Valerean

I cannot think of anything more appropriate to use as a title on the last day of this particular page in the calendar. Except maybe worse language, but since my kid occasionally reads the blog I will abstain. I can't remember a year when I've felt so disgusted I get nauseated just thinking about looking back to find a good memory. Well, I did the disaster that was my quilting year post. Positives: I cooked a lot. I quilted a little. Katherine graduated college. I wrote some stories and one novel for myself. I held onto my job. I nearly failed and then won NaNoWriMo, and got my mojo back. I skipped Christmas almost entirely this year. Celebrated Edward and Katherine's birthdays. And I didn't get the virus. That's it. I know next year won't be perfect for all the reasons I wrote the other day and don't want to revisit, but ANYTHING will be better than this year. I am back in my ivory writing tower now, and it's lovely in here. I have my ...

Happy 26th birthday to my baby girl. :)

I've been trying to think of something upbeat to write today. We're heading into what I think will be the nightmare scenario of the pandemic, and the situation in Washington isn't much more optimistic. I think the economy is going to take a major nose dive very soon, too. We're all exhausted and emotionally drained, women in particular. It's always up to us to hold things together and keep everyone going and do the extra work and not complain. I know I have, and I haven't griped about it. You do what you have to for the ones you love, even when they're too messed up by life to reciprocate. So that's the downside, the worst of what we're dealing with, and that's all I'm going to write about that. You all are living it, you know what it is. I hope we'll all do what we can to be kind to ourselves now and in the dark times to come. When Edward and I were younger we sacrificed a lot of life's luxuries and pleasures to see to it ...

It's time for my annual review of the quilting year, which for me kind of looked like this: Although I had an ambitious plan for my quilting this year, 2020 was such a disaster for me creatively I'm surprised I got anything done. So I'm just going to look back on what I was able to do and not worry about it. Things started out okay with Theo's quilt. I got started on my silk crazy quilt project, which ended up crashing and burning like the Hindenburg. Still, I got two blocks completed before the world went to hell. What follows from here will be slightly out of order, month-wise, and doesn't include everything I did, but I'm too tired this morning to really care. This table runner turned out so well even my guy noticed it. I was proud of myself for fixing this ugly tote. Oliver's first birthday quilt turned out okay. I did a lot of small art pieces like this one for my journals. Mom's birthday quilt also tur...

Before I heard of Penny Dreadful: City of Angels it had already joined the unhappy club of shows that are cancelled after only one season. This is not necessarily an indicator of quality, as I can think of three TV series that happened to which deserved better: Firefly , GCB , and Moonlight , so I went ahead and got the one and only season. Horror shows are not really my thing. I'll cop to being a reluctant fan of the original Penny Dreadful series, mostly due to the acting by Eva Green, Josh Hartnett and Timothy Dalton, and the stylized retelling/reimagining of so many classic monster stories. It's also adventurous at times, and always beautifully styled, kind of like The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen meets Frank Langella's Dracula . Only it's nonstop depressing, and it ends very badly, hence my reluctance. City of Angels shares two connections with the original Penny Dreadful: the two words in the title, and a couple of supernatural figures. Other than...

It's my favorite day of the year! Ha. I hope you all are having a nice holiday. Ours was simple but quite peaceful; I made paella on Christmas Eve and my traditional big breakfast on Christmas Day. We kept the gift-giving very low-key, but I got some things I really needed for the kitchen and the house -- and three surprises, too. The coffee mug came from my guy. :) I'm always nice to him when he interrupts me, by the way, it's just illustrative of the look on my face, I suppose. The two pieces of framed paper art were from Katherine, who hand made them. This one is about the size of my thumb. The berries are the size of freckles. :) Enjoy your weekend.

Happy Holidays from Valerean. Image by Terri Cnudde from Pixabay

Since everyone loves these apply apple (yes, I'm this brain wrecked) turnovers, I made two trays of these as my holiday gifts to our next door neighbors. This one is waiting for the folks on the right of us to get home from work. I think food is the best gift. I also give a printed copy of the recipe and note anything that I do differently. In between baking I've been doing laundry and writing. Still have about 1100 words to go for my quota today, but I'm on track to finish the next book by January 1st or so.

I occasionally swap DVDs with a friend, and for our last exchange I received the movie follow-up to Deadwood and a mini-series called The Outsider . Since neither one dazzled me I thought I'd kill two ehs with one post. I did like the original Deadwood cable series. It had far too much profanity and violence for me to love it, but most of the characters were excellent, the casting was inspired, the attention to detail with costumes and sets absolutely stellar -- plus it only lasted three seasons. Sometimes enough is enough. Deadwood the movie takes place ten years after season three. It's mostly fanservice and nostalgia, and the plot is almost non-existant. I also think they aged some of the characters too much (Bullock looks like a senior citizen) and some not enough (Jane barely changed, and frankly she should be dead from all the nonstop drinking.) I liked the movie because it did provide some closure -- I liked how things wrapped up with Trixie and Seth -- but no...

Having lunch with my daughter at a tea room in town that closed their doors some years back. All of their food was not only delicious, it was art on a plate. They had this citrus-basil viniagrette dressing for their beautiful salads that I loved. It was such a chic place, but I didn't mind -- and Kat loved it. Ah, the cream puff swans. Sigh. This was way back in 2012. Katherine was worried about all the hoopla at the time about the world ending because the Mayan calendar had run out. So I took her to the tea room and told her, "If the world ends, then we'll have had one last wonderful lunch together." World is still here. So are we. The power of tea room lunches. :)

Guilty pleasure of mine: gingerbread House competitions. I think the edible art is adorable. Here's the video of the winners from the national contest from last year (this year they're doing virtual on Facebook and Instagram, which I don't use):

Because I'm a glutton for punishment (and a diehard fan of the BBC) I got hold of a copy of the only two seasons of Survivors , a 2008 production featuring survivors of a flu-like pandemic that wipes out most of humanity. Bit of trivia: the production had to be halted at one point because of a real world outbreak of swine flu. The series was cancelled after two seasons, too, so this is all you get. Despite some obvious flaws I liked it. The story is fairly realistic, and the characters are an interesting mix despite the odd ethnic representations. Two of the characters are Muslim, one is black, one might be of Russian descent; the rest are white. I would have liked to see more East Asians, as there are twice as many of them as there are blacks in the UK. Another glaring flaw for me is how quickly the pandemic kills, and how the extremely dramatic reduction in the population (almost everyone in the world literally drops dead over night) impacts the survivors. The chara...

Since I don't want to talk about the holidays, here's one of the few thing I do love about winter: watching ice skating competitions. My favorite skater of all time is Yuzuru Hanyu, whose record-breaking short program blew everyone away at the Sochi Olympics : How can you be depressed when you watch someone do that? Ha.

The school photographer sent us the photos they took at grad walk, and this one is my favorite.

We had to make do with a televised college graduation at home for Katherine back in May, but UCF finally decided to do a grad walk for her class (with masks on everyone, social distance markers, gloves, sanitizer stations and even presenting the degree holders from a safe distance.) The three of us got dressed up and made the trip. I was a little worried at first, but they scheduled us one family at a time, twenty minutes apart, so it was just the three of us in the auditorium. Not as nice as a full/regular graduation would have been, but it counts. We'll also have professional pictures of her in a few weeks, too. I'm glad they did this. My kid deserved it.

She's a bit older now. :) See you tomorrow.

Ten Things I Do Not Want for Christmas Anything Cute, Pink, Yellow or Sparkly: I can't be polite about this anymore. Also, I'm almost 60 and I should be exempted from cutesy stuff now. Please make a note of this. Christmas Decor: How much don't I love the holidays? Hint: I didn't unpack or put out anything that I already own this year. Clothing: I pretty much live in T-shirts and leggings now. Have plenty. Also? Everyone forgets that I'm 40 lbs. lighter now, and the XL stuff looks like I'm dressing in a garment bag. Covid-19: Duh. Exotic Teas: I love tea, and everyone knows it. Of course this means they go out and find the weirdest teas to gift me, like the one to improve my blood pressure (honestly, tasted like dirt) macha green (horribly bitter) and chocolate orange something (I can't even.) Let me buy my own teas, I beg you. Fabric: I still have enough to last me until I'm deceased. My only new year's resolution is ...

One part of my process with writing anything is to reward myself after I cross the finish line. I usually choose the reward in advance so I'll have that prize waiting for me while I work, and it's always something I really want. Dangling a carrot like that is great motivation for me, and before I turned pro it was also like a little paycheck. Just before the pandemic hit I went on a writing hiatus; my partner and I were shifting to a different business model which, due to a number of factors beyond our control, didn't work as well as what we'd been doing before it. Over the summer I was supposed to get back in the saddle, but my first project turned out to be very problematic, and I struggled with figuring out why. When I finally straightened that out and started writing I plodded. I could get the words on the page, but it took twice or three times as along. It also exhausted me. It was really awful, which writing has never been for me. I'd spend hours ...

I'm taking off today to celebrate my big guy's birthday. 71 never looked so good, baby. :)

One of the quilting newsletters I subscribe to sent this yesterday: That's a beautiful blue. I've heard that Pantone is going with an aqua as their color of the year for 2021, but so far I haven't seen anything official.

Brigadier General Charles (Chuck) Elwood Yeager, one of my personal heroes, died yesterday at the age of 97. In addition to being the son of farmers, starting out in the Army Air Force as a private, and working his way up to Brigadier General, and becoming a fighter pilot and serving on active duty during three wars (and really, if I list everything he did we'll be here all week), General Yeager was the first pilot to break the sound barrier. What a life he had. I read a biography of him when I was a girl, which led to me joining the Civil Air Patrol when I was 13. He's also the reason I chose the Air Force when I decided to enlist in the military. If a West Virginian farm boy could do all that, I thought, then nothing should hold me back. Wherever you go from here, General, I know you'll be flying high. Safe journey. Image credit: United States Air Force

Katherine is making progress on her commissioned painting -- some shots I've taken: Edward put up the Christmas tree while I was busy with work: Our holidays are going to be very quiet. Since the virus is surging wildly we've decided not to have anyone over to the house for Christmas, even Oliver and his parents. With all the hospitals rapidly running out of beds it's just too dangerous to risk infection. I'm doing anything I can to keep the three of us isolated from other people. I've also run out of pre-written posts for the blog, and I'm trying to write another 50k this month, so I don't know how often I'll be updating. Hang in with me.

Someone to Romance by Mary Balogh, which I actually finished before the Anne Stuart romp in November, made a welcome change from all the eh/emotional wrecking ball/no-don't-do-that clunkers that have plagued me in 2020. I do love this series, and the author is an auto-buy for me, so I'm prejudiced, of course. But sometimes it's just such a relief to have a well-written, emotionally satisfying GOOD book to write up. Lady Jessica Archer. sister to the Duke of Netherby, is now twenty-five and still unmarried. Out of solidarity with her cousin and BFF Abigail, daughter of the bigamist who created the whole mess in this series, she's refused to even consider being romanced. She was happy when Abigail fell in love and married her one true guy ( Someone to Honor ) but she also feels a little left behind, too. So she decides it's time to find a husband. Meanwhile, Gabriel Thorne, a new and myserious dude on the ton scene who has spent most of his life getting rich ...

Ten Things I Hate About the Pandemic Anti-Masker Hate: I understand there are people who for whatever reason don't wish to wear face coverings. Alas, I'm not that brainless. I do respect your right to be an idiot, and while I avoid you, I don't glare at you in public. So why do most of you glare at me for wearing a mask? Burial Insurance SPAM: I get three or four of these every day now, and still not interested in being buried. After I'm brain dead and they harvest every part of my bod that can be reused, the rest is being donated to science. I really hope I get to be a practice cadaver for student surgeons, that would be so cool. Conspiracy Theorists: From my neighbors I've heard stories about testing agencies sending back positive test results for people who left before they were tested, how wearing a mask for hours can suffocate you, and that the pandemic is merely a massive plot to depose our current POTUS to keep our former POTUS from being ree...

Just in case you needed a smile today, Oliver's mom sent me these pics of Oliver's second first birthday party at his great-grandmother's house: Yep. It's good to be a year old. :)

Not sewing anything but the unpolitical purple quilt top for the entire month of November allowed me to devote nearly all of my creative time to NaNoWriMo, but on my breaks I got back to reading for pleasure, too. One of my reads was The Absolutely Positively Worst Man in England Scotland and Wales by Anne Stuart, which was a fun historical romance romp. Kit Adderly, self-admitted to be the worst man in England (and everywhere else) for his drinking, gambling and womanizing, helps his much less attractive but almost equally loathesome friend George Latherby kidnap a not especially attractive heiress and force her to marry George so he can use her inheritance to continue carousing with Kit. P.S., George has syphyllis, and likes to hurt women, and may have murdered a couple of his former wives. This doesn't bother Kit at all, and they grab the girl (and by accident her much prettier cousin) and head for Scotland for the nuptials. The kidnapped heiress, Bryony Marton, comes wit...

On Election Night back in November I got so disgusted with all the hatred and hysteria that I decided to piece a bunch of purple jelly roll strips into a quilt top ala Valerie Nesbitt's 40 minute method : This also gave me a chance to practice my long straight line sewing, which due to the hand issues I've been having problems with lately: I hope by now we finally have a President, but however it goes, here's my political statement: we are not red or blue, we are people. We should be purple. Also, when the world sucks, go sew. :)

. . . have to write a sequel to Refuge in December.

I got another bundle of linen scraps from my Etsy seller, and then found two yards of a gorgeous 60" vintage navy linen on eBay for basically a song; that will serve as the backing. So I have all the fabric I need to make another recycled linen quilt. Yes, I am insane. But very happy, too. Seriously, I'm aware that I'm overloading myself with quilting projects, some of which I may never finish if my hands get worse fast. I don't care. You should do what makes you happy, especially in times when almost everything else does the opposite. I don't need another linen quilt. I need the happiness that comes with the possibility of making another one. And hey, worst case scenario, I'll piece it on my Singer and send it out to be long-arm quilted, which is where I figure I'm heading with my quilting anyway once I can no longer hand sew. One last note on NaNoWriMo 2020: My final wordcount was 75,105. I did not get on the site to update my stats before mi...

Participating in National Novel Writing Month this year for me started out well, took a nasty dive and then may have actually cured a lingering malaise I've been having with writing productivity in 2020. It didn't help that I lost my two pups just before and in the first week of NaNo, and I did consider giving up and waving the white flag. Very glad I didn't. My wordcount as of the writing of this post (10:45 pm on 11/29) was 71,635. I'm going to try to hit 75K tomorrow, but even if I don't, I'm very happy with how much I wrote. What I did differently this go-round: I joined a writing group on the Nano web site, which was low-key friendly but stayed pretty quiet for the most part. Some nice girls in the bunch, but they didn't talk much. I'm hoping I wasn't the reason for that; I tried to stay low-key friendly, too. Although I wasn't really inspired to participate in the forums after running into some pinheads last year, I did t...