Peer Pressure Prevails

For someone who does not like joining, I seem to end up in a lot of things I would not do on my own.

I suppose it must peer pressure.

I find that I have agreed to attempt both NaPoWriMo (a poem posted each day in April) as well as Camp NaNoWriMo, a novel in April.

What was I thinking? Certainly not that I could do it. There is nothing in my history to make me believe that. But my friends asked me to lend them support and I understand how valuable that can be. I surely don’t have much else to offer them.

So check in here for poems and progress reports.

Assuming I make any.

Turning 65

I am all ready to be 65. I've often wondered why, of all the birthdays that are considered "big ones", no one seems to complain about the 65th.

I think I understand now.

Never mind that the ferry system grants discounts when you are 65. Never mind that in the eyes of restaurants everywhere you are well-and-truly a "senior". The big thing is getting on Medicare.

You see, I'm in that sector of the populace that actually will see improved benefits and a vast reduction in expenses once Medicare kicks in. I pay a small fortune for terrible medical coverage: it doesn't pay anything until I'm broke and in the hospital. That's pretty bad compared to Medicare. There's too many things to detail here, but I now know why few Boomers really complain about the 65th.

I'm looking forward to it.

And it's not as if I could successfully pretend that I'm much younger...

Whidbey artists

I scored some major enthusiasm today by visiting the Made Right on Whidbey show up in Coupeville, WA.

I went originally to see Linnane Armstrong and her woodcuts, but as I wandered about, I stumbled across Bev McQuary with some of her lampwork beads! I hadn't read closely enough to discover that she was going to be there.

To make this short, I came home with a boat-load of enthusiasm for getting back to art. Oh, sure, I took some pictures of the flames in the wood stove yesterday, as sources for doing custom flame paint jobs (haha, like I'll ever get back to doing that), and have been doing paper miniatures for wargaming, but really: these two are real artists with work to show and sell.

I managed to avoid descending into wood block prints (having done some before as well as serigraphs), but I find myself all fired up (no pun intended) to light the torch and make some beads.

Imagine! I want to make something!

I forgot to blog

I know. It happens to us all at some time or another. In the rush to keep living, I have I suppose that's fair, since I seldom read blogs either.
I'd sure like to know the answer to one question: why does anyone read a person's blog? Really. It's probably just me, but the things I have read are seldom worth the time it takes to read them. Certainly, that is true of what I have previously posted. I don't even read my own blog.
I do, however, make my living as a writer. Or did, until recently. (That's a whole other story). That means that I know how to write and do not consider it a trivial thing. Maybe that's the problem. Is blogging really writing? Or is it a form of diary one has no intention of keeping secret?
I don't really write in a diary, either. Except as a cathartic, I don't see the point. I have the diaries my grandmother and my mother kept, back in the days when a person bought a hardbound book for the year and wrote actual entries for each day. Most of the ones my grandmother wrote consist of "tired today" and little else. Some few are very sad. No happy entries. I guess I never gave much thought to whether or not she was happy while I knew her. Now that she's gone, there's not much I can do.

My mother's diaries are a bit happier, but I never knew her as she died when I was age two.
Is that what I leave for others to read when I'm gone? This blog? Man, how depressing is that?

Happy Head of the Year

As with most years, I tried to spend January First doing the things I want more of in the coming year and avoiding the things that I wish to see less of.

For me, that means I played a game and cooked and read and visited with the children.

That was two good and one mediocre. Not bad.

The game was me as a British indian scout in 1754, hunting an incursion into our territory by persons unknown. My character, Swift Cloud, survived and sometimes that's all one can expect.

The dinner was not so successful, I'm afraid. I hit the wrong spot on the turkey with the thermometer and so got an underdone bird. I had to microwave the legs. And the vegetables were not up to my standards either.

However, the high point had to be the Skype visit with Rachel and her new laptop. She no longer has to intrude upon her husbands office space to video chat with us. We truly love that! Thanks, Rachel!

Other than those things, I am struggling with mood today. I don't believe that "putting on a happy face" results in a better mood. At best, it reduces the stress placed upon those with whom you interact. At worst, it encourages one to ignore the issues at hand.

Much more practical might be identifying what's wrong, what needs to be addressed.

On the 100 Things front (getting rid of 100 things): all's going well! All of the railroad items are gone. We took an entire trunk load of books, magazines, cars, and track to Sandy, in the hopes he can find a good home for it all. Even if he does not, it's moved along. There might have been 100 things right there if I count books and magazines. A dozen cars, etc...

Today I'm transcribing recent recipes and will try to update the cooking blog as well. Oh, but I have the game to add to the NovaAlbion blog, too. I guess I"ll be busy for a while.

Felice capo d'anno, tutti!

My grandmother's enterprise

I fear I've never been too aggressive when it came to making money.
I LIKE money, and always wanted more, but somehow it never came to the top of the list of things I needed to do.
I ran across an old photo of my grandmother and one of her enterprises:

There are some days when I'd settle for a seasonal profit of any size. But it's always work, isn't it? Just look at the faces of these two kids. Are those expressions of Joy? Do they look like the faces of people having fun?

Increasingly, I find I must remind myself that it's not money I'm here for.
Obviously.
If it was, surely I'd have more of it?

As an hour-by-hour thing, I ask myself if I'd rather be doing something else.
The answer is almost always "no".