Comforting things on a Wednesday
As everyone who's seen the news lately knows, it's been a really worrying and sad few days in the UK. In my tiny, peaceful Welsh town, I'm too far from the riots to be able to give any intelligent commentary on them, but like everyone else, I have spent a lot of the last few days feeling unhappy, worried and tense as they've taken place in cities that I love, and where many of my friends live. I'm horrified, sad and deeply concerned for everyone involved.
Here in Wales, though, life keeps going on in a nearly-normal way, even as the temptation is to spend all day reading or listening to the news. Here are some of the things that I've been doing and things that I've found comforting this week:
I guest-posted on Bookbabblers about 5 Favorite Reads that I've discovered recently - Maryrose Wood's The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place, Jeanne Birdsall's The Penderwicks and The Penderwicks at Point Mouette, Karen Cushman's Catherine, Called Birdy and Sheela Chari's Vanished. You can read the entry here, and I'd love to read comments about books you've found and loved recently.
I also went to the library - always a comfort activity for me - and I listened to this 2 Cellos version of "Fields of Gold" over and over again. It's beautiful, melancholy, and incredibly soothing:
I got a wonderful package in the mail - beautiful new earrings designed by Emily Mah for the launch of A Tangle of Magicks! They're shaped like drops of water - the Bath water filled with wild magic in Kat's adventure - and the text, "Sisters/Friends", is incredibly thematic to the book. In person, these earrings are tiny and adorable, and I love them. I've worn them every day since they arrived, and I'll be giving away a pair at the launch party on Friday...after which, Emily will start selling them on her site.
I also saw a photo of the final version of the beautiful charm bracelet she's designed for Kat, Incorrigible/A Most Improper Magick, which I LOVE:
The text on the bracelet reads (in Jane Austen-style script): "Everything's better with highwaymen!" The charms include Kat's mother's two magic books, a highwayman mask, the magic mirror, and the key to her mother's cabinet of secrets. It is SO beautiful and perfect, and I can't wait to wear it myself.
And today I had the most amazing surprise, when someone on twitter pointed out to me that Robin McKinley - one of my favorite writers since I was ten years old, and one of the writers who inspired me to write fantasy in the first place - had recommended Kat Book 1 (in its A Most Improper Magick edition) on her blog! I actually almost hyperventilated. My heartbeat was racing for ages afterwards, I was so, so excited and happy and...it was a really, really amazing moment. I really wish I could go back and tell my ten-year-old self that that would happen!
So, you know...it's been a really, really weird, mixed week over here. Although I've been dealing with a real CFS fallout after all of my recent traveling, so many good things have happened to me in my peaceful little town - but that has just not been the case for a lot of the UK, so much so that I feel weird and guilty even posting about my good news here. If I didn't, though, I don't know what I would post, because I don't even feel qualified to choose between the wildly contradictory opinion pieces I've seen on the serious outside news - I just don't know which ones are closest to the truth, or which I should be passing on here.
So here I am instead, on a Wednesday, passing on the things that have made me feel happy or comforted this week, no matter how tense all the news from the outside world became. I would truly love to hear about what's getting you guys through this week, too.
Here in Wales, though, life keeps going on in a nearly-normal way, even as the temptation is to spend all day reading or listening to the news. Here are some of the things that I've been doing and things that I've found comforting this week:
I guest-posted on Bookbabblers about 5 Favorite Reads that I've discovered recently - Maryrose Wood's The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place, Jeanne Birdsall's The Penderwicks and The Penderwicks at Point Mouette, Karen Cushman's Catherine, Called Birdy and Sheela Chari's Vanished. You can read the entry here, and I'd love to read comments about books you've found and loved recently.
I also went to the library - always a comfort activity for me - and I listened to this 2 Cellos version of "Fields of Gold" over and over again. It's beautiful, melancholy, and incredibly soothing:
Click to viewI got a wonderful package in the mail - beautiful new earrings designed by Emily Mah for the launch of A Tangle of Magicks! They're shaped like drops of water - the Bath water filled with wild magic in Kat's adventure - and the text, "Sisters/Friends", is incredibly thematic to the book. In person, these earrings are tiny and adorable, and I love them. I've worn them every day since they arrived, and I'll be giving away a pair at the launch party on Friday...after which, Emily will start selling them on her site.
I also saw a photo of the final version of the beautiful charm bracelet she's designed for Kat, Incorrigible/A Most Improper Magick, which I LOVE:
The text on the bracelet reads (in Jane Austen-style script): "Everything's better with highwaymen!" The charms include Kat's mother's two magic books, a highwayman mask, the magic mirror, and the key to her mother's cabinet of secrets. It is SO beautiful and perfect, and I can't wait to wear it myself.
And today I had the most amazing surprise, when someone on twitter pointed out to me that Robin McKinley - one of my favorite writers since I was ten years old, and one of the writers who inspired me to write fantasy in the first place - had recommended Kat Book 1 (in its A Most Improper Magick edition) on her blog! I actually almost hyperventilated. My heartbeat was racing for ages afterwards, I was so, so excited and happy and...it was a really, really amazing moment. I really wish I could go back and tell my ten-year-old self that that would happen!
So, you know...it's been a really, really weird, mixed week over here. Although I've been dealing with a real CFS fallout after all of my recent traveling, so many good things have happened to me in my peaceful little town - but that has just not been the case for a lot of the UK, so much so that I feel weird and guilty even posting about my good news here. If I didn't, though, I don't know what I would post, because I don't even feel qualified to choose between the wildly contradictory opinion pieces I've seen on the serious outside news - I just don't know which ones are closest to the truth, or which I should be passing on here.
So here I am instead, on a Wednesday, passing on the things that have made me feel happy or comforted this week, no matter how tense all the news from the outside world became. I would truly love to hear about what's getting you guys through this week, too.