Monday, January 30, 2012

Spring in the Springs


See that tiny, little splash of pink in the center of the photo?  That's spring in Central Florida!

This shot is of the boulevard that stretches from the old side of town to the new side.  City Hall is just up the road, out of the shot.  I travel this route when I go to the grocery store, to visit my favorite restaurant, to get to the road that takes me to the library and the crafts store.

Over the past couple of weeks I've noticed the trees with their blooms and realized if I was going to get a shot of them I'd better hurry up, because those blossoms don't last forever.  Yesterday I decided it was then, or never, and since traffic wouldn't be so heavy I headed out.  All up and down the road the bursts of pink played peek-a-boo with me.  Yes, I did some illegal parking and I did step out onto the roadway once or twice, but I was careful and now I have a memento of the day, and of Spring 2012.  When I got home I sat on the porch with my current project and added 1,081 words.  It was a perfect day.

To all of you still up to your knees in snow, I'm sorry.  Just wait until summer when it's 200 degrees in the shade down here and you've got a balmy 80.  I'm just saying...it all evens out in the end.

Happy writing!

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Finished!

These past few months the muse has been dragging me around by the collar to various creative opportunities, including crocheting, crafting with felt, working with color pencils, pillow making, quilting and occasionally, cross stitch.  My friend Sonja says that one kind of creativity always leads to another, and I'm finding this more true every day.

I finally finished my afghan.  I may be biased, but I think it's a beauty.


It's from a pattern called "Apple Delight" that I found in the September/October 1988 issue of Country Needlecraft.  The yarn color is Country Rose.  I love this pattern because it requires no counting of rows (except for the base chain) and because it works so fast.  I've made at least a dozen afghans in this pattern and have given all of them away.  I like thinking someone is warm this winter because of something I made.

Working this afghan was good for my pinkie finger, too.  It kept it limber as it heals.  If you crochet, you know how essential that pinkie is for anchoring the yarn as you go.

I've already started another afghan, since the weather is still somewhat cool.  I'm making it with a pale yellow baby yarn.  It's like crocheting with spider web, its so fine.  Now if someone would just have a baby...hint, hint, hint.

Yes, I have been writing all this time as well.  In the past three weeks I have added almost 10,000 words to my work in progress, so the CFRW challenge is working its magic.

So, what are you working on???

Happy writing!

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Deep Thoughts

You never know how much you use the pinkie finger on your left hand until you sprain it.

Definitely don't try this at home!

Happy writing.  Just watch out for the shift key...it's a killer!

Monday, January 16, 2012

Persistence

The members of CFRW have completed the first week of our 250 Words A Day Challenge, and the results people are posting are impressive.  I had a marvelous weekend with time to read, crochet, clean and cook, as well as write.  I'm trying to overlook the fact that all that output was fueled by diet soda--backsliding is not something I easily admit.

The thing I like best about challenges is how they, well, challenge me to keep on track.  Once you start doing something regularly, like writing, the more loathe you are to break the streak, the more you persist.  How else do you get from the beginning to the end?

Happy writing!

Friday, January 13, 2012

Friday the 13th (Not the movie)

It would appear that I've managed to survive Friday the 13th, 2012 edition, without any muss or fuss, even though I spent an hour out in the back yard this morning wielding a sharp lopper in order to trim a couple of trees.  One of them is a maple that appeared the first summer I lived here and has grown steadily since.  Want to talk about bad luck, though?  That tree has been hit by lightning at least three times.  Once, according to the cable repairman, the tree transferred the lighting to the ground where it hit the buried cable and traveled to the little box on the outside of the house, frying it.  The good luck part of the story is that the junction box is less than a foot from the air conditioner, which was unharmed.

Thankfully, I'm not paraskevidekatriaphobic (that's a morbid fear of Friday the 13th).  My claustrophobia is enough to handle on any given day.  Nor am I afraid of a black cat crossing my path.  My beloved Max lived for nineteen and a half years (and one day) and I'm sure if there were anything to that old saw, it would have come up. 

Some people are afraid of the world coming to an end in 2012.  I'll probably be too busy to notice, or will have my nose in a book, an afghan-in-progress or puttering in the garden.

Besides, if you saw the movie 2012, you know that the world didn't technically come to an end.  The survivors took an ark to a mountaintop where they probably survived by running internal combustion engines until their gas supplies ran out, and then throwing their trash overboard without recycling it.

At last Saturday's CFRW meeting we talked about our writing goals for the new year.  One of mine was to blog more.  Another was to write each day, Monday through Friday.  As my to-be-read pile reaches the three foot mark, I think I'll be setting aside weekends for some good reads.

Happy writing (and reading).

Friday, January 6, 2012

Mixed Bag

It’s been a mixed bag of activities the past few weeks resulting in busy days but not getting very much done. Do you have days/weeks like that? Here’s what’s been going on.

Christmas: Celebrated with family on Christmas Eve, then had a very quiet Christmas Day. Celebrated New Year’s Eve with friends, then didn’t see or talk to anyone except a neighbor (I said “Happy New Year”, she said, “Same to you.”

Movies: Super 8 and Harry Potter (no relation) and the Deathly Hollows, part II. Both had monsters and smart kids.

Books: Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth, Diana Palmer’s Montana Tough, Janet Evanovich’s Explosive Eighteen (loved it!), Pretty Little Pincushions (could be my next crafting obsession).

Crocheting: The afghan in country rose is about 3 feet long. Started a new project using a wonderful soft yarn (kind of reminds me of angora. Remember angora?) and now I can barely put it down.

Weather: Three freezing cold nights (had-to-cover-the-plants cold) and now we’re back to the 60s. Went to the library yesterday in flip-flops.

Writing: Taking Stephen King’s advice to leave Take Me Home alone for 6 weeks (got my calendar marked for re-start day) and rewriting the first book of the series, Married in :08 (that’s eight seconds for those who don’t follow professional bull riding—though you really should…)

Hope you’re keeping busy with myriad projects and things you love to do, and as always,

Happy Writing.