A Professional Dilettante

http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-most-boring-winter-in-seattle.html is this year.

I don't know what this is, but I do not like it, Sam I am.

Achy all over, skin overly sensitive, cold all the time (but not running a fever, I checked), and it hurts a little on the left side of my waist when I draw a deep breath. Headache, and gas, too. Oh, and zausted. Insomnia night before last, way too many hours in bed last night (most of which were spent sleeping, thank goodness, although I woke up at least three times), an hour's nap in the wing chair after I finally got up this morning, and I'm still tired. Not flu. I know what flu feels like and this ain't it.

But it sucks eggs, and if it keeps up I suspect there's a doctor's visit in my near future, whether I like it or not.

Up over 60,000 words as of today, if you count the old Chapters 12-15 that I cut but that I might still end up using parts of (hey, a girl can dream, right?).

Been averaging about 800 a day since the last time I posted, except for over the weekend. Over 1000 today! Yay!

Item the first. Over 600 words today.

Item the second. They were all backfill and retconning.

Item the third. My word count is all %$#@*& up because I'm going to end up redoing most of the last four chapters.

Item the fourth. So much for the word count widget.

But at least I'm writing again. And I think I know where I went astray and how to get back on path.

That was a helluva January. And not in a good way.

When I posted the picture of the new quilt top, thnidu made a comment to the effect that he thought it was a quilt I was going to imitate and was amazed that I was something I'd actually made myself. At which point I was going to send him to my Flickr account, where I had a bunch of pictures of my quilts posted. The operative word being "had." Somehow they no longer exist there, and I have no idea why (no, I hadn't gone over the 200 picture limit of a free account, and the descriptions are there but the photos aren't). So I decided to put up a page on my own website of all the quilts I've made that I have photos of (somewhere just north of about half my total output over the last 25 years). And here it is, if you're interested in taking a gander -- http://mmjustus.com/imagepage.html. Beware, it's a rather huge page with a lot of photos!

I spent way too much money on frames and mats this week (even with readymade both and doing my own framing work, it was darned close to $200 when all was said and done), but the six cross-stitched critters I stitched last summer are up on my living room walls, and the lighthouses which were there (and have been, in eight different living rooms since 1987) before, are down and stowed away in the closet.

Four more critters to go, I think.

Anyway, here they are!

Sigh. Between what has just been pointed out as my annual SAD (why can't I see this happening to me for myself?) and the second longest January dry spell in recorded history in western Washington (complete with varying burn bans, stagnant air advisories, and all the cold, dank fog and murk your little heart could desire), which just ended yesterday with a good cleansing rain, thank all the gods, and the uncertainty of jury duty, which just ended today without me getting picked for a jury, the writing has ground utterly to a halt.

So this is what I've been doing instead, a second attempt (after the catastrophe that was the Yule Log Cabin quilt) at a Christmas-themed quilt for my bed:



Just the top. I've been quilting on the flame quilt, which will probably take me to spring to finish, and have several other smaller projects for over the summer, so I probably won't actually quilt this till next fall. Hopefully I will get it quilted and bound in time to put it on my bed in December.

Anyway, here's a side view:



The inner narrow red border does not look nearly so pink in real life, and the white dots are snowflakes.

And a closeup of a couple of the stars and the borders:



Six whites/silver fabrics for the stars, about twenty reds, and about thirty greens, all from my stash except for a couple of the whites/silvers. The borders are all new fabric (I don't buy fabric in the yardage needed for borders for my stash unless I absolutely fall in love with one to the point of ridiculousness, which has happened maybe half a dozen times in twenty-odd years).

So. Piecing time is good thinking time, and I did at least partly figure out why James has clammed up. I suspect it's because this is at least in part a mystery story, and, well, I've never written a mystery before. So I went to the library yesterday and put a bunch of how to write a mystery books on hold. Hey, that's what I did when I was learning how to write romance...

The higher the altitude, the warmer it got -- 34F (1C) foggy degrees at home, and 64F (almost 18dC) gloriously sunny degrees at 5400 feet on Mt. Rainier.

http://mmjustus.wordpress.com

With lots of pictures.

Doing my duty as a good citizen if jury duty didn't consist of being treated like cattle and like the time (and some other things, for that matter) of those in the jury pool is completely valueless.

Just because they know we're a captive audience and there are hundreds of us at a time does not make it right.

The cat is not out of the bag. Or at least one of them is still in there...



And if you're hungry for flowers, my blog is full of them today:

http://mmjustus.wordpress.com