There has been an abnormally high number of posts about food on this blog lately, and I truly hate not being balanced in the coverage of topics. To that end, we're going to babble about something else entirely. At least at first. IT might segway in to food later, but it won't be the main thrust, I promise.
For some reason yours truly was very burnt out on knitting for a bit. The very thought of picking up needles made me cranky in the extreme. Given how many projects I have going currently, this is really odd. I normally love to knit or crochet. It's just that some of these projects are taking a while and are boring and repetitive. I needed a break to do something else, except that I was so burnt out that I couldn't even really handle the thought of yarn with anything else either.
Somehow in the midst of all of this I managed to finish a nalbinded hat for my husband, probably because it was already 95% done and I just wanted it OVER with.
Instead, I changed tack and decided to work on something else entirely, in this case it was paper. I have been trying to fold cranes for the Paper Cranes for Japan project, wherein 2 dollars is donated for every one origami crane they receive. There is a monstrous flock of 30-something origami cranes bouncing around the house right now. I was hoping to shoot for 50, but didn't realize the deadline was today. So I'll be rounding them up, dropping them in an envelope, and firing them off to the post office as fast as I can. At least I'll end up helping $60 worth or so. :)
I also set up an art trade with a gal I chat at over Twitter a lot, and right now I'm in the midst of making her a charm bracelet out of beads and paper, folding up some awesome zakka lucky stars, and working on a small watercolor painting. I'm also going to try to fold up an origami snail to send her way, since she lives in the Pacific Northwest and all they ever see are slugs. I figure the break might be nice.
There has also been A Massive Spring Cleanination of this place, and I must say that I am seriously loving getting all of our crap organized. We went through our books, our DVDs and our video games and culled things we would never play or never use again. 2 large boxes of DVDs, one box of games and three boxes of books later, and I feel like that moment in Poltergeist where Tangina sighs and proclaims "This house... is clean."
That is, if we ignore all the clutter in the newly deigned Craft Cubby in the hallway and the mounds of various PS2 and USB cables tumbling out of boxes in the computer closet in the office.... oh sweet baby Jesus I am not looking forward to going through that mess, but that's coming up next!
For our next trick there will be massive amounts of Donating Things going on, as I really really want to get this stuff out of my house, BUT ... I also really want other people to enjoy and have use of it as well. I found as I was going through my books that the idea of passing along manga for somebody else to enjoy put a huge grin on my face... so anything that I didn't just love and have an emotional attachment to went tumbling in to the pile.
As an aside, if anybody's looking for the first few volumes of Tokyo Mew Mew, Mail vols 1-3 or some of The Walking Dead, they will be at the Downingtown Public Library in the next week.
The DVDs are headed to Goodwill, where I'm hoping somebody really, really wants The Matrix: Reloaded, or Volumes 1 and 2 of Witchblade the Anime. There are some other ones in there that aren't quite so quirky, like Appleseed, Lucky Star and some Kung Fu movies. The videos are going to Gamestop, in the thought that perhaps not only would someone else like to play them, but we'll have enough to go get ice cream afterward.
All of this rearranging of things will be nice, because I HAVE A JOB! Out of the wide blue sky a recruiter called me and said they had a great opportunity... and they DID. I'm headed to a place with no call requirements and no time limits, and this'll be a super awesome change from previously. We just practice our mantra of "We are not what we do". I will not be a tech support phone monkey. I am a programmer and an artist who works as one.
The important thing about these two events, however, is that because of the job, we can now seriously start pondering buying a house again! And if we clear a bunch of junk out, then there's that much less that we have to move when the time comes. It is totally a win-win. :)
In the midst of all of this I am having a tea party, where I will be having a large group of people over in my house to talk about just about everything and, of course, to drink tea. Such things make me incredibly nervous as I am out of practice when it comes to entertaining. My house is like my cuddly, warm den where I create things and try new stuff out, and its where I retreat to when the world starts putting the hurt on my brain. I don't invite people over too much because it doesn't even occur to me to do it half the time. I'm hoping this will at least be fun for everybody, as well as letting me flex my creative mojo.
Speaking of flexing creative mojo, one last thing. Because I got hired, and I got hired so quickly on the heals of creating The Game (which we already detailed elsewhere) after 11 months of no action to speak of, I decided to send an email to the lovely Ms. Jane McGonigal, of whom I have already had fangirl ravings previously in this blog as well. I just explained when we saw her, how her words inspired me, and the logistics of the game itself. Then I thanked her for helping me to shift my mindset and turn an otherwise odious and depressing task in to something fun. I figured people like to know that their work is having an impact, so even if I never got a response at least she would know that her ideas had worked.
What I was NOT expecting was to receive a reply later that evening telling me that she thought my story was quite inspirational and asking me to introduce myself the next time we might find ourselves at the same event so she could meet me in person. Wow. How cool was that?
This was followed by an email a few minutes later from her asking me to post the details of The Game on to her "super secret HQ", Gameful, as there was a competition going on to make a game out of something incredibly boring and she thought mine had a very good shot. So I did! And wow, already I've been friended by a few folks already on the site and gotten to take a more serious look around than the first time I visited it. Seeing as my goal right now is just to get in on some creative collaborations (because let's face it, people are awesome and come up with awesome ideas, but GROUPS of people just raise the bar up and beyond when it comes to creating stuff.) this seemed like a nice place to dip my toes in the water. Who knows what might come of it?
I'm sitting in the midst of a nice, creative warm happy and I really like it. The house is getting cleaned up, we're tossing out old junk, and consolidating the current junk we have. There's a sense of movement to this place now that we didn't have even this morning before we started. Besides stirring up a lot of dust, it's also done a lot for our motivation to get organized, get rid of excess, and stay focused on what we truly want.
And tonight I will be baking Madeleines and matcha tea and lime cake. There. Almost a whole entry that did not talk about cooking.
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