I adore non-bill mail. I started sending cards to friends and now we have a little network that sends each other actual cards in, you know, the mailbox.
Pretty awesome.
I find, that of all the choices we make each day, the choice to be an optimist is the most underrated. It’s considered by some to be naive, even.
But consider this: if we didn’t try, if we didn’t do something that we haven’t done before, then what? We just stay the same as we are and do not grow. That’s not brave. That’s the opposite of brave.
This is my favorite Noonhour episode. I read one of the pieces I wrote for the March FADness competition, which was a new prompt each day in the month of March. That month I wrote 31 different flash fiction pieces along with two Flash Fiction Carnival pieces – it was a great month. I had a ball, wrote a ton of new material, and now have a body of work from which I can create more podcasts. Win-win. 🙂
Money. la la la (Think Pink Floyd.) (If you don’t know who they are, then I give up.) ANYway, where was I? Money! la la la…
Today, in the States, it’s Tax Day – time to pay the tax man or time to get money back from the tax man. (I hope you’re in the former and not the latter group. If you are, I’m with you – we owed this year. Poop.)
Money’s pretty fascinating stuff. There are three things that make money, money. The IMF (International Monetary Fund) has them on their site:
In short, money can be anything that can serve as a
• store of value, which means people can save it and use it later—smoothing their purchases over time;
• unit of account, that is, provide a common base for prices; or
• medium of exchange, something that people can use to buy and sell from one another.
From “Back to Basics: What Is Money?“
I came across an awesome article by Glyn Davies called “A History of Money From Ancient Times to the Present Day” that’s worth checking out – and after you read it, think hard about bit coins and whether an unregulated currency is really such a good idea.
Yum. Llama fiber. Soft, warm, and easy to knit. I prefer alpaca because there’s a wider range of colors and alpaca are more friendly, but I can’t deny the gorgeous sheen of the fibers of llama. Vicuña is a related fiber that’s quite luxurious but harder to find because the vicuña are very shy and much harder to cultivate than either llama or alpaca.
Think that alpaca is only the purview of knitters and other textile artists? The famous designer Loro Piana cornered the market on the stuff in 2010 and last year announced a 60% stake in an alpaca ranch. I’ve seen quotes of the alpaca fiber suits of his that go for $20,000 USD. No, that’s not a typo. $20k. That’s enough for a down payment on a house. Yikes.
Why is the fiber so desirable? It’s lighter than wool and warmer. The natural colors are quite wide and alpaca has the only naturally-occurring black animal fiber – black sheep are actually only black on the tips of the fiber, not at the root.
I could go on, but I won’t bore you with fibernautics. But I will ask you this:
You had to see this coming! OF COURSE K IS FOR KNITTING! What else could it POSSIBLY be for? Really now.
I took my first knitting class in 2000, after a friend at work recommended Sharon Shoji as an excellent instructor. In my first class, Sharon taught us to knit plain knitting all the way through ribbing. After an initial struggle with the ribbing, I got the hang of it. We progressed through textured knitting to cables and lace and from there, I was totally and completely hooked.
In 2008, I started this blog. Shortly after, I decided to start Knoontime Knitting, where I focus on the crafts that make me totally bonzo: knitting, of course, but also needlepoint and embroidery (my first textile art, in fact), weaving, calligraphy, and pysanky. I love to make things with my hands but didn’t allow myself to do much of it until I took my classes with Sharon.
What I have learned informs my writing process as much as my textile arts. See, it’s like this:
Earrings. Left hand, wedding ring. Right hand, writing ring. Bracelets. Sometimes a necklace. That’s the work uniform.
Then I found these huge dangle earrings with peacocks on them at my belly dancing school (Arabesque, well worth checking out!). They’re so big they’re ridiculous, especially given that right now I have really long hair and my hair is blond. I adore them, stereotypes be damned. And then I found this awesome red and purple ring that I even wore in my new author picture.
It ridiculous too, but I’ve been known to sneak it into my office and wear it during my day job. Haven’t done that with the earrings yet, but I’m sorely tempted. I feel like Jeremy from the Rats of N.I.M.H. – I love sparklies!
Illinois. Home of the Pizza Wars, the Chicago Bears, the Lincoln Trail, and some pretty darn fine neighbors. I’ve made it my home since 1998 after moving here from the west coast. Here’s some things I’ve learned about my adopted state:
Imagine it: you dream, and write, and dream some more. You dare to trust in your vision and send your baby off to a publisher or agent. Against the odds, you receive a letter asking for the manuscript. Heart pounding, you send your baby off to the big, harsh, glaring world of The Publisher. And then…
It’s released to the public to enormous acclaim and you go from an unknown “wannabe” writer to a professional author and toast of the town.
It’s not so much that I’d love to be famous, it’s more that I admire J. K. Rowling for her vision and the world she created. It’s a world that, with the collaboration of the team at the movie studio, became the phenomenon of a decade. In fact, I’d love to hire the person who was responsible for casting – imagine the genius, repeated over and over, of the actors selected to portray our beloved characters? I’m always a little stumped when folks say, “Oh, I’ve never seen it,” or “Oh, I’ve never read the books.” That’s like saying, “Oh, yeah, that oxygen thing – yeah, I don’t use it when I breathe.”
