A thing I'm going to do

In an effort to advance my goal of becoming an Internet Famous Quilter, I'm going to take part in this.

Now the only question is, what quilt will I display, and which recipe do I use? Hmmmmm...

Wil Wheaton makes me wish I could deal with crowds

Here is Wil Wheaton's Comicon write up.

Man, I wish I had more money, time, and ability to deal with crowds, because I would have loved to sit in on the Eureka panel.

Ah well, maybe next year.

Quiltrospection

Sometimes I wish that I had never started reading quilting blogs.

I don't mean that in a bad way. There are so many things I've learned from quilty folks on the internet, so many ideas I have had after reading a particularly interesting tutorial or introspective post - I wouldn't take those back.

But the downside is that I start to think that my own work is...well...amateurish. I have my own tastes, which maybe don't mesh with the tastes of people whose work I admire. I worry that I am not hand-quilting "properly" - as if the QUILT POLICE are going to take me away for impersonating a Real Quilter.

I've mentioned before that I have issues, right?

Then there are days like today where I look around at my work and say, "You know what? I don't care if So-and-so doesn't like my colour/pattern choices. I don't care if the Quilt Police crack down on my hand-quilting technique. I'm happy with what I'm making."

(I just basted a quilt together last night, does it show?)

When I lived in Japan, I ate with chopsticks. I handled them pretty well, but I was always nervous that some well-meaning person was going to give me the "oh, you use chopsticks very well for a foreigner" compliment (which was the equivalent of patting me on the head like I was a child). After a couple of years, I mentioned that fear to my friend Mitsue. She told me, "It doesn't really matter how you hold your chopsticks, as long as the food gets from the bowl to your mouth."

That's my take on quilting now - "It doesn't matter how you piece/baste/quilt it, as long as the end result is that the top-batting-and-backing wind up stuck together."


Yeah, I'm not going to be an Internet Famous Quilter with lines like that...but I'll be making stuff I like, and that's pretty good ^_^

It's one of those days

I was mentally composing* what would have been a fantastic new post, had I been able to type it...and then stuff happened to push the post from my mind, leaving me with nothing but an overwhelming desire to cram pizza and ice-cream down my gullet until I explode.

And now my frigging keyboard is creating the wrong symbols when I hit Shift + certain keys. Hooray.

Not in Word, mind you. Just here. *HATES ON LIFE*


*I orginally typed that as "composting," which did bring a tiny smile to my rage-face.

Words of wisdom

Some of you may be aware of one of my earliest crushes, lasting through my teenage years and continuing on to this day. I speak, of course, of Wil Wheaton.

When ST:TNG came out, I was at just the right age for a celebrity crush. (Which is not to say that the age I'm at now is the wrong age for such a crush, because lalalala I am rewatching CSI:NY just for the Gary Sinise lalala I can't hear you.) I'm not sure if the crush was totally on @wilw, because a large portion of it was a crush on Wesley.*

Years later, though, when I was at university and Wil Wheaton had kind of disappeared from the acting map, I discovered his blog. He was one of the first celebrity bloggers, but more importantly he was a geek. He liked the same comics I did, he he was funny to read, and it was a revelation.**

Anyway, fast-forward to now. WWdN.iX is one website that I check almost daily, along with all the social media sites that are my bread and butter. And this morning, I read this entry. I had seen the individual tweets on my Twitter-stream, but they hadn't really registered as I was bombarded with updates from everyone else.

I'm trying to keep those words close today.***



*I don't deny it. It is what it is.
**It also meant that my teenage dream of marrying him was dashed, because he was totally married to someone else. Sigh~~
***It goes without saying that "Don't be a dick" is something I remind myself of, constantly. Not just when I am wearing this T-shirt.

Question for you

I have a question for you, oh avid readers of my sporadically-updating blog. What are you interested in?

I realize that's kind of a broad question, but it serves a large purpose.

I'm trying to wrap my head around getting the Town's blog up and running, but can't for the life of me figure out what to write about. Obviously, the official Town Blog (the ToFBlog ^_^ - no, that's not its name) can't contain rambling about how pretty Gary Sinise's eyes are, or how badly I look after my greenhouse, or any of the other staples that make up Here Right Now.

So, I ask you - what would capture your attention in terms of a Town Blog? Would it be history? Updates of ongoing projects? Local guest bloggers?

I need you assistance, internet!

In Which Our Heroine Gets In Touch With Nature

Long time, no talk, internet.

I'll be honest with you, friends - it's probably a good thing I didn't blog anything last week. I was miserable. The frenzy of Canada Day preparations made me crazy. My trip in to Whitehorse last Wednesday/Thursday, which was supposed to be work-related yet relaxing was ... well, not relaxing.

I learned some important lessons about ordering food for next year's CD Festivities - mainly to stress the importance of packaging the food in such a way that it can fit in a cooler, for the love of Zeus, people, Faro is a four hour drive away! - had a great deal of stress, and had the day redeemed by the kindness of Louie and Bobbi at the KEBABery. You may never know how much that chicken shwarma meant to me ^_^

Today, I rode back into WH with H. I know, I know, three trips to WH in a four week period - I'm exceeding my limit. But my grocery situation was dire. I was out of almond milk.

...

I need my almond milk. Without it, there can be no breakfast smoothies. Without smoothies, there is no breakfast. Without breakfast, I become a monster.

So we drove in to have a meeting and do some grocery shopping. We stopped at Riverside Grocery, where I proceeded to go crazy buying an assortment of flours and seeds. I'm looking forward to experimental cooking with garbanzo bean flour and coconut flour. I'm getting ideas.

On the way back, we stopped at the Coal Mine for milkshakes. H's husband had gone out for a ride on his motorcycle, and we just happened to meet up there. We took our shakes down to the river and watched the Yukon float by as we filled each other in on what happened during the day. My trivia for the day? The Yukon River flows at a rate of 7m/hour.

After milkshakes, we headed on our way back. H decided we should stop at their friend's place out on the Magundy to see the horses. We had a long, bug-filled walk up the driveway (which makes me feel less guilty about forgetting to go the gym yesterday), and spent a very pleasant half-hour with the horses. I couldn't remember the last time I had been near a horse (I'm thinking it was back when Amy and I were friends, which would be about 17 years ago, which makes me feel very old, so I'm going to stop thinking about it), but these guys were quite calm and friendly and put me at ease. They were particularly pleased to see H, who provided them with bug-spray.

I think horses might have an even more soporific effect than cats, and I may have to go out there again.