Category Archives: Words Words Words

Trudging Through January

I need to be honest with myself about something. It’s okay to not enjoy what you’re doing. It’s a valid way to feel, especially in January when sunlight is at a premium and the cold snaps suck the life out of your bones and soul.

The project I’m handling for work right now started out as okay. It was given to me in a rough state, and I had plenty of warning regarding its requirements and inflexible deadline. The editor asked specifically for me to handle it, which was flattering and confidence-boosting, and my copy chief gave me a general raise for the consistently excellent quality of my work (woo!) plus an extra project-specific raise because it was heavy and on a tight deadline. I went in very positively. And as the pages dragged on, I got more and more bogged down. I began to feel irritated with the author for not doing her work properly. And then as I hit the halfway point, that irritation bloomed into fully formed anger, and I started dragging my figurative heels. Working on it made me feel so negative that I found all sorts of ways to not work on it, which is unlike me. (Having to go the grocery store every day this week was not a way to avoid work; it was necessity because things weren’t being written on the list as they were needed, and while it gave me a bit of the break in the morning between dropping the kids off and coming home to work, it was still frustrating on another level.) I was having so much trouble that I couldn’t choose music to work to, which is a sign that something has gone very, very wrong indeed. Nothing worked.

I have to struggle with some inner tension about this. I don’t like not enjoying what I do. I take pride in my work, and I get seriously upset when others don’t. When sitting down to work became an instant trigger for anger, I needed to step back and think about what I was doing and how I was handling it. It’s my job to fix other people’s writing. If they did it right the first time, I would be out of that job. I was requested for this project because I am sensitive to an author’s reception of an edited manuscript. (Been there, done that, and apparently I am also naturally gentle and civil in my communication.) Part of my frustration is also stemming from how slow my pages-per-hour rate has been, because the manuscript needs so much work. I’m working hard and feeling like I’m getting nowhere, which is always guaranteed to tax my patience.

I know part of my tension is also coming from the weather. We’re suffering an incredibly bitter cold snap right now. The kids haven’t been able to play outside for a week, which means that the daily high temperature has been below -25 C for over a week now. Owlet is going through some kind of developmental phase where her own patience is being tested, and she’s flipping into tantrum mode so easily that we’re kind of taken aback, because it’s very unlike her to do that. Sparky is working on taking responsibility for bringing home the correct books and papers necessary to do his homework, and you can read between the lines there and extrapolate the frustration both of us are feeling about that.

So I have had to step back and disengage from my personal frustration about this project. I am here to help this person. Being angry about the uneven research and the vague, circuitous writing and incomplete sentences doesn’t help. It’s my job to turn lazy, vague writing into succinct, active prose that conveys information clearly to the reader. This is a non-fiction project (as my last three have been — hmm, that’s interesting; I edit fiction more quickly, I must remember that) so I’m doing a lot of fact-checking. That slows my pages-per-hour rate a lot.

I will put on yet another pot of tea, and get back to it, now that I feel a bit more grounded and on an even keel again. Sometimes I just need to write it out.

Back To School

Everyone in the house is back at work and school today, except me. I worked overtime through the holidays, which wasn’t much fun for anyone, let me tell you. It was a nightmarish project, and I handed it in last night, so now I am free for however long it is before the next assignment comes along. This is traditionally a slower time of year.

I owe the journal a Christmas roundup and Owlet’s twenty-nine-months-old post from yesterday. I’d like to do a 2013 in review post, but at the rate things are going it probably won’t happen. Let’s consider it a pleasant bonus if it does.

[NOTE: Those two posts were published on January 13 and now have been backdated.]

Owlet: Twenty-Nine Months Old!

This past month, Owlet learned how to play hide and seek. I tripped across this while some of Sparky’s godsisters were playing it with him while they were visiting, and found Owlet sitting under the chair at my sewing table. “What are you doing there?’ I asked. “Ssh,” she said. “She’s playing hide and seek,” HRH explained, who was helping. It was rather adorable. So now she has added “hidaseek?” to her game of “chase me, chase me!” It’s nice to have a wider range of games to choose from.

She learned “Jingle Bells” and “Frosty the Snowman” at daycare, and sang them all December long with great gusto. Or rather, she sang the first verse of each over and over. Sparky and I managed to teach her the “fa la la” bits of “Deck the Halls,” which provided some relief for our ears.

This holiday season she finally got the concept of parties, too. The first one was the daycare party. “Par tee?” she said. “Chrissmass par tee? Chrissmass par tee, yay!” “More par tee,” she cried when we had to leave to take her home for her nap, an hour later than usual. We promised her more par tees throughout the month, and she grudgingly agreed to leave.

The laid-back “Shuuure!” has returned to her vocabulary, which has levelled up again in an undefinable way. Maybe it’s just that her pronunciation has sharpened a bit, making what she says generally less fuzzy and easier to understand. Maybe it’s the new and as-of-yet still occasional use of the pronoun “I.” Maybe it’s that she’s putting concepts into words more easily than she used to. All I know is that not understanding her is now a rarity, and when she does say something that is gibberish-like to our ears, it’s more frustrating than ever for everyone involved because we’re all so used to communicating clearly.

She has similarly levelled up in her physical self. Suddenly a bunch of her leggings and pants are too short (speaking of which, Sparky’s jeans all suddenly all too short as well, argh); suddenly the sleeves of her snowsuit are just barely long enough; suddenly half her socks are only good for wearing to bed now. She can put her hands into her mittens and get her thumbs into the mittens’ thumbs on the first try. (WOO! We worked really hard on that this winter, let me tell you.) She can go up and down the stairs without a death grip on the railing or an adult’s hand. And I’m just going to come out and say it: She’s toilet trained. We were holding off confirming it until we knew she was night trained, and she’s mostly fine then. She wears a pull-up just in case, but they’re dry in the morning. During the day she takes herself off to use her small potty whenever she needs to and often doesn’t tell us, which means we have to remember to check it periodically.

Her two-year-old molars are finally coming in, after a couple of months of irritation. The lower left one is in, and the lower right has finally broken through. She’s old enough to stick her fingers in her mouth and say, “Mouth hurts, Ty Knoll, pease.”

Her current favourite books are In a People House, her Frozen storybook, and the Sofia the First book she got for Christmas.

Bedtime has become a kerfuffle of sorts. She goes to bed nicely for her dad, not so much for me. So we’ve split up the bedtime routine: I do the reading part, and HRH takes over for the cuddle. It makes me a bit sad, because I love the cuddle part of bedtime, and I miss singing to her, but this way it’s over in half an hour as opposed to two hours. She just thinks it’s playtime if I’m cuddling her, and still hasn’t figured out that if she’s quiet I’ll stay, but if she continues to bounce around our time together will be over, and then we have to go through the crying and the repeated returning her to her bed.

Over the Christmas break, Janice brought us the stunning quilt that she has been working on since before Owlet was born, and it’s simply beautiful. Back when she proposed doing it, I gave her a general colour palette, and we discussed patterns. I wanted something that looked like a Brigid’s cross, and we found a pinwheel variation that looked perfect with the right piecing. The guild acquaintance whom Jan had lined up to do the actual quilting got through her queue of other work and finished it up this fall. It’s crib sized, and I was worried that the switch to the big-girl bed meant we wouldn’t see it very often, but it’s folded and lying across the foot of her bed so we can see it every day, and the colours work perfectly both against the coverlet and in her room.

Look how gorgeous this is.

And look how the feathery quilting motif softens the right angles of the pieced quilt top.

(The quilt is straight. My photos and how the quilt was laid on the bed are not.)

The soft green flannel of the back complements it perfectly, and I cannot get over how perfect the binding and border fabric is; the brown and gold pulls everything together. You can see the quilting motif really well on this side.

Both my children are very, very fortunate to have heirloom-quality quilts made for them with love by family friends, along with the heirloom-quality knitted items. Someday they’ll know just how wonderful all that stuff is. For now, they just know joy because we have friends who love them, whether they bear gifts or not.

Stuff I Did In 2013

Wow. Busy year.

Knitted two and a half pairs of socks. No, actually, if we’re adding up individual socks I knit three full pairs, because I knit three for Sparky’s Gryffindor socks, two for my slipper socks, and one so far for my own pair of regular socks. Ha ha! Six socks! (Too bad that’s not how it actually works. Sigh.)

I knit a complete child’s pullover sweater. How crazy is that. It was also my first test knit for someone.

I knit one and a half cap-sleeve sweaters for myself. The half is because I had a half-done one languishing in my cupboard since something like 2006, I finished it, realized it wouldn’t fit, frogged it all, and reknit it. It’s technically finished, but I need to undo the bindoff and add an inch to the bottom. I should add that I made some original modifications to the neck and sleeves that actually worked. I think I’m getting this knitting thing.

I knit a lot of blanket squares for my friends in my online mums group. And then I seamed two of those blankets together and knit the borders on each from yarn spun especially for them.

I spun twelve ounces of yarn for a friend’s project. I spun a similarly crazy amount for my mother’s stunning cabled wrap, and then dyed it, too. And I wonder why I don’t have a lot to show for my spinning time this year. Most of it belongs to other people!

In other areas of my life, I switched the bread recipe I use, and I’m liking the more artisanal loaf we get from it. I also started making my own yogurt, which is a big thing because I loathe yogurt. HRH and Owlet adore it, though.

I stopped using commercial cleansers and moisturizers on my face, observing how much happier and healthier my hair and scalp were when I quit using sodium lauryl/laureth-laden shampoos and silicone-sibling conditioners, and thinking that my face would probably react in a similarly positive fashion. Turns out my face is much happier not being stripped of everything (good and bad) and then having stuff smoothed back on to rehydrate it. I’m using the oil-cleansing method, and my tricky-to-handle, acne-prone face has never been happier. So happy, in fact, that I only have to do it every two days. So yeah, colour me impressed. (Also appalled at the ruthlessly-strip-then-requires-deep-moisturizing-with-unhappy-stuff-that-needs-to-be-stripped cycle that our consumer society has tricked us into repeating endlessly.)

I cut my hair, a lot. I’m hacking off three-quarters of an inch every four to five weeks. It’s nuts. I thought a couple of times that I’d grow it longer again, but I look so tired when it’s shoulder length that snip, off it comes, and I look so much healthier and brighter with it at about chin length again.

I was pretty healthy overall, the trip to the dermatologist and his concern over one of my moles aside. (That’s being taken off and sent for analysis next June. It’s difficult to reconcile “concern” with an eight-month wait for removal and analysis, but whatever.) The other health scare that had me sent a specialist also ended up fine, so another deep sigh of relief and hurrah for that. (Also, I now have a gynaecologist who is awfully nice.) I went back on my fibro medication this summer, and after a two-month period where it felt like it wasn’t doing anything, things suddenly clicked into place and the pain is manageable and energy levels are more consistent. Sleep is less of an issue, although still a big sensitive spot for me.

I kept up with Downton Abbey and Sherlock, we discovered the My Little Pony reboot, and I dropped Game of Thrones because the level of depicted violence and sex turned me off. I know, I know; I’ve read all the books. But the way HBO is portraying it is different, and it’s not enjoyable to watch for me. And life is too short to make myself read crappy books or watch TV that I don’t enjoy. I’m getting very good at cutting stuff like that out of my life.

In fact, I’ve looked back over the past couple of years, and I’ve done a better job at releasing toxic friendships and limiting contact with people who stress me out. I have a limited amount of energy to keep myself going. I need to protect it. I’m doing a pretty good job at saying no and focusing on the most important things in my life.

I’ve done some editing work that I’m very proud of, both private and through the publisher I work with. I’ve had the privilege of reading some great stuff before its release and helping to make it even better. I love my work, even when it drives me to excessive chocolate consumption like the most recent ones did. (Oh dear gods. You will never know, because the resulting books have correct facts and dates and are stronger in general. That’s what I do, and I’m fine being anonymous.)

I didn’t have a lot of time for cello, but I seem to be doing okay in that area. Just getting out once a week and carrying through on the orchestral commitment was a priority. We played some great stuff in orchestra, and I’m proud of my Suzuki work, too.

I read much less than I usually do (hmm, I should start including the books I edit; those totally count, why do I not do that already?). Although “usually” has taken a hit these past threeish years, so maybe this new lower finished frequency is the new normal. Standouts for me were the second in Elizabeth Bear’s Steles of the Sky trilogy and Kerstin Gier’s entire Ruby Red trilogy. I finally got around to reading Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus, which was lovely. And courtesy of Tamu, I got to attend Neil Gaiman’s only Montreal book signing/reading tour stop ever (it’s hard to believe, but his previous stops here have been con-related, and he retired from touring after The Ocean at the End of the Lane one ended).

Music-wise I discovered The Doubleclicks, who should adopt me, because wow, it’s like they know everything inside my head. Also, cello.

Christmas 2013

Christmas was busy, and it was snow, and it was family. And it was tiny new additions to the family. More on that later.

We decorated the tree the same day we had the photos with Santa done. The only drawback was that the tree we’d chosen (all tied upon the lot, of course) was lovely and full and bushy. So full, in fact, that it took up a quarter of our tiny living room. My spinning wheel needed to be moved into the hallway for the holidays, and the furniture had to be Tetris-ed in. But as ginormous as the tree is, it smelled and looked fabulous! And there was plenty of room for all our lovely ornaments.

On the night before the winter solstice we told the kids they’d each get a Yule present to open the next day, and we talked about welcoming back the sun. We talked about how it was the longest night, and how once upon a time people must have despaired that the sun would ever come back as the nights got longer and longer. We said that we lit candles to shine like little suns to help the sun find its way through the dark on that longest night and return to us the next dawn. Then we lit our candles before they went to bed and said a prayer for the sun to be strong and brave, and Owlet was terribly excited. I’d forgotten how much Sparky loved doing candles for things when he was her age. (She was so excited that she asked to do it for her nap the next day, and the next two nights at bedtime, as well.)

The next morning, we all got up, blew out the candles and said “Yay, sun! You did it! Thank you, sun!” and Owlet wandered around while we made breakfast, randomly shouting, “Yay, sun!” and “Thank you, sun!”

After breakfast Sparky asked if they could open their presents. They each had a wrapped book under the tree. Owlet got a Sandra Boynton Christmas book (with Pookie in it! Well, it isn’t identified as Pookie, but it’s totally Pookie). Sparky got a handbook for taking care of rabbits. He was very pleased, saying that now he could be ready when he got his rabbit once he turned ten, which was the going deal.

But I asked him if he thought he could read it in five minutes instead, to be ready. He looked at me, not understanding. So we told him he was going to visit one of HRH’s students to choose a rabbit of his very own, and he couldn’t quite believe it. We all piled in the car and drove over, and we all sat on the floor with a litter of ten eight-week-old dwarf Netherland bunnies hopping around and over us, grey and cinnamon and black and tan, and it was the best fun. They were so very well socialized that they hopped right into our laps and cuddled, and didn’t freak out a bit when Owlet picked them up and carried them around the way toddlers all pick up four-legged beasties, around the chest and tummy. After much deliberation and interacting with each one to see whose temperament was best suited to him, Sparky came home with this one, who was the smallest of them all.

Meet Solstice, everyone. His back is dark like the night, and his tummy is light like the sun. He is calm and loving, and I don’t think Sparky put him down all day after we got home. Which is fine by Solstice, apparently, who is happy to snuggle.

We’d been sitting on this secret for over a month, buying a huge secondhand cage and the supplies required bit by bit, so we’re pretty thrilled at how it went over. Sparky was warned that because this big present was so big, he wasn’t to expect any of the big things on his Christmas list, and he was so happy it didn’t even make him pause. Sparky and Solstice were pretty much inseparable for the entire Christmas break. If the rabbit wasn’t in his arms or lap, it was next to him in a laundry basket with some toys and hay while Sparky played video games. The rabbit met everyone at the door as soon as they walked in, held out by an excited Sparky who was eager to share his new buddy. He’s a bright and cheerful little thing, who loves to do that neat jump/kick thing happy bunnies do, and to scamper from one end of the bed to the other as fast as he can. He’s fine with the cats, although Minerva is a bit overeager with him, wanting to tussle roughly like she would with a kitten, and Gryff is kind of a bit scared, to be honest. He has visibly grown in just a couple of weeks, and now has a little cinnamon patch between his shoulder blades at the back of his neck, like a little sun. It’s adorable. And Solstice loves just hanging out.

He is very patient, too.

Christmas Day was great. We had both sets of grandparents with us, and it was a genuinely lovely day. I forgot to brine the turkey, but it was acceptably tender despite that. There were new clothes, and books, and video games (including the new Skylanders Swap Force set that Sparky had wanted but had figured wasn’t going to happen since he’d gotten Solstice instead, and which he’d already finished by the end of the holidays, yikes). And Her Owletship’s big gift was a lovely soft cloth doll from Pottery Barn Kids, and a doll bed HRH built for her, with bedding that I sewed for it:

It’s a miniature of her own bed, see?

I was spoiled with cookbooks and new knitting needles and a lovely sweater, a miraculous thermal tumbler that keeps tea hot for hours, and gift certificates for more books and tea. It was hard to focus on things and keep up with the unwrapping, since I spent most of my time facilitating the kids’ experiences, and I ended up with a small pile of gifts to open on my own at the end. One that wasn’t under the tree was the Apple TV that HRH and I bought ourselves on crazy sale halfway through December. We are very impressed with the home network streaming, the cleaner interface with Netflix, and the ability to rent movies from iTunes. It works very well for our needs.

The weather was clear, sunny, and cold, so there were no walks through the neighbourhood, but the company was wonderful, the food supplied by everyone was delicious, the day rolled along smoothly, and we feel very fortunate to be able to spend time with both sides of the family like this. And then we had a few friends over on the Saturday, which was lovely, too, and on the Sunday we gathered with the Preston-LeBlancs in their new house for our annual Yule singalong, and all our wonderful holiday traditions were complete. We feel very, very blessed.

Santa 2013!

Hey, guess what? Owlet’s 28-month post is still not up, because I need pictures that are on HRH’s phone and we are never with it enough when we have a moment to actually download and transfer them from his computer to mine. Yes, that’s right; we have no lives, and are brain-dead a lot of the time when we do have a second to sit down.

In its place, please enjoy the annual Santa photo!

(“What are you going to ask Santa for?” we inquired of Owlet before the visit. “Tea,” she said. Thumbs up, kid.)

For the purposes of comparison and exclaiming at how the children have grown:

– The 2012 Santa photo
– The 2011 Santa photo

Early December

We have just lost all our snow to a warm spell and some rain. The children are not happy at all. Neither am I, really; I need snow to get into the spirit of the season. HRH hung up our Christmas lights two weeks ago on a beautifully warm 15 C day, and we plugged them in on the first day of December. After this moderately insane weekend of dress rehearsal, rescheduled piano rehearsal, and cello recital, we will bring in the boxes of Christmas stuff and start decorating. That will help.

We are pretty much set, gift-wise. The kids are covered, or we are in the process of collecting the very last little things we need (there is a surprise coming for Sparky, oh, yes there is, one that is just about equivalent to the HO scale train set he got a couple of years ago). One of our goddaughters is done; the other two will be done in a week or so. My parents are covered; HRH is in charge of figuring out what’s happening for his parents.

As for one another… I paid for half his new leather jacket at Thanksgiving as my early Yule gift to him, and he bought me a set of knitting needles that I have been tracking from the sender for over a week now. And today the Canada Post website told me that my needles are in the city! The people who thought up parcel tracking via website were either geniuses or evil individuals who liked to torture others. The parcel is so close, but it’s Friday and it’s not marked as out for delivery, so now I have to wait all weekend for them to arrive, which will probably happen next Monday. And if the seller wrapped them in Christmas paper, liked she joked she would, it will be even worse, because then they will be in the house but I will feel badly about opening a wrapped Christmas gift before Christmas itself. Because yes, of course I will want to look at them, and even use them.

Owlet’s monthly post is a couple of days late and will go up this weekend, because I wanted to include the very exciting Move To a Big Girl Bed that is happening tomorrow. I’m washing her new sheets and coverlet right now.