You say Polymath like it's a bad thing...

Good news

I mentioned on Tuesday that I had some good news that was potentially better news. Well, good news! It’s the better news!

Best Buy/Geek Squad offered me a full time job with more pay and benefits. So…that’s pretty awesome. Michaels has, ironically, been dragging me down so much that crafting has seemed more a chore than a delight. Since my interviews started with Best Buy, I have already been feeling more creative. I have a lot of things in the works right now for Christmas and birthdays, but I can’t always post in case people read and find out what their surprise is!

Suffice it to say, as I make more generic gifts/crafts in the coming months, I’ll be posting more. For instance: apple butter, mini loaves, cards, etc. I am also looking into making a rosary.

Then there’s NaNoWriMo! I have been preparing for that for a while, so there’s not much for me to do now except wait to write.

And finally, I’ve decided to retake the GRE, since they revised it last year. My previous scores also reflect on a Polymath who had only slept for about 3 hours the night before. No bueno. So I am studying for that, as I type. Well, you get the picture.

That’s about all I have. My plan for today is to get some analytical writing practice in and 10 more trivia cards for Eric’s bday game. That is next week! Aghhhh!

I dream of doctorates

How important are dreams? How much stock should we put in our personal ambitions and goals, even when they have no evident value to others, no obvious real-world potential?

At the end of the road that is comprised of our choices, all of the forks in the road where we turned right instead of left or left instead of right, will we look back and consider our socially-accepted accomplishments? Will a cold chair behind a big desk fulfill us, or will answering the call of a child’s wildest fantasy be more precious?

I have been feeling cut down since moving here because I have struggled to find a “professional” job – a typical 9 to 5 with holidays and weekends free. I still struggle with feeling inadequate, despite all of the logical arguments stacked up against those feelings. It is not pressure from the outside; it is my own mind at work behind the scenes, sabotaging any feeling of accomplishment.

Here’s the thing: for as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted a PhD. Maybe it’s for bragging rights, or maybe it’s just because it was always instilled in me that I was smart enough to get one. I have the freedom right now to pursue that dream, thanks to my inability to land a “typical” job. And I can do it the old-fashioned way (reasonably speaking; I can’t just haul off to New York or anything) right now.

But wouldn’t you know, that’s not good enough? In my dastardly mind, I keep thinking about how reckless it is! I am writing this to clear my conscience, to tell myself that if I want to go for it, I need to just go for it. I need to not hold myself back.

I went through the fire academy in Georgia! How is going back for more school, when I can afford the time and money it will take, more reckless than that?! It’s absurd the things that we (humans) get nervous about or hung-up over. I feel silly even writing that I am afraid to take a leap of faith and apply to graduate school.

If I want it, I need to just pursue it however I can. And any argument I make against that is just ridiculous. I hope this post will serve as a reminder to me.

</waxing philosophic>

It’s October!

And that means one month left to NaNoWriMo!

They reset their site every October, though, and that means that I spent about an hour today writing a synopsis for my novel idea this year. And I am not exaggerating, by the way; it really did take me that long. I think at one point I had one sentence written, and I just stared at it, hoping it would self-procreate, dividing itself into more sentences.

It did not, by the way, in case you were wondering.

But I did eventually come up with something that I could stand. I also posted an excerpt, and I also drew the cover!

The inspiration for the cover was hurricane meets James Bond. I wasn’t sure how to make the hurricane completely obvious, but, really, I don’t care. Final product is below.

Overall, I was pleased with the outcome, and the synopsis I thought was fairly well balanced.

I also have some upcoming news. I got some good news today, but it won’t be complete until Thursday. I will have to post again then.

Progress on Eric’s gift is promising. I have a solid idea finally, and I am making progress. I will post when able, and I will start on Christmas soon!

So much going on…so little time! And November will be spent writing mostly. Crap. I didn’t think about that. Best get to it!

Lazy Saturday

I kind of just woke up from a two hour nap. Eric and I went out for Mexican food for lunch, then wandered around one of those season-only Halloween shops. But I am getting ahead of myself here. So let’s take it from the beginning.

This morning was unusual in that Eric woke up at the same time as me. I made my Saturday call to mom, and while speaking with her, I drank a huge cup of coffee. Delicious. Eric made us eggs and toast for breakfast, and we eschewed the television for pleasantries.

Weekends are definitely Eric’s project time, so he went about getting some terrain building, and I decided to tackle knitting again.

~Flashback!~

This weekend was “Friends and Family” weekend at Michaels. I got a sweet 40% off you entire purchase coupon for my part-time drudgery there, and I was determined to use it. Eric and I thus found ourselves wandering the store at 8pm last night. He picked out some painting supplies, and I treated myself to a new sketchbook and a “I Taught Myself Knitting” pack, which includes an instructional book, two sets of needles, a stitch holder, and a bunch of things that I don’t know how to use yet. All of this for around $30 – $20 off is not bad.

Then we went grocery shopping, and I was delirious, so that was also fun.

~End Flashback!~

With instructions in hand, I went about reading and looking at diagrams, and I went to knitting. Here’s what I came up with for today:

This is actually try #2. 4 rows. And yes, that is Gambit Issue 2 in the background, for those of you wondering!

I was quite pleased with my project. I found that the continental method works best for me, and I did a knit-on cast, which did wonders for keeping things more even. I can’t seem to get the grip of the yarn in my left hand right, but I’m more concerned right now with remembering how to knit more than doing it well.

Next up, I will work on purl stitch and see where we can go. The book has some great projects for me to work on. Christmas presents, ahoy!

I’ve been working keenly on Eric’s birthday present, and my mom’s is up next. Then I can get to Christmas. I hope. I may have gone and dug a hole that is a bit too deep for me, but I will persevere! Roar!

Back to the beginning of the post now, where Eric and I went for some delicious Mexican food, talked about needing to learn Spanish, and then traipsed about the Halloween store. We were both tired when we got back, so we took a nap. Eric woke up after about 20 minutes; I needed 2 hours. Go figure.

While we were sitting on the couch, I drew this to wake up:

So I have now justified both purchases at work yesterday by using my new materials. Now I’m going to go paint.

Pictures of Eric’s present will be here around mid-October, after I unveil it at the Old Man’s house.

Gah. Wouldn’t you know, I’m still tired?

Birthday time

Fall is a busy birthday season for me. I have my bff/college roommate’s birthday, dad, Eric, mom, grandma, and a few others interspersed. There goes my Christmas crafting time, no? Especially with November’s focus being writing fantastic fiction stories.

Hopefully I’ll have birthday gifts done completely soon.

Today is dad’s birthday (Happy Birthday, Dad!), so I am showcasing his handmade goodie today.

I struggled and awful lot with this one. My initial idea has been something along the lines of Atlanta Braves memorabilia…that I made. Then I thought about some sort of music-themed gift. I had a really hard time coming up with a fun way to use that theme, though, so I went back to the drawing board. The drawing board, of course, is mom.

She had a brilliant idea, as usual, and I took that as a spring board and went forward. She suggested a clock, and I ended up with this:

I went through a few prototypes in my mind. The first was a clock with various song titles with numbers, but I couldn’t find enough good ones that would translate well. Then I thought perhaps a family clock, where each number was a family member, but the numbers didn’t add up. Besides, I really liked the idea of using “One ring to rule them all.”

The clock face was pretty easy. I bought a pre-cut one at work, painted it with a metallic (copper) acrylic paint, and then wrote the words with Sharpie. I went with paint first, so that the marker wouldn’t bleed into the wood and get all blobby (that’s a technical term).

The hardware is sold separately in little kits. I bought one of those, and thanks to Eric’s finagling, we got it to fit and work. Fun story! It didn’t fit correctly initially, so I took a trip to the store for a Plan B. Good news: I have a Christmas present idea already!

Here are the parts that, well, make it tick.

I was so worried about getting it there on time, and it ended up arriving on Monday! Ha! It was a surprisingly easy process, all things told. I mean, once I had the idea. I would like to play with it a little bit more, but this was a great start.

I believe it was a success. Hooray! I was pleased with the outcome. And now dad has a very unique and fun clock! Time will never be the same…

🙂

P.S. Avengers got here yesterday! Hooray!

Once a blogger…

I spent my day watching football – what an exciting day for football, by the way! I also made beef stew, which came out very delicious and didn’t even require flour to thicken. I put together a sort of outline for my NaNoWriMo project this year. And somehow, I ran across my ancient online journal.

I just spent the past hour or so reading rambling teenage angst with the Pats/Ravens game in the background.

I wasn’t entirely sure what to post about this week until I read some of what I wrote 9 years ago. (Wow. 9 years ago) And if I’m being perfectly honest, this is a sad excuse for a blog post. I’ve still been exhausted and not doing much in the way of crafting. I have one project ready for posting, but it is time-sensitive, so it will be up later this week.

Eric’s birthday present is next on my list. Some time this week, I need to get on the line with my father-in-law for planning. Then Christmas.

The stew was amazing. I just made it up as I went along, which is a huge deal for me.

It’s also past 11, and this game is slowing down, so I’m afraid that will be it for me. If you follow this blog and are a participant of NaNoWriMo, please let me know, so that we might connect there! I am very excited about this year!

Winter is coming

I grew up in Georgia, and the one winter I spent in Pennsylvania was their mildest on record (at the time. Not sure where it stands now). When I was ready to spread my wings and fly North for 2 years of summer, I was in Seattle, which is a temperate city. Granted, we had a few days of below-freezing temperatures while I was there, but nothing that lasted more than a week. After that was Arkansas.

The mornings are starting to get colder already.

I am going to need to find some motivation for something other than mindlessly surfing the web and exploring the new, fancy tv we got. In order to maintain some semblance of sanity, I will need to find activities…other than those that I just mentioned. The obvious avenue to take is crafting; so why can’t I get motivated to put down this laptop, turn off the tv, and pick up those knitting needles for another go?

I’m not sure what the answer is. Maybe when winter is here, the desperation from the cold weather might drive me to the craft room again. In the mean time, I seem perfectly fine with just wasting away my mental capacity.

In my defense, I spent some time applying for jobs and cleaning…so…I’m not entirely useless, I guess is what I’m saying.

The problem with showers

I had the day off, and despite that, I felt rather productive today.

I got some painting done (more on that later; the project is hush-hush at the moment), got some writing done (fiction, primarily, and now this post), got a game of C&C set up for when my honey got home, and I even got the prep work done for dinner.

Tonight’s dinner was Mediterranean Couscous Cabbage Rolls. They’re a simple concept: couscous salad (couscous, olives, feta cheese, mint), wrapped in a cabbage leaf (cabbage leaf), and all of that simmered in a tomato sauce (tomatoes, EVOO, vinegar, garlic, sugar, and cinnamon).

I got the wraps ready, so that when Eric and I returned from our intervals this evening, I could whip up the tomato sauce real quick and then finish them. I figured they would be done early enough that we could eat, play a game, and unwind before I had to get to bed relatively early for work tomorrow.

Oh! Speaking of which, it is confirmed that I did not get the Goodwill job. I was, however, informed that I was their second choice. So, hooray for being the first place loser!

Moving on. When we returned from our run, I was feeling a bit sore, so I popped the tomatoes on the oven to sauce up, and I hopped in the shower. Upon stepping out of the shower and dressing, a burning smell came to me. I looked at Eric, “did you not check on that burning smell?”

“What burning smell?”

Burned sugar tomato paste all on the bottom of the pan was the only answer to that question. I was quite proud of myself for keeping calm enough to scoop out the remaining tomatoes, turn off the burner, and put my possibly ruined pan in the sink to soak.

My answer to this level of failure: I promptly opened a beer and sat on the couch to write this post.

Eric has since finished showering and gone out to procure more tomatoes, so that I might try to not burn a batch of sauce and provide him with dinner. I’m not sure if I’ll be up for eating it, to be honest. And I don’t know that I’ll be up for the game that I set out, especially with an ego that has taken more than a few hits this week.

What I will take away from this is that I should not take even quick showers while making anything, unless I give explicit directions to watch the item that is cooking.

Also, I will have to take a look at the pan again. I can’t imagine how it could have gotten so hot so quickly.

How becoming a crafter destroys Renaissance festivals

I have been writing this post in my head all day, and every time I wrote it in there, the title of this post was “Doth mother know you weareth her drapes?”, but I thought it might be a missed reference. I’ve seen the Avengers 4 times now in theaters, and it’ll be on my doorstep on September 25th when it’s released on Blu-ray and DVD (really, they should pay more the advertising), so I’ve got Robert Downey Jr on the brain.

Among others. I went to see Lawless on Friday, and while the feel of the movie was a little rapey, Tom Hardy was a good distraction.

But I digress…a lot.

Eric and I drove two hours to Holly, MI to enjoy the Renaissance Festival on Saturday, and we had a brilliant time. Neither of us had been to one in a few years; we arrived right about 1pm and didn’t leave until they were closing at 7pm.

My earliest memories of Renaissance festivals spring from Georgia, when my mom was still writing for newspapers, and she got free tickets from a performer friend. I would bring a friend along, and we would get our hair braided, eat and drink happily oblivious to the cost of the food, and we would dream of wearing the fancy dresses. One year I even got a flower headpiece and matching wand. I felt like a real princess.

When I got older and starting earning my own money, I ate less and still dreamed about the fancy costumes. I might buy a piece here or there, but I never had money for an entire costume. One year, I met a guy that I would end up dating for a month after impressing him with knife-throwing skills. It was a magical time. Oddly, I rarely spent a lot of time at the shows because, as a young woman with other young women, we usually spent most of our time dreaming about the clothes and ogling the scantily clad men.

All of this in mind, I had Eric stop at the bank on the way to the festival on Saturday, so that I could take out a largish sum of money. My plan was to buy a new corset.

We arrived and made a beeline to the turkey legs. Once satiated, we wandered idly for a while, settling in to watch the falconry show, then wandering some more, drank some mead, watched the joust, marveled that there was a tattoo parlor set up in a trailer there, and wandered and watched some more shows.

We stopped at a number of vendors, many of them leather workers because once there, I thought it would be much more fun to get some armor. Also I don’t know how to work with leather.

Here we get to the point: I bought one item that wasn’t food on Saturday, and that was a pair of battle axe earrings. I couldn’t bring myself to spend money on anything made with cloth because I just kept thinking, “I could make this.”

Granted, I’ve not made anything nearly so complicated, and I realize it would take a lot of practice on my part. But the fact is, I have a sewing machine and the general skills to make everything that they were selling. And knowing that made it impossible for me to buy a damn thing.

I feel bad for the people that travel to these shows because, really, they bring in a lot of money for those folks. But I also felt very strange looking at dresses that were only two or three panels. I just could not justify spending the money.

I had a great time. Eric did, too. We laughed and heckled the bad knights and just generally enjoyed the atmosphere. Still, the part of me that would be in awe of the clothing was a little disappointed that my practical side kept chiding it.

The good news, though, is that it provided some much needed inspiration, which I obviously had been lacking lately. I have one project I’m working on now, but I hope to pick up some others soon. Along with some sleep.

Asphyxiation: what a yarn

I have kept quiet about some recent developments in one of those superstitious attempts to not jinx things. To be honest, I don’t know if it’s worked because I haven’t heard back yet anyway. All week, I’ve felt as though I were holding my breath, and with a holiday weekend upon us, I think the silence is all the answer I need.

No sense in keeping it all in now.

About two weeks ago, I applied for a job with Goodwill of Greater Grand Rapids doing, essentially, what I was doing for Goodwill in Seattle before I moved to Arkansas and began my rather sad attempt at teaching. I was very excited about it; so was my former boss, Tim, who called them and said “Hey, you know, she did great things for our Goodwill. You should hire her.”

I had a phone interview, and then last week I had an in-person interview. When I left they suggested I would hear back by the end of the week. Here we are, almost end of the day on Friday before a holiday, and I am thinking I won’t be hearing from them. I called a couple of hours ago to follow up; no answer.

So to distract myself, I am watching Doctor Who (I know, right? A shock!) and working on knitting. I haven’t touched knitting needles in about 8 years, so rusty is too kind a term.

I have tried twice to get a row or two done, but the cast is all wrong. I am looking at new ways to cast, so that perhaps I will have more success. In the meantime, Zoe has greatly been enjoying the presence of yarn in the house. I’ll get back to the knitting as soon “End of Time” is over. 😦 Oh, 10th Doctor.