Making ratatouille today. I'm thinking it'll be dinner tonight, then lunches for pretty much the rest of the week...unless I get sick of it, in which case I'll freeze it for later.

Let me just say up-front, especially to my French friends, this is pretty loose-handed ratatouille; I consulted Julia but my version is getting simmered for several hours in a crock pot. If that turns it into mush, then I will have learned a lesson. I added a few things Julia didn't call for, such as marjoram, rosemary, thyme, parsley, and bay leaves. I also tossed in a fat teaspoon of pre-chopped garlic and a sliced stalk of green garlic I had lying about.

So, first I emptied two 15 ounce cans of tomatoes into the crock pot. I happened to have a can of whole tomatoes and one with stuff in it, like onion and celery. Doesn't matter, as long as it's tomatoes. Fresh tomatoes are ideal; but I've never met a canned tomato that didn't measure up. I threw in the herbs, and some salt and pepper and turned the pot on low to warm up while doing the other stuff. (The picture above has eggplant and a few pieces of onion and zucchini in it because I didn't think to take pictures until I was well along in this process.)

Then I chopped up the 1 eggplant and 2 zucchini into pretty large chunks (I wanted more zucchini but I'd already eaten the other 2 in salads earlier this week). I figured since they would be cooking for several hours, maybe bigger pieces would keep them from turning to mush as quickly. We'll see. I filled a big bowl with water and shook maybe two tablespoons of salt into it, and stirred it well, then plunked the eggplant and zucchini into it. I put a pot on top to keep them submerged; eggplant floats - who knew? (The salt water trick is Julia's. I assume it draws out excess water so they don't dissolve while cooking.) Left that there for half an hour and went and did something else - oh yes, I chopped up the other vegetables: a whole yellow onion, a red, a green, and a yellow bell pepper, a stalk of green garlic.

After soaking the eggplant and zucchini for 30 minutes, I put them in my salad spinner and spun them, and turned them out onto a clean dishtowel and patted them dry. I heated olive oil in the skillet at a high-med. high temp until it started smoking, then threw in two cups of the big veggies at a time:

You're just singeing them to seal in the juices so it only takes a minute or two, stirring a couple times to turn each piece over. Once they're showing toasty little brown areas all over, put them into the crock pot.

When the zucchini and eggplant are mixed into the tomatoes and herbs, you then add some more olive oil to the frying pan (the previous vegetables will have soaked it all up) and sauté the onions and peppers and garlic (I added the pre-chopped garlic at this point) until they're translucent and giving off their juices. Put that in the crock pot, add some more salt and pepper, and...

Give it all a good stir, put the lid on and go do other things for a couple hours. I'll stir it again then leave it until 6 pm or so. Some nice hearty bread, some good French cheese - Heaven! Well - I'll let you know about that..

For various reasons, I've not gotten started on the "9 Great Walks in 2009" program yet; the first one I planned got replaced by a trip to the zoo, and since I don't have my calendar here (vacationing in CA) I can't recall if there was another one this month that got omitted, or if there was only the one planned. Anyway, once I get home and back in the groooove, I'll start that delightful "project" and hope to have some nice photos and interesting tidbits to post.

Today's the last day of my vacation. I can't say I'm champing at the bit to get back to work, but oh well, I'm glad to have my job, and that's for sure. I'm sure the yards are knee-high so Wednesday (I'm taking that off, too) I'll be trying to get caught up in the yard work, and then to KEEP up with it the rest of the growing season. Lots I want to do out there...

Today's big project is prepping the milliards of cardboard boxes I've got out in the garage, for carting off by the recycling people. I saved boxes for many many months, while I was selling off my Robert's photography equipment. It's all gone now so I don't need all those boxes any more, and I can use the shelves they're on to organize the stuff I will eventually sell in a garage sale (target: this October). After THAT's been sold, I can use those shelves to organize whatever stuff's left out there (and I'm hoping it will be minimal, just the things I actually need and use).

But a thought occurred to me a few minutes ago: I also need to go through the house, garage, and shed and find all the toxic crap: yard chemicals, paints, thinners, unneeded automotive fluids(?) - whatever; and bundle them up and take them to the City's Toxic Crap site. Maybe next weekend. That'll make me feel a LOT better even though it doesn't really contribute visually to my Clean-Up and Organize campaign.

There's always something, and that's the truth. Owning your home is unending Job Security.

I'm ridiculously chuffed right now. I just succeeded in mowing my *entire* back yard in one straight go. Years past, the first few mowings, I had to take a break in the middle...of course, while taking that break I had to have a cigarette...but I quit that in October...so...Huh. Could there be a connection?

Nah. Probably not.

Anyway, I'm exhausted and sweaty and my hurty shoulder hurts, but by GOD the yards have both been mowed (I did the teensy front yard last night).

I would NEVER have expected to be able to mow the back yard on a week night, after a full day at work (plus about 90 minutes total on the interstate getting there and back). This opens up so much goodness! I haven't even begun to realize it all yet. For one thing, I can do yard work after work instead of workouts! (I've started doing those again. Blegh.) (And I just used the word "work" three times in one sentence. Go figure.)

There's a lot more to do before I'll consider the yard "summer-ready" - and for me, that's NOT Martha Stewart Just-My-500-Best-Friends-Party-under homemade Chinese lanterns ready. It's just *acceptable*, to me.

Anyway, now I can face the neighbors. :)

No walkies this weekend. I think I've got bronchitis. Energy level 0. And, since I have the Envirothon (State level) next Saturday, I'd better not push my luck, health wise.

Nothing else to report, certainly nothing interesting.

Maybe next blog.

When I'm reminded that I'm weird - by me.

Yesterday on the way home I found myself weeping, hard. Why? Because I'd just emerged from an about-10-minute fantasy of me doing a music video to Charles Aznavour's "Dans tes bras" ("In your arms") - me singing and dancing all over the Pont Neuf in Paris, singing it as a love song to Paris. It was a great video, wish you could have seen it.

But, Egad.

Why do I have this deep, painful, incurable yearning for Paris? I almost wish I hadn't gone there, in 2007. I think it just made it worse because now I KNOW what I'm missing...to bring myself back in off the Run Away to Paris Ledge I have to remind myself that one of the things I'm missing is paying $800 a month for a 15' x 15' "apartment" on the fifth floor with no elevator. That's usually a pretty good dash of the old "eau froid."

I do wish I was capable of producing a music video, though. I promise I wouldn't star in it myself.

I haven't had anything really worth blogging about for quite awhile, so I didn't bother. Things were going on – good things. I've been taking advantage of a new program with our health insurance by stopping smoking (last October) – they paid for the patches, and they provide a coach who called me up every 6 weeks or so to visit and touch base. That's about as much coaching as I want or need. I've signed up for the coaching program again this year, this time to increase my physical activity. I've become quite the slug. You look at my rear end and you know what the shape of the recliner in my living room is. THAT much of a slug.

I'm not aiming for weight loss this go-round. I'm just trying to become more active. The season helps (I'm sore from yard work over the weekend, but “it's a good sore.”) And we did have a pretty extended, nasty winter. No wonder I didn't want to go outside and frolic! But it also left me with PLENTY to do out in the yard.

I'm going to put the gym I've got in the basement to use. A nice Tunturi exercise bike (that helped me lose 55 pounds in 4 months in 1994!) and a full-blown free-weight set ($1000 in a half-price sale from a gym equipment store, about five years ago) that's been pretty much gathering dust for five years. My goals: get in the habit of working out every day. That worked in 1994; I'm now 16 years older (GOOD GRIEF!!!!!???) and I don't know if I can do that again. So, I modify the goal to say, on evenings or days when I don't do any vigorous yard work or walking (more on that in a minute), I'll work out. When you start from zero, anything is an improvement.

As for the walking, I'm going to be going out, every other Saturday or so, and doing the “9 in 2009” Great Omaha Walks whose maps and info sheets are found here:

http://www.omahabydesign.org/2010/04/9-great-walks-brochures-available/

And I'm going to take my sketchbook and pens & pencils & things, and try to draw things I find interesting or pretty or awesome or whatever. If they don't embarrass me too much, I might post some of them here. In other words, I'm going to blog these walks. When I get back. When I get my breath back. Maybe after a nap... Ahem.

And then I'm going to look around town for my own “great Omaha walks.” I'll make maps of my own, maybe a list of special features and/or historical highlights, and go give them the blogger's treatment, too. I've got a friend or two who might accompany me on some of the walks. I plan to stop at the Benson Farmer's Market at 8 a.m. On Great Walk days and getting yummy things to take along for lunch.

This is sounding like so much fun, I'm getting excited about my first walk – this Saturday – to Prospect Hill Cemetery. It's a short walk so I think I can make it...

So here we are on the cusp of Spring, and did I get my big winter project, the sewing and assembling of seven Roman shades for my downstairs windows, done? BWAHAHAHAHA!!! Of course not. MAYBE this weekend I shall finish the FIRST one. MAYBE using what I've learned from doing that one, I will rip through the others in short order. But not, my friend, before next weekend, when it really will be Spring.

And now that the snow has melted (mostly) - and I can see my yards for the first time since December, it's apparent that the snow was covering a multitude, if not of sins, then of sticks. Branches. Limbs (of the tree variety, don't worry.) And that it's going to be a real race between getting all that picked up and when the yards MUST be mowed for the first time. So weekend time to work on the Roman shades will be limited for awhile.

Ah well, I'll just putz along as I have always done. It will all get done eventually. And I will be very glad to have Spring back again.

I add more Zazzle products every week or so. Must get some more photos and art work done. In my spare time.

I've started a Zazzle.com store. You'll see the ad in the right-hand column. I keep adding new things.

It's got items with photos from my Paris vacation of 2007, some scenery and features of western Nebraska, and a few designs I made myself with either MSPaint (yes, the primitive one) or photos and a photo editor.

If it interests you, check it out. If it doesn't, no problem-O.

2009 is almost over. Had some good times, had some bad times. I find myself curiously uninterested in recapping. I'm looking forward to moving forward, and I should say I feel like I did a goodly bit of that in 2009, thanks to the help of my friends and family. Love and thanks to everyone! And Happy 2010!

I've been thinking a lot recently about how insignificant actions can have a way of becoming really and truly significant farther down the line. Two days ago, I got an email from a woman in another state telling me that she had got my husband's potato soup recipe off my web site in 2002. She said she had just got around to actually making it, and she said it was the best potato soup she'd ever had. (I had warned people that this would be the case when I posted the recipe.) She said she wanted to print out a new copy after making the soup, but she'd splashed water on the bottom half and it was illegible, so she went online thinking she'd go right to it – but alas, I'd taken my web site down. She searched around and found it (it's now here) and that's when she saw my note that Bob had passed away. This lovely lady emailed me to tell me she wanted me to know that people are still enjoying his recipes. She'll never know how good that made me feel.

But when we posted his recipes, it was almost trivial. I was updating my web site, and he was looking through his recipe files on his computer. He had the idea that I should post the potato soup (since I'd made such a big deal about it, even taking a picture of it – it really was THAT GOOD), so he dictated and I just wrote down what he said. A few days later, he made something else yummy and I suggested we put up a whole section of my web site with his recipes. He had such fun with those – he took such earnest pleasure in getting the wording just right, just like in a professionally-done cookbook. And he really puffed up when I told him months later that his recipes were getting most of the hits on my web site – from all over the world! A few people even emailed me to tell me how good they turned out.

But it started with just a Saturday afternoon's whim, and a little time on our hands. The lady's email the other day got me to thinking about all the people, all over the world, who have found, and made, Bob's recipes over the years. They're on computer files and in recipe card books and tucked inside cookbooks in maybe a hundred countries, maybe part of hundreds of families' standard rotating menus. Even if, generations from now, someone asks Grandma, “Where'd you get that recipe?” and Grandma says, “Oh, I got it off the internet honey,” and no one knows anything about my Bob – a little part of him will still be living on.

On one of our vacations in Minnesota I took a picture of him sitting on the porch of our cabin. I don't remember taking the picture, and I'd forgotten about it entirely until his sisters and I were looking for photos for his memories board for his funeral. His sisters both said, “That's a great picture, let's put that on it.” And I looked at it, and it took my breath away. His sister said, “That really caught him – the orneriness, the humor, and the kindness.” It was a few minutes before I could even answer, because she was so right. There he is. And I don't even remember taking the picture.

You can't go through life thinking every single thing no matter how tiny, is going to end up being really important, to you or someone else, some day. You'd go crazy. But wow – it really is true.

Last time I was at PetCo, spending a lot of money on my cats, on an impulse I got three identical little beds for them. I got them for $4.99 each cause I have a PetCo card. Anyway, I figured, since I'm churning up the furniture upstairs pretty soon (major rearrangement), maybe they'd like their own beds, at least they'll be familiar when the whole world goes CRAZY. So I put two on the other bed the other night. Lixie slept in one, and O'Keefe slept in the other one, and Adams slept in the space between. So I thought, Awww, he needs his bed in there, too. So I lined them up all three.

When I came upstairs Friday after work, this is what I found:

And yes, that's Adams.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Yes, we're having a small, quiet T-Day with a roasted turkey breast, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, cranberry sauce (me), and apple pie & vanilla ice cream. *bliss*

ETA: Thanksgiving feast accomplished! Now we're stupefied...no, actually, these easy chairs NEEDED to be held down for a little while, until it's time for the apple pie and ice cream.

Just came across this interactive map where you can show the states you've visited. There's one for the world, too, but the only foreign countries I've been to are Canada, Mexico and France, so I don't see the point.

However, I've been to quite a few states in the USA:


visited 26 states (52%)
Create your own visited map of The United States

Though not as many as I'd thought. I see the East and the South are foreign to me yet...

Got the scarf done last night, finally!



Now a few days' break before starting my beret. I'm pleased with my first effort in some 24 -25 years. It refreshed my memory of continental knitting, and of course knitting and purling. Nice hobby. *g*

I just saw "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" tonight for the first time, believe it or not. Most enjoyable, mostly (I thought it dragged a little bit, in places), and a little surprising in some ways. I am not an expert about cinematography, but I thought the cinematography was quite striking in places, and some of the imagery beautiful, even haunting, aside from the ridiculous carryings-on. I always loved how much fun those wacky guys had with the mucky, stenchy reality of medieval life, especially among the peasantry. Overall, huge fun and much deserving of its beloved classic status.

And I'm pissed off all over again at the loss of Graham Chapman. Words don't exist to express how foully that sucks.

Once again, I have vastly underestimated the scope of a task, and ludicrously overestimated my own strength and stamina. It's just my front yard, for crying out loud. Knee-deep in leaves - and it includes the driveway, sidewalk, parking, and a car's width out into the street. I was determined to get it all bagged up today, Well, I got about 5/8ths of it done. I have to call that good. This old, sedentary bod just cain't do it all today. I'll finish tomorrow. And then I'll have to do it all again in a week or two, because there are a hella lot of leaves still up in those trees...



In cat news, Adams's paw seems to be completely healed. He got the vet's bandage off in about 2 days, but he hasn't been licking it or favoring it at all, and we've been giving him his Rx antibiotic (over with that now), and I finally got a chance to see the paw last night (he doesn't let people touch his paws, like most cats) and it looks fine. *Whew!*

Made some progress on this scarf today. Almost doubled its length! I hope to finish it by Oct. 31. I even went so far as to look into what my next knitting project will be. It's going to be a beret! And if I can find it to buy, it'll be in a lovely Malabrigo chunky yarn of their color "Paris nights" (big surprise, eh?). Looks like the first few things I knit are going to be for me. My skill ain't so smooth yet. Practice, practice...

My poor Adams cat has a hurty foot. We applied neosporin and wrapped gauze around it last night and were surprised that it took him to this morning to pull the bandage off. Unfortunately, the hurty looked worse this morning. It's all raw between two toes. I finally bit the bullet and we took him to the vet at 4. Poor guy. He has somehow sliced the hide off the inner side of one toe pad. The doctor cleaned it and applied medicine and wrapped his foot again, and gave him a rabies shot (overdue, but I don't worry 'cause my cats are not allowed outside. EVER.) But oh y goodness, is Adams peeved.



This is a very odd place for him to pout. It's right by the front door. The cats never hang out in that particular spot. But maybe he's just tired after his ordeal. We have to poke a pill down him twice a day, too. Oh, boy, will that be fun.

So, I finally got the scarf frogged (heh heh, that's knitter's-speak for "unraveled") last night, and got the first repeat of six rows put on the needle. Then at lunch today I did another repeat, and on the way home another one. So 18 rows! And they're all perfect! Yay! No odd unexplainable gaps, no extra or missing stitches when I count them at the end of the rows...I think I'm making progress. I'll have to post a picture a little later, my camera battery has to recharge. Not that it looks all that different from the first version, lol.

So here it is Saturday again, and I've been a non-smoker for almost 8 days. The patch makes it pretty easy, actually. I wonder how hard it is to get off the *patch*. I'll find out eventually. That will be a good day, when I don't have to mess with that any more. Not that it's complicated or difficult. Just a nuisance.

My life is so exciting. Today I'm performing the Autumn Bathroom Change-out ritual. lol - thrilling, no? Putting away the Paris Bathroom, good-bye until next July 14th.

And I will later rip out ALL the rows I've done on the scarf I started 8 days ago. Too many mistakes, too many holes. I want to re-learn knitting *correctly* and part of that is NOT being satisfied with second-best. Particularly if I'm going to be using "real" yarns - wool, alpaca, you know, the animal fibers. No more synthetic yarns for me. I've seen the light and will sin no more (in that way).

And after I do a few more chores, and loads of laundry, I'm going to knit for awhile, and then I'm going to read. For several hours if I can swing it. I love reading. Don't do near enough of it.

I'm a pretty boring person, when I'm not bustin' the high adventure decorating the bathroom. Woo hoo!

ETA: Oh yeah, I said I'd post photos of the French dinner from Sunday. Here ya go:







The Volailles de Veronique, Salade de mesclun, and Ratatouille. Unfortunately we didn't get pictures of the creme brulee (without the brulee) and Madeleines. We had store-bought bake & serve French bread but I figure you know what that looks like.

Starting Day Four of being a non-smoker. It hasn't been too bad. Just a few urges, quickly left behind. Of course, my Victorian/Lutheran ethic tells me I'm cheating, using the patch, but pbbt on the ol' V/L crap. Whatever it takes.

The usual good effects of quitting have started appearing: my lingering chesty cough from the last cold (a month ago?) is going away (DUH). My mouth, for the first time this morning, doesn't taste like a used ash tray. Laissez le bon temps roule!

I worked on the scarf for a couple patterns (12 rows) last night. It's turning out to be my usual cavalacade of hilarity. I have magic stitches that disappear and re-appear, doubled on random rows. I swear, I counted EVERY STITCH on the last six rows, made sure I had 24 when I should have had 23; so knit two together; then the end of the next row I'd have only 22. *cue sound of hair being ripped out by roots* So I have no idea what this thing is going to end up looking like. A very bumbledy-looking scarf, I guess:



I need to finish it by Oct. 31, as I've "entered" a Ravelry Malabrigo Group "You Can Do It!" contest (you just say on the group board you're going to do it, and you're entered. Very informal. And Malabrigo has put up yarn & stuff as prizes!) Wish me luck - the ONLY category I have a prayer for is Most Improved, LOL - starting with 20-year-old rusty knitting skills means ALL progress is upward.

My Celebrate Paris week is officially over now, with a pretty good dinner if I do say so myself, three good friends and several rounds of Mille Bornes none of which did I win. Mostly I put in a poor showing but it's all in the luck of the draw, I tell you! Anyway, I managed to pretty well trash the kitchen but a lot of it's in the dishwasher or the fridge now, so poor RH says he'll work at the rest tomorrow. He took pictures before we dug in so I'll post those when I get them. We had:

Salade du mesclun
Supremes de Volaille Veronique
Ratatouille
French bread

and for dessert: Creme brulee (as it turned out, without the brown sugar crust on top; it didn't appear to have set up properly and I didn't know how putting brown sugar on top and broiling it would end up, so it was more like just custard) and Madeleines. And, it did set up nicely, very creamy and light.

Everyone appeared to like it. And now I'm very, very tired and after a week of eating French food I swear I'm ready for hot dogs and beans and potato chips. Except we have a considerable amount of leftovers.

No knitting tonight; it would be worse than useless for me to try when I'm this tired. However, this is the end of my second day as a non-smoker, and all the work and fussing successfully kept me from missing it. Yay!

Day One of no smoking went pretty well. Had a couple of moments of wanting a cigarette, but they were brief and weak - I *am* wearing the patch, after all. Got started on my scarf. Got a lot of housekeeping done.

This morning we're off to the grocery store, then back here for a little more cleaning and a whole lotta cookin'. It's the culminating day of my Celebrate Paris week, and there'll be four of us at table. Wish me luck.

First snow of the winter. A little early. Hope it dries up and goes away, and the 98% of the leaves in this very leafy neighborhood, fall, before we get the snowfall that sticks around all winter.

It's always so beautiful, the first snow.

So, I'm trying to become a better person. Today (John Lennon's birthday, as it happens) is my last day as a smoker. When I get up in the morning, I'll be a non-smoker. I'm following a program sponsored by my insurance company, gives me a coach, gave me a kit and everything. I've made all kinds of preparations and I've been thinking about it a LOT.

I'm using the Patch, under my Dr's supervision. And, to keep my hands busy these long winter evenings in front of the TV, I'm taking up knitting again. I've become addicted to Ravelry.com, I've bought a skein of yarn and a pair of needles and got a nice scarf pattern from my yarn store. I've been practicing a little on scrap yarn. Visions of wonderful me-made socks, hats, sweaters, arm-warmers and MORE! are dancing in my head. I've started taking better care of my hands so they're not so scratchy (won't catch on the yarn so much).

I'll post updates on the knitting project here (I think it'll mirror on the Ravelry site but I'm not sure) - wish me luck!

In other news, this has been my second Celebrate Paris week, during which I've made French meals each night (except one when I got home from work really late). Tonight it's French onion soup, salad, and French bread. It's been fun and pretty tasty so far. Sunday culminates the week with a little soiree (complete with a game of Mille Bournes) with three friends (I hope I remember to snap photos of the dinner before we eat it), then sometime after that I convert my bathroom decor from Paris to Autumn. All this is to commemorate my week in Paris, this same week in 2007. *sigh*

Does that make me sound all organized and everything? BWAHAHAHAHA! Fooled ya.

I actually started a new short story this week. Havent got far, and what I've got will have to be lopped off for the most part, but it's a start.

I'm wondering what's happening with The Book of Tentacles. Sam's Dot Publishing said they wanted my story "Jar of Peaches" for the antho, and it was supposed to be published this month (after a couple of delays) but I haven't heard anything about it, and no reply to my querying email.?

Getting ready for the family's visit. Boy, do I NEED this vacation.

Over the weekend I finished that dress! I am delighted to have actually finished it - but it won't be making a public debut. The style turns out NOT to be Me. I look like a sack of potatoes in the thing. *sigh* Ah well, it'll make a good housework dress.

Its real value was as a learning exercise. I discovered that by golly, I do remember how to put in a mean zipper! After making every mistake it's possible to make, and ripping out the first zipper I ever tried to install about fifty times, back in junior high school home-ec class, I have never had any trouble with zippers since then. (This is how old I am: back then, girls HAD to take Home Ec, and could not take Shop; boys HAD to take shop, and could not take Home-Ec - which is short for Home Economics, in case you're wondering. Funny that; they never showed us how to balance a checkbook or make up a budget. Damn them.)

I have stacks and stacks of fabric. A friend (male, decidedly NOT a sewing type) inherited several HUNDRED lengths of fabric when his mother died. She had made all her family's clothes, and the trove includes men's suiting fabrics as well as every kind of women's clothing fabrics you can imagine, plus window-dressing and furniture fabrics, and most of them are now "vintage." He's been selling them awfully cheap just to get rid of them. I consider I've done more than my part toward his effort. To the point where I shouldn't have to buy clothes for a decade, actually. But I need to graduate from my training-wheels-level sewing skills.





My next project is another dress, a different fabric and pattern (see above; it'll be the jumper). I'm big into dresses since I discovered they are MUCH cooler in the summer time, specifically when I'm walking the 6 - 8 blocks to my car after work when it's hottest. I've got family visiting in two weeks, so I won't get to it before then. After THAT, the big project: sewing Roman shades for seven windows on my first floor (oh, except one is on the upstairs landing). We kept the drapes that came with the house, being too cheap to replace them, but now (after 16 years) I am thoroughly sick of the ugly, dark old things. I can't WAIT to yank them down and throw them away. I picked Roman shades in a pale blue linen-blend. Roman shades are, theoretically, pretty easy. Before I start I'm going to do Before pictures of the ugly current ones, then After ones once I've finished the shades. I'm itching to get to those shades...

And I need to do some sewing for Christmas presents. Smaller projects that don't require knowing the recipients' sizes.

I have all the sewing equipment I could ever want; I got a lot of my late mom-in-law's sewing stuff. I didn't know there'd been such an explosion of methods of marking fabric - for use with marking paper: the old stapler-type stamp, the teensy pizza-cutter (with dull edge) in both toothed and smooth edges, then there's white pencil, and both purple and turquoise washable-ink felt tip pens. I tried several of those methods on this first dress, and wasn't happy with any of them. I think I'll try tailor's tacks in this next one.



And I have my first self-healing cutting mat and rotary cutter! My goodness, are *those* things neat! I've got at least two (and maybe three, I'm not sure) pinking shears, two regular sewing scissors, several tape measures, and some things I don't even know what they're for. Like, a ruler-type thing that is curved on one side and straight on the other. ??? And I have my little Baby Lock, simple sewing machine with everything I need: variable length straight stitching, zigzag, and a Reverse button. It also has one of those hemming stitches but it didn't work so well for me - it seems turned backwards from the direction *I* would think it should go. I'll work on that. I bought that machine with money earned *writing*! I wrote a regular nature column for a local kids-oriented newsletter, donkey's years ago. I'm still proud of that. :)



And I've bought a ton of patterns at some great sales at Hancock's. So there's really no excuse for me not to go to work on my wardrobe!

I remind myself of this every time I go read The Panopticon. That's knitting, and Mr. Franklin Habit, the blogger, sings a very siren song to me, to get back into knitting. Big-time. But I resist; I have too many other things I need to work on first. Like, the top floor of my house is practically dismantled, furniture-wise, right now, as I try to sell a couple unnecessary and LARGE pieces of furniture to make room for a Major Rearrangement, with Desired Outcome: two nice guest rooms and a LOT less Stuff.

So, anyway, I'm getting back into the Domestic Arts. Don't worry, there is no danger of my turning into Rachel Ray or Martha Stewart. It'll just be *my* version, and I promise to keep it to myself. Sort of like my Paris vacation album. I had fun putting it together, but it's about as far from a present day "scrapbooker" as you can get. And that's fine with me.

Lo! These several months later, and I'm actually working on sewing my first garment in *mumble mumble* years. OK, like, 15 years. It's a dress. A very very simple dress. (View C.) I'm re-making all my newbie mistakes, but it's great because I'm re-learning all that stuff. Nonetheless, this will be a housedress, not to be worn in public. But it's lovely fabric and light and cool, just what I need around the house in the hot, sticky summertime if I'm going to keep my A/C temp setting in the mid-70s, or off altogether. AND: I still know how to put a zipper in on the first try. *polishes nails, looks proud*

Just the facings and the hems to be done yet, and I can start deciding what's next. Whee!

So once again, due to my own denial, lack of planning, what-have-you, I have a disappointment. My plan for today was to do a couple of housework chores then sit down to adjust the simplest blouse pattern I've got, and sew a blouse. I have two books "The Perfect Fit," and "How to Make Sewing Patterns," the latter because it shows with photographs how to measure yourself when you don't have someone to help. I have a tape measure and the pattern, the fabric, the thread, even the interfacing.

So, impatient to imagine ahead, I measured myself for the blouse.

Reality bites.

I'm several inches BIGGER than the biggest size this pattern is meant for. From what I've read of these books, which isn't 100%, this means I'm pretty much going to be starting from scratch - and I'm not at all sure I even have enough of this fabric.

ARGH!!!

So, I can forget about the sewing until I lose about thirty pounds (at least), or I can sit down and really study these books and use this first pattern as my crash course in pattern-making. Well. One thing I can do is to cut out the pattern paper and make a duplicate in newsprint, and use the copy to try out the methods in the book. That would be a step forward.

I remember in junior high when we were learning to sew in Home Ec (and isn't THAT quaint?), when we got to the zipper in a - was it a skirt? or a dress. Can't remember. Anyway, I must have ripped that zipper out twenty times. How I loathed it! Teen impatience, oh my god. But somehow, I stuck with it (maybe I would have flunked if I didn't at least FINISH the goddamned thing) and in the end, I think I had made about every mistake possible when putting in a zipper, and by god, I knew how to put in a zipper. I found in later years that I could put any kind of zipper in any kind of garment and it looked and worked just fine. That was one of those lessons no one could have consoled me with when I was down in the basement sweating, crying, and cursing over that stinking Home Ec assignment. I had to go through it myself, and discover later that it really was worth it. I don't remember what kind of grade I got on the Home Ec garment, probably not very good since it was chewed up pretty good, lol. But it was a skill, a hard-earned one.

So maybe what I have to do is the same thing over adjusting patterns, now. Either that or I've simply moved all that fabric I've got (enough for a full year's worth of new clothes) from one place of storage, to MY place of storage. I really hate that idea. So, it's back to school this afternoon...

I was remembering yesterday some of the clueless things I did in my young adulthood. I smile at my younger self from the vantage point of some 20 - 30 years' experience. I used to get embarrassed thinking about them but now I see, at least they were harmless and well-meant.

I lived on a farmstead in northern Iowa during my first marriage, when my son was a toddler. We had farm cats, and we had an Indoor cat. We fed the farm cats generic cat food in huge brown paper bags from the local farm supply place. The Indoor cat got Purina Cat Chow. It was the early 70's then, and though we lived far, far off the beaten path we did get one UHF (or was that VHF...) TV station from the "big" town twenty miles away, and we read the newspaper and I went to the library all the time, so we were well aware of Earth Day and the environmental movement just in its infancy. One day I fed the Indoor cat the last of one bag of chow and got to looking at the bright, slick bag with its gorgeous cat on the front. I thought, what a waste of paper and beautiful pictures. I sat down and wrote the company a letter congratulating them on their lovely cat food bags and helpfully suggesting they run a contest for the best re-use of the bags. I mailed it (post-box at the end of the long driveway) and then cut up the bag to make a dust cover for a book, and forgot about it. Some time later I got a response! It was a letter from their marketing department thanking me for my interest and enclosing a few coupons for Cat Chow. I don't remember the exact wording of the letter all these years hence, but I do remember the tone of polite bafflement. They regretfully nixed the suggestion of the contest, I do remember that. Ah well, we got a few cents off the next few bags of cat food.

One of the shows we could get on the one TV channel was the Dinah Shore program, the morning one with the now-classic morning-show format: she'd sing a song, there'd be a guest of fame or accomplishment, they'd do some cooking, she'd sing another song, and maybe there'd be a humorous bit with someone bringing their talented pet or children. I watched that show every day. (I remember being very intrigued when Burt Reynolds was the guest; EVERYONE knew they'd been an Item a few years before.) I got the idea that the local TV station needed a local show like that, only environmentally-oriented, and of course hosted by Yours Truly. I spent a few days developing ideas and themes for a bunch of shows. I even made up a list of what I thought would be likely advertisers. THOSE were thin on the ground in an agricultural state in the early 1970s, let me tell you. And I made an appointment with the station manager to discuss it.

I was terrified through the whole conversation. He was polite and kind (though it was obvious he was first and foremost a businessman) but when he asked how they would possibly pay for it, my paltry hand-written list didn't impress him. He of course knew all those vendors in the region and (as I realize now) knew they wouldn't have the slightest interest in footing the bill for an environmental talk show. In the face of the station manager's cold realism, my beautiful idea withered as I sat in his office. I felt like a complete idiot and slunk home to nurse my sore ego. (He did do an interview with me and a couple of other people I'd started a theater group with a few years later. I was on TV! With, of course, no way to record it back then, so I never saw myself. It's no doubt just as well, lol.)

There may be a few other such memories lurking just out of reach in the back of my increasingly rusty memory bank. I think I was naive long after the age I should have got wise to the world. Now I think of it as a baby chick struggling to peck its way out of the shell.

At long last, I can hold my head up and be proud of my country.

Channel-surfing on a break between housecleaning chores, I came across a public access station showing a film of Omaha's recent history. They were interviewing various movers and shakers and wannabes about the Old Market, which started out as a neighborhood of warehouses and manufacturing buildings down by the Missouri River in Omaha's original downtown. My late husband, Bob, was one of the late 1960's "Old Market layabouts"; one particular family had invested in a lot of the area and made cheap warehouse space available to artists and entrepreneurs, and Bob had a photography studio down there, where he lived and worked, amidst many of his friends. Over the years I heard so many stories about their hijinks and escapades. Quite the wild bunch they were, and I know he always felt those were his golden years. I knew some of the people interviewed for this TV film, quite a lot about some of them.There was old footage of hippies hanging out on the curbs, blowing bubbles, and people remodeling some of the old buildings, and working in their little stores. Much of the art that hangs on my walls came from some of those artists, working so bright-eyed and young back then, on the cutting edge of Omaha's embryonic arts culture.

A weird mood has settled on me watching this. So many of those old friends of Bob's have gone now, there must be a great reunion party going on somewhere. The sanitized version Omaha is presenting in this film is not much like the stories I heard. And the weirdness lies in how detached I feel. For a few minutes this living room was filled with voices and faces that Bob knew well - I wouldn't be surprised if he knew everyone in those old home movies - and I wonder what he would have said about it. I'm not sad, exactly. It's the transience of everything filling the room here, I think. This is a sense that's seeping into me more and more since he died. Nothing new or original with me, of course. Just new *to* me.

I'm very discouraged today. I have been purchasing materials and planning to make a line of handmade items to sell on Etsy.com. I don't have a store there yet, because I need to have an inventory first, as well as logo, banner art, business card design, etc. But I've invested a couple hundred dollars so far in materials and equipment to make these things which will be aimed at people who I expect to be at least 21 years old and probably more like 50 or 60.

Anyway, yesterday a discussion erupted on the Etsy forums about a new law (the Consumer Products Safety Improvement Act) that's proposed in Congress that, if applied broadly, apparently will require all of us small business people making handmade items to keep extensive records and reporting capabilities to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, maybe even requiring us to pay for testing of our products. Trouble is that no one - including the CPSC themselves - seems to really know who and what is covered, and what the obligations will be.

Well - this was going to be a fun, part-time way for me to be creative and make some money to maybe do some improvements around my house that my normal budget won't allow. If it's going to turn into a monstrous money pit and bureaucratic nightmare, I don't need it. Of course, there's a lot of concern and agitation going on amongst the Etsy crafters but no one seems to have figured out what it really means. So I'm going to just sit on this idea for awhile - after all, I have enough other projects I could be doing with the time this would have consumed - until the dust settles and the CPSC comes out with their final regulations. It's kind of looking like the bill was written to answer those horrible problems of things like flammable materials used in children's pajamas that were made in foreign lands, lead in toy paint, etc., and the writers were unaware that there is a pretty vast population of self-supporting crafters out here whose businesses would be absolutely crushed if this thing is broadly applied. They'll be hearing from some Etsyans now, that's for sure, and maybe they'll refine the bill's language to avoid that.

But dang, I was looking forward to this little enterprise of mine...

Friday night, yay!

I didn't realize it had been so long since I posted anything here in Blogger. I've been on Live Journal a lot, though.

Haven't written any fiction in months & months, though I think about last year's NaNoWriMo book every day. I just never get around to writing on it. I'm fractured into seventy different directions - work, house, yard, cats, selling my dear husband's photography equipment at APUG.org (which is a user's group concentrated on film photography - no digital there. Those folks are the absolute BEST. They are so helpful and kind, and I've found new homes for quite a bit of hubby's stuff). It's slow, and there is so much other stuff here I need to divest myself of. And I'm getting ready for another enterprise which, when it is launched, I will try to remember to announce here, and which may serve as a little bit of extra income and an outlet for some creative and scavenging instincts I've got. Oh, let's say "recycling" instead of "scavenging."

Anyway, I'm disorganized and frustrated with all this extra stuff around here and how slowly I'm getting rid of it - I got plans, oh boy do I have plans - but I vascillate between beating myself up for being so slow and disorganized, and telling myself, well, Terry, you dummy, you have to live life today, too, you can't just keep pounding yourself over the head with this idea that SOMEDAY when all the extra stuff has been gotten rid of, THEN you can live life. It's a habit of thinking that's plagued me all my adult life. This vascillation is no doubtr at least partly responsible for my disorganization. Talk about a vicious cycle.

OK, I've made a new post. It's not very interesting, I'm afraid - except OH YEAH I'M A GRANDMA!!! The baby arrived exactly on her due date, and I got to go out and spend a week with her and her folks when she was just 9 -15 days old, and I guess I'm not going to top that for excitingness so I'll close this now.

Well, smack my head and call me Grannie.

But wait until after August. That's when my VERY FIRST GRANDCHILD will be arriving!!!

I'm in shock, I think. Geez, this is going to take some getting used to!

This changes everything.

I think.

Trundling right along in my most-recent Grown-up Groove (having fixed the toilet all on my own last weekend), I loaded my lawn mower into my trunk this morning and took it to the mower doctor's place to get all fixed up for the oncoming mowing season. That sucker is heavy! And my rope and knots contraption to keep it from bouncing out of the trunk made the mower-fixer-guy laugh, of course, but who cares.

Then in a paroxysm of Grown-upness, I went & had my car cleaned, inside and out! Woo hoo! And then a roofer came and looked at my roof and told me that the best thing for me to do is to patch the one bad spot and let it go; I have asbestos shingles and it costs $2000 per 100 square feet to dispose of them! gasp! Well, as it should be, I say, that stuff is Not Nice for people to handle, and we shouldn't be just dumping it into landfills or whatever. He also said he'd save any salvageable shingles as he worked (if he gets my business) and wrap them up tight and safe so if I ever had another break, I could use the old ones. You can't buy them any more (of course, and perfectly fine with me) so used ones are going for $25 - 50 apiece on the open market. He won't give me an estimate on the needed repairs until he can get up there and look at the roof, which will be sometime this week. So, now two more roofing guys need to come over and tell me what they think. And when I've picked myself up off the floor, I'll have to decide what to do: go into debt now, or wait & save my money to pay for the work now. Depends on how much it is, of course.

And isn't this Adult World of Grown-Upness exciting? My golly, I'm just all -

Uh, just all -

Um. Well, I wore out that fit of Adultness quick, dint I? Phew.

But I've done a few housey things today, and now I've just subsided into my usual pile of inert So-whatness. It's OK; it's Saturday. Tomorrow is Errands and Chores day. Tonight I can channel surf and jack around doing nuthin' all I like. :^)

I've been posting mainly in Live Journal lately, especially since Speculations Rumor Mill has closed down. A bunch of Rumor Millers have migrated to LJ to huddle together in our bereavement. Someone, bless them, started a LJ Rejection/Acceptance Community that sort-of replaces the RM's. So if you have R/A's you want to post, I suppose the easiest way is to email me and I'll tell you how to join LJ (if you're already registered, my handle there is threeoutside); if you Friend me, and I Friend you back, I think you'll be able to find my Friends list, and the RMers and R/A Community should be accessible through that. (And I must say, I do loathe that verbing of the noun Friend. Just so you know. I use it under protest.)

In other news, I completed the first draft of my first short story of 2008 yesterday. I wrote it for the writer's workshop at WillyCon coming right up the first weekend in April. Jack McDevitt, the Author GoH, will be running the workshop and I'm thrilled and terrified that he'll be reading and critting my story.

Looks like I sold a story to Thaneros! Now, if you look at that word, it's a combination of two Greek words, one meaning Death and the other, well, Eros. So if you've an easily offended sensibility you won't want to be going and looking for this story - or, likely, any other story on that new ezine. But I'm very proud of that story, I think it's one of the best I've ever written, so if you're of a broad-minded nature, by all means when it's published, do read it. And I've a thick skin - let me know what you think of it, if you want to. I'll try to remember to post here when it's online. It's going to be published in three parts, one a week, by the way.

So I'm hoping yesterday's story completion means I'm climbing back onto the writing horse again.

In music news, I downloaded NIN's new four-disc album Ghosts I - IV yesterday, but apparently my old stereo system won't play MP3s, so now I have to invest in some batteries because the ones I scrounged up yesterday didn't have the juice to power my CD player. Bah. It's so frustrating! I do so look forward to hearing Reznor's instrumental music! This set is all instrumentals played with, as usual, by a large cast of his musical friends. Including Adrian Belew (whoa!).

That's about it this time.

Your Score: PORTLAND!

You scored 28% Style, 15% Climate, and 56% Culture!

You are Portland, Oregon! Portland, the largest city in Oregon and seat of Multnomah County, is located in the northwest part of the state on the Willamette River. Portland has a diverse economy with a broad base of manufacturing, distribution, wholesale and retail trade, regional government, and business services. Major manufacturing industries include machinery, electronics, metals, transportation equipment, and lumber and wood products. Technology is a thriving part of Portland's economy, with over 1,700 high-tech companies located in the metropolitan area. Tourism is also important to Portland's economy, drawing more than 7 million visitors annually.You are a nicely cultured individual, appreciating a good play, book, movie, or fine dining. You also appreciate some diversity, lest things get too boring. Not one for sitting and relaxing for long periods at a time nor dressing up the nines, you take interest in getting outside and being out in nature, enjoying the cool, crisp air...maybe even playing a sport or taking a hike. Portland is a good place to be, my friend. My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 99% on Style

You scored higher than 99% on Climate

You scored higher than 99% on Culture
=======================================================

Portland are Me. I don't get these stats. Which is it, 28% Style, or 99% Style? And what' s Style? *snicker* Knowing myself, the 18% is the right one. Ah well.
...
In other news: only got the NaNo novel up to 24,063 words over the long weekend. Doesn't look like I'm going to get to 50K before November 30, which is ... [checking] ... this Friday. But, I've got a good start and it's got enough substance and potential, I think I'll keep working on it.

19,822 words total last night, about 1938 more than were there the day before. Not keeping up with the minimum daily average needed to win but I still got hopes!

The NaNo experts say Week Two is when you become convinced you're writing pure crap, and they're right. For now, I'm just going for the word count, like Jack Torrance: "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." lol

16,711 words as of Friday night - didn't do much yesterday so didn't post anything...

But I've got a cute cat story today.

My cat, Adams, is a burly boy who is constantly on the lookout for the main chance to escape to the great big outside world. He keeps sneaking into the garage through my broken screen door, when I'm not paying close enough attention. His nose is the first to the front door when I come home in the evening, hoping I'll forget he's there and he can get LOOSE and get FREE and feel the WIND in his fur, and have ADVENTURES etc etc etc. Drives me nuts.

Well, today I had a couple of people over here for a project, and when we were done, the two folks were chatting and meandering around between the front door, their cars, and my living room, and I was kind of distracted. At one point while we were all in the front room hashing things over, I stepped over and closed the front door. Not one minute later there was a tremendous CRASH! at the front door. Startled, I looked over just in time to see a big furry body fly up - I mean like four feet off the ground - and throw itself against the storm door with a loud kitty KKKAAAYYYYYYYAAAAHHHH! like a Ninja. In the two seconds it took for me to get to the door, I was confused: was there a neighborhood cat wanting in? Then it happened again! KKKKAAAAYYYAAAAHHH! Thud! and that furry body had thrown itself against the door again. I opened the door, opened the storm door, and was almost knocked off my feet by - none other than Indiana Cat, the dashing Adventurer - Adams, racing back indoors as fast as his kitty feet could carry him.

He'd sneaked out during the back& forth, and I hadn't noticed, and then I'D CLOSED THE DOOR!!!!

The two visitors didn't know my cats, so they were a little puzzled at the extent of my raucous laughter. And I've had a cat-shaped appendage the rest of the afternoon. I guess he wants to make sure I don't get out of his sight again. My big hero cat adventurer. LOL!

12,142 words!

Took Wednesday night off, I was just too exhausted. (Turns out I needed to remove the leveling shims from my bed's frame once I'd rotated and flipped my mattress - that teeny amount of slant was costing me whole nights' sleep! MUCH better now! Make a note: if you're sleeping poorly, check the level of your bed - head to toe and side to side.)

So I needed to write 3334 words last night to catch up. But, I was really tired again and only got 2007 words - which was still a bit above the necessary daily average to "win" NaNo, so I feel somewhat mollified. And, there's a three-day weekend coming up, so I have confidence I'll catch up entirely, and even pull a bit ahead, over the weekend.

Right now this little shrub is growing every whichway but I can go back and prune it later. This gives me lots of potential branches to follow in the next 3 weeks.

Easy night last night - I only needed about 550 words to hit my mark for Day 6, so I was really tired, so that's what I did. Got 'er up to 10, 032 words and called it a night. Back to the daily quota level tonight...

Got 'er up to 9,460 words last night! Whee!

Then looked at my NaNo page and saw that one of my buddies is at 41,000. LOL

Ah well, I'm very happy with my progress so far - I think this is the most I've written for NaNo this early in the month. Must. Keep. Writing!

Came out of the weekend with a total of 7,023 NaNoWriMo words on my novel! And it's been fun! And that is the end of the first chapter. So far, so good.

Yay, 2,001 words accomplished for NaNoWriMo Day One yesterday! Woo hoo! I'm on my way!

And, yes, I did get to have my week in Paris, the first week in October. And yes, I do have tons of stuff to post, and photos to set up in Kodak Gallery. Things take time. I'm still absorbing much of what occurred in Paris. It'll probably be the only time I ever get to go, so I'm savoring all the memories and poring over the changes that magic city initiated in me.

But right now, It's National Novel Writing Month so don't expect much. (No oftener than I post here, I don't reckon you do anyway.

Is this what relaxing feels like?

I spent the weekend repeatedly making myself sit down and do nothing - well, sit down and read for pleasure.

In the months since my husband died I've kept a small but steady series of balls up in the air. I have a list of Things to Do, large projects and small ones, long-term and short-term, for myself, for others, about the house, finances, disposal of things of my husband's in appropriate manners...I keep two or three of them going at a time.

It's not Avoidance (of the pain of grief: in evidence I offer the fact that I do feel it daily, write in my diary about it, talk about it, sometimes wallow in it for short bursts), (of loneliness: I have no troubles with being alone, but I do miss my husband terribly. I "get along" fine on my own, otherwise).

It's just that there are a couple of overarching concerns: #1 that I clear out what I don't need as soon as I am able, timewise, financially, or emotionally so that if anything happens to me, my son isn't stuck dealing with all that excess. God knows he'll have enough to deal with just with the stuff I want to keep and will use! #2 that I maintain the house & yard in good condition for future sale, most probably when I die or if I ever have to move elsewhere.

But last weekend I'd gotten to a kind of coasting place. The two or three Current Projects, I have to wait for others' actions or inputs. I know better than to start another one, that way madness lies. I was caught up with my financial info and obligations; the house was clean; I had no outside committments. It was time to practice Relaxing. Loafing. Sitting around. Reading for pleasure for long periods of time.

I've gotten out of that habit. I don't say that bragging about how hard I work (anyone who knows me that working hard is NOT something I would brag about, lol). It's just that for the past several years, while Hubby's mobility decreased, I picked up most of what he did around the house and yard so that by the time he went into the hospital last spring, I had been pretty much doing everything for a couple of years. I felt guilty if I found myself Just Sitting, because there was always something productive I could be doing. Then, when he was in the hospital those horrible four months, I added a daily visit (weekends: two a day) to the hospital on top of all the house stuff and job. And of course the first few months since he passed away, I've had a few business things to take care of, and to begin to try to figure out what my life will be like now, and in the future.

I've been striving so hard to reach certain goals. One was, get the house cleaned thoroughly, upstairs and down, and get caught up with the laundry. OK. That's done. I've got a baseline to re-start a cleaning schedule so that it never has to wear me completely out. I looked around the place Saturday morning and was a little taken aback: There was nothing much to clean! I went down to the laundry room. There was nothing much to launder! I went up to the den and looked at the hosuehold books. There were no payments due, no money stuff to deal with! It was Saturday morning! Whatever would I do all weekend???

I pledged to myself to Loaf. Read. Snooze. Eat. Loaf Some More. It felt VERY strange. It felt good. I woke up this morning more rested and relaxed than I can ever remember on a Monday morning. And it occurs to me. Life doesn't have to be all stress and pressure. I don't have to constantly feel rushed, obliged, booked, inadequate, behind, tense. Man. That's going to take some getting used to.

In my 20's, I used to yearn - actively - for perspective. I'd be in the middle of some crisis - personal, employment-related, as a mother, a wife, a girlfriend (the latter two never overlapped, I hasten to add) - and in agony I would recall one particular incident when I was maybe 6, staying overnight with my grandma and grandpa (my dad's folks) when I got sick. Vomiting, diarrhea, the whole bit. And my grandma was so placid and competent and gave me such a golden feeling of being cared for with love - and just knowing what to do and what to expect - that even at that young age, I remember thinking: She's been through this raising four kids and it's no big deal and I will be OK. Perspective was the word didn't know when I was six.

I'm fifty-six now, and I finally do have more perspective. I raised a son - as best I knew how - and he's turned out to be a fine man, for which I give him most of the credit. I've been through a divorce, and now I'm learning about widowhood. All those years and joys and mistakes and learning and striving and agonizing have an accumulated weight that seems to stabilize this little boat bobbing on the waves.

I've learned that divorce brings lots else in addition to freedom - including never-vanishing regrets. What I know now is that there are armies of counselors who would have loved to help us, if only we'd know there were out there, and if only we hadn't been so afraid of self-examination. We may have been able to weather the problems, and even have emerged stronger and better people, if we'd known. Our son paid the price. Regrets.

In losing my second husband and in the months of his suffering before he died, I learned that all those things I'd agonized over for so long - all those points of stress and subjects of discord, all the resentments and power struggles - they were nothing - nothing, compared to the depth and strength of our love. They burned away and disappeared like toilet paper in the blast of concern, then fear, then horror when at last it became clear that he wouldn't be coming home. I consider myself so lucky to have been able to let him know in those months, by my actions and words, how much I loved him. I have no regrets on that count. He knew.

In addition to the many things I've learned through this experience, about my husband, myself, and us - I've learned that we have - I have - the best family and friends on Earth. They supported and loved us every step of that cruel path, and continue to do so. I lost my dear husband, but because of family and friends, I count myself among the luckiest of human beings.

Gratitude is the great antidote to so many habits of thinking and feeling that could twist and stain and cripple my life. Resentment, envy, feelings of inadequacy, fear - all of these are parts of my personality and - [checking...] - yes, daily I grapple with every one of them. But thanks to my husband and years of honest effort on my part, I have the tools that help me work through them. I cannot ever take it for granted that I'll succeed. Every rearing of one of those ugly heads requires my serious and honest confrontation. I don't imagine that I am always - or ever - 100% successful. But this blessed perspective helps me keep both my successes and failures to a human - not an overwhelming -scale. I have learned to judge when it's appropriate to forgive myself, and when I need to work harder.

It's funny - I had no idea what I was doing, in my 20's, in the thrashings of emotion and usually self-inflicted crisis - but in yearning for perspective, I was wishing for exactly the right thing.

I am so, so lucky.

I didn't realize it'd been so long since I posted. Some "daily" blog, eh? Oh, well.

I haven't kept up with the 1667 words/day required to finish NaNoWriMo at 50,000 words at the stroke of midnight, November 30th, but I've kept my hand in; I can still do it if I write 2,000 a day until then. Will I? I hope so. I could if I really set my mind to it. But even if I don't, it will have been well worth doing. It's reminded me what fun, and what solace, writing daily can be. Fiction, I mean. I keep at least one, currently two, daily journals going always, but fiction is different. I have to make up the incidents and characters in fiction; not so my journals. Fiction writing challenges me to dig deeper into my imagination, throw myself curves and fling myself aloft to catch them. Working at NaNo this year has also reminded me that I CAN write daily. Why not? What a loaded question, inviting scattershot of excuses. But now I'm reminded not only that I can do it, but also why I'd want to. Time well spent!

Feh. Only wrote 860 NaNo words today. On the other hand, I got quite a bit done at work. You know, where they pay me my salary. I know, I should have better priorities, but truth be told, I've been gone a LOT lately, unavoidably, and I feel like I owe them big-time. So, I just have to hammer out 2500 words tomorrow and I'm back on track.

(i'm okay, i'm on track, gone too far and i can't go back...)

Got today's quota of NaNo words in and it's just now noon. Yippee! Maybe I'll get some more done tonight, but in the meantime I have groceries to buy, a comic book to buy, and some art to do.

I sat down and wrote & wrote and got to a stopping point and quit, did the word count, and realized I was only about 350 words short of the whole day's quota, so I went back and wrote some more. It is SO NICE to be able to do that! I've had this suffocating writer's block (yah, yah, don't tell me there is no such thing - if you're thinking that it's because you've been lucky enough not to suffer it yet) for years now, and by gosh, they're right about NaNo - it does make writing fun again!

I did even less than I'd thought yesterday; I only got about 470 words written. However, I have made up for it today! Up to 6,704 words now! And it's humming along pretty well. It's got more of a YA adventure, maybe YA horror feel to it, or it could be a mystery (I'm looking from the reader's point of view here), than I intended. I'm going for something a bit dark, but with a little comic relief and lots of supsense and then pathos. lol - ambition is a lovely thing, God wot.

I figure I can make it darker and creepier in the rewrite. mwahahahaha!

I only got some 560 NaNo-words or so written this morning because I got to a spot where I have to draw a house plan. Quite a lot of the action will take place in this house and it needs certain attributes, so I have to draw floor plans. Then I can get the other 1200 or so words done tonight. Wish me luck.

Day Two of NaNoWriMo and I'm at 2,996 words so far with the whole evening ahead in which to work on it more. I'm pleased with it so far!

Kudos to everyone else in NaNo! Go forth and WRITE!

....Friday Nov. 3rd Addendum for last night: final day's total: 3566.

(That's the whole manuscript total.)

So far, so good. And it's fun again, which is why I signed on for this insanity.

I can truly say this year has been the best of times and the worst of times, with absolutely no exaggeration.

But in a few hours the 2006 National Novel Writing Month commences, and once again, I've signed up! This time I'm really committed and I'm gonna do it. I shall try to blog about it daily and if nothing else maybe I'll post a photo of the chaos of my home office.

I've actually made a study of efficient packing for travel. I've made it a goal to never have to check a bag at the airport. I'm getting pretty good at it, for short (fewer than four days) trips. I'm going to keep practicing. Packing light makes traveling so much simpler and easier.

I toy, from time to time, with the idea of trying my hand at travel writing. It's kind of a silly idea, because compared to many of the travel writers whose web sites I've seen, whose books I've read, whose articles I've read - I haven't traveled.

Oh, my job has taken me all over my home state of Nebraska many times. And it's sent me to conferences in many cities I otherwise would never have been able to visit. Let me count the cities: Chicago, San Antonio, St. Louis, Flagstaff, Albuquerque, Madison WI, Annapolis, Atlantic City, Kansas City (many times, and I can always go there anyway), Nashua NH...seems like there were more but I can't summon them up right now.

Oh yeah, that's another thing: my lace-like memory. And my brilliant powers of observation. (sarcasm) Those are both things that will serve me well in travel writing (/sarcasm). What town was I in? *scowls, straining to remember*

Well, it just occurred to me I might try a rapid memory exercise here. How about if I try to list the one thing that stands out most about each of those cities in my memory? Stream of unconsciousness...

Chicago: architecture. Love it!
San Antonio: the Alamo
St. Louis: how gray the downtown is
Flagstaff: those mountains
Albuquerque: the giant Native American-style pots in the highway medians
Madison WI: State Street!!!!
Annapolis: the sailboats in the marina
Atlantic City: the boardwalk, of course
Kansas City: Oh, I've been there too many times to pick one thing. The BBQ, I guess.
Nashua NH: my friend Chriss. Oh all right, and the fall foliage. But mostly Chriss.

It's discouraging, looking at that list, how mundane and cliche my Main Memory Things are. The Alamo??? The Boardwalk??? Yeeesh. I'm going to have to do better than THAT. Well, okay, I'll dig out all my photos and my trip diaries and for the next month I'm going to try to write *real* travel articles, the kind I like to read.

I'll include places I've been that weren't for my job too: Sunnyvale CA, Tucson AZ, Lake Andrusia, MN (obviously a vacation spot), Cheyenne Crossing SD...

This should be fun for *me*. Maybe some readers will enjoy it, too.

About the Battlestar Galactica 9/23/05 episode:

That rape scene from Friday night's Battlestar Galactica kept bugging me. It didn't harrow me, or "disturb" me – it provoked a lot of questions.

"She" is a machine – though capable of emotions, thought, and getting pregnant (this copy of Boomer IS pregnant by a human soldier, Helo). So what if they rape her? Especially since her kind is hell-bent on annihilating the human species? Why is any method of extracting useful information from her, wrong? Isn't it like torturing your car, or your lawn mower?

Ahh…that gets us closer to the answer.

Let's say that all the apparently human responses she showed during the rape (screaming, fighting, crying) really are just pre-programmed computer behaviors.

If you torture your lawn mower, it's not a crime. There's no law, legal or moral, against torturing your lawn mower. But what kind of person tortures their lawn mower?

And even if that asshole viewed the Boomer/Caprica copy as a machine, when it was giving off all those human-like signals of terror and horror and revulsion and pain, what kind of person wouldn't have an instinctive sympathetic response to that? Either a total sociopath, or a psychotic. Either actually evil, or helplessly sick. Or – if not one of those, then someone who knows perfectly well right from wrong but who has thrown all moral framework away in favor of indulging his fantasies of hatred and revenge.

But, say he's raping a machine. Isn't it a victimless non-crime?

Maybe a non-crime, but not victimless. He's distancing himself from the best parts of himself. He's crossing a line that he may not be able to cross back to regain his own humanity. And when (in the BG universe) there are only a few tens of thousands of human beings left, and they are threatened with extinction by millions of machines – isn't he really, by opting out of humanity, committing a crime against humanity?

And doesn't this resonate interestingly with the real USA right now?

I'm one with the notion that we immortalize loved "ones" in our memories of them, whether they're people, animals, places or events.

Reading the poem "The Rain Poured Down" by Dan Gerber (http://articles.poetryx.com/89/), a new thought struck me. In my memory there lives, will always live, a single tear: the first one I ever saw my father cry.

I can see him now, crouching forward on a living room hassock, elbows on knees, eyeglasses dangling from one hand. I don't remember for sure, but I think he'd just learned that his dad's cancer was inoperable.

He turned his face toward the open front screendoor so I wouldn't see, but it only threw that narrow quarter-face view of him into silvery light relief against the shadowed interior wall. And with a thrill of shock and dismay, I saw that tear run down the very border between his silvered cheek and the darkness beyond. That moment is frozen in my mind.

I knew as much how to comfort him then, when I was 12, as I do now, when he himself has been dead 11 years.

A single tear sinking like acid down through the softness of my broken heart.

"What'd you do over the weekend?"

"Oh, I got the snow tires swapped off my car."

I had to empty the trunk to hold the regular tires. I took out the pair of drapes with hardware that are supposed to get dumped at a Goodwill somewhere, the cardboard box holding my snowmobile boots, my hip waders and my irrigation boots, the three-legged stool that's broken, the "reacher-grabber" I take to the grocery store so I can get at things on the top shelves, the soft old Indian-print blanket, the half-jug of windshield wiper fluid and the dirty rag I use to check the oil, and put them in the garage. My emergency overnight duffel bag I brought into the house suspecting it needed refreshing and updating.

I went through the back porch and got the key to the padlock on the toolshed. I went out to the toolshed and got out the wheelbarrow, loaded the regular tires onto it, and hauled them out to the driveway and shoved them into the trunk. I left the wheelbarrow in the garage, and went back and locked up the toolshed. We took the car to the tires place and ordered an oil change and a tire swap.

Back home, I went down to the basement to start the laundry. The cat box needed cleaning, so I did that, and took the bag of dirty litter out to the garbage cans. I loaded and started the washer. I went back upstairs and brought the duffel bag up to the bedroom. I wanted to lay out its contents on the bed, but the linens are overdue for a change. So, I stripped the bed, tossed the linens down the chute, and put clean sheets & pillowcases on the bed.

I opened up the bag. A couple of books; a dirty toothbrush, a dried-up miniature tube of toothpaste; a hotel shampoo bottle whose contents looked like old amber; old contact lens solutions and cases, a box of granola bars and a sealed packet of beef jerky; a pair of underpants; a sweater so small for me now that I couldn't get it on if my life depended on it - ditto for a tee shirt; the two halves of a little plastic case I gleaned from the research lab I worked in years ago, and one of two cheap faux-pearl earrings I'd kept in it. I searched and searched for its mate, but it wasn't in the bag. I turned to the big jewelry box my father-in-law made me years ago. It broke recently; the lid's back rim stayed with the box's hinge and the top, with its mirror inside now loose, had come off. I laid all that lid stuff on the bed and started looking for the faux-pearl earring.

My jewelry box was a disaster. It looked like I'd thrown everything into the air and plopped random wads of earrings, buttons, belts, dead watches and God knows what else, back into its nine little velvet-lined compartments. It had been bugging me for months. No time like the present.

I pulled out all the buttons and put them in a pile. I emptied one compartment's contents into another, and put all the watches into the empty one. I went through every compartment and put all the "singleton" earrings into the center compartment, and all the earrings that were broken - with their mates, if they had them - into another one. All the loose earring-backs have their own "room." At the same time I matched up all the pairs and put them into the other four rooms.

Then I went through the mated pairs and put the cheap tacky ones into one compartment, and sorted the really good ones - which make up most of my collection, actually, my hubby has great taste - into the remaining four compartments. Voila! A long-needed task complete. I put the box lid, mirror and hardware in a place where hubby will be reminded he needs to fix it.

But no faux-pearl earring. I picked out a couple of cheap pairs I don't use much, and put them in the little plastic box. I tossed all the old toiletries and replenished them from my (recently-organized!) Travel Supplies box. The contact lens stuff I tossed; I only wear them at rock concerts any more. I re-packed the duffle with a new tee shirt that fits and a pair of socks. It's ready to go back into my trunk.

It's 1 p.m. So I went down and made three sandwiches and two glasses of Crystal Lite lemonade, and we're each eating lunch at our computers. When we're done, we'll go get my car.

And I can cross one To Do item off today's list.

As usual, nothing turns out the way you plan it. At least, it doesn't for me. I did okay with the writing for the first couple of days, then came down with a horrendous head cold and crapped out the rest of the week...it's better today, good Lord, it should be, with the zinc lozenges and cold medicines and orange juice I've been guzzling, and all the naps! What a way to spend a vacation. Oh well, it's just a cold. And it should be gone by the time I have to go back to work Tuesday. Hubby called, said they'll be getting back to town that day, too, so I have something to look forward to when I get home from work! He says Manitoba is gorgeous, so maybe we'll go back up there sometime for a getaway.

The writing went well when it was going, and I've gotten my plan logged so now I'll just chip away at it a little each day - more when inspiration hits. I will be SO glad when this monster is finished! I don't even care if it sells (though of course I'd rather it did than not)! I just want it off my back!

I feel just good enough to not want to nap any more, but not good enough to really desire to do anything, specific. Usually when I'm in this gray fog I go do housekeeping chores and that makes me feel at least somewhat productive. When I get tired out, I take a break with a book -- I'm re-reading Jack McDevitt's Eternity Road right now. He's a joy.

So it's down to the kitchen for some busy work. Maybe I'll get more writing in this afternoon.

So now I have EIGHT DAYS all to myself. I've launched a final desparate grab at finishing this demmed novel that's been sitting for like, five years, bugging me from afar. I love the first two-thirds, so now it's Step Up to the Plate Day. And I have been; all morning I worked on edits and re-acquainting myself with the "voice," and all that. I'm not giving myself time to get scared (what the effing BLOCK has been all about, though beyond that I haven't figured it out), I'm just TYPING. I'm always better at the re-writes, though I don't do what you'd call a *re-write* so much as multiple comb-throughs.

Anyway, this is a wonderful opportunity for me to immerse myself in this story, this world, and see how well I can do justice to it. The story's been in my head since about 1970. That's NOT kidding. 35 years. Wow. It deserves finishing, and publishing, and going out into the world to make its way. Been under Mommy's thumb for far, far too long.

Love ya, hubby. Have a great time! :)