Bit by Bit

I am overwhelmed.

Late last month (and early this one), I made a list of all the things I must (actually should) do ASAP. You know, projects I've started that I want to finish, web sites that I'm supposed to maintain that have not been touched in years...that sort of thing.

I feel like I have no energy, no space and no time to do what needs to be done.

Every time I contemplate that list, I feel like taking a nap and not waking up until the next day.

So, I have developed a strategy for dealing with the (at least half dozen) projects which need attention: work on them bit by bit, break them down into manageable pieces.

For instance, I haven't updated my "home" web site since 2005! Up until that point, I had been trying to put everything I was into and all my favorite links, etc on that site. 

It had the oldest version of the Piece by Piece site as my jewelry page, with pieces long since sold or taken apart and remade. It had my flying page, when I haven't been able to afford to fly in over 8 years. It had links to projects from classes I took over 5 years ago.  

Needless to day, it needed to be cleaned up!

What prompted my contemplation of my sites is that I'm looking for a place to post the new quilt block directions which I have decided to write once a month.

My first thought was to post them on my Dear Jane site, but I have been planning on reorganizing and recoding that site longer than my home site and it's in much worse shape (although probably a better place for handling alot of web traffic.)

Then, there's the Rafael Sabatini site, updated every January to a greater or lesser extent.

Then, there's the several dozen quilt projects, jewelry projects, chores, etc that need to get done.

The only way I can do them, I have found is to schedule myself to work on 5 Rafael Sabatini pages per day, 3 Dear Jane pages per day, 5 quilt blocks per day, 3 chores per day, etc. If I get MORE than that done, great, but that's the minimum.

It seems to be working for now, though the results are mixed.  My home site is mostly cleaned up (except for my resume.) And I have come up with new templates for Dear Jane and the parts of Sabatini that were not redesigned last year.

I finished my sister's half of the DNA project except for one final border and the embroidery.

I have time to work on my kumihimo (although not as much as before, since I'm scheduling time to work on these other projects as well) and my jewelry, which is good since we're looking at scheduling a jewelry sale/fund raiser for Peg in the spring.

And I can now actually think of things like SCHEDULING and ORGANIZING the jewelry fundraiser (and, oh joy, gathering and updating things for my taxes) without also looking longingly for the bottle of No-Doz.

No More Whining

OK, so we're done with the holidays and it's a new year. I've decided to make up a list of things I want to accomplish this year. I'm not calling them "New Years Resolutions" because that, to me, is the kiss of death. None of my New Years Resolutions seem to last past January (except the ones that come back to haunt me in unpleasant ways in the future.)

After an orgy of complaining, venting,"pointing out" and, yes, whining, I have decided to whine no more. I will not whine about the fact that every time maintenance came in to fix something, they forgot to fix ALL the things listed in the maintenance request.

Or, the fact that there seems to be a new definition for shovelling out the front steps of the building which means that more than 24 hours after the end of the snow storm (you know, the deadline they give you for cleaning off your car or it will towed), there's still snow all over the steps. (No whining about the new decision by the building's corporate management about using sand instead of salt, either.) Peggy must go out: I must shovel. Complaining doesn't seem to help. End of discussion.

On a more positive note: projects for next year include writing directions for at least one quilting block each month, like the mouse block I did in December (I'm not yet sure where I will post them). The blocks will probably be in the public domain (i.e. traditional) so I can concentrate on writing directions instead of tracking down the copyright holders (a neat trick since the copyrights of quilt blocks are really hard to pin down.)

I will, eventually, update the code and information on all my web sites, starting with The Life and Work of Rafael Sabatini. As you know, if you've been reading my blog, my partner in this enterprise (upon whose research the site is based) died in December. I only got through about half the design update last year before things got in the way, so this year, I will definitely finish it and fix all the links which were accidentally left broken.

Other pages include my home page (which hasn't been touched in, probably, 3 years, other than to update my resume) and a complete revamping of the photography on the Piece by Piece Jewelry site. I will probably move my Dear Jane journal site to my home page during it's badly needed recoding update.

Whew. And that's just the online list. I have other projects which include learning how to make t0fu that tastes good and doesn't have the consistency of slime....but maybe that's a topic for another day.

Watch Out! It's Almost the New Year Already!

I last blogged after the first major snow storm of the year.  We had another a day or so later and ended up with 14 inches total for Christmas.

Christmas Day itself was beautiful, sunny, cold (but not too.) I had to take care of the Obi-girl (my friend Shelley's cat) because Shelley and her family went skiing.

It's a bit depressing knowing someone who was born about the same time I moved in here is skiing already (Shelley's daughter.) *sigh* I had hoped to convince myself to learn before then, but I just never got around to it.  I'm thinking this year, though.

Christmas wasn't a big deal around here. I didn't really decorate much, just put a wreath on the door and hung up the cards we got, so there's really not much to take down.

I guess it was lucky I didn't bother to decorate because on the 18th, we had maintenance come in and fix our pipes. They were leaking down the wall and pooling under the carpet by the kitchen.  (Eww...since it was "grey water.") They'd leaked before, but no one seemed to believe me when I said that it was the pipes in the wall, but that's what it turned out to be.  

They're now fixed...sort of.

You know all that snow?  Well, maintenance has not come back to put the drywall back, so we have had this lovely hole in the  wall for 2 weeks, and now I doubt it'll be addressed until after the 5th, since there's MORE snow predicted for tomorrow (and I doubt any work is going to be done on Friday.)

I was thinking of putting a picture frame around it just because the duct tape is getting to me.

Tidings, Glad, Seasonal and Otherwise

Well, we had snow last night. I appreciate snow much more now because it's not ice. I had gone to the Chelmsford Quilt Guild's holiday party last night and heard all sorts of stories about the Chelmsfordians still without power due to the ice storm last Thursday night. (Luckily, we didn't lose power here, but the shopping center less than a mile away did.)

Still, when I woke up this morning, I was surprised (and happy I had left extra time so I could clean off the car and still get to the doctor's office on time.) I love snow, but not when it's between myself and a gazillion errands I have to run.

After the doctor's I had to go to Walmart for a prescription. We have dubbed Walmart, especially between Thanksgiving and New Years, "the eighth circle of Hell." (Although I don't mean that as a negative reflection on the staff of Walmart!) I swear people pull into that parking lot and just turn their brains off or something.

Anyway, it took about a half hour to get the prescription, and when I got back, I had to clear off my car again, although this time it was ice. I don't like ice, I'm thinking of staying inside until the Spring Thaw.

In other news: Peggy has definitely decided to get the WalkAide, so we're looking into fund raising to help her out.  The first bit of fundraising will take place in our etsy shop. The purchase price of pieces marked "PWWAF" will go entirely to Peggy's WalkAide.

We're also looking into holding a jewelry party in the Spring closer to Boston as a benefit for Peggy's WalkAide. I'll post the details as soon as I know where and when.

Until then, the only way to purchase Piece by Piece pieces is through our etsy site. I'm still revamping the main site, but shooting the photos is taking longer than I thought.

One down note. My friend, Jesse Knight, writer, raconteur, Sabatini scholar, and all-around nice guy...whom I never got to meet in person, died on Dec 6.  It was unexpected. I met Jesse when I was searching for inspiration to work on a historical fiction book that I had started a while before.

Before long, I discovered Jesse was a SERIOUS expert on Rafael Sabatini and was looking for a place to gather information he had posted at various places on the web. Thus the Rafael Sabatini web site was born. It was the online "presence" of the discussion group he had founded.

Eventually, about a dozen people on the discussion group founded the Rafael Sabatini Society. Jesse was the first President.  He was just stepping down so he could give more attention to his (many, many) other projects when he was taken away from us.  I hope that his wife, Dollie, can get his last big Sabatini project published: the definitive Sabatini Bibliography.  If she does, or if the RSS helps to self-publish the book, I'll, no doubt, post here and on the web site.

I have no pictures of Jesse, so here's a picture of Sabatini!

Another Catch-up Post

Well, it's been a while and I've been kumi-ing my little heart out (is that a word?)

I had been meaning to write, but I've been busy.  Well, I thought I was busy until I tried to remember exactly what I have been doing in the month and a half since I've worked on the blog and couldn't remember having done anything (well, grocery shopping, etc doesn't really count, does it?)

One project was to scan some slides a relative of my friend Claudy had left her. I gather they travelled extensively after WWII until they died because there were ALOT of slides from many different places like Spain, England, Mexico, Switzerland.

I put the slides on the scanner about 20 at a time and put my light table over them, light on, to scan them.  Then I cropped and saved them. I supposed I could have fiddled with Photoshop on some of them, but Claudy said not to bother, she'd go through them and  use the ones she wanted.

Another thing I've been doing more of is quilting.  

I joined the Chelmsford Quilt Guild in the Fall and have been trying to do their block of the month for exchange and another block exchange in boxes. Since we're supposed to been surprized at the results, I'm not going to post either of the blocks I've done for that so that if the ladies whose boxes I've done read this (however unlikely) they won't see their squares until the box exchange is done.

This past meeting (about a week ago) was the annual UFO Auction, where people bring their UnFinished Objects (or projects) and everyone else gets a crack at them.  Mostly, it was fabric. I brought in about 4 projects (small ones I knew I was never going to work on again), but came home with a bunch of fabric (and two books.)

I guess my resolution to not buy anyone else's project wavered...although, technically, I didn't. The fabrics I bought were lengths between 2-4 yards, which I hope to use for backing to finish some of the UFOs I kept (like the Feathered Star to the left...still unfinished.)

One bright spot in these past couple of weeks, my uncle "shared the wealth" a bit with everyone and send me a check telling me to splurge a little. I did. A very little.  Most of the money I used to pay off some of my debt, but I bought a beautiful maple Maru Dai from The Braider's Hand. I've only had it about a week, but I've done two braids on it, and it's very nice.

October's September Update

Well, you know and I know I planned to write more in September after catching you up with the previous month, but it didn't happen.

What did happen was our apartment got flooded just about Brimfield (like the night after Katie, Joe and I came back...Katie was sleeping on my futon in the living room!) so I didn't get to go to New York and see Makiko Tada (and shop at all those legendarily wonderful suppliers like Metalliferous.) Actually, I didn't even get to do the research to plot on WHERE to go.

*sigh* 

With the help of Jo Ann and Shelley (and Katie, before she had to return to NYC), we carted boxes and boxes of books, so the property maintenance guys could move our bookcases so they could replace our under-carpet padding so we wouldn't have  mold.

Unfortunately, they only did half of the front room and the hallway. No one thought to check Peggy's room, so the second half of the month was spent cleaning her room up (which is now mold-free, but still exceedingly cluttered) and going through our belongings, 'cause, yes, I finally admit, I've got too much stuff.

You heard it here first.

We've gone through the storage bin and gotten rid of 9 plastic bins of 

clothes.  Who have I been kidding? Am I ever going to wear those suit jackets and skirts ever again? It was hard, but I kept only 2 out of 9 jackets, and a similar ratio of skirts.

Peggy was not as brutal, but she did trim her clothing in storage by at least a third.  And I can now say that I know what is in each and every box in that unit. (AND, they're all labelled this time!)

Other than that, I've been studiously trying to avoid the political discussions (Does it bother anyone else that the news/broadcast people seem to be treating it like professional sports? Who's ahead? Who "won" the debates? What "new revelation" about their personal lives has been planted as a story on Entertainment Tonight?  Do I really care?)

AND, I've been working on my kumihimo.  I'm up to 16 strand braids. I hope to have new  photographs up on the Piece by Piece web site, and new product on etsy. I've shot some earrings outside (see above), but I have to do close ups and write copy before, so it may be a bit.

September's August Update

Well, it's been a while since I've had the time or energy to work on this blog.

Instead, I've been having drama...first vicariously, then personal.

The vicarious drama is going on between a neighbor and her son, and we're trying to stay out of it, but still make sure she's okay.  I think that might work out now that her family is involved.

Prior to that, however, I worked on improving my new Unprofitable Skill, kumihimo

I don't know if I've blogged about my 

Unprofitable Skills before, but I seem to collect them. If the modern infrastructure should collapse, I'm your girl, but in terms of modern life, I have a bunch of knowledge that can not used to earn my keep.

My new Unprofitable Skill is, of course, Kumihimo. I did mention it in my last post, but that was at least a month ago, so I figured an update was due. 

I find it relaxing and kind of zen, and, of course, I've passed quickly from the "cool, fun, and inexpensive" phase, directly into the "I need to buy that imported Japanese silk and handmade walnut Maru Dai" phase, which I called the "snobby beginner" stage.

I'm still working on braids of 8 tama (bobbins, or threads) because I want to keep the braids relatively thin so I can use them as necklaces for our pendants. (The pigs look really cute with the kumihimo necklace braids, don't they?) The ones pictured are cotton (actually, embroidery floss.)

But, since I can't leave well enough alone, have entered the "snobby beginner" stage, limited income, and found I needed to move to a Maru Dai, I made it out of Tinker Toys. Even a homemade Maru Dai is faster than the disk (though not as portable.)

Unfortunately, this has increased my desire to buy real Japanese silk and more books (I don't care if they are in English even!)

Oh yes, the snobby beginner stage is even more dangerous and expensive than the complete tyro stage, but if the civilization collapses, isn't it nice to know that I will be able to make the braids to piece together samurai armor? (Okay, maybe I did "forget" to mention I lived in the U.S., and chances of samurai's needing braided cord to make their armor around here are pretty slim...)

I must admit I took a vacation from braiding for a weekend over Labor Day so Peg and I could go out to Holyoke and help our friend, Jo, with her garage sale (and get rid of a bunch of our unneeded stuff in the process.)

Originally, we were to have sold jewelry there, and we did bring it out, but, apparently, people going to garage sales are not expecting to find "real jewelry" (or, it turns out, to spend "real" money.) We made money enough to pay for the trip, but really the only benefits were getting rid of some stuff and spending time with Jo.