A Morning in Pictures

I've been doing little of personal writing in the last months. I have a million drafts, but can't get them focused and finished. So, I decided to tell you about this quiet morning in my house with some immediate photos. All of these were taken in the last hour. These are the things on my mind, but now it's time to get going.

It rained this morning. Taking this photo was an exercise in selective focus, which is
something I wrestle with. Should I notice the beauty of the raindrops or the clutter
on the porch outside? Or the muddy pawprints that remind me I need to wash windows?

I have to finish planting today. This is some kale that is none too thrilled to still be in a peat pot, but look how beautifully that drooping leaf captured the drops of water. 

The sun has already returned, which means my day needs to get started.  I love mornings, but I want them to last all day. I want to "dwell in possibility."

Another kale is waiting more patiently.  I am glad that I can see and capture the beauty in these delicate purple-green curls. 

This is a box of junk I need to dispose of quickly. Some of it is fabric and some of those pieces will become simple skirts and scarves, some will go away.  The bubble wrap reminds me that I need to get two packages mailed today. And a letter. 

I'm working on staining and finishing a spinning wheel. It needs to get done soon as well.  I have been itching to spin. And I need to be able to walk around in my studio again. 

The window of my studio. I love these colors but am wondering if I'll ever use this yarn. It might be time to let it go.  I just profiled a designer for my website and she spoke of the simplicity and austerity of her surroundings. Mine are not so. Sometimes I like the clutter for its color and story-telling. Sometimes I want everything gone. 

I have been sewing on those fabrics. 3 scarves and a skirt so far. Today though, the machines are put away so I can do other things. I'll sew again next week. 

read more

Book Review: Code Name Verity

YA Fiction
You might like this book if you like stories about WWII, stories about the intelligence and resistance efforts during that war, or stories about friendship, courage, and loyalty.
I listened to the audiobook read by Morven Christie and Lucy Gaskell

Some of my friends found this book so painfully sad that they decided not to finish reading it. Some read it but found it so sad that they cried and cried. Some of my friends just didn't like it. I'm always a bit worried when I don't align completely with anyone in my group of trusted reading friends. Did I miss something? Am I unfeeling or too cynical? Am I too easily pleased and too willing to let a book simply transport me to an alternate reality? Or maybe I'm going too deep because I want books to matter in my life, to help me learn and change and grow and even better live what I believe. My response to this book makes me think these thoughts (Just how weird am I?) Not that it really matters, but I'm still basically insecure about every thought in my head, so it matters a little. To me.

Because I just liked it. I liked the detail. I liked the story. I liked the way the construct of intelligence work and wartime intrigue made the plot into a puzzle. I liked the richly-drawn historical background. I thought it was beautifully written (and the audiobook beautifully read). It was a great story, skillfully conceived and meticulously researched, about a very difficult time in history.

About the sadness. Well, I knew it was about World War II. I am endlessly fascinated by WWII but it would never, ever occur to me to expect a just or even a satisfying story from that horrific monstrosity of the twentieth century. Such would not fit into the zeitgeist. It's just not possible. Evil was afoot. So, I'll agree with my friends that this book does not have a happy, neat ending. But I don't think it was a purely sad ending, either. The events lead to a final feeling of love and the possibility of healing and hope. I thought it was realistic and I have great admiration for the two main characters, each of whom did a thing that I will always secretly wonder if I would have the guts to do. I think the results balance out the horror within the context of this story. I can't even try to judge the events of the story against my experience, so I have to take them as they are within the framework of the created reality, and there, everything fits together, difficult as it is.

In fact, I read it as a tight and clever microcosm of the brutal facts of WWII, and a useful way to perhaps better understand what the mind and heart would rather not deal with. Unthinkable things happened during the war. Sometimes those situations brought out the absolute best in people and there was heroism and unselfishness so supernal as to touch the divine. Sometimes those situations brought about such depravity that the gates of hell opened directly onto the surface of the earth.

So it has always been. So it shall always be. Our job, as indicated by this story, is to crack the code, do the hard things, cling to whatever love and beauty we find and then just keep going.

That has application in my real life, and so I'll remember Kittyhawk and Verity for a long time and think about their loyalty and courage.

read more

Sunday at Stitches

It's Sunday and I could have slept in, but instead I woke at 5 am with a heachache. I was not ever able to nap and in 30 minutes I start teaching for the afternoon. Headache is still going strong. Later I will be driving 10 hours to get home to Eric and Evan. On 5 hours of sleep. Woot!

It's going to be fine though, because teaching always makes me feel good. I will have loving goodbyes from friends, and plenty of music and audiobooks to keep me focused and awake while I drive.

Mostly, I have a really refreshing week to think back on, so I'm going to focus on that.

I drove off in our faithful 2006 Accord last Sunday and got to my pal Erin's house in the late night hours. She was up waiting for me and greeted me with a comfy, warm welcome. I feel so at home with her family and had two very happy days there, filled with, among other things, hugs, playground times, donuts, new jeans that I actually love, netflix, bike-fixing, bike riding, more hugs, and some great dinner times. I am grateful for my friends. It takes so much energy for me to find them and have the guts to get to know them, but what a blessing it becomes in the long run. It's always worth it to cultivate a friendship.

I love these boots.  And of course the kid wearing them. 

It's a good day when you can play outside with people like this. 

Early Wednesday I said goodbyes to the Tolmans and drove the other half of the miles to Atlanta. I got easily settled into my room at the new Stitches venue near the airport. It's a shame I didn't fly because this place is connected to the airport by a free skytrain. Sweet! I was tired from the drive, but first Gwen and I met up about Eduknit stuff. I should have napped first because I was grumpy, which I regret, but I managed to recover and get a fair amount done. Later Beth, Gwen and I walked into College Park and got a fantastic Barbecue dinner. 

About that grumpiness.  I worry about staying strong and fit and being able to take on all this new work, because sometimes I really do feel old and achy and grumpy an alarming number of times in a week. (The good news is that I always walk a lot at Stitches so I got more than 10,000 steps every day of the show. That will help, right?)

The rest of the weekend was pleasantly busy. I got paired up with a new roommate and she was perfect. We talked easily and had great times when we were together. It was wonderful to see my closest circle of knitting-teacher friends. I love them all so much. I am grateful to have them in my life. I don't always think I'm such a great friend because it really doesn't come naturally to me, but with practice and mindful effort, I have found more good, supportive and complementary friends than I could ever have dreamed of in the sometime isolation of my teen and young adult years. 

Great moments in the weekend included: 

• that barbecue dinner. Perfection. 
• 2 interviews recorded with other teachers for creating eduknit content. Amazingly talented people. 
• A long morning walk with Beth around the convention center complex with wisteria blooming and the warmth of spring confirmed. I have renewed faith that spring will come to Maryland. 
• Some absolutely amazing students. Thank you to Karen, Julia, Kelly, and many, many more. New Ravelry friends, yes. 

Some photos so I can remember: 

some knitting celebs. inside of my camera. amazing.

that is my name in print. 

regular take offs and landings. the iphone lens does not
show the fact that I could have reached up and touched this
plane. seriously

the pine trees probably don't love the invading wisteria, but
i am appreciative of the color and fragrance

even a convention center is lovely at sunrise

a little freeform crochet off the top of my
head. inspired by edie, of course, but I
was not looking at a book. hey, I should
be a designer or something. ha.

And so another Stitches winds up and as usual, I look at that paycheck and pinch myself that it's what I do for money. Lucky me, I tell you. 

I hope with all my heart that you're doing something you love.

read more

Simple Things

I can't seem to make a regular blog post anymore, but here are some photos at least.

Sometimes simple things make such happy memories. Like accompanying toddling twins (and their mom) to the Maryland Science Center. They weren't still for long enough to get any great photos, but oh, was it some fun times to follow them around the children's room and watch them explore.

And seeing the sun over the harbor on a morning that wasn't freezing cold: 

And finally seeing the first daffodil. They are about 2 weeks later than usual: 

And having somebody acknowledge a lot of years of your life: 

13 seasons of wrestling are over. 

And knowing how much those years meant to your kids:

Thanks for looking. 

read more

My Life (or Holy Cow!)

When I was young, these are some of the things I thought of being when I grew up:

• Writer. 
• Teacher. 
• Movie editor (No, really. I did. I used to hook two VCRs and my stereo together and edit home movies complete with transitions, titles and music tracks.)
• Photographer
• Cetologist. Points for you if you know what that is without looking it up. 

Today I found myself thinking of how amazed I am at where I sit right now. In fact, I'll show you: 

Here is what I'm watching on my screen: 

If you can't tell, it's all the windows of Premier Pro, a movie-editing application. Contained therein are the guts of an instructional video I just made, being rendered into a single entity onto my hard drive so I can upload it to Vimeo, where, on Friday, it will debut as the first content for sale on the new website I am launching with my dear friend Gwen. 

I've been working on it full tilt for about a month, and it's good to see it be a whole piece, rather than just the bits I've been peering at all these weeks. It took endless tweaking and much moving (in tiny, tiny increments) of those Adobe sliders I know so well. The next one will be easier, as will the next one after that, and so on. 

When I consider my life so far, I can see that pretty much all the things I thought I might be good at, I've had the opportunity to at least try (though, in the interest of full disclosure, I will tell you that the Cetology thing has not worked out as of yet). I've used my skills at nearly all times for my family, nearly as often as a community and church volunteer, and over the years, occasionally as a professional. Gradually, I've gotten more and more comfortable saying to people that I AM a writer, a teacher, and a photographer. Now I can add that I'm an editor of movies. I don't have any ambition to be famous, but I am endlessly curious, and I've said yes to a lot of things that I didn't know how to do (plus I was probably holding a baby on my hip) but I was willing to at least try. I think that was a good plan for me.  

Now that I have the chance to do professional things more and even all the time if I want, I feel very strongly that my work at home being everything possible to 6 other people, plus all the project management and organization I've learned through PTA, boosters and church activities has actually prepared me really well for the next 45+ years that I might have left to live (My grandma is almost 92). It's neat to see from this perspective that everything has come along at the right time. 

It's exciting and terrifying to be putting stuff out there for people to see, love, hate and ignore. I know all those things will happen, and that's the price of living life in the real world. Fortunately, I have some experience with that. I've been loved, hated and ignored during my life so far. And not just by my kids, haha. It's good that I'm practiced at trying to move forward with confidence that what I'm doing is right for me. 

My little movie is not perfect, in fact every time I watch it a part of me wants to delete and start from scratch, but in the business world, especially when you're first starting out, there's this principle called "Ship It!" That means if you have even minimally viable product, get it out there, start selling your stuff, and then, as you get feedback, experience and capital, your output will move to higher levels. But you have to start. 

So there you go. Yet another new start. I can never say that I didn't have chances. 

Anyway,  never give up on your dreams, but don't be afraid to take a detour, whatever it is--family, travel, education, etc., even if everyone else thinks you're wrong. Be right for yourself. You've got time. Spend your energy on the most important things while they're the most important, and the other things will come along in their turn. 

I'm living proof. 

read more