Hello Again

False Alarm!  Got you!  :P

Just kidding.  After a long day, I am in Colorado.  And it is TOMOZ that the no-internet business will start. :)  So here're just a few pictures we snapped today.

Bye, y'all!

AMZi x x x x x

Goodbye

Well, my last post before I take off for two weeks.  No access to electronics whatsoever.  Ergo, no posting. Sadness. :(

Ultrasadness because I just received something by post and it's very exciting and I wanted to show you...  But no matter!  When I return, I shall personally take you on a little tour round the world, in a way.  We'll have lots of fun.

And besides the shopping (I'm actually far from broke, but I'm a lot broke-ER than I usually am :P) and the packing and the lists and the counting and the planning and the *yawn* break-taking, I've been to the pool for the first time this summer!  Opened early.  I did NOT get in all the way, it was perfectly FRIGHTFUL but the sun was nice and it was refreshing as deep as I got.  So now I have that tired feeling, comfortably hot, you know that you get after you've been out in the sun and the water and then you come back in.  I really just want to go to bed, but I've got a suitcase to load up.  *sigh*

So I'll see you all later, around the 13th, and I've got stuff to show you then, so don't forget about me in my absence! :)
AMZi x x x x x

Lists

It's been dodgy round here lately...seems like one minute I'm crazy busy with all this stuff hanging over my head, and  the next, I'm sitting around with nothing to do!  Company coming, going.  Writing and then thinking and putting off and then making myself write again.  Abruptly running out of my rack of books to read (AAAH!!!  *instant shiftlessness*).  Suddenly remembering that I'm supposed to have a Bourree memorized by this morning... *cough* hope my violin teacher isn't reading! :P  Trying to figure out what to take, what not to, how to SURVIVE two weeks without my simple comforts...

One being music.  I am so dead here.  I'm taking the guitar conmigo pero no puedo tomar my iPod.  I keep catching myself saying, Oh, it's okay, I'll be fine, if I get upset, I'll just listen to that one--no.  No, I won't.  AAAHHH!  

Remember that post from day before yesterday, I think?  I hope they have leafy trees in Colorado.  I hope they have big sunny skies.  Dorothy, you won't be in Kansas anymore!  

So I've been making lists.  Don't get me wrong :: I make lists all the blooming time.  I make lists every day, for multiple reasons.  I usually have a master list, utilizing good old pen and paper, with checkboxes and everything I have to/want to get done that day.  I love checking them off!  If I forget to add something and I do it, I will actually add it after the fact just so I can check it off...  Yeah, I get that look a lot.  :)  

And I keep tucking away little things, adding things to lists or to the Bag of Awesomeness (aaahhh!  Did I mention yesterday that it is GREEN?????).  Things that I KNOW will completely change my mood from terrible to amazing...  Like this book ::

This.  Book.  Is. Amazing!!!  A brill friend gave it to me a few years ago (after I kept trying to steal her copy...always found out by the un-suppress-able laughter...rats) and ever since, it's the one thing I can count on to make me completely forget to be mad/sad/whatever.  I will laugh out loud (very loud) no matter how many times I've read a particular sentence.  Take this for example ::

"An angry Martin Luther nailed ninety-five theocrats to a church door.  The Pope's response was to declare Luther hereditary." 

Noooo, Pope, you don't say??  Watch out for his children!!

"Calvinists were the only ones who believed in pre-detonation.  It is not surprising that their preaching consisted mainly of dogmatic explosions."

You have got to be kidding!!  That is like...like a genius thought it up as a joke, instead of a mistake on a term paper!!  Oh, and I am very much a Calvinist, if it sounds like a disrespectful joke.  It's just hilarious!

Oh, and some AMAZING unintentional French jokes.  (Sorry, Frenchies, nothing personal really, I just...yeah...grrr...haha)

"The Quebec Act was an Intolerable Act because it would have required Americans to learn French in school."

HEAR HEAR!  INTOLERABLE, I TELL YOU!

"Another problem was that France was full of French people."

Ohhhh, that explains EVERYTHING!  XD

If I don't stop, I'll go on forever!  WARNING :: Not all of the book is exactly PG... Heh heh.  Mainly misspellings of inconvenient terms...  You have been warned.

But everything's kind of winding down before it winds up, if that makes any sense... Two more days!
AMZi x x x x x  

I Have Been Swayed

To this point in time, I have been a staunch Pockets Person.  I was NEVER ever ever a Purse Toter.  (Ooh, that sounds so derisive, say it really sourly :: PURSE TOT-er *shudder*)  Ever.  But in the course of human events, as they say, some things happened.  Things Generally Do.

These things cause el padre to have fits about me not being a PURSE TOT-er because it was inconvenient.  What's worse, Pippin took his side!  (Pippin, how COULD you??)  Though she did make some good points--get an over-the-shoulder bag, and you won't put it down and walk off without it (which I what I do).  Sigh, sigh, conniptions, fits, tears, sighs again...okay, not really.  I kinda moaned a little and rolled my eyes at the most.  Dramatic sighs are just more dramatic.

I knew I wouldn't consistently carry a purse (ugh what a word!  Let's say "Bag" shall we?) unless I seriously loved it.  Just like I wouldn't wear a watch unless I found one I really really liked.  (Which, by the way, I did, and it's big and clunky and leather and ivory-faced and has the timer ring and is like a parachuter's watch with big numbers and all and it PWNS)  I'm thinking camo.  I could deal with a camo *cringe* purse.

No beans.  But guess what I found instead?  A bright green satchel-type shoulder-bag awesomeness thing!  I have been converted to the Bag-Carry-Ers Society.  Yes, I'm afraid it irrevocably true.

It's got nice pockets and it holds everything, from sunglasses to wallet to phone to camera, with room for a book or two if I get bored. :)  I guess it WAS about time, as I'll be traveling soon and will want something to carry my effects (what a word!) in....

But PLEASE let's not call me a Purse-Toter.  More like a Bag-Slinger.  Yeah.  Like a gunslinger, but...with...a bag.
AMZi x x x x x

Three Things...

That are so Awwesooooome that I just can't get over them!  You'll probably hear of them again from me before long.  I just can't get over them.

Thing #1 :: The way the floor shakes when the elders walk up the center aisle of the church in unison.  I wait for this, two times every week, as they're distributing the Lord's Supper.  For some reason it just gets to me!  I had to put it in a book, Allemande to be exact, because it was such a tangible thing.

            The organ sang out, the strains of the hymn rising into the high ceiling, echoing wonderfully down the nave.  I could almost feel the deep tones of the foot-pedals humming through the pew into my back.  Then the organ burst into a resounding chord and died away, leaving silence still colourful to my ears. 

            I caught a metallic clink from far behind me—the distinctive sound of a shining plate being passed.  Then the elders walked forward in unison, up the aisle toward the front of the church.

            I scooted forward on the pew until my feet reached the floor.  I laid the soles of my shoes flat against the stone and waited.  The six elders approached steadily, rank on rank of feet.  They passed our pew and the vibrations of their footsteps travelled into my feet.  I smiled broadly as they passed and settled back into the pew.

            Why did I like the feeling of all those feet marching solidly up the aisle?  I couldn’t explain it, but it seemed one of those odd pleasures allowed to me, since I couldn’t see.  Others had the way the daffodils’ stems bent at the head; the way pale green and pale pink looked so well together; the way snow glowed in the little shower of light from a lamppost.  I had the reverberating footsteps of the elders as they took the communion plates to the front.  It was almost enough. 

            When I was young, Mum made me a big, heavy book, bulging with thick pages.  It overflowed my lap when I opened it and spread my fingers on the page.  She pasted a bouquet of textile delights into the hefty paper.  Thick velvet, and rabbit pelt, and sandpapers of various coarseness.  A cool, sticky piece of flat silicone, a wrinkled piece of paper pulp, and a square of shaggy carpeting.  Leaves with distinct, raised veins, Chinese coins with holes in the middle, lumpy woollen yarn—every spread became an exploration. 

            I traced the embossed cover of the hymnal as I stood to sing the hymns I knew by heart.  And the echoes of my thoughts surged through me like the shaking of the floor under the feet of the ages.

Thing #2 :: Fences in the fields in the summer...

Man, a scene like that just makes me crazy...  When you're driving out (South until the streets stop!) and you get to a hillside with a big green field and a fence and a bunch of black cows... Maaaan.  That's it, I'm telling you.

Thing #3 :: The way the leaves rustling sounds just like the ocean...

I love the sea.  I love the Great Lakes.  I love little lakes.  I love cow ponds.  Okay, I love water, period.  But I live in landlocked Kansas.  Small problem, yes?  But it doesn't matter!  It makes all the difference when the spring finally comes and the trees leaf out at last.  It's amazing.

Anyway, so that's what I've been thinking about lately.  I've been writing Chapter 7 on and off while working on this post (pictures take for blooming ever to upload) and I think I've just finished it.  AND once again, I didn't actually get to the point I was hoping for (reporting to the Admiral) but it's already 1,000 words over my goal/limit.  So, I guess we'll arrive at the fort NEXT chapter!  *sighs*

AMZi x x x x x

Soooooooo...*snore*

*wakes up*  Oh!  Yeah!  Title!  *cough*  Sooooooooo...Tired.  Indeed.

Very muchly.  We went bicycling this afternoon, and I hold up well enough during the ride, it's just after it... I... die....  Sort of.  I am so tired.

Add that to preparing mentally and packingly for two weeks out of the house alone.... Ayi!

A heck of a lot of reading, editing, critiquing, commenting, revising, checking, writing...  Summer workshops have begun, which means editing my own chapters and reviewing other peoples's so that they will think I am nice. :P

So I am making excuses, yes.  I refuse to feel guilty.  I'm too...*snoooorreee*

Fun game though (okay, maybe not so fun...fun for ME!) :: When you're driving down the highway for hours straight (south till the streets stop!) and you're kinda bored and all, it takes you a little under a minute to get from mile marker to mile marker, right?  So the game is this :: You have to figure out the factors of the number of the mile marker before you get to the next one.  So you can picture me driving along, looking at cow, muttering under my breath, "Is 111 a prime?  Hmmm... 3 into...  2 left over, that gives you... No.  No, it's not.  3 and 37--Oh boy!  110!"

AMZi x x x x x

Arts of All Sorts

Yesssss, I know posting has been dodgy lately...  I didn't mean to, honest!  I got kinda busy, and then I thought I was busy so I mentally "let myself off" and then I wasn't busy, but I didn't have the mental order to...yeah.  Oh well.  Besides, not much going on lately.  Mostly writing.  I'm almost halfway into Chapter 7, which is nice.  I'm telling you, except for Chapter 5 (which was kinda my fault just not sitting down and telling myself what I wanted to do) I've had no stuck issues.  The ideas just keep pouring in for how and why certain events occur!  I'm so excited--I'm crushing a few hopes in this chapter.  Ha.  I sound devious there.  Oops.

So besides the art of writing, I've been working on some other things, casually...  I have a new theme on the piano, if that interests anyone...I haven't composed anything in awhile!  Been mainly arranging.  But I don't worry, you know?  Some night I'll sit down and just KNOW, if I sit there long enough, it'll come out.  Handy that way. :P

Yes, my colored pencils are 2-4 inches in length.  I snatch up all the stubs around here, which is funny because I have big hands, but they work for me!  I have to sharpen them manually, but I don't care.

I love lined up stuff. <3

El hermano of savvy-ness (what can he NOT do?) carved this for me!  I have several others, in normal pencils, all with their own personality.  This one's long beard twists around the pencil!

So a little drawing, a little writing, a little music, a LOT of reading (I mean a LOT), and photography when the mood strikes me.  Oh, and to complete the various arts, here are the pictures of my other Fiber Arts projects.

Go ahead and say it! :P  Actually, check this out...

And a drawstring tapestry-woven bag.  Weft-facing.  Eternal project.  Maaaaan.  It can always be squished down more than you want it to!  (Probably the technical term for squishing down is beating...whatever!)

There you have it!
AMZi x x x x x