Today I finished a project that’s been left partially done for . . . oh dear . . . several months now. (I totally lost track of how long it’d been.)
Sunday Fun
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Category Archives: Projects
Living Frugal: Greening Your Condo/Apt/Townhome
We live in a town home — which in Washington is defined as a single family unit with at least one shared wall (a condo is multiple units within a single structure) — which makes ecological living more difficult. This is because we do not own the exterior of our house, need to get approval for interior changes, and don’t have our own landscape. But there are still a number of ways we’ve managed to ‘green’ our home.
Good plans don’t always manifest
I swear I had the best of intentions. But I didn’t get very far. Technically, I didn’t even get through that first stack.
Pictures of London
When we first returned from our trip to London (April, 2007) we organized our pictures by environment and loaded them onto a website for all to share.
That website went away (bought out by Yahoo, I believe) and since the original process was more thna a little frustrting, we haven’t bother to redo the uploading into a new format.
Our family website (pitchwife.net) has a photo gallery and I spent an hour or so today uploading the 100s of photos we took. Here’s a link: http://www.pitchwife.net/component/option,com_morfeoshow/Itemid,59/
Enjoy.
Homemade Gifts: Pumpkin Butter
I enjoy making and giving (the giving more than the making, truth be told) homemade gifts every year. For one thing, it allows me to sidestep the consumeristic merry go round of the holiday season, for another, it allows me to give soemthing special to people I might normally be unable to express my appreciation for (like, my boss).
Garden Time
The week before last, the weather was gorgeous: warm (70*) and just right for gardening. Which was perfect as my Gardener’s Supply order had just arrived. Yes, I know, ordering planters is an egregious waste of energy (they came from Vermont, about as far away as possible) but I literally could not find what I wanted/needed at any of the supply places around here — big box and independent both. These are recycled plastic, 16 inches deep and UV treated to keep their color. They are sturdy enough to hold the vines I want to grow to shade to front porch and pretty enough that I enjoy looking at them. As with many ‘green’ decisions, I had to balance competing priorities. Here’s what the porch looks like now:
What you see here are mainly the two jasmine plants. There are also two Clematis vines (purple flowers they will have) on either side of the jasmine on the right. Around the base I planted Allyssium already in bloom, and the fragrance is exquisite. Here’s a closer look at the two blue pots. The top one is filled with various plants from last year — flowering ivy, allyssium (can you tell that I like it?) and dianthus (which should have hot purple flowers this summer). The one on the floor has one of my two foxglove plants.
J. planted a rose bush for me. The two pots flanking it are the seemingly indestructible stargazer lilies. I say that because he planted them in 2006 and all he does is water them. I’m looking forward to the rose bush developing and blooming. Right now it’s pretty gloomy over in that corner.
Our back porch is cleaner (or at least, tidier) than it has been all winter. But it too is pretty low on plant life. I’m hoping to plant lavender and allyssium in containers and place them under the window onto the porch. The smell should really imbue the workout/craft/guest room.
Project(s) Update (with pics!)
My friend got his gift, and loved it (yay!). Here’s some pics so you can admire my handiwork.
The Knitting Bag — note the groovy handles.
A close up of the fabric (it’s sturdy, natural fabric — a woven cotton I think). Upholstery weight and doubled so it should hold up to years of being stuffed with projects.
Finally, a close up of the interior pocket. It runs the length of the side, and should hold needles very well.
Craft
For now, I have to keep the actual item a secret, but I just finished making technocowboy‘s birthday gift. The actual birthday was about a month ago, but the inspiration didn’t come until then, and it took me time to find the materials and work out the actual process of making it.
Which is how i basically do all of my crafts. Somehow I never seem to want to create something that has a ‘recipe’ or set of specific directions (except cooking). I’ll use a set of directions as a template (like this one one — a pleated silk purse), but then I’ll change it. Yes, even before I created one to try out. And I’m a self-taught sewer, so even though I have a sewing machine I have to spend a lot of time figuring out how things go together before I start — of it looks like crap (I’ve learned) because I didn’t think it through. I’ve ruined a number of otherwise amazing projects by not spending enough time thinking about them before I start making them.
It’s a curse, more than a gift. If I don’t make more of one thing at a time, I basically have to re-invent the wheel if I want to make another at some point in the future. Every time I think “I should keep notes, or take pictures.” But once I start I get so caught up in it that I don’t want to stop to document what I am doing.
As for this most recent project — I’ll post pictures once USPS delivers it to him.
Fresh committments
Although I am a reviewer, I have a lot of ‘occult’ books I haven’t read in a long time, or got because they looked interesting and never read at all. (If given a choice between a juicy fantasy novel I’ve read before and a dry nonfiction new book I will consistently choose to re-read.)
I’m hereby committing to reading every book, likely alphabetically (by author), that I do not immediately remember in great detail. Some of them may end up as reviews here (and cross-posted to Facing North, of course), others just as swift blurbs that capture my immediate thoughts. A few will likely be purged. (I hate purging, however. I always feel like there was something useful that I might want later.) It’s necessary to do, however, if only because I only have so much bookshelf space (45 linear feet) and it’s nearing full.
On the stack: Andrews’ 1st 3; Ruth Barrette’s Women’s Rites; Blair’s Goddesses for Every Season; Blamire’ Glamoury; Blawyn & Jones’ Chakra Workout; Bleakley’s Fruits of the Moon Tree; three ‘Idiot’s Guides’ (Wicca Craft, Spells and Spellcraft, and Hypnosis); Collins’ Building a Magickal Relationship; and Coyle’s Evolutionary Witchcraft.
Hmm. I wonder how long this will take.
Slave to the Galley
The galley copy of my new book (Magickal Connections) arrived on Wednesday and its been consuming me. I’m not supposed to make wholesale changes (too late!), or worry too much about proofing (because there is a a professional copy editor going over it). But I’m a Virgo and I can’t help but give it a close read.
So close, in fact, that I will blow my Monday 2/5 deadline for returning the mss. I hope they don’t care too much.
The book, overall, looks really good. I like the fonts they’ve chosen and the graphics have mostly come out fine. (I wish I’d known they were going to be b/w because I would have insited that the image for ‘freeform’ be changed. The point is sort of lost without the color.) The layout is good and my idea for ‘boxes’ seems to be working well on the page.
MCÂ is real.