Category Archives: Cogging for Kibble

Catching Up

December was, predictably, somewhat frenzied.

Work:

I edited a math book (or rather, a parent guide to math from pre-K through grade 5), and found a case of plagiarism in the second chapter, plagiarism so glaring that the author had even copied the mistakes and misspellings from the website. This is not the way to my heart. I documented it thoroughly, finished copyediting it, and sent it along to the editor, whose problem it is. It took me a while to calm down, though.

When I handed that in, I got another project immediately, which I edited over Christmas. It wasn’t as intense a schedule as last Christmas when I worked on a manuscript three times as long (with issues, oh, there were issues with that one), but it was enough to keep me busy. (And stressed out during yesterday’s ice storm that had our power flickering as I raced my deadline. Fun times.)

Just before Christmas, I also got a very interesting query from a major game studio concerning my availability at certain points in 2015 and wondering if I’d be interested in talking about handling some copyediting work for them. Of course I was. Am. Whatever. Let’s see what happens. Today I had my small panicky meltdown when I was asked what my rates were, and now I’m fine. It just needs to go through the contracts people in HR or whoever it is, now.

Music:

My teacher’s studio recital was a couple of weeks later than usual this year, taking place on December 21 instead of the first weekend of the month.

I am very happy with how my piece went. HRH filmed it with his iPhone for me, and I finally watched it a couple of days ago. While it sounded like the intonation was a bit odd overall, I suspect that is more due to the church and the poor wee iPhone striving mightily to record me seventy-five feet away, because it sounded fine under my fingers. Did I mention how happy I was with how it went? As in, no qualms or destructive self-criticism whatsoever? I don’t think that’s ever happened. I think doing this Wagner piece was very good for me. I’m sure my teacher will have comments when we view her (much better) video of it this weekend at my first lesson of the year, of course, but I am sure she will also be very excited about how well it went.

Christmas break:

We hosted Christmas at our house this year again, and both sets of grandparents joined us. Dinner was lovely, and we even managed to get the good china out this year. (We didn’t go so far as to dig out the good cutlery. Let’s focus on the small victories, though.)

I think the gift we were the most excited about receiving (apart from watching our kids be thrilled about everything they unwrapped) was our set of Paderno pots and pans. We gleefully stripped all the mismatched and bent stuff off the pot rack and hung all the new shiny ones. Cooking with them is a dream: they’re heavy but well-balanced, they sit level on the elements, and they clean up in a breeze. We adore them. The other big thing was that HRH designed and built Owlet a dollhouse for Christmas:

More details about that will come in her 41-months/January post, whenever that happens, since the 40-month/December post isn’t even up yet. Maybe I should declare amnesty on that one and just jump to the January post.

HRH and I took Sparky out to see Big Hero 6 after Christmas, which we all thoroughly enjoyed. Two days later, HRH’s parents came to spend the afternoon with Sparky and Owlet while we went out for lunch and to see the last Hobbit film. It was so unusual for the two of us to be out together, let alone without kids, and the experience was very enjoyable. Sparky told us how lucky we were to see two films in one week, and I had to point out that since HRH and I only see two or three films in a theatre each year, it was more like we were just fitting them in before the calendar restarted.

Sparky:

Sparky completed his first session of art classes in mid-December. Before it ended I asked if he’d be interested in registering for the next session, and he said ehn, not really. I gently pointed out that we’d have to figure out another extracurricular activity, then, and he buried himself in a book and ignored the situation. But when he brought all his art home the following week and we went through it, we saw some really good stuff, and told him so. We hung the canvas he’d painted, and framed a beautiful multi-media piece he called “Birch Trees in Winter” that he’d done at school, and suddenly he was very excited about going back to art. He got a pile of art supplies for Christmas from us, too (thank you, Michaels, for your crazy sales and decent-quality student stuff) and was thrilled. This year he also told us (repeatedly, in whispered asides) that he knew we were Santa. We’ve never really perpetuated the Santa thing; we’ve always told the kids that Santa is an idea, a representation of love and generosity and sharing, one of the spirits of Christmas. So this wasn’t a disappointment or a betrayal; it was more like he was confirming that he knew he was part of it, consciously helping to spread the joy and love associated with the season. He’s growing up.

Solstice also celebrated his one-year anniversary with us. We call it his birthday to keep it simple, even though we know he’s actually eight weeks older. Happy birthday, fuzzybunny Solstice!

How Is It December?

This year has flashed by. I’m not panicking about it, just feeling slightly sad. Owlet’s post for last month is still in draft form, and her next one is due tomorrow (ah ha ha, that’s not going to happen). For all the time I’m spending at the computer, not much of it has been writing in any form.

I’ve been tangled in horrible paycheque luck these past three months. The most recent snafu is that accounting has recently discovered that no, Canadians can not in fact be paid via direct deposit, which is a complete contradiction to what they said when I checked with them in early October. The direct deposit option was being promoted as a quicker way to be paid, and after the really, really, really late payment earlier this fall, it had sounded like a good idea. Everyone is horrified and apologetic, and I’m waiting to be paid. The accounting department is swamped because two of their full-time employees retired this summer, and the new employees are making mistakes and working more slowly. There’s not much I can do except wait. Which is stressful on its own, of course, because not only can I no longer schedule an expected payment date into my agenda and work out a household budget with any confidence as I used to (it used to be four and a half weeks from the Friday of the week my invoice was sent through, like clockwork), but I can’t even expect the payment process to be flawless (other than slow). I’m sure it will get better… eventually.

I’ve been prebooked to copyedit another book on math, which is great; not only do I already have a stylesheet for the other book in the series, but my December work schedule is taken care of. I’m also slowly working through a private editing project of picture books, which is fun but challenging on how to schedule it into my other work, as well as how to think about it/approach it and put my thoughts down on paper for the author.

I recently applied for a copyediting position with a quarterly magazine incredibly relevant to my interests. The editing sample they asked for consisted of working over a five-page article, which took me a day and a half because it needed a lot more work than the example they’d provided as a guideline, and I was constantly referring to the house stylesheet and making decisions in a bit of a murky situation. However, a zillion other people also applied (many non-professionals as well as professionals). Yesterday they announced the position had been filled (by a professional), and that they’d been spoiled for choice with a lot of perfect people, but they could only choose one. I am moving forward, disappointed but not devastated, assuming I am one of the perfect people who didn’t get hired. It would have been more lucrative than my ongoing freelance job with the publisher, and the work would have come at four predictable, reliable times per year, so I could have organized my schedule around them. But it wasn’t to be.

Our fall concert went well last Saturday. We brought Owlet, and it was her first non-Canada Day concert. As always, I wish I’d done better, and hoped the people sitting closest to me weren’t hearing the sludgy mess I made of quick finger-twisting bits. Our next concert is in March and we’ll be doing Beethoven’s seventh, which is very exciting for the celli and bass. Up next for me is our Christmas studio recital, which is a bit later than usual this year, on December 21. I’m working on a transcription of Wagner’s “Song to the Evening Star” from Tannhäuser which is asking a lot of me in the letting-go department.

The furnace went on the fritz a couple of weeks ago, necessitating repair. We had the money, but it meant that the optometrist appointment and new glasses I was planning on didn’t happen, and isn’t going to for a while. (See above re. unreliable payment schedule.)

I think that’s about it. Knitting is at a standstill, because the shawl I’m working on is now at the 400+ stitches per row point, and there is always something else that has to be done instead of knitting a row. I’ve spun a couple of yarns, but I’ll save those for another post.

In Which the Summer Comes to an End

Hmm. I found this draft in my folder today. It’s three weeks out of date, but should be posted anyway. I’ll follow it up with the resolution below.

Yesterday, I was two days away from handing in this staggeringly large project, a project twice as long as most, done within the same time frame. Except I lost four days at the beginning because HRH was away, so instead of meeting my 45-page quota, I did maybe 30 pages total before he got home, and so my daily quotas had to be reworked until I had to pull off crazy numbers per day.

In two weeks, both the kids will be back at school/preschool full time. (Or as full time as Owlet gets, who is actually part time, having Wednesdays off.) Yesterday, I was looking forward to racing to the end of this project, of handing it in, of having the last couple of weeks off with the kids, who have been struggling but handling things relatively well this past month with both of them home and me working full time.

And then yesterday, work contacted me, and asked if I could pick up another project as soon as I handed this one in. Two week deadline. Math, of all things.

I cried, a bit. Freelancing means working when there is work and socking away the money, because when there is no work there is no money coming in. Kids don’t understand that. Sparky burst into tears when I told him and had to close his bedroom door and wail for a while.

It has been a frustrating summer. Working full time at home with both kids off school is like taking your kids into work with you every day. Think about that. Everyone’s tempers are very short, there is lots of whining, and my productivity is taking a severe hit.

I had to take it. Work has happy — my copy chief said that I’d saved them, which was nice to hear, but wouldn’t mean much to my kids.

My kids rose to the occasion, though, and allowing them liberal movie time plus working at night and overtime on Labour Day weekend meant that everything turned out okay. I’d finished Sparky’s back-to-school shopping in July (allow me to pat myself on the back here) so that wasn’t an issue. I handed the math book in on time, and decided to book off a few days, because as much as a freelancer has to make hay while the sun shines, I have been going nonstop since May. Summer is the busy season in publishing, and I was handling enormous projects with lots of details. It’s nice to know I’m valued for these particular kinds of manuscripts, but I had three in a row, and I was, honestly, burnt out. I also need to prep a four-hour workshop for this coming Saturday at Sacred Cauldron, and with my reduced brain cells, there was no way I could juggle that plus a heavy assignment again. Fortunately, there’s a lull, so I haven’t had to formally book off.

One of the huge cheques from a crazy project I did in July came in, so I treated myself to some books and some fibre, as well as a pair of hand carders. The problem is, I’ve been going full-bore for so long that even though a lovely stack of books is waiting, I keep drifting around with a work hangover, vaguely thinking there is something with a deadline I need to do first.

We did it; we survived August, a crazy, crazy month, with me working full-time at home with both kids home full-time, too. I am putting money aside every paycheque now to make sure Sparky can go to camp next summer. Not that it will be as terrible, because Owlet won’t have a break from preschool like she did this summer because her daycare closed at the end of July and her slot in the new daycare didn’t open till after Labour Day; she goes straight through.

General Update

Let’s use a numbered list! Those are fun!

1. We are settling in nicely with the Cruze. It is still red. HRH drove it to Pennsylvania and back last weekend for Clan Camping, and apparently it handled like a dream. We’re getting insanely good gas mileage. I think, apart from the trip to PA (where they also filled up a lot less than expected), we have put gas in the car all of twice, neither a full tank.

2. I am currently copyediting a 600-page, 300-recipe French cookbook. This has had three major effects so far: One, I want to slow cook everything (as I said the other day to Daphne and Ceri, “mijoter TOUTES LES VIANDES!”); two, my desire to drink wine has increased proportionally to the direction to pour wine in every second recipe; and three, my desire to cook everything in butter has also increased. It is a pretty tight schedule, since it’s about twice the length of a standard manuscript but I have the same timeframe in which to complete it. HRH is back at work so my daytime work hours are reduced with both kids home, which doesn’t help with the stress levels. But I am in the home stretch, with less than 100 pages to go before my deadline this week.

3. I registered for this year’s Spinzilla, spinning for Team Kromski. This is a week-long event hosted by the TNNA (AKA The National Needlearts Association, specifically the Spinning and Weaving Group) designed “to motivate spinners to learn new skills, take risks, and spin their hearts out. It is also a fundraiser for the NeedleArts Mentoring Program (NAMP). NAMP connects adult mentors with school age children to teach the needle arts — spinning, weaving, knitting, crochet, and stitching.” The basic goal is for teams try to spin as much combined length as they can. Plied yarns count for the length of the singles used to make them. In other words, if you end up with a 300-yard three-ply yarn, it counts for 900 yards of spinning. (Turns out the plied length counts, too, because you ran it through the wheel to ply it! So a 300-yard three-ply yarn would count for 1200 yards!) This is mildly insane because Canadian Thanksgiving happens during that week, but we shall see what kind of game plan I can draw up.

4. I read The Apprentices by Maile Meloy, which is the sequel to The Apothecary. It wasn’t as good, unfortunately. I also recently read Indexing by Seanan McGuire, which was fantastic. I got my copy of Beth Smith’s Spinner’s Book of Fleece book last week, and when this project is handed in I intend to sit down and enjoy it from cover to cover.

5. I will also enjoy trying out my new hand cards after this project is done!

I got paid for a crazy project I did a month and a half ago (recently it has been all huge or crazy projects, which is good for the bank account, not so good for the stress levels) and I took some of that money and bought a pair from Colette at her spinning studio. I also picked up some pink and purple Corriedale that Owlet fell in love with, so I shall practice carding by blending some Tencel with each of them and knitting her wee socks and mittens.

6. I forgot to mention that HRH painted the bathroom at the end of July. I came home from a week with my parents and the shabbiness of it finally made me snap. He scraped off the white paint on the wall soap dish (who paints a soap dish?), replaced the soggy MDF shelf above the sink, and painted the dark grey walls a lovely spring green. I love it so much more.

7. I bought a new computer monitor on sale a week or so ago. It’s a 20″, and it is astonishing. I can easily have three or four documents open on my screen and flip through all of them easily. I have no idea how I survived with a 15″ for so long.

That’s life in a nutshell right about now.

Random List of Updatey Stuff

Last week, we traded our beloved Saturn Vue in for a Chevy Cruze. We were almost convinced (the gas economy on the Vue was worse than abysmal, even taking into account the size of the engine and the age of the vehicle), pending my test drive and agreement, when the Vue’s transmission decided to stop functioning on our trip to southern Ontario. Six hundred kilometers from home is not where you want these things to happen. Fortunately, when we’d taken the loan out on the Vue we’d bought an extra insurance for it via the dealer that covered exactly this kind of thing, so HRH called them, they sent him across Toronto to the garage they dealt with, and they handled it beautifully. We paid the $83 dollar deductible plus the cost of the diagnostic test; the insurer paid absolutely everything else, no fuss, no arguing. We’re so impressed that once the manufacturer’s warranty runs out on the Cruze, we’ll be buying this package again. But the whole experience made us very cranky at the Vue, and also at the timing. It was kind of the final straw; we felt a bit betrayed.

So yes, we have a new car. It is red, which is not among my favourite colours for cars, but of all the reds it could be it is the most acceptable. We have had it for six days and the fuel economy is so awesome that I swear little angels sing to me every time I check the tank gauge. It is lovely to drive, but I miss my Vue terribly.

This is Owlet’s last week of daycare. She will be home through all of August. I can’t help but feel that I should be doing something very productive with my time as it ticks away before this Friday afternoon, but instead I am sort of stumbling around, recovering from my month and a half of going at full speed. I handled two intense work projects back to back, and then I turned around a ten-day project in four days just before we left on our trip. (Possibly insane, but I did it.) My allergies are really, really bad this summer for some reason, too, so bad that they’ve triggered my asthma, which hasn’t happened in years. That’s sucking a lot of my energy. This morning I finally found an old inhaler and used it. Now I can breathe again, but I’d forgotten that Ventolin gives me the shakes. So after coming back from dropping Owlet off and doing half the back-to-school shopping with Sparky, I had to lie down on the chesterfield with a blanket because I couldn’t do much else. Fibro backlash plus a not-so-great reaction to medication; charming.

I am trying not to worry about August, when both kids will be home full time. It’s hard enough to get Sparky to stop whining that he doesn’t know what to do, and to keep my temper when he shoots down every suggestion I have for him. I’m trying to gear up for having them both here, and for the fact that I will have to work nights and weekends if I get a contract. We can go grocery shopping every couple of days, go for walks, find a local playground, and play in the backyard (maybe fill the pools if the temperature gets warm enough again for water play). The age gap makes it problematic at times. Owlet’s idea of a walk is to the end of the street and back, stopping to crouch and examine leaves, bugs, and flowers, or stomp in puddles if it has rained; Sparky gets frustrated because we’re not getting anywhere. She’s not old enough to play Lego with him; he’s not young enough to let her direct the play if they bring out the Thomas trains or the cars or whatever, getting upset if she deviates from the complicated game he sets up. The age difference between nine and three is really big.

Craft stuff is going to be what I turn to a lot of the time, I think. I’d like to have a defined craft time every day. I’ll pick up pads at the dollar store for Owlet, and some canvases for Sparky. I think he may find working with acrylics on canvas interesting. We can do some plasticine, and maybe some homemade air-dry clay that can be painted on a subsequent day. I’ll get a bucket of chalk to draw on the top part of the driveway. Owlet is old enough for bigger beads, as well; we can make necklaces, bracelets, and maybe ornaments for trees. And I’ll certainly make a calendar that we can use to count down the days till school starts again. I know she’ll miss her friends and her educators terribly. Unfortunately, most of them planned to go on vacation for the first half of August, so we can’t even plan playdates till they’re back; but once they are, then that will help, too.

Blur

It’s the fourth of the month, which means there would be an Owlet post, yet there is not. There hasn’t even been a post for Sparky’s ninth birthday yet. The Tour de Fleece launches tomorrow, and if haven’t done a post on what I have lined up as my project(s) for that.

I am swamped by work. My last project took a lot out of me, and this one, which the publisher lined up ahead of time to start on the very day the other one was due, is 450 pages of single-spaced text with equations and tonnes of reference material. I’m 250 pages through it, and my pace has really picked up as I solve certain issues and can look for more of the same going forward. It’s due next Wednesday night, and I will be glad when it’s over, because it’s thoroughly draining me mentally, apart from making me work evenings as well as days.

I will catch up next week.

In Which She Creates Her First PowerPoint Project

(Or whatever the Google Drive equivalent is…)

Sparky’s class is doing a Careers module. As part of this research unit, parents go in and do a 30 min presentation on their jobs. I volunteered, and then wondered what on earth I’d do to make my job sound interesting. I mean, I love it, but I’m sure “looking at text for mistakes” sounds like a prison sentence for nine-year-olds. Especially when they’ve had a jeweller come in — “I wore a titanium ring!” — and a firefighter — “He showed us how he kicks in a door!” His best friend’s mom showed them how to make a website. I will be so boring to them. I will be all, “Words and sentences are cool! Be responsible for your writing!” Yawn.

So I suggested to Sparky that maybe I could do a PowerPoint presentation along with my talk, since he learned how to do them earlier this year, and he was very enthusiastic. I have never done a PowerPoint presentation before. It didn’t exist when I was in school. (Remember, dear readers, critical analyses of works that were the focus of my thesis were researched in actual printed books of Arts indices and physical copies of periodicals. The Internet was only a few tubes with a couple of cats in them at that time.) These grade 3 kids use a SMART board daily, though, so I need to be up to their speed.

So as of early this afternoon, I am ten slides into creating my first PowerPoint presentation ever. It’s entitled “What Does a Copyeditor Do?” and covers where the copyeditor fits into the publishing process, why copyediting is important, what tools I use, and that kind of thing. I am probably not allowed to say stuff like “My superpower is saving the world from plagiarism, typos, and incorrect facts.” I bet the phrase “Sometimes I edit using the Force” slips out during the presentation, though.

I’m hoping the coolness of meeting someone who is part of the process of making books carries a lot of it, honestly. And I’ll be emphasizing the importance of taking responsibility for your writing, why plagiarism is bad, and why your writing needs to be as polished as possible, so your information gets across clearly and concisely. Also because it is often the first thing associated with you that people encounter, so it’s an important part of how people form their first impressions of you and the information you’re presenting. It’s to your advantage to make it as error-free, clear, and accessible as possible.

I may not have titanium rings to show off or an impressive uniform complete with axe, but I’m hoping the Chicago Manual of Style and snapshots of a stylesheet and an edited paragraph, complete in all its Track Changes glory, will be at least somewhat interesting.