promises kept - some Halloween treats

So we got our bowls back from the pottery place on Friday and I have pictures like I said I would this time! See? I'm getting better at this, haha. Before I get to that though, I just wanted to share my excitement for the scene I'm working on right now. My two main girls are arguing over whether or not to let a new character stay with them and while it's still rough I'm really loving the feel of the scene. Sometimes your characters take you by surprise and I was definitely not expecting the one on the "yes" side of the argument to elevate to yelling but it fits so well and her little explosion is by far my favorite part. She's not usually the dramatic one but it seems she has more invested in the argument than I originally thought. The honesty is a bit harsh but more wonderful for it. Anyway, yay!

In other procrastinating news, I'm about 2/3rds through the second book in the Wheel of Time series [which is apparently getting new cover art! people rejoice! because...seriously, they need it] and still loving it. One thing I've noticed is that the reviews on the books always have at least one that mentions how Robert Jordan did a great job exploring Tolkien's world and, oh, isn't it nice? Hold the phone. I don't think I've ever been so offended on behalf of an author before. Jordan and Tolkien both wrote fantasy but that is about the only thing their works have in common and casting Jordan in Tolkien's shadow is doing Jordan a major injustice. For one, Jordan's books don't happen in even close to the same setting as Tolkien's do. Yes, it's fantasy but saying that Tolkien has some sort of claim on creating the genre so everyone after him is just copying or expanding upon his work is wrong on top of being seriously egotistical. Also [prepares to be potentially assaulted by Tolkien fanatics], I think Jordan is a better writer than Tolkien. [Shouts from her fortress: I regret nothing!] I'm not saying Tolkien isn't a good writer, he is, a very good one. I just think that what Jordan did with the Wheel of Time is more impressive.

Le'me esplain...No. There is too much, le'me sum up. [remember, personal opinions here, though they may not be popular]

1. There are no elves or dwarves or hobbits or other typified fantastical races in WoT.
     I assure you, WoT is still fantasy despite lacking these stereotypical characters but I'm not hating on elves and such. My point here is that Jordan's characters, with one exception, are all human. The reason I think this series is more impressive because of that is because I think that elves, etc. can become kind of a crutch for fantasy writers due to the fact that the public already has a general idea of what those races are like, their customs and behavior. So when you write them, it can be hard not to follow the template that's already present in our culture which provides a lot of the character development for you in a big way. Jordan, in restricting his characters to almost entirely human, set up a different challenge for himself. He couldn't rely on groups that people already know and can fill in details about on their own. Instead, he created dozens of different cultures and political climates and religions - each unique to different locations. Guys, that takes a massive amount of work and skill to pull it off successfully and I am repeatedly blown away by how completely he does succeed.

2. Tolkien is generally raved about for having created a whole history for his world. But...
     Creating a history is a necessary part of world building but some people do it to different degrees depending on need and awesomeness/craziness. Tolkien has written a history for the LotR world which is pretty fantastic and I give major props where they are due. That being said. Jordan has also written a massive history for the WoT but his is integrated into the story whereas you have to read a separate book to get the context for LotR. Now, that could simply be a stylistic decision on the author's part but, my standpoint as a writer, it would take a lot more time and planning to completely integrate a history into the series than to write it separately and choosing to do so makes a more holistic reading experience from the reader's perspective. LotR is exciting and fun to read with great battles and drama and such. WoT is like reading the best history book ever written. It honestly feels like reading a history book, but not the awful kind they give you in school. This history book has been written and is being written as you read. The reader is pulled into the making of history which is an exhilarating feeling.

Anyway, I could obviously go on about this for at least a week so how about we put down the elvin-made swords now [okay, LotR fans?] and get on to the pictures that this post is about anyway!

Behold, or, as the Italians say it - Ecco:

 I [obviously] went with a birch tree design which served as a nod to both one of my favorite trees growing up and the aspens that I now enjoy out here in the west.

 I'm really super pleased with how the leaves turned out as I wasn't sure if I'd put enough green for it to really show up but I'm happy with the balance. And the black and white reminds me of Calvin and Hobbes which is an added happy bonus!

 If you're wondering: yes, I am showing a full 360 of the bowl, and yes, these pictures were taken upside-down. I don't have fantastic lighting for this kind of thing and, right-side-up, the sides of the bowl become really dark on camera.

 Okay, one upright that at first glance I thought was taken with drape-y fabric behind it even though I know full well that that's our front door, haha.

So, yes! A successful, awesome time well spent and well rewarded. Man, I love that place.

In parting, because this post is already obnoxiously long, I'll share my newest little friend. No, I am not a My Little Pony person. I was just wandering Wal*Mart with my sister in law and saw these little mystery MLP packages that are created with the intent of getting you to spend all your money in the attempt to collect all the figurines but in fact they've only actually manufactured like half of them. I am powerless against such small, adorable mysteriousness so of course I bought one. Apparently his name is Comet Tail.

Happy Halloween!

to read again

Last weekend it became very apparent to me that I would not survive long during the down times at work simply by rereading all the books I own, most of which have already been read numerous times. So far I generally have at least a few solid hours of sitting time at work so I needed something beefy to fill that space in a satisfying and exciting manner. While puzzling through this dilemma I hit on a wonderful idea. The Wheel of Time. I've been saying for as long as I've known Tim that I want to get into this series at some point but the fact that I was almost always reading something else and the series is 14 books long [each at least 650 pages long - and this doesn't include the prequel or the graphic novels that have spawned from it] and I've never really ventured into fantasy deeper than what you find on the YA shelves at Barnes & Noble. This series has been on my "to read" list for ages and on Saturday I realized that I had the perfect opportunity to shove all my excuses to the side and finally sink my teeth into this beast. And it's been so worth it!

Tim's brother kindly brought the first book down for me to borrow on Saturday and thus far I have been consuming around a hundred pages a day. Consider the fact that I am not an early riser and I am now working part time and even I'm surprised at how fast I'm tearing through this. The funny thing is, I couldn't even read for long stretches at a time when I started the book. I'd read a few pages then have to put it down for a moment before reading more because the reading was exhausting in the best way possible. I think I had forgotten how much work good reading can be, how you have to build up your endurance to take in everything the author is giving you. It's refreshing.

Having almost finished the first volume, I stand ready to recommend this series to anyone who enjoys a good read. I think in the fantasy genre at large it's hard to find stories in which women really have a viable part outside of being villains and damsels in either idiocy or distress or both [usually both] but Jordan's story sets up a world where fantastical abilities are found in men and women in the complimentary and conflicting ways in which the genders relate in reality. The One Power is TWoT's "magic" source and men and women can both channel it but in very different ways and both are needed which is not to say that sexism on both sides often mars their chances to work together. I am continually blown away at how well he has captured the dynamics between men and women, different political and religious groups and factions - Tim put it perfectly when he said that reading TWoT is more like reading a history that a novel - because it feels so real and relate-able. Most of this is due to the mind-blowing world building that's gone into this series. Jordan keeps a lot of scenic details that people will recognize, like the names of trees, but he'll also throw in one or two names or species of his own making which gives the setting a sense of familiarity as well as discovery. The narration jumps around between characters and while there are a central three, if you had to pick, the full cast of what I think qualify as main characters is pages long. With so many characters to keep track of there is always a ton going on but it never feels unmanageable or unwieldy. I've been told that the first book is slower than the rest [aside from book 9, by general agreement] but even though this volume might not see as much explosive action as the others, the pacing is expertly done and I never got bored which, considering how much of the book is just characters traveling, is saying something for me. There are characters I love, ones I can't stand, ones I can't figure out whether or not I should like them, ones that I can't wait to see grow up, and ones I can't wait to see more of than the brief glimpses so far.

Basically, if you have ever read anything remotely fantasy [Twilight and those paranormal romances don't count. I'm sorry. They just don't.] or have never really considered the genre but enjoy a book that makes your mind work in all the best ways, I highly highly recommend The Wheel of Time be put on your book list. It may not be something you pick up right away, a series this intense requires time and commitment, but it is definitely worth keeping in the back of your mind for some day when you need something like it  : )

first week of new job

Hello hello! I know it might seem like I'm slowly slipping my blog day to Friday but while a move may be in order at some point this post's tardiness is due to a sudden, unforeseeable computer issue that we ran into yesterday that will hopefully be soon remedied.

This has been my first week at my new job and despite the little bumps and snags that I've run into with bus schedules and such it's been a great week overall. I am loving this job. It has a lot in common with my old job which provides some comfortable familiarity but the changes are only good ones. For example: on a day to day basis I have less to process/review than I did working at the library. However, unlike the library, I can read/study when I don't have work to do. This has been both exciting and difficult to get used to because, while this is something that I completely agree with and am ecstatic about, 4 years of habit does not die easily. It might take me a little while to be fully comfortable with pulling a book out while at work but it's something I'm eager to adjust to, haha. The buses have honestly given me the greatest trouble but I think I've figured them out at this point. I got my staff ID today as well so hopefully I can start using the bus pass on that instead of my debit card within a few days. Without a bus pass each ride costs $2.50 so I'd be spending $100 a month whereas the bus pass is $70 for a year. Yes please, I'll take that one.

My body is starting to adjust to the new sleep schedule, primarily by becoming suddenly dead tired around 10pm which is weird but a good sign I guess. Isn't it weird how you sometimes make a better use of your time when you don't have much of it than when you have an entire day to get things done? I'm not super efficient or productive in the mornings yet but I'll be working on that and I already feel more balanced which is primarily what I wanted out of this job in the first place. Being too busy can hurt you but so can having too much time. I've even written a few time within the last week which is an improvement. I keep going back and forth on which project I want to work on but right now I'm trying to tackle a difficult conversation between characters that comes up early in the story line. I'm sure this is something that I'll come back to edit hardcore later on since there is so much I can feel isn't sitting quite right but I need to get to know these characters a little better before I know quite how to fix it.

Tonight we are going to Creativity [one of those paint your own pottery stores] and I am psyched. I have been wanting to go for the almost 2 years since we last went and I've been sitting on a coupon./voucher for about a month which made my reaction a little explosive when Tim asked if I would want to go tonight. I've painted a tile and a bowl so I'm trying to decide if I want to do another bowl, a mug, or maybe a plate or something, along with what I will actually paint on it. I have to keep myself from becoming the "paint ALL the things!" person but it's hard to suppress that. For some reason painting pottery is really therapeutic for me. I'll work on posting pictures after the pieces have been fired as long as mine doesn't turn out to be some kind of monstrosity.  : P

a rainy, congested sort of day

Because that's what it's been. Seriously, there was non-stop rain today which didn't exactly help with my sore-throat-turned-runny-nose. Gross, I know, but we've all been there. I haven't really gotten much done this week. My biggest goal has been to get out of bed before 9 which has been eons harder than it should be. Today was the first day I managed it which makes me feel sad and successful at the same time.

BUT GUESS WHAT. I got the job!!! If you come to this blog via facebook, you've known that for a few days now but you guys, this has been the best thing that's happened to me in over a month. I figured that I would enjoy about a week or so of my post-student life with very little to do and then get bored. But if I'm being honest I was bored from day one and things kind of just kept devolving from there. I started sleeping in later and later and just not really caring about anything. Eating gradually went by the wayside [I've always been bad at eating consistently in general since I left for college] because making food, even something as simple as toast or microwaving a bowl of soup just sounded too strenuous. Monday was the worst my sleeping has been. I slept through my alarm [I used to be able to count how many times I'd hit snooze and how many were left before the alarm shut off but I can't anymore] and when I finally roused myself to check the time I was startled to see that it was almost noon. The worst part was that I knew full well that I could keep sleeping - and not the kind of sleep where you're forcing yourself to stay in bed and your eyes kind of start to hurt and you start getting uncomfortably warm under all those blankets because your body has woken up. That scared me. So I resolved to try getting up earlier but that's hard to do if you don't have something to get up for. Thankfully, the Lord is mindful of me and I finally got a call back from UVU on Tuesday extending the job offer to me. I start work on Monday and I am so stoked about it, though it may not look like it. It's just a part-time position which is perfect. I'm not a career-oriented woman. I just don't enjoy working that much. So this will [hopefully] be the perfect balance between being home and getting stuff and writing done here and being out of the house for at least a few hours every day. I didn't realize how much I would miss being outside even just for travel until I didn't have a cause or a means anymore.

So yays!

The other amazing upshot to this week was hanging out with my best gal-pal on Tuesday. There are few things in life as relieving as talking to someone who understands what you're saying even when you don't know what it means. We made a sweet B&N run where I finally got my hands on a copy of Extremely Load and Incredibly Close, which I have finished already, of course. Which means I need more books. Again. Well, hey. I did just get a job... Anyway. I am a huge fan of the movie adaptation of this book - measured, obviously, by the ridiculous amount of sobbing that I did while watching it. The book has some pretty significant differences from the movie [to be expected] but somehow the essence of the stories are the same and much of the plot and characterization was carried over almost exactly. Foer's writing style takes a little getting used to [a conversation in dialogue happens all in one paragraph mixed in with exposition and the very rare tag] and each character's narration [it's told by Oskar, his grandmother, and his grandfather though Oskar is writing to the reader, his grandmother is writing to Oskar, and his grandfather is writing to Oskar's father] differs in format as well as voice and the accounts, while they sometimes cover the same information and events, do not occur in strict chronological order so you have to be paying attention to know who is talking and what/when they are talking about. I don't mean to say that it's a difficult read, just different. I really enjoyed the read, especially the back story for Oskar's grandparents that comes in bits and pieces. The book provides so much more room for the development of those characters than the movie could. I kept coming across phrases and ideas that made me stop and want to mesmerize them because of how true they were, or how poignant. There are a million stories about loss and tragedy and how we cope with it but nothing is quite like this book. Oskar's voice is detached and analytical even when he's being emotional and that somehow brings out whole new layers of pain from a character who should be too young to have to feel it but whose story needs to be told and read for all of those who have felt that pain and haven't been heard.

two projects come to a close

I made these for youuuuu!

Okay, so technically I made these for me but I'm making this post for you as I've been long overdue finishing these. Remember that shirt I told you I was making from scratch? Well, after not touching it for over a week, I committed to finishing this beast today. And believe me, as tame as it looks, this was a beast.

I used left overs from two of my sewing class projects as well as some new bias tape. I was happy to find that I had just enough green fabric to do the top, though sadly not big enough pieces to do it without that center seam but hey, it's not so bad. I'm ecstatic to have those side seams finished because that means no more pesky threads! I love that poke-a-dot fabric but man is it a pain sometimes. I need to tack down the ends of the bias tape I used to finish the sleeves but other than that, it's done! And my sewing machine still works and I still have all my fingers, haha. 

And a picture of me "modeling" my creation because it looks different when you're wearing it and, hey, I can't remember the last time I've been in a picture.

 So I recently acquired a new sweatshirt as the temperature plummeted unannounced recently and my old sweatshirt really isn't up to another season. I bought my old sweatshirt at the end of my freshman year just before flying home for the summer and, bored as I was at home, one day I randomly decided to embroider the left sleeve - pictured below. When I first did it it looked a lot better and there weren't so many visible ends poking out but the last three years have demanded a lot from this poor garment, so much so that it's almost see-through in certain spots now.

"Time is making fools of us again."

Of course I decided that this new sweatshirt should be christened in a similar manner but I chose to go after the back this time because it gave more room for possibilities. The hardest part of this process is always selecting the quote and I agonized for a day or two over a list that I made. I finally settled on this one because I thought the whimsy lent itself well to the style of embroidery.

Now, I don't want anyone thinking that I might have free-handed this. I didn't because I can't even write in straight lines on blank paper and I didn't want my whole design to come out completely lopsided. Of course, I totally spaced process pics again but I just took a piece of tissue paper, cut it to fit the back of the sweatshirt, then drew a center line and lines for the text which I penciled on in big, simple script. When I finished that, trying to keep the type as centered as possible, I pinned the whole she-bang to the sweatshirt and threaded my embroidery needle. Happily, I had the exact color of thread that I had wanted to use but I still needed to buy another skein of thread to finish the whole design, even having split the thread in half to 3 strands [which I would advise anyway because the full 6 would be way to chunky for my liking]. I just stitched through the sweatshirt and tissue paper, making up the style of the script as I followed the proportion and spacing of the penciled type. I don't love how every letter turned out but overall I'm pretty satisfied with the end result  : )

 "I know who I was when I got up this morning but I think I must have been changed several times since then. - L.C."

[Bonus points to whoever can tell me where both quotes come from without googling them.]

As theoretical and academic as my pursuits generally are, sometimes you just have to do something with your hands, you know? 

In other news, I had a job interview on Monday for a part time position that was pretty much exactly what I've been looking for. I feel like the interview went super well but I was told that I would hear back by Wednesday and I haven't heard anything yet... I'm trying not to panic. A friend works in that office and she doesn't think any decisions have been made yet, for whatever reason, so I guess I just have to be patient. That can be hard for me though as I've long believed that it's better to know - even if it's bad news - than to not know. At least then you can react, haha.