|
|
|
|
Happy New Year
thurs 1 Jan 2009 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Permalink: http://www.static8.com/journal/archive2009/090101.html | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
I quit the job that I hated, and spent most of the year happily as a jobless bum...
Yeah, lots of reading occurred, and the "To Be Read" pile is slowly but surely being whittled down. That was one of my goals of the year, yay me! Plus I read 54 magazines, and that pile is looking more managable as well. My blog entries were rather few and far between... thus the +31, my National Blog Posting Month in November where I blogged at my LiveJournal. I'm still making my own vegan bread, I just didn't keep track of it this year. Either way, we did not buy any store bread this year. I also wanted to be "more green, pro-animal, anarchist" in 2008... I still don't own a bicycle, but the worms are still eating our organic trash, and I'm walking to work now so the car stays parked. That makes me incredibly happy. Altho 2008 was not a "year of art", at least November was a month of art. eh. I did take an online art class, which I was terribly not impressed with even tho it cost the big bucks. I've decided I can design my own learnings from now on.
Goals and Intentions for 2009...
Yeah, Okay... and where is all the extra time coming from, to get all this stuff done? Who knows!! |
|
Crochet
Sat 3 Jan 2009 |
|
Permalink: http://www.static8.com/journal/archive2009/090103.html |
|
A babysitter taught me to do granny squares when I was a little kid. But I lost my crochet hook ages ago, and granny squares are kind of ugly, anyway. ;) My Grandma used to make wash cloths, as xmas presents to everyone (tho maybe she knitted these, rather than crocheted). But she can't now because of her Lupus and arthritis. So I thought I would take over for her. I got a starter kit as a gift from my aunt and uncle, and a Intermediate book with scarf patterns. My Grandma showed me how to do one of the stitches. And I took "orders" from my family as to what colour they want their scarves to be. :) And I've been practicing... so far I've made three "mouse blankets" out of the different stitches I have to learn. I am already frustrated, because I want my stitches to be consistent right now. And also, there are just a few basic stitches to learn but I'm already having trouble keeping them straight. And not to mention that my hands get tired after just a couple turns on the mouse blankets! oof, practice, practice, I guess. |
|
mp3
mon 5 Jan 2009 |
|
Permalink: http://www.static8.com/journal/archive2009/090105.html |
|
My grand plan was to get some library books on CD and rip them and put them on the mp3 player. That way I can do some extra "reading" while I walk to work. But I haven't bothered to even see if the library has books on CD. 'Cause I'm lazy like that. I did test my little player on some mp3s that I had on my handheld... (My handheld will play mp3s, but it no longer has the battery power to play for more than a couple minutes. heh, poor thing, I am also lazy about getting a new battery for it.) And then I looked through Amazon, since I have a 5$ coupon for mp3s. I happily discovered they have over 600 free mp3s. After looking through through the first few pages, and tediously downloading a couple... I was sadly disapointed about the 600 free mp3s. It was all dance/dj/trance with a few jazz and a couple classical. humph, no "real" songs that I actually recognize.
So, until I get around to ripping some of my CDs, my playlist
is currently... Not very long, is it? And I forgot to grab the player this morning on my way to the day job, so I have no idea if the play time will even last the ~20 minute walk. :) |
|
Week 1
fri 9 Jan 2009 |
|
Permalink: http://www.static8.com/journal/archive2009/090109.html |
|
Mine are going great. Except for the fact that I can't fit everything I want into the day. The day job is just part time, but it still manages to take up most of the day. humph. Plus, I guess I have to re-build my muscles, after two weeks of mostly laziness. So my legs are sore, and I feel a bit run down. I haven't been updating the blog, but I have been practicing my crochet. Also gotten a few drawings done. It's going well, in other words. :) And my postcrossing has been going Great! Getting bumped up to 6 postcards "traveling" has helped, but I had two lost postcards expire recently as well. So, my postcard project is enjoying a revitalization. I've designed two new postcards this week! And I seriously need to get out there and take more photos, so I can make even more postcards! :) The next level, to increase the traveling postcards to 7, occurs after I've sent (and had the receiver register) 40 postcards. And I'm already at 29! |
|
More Vegan
sun 11 Jan 2009 | |
|
Permalink: http://www.static8.com/journal/archive2009/090111.html | |
|
I guess I just want to ... re-examine my options and thoughts. Or something.
To that (approximate) end, I've started going through Carol Adams little book Meditations on the Inner Art of Vegetarianism. I'm ambivalent about it tho... I've read the companion book, The Inner Art of Vegetarianism. It's one of those books where I loved the Idea, but the actual writing just did not resonate with me. Adams wants to incorporate "breath awareness, meditation, yoga, journaling, and dreamwork" with "vegetarianism" as a spiritual practice. Of course, she means veganism. And that is just a minor pet peeve of mine! The rest of it, except maybe the yoga, sounds fantastic to me. But her book just didn't inspire me. And I've read it several times, each time thinking "well, maybe I just wasn't ready to read it the first time," and each time being as disappointed as the last time I read it! And, similarly, after 11 days of daily meditations, I am still not terribly interested in what she has to say. humph. I would design my own vegan meditation book, if I weren't so lazy. I'd call it, Think Vegan, 365 or something like that! And it wouldn't have yoga, but it would have art. Like doodles of animals and stuff. And it would definitely have the journaling stuff. And little reminders to breathe and meditate and go out and hug a tree and walk barefoot in the grass. A interesting snippet from today's meditation... We may be firmly settled into a spiritual practice and yet resisting some aspects of change... Our spiritual path may be to enliven a veganism that we now take for granted. It may be to articulate connections we enact. Our spiritual path requires our attention. (and yes I changed her "vegetarianism" into "veganism" in the quote above. "Vegetarianism" is such a long, obnoxious word anyway! Plus, it's not what I do! I am Vegan!) "articulate connections we enact"... Maybe that's what I want to focus on for the year. Maybe I don't talk about my vegan ways to others enough? I buy vegetables and random vegan things automatically, and I don't comment on the fact. hm. |
|
Day Job Happiness
fri 16 Jan 2009 |
|
Permalink: http://www.static8.com/journal/archive2009/090116.html |
|
I am thrilled to pieces. Well, with minor reservations... I probably won't get health insurance, because the job is just part time. And paying back that credit card bill with all the xmas presents will take a good long while, since the part-time-ness just barely covers my month to month bills. But that's all fine. I am so glad to be working fewer hours. And to Walk to work. And to have work that is not soul-deadening. And, plus, one of my co-workers is going to be on the TV! We got to watch the show this morning. It's one of those creative, how-to-make-and-draw-cool-things shows on PBS. I don't know when it will air (and obviously, I missed the name of the show), and after that, the video clip will be on the web site for all to see. I'll try to remember to link it. The funny thing was, in the segment... since it's PBS, she was not allowed to say the brand name of our stuff. And it's pretty obvious, "no, it's only these special markers, that can do this awesome thing..." Laughs. so yeah. My day job -- currently temp but in a couple weeks permanent -- is to fill orders for these artist's markers and box them up to ship. They are Special Markers, ya know?! ;) |
|
Mouse Blankets
sat 17 Jan 2009 |
|
Permalink: http://www.static8.com/journal/archive2009/090117.html |
|
Since I am trying to learn all the basic stitches, I have been making little sections of each stitch. I call them Mouse Blankets because they are just a couple inches square.
I've got Mouse Blankets of single crochet, half-double crochet, double crochet and triple crochet. And then I tried to learn how to decrease stitches, which kind of makes the section curl around, so I made those into little hats. Which are way to big for mice, and too ackward for guinea pigs, so I don't know what to name them! :) And now I'm trying out the Afghan Stitch, which requires a special long crochet hook. I got one with my kit. It started out kind of iffy, I couldn't figure out where to put my end stitches. And I guess I clutch my hook and string and section too hard, because my hands are really tired now! But I think I'm liking the Afghan Stitch a lot better than the other ones. It makes a nice thick section... I don't like the air holes that double and triple crochet stitches make, the Afghan is much more solid. Anyway. I've gone through my first ball of string, making Mouse Blankets and little hats. It took two weeks, and I think it was most of a 2oz ball (55g). When I went to the store to buy more string, I was kind of disappointed at the cost. The little 2oz balls of cotton were just $1.50, but the regular yarns, the 3.5oz (100g) ones that I would use to make my scarfs and all, were $5... and I think even the most basic scarf has to have two skeins. The little blanket that I'd like to make needs six skeins. Those are expensive scarfs and blankets, even before I put my time in to make them! Oh well. I've got a while to go before I get to scarfs anyway. I got several of the small balls of string, in multi-colours, to make dish cloths with. The colours delight me, and I can't wait to get started! |
|
projects
fri 23 Jan 2009 |
|
Permalink: http://www.static8.com/journal/archive2009/090123.html |
|
This was a fantastic PostCrossing week... I was able to send out five postcards! And my total is up to 36, just a couple more to hit 40 so I can have seven postcards traveling instead of just six. So, I'm happy about that, but I'm not so happy about the rest of my projects. I've been working 7.5h a day at the day job (instead of my usual 6.5h) and that has bitten into my free time. I wanted to get some reading done, so I set aside the crocheting practice "for a couple days". Except, now I've not crocheted all week. arg. There just isn't enough time in the day for my reading, my crocheting, my postcards, my blog, my Internet time, my letter writing, my drawing, my journaling, my photography, my guinea pig friends, my Significant Other and my stupid day job! Not enough time! I hate that I have to pick and choose!
That's a picture of my Project Grid, where I've listed my projects and have a space to put in a star for every day of the month. You see that this week has not been very productive, but things are getting done. |
|
next month
mon 26 Jan 2009 | |
|
Permalink: http://www.static8.com/journal/archive2009/090126.html | |
When I did daily blogging the first time, back in November, I was also doing a daily drawing. It made the blogging a bit easier: if I didn't have anything to type about, I could just upload one of my drawings and call it good. But it was also quite a bit of work. And since I am working a couple more hours now (blah, even tho I'm desperate for the $), I'm not sure I can handle both blogging and drawing... but I still need something to take the pressure off typing every day... And then I remembered, one of the people in my regular postcard group has started up a blog where she is posting a daily Photograph! She is taking photos every day for a full year, and it's really pretty interesting... 365 days photo challenge. I'll just have to see how it all goes in Feb, with all my other projects (drawing, crocheting, postcards, letters, etc, and so on). |
|
college days
wed 28 Jan 2009 |
|
Permalink: http://www.static8.com/journal/archive2009/090120.html |
|
laughs, well I guess it wasn't that coherent, seeing as how I graduated college over 11 years ago and haven't had to deal with homework at all since then!! I often have dreams about being late to class, or not being able to find my class, or moving into the dorms. I guess university made a lasting impression on me... besides the useless letters. (B.S.) In real life, I don't think I was ever late to my classes. Altho, fairly often I'd have to sprint when I had consecutive classes that were on opposite ends of the campus. And I did spend most of my college career in the dorms... it was good because my assigned roommate would usually request a different room after a couple weeks of living with me. Apparently I am a hard person to live with. heh. And I actually enjoyed living in the dorms, once I got my room to myself! People left me alone, the food is all taken care of, my loft was a sturdy peice of engineering (which I WISH I still had!). And I totally loved the fact that the window went across the Entire wall. I probably spent way too long taking in the view from that window, because I can still see it perfectly in my mind! :) |
|
You Are Here: |
|
|
|
Creative Stuff
