Friday, January 25, 2013

January

{photo credit: Delphine Devos}
It's January here.  (What?  It's January there too?  What a coincidence.)  Not January-with-snow, because I don't live in the right kind of mountains for snow.  North Carolina is too far south, and when white flakes brush the bare branches of the Smoky Mountain National Forest -- they generally melt by noon.

Not that I mind so much.  I love snow when I have no place to be, but my little car doesn't get along with snow.  Especially since the only kind of road they make out here is steep and curving and shoulderless.  Bad things happen to geriatric Fords.

In any case, what we have right now is worse.  Today we are iced in!  The upside?  I did not, in fact, have anywhere else to be today.  So I'm putting on my favorite chunky sweater, enjoying the fire in the grate (and the brother whose wood-hauling efforts make this a no-effort delight), and cooking up a vat of French Onion Soup for the family.  (My family is large enough that all food must be prepared in vat-sized quantities.)

{photo credit: Sacramento Street}
Lest this post sound complaintive, I must confess: I generally enjoy winter!  I love the clothes, for one thing: scarves, sweaters, boots.  My activities keep me indoors most days, so I don't miss running around outside so much.  I like hot beverages, and reading books, and listening to the little siblings and the cats go stir-crazy.
 
In Watership Down (one of my favorite books), Richard Adams describes the difference between the way men and animals perceive winter.  When men talk of enjoying winter, he says, they don't really mean they enjoy cold air and barren fields and frozen water.  Rather, they enjoy being impervious to all of the above!  We have built our warm houses and heated them, sewn our quilts, knitted our sweaters, laid up our stores, and bound our books.  Let winter have its day, and we shall sit in our warmly lit caves and smile!

{photo credit: Curious Sofa}
So here's to January:
Pass the coffee and let it snow! 
(or, you know, sleet.  hm... oh look,
now there's hail pinging off my car...)

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Origin Story

That's what they call that sepia tinted part in every superhero movie where they nip into the protagonist's past and show us why he/she gave up normal existance and decided to wear their underwear on the outside of their tights.  If John Williams is on the job, there are violins in the background, playing the classical version of a power-ballad.  ......It's also usually fraught with angst and tragedy.

Here is wear I abandon my cute comparison and skip onto the part where I'm not super, ideas are not heroes, and massive coffee consumption does not warrant a soundtrack (bummer), but we escape tragedy.  Isn't that nice?

Where do ideas begin...

my sister gave me this notebook...

If you are me, ideas begin in notebooks.  Not because that is the logical place to put an idea (if you have one), but because you have several beautiful notebooks on hand and you need to justify their existance.  So you pick your favorite, crack the cover, and create an idea to put inside so that it can be your 'idea notebook'.

Philosophical question: If you arrive at the same destination either way, does it matter if you waddle there rather than walking?

So my goal is to turn my multitudinous hobbies into some variety of steady income.  I've sold work on commission and in local shops before, but never tackled it with any true seriousness.  This time I want to see if I can make a proper go of it.  And because I am me, my ambitions immediately manifest themselves as lists.  So here I go, writing things down, in a notebook which is now my Idea Notebook.  So many questions to answer...  Which things shall I sell?  What materials will I use?  Which things are best suited to the local market, and which things will I list on Etsy?  (Can I even DO this??)



I want to continue doing what I love, and someday (maybehopefully) I will look at my moderately thriving little creative outlet and think back to this moment.  This, ladies and gents, is my Origin Story.

And how did I get here, you ask?  I guess that would be an Origin-Origin Story.  I'll tell you about Clara Dora, and my magpie love of shinies and fibers, and my mum.  I'll even tell it in sepia.

but first.............where do you keep YOUR ideas?

the promise of still-to-be-filled pages

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Pinfeathered


{photo credit: Google}

pinfeather  /ˈpinˌfeT͟Hər/
noun.  A newly grown feather.

pinfeathered /ˈpinˌfeT͟Hərd/
adjective.  (of a person)  One who has a newly grown idea.

Sarah Engel /SAR-ə iNG(g)əl/
noun. A pinfeathered dabbler.


{Merriam and Webster may quibble with me over these,
but I just looked them up and they're both dead.
 
So I think I can take 'em if it
comes to fisticuffs.}