Okay - I suppose the 'blather' category can come at the end (if the middle doesn't cover it).
In knitting news: I went back to work on the sweater this week. Hopefully I'll keep steadily at it, and maybe get it done by ... umm, spring? Sigh. Oh well. I wasn't too keen on the last pair of socks I started, so I may scrap them and start a new pair. I decided some time earlier this year that life's too short and uncertain to waste time on projects I've truly lost interest in. It's a hobby - for fun. Not something (else) I have to force myself to do.
I haven't thought about whether I'm doing any Christmas knitting this year, but if I am, I'd better get busy planning that.
SCA: This is the time of year that my post-Pennsic glow (if there was one) is waning, and I start forgetting about the whole thing till next year. Bad idea. This is the very time of year to keep motivated on long-term projects, and if I did, I'd be very happy with myself next year. So I'm going to plan to work on some of my projects at least once a month throughout the winter. Some of the things I want to do:
- make some more (better) garb
- decorate the garb I have - embroidery and such
- make my tent cover
- make a new top for my shade pavilion
- hmm, I'm sure there are some more things, but that's a good start
Gardening: Well, I started strong this year, but was disappointed in my follow-through. But the good news is, since I decided to start treating gardening as work-in-progress, as an experiment of sorts, I'm not too angsty about it. I learned a lot from this year. I lost steam about mid-summer, and didn't maintain my plants and things well. I especially lost it after Pennsic - I stopped watering things, and being August, it kind of did them in. Nothing really ever recovered. I also didn't plan my fall plantings as I'd have liked - I'd wanted to plant some of these gorgeous mums I'm now seeing at the stores, but I didn't plan a space for them, so I don't know where to put them. And I wanted to plant some bulbs for spring flowers, which I also haven't done (although I don't think it's too late for that). There are still some things I need / want to do before serious bad weather - mark where my perennials are, so I don't disturb them next spring when I want to start digging around in the flower beds; prune the roses; trim the shrubs out front; clean out the planters; and clean up the pond. Those things I hope to do soon, to at least get prepared for next season.
Weaving: I haven't done any weaving in way over a year. But it's something I'm still very interested in. I'd like to continue learning about tapestry weaving, but to do that now, I'd probably have to start over in my 'tutorial book' I bought last year. Well, it'll stay on the wish list for awhile yet.
Tyler: Tyler's doing great. He had a wonderful time on vacation, running around on the beach. He seemed to do well on the trip there and back, despite it's length. I just had him to the vet's on Saturday for a T4 check (testing his thyroid to see if his current medication needs adjusted), and they told me his levels were perfect, so his meds are fine. He's lost some weight though, and is getting kind of bony. I know part of that is aging (he'll be 14 next month!) but I'm going to work on bulking him up a little without letting him get too fat. I'm adding a third snack / meal to his day, consisting this week of a half-cup of whole wheat pasta and some mozzarella cheese. We'll see how that does for him. I'd also like to start taking him out more for exercise - as I mentioned, he did great on the trip, wanting to run around and seeming very energetic. Here he just lays about all the time, but I think he truly just gets bored because we don't do much - it's my fault we don't go for walks and outings anymore. As long as he still feels like it, keeping him active can only be good for him. Unfortunately, I waited till fall when the weather will be turning bad - but we tend to have relatively mild winters here, so hopefully if I ever get started, there will still be lots of exercise to be had in the coming months.
Embroidery: I have several embroidery projects I'd like to get back to. One is the embroidery on the pirate coat (a separate entry). Another is some embroidery on garb (mentioned in the SCA entry). I want to finish The Dread Reverend's Sea Chameleon favor, as the only person who has one right now is Berg, and I certainly thing the Commodore deserves one at least as much, if not more. Maybe over the winter months.
Quilting: This is one of those hobbies that I'd like to have time for, but never do. I mentioned in knitting that I'd learned the difficult lesson of giving up on projects that were no longer 'getting it' for me. I'm about to that point with the Tolkien quilt. It's at least 10 years old, and I've just really lost interest in it. I think if I could scrap it with a clean conscience, it would free me up to do some other useful things. I would like to make a scrap quilt; I got a book awhile back full of patterns for scrap quilts made with 5" squares (so it's easy - you cut all your material into 5" squares, then you can choose any pattern from the book and you're all set for it). I spent an entire weekend some time ago cutting all my large, accumulated fabric stash into 5" squares, and have added to it since - I could probably make several of these at this point. And this type of project (if I don't over-engineer it) could easily be completed in a couple of weekends. So perhaps that's something I'll think about getting done this winter as well.
Poi: I'm still practicing! I had a wonderful evening on the beach in North Carolina doing some solitary poi with glow-sticks on the poi balls. It was around sunset /dusk, and I was actually standing in the swash zone, with the income waves washing over my feet. It was magical. I plan to continue working on poi, although I haven't learned anything new in quite awhile.
Travel: Well, the NC trip was a success (despite some dark spots which I won't go into here). I cannot WAIT to go back. So my vacationing for this year went really, really well. The only thing I want to do differently next year is plan a spring vacation - whether it's NC or some place else - because as it stands now, my only two 'real' vacations fall at the beginning of August and the end of September - too close together, with that hideously long stretch of 10 months in between.
Shenanigans: We haven't had many of these for awhile. We had the one wild porch party this year, but that was about it. We have our annual Samhain party coming up, but I've been getting lazy and not really wanting to turn it into an overnighter / weekend event anymore. I'd rather have something more quiet. Wild raucous parties are fun - except for having to deal with the aftermath the next day. I wish someone else would host the party; then I wouldn't have to worry about that part of it.
Project: Pirate Coat: I've done nothing with it since before Pennsic, except wore it in the surf in North Carolina and got saltwater on the bottom. :o) Which was planned. I need to remove the temporarily-sewed-on cuffs and finish the embroidery on them; and then do the embroidery on the rest of the coat. I ought to think about starting that soon, because that's going to be a winter-long project.
Sewing: Yeah, I don't even know why this category is here. I don't make much of anything that wouldn't fall into the SCA or Quilting categories. Fact is, while I enjoy the idea of homemade things, I don't really much like sewing.
New House Project: While the original house that spawned this category is old water under the bridge, I haven't deleted the category because it's kind of a never-ending dream of mine. I'm back on it, at least temporarily. As I've said many times before, my house is simply too small for the people who reside here throughout the month. We desperately need a bigger house. The problem is (a) affording it, and (b) figuring out how to unload my house in this market. But I'm currently re-obsessed with a house I first noticed a year and a half ago, which is still on the market, recently changed realtors, and on which they've significantly dropped the price. I have an appointment to go see it tomorrow. I really love this house (what I know of it) and it would be perfect for us - 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a living room, family room AND rec room; 2 acres; an in-ground pool; just gorgeous. We'll see what tomorrow brings.
And that brings us to recipes, which I've only ever posted once. That's only because it was my mom's recipe, and so not copyrighted. But I muck about with recipes all the time. Maybe over the winter I'll see fit to post some new ones.
Well, I guess that's about it - and certainly covers the blather. That's my life in a nutshell right now: desperately trying to figure out a way to afford a bigger house, and fit my many hobby dreams and wishes into my life. Winding down into the cocoon of autumn, and thinking a lot. But that's a post for another time.
