Tag Archives: blogging

Teeny screen

Thinking about technology and blogging habits. I don’t know what’s happening these days. I seem to have wandered away in a more thorough way than I have in the past. So little photography happening too. It’s just weird.

I think I need to either throw myself in with renewed and amped up commitment or walk away.

And if it’s the former (and of course it’s the former. I would miss my cyber-fiber friends way too much), I’m guessing that an iPad would make all the difference.

I rarely sit at the desk top anymore. I have an old iPhone with a teeny screen and it’s tough to read and comment on others’ blogs from here.

So. What do you think?

The capacity to surprise yourself

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I woke with a dream about an old boyfriend. Never got around to my pages. Puttered here til it was past rush hour and headed to Salem, where I promptly locked my keys in the mini-van. Somehow, it didn’t do me in. Just called a guy. I was mostly worried about being distracted around my sister, which can be a set up for disaster. Today it was fine. The sun exhausted me on the drive home. It was almost as if I was about to fall asleep at the wheel, but really it was just a squinting weariness brought on by the intense glare. I said OM TARA TUTARE TURE SWAHA for myself on the way up, and for the boys on the way down. I am wondering what is making me so draggy right now. The state of my sister’s health? Maybe. It’s never good. The empty house, wondering who’ll show up for dinner? Nah, I’m used to that. A long, hot walk with Finn? No! That’s good. India Flint’s new book arriving and being blown away by her work and feeling more than a little inadequate? Yeah, definitely. Some sore spot opening up. And this blog. I think I have to take more risks. Just have to. Or I will bore myself into silence. I plan to publish (yes, that IS the right word) some of the sketch-writing done in my class over the last year and a half. It will be scary — really scary — but I think it’ll add some much needed immediacy. Until the novel is done, I don’t really feel comfortable talking about THAT process, which is too bad because it takes up a fair portion of every day. Maybe I need to rethink that, too?

And recipes. Why not? Isn’t this MY blog?! I just want to just throw them into the mix and tag them well so that the boys will be able to find them — both will be cooking on their own this year.

So. Some plans. I think maybe I am just tired.

Unbelievable just unbelievable

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Fourteen more inches. Five more coming tomorrow?
Light as a feather — but so much of it!! Had to dig the ‘reverse moat’ again and re-establish our rope-play paths (did I mention Finn jumped the fence the day before yesterday?)

Parts of the fence have virtually disappeared. K installed wire barriers in one spot (where Finn easily and gracefully hopped over). More wire barriers needed on north side. To be effective, my ‘reverse moat’ requires digging on the other side of the fence as well as ours — an awkward maneuver that strains the elbow and arm and makes me feel terribly sorry for myself.
We are all doing the best we can! A section of our pipes have frozen. No water getting to master bath. The ceiling is leaking in the kitchen where it typically does when there is an ice dam. Ominous cracks have appeared along the yellowed section of ceiling. We need to get those ice melting ‘hockey pucks’ ASAP — or stuff cut-off nylons with ice melt, since there probably aren’t any pucks available, anywhere.
Only six people showed up in my husband’s office. Not clear if the T is even running out this far. Worst of all, Finn’s play rope (which gets buried and re-discovered in a series of gleeful digs on his part during the game), disappeared last evening and despite moving what feels like a mountain of snow — ~~I had no luck finding it this morning~~. Found it!! Much joyful playing ensued!!

The good news? K is home. If he weren’t, I’m fairly certain the kitchen ceiling would have collapsed by now.

jump shift

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I am so bored with my own blog that I’m not sure what to do. Certainly not complain about it or do some sort of mea culpa — one of the biggest (and most boring) blogging errors out there, in my humble opinion. (Is that because I was raised Catholic? “Bless me Father for I have sinned. I have not blogged in 10 days…. “)

Here are a few “what if’s” just to gauge the energy…

Kitty Oracle — eyes and ears to come

What if I blogged about race — as a way to educate myself, be educated, and to produce conversation about something that matters in American life, and matters a lot? Really being prepared to be wrong. Something of the sort is already happening over on FB and I am finding it interesting, gratifying… the exchange of good links, etc. (Oh GAWD, I take that back. Just looked at recent comments and feel literally sick to my stomach). Why would I want to open myself up to THAT?!

What if I blogged about parenting? Not the gushing prideful ‘they’re turning into men’ kind of commentary but the ‘oh my god here we go again?’ kind? Including hand-wringing prognostications about the future — not just theirs but humankind’s? (I’ll tell you right up front, this one is out. Not for my sake, but for theirs. And besides, gloom and doom is its own version of boring).

What if I blogged about pork?
Or noise intrusion in the suburbs? Or about how I hate themes, focus words, perfect studios, and one upmanship around sustainability practices (even if I think they matter and matter a lot?) In short, would it really be so bad to RANT once in a while? I could bolster this idea with a long-remembered quote by Audre Lorde (that’s her face) who said, “Anger is loaded with information”… and with the feedback from my writing group that I rant with a certain amount of –what?– energy? volume? aplomb? (Here, I will note my Irish blood).

What if I blogged about what it means to support a person with disabilities? A person completely ill-equipped to deal with being an adult? And how it feels when that person is your sister.

What if I blogged about writing — even though I have no idea when or if I will finish the novel I have so publicly set out to complete?

Or (and this overlaps with the above), what if I posted about synchronicity? This with the idea that noting it accelerates its occurrence. Just in case coincidences are God’s way of texting.

Oh well. Who knows? I’ll end with two snippets.
Three quilts near completion. This one is called “Ferguson” and while I only walked about a mile and a half for Michael Brown this morning (far short of the five that I pledged), I AM quilting for him in a consistent and thoughtful way.

Day two of no sugar.

Change afoot

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olive et gourmande, Montreal (last week)

The blogging rhythm broken, giving me a bewildered sense of loss… I really am not overstating. It’s been months of trying to figure out what’s up. First it was the crashing, frustrating, newly installed PSE11 (not anymore, thankfully). Then it was D.’s college applications (done!). And tours (done for now!) Attention to writing. Major decluttering. Runs to Salem. Montreal. Schenectady.

filled with lavender buds !

And, all the while, I am sewing. Not a little. A LOT… moving pieces of fabric around, and listening to myself think. I became, this fall, weirdly resistant to being influenced. Unable, suddenly and almost violently, to partake of community that had been a place of solace and learning. I hated the isolation created by walking away, but somehow the need to preserve some quality of solitude kept winning out.

Yesterday, it occurred to me that the decluttering impulse, twinned with solitude, could very possibly be the soul at work — struggling to create the necessary conditions for integration… muscling things about so that I can make visual pieces more congruent with where I’m at, more expressive of what’s up, and with a lighter hand. Dare I wish this be so?!

I don’t know yet, but all of a sudden, this excites me. I am prepared to be ruthless to make it so. To be ruthless, so that I can become lighter. This makes me laugh and I’ll take that as a good sign!

Pattern and Outrage : Dee Mallon

cloth, justice, writing, and food