Journaling life as a Novelist, Artist, Druid, Heathen, Mad dog mum and chicken lady, Volunteer Firey, Nature nut and Crocheter in the hills above Perth, Western Australia.
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Showing posts with label Cat. Cyrano. crochet. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cat. Cyrano. crochet. Show all posts
The recipient says he loves it, which is kinda sad because I badly wanted to keep it. It made me happy just to wear it.
Secondly, red-head standoffs happen here a lot. This one was between Mr Kitty and some chickens.
Kitty: "I didn't really want to go over there anyway."
The chickens won.
Hey food-person, are you in there?
Thirdly Andyroo had a call-back interview for a job today so I went into town to be his chauffeur. While he was in the interview, I took myself off to, "Walking With Dinosaurs." It was simultaneously lame and interesting! I figure it is good author research in case I ever want to add some more Cretaceous critters to a "Land of..." book.
Plus, you know, the chance to have people take stupid tourist photos of you.
A gift from Brigid this morning, just to remind me that Monday is Brigid's day. Soft pastel feathers, especially grey ones, are always my gentle reminder from her.
I got cranking on the latest crocheted offering this weekend while spending some nice downtime in the warm spring gazebo, and got it almost finished. It looks pretty ordinary right now.
But I has evil plans. Which one to choose?
Think the forwarder horns look best but am very tempted to make one or two more horns and go for the dinosaur look. :D My only directions were to cover the ears, to make it green and gold, and make it silly!
Mr Cyrano Fitty Kitty also enjoyed the downtime in the warm day with me.
For a change of pace, I also participated in my first hazard reduction burn of the season on Saturday.
Only a little one at the actual station, but it was a bit smoky and we had to shut it down. The problem is we have a tiny window between when it is dry enough to burn and when we can't burn any more due to safety. Hope the neighbour who complained won't mind if his house burns down this summer de to too much fuel in his immediate surroundings!
On sunday I got to do this at our latest incident management team training day. I was on the boards outside the ICV. Interesting!
That's me on the right there in my yellow record keeper vest at the debrief afterwards.
We have this year's baby magpie on the move. So glad she survived to get safely out of the nest, and she was already flying by the time she left it, so she is nice and mobile too. She still has some very cute fluffy knickerbockers though. One of her big sisters from two years ago was close nearby. There is always one family member on duty with the baby.
Someone else has fluffy knickerbockers too, but I not supposed to say so.
Do you like my new pink work boots? Sis came with me to try on Firey boots to fit her and I found these and, well, the rest is history. Nice to be chainsawing in something a little tougher than Volleys. :)
It's been a creative week here. Hit the 60 000 word mark on Land of Giants and having a good time rolling out the Megafauna and tricky bad guys to test my characters. I'd say 60 000 words is about the halfway mark for this book, since I'd planned it being about 120 000 all up, a similar word count to Land of Fire. Halfway! Yay me!
Also this week I composed a little tune that I've been calling, "Muninn's Journey." This week, rather than work on the song I have been adapting, I just felt like plinking away on my lyre and purely composing, something I haven't done for a little while.
It's been a good week for sitting by the fire playing music. Cold! Cold for here anyway!
So, I got my little song sorted, then videoed it with my phone so I would have a recording in case I forgot some of it, always a danger until I get around to roughly annotating it. I think I would normally play it through twice, or perhaps each half twice at once. This is just once, through, with usual deliberate mistakes. :P
Here is Muninn's Journey, via belly cam. I know, I know, I missed most of my hand, but the tummy angles were just wrong for any better view. :D
It's also been a good week for crocheting. Cyrano likes it best if I crochet up at the table, which I do for more complex things like my slouchie beanie. It's finished, by the way! Wove in the last ends just today. I love it! Feel like it was made for me! (Which of course it was!)
I haven't got a pic of me wearing it yet. Andrew did get this pic the other night of Cyrano and I enjoying some quality crochet time, while we listened to Bram Stoker's Dracula on audiobook.
Wednesday night we went to drum circle and had a good time. We've missed it the last few weeks for one reason and another, so was good to get Old Goaty out and really go for it.
It's been a very good week! Hope yours was too! Tonight is the local folk and blues club, and tomorrow is Fireys! Yay!
It's been an an odd week. I've been a bit distressed about a schism that has been happening at our fire brigade, and it has affected both my thinking and my health. Why do people desire power to the point of destroying the thing they want power over? I don't know. It is not in me to understand it.
Ah well, am trying to let go of that and just enjoy the people I enjoy, keep the ultimate goal of the brigade in mind, and hope that it all resolves itself. It is sad, though, to think that you are part of a team and find out that actually there are two teams, and sometimes they pull together but mostly they were pulling in different directions with different agendas.
Meh.
We did go out to one call out this week, another car fire, this time a wheel on a semi trailer that had a seized bearing. The efficient young truck driver had already got it out by the time we arrived.
It was a bit of a non event, which, when you think about it, are the best kind when you are in a fire brigade, but since it was me, Nikki and Andrew in the 1.4 and Angus and Paul T in the Light Tanker, some of my favorite people in the brigade, it was actually a fun night. We had a nice chat back at the station and it made me feel a lot better about everything.
Last Saturday, for Schedules, we split into two teams (Ha! Ironic!) ) and took turns cleaning out the old station and doing a driving exercise. I went out in the Light Tanker with my Bro-in-law Craig driving, so that was nice. It rained pretty heavily so the tracks were fun.
My youngest niece, Niamh, came along to help and got to try out some of her mum's gear.
How adorable is she?
There was a lovely rainbow the other morning when we went out for our dog walk.
We got a silly selfie with it. Interesting to see that one of my eyes is drooping a bit there. Not surprising since my body has not been happy this week. It used to be quite marked in the Lyme days, and this might be a sign to up my salt a bit more in case the dreaded bug has taken a stronger hold. I called it my Aughra eye, (a Dark Crystal reference for those fellow fantasy geeks out there).
I think this was the best ever photo I got of my Aughra eye. This was a very nice Percheron called Guinness who belonged to the people who were selling a horse that I didn't buy, though I sometimes wish I had.
This pic always cracks me up. :)
Writing is back on track, thank Brigid! It took me quite a few 'blood on the forehead' days to get back into flow. Yesterday I went over the 50 000 word mark. Hardest 10 000 words I've written in years. Not so much because of the story, as too much else distracting my brain and dragging me down. Let that be a lesson to you, grasshoppers! Don't let people and their machinations distract you from your true life's purpose! Go sit in the sun and play a musical instrument instead, and when your mind is peaceful once more, then go in and write like there's no tomorrow.
Speaking of which, I've been messing with Jethro Tull's, "Cup of Wonder," for my next song on the lyre. It has always been one of my faves of theirs, though in truth it would be hard to pick an utter fave. Still not sure if it will work, or be pleasurable to sing with the lyre. As I found with "Gay Bar", which I really did begin to work out, some songs just feel boring when sung on the lyre. Since I kind of have to keep practicing every song I have in my lyre lexicon, or I forget them, I only want to stick with songs that give me a frisson of pleasure every single time I play and sing them.
"Cup of Wonder," for, as a Fb friend of mine would say, the happiness of the people. :)
Crochet at the moment is two projects. One is a slouchie beanie for me made from that beautiful hand-painted yarn from my friend, Marigold and dog, plus some red that complements it nicely. It's a bit of a slow one since the fingerling weight/4 ply yarn is so fine, and the half double crochet stitch is one I always find a bit awkward, but the result is pleasing.
The other one is the new 'flowery pasture' afghan for my middle niece. So far I have this many squares and it looks like it might be quite nice. Sometimes you get to a certain size and realise that the design isn't working and have to change plans. So far so good. We'll see!
Interesting how the colours change under flash or lamp light. Lamp was even worse. Those are all different greens in the background, no purples or navy blues, I swear to you!
We have a few fine days in a row forecast here. Glorious sunny cold days of middle winter. I plan on making sure I get out into them as much as possible! I'm sure the dogs would be glad to hear it. They're loving their crispy cold morning walks!
This is dear little Skila, who I got to give some pats to yesterday while mum and I were visiting a brigade friend for a cuppa. Always love an extra doggy fix!
She is a lovely gentle family member. Dogs are so cool! Aren't we lucky to have them, in all their varied forms?
The Virginia Creeper on the back of the cottage is turning pink.
The days are cooling off, allowing for later cups of tee on mum's verandah enjoying the lushness of her garden and the changing colours of her trees...
I especially enjoyed our cuppa with my good friend, Amy. So did Angus. He LOVED Amy and had to get up on the table to get closer to the pats. :) No we don't care if he does that. We don't have entirely undisciplined dogs, but we had one boy who we'd get up there to have massages for his sore back, and the habit of letting them up there kind of stuck. I appreciate that it can be a bit surprising for guests, but Amy took it in good spirit, as she does everything in life.
I started writing my eleventh novel today! I've had a few months away from actual first draft writing and it took a little while to get back on the horse. New chair, updated Open Office programme... stuff like that can really put you off your game. It's all about letting yourself write onto the screen with as little interference to the creative flow as possible, so the less you have to think about in other ways is very helpful.
Anyway, Land of Giants is on it's way. 1299 words, and already interesting stuff is happening that I hadn't planned. I love writing novels!
It's going to be very hard not to share the story as I go, but that's not how I work best. I do best by keeping it to myself and just writing as steadily as I can, so I can get to the pleasure of people enjoying my finished novel at the end. I think sharing too much along the way makes me lose that urgency.
Insert picture of hunky hubby's amazing arm muscles. Yummo!
And his very sexy red braces...
Double Yummo! How lucky am I?
In more creative news, we went and saw my middle niece in a play on Friday night, Shrek Jr. It was so funny and lively. Gee it is lovely to see all those kids, so talented, so bright and clever. Go see some kids in an amateur play if you are worried about the future of our youth. :) I'll see if I can get a pic of Molly for a future post but here's Niamh with some of the cast after the play.
Look at all those lovely bright faces. They all sang, danced and remembered amazing amounts of lines. Excellent work from everyone involved!
Hang, on stop press! Sis sent me a pic of the whole cast. Molly is one of the guards in orange and blue on the right hand side of the pic, the one in front.
They're still playing at Roleystone Theatre all this week if you are local and want to go see them.
Niamh and I did more art the other week but I haven't done a newsy post since then. First we did the different proportions of the face from front on and profile, looking at how the average faces divides up. She drew this lady, who she calls an Emo. :)
Then we had Andrew as our life model. She did a great job of drawing him.
See, you can hardly tell the difference!
Mum and Angus went to their first retrieving trial of the year yesterday and won the restricted class. Well done Mum and Angus! That's them out of restricted for good now, so they will only be able to run in the tougher all-age trials, but hopefully now he's had 'brain surgery' he can concentrate a bit better and it will be their year to shine!
In other news, Rosie is happy.
And Cyrano assured me that the roll hanging over the yarn there was purely made of fur!
Spring or Autumn Equinox, this is a time of balance between dark and light, heat and cool, energy and rest. It is one of my favorite times of year, when winter is on its way and some blessed cool gives us relief at last from our long summer.
We've been doing plenty of this and that as usual. Andyroo is due to go back to work next month unless we can win a lottery. It's sad because we get on so well and have such good times together. In the meantime we are catching up on all those chores we planned to do while he was off work and that ended up taking a back seat to Fire Brigade activities.
Last weekend I spent at a course for Structural Firefighting. I learned a lot, including why I'd rather not enter a burning building! All kudos to the red truck guys and gals who do this for a living!
We did a lot of work on safe ladder use, especially handling the big three length ones.
Apparently the term for correct raising of the ladder is 'lifties', or it was by the time we'd finished, but then you get that sort of thing happening when there are five ladies in the course! Yes five, and only four guys! Go girl power!
I also got to use a few different types of fire extinguishers to put out fires, and that was fun. Seeing how fire acts in an enclosed room was scary, but it is always good to know more than to be ignorant. I'd like to hope that I'll never need to know, but if I do, I'll be ready. Using the bigger fire hoses was fun too, but rolling them all up afterwards was knackering!
Then, I went back home to rest and do something much more genteel. The afghan is two circuits from being finished, but of course I still can't show it to you yet. Not till it's been gifted! Cyrano Kitty still likes to lie on it but prefers me to be doing kitty-patting instead of crocheting.
Yesterday my youngest niece, Niamh, came over for an art lesson. We did a still life of a couple of my Amigurumi, and practiced using a pencil and your thumb to get scale, then using watercolour paints on watercolour paper. She did a good job!
Been a long time since I taught art to anyone. Luckily I seem to remember how to do it.
Things are uploading very slowly today for some reason, so I think that will do for my blog post. I have a book to finish editing, and a floor to clean. The sublime and the domestic. Balance. :)
