no, the world is not ending
I've been meaning to post an update, that's all, and I have a few minutes while the dryer finishes before I fall into bed...
It's been a surprisingly productive couple of months, actually, and especially these last few weeks. Today I finished a long poem that had stalled in mid-stream a few years ago; all credit to the writers' group I recently joined, for getting me off my duff. The group meets twice a month; the first time I showed up, I pulled out a story I sold some years ago, sort of as a test ("it was good enough to sell, what kind of critiques will it get here?") to see how I'd like the group dynamics. But re-hashing old finished work isn't the point of the group - creating new work is. So I want to have something new done, even if it's rough (especially if it's rough, so I can get input on it early in the process), for each meeting. So I'm writing, and thinking about writing, seriously again for the first time in a long time.
Got the fabric cabinets straightened out a few weeks ago, and got honest about large quantities of it, and about some projects that had been on the "pending" list for far too long. There's still a pile of that sort of thing to sort out, but nowhere near the monster that it was.
Arrienne's Cloak O' Doom is in the home stretch, with just the lining left to hem. Getting the neck and collar fixed was a major project all of its own; the lining and the exterior were cut at different times, and not *quite* exactly the same - as I discovered to my dismay when I tried to put the two together. Plus, the pattern was designed to have a hood, so I had to adapt it to a short standing collar. It will be delivered at Val Day, and pictures will be posted to my Flickr site shortly thereafter.
HRH now has the veil I'd promised her at last spring's Coronation auction. I'd originally thought to embroider or edge or bead it, but better she got it plain than waited longer to get it at all. I was pleased with it: it was good work. I hope she likes it.
The weird warm weather just before 12th Night meant that I was able to prototype a floor model of the new jewelry rack I'd designed. It also meant that I was taught another special corollary of the cube-square law...i.e., the joints as designed couldn't hold up to the torsion exerted by the larger components. But nothing lost, and I've a better idea how to fix it. When it's warm enough to go back out to the wood shop, that is.
A bunch of interesting class opportunities have come my way, and I've jumped on them: one-day classes in bone-working this weekend and basket-weaving the next, silk painting in March and torch-fired enameling in April. I've also started taking a martial arts/self defense for women course at a local dojo on Monday nights. It's fun and it's exercise (boy, is it!) and it's kicking my tail right royally. So much so that I'm also hitting the pool and hot tub at my gym once a week again, just to ease the aches. Now if I can just keep the tasty calorific stuff out of my kitchen so I don't go nomming all weekend and every evening...
And even though I technically turned over the RL exchequer's job nearly a year ago, tomorrow I'll go sit with the actual RL exchequer and walk her through doing the Q4 report (as I've walked her through the last three quarterly reports) and then the Domesday. (Which took me about an hour tonight - much of which was trying to find the one entry I mis-added - but will probably take us 2 or 3 tomorrow.) (Urgh.) (Sigh.) I keep tellin' myself that I'm building up all kinds of good-karma points every time I refrain from biting her head off...
Gotta get the car in for a checkup soon. There's a lot of road time coming up: Val Day, Gulf Wars, Rites of Spring, Crown...
There's the dryer signal. And off to bed!
It's been a surprisingly productive couple of months, actually, and especially these last few weeks. Today I finished a long poem that had stalled in mid-stream a few years ago; all credit to the writers' group I recently joined, for getting me off my duff. The group meets twice a month; the first time I showed up, I pulled out a story I sold some years ago, sort of as a test ("it was good enough to sell, what kind of critiques will it get here?") to see how I'd like the group dynamics. But re-hashing old finished work isn't the point of the group - creating new work is. So I want to have something new done, even if it's rough (especially if it's rough, so I can get input on it early in the process), for each meeting. So I'm writing, and thinking about writing, seriously again for the first time in a long time.
Got the fabric cabinets straightened out a few weeks ago, and got honest about large quantities of it, and about some projects that had been on the "pending" list for far too long. There's still a pile of that sort of thing to sort out, but nowhere near the monster that it was.
Arrienne's Cloak O' Doom is in the home stretch, with just the lining left to hem. Getting the neck and collar fixed was a major project all of its own; the lining and the exterior were cut at different times, and not *quite* exactly the same - as I discovered to my dismay when I tried to put the two together. Plus, the pattern was designed to have a hood, so I had to adapt it to a short standing collar. It will be delivered at Val Day, and pictures will be posted to my Flickr site shortly thereafter.
HRH now has the veil I'd promised her at last spring's Coronation auction. I'd originally thought to embroider or edge or bead it, but better she got it plain than waited longer to get it at all. I was pleased with it: it was good work. I hope she likes it.
The weird warm weather just before 12th Night meant that I was able to prototype a floor model of the new jewelry rack I'd designed. It also meant that I was taught another special corollary of the cube-square law...i.e., the joints as designed couldn't hold up to the torsion exerted by the larger components. But nothing lost, and I've a better idea how to fix it. When it's warm enough to go back out to the wood shop, that is.
A bunch of interesting class opportunities have come my way, and I've jumped on them: one-day classes in bone-working this weekend and basket-weaving the next, silk painting in March and torch-fired enameling in April. I've also started taking a martial arts/self defense for women course at a local dojo on Monday nights. It's fun and it's exercise (boy, is it!) and it's kicking my tail right royally. So much so that I'm also hitting the pool and hot tub at my gym once a week again, just to ease the aches. Now if I can just keep the tasty calorific stuff out of my kitchen so I don't go nomming all weekend and every evening...
And even though I technically turned over the RL exchequer's job nearly a year ago, tomorrow I'll go sit with the actual RL exchequer and walk her through doing the Q4 report (as I've walked her through the last three quarterly reports) and then the Domesday. (Which took me about an hour tonight - much of which was trying to find the one entry I mis-added - but will probably take us 2 or 3 tomorrow.) (Urgh.) (Sigh.) I keep tellin' myself that I'm building up all kinds of good-karma points every time I refrain from biting her head off...
Gotta get the car in for a checkup soon. There's a lot of road time coming up: Val Day, Gulf Wars, Rites of Spring, Crown...
There's the dryer signal. And off to bed!