Friday fill-ins

 

1. A foot rub feels great.

2. The solution (often) is first thought, if only I could learn to trust it.

3. I can fall asleep so easily during the day. Naps are my friends.

4. How about those Yankees?!

5. Learning, always learning is something I highly recommend!

6. Imagine The Dalai Lama. Just that.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to a Loudon Wainwright concert, tomorrow my plans include starting a new shawlette and blocking the Lacy Baktus, and Sunday, I want to read, write, and knit (but none of the above at the beach...)

Friday fill-ins

1. A cup of tea can mean the difference between misery and comfort.

2. Crammed bookcases make a place feel like home.

3. Everything has its beauty... um, no, I don't agree. Sorry.

4. Just imagining the taste of strawberries makes me happy. And hungry.

5. Art makes me think about the first, ancient, human artists and feel awed by them.

6. LOL I just noticed I forgot (... don't go there....not at my age ... )

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to Bill Maher's Real Time, tomorrow my plans include a concert by Ray Davies (please please please don't snow anymore), and Sunday, I want to get out of the house and knit with peeps.

Friday fill-ins

1. Johnny Weir is a nice name, but I don't know who he is.

2. I haven't seen much of the 2010 Olympics except for the curling. I love curling because it's so very very odd, and because I wish those people would come and sweep my house!

3. And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud eased.

4. Play a game of Candyland if you get an urge, and have all the appropriate candy handy!

5. Having sweet dreams (see #4).

6. What does it take to tell a child that you love her sneakers? A little boy was wearing the cutest sneakers the other day at Barnes and Noble, and he and his father had fun taking turns telling me things about the colour orange.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to listening to "Famous Blue Raincoat" while driving home, tomorrow my plans include a trip to the post office to mail some goodies to friends, and Sunday, I want to be happy and calm, and to work on my pretty, lavender cowl.

"Famous Blue Raincoat" is a song by Leonard Cohen, and Jennifer Warnes has a wonderful, graceful voice that suits the song beautifully.

second star to the right, part two, and Friday fill-ins

I was up late last night, writing and rewriting what I thought was a blog post. I just shredded it. Writing it was cathartic, but this isn't a cathartic blog, for which you all may thank your lucky stars.

Giving advice is not my strong point. Neither is receiving advice. However, my new therapist gave me some advice that I do want to share:

Take one day at a time.

Cynical as always, I rolled my eyes when she said this. Platitude, I thought. "What does that mean?" I asked.

The reason I went (back) into therapy is that I've been seriously depressed about having to retire, being pushed out of my career. When I wrote "I'm ready" in October, I was not telling the truth, neither to myself nor you, dear readers. Instead, I was distancing myself by saying things like "I'll buy myself a spinning wheel when I retire," or, "my kind is extinct." (Not that these things didn't seem true at the time, and may still be true.) They distanced me from the inevitable existential questions: Who am I? Who will I be when the primary meaning of my life - working - no longer applies? Why bother?

These questions kicked me hard. Very hard. Right through the therapist's door, in fact. There I heard the platitude and realized how wise it really is.

I'd been torturing myself (one of my favorite hobbies, by the way) for nothing.

Take one day at a time.

I don't have to decide what to do, how to be useful, how to use the rest of my days - not today. I'm not falling down a rabbit hole. I'm not leaping into a bottomless, black ocean. I'm simply leaving my job, and I don't have to decide immediately what to do with all of the days before me. I only have to deal with tomorrow. One day at a time.

Anyway, let's have a little fun with Friday Fill-ins.



1. Wait! Wait, don't forget to bring in the dog and put out the cat.
2. Home-made gingerbread followed at once by vanilla ice-cream is a recipe for bliss.
3. The trouble is calories make you fat.
4. Paris is many miles away. I want to go there. I want to learn French before I go. I want to write at a cafe with a blue Waterman pen, sip tea and watch people. If all this sounds cliched, I don't care -- get your own fantasy!
5. It started with a faint pop and unleashed a tremendous whoosh of smoke and a truly pissed-off genie.
6. The Haunting is shadowy and ominous.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to finishing a cowl in luscious Malabrigo, tomorrow my plans include my usual Saturday morning time at Barnes & Noble, and Sunday, I want to try out yet another spinning wheel! (Maybe an Ashford Kiwi. Or maybe the Ashford Joy, again, which does seem to be calling me even though I haven't been able to do anything but spin fleecy brains on it.)

little things I've been meaning to write, and Friday fill-ins

Do you love fountain pens? Do your hands sometimes look as though you have soaked them in ink? Mr. Clean's Magic Eraser will make your hands look like human hands again. (I can't answer for your cuticles. Tell everyone you have invented a new style of manicure.)

Have you seen Awful Library Books? You'll laugh, you'll groan... We librarians have to weed the book collection. Weeding is a necessary evil because buildings do not stretch. Awful Library Books displays some of the truly horrible stuff still on library shelves. There must be a middle ground between "keep everything" and "go after your collection with a weed-whacker."

I am addicted to Farmville. Darn that Facebook! I tried Yoville, but didn't enjoy myself there, partly because the only way I found to earn money was to suffer in a bakery, making cookies I couldn't eat. Farmville has become my online dollhouse, with cute animals, trees, crops, and darling things you can buy to dress up the place. (I'm saving up for a pink flamingo.) At one point, I had 7 baby elephants, all gifts, thank you, but I had to sell them because they made the rest of my animals wander. I found a horse in the rice paddy, chickens hiding behind banana trees, a duck and a baby elephant staring each other down, and a swan roosting in a tree. Unacceptable.

And now - Friday fill-ins.



1. Sweet dreams are made of this.

2. I want an iPod Nano especially for me, but I'm torn between purple and grey, and I can't justify the purchase until my little Sansa fails. Which it never will. Apparently, Sensa doesn't subscribe to planned obsolescence.

3. Silliness is obsessing over the colour of a Nano one isn't going to buy.

4. I want to dress like a Moleskine this Halloween.

5. Outstanding or not is too damn subjective.

6. Dancing and cheering and crying with joy is what I want right now because Barak Obama has won the Nobel Prize! I haven't been this excited about a Nobel winner since it was awarded to Jimmy Carter!

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to hearing what Bill Maher has to say about the award, tomorrow my plans include listening to the sound of heads exploding because of the award, and Sunday, I want to knit on very large needles with my peeps!

Friday fill-ins

1. I remember, I remember, just give me a minute.

2. Dear Anne Tyler, I want you to know that I want you to write more books, and soon. (Please.)

3. Is that my, um, whatchamacallit !!?? (I guess I didn't remember after all.)

4. I'm trying to resist the temptation of halvah. It's been a long time.

5. I'm saving a *interesting, I can't seem to answer this one... * just for you! (I wonder what that says about me? )

6. If I made a birthday list a spinning wheel would definitely be on it!!!

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to Bill Maher on HBO, tomorrow my plans include laundry, letter-writing, and finishing Agnes Grey, and Sunday, I want to practice spindling with my Ravelry peeps. (I'm doing much better. I'm no longer in danger of strangling myself.)

Friday fill-ins

1. When will I decide to retire? How will I make that decision? It's not as easy as I thought it would be. So many issues, beyond the financial...

2. "Carnival of Souls" was the last good book I read or movie I saw or tv show I watched. It was the "Rifftrax" version, so it didn't have quite the ... atmosphere ... that it usually has, but I needed to be cheered up and taken away, just a bit, from reality.

3. Everything has its beauty but war.

4. A weed-whacker salad (i.e., Mesclun) with craisins and walnuts and mozzarella cheese is what I had will have for dinner.

5. I'd like your metabolism. Mine is a disaster.

6. The Delaware Art Museum is where I want to be right now, loving the collection of Pre-Raphaelite art.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to Ralph's spumoni cream-ice, tomorrow my plans include a little spindle-spinning and knitting _____ and Sunday, I want to knit and spin with Ravelry peeps!

Friday fill-ins

1. Looking forward to September is my favorite only summertime comfort.

2. My favorite John Hughes movies is (oh dear, I never saw one...)

3. Velvet is something I love to touch. I even love to imagine touching velvet. In fact, when I have a migraine, I imagine a soft, dark green velvet pillow beneath my head. I still regret not buying a pair of green velvet gloves when I was Harrod's. I might have a bit of an unhealthy love of velvet. Maybe I shouldn't be telling you this.

4. The full moon delights me more than almost anything. Not everyone sees a man in the moon - some see a rabbit...

5. Somewhere, someone is writing a haiku right now. I wish it were me.

6. When daylight fades I want to be home.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to watching "Real Time" with Bill Maher, tomorrow my plans include finishing a knitted hat for Care to Knit,and Sunday, I want to spin with one of the pretty spindles I've been collecting and knit with the my Ravelry peeps.

Have a lovely weekend, everyone!

Friday fill-ins

1. Discovering true flaws in myself is not the end of the world unless it's too late to ask for forgiveness from people I have hurt.

2. Sitting here, listening to the sound of rain falling, I hope "my" little tribe of wild bunnies is someplace warm and dry.

3. Hot buttered toast and tea taste so good, especially if I'm listening to Debussy and the sound of rain falling, and I'm knitting something soft. (Assuming, of course, that the butter doesn't get on the knitting.)

4. Sometimes, putting others first is the only way I can make a decision. At least someone is going to be happy.

5. A spiderweb is breathtaking, really.

6. Well, maybe there is a good book to live in - if I could find a real good book, I'd never have to come and look at - what they've done to my song.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to an Aimee Mann concert, tomorrow my plans include a serious search for shoes that actually fit my bizarro feet, and Sunday, I want to knit with my peeps. (Human peeps, not the sticky marshmallow kind - Unless, of course, my peeps are the sticky marshmallow kind.)

Friday fill-ins (on Friday)

1. I wish my home could clean and paint itself.

2. My favorite thing for dinner lately has been cereal and plain yogurt, with Craisins.

3. Bark! bark! bark! you silly mockingbird. I know you're not a dog.

4. My husband told me about a nice long walk he took in a forest in Australia, where big things were hopping around the paths.

5. I need some good news. Now. Please. Anything.

6. When all is said and done, I can't complain (which would seem to contradict #5, but - oh well).

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to watching Bill Maher, tomorrow my plans include catching up with my journal, and Sunday, I want to get a foot or two of the baby blanket knitted up.

last Friday's fill-ins, an award, and gratitude

1. It's cold and I love it, because summer is my least-favorite season, so the longer it stays cool, the less heat I'll have to endure.

2. I love tomatoes, but they don't love me.

3. My favorite health and beauty product is sleep.

4. I love a nice long ride when I am stressed. Driving has always been a pleasure.

5. Well, first of all I know it's Thursday, but time is relative.

6. People in an elementary school: those were the cast of characters in a recent dream and it was really scary because I didn't know anyone, I couldn't find my classroom, and for heaven's sake, can't I have a sense of direction in my dreams, even? Bad enough I don't have one when I'm awake. Sheesh.


Leah at The Octagon gave me the Lemonade Award for great attitude and gratitude. Thank you, Leah! I don't feel like a particularly grateful person lately, partly because I haven't thanked anyone for all of the books I've won. Here's a start:


Shattered Reality by Kimberly Cheryl, from Rebecca, Lost in Books.
The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams, AND Things I Want My Daughter to Know by Elizabeth Noble - both from Julie, the Booking Mama.
Thanks for the Memories by Cecelia Ahern from Jennifer, a/k/a Book Club Girl.
Made in the USA by Billie Letts from Kristi, Books and Needlepoint.
My Little Red Book from Avianschild, She Reads and Reads.

Please go over and visit these excellent and generous bloggers - tell them that teabird sent you!

I know I've left some out... please forgive.

Friday fill-ins

1. If we had no winter I would be very discontent indeed. I love the winter constellations, and I would miss Orion more than I can say.

2. "In my room" by the Beach Boys is a perpetual astonishment. The melody, the harmonies, and the heartbreaking vulnerability in the lyrics always take my breath away.

3. If I had my life to live over I would skip everything I did before I was 20.

4. Your world can tip over inside of four and twenty hours.

5. If you've never been thrilled by Bach's unaccompanied solo cello suites, you need to get thyself to Amazon. Trust me on this one.

6. To be interested in the changing seasons is effortless.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to _____, tomorrow my plans include _____ and Sunday, I want to _____! sleeeeeeeeeeep...

Friday fill-ins

1. Give me a new knitting bag or bottle of ink and I'll purr.

2. Whenever I wish I were somewhere else, it's London, walking along the banks of the Serpentine.

3. I wish I were in London.

4. The orchard harvest salad at Panera's (hold the gorgonzola) was the last thing I ate that was utterly delicious.

5. To live in this world takes courage.

6. Other than this one, Penguin Girl is the last blog I commented on.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to a trip to Border's (40% coupon!!), tomorrow my plans include searching for shoes that don't make me limp or fall off the back of my damned narrow heels and Sunday, I want to learn to tat!

Friday fill-ins on a bad day ; a/k/a don't mess with me, please

1. Please don't tell me that I look pale and should put on some makeup. I don't do makeup. I won't cut my hair. This is what a middle-aged woman looks like. (Yes, this has been an issue lately. Yes, teabirds can snarl.)

2. Can you leave me the hell alone in the morning until I've had some tea? Please?

3. The color periwinkle makes me want to knit a periwinkle shawl to wrap myself in when the world is too sharp-edged.

4. I have a craving for a silent retreat.

5. If my life had a pause button, I'd pause it often.

6. Eyes are the blurry windows from without and within.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to watching a few more episodes of the second season of "The Invaders," tomorrow my plans include knitting a quick pair of fingerless gloves to help me cope with a workplace that lost its heat and doesn't know when it will find it, and Sunday, I want to knit with (very tolerant) friends. (Note: the original fill-ins form ends this sentence with an exclamation point, but my head aches and the punctuation felt like a damned dagger.)

Friday fill-ins

1. Enough with the farewell tour already. Just. Go. Away.

2. Cataloging 48-page nonfiction books for teenagers causes me to be conflicted because it makes me sad to realize that the future of in-depth curiosity is not promising.

3. I've been craving warmth.

4. Mutts makes me laugh.

5. I wish I could go to London next week (which kind-of conflicts with #3. I am just stuffed with conflict today.)

6. Change has been on my mind lately.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to soup, tomorrow my plans include soup, and Sunday, I want to knit with my friends after I have some soup.

Friday fill-ins

1. I must see the Northern Lights before I die.

2. You can't stop dreaming.

3. I wish I never had to buy clothing again. (It's not what you think. Really. I'm very, very hard to fit. I want clothing that fits to appear as if by wizardry in my closet.)

4. Pharmaceuticals have helped me change my life. (Make of that what you will.

5. I know the song San Francisco (Flowers in your hair) by heart.

6. If I weren't so afraid, I would write a memoir (for my eyes only).

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to continuing to read Mrs. Woolf and the Servants, tomorrow my plans include tea and some serious journalling at Barnes & Noble, and Sunday, I want to knit with Rav friends!

Friday fill-ins

1. Snow days are gifts from the heavens. We haven't had many for the last few years, which suits my (snow-shoveller) husband, who can't really relax because he knows he'll have to go Out There eventually. (We're celebrating our 20th anniversary this Sunday. How rare is a man who cares enough to shovel out a path to the spot beneath the tree where our wild bunnies come for their carrots?)

2. I'm looking forward to settling down with Women's Work, the first 20,000 years this weekend.

3. My Lamy Safari fountain pens is have the best xf nibs - they never give me a moment's grief. (Some with xf nibs clog or start out scratchy. These are perfect. (And, I love Lamy cartridges because they have a tiny reservoir at the top. When you run out of ink, you can tap the top and get a few more words written...)

4. One of my favorite old tv shows is "The Patty Duke Show." Guess which cousin I identified with? My husband and I have been watching another favorite, "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." for the past few weeks. I have fallen in love - again - with Illya Kuryakin. (Yes, Lisa, you can go home again.)

5. I'm done with nothing. I'm still living, learning, breathing, and curious. (In fact, I don't even understand this prompt.)

6. The most enjoyable thing around the holidays is listening to "Good King Wenceslaus" sung by the Roches, and then counting the days until the holidays are OVER.

7. And as for the weekend, I'm looking forward to see #2 and #4. And maybe some knitting.

Friday fill-ins - and let the healing begin

1. My blueprint for success includes so many curves and swirls and retraced lines that I have long lost track of what I'm supposed to be building.
2. Lemon drops were the last candy I ate. (The song lies. Troubles do not melt like lemon drops.)
3. The best facial moisturizer I've ever used is made by Clinique.
4. Going for a long drive, alone, with my favorite music (of the moment) playing can be good therapy.
5. I'd like to tell you about my grandmother, Sadie, who had gentle blue eyes, who could tot up the grocery bill in her head as we went through the aisles, who taught me that green beans are delicious raw, and whose voice I still can hear saying "yes, darling."
6. Being erratic is my strongest characteristic.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward (??) to getting ready to go back to work.

I had (relatively) major surgery in October. The results are far from dire. I'll be fine. My energies are not what they ought to be, but they rarely are, so I decided to go back to work on Monday.

What did I accomplish in the time away from work? A bit of reading, a bit of knitting, a bit of NaNoWriMo (4000 words - not much, but better than 0 words, yes?) In fact, the idea of accomplishing something aside from healing one's insulted body probably is laughable.

Of course I'm happy with the election results. They repudiated the last 8 years of bullying, fear-mongering, rewarding the corporations while paying little attention to the needs of the citizens, ignoring dire climate change, frightening many of us in its Supreme Court nominations, and so many other issues that it would utterly exhaust me to list them. This country has to heal within, and to heal the wounds it has caused without.

My new mantra: Let the healing begin.

peeping out from my hidey-hole, and Friday Fill-Ins

I've been unusually fortunate in the book contests I've won lately. This week, I received The Memoirist by M.J. Rose from Sarah at Reading the Past. Thank you, Sarah! I always enjoy Sarah's reviews of obscure books, such as A Song for Marguerite by Maureen Peters, and I love her link to Reusable Cover Art.

I'm having a wonderful time reading Cassandra and Jane, which is whetting my appetite for biographies of Jane Austen beyond the one by Carol Shields. I have Becoming Jane Austen lined up as well as a collection of Austen's letters - any other suggestions ?

Friday Fill-ins:

1. Right now, I'm feeling weary, and glad that my current knitting is utterly, totally mindless.
2. Listening to the ocean is where I want to be.
3. How does one spend that much money on clothes and that much money on makeup? Literally. How does one DO that?
4. The moon keeps me on track.
5. Please don't take my Kodachrome away.
6. This fills me with joy.
7. And as for the weekend, I need/want to rest.

Friday Fill-ins

1. There is no need for 90% of the packaging that manufacturers use for their products.

2. Where in the heck did the idea that we should want to have a beer/cup of coffee/slice of pie with our president come from? I mean, really. Grow up.

3. All I could do is all I managed to do.

4. Prospects for whatever = "better not tell you now." My Magic 8-Ball just told me so.

5. The message is the message.

6. Simplicity and tranquility are not necessarily dependent on each other.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to buying Joan Osborne's new cd, tomorrow my plans include listening to Joan Osborne's new cd (and the cds that Pix and Kata made for me), and Sunday, I want to sit quietly and watch the chipmunks that play on the deck while I knit.