Category: Unraveled Wednesday

unraveled wednesday | 4.17.19…

Published on by Honoré9 Comments

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Still recovering from Sunday’s 12K walkathon…adding yesterday, another 8K+. I normally average circa 5K on a daily basis, weather and other factors permitting. Today’s incentive: spend several [more] hours in my craft room, purging and reorganizing – bringing outer order and inner calm to my creative memory keeping environment as well as my mind.

Calmed and ready for a break – a treat – I journeyed to my favorite (and only) local coffee shop within walking distance. On the way there and back, I listened to the latest edition of What Should I Read Next ? ~ Modern Mrs Darcy podcast, episode 180. This week’s featured guest, Liberty Hardy, host of BookRiot’s All the Books podcast, read 600 books last year! Reading is her full time j-o-b! And then some! Can you imagine? I encourage you to listen to the podcast -even if you’re not a podcast listener. It was fun …and I’ve added Liberty’s fave author: Elizabeth McCracken’s Giant House: A Romance to my TBR list – I don’t usually read fiction in this genre but this one sounds like fun so I thought I might give it a try…any one read it already?

The Quilt Show is two weeks away, May 2-4, and I’ve just a few loose ends to tie up…but for all intent and purpose, I. am.ready.

Joining Kat and friends for another UW. What’s unraveling – or not – in your life these days?

Cheers~

unraveled wednesday | 4.10.19 …

Published on by Honoré10 Comments

1:20 pm EDST

@ IKEA. Just finished lunch: salmon. salad with blackberries,walnuts, blue cheese and ranch dressing . yummy. best coffee, ever. appt this morning: new doctor, about a year ago. he’s funny and so easy to talk to…relaxed, attentive, relatable… all’s good…encouraging, always …spring is really here…today: blue sky dotted with puffy white clouds, lots of sunshine. 67 degrees…near day’s high…happy flowers…happy birds…happy people…finishing Austin Kleon’s first book: steal like an artist: 10 things nobody told you about being creative… format & style just like newest … both are quick reads, filled with lots of pithy advice and ideas…especially good tips for forming/strengthening habits….power hour yesterday … roared through household chores…felt good to have them off the menu…Outer Order indeed Inspires Inner Calm.

1:28 pm

time to go… wander through the store … treat myself to a soft cone on the way out…head for home.

5:29 pm.

@home, just awakened from a short nap…spring indeed has arrived…sleepy…tree pollens… or something in the air… Dolly sent text: she wants to learn how to sew, make clothes…funny, I was looking through my ginormous photo library – oh how it needs to be weeded – ran across several pics of Dolly, easily 5-6 years ago, trying out my sewing machine; she took to it quite readily, I seem to recall …what goes around comes around.

joining Kat and friends for another round of unraveled wednseday.

unraveled wednesday | 4.3.19 …

Published on by Honoré9 Comments

As one can see, my main task today is TAXES! Fun – not… but I do have two new additions to MSQT: Austin Kleon’s Keep Going, released just yesterday and a new iPad mini, added to my collection of iToys, er iTools!

“Why the new mini?” inquiring minds want to know…several reasons:

  1. I had a previous mini, 3rd generation, I think; I gave it up for the iPadPro two years ago, primarily for the Apple Pencil feature: I can actually write using my own handwriting, always a plus in my column…
  2. I like the Pro (larger screen) well enough and also have a keyboard cover…problem is, it’s too big and doesn’t “port” easily enough…
  3. I read a review about a 10 days ago that gave the new mini not only highest remarks but also casually mentioned the Apple Pencil worked with it! SOLD! And so last Friday, when I went to pick up the new microwave oven I also got the new iPad mini, 5th generation!

I started Austin Kleon’s new book this morning; the subtitle is “10 ways to stay creative in good times and bad,” essentially establishing different habits! Austin, a writer, also draws and creates redacted poetry from newspaper articles.

Stitching continues on the quilts for the Quilt Show, just a month away. I’m stitching – by hand – the binding on the big quilt. That will pretty much wrap everything all up and I can focus more attention on making a few novelty items to sell – we have over a 1,000 ! – plus the quilting supplies, books, etc that no longer spark joy! At least, not for me!

The forecast today offers sunshine! Hope it’s yours too! Joining Kat and friends .

Cheers~

unraveled wednesday | 3.27.19…

Published on by Honoré8 Comments

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11 am

waiting for my friend Kathy who is driving in from Delaware…

listening to a variety of conversations in the background, accompanied by the PA system…

staring back at me: rows and rows of book stacks, filled with every subject imaginable…

remembering the many, many times, over years, that Kathy and I met here:

  • planning training that we provided new library staff workers in both DE and MD public libraries…
  • catching up and sharing stories of our own lives, our families, doings, comings, goings…

debating if I want a cuppa coffee, especially since I didn’t bring any tea bags…

pausing, thinking, about what I want to do next as I wait….

deciding coffee it is while I wait…

looking up and seeing her! She’s here!

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6 pm

I’m home. We had a wonderful time and sadly, as with all good things, the time came for us to bid adieu. We’ll meet again in the next six months. Can’t be too soon. And of course, before I left, I had to browse a bit and buy a few books…or so.

Joining Kat and others for another Unraveled Wednesday, here.

Cheers~

unraveled wednesday|3.20.19…

Published on by Honoré20 Comments

Spring! Seems as tho’ it took forever in coming … and now it’s here! (Even if officially it doesn’t arrive until 5:58 pm EST.) The past few days on my walks, buoyed by warmer Spring-like temperatures, I’ve witnessed buds on the trees and even the Tulip tree at the end of the block is blossoming. Yesterday, I saw my first hint of forsythia, finally. Tonight I hope the clouds won’t obscure my chance to see the last full Supermoon of 2019.

Over the weekend, on my walks, I started and finished, Dani Shapiro’s Inheritance (the audio version). What would you do, think; how would you feel if you found out, via a DNA test, that your father was not your biological father? That you were conceived via a sperm donor program? And that when you do learn these facts, you can’t ask your parents because both are deceased? This is Dani’s story. Gripping! Provocative!

Dani, an accomplished writer and memoirist and writing instructor, narrates the audio version – which makes her story even more poignant. I encourage you to listen and/or read …and visit her website, after you’ve started the book. Doing so will make her story even more dynamic…

I suspect – actually I know – that listening to Inheritance reignited my idea:

  • write/tell my story – tho’ nowhere near as dramatic as Dani’s;
  • however/whatever form that takes.

So, Monday afternoon, I went to B&N for more books on, you guessed, writing. For months I’ve been promising myself to read Stephen King’s On Writing…always on any list. Quiet as it’s kept, I’ve not read one of his books – not a genre I read. Be that as it may, On Writing is always on anyone’s list, so now, it’s in my personal library.

Switching gears, the days til the quilt show – May 3-5 – continue to countdown and I’ve finished – or nearly – 3 of the 4 quilts for the exhibit. Next up: the binding on the big quilt and a few other odds/ends…Lovin’ that I’m on schedule if not ahead!

And so, it’s time for me to get a move on with the day. Joinin’ Kat and friends here.

What are you  reading and/or unraveling?

Cheers~

unraveled wednesday | 3.13.19 …

Published on by Honoré12 Comments

 

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… t’was a morning filled with lots of color, beginning with another spectacular sunrise. I can never see too many and am grateful for absolutely every one…

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… to add to my pleasure, my new Vera Bradley iPad case looked just stupendous with the yellow alstroemeria that are at least a week old… a flower bouquet I can never have too many and am grateful for absolutely every one that greets me in the morning…

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… after MSQT, I deliberately took myself to my sewing studio and “quilted” my second convergence quilt piece. The quilting – if you are not a quilter – is called stitch-in-the ditch and follows the seam lines of the quilted pieces. My next steps are:

  1. bury the threads from the quilting;
  2. sew the binding strips together;
  3. machine stitch one edge to the front of the quilt perimeter;
  4. decide whether to hand or machine stitch the back side of the binding.

I’m aiming to have this piece in the finished  column week’s end…

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…on the reading front, I finished Gretchen Rubin’s Outer Order Inner Calm. This is a quick read – just 215 pages filled with all sorts of pithiness – and one I think/expect to read more than once, again, soon! I was amused when I read the suggestion,  p.18: “Use technology to clear clutter. ” Gretchen asks: “Why hang on to possessions replaced by technology? and then states … “(Though it does seem like sacrilege not to own a physical copy of a dictionary.)  I so agree!

Time for me to create some order at my workstation, take a walk and listen to Gretchen’s latest Happier podcast, bury some threads on the convergence quilt  and tackle a few more items on my list. No time to procrastinate!

Joining Kat and friends here!

Cheers~

 

 

unraveled wednesday | 3.6.19…

Published on by Honoré6 Comments

 

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yesterday, our bi-monthly Recent Reads gathering; the time seemed to come by sooner than (I’d )expected. Friend Margaret, hostess, served a delicious meal of both books and food, introducing us to Will Schwalbe – be sure to watch the video on the page. Friend Doris read The Winter Soldier – it sounds intriguing. I’ve not read any fiction so far this year so I think I’ll add it to my TBR list… My whole reason for initiating Recent Reads was to help jumpstart me to resume reading the occasional fiction title.  So far this year, I think I’m batting zero …

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#blueskyblooms

home, the bright blue sky and warm-enough temps beckoned me for a quick walk to/through the park. I was delighted to see the pink blossoms on the trees against the bright blue sky!

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we watched our local PBS station’s fund drive last night~ featuring Norman’s favorite male crooner: Nat King Cole. Norman knows the lyrics to all Nat’s songs. As he – Nat, that is –  sang, I knit more rows on the log cabin blanket… a forever project  tho’ one that helps me sharpen basic knitting techniques and also, develop the habit of knitting/stitching while watching TV…Gretchen Rubin’s new book Outer Order, Inner Calm indeed did arrive…and I dipped a bit into it. It’ll be a quick read…and good!

today, for sure has been unraveled…starting with bright sunshine and a warm temperature of 29° F + wind, making it feel like a a warm/cold 18° F…just the invitation one – ahem, I – needed to stay in jammies & robe – making it a  s-l-o-w morning, er day… Lots of time spent researching, aka down a few YouTube holes. Pizza and champagne for our late  lunch …mainly because N was hungry and I have a 7:30 pm concert. Laundry done! Still have month’s expenses to tally…

Joining Kat and friends for today’s Unraveled Wednesday.

Cheers~

 

 

unraveled wednesday | 2.27.19…

Published on by Honoré7 Comments

 

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On my plans for today : resume stitching this piece that has been languishing  on my design wall for more than a few weeks…more like months (begun end of Sept 2018). Well, it looks like the stitching will be forwarded to tomorrow as I have been parked in front of the tv watching :

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Totally unplanned on my part! So, I picked up my log cabin/9-patch lap robe and have been knitting on it since about  10:30 am. Well, you know what they say: “best laid plans of mice and men, gang aft agley.

It’s now 1:45 pm…not too late to salvage the rest of my day’s agenda! Joining Kat and friends here for today’s tales of unraveling & reading. How’s your day going?

Cheers~

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

unraveled wednesday|a snowy day…

Published on by Honoré9 Comments

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From my journal, 7:42 am: Snowfalls quietly, gently – all around: silence, punctuated by the normal, routine sounds: scratch of my pen gliding across my journal page; a jet plane taking off; an occasional clang of the radiator ~ all are exaggerated, louder, yet quietly so. “Shhh…I’m reading,” my coffee mug, tho’ empty, proclaims. The scent of candle wafts through the air, filling my nostrils and soul. In my left hand, I hold my tea mug – it’s warmth, too, soothes and comforts. My Valentine roses are exceptionally bright, still bringing joy, seven days later and counting…

Currently, 12:15 pm: Snow continues to fall; flakes are the kind that make you want to stick out your tongue and catch. When I was a child, I always imagined spending these kind of “snow days” at some out-of-the-way ski lodge, wrapped in a warm quilt, sitting in front of a roaring fire, reading a book too good to put down. Today is one of those days minus the ski lodge and roaring fire…and tho’ I’ve been reading, more of my energy has been spent looking, writing, thinking, reflecting…interrupted briefly to wash a load of  dish cloths/towels and chat with Norman over breakfast; and catch up with the news, stock market, the snowfall, etc.

He’s now situated in front of his computer and I, mine – tho’ we’re on separate floors. As I type these words, I hear the sound of ice against the window. Early this afternoon, the snow is to turn to mixed snow and sleet; I think, as predicted, it’s beginning to happen.

12:30 pm: Yep, I think the snow has ended…next up “icy rain! ”

Joining Kat and friends for their unraveled wednesday, too.

Cheers~