In A Bookish, Quilty Mood

  The mug pictured above is a pleasure, and a bit of a disappointment. This morning I noticed some of the print is starting to flake off; I just bought this in June for my husband, oi! Yet the messages on this Fred Rogers cup are timeless, and we'll treasure it as long as the words remain. Despite being partially disfigured, the quote in white struck a cord in me today, hence this early morning entry: Often when you think you're at the end of something, you're at the beginning of something else. Wow! I'm truly feeling that in my current getting over illness, merging back into my house state. Mostly this sense of newness is related to, ahem, accepting my age. Not that suddenly I'm ancient, but OMG I am certainly not as young as I was, um, previously. How previous? Earlier this year, last summer, pre-covid 2020? I'm not exactly sure, but for discussion's sake, let's say March 2024, when I decided to dip my toes into semi-retirement. When I was still fifty...

  I wash my dishes. We don't have a dishwasher, although we're planning a kitchen remodel, and at this point it is looking to be a 2025 project. Which is fine, because if I'm happy manually washing mugs, silverware, etc, I'm doing pretty well. Revisions have been my morning focus, as I wash dishes in the afternoon. Every other day I work on Enran Book #2, mixing it up with an older novel that I might or might not publish. I didn't plan to alternate the edits, but in the last several days, that's how it's been going. It's refreshing, both in the switching round and the spontaneous nature of how that evolved. I'm chalking it up to the twenty-nine times two theory, not stressing out about it. But if I wanted to analyze it, just a little bit.... LOL, that's what this blog is kinda about, looking at my life, from writing to kitchen maintenance, through an altered lens. Or a lens rarely considered while I'm poking at prose or scrubbing teacups. Or ...

One example of aging; I have to stitch a dark thread on a dark square during the daytime because at night even with extra lighting, it's still not bright enough for me to see what I'm doing. Recently I had a chat with Future Me about this semi-retired business. She rolled her eyes, smirked, then spoke. "Did you really think you'd remain this ambitious ALL THE REST OF YOUR DAYS?" I cleared my throat, then shrugged my shoulders. "Well no, but...." "But you assumed you would. You know what happens when you assume things, right?" I smirked back. "Yeah, I know." She grunted, then patted my shoulder. "It's okay, you know, to SLOW DOWN. You're not beholden to anyone to produce anything at this date or on that deadline." "No one but me, myself, and I," I said under my breath. Again she grunted. "Look, I don't care how long it takes you to edit a novel or make a quilt or get your backside outside to deal wi...

While visiting my daughter, a social media site informed us that back in Humboldt County a respectable pie establishment was featuring several new items for April. I salivated over the mention of mocha pie, and as they were closed on Monday, Tuesday was the first opportunity for me to taste it. And I did. Delicious! I told my husband we'd need to get back to A Slice of Humboldt Pie before the end of the month, and he agreed. He had the chocolate silk, it's also marvelous. Aside from that, cows returned to our homestead this morning; they had traipsed along a pathway that leads to our property last week while I was away, proffering my hubby plenty of photo ops as well as smiles. Their owner herded them home, but apparently today they decided to make another break for freedom. I grew up around Hereford cattle, so it was a sweet memory to find them munching grass as though they had adopted us. Helping my hubby keep the yard tidy I proffer these amusements in part that the pie tru...

  Creative spoils from last week. A big LOL needs to be attached to that title. I'm home, glad to be here, but in two and a half weeks my hubby and I are getting away to spend time with friends who graced our lives last December. This is a year for travel, at least for me. My better half isn't overly keen on leaving Humboldt County, but I'll take his vacations days and run with them. Blocks up close: Ice Cream Soda. For now I'm ensconced in my residence, maybe even wholly unpacked. Laundry is going, trinkets out and about, including a new (cheap) clock from IKEA that I'll transform into a fabric extravaganza. However, currently I want to extol the virtues of time away from one's routine, EPP blocks sewn in my absence, and how transitory my life feels, not merely because in another two weeks I will again pack a suitcase and kiss my usual existence so long . Hexie Flower, one-inch pieces. It's a fairly long-ish, but thankfully once out of the SF Bay Area uneve...

  Meet Oscar, my youngest granddaughter's favourite stuffy. From where I'm currently seated, Oscar is keeping watch of the dining table momentarily transformed into an art station. Coloured pencils rule the area, alongside leftover spoils from Sunday's egg hunt. Nope, I'm not in Humboldt County anymore. Time away from the North Coast is full of such activities, as well as much warmer temps, lol. Today we'll see a high in the mid to upper seventies, which feels like summer to me now. I haven't needed any over the counter medication for any sort of ache or pain, ha ha, the altered climate quite kind to my aging joints and muscles. Spending time with family is another remedy of sorts, stretching my meager drawing skills to their limits, but thankfully children aren't bothered. I spent this afternoon working on one chapter of The Hawk , sipping decaf coffee that my daughter fixed, grateful for both the soothing brew and opportunity to dip my toes into slightly f...

The quilting side of my creative life has thankfully been smooth sailing. Two baby quilts have been sent to their new homes, a third on the wall waiting patiently for me to spend a few days at my machine. I've made good progress on the Cornflower quilt, attaching rows in a manner that is actually pretty relaxing, but then wrangling a couple of rows is less futzy than all the rows, lol. I have twenty of ninety-four Star blocks made, I have a plan for abandoned Alexandria quilt blocks, which will free up two-inch hexagons so I can perhaps get back to that medallion style quilt in some future date. Future Me won't say if I will complete that quilt, but then she's also keeping quiet about the current state of my noveling existence. But first, the quilts.... The photos above and right below this paragraph are actually the same quilt! This is the first time I've made a quilt purposefully reversible. I like how in the small square side the perimeter is about half-square sized,...

Snapped at the Pacific Ocean on 1 January, 2024. Listening to a playlist tonight, the title of which is the same as this entry. It starts off with "Passing Through Air" by Kate Bush, which leads to "Edge of Seventeen" and "Stand Back" by Stevie Nicks. Basketball is on, the Knicks and Bulls, a fire popping near where I'm seated. It's a January evening, 2024, a new year having dawned. I read five chapters of my latest manuscript this morning, machine-quilted a lap blanket this afternoon, and now it's time to ponder what all this might mean, if anything, as music plays, a fire sparks, and minutes slip past in the very early stages of the next year of my life. I was thinking about my life, 2024, and how chill this year has begun. Chill as in mellow, also cool, rain and gray skies the norm. Music has been blasting, well, playing at a chill level, for my ears aren't happy if the tunes rawk too loudly, lol. Past Me stares hard, cranking it to 11 w...

Recent quilt finish that didn't get a proper photo shoot. This post is about getting older. I use the word deceleration instead of slowing down, in that slowing down insinuates a notion that makes me slightly uncomfortable as I drive pretty fast, lol. But in myriad other manners, I am not the gal I used to be. I considered this subject before I came home, fully aware that once I came home, writing wasn't going to happen the following morning. It's been some time since I got back from a short trip and immediately dove into writing. I did sit that first morning home and read over several chapters, prepping myself for the next day's work. Yet the writing isn't the only part of me decelerating. Getting older is a funny thing; it happens gradually of course, but suddenly I feel like, "Wow! I'm, uh, nudging toward my late fifties. How the hell did that happen???" I had a great chat with a friend from my junior and high school days this week concerning this ...

It's been a wet start to the rainy season here, for which we are definitely grateful! Already over an inch and a half of precipitation has fallen, although the rest of the state remains pretty dry. Hopefully that will alter soon, in that what drifts over the top left corner of California will eventfully become the norm, however rainfall in this part of the country remains an unpredictably tricky beast even for the best forecasters. However, when clouds give you fog and rain, best to keep busy with indoor activities, for which I am well-versed. The novel is progressing nicely; I'll work on Chapter Five when this post is complete. And speaking of completions, maybe by the end of this day I'll have another quilt top ready, lol. Pictured above is how it looked when I started yesterday afternoon, four rows still to stitch, as well as sewing the whole thing together. Currently it's waiting on my big table with a two-inch strip of Kona Magenta pinned to one side; I'm in th...

Finished quilt top. A quilt came together yesterday afternoon wholly out of the blue. I've been feasting my eyes on a placemat made of scraps from sixteen-patch blocks that have been languishing in a stack upon some surface area in my office. Those nine blocks merely required pinning, stitching, then pressing, but it hadn't been pressing within my soul to do all of that with them, lol. After lunch and laundry folded, I took stock of that stack, brought up the photograph below, snapped back in May when I decided their placement. Confirming which block went where, I pinned, stitched, then pressed. Suddenly I had a forty-eight inch square quilt, ta da! But I wasn't finished; forty-eight inches all the way around was a little small. Scrounging through scraps recently used, I came up with twenty-eight squares, made a top, then a bottom row, then spent the rest of the afternoon completing the quilt, which included ironing the entire top, what with rows pressed up, down, and side-...

A not-quite-complete Cornflower block, the perfect pictorial example of Past, Present, and Future Me. This past weekend Future Me and I crossed paths, but not in our usual way, her in the distance and me trying to ascertain what she's hoping I'll gather from her scattered pearls of wisdom. This time we practically sat side by side as I chatted with sisters from my various walks of life. Conversations about knee replacements and shoulder surgeries were rife between myself and these marvelous women while Future Me quietly cleared her throat, grasping my hand tightly as though trying to maintain her presence as well as keep my attention focused on so many subjects; precarious health as one ages, gratitude for recovery, thankfulness for friendships, and the knowledge that all of us aren't as young as the grandkids clamoring for our attentions. Future Me tagged along as I went from household to household in my hometown, stealthily admonishing me to revel in these exquisite discu...

Amid a marvelous wave of visitors, I have steadily continued the morning edits. The stitching together of Book 2 is now viewed with discerning eyes, in that finally it is being read on the heels of Book 1. Most of the loose ends have been neatly sewn in place, but a few ragged edges remain, which I'll get to...sometime. LOL. I'm feeling like the creature above, a newt that greeted me yesterday as I headed outside, remaining along the back steps when I returned indoors. Just hanging out, slightly concealed, but not running into the foliage for protection. I meant to show this picture to my grandson, hopefully I'll remember later today. His presence is an intriguing element to our lives here, in that he's garnered some insights to how grandparents manage their days, hedged in what would an eight-year-old find interesting. His family arrives tomorrow for a few days out of the heat and they all will return home hopefully with no newts in tow, but good memories as well as so...

I just LOVE these hues! Not completely rainbow, but multicoloured and just gorgeous. My hubby and I just got back after spending a few days with our son. It's lovely visiting with family, yet always a treat to return to one's own domicile. I admired the results of a very wet winter; green flora flourished EVERYWHERE! I deeply considered my novel-in-progress, making notes not in longhand but on my phone. I did a little hand-sewing and a dab of crocheting, completing a blanket proper and starting the ruffle. Okay, maybe saying I 'completed a blanket' doesn't ring true until the border is finished, but it felt like a win regardless. (Unlike how I managed to center this paragraph inadvertently, quite a fail....) The above picture is one of the treasures. The truths came about like drops of scattered rain, concerning my writing mostly, but not merely the WIP. I pondered why I only publish novels as ebooks, accepting my place as a simple storyteller who takes full advanta...

Two examples from two different skeins of yarn where breaks in the colour scheme occur. Very indicative of my current mood, lol. This is a funny novel, for all the hemming and hawing going on. Never before have I written, then purged scenes with somewhat of an abandon. I truly don't know what to make of it, chalking it up to age, grieving, the weirdly long winter (even though it's spring), or my new computer keyboard, which is small but adequate in a strangely truncated manner. I'm enjoying the writing, but the story keeps veering off on tangents I'm not comfortable with, in that too much is being revealed too soon, bleh. Future and Past Me's are steering clear of this manuscript, perhaps because what came before it was so out of the blue, so cathartic, and this prequel is just as outta my backside as any I've ever written. But I am writing, let me restate that, despite restarting a chapter here and there. I'm not getting much else accomplished, other than s...

Amid the irises, a hyacinth planted last year is blooming! Even better, I'd forgotten I had put it in the ground, hehehe. The grandsons, and their folks, left this morning. A wonderful and wild week was enjoyed amid torrential rain, copious sunshine, warm-ish cloudy days and me installing a new keyboard on my computer. I managed a little writing that one morning was rudely interrupted by lowercase rrrrrrrrrr's springing up in the prose. Fortunately I had a spare keyboard and that corrected the errrrrrroneous letter, lol. Scattered among marvelous memories of my eight and four-year-old grandkids, I am grappling with a small cold, but truly wanted to update this site, in that novelistic ideas have been piling up, although very little sewing occurred; I patched a pair of trousers for each grandkid, plopping a 1.5" hexie onto knees, during which my eldest grandboy noted that my stitching made him carsick, ahem. I promised on his next visit we'd try the machine, and I'...

The windsurfer and an admirer; February 2023. Still working on the novel; the beach has become a location within the story, definitely based on my recent visits to Mauren Beach in Humboldt County. A couple of entries ago I posted a shot of my bestie at the Pacific, today's shot another from this month, when a windsurfer held our attention for over half an hour. Within my novel, the beach is acting as an agent of change. I hadn't planned it that way, and after a testy chapter on Friday, I was back in the groove today, going in another unexpected direction. I'm not going to overthink it, just keep writing. Years ago after completing a draft, I wandered around the shore at The Hook in Capitola. Driving over Highway 17 wasn't too daunting, more important was admiring the waves, listening to the ocean's roar, taking in the immense power of the water. In those days I rarely took off a day from the story, wholly involved with the act of writing. We live closer to the ocean...

My bestie snapping pics of the sunset. Previously I was a socks on first then shoes kind of person. Lately I've been a one sock and one shoe on then the other sock and shoe type of gal. I don't exactly know what that means long term, but it seemed full of meaning when I was considering how to start this post. If I had my way, I'd be in the thick of hand sewing an Alexandria quilt. Instead I'm full of machine-piecy notions. I didn't plan 2023 to meander along this road, but other things have occurred that weren't on my list of To Do's, definitely a let go and let God kind of year. And if that isn't your scene, how about the title of today's installment; navigating the gusts of change. Either way, I'm feeling blown off my preferred choice of course, but better to make hay or quilts or write books while the sun shines or the machine sews or the prose emerges than not. My BFF spent the weekend with us, perhaps that's why I'm in this introspec...

Green and blue hexagons waiting to be sewn into blocks. Several still days of my writing life have accrued. The depletion of my emotional bandwidth is mostly to blame, what with aftershocks, bomb cyclones, and impending loss colliding. The result is I feel barely capable of cognitive thought, and very grateful for all the fabric I cut recently. Hand sewing takes little out of me mentally, although my right shoulder is beginning to protest from the uptick in slow stitching. Past Me has no good advice; she's dwelling in memories that occurred before last spring when cancer was diagnosed. Future Me is also staying out of the picture; perhaps she's quietly steering me to days when atmospheric and emotional storms are few. Right now it's me, myself and Present I bumbling about; drinking warm caffeinated tea, listening to the rain. Gazing at the still sparkling Christmas lights on the front fence, peering into the darkness of a winter morning. Well, I was doing that until I sat a...

The centre of my Alexandria Quilt; I do like me some blue! Today's title emerges wholly from the desire to embrace all that is good in this world. maybe that's an excellent way to begin the year, or perhaps foolish. I suppose it's better to start off thinking positively, being mindful of blessings, according them all due. Life might get sticky later on, but how about some warm vibes to usher in 2023. It's raining here, an alternate kind of brightness. We're hoping for an exceedingly wet winter, and this week's forecast is plenty of precipitation! I received several new mugs for Christmas, perfect for plentiful cups of piping hot beverages. And some nice coffee was also gifted, which I'll enjoy until it's gone. Today's photo is of my Alexandria quilt; it's certainly coming along, and despite thinking I would work on it every other day, I can't stop sewing on it. Right now it's in a sew and sew again mode; I can't cut fabric for new sec...