Category Archives: Weather, Seasons, & Celebrations

Whoosh!

And the week is past already. Good grief. Here’s a precis of what I didn’t blog about when it happened:

Mum went in for hip replacement surgery on Monday, and was wiggling her toes approximately two hours after surgery, so we are all very pleased about that. (Mum, your crew of extended-family-kids up here have said that if there’s anything they can do for you in the next month or so, you’re to call on them, and they’re serious.)

The boy got an Easter parcel from his non-local grandparents and his favourite thing (other than the chocolate, of course) was a pair of plaid shorts.

Lots of lovely feedback about the concert regarding the programming and the execution and the church. Very nice indeed. I don’t think it was recorded, which is a pity, because of all the concerts I’d like a copy of this is certainly up there on my list.

We’re going out this weekend to buy two webcams, one for my Mac, one for a PC laptop. I’ll bring the PC one with me to my parents’ house and set up a Skype account for them down there so we can see and talk to HRH and the boy. I’ll be leaving the PC webcam with them, too, so the boy can ‘see’ them more often. The webcam and Skype account will also come in handy for virtual cellofamily meet-ups. And yes, I am having lots of fun imagining things like cello quartets played together while the cellists are in three different countries. The sound won’t be brilliant but it will be a lot of fun.

Also regarding cello, I realised this week that I think an important part of studying music is knowing when to put a piece aside for a bit and work on something else. We need time to internalise what we’re learning without the mechanics in the way. Sometimes barrelling through it harms instead of helps. Lots happens in the mind without the cello under the fingers. And at my weekly lesson (Sunday was actually last week’s lesson) we started working on Mooney’s Position Pieces for Cello vol 2, to help out with some of my ensemble pieces for the upcoming spring recital. I’m also working on exercises in Suzuki vol 4 to support the recital and orchestra work, which amuses me because I’m working through the pieces book 3.

I had to go to the doctor for something minor but very irritating on Tuesday afternoon, which necessitated pulling HRH out of work because I can’t get to the doctor via public transport, which in turn required pulling the boy out of preschool because there wouldn’t be time to go back to get him through traffic. And then we waited in the doctor’s office for an hour and a quarter. Sigh. I didn’t have time to hit the lab on the way home but I did get the antibiotics I needed, and they’ve been working.

I pulled the third draft of Orchestrated out again this week, cutting things out of the first chapter ruthlessly, and poking at the brief book summary for a query letter and the three-page detailed synopsis. I’ve been at a very awkward stage with this book for a while now. I need outside eyes to look at it, but I’ve been feeling that I can’t ask anyone to do so because (a) my writer friends are either swamped or (b) triggery about writing issues at the moment, and (c) I’ve agreed to beta for other people in the past and bailed consistently because I’ve been swamped or exhausted myself. Reasoning that it’s much easier for people to handle looking at only the first five pages (the number commonly requested by agents) plus the brief and full synopses rather than two hundred pages of novel, I pulled those eight pages total and asked three wonderful people for help, and they’ve agreed to give me feedback on them. The goal is to tweak till the end of April, then start going down the list of agents.

And work sent me a freelance project Wednesday afternoon, after I waited for four work days. The timing was frustrating because in order to have it approved by Monday to add it to my invoice, I’d need to hand it in early on Friday. And of course, today is Good Friday, and for the first time at this job HRH has both Good Friday and Easter Monday off (this is known as Irony, because we’re not spending the weekend with my parents as we have in the past, when HRH has had to book the Monday as a vacation day), so the boys are both home, which skebards the idea of me working all morning. Plus we’re having a guest over this afternoon. So I had to crush two days of work into one day, and on top of that it was a really rough assignment, one of the ones where you have to crush a author’s dreams by pointing out all the very deep flaws in the manuscript. I worked a bit last night (forgetting that I had to be at the bank to deposit a US cheque with the teller before eight because thy’d be closed Friday, dashed out and was the second to last person they allowed in before they closed the doors, whew), did a final polish and last proofreading this morning, and sent it off. I did the best I could. Now I’m crossing my fingers and hoping that it’s either approved before five PM on Monday, or that my rewrites are minimal.

I’ve been watching Craigslist and Kijiji listings like a hawk, looking for a secondhand bike for the boy (because eighty dollars for a new one? gack). So far we’ve had one strike, and one no-reply. On a whim I also looked for looms in Toronto and I found a listing for a 32″ folding rigid heddle loom, for less than half the retail price even before exchange and what shipping would cost me. I shot off a quick query, and wonder of wonders it was still available, so I have put the money aside for that and I’ll pick it up when I’m visiting my parents. (Note to self: Bring the big suitcase so you can get it home.) It’s a Kromski Harp, one of the models I’d wished I could get my hands on and had put out of my mind as nigh-impossible. I went so far as to inquire about the Kromski Fiddle, the Harp’s 16″ poor cousin, and one of the few Canadian retailers told me that it would be $165 plus about $60 shipping, so I nixed the whole idea and pulled out the vintage four-shaft loom I had and started bashing away at it, trying to make things work instead of easing into the weaving world via rigid heddle loom. Rigid heddle loom are less complicated than my four-harness table loom and much more portable, and it’s the portability and weaving width I’m really excited about. Apart from being over the moon about the find and the incredible price, I’m thrilled about having a weaving width of about 31″, about twice the weaving width of my current table loom. It’s less flexible regarding pattern potential, but I’m at a point where I’m more interested in basic weave fabrics right now anyway. And the folding loom comes with the place for a second block for a additional not-included heddle, which creates a two-harness situation and extends the pattern possibilities to the equivalent of a four-shaft loom (each rigid heddle has an up, a neutral, and a down position, which creates two sheds). And did I mention that it’s portable? And that it has a weaving width of something like eighty centimetres? I’ll enjoy sharing it with my mum on my visit. Also, this means I won’t have to rent a spinning wheel from the shop that disappointed me at Christmas, and that I won’t be stuck knitting all week, something that would certainly drive me mad.

Now, I need to make potato salad. Have a wonderful Easter weekend, everyone!

Good Things

1. The leaves on the lilacs out back are ready to pop. They’re so excited about spring that even the branches have a green tinge to them.

2. This morning, thanks to a post on a weaver’s Yahoogroup I belong to, I followed a link to an Etsy listing, and I FOUND OUT WHAT MAKE MY LOOM IS! Yes, those are all caps, and no, I didn’t think I would be this excited about it, either. Turns out I have a Structo Artcraft 600 loom, probably from the late 1930s judging from the iron levers, when they stopped making toy looms and started making real ones. And just with that wee bit of knowledge I tracked down some Structo history, a Yahoogroup devoted entirely to Structo looms (where I found the original owner’s manual in pdf form with the original patterns done for it by a well-known weaver of the time), and had the excitement of adding my loom’s specs to my profile on Weavolution (sometimes referred to as “the weavers’ Ravelry”). I am so thrilled. There’s a whole subculture of Structo loom owners out there, and they’re considered sturdy workhorses with flexibility. Hmm, sounds like my Louet spinning wheel…

3. The taxes got done on Friday. It didn’t take as long as I expected it to because I had fewer receipts and such to sort out than previous years. I made more than I thought I did last year (the Canadian equivalent for my anthology editing fee was more than I remembered it being) and I spent much less, mostly because I wasn’t working on an original contracted book and so didn’t need the research materials. (Well, there’s also the fact that my two major purchases were a cello and a spinning wheel, neither of which qualify as work expenses.) I’ll probably break even, which is no fun because I was hoping for a couple of thousand back to dump on my Visa, or into my very empty ING account. But bundled together with HRH and with the RRSP tax credit, we’ll probably be okay. It’s done, which is the main thing.

4. My mum goes in for hip replacement surgery today. Keep her in your thoughts!

5. I have a pot of beautiful purple hyacinths that the boys brought home for me last week. They bloomed and now the entire house smells like spring. And I saw two little crocuses (crocii?) just about ready to open up in the front garden yesterday.

6. The concert rocked! More on that in the weekend roundup, which is next.

In Which She Ruminates On The State Of Things

I’ve been doing a very good job of recording what’s happening, but not how I’m feeling. That has much to do with the fact that I’ve been feeling lousy for a good long time now. (Or perhaps that should more correctly read ‘a bad long time’.) This isn’t a particularly cheerful post, so be ye warned.

Winter really wore me down. I was cold all the time no matter what the heat was set or or how many sweaters and socks I piled on. I was in pain a lot of the time, too. And now that it’s spring things haven’t changed much. I’m still struggling with a sinus cold that’s dragging on, some major back and muscle pain, and ongoing fatigue. Mentally and emotionally I’ve been pretty fatigued, as well. I’m having trouble reading, of all things, not being able to focus or retain information for long. I have problems thinking through a project, whatever it might be. I’m finding it hard to focus through an entire piece of music while I’m playing. Heck, I have problems thinking through a conversation. I know it’s fibro. That doesn’t help me much.

None of this is doing my self-confidence or self-esteem any good. Pretty much the only thing I’m handling right now is freelance work on a very light basis. Weaving takes time and energy to set up and the actual weaving part is over too quickly. (Somewhere in my mind there’s a little voice saying, “Well, it would take only a bit more energy to warp a larger loom, it might actually be easier and less cramped, and you could do a longer warp for a bigger project that would last more than two or three hours of actual weaving.” To which the responsible adult part of my mind replies, “Yes, well, a larger floor loom costs money, of which there is none, is there?”) I did a bit of sample spinning with some of the incredibly lovely cashmere that Bonnie sent to me, and it’s exquisite: it’s so light and soft that I joked about sleeping with it on my pillow and carrying it around to pet it. I also spun up the Corriedale/Tencel blend I did on the homemade hackle and it’s very nice indeed, quite silky; it would have a lovely drape if knitted.

Part of my problem is because my focus is all over the place, I’m having trouble with time management. I never feel like I’m accomplishing anything of worth. Which is wholly untrue, I know. I’m bringing enough money in to cover my bills, though not any more than that. I’m baking a lot and feeding my family. I’m handling at least one freelance project per week, from start to finish; I’m at my desk nearly six hours a day because it’s slow going, though. I’m better at cello than I was even three months ago, although I’m not practising much because I don’t have the energy beyond getting to orchestra and my weekly lesson. But I lost the three-day a week yoga schedule I was doing, I badly miss being able to write, and I’m feeling generally lacklustre and rudderless. I suspect that last is partially due to the knowledge that we’re moving at an undetermined time this year, and there are other undefinable things up in the air time-wise, too.

I didn’t realise how bad it all was until I began considering a really short haircut or drastically colouring my hair last week. That’s usually a certain sign that I feel powerless and not in control of what’s going on. I’ve actually been avoiding getting my hair cut, mainly because I can’t afford it, and also because the boy asked me to grow my hair long again. I haven’t decided if I’ll do that or not, but for now that’s what’s happening by default.

So that’s the state of things, as they have been for some time now. I’m restless, can’t focus, feeling worthless, and really down on myself because I feel like I can’t do what I want to do for a variety of reasons. A lot of this is health-related. Some of it is the time of year. When the sun came out for over a week it noticeably helped, so I know things will get somewhat better as spring moves along. I just have to hang on till then.

Weekend Roundup, Spring Edition

On Friday night I had my cello lesson where some things fell apart, and others worked. I guess overall it was good, but there were parts that left me really down. This is the part of the-tearing-apart-current-technique process I hate. I know to expect sounding awful while my brain and muscles struggle to implement new info, but it doesn’t do much for feeling good about yourself or your work. A new étude that my teacher assigned had me trying to figure out what it sounded like, and I finally made the connection: it was in the same key and rhythmic pattern as the piece my teacher had suggested doing for the spring recital back in January, the Bach Gavotte from the third Suzuki book, a piece I love. I shared this insight with her and she was slightly taken aback, because we haven’t started it yet and usually she prefers students to present a polished piece they’ve worked on for a good long time. So there was miscommunication: I expected her to assign it when she thought it was time, and she perhaps forgot or had just been thinking aloud. She suggested doing the Lully Gavotte instead, but told me to work on both as the Lully has lots of stuff we can apply to the Bach, and if the Bach is good enough we can do that. We have three months; we’ll see what happens.

Saturday was our spring co-coven all-day retreat. I was up at six baking a double batch of cinnamon buns that I’d mixed the night before. We left at quarter to eight to drop the boy off at his local grandparents’ house, pick up the last-minute supplies we needed, get gas, then pick up our two coveners and get to the workshop site (theoretically for nine, but we didn’t make it there till nine-twenty because of traffic and losing a bit of time at every stop). The morning was great: the cinnamon rolls and tea or coffee, then our opening ritual that invoked the energy of the elements in various ways to bless the weather, our creative pursuits, and new beginnings or reawakenings, then a good talk on shield theory, and a discussion comparing and contrasting the handling of energy in Reiki and magic. Lunch always arrives surprisingly quickly, and it was fabulous: cannelloni, honey-garlic chicken, salad, and homemade bread. The main ritual was a guided meditation, after which I had to leave for a replacement rehearsal at orchestra as we’d lost two earlier in the season due to weather and March break.

The rehearsal was good work. Things are starting to come together, although I have determined that I have White Stick Syndrome. This is similar to White Coat Syndrome in which people’s blood pressure skyrockets at hospitals or doctor’s offices, except in my case when the conductor turns around and stands right in front of me to conduct our section I completely lose any ability to read my music and play things I know perfectly well. Sitting second chair has its hazards.

Two and a half hours later I went back to pick up the rest of the crew. We dropped them off and picked up the boy, then went home for dinner. In my quest to turn my son into a fellow Vaughan Williams fan, At the end of dinner I played the Wasps overture for the boy so he’d know it at the concert, and then the March Past of the Kitchen Utensils which came next on the CD (why are there no recordings of this to share? I am sad, it’s a great piece), doing a puppet show for him with my hands over the half-wall between the living room and the kitchen while telling him this was the wooden spoon marching past, this was the ladle, and, timed to coincide with the crashing chords, this was the meat tenderizer, THUMP! He giggled so hard he almost gave himself the hiccoughs and kept saying, “Do it again, Mama, do it again!” I promised him we could do it for HRH one day with the real kitchen utensils, and we went through the tin of spoons and such by the stove to figure out what we would use. I may even break out the fabric stash to make little cloaks for them, and possibly acquire googly eyes to stick on with a bit of blue-tack for extra fun.

Sunday morning I felt awful. I’d worn myself out on Saturday, so the sinus cold that I’d been fighting for the past week gained the upper hand. I took sinus medication, which pretty much knocked me out, and I spent most of the morning in a doze wherever I was sitting. While HRH vacuumed, I showed the boy the live feed of Molly the wild barn owl sitting on her eggs, the first of which was due to hatch Sunday. It’s absolutely fascinating to watch her; barn owls are incredibly elegant, and knowing there was an owlet working on chipping its way out of the egg made it hard to turn the feed off. The first one hatched while we both napped and HRH was out getting groceries, and then the feed went down, so we watched a recording of the owlet instead. (The feed is back today, thank goodness; the servers crashed because so many people were watching it.)

As it was the first weekend of spring, we celebrated by going out for ice cream. We visited the opened-last-summer Bilboquet location in Pointe-Claire village, which has seats inside (our regular spot doesn’t) and it was just as fabulous as everyone who’s enjoyed the downtown location has ever told me. The boy had straight chocolate, I had chocolate with white chocolate-vanilla slabs and nuts in it, and HRH had tire a sucre ice cream, vanilla swirled with real maple taffy from a local cabane a sucre. It was incredible. It’s a limited-time availability thing, so, um, we’ll be going back next Sunday so we can all have some before the season is over. It snowed on Sunday, too, enough to cover the grass again (although it melted overnight) and there was something peculiarly decadent about sitting on the stools at the front window, eating ice cream while watching the snow fall.

Weekend Roundup

Yes, another boring recap of my scintillating weekend activity. It’s for my records, after all.

My very sore throat of Thursday developed into a full cold on Friday. I slept badly Friday night but got up at 7:30 to make sure that I had a leisurely morning before heading off for my cello lesson at 9:00. It was a great lesson with some excellent breakthroughs (such as one doesn’t move one’s left elbow forward while crossing strings, one moves one’s forearm, so as to avoiding “breaking” the wrist; I love making discoveries like that), but it was an intense lesson and very draining. Got home, put down the cello, picked up my bag of fibre projects and supplies, and packed the loom into the car, and HRH, the boy and I headed back to the West Island. They dropped me off at Ceri’s, where we were having our monthly craft session, and I got a quarter of the loom warped. The boy and HRH went to Tal’s house to help move some furniture around, and the boy had a terrific time playing with the young lady of the house. They picked me up a couple of hours later, sharing some of the delicious quiche and apples and cheese and cucumber sandwiches we’d assembled for lunch before we all departed. When we got home we managed to get the boy to nap, despite it being almost two hours later than usual. I napped as well, being totally flattened by the morning and early afternoon. When we got up the boy asked to play Lego Star Wars, and played through two new levels of it mostly on his own, with just a little help from us, for which we congratulated him enthusiastically. Evidently my nap refreshed me, because while he did I made my homemade iced cappuccino (slushed milk, cocoa, brown sugar, and coffee in the ice-cream maker), a batch of chocolate-peanut butter cookies (kitbashed together from two different recipes plus cocoa), and I made another homemade spaghetti sauce for supper. I even remembered to put the clocks back on Saturday night.

It was rainy and windy and damn cold when we got up on Sunday. We had our regular pancake breakfast, I mixed up a batch of bread dough and set it to rise, and then I packed the boy up (an hour later than I wanted… we were all rather slow) and we ran errands together in the storm. I exchanged my new red earbuds for lavender ones, we picked up cat litter, and went to the library, where I discovered that I had a late book for the third time in my life. (All three times have occurred in the last year. Hmm.) While the boy napped I warped another third of the loom, got dinner in the slow cooker, and then headed out for our monthly group cello lesson, where I played my lines rather better than I’d anticipated. It’s so much easier when you hear the other lines and figure out where your line fits in (Yes, I realise this contradicts my complaint of last month, where I said that I couldn’t play my line because I didn’t know how it fit in. Yesterday was magically different. Or I practised the new material. One of the two.) We also sight-read two pieces, a cello quartet arrangement of the theme from Haydn’s quartet op 76 no 3 (we sight-read this one last time, too, but we all had different parts this time; last time I think I had the viola part, and this time I had the first violin) and a piece by Rameau.

I was exhausted but restless last night, and slept badly again. My back has been achy for three days straight, and while my cold is almost gone, the boy is home with me today because he now has an occasional cough and has a bit of sinus congestion; we weren’t sure whether to send him to preschool or not, so we erred on the side of caution. We kept him home but when I spoke with his educator she said she had the same thing, and if he was the same tomorrow to send him in anyway. So he is home with me today, and is very energetic (as always; we know he’s really ill when he is listless). If I felt better I’d take him out to the park or something, but I suspect we will do crafty things instead.

Weekend Roundup

Spring hit this weekend, with a vengeance. I wore shoes outside for the first time in months, and a spring coat on Saturday. The boys spent a lot of time going for walks or trike rides (and oy, the boy has so very outgrown the tricycle) or shovelling snow from banks in the yard and spreading it on the gardens to melt there, because we had below average precipitation this winter and the gardens are going to be very unhappy. (HRH was also trying to put the bulbs back to sleep by piling snow on top of them, but I suspect it’s not going to succeed.) As of this morning, our snow was gone in the front and side yards, and it’s not going to take long for what’s left in the back to melt either…

Also, we suspect the boy is on another growth spurt (we’ve given up counting), what with the multiple meals and two-hour naps.

Friday night I measured the warp for a pillow cover. The first warp I started measuring seemed way too short, what with loom waste, so I doubled it. In the end I realised that while I was wrapping the warp I was thinking I’d doubled it, but with two wraps per measure I was actually quadrupling it. Oops. (I wish I could say that it worked out to two pillow covers, but with loom waste it would only be one and a half. If I did the fronts in the woven fabric and backed them in plain cloth I could have three throw pillows, though. It bears consideration.)

Saturday morning the boy let us sleep in for two blissful hours, playing on his own and watching cartoons. I was supposed to take Ceri to some quilt shops to help her choose fabric for her baby quilt, but I got a call saying that something has come up and she’d have to switch the outing to sometime in the afternoon. So I warped half of the loom instead, had lunch with the boys, and picked Ceri up around two. We spent an hour and a half in the first (and, in the end, only) quilt shop, pulling out different fabrics and laying them against one another and having a wonderful time. Ceri went home with all her main fabrics for the quilt blocks, we had tea and cake, and I came back home. The boy decided that he wanted spaghetti for dinner, so I made a sauce. After he went to bed I finished warping the loom, and then wove while HRH played Dragon Age.

Sunday morning we went out and did our weekly grocery order. We also hit the office supply shop and I finally got a new binder for my cello lessons, as the smaller one was chock full. There were earphones on sale and I picked up a pair of red ones, but now I’m thinking I should have picked up a lavender set because it would be less of a contrast with my black and white damask-patterned iPod skin. I’ll exchange them this week.

Sunday afternoon ought to have been skating with the Preston-LeBlancs, but HRH remembered that he doesn’t have a pair of skates, and even if I’d had the energy I couldn’t take the boy instead because we couldn’t find my pair. I couldn’t weave during the boy’s nap because the levers of the table loom go clunk, so I spun some of the llama fibre Jan picked up for me last month instead. It sheds like crazy and even when I think I’m over-spinning it, it tends to drift apart.

When the boy got up I wove for a bit, then took the cello downstairs to practice because I had a lesson scheduled for that night and I wouldn’t be able to play in my office like I usually do since everyone was home. I regret not practising downstairs before, because the sound is phenomenal down there. And the phenomenal sound went with me to the lesson, which was great. We are moving on from Boccherini and working on Webster’s Scherzo now, which is nice for the change, but is also all about the incredibly controlled bow movement.

Dinner last night was a truly delicious pork roast with baked potato wedges and raw veggies. Worthy of mention, anyway.

And through it all, the weather was spectacular. I am reminded yet again how much of an impact the sun has on my mood.

Dear Winter:

I feel it only fair to warn you that yesterday afternoon on the way home from school, the boy informed his father that he was done with winter. “Because,” he said, “I can’t really make snow angels any more, or play properly, because it’s too wet. So the snow can melt now.”

Winter, you’ve done your best (which, just between you and me, was a slightly below-average turn, but we’ll discuss that on your annual performance review). However, you’ve just been given your walking papers by the kid who plays with weather like it’s a Transformer.

See you next year.