Mellow-Drama

  I can already see it, this month is going to be full of deadline drama. Already, on Sunday, there was a brilliant piece of time management that encouraged me to make a little schedule. I love making schedules, I just rarely ever follow them. Do you think I could get away with it if I called myself a free-spirit? Nah, I didn’t think anyone would buy that either. But you know what, I may not have to plead anything. On Monday I heard a very edifying message and proceeded to check off all the assignments for the day. I was so happy. And bored. Goodness, it’s hard to find something to do when you’re not avoiding work.
Today has been slightly less productive, and a great deal colder. I’ve been listening to Pandora all day. I have it seeded with the Partridge Family, so it’s playing lots of things from the sixties. I’m surprised by how many of these songs I know, how many of them I grew up listening to. At any rate, between “Can’t you hear my heart beat” and the bright, cold day, I’m moving a lot slower than I did yesterday. But the end is in sight, if only I had a little incentive. Unfortunately, I just ate my last square of Chocolate shortbread. Oh yes, I made another batch of it on Saturday (“S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y!” – that’s another song Pandora keeps playing). A friend came over, and ten minutes into Singin’ in the Rain she turns to me and says “Do you want to bake something?” An hour later we were eating Chocolate shortbread with spoons, it was warm and mushy and screamed “Get me some vanilla ice cream!” In this selfish, mellow mood, I’m thinking I shouldn’t have let her leave with half the batch.
The obvious fix is to make more, but I think once a week is probably already over doing things. To add lemon juice to this paper cut, I also downed the last of my milk. Oh milk, so sweet, and full, and smooth. Sometimes I get milk and it’s milk, sometimes I get milk and it’s something masquerading as milk, and then there are the times when I get milk and it’s white ambrosia. This half gallon was like that, cold as steel and sweet as sugar. The weird thing is, I always buy whole milk. How can it be so different each time?

P.S. Yes, more photos of Japan! I’m araid that’ all you’ll be getting for a while, gomennasai ( ごめんなさい:sorry).

P.P.S Oops! I guess that burst of productivity didn’t last too long. Look how manny days it’s taken me to publish this post!

Clouds for Cookies

It’s a cold, clammy, cloudy day. Everyone trudges to their rooms and shuts their door tight, as if able to lock out the lack of sky. For there is no sky today, just a whiteness above us. And not just above us, but around us, stretching down the sides of the mountain, seeming to continue behind distant buildings. It feels as if the whole world is encircled in fog, or perhaps it is only our lives here that are so shrouded. At any rate, the cold seems to creep even into our bones as we, the pressured, stare paralyzed at the approaching due-dates that have popped up with all the warning that accompanies a mushroom. If only we could turn our clouds to cookies. 

 
                But it’s okay, we had our sun on the weekend. For those who are interested it went really well, by the way. The ball, that is. My dress was finished in time, my safety pins stayed pinned (more or less), and the actual dancing was thrilling. For some strange reason the ladies out numbered gentlemen 2.5 to 1, which caused a quite a bit of laughter and merriment for the simple reason that, when two people wearing hoop-skirts do anything together, they take four times the room usually required.  Lots of skirts were stepped on, but no dreams were trampled.
Oh, and I managed to drop and break my camera just before the ball.
              The above mentioned due dates have driven me to knitting, which should seem counter intuitive – if not, I’d advise therapy. I’m knitting fish with my sister, lakes and lakes of fish. They are about as brainless as you can get, all garter stitch glory. They are also as colourless as the clouds, in other words, nothing to make conversation out of.  Another way of, uh, encouraging that inspirational nirvana known as last minute panic, I’ve started thinking about my books, and even my scripts. The later being very appropriate, considering it is Script Frenzy month, according to the blogosphere.
                In honor of this event I downloaded Celtx, a nifty piece of script writing software, and started transferring old projects into it. I’ll write you a full review in a few weeks (read: May), but at first glance it is ingenious, free, and not technically meant for novels.

What Begins with ‘B’?


Beautiful, Bountiful, Braids, Bento and Bikes.

                   Spring has sprung. Again. It’s Beautiful. I accidently stumbled upon this poem by Traherne, who I had never heard of before, but now that I’ve read it, “Wonder,” I really want to read more of him. Flying down the hill on my shiny blue bike to come home and read “How like an angel down I come!” Can there be anything more breathtaking than words matching soul?
I within did flow
With seas of life like wine;
I nothing in the World did know
But ’twas Divine.
                                   – Wonder, Thomas Traherne
                       As if spring as awoken something crafty within my soul, I woke up on  Thursday morning and decided to make this:

                That’s right, it’s my first Bento. The bottom compartment holds the traditional rice, and the upper tier plays host a ham stir fry, leftover from last night (actually, I think I made enough of it to last me a whole week of bentos, if I could stomach the monotony). I’m loving the cute, plastic, muffin molds, especially that bright blue against the yellow pineapple. The meal was a complete success, only 1) I can’t eat rice with such short chopsticks! Next time I’ll pack a longer pair, and 2) by the time I opened my bento the shortbread had become a little soggy. Everyone say  “eww!” No, it wasn’t that bad, but I guess I’ll have to remember to wrap breads and cookies separately to keep them from getting damp.
                I’ve finally shot pictures of the overskirt, which I need to start working on. My mom has sent out the rest of my dress and I can’t wait to finish all the fiddly little details. Bountiful is the Lord, they say, and that my soul knowth right well.

I’m still flabbergasted at the amount of work my mom has put into this dress, it’s going to be mind-boggling. Completely white – or, to go with the ‘B’ theme, blanc – the overskirt is gauzy goodness, with little, silk ribbon roses sewn on to it (well, it will be like that. I’m still sewing them on), and larger roses pinning it up to make elegant drapes.  These drapes will be imitated on the bodice, and their will be a rose on each sleeve. Of course, their are matching shoes, white ones, to which roses will be attached. It’s all going to be gorgeous when it comes together, which needs to happen before the ball on the  28th.

                   In honor of the ball I had my hair braided. That was my official excuse, really I was just bored with the regular french braids I do. It’s really hard to take pictures or your head, do you think this one came out okay? ( I colored it a little, forgive me)

         Oh, least I forget, the photos which this post is just full of are all courtesy of this cute little card reader. I ordered three, because some people complained about duds. Only the highest praise so far. No more camera trouble, yay!