Enemy of Entropy
Time Flies
I used to get so annoyed when my mother would say, “Twenty years from now, nobody will know the difference.” She was wrong in a sense—I certainly still know the difference, about so very many things.
On the other hand, I do understand the longer view much better now. Twenty years seemed like such a long time then, and now? It’s so very short.
In any case, Katie did get home from her trip to the great northwest. She had a marvelous time and thinks she has found her school.
I’m really proud of her. She planned this trip, to a place neither she nor any of us had ever been before, all by herself. She went without a qualm, had a marvelous time, managed her money marvelously, and made some great new friends.
Since then she also went to her first LARP. Again, she had a marvelous adventure, lots of fun, and found a new thing she enjoys. I think we need to acquire camping equipment.
Sam has started playing Burning Wheel with a group of local people. He really enjoys the game. I’m glad to see him getting out and having some social time with others.
I had a big thing happen, but I’m going to stay quiet about it a little longer, ’til it’s also a sure thing.
In the meantime, I’ve found a nice outlet for my OCD urges as a “librarian” at Good Reads.
Um, Thank You?
cheerfulLook! TWO posts in ONE day! Maybe I’m finally crawling out of my pit of depression.
My very helpful child disapproved of how I was treating my small stitching project, so she sweetly put it in a huge Ziplock bag and “put it away.”
I have absolutely no idea where “away” might be, but it isn’t in my stitching bag, or near my recliner, or in the area where I’ve been sitting in the living room. Now she says she didn’t put it anywhere. Buh?
And we stopped at Michael’s yesterday to get the DMC I needed for it!1
I also got the fabric for two bigger pieces, though, so I can start one of those. Technically, I know that I have the fabric for Deep Peace around here somewhere, but I couldn’t find it, so I got a new piece. Now the original fabric will, of course, make itself known.
Smaller, less involved projects are better to do while in company, though. And it’s date night. The girl is, herself, out on a date, so I can’t even shanghai her into helping find the small project. Grump. She found supplies for a couple of different art projects while we were at Michael’s, too, so I expect heavy arting from her shortly.
We picked up dinner for the three of us at Little Azio’s on the way home, which was as delicious as usual. That was a lovely way to end a tiring, but rewarding, day.
1 I prefer shopping at an LNS, but my favorite went online-only and this was an instant gratification thing.
New Year’s Eve
I hate coming up with titles. Can you tell?
Happy New Year to all of you. I hope to see more of you in person this year!
I’m still not feeling well at all, so I haven’t been online much. Despite that, my wrists have been aching as if I were working again. How does that happen?
Our Yule was quietly pleasant. I hope your winter holiday was as good.
I did finally finish stitching the Fairy Tale Sampler for Sam. It didn’t take that much stitching (so it can’t be blamed for the wrist pain), but I did have to re-purchase some Mill Hill beads. That gave me an excuse (like I needed it) to talk to Susan of Nease’s Needlework, which is always lovely. But now it’s finished!
My camera battery won’t recharge anymore, so I’ll have to convince the girl to take a photo of the piece for me.
I think I’m finally ready to do Deep Peace. It’s a gorgeous piece, and some people I love dearly got all the supplies for it as a gift for me a few years back. Unfortunately, we broke up right after that, and every time I started to work on it, I cried. I think there’s been enough time now that I can focus on the happy memories instead of the hard stuff.
I think I need to start a smaller project, too, that I can carry around with me. Complex projects don’t lend themselves to productivity while doing anything else, anyway. Sam tends to get me so interested in gaming that I can’t get much stitching done. Multi-person games are better for needlework, because I stitch while the focus is on someone else.
I’m not really into New Year’s Resolutions, and if I made them seriously, I’d be more likely to do so at Samhain than the end of January/beginning of December. Still, I’ve been realizing how much I’ve missed needlework. My eyes are still giving me trouble, but I got out an old, portable magnifier/travel light and that helps. I think it may be worthwhile to check into a magnifier attachment for my Ott Lite (after getting new glasses). I’m going to try stitching more regularly, and I’d really like to learn needlepoint and knitting and/or crocheting. I think I can manage the needlepoint on my own, but not the yarn stuff. Hopefully I can find someone local who is willing to teach me. Apparently there’s a group meeting at a local library that may be a possibility.
I thought my DMC was getting too old for use or something, because it kept fraying apart while I was stitching. I finally realized (after buying 3 new skeins of black floss) that I’d been using those needles that doesn’t require threading (which I love), and that they stress the floss (and the floss slips out easily). I switched back to a regular tapestry needle and presto! the problem was gone. I can’t find those no-thread needles anywhere online, so I guess other folks figured that out far more quickly than I did! I have a two-sided needle that came with a magazine or some such, but I don’t know that I can quite figure out how to use it.
Sam and I are staying in this evening, avoiding all the obnoxious drunks in favor of our own celebration. The girl is here, too, because her beau is in Europe with his family and most of her other friends are also out of town (something about a Flaming Lips concert?).
After getting caught up with all the shows I enjoy, I went looking for something else to view. I enjoy Bones, but I find the sizist comments (and plots) highly offensive. I tried to watch the first episode of The Mentalist online, but it keeps timing out. Sam got the first disc of The Tudors from Netflix, and it’s interesting at times. I tend to get annoyed with the liberties they’ve taken with history, though.
Scattered
Anybody else using LiveMocha? Especially to learn French? I just joined (as TechnoMom, of course) and would like to have “friends” there. I started with the beginner level, lesson one, and actually learned a few new vocabulary words. (My wee bit of foreign language instruction in high school sucked, to put it mildly.) You’re supposed to ask your “friends” for feedback on your lessons, but I don’t have any and don’t really want to ask total strangers about how badly I did.
Sam and Katie have been at Dragon*Con for the past few days. We had a house guest, David, but I didn’t really “meet” him because of the late con hours and having a really bad pain flare. Sorry David! He went home this afternoon. I’m glad Sam has the day off tomorrow to recover. I’m glad Hope got to come to D*C, but pouting because I won’t get to see her while she’s in town. I know that she has brightened Sam’s weekend.
I finished reading The Jennifer Morgue by Charles Stross last night, and started Phaedra Weldon’s Wraith. I liked Morgue, but it wasn’t quite as strong as The Atrocity Archives. The short story at the end of the book, “Pimpf,” didn’t do too much for me, but I’m not a video gamer so that probably has a lot to do with it.
I’m really liking Wraith. A lot. The fact that it’s set in Atlanta is nice, because I can follow along the geography as the characters move around. (Usually, such things go right past me, even if there’s a map.) Thanks to Good Reads, I know that there’s a novella, “Out of the Dark,” on Weldon’s site that takes place between this book and Spectre.
I’ve also been browsing through the archives at Two Lumps, thanks to a link from ![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
skitten. I had a pair of Russian Blues who were entirely too much like Ebenezer and Snooch! If you’re a veteran of cat cohabitation, be careful when reading. I recommend not having a drink in hand (or in mouth) and being careful to empty your bladder before you start reading.
Kyoshi is busy telling me that he still doesn’t want to cuddle with anybody but Katie, but he wants her home NOW! RIGHT NOW! And that we really have to stop letting the kitten out of the house without his personal supervision.
Good Reads Migration Finished!
That was not painless at all. The import feature is tetchy, at best. I had to go through the entire list of 1300+ books and fix their “bookshelf” assignments, and add some that just didn’t import at all. I had over 1400 books in Now Reading, and I haven’t quite figured out why there are fewer books in Good Reads. Oh well. It’s pretty much done!
The dates I’d read books, my ratings, and my reviews did NOT transfer to Good Reads, which is highly annoying.
I was able to go through and update a bunch of books that I’ve read since NR stopped working, and use the to-read category to request books from the library. As a result, there are 33 books awaiting pickup now, and another 61 pending (mostly books that are really new or not yet available). That doesn’t include the inter-library loan items I requested.1
Sam and I had bonus gaming time tonight. He’s storing up brownie points before Dragon*Con. Katie, unfortunately, couldn’t sleep last night, then slept all day until about 11:30. Now she’s re-hydrating and getting some food now. I hope she can go back to sleep. She’s definitely having a fibro flare. 
1 I’m so tickled that the library added a way to put in ILL requests online!
