Tuesday Project Roundup: The Longest Project Of All

This week will mark the one-year anniversary of my being in the house. Since it's really the biggest and longest-term project I'll undertake, why not look at the progress made through the year?*

Still under construction.


Moved in, with cat head.


With an Eames chair and real window coverings.


And with a coffee table and Arco-esque lamp. Things are getting fancy...


And here's the orange sofa and grown-up art over the fireplace.

And on the other side of the room, there are curtains and fabric art I made (and more than two people can dine in comfort).

Hooray for home decorating!


*No, I haven't finished any sewing this week. Can you tell?

Mountain Things

What does Millcreek Canyon look like on a hike in February? Oh, you know, some mountains, some trees, a waterfall, some snow:





It's my inner hippie's happy place.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. If you ever wanted to branch out from "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog," here's a list of pangrams--even some in other languages!

2. This was on kottke.org this week, but I find it hilarious: Fake pronunciation guides. They're eight seconds of pure awesome.




Celebrate the weekend with a glass of chimpoopisto!

3+2 Things: Book Report

So it's February 2--how about that goal of reading a book a month? I picked Brideshead Revisited as the first one, as I knew the Granada series from the 80s well but had never read the novel all the way through.

However, it's slow going: Because I know the plot from the TV series, I'm tempted to skip ahead, and I keep hearing Jeremy Irons in my head as I read. I'm also out of the habit of reading, I think; I tend to open my laptop instead of a book lately.

But I'm pushing through--can't get too behind on the year of book already!

A Grammar Tip

I have a few tricks I use to keep things straight mentally (and to help explain my copy edits at work), but I've never shared them with anyone. Are you interested? Shall we see if this makes sense and start a Wednesday grammar tip series? Let's try.

Today's tip is about getting the possessive version of "its"--that is, the one WITHOUT the apostrophe--right. My tip? See if you can substitute "his" for "its".

So, for example, take this sentence:
"The chair was missing one of its legs."
Using our trick, we can pretend we live in a cartoon universe and say,
"Mr. Chair was missing one of HIS legs."
Yes, this makes sense! DO NOT add an apostrophe to that "its" in the original sentence.

Another example:
"Paris is famous for its lights, its food, and its wine."
Let's use our trick again and substitute "his":
"Bob Paris is famous for HIS lights, HIS food, and HIS wine."
Yes! Resist the urge to add an apostrophe to "its" as it is used here.

You can also reverse this if you see an "it's" with an apostrophe and you're not sure it is correct:
Does changing "It's going to snow tonight." to "HIS going to snow tonight" work?
No, that makes no sense. Therefore, this apostrophe is OK.

So remember: If you can substitute "his" for "its" in the sentence you're worried about, that "its" does NOT need an apostrophe.

Tuesday Project Roundup: More Fabric

I don't have anything finished to show today, but how about pictures of my latest fabric wants?

This past weekend, I started working with the grey fairy-tale print Liberty of London I bought myself over Christmas--my first time using any really "nice" fabric in over a year. So of course I now want ALL my fabric to be Liberty, and of course Liberty has obliged me by coming out with new spring prints:

Becci C--can't you see this as a tunic with contrast bands around the neck?

And here's Gilliam A, which is telling me it wants to be some sort of ladylike tie-neck blouse.

(Hey, my budget and I can dream, right?)

It's Monday

Lay on it like it's clean laundry and pretend it's still the weekend.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Let's just say, hypothetically, that you are going on a date for the first time in 4.5 years. What do you do? How do you act? Fortunately, Mystery Science Theater 3000 has found us this educational film, "What to Do On a Date."


"How about a weenie roast?" "Nick, NO!"

2. Related but not as funny, this essay about a first dance could have been written by me, down to the dress I was so convinced I had to have and the inevitable disappointment:
I cried because I’d believed with all my being that once I put on eyeshadow and a turquoise dress, I’d turn into a heroine of any of the slumber-party movies I’d watched. [...] I cried because at that moment, in a gymnasium decorated with crepe paper so that the gifted kids could feel not just smart but glamorous, I began to understand that not everything would come easy to me, and that some forms of failure could be intangible, inexpressible, and nonetheless undeniable. I cried because I wanted to be seen, and because nobody was ready or willing to see me.

3. And unrelated: Happy birthday to our friend W.A. Mozart.

Music History

In late winter I always revisit Russian music, and lately it's been Shostakovich. How about the finale to his Fifth Symphony to get your blood going this morning?


He wrote this after managing to get on Stalin's bad side with an opera and after pulling his Fourth Symphony to not further anger the dictator. The party was pleased with the Fifth (which the composer subtitled "A Soviet Artist's Practical Creative Reply to Just Criticism"), but, as Shostakovich later wrote:

I think it is clear to everyone what happens in the Fifth. The rejoicing is forced, created under threat... It's as if someone were beating you with a stick and saying, "Your business is rejoicing, your business is rejoicing,'' and you rise, shaky, and go marching off, muttering, "Our business is rejoicing, our business is rejoicing.''...You have to be a complete oaf not to hear that.

More music history here. Happy Thursday, comrades!

Things That Made Me Happy Yesterday

1. Cat pictures:


(from my "Happy" Pinterest board, of course); and
2. This quote from M.F.K. Fisher:

A well-made dry Martini of Gibson, correctly chilled and nicely served, has been more often my true friend than any two-legged creature.

(from the final essay in An Alphabet for Gourmets. It's so true.)

Also: Happy birthday to Virginia Woolf today!

Tuesday Project Roundup: Namaste!

Around Christmas, I was talking to my yoga teacher and it came out that I knit. And she asked, "Can you make me some legwarmers?"

Because I feel the same way about my yoga teacher as I did about a few early grade school teachers ("You're so pretty! And so calm! And you're good at so many things I'm not!"), I said of course I would ("Teacher asked me to do a special project! Yay!").


I'm using this pattern but left off the foldover cuff, as you can see. I left it off because I wasn't sure I'd have enough yarn for it, but now I'm pretty certain I will. So do I go back to the first one and add it? I don't know if the drawstring would be fiddly during yoga or if it would help with the fit.

Maybe the legwarmer needs to live its way into the answer....

(And no, that joke still hasn't gotten old. If you couldn't tell.)

"And your heart felt good"

I was up Millcreek in the snow yesterday, climbing through the forest, and thought of the last chapter of A Moveable Feast where Papa talks about spending the winter in Austria, skiing and climbing through the forest:

No one could afford a broken leg. There were no ski patrols. Anything you ran down from, you had to climb up. That gave you legs that were fit to run down with.

[...] But climbing was fun and no one minded it in those days. You set a certain pace well under the speed at which you could climb, and it was easy and your heart felt good and you were proud of the weight of your rucksack. Part of the climb up to the Madlener-Haus was steep and very tough. But the second time you made that climb it was easier, and finally you made it easily with double the weight you had carried at first.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. A dear friend suffered a terrible loss this week, so putting up funny links or MST3K quotes doesn't feel right today. Instead, I will tell you to travel safely and hug your loved ones and try to make your part of the world more full of light.

2. I'll also give you a space picture, since that's how I cope:
(Click the image to see it bigger--every speck of light you see is a galaxy.)

This was the last image featured on The Atlantic's space Advent calendar. As the caption there said:
This Hubble image is one of several, including the Ultra Deep Field, which peer into seemingly empty space, leaving the camera shutter open for hours, and reveal that billions of galaxies made up of billions of stars fill our skies in every direction as far as we can possibly see, separated by almost unimaginable distance and time, yet still reachable, visible as an image of their long-ago selves.

Together We Sit

This is from last week, when it was sunny, but it will be sunny again.

WWPMD?

Sometimes you just need to read some Raymond Chandler at the end of a workday and have Phil Marlowe give you some perspective. Marlowe would have no patience for hippie platitudes or Rilke quotes, but even he knows that it's important to be a good human. Or at least try to be:

I stepped out into the night air that nobody had yet found out how to option. But a lot of people were probably trying. They’d get around to it.

I drove on to the Oxnard cut-off and turned back along the ocean. The big eight-wheelers and sixteen-wheelers were streaming north, all hung over with orange lights. On the right the great fat solid Pacific trudging into shore like a scrubwoman going home. No moon, no fuss, hardly a sound of the surf. No smell. None of the harsh wild smell of the sea. A California ocean. California, the department-store state. The most of everything and the best of nothing. Here we go again. You’re not human tonight, Marlowe.

All right. Why should I be?...Who am I cutting my throat for this time? ...All I know is that something isn’t what it seems and the old tired but always reliable hunch tells me that if the hand is played the way it is dealt the wrong person is going to lose the pot. Is that my business? Well, what is my business? Do I know? Did I ever know? Let’s not go into that. You’re not human tonight, Marlowe. Maybe I never was or ever will be...Maybe we all get like this in the cold half-lit world where always the wrong thing happens and never the right.

Now, wait a minute...You’ve got the wrong attitude, Marlowe. You’re not human tonight.

(This is from Chapter 13 of The Little Sister; read the whole chapter here)

Tuesday Project Roundup: Not Photographing Well

The latest project is a gray wool flannel dress, since it's too early to be thinking about spring sewing. The flannel had been hanging around in my stash for a year or two, waiting to see what it would be (even fabric can live its way into the answer!) and I/it finally decided on a tailored plain dress.


I used this boatneck version of the shift dress from my trusty Built by Wendy Dresses book and lined it to boot. I'm very happy with how it turned out, but I could not get a decent picture of it last night. When I'm not talking pictures, I promise it hangs evenly on my shoulders, and I don't think it looks quite so much like a gray sack in real life.

At least, that's what I'm telling myself.

It Is

This will make you happy--David Attenborough recites lyrics to "It's a Wonderful World" set to nature images.


An excellent way to start the week.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. The latest issue of O Magazine is all about poetry, and it includes an interview with Mary Oliver (our favorite). It's a big deal because she doesn't give interviews and is in her 80s. It's also a delight. Some quotes:
There were times over the years when life was not easy, but if you're working a few hours a day and you've got a good book to read, and you can go outside to the beach and dig for clams, you're okay.
and:
It's hard to meet a stranger—you give of yourself—and if I did that, I'd want to do it well.

(I'm stealing that one as an excuse not to meet people or go to social events.)

2. My inner hippie wants to use Khalil Gibran as a career planner. Let's talk her out of that, shall we?
Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.

I Think Of Space

I realize it's only been a week, but just Tuesday I was thinking, "Being kind and non-judgmental and happy is going so well!"

Then, of course, yesterday happened. So today I am re-grouping and thinking about space. This is Dr. Neil Tyson telling us we're all connected, much more eloquently than I did:



"We're all connected--to each other, biologically; to the earth, chemically; and to the rest of the universe, atomically...It's not that we're better than the universe; we're a part of the universe. We're in the universe and the universe is within us."

Let that thought get you through the rest of the week.

Book List Recommendations

I've been thinking about the 12 books I want to read for the 3+2 Things and have come to the conclusion that I don't read new things because I can't make a decision. So maybe you have some recommendations?

I thought I'd try to split my list about 50/50 between holes in my classics and new stuff. Let's see where we stand:

CLASSICS
I have four for sure:

• Brave New World
• 1984
• A Passage to India
• Brideshead Revisited

What should the last two be? I'm thinking more along the lines of John Updike than Joseph Conrad. I've avoided dystopian stuff, but what about Vonnegut? Or The Handmaid's Tale?

NEW STUFF
As for new stuff, I know I want to read

• something by Jeffrey Eugenides
• something by David Foster Wallace
• and something by Jonathan Safran Foer
  

However, after those three I'm at a loss. Do I pick the National Book Award winners from the last few years (The Corrections)? Do I read what's popular (The Hunger Games trilogy)? I'll take any recommendations you have.

And I'd I'd better get to the library soon.

Tuesday Project Roundup: A House Project

After taking down Christmas decor the house seemed barren, so my new goal is to add more decor and accessories. I started with the office and added bulletin boards on each side of the desk:

This is another fabric-covered Homasote board, just like the one in the sewing room. Since I had leftover Homasote board on hand, this project only required one yard of fabric and the loan of my dad's staple gun again. Here's a close up:


I'm really happy with the result (but anything turquoise and orange has a 99.9% chance of maing me happy.) There's certainly more decor in the room than there was this time a year ago:

The Ultimate Sunday Night Conversation

My friend was talking about a store meeting he gave and described his staff's reaction (ranging from support to "reverence" to frustration to anger, apparently) and announced,

"I'm the Kim Jong Il of social stationers."

I'm pretty sure I don't need to call him ever again because I don't think he's ever going to top that line.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Stephen Hawking is turning 70 soon and so is giving interviews. In one with the New Scientist, he was asked, "What do you think most about during the day?" and answered, "Women. They are a complete mystery."

I know it's just a soundbite, and I know we're supposed to think he's being a charming old man, but I have to think of Carl Sagan making the argument to include women in The Explorers Club:
But we presumably are adults, with a special responsibility for interacting with all humans on this planet.

Maybe we can think of each other as human adults first, and then genders second? You've done way more complicated things, Dr. Hawking.


2. I bet you were just thinking, "How come there isn't a Tumblr for Mystery Science Theater ephemera?" Well, there is. And it's called F** Yeah MST3K. And it's full of gems like this:

Advantage: His

My brother has started a blog for the new year, and he has a secret weapon: Daily pictures of Skyler. Go check it out and get your fix of baby cuteness and antics (and tractors). It's called Living with the Bubbs.
See what I mean?

A Poem For The End Of The Holidays

We've taken down all the Christmas things but there's still a lot of winter to get through. William Carlos Williams will give us some insight and remind us of the birds outside:

At the winter's midnight
we went to the trees, the coarse
holly, the basalm and
the hemlock for their green

At the thick of the dark
the moment of the cold's
deepest plunge we brought branches
cut from the green trees

to fill our need, and over
doorways, about paper Christmas
bells covered with tinfoil
and fastened by red ribbons

we stuck the green prongs
in the windows hung
woven wreaths and above pictures
the living green. On the

mantle we built a green forest
and among those hemlock
sprays put a herd of small
white deer as if they

were walking there. All this!
and it seemed gentle and good
to us. Their time past,
relief! The room bare. We

stuffed the dead grate
with them upon the half burnt out
log's smoldering eye, opening
red and closing under them

and we stood there looking down.
Green is a solace
a promise of peace, a fort
against the cold (though we

did not say so) a challenge
above the snow's
hard shell. Green (we might
have said) that, where

small birds hide and dodge
and lift their plaintive
rallying cries, blocks for them
and knocks down

the unseeing bullets of
the storm. Green spruce boughs
pulled down by a weight of
snow--Transformed!

(from "Burning the Christmas Greens," 1944, discovered here.)

32

Today is my birthday, which means it's time for new goals for this age. (It also means I'm just a decade away from being the age that's the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.)

Instead of 3 definite goals + 1 optional goal, this year I have 3 that are quantitative and 2 that are qualitative--so 3+2 again, except the "+2" things aren't optional, just difficult to put a metric to. Here they are:

1. Take a fiction writing class
I always picture myself writing fiction on my ranch in the distant future, but I haven't written anything since college. I know myself well enough to know I need a deadline to actually produce something, so taking a class will hopefully get me going.

2. Write 3 short stories
These can be very short stories, and they can be part of what I have to do for class, but this goal will theoretically give me the deadline I need to keep writing.

3. Read a new book a month
For someone who likes to read as much as I do, I don't read new things. I have Sherlock Holmes, M.F.K. Fisher, Hemingway, and Salinger just about memorized, but I've missed out on most of the new books from the last 15 years and still have holes in my classics (1984, Brave New World, any Updike, etc. ). So this goal will help address that a little. (I'm still picking my 12 books, so stay tuned.)

and the +2:

+1. Be happier in my work
This is qualitative for now because I don't know what it's going to take for me to be happier. Just an attitude adjustment? Some internal changes at my current job? A different ad gig? A radical career shift? I've been pondering this for a while now, but I'm still "living my way into the answer." (Damn, that is a useful quote--I'm not lost; I'm deep.)

+2. Less judgement, more compassion
I've never felt particularly kindly towards my fellow man, but as I get older I don't need my hard little heart to become even harder. You can give yoga or the Buddha credit for this one, but I like to give it a scientific spin, too: We're all made of the same atoms from the same universe. And we're all here on this tiny planet all together. And that's all we've got. So let's all be a little kinder to each other, starting with myself.

Or, as my boyfriend Carl Sagan says:
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.

We will see how well I can put the last two Things into practice when I go back to work tomorrow...but for today, I'm going to climb a mountain.

Happy New Year From My Inner Hippie

(My holiday cards this year.)

Related: Woody Guthrie's "New Year's Rulin's" from 1942. I like how "help win war - beat Fascism" is at spot 27.

Unrelated: Happy birthday to Isaac Asimov today, and yesterday to E.M. Forster and my buddy J.D. Salinger.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. Enough talking about me; let's talk about clothes! I've found a blog that covers all of James Bond's clothes in the various movies, down to fit, cut, and sources: The Suits of James Bond

2. We also haven't talked about space in a week. Here's a site with some gorgeous pictures of the night sky from Earth--because the planet under our own feet is pretty incredible, too.

3. And, preemptively, Happy New Year! I hope 2012 is good to us all. 2011 was pretty great, all considered--I have actual muscles in my upper body, I have a house, and I have this guy to be an auntie to:

(Hm, back to talking about me. But do you blame me for wanting to show this kid off?)

3+1 Things Wrap-up: The +1 Thing

And finally, here's this year's final goal, which I marked as "optional." It's not a technical success but I made progress, I think.

+1. Go on a date.
Friends and blog readers tried to help me with this one: A friend tried to facilitate an introduction with her father's coworker; I asked an acquaintance to find out a client's relationship status ('cause I'm professional like that); and I met a friend of another friend with a group of people in a bar as a potential set-up.

But there was no real one-on-one "getting to know you" date--although, for that matter, there wasn't anyone I wanted to get to know better in the first place. (Other than the client. But he was in a relationship. Again, I am so professional.)

In November, in an effort to find someone I'd like to get to know, I created a profile on OK Cupid and answered lots of their questions. I liked the fact that they used math and data to determine matches (better living through science!). But such questions as "Do you see yourself getting married in the next three years?" and "How long do you want your next relationship to last?" made me realize I had no idea what I want.

So my inner hippie recited some Rilke and I decided I owed it to myself to figure out what I wanted first. I do think I'll give the internet one more shot in 2012, but I'm in no rush. I'm good at being alone: I bought a house by myself; I climb mountains by myself.

Besides, I have Toby.

3+1 Things Wrap-up: Thing 3

And the third goal this year was:

3. Memorize 6 poems.
Technically, I only have 4.5 memorized, as I'm still working on getting the middle of "Starlings in Winter" down and never found one I liked to replace the Neruda for September/October. But I'm still proud of the success--I've always had a hard time memorizing anything well, but this was easier than I thought it would be.

I have yet to recite them to anyone else (but just ask! you know I'm dying to be asked); instead, I say them to myself when I hike, or when I can't sleep. There's such a shift from reading them off a page--even aloud--to having the words come from your own brain. I may have to memorize more favorites.

3+1 Things Wrap-up: Thing 2

This year's second goal was:

2. Learn more sewing techniques.
I'm not sure I can say I accomplished this one, at least concerning fancy techniques like bound buttonholes or pad stitching--but I realized it's because I'm not a "process" sewer. I'm all about the finished product, and don't like to be working on things that are so painstaking they take months to complete (for example, hand tailoring).

But there's a lot of ground between basic sewing and hand tailoring, and I did use some fancier techniques on a few projects: flat felled seams in baby pants, a faced hem in the first tunic dress, a little pattern drafing to alter that same tunic dress pattern a few times-- and let's not forget lined drapes, either. So I don't think I plateaued by any means. (But I still haven't figured out how to use the serger.)

In other sewing news, I bought some Liberty of London fabric after a long time without fancy fabric and called it a Christmas/birthday gift to myself. Just two cuts to get me from winter into early spring:
"Yoshie," a print from winter 2010 (with tiny owls and horses and bunnies and hawks!)

and "Mitsi," a standard print. Both will be dresses worn with colored tights.

3+1 Things Wrap-up: Thing 1

Yes, it's time for the week-long wrap-up of this year's goals. The first thing?

1. Walk, bike, or do yoga once a week.
Final verdict on this one: I like exercise! It makes me feel good! Anyone who hasn't spent her life reading and/or in an office chair already knows this, but I've finally realized it. So what have I been doing? A weekly hike (even in the cold! although I've only made it out twice this month so far) and yoga once or even twice a week.

Yoga, of course, lets my inner hippie go wild; but I'm really seeing a lot of mental benefits, too. It also comforts the worrier in me, knowing that being old and alone holds a lot fewer terrors if you have muscle mass and crazy flexibility.

As for hiking, buying a house by Millcreek wasn't planned but I'm so glad I did. There are plenty of shorter trails that fit into a weekend schedule, but because the canyon's pretty steep, you get a lot of exercise for your time. The terrain is varied, the views are great, and you get to see lots of happy dogs and generally nice owners. (Another bonus for solo hikers who worry: You can believe a dog will sniff you out pretty quickly should you fall off a trail or something.)

I haven't ridden my bike much but I can always add MORE exercise in next year.

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I have a half day to work today and then I'm off until January 4th, HOORAY. I'll still be posting, though--I have reviews of the 3+1 Things to write and, of course, the 32 (approximate) Things to unveil.

2. Until then, Robert Earl Keene and I wish you a Merry Christmas from the Family:


It's funny 'cause it's true.

We Made It

Thank everything that's holy and/or scientific--today is the winter solstice. We made it. We beat the dark. Only three months to the equinox.

This year I learned a phrase connected with the Roman sun god Sol Invictus, whose birthday was celebrated around the winter solsitce: Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, or "birthday of the unconquered sun." So happy sun birthday to you--the old star hasn't fizzled out!

Seasonal Poem

Here's something by Billy Collins, whose work I haven't posted before. I like this one a lot.

The Christmas Sparrow
The first thing I heard this morning
was a rapid, flapping sound, soft, insistent—

wings against glass as it turned out
downstairs where I saw a small bird
rioting in the frame of a high window,
trying to hurl itself through
the enigma of glass into the spacious light.

Then a noise in the throat of the cat
who was hunkered on the rug
told me how the bird had gotten inside,
carried in on the cold night
through the flap of the basement door,
and later released from the soft grip of teeth.

On a chair, I trapped its pulsations
in a shirt and got it to the door,
so weightless it seemed
to have vanished into the nest of cloth

But outside, when I uncupped my hands
it burst into its element,
dipping over the dormant garden
in a spasm of wingbeats
then disappeared over a row of tall hemlocks.

For the rest of the day,
I could feel its wild thrumming
against my palms as I wondered about
the hours it must have spent
pent in the shadows of that room,
hidden in the spiky branches
of our decorated tree, breathing there
among the metallic angels, ceramic apples, stars of yarn,
its eyes wide open, like mine as I lie in bed tonight
picturing this rare, lucky sparrow
tucked in a holly bush now,
a light snow tumbling through the windless dark.

Tuesday Project Roundup: Finishing Things

Here is a silk/mohair cowl thing I started back in the spring. Since it's just a knitted tube (no pattern), I've had the knitting done since summer, but I hadn't woven in the ends yet to make it ready to wear. I took ten minutes to do that last week and blammo, instant project:

I wish the same thing could happen with my orange sweater!

It's Monday

Play with it like it's a toy mousie you got that's the best toy mousie EVER, and that you keep playing with 48 hours later:

And then go back to bed:

Friday Unrelated Information

1b. I'm happy to report that the "Yoga for the Winter Blues" video was really helpful. I got farther into a backbend than I ever have before (which is still not very far) and realized that if I can do that, I can easily survive onerous meetings or a weather inversion.

1b. I've turned into one of those sports people. I think I get why they run marathons now.

2. Happy birthday to Jane Austen and Arthur C. Clarke today.

3. Here's another MST3K Christmas song, because it's absurd and because Christmas is next weekend:


"Hey, you keep Christmas in your way and let me keep it in mine."

The Darkness

I think the lack of sunlight is getting to me early this year. I'm seriously considering light therapy, but my inner hippie also wants to try some yoga and re-read this essay I found a couple years ago. From Jeanette Winterson, it talks about embracing the winter darkness--and she does make some good points:

It is a mistake to fight the cold and the dark. We're not freezing or starving in a cave, so we can enjoy what autumn and winter bring, instead of trying to live in a perpetual climate-controlled fluorescent world with the same day-in, day-out processed, packaged, flown-in food.

And she ends on a strong hippie note about the darkness:

Food, fire, walks, dreams, cold, sleep, love, slowness, time, quiet, books, seasons – all these things, which are not really things, but moments of life – take on a different quality at night-time, where the moon reflects the light of the sun, and we have time to reflect what life is to us, knowing that it passes, and that every bit of it, in its change and its difference, is the here and now of what we have.

Homebodies

I was reading the Christmas chapter of The Wind in the Willows this week, where Moley finds his old home and the caroling field mice show up, and thought, "Forget Dagny or Franny; I identify most with Moley." Consider this:

He saw clearly how plain and simple...[his home] was; but clearly, too, how much it all meant to him, and the special value of some such anchorage in one's existence...It was good to think he had this place to come back to, this place which was all his own, these things which were so glad to see him again and could always be counted upon for the same simple welcome.

Tuesday Project Roundup: This Counts

Putting up the tree counts as a project, right? I did make a ten-minute tree skirt out of felt.

Then, of course, someone was upset that the tree got fabric and he couldn't fit underneath it to sit on said fabric, so I brought down the remnants for him:

Mood lighting!

Hooray For Winter Birthdays

Happy birthday to my sister-in-law today! Not only does she win the bread for the family, she finds time to make homemade baby food--and she's put up with her crazy in-laws for nearly a decade. I hope she has a fantastic birthday!

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I'm putting up a Christmas tree this weekend. As we decided, this doesn't make me a hypocrite, it makes me a homeowner. But I'll still sing this song from MST3K:


2. Opportunity, the rover that's already on Mars (not Curiousity, which is on route to land next August) has confirmed the existence of "a mineral, apparently gypsum, deposited by water" on Mars. This is big news--so of course there's more LOLSpace to go with it:

Space Jokes

For your Thursday, I give you two funny space things, as found on It's Full of Stars:

1. First, the Unimpressed Astronaut meme. It's fantastic. Go see all of them.



2. Second, as you (should) know, the Kepler observatory has found its first planet in the habitable zone of a star like the Sun. But did you know that the planet has a Twitter account? The first tweet is brilliant.

Big Day

Some big historical events happening today, courtesy of The Writer's Almanac:

1. The 70th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
2. Willa Cather's birthday.
3. The anniversary of the first fully clear photograph of the Earth from space, taken by the Apollo 17 crew in 1972, and known as "The Blue Marble."

Tuesday Project Roundup: The Cute Doesn't Stop

What's cuter than an owl sweater? Skyler wearing the sweater!
And what's cuter than that? Skyler in an owl sweater showing off how he can make goofy faces!

Squeeeeee!

Fruitcake!

Yesterday I made fruitcake, the kind where you raid the Whole Foods bulk aisle for fancy dried things and then soak the cake in booze and age it for a month. The Anne of Green Gables-reading part of me likes doing something so "old fashioned" (if not downright medieval); the drinker in me likes the booze part; and the adult reader in me thinks of Laurie Colwin:

Lately I have begun to think less of holiday and have turned my attention to the idea of winter, of trying to fill the house with good things... I want to make a gesture toward that longed-for simpler time by producing something that is made only once a years.

(from the essay "How to Face the Holidays," in More Home Cooking.)

Also: BOOZE!

Friday Unrelated Information

1. I found a Salinger quote (I think from "Hapworth 16, 1924") in the blog archives that is encouraging:
"I find it magnificent how beautiful loose ends find each other in the world if one only waits with decent patience, resilience, and quite blind strength."

2. This video from the Shelter Pet Project has been making the rounds, but it's hilarious:


3. And in other old-but-new-to me news, I've discovered the Hobbit Name Generator. It's hours of fun (and there's an Elvish Name Generator, too!).

Advent Calendars In Spaaaaace!

Now that it's December, it's time once again for my favorite part of "the holidays": The Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar. It's at the Atlantic this year (I guess its creator went there from the Big Picture blog?) but it will give you an image from the Hubble telescope every day from now until Christmas. And we all know how I feel about space pictures.

Here is today's image, the unpoetcially-named UGC 1810:
And here's something to ponder while you look at it, from the Upanishads:
The little space within the heart is as great as the vast universe. The heavens and the earth are there, and the sun and the moon and the stars. Fire and lightning and winds are there, and all that now is and all that is not.

Something To Remember

Tuesday Project Roundup: Getting Things Done During Long Weekends

This weekend made me realize that maybe I haven't lost my crafty mojo; maybe I just need four-day stretches of time to make things. (Hm, how can I work that?)

I finished a tunic dress that has been cut out for a couple of weeks:
It's the same pattern as this one from June (adapted from the Built By Wendy Dresses book), with longer sleeves to make it more cold-weather appropriate.

And the owl sweater for Skyler is just waiting to dry so I can sew on all 32 little button eyes:
Hoot hoot!

Space Therapy

Let's distract ourselves from the first workday after a long weekend by thinking about space. Did you hear the Mars Curiosity rover launched successfully on Saturday? We shot something into space, will guide it along the 350 million mile trip, and will be able to use it to study another planet remotely--incredible! A thousand years ago humanity didn't even know about basic sanitation, and now we're going to study Mars.

Here's the New York Times coverage; the Bad Astronomy blog has a collection of launch videos and a NASA-produced overview of how exactly they plan to land the thing (parachutes and rockets, oh my!). Read up on it and get lots of perspective on your life here on this planet.

Giving Thanks While Seated

I'm not hosting Thanksgiving this year, but I could:
I finally have chairs to go with that table--and for the first time in my adult life, I can entertain more than a total of two for dinner!

So I'm thankful for furniture, and that I have family and friends that I want to fill the chairs, and for what's been a really good year, overall.

Meanwhile, Toby remains thankful for his space heater:


Enjoy the long weekend! I'll be back Monday.