29 Things Wrap-Up

On this last day of 2009 and third-to-last day of being 29, here's the recap of the 29 Things. I accomplished 13 of them, scratched 11 of them, and am carrying over the rest.

I'm pretty pleased with what I did get done overall, considering how the year started. But while 2009 had some really rough spots and I can't wait to put my 20's behind me, the year was good to me. I have a job I like even better, friends and family who help me out, hobbies, and Toby. As Joseph Addison says, "Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for."

So here's the report--green is done, red is scratched or not done, black is going on the 30 Things list, and any commentary is in italics:

1. Learn the names of the Wasatch mountain peaks--I only can point to Mt. Olympus--I can point to Twin Peaks, Lone Peak, and Dromedary Peak now, too.
   
2. Pay off the remaining debt--Seriously, I thought this day would never come.
   
3. Get a queen size mattress
4. Make a queen-sized quilt--Done! Another day I thought would never come.
   
5. Hike Bald Mountain in the Uintas again--This sounded less and less appealing as the year went on and I more fully embraced my fear of heights. So scratch this one.
   
6. Finish reading The Silmarillion--I have also fully embraced my inability to retain anything in this book. Scratch!
   
7. Knit Christmas stockings (starting with Toby's, of course)--Only Toby's is done but that's the only one that really counts. It's not like I'm going to hang and fill one for myself.
   
8. Visit the north end of Zion National Park
9. Be less wimpy about riding my bike on cooler days--I was still wimpy, but I've come up with a better plan for next year.
   
10. Eat at Red Iguana
11. Eat at The Paris
12. Chill a watermelon in a stream on a picnic in the mountains--I will now admit that I don't like watermelon. And I will not be hiking Bald Mountain to give the melon time to chill. Scratch!
    
13. Knit at least one thing for charity using up yarn I have--I bought yarn to knit a hat, which ended up being a practice hat for a gift, and then gave away the first hat to Big Brothers Big Sisters and never took a picture of the gift hat.
    
14. Get a new desk chair, if an affordable molded Eames chair exists--I am going to force myself to spend the money for a new chair in 2010. I'll just pretend it's a pair of shoes.
    
15. Cook moules marnieres and frites--I originally meant "from scratch," i.e. get the mussels, scrub them, purge them, parboil the taters, fun with deep-frying, etc. I cooked a lot of frozen mussels instead. And The Paris offers both the moules and the frites, so I am going to pass on this.
    
16. Stop biting my nails.--I have good days and bad days. Still working on this.
    
17. Learn how to sew knit fabric--Done! And easy!
    
18. Drink an Old Fashioned at the bar at Bambara
    
19. Learn how to apply eye makeup that doesn't look scary or amateurish--I've even gone from powder eyeliner to a real pencil in the last month or two.
    
20. Go to the Oyster Bar one Monday a month after work for a half-priced appetizer--I modified this one in my halfway report, so I'm just calling it done.
    
21. Replace my Rubbermaid kitchen garbage can with a broken spring top with something nicer. --I really had a hard time justifying this purchase (but not the purchase of many shoes), so I am indeed turning 30 with duct tape on my garbage can. This one gets top priority in 2010.
    
22. Knit an elaborate cabled sweater--I have the yarn and the pattern picked out! Tune in Tuesday for more.
    
23. Build my collection of Bach CDs--The only CD I bought this year was Beethoven's Missa Solemnis. Again, no problem buying shoes, but CDs seemed so extravagant.
    
24. Learn how to dance--This plan started out so well, but it ended up not working. Live and learn.
    
25. Stop getting plastic bags from the grocery store
    
26. Have tea at The Grand America--It turned out that they are a client at my new job, so I have had plenty of Grand America experiences without any tea.
    
27. Make cloth napkins and use them for everyday meals
    
28. Go out to breakfast one weekend a month
29. Go to Moab for New Year's Eve--I'm having a party on New Year's Day instead. No travel in the snow, no leaving Toby alone, no getting drunk the night before: Perfect. I still want to try to get to Moab in 2010, though.
    

Poem For Snow, Although It Was Better Suited To The Inversion

The weekend was so gloomy that I was starting to feel sad, so I had to go find some T.S. Eliot. This is from "Little Gidding," from the Four Quartets.

Midwinter spring is its own season
Sempiternal though sodden towards sundown,
Suspended in time, between pole and tropic.
When the short day is brightest, with frost and fire,
The brief sun flames the ice, on pond and ditches,
In windless cold that is the heart's heat,
Reflecting in a watery mirror
A glare that is blindness in the early afternoon.
And glow more intense than blaze of branch, or brazier,
Stirs the dumb spirit: no wind, but pentecostal fire
In the dark time of the year. Between melting and freezing
The soul's sap quivers. There is no earth smell
Or smell of living thing. This is the spring time
But not in time's covenant. Now the hedgerow
Is blanched for an hour with transitory blossom
Of snow, a bloom more sudden
Than that of summer, neither budding nor fading,
Not in the scheme of generation.
Where is the summer, the unimaginable
Zero summer?

Tuesday Project Roundup: Year In Review

Other than a scarf, I haven't had a project this week and I can't decide what I want to make. Going back through the year of Tuesday Project Roundups, I realize I probably don't need to make anything; 2009's projects with the new sewing machine and lots of unemployed knitting time included:
7 dresses
7 shirts
5 sweaters
4 drawstring shoe/lingerie bags
3 knitted "padded" hangers
3 skirts
3 pairs of mittens/gloves
1 quilt
1 pair pajamas
1 robe
1 Christmas stocking

...or, a project about every two weeks. (Knitting takes a lot longer than sewing, so it screw up the average, but that's pretty accurate.) No wonder I'm so antsy this week!

Did We All Have A Merry Christmas?

Remember, the week after Christmas is the time to go shop for yourself, as this vintage ad reminds us:
(Click for big. I don't really advocate buying or giving handguns.)

Ready To Celebrate

I have a split of champagne in the fridge to go with my dinner tonight,* Toby has a feather toy and a laser pointer waiting in his stocking for tomorrow, and I'm going to spend the day baking French things. Sounds like a good day!

*The wine store was packed yesterday, of course, and I heard someone at the end of the line say, "I guess nobody wants to be sober on Christmas!"

"...a tight Christmas"

Because this is a pantheistic blog, here's a poem to balance Monday's atheist cartoon. It's by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Mr. City Lights, and was published in 1959 in A Coney Island of the Mind.

Christ Climbed Down

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
there were no rootless Christmas trees
hung with candycanes and breakable stars

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
there were no gilded Christmas trees
and no tinsel Christmas trees
and no tinfoil Christmas trees
and no pink plastic Christmas trees
and no gold Christmas trees
and no black Christmas trees
and no powderblue Christmas trees
hung with electric candles
and encircled by tin electric trains
and clever cornball relatives

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
no intrepid Bible salesmen
covered the territory
in two-tone cadillacs
and where no Sears Roebuck crèches
complete with plastic babe in manger
arrived by parcel post
the babe by special delivery
and where no televised Wise Men
praised the Lord Calvert Whiskey

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
no fat handshaking stranger
in a red flannel suit
and a fake white beard
went around passing himself off
as some sort of North Pole saint
crossing the desert to Bethlehem
Pennsylvania
in a Volkswagen sled
drawn by rollicking Adirondack reindeer
with German names
and bearing sacks of Humble Gifts
from Saks Fifth Avenue
for everybody’s imagined Christ child

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and ran away to where
no Bing Crosby carolers
groaned of a tight Christmas
and where no Radio City angels
iceskated wingless
thru a winter wonderland
into a jinglebell heaven
daily at 8:30
with Midnight Mass matinees

Christ climbed down
from His bare Tree
this year
and softly stole away into
some anonymous Mary’s womb again
where in the darkest night
of everybody’s anonymous soul
He awaits again
an unimaginable
and impossibly
Immaculate Reconception
the very craziest
of Second Comings

Tuesday Project Roundup: Covering Household Items In Knitting

No, I haven't lost it; I made padded hangers out of yarn.
Regular padded hangers require a staple gun and batting and sounded hard, but these used up some stash yarn and took about an hour each.

And now I can hang knitted things on another knitted thing. How meta.

The Worst Is Over

Today is the winter solstice, marking the official beginning of winter. But since it also marks the shortest day of the year, I like to think of it as the turning point: It can only get lighter and warmer from here.

Let's celebrate with a light-hearted comic about science (click for big).


Maybe I should have made some gingerbread Carl Sagans this year!

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Now that the first decade of the 21st century is almost over, I'm finally getting with it: I have a Flickr account now. None of my own photos are in it; it's more like a virtual inspiration binder for decorating and projects. (It started because I needed to see two different pillow fabrics next to each other.)

2. I've been idly going through real estate sites, just to see what I'm up against (a lot), and the "remarks" on each house on the Chapman Richard site are hilarious:
Careful, Cat May Attack If You Try To Touch
DO NOT LOCK THE DOOR ON THE INSIDE OF SUN ROOM.
Great Fixer-Upper, House Is Uninhabitable

3. And finally, with the solstice approaching, here's a column from The Guardian by poet Jeanette Winterson about embracing the dark and using it for reflection, being "dark without being melancholy, brooding without being depressed."

Party Season

Reading the J. Peterman catalog as a teen and coveting the Silk Taffeta Ball Skirt, I imagined that grown-up life meant lots of parties that looked like this, not budgets and grocery shopping.




Despite the lack of lipstick and bouffants, it's still pretty good to get older.

(Images are by Tom Palumbo, of Paris in 1962. You can see the whole set here.)

This Is A Big One

Between changes in my life, changes in my goals, and just running out of steam, I think I will only have about a 50% success rate on my 29 Things (a full report is coming, as are 30 Things for next year).

But yesterday I accomplished the one that meant most to me (#2): I made the last payment on credit card debt that I've been carrying for years, and which I've been repaying for the last three. It was a lot of debt. I was stupid. It was really hard to be on such a tight budget. But now: Debt-free! I can finally consider adult things like home ownership.

Tuesday Project Roundup: The First Thing I Learned To Sew

I learned to sew in 4-H, as organized by my mother, when I was about 10, maybe younger. The first real project--after lots of sewing on paper without thread--was a drawstring bag. Twenty years later, here I am making drawstring bags again:


These are shoe bags and a lingerie bag, all meant to help with packing--so your packed clothes don't get dirtied by your shoes and you can tell what's been worn and what hasn't. They were for my sister-in-law's birthday last Saturday, which I forgot to mention here; she's been traveling a lot so I thought this would be practical.

I have to admit that I didn't remember my first 4-H bag training for these. I had to use an online tutorial to walk me through the first one, but it all came back for the next two. (Granted, it's a bag, not rocket science, but I tend to cling to directions so I was happy to just cut and sew by the end.)

Ten Days To Go

Presents: wrapped.
Christmas cards: addressed.
Packages: mailed.
Menus: planned.
1977 American Ballet Theater version of The Nutcracker: watched.

This version aired a lot on PBS when I was in my teens, and I thought it was the most magical thing in the world. I'm sure a lot of that had to do with Barishnykov, because when I put in the DVD yesterday the soft-focus 70's-ness of it all was slightly less than magical. But then the real dancing started and I decided that Mikhail could be my imaginary boyfriend again.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. As I've been full of the Christmas Spirit not having to work two jobs, I've been watching Christmas movies. Holiday Inn was in the queue this week and so I got to see the original rendition of "White Christmas." Which was followed by a number for Lincoln's birthday featuring Bing Crosby in blackface. Ugh.

2. I've found a blog about working on and living in old houses from the 40's through the 70's: Retro Renovation. It even has tips on what to do with a pink bathroom!

3. The mittens performed admirably at the company party last night, even though it was SEVEN BELOW at Soldier Hollow--and that's not counting the windchill from tubing.

"Improbable, beautiful and afraid of nothing"

Here's something from Mary Oliver that the Writer's Almanac had posted last weekend. It works in birds, and winter, and being a better person--just right.

Starlings in Winter
by Mary Oliver

Chunky and noisy,
but with stars in their black feathers,
they spring from the telephone wire
and instantly

they are acrobats
in the freezing wind.
And now, in the theater of air,
they swing over buildings,

dipping and rising;
they float like one stippled star
that opens,
becomes for a moment fragmented,

then closes again;
and you watch
and you try
but you simply can't imagine

how they do it
with no articulated instruction, no pause,
only the silent confirmation
that they are this notable thing,

this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spin
over and over again,
full of gorgeous life.
Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,

even in the leafless winter,
even in the ashy city.
I am thinking now
of grief, and of getting past it;

I feel my boots
trying to leave the ground,
I feel my heart
pumping hard, I want

to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.

Pretty. Also, COLD.

I was out this morning sweeping off the little bit of snow that accumulated and making sure the bird feeder was uncovered and full, and it looked like this:

(Maxfield Parrish, "Winter Night Landscape [Study]." Oil on board, 1956-58.)

I hope all the birds and the strays and the people who were out last night are OK. I actually got a recorded call from Utah Power yesterday evening saying to stop unnecessary power use to accommodate demand due to the extreme cold, and to consider lowering thermostats "five to ten degrees." Um, no. But I didn't use the space heater last night, because I am a good and obedient citizen. I noticed all the neighbors kept their Christmas lights on, though.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Knit Faster

So in between Secret Gift Knitting/Sewing I've been working on another pair of those Twilight Mittens for myself--except this time they fit and I like them. (The saga of the last pair: I lost my place in the cables, they didn't match, and they ended up too small even after I blocked them, so I gave them to a non-knitting Twilight-loving co-worker who thought they were awesome.)

But this pair fits--I went up to larger needles and nice chunky yarn. The left one is done; I'll finish this right one tonight, because I need to wear them to the company Christmas party Thursday, which involves sledding.

Nothing Says Christmas Like A Horn Section

Just yesterday I was wishing that there were more Christmas soul albums, and then I discovered Otis Redding covering "White Christmas." Released posthumously as a single with "Merry Christmas, Baby," this is the second-most awesome Christmas song ever. (Here's the most awesome one.)


Also: Nothing gets one excited for Christmas more than NOT working two jobs in December.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Christmas is coming--do you have a nativity set that uses Helvetica yet? If not, you could try this minimalist one.
2. I've been reading a re-print of Elsie De Wolfe's The House in Good Taste, first published in 1913. It's fascinating to read a decorating book published without a lot of pictures. Despite it being nearly a century old, there's a lot of good points made.
We are sure to judge a person in whose house we find ourselves for the first time, by their surroundings. We judge their temperament, their habits, their inclinations, by the interior of their home. We may talk of the weather, but we are looking at the furniture.

Maybe This Is Why I Like The Cosmos Series So Much Lately

Today's Writer's Almanac featured this poem (and also a description of the "Stella shouting contest, also known as the 'Stell-off'" that's part of a Tennessee Williams festival--the Writer's Almanac is nothing if not varied):

Stars

by Freya Manfred

What matters most? It's a foolish question because I'm hanging on,
just like you. No, I'm past hanging on. It's after midnight and I'm falling
toward four a.m., the best time for ghosts, terror, and lost hopes.

No one says anything of significance to me. I don't care if the President's
a two year old, and the Vice President's four. I don't care if you're
cashing in your stocks or building homes for the homeless.

I was a caring person. I would make soup and grow you many flowers.
I would enter your world, my hands open to catch your tears,
my lips on your lips in case we both went deaf and blind.

But I don't care about your birthday, or Christmas, or lover's lane,
or even you, not as much as I pretend. Ah, I was about to say,

"I don't care about the stars" -- but I had to stop my pen.
Sometimes, out in the silent black Wisconsin countryside
I glance up and see everything that's not on earth, glowing, pulsing,
each star so close to the next and yet so far away.

Oh, the stars. In lines and curves, with fainter, more mysterious
designs beyond, and again, beyond. The longer I look, the more I see,
and the more I see, the deeper the universe grows.

I have a long way to go, and I'm starting now --
out in the silent black Wisconsin countryside.

Advent Calendar

The Big Picture blog has started their photo-a-day countdown to Christmas this year, again using images from the Hubble Space Telescope. A new photo is added every day here.

I think Carl Sagan would approve. My dad loaned me the book Cosmos to go along with my watching of the show, and here's my holiday thought for this season:

The Cosmos may be densely populated with intelligent beings. But the Darwinian lesson is clear: There will be no humans elsewhere. Only here. Only this small planet. We are a rare as well as an endangered species. Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Let's Hear It For Four-Day Weekends

I got so much done over the weekend: Finished a knitted accessory that was supposed to be a gift but won't fit the intended recipient (I'll try again); started over on a new pair of Twilight mittens for myself (Twilight, I wish I could quit you); sewed something secret for a holiday gift; sewed my Liberty peacock-print dress; and finished the beige cardigan.

Here's the dress:


And here's the cardigan:



Funny thing about the cardigan--I re-did the front three times to get it perfect. Then I got to the knitted border and collar and I used a smaller needle so it wouldn't droop. I over-compensated, though, so the border came out a little short and tight, which is why the bottom flips up in that little diamond fold. I told myself that I like the "adapted" shape--and I do--but it's not how it's supposed to be. I may end up re-doing the border...I'll wear it first and see.