With the help of Amber's 48 Hour Express Blog Setup, I'm planning to set up my own domain with a blog this week. Having witnessed what can happen when doing a move like the one Amber has got planned for me, and gotten her warnings about what can happen, I'll continue to have the blog here at this address for a while longer, and will give plenty of warning before making the final transition.

For some reason I wasn't getting all the email notices that I'm supposed to when a new comment is posted, so thank you for all the kind thoughts and good wishes!

We're fine; I've just been the kind of busy where posting on the blog is a low priority. We did have a little more property damage but everything is repairable or replaceable and we feel very fortunate.

Now if my party-hearty neighbors would just quit it with the loud (ILLEGAL) fireworks that get Trip and Zeke all bark-bark-bark excited and freak the crud out of Ferret…

vegan cinnamon rolls, recipe from The Joy of Vegan Baking

In retrospect, it looks like I needed to take a break. As reported earlier, the last few months included my recovery from repetitive stress/impinged nerve problems that had me resting my hands as much as possible, my laptop hard drive going *ka-poof* and taking a bunch of stuff with it (vital things were backed up but, unfortunately, that didn’t include some of the most recent drafts of patterns in progress), and my taking on job #3. My car, a 20-year old station wagon with nearly 150,000 miles on it, blew a head gasket and I decided to retire it and not replace it, at least for the rest of this year.

my little brother, hard at work

There’s something cyclical about my relationship to doing design work and pattern writing as a job; sometimes I’m staggered by how smoothly it goes and how delightful it can be to work on something I love that feeds me creatively, and sometimes I’m staggered by how it seems like choosing to be a designer dehumanizes me to others in some ways. Sometimes it’s the things I have no control over that have me throwing my hands up in the air and wondering if it’s worth continuing. I’ve negotiated different ways of dealing with these situations over the past few years, applying things that I’ve learned. One of those things, for example, is that I am terrible with deadlines and other parts of my life are often a higher priority, and so I’ve taken a long break from submitting designs to publications.

homemade soymilk in progress

There are so many other things I want to do. Sometimes I think that it’s a problem, that I get pulled in so many different directions at once and that if I could just focus on one or two things, I’d be better off. I scaled back on some things – like how much time I spend online doing things like reading and posting on Ravelry forums about knitting, crocheting, and designing – instead of actually knitting, crocheting, and designing (interesting how that happens). Games and puzzles online have been a big distraction too, and I’m setting time limits for myself so that I don’t stay up late playing “just one more round.”  I’ve also found myself eating out much more than usual. I’ve been in the habit of eating out for lunch for a long time, but I’ve also been eating out for breakfast and dinner more often. Some nights I’d get home late, so hungry that I’d just eat half a box of crackers for dinner. This is doubly unusual, because I like to cook. I like food, as my waistline can tell you, and I am one of those people who also feels compelled to feed other people, yet I hadn’t been preparing my own food or cooking for other people very much. After I got back from Portland, one of the dogs figured out three different ways to escape from the yard and follow me down the street to the bus stop, and when I got home, the dogs would all haul their butts down the driveway like I had steaks and chicken wings hanging out of my pockets.

Hanalei Moon, quilt piece by M. Lea Ingram, displayed in the 2008 Hawai’i Craftsmen juried exhibition

So I started picking up more books at the public library, finally finished watching Seasons 1 and 2 of Heroes, realized I could mix a batch of cupcakes in 20 minutes (am working through Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World, so far every recipe I’ve tried is fabulous and one of my sisters is arguing for having the Green Tea cupcakes as Thanksgiving dessert), got caught up on the podcasts I wanted to listen to, took advantage of the unlimited texting plan kidlet and I are on, and quit feeling guilty about the unfinished patterns piling up in my notebooks. I’m still learning how to use my shiny new laptop (my previous laptop was 7 years old), my hands feel great, and the dogs have mellowed out again. They still accompany me to the gate, and greet me when I return, but without all the whining that was happening for a couple of weeks.

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Call it my muse or my mojo or whatever you want to, but whatever it is, I think it may be back.

I got home from Portland and my computer went into a coma, taking all my trip photos with it, among other things…I have backups of a lot of stuff, but not every single thing. I've been trying to get caught up on other things since I got home. Normally I prefer to avoid the post that says "I have nothing to post right now" but I realized it's been about 3 weeks and I figured some of you would want to know that I'm still alive…

This week has included: even more sporadic internet access (my laptop can't find the signal when I'm standing right in front of the transmitter?), kidlet getting so wound up that she up and forgot a bunch of stuff I'd already told her, my first full day of training for the new job* (see photo above; that's lithified ash for those of you into that sort of thing) and me having to get a bunch of stuff done ahead of time since I'll be missing at least 2 class meetings. The Aloha Knitters will be at the Honolulu Academy of Arts Family Sunday this weekend and I plan to be there.

My Etsy shop will be in vacation mode until early October; I will be checking my email but I don't know how often I'll be able to and how much time I'll have to read and reply. I've got two more Etsy shop profiles to share with you (I think you'll find them worth the waiting) and other things in the pipeline, so I'll definitely be back but for the next week or two this blog is going to be lower on the priority list than usual. It's funny how just a few years ago I could do just fine with sporadic internet access (on dial-up!) and now if I can't get a consistent wireless signal I complain.

*Yes, that brings me up to 3 jobs if you count my Etsy shop too. What? I'm only taking one class this semester.

This week was the first week of classes, a week in which my car broke down (again), I have been the figure-of-authority for a blossoming adolescent, the wireless network I use during the day has been very spotty, I have been waking up much to early for my personal taste (see above: broken car and blossoming adolescent who sets his alarm clock for 4:30 am and even though it sounds like a smoke alarm going off next to his head I am the one who wakes up). I have a priority list currently topped by homework, housecleaning, and reviewing non-violent communication techniques for use with boys who have gone from being chatterboxes to monosyllabic conversation enders.

In other words, the series of posts featuring Etsy sellers is on hold this week, but will be back! There’s so much I want to share with you, but tonight I’m going to make Impending Teenager’s favorite dinner (pork adobo served with rice and no questions), read 8 chapters, and try to get to bed early. See you next week!