recent posts

    • What is the “One Notebook Principle?”

      What is the “One Notebook Principle?”

      Note: This post is pinned since it serves as an explanation to the site. At some point I will likely move it to an “About” page. Until that happens please scroll down, or use the left sidebar, to find more recent posts.

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      When I was in high school and college, I had a tendency to start off well organized. I had a notebook and folder for every class and every intention to use them faithfully. “This will be the year,” I used to tell myself, “that I will finally stay organized.” I was always wrong. It would never be that year.

      Now I am almost 40 and I’ve been kidding myself for at least the last 15 years or so. Every time I had a project or idea, which is often, I start a new notebook, or blog, or social media account, etc. I have dozens of these, at least, all half-filled and unfinished. You know what isn’t half-filled? The notebook I’m using that only has about half the pages because it’s my old English notebook from my junior year of high school (the one I had before I stopped using it in favor of whatever subject I eventually used for everything). This notebook includes: journal entries, to do lists, brainstorming lists for work (I’m a teacher), websites I should remember, appointments, etc. This is not to say that I don’t have a planner. I even use it. Yet somehow everything I tell myself I will keep organized in different notebooks has ended up in one notebook again.

      The thing is, I’ve been doing the same thing with websites and blogs. Everyone seems to think that you can’t have a successful website or blog if it’s too broad. You can’t overly specialize either. You should diversify, but not so widely that you confuse your audience. You need to be clear with what niche you’re filling and what audience you’re writing for. Websites and blogs are full of advice and how to’s and seem largely devoid of anything actually resembling real life and hobbies. Maybe I’m just reading the wrong blogs and sites.

      I found myself the other day missing Livejournal, back when it was at its peak, where everyone wrote about anything and everything all in one place. Sure, people specialized and could have a tendency to write about certain movies, books, or hobbies. There was also, however, a great deal of variety in general. No one thought twice, or so it seemed, about writing for a specific audience because we all seemed to be writing, primarily, for ourselves. No one seemed to be selling or appealing to anyone in particular.

      This website is my attempt at having “one notebook” in website form. Rather than attempt to have numerous websites/blogs that get updated when and if I feel like it, I will instead have have a variety of posts and topics on one website. If you’ve made it this far, and are curious, this can and probably will include the following: general life reflections, my efforts to get healthy again, home projects, crafting, playing World of Warcraft, writing and world building, teaching (oh yeah, I’m a teacher), my pets, book reviews, etc.

      Oh, one final note: The first few posts will likely be cross-posted from (and maybe to) some of my other blogs and websites while I debate shutting them down for good. So if you, by some chance, happen to see them on another website that’s likely why.

    • When Life Ramps Up: 6 Ways to Handle Long To Do Lists

      When Life Ramps Up: 6 Ways to Handle Long To Do Lists

      ***Cross-posted to ruralsuburbia.com (another blog of mine I’m trying to get back into writing for)

      I sat down this morning to make out my Spring To Do List (house, garden, etc.) and realized there’s more going on this year than there has in the last few.

      For one thing, there are new categories. House and garden are still there but I’m adding crafting, grad classes, fertility treatments, and blogging more consistently. On top of that I’ve increased my obligations at work. These sound like crazy decisions to have made pretty much all at the same time, but I’m also kind of excited about them. My life has felt fairly stagnant for the last couple of years so it’s nice to feel like I’m moving.

      So, how do I keep it feeling excited and not overwhelming to my prone-to-anxiety brain? I’m still working on that, in all honesty, but I’ll share what’s working so far.

      1) Have a Plan

      I don’t mean this in a plan or schedule your life away. Despite what lots of people suggest and say on the internet, schedules make me more stressed, not less. If you’re the same, take this as permission to put the calendar down. It’s ok if it doesn’t work for you, I promise.

      Instead, I find that it’s more important to have an idea of when things are coming up and when they’re due or, for appointments, scheduled. Each week, revise the list and each day visit with it. Add to it or edit it as need be. I don’t schedule a block of time to check this list, I usually do it at breakfast or right after. Sometimes I look at it at lunch, or right before I leave work. Find a time that works for you without stressing yourself out. Then just sit with the list.

      2) Prioritize, Chunk, Group

      I know for some, lists are stressful. My mother, for example, finds that long lists can make her more overwhelmed because there’s just too much on them. If that’s you then this section might help.

      First, if you have an overwhelming list, prioritize. This gets hammered into the ground in the self-help world but it’s true and it can work. Prioritizing is just what it sounds like but, and here’s the key in my opinion, write out your prioritized tasks on a separate list. Then file the old list (or throw it out) and focus only on the priorities list. When that list is done go back to the old list (or create a new one), have fun crossing everything off, feel massively accomplished, and prioritize again. I do this with a lot of the house and garden projects.

      Another good tip is chunking. This term gets used a good amount in education, so I’m not sure how specialized it is. Basically chunking is the idea of breaking a large task down into smaller tasks. Now, if you do this for everything on your list it will get very very long. So don’t do it. Instead, take your priorities and figure out step 1 (and maybe 2) for all of those. Feel free to make a new list of just those steps, but you may not need to at this point. Prioritizing again could also be a good idea at this point.

      When you finish this round of chunking, chunk again.

      Grouping can also help. Sometimes I find that some of my tasks, or chunked steps, overlap. For example, there might be two or three tasks/steps that require me to go to the same store. I group those together and only worry about going to that store once. That group is then “on hold” until I make it to the store and making it to the store is the new task on the priorities list. Make sense?

      3) Revision is a Way of Life

      It may be obvious from previous paragraphs, but a big part of this process called life is revising. New to dos are always going to get added on, plans will always change, and something will almost always come up. How to deal with unexpected changes? Revise. Be flexible. Don’t be afraid to throw out the list for the day or week or month and make a brand new one.

      Revision is why I don’t like schedules. Schedules suggest that a certain task or activity has to happen at a certain point or time and, if it doesn’t happen, the whole schedule is off somehow and you might feel like you failed. Alternatively, with revision, you’re more free to move things around. Didn’t wake up early enough to exercise? That’s ok, just look at your day’s list and see where it can fit in. Forgot an ingredient for Tuesday’s meal? No worries, see what else is on the list that you can make and add a trip to the grocery store on Wednesday’s list.

      The point of revision is to acknowledge that life isn’t perfect and that’s ok. Don’t let it derail you, just adjust accordingly.

      4) Plan to Drop the Ball

      If this is starting to seem like a juggling act, that’s because it is a bit. The analogy of juggling plastic and glass balls has been used over and over because it’s a good comparison. Life throws you a lot and juggling is how it can feel. It’s also true, though, that some balls are made of plastic and some are made of glass. Some tasks you can afford to let go, and some you just can’t.

      When you look at your list, plan for which balls could be dropped. My sister calls these her “nice to dos.” These are tasks like calling a friend, making a home cooked dinner every night, or finally tackling your closet. These are items which, if not done, won’t really cause your life to collapse. The occasional dinner out, a text instead of a phone call, may help to keep the balls somewhat afloat. Other balls, like closet organization, you may just need to drop for now.

      Notice, I say “for now” and “occasional.” The trick of dropping a ball is to plan to pick it back up again or, as previously stated, chunk it into smaller balls that are easier to juggle. Not all the balls are the same size, not all of them need to be the same size, and smaller balls are easier to juggle.

      5) Delegation Is Not Giving Up

      I had to learn this one in my 20s and 30s. Admitting you can’t do it all and aren’t a one-man-band is not the same thing as failing and being weak. We aren’t meant to do it all and the phrase “it takes a village” really is accurate. Sometimes I look at my husband and say that I just can’t do dinner, or the dishes, or whatever. Maybe I can’t because of a bad day at work, or maybe I’m feeling sick, or maybe I have an unexpected work meeting. For whatever reason, I go to my husband, let him know, and we change plans (revise) accordingly. Some days this means he does the task, other days neither of us do the task and we just put that ball down until tomorrow.

      Trust your supports and don’t be afraid to reach out when life is overwhelming. Sometimes delegation is just “can you listen and face the overwhelm with me” and sometimes it’s “can you help me complete such and such task.” Both kinds of delegation are good.

      6) Finally, “No”

      This is another concept I still have some trouble with. Saying “no” always felt like letting someone down, not showing up for others, and just being rude. Over the years I have learned that there are, of course, less rude ways of saying no then just saying no. “I think I have too much else going on” is not a bad alternative. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to give enough attention to it at the moment” can be a good one for work.

      However you say it, it can save your list and your sanity. Boundaries really are healthy and besides, you want to only juggle the balls you want to, or have to, juggle right?

      Conclusion

      When life ramps up, and your to do list seems impossibly long, take a moment and evaluate. Follow the suggestions in this post, or find whatever methods work for you, and breathe. Things are always changing and, however it feels right now, you won’t always be this busy. Promise.

    • Winter Reflections

      Winter Reflections

      Winter is far from over, as the blizzard we just had will attest, but I thought it would be a good time to reflect.

      Actually, I was going to post a saved draft of house project to dos for the New Year that I had written about two months ago now but it has disappeared. It was awaiting photos that I never managed to take and, after admitting that it would be better to just post the thing, now I can’t find the entry at all. Is there a limit to how long a draft ill save for?

      Anyway, in looking for it in Google Drive (sometimes I’m good and I type it in Google first), I stumbled across some of the pictures I already had that I was going to add to it. These are photos my husband has taken on his phone and graciously sent me when I explained why I wanted them. So it turns out that all of the photos were taken either in the fall or summer and everything is growing and there’s no snow anywhere. Considering the almost three feet of snow we’re digging ourselves out of, these photos are a jarring reminder that, eventually, the property will look green again.

      Nothing makes you think about where you are quite as much, at least for me, as a visual reminder of where you have been–which leads me to the winter reflection.

      Lately I’ve become very aware of how ambitious I was in the Fall and how many projects I started, thinking I’d finish them over the winter. I should have known better. At no time is my energy lower, on average, than in the winter. The sun goes down earlier, comes up later, and there are few waking hours where I am not at work. Winter curtains help keep the house warmer, but at the cost of the bit more light that the sheer curtains of summer let in. The house is warm and cozy, but it feels like a cave I should be hibernating in. I don’t want to finish sanding the stairs, or start painting the bathroom; I want to curl up on the couch by the fire, with my cats, reading a good book with a mug of tea.

      Hopefully this is something I will remember next Fall and I won’t start new projects just as the my energies levels are about to tank. I need to stop fighting my seasonal energy levels and try to work with them. With this mind, hopefully there will be future posts of all the projects I hope to complete once it is warmer. Until then you can imaging a bathroom with five different colors of paint swatches on the walls, an upstairs hallway only partially painted, stairs that are half-to-mostly sanded, and a buffet/sideboard waiting in the garage to be refinished.

      You can also enjoy some of the spring and summer wildlife photos below, courtesy of my husband.

    • The Search for the “Perfect” Planner

      For the past decade or two I have been, off and on, obsessed with the idea of the perfect planner. Does this sound familiar to anyone? I wanted a planner I stuck with, that allowed me to be flexible but productive, and was easily stashed in a purse or a backpack. I wanted a planner where I could write down notes and plan for all my projects and ideas. I wanted it to be a calendar for appointments but also have a space for house projects, garden projects, blogging, etc. I wanted about a bajillion different planners and notebooks in one small, easily carried book.

      If this sounds impossible it’s because I’m fairly certain it is. I’ve tried the bullet journaling method but for various reasons (mainly wanting the journal to look pretty and be perfect) it didn’t work for me. I tried having multiple planners, one for the garden and one for the home, etc., but that didn’t work out either. I found it too difficult to keep up or lug around multiples. I recently (about six months or so ago) bought myself a travel notebook system thinking it would be the best of both worlds but have yet to even try it. I bought myself, even more recently, an academic planner thinking that, instead of tracking classwork for different subjects, I would track different projects and to dos for different categories of my life. It felt like a brilliant idea. I stuck with it for about two weeks.

      That was back in early September and I’ve largely steered clear of planners or planning for anything but work (a teacher kind of has to plan). Tonight, however, I felt that itch to plan a planner. It would be, I thought to myself, the planner of all planners. It would be the one to finally be perfect. Then I thought briefly, guiltily, of the mostly empty planners in a cabinet in our snug (a small library/music room). Then I realized I was doing it again. I was getting sucked into the myth of the perfect planner. I was one step away from Google, Pinterest, and Youtube videos all touting examples of perfect planners and planning systems.

      Don’t get me wrong, if any kind of planner actually works for you then more power to you. But I realized something important tonight, something I feel like I keep needing to remind myself of. I could either feel guilty about abandoned projects, blogs, writing ideas, etc. and spend hours developing a planner and system I’ll likely never use or I could actually do something. Then I realized I had a blog topic and it was all about my realization.

      That said, I have had another realization. Sometimes it’s just fun to experiment with different planners and systems. It’s like a thought experiment. At least, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Happy planning!

    • Internet Reflections: Personal Curriculum and Bullet Journaling

      Something that always astounds me about the internet is how much it seems to reinvent the wheel.  Every few years there’s some trend that arises which sounds like a brilliant idea until I realize I’ve already been doing it.

      Bullet Journaling, for example, I tried for ages without too much success.  Everyone’s on Youtube and various blogs seemed so pretty and fancy that I wanted mine to look the same.  I got caught up in aesthetics and missed the practicality.  Then, while packing to move, I came across two of my journals from college (circa 2005-2009).  

      There were journal entries, books I wanted to remember to read, movies I wanted to watch, appointment dates and times, assignments and their due dates, etc.  As I looked through these books it occurred to me that, without all the fancy prettiness, I’d been bullet journaling for years.  I had just never formalized it.

      A similar thought occurred to me partway through a Youtube video on creating a “Personal Curriculum.”  The person in the video kept citing TikTok people and other Youtubers and halfway through the video I stopped watching.  Contrary to what the video claimed, no person on TikTok had created this.  I’m not even claiming that I created this.  

      In fact, the idea of setting yourself hobbies and interests to focus on, especially in the colder months, is pretty old.  People used to try out new recipes, plan for the new seeds to start come the spring, learn a new sewing pattern, or learn a whole new craft hobby altogether.  There are whole lists that show up on my Pinterest boards, and have been for years, about new hobbies or skills to learn in the winter time.

      Knowing this, and having loads of Google Docs that outlined my own personal curricula (I’ve kept ones that date to as early as 2015), I just couldn’t finish watching the video.  Must we make content that we pretend is new?  Or do we just not know that it’s old?

      All that said, I’m all for learning new stuff, and I have about ten years of experience on creating personal curricula, so let me give you some advice.  Stop focusing so much on formalizing a plan unless that really works for you.  None of my plans actually worked for me and I always ended up winging it.  Progress was made, but never at the exacting levels I planned.

      Second, don’t spend so much time planning that you end up not doing anything.  I’ve written about this before, but it’s my biggest pitfall by far when I want to accomplish something.  If you’re interested in art history, to pull from my own list of interests, then don’t make a curriculum.  Find a source (book, documentary, podcast, blog, etc.) and focus on that one source.  If it bores you, put it down and find something else.  Don’t stick to a plan that proves not to work for you just because it’s “the plan.”

      Finally, don’t attempt to learn it all or create a sort of 101-course for yourself.  I always have grand plans for learning, systematically, new crochet stitches but the truth is that I don’t need to know them all.  I just need to know the ones that are required for what I want to make.  Those are the ones I’m motivated to learn and putting that off as a sort of later-in-the-course thing is just going to ensure that I never learn it.

      Anyway, as always, do what works for you.  Happy learning (however you go about it)!

    • From the Archives: Autumn Feels

      From: September 2, 2017

      Today we had our very first cool day.  Temperatures last night were predicted to be in the high 30s (Fahrenheit; approximately 3o Celsius) and today it is not supposed to get above 70.  This isn’t cold, really, in an area that generally has below freezing temperatures in the winter, but it is very different to the 80 degrees we had two days ago and will have again in another two days.  Welcome to New England or, more specifically, welcome to Massachusetts.  

      The leaves haven’t started changing colors yet, at least not where I am, and September has only just started, but if there’s one thing this area excels at it is reminding you that seasonal changes happen – sometimes in the middle of other seasons.  Autumn, or Fall, which technically hasn’t officially started yet, feels very close on days like today.  As a teacher, the beginning of the school year marks what feels like the end of summer, but it takes a really cool, crisp day (the kind of day where my hair brush crackles with static electricity – yes that did happen this morning) to make me think of the upcoming season.

      The idea of a New England Fall is one that has been romanticized in books, movies, and television programs but it really can be quite the beautiful season.  My childhood, while happening in the late ‘80s into the ‘90s, often sounds like the 50’s instead – a fact I took for granted until college brought me into contact with people who didn’t shop at farm stands, go apple picking, and go on hayrides.  We bought our pumpkins at a farm about ten minutes away, used fallen leaves to stuff shirts for decorative scarecrows, and drank locally-made apple cider.  The woods behind my house erupted in color and, on one memorable weekend, my sister and I hand-fed a family of migrating Canadian geese in our front yard.  The town I grew up in didn’t have a Dunkin’ Donuts until I was 10 and, though I do not currently live there, still does not have a grocery store or a McDonald’s (or Burger King, or KFC, or . . . you get my point).  It does have at least three farms which sell their produce, a town fair day on the town common, and a town carnivale on the town’s fairgrounds.

      It took me about twenty years to fully realise how much my childhood sounds odd to many of the other ‘80s and ‘90s children out there.  It took me a few more years to really appreciate what that means.  Most of the time, I am as caught up in the day to day grind as anyone else.  I spend more time than is probably healthy in front of some sort of screen, while the rest of my time is divided (not always evenly) between my family, my job, housework, and sleep.  It takes the first hint of impending autumn to make me slow down and think of mulled apple cider, fires in the fireplace, and wintery crochet projects.  In a way, though I’m always sad to see summer go and winter come, I can’t wait for autumn to finally arrive in all its New England glory.

    • Looking Out My Back Door

      Once upon a time, in the older days of the internet, we used to offer digital cookies (the chocolate chip kind) to people who understood references the poster/author thought were clever and somewhat out there. Do people still do that? Anyway, this title is a song reference and once it came into my head I had to use it, even though it’s only partially accurate to this post.

      This morning I let my dog out in my fenced-in backyard and, instead of walking away to continue making my breakfast as usual, I decided to watch instead. I kind of love where we live for its closeness to amenities but also for the ecosystem we have. Our next door neighbors own two acres behind our house and, thankfully, are adamant that it remain woods.

      I’ve never actually lived anywhere that wasn’t within walking distance to woods. I grew up with woods in our backyard (quite literally, we had about one hundred feet of grass and then the woods started) and was lucky enough to go to college in a fairly rural area. Woods weren’t on my doorstep, or in my backyard, but I could see them from my dorm room and knew that I could walk to them if I chose to. I studied abroad for one year and woods were on the opposite side of the street from my dorm building. I visited a friend of mine when she lived in Germany and woods were visible from her house and only took a fifteen minute walk across a field to get to.

      My husband, who has lived in cities for the last couple of decades or so and grew up with a highway on the other side of his backyard fence, thinks it’s “kind of cool” that we live in a house that feels surrounded by trees. When we were looking for a house I was fairly flexible but woods “in the backyard” was one of the items on my “ideal house” list. As I was looking out my back door this morning, to bring it back to the title, I was reminded of why I find woods to be so important.

      We have chickens, so of course those were milling about in the yard. Alongside them, though, were two chipmunks and a collection of small songbirds. Slightly off to the side were a pair of mourning doves. While I was watching, a bird flew overhead. It looked a bit on the large side, so I’m guessing either a blue jay or a crow. We do have a pair of hawks but the chickens have apparently gotten big enough that they don’t try for them anymore. A few months back, our motion sensor deck light would turn on because a fox would be wondering through. I’m not sure how the fox got over a 6-foot fence, and there are no holes that suggest he went under, but he only comes after the chickens are safely roosting in their locked up hen house. One morning, a couple years ago, I came face-to-face with a coyote that was hanging around in our driveway. I had my dog (who is slightly smaller than the coyote) with me and we all just looked at each other for a bit before the coyote turned and headed back along the garage towards the woods.

      I could keep going. I could tell you about the occasional deer, the groundhog my husband took a picture of because he didn’t know what it was, or the turkeys that you have to brake for sometimes when your driving down our street. I could mention the squirrels who also frequent our yard. I could tell you about the bees that have taken up residence in the old chicken coop out front, and the rabbits my dog is utterly uninterested in (thankfully) who seem to live under our overgrown raspberry brambles in the front yard.

      We have lots of bugs, in addition to the bees, and not all of them are ones I’m fond of. With the mosquitos, however, come dragonflies. We have a few butterflies and, as my nephew pointed out yesterday, a couple of praying mantises. I see ladybugs every so often, and I know we have a large amount of spiders and little flies and all the other smaller insects I never really see.

      We are a very busy property, not in terms of work (see the “overgrown” description above), but in terms of what and who lives here. Whenever I hear people talk about the dying bee population, I think about the huge colony we have in the old coop, and I feel better about not having torn it down yet. The raspberry vines are overgrown in part due to laziness but also because I know they’re providing a safe haven for the bunnies. I like visiting the city, but this morning, looking out my back door, I was reminded of why I would never actually want to live in one.

    • What is the opposite of writer’s block?

      No, really, what is it called when you have too much to write about and you don’t know what to write about first? Is it called anything?

      Anyway, this has been my problem lately. There is so much I could write about that I just haven’t written anything. Then it occurred to me that I could write a post about that, except I’m not sure I can expand on it enough for its own post. So instead let’s talk about what’s going on with me. Life update time!

      First, I am somewhat waiting on the upcoming Amazon Prime sale. I know lots of people put out lists of items on sale and/or are affiliates, so let’s get the disclaimer out of the way first. I am not an affiliate of any company and no products discussed in the post are specific or recommendations. I will not link you “must-haves” because I don’t agree with them. Who am I to understand your life and needs enough to tell you that you should buy something?

      I bring up the sale, not to encourage you to buy from Amazon (whether you do or not is up to you), but because I am waiting to see if a heat gun will go on sale. As an aside, if anyone has any recommendations of good heat guns I would welcome a recommendation. The previous owners of our house painted the stairs so that the treads are black and the risers are white. We’ve lived here for about 3 years now and lately I’ve been thinking of trying to take off the black paint and see what’s under it. The stairway is a bit dark right now and the stairs have started to remind me of a cow. It’s time for a change, but I’m waiting on the heat gun.

      Also in life update news is the prep work for the upcoming school year (teacher, remember?). I took the last year off due to anxiety and mental health reasons, so I’m starting to review the history curriculum to refresh my memory. The curriculum is currently in the process of being revised, so I feel like it’s extra important for me to get a good handle on at least the first unit of the two grades (6th and 7th) I’ll be teaching. To help me focus on work stuff during the summer, I’ve started using a productivity game called Ithya: Magic Studies (available on Steam) which so far is working out really well. It’s a bit like Finch (mobile app), which I also use, but on the computer. It also has timers for work sessions, and background music, which I really like.

      Getting back to home projects, we’re also trying to figure out new paint colors for the upstairs bathroom, the upstairs hallway/stairs, and the kitchen. My husband says we’re painting the whole house slowly, and he’s not completely wrong. There are some rooms that we don’t need to paint (the green in the guest room, for example, is a very pretty shade of green) but over the past three years we have already painted almost half the house. One of these days we’ll be done with painting and then I imagine I’ll feel like new colors in a decade or so. I think my husband hopes we’ll just be done once we paint over the old owners’ paint jobs, but I painted my childhood bedroom twice between the ages of 8 and 16 so I know better.

      It turns out I have more life updates than I thought, despite the fact that I live a pretty boring life right now. Anyway, hopefully I’ll have more posts about painting, stair redecorating, and maybe even a more in-depth review of Ithya for those who might be interested. For now, have a cute picture of Winston (one of the 5 cats living in this house) and have a great week!

    • Doing Things Badly: Weaving

      Anyone who read my last post about weaving should remember that I found it slightly scary to finally weave on the loom I’ve had for probably about a decade now. I kept getting bogged down by all the things that need to happen before you actually weave, like measuring out the warp and then actually putting it on the loom. Several years ago I actually did attempt to warp the loom but I kept doing it wrong and then I just stopped trying. I never actually got to to the weaving part of weaving.

      So a couple months ago I finally decided that I just wanted to try weaving. I decided I didn’t care about a pattern or the length or even the colors and type of yarn I would use. I told myself that, as it was my first time weaving on an actual loom it was just going to be bad–or, at least, not good.

      With this in mind I resolved to just weave badly. To anyone who actually weaves, I apologize in advance for all the rules I broke. I tied the warp to the loom, although I did thread the yarn through the heddle. I had trouble looping the yarn back into the weaving to anchor it to the warp so, rather than stress about it or stop, I just tied it. It’s super loose and prone to sliding along the yarn, but my goal wasn’t to have a good warp and beginning. I just wanted to actually weave something, to move the shuttle and create something that resembled cloth.

      You can see my pictures of it below. It’s not great , or even good, but it’s something. More importantly, I actually wove something on my loom. I don’t care that I did it badly, I just care that I did it.

      Now I just to figure out how I want to take it off the loom and whether I want to do it badly next time or actually learn how to do the warp.

    • From the Archives: Drop Spindles

      From: November 4, 2017

      A long time ago, when I was a child, I read Little House in the Highlands by Melissa Wiley where the main character wants to learn to use a spinning wheel like her sister.  Her parents think she is too young but her mother digs out an old drop spindle so the girl can feel like she’s learning to spin her as well.  At the time, I didn’t have much interest in spinning wheels (that would come later), but the girl is described as going all over happily spinning on a drop spindle and I decided rather firmly that I wanted to learn how to do this.  I then promptly told no one and, while the idea of it never went away, it became buried under school, books, computers, etc.

      Flash forward about twenty years or so and I finally put a drop spindle on my Christmas list (apparently I’m hard to shop for so I still get asked for a list by family and friends).  I provided a website of a fibers store where you could buy a drop spindle and did my best to explain this seemingly odd request to my family.  On Christmas Day my mother came through in her usual, fantastic way.  I received two drop spindles, two books, one instructional DVD, and a giant box of ready-to-spin wool from various sheep breeds.  

      In a flurry of motivation and excitement, I promptly started reading the instructional book, watching the DVD, and trying out the spindles.  Then I promptly lost interest as my time was overtaken by work.  I’m a teacher so my enthusiasm and free time lasted about as long as winter break.  I’ve taken out the spindles every so often, and attempted to use my misshapen “yarn” for dryer balls (more on this later), but have yet to get back into them in quite the way I’ve wanted.  It’s something I want to change and will require a good amount of attention and discipline, especially as I also have a new-to-me spinning wheel.  Interestingly, and for reasons I’ll write about later, I think I like the drop spindles a bit better.  There’s a certain level of control with the drop spindle that is missing for me right now on the wheel, though of course I’ve been using the drop spindles for a bit longer, even if I’m still not very good with them.

    • From the Archives: The War Between Humans and Myths (fiction)

      Another bit of writing I found while looking through old Google Drive folders!! Clearly I need to organize my writing better. This short bit of writing is from July 24, 2014 and included the quote. Enjoy!

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      “Like legend and myth, magic fades when it is unused — hence all the old tales of elfin kingdoms moving further and further away from our world, or that magical beings require our faith, our belief in their existence, to survive.That is a lie. All they require is our recognition.” ~Charles de Lint

      They say that for awhile humans reigned with their science and technology.  That Earth herself took a step back to let them rule, and all the creations of magic and myth fled.  The stories tell of grand towers reaching up to the sky and of a human’s ability to replace a man’s heart and have him live.

      Until one day it all stopped.  Some say the humans went too far and Earth herself rose up to humble them and push them back.  Others say that the creations of magic grew tired of taking a back seat to the arrogance of humans and rose up against them.  

      Nowadays they all tell of the Great War between the humans and their technology and all that is magic.  The humans speak of the truces that were made to fight against a common enemy.  “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”.  The creations of magic say the same.  

      Now those great towers of old have fallen, and much of what once was has been lost.  The humans and the creations of magic live in an uneasy truce hard won, some say even forced upon us by the Earth, in order to save her from destruction.