The stitches used in this project are the simplest.  The single crochet into the top of the 3 chain loop.  Except for the band around the forehead in the hat which needed to be tightened up so I used the 2 chain loop.  In order to get the billowy shape on top I expanded the flat circle faster and for longer and then abruptly decreased half the loops in one round at the top of the forehead before switching to the 2 chain loops.  I was making it up as I go.  I call it sculpting.  I rarely have patience for patterns.

The Picasso Ice yarn has a lovely sheen and drape.  I love the feel of it in my hands as I work.  But there are issues one should know about.  It does not lend well to frogging.  It snags against itself and knots and snarls easily.  Working straight off the ball it comes in is easy for two thirds of the way and then at some random moment the end tail introduces itself to the working strand and curls up it and starts unwinding from the inside of the ball.  If not caught soon there will be a massive snarl.  The friction caused by the strands rubbing fuzzes up the strands.  Frogging also creates the friction fuzz.  And I imagine normal wear and tear of any item made from it will create this same frizz.

One might think winding the strand into a ball first would be a solution but there are foreseeable drawbacks to that idea.  Winding fast risks the friction fuzz.  Also if you hold the strand with too much tension as you wind you will stretch it and spoil the drape and the silky feel.  My solution was to keep a close eye on the ball and as soon as the empty center was big enough to fit over my left hand, I settled it on my left wrist and tucked the loose end strand up my sleeve.

It will make a visually stunning item that is pleasant to touch but know that it will require hand washing and drip drying and still will not fare well with frequent use.  Not recommended for an item meant to be an heirloom piece.

 

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Friday's for Finished--Six Off the Hook Since August 1st

Two Scarves

This post is about the crochet projects that have come off the hook since the first of August when I was able to break the ice on my WIP stash after getting that 2012 Secret Santa Quilter's Tote ready to enter in the Clark County Fair.

For the foreseeable future I hope to post reports on finished WIP every Friday.  Maybe soon that will include writing projects but for now I will focus on fiber art, my sort/organize projects.and any other significant task accomplished.  I will pick another day to feature one or more WIP as I continue to paw through the dozens put on ice while I focused on the Quilter's Tote and those I begin as the holiday season progresses.

Skinny Scarf Close Up

 This skinny scarf was requested by my sister for her friend's birthday over two years ago!  She was going to pay me for it.  When I found it in my stash, I quickly finished it in about two hours.  When I gave it to her she was surprised as she had forgotten about it.  I told her she owed me nothing because of its lateness.

This was an original design.  I made several of them in the year before I started this one.  Essentially I sculpted it as I went.  I wanted it to spiral so I started with a foundation chain of the approximate length I wanted and then started chaining six and single crocheting into a chain about every four chains.  On the return pass I put the single crochets in between the first 'row' but on the back side of the chain.  On the third pass I again put the single crochet between two of the others but this time I started alternating top and bottom of the chain which caused the twist.  I think I may have switched between top and bottom of the chain less often than every other single crochet.  I seem to remember that I put several on one side before switching to the other again.  On the forth and fifth pass I switched randomly between four, five and six chain loops with the single crochet in the loops of the first layer and also randomly moved over a row clockwise which emphasized the twist.

The yarn I used was Buttercream Rainbow Boucle in black and white and shades of grey.  But since the color change was so slow not much of either black or white ended up in the scarf.  I fell in love with this yarn while working on this scarf and went looking for more only to find that Luxe Craft has discontinued it.  I got two skeins over three years ago at  a January inventory reduction sale at Joanne's.  The other skein is Blues and Teals and is currently on my Martha Stewart loom as my second loom knitting project.  It's a large tube that I'll make into a garment.  A dress if it's long enough else a tunic;  I plan to do the same thing with the grey scale skein.

Stripped Scarf Close UP

 I started this scarf over two years ago for my husband.  I finished it for his birthday in late September.  It is made with Plymouth Diversity sock yarn in a white and browns self-striping colorway that is very elastic.  I loved this yarn and have a scarf for myself on the hook in a grey/black/white ombre.  This yarn has been discontinued as well.

The stitch or pattern I used is one I made up and have yet to find it in any pattern or stitch collection so i may actually be unique unlike the half-double that I 'invented' about two months after I started crocheting in 2009;  My mom had been teaching me to crochet to replicate a bookmark I found in one of Dad's books after his funeral.  Mom was still aphasic after her stroke so the lessons were mostly me watching her demonstrate the stitches.  That bookmark included only double, single and chains;  Of course I soon discovered that the HDC was just as common;

So the stitch or pattern I might have created is simply a six chain loop attached to the row below with single crochet.with one or two stitches between;  For the first row of loops that would be into whatever stitches are in the row below.  Every time I've used it so far I've made a foundation row of single crochet;  The first pass is the loops and on the second I twist the loop with my left hand while I insert the hook into it for a single crochet;  I then add a chain for every chain between the legs of the loop.  On the next pass the legs are stitched into that chain space.

I call it my LOL stitch because the twisted loops look like cursive lowercase Ls.  When I do it with four chain loops they look like cursive lowercase Es.  I still call it LOL.

This stitch is great for scarves and blankets because it creates a spongy effect with lots of trapped air which allows it to create more warmth than the lacy look would lead you to expect.  It also works up really fast and is one of those stitches and patterns that you can work while thinking about something else.  Even while watching videos. 

Some might call this monotonous or mindless but I find it allows me to become mindful when I'm stressed or anxious.  It is also nice to pick up when I'm too tired to work on something complex.  Thus I call it meditative.

Two Towel Holders - Buttoned

 My sister asked me to crochet some towel holders for her.  She was picturing them crocheted directly onto the towels but I came up with this concept.  It is not unique as I found examples of it on YouTube after I started picturing it in my mind.  I didn't follow a pattern;  I did what I call sculpting.

I guess everything on this page was sculpted except the self-striping scarf.

The smaller one was the first and was a riff on one of my bookmark patterns.  I used size 10 cotton crochet thread in orange which is the counter color in Mom's kitchen.  Not because she loved orange but because they got a good bargain when they installed them in the late 1970s.  She softened the loudness of the orange by using lime green, yellow and turquoise in as many objects in use and on display as possible.  Hence my choice of yellow for the second attempt after the orange one proved to be too small. 

We're still looking for another use for it in the kitchen as the orange belongs nowhere else.  I'm thinking maybe attach a pen to the loop and mount it near a notepad.  I'm always looking for something to write with in that room and tho there are lots of pens and pencils in there they are never in plain sight and never where they were last left.  Well at least not by the person who is looking for them.

The yellow one is actually Lilly's Sugar and Cream yellow and white ombre.  This one works great and she's asked for another.

Two Towel Holders - Unbuttoned

The buttons I used are from Mom's vintage collection that she inherited from her mother and which I've confiscated.  There are buttons in there from as far back as the early 20th century if not earlier.  I've blogged about them many times.

Two Hats

Both of these were made for myself.  The top one was the first project on my Martha Stewart loom and was my very first loom knitting project. I finished it within days after I started it in mid August. It was supposed to be a beanie.  It is a bit of a mess but I've decided I can wear it when I feel like looking comical. 

It ended up with a brim because my early rows were much looser than the rest and when I crocheted the edge onto the cast on row it added to the diameter also.  Besides that issue pins had popped off several times and I didn't catch the right loop when putting them back in and did not realize that until the runs showed up after the rows showed up below the rim of the loom.  I repaired the runs by using a crochet hook and in one bad case used the brim yellow to crochet a chain thru the fabric around the pucker created by my repair.  It looks like a patch.  Thus I call it my Hobo Hat. 

It was too small for me when it first came off the loom but after I cut my hair a couple of weeks later it fit OK tho a bit snug.  I may give it to a child with a sense of humor.  It could be part of a Halloween costume.

The hat below was also sculpted rather than following a pattern.  Itcan be worn as a beret, a beanie or a hairnet.  I began it over two years ago and kept messing up the increases and would take out rows as soon as the distortion became obvious.  Sometimes that was many rows.  Once I'd even put the shell edge on thinking it was done only to discover that edging had made it look like a shower cap or one of those hats the girls wore to bed in Little House on the Prairie.  Not what I wanted so I took it out all the way to palm size.

The final result was arrived at by dropping the usual increase method and using stitch size with tension and number of chains and every once in awhile would double the number of loops while decreasing their size by half or more.  All of that is near impossible to see in this picture.  I should have had it on a higher contrast surface for the photo shoot.

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Sunday Serenity - Hanging On by Threads

My Quilter's Tote on the table at the Clark County Fair sporting it's blue ribbon. 

I almost broke the blogging ice in August for this.  Instead I started working on crochet WIP that had been put on ice while I focused on this project since June 2012 when I began it as my Secret Santa gift for my sister-in-law.  I only eased the ban for gift-giving occasions until mid 2014 when work on this hit a major snag when my first attempt to assemble the panels created a puddle not a bag.  What use is a tote that must be held open for you while you load it?

So work essentially stopped on this while I noodled on the engineering problem, worked out possible solutions and gathered materials to try them, failed, noodled some more...rinse, repeat.  I still have only partially solved it.  I had to stuff the bag with packing air pillows for the fair display as I ran out of time to implement my full solution.

Since the day I dropped this off at the fairgrounds August 1st, I've started several new projects and gotten several more off the hook.  I'll post about them as soon as I get the photos prepped.

I'm also going to be joining two CAL (Crochet Alongs) this fall.  One is already in progress and the other starts this coming week.

I also started loom knitting in September and have plans to learn to knit.  I've been watching video tutorials on it and no longer feel intimidated.

I've been hanging onto my sanity with my crochet hook since I got my craft table unburied from three feet of detritus in March.  At my counselor's suggestion I began to work on this in earnest with an eye to entering it in the Cowlitz County fair in July.  It was to be an exercise in goal setting and self-promotion and finishing a major WIP.  I missed the deadline for the Cowlitz County fair by several hours.  My sister suggested I look up the reqs for the other county fairs in the area and Clark County was both the next up and the closest.

The ribbon is a Premium Blue and I've no idea what that means in the scheme of things.

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Joy's Needled

Problem Solved?  Such a Small Solution
Jig Pro hollow ended needle for paracord and leather laces

The Joy's plaque I'm needlepointing to be mounted on a bag above where it already says: Getting Things Done, has been languishing for want of a needle.  A needle of a kind I wasn't sure existed.

I was picturing something hollow on one end and with a dull point on the other and some way of securing the end of the cord in the hollow end. And slim enough to fit through the plastic mesh without breaking it.  I also pictured it with a tiny clamp or pincer instead of hollow but couldn't picture how that could be made not to snag the cord.  So hollow was better but I couldn't picture how the cord could be secured.  Turns out screw threads are the solution.  And to make the cord grippable you melt the end first..  I didn't need to do that as it acquired a good grip onto the end I'd treated with Fray-check.--a kind of chemical melt I suppose.

I found it in leather-working supplies on Amazon.  I wasn't positive it was small enough because my eyes were not able to judge the measurement of the mesh hole and there was nobody around to do it for me so I took a gamble thinking that it was so close the canvas with the larger mesh would work with the needle on future projects.

Why do I need such a bizarre sounding needle?  The paracord is too thick to go thru the mesh doubled over in the eye of a needle.  Besides needle eyes big enough to hold the cord are already too big to go through the mesh holes. I had resorted to fraying the end of the cord and then painting it with fray-check and twisting it into a point as it dried.  This worked.

  Sorta.  But it was slow going. Like threading a cooked spaghetti noodle through a bead.

But it did work OK as long as there was just one strand occupying the hole.  When trying to put the strand through the hole already occupied by the stitch in the neighboring row tho the fray-check coat on the point began to loose its stiffness and without that it was like trying to push a worm through a straw.

The new needle works exactly as I imagined and it fits the empty hole.  But when I push it through the already occupied hole I must be very careful to go exactly straight as any pressure toward the side will break the mesh.  So far it only happened once and I managed to repair it by wrapping thread several times around the mesh bars on either side of the gap to replace the missing bar.  I hope that doesn't happen very often as it is a pain'

I would send for another hollow ended needle in a size smaller except I'm pretty sure the specs on this one said it was the smallest.

The brand of the needle was Jig Prol  It seems a very fine quality of metal with nothing on the surface that could snag the paracord.  What impressed me most about Jig Pro so far tho was that of the three different brands selling leather working needles that I ordered from in the same order they were the only one whose method of shipping made sense to me;  But that was probably because Jig Pro itself was supplying whereas the other two orders were being supplied by Amazon.  Amazon sent one needle set in the same box along with a couple other items in my order but I almost missed it as it had slid under the flap on the bottom.  The other one was in a box the size of a hardback book all by its lonesome.  Jig Pro sent theirs by snail mail in a greeting card sized envelop.

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Tackling the Biggest To-Do

Crocheted Quilter's Tote

It was my intention from the moment I started the travel jewelry kit in June for my sister that I would give it my disciplined focus until it was done--hoping that meant in time for her birthday in mid July--and then transfer that same discipline to this Quilter's Tote project that was my Secret Santa gift for my sister-in-law in 2012.  Well, tho I did manage to maintain the disciplined focus on the jewelry kit and gave my sister half of it the week of her birthday and the other half the last weekend of August, too many unforseen things happened with it (just like with the quilter's tote) and multiple rethinks and redos became necessary as reported in earlier posts and the final handover to my sister did not take place until this past Friday afternoon.

The weekend was all about the read-a-thon but on Monday I cleared my craft table of the tools and materials from the jewelry kit project and got out the quilter's tote.  I layed it all out for this photo but also to re-familiarize myself with its current status.  I got out the to-do list for it and re-read it.  It is in a small notebook that travels with the project and the first page reads:

• Prep mobeus strip (in blud basket above)
• Prep wraparound panel (folded on left side above)
• Prep back/front flap panel (folded on right side above)
• Crochet 5 4" x 4" squares--4 for pockets on the carry strap 1 to wrap around the twist in the top of the strap.
• Crochet 3 small flowers for buttons to secure flap on front of bag
• Crochet 1 large flower for the strap wrap
• Assemble tote

Except for the squares and flowers which have patterns, each one of these items require multiple pages of instructions and task lists broken down into sub tasks and dependencies (tasks that must be done before another task can be started). Those lists were disorganized and missing some things I'd thot of since writing it so I tore them out and started over.  
Assuming I've thought of everything...

But if there is one thing this project has taught me is that it isn't likely that I've thought of everything.  In fact it might not be possible to think of everything before beginning a project and that has too often been my reason for procrastinating or quitting after encountering an  unforseen snag in my plan.

I've done the same thing with my creative writing...

But if there is one thing that sticking to it thru all the snags with the jewelry travel kit (a three week project that became a three month project) taught me it was that I'm clever enough to figure out a way around or through the snags.

I think I've solved the structure problems I encountered a year ago when I tried to assemble the tote with the original plan and ended up with a flop.  Literally a bag too floppy to be useful.  Who wants to always have to depend on having someone hold a bag open while you put somethng in or take something out unless the bag is already stuffed to the gills?

I think my solutions are going to work--installing cord on all the edges and lining the bag bottom and sides with microfiber pads. I'm in under no illusion that there will be no further snags but I'm confident I can work them out too.

Tho it's possible that I'm going to be late for this Christmas too having gotten such a late start and that kind of disappointment has often tempted me to procrastinate.  Not this time.

This will be my main focus for every day that it is possible.  It's not always possible--appointments outside the house, company, illness, Mom's needs--life sometimes has its own ideas.  But it will become north for my mental compass and my attention will keep returning to it.

One difficulty it presents is that it is not portable.  It's a long time since it's been a lap project let alone a purse project.  It has to remain on the craft table.  Another difficulty is that very little of the work left to do is of the type that I can do with only half an eye on the work while I'm watching videos.  Much of it is more like sewing than crochet and except for the 5 4" x 4" squares even the crochet is meticulous, detailed stuff in which placement of the hook cannot be by touch.

So I can't watch videos while working on this but I can listen to documentaries and audio books and daydream my own stories.  In fact I better take advantage of the fact that many of the hours spent on this project were coupled with daydreaming my storyworld.  Thus the very act of handling it again triggers the memories and puts me right back into the scenes I was working on when working on this or that section.  Since I am hoping I have only a short time left with it, now is the time to get as much of that out of my head and onto paper or screen as possible before I hand it over.  Or I may have to start another one. :)

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A Round of Words in 80 Days Round 4 2015 Goals

A Round of Words in 80 Days
Round 4 2015

The writing challenge that
 knows you have a life

I'm back after dropping out for Round 3.  It's been a rough year.  Life threw some new curves.  One of which was the diagnoses of high-functioning autism aka Asperger's Syndrome in mid September.

Apparently one of the crucial things for someone on the spectrum is a highly structured day which means that participating in things like ROW 80 can only be of help.

The fact that I've had the experience of ROW 80 since 2012 is helpful as I it has given me the tools I need to create that structure.  Now tho it needs to apply to my whole life and not just writing.

ROW80 ROUND 4 GOALS
similar to Round 1 and as always they are time investment rather than word count.

• Storydreaming with note-taking tools at hand. 15min Daily (until about mid summer this year I never lost this one since instating it in my first round in 2012.  A ROW80 win!)  --this had become an integral part of every day for me. I never really stopped the dreaming but I wasn't taking notes.  But even with notetaking it's not enough if it never leads to more than jotting notes as I live inside my story.
• Read/Study Craft 15min Daily Average -- This is one of the writing tasks I hung onto all year.  At least a significant amount each week if not always daily.
• 7.5 hours of sleep daily --  the last two years have taught me the importance of this for keeping my anxiety low and energy high, weight down and creativity sustainable.
• Move/Breathe/Meditate 15min Daily  -- I never got this back after the respiratory illness last winter.  I know it is crucial to health.  Both physical and mental.  And most especially creativity.
• Personal Journaling 15min Daily  --has not become a daily habit yet.  in fact i've not even reached for it since late February.  I feel serious resistance to it which probably means I need to be doing it.  Especailly to help me assimilate the autism spectrum diagnoses and how it affects my writing goals.
• Read Fiction 30min Daily Average --this is one thing I kept up even while sick except for a few of the worst days.  And continued right up through mid September when I began the big research project I've discussed elsewhere after my autism spectrum dianoses..
• 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) --another thing I've a strong resistance to.  The autism diagnosis helps explain this but doesn't let me off the hook.  If anything it makes it more important.  
• Engage with the Blow Me a Candy Kiss structural rewrite file 30 min Daily*  --  except for November when I'll be working on the companion story from husband Greg's POV called To Embrace a Funny Bunny.  These two likely belong to the same novel but I'll be pretending they don't for the durration of NaNo. 
• All of this in service to the overarching goal for 2015: Regain the joy in writing that I lost sometime last year.  The Joy/joy meter hovers around 7 out of 10.this week.

*I've been struggling with this structural rewrite since my first Row 80 Round in 2012.  The autism spectrum dianoses helps explain why I have no problem accumulating words but can't seem to hang them on an appropriate plot scaffold.  Apparently issues with cause and effect are common on the spectrum.

I'm hoping that working with Dramtica Pro will help address this issue.  Using it for NaNo prep this year hoping it will prevent the creation of another mess.  Am concurrently running Candy Kiss through it's paces to see if it will also help me fix an existing mess.  If it does then there is hope for the over two dozen WIP messes.  Or at least some of them.

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Sunday Serenity - Travel Jewelry Box

This is part of the travel set I made my sister for her birthday.  Which was last July.  I finally handed this over for the second time on Friday.  The first time I gave it to her was labor day weekend but I had to take it back to fix a couple things.

I'd given her part one the week of her birthday.  That was the first version of the earring wallet made from the same plastic needle point canvas as the box and meant to fit inside it.  But the same day I handed her the box she gave me back the earring wallet because the hook earrings would not stay put.  I had to comepletely rething the concept and start over and the result doesn't even fit in this box.  She has decided to use it for make up instead of jewelry.

Now she is asking me if I can install some plastic loops on the lid to hold mascarra pencils and I sad no problem.  Hope it won't take me another month.  :)

The clasp is what I forgot to install the first time and my original concept didn't work and I had to rethink it.  What I settled on was sewing a button on the bottom and attaching elastic loops to the front edge of the lid and the top edge of the polar bear picture which is opposit the front edge of the lid.  Not shown in these pictures is the vinal pocket on the back of the polar bear picture.

It took me an hour to prep the pictures for the box and there are more pictures for the earring wallet so I'm going save those for another post later this week. I just don't have it in me to prep the pics and write about them.  I'm still read-a-thon hungover.  Six hours of sleep after forty awake was not nearly half enough.  To be sure I would sleep again at a fairly decent hour tonight in spite of waking up at one I denied myself all caffeine and even my perscription Adderal today.

You can see pictures of it as a work-in-progress here.

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Fiber Art WIP: Jewelry Travel Organizer

Jewelry Travel Organizer

The craft project I've targeted for dedicated focus until it is done is this jewelry travel organizer kit that I am making for my sister.  It was meant for her birthday in July and I did giver her one part of it the week of her birthday--the earring wallet with a postcard picture of a baby polar bear for a cover.  It had three sections of plastic needlepoint canvas joined on the short sides and it folded accordion style.

The jewelry box, also made with plastic needlepoint canvas, has a top cover with a picture of a mama and baby polar bear.  The picture has a vinal pocket on the back and is attached on its bottom edge to the front edge of the lid so that jewelry can be mounted on the inside of the lid.    I have a tiny mirror mounted with decorative electricians tape but it is coming loose so I'm going to have to rethink that.

I actually gave Carri the box two weeks ago thinking that the project was finished and I was free to move on to the next target (the nearly three years past due Secret Santa project for my Sister-In-Law--the Quilter's Tote) but Carri handed back the earring wallet telling me it wasn't working.  I took back the box too because I'd forgotten to attach the clasp.  Then I spent that weekend rethinking the whole project.

I decided to turn the postcard sized wallet into something that can hold loose items and to crochet the earring wallet.  I spent the whole weekend crocheting the fifteen inch piece seen above.  Then Carri brought me her earring collection so I could mount them for her.  And Lo it did not work!!  The two-chain mesh I worked with size 5 thread was too big.  So after some more thought I decided to put an Aida cloth lining.  That did seem to work.  Especially with the crocheted back putting pressure on the hook keeping them from sliding out.  The lime green ribbon will serve a double purpose--to protect the earrings from scratching each other when the wallet is folded and as part of the clasp holing it closed.

The lime green border on the purple crochet is done in lace weight yarn that I created by pulling apart the four fibers in several yards of Carron Simply Soft yarn.  i put that border on last weekend and during last week spent two days trying to find a way to mount a 15x2.5 inch piece of Aida cloth on a jerry rigged stretcher frame so I could put a backstitch border around the edge to stop fraying while being decorative.  I spent hours and hours untangling the sewing thread I was using to attach it to a loom I'd made from my Martha Stewart loom set.  I finally realized in the wee hours of a morning after extricating myself from the upteenth game of evil cat's cradel I realized that in the time I'd spent on that I could have backstitched around the border four times.  Plenty of time that I could have worked slow enough to stay mindful of my tension and thus prevent the puckering of the cloth that stretching it on a frame is intended to do.

So I spent part of this past weekend doing that.  The remaining steps are:

• attach the crochet, aida and ribbon pieces together
• make the buckle for the clasp out of a 1 in sq piece of plastic canvas
• mount the earrings
• take the mirror off the lid and attach it to the back of the baby polar bear
• create an enclosed wallet with that postcard and the three plastic canvas pieces
• add clasp to jewelry box 

I'll post pic when it is finished.  I'm hoping by Sunday night if not sooner.  Idealiy I'd like to have it done by Friday afternoon so I can get back to work on the Quilter's tote

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Möbius Dick?

Möbius Dick?
The  8ft Möbius strip to form the bottom, sides and shoulder strap of a crafter's tote

Back to work on the crafter's tote project.  The 2012 Secret Santa project.  I'm beginning to wonder if this is my Möbius Dick, my white whale, my nemesis, the thing that is going to take me down with it.

It is getting harder and harder to hang on to the shining vision this project was when first conceived the summer of 2012.  But I am still at it because I did not have the skill set to do a project like this.  I am developing it tho.  On the job.  Trial and error.

So much error.

The gross underestimate of the time it would take even if all went well and there were no unexpected snags was the first but not the worst miscalculation.  Underestimating the amount of thread it would take (and thus cost in money and more time) is in that same category.  Both of those are minor compared to not understanding the physics of the design.

When I finally had all the panels in a state where I could pin them together last fall and see the bag in 3D I discovered that it would be the tote from hell for anyone trying to use if for its intended purpose.  It would take two people to load it--one to hold it open.

Who would want a duffle they couldn't load without help.

I spent months brainstorming concepts for solving that issue and I think I found the solution. It is just going to take more time and materials.  I finally got all those materials in place.  Now for the time.

One of my concepts didn't need extra materials so I've been working on it while I shopped and waited on orders.  That was to double the Mobius strip over at the ends to re-enforce the four corners of the bag's bottom a bit.

This involved finding the exact center of the bottom of the Mobius and marking it by running a grey yarn through to the exact center of the other side. Thru the mesh without catching threads so the yarn can be drawn out once no longer needed.

Next count the joining loops on the bottom of the front/side panel strip. Then split that count in half and start counting the loops on the Mobius from the center, marking with the grey yarn where the front corner would belong--first on the right then on the left.  Then mark with another grey yarn the line two inches out from that and then fold that over and stitch it with the same brown thread.  Had that much done on one side when the pic was taken but have the other side caught up.

Now I'm crocheting the joining loops across the fold where the ends of the front panel wrap around the sides to form the pockets.  I'm about half done with one side.  Working brown on brown is very difficult.

Next will be sewing a dark brown grosgrain ribbon along both front and back inside edges of the bag bottom which will serve to re-enforce a bit but more importantly serve to hold the microfiber pad in place on the bottom which is one of the three such pads intended to firm up the 3D form.  There will be one on both the front panel and the back panel as well.  The back panel will also be strengthened by the doubling over of twelve inches of the panel to form an inside pocket along the back wall.

Once I have that ribbon sewed on and all the tails tucked the Mobius will be ready to join with the two panels.  But there is a lot of similar prep work to be done on each of those panels before they are ready.  But at least the pastel colors will make working with the panels much easier.

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Crochet Möbius Strip Prep

Crochet Crafter's Tote: Möbius Strip Prep

I finally got all of the yarn markers woven into the mesh of the Möbius Strip.  One marking the middle of the bottom.  One marking the opposite side of the hoop where the twist will be trapped inside a wrap.  And two on each end where the pockets will be formed by the wrap-around the front/sides panel.  The bottom edge of which can be seen under the Möbius strip in the photo.

I did two for the ends so that I could fold it over to double the bottom of the pockets as one of my efforts to reinforce areas to decrease the floppiness of the bag.

The reason for the yarn markers was to ensure there was a straight line across the width so the corners of the bag would be positioned so as not to put any skew into the mesh across the bottom--no puckering, no discrepancies in width and length between the opposite sides and so forth.

At the midpoint between the two yarn markers on the left I crocheted a row of 6 chain loops for joining the bottom of the panel to.  I will be doing the same on the other end.  I just got those two yarn markers in tonight.  My visual impairment makes this a challenging task.  The first one took me nearly three hours while the second one took less than half an hour.  I got that second one in on the first try while the first one had to be removed wholly or in part repeatedly as I kept zigging to the side

The 6 chain joining loops are already crocheted around the outer edge of the panels but for where the Möbius strip needs to be attached to form the front side of the pockets I'll need to crochet a row of the loops on the outer edge of the third column of squares on each end.  The back side of the pockets are covered by the joining loops already on the panel forming the back, top and front flap.

Mom is leaving for my brother's tomorrow and my sister is going to the coast with a friend so I'm going to be free to focus on this as much as my eyes will allow between now and Sunday evening.  My goal for the weekend is to have the front panel joined to the Möbius strip before Mom gets home Sunday evening.

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Möbius Mopes

Möbius Strip for Crocheted Tote

I thought it was about time I presented a picture of the  crocheted Möbius strip that has been such a frequent topic of posts in the last two years.  Especially since it is going to be the main subject of this post.

All I can say is 'arrrrrrrgh'

The crocheted crafter's tote is moving like cold molasses.  Nearly three years in the making and now two years late as the intended 2012 Secret Santa gift for my sister-in-law this project has been a frustration from about four months in when it became obvious I was unlikely to finish in time.

There was no pattern because it was born in my head in the shimmering vision that remains the only consolation and hope and the second to top motive for keeping at it.  But the vision did not take account of realities like the limitations of time, materials and skill.  Not to mention physical: pain in tendons and tense muscles, and fatigue with the 12+ hour days, eye strain and sleep deprivation.

I guess I was still too much of a newbie at crochet to pull off something this ambitiously elaborate.  But it has been my education.  I joke that I have had the equivalent of half a dozen college level courses in the process.  The finished tote will serve as a sampler of my skill set.

• I learned over a dozen new stitches and patterns including a couple I invented.  
• I learned design in color, texture and shape.  
• I learned design in engineering, materials, and structure. 
• I learned to better estimate time and thread needs. 
• I learned to control stitch gauge to maintain 4x4 inch squares with a variety of stitches/patterns 

The Möbius strip is a bear to work with.  It's starting chain was 8 ft in diameter so folded it is nearly 4 feet long and 11 inches wide.  It's intended to serves as the bottom, sides and shoulder strap for the tote.

Seen from the right front corner.

The front panel wraps around the front and both sides.  The Möbius forms the bottom and comes up the sides inside the side panels to form the back of the side pockets.  The other panel comes up the back and over the top and partway down the front.

The tote won't be as big as seen in the pic above as changes to the original plan became necessary.  It was intended to hold a standard size quilt as my sister-in-law is a quilter.  It will probably still hold a quilt WIP until the batting is added tho.

The struggle now is in identifying the precise 6-chain loops at each corner of the bottom that will be woven into the 6-chain loops on the two panels of blocks.  This involved finding the center of the bottom and top and counting the joining loops on the panels then out from the center of the bottom of the Möbius.  Then weaving a grey length of yarn across the width in the center and both ends.  Then adding the joining loops for the bottom sides across the width of the strip.  I've only got that done for one side.  I still need to repeat for the opposite side, counting out from the center, weaving the yarn, and adding the loops.

Weaving that yarn through the 2-chain mesh that forms the Möbius fabric is difficult.  My vision issues make it doubly so.  I wish there were another way to be sure the corner loops are directly across from each other.  As hard as that is I'm not sure that crocheting dark brown on dark brown across the fabric instead of on its edge doesn't top it for challenging.

Once those tasks are done I'm hoping the loop weaving task will go smooth.  Once those corners are identified and the bottom is joined to the appropriate edges of the panels it should just be a matter of weaving the loops up the four sides.

But that isn't the end of the challenges. There will be more rows of the joining/decorative loops to crochet and the wrapper for the Möbius twist at the top of the strap, and the buttons for the front. There's the hundreds of tails needing tucked and I still need to sew on the lengths of grossgrain ribbon to strengthen and reenforce the fabric.  Especially at the edges.  For when I tried improvising a joining with clips and twist ties I discovered that it was impossible to load the bag without someone holding it open.

For several days after that I felt as tho the entire project had become as complete a flop as the bag acted.  But I brainstormed some ideas for fixing the problem.  I won't know how well they will work until I'm able to implement them.  Which I can't do until the bottom edges are joined.

For months I've only been able to work on this project either by taking it over to the yarn shop to spread out on the big tables or working on the weekends when Mom is gone and I can move stuff off my craft table onto her side of the bed.  But this past weekend I managed to rearrange some things and preserve enough room on the craft table for working on it all week.  It should move along a bit faster now.

Here's hoping the mopes are bygones.

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Fixed!

No Longer a Wannabe Beanie

Fixed the oops.

For pics of the before see last Saturday and Sunday posts.

It took me a week and dozens of hours of experimenting.  Putting stitches in and taking them out.  Test this stitch then that one, placing them here then there, trying this many gathers then that many.  Turned out to need every other column to be pushed to the inside which means the rim had been double the size it needed to be.

I had to put in two rows of gathering slip stitches.  One around the bottom edge, pushing every other puff stitch inside and the other around the last blue row snugging each stitch to its neighbor.

And it's tails are tucked.  It's ready to wear.  One of the dozen or so projects I began since January 3rd it is now the first one finished since January 3.

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Sunday Serenity

Helper Elf or Gremlin?

Bradley and I are both obsessed with this wannabe beanie.

Am experimenting with stitches to gather the excess up that won't look ugly.

The yarn I used for the brim does not do well with taking out and reworking so any fix must avoid that as I don't have enough of that yarn left for a redo.  It was left over from a shawl I made four years ago.

Maybe I'll just designate it a cat toy.

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Crochet Oops!

The Beanie I Wanted

The 'Beanie' I Got

Bradley approves.

But he hasn't seen it on me yet.

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Hooked on Beginings

9 New Crochet Projects

4 hats, 3 scarfs, 2 drawstring bags.  Just in the last week.  3 are not for me.

There are more fiber art beginnings since January 3rd which was Mom's birthday and the end of the holiday and family gifting occasions strung between late August and early January.  I cut myself loose.  A reward for finishing 57 fiber art tasks since September 1.

Besides these there were several experiments that didn't pan out, two smallish needlepoint projects and some crochet bookmarks.

It's been fun but I need to settle down soon and put some focus back on finishing things.

If I just finished all the bookmarks on the hook I could maintain last year's motto of finishing more things than I start through the month of January 2015.

Bookmarks used to be a one-sitting project.  Once I could crochet over ten of them in a single day.  Now I have over a dozen on the hook.  Some of them for over two years.

I think what happened is that as I began adding larger projects the bookmarks got classified as 'the portable projects' and don't get attention when I'm at home.  They end up languishing in pockets and purses from previous outings and not quick to lay hands on when leaving the house again so I grab a new ball of thread and start a new one for that next car ride or waiting room.

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Fiber Art WIP

This is the scope of the project I've set myself to catalog all my fiber art WIP, get photos of their current state and note relevant data--percent done, thread brand and color, pattern, hook size, what's left to do, what materials need buying before it can be finished etc...

And to think I've started another half dozen since Sunday...

And that's not all

That's still not all...

Nope.  Not even. 

There's more in drawers and boxes of various sizes.

Plus many of those bags and boxes in the shots have multiple projects in them.

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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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165th ROW80 Check-In

A Round of Words in 80 Days
Round 2 2014

The writing challenge that
 knows you have a life

Before this round (2014 R2), my goals were all time investment and are detailed on the  ROW80 page   [That strike through will remain until I can clean up and update that page.]  In its place I've created a section called GOALS AND HABITS where my current commitments are detailed.

I keep track of the time invested with a Google Doc spreadsheet linked on the goals page and also in each check-in along with a screenshot of the most recent days.

This round I've added time-management and habit formation goals that aren't easily tracked on a spreadsheet.  Or at least not the same one.  These skills are the subject of the coaching my husband has been providing.

 

Note: I broke this up into themed sections to make updating easier:  


Current Check-In --  This section, just below the spreadsheet screenshot, will contain commentary about encounters with the goals since the previous check-in, LOLs, post roundups and any relevant links.  They are arranged like a blog inside a blog.
GOALS AND HABITS:
__Habits and Structure that Supports Writing --  These are the things my coach aka husband is working with me on.
__Month by Month --  Very specific and limited projects for each month
__Ongoing Fiction Files Tasks: -- Big and small projects--WIP, editing, organizing notes, timelines, rosters, sketches, research etc
__Other Writing -- working the AWAI  copywriting course; book reviews; poetry; freewrite and journaling 
Read Craft -- currently reading and recently finished
The Lifequake -- Life decided to give me free lessons on the art of flexibility in January of 2013. There have been continuous aftershocks.
Self Management -- applying flexibility, persistence, habit rehabilitation as I learn that caring for myself is the foundation for all else. Including writing.
Evolution of the Workstations -- the never-ending story with pictures and commentary about the attempt to create a productivity environment here at Mom's

View the spreadsheet Google Doc directly

View the goals list

With my husband's coaching in time, self and project management, I was slowly recovering from the massive setback in March when my mood dove into the Marianas Trench of my psyche.  The last two check-ins of Round 1 provide the explanation and the plan for recovery so I left them in place when I cleared the last round's check-ins. I had a great April but in early May it started to fall apart again.

CURRENT CHECK-IN

MAY 31 -- The vigil for Merlin continues and so does the flow of memories and insights that began during the three hours I held him Tuesday morning.  Every post since Tuesday has touched on some aspect of this.  Including the last check-in which you can read below and also find the link to Tuesday's Merlin photo essay. The other two:

Thursday: Of Magic, Memories and Coping Mechanisms where I shared the 2nd insight derived from Tuesday's experience promised at the end of Wed
Friday: Friday Forays in Fiction: Quote -- a riff on the relationship of memory to story, truth and fiction (the John Irving quote on memories is in the LOLcat to the left.)

I'm still leaving most other priorities on the back burners which is reflected by the spreadsheet.  But because Merlin is no longer tolerating being held my hands were free when I was free to sit at the computer so I started writing about the insights and memories which is reflected in the MISC WORDS count on the far right.  And those are conservative estimates

Merlin is still with us but failing fast.  He began drinking water again Tuesday afternoon and Tuesday evening accepted a dozen or so flakes of salmon from my salmon patty off my dinner plate.  This gave me a burst of hope but that was the last time he ate.  As of late Saturday night he was still drinking water and must have done while I was asleep but I've not seen him drinking since I woke at 10 this morning (Sunday June 1) and it is pressing 5pm as I finally get this ready to go.

Merlin:
 isat teh raynbo bridj ai see?

MAY 28 -- As you can see the spreadsheet is showing a falling off in many areas--even those I can usually hold steady in rough times.

But, you know what?  I'm OK with that.

I'm living an object lesson on the 'life happens' front: sometimes something happens that trumps everything else. Something so profoundly important there are no competing priorities.

Tuesday morning as I reached my desk chair I kicked into something. Looking down I saw Merlin's hind legs.  Alarmed by the realization he had not stirred and by how still and lifeless he looked, tears were flooding my eyes as I bent down, calling him by every name and nickname we'd ever used for him...

I won't repeat the whole story here as I already told it in Tuesday's Photo Essay: Merlin Moments

He had not crossed the rainbow bridge yet that morning but was so unresponsive for the next two hours I suspect he'd made it halfway before I called him back.  I was so sure in the moments between him lifting his head as I began to lift him and when he indicated he wanted down nearly three hours later that we had only minutes to say our goodbyes I could not bear to take my attention off of him.

Alarmed by how chilled his paws, ears and tail were, I tucked him inside my fleece vest and zipped it to my breastbone. The elastic waistband created a safe pouch for him and for as much of the next two hours as I could I kept my focus on his breath and mine.  I kept as still as I could except for texting Ed as soon as I sat down and answering his vid chat call an hour and a half later.

For the first time in a very long time there was only ONE thing on my mind.  It was both a strange and a strangely familiar sensation, a strong deja vu that was more memory than an illusion of having lived through this very moment before.

I tested my memories of our Gremlyn's last week in 2007 but that wasn't it.  It took several minutes of just sitting with that sensation as I continued holding Mers next to my heart and focusing on our breaths.  After a bit I found I was trying to synchronize my breath with his and noticed how calm I felt.

And then he started purring for the first time since I'd picked him up and moments later I identified the memory this was conjuring.

But this post is already long enough and I've shared the first insight--that sometimes life gives you something to tend to that turns every other priority to pale and wispy dandelion fluff floating out of sight on a puff of air--I'm saving the other equally profound insight for either tomorrow's post or my Saturday night check-in.

Desperately Seeking Sleep

MAY 24 -- I'm still struggling with the schedule.  Getting to sleep on time to get 7.5 before the 6:15am vid chat with Ed is the main challenge.  The spreadsheet shows significant losses in several areas while showing small improvements in sleep and a huge surge in RESEARCH.  I've racked up many hours in the last week between listening to the Transformational Authors Experience this past week and the online research I was doing on Transformational themes and the speakers in the TAE, exercise, brainwave entrainment, hypnosis, meds and supplements and superfoods, calendars, clocks, biorhythms, circadian rhythms and time, Internet scams and the Renaissance era and modern Renaissance faires, and drums through the ages.

There was a Renaissance faire in the Rogue Valley near Ashland this weekend and Ed attended with a friend so that's where that came from but now I'm intrigued and thinking what a fine setting for a story and I even know which of my characters would gravitate to such an event.

Indulging myself on this research binge like in the old days--previous to 18 or 20 months ago--has had repercussions.  I'm behind on my posts, I've nearly stopped writing other than taking notes, I'm behind on my chores (keeping my environment clean and uncluttered) and pushing the evening lights out time.

Merlin is sick. I'm afraid he's nearing his time.  He will be 14 July 6.  He's been loosing weight for months.  He's been drinking and peeing excessively and my sister says this is how their cat Dante's last year went and it's been nearly that long for Merlin. It's a sign his kidneys are failing.  Merlin is Ed's cat and he's going to be devastated if he never gets to see him again.

The Power of Words From the Heart

MAY 21 -- On the self-manage front, I'm starting rebuild the structure I allowed to collapse since the first of the month.  I got my first 7.5 hour sleep in May yesterday morning but got less than 7 again last night.  Tuesday's the day I'm nearly always on duty for both lunch and dinner and I still have trouble estimating how long the extra tasks will take me.  Especially the kitchen clean-up after reading to Mom.

That is after the melatonin kicks in which really increases the risk for mistakes, messes and injury for me.  Poor focus, clumsy, sleepy.  I could possibly fix this by serving dinner early enough that I can clean up before reading or alternatively read to Mom before dinner.  Either before I begin meal prep or while a casserole is in the oven.  I've repeatedly tried to implement these but keep running into snags.  One of which is the clash with the evening vid chats with Ed when he works past 3.  I should be starting meal prep or reading by 5 to make it work but we're often just starting our chat between 4:30 and 5:0.

This past week has been full of insights and encounters relevant to writing.  I wrote about one yesterday, linked with the image to the right.  About an image and story gone viral about the impact of a handwritten note.  This moved me on several levels as I'd recently rediscovered the power of writing rough draft by hand which is how I'd always done it before my first word processor.  I've been working on a post about that.

Then there is the Transformational Authors Webinar series I'm listening to this week and next.  A total of 22 talks on writing the self-help or memoir that focuses on the personal journey of transformation.  I've had a number of insights after listening to four talks.  The two most significant on the importance of commitment and consistency and the necessity of working through the fear and of owning all of our emotions and accepting them without judgment.

The day after writing the last check-in about the frustrations with how much time I spend on each post, I found a book on my Nexus Kindle that I'd downloaded free during a promo called 50 Ways to Get Ideas for Blog Posts by Dylan Varian.  Talk about synchronicity.  I read it in one sitting.  It's more of a pamphlet than a book and I suspect began as a blog post.  I got a lot of ideas for how to smooth that path for myself.  Should probably do a post about it.

Need to be in bed--like--NOW.  Had a headache most of the morning and afternoon which is why I'm still working on my post after dinner.  If I'd had to read to Mom I'd probably have waited until morning to finish this.  But my sister took Mom to get a haircut after dinner.

JuNoWriMo 2014
My JuNoWriMo Goals

MAY 17 -- I still haven't had a 7.5 or better sleep. The last one was on the 3rd so it's been 15 days of accumulated sleep deprivation as I write this on Sunday evening ten minutes before my bedtime. Thus, though I started work on it last evening since this is supposed to be my Saturday night post so I can keep doing my Sunday Serenity post, I still have that one to put up too but probably will only get it started.

Because I can't get a handle on the sleep everything else remains hit or miss as well.  The primary thing keeping me from getting to bed on time is not having my post up before dinner around 7.  The target is to have it up before lunch!  It's demoralizing me that my whole day from getting off the tramp at 7:30ish (9:30ish on weekends) until late afternoon vid chat at 5ish is monopolized by that one task.  It's become a screaming monkey riding my neck and beating me with a riding stick.

I've been advised by several to stop demanding daily posts of myself.  But I'm afraid of the feeling of failure that would take hold of me and of my tendency to let something go entirely once I give myself permission to relax a commitment.  That's part of what got me into this most recent mess I allowed myself a couple of late nights and it turned into fifteen nights and one by one the habits I'd put in place and maintained for 14 days also began to slide away.

But because I'm spending an average of 4-5 hours on each post I'm not getting to use that morning brain work time to write fiction and reviews, read, research, blog maintenance, blog surfing and social networking or work on my future business web pages.  Or work on the family photo scan and digital album and do maintenance on the computer system, email, applications, computer files, WhizFolder files: fiction, reviews, link lists, research, study, project manager, and Master Task List.  Or do my AWAI copywriting lessons, and my Rosetta Russian lessons, and install/learn my OED dictionary, Smart Draw CI, Britannica 2009 CD, and the Aeon Timeline for writers, and Scrivener all seven of which I paid for between late August and late April.

And because I'm so often not posted before lunch I'm not getting to do the afternoon activities like fiber arts, drumming, vigorous exercise, put away/organize, shower, socializing, go to library or store and sorting the rest of the hastily packed stuff from our Phoenix, Oregon house.

What is causing posts to take so long?  Aside from the ADD and visual impairment that is?

• Difficulty coming up with topic.  
• Difficulty finding image. 
• Writing a waaay too long rough draft that needs extensive editing.  
• Distractions that take me away from the tab or the computer. 
• Perfectionism. 

My dream is to find a way to build a backlog of rough drafts and finished or nearly finished posts and another of post topic concepts with images, links and research attached. I call it a dream because it is what I hope to have but I don't yet have a plan in place to get me from here to there.

Rhythm and Muse

MAY 14 -- At the April 30 check-in I was pleased to report that my time management coach/husband had graduated me from worker bee to supervisor (of myself) having seen what he thought was evidence of my having adopted the principles, acquired self-motivation, flexibility, bounce back ability and strung together a significant number of days with 70% or better success.

But even at the time I wrote that I'd already started sliding off the track as I'd just strung together three days of shorted sleep--two 7s and a 6 and over the following ten days I have had only two mornings where I woke with 7.5 or better.  It's been mostly 7 and 6 hours with several 4 and one 5.  And one of those 4s ought to have been a three probably.

After four days of this I was already noticing the downturn in mood, focus, and IQ. I began to make mistakes and have minor mishaps.  I started letting the schedule slip.  For over a week now I've been playing catch up with my posts again, running one to two days late.  Other tasks have slid too--I've got ten days worth of clean clothes and lightly worn outfits not yet put away, I've woke too late to do face/hair/teeth before vid chat for three mornings in a row this week after racking up more than a month of no misses. I would have missed vid chat altogether on Tuesday if Ed had not elected to catch a later bus.

It is really falling apart now.  My mood is tanking again.  Just like last February and March.  I don't think it is a coincidence that February's slide followed the week of Valentine's Day in which I wallowed in memories of last year's Valentine's week (actually January 24th through the end of February) when it looked like our marriage was tanking.  I'd started reliving the painful memories of the lifequake starting with the day it rocked my world into rubble.

I continued reliving it right on through the three trips down after my stuff and to help Ed clear out of our house after the landlord gave notice he was selling.  From the first evening of the first trip in late February when it became clear Ed was committed to working it out, happier memories began to accumulate but it just made it bittersweet because each visit had to end.  The last one ended on May 11.  Since then we've had only text, phone and vid chats to sustain us.

I began anticipating May 11 this year the last week of April which was the beginning of my nearly two week visit last year with the last ten days just the two of us.  We created lots of happy memories that visit but as I relived them they were all tinged gray by the shadow of the morning of May 11.

The reason I've focused on this mood issue and its roots for this check-in is not just because it has negatively impacted my writing productivity and creativity but because I had another major insight about how my writing has been positively impacted by reliving other powerful memories with strong emotional charges.

The story I've been rewriting since April 1st grew out of a similar wallowing in memories charged with powerful grief and longing over the death of a beloved child--my cousin's adopted daughter--and our decade long struggle with infertility.

What I realized while comparing my memories of that wallow with the experience of this one was that both times the emotions during the reliving/wallowing were significantly more powerful than the emotions I experienced as the events took place.  While living through the actual events I was mostly numb and all my senses were muted but when reliving in my mind the memories were 3D motion pictures in technicolor and the emotions were electrical and surged like waves on a rocky beach at the foot of a cliff.

So maybe I have another powerful story brewing in this emotional stew.

There was another major insight regarding creativity this week but I've already written that post: Rhythm and Muse.

Warz teh wyteowt?

MAY 11 -- I'm having a bit of a rough weekend as May 11 marks a year since Ed and I were last in arms reach of each other.  So it has been a whole year since the last hug.  A whole year in a different state.  A whole year with over 300 miles between us.  So I'm a bit blue and my mind is stuck in the memories and the longing.

I posted thrice on ROW80 Goals related topics besides the check-ins:

Tuesday was Scrivener and the Whiz in which I show screenshots of my desktop as I work on the Candy Kiss rewrite with Whiz, my long-time favored ap, and set up Candy Kiss in my new Scrivener ap.
Thursday was My Other Desktops in which I post pics of the four other desktops surrounding me with the reference books and paper clutter from the Candy Kiss notes and drafts
Friday was Friday Forays in Fiction: Quote in which I share share a quote by Stephen King on rewriting and a witty kitty's suggested edits.

Scrivener and the Whiz

MAY 7 -- The last week has been intense on the writing front.  I covered that in Tuesday's post though so I won't reiterate here.

The other major front that I've been tracking here for over a year now is the self-care necessary for supporting a productive, creative writing life.  The five elements of which my husband identified at the beginning or our coaching sessions in mid March as needing to take priority over every thing else: sleep, meds, nutrition, exercise and hygiene.  Add to that a supporting structure to the day to lock them in place and routines for each one that puts them on autopilot.

The nascent structure in place now seems to be solidifying nicely (the %s before the time are success rate in 10 days since April 28, the Monday following the thon):

80% 4:44AM -- Wake.
90% 4:50 AM -- Face/Hair/Teeth
80% 5:00AM -- Getting tea, breakfast, Rx and supplements, grazing snacks, feed cats.
30% 5:30AM -- Freewrite
90% 6:15AM -- Vid chat with Ed
100% 6:45AM -- Mini-Tramp while reading, watching videos or playing a game on my Nexus 7 [am often not on it til after 7 but not missed a day since March 12]
30% 8:00AM -- Begin work on daily post. [success = immediately following tramp + posted before lunch but sooner done sooner can work on other projects tho I'm often fudging this and moving on to other brain work before posting]
100% 9:00 -- Brain work projects [100% Fiction Files -- 100% Read Craft -- 100% Read Fiction -- 40% Research -- 50% Crochet -- 0% AWAI, Book Reviews]
1:00PM -- Fix and eat lunch with Mom.  Clean up kitchen.
[Sometime between 3 and 6 Ed starts a 20-90min vid chat]
6:30PM -- Dinner
7:30PM -- Read to Mom
8:00PM -- Prepare for bed
8:30PM -- In bed reading, watching video or  playing game on Nexus 7 [shameless self bribery]
9:30PM -- Lights out.  Including the tablet.

Milestones:
zero 24+ hour wake periods since April 2
60% 7.5+ hour sleeps in last 30 days [11 days under. one 3hr, one 4hr,  nine 6+]
35 of last 40 days without zeroes in Fiction Files or Fiction/Wrimo Words

If you were to follow the link to the scrollable spreadsheet in the screenshot caption above you'd discover that the date column reads April 2014 for all 600+ lines below February 28.  Apparently something I did while preparing the May rows caused this.  I prepare the new months by copying the date column for a month with the same number of days, creating the correct number of rows and pasting then changing the month number.

I remember being frustrated when I repeatedly tried to paste the April date column on the blank rows and nothing showed up.  I didn't notice until I started scrolling down today to collect the statistics for this check-in.  I fixed March and pinned February 28 in place so I'd not forget it was not 29.  I can't waste anymore time on that.  It is almost lunchtime and I'm not yet posted.  I guess I should have just left it be but it was hard enough to make myself stop after fixing one month.  My perfectionism is having a tantrum.

These are the kinds of things that turn posting into a 4+ hour task on average.  My goal is to bring that below 2hrs.  So frustrating.  I'm starting to resent it.  I can't let go of the need to post every day tho.  But when I go to bed eager to get back to my story only to still be working on the post when I break for lunch it is mega demoralizing.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I switched the order and went from tramp to working on getting the Candy Kiss rewrite draft set up in Scrivener working on it as I did so.  Which is why Monday's IMWAYR? post didn't go up until close to lunchtime on Tuesday and Tuesday's post didn't go up until just before dinner last night and this Wednesday check-in post is going up just before lunch on Thursday.  Which means I still have Thursday's post to do before dinner or let it slide into Friday...

It dose sound pretty silly

MAY 3 -- The structural rewrite of my story Blow Me a Candy Kiss which was my Camp NaNo project is still ongoing and needs at least another week of focused work.  Which means all the other edit passes after the rewrite will still need to be done before the ebook generating project.  I'm still intending for all of that to be done by the end of May.

I imagine my JuNoWriMo project will be another structural rewrite but I'll have to give some thought to which WIP.

In light of the breakthrough and insights described in yesterday's Friday Foray in Fiction, I think I need to put starting new stories for the WriMos on Hiatus for awhile--maybe until after the first of next year.

I'm anxious to apply the concepts from Hooked: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers at Page One and Never Lets Go by Les Edgerton to all of my WIP from the one paragraph storyseeds to the 50K WriMo messes.  I want to go through my fiction files taking up to a week each to establish:

• Inciting incident
• Story worthy problem
• Significant surface problems
• Resolution

That includes most, if not all, of the novel chapters as they tend to each have their own story worthy problem with inciting incident and resolution.

That's about all I need to add to the ROW80 related I've already posted since Wednesday's check-in:

I'm HAPPY and I know it Clap your hands!
Friday Forays in Fiction: Personal Breakthrough and Insights

April 30 -- I need to keep this short as it is my bedtime and I'm totally ready for it.  Plus I don't want to set myself up for an unproductive day tomorrow.  I'm starting to string them together now--two, three, four, five in a row.  :D

There have been several developments on fronts I discuss in these posts so I'll try to list them briefly.

I've been busy with my Camp NaNo project--Candy Kiss rewrite--to the exclusion of most else for last two days.  Have had a major breakthrough and several new insights about me as a writer which I'll talk about in tomorrow's Friday Forays in Fiction post.

The major breakthrough is rooted in having read Hooked: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers at Page One and Never Lets Go by Les Edgerton  Which I reviewed Friday.  It's been on my ROW80 reading list for well over a year.

I took a hiatus from the Adderal in January at my request because I wanted to be sure the ADD symptoms were not primarily the result of sleep deprivation.  So I worked on getting my sleep schedule in place and eliminating sleep deprivation.  In the last month I've had enough success at that while still experiencing the slow-to-wake brain I'm satisfied I need the Adderal for more than a crutch and sleep cheat.

Two days back on it and the difference it makes is huge.  Some of the success I've been having with my story rewrite has to be due to it.

This past weekend in one of our coaching sessions my husband told me that I'd graduated from laborer to first level management.  He has seen enough evidence that I've 'got' the concepts and have taken on a good deal of self-motivation, flexibility, and ability to bounce back to be trusted to self-manage with light supervision.  He thinks that in another month I won't need the formal sessions at all.

April 23 -- The three days between check-in this time (Sunday-Tuesday) have been hugely productive in regards to ROW80 goals.

Sunday I spent hours going back and forth between reading Hooked: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers at Page One and Never Lets Go by Les Edgerton and DAYDREAMING STORYWORLD for my Camp NaNo project,  the structural rewrite and edit of my short story Blow Me a Candy Kiss.

Edgerton's guidelines have helped me so much I'm thinking of making it a ritual for all the structural rewrites of the dozens of stories I have in the works.  Take each story one by one, reading the book again while living inside that story's world and applying each suggestion to that story.

And from now on it would behoove me to apply his principles at the planning stage for each story.

Monday I continued to read the Edgerton book and keep my head in the Candy Kiss storyworld but the reading took place during scattered breaks throughout the morning and afternoon as I once again rearranged my workstation.

Tuesday I gave my new workstation a workout while I continued reading Hooked while marking up a hardcopy of Candy Kiss.  I titled yesterday's post Lost in NaNoland but could just have easily called it Lost in Candy Land.

I was exceedingly pleased on both counts--the workstation worked above expectations and I'm now captured by the rewrite process and no longer flailing around in a morass.

My First Bike

April 20 -- After two perfect days in a row with the new schedule--Tuesday and Wednesday--I had a minor setback in the three days following.

I overslept Thursday morning and almost missed vid chat and did skip the face/hair/teeth task in order to make it at all which set a sour note and forced me to face one of my demons.  Perfectionism.  Which raised its ugly head in the feeling that I'd already blown it so I might as well give up for the day and start again the next.

This is something I've fought and seldom won since before kindergarten.

When I was five and trying to earn my first bicycle by proving I was responsible enough to have one we had a chore chart that Mom would put colored stars on for each task. We needed to collect all gold and silver stars for the day's chores to earn a gold star for the day.  At the end of the week Dad would put a dollar in the bank for each of the gold star days.

Quite often I'd already earned a blue, green or red star before breakfast was over and would give up for the day.  The blue meant task completed and acceptable but we had to be reminded, green task not up to par and red we'd had to be nagged and/or earned the paddle for attitude.

At some point around forth or fifth grade I got it into my head that I needed a perfect week so I would give up for the week after failing Sunday morning. Tho I often allowed a do-over for Monday but a failure on Monday always meant halfhearted efforts at best until the following Sunday morning.  I was thirteen before I'd earned my new bike.

The bike in the picture was a hand-me-down from a cousin I got around age 11which I wasn't allowed to use it recreation.  Acceptable use after permission granted: to school and back, to piano or swimming lessons and back, to the library and back, to my Aunt Helen's or Aunt Carol's or our church which was next door or across the street from them and back on errands for Mom or for supervision while Mom ran errands, and to the mall across the street on errands for Mom.

It was a fierce struggle Thursday to not fall into that old black hole.  But I'd promised Ed in morning vid that I would move on through my day staying on track from that point on.  I did OK.  I got most of the daily chores done but few were done on time or to specifications.  My mood took a dive and I still wasn't posted at the time of our afternoon vid chat.

Shortly after that chat I learned Mom was leaving a day early for her weekend with my brother's family and I was fending for myself for dinner.  I took advantage of that to get Thursday's and Friday's posts up before I went to bed but that wasn't until well after midnight and then I overslept, missing morning vid Friday.

I also woke with a crick in my neck Friday that was so severe I had little range of motion in my neck.  The one tolerable position was a bowed head with gaze slightly left and slumped shoulders.  Attempting to lift my chin or turn to the right caused waves of nausea.

Just by standing or sitting and thus carrying the weight of my head that way the muscle between the neck and right shoulder tensed up increasing the pain.  This also threw me off balance and made it hard to see where I was going when moving through the house--my visual impairment is zero peripheral vision.

So much for Friday.

It was good that I'd gotten Friday's post up the night before but disappointing that I was unable to use the extra time to finish putting this room in order as I'd hoped.  Instead I spent a lot of time on recreational activities on and off the electronic devices--things that I could do while keeping hot or cold compresses on my neck.  I also fudged bedtime and thus the Trazadone schedule for third night in a row.

I slept until ten Saturday morning.  Though I have had more range of motion today and the pain never rose to nauseating, I still had to be careful and keep compresses on when possible so I still gravitated toward recreational--reading, games, videos, surfing web.

I did get a lot of STORYWORLD DREAMING in over the last several days but holding the position for typing put too much stress on my neck so writing was limited.

Waisted
I refuse to kick this habit 

April 16 -- Ed started coaching me on time and self management on March 12. I wish I'd been journaling it from the beginning so I'd have a record of the long haul--the steady improvements amid scattered failures, the incremental adding of new expectations as one new habit after another was attached to established habits.  Then I'd have a play by play of what led up to yesterday which was my first PERFECT day:

• I got up at 5:25 half an hour before my alarm.  
• First visit to bathroom includes face/hair/teeth task.  
• Next task is getting tea and breakfast and grazing snacks for the day and feeding the cats  
• I was sitting down at computer ready for vid chat by 6--15 minutes early.
  [It did not occur to me until late yesterday that that would have been the perfect opportunity to add FREEWRITE back into the daily routine as it is best when I've not had occasion for conversation or other encounters with language beforehand.  That is what I did today]  
• I messaged Ed that I was ready when he was then fiddled with email and played Bejeweled Blitz  on my Nexus 7 while waiting.  
• Vid chat began at 6:15 and ended at 6:40.  
• Fiddled with email for a few minutes before getting on tramp where I played more Bejeweled Blitz, read several pages of Hooked: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers at Page One and Never Lets Go by Les Edgerton, and watched an episode of Malcom in the Middle.  All on my Nexus 7.
  [This is how I bribed myself to start getting on the tramp after vid chats in late February.  Haven't missed a single day and the committed to 15 minutes grew to over 50]
• I started work on Monday's IMWAYR? post right after tramp.
  [Got behind during the weekend HABA project, which may have been the last piece of the puzzle needed to set me up for this perfect day] 
• As soon as I  finished posting the IMWAYR? link on Joystory's fb fanpage I started work on Tuesday's post re the black jeans and white belt. [Another triumph] It was 10:30 and I had that posted by 11:30.
  [Both posts begun and posted before the usual 1PM lunch break thus an extra task proving there is time for at least one more significant brain work task besides posting before lunch and with some more streamlining of tasks there would be room for a third and even a forth. Or the two significant 45+ minutes and several 15 to 30 minute tasks.  Depending on which tasks.  Especially since I quit for lunch an hour early because of another extra (non-daily) task]  
• I got dressed before heading to kitchen which is one of my goals--no more wearing what I slept in all day or sleeping in what I wore all day.  
• Then I gave Mom the choice of having lunch inside half an hour or after I'd sorted her supplements and meds for the next 4 weeks which is at least an hour's task if it goes smoothly.  She chose waiting so I started the pill sort but was only half done when she said she was hungry so I stopped to fix our trays. 
• Ate lunch with mom
• Finished pill sort.  [the extra task referred to]
• Cleaned up kitchen.  
• Was back at desk by 2:45. Messaged Ed that I was back from lunch but would not be hatching the Google messenger or email so he should call me if I didn't respond inside of 5 minutes.  I keep my Blaze smartphone in my pocket ever since he gave it to me for my birthday in November.
  [There are many ways I could be using it to streamline tasks, fit more small tasks into various small slots of time throughout the day and jot quick reminders or story thoughts when unable to get to desk.  I will be making that a front burner task soon]
• Next I started work on desk area--clutter clearing and rearranging of items from the size of books and papers to the printer and crates and boxes full of files, books and crafts.  No furniture this time tho had done a bit of that on Sunday.
  [Another extra aka non-daily task]
• Vid chat with Ed began just before five and finished at 5:30.
• Next I cleaned the downstairs litter box.  [another extra non-daily]
• Followed by a quick in and out in under 15 minutes shower (no shampoo)  and another 15 to dry and dress.  [another triumph as showers had been such huge productions taking 45 to 120 minutes from hunting clothes and task misc to getting dressed before the weekend HABA project]
• Tuesday is my regular on duty day so I was back in kitchen to fix dinner by six thirty.  Fixed a tray for Mom with a leftover chicken slice with bacon bits from Monday's dinner and cooked baby carrots and  had her served by 6:50.  Then fixed turkey burgers with carrots for my nephew and me.  i ate mine without bread then served Mom and I ice cream--one scoop each.
  [Though having responsibility for dinner has become more common lately (two or three besides Tuesday that get randomly added) it is still not a daily task thus an extra]
• Next I read to mom for 30 minutes. 
• It was 8:10 when we quit and she headed to dress for bed and I started cleaning the kitchen.  
• I was finished in kitchen and changed into PJs by 8:45 and crawling into bed with Nexus 7 to play Bejeweled Blitz until the Trazadone kicked in.

Today I woke at 4:50--65 minutes before the 5:55 alarm.  I'm hoping to push wake-up back towards 4:30 but would have to be asleep by 9pm (7.5 hours minimum required for mental, emotional and physical health).  4 would be better but would have to be asleep by 8:30 and that doesn't seem like a reasonable expectation.

The reason I'm aiming for earlier is to give me more slots of time before vid chat for my spiritual path work, freewrite and another brainwork task or two.  Ed began the coaching work by suggesting that all but the bare minimum of my projects be put on back burners until we got the structure of my days built.   For the first week there was only the daily post and I was struggling to stay on top of it.

It wasn't that I couldn't work on the other projects but I was supposed to have the post done first.  I balked and took advantage of having everything on the back burner to choose on the whim of the moment which had a certain benefit in allowing me to see where my heart would take me.  I added in a lot of reading, free webinars during which I'd crochet, storyworld dreaming, fiction and misc writing.

Which is great but by not having the post up before lunch I risked not getting it up before dinner which put it off until after reading to Mom which often pushed bedtime well past 10 which shorted me on sleep IF I didn't sleep through the alarm and mis vid chat altogether.

I think I've seen the light. And it is the light at the end of the tunnel.

Face Hair Teeth

April 12 -- The self and time management project is going leaps and bounds.  7 of the last 10 days I've had my 7.5 or better sleeps.  That's a huge accomplishment.

I was telling my coach aka husband this evening (Sunday) that I'm starting to sense the presence of the new structure to my days in the same way that I sense the structure of the building I'm inside and the neighborhood surrounding me.  It feels a bit like being inside a 3D spreadsheet that resembles a jungle gym or monkey bars.

I didn't get much work on my Camp NaNo story done over the weekend, including Friday.  I had a counselor appointment Friday and Friday evening Ed gave me my assignment for the weekend.  A suggestion I could have vetoed but I knew he was right.  He thought I ought to get my HABA organized in the bathroom (face, hair, teeth and shower), the bedroom (folding clothes and accessories) and the office (hanging clothes).

Shower

Nearly every morning I was complaining about something going wrong while doing my face, hair and teeth before morning vid chat--fumbling for things on the counter, knocking things into the sink or causing a domino effect among the items on the counter.  Showers were equally frustrating with fumbling for things with soap in my eye or water beating my face or the floor outside the tub and the bench my bottles set on.

Fumbling around adds extra time to a task and along with extra messes to clean up means less time to write or read or crochet or study or work on my writer's webpage.

Then there was getting ready to go somewhere.  Nothing but one frustration after another.  It was nearly impossible to put together a whole outfit including accessories without having to spend extra time searching for something.  Several somethings. During the mood dive in March I'd been neglecting putting things away after use or after I was handed my clean clothes.

This habit had begun after I'd moved my accessories and folding clothes into the bedroom during one of the room rearrangements in late February but did not get around to establishing their new homes in there before my mood tanked.  Then by the time I was feeling better the mess was so bad I couldn't look at it without wanting to crawl into bed.

With Mom away at my brother's this weekend I was able to spread sorting stations over the bed.  This allowed me to clear the surfaces where I would be establishing homes for each type of item--socks, pjs, scarves, and so on.  I knew I didn't have time to sort and fold and organize each one of these so I chose the most important.

Looking at the large pile of hanging clothes on the bed and thinking of the crowded closet I went with that.  I managed to make room for everything and still allow them all to hang free so wrinkles wouldn't form by hanging a hanger on another hanger at the point where the hook meets the slopes.  For slacks and Ts I could do a third but for longer shirts and skirts I could only do two.

What does all of this have to do with writing?

Well I've finally learned that with the structure to my days I get to spend more time on reading and writing and by keeping organized and creating rituals for tasks that put them on autopilot I'll be opening up even more time for the projects dear to my heart--reading, writing, research, blogging, fiber arts, study, working on my writer's web site, etc.

You can see in the spreadsheet how I've already quadrupled or better my reading time investment.  This is deliberate rewarding for staying on track with the non-negotiable--sleep, meds, food, hygiene and exercise.  I bribe myself to get on the tramp or lay down ahead of the need to be asleep with music, reading, a computer game or a TV episode on my Nexus 7.

My project over the next week is to get my daily posts up before lunch so they are not crowding out afternoon activities and keeping me up past my bedtime.  Like tonight.  This is supposed to be my Saturday post but it is nearly midnight Sunday night as I wrap this up.  I'm going to get less than 6 hours of sleep before morning vid chat with Ed.  Unless of course I turn my alarm off in my sleep and miss vid altogether which really sours my whole day.

iz mai dooty 2 in4rm u u r wayk 

whey passt ur bedtyme

April 9 -- I've already put hours of work into cleaning up and updating this wash and wear post so I'm going to try to keep this minimal.  Besides I've already covered all the info in a series of posts over the last two weeks.  There is a roundup of those posts in my Round 2 Goals post along with an explanation of the self manage goals now a part of ROW80.

I still need to clean up, tighten up and update the sections below READ CRAFT.  Hoped to have it done before I posted this check-in but it is already Thursday afternoon.  Sigh.

Which means I still need a Thursday Post before I go to bed.

dat is a big bad wuntz

March 26 -- Dwell not upon thy weariness, thy strength shall be according to the measure of thy desire. - Arab Proverb

I featured that Arab Proverb on the accompanying LOLcat with the witty kitty's take in Monday's post and then in Tuesday's post discussed how, thanks to my husband's time-management coaching, I've just experienced the truth of it in an object lesson:

• Monday -- One Big, Bad Want
• Tuesday -- Getting Kitted Out

If you haven't been following my ROW80 over the last year, you might wonder what this has to do with ROW80 writing goals.

And if you've read all of the last week's posts but were new to my story, you might wonder why a 50 something woman needs to have tasks assigned to her like a tweener.

Some women might even see my submitting to my husband's guidance as an offence to a modern woman's social position.

Well I'm going to answer those questions in tomorrow's post. (I will try to remember to come back and link it right here)  Or you can check out the Lifequake section below the check-in section for context.

The short answer is: I tried it my way since I left my parent's household at age 21.  It didn't work.

Tomorrow's post will describe my way and why I now think it would never work. And why I practically begged Ed to continue helping me like he did last spring and summer.

Meanwhile there have already been several small successes since we reinstated the coaching on Friday that are adding up to something more than the sum of their parts.  More on that tomorrow.

Have you figured out what all this has to do with ROW80 writing goals yet?

The short answer is that these things: time management, self care, and habit formation need to be in place to support the writing goals.

Especially when the challenges I face include: vision impairment, ADD, mood disorder, living in a chaotic household where 85 to 90 percent of the chaos is not under my control because it is not mine to control.

I'm going to be sharing this journey throughout the next round both in check-ins and other posts.  I have high hopes that by the time Round 3 begins the habits and routines to support my passion will be in place so that productivity will begin to soar.

Why do I pose more questions than answers here with the teasers about tomorrow's post?  Because most of the answers were composed right here as I wrote this check-in which was on its way to a mile long.  Besides most of what I was sharing I wanted to also share outside the ROW80 fence and didn't want to cover the same territory twice.

It's an extra bonus that I now have the hardest part of tomorrows post done--the first draft.  Yay!  Not only not behind I'm ahead!

LOOK UP - GET UP - SUIT UP - 

LIFT UP - MOVE UP

but never give up

March 23 -- As you can see from the spreadsheet screenshot above, I've lost a lot of ground in the last couple of weeks.  I have worked on this post every check-in since the last one I successfully posted on March 9th but each time failed to get it ready before the next check-in was only a day away so I held off.  But then the spreadsheet scrreenshot had to be redone and the check-in section rewritten.  I finally just got rid of all of the commentary intended for check-ins that didn't happen and started fresh.

The gist all that I cut out was whining about the nose dive my mood took.  Deeper than in a long time.  All the way into the Marianas Trench of my psyche as I put it in one or more of the posts in the last two weeks.  It was demoralizing after the way things were looking up for the March 9th check-in.

I am not going to say much more about it here as I've already said it all in these three posts:

Get Up and Move In which I share a motivational video I found while on the prowl for aids to regain and optimize motivation, energy and optimism after having just been through another very rough patch with my mood disorder.  It also featured the LOLcat that accompanies this check-in which I made to reflect the theme of the video.  I thought the ROW80 crowd would really enjoy it.

Habits and Hypnosis  In which I share an hilarious animated GIF of a kitten being hypnotized by a shinny object on a string and relate my first experience of a successful hypnosis and it's fall out.

Report Card  In which I share an LOLcat of a stern bespectacled tabby that I made to reflect the theme of the post about the list of priorities my husband helped me make and then assess my performance over the last three months so that I could acknowledge where I stood in order to see clearly the path forward and submit to the necessary discipline.

This was how we kicked off the renewal of his coaching me (at my request) on management of time, self and projects that we  began last spring and dropped as the holiday season kicked into gear where he works last fall.

I had been keeping most things on this theme inside the check-in posts which were primarily looked at by a supportive community but I'm going to start putting it out there for the general public as well.  I hope for this to make my whole blog as honest and sincere and real as the ROW80 posts.

There will be fewer filler posts to hide behind whenever the primary thing on my mind is touching on these themes of self-management, mood-disorder, lifequake, dreams and goals.  Who knows, maybe it will end up being a story tracking the trajectory of my progress as many small triumphs accumulate into one big one as I reach one of my dream goals.



GOALS AND HABITS:

HABITS AND STRUCTURE THAT SUPPORTS WRITING:

Ed says these have to be in place and on autopilot to support everything else.  So that's my goal for Round 2--that by the end the routines are in place and the habits formed for:

• - TIME MANAGEMENT -- establish a structure to my days that supports the following five and makes room for the writing goals
• - SLEEP 
• - MEDS
• - HYGIENE 
• + NUTRITION 
• + EXERCISE 

The reason for the +/- to the left of each is due to my having copy/pasted from my post about the priority evaluation list we created during our first coaching session.

MONTH BY MONTH:


This time my husband has helped me create my goals list and establish the priorities.

My Brain on Story
see moar kittehs 

 vote  caption   share

April Camp NaNo

A structural rewrite and several edit passes for Blow Me a Candy Kiss to prep for self pub:

• An edit pass to create a printable rewrite draft for marking up with page breaks at end of scenes. The primary fixes will be formatting, changing the indented paragraph and no line spaces to the WWW friendly form with no indents and blank lines between paragraphs.  Also increasing space between lines inside paragraphs to provide room for notations.
• Print hardcopy.  [The computer and printer's need marital therapy.]
• Print hardcopy of my beta reader's marked up copy
• An edit pass on the hard copy noting any issues as listed in edit passes below but primarily for structural and expansion and breaking up overlong paragraphs
• A structural rewrite that incorporates suggestions of my one beta reader and includes expansion of scenes, addition of scenes and extensive rewriting of many paragraphs. [This, the biggest task, has begun and will be ongoing at least through the second third week]
• An edit pass for grammar and punctuation, word choice and word overuse and consistency of story facts.
• Read aloud noting any issues with how it sounds, listening for sour notes and tongue twisters and out-of-character voices in dialog, rewriting to fix
• An edit pass for spelling and typos and formatting consistency, including reformatting paragraphs to remove the extra space between lines.
• As time permits throughout, write new material for future Greg and Iris stories as encounters in Candy Kiss trigger memories or spark new ideas.  [Also begun and will continue throughout the month]

That list is an example of a step in project management.  Naming the project and breaking it down into discrete tasks (mini-projects inside the umbrella project) and whenever those tasks contain tasks that contain mini-projects you repeat until there is nothing that can be broken into smaller units of action.

May Self-Pub Project

• Convert Candy Kiss to epub
• An edit pass of epub for formatting issues created by the conversion
• Convert to mobi
• An edit pass of mobi for formatting issues created by the conversion
• Upload epub and mobi to Smashwords
• Upload mobi to Amazon to convert to Kindle
• Another edit pass of the Kindle for formatting issues

June JuNoWriMo

Will decide in mid-may which project to target

ONGOING FICTION FILES TASKS: 
[the grey highlight means back burner.  I'm free to tackle any when time permits but they don't have commitment status and the agreed upon priorities with my coach must be on track first]

• work at cleaning up the Wrimo messes
• target a second finished short story for the self publish route: How Does Your Garden Grow?
• work on cleaning up the WhizFolder for the NaNo Novel, Wailing Womb [task list similar to that for FOS Storyworld below]
• work on the FOS storyworld:
•  -- add notes from DAYDREAM STORYWORLD notebook to FOS Worksheet WhizFolder as well as the specific story's Whiz
•  -- add events to timeline
•  -- add character sketches, rambles, and metadata
•  -- move or copy metadata from each story's Whiz into the FOS Worksheet Whiz
•  -- add to FOS mind map in Xmind
•  -- clean up notes, research, reference, links, etc in each story's Whiz, adding any relevant to multiple stories to FOS Worksheet Whiz
•  -- clarify specific research needs
•  -- edit existing scenes and add new
•  -- target one of the POV character's stories to focus on  [When Home Is Where the Horror Is AKA Crystal's story]
•  -- break out Aeon Timeline and start inputting info from the text timeline
•  -- breakout Smart Draw and experiment with creating story boards and plot flow charts

OTHER WRITING TASKS

• Daily blog post -- goal is to break habit of starting work on post in late afternoon as it tends to not go up before dinner which means I have to return to it after 8pm after reading to Mom.
  
  This puts one high priority in conflict with another because I'm supposed to take my Traz and be in bed by 9.  Then I get shorted on sleep and still have Trazadone in my system until late morning which makes the morning brain work less productive.
  
  I also miss about half of the morning vid chats with Ed.  Altogether it sounds a sour note across the beginning of my day and its hard to recover.
  
  The post needs to go live before lunch!
• AWAI Copywriting course work: working the course involves reading, writing and research as well as videos, web seminars, and teleconference recordings and networking.  This has been on hiatus since my mood dive in early March.  It's time to start easing back into it.
• morning freewrite and/or journaling
• work on cleaning up my poetry Whiz and get poems composed on LOLs and in blog posts and wherever else they are scattered collected into it.  Print hard copies of any that have none.
• keep on top of the upcoming blog tour reviews
• tackle the backlog of book reviews for ARCs 
• tackle the backlog of book reviews for books owned and borrowed finished 2012-2013
• tackle the backlog of book reviews for finished ROW80 READ CRAFT books

READ CRAFT:

Currently Reading

For Round 1 2014 I removed all but five of the books the ever growing list. I intend to totally abandon the others but I'm targeting the five in this list for focus until finished.  As a book comes off I'll add another.

As Round 2 2014 begins all five of the same books are still here.  It is my goal to have all but AWAI  finished by end of round.  And AWAI should be well on its way.

What to Do When There's Too Much to Do by Laura Stack   my todo lists are way overloaded even for someone with a reasonably quakeless life.
The Fiction Writer's Handbook by Shelly Lowenkopf  Review for blog tour  Haven't finished it yet tho so it will remain in the list.  This is more like a reference book tho.  Organized by literary terms that hyperlink to every term referenced in its explanation that has its own entry.
The Complete Idiot's Guide to Writing Erotic Romance by Alison Kent.  Found on my shelves while packing books.  I won this in a drawing during the Sweating for Sven writing challenge in 2007.  It made me blush and I kept it hidden in the recesses of my bookshelves but I think I've gotten over that.
AWAI Copywriting Course materials
The Marshall Plan by Evan Marshal

Recently Read:

A Cheap and Easy Guide to Self-publishing eBooks by Tom Hua read this online
Imagine: How Creativity Works by Jonah Leher
The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg  Finished this fall of 2012 and wrote an overview of it for that check-in along with my musings on how to apply what I learned..  This is where I got the most help with learning how to recognize a habit, determine if it is desirable and if so maximize it but if not change it.
Writing in General and the Short Story in Particular by Rust Hills onetime fiction editor at Esquire.  A tiny little paperback published in the mid 70s.  I pulled this off my own shelf, having found it while packing/unpacking my books.  Don't remember how it became mine.
Write Good or Die! edited by Scott Nicholson (a collection of essays by inde authors.  many of them self-published) 
Hooked: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers at Page One and Never Lets Go by Les Edgerton  ROW80 reading list

THE LIFEQUAKE:

Ed and I April 2nd
5 minutes before leaving

The event I'm calling the lifequake hit me in late January 2013 and for the most part of most days I'm accommodating myself to the new realities shaking out from it.  The details are covered in ROW80 #69 check-in. and  this Sunday Serenity and in It's Like This and The Eyes Have It so I won't keep reiterating the story in these check-ins.

The most important fact affecting ROW80 goals is that my 5 week visit at my Mom's begun in early January has been extended indefinitely.  It has been a huge disruption in itself not counting all the disruptions of life, thought and emotion behind the whys and wherefores.

Between the last week of February and the first week of May 2013 my sister and I made several round trips to my place in Phoenix to pack up my stuff and bring it back to Longview.  It was supposed to be only for my books, crafts and summer clothes for an extended stay until medical insurance for me was back in place.  But in March our landlord decided he needed to sell the trailer and set May 15 as our move-by date.  So I made two more trips and my sister made a forth the first week in May, leaving me behind while she took a load back and returning for the forth load.

Merlin

Merlin, our cat, came back with me in May.  During our trip in early April my sister took him to the vet and the following week he had surgery to remove rotten teeth and fix his eyelids so his lashes would stop scratching his eyes.  He looks oriental now.  The pic is from several years ago when he was still healthy.  He has started to regain the weight he lost while he was sick winter of 2012-1013.

As 2014 Round 1 begins we're pushing 8 months since leaving Phoenix with the last load by February 11 it will be 9 months.  There has been no further visits.  He's living with his folks in the same tiny room we shared for ten years but we both agreed that environment would be unhealthy for me and our relationship.  So we're waiting for him to find a place before I come back for a visit bringing a van load of household miscellany and Merlin.

Before I can go home for good my meds need to be stabilized and healthcare assured.  I have to be separated from Ed in order to qualify for health care.  So much for those wascally wabbits and their so-called concern for the sanctity of marriage.

Meanwhile we make do with phone calls, text chats, emails and one or two vid chats each day.


SELF-MANAGEMENT

A significant development in self-management was the timer my sister bought me just before she left me alone with Ed the first week of May.  It has two timers, a clock and a stop-watch function.

One of her concerns about leaving me there for a whole week was the tenuous nature of my ability to stay on my med schedule, sleep schedule and food and water intake schedule without outside monitoring.  That is one of the repercussions of an unmanaged mood-disorder.

In December I transferred all my task alarms to my smartphone, a birthday present from Ed in November, and no longer use this timer except for one off tasks.

There have been enough improvements in my ability to function that I've been able to commit to making and serving lunch for me and Mom every day since August.  I have gained more ground each month.  Adding minor and major commitments to self and family.  I've just [Feb 3 2014] taken on care of one of the two litter boxes.  I've been on duty with Mom from lunch to bedtime most Tuesdays since fall and oven fix dinner at least one other time during the week.  Significantly, except for Tuesday, most evening dinner preps are sprung on me in the one to four hours before time to start which would have flummoxed me into paralysis a year ago.

One of the fallouts from the stabilized sleep schedule has been an increase in those intense, creative, colorful and story-like dreams that have often contributed to what I call the storyseeds for my fiction.  This augers well for the future work with my fiction files--both editing and new writing.  And is a sign the depression is lifting or at least being managed well.

The early-bird schedule I switched to last August specifies the pre-lunch hours for brain work--reading, writing, blogging, research, netbook maintenance, daydreaming story world and the afternoon for active/social tasks like exercise, sorting/organizing, chores, hygiene, family interaction, vid or text chats with Ed.  But so far I've nearly always gravitated back to the brainwork after lunch and once engaged in a task it is hard to break away for another.  So many things get neglected.  Which often leads to fudging on sleep... Slippery slope.

My Nature Bright Sun Touch Plus
w/ high lux light and air ionizer

The two most significant things that contributed to the healthier sleep patterns were the melatonin I began using in late summer and the the full spectrum light therapy lamp I bought during the Cyber Monday sales.  This gives me hope that I won't have to be on the meds forever.  There are still several more things I can add to my Natural Remedies bag.  Like maintaining consistency in the sleep schedule (still pulling too many 20 to 30 hour days and too many under 7.5 hour sleeps) exercise, meditation weight loss, water intake, detoxing from sugar and food additives and diet changes for starters.  Except for the sleep schedule most of these I've been dabbling at in the last six months but I need to be committed and consistent with those things I've experienced as helping. 

Meanwhile I'm trying to learn patience with myself and flexibility.  One of the new skills I'm honing is the ability to analyse what is working and what isn't and then apply a likely fix and observe what does and doesn't result.  I'm trying to keep a vision of what success looks like in my head so that I'm always aiming for it.

WORKSTATION WOES AND WOOTS

The evolution of the writing and workout room:

Workstation and
Indoor Workout Space
January 2013

Late January 2013
Tramp set on end after
2 falls and a close call

March 2013
Making room for 1st van load

Reference Books
The 1999 World Book set
and the Britannica Great Books set
bought from the library in 2005
And writing related misc.

Looks more like a nest
Primary work and play and mope
station May 11-24 2013

Cubby desk May 25 2013
replace exercise ball
with office chair

Working it Out 

June 2013
Almost good but hard
to get in and out and no room
to scoot or swivel chair

April-August 2013
Standing desk above tramp
Good for writing, reading ebooks,
text and vid chat, videos and music
All while getting a gentle workout
Or vigorous with videos and music. 

Bradley Desk Inspector
Major August 2013 Makeover
Cleared Mom's Desk
Finally room to spread
out books and paper

In late August it finally came together: a workable workstation.  The story and pics about it are in these Sunday's, Monday's and Tuesday's posts.  My productivity ratio increased from 1 in 5 days to 1 in 2 or better.  But a couple weeks after setting this up I got my Aspire and being significantly larger than the netbook it didn't work well in this setup and major tweaking commenced.

I keep meaning to add pics of the most significant tweaks to accommodate the Aspire and now there is the January 2014 whole room makeover pics to add.  But not this time.

Bradley

The family cat, Bradley has been a pill as I rearranged the two rooms.  He mountain climbs the stuff.  He picks up small things and carries them off.  Twice it was my reading glasses that I wear over my prescription glasses for close work.  He sits on top of the very thing I need to pick up.

Once he knocked my netbook off the desk.  I had an extreme moment of panic before I got it picked up and checked over.

Merlin nesting with me

Merlin had to stay locked in the laundry room for nearly three months until we were sure he was free of contagion or parasites.

My hope that once Merlin was allowed to join the family the two of them would entertain each other came true.  After a few weeks of talking to each other through the laundry room door they had a brief encounter when I brought Merlin up on his leash on our way out for his yard exploration they  touched noses and nobody hissed.  Bradley did raise one paw over Merlin's head and held it there until Merlin ducked his head and slunk away.

A couple weeks after that Merlin was paroled and they've acted buddies ever since with Bradley obsessed with grooming Merlin who had been lax with that due to his poor health.  They do occasionally fight over the spots of sun on the living room carpet.

But for over a week after Merlin got paroled I hung out on the tramp again so he could hang out with me.

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