Ceridwen’s Cauldron

Yes, there’s an internal server error in the comments. We’re not sure what’s causing it yet, but we’re going to get commenting fixed and back up as soon as we can. Updates as circumstances warrant.

Update: It seems some comment spammers sent some 15 thousand hits to our poor comment links in a very short space of time, so our host wisely shut down that part of the site. Would have been nice had they informed us that they were doing this, of course. We’ll be e-mailing them about it.

Anyway, we’ve taken steps to correct the problem, so the comments should be working now. Thanks everyone for your patience.

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Experiment #1: Can I pat Miho enough to shut her up?

She was running up and down the hall making murply noises so I decided to stop and pat her until she decided she didn’t want any more. After about 10 minutes, she decided to walk away. I went about my business. And then, 10 minutes later, she started making “lonliest cat in the WHOLE WORLD” meows again, and ran into my office demanding pats. So, answer: No. No, I can’t.

Experiment #2: Can I walk the few blocks to pick up this week’s veggies and back on the sore ankle?

My ankle started to complain a bit when I made it to the corner just before the house, but otherwise the ansewer was yes. Yes, I can. And did. The ankle seems just fine. In related news, I’ve had a knot in my calf muscle all day, probably due to the weird limping way I’ve been walking with the sore ankle.

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I’m having a very blah day. I just feel kinda sad and lonely. Part of it being that today’s a Monday, I guess, and part of it being the general overcast-ness and lack of light outside.

My ankle is doing much better. It still hurts if I keep it down for too long or try to walk on it for more than a few minutes at a time, but the swelling is almost completely down and it doesn’t hurt much when I do walk on it. So that’s good. A sprain, but not a bad one, for which I’m grateful.

I have two quilts on the go (well, three, if you count the one in the frame, which I’m not currently working on but will be again soon). Both proceed slowly but surely. I’m enjoying the sewing work, and watching them come together. I’m getting all kinds of ideas for Future Quilts too, not helped by the weekend visit to Maison de Calico, the local quilt shop. No, I’m not starting anything specific, just thinking about making quilts in general. What with reading the new book, I might have to plan a bunch of new quilt projects so I can develop specific skills, like, say, a rolling star quilt that would teach me joining 8 points accurately and setting in seams, as well as letting me pick bolder colours and fabrics, while also giving me a quilt that won’t take forever to finish. Something to think about. I’d say “hey, anyone out there want a quilt”, but the answer for too many of you is “yes”, so I will refrain from offering. Besides, didn’t I say the next full-sized quilt is for me? I really want to stick to that.

Writing is…well, stalled. In a few minutes I’m going to make myself some tea and take the laptop out to the kitchen where I can elevate my foot and sit and write. I didn’t write on Friday. Something happened in my brain and I ended up at the end of the afternoon not sure where it had gone.

You know, tomorrow I go to pick up the veggie basket. That’s going to be … interesting on the sore ankle. I’ll have to work out some other system or forfeit the basket, I suppose. Maybe Scott can come home from work for an hour in order to pick it up. Lord knows they get enough of his time at the moment that an extra hour off shouldn’t be a problem. *grumble*

I’m reading The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell at the moment for my book club. It has reduced me to tears at least twice so far and there’s a hundred pages left. I was going to read it on the metro tonight on the way to a meeting, but I think I’ll be leaving it home — no need to be seen sobbing on public transit, and if a book makes me cry, I’d rather cry in private, in peace and not worry about holding it in. Damn her for making me love the characters that I know are doomed. Damn her, I say! Seriously, though, the book is beautifully written with wonderful, real characters. The religious aspect of it is amazing, and has already made me re-evaluate a lot of spiritual beliefs. It’s an interesting read, an entertaining read, and an emotionally exhausting one (of course), but damn, it’s a *good* book.

That’s all for now. I’m off to make the tea and elevate the foot for a bit.

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So the ankle is sprained which means no trip to the museum so today is ideal for sitting around doing quilting…were it not for the reappearance of my sore sewing wrist. Argh.

Good thing I picked up a book about quilting while I was spending my Indigo gift certificates last week — Quiltmaking by Hand by Jinny Beyer. Basically she takes you through her hand quilting classes, step by step, teaching you more complicated techniques as you go, until you have all the techniques mastered to actually make a mariner’s compass quilt (one of the most difficult designs out there. Also the Quilt I Will Make Someday…Not Today). The book is really good so far, aside from gratuitous September 11th references (ugh). It starts at composition choice, takes you through basic tools, pattern drafting, and then starts on handsewing technique. It’s the one quilt book I own that I’ll likely read all the way through — it’s that interesting (also it’s about teaching technique, rather than just pictures and patterns). And the quilt patterns it gives instructions for are gorgeous. I’m really interested in her other book too, Designing Tessellations, which teaches quilt design with reference to MC Escher’s artwork. I also see that she has a book out on choosing colours, which would be an interesting read (it’s one of the things I really feel like I need to work on) but I’d have to flip through it first to see how useful it will be. Now that I know her name, of course, I’m starting to notice it everywhere — like on the moonglow quilt pattern I bought ages ago. She’s the designer. Apparently she’s a big name in the quilting community.

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My quilting sometimes gets me into trouble. Like today when I asked Phnee if she would care to take a trip to the west island to poke about a quilt store. The quilt store itself, surprisingly, provided very little trouble as I’m filled up with projects at the moment.

No, the problem came when I stepped off the sidewalk the wrong way and twisted my ankle. I sat down for a few minutes and thought I was good to go, but as the afternoon went on and the hurt didn’t really go away, I made a more thorough exam when I got home. My ankle is swollen to the size of an egg. An ice pack provided by Scott lessened the swelling a little, but not entirely. Hours later, with the foot up for a good portion of the evening and me walking as little as possible, and after some advil, it doesn’t hurt…much.

So. Yeah. I’ll see how I feel tomorrow, but I suspect my planned trip to the museum with Scott is off for the time being. It’s a karmic balance thing, I think. This is what I get or trying to get Mousme addicted to quilting.

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Almost 500 words today, not all of them new — I copied one paragraph from the first story that I really liked the feel of.

1,179 / 5,500 (21.4%)

So it’s slow going but it’s going. 5500 words might not do it, even. I’ve reached a point where I don’t quite know what’s going to happen yet (I know in general, but the next line…dunno) , and there’s an undercurrent to the story that I want to work in but I don’t quite know how yet. It’s difficult. I don’t think I’m overthinking the story; it’s just that there’s a lot I want it to do and I’m not quite sure how to get everything in there.

So. It goes slowly, but it goes.

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This whole slowly-getting-the-house-clean thing has caused almost daily revelations about getting stuff done. I keep meaning to blog them, then I don’t want to bore everyone, and today I want to post and I thought this was as good a time as any to get them all out at once.

I’m almost completely off the Flylady system now. Not that I think it’s invalid, just that I’m not doing it. I’m looking to it for ideas, and then moving on and doing things my way. It’s been working out fairly well for me. The several-times-daily e-mails have kept me reminded that I’m supposed to be cleaning, and other than that I’m proceeding at my own pace and not worrying about what exactly the system or room of the day is (or the fact that I’m supposed to be cleaning my light switches today, or what have you).

One of the first things I realized was that, having one surface clean, I want to have more surfaces clean. The clutter attracts more clutter, but the clean seems to be attracting more clean. I like this. It means my spare minutes are filled with “oh I’ll just put this away”, but it also means that my kitchen table is almost empty, my bedside tables are slowly being decluttered, the mats in the entryway have been shaken out, and every time I pull out the vacuum to do a daily task, I do just a bit more than I intended to, because really, it only takes a second, and the vacuum is right there.

The other thing I realized is that I don’t have to do something big every day. I don’t even have to do anything every day, other than keep the stuff that’s already clean, clean. So keep the dishes done (it only takes me 15 minutes at a time now, how cool ist that?) and the bathroom mopped up, and the coffee table clear, and none of that takes long, and I haven’t backslid. It doesn’t matter that the house isn’t all clean yet. It will get there. I just have to make sure that whatever is done stays done. From there, each step forward is actually a step forward, rather than “This used to be clean, and now I have to clean it again!”

The most recent keeping-clean task has been to pick The One Small Thing That Is Driving Me Nuts and work on that. Today it’s my office, so I’ll be spending 15 minutes (one of the things that Flylady recommends that really works for me is setting a timer for 15 minutes and not worrying about getting it perfect) decluttering and see how far along I am after that. It worked really well for me last week. I want the office in shape by the full moon, anyway, so I can do a blessing.

I’m trying to apply all these housecleaning epiphanies to my writing, but I’m having a hard time. Yes, once I’m writing it’s easy to keep writing, which is like saying once the house is clean it’s easier to keep clean, but the idea of keeping what’s already clean, clean doesn’t really transfer well. Writing does not disappear or deteriorate or become unwritten because I don’t slack. You could theoretically apply it to word count, saying if I do 500 words today and 500 words tomorrow and just keep increasing that … but that’s not really a great argument. I will be able to write more words eventually, (my limit now is in the hundreds and I’m well aware it could be in the thousands), but you get to a certain point and you’re having trouble with a scene, you have to stop to do research, you just don’t get as much done, and there goes that metaphor — doing more words every day is not necessarily improving.

So, like I say, the writing/cleaning ideas don’t really cross over well. What does cross over, however, is the idea that if I feel good about house, and I’m in an uncluttered atmosphere, I feel better about myself, and I feel better about writing. I feel better about my looks as well, and I’ve started wanting to do things like exercise in the mornings (pull out those Dance Dance Revolution mats!) and drink less coffee and more water and go to bed and get up earlier, and generally do more with my time than sitting around checking e-mail. Gosh, it’s like my environment, and my mental state, and my body are all *connected* in some weird kinda way.

Who’da thunk?

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Hey, it’s not done, but it’s coming along..

708 / 5,500 (12.9%)

I actually wrote more than 500 words tonight at the writing jam, which I think is more than I’ve done on anything that wasn’t an exercise since we started doing these jams.

I feel a strange sense of relief.

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The lost book I returned to the library has been found, it seems. Earlier this week I checked my account to find that it was still there, and overdue fees had topped $10. That pissed me off, and I figured enough was enough, so I was going to march myself down there later this week (almost did it Monday but they’re closed Monday) and get the black mark removed.

And just now I checked again, and now (thank GOD and FINALLY) I’m listed as having nothing overdue, which means they must have finally found the damn book, wherever it got put that wasn’t in the returns pile.

So.

…
…
…

No. I’m still pissed. “All’s well that ends well” doesn’t quite apply.

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I know most of our friends in Montreal have already seen this or heard about it, but I post for people reading this outside of Quebec, but still in Canada (ie. those of you in Halifax, Dad and Dan, I’m looking at you).

Bon Cop, Bad Cop is a bilingual film (In English and French, with English subtitles) about an Ontario cop and a Quebec cop who have to work together to solve a series of murders. The film is a comedy…mostly. There are a few scenes that are really serious rather than funny, and it makes for a good balance.

It was released in Quebec a few weeks ago and it’s gotten great reviews. Everyone I know who’s seen it has thoroughly enjoyed it. Now it’s out in the rest of Canada and I’m recommending it to all my friends — go see it. Not only are you supporting Canadian cinema, it’s a damn good movie.

(For those of you in Halifax, it’s showing at Park Lane AND Bayer’s Lake. Yes I checked, and you have no excuse not to go.)

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