Sunday Serenity #215

I'm having an Ugly Betty marathon this weekend to take my mind off feeling so lousy with this respiratory bug.

I'm streaming season one off Netflix. Season one is a rewatch for me but somewhere near the end of season one or the beginning of season two I missed several episodes and decided to wait for rerun season to catch them before watching more but then I missed the rerun weeks as well. So I've been waiting a long time to catch up with this story which I fell head-over-heals with the year it premiered.

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Handpainted Silk Thread

For months I've been looking for a thread or yarn for a very special project that needs to be done by the end of April. I wanted it to be lace weight yarn or size 10 crochet thread. I hoped for it to contain no wool or synthetics. It could be a blend and needed to be soft or silky.

I finally found it Friday. A 100% hand painted silk lace weight yarn. It is so close in size and feel to the size 10 bamboo that I believe they would be compatible in a single project.

I found it at The Websters in Ashland. It was spendy at nearly $50 for 1100 yards but I believe it will be worth it.

I made the bookmark shown in the picture with a stitch that reflects the open lattice look I am aiming for for the shawl I intend to make though I think I'll be using a stitch and pattern with more going on than than these chains attached with single crochet stitches. I have another three weeks or so to settle on the stitch and pattern. In fact I won't allow myself to start the project before the row work is done on the baby afghan and that will be at least another 10-14 days.

I am really hoping that I'll have enough left over at the end to make a dozen or so bookmarks out of this. It has such a lovely feel.

Well. Back to work on the bamboo baby afghan now. I've fallen behind another two days because of the trip to Ashland yesterday followed by hours of playing with the new thread and with the set of crochet stitch cards. Though I can put some of the blame on this nasty bug I'm still fighting after two weeks.

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Friday Forays in Fiction: Quote

There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story. You can never quite tell where they will take you.

Mine took me here.

--Beatrix Potter in the first line of the movie Miss Potter

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Bamboo Baby Afghan at 5 Weeks

This weeks stats: It now measures 24x36 inches tho it is folded in half in the pic so you're seeing only 24x18. I'm aiming for 30x36. So six inches to go. I just finished row 122. So 33 to go. I'm about to start the 13th iteration of the ten row pattern. So three more to go plus the three finishing rows. Since I was about to begin row 109 at this time last week I did only 14 rows which is an average of 2 rows per day. The quota I'd set myself was 4.5 but I backed off a bit this week due partly to this respiratory bug and partly to just needing to add back into my life some of the other things I need or want to do.

After learning my niece hopes to bring the baby down our way in late February I lessened the pressure on myself to have this ready for the mail by mid February which would have meant finishing the row work by February 7th in order to have time to put on the fringe.

It was a challenge to get a picture of it this week and the one I did get didn't turn out so well. The flash reflected in the oven door and didn't reach to both sides so there is significant distortion in the brightness and color which I spent more time than I wanted to trying to fix in my photo ap.

I wasn't able to hang it off the oven door handle this week as it was three inches too wide. So I hung it on my white cane and Ed stood off to the side holding it while I took the pictures.

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Library Loot: February 2 – 8

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!

Claire has Mr Linky this week

Take One Candle, Light a Room by Susan Straight.

This is a new author for me. It was also one of those surprise finds while browsing the shelves. I don't get to go to the library as regularly as I used to so most of my library loot of late are items I've ordered via their online catalog and are then picked up by my husband.

I was drawn to this by the cover art but the clincher was the author's way with words. As in this early paragraph on the first page:

Their faces are stark and somber, varying shades of amber and gray in the cold winter light. Claudine, with hooded eyes, a plumpness around her jaw from the baby, her arms crossed over breasts swollen like bags of rice under her shirt. Felonise, hair in a pompadour over her thin face, her coat collar too big around her flowerstem neck. Mary, black eyes fierce and slanted, the dark scar still visible on her face where his ring gouged out a kernel of skin on her left cheekbone. Zizi, whose light gray eyes are clear as water, her thick black braid askew on her head. And my mother, Marie-Claire, her face pale and round as a tortilla, her dark brows like tadpoles swimming toward each other, the only one who tried to smile for the camera.

The narrator/protagonist is describing five sixteen year old girls in a decades old faded photo. With language wielded like that I could even forgive a weak story but the evidence that the story will be anything but weak is in this paragraph as well. For we learn that one of these young women has just given birth, another has been assaulted by a man and only one of the five even attempts a smile.

I was drawn in and read the whole first chapter in spite of having a novel going already and several commitments that prevented me from re-engaging in the story once I got it home. And in the following week I had a couple dozen library books and DVD coming due that took precedence. It's turn is coming soon I hope.

Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and her Family's Feuds by Lyndall Gordon

Emily Dickinson has been one of my favorite poets since I was in high school. Favorite is not a strong enough word. I was in awe of her poems. Those tiny little things so loaded with meaning and often multiple meanings.

I knew little of her life though except that she never married and had remained in the family home as somewhat of a recluse and that her poems were not published in her lifetime.

I was under the impression that not much more than that was known or even knowable. I was unable to find anything resembling a biography at the time and entries in encyclopedias were scant of information.

This quite thick book tells the story of a family embroiled in illicit love, financial troubles, betrayal and a feud with another family that continued for over a century.


Barry Lyndon by William Thackeray

I sent for this one a few weeks ago after seeing the movie adapted from it on Netflix.

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One Step at a Time

Have been reading David Allen's Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. I'm beginning to envision a future not too far off in which completing one of my novels will be as doable as completing an afghan such as the one I'm currently working on.

Since I continue to work apace (nearly) on the baby afghan, I continue to see the daily progress and the end product gets clearer and clearer as the stitches accumulate.

I was already thinking how nice it would be if I could make similar progress to that of the afghan on my stories, blog improvement, other needle/hook work, research and the myriad other projects I got going or want to get going on even before I picked up this book. Now, after reading less than fifty pages I'm beginning to see what I was doing right (so far) with the afghan project and how those behaviors can be translated to other projects.

Some of those 'doing it right' behaviors:

• I had a clear idea of what the finished product was and what each interim step consisted of.
• I had a deadline and knew how to spread the daily quotas of work somewhat evenly across the days available.
• I had the supplies I needed.
• I had a work-station conducive to the work.

Allen says that most of our stress is caused by trying to keep too much information in our memory and like a computer with overloaded RAM we will start malfunctioning.

His solution is to collect all of our To Dos--100%--in easily input and retrievable and regularly reviewed filing systems whether notebooks, PIMs, electronic or paper. And in those systems the outcome of each task/project should be made clear and each action/step toward that outcome defined as well as each dependency--tasks whose completion must precede the start of other tasks.

So far all I'm doing is picturing in my mind what such a list will begin to look like and it is quite daunting. But I realize after four weeks of steady progress on the afghan that what is missing in order to see similar progress on other projects, including the novels, is a clearly defined list of 'next actions' so that whether I find an unanticipated free time block or set designated ones, I will have a specific doable task to apply my attention to and be able to not fret over all of the yet-to-do tasks for I can be confident that each of them will have their appropriate turn.

Just as I don't need to fret about iteration 14 of the ten row pattern in the afghan while I'm working row 5 of iteration 11.

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It's Monday, What Are You Reading? #23

The baby afghan is still taking most of my time and attention and so that I can work on it four to six hours per day, I've been getting most of my story fixes from videos this whole month but in spite of that and the bug I've been fighting for over a week now I have managed to spend some significant time with books this past week.

Though they were all either on their way back to the library or just coming home from the library.


In the first category:

The Case for God by Karen Armstrong

It's hardly surprising when I don't finish a nearly 800 page NF book even when the subject matter is one of highest fascination for me and the author one I gravitate to and trust the most on the subject. I'll be sending for this one again soon. Would like to own it.

It is no longer surprising but still very annoying and frustrating when a novel I've already started or am about to start or discover I really want to start, won't renew. I tend to torture myself in the last day or two it is in my possession by thumbing through and snatching a paragraph or two or three form random pages. That happened three times this past week:

The Wishing Trees by John Shors

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

I sent for this after watching the DVD over a month ago and actually read the first chapter the day it came home. It is a re-read for me of course and so was too easy to set aside. But that didn't make it any easier to let go of it when it came due this week. I really need to own my own copy again.

The Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight by Gina Ochsner

And this is the second time I've had this out for more than a month! Not only am I fascinated by anything Russian since my love of Russian literature began in high school but the author is Oregonian.

Two of the books in the second category, coming home with me for the first time, are the NF:

Blogging for Dummies by Susannah Gardner and Shiane Birley

Getting Things Done by David Allen

Both are books with lots of useful information and tips and tricks immediately applicable. With the help of these two books I've continued to fiddle with my blog template and other technical blogging issues since Bloggiesta ended over a week ago and I've begun to tackle other neglected projects with the help of Allen's advice on organizing and planning.

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Sunday Serenity #214

I'm been watching movies this week end. Yesterday it was this documentary Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus which is a tour through the American south with singer song-writer Jim White and writer Harry Crews as guides. Both of whom had lived there as children. The video featured much haunting scenery and music and interviews of the locals that amounted to storytelling at its most basic.

I enjoyed the comments Harry Crews had on the meaning of story to us and how the natural story-telling of those around him as he grew up has influenced his own written stories.







Sense and Sensibility was a re-watch for me. Can't get enough of it. Cannot believe never realized that Emma Thompson who played Elinor had also written the script adapted from Jane Austen's novel.

This was her Golden Globe award for best screenplay acceptance speech in which she in the words and persona of Jane Austen herself. Funny.

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2011 Where Are You Reading Challenge

I'm joining my first 2011 reading challenge. I waited so long because I was trying to make myself get the 2010 reading challenge wrap-up post done first. But I'm going to miss out on this one if I don't jump in by the 31st.

The challenge is to read one book set in or about each of the 50 American states and for bonus points as many locals outside the states as you can. This challenge is hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. There are prizes involved.

You don't have to have a blog to participate but you do need to create a Google Map to display the locals.

My 2011 Where Are You Reading Challenge map.

I haven't recorded any reads on it yet. I just created it so I could link to it in this post

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Friday Forays in Fiction: Quote

"When you can state the theme of a story, when you can separate it from the story itself, then you can be sure the story is not a very good one. The meaning of a story has to be embodied in it, has to be made concrete in it. A story is a way to say something that can't be said any other way, and it takes every word in the story to say what the meaning is. You tell a story because a statement would be inadequate. When anybody asks what a story is about, the only proper thing is to tell him to read the story. The meaning of fiction is not abstract meaning but experienced meaning, and the purpose of making statements about the meaning of a story is only to help you to experience the meaning more fully." Flannery O'Connor

I'm going to bring back my weekly Friday Forays in Fiction in hopes that it will stimulate and/or encourage me to return to practicing my craft. It was probably a mistake to drop it when I got lax about writing fiction for it is likely the hiatus would not have been so long nor so hard to return from if I'd had to either muse upon the theme of story craft or present snippets of my stories once a week.

This fiction themed post would sometime present snippets form my own fiction rough drafts. But usually it was discussion about my WIP, musings on craft, work habits, creativity or reviews of books about the craft or biographies or memoirs of authors. Now I'm going to add quotes relevant to the topic to the mix so that I'll always have something quick and easy to post when I got nothing else or no time.

I've discovered in the past that just the simple act of bringing my thought back to the topic will stimulate the creativity and the motivation to return to task.

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Bamboo Baby Afghan at 4 Weeks

My past method of spreading it out on a fleece blanket on the bed for its weekly picture wouldn't work this week. I can't get far enough away to get the whole thing in the shot. And by whole thing I mean folded in half which it is here too as it is hung over the handle on the oven door. Even this won't work next week. At least not without bunching it up as it is already the same width as the oven door.

It is now 36 by 21 inches tho what you see there is 18 by 21. I'll be adding approximately 22 more inches or 4.5 more iterations of the 10 row pattern plus the 3 finishing off rows. I'm just starting row 109. My daily quota is supposed to be 4 rows but today I did 6 which helps make up for a few days I did less than 4.

Here's a close up showing the stitch in more detail:


I just learned on Monday that my niece hopes to bring the baby down this way to see his great-grandparents and the rest of the extended family in the area sometime in late February. It is a tentative plan depending on work schedules and weather effects on the roads between Montana and Southern Oregon. But that gives me a date to shoot for and I can put it in the mail if they can't make the trip.

I expect I have 8 to 10 days of work to finish the rows. Then I start on the fringe and I have no idea how to estimate the time for that but I imagine I need to plan on a full week. I have decided to fringe only the two ends where the thread tails are and hid the tails inside the fringe. I won't be fringing the long edges after all so that eliminates over half that project.

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Library Loot: January 26 to February 2

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!

Marg has Mr Linky this week


I've currently got 32 items checked out on my card and another 15 on my husband's card. I'm going to show screenshots of our account pages instead of typing it all out or spending time selecting which get mentioned.





My most recent trip to the library was Monday from which I lugged home another large bag. This after having just suffered the drawn out agonies of sending a couple dozen back over the last two weeks which I'd barely glanced at since a few days after their arrival in late fall.

From the moment NaNo started November 1st to New Years I was over committed without the huge bundles of books I kept sending for.

Yet I kept sending for them.

For several weeks now the final due dates of books renewed twice for a total of 63 days or nine weeks have been implacably arriving and I've been frantically perusing the pages of the batch due next. This might give me three days with twelve books or seven days with three books.

I did manage to advance my bookmarks in several of the NF books so I don't feel their stay with me was completely unproductive. I'd just hoped to get farther in more and possibly actually finish more. I make a habit of creeping my bookmarks through the NF but I truly hate when I've miscalculated and start a novel only to discover I haven't the time to finish. This has happened a dozen times or so in the last six months. I usually have to begin the novels again once I get them back.

I was stressed to the snapping point over the last two weeks as those due dates approached and passed and I tried to get as much as I could out of the batch going back next while maintain a good pace on the baby afghan and continuing to post daily and ... and ...

And yet I brought home another large batch Monday. There was another one on the 10th.

Here are some of the mostly first timers that have come home in the last month which I'm the most excited by:


I'm in dire need of advice that works regarding stress, time-management, productivity, organization as my sister well knew when she practically jump out at me via facebook and shook me by the shoulders to tell me I had to read this. I immediately checked the library and got in queue.


I am endlessly fascinated by the competing theories regarding the true authorship of Shakespeare's plays. Have had this out before but didn't get much further than scanning the chapter titles and dipping into a paragraph or page here and there. My typical pre-read for a NF.

Update: I was informed by a reader that the controversies discussed in this book have nothing to do with the authorship controversies. I guess my radar for the authorship controversy caused me to make a hugely unwarranted assumption based on the word 'controversy'. I blush.

Ah well. This doesn't lessen my interest in the book as its still about Shakespeare and his work.

I should clarify that my interest in the authorship theories is just that, interest. I'm not qualified myself to judge the validity of the arguments but I find it quite fascinating that they exist at all.


This was one of the surprises I found on the large print shelves Monday. I saw on the cover the author was born in Jakarta to Chinese parents and then studied at Stanford. I love stories influenced by multiple cultures. Then spotting the word 'fable' on the inside flap sealed the deal for me.


Actually I sent for this one several weeks ago after watching the movie on DVD. It will be a re-read for me if I get to it. This is one of the few books I've already read more than twice. Once in Junior High again in high school and yet again shortly after I was married.

And of course when this one came up during my search for Gone With the Wind I had to have it too. A re-examination of the Gone With the Wind story both book and film in light of the modern consensus of the role of women.





Saw this on Sheila's Book Journey and was intrigued. A story in which story itself figures. My favorite kind of story.


A re-telling of Bram Stoker's Dracula from the point of view of the woman who was pursued by the monster instead of the several men self-appointed as her protectors. Is it possible she resented their protection?

And then there is this which I sooooo wish I'd had last weekend for Bloggiesta:

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String Theory

Today I hyperfocused on the baby afghan again. Worked six 36 inch rows in pretty much one sitting while watching two movies and three Heroes season 4 episodes. The two movies were Spiderman 2 and Air Bud Golden Receiver. I was hoping to make up for some of the the quota that didn't get done during Bloggiesta this past weekend and the library visit yesterday. I was behind by ten rows. Since the first four rows I did today count for today's quota only, I've made up only two rows.

I think I better lighten up tomorrow though and probably should stop altogether tonight. When I was dishing up my dinner tonight I almost dropped the serving bowl and I was nearly holding my breath all through doing dishes for fear of dropping something breakable. For my thumb and index finger and wrist on my right hand were not dependable and an electric sizzle shot up the inside of my left arm from pinky to armpit every time I raised it above the level of my lowest rib. The uncooperativeness of my right hand was not a surprise but that sizzle in my left arm was quite disconcerting. Apparently holding the growing afghan steady at the right distance is as demanding on the physical structure of the arm as is plying the hook itself.

The afghan is now bulky enough to be be in my way as I work on it which is a problem with no obvious solution. The thread is constantly getting trapped under it or in the folds. I now have 95 36 inch rows. I'm aiming for 155. It is now 36 X 18 inches.

Watch for a picture on Thursday for the end of week 4 progress report.

BTW I learned yesterday that my niece may be bringing the baby this way in late February. So I am highly motivated to have the afghan finished by then. If I can maintain the pace getting the rows done should be no problem. I'm concerned abou the fringe though. There are to be 150 or so per side and I have no idea how long that will take. I was planning to fringe all four sides but am now considering doing only the two sides where the rows begin and end which is where the start and finish thread tails are. I'll decide after I've got most of one side done which will give a better idea of the time involved.

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It's Monday, What Are You Reading? #22

Join the meme at Book Journey.

We went to the library this afternoon where I had a number of requested items waiting for me and then added to them by raiding the large print books shelves for a stack of novels almost taller than my arm is long. What they mean by armful I guess.

But I can't talk about those tonight. I shouldn't even unpack the bag and spend time fawning over them as I have to prioritize three books not in that bag. Two of which I own and one a library book that was due today and is out on Ed's card but which has a queue that could take four months to come back around to me.

The library book is NF and the other two are novels but one is already a multiple reread for me but is part of a project that is in essence past due and the other is a review copy which I've had for two months and keep restarting and then setting it aside for nearly due or overdue library books, the crochet shawl before Xmas and the crochet baby afghan since the day after.

Between last week and today I had to release a couple dozen or so books back to the library most of which I'd barely glanced at between a day or two after their arrival and a week or so before they were due. I guess the sight of room on the shelves must have been raising my anxiety levels though because I came home today with nearly as many items as have gone back in the last two weeks. Not all books. Two movies, Season 2 of House MD, three audio books are in the bag along with maybe ten novels and at least two NF.

One of the NF is on the theme of stress. Is that a bit of irony or what?

Urm irony because much of my stress is due to library due dates and lack of space and time. I know this and yet I keep collecting the books and thread and projects until I am comfortably hyperventilating over deadlines, due dates and crowded shelves, drawers, bed and mind.

The other NF in that bag I so wish I'd had this weekend for Bloggiesta. Blogging for Dummies. Can't give you the author as I'm not allowing myself to unpack that bag tonight. For because of Bloggiesta and because I tried to stay on pace with the baby afghan as well, I've had less than four hours of sleep in the last 48.

So in spite of the urgency attached to these three books I'll have to sleep before I can tackle them:

The River Why, which I'm re-reading as I work on my Book Drum profile for it which I was determined to have ready to publish by the end of the month. Was. Tho, ready or not, I think the time has come to release it from my clutches and let it go public where others can add to it. I can continue to work on it after that but won't have total control anymore.







City of Tranquil Light is a review copy for which I still owe a review more than two months after receiving it. Talk about stressing.





Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America. The library book due today which I was planning to spend tonight finishing up with so Ed could return it in the morning and still avoid a fine. It is on his card. But Ed has told me to keep it until Thursday as he'd rather see me sleep tonight.

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Sunday Serenity #213

I have accomplished my highest priority Bloggiesta goal!!!!!

I changed templates. And I did it myself.

Of course I had my techie husband sitting across the table from me to answer questions and make suggestions but I made every final decision and every mouse-click and keyboard tap myself.

I made the graphic for the header myself too. But I must give proper credit for the photo which I adapted to my sister-friend Jamie who made the shot out the car window when she came along when my sister delivered me back to Ed at Rice Hill OR last winter. Probably in late January.

I have loved this photo so much that I've had it as my desktop since July.

Light coming out of the dark can stand as a theme for my life so this may end up being a long term look and not the temp graphic I set out to make this weekend to stand in until I could create one that had images representing all my passions: reading, writing, needlework/crochet, cats....

I've been contemplating such an all encompassing image since last summer during the last Bloggiesta. But I couldn't come up with a concept that didn't overwhelm me with clutter and I have enough of that to deal with in the room I spend 90% of my time in.

At the moment, I'm pretty happy with the way this looks. Any thoughts?

Of course, all my new sidebars and footer columns still need a lot of work. I have fiddled with them some but I've still got a lot of reorganizing to do. Especially where the images are too big for the new sidebar widths. Also many links I know are defunct and I'm sure there are more I'm unaware of. And there are many many more I want to add. I've been putting off working on my side bar because I knew this template switch was in the works.

I'm probably going to be changing fonts and colors too but that will have to wait until my eyes have had a rest. And my brain. I've been awake nearly 20 hours now and have been working on this non-stop for eight.

Oh yes. A great big thanks to Ourblogtemplates.com for the free template. I chose The Professional Template

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Goals, Dreams, Aspirations

Am continuing to work on blog improvement stuff for Bloggiesta. Today, for the mini-challenge of My Friend Amy, I'm giving thinking more priority than doing.

January is the time for reflection and re-evaluation and re-vision isn't it? I know that one of my issues is to set big goals, complex projects and get overwhelmed. I know about breaking such big projects down into smaller tasks and am even pretty good at doing that. At least as far as making the todo lists.

Sticking to it is another thing altogether.

I also tend to be a serial obsessionist, being totally wrapped up in one thing to the exclusion of all else. My blog tends to reflect that. Currently crochet and video watching has all but pushed out reading and writing. But that is probably going to run its course and I'll be on to something else in time.

Now all the advice regarding blogs needing to be singular in topic and finding a niche and so on had me feeling inadequate and like maybe I should settle on one topic and court an audience accordingly. But the thought of that pretty much sticks a pin in the balloon of my bliss and lets all the joy leak out.

I was going to say 'no pun intended' but on second thought loosing the joy is tantamount to loosing the Joy--aka my self.

And the advice from My Friend Amy was to think about making your blog into the blog you would love to read. I love eclectic blogs and blogs where the blogger at least occasionally puts some of their personal life in so I get a feel for the who behind the opinions. So obviously the niche advice doesn't have to be for everyone.

And there is an organizing theme to it all anyway: Story. I don't say story is my joy for nothing. It is all about story whether the current obsession is books, movies, news, poetry, music, writing, reading, research, jokes, puns, riddles, puzzles, trivia, creativity, dreams, religion or Joy's story. Even the crocheting and needlework is strongly associated with story for me as I've always worked on it as I contemplate one of my own writings and often while listening to music or audio books or watching TV/video. Or gossip at family/friend gatherings.

So I'm thinking, if I'm going to keep posting on whatever aspect of story that has taken my fancy currently the thing I need to do to draw and keep readers is to make navigation easier so they can find which ever topic they are most interested in and ignore the rest. Which is why the main goal I set for this weekend is to change my template to a 3 column. A huge task for me. And scary. But many of the other tasks on my long list are dependent on that one. Some I could do before but they would just have to be tweaked if not redone after the switch.

Maybe managing reader expectations by establishing a routine of sorts so that certain regular themes have assigned days whether or not there is a meme involved. Like Mondays are for sharing my reading plans and accomplishments and musings in Book Journey's 'It's Monday What are You Reading?' and Friday's are for sharing my fiction snippets or musing on the craft of fiction writing in my Friday Forays in Fiction which I let slide for most of a year now. And Sunday's for sharing the variety of ways in which I find bliss, serenity, joy, and contentment in my Sunday Serenity. And so forth.

A third goal to reach for would be to break the lurker habit again. I'd made great strides on that once but have slipped back into it again in the last year.

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It's Bloggiesta Time!

PEDRO
Plan. Edit. Develop. Review. Organize

That's what this party is all about. Blog improvement. Three days in which to devote time and attention in the company of like-hearted people who bring to the party buffet their knowledge, expertise, experience, enthusiasm and encouragement.
That's a lot gathered into one virtual place for 72 hours. But it ain't all. There is also FUN. Games (mini-challenges) and Prizes.

Join the fiesta at MAW Books.

Below this paragraph right here is where I'll be posting updates on what I'm accomplishing throughout the weekend.

Umm been doing a lot of lurking. Need to break that habit.

Did My Friend Amy's mini-challenge on goal setting. Made that my Saturday post.

Have accomplished my main goal of changing templates as of 4pm PST Sunday. See my Sunday Serenity post for more detail.

Involved in that project and a project in its own right was a good amount of fussing and fiddling with sidebar and footer widgets--organizing and cleaning up defunct stuff etc.

Also involved and a major project in itself was creating the graphic for the header myself.

Since Friday morning I've clocked nearly 20 hours of Bloggiesta doings.

I think maybe it counts for Bloggiesta that I just finally uploaded a picture for my Twitter profile. The same one I'm using here now and the same one I am using at facebook since a couple weeks ago. I think it was during the last Bloggiesta that I learned that having a common look across the platforms is helpful.

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I'm so late getting my kick-off post up because I'm still sleeping days even tho Ed has been off swing shift since Xmas eve. Since I'm a natural night owl the sleep schedule I settled into while he was on swing was more like staying up a bit later than usual than a complete change for me as it was for him. But instead of returning to my normal bedtime of 4 to 5 am and sleeping til noonish I've tended to stay up even later than the 9ish I had been, pushing my lay down time closer and closer to noon and then waking for dinner.

Thus work on my daily post usually begins after dinner but today I had intended to put up this post before I lay down. But while preparing the post I got side-tracked into doing some of the PEDRO stuff instead of just writing about it. Next thing I knew it was past noon and then waaaaaaay past noon.

I didn't lay down until after 3pm and then Ed woke me for the dinner he was preparing me at 8:30pm. Salmon on a bed of citrus, mango and hickima. Mmmmm.

This is my second Bloggiesta and I was so ambitious last time the list of improvements I made was long enough to need four Bloggiesta's to complete. So I'll continue to plug away at it and add to it. But I have two primary goals for this weekend: First to take advantage of the collective knowledge and experience to learn, learn, learn. Especially to learn what it is I don't yet know I need to learn. And second, to change my template to a three column.

That last was one of the biggies on my list last June and I almost got to it. I'd found the template and downloaded it but I needed a photo or graphic for the masthead.

That's what I was fiddling with this morning. I hunted down the template file and the website where I got it and where the instructions for implementing it are and I played with graphics until I'd made one that I think I can live with for a few months or even years. Years is more likely since I am so averse to change.

Many if not most of the tasks on the very long list I made during the June Bloggiesta have been on hold until I got this template changed over since so many of them involved sidebar and other template or blog organization work that would just have to be redone after the template switch or promotion which I thought should wait until my blog had had its makeover.

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Bamboo Baby Afghan at 3 Weeks

Bamboo Baby Afgan @ week 3
77 of 155 rows complete

Am officially at the half way mark now. What you see in the pic is folded in half the long way so what is visible is one quarter of the finished afghan which is now approximately fifteen inches wide. The full length is 36 inches.

But those last four rows took the equivalent stitching of ten to twelve rows to get enough keepers. In spite of having inspected every row before starting a new row, I still found mistakes in the row below the one I was working that required taking out both rows or portions thereof. So many times I lost count. But a minimum of twice on each row and four or five times on the middle white and yellow--rows 75 and 76.

After reaching row 33 at the end of one week I anticipated being on row 99 by today.

Ha. Ha.

I've been dreaming about crocheting. Am beginning to think I could crochet with my eyes closed or even while asleep.

But in my dreams the colors are bright or dark. Especially blues, purples and red. Also black and white. But no pastels.

I think the problem in the last couple days has been my eyes rebelling against the yellow on white and white on yellow because even tho I had to take out portions of the lilac row several times the mistakes were always in the white row beneath it and that white row was above a pale yellow row which was above a white row..

Ed suggests I set it aside for a couple days. Maybe work with some of those bright colors I've been dreaming about and some of the different stitches. Maybe even learn a new stitch. Can't say I'm not tempted.

But I have visions of not finishing it before my grandnephew has graduated from his crib.

Or high school.

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Having One of Those Days

Ever had one of those days you'd like to put back in the box marked return to sender?

I pinched my left pinky finger on the tender inside skin right where my engagement ring rubs. Pinched it between my netbook and something on the tray it sets on or possibly between lid and keyboard as I tried to stop it from falling.

Later I yanked my netbook off my desk by the headphone cord as I tried to rush in the other room when I heard alarming sound from the room where Ed was watching TV. First he was coughing which morphed into choking or gagging then a few loud thumps or stomps then dead silence.

He was fine. Turned out he'd started coughing as he was standing up from the recliner and lost his balance and fell back into it.

Had to take out row's 77 and 76 on the baby afghan after finding an error in the early part of row 76 as I neared the end of row 77. Most frustrating about this is that it wasn't the first time I've had to take out parts or all of rows 76 and/or 77. In fact I've had to do it more than once to every row since row 74. Since Monday afternoon at the end of that triumphant twelve hour push that netted me ten good rows, I've done the work of ten more rows but have only 2.5 to show for it.

Tomorrow noon is the three week mark. After the 33 row first week I'd hoped to be on row 99 by then. Not going to happen. Obviously.

Then this evening I spent a couple hours preparing the fifteen library books that were due on Tuesday for their trip to the library in the morning. This involved a lot of regret and sadness and self-recrimination over all the reading I didn't get done in the nine weeks I'd had them. There are several more due tomorrow and I'll be sending some of them back but hanging onto some of them until Monday morning in the faint hope I'll still do something with them in spite of the fact I haven't since the day they arrived nine weeks ago..

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A Star is Born

Judy Garland sings Born in a Trunk
(part 1 -- part 2 below)

I have been busy filling in two of the gaping lacuna in my cultural awareness. I watched both the 1954 (Judy Garland & James Mason) and the 1976 (Barbara Striesand & Kris Kristopherson) remakes of A Star is Born for the first time.

I'm star struck.

No that is too glib and too cliche.

I'm thunderstruck.

Again with the cliche.

I'm gaga.

I give in. Sometimes words just can't be worthy.




I'd never seen Judy Garland in anything besides Wizard of Oz so this was a huge treat getting to hear how her voice and acting had matured into adulthood.

The film was just gorgeous all the way through. Not just the set of this musical number.

Barbara Streisand sings Watch Closely Now in the final scene of A Star is Born 1976

The scripts of the two movies were very different with only a handful of lines in common. The basic plot was quite similar but with definite differences due to changes in the culture in the intervening decades. In the first it was the 1950s Hollywood scene and in the second it was the 1970s rock and roll scene.

In both an aging star loosing his grip on his career discovers a new talent and paves her way to stardom. They fall in love. Against his better judgment he marries her and there is hope for a time that her love for him can anchor him and his for her redeem him. But he succumbs to jealousy as her star rises while his crashes and burns. Disgraceful behavior on his part nearly destroys her career and he realizes she is willing to sacrifice her stardom to continue what he sees as her hopeless attempts to save him from himself so he commits suicide.

Oh yes a hanky honker.

A bit of a spoiler that if you've never seen or heard of either one of these movies but not so much unless plot is the be all and end all of story for you because there is so much more to the story. To both stories.

Here Barbara performs one of my fav songs from the movie Woman in the Moon in 2006 just days after the elections that sent a record number of women to Congress--well over 70 between the two houses. We had zero the year A Star is Born was in theaters. The year I graduated high school.

The line in this song, 'I was raised in a no-you-don't' world.' gave me goosebumps.


I watched both of these now because I'd had them in my Netflix instant queue for months and was alerted earlier this week that they would stop streaming on the 19th. I had not been aware of the 1937 original film staring Janet Gaynor and Fredric March before it came up in my Netflix searches. It wasn't streaming so I put in my DVD queue. But while I was looking for clips of the 1954 and 1976 remakes to embed in this post I found that someone had posted the entire film of the original 1937 on YouTube. And it is embedable! At least for now.

So I'll probably be watching it tonight.



I understand it is not a musical like the other two and that the rumors are that the story is based on the real life story of Barbara Stanwyck and Frank Fay. I remember Stanwyck as an aging female bit part player or character actress in the sixties but I'd never heard of Frank Fay.

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