Category Archives: Personal

A to Z Challenge, Goals, Personal

Jealousy

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So, I’m not actually a jealous person, but I am rather prone to bouts of envy. Unfortunately (?) my ‘E’ blog post was already claimed and I needed a J post so… Yeah.

(The difference between jealousy and envy)

It’s not that I think other writer’s successes somehow take away from my own and I don’t want to take them away. I am honestly and truly happy for my friends when they reach a goal or have good things happen to them. Sadly, however, I usually feel a little twinge of ‘I want that too!’.

It kinda sucks because it gives me a weapon to beat myself up with, and frankly, I do that far more often than I should already. I’m trying to learn to use it as a motivational tool though. I’ve had mixed success so far, because sometimes telling yourself ‘They achieved that goal because they did the work. They didn’t take the afternoon off last week to go raiding’ is a double-edged sword. It’s true enough, but it’s also really close to being that weapon again.

Someday I’ll either learn how to stop envying people for what they have that I don’t (Heh! Small chance of that, really), I’ll learn how to use their victories to motivate myself toward my own, or, more likely, I’ll just have to keep feeling the twinge and going on. One step at a time. It’s how they earned all their achievements, it’s how I will too… even if I am a little bit behind them. That’s okay as long as I keep moving.

…or that’s what I’m telling myself this week, anyway 🙂

How about you? Do you get envious or jealous of other people’s achievements?

I did a quick google before I started this blog post and this seems to be a rather common problem. Writer’s Relief has a blog about how to deal with jealousy, Absolute Write does also and even The Rumpus. Their advice mostly seems to be (though you really ought to read all the articles if you struggle with this) not to let yourself get too hung up on what other people are doing, sincerely wish your colleagues well and  trudging on, so I guess I’m doing the right things. Sometimes it’s stinkin’ hard though. Not the wishing people well part, I truly do, but the not getting hung up and trudging on bits.

Do you have anything you do to help you deal with jealousy? Any words of advice to pass on? I’d love to hear them. You never know what’s going to help until you try, and frankly, every little thing I can do to boost my productivity is a good thing. A very good thing.

~*~

This blog post is part of the Blogging from A to Z challenge over the month of April and was brought to you by the letter J. Tomorrow I’m going to tell the story about the time I was kidnapped by Klingons. You don’t want to miss that one, right? 🙂

A to Z Challenge, Niteblade, Personal, Poetry, Random Fact, Thoughts

I Lied

8 Comments

So, I lied.

In yesterday’s post I said I was going to talk about Inspiration today, but once it was time to actually write the post, well, I didn’t wanna LoL. I strongly suspect that most of the people who read my blog are creative people, which means you don’t need me to tell you all about inspiration. You know how it works (or doesn’t). You get it. And you probably don’t want to hear about all the myriad of inspirations for my various stories.

Mostly though, I’m feeling lazy today and I don’t want to have to organise my thoughts as clearly as will be required to do that. The inspiration for any one story is made up of a half dozen other things that are interconnected in complex ways that require a lot of thought to sort through.

So, instead of that I’m going to do something different.

Last month I asked people to ask me questions I could then answer for my letter Q day (on the 19th). I was pleasantly surprised by the number of questions I received so on my cheating I day I’m going to answer a few of them. If you want me to find an honest way to make this topic begin with I (other than the oh so clever “I Lied” that I’m going with now) we could call it I Think or All About I* or something, but… meh. Again, that requires too much thought LoL

Alexa asked:

What’s your fave ice cream flavor?
Oh, hell, while I’m at it:
Favorite poet and poem?

My favourite things change as I do. When I was younger my favourite ice cream flavour was Bubble Gum (back when it actually -had- bubble gum in the ice cream), then in my early teens it shifted to Cherry Cheesecake (om nom nom!). A couple years ago I discovered Moose Tracks ice cream and that became a fast favourite, but these days I think my preference is just straight-up chocolate. Sadly I can’t have it very often because I’m working pretty hard at losing weight and it’s calorific, but when I feel like spoiling myself that’s the flavour I want 🙂

Choosing my favourite poet and poem is a bit trickier. When I was younger my favourite poet was probabaly Alfred, Lord Tennyson, especially The Charge of the Light Brigade, and around juior high I was in love with The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes. Around that time I also read and re-read all the poems in Through the Open Window (edited by Shirley I. Paustian) and I had tons of the poems marked for quick access (Farewell by Crowfoot, It is not growing like a tree by Ben Jonson, Then the Child Replied by Joseph McLeod, For a Father by Anthony Cronin, Father by Dale Zieroth and Maternity by Alice Meynell, for example. That last is one of those poems whose last lines always seem to linger around the edges of my conciousness.).

These days I’m finally beginning to enjoy Poe’s poetry in a way I never did before, but also a lot of modern poets too. I’m scared to start listing them, to be honest, because I am afraid of leaving anyone out LOL One of my favourite poems recently is “Initiation” by Caitlin Walsh, which was in Niteblade’s recent poetry issue. Actually, I’m pretty fond of all the poems from that issue. I like poetry that is accessible (if I have to have an extensive knowledge of, um, anything to ‘get’ it, I’m not interested.) and while my tastes often wander to the dark side of the spectrum, I’ve read light poems I really enjoyed too.

Francis W. Alexander asked:

Here’s two questions. Although I write zombie stories and poems, I still hafta ask. Why do they hunger for brains? I know brains look like chitterlings (which look good, but turn my stomach). But why do they want the very thing that’s hard to get to? Do they use a nutcracker to get past the skull?

Well, according to Return of the Living Dead (1985) they want to eat brains because that’s the only thing that stops the pain of being dead… but most of the zombies in my stories and poems are straight-up cannibals and will eat any part of a person, they aren’t all about the brains. Maybe the ones who are just enjoy the challenge?

You know what bothers me about brain-eating zombies? They usually go hand-in-hand with the ‘Shoot them in the head to kill them’ kind of zombies. Think about that. If zombie #1 gets turned into a zombie because zombie #2 smashed his head open and started nomming on his brains — what is the point of shooting him in the head? He doesn’t have any brains there to hit anymore, they’re all in zombie #2’s stomach.

O_o

LOL I think that’s it for today. If you have any questions you’d be interested in my answering for my Q post (or any other ones I decide to cheat on LOL) please feel free to leave them as a comment to this post.

~*~

This blog post is part of the Blogging from A to Z challenge over the month of April and was brought to you by the letter I. Tomorrow I’ll be blogging about writerly jealousy. Should be fun LOL

ETA: I was curious. So I did one of those who do you write like things. How do these programs even judge this stuff? Anyway, I pasted in text from three different stories and got three different authors. First, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle then Oscar Wilde and finally, my favourite:

I write like
Neil Gaiman

I Write Like by Mémoires, journal software. Analyze your writing!

*snort*

Dude, frankly I’d settle for writing half as much as Neil Gaiman.

A to Z Challenge, Personal

Hobbies

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Hobbies. I haz ’em.

Like I mentioned in my ‘Branding‘ post, I am all about writing, gaming and crafting. My interest in each of these things waxes and wanes, but it never completely vanishes. I bet you know what I’m talking about. I’ll bet you’ve noticed it in your own hobbies and interests 🙂

I think my hobbies fall into two distinct categories, gaming and crafting.

When it comes to games I prefer RPG & story-based games. I don’t like first person shooters, and really, my favourites are the ones that don’t require me to have uber reflexes, hand/eye co-ordination or remember five million control combinations. Up until quite recently I was a pretty serious World of Warcraft addict, but I’m um, ‘in recovery’ for that now. I’m currently only raiding one day a week (a couple hours) and plan to drop even that when the new expansion comes out. It’s the people, not the game, that I play WoW for now. Nowadays I’m enjoying games that actually have endings, like Dragon Age: Origins (I’m on my second playthrough at the time of this writing). Sadly, I’m also still playing Sims 3 — whenever my tolerance for the never-freaking-ending bugs is high.

When it comes to crafting, I enjoy crocheting, quilting, cross stitching, fabric painting… Um, I think that’s it, these days. Like I say, it’s cyclical. Right now I’m crocheting a baby blanket for a friend, and once that’s done I have a mystery quilt to finish designing and sew, a picture of a loon I’m cross stitching for another friend, a quilt to “restore”, and did I mention my sister is expecting? She’ll need a baby blanket…

It never ends LOL But I love it.

I also love taking pictures. Don’t ask me any technical questions about focal length or anything like that because I won’t know. I know how to make my camera do what I want it to do, and when I need to, I know how to look up tutorials on the interwebz to learn new things, but I never retain the technical knowledge, just the practical stuff. All the pictures you see on this blog are by me (except in very, very rare instances when I note otherwise) and I think some of ’em are pretty good. I’m not shooting a lot right now, because most of my “spare time” and energy is being spent on crocheting at the moment, but eventually the tide will change and I’ll be all about photography.

How about you? What are your hobbies?

Do you know any awesome new games I ought to try out? I’m hungry for something new LOL We have an Xbox 360, Wii and PCs. To say I’m open to suggestions would be an understatement.

Have any fantastic craft projects you’ve finished that you’d like to show off? Link me, I’d love to pop by and admire your work.

~*~

This blog post is part of the Blogging from A to Z challenge over the month of April and was brought to you by the letter H. Please pop by tomorrow when I’ll be talking about Inspiration. I think. That’s the plan anyway 😉

A to Z Challenge, Guest Blogger, Personal

Family

6 Comments

So, I’m cheating a little bit today, but only sorta. As you can see, I’m still writing part of this blog, so I am not actually counting this as a cheat, but, at the same time, the bulk of today’s content isn’t coming from me, it’s coming from my daughter, Danica.

F is for family, and my family are the biggest supporters of my writing. They put up with me living in my own head far too often, they don’t mind when I bounce ideas off them (and they don’t take offense when I shake my head and say ‘No, no, that will never work’). They contribute ideas to my fishbowl. They don’t complain that our house isn’t spotless, or that our income isn’t higher (as it would be if I had a paying job). They are always there for me and if it weren’t for them… well, let’s not go there.

I asked Danica if she’d like to write about what it’s like to have a writer for a mother for my blog. Her response? “You have a blog?”

LOL Okay, so they are super supportive, but that doesn’t mean they follow my blog :-p After I told her that yes, I did have a blog, she was happy to complain about me in public on it.

~*~


Hi, I’m Danica, Rhonda’s daughter. I really have no idea what to write about in this blog, so I guess I’ll talk about writing, and how living with a writer can sometimes suck.

My mom, as you can tell is a writer, and I’ve picked up a few things from her. For instance, if you have writers block, just write. What you write may sound stupid, but it usually helps to get rid of that pesky writers block.

One horrible thing about living with a writer is: If I say something  that is not grammatically correct, my mom corrects what I say. Or, if I’m just being silly she’ll correct what I say anyways. It can be pretty annoying, but you learn to live with it.

Here’s another thing: My mom said I have to write a conclusion for this, but I don’t want to. So here’s my ‘conclusion’. Don’t live with a writer unless you love them a lot, like how my dad and I love my mom.

~*~

Short and sweet, eh? This blog post is part of the Blogging from A to Z challenge over the month of April and was brought to you by the letter F. Please pop by tomorrow when I’ll be talking about… um… something… something Grrreat! My schedule says Goodreads, so maybe… 🙂

A to Z Challenge, Goals, Personal

Exercise

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Really I ought to have a ‘before’ picture of myself to go with this blog post, but, since I’m totally avoiding being in front of cameras these days, a shot of Jo’s bicycle will have to do instead. I avoid having my picture taken because I don’t like how I look, and I don’t like how I look because I’m overweight. You know those ladies who are overweight and gorgeous? Yeah. I’m not one of them. Fun, fun.

The good news is that this year I made losing weight one of my highest priorities. I need to be healthier (and obese is not healthy) if I want to live long enough to write even a fraction of the story and poem ideas that are jammed into my brain.

Some of my goals for this year were:

Health: This relates to my writing because the healthier I am the more productive (and less dead) I am.

  • Continue to eat healthy. In my case that is a low-sodium pescatarian diet.
  • No drinking energy drinks
  • Remember soft drinks are a ‘sometimes food’ (Thanks Cookie Monster)
  • Workout at least five times a week*
  • Lose 40lbs (and 64lbs overall)

I’m doing a fairly good job of sticking to these goals. I’m struggling a little bit with the soft drinks are a ‘sometimes food’ but otherwise things are going well. No energy drinks, I’ve lost 9lbs as of today (I wrote and pre-scheduled this post on March 17th) and I’m pretty good at forcing myself to exercise. The thing is, it hurts LoL

Mostly I’ve been using my stationary exercise bike. I do a pretty intensive 1/2 hour workout on it six days a week. Because that’s exclusively a lower body workout I’ve also been sneaking in a 30 Day Shred workout every once in a while, and now, with the Xbox Kinect I got for my birthday present I’ve decided to add in a Kinect workout regularily too. I’d love to do it everyday, but realistically I think three times a week would be great, because, as I may have mentioned, it hurts.

I have a buggered up ankle that doesn’t like impact much and I’m really out of shape. Really, really out of shape.

Every time I do a full body workout I’m Limpy McGimpsalot the next day. Not just a little bit either, like wincing and moaning everytime I go up or down stairs, sit down, stand up… you get the idea. Sometimes it takes several days before I stop being Ms. Wussypants, and I think I have a pretty high threshhold for pain LOL I’ve been forcing myself to do light workouts (on the bike) on my hurty days (usually) and that often helps reduce the pain, but damn. Hurtiness sucks.

So, for all you in-shape and exercisey-type people… it does stop hurting at some point, right?

I don’t mind a little discomfort, and exercise-sore is actually a kind of satisfying pain, but I could do with a little less of it, to be honest. Please tell me that this is going to decrease if I stick to this LOL

ETA: It turns out that at the peak of my pain I’d actually injured myself (groin owiness) and not really known that was the case and not just that exercise hurts. I took a couple days off and healed up and now I’m back to normal exercise-related aches and pains. The satisfying kinds. I’m still curious though, will these go away as I get more in shape, or not really because, presumably, I’ll always keep pushing myself?

~*~

This blog post is part of the Blogging from A to Z challenge over the month of April and was brought to you by the letter E. Please pop by tomorrow when my daughter will be doing a guest blog about what it’s like to have a writer in the Family.

Created by MyFitnessPal – Free Calorie Counter

A to Z Challenge, Personal, Thoughts

Fuck Depression

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I’m prone to depression and it sucks.

Chances are pretty high that you know what I’m talking about. A google or two told me that 7% of adult Americans suffer from depression in any given year, and since those 7% have friends and families, I’m betting if you haven’t had to deal with depression directly you’ve still been indirectly affected by watching a loved one struggle.

When I get depressed it tends to manifest in a lack of things. A lack of energy, a lack of enthusiasm, a lack of interest, a lack of concentration, a lack of focus, an inability to fall asleep at night, weight gain despite all efforts to lose it and headaches all_the_freaking_time. I’m not suicidal, I don’t curl up in a corner and cry*, but I’m not myself. I’m not the version of myself I want to be.

I hate the way it affects my family. I hate the effect it has on my writing. I just plain hate it.

It’s funny to me how difficult it has been for me to write this post. It’s not because I’m ashamed or embarrassed about depression, it’s because I’ve always struggled to not let it be an excuse for the things I do (or don’t do)… but I’m coming to realise that sometimes it might be a reason. I don’t like it. I don’t like feeling like I’m both blessed and handicapped by my brain, I don’t like realising that I’m going to have years, like last year, where I don’t get much of anything accomplished because I’m spending all my energy just keeping my head above water. I. Hate. It.

I’ve learned a lot of coping strategies over the years; little tricks, baby steps, whatever it takes to get what I need to do done, but though they help I resent their necessity.

One thing about depression, for me, anyway, is it does a fabulous job of showing me what things in my life are the most important to me. Family first, then friends, and then, like a lazer, it cuts through all the other things I do, and shows me which ones I can continue, and which need to be put aside until that bout with depression is through. But depression is also sneaky. It always leaves, eventually, but its shadow is always over my life because I know it will come back, someday, it will come back. I never know when, how hard it’s going to hit me, or how long it’s going to stay, but I know it will be back.

When I’m really low I can’t find the energy to care that I’m not writing because I’m spending most of it blaming myself for not getting anything done, but, at times like these when I feel like I’m climbing (oh so slowly) out of that hole, I try to remind myself of all the hardships other people have had to overcome, and I tell myself I can do this. I’m a fighter. I won’t give up. I will accomplish my goals, whether my brain likes it or not…

But damn, I wish it were easier.

If you’re dealing with depression and you feel all alone I swear to you, you’re not. You’re not alone. There are people, like me, who feel your pain and are pulling for you. We really, really are. Fuck Depression. Don’t let it beat you.

~*~

This blog post is part of the Blogging from A to Z challenge over the month of April and was brought to you by the letter D. Please pop by tomorrow when I’ll be talking about… um… something that begins with E. I’m sure it will be awesome… maybe.

ETA: I know there is medication that could possibly help me with this, but I’ve decided to not take it until I have exhausted every other possibility open to me. I already take a lot of medication, I don’t want to add another to the list if I don’t absolutely have to.

*much

 

A to Z Challenge, Personal

Critique Partners

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Critique partners. I love mine.

Critique groups and critique partners are two different things. Each group, each person, has their own personality, their own set of pros and cons. I’ve been in terribad critique groups that actually sucked the life out of my writing (and out of me) and I’ve been in fantastic groups that inspired me to write and kept me constantly striving for improvement.

The most recent group I was in was a good one, and we used to meet in a local bar that had a popcorn machine. Like, a big popcorn machine, the type you see at movie theaters. Best of all, the popcorn was free so we’d meet for critiques and totally nom on the popcorn while we were there. It was a good group, small, (only four of us) but friendly and positive. Unfortunately, when you’re dealing with small groups, if even one person’s schedule gets changed you’re kinda screwed. That’s what happened to us, but though we no longer meet up weekly to critique each other’s work, we do get together occasionally just to talk, vent and hang out with a friend who knows what we’re going through in our writerly life.

Even without my group I still occasionally (okay, nearly always) want someone else to look over my work, to help me see the warts I’ve missed and polish up the pretty bits until they shine. On those cases I turn to my critique partners. I’ve had several over the years, and I’ve even paid for critiques (via charity auction) from some writers or editor’s whose opinions I respect.

I’ve received awesome critiques from a lot of people, I don’t want to start naming them because I’m sure to forget someone, just know that the list is long and filled with awesome. The #1 person I have turned to when I needed a critique over the past several years though, has been BD Wilson. We met in a critique group a few years ago and despite a bit of a rocky start (I certainly didn’t accidentally spoil a movie for her or anything, nope nope) we’ve become good friends. In our critique group we called her The Sledgehammer because that’s about how subtle her critiques are — but they are GOOD critiques. I’ve always envied how good her critiques are. Really. She has a skill, a way of figuring out what’s wrong with a story, and showing you in such a way that you can’t miss it, and you can usually figure out how to fix it. She’s made an awful lot of work for me over the years, rewriting, revising, totally scrapping things and trying them another way, but in the process she’s also helped to make me a better writer, and my stories far better than they would be without her.

Thank you, BD 🙂

The other fantastic person who regularily reads over my work and offers valuable feedback is Lauren. Lauren and I meet once a month to hang out, eat deep fried pickles (Okay, so maybe that part is all me, but zomg, so good!) and critique each other’s work. Honestly, even without the critiquing I would look forward to our meetings, because she’s a friend and a fellow writer, and as any writer can tell you, there is something incredibly energizing about hanging out with another writer. The whole “they understand you like non-writers can’t” thing is a little trite, and perhaps overblown, but it’s based in truth. Adding the wonderful social element to valuable critique though makes it a wonderful thing. Lauren doesn’t actually read the genres I write in (except for my work, of course) and I’ve come to find that is a huge, huge asset come critique time. She’s not just going to accept something I’ve written because ‘that’s how it works in fantasy books’ or ‘well, it’s a zombie, so um, yeah?’. It helps me to not only craft better stories, but to become a stronger writer too.

Thank you, Lauren 🙂

Do you have a favourite critique partner? What is it about their feedback that really helps you? Do you send them work as you’re going, or only when it’s complete?

I used to submit parts of works-in-progress to my critique group, but I quickly discovered that, for me, that was a very bad idea, but at least one member of our group used our feedback as we critiqued each of her chapters, to help her mold what was going to come next in the story.

Different approaches to critiquing and critique groups as a whole are interesting to me, I’d honestly like to hear about yours. Good or bad LOL

~*~

This blog post is part of the Blogging from A to Z challenge over the month of April and was brought to you by the letter C. Please pop by tomorrow when I’ll be talking about a super cheerful subject. D is for Depression. Wheee!

*The image I used in this blog post was taken by BD Wilson. I think that’s even a crit she did of one of my stories right there 😉

A to Z Challenge, Personal, Pictures, Thoughts

Atheist

11 Comments

I was raised to be a Christian and it’s been pointed out that a fair amount of my work has a bit of a biblical flavour to it, but I’m an atheist.

My atheism definitely affects my writing. In fact, one of the reasons I write is because I want to leave something of me behind when I die. I have an amazing daughter I am insanely proud of, but, as much as it pains me to think it, she is also mortal. I want to leave something behind that will last. That is, for lack of a less cheesy and egotistical word, forever.

Sometimes I envy people who believe in a life after this and if I believed in God, or an afterlife, I’m sure I’d still write, but I’d lose this one motivation. I believe this lifetime is all we get, so I’m always pushing myself to make the most of it, to write something that will last beyond myself. Some people find that motivation from other places, but this one is mine.

Unfortunately that also results in a bit of a perfectionist streak which can sometimes be counter-productive, but mostly, mostly I think it helps push me to work on those days I’d rather just curl up in bed and wish the world away.

Mostly.

Do your religious beliefs affect your writing? For better, or for worse? I’m curious.

~*~

This blog post is part of the Blogging from A to Z challenge over the month of April and was brought to you by the letter A. If you find yourself with some extra time on your hands you might want to check out what my fellow participants are blogging about that begins with the letter A as well. I know I will be. I hope you’ll pop back again tomorrow when I’ll be blogging about Branding and how much I fail at it.

 

Just Stuff, Personal

Month of Letters

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Month of LettersI participated in the Month of Letters this year. The idea was that every day in the month of February I would send something out to someone via snail mail. I know, you’re probably looking at the date at the bottom right corner of your screen, scratching your head and re-reading that second sentence. I know the Month of Letters officially ended almost a full month ago and I’m just doing a recap about it now but, the thing is, it’s still not over. Not for me. Not really.

I didn’t know who I was going to write in February so I posted on here, Twitter and the Month of Letters forums and said if you want me to write you, send me your address. And you did. A lot of you did. I wish I’d kept better records so I could say exactly how many of you gave me your address and your blessing to send you a letter, but I didn’t. I don’t actually even know how successful I was at doing the Month of Letters LOL.

I didn’t write everyday. I just couldn’t. However, I did write most days, and I think I made up for the ones I missed by writing two or three letters on some days. More importantly (to me) I wrote every single person who sent me their address. It took a long time, I had more addresses than there were days in February, but last week I mailed off the last letter I owed anyone from February (better late than never, right?).

Writing the letters was awesome. It gave me an excuse to buy schmexy papers and envelopes (always win) and when people wrote back it meant I got to meet new people. I feel like several of those people are going to become true and lasting friends. What’s more, it helped me connect with existing friends on a different and more real level than we previously had.

Writing letters is going to remain a very important part of my life from now on. It really is. Without sounding too flaky, I feel like regularily writing letters has been a transformative expirience for me. Writing to friends is like having a little conversation with them, except in my head and on paper (one of my new friends phrased it that way, I thought it was perfect) and it’s so awesome. In order to have that conversation I have to slow things down, focus on just what I’m doing. It’s not like writing an email where I might stop part way through to check Twitter, or where my attention is divided between four email accounts, the website I’m referencing and the open Word .doc I’m working in. When I write a letter, a real letter, that gets my complete attention. It’s relaxing, meditative.

I’m not doing a very good job of explaining, I don’t think, but it has helped me make real connections, both with other people and myself. I love it, and I have the Month of Letters to thank for it. Yay!

Do you write snail mail letters? Has your expirience been similar to mine?

If you haven’t written a letter in a long time, why not try it? Send me your address even (email, comment, whatever) and I’ll drop you a line to get you started 🙂

Just Stuff, Personal, Pictures

New Plan

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Yesterday I blogged about my quilt, the one my mother made me when I was teeny tiny. By the time I’d finished that blog entry I had pretty much talked myself out of getting rid of the quilt but if I hadn’t the response I’ve received on my website, Livejournal and privately would have changed my mind.

To everyone who commented or contacted me anywhere, thank you. Really. You’re awesome.

I want you to know that I’ve got a new plan for dealing with the quilt. I’m going to cut the ties out and take the backing and batting out. I’ll applique something (I have a few ideas 😉 ) over the big holes in the top and then re-quilt it.

To everyone who asked, yes, I am a quilter too, and I’m not bad (you can see some of my work here). When I said I lacked the skill to fix it, it was because, for some reason I was completely focused on fixing the quilt as a whole. Once I realised I could get rid of the back and batting and simply “patch” (haha) the top it became clear this is a job I could handle.

And who knows, maybe next time it needs fixing my daughter will take care of it adding her own personal touch to it, and then maybe my grandchildren…

Yeah, I’m getting a little ahead of myself here, but I think the point I wanted to share is that the quilt is safe. Thank you SO MUCH for caring. Truly. I will update this blog with progress as I make it, but there are a few projects ahead of this one on my crafty to-do list so it could be quite some time.

seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew

O_o I got up to answer the phone and when I came back my cat (Absinthe) had typed that. Since it was on topic I decided to leave it. In case you’re viewing this somewhere the formatting is weird, that says sew… more or less.

Personal, Pictures, Random Fact, Thoughts

A Little Story…

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I want to tell you a little story.

See this?

This is my quilt.

It’s also my cat.

That’s Eowyn. You’ve met her before, but this story isn’t about her, she just happened to be on the bed and unwilling to move when I took the picture about the real star of this tale:

My quilt.

My mother sewed it for me when I was little. I’m not sure exactly how young I was, but I don’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t have it, so I’m going with very young. It’s king-sized and she sewed it out of squares of fabric she’d cut out of clothes (I assume it’s clothes people had grown out of).

When you consider that I was born in 1976 and I’ve had this as long as I can remember, you probably wouldn’t be surprised to hear a lot of that fabric is polyester. There’s some cotton, some denim and even some fabric I’m not sure what it is, but there’s a whole lot of polyester.

The backing was a flannel sheet, and there was loads of stuffing. My mom hand-tied that beast meaning that at every point where the squares meet she pulled wool through and tied it to bind all the layers together.

My quilt is freaking heavy. It’s even heavier when you’re a kid, but I loved it then as I love it now. I would drag that thing across the lawn to lay it out for a picnic or drape it over chairs or tables to make the most secure fort you can imagine. When I’d have nightmares I would duck beneath it, growing sweatier by the moment but also safe, secure beneath its weight.

When we moved to the country you might think I’d be smart enough to leave it indoors, but you’d be wrong. That quilt has been through fields and corrals, it has hosted tea parties and listened to whispered teenage secrets.

I know it like no other object in my life. I’ve spent countless insomnia-filled nights counting the squares, playing with the wool ties or looking for a pattern in amongst the chaos. I know the texture of each block and I have favourites among them.

Sadly though, the quilt has seen better days.

It’s worn and strained. The backing sheet is threadbare beyond words, stained and tired. Polyester being nearly immortal those squares are fine up top, but the rest are giving up the fight. The batting is also a mess, spread bare in some places and clumped up in others. There are holes big enough to stick my fist (or my foot) through.

The quilt has spent the last four years or so in my closet, waiting while I tried to figure out what to do with it, how to restore it, how to save it. Recently I was forced to admit that really, its time had come. There might be a way to painstakingly pull out all the damaged parts and add new ones in, but that is beyond my skill or the time I have to offer to it. I could applique stuff on over the big holes and put a new back on it, but… well, it wouldn’t be the same.

So I’m saying goodbye to my quilt. I pulled it out, I put it on my bed and we’ve been using it, sort of a ‘last hurrah’.

Then an interesting thing happened.

Jo was trying to get some work done and Danica and I were baking together and being a bit noisy so he took his books into the bedroom. He’d been in there for a while when suddenly he popped his head around the corner into the kitchen and said, “Hey, Rhonda, did you know that my tartan is all over that quilt?”

Sure enough, the plaid blocks all over my quilt, the one my mom made for me over 30 years ago, is Jo’s family’s tartan.

Just one more reason my quilt rocks.

 

…maybe I should try to find time to save it after all.