The Elephant's Child

I Present to You

Brassolaeliocattleya Glen Maindment "Aranbeem" x Brassolaeliocattleya Robert Ferguson "Rainbow Sherbet", or Blc. Rob Schneider for short. HA. 

It wasn't cheap endeavour to buy a blooming-size orchid online and have it overnight-shipped to my house (I used birthday money for the project) but I'm really thrilled with the plant, and with the care with which it was packed and shipped from Odom's Orchids. Of course, all credit for this flower goes to the greenhouse, not to me, since the plant's previous care is what has determined the blooming.  I may never get it to bloom again... we shall see.  I have other exciting orchid news, too, but I'll make a separate post for that. 

Since I Gave Up News I Feel A Lot Better.

1. I stopped listening to the news two and a half weeks ago. Quit cold turkey. More on that below.

2. I've reinstated my Facebook Survival Protocol, which I had in place for a quite a while, but which I had gotten lazy about in the last few months. I have also remembered to "unfollow notifications" on many threads which I've commented on but don't have any great need to know what other people say after me. 

3. I've gotten more writing done in the last twenty days than I have in the last twenty months and that's even with 6 of those 20 days spent at my parents' house, where I did no writing at all.

4. I don't think #3 is unrelated to #1 and #2. 

I've always thought I was a "needs background noise" sort of person. But I think maybe it's not good for me. It doesn't let my mind wander. It seems I need mind-wandering time to write. I need to not have my head stuffed with clutter, and especially, not with other people's clutter.  I need to remember that I am not running "ABC Your Problems Mental & Emotional Mini Storage" (I have a small attic, where I will happily store some of the problems of people close to me, though.) And I most definitely need to not hear about every. possible. crisis. (and everything is a crisis these days) that a) I can't do anything about, b) is silly and frivolous, c) is misrepresented or lied about, or d) will be gone in three days. Which, if we're honest, makes up about two thirds of domestic news coverage, right? The other third of the news is legitimate crisis or concern. 

The hardest bit so far has been learning to be ok with silence. I had been accustomed to listening to a big AM radio station while I sew early in the morning. I had been used to having a podcast to listen to every time I did work around the house; dishes, ironing, cleaning, yard work, all were accompanied by talk of some kind. And I was definitely used to having something on the radio while driving. 

The second-hardest bit has been feeling like I'm missing the party, a bit, not being super up to the minute up to date with news. I'm gradually working out how to solve this, as I obviously do want to keep up with current events, in some way. I relax my "no (talk/news)" a bit on Fridays, after my work-at-home week is done, and will browse a few news and culture commentary blogs that are well-reasoned and intelligently put together. After the initial week with no podcasts at all, I've added podcasts back occasionally for longer, more annoying housework, like ironing or cleaning the house. I've dumped some of the podcasts I used to listen to, keeping the ones that are particularly funny, well done, or thoughtful. 

But I feel better. A lot better. Less random annoyance. Less thinking about disturbing societal problems that there is no easy solution for. More creative. More peaceful. INFJs are emotional sponge-chameleons, and I think that this personality type has to take more care than most to be careful what we swim around in, since we simply don't shake stuff off the way other personality types can.

The biggest change has been in my "switching ability." Switching ability is the ability to turn on the focus and mode of thinking needed to write creatively. I have always had trouble shutting things out and getting going writing at the beginning of a writing session. Usually it would take me most of the hour or two I had available to write to "get my head back into it" and get moving. But that's getting better now. I can much more easily sit down and work for 20 minutes and actually get something done than I could before. I am guessing that is because I don't have to Hoover my mental space first before I can think. 

 

 

Think Of That.

How different the lives where of people in the mid-19th century than our own!

 

Then think about this:  They felt the same things you feel when you listen to Beethoven's 9th symphony. 

Surviving Facebook When You Can't Just Delete It All.

Edited Jan 2017, with regards to some changes in Facebook since post was originally written in 2015. 

I hang out a lot on Google+, that other social media, the one everyone thinks nobody uses. Many of my friends there have either never had a Facebook account, have deleted it, or have one but rarely use it. I would kind of like to dump my account, but I love my family and my close friends, and they won't leave Facebook. So, I stay. But about a year ago, I came up with a "management plan" of sorts to make having a Facebook account a bit less annoying and overwhelming. 


This is what has worked for me. I won't say that you all should do this; everyone uses social media differently, but if you're ambivalent about Facebook or annoyed by but aren't ready to make the Big Dump, these tips may work for you. 

1. Unfriend everyone you can. Lots of different metrics for making the deciding cuts. You may decide to unfriend everyone but immediate family. Or you may decide to unfriend all "friends of friends" you've picked up over the years. Or just all the people you don't know in real life. But however you decide, go ahead and cull who you can without causing Aunt Betty to get in a snit and snub you at Thanksgiving next year or causing other stressful drama that you don't want to deal with.

2. Go into your settings and turn OFF email notifications, so that you do not get an email for each FB notification. (Go into settings and turn off SMS notifications, too, if you have them set up.) You'll now be getting your notifications from within FB only. Uninstall your FB App if it sends notifications outside of the app itself. You want to see/hear notifications only when you actually open Facebook. (I use Facebook on my phone via the Chrome Android browser; I've never installed the app, which I was warned is kind of terrible.) 

3. Change your Facebook bookmark (if you have the site bookmarked) to your Profile page, not to your Home stream. Reason: This way you won't be see other people's posts unless you consciously decide to go look. When you go to Facebook with your new bookmark, you'll be looking at your profile page first, and from there, you'll access your notifications from the Globe + Red Box icon in the upper right toolbar, all without looking at that main "Home" stream with everyone's posts. 

4. Think of the people whose posts you simply never want to miss.  Go to each person's Profile page, and, under the "Friends" drop down menu which is in the lower right corner of their Cover Photo, check the box labeled "Close Friends." You must also check "Get Notifications." Now you will get a notification for when they post, even if you never look at your main stream, and you'll be able to go right to their post without messing with your main, Home stream. 

5. Finally, go to your Home stream. Make some decisions to "Unfollow" people you need to or want to stay in touch with or cannot unfriend but whose posts cause you irritation or distraction or annoyance for one reason or another. Remember that you're not unfriending these people, you're simply choosing not to see everything they post. You'll still be able to go to their profile wall and "catch up" on their lives, because you're still friends with them.  To unfollow someone, go to their Profile page, and use the drop down menu on the "Following" button to choose "unfollow [name]"

In short, you'll be checking your notifications from your Profile page, and most of your notifications will be for the posts from that handful of "Close Friends" people who you really don't want to miss anything from or will be responses to things you've posted yourself. Your default "view" of Facebook will be your wall and your close friends, not everybody.  And that's a good thing. 

Quilting Shop Fabric Versus The Big Box Store.

Oh, fabric is expensive at the charming quilting shop. Really expensive. It is, however, very nice stuff. 

You can wash and dry it and go to iron it and... 

It's true to grain! Crazy! Not only is it true to grain, you end up with a full usable yard of fabric when you buy a yard of fabric! 


When you square up (line up the selvages such that there are no wrinkles in the body of the fabric and the fold on the opposite side is flat) fabric that is straight to grain, the raw edges will be quite close together, as above.

If your fabric isn't straight to grain, it will look rather like this instead:

The cute fox print is from a line of fabrics "made exclusively for [certain big box fabric store]" It did not cost $11 a yard like the green and grey print above. If you bought a yard of this pink stuff, washed it, dried it, lined up the selvages, and then ironed it, you'd have considerably less than 36" of usable length. I've had as little as 32" inches of usable fabric from a "yard" purchased at this store.

So, after all that, I bet you think I'm going to swear off buying fabric from one of those big box fabric stores... sadly, no. I can't. Even with the annoyance of twisted grain and the loss of fabric, it's still much, much cheaper (in most cases) to buy fabric at the big box store. Only a little of my sewing is what I'd call heirloom sewing: things sewn for very special occasions where utmost quality is a necessity. Tote bags, home dec, household linens, clothes that child will grow out of shortly and which will be dontated or passed on: all these things are perfectly serviceable out of fabric which I've had to press, trim, and account for grain-correcting loss. 

Just another way to sew economically, really. It sure would be nice to be a fabric snob and only buy your fabric from independent shops, but, alas... some of us still sew to save money, and not just for fun! (Although it IS fun. Mostly.) 








 

Reasons You Should Let Your Beginning Reader Read Comics.

(An old post that I think can stand a re-posting...)

1. They're not threatening to kids who think they "hate to read" because they're not "A Book."

2.  They seem slightly rebellious to kids (although they often feature storylines that are as old as dirt.)

3. They are not featured on Accelerated Reader Lists (Why this is a benefit is a topic for another post, I think.) 

3. They're fun. 

4. They often feature stunning artwork. Exposing kids to creative, innovative, and excellent art continues to be important long after most kids think they're too big for picture books. 

5. Young eyes sometimes get lost in a page of text. Comic books draw a circle around each group of words, training the eye to grab chunks of text at a time, which is, by the way, how mature readers read. 

6. They are an effective bridge between picture books and chapter books. 

7. They increase childrens' vocabulary. (No, really. Have you read any Calvin and Hobbes lately? Also not on Accelerated Reader lists, by the way.)

8. They help children develop comedic timing.  And yes, that is an important skill. No, it's not one valued in schools, but it's a critical skill for conversation, being personable and comfortable in a group, and useful for anyone who may need to present to a crowd of people at some point in their life. 

9. They're easy to transport, and they're relatively cheap. 

10. They're often serialized, providing book after book on a kid's favoriate characters, pulling a kid bit by bit into fluency by repetition and practice. 

11. They contain more puns than easy readers. Puns and wordplay, like comedic timing, are not things valued in a school environment but they add richness, variety and humor to both real life and the reading life. 

And finally, 

12. They train a child's eye visually.  Through comics, my kid has learned how to draw expressions on faces with a few short strokes, how to arrange a picture to show action happening off-frame, and has learned proportion and visually spacing. 

My Bedroom.

My bedroom used to look like this. But all of a sudden a few months ago, MM and I realized we were really sick of it. "Why did we choose this color again?" 

I thought of repainting. The ceiling in that room is popcorn'ed and we're going to have to deal with that, I think, before we sell the house. So we could repaint and do the ceiling at the same time. But oh, ugh. The dining room needs painting, too, before we list. There's kitchen woodwork that needs more stripping (it's about half done.) There's an overstuffed basement and a neglected attic that need sorting through. So much stuff, very little money to do it with, and an extremely tough real estate market all mean that I can't leave the kitchen wood work half-stripped in favor of painting a bedroom that was painted just six years ago. The dining room hasn't been painted since (I figure) the 1980s. 

So I decided I'd change the look of the room without repainting. Still some work and a little money to redo the room, sure, but much less mess and disruption than repainting. Do you hear that singing? That's me ignoring the popcorn ceiling for now. I went looking for kelly-green color schemes.  I found some. This one became my guide. 

Now, in progress, it looks more like this. Cleaner, starker, less cute. 


But I need to recover a small pillow which lives on the bed as an accent pillow when the bed is made up. It had been covered in red and white polka dot. (So not me. What was I thinking? It's like I don't even know you, me.) I've fritterfrattered away three early morning sewing sessions messing around with fabric I had already or bought cheap recently trying to find the right thing for an accent pillow on the bed. I've gone through this whole stack out of my stash, and nothing made me excited to start sewing. They all felt like, "Well, ok, I guess, if I have to..."
 

Poor naked pillow. Sidetrack! Sewing tip, if you make your own pillow forms... take a Sharpie and jot the exact dimensions right on the form. Then, when you re-purpose or redecorate down the road, you'll know exactly what size to make the new cover. (This is, by the way, why I recommend taking the time to make a pillow form and a separate cover; you only need to stuff something once. Plus, the cover is then removable for washing.) 


Another sidetrack! This size, about 12" x 20" give or take a bit, and stuffed fairly firmly, is just about the right size to sit on your lap and hold a book open at a comfortable position for reading. I have one in my living room, one in my bedroom, and I'm about to make one out of outdoor fabric for the front porch wicker loveseat.

Back to my story. This morning I finally found what I was looking for for the little naked pillow, while cleaning up random stacks of fabric in my sewing area. It's a remnant I bought for 50% off the sale price, and then my 20% employees discount on top of that when I still worked at JoAnn Fabrics. 


It has yellow in it. The bedroom has no yellow. I don't wear yellow and I don't paint things yellow. I am not a yellow person in anyway. However, I feel like this works. I adore the print, the fabric feels right, and it makes me feel a little excited to do a bit of home decor sewing to get the pillow cover made. (I hate home decor sewing, really. Booooooooooring.) 



The pillow will need some piping or edging. Probably black cording, to give it a "border" against the ticking-stripe pillows, but I'm not sure yet. We'll see. 

 

 

 

Getting Hung Up on Book Progress.

1. I think one reason my book writing ground to a halt was learning that the hideously popular A  Number of Shades of a Nondescript Color also opened with a woman meeting an apparently well off and somewhat mysterious man in an expensive car. All of a sudden I felt like anyone reading my book would assume I was copy-catting that stupid travesty of writing. Grossssssssss.

2. The longer you go without looking at your manuscript the easier it is to convince yourself that it's awful and terrible and not worth bothering to finish. You become afraid to look at it, for fear of being proven right. 

3. Life went from "kinda tight financially" to downright scary (for me at least. Perhaps others of a better attitude and more calm mind might have managed better. But that is not me.) 

4. I was well and truly stuck with the book. There are missing transitions that I don't know how to handle. There are some unresolved plot issues. There's a miscarriage that I just don't know what to do with, and there's an unfinished and underdeveloped religious element that I just can't decide whether to keep or dump. 

5. While I have finally been able to quit my Crappy Retail Job (TM), thanks to a very good husband who takes very good care of me, I still feel some pressure to Make Some Money. As I was thinking about this today, though, what I'd really love to do is completely ditch my Etsy store, which has never really been even a modest money maker, in any way, and simply do. nothing. for a while. No sewing for money, no trying to make a go of my little car-consulting business (which I started and then was unable to do anything with due to my Crappy Retail Job.) 

So, there is sort of where things stand, four years and five months since I wrote that first burst of a blog post back in April of 2011 that started me on a book-writing journey. 

Hope for the future: 
a. My kid is now thirteen years old and starting to write significant amounts herself. I can actually talk with her about the "little mouse" that is shy to come out and write and she understands what I mean. 

b. Said kid is old enough to sometimes go with Daddy on business trips, leaving me in an empty, quite house with no meals to prepare for anyone. 

c. At the moment, and for the next two months or so, I don't have to triage the grocery list. Amazing how much more clearly you can think when you can buy a proper amount of groceries. 

d. It's going to be fall and winter soon, and the outside work will go away, and weekends will have more inside time. 

I don't know what to do about #2 above. I'm still sort of scared to really dig into my book, since it's been so long. I think I need to seek out some ways to change my scenery and "get away", in order to find a fresh start.  I have standing invites from friends in several parts of the country for visits; the trick is arranging care for my 13 year old (family she can stay with all live 180+ miles away) and figuring out travel costs. 

And I need to figure out how to chain the social media beast without also cutting myself off from all the people that actually want me to finish this book. More about that later. I have an idea or two, but I want to try it for a few days or a week before I talk about it. 

 

Orchid Virus

Spotted this at a big box home improvement store when I was hunting for clearance orchids and African violets. Pretty sure this is not a natural coloration pattern in phalaenopsis petals. I think it is probably virus.

(Interestingly, a virus is also responsible for some similar - but more desirable - color patterns in tulips. ) 

Phals do have some streaky color patterns, but they're more uniformly streaky, like this: 

Found mini-phals on clearance for $3, sunburned but healthy African violets for $1, and full size phals for $6.  I resisted the urge to buy all the poor orphans and only brought home an unlabeled but double-crowned full size phal and the two sunburned violets. 

I think one of the tiny mini phals I brought home previously is Phalaenopsis Tzu Chiang Balm.

 

Cattleya Sheath

 I think this a flower sheath. I've never had a cattleya large enough to bloom, so I'm not exactly sure. (The one I had before died on me well before it was old enough to set flower.) If it is, I'll have two flower spikes on this plant. Which probably means two flowers.  Which doesn't sound like much except for the fact that many hybrid cattleya flowers are big. Really big. 

But, as you can see, the sheath is empty. No flower in it. Yet.  Here's hoping it decides to make a flower.  Apparently cattleyas pretty much do whatever the heck they want with regards to progression of setting flowers; there are so many hybrids from so many different parents that there's often no idea how to know just how this or that specific cattleya is going to go about putting out its flower. 

Orchids have so much personality.