Needlepoint News

Well, I completed the needlepoint part of my first book cover as you can see:
I've put off doing the much more difficult (for me) component of sewing. That means going to the library closet and dragging out the portable sewing machine, trying to remember how to thread it and filling up a bobbin wth matching thread and then actually stitching. Home Ec was not my best subject back in junior high.

Instead of jumping right into making the bookcover lining, I decided to work up another bookcover, this time using a Victorian bargello pattern.


More to follow after I dust off the sewing machine....

Back to Bargello

I recently decided to indulge myself and rediscover bargello, a type of needlepoint. (A big shout-out to Barbara Sher, life coach, for her category of "cyclical scanner" - an individual who may revisit multiple interests over a lifetime. It was such a relief to read in black and white that jumping from one interest to another didn't mean a lack of "stick-to-itiveness".)

It had been many years (dare I say decades) since I did any needlepoint. The craft technique itself hasn't changed, but the manner in which I obtained my supplies sure has. Way back when, my little village had a three story bargain center that was chock full of interesting yarns and notions. Over time, the family run business succumbed to worldwide market pressures. Standing firmly on principle, I refused to shop at Walmart. Instead, I let my keyboard take me to the people's marketplace, eBay, and quickly found both canvas and tapestry yarn at extemely reasonable prices. I learned that the storeowner of Linda's Vintage Treasures had lost her house when Katrina made landfall, but was one of the fortunate few who have been able to rebuild. I added her to my favorite list of sellers because of the quality of her tapestry yarns and ease of the transaction. I'm also very pleased to be able to send a little business the way of a Katrina-ravaged business. It feels like the small town thing to do.

So, here we have the work in progress. It will be a bookcover. (No surprise there, given my proclivities.) And it looks like I've enough yarn to experiment with several different bargello patterns for additional bookcovers.

Since this is the age of digital cameras and uploads via Flickr, I hope to post more pictures as the bookcover nears completion. And, speaking of finishing, I'd asked my crafter friend if she knew how to make linings for such a bookcover. She didn't off hand, but gave me some suggestions where to look. Wouldn't you know that I already had just the pattern in one of my craft books, purchased years ago as a discard from my local library. "So many books, so little time" (cribbed from the Fulton Public Library bookbag) and so true, so true.

I'm a cyclical scanner!

After many years of trying not to think of myself as a dilettante or a Jill of all Trades and a Mistress of None, I've learned that I'm a scanner! Do you know what it feels like to be totally clueless about what you want to be when you grow up and you're almost 55? A peek through this blog gives some indication of the multiplicity of my enthusiams. Of late I've re-engaged in mindfulness meditation and have begun to revisit my Buddhist studies from college. I've also started re-reading some college books that I read back when I was 17 or 18. (Sometimes I think that college is wasted on the young; I had much more important things to attend to than simply study while I was in college! LOL!) I also lacked that gravitas, wisdom or shear run of the mill lifetime experience to truly comprehend what I read back then. So, I've been re-reading parts of Plato's Dialogues as well as Herman Hesse's Sidhartha.

Let me rein in my enthusiam long enough to give credit where credit is due: I need to thank Barbara Sher, a lifestyle coach, for her wonderful book and PBS show: Refuse to Choose. Now I understand that I'm a generalist and that there's nothing wrong with that; in fact, it's incredibly right! I have many cross stich projects and afgans in different stages of completion; I always have at least 5 books going at once. In my spare time (I DO have a fulltime job that keeps food on the table!), I listen to podcasts from Berkeley and other insitutions of higher education and I compose parodies of well-known tunes for various groups that I belong to. So, let me express my sincere appreciation to Barbara Sher by linking to her website www.barbarasher.com

More writing

I went back to Bonnie Neubauer's website, bonniebauer.com, and found her online story spinner. Here's what she says about it: "Click on the Story Spinner to the left and you will get a starting phrase, a setting and four words that you must include in a story. Set a timer for 10-minutes... and then write!" So, being a good rule follower, I clicked and this is what I got:

Setting for your story: at a flea market

Starting phrase for your story: My intention had been to ask politely

Four words/phrases you must include in your story: Ad nauseam , Unearth, Web and Weekly. Setting my iBook meditation timer widget for 10 minutes as suggested, I was off and typing. Drumroll please!

My intention had been to ask politely, but first I had to locate the emporium owner. I had just unearthed my prize: an english porcelain teacup that matched one I'd smashed to smithereens eons ago. I had checked online web sources and been to eBay ad nauseam, to no avail. So I found myself devolving to old twentieth century behavior: going to garage sales and roadside flea markets on a weekly basis. I'd spotted lapsed treasures and grotty garbage. It amazes me what people will keep and keep and keep for years which suddenly turns up on a table across from ubiquitous trolls and beanie babies.

Liberating my writing

It has probably been just a little short of forever since I journaled/blogged or wrote. Today's impetus is a new book, The Write-Brain Workbook, by Bonnie Newbauer. She takes Natalie Goldberg's famous precepts of writing and encapsulates them in 366 "exercises to liberate your writing". The first, entitled Circle Game, invited me to choose one word from each of three groups of five and then use those three words in a story that began: "Sometimes I feel like a gerbil running around and around on his wheel." The words I chose yesterday were "banister", "jambalaya" and "keepsake". I really only thought about the exercise yesterday - which isnt' a writing practice to speak of. Here's today's fingers to keyboard entry:

Sometimes I feel like a gerbil running around and around on his wheel. Sometimes I feel like a nut, but most times I don't. I wish I had had a banister to slide down when I was a kid, but I doubt I would have, being too consumed with "appropriate, good girl" behavior. And if I had found one to slide down, and had slid, with my lack of coordination, I would most likely have broken a bone and had a cast for a keepsake. I'd have hoped many friends and acquaintances would come and sign it for me. What kind of a keepsake would a virginal cast be? There should be a pastische of signatures and other graffiti embossed on it. A spicy, personal jambalaya of a cast.

OK. So I wrote and then went back and finnagled and finetuned. I don't really think that's cheating. Maybe I'll even post this effort on my blog.

How could I have missed blogging about this book?

Almost every Saturday finds me at one of my favorite places, the Fulton Public Library. It was well over a number of months ago, falling into my usual routine of browsing the shelves displaying new acquisitions, that I first saw this book. I must have found the cover art intriguing enough to pick it up, leading to my perusal of the book jacket. Imagine my delight when I discovered that the title March referred to the progenitor of a family I had long ago met and loved in Louisa May Alcott's captivating creation, Little Women.

The author, Geraldine Brooks, apparently held Little Women as dear as I, but had been inspired to do what no other had done: she took the characters of Alcott's book, greatly expanding and enhancing them, fleshing them out in the bloodly context of our Civil War. Reverend March was mostly notable for his absence in Little Women. Brooks, through well-wraught flashbacks, introduces us to a man of flesh and fallibility. Unidimensional characters suddenly leap off the page and engage the reader in a tale that enriches the memory of Alcott's underpinning story.

Ms. Brook's Pulitzer Prize is well earned. I could have chosen no better book to win.

Reader's Reverie for April 17th

Where does the time go? It has been over two months since I posted anything here. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa. I plead illness - that virus that seems to be taking down every usually abled bodied adult for 2 to 4 weeks - I succumbed as well.

My dilatoriness (if there is such a word) can also be laid directly to spending more time reading than blogging. I've spend many hours being hightly entertained by Kevin Anderson's three part science fiction opus: The Saga of Seven Suns, A Forest of Stars and Horizon Storm. George Guidall is one of my favorite narrators; his vocal skill brings much, much more to the audiobook. Kevin Anderson has created interesting alien races and robots, as well as believeable characters. His status as a New York Times bestselling author is well deserved.

I also finished Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking. The stark portrayal of her denial, grief and mourning for her husband of forty years made for extremely painful reading. I understand why someone would not want to remove a loved ones belongings or clothes; the magical thinking: if their items remain, the owner yet remains, as well.

I''m currently reading Restless Souls: The Making of American Spirituality. I've also discovered an additional auditory resource: podcasts. Besides subscribing to the wonderful Zencast, I've found a weekly podcast on books from NPR, a history podcast about the twelve important Byzantine emperors and a podcast of what I believe is the Sunday Unitarian Universalist sermon out of New Jersey. I do have two ears, but I've found no way to multi-task listening to two separate podcasts at the same time.

Reader's Reverie for February 14th

Recent reading material included: Cat Confidential by Vicky Halls (understanding and interpreting feline behavior); The Grail: A Secret History by John Matthews (an overview of the many possible sources for the grail legend, including ancient creation myths that led to Celtic versions of the grail, the enduring Arthurian legends involving Sir Lancelot, Sir Percival and Sir Galahad); A Million Little Pieces by James Frey (the factually challenged "memoir" of his stay at an alcohol/drug rehab); The Complete Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis (fairy tales that I had somehow missed reading as a child); current "mind candy": A Dragon's Ascension by Ed Greenwood (book 3 of his sword and socery series which includes The Kingless Land: Band of Four, book 1, The Vacant Throne: Band of Four, book 2.

Upcoming reads include: Jefferson's War by Joseph Wheeler, Dragon's Doom: Bank of Four, book 4 by Ed Greenwood and Lincoln's Melancholy by Joshua Shenk.

I think I'm too busy reading to take the time necessary to blog.

Reader's Reverie for January 17th

Hmmmm, well, I've finished listening to Janet Evanovich's Eleven on Top and Adams vs. Jefferson by John Ferling. I've also finished a book that somehow snuck in there on me, People of the Moon by W. Michael Gear and Kathleen O'Neil Gear. Somehow or other I mixed up the dates when books were due at the libary and ended owing $.90 for overdue books, specifically, volume 4 of the Rhapsody series previous blogged. I magnanimously handed them a dollar and told them to keep the change and apply it all towards their building fund. I'm now listening to The Unhidden Truth by Kate Wilhelm. Too many books, too little time. Oh, I've asked the library to find me a copy of A Million Little Pieces by James Frey now that such controvery has erupted over his fanciful expansion of the memoir category to include outright fiction.

Reader's Reverie for January 2nd

I don't want to let so much grass grow under my feet (or should I say snow pile up) that I neglect to post here for such a long time. I've decided to briefly mention what books I'm currently reading (or in the case of Audible.com) listening to. So, here goes. For pure fluff in the mind candy category I'm currently reading Requiem for the Sun, by Elizabeth Haydon, the sequel to her Rhapsody, Prophecy and Destiny trilogy. You can find more about her at elizbethhaydon.com. I enjoy a rollicking fantasy, although these books seem more to fall into a hybrid category of fantasy/romance. Lest anyone think me a reading lightweight, I continue to parse Jon Kabat-Zinn's Whereever You Go There You Are in the spirituality category. I'm also listening to Adams vs. Jefferson by John Ferling and learning about the origins of the split between the Republican (i.e. Jefferson) opposition to a strong central government, which was viewed as the fast track to monarchy, in direct oppostion to the Federalist (i.e. Adams) desire for a strong central government with a federal bank and the right to levy taxes. That's approximately 11 hour and 17 minutes of drivetime listening. Partisan politics, dirty campaign tricks and a contested presidential election. The more things change the more they remain the same.

Year end musings

It's been awhile since I posted online. I got distracted by life again. I still plan on completing the Anthropology of Religion OpenCourseWare course, but must admit to getting side tracked by other books pertaining to Native American belief systems. I've piled up Native Religions and Cultures of North America: Anthropology of the Sacred by my bedside along with Vine Deloria, Jr.'s God is Red. Amazon.com can be very dangerous!

And, as if I hadn't purchased enough books to keep me distracted, my husband game me three more for Christmas: How Dogs Think: What the World Looks Like to Them and Why They Act the Way They Do by Stanley, Coren; a book on women's spirituality, Sexy Witch by LaSara Firefox; and Physics Demystified by Stan Gibilisco. Talk about an ecletic mix of reading material!

It's 6:04 pm on New Year's Eve, always a time to ponder the past and make numerous resolutions for the future. I've been to Jennifer Louden's ComfortQueen.com website earlier this week and downloaded her Inner Organizer. Part of its design is to help one focus on one's intention for the week. So, perhaps instead of making grand resolutions to last all year long, I'll try to come up with a weekly intention. Stay tuned.

We're going out to be with friends to welcome in the new year. Enjoy!

Still plugging away...

I'm still plugging away at my OpenCourseWare course, the Anthropology of Religion. I continue to read the books I mentioned previously (Emile Durkhelim's The Elementary Forms of the Relgious Life and Benson Saler's Conceptualizing Religion). I couldn't find any of the recommended texts within the two library systems that I frequent, so I requested what I could find, The Dreamtime: Australian Aboriginal Myths in Paintings by Ainslie Roberts with text by Charles P. Mountford and The Spirit World (The American Indians) from Time-Life Books. I'm finding much that resonates within me when I read about Native American beliefs and their values of balance/imbalance or harmony/disharmony as opposed to the good/evil dichotomy found in western religions that I have known.

Tonight I found time to listen to Dr. Crapo's lecture on Chapter 2 of his book: Diversity and Unity in the World's Religions. And, lest anyone think that I'm not giving my brain some much neede downttime, I've also taken out a Tony Hillerman mystery involving retired Navajo tribal policeman, Joe Leaphorn. His writing was a gentle introduction to shamanic practices.

More to follow

I watched Dr. Richley H. Crapo's lecture on "Religion: A multi-Faced Phenomenon" on my tiny, little QuickTime screen. It looked like he was taped while sitting in his office with his back to his bookcases. I think it will take me a little while to get used to multiple QuickTime downloads as a lecture, but, truly, I shouldn't complain about its quality for twice the price (free).

I received the last of my books order from alibris.com - Children of the Forest: Life with the Mbuti Pygmies by Kevin Duffy. He writes well. I found the part about the "molimo" referred to in Dr. Crapo's text as the most important Pygmy ceremony that is carried out so casually it doesn't look like a religious ritual.

I'm getting ready to dive into Chapter 2: Diversity and Unity in the World's Religions. More to follow.

OpenCourseWare - Books, books and more books

I continue to be enthusiastic over my OpenCourseWare course, the Anthropology of Religion. I'm still working on all the resource material listed in the first chapter, Anthropological Viewpoints about Religion. (Question: How does a college student find the time to do all this and take other courses and indulge in all else that collegiate life has to offer? Answer: I suspect that they don't if they are anything like I was back in the late sixties and early seventies.) Now in my mid-fifties, I'm having a terrific time getting back into academia. I've listened to about a third of the videotaped lectures, trying out Quicktime versus Windows Media Player.

I learned more about the NoteTaker program last night and can now link directly to URLs from various internet sites that lend depth to any notes I take. It's a fascinating way to take notes - non-linear as need be. Much remains terra incognita in the various pull down menus, however.

Today the big excitement was our mail delivery which brought two packages courtesy of alibris.com: Emile Durkheim's The Elementary Forms of the Relgious Life and Benson Saler's Conceptualizing Religion. I'll be dipping into these tomes along with one received earlier this week: The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure by Victor Turner. Depending on how that goes, it might be a little awhile before I blog again!

OpenCourseWare - A New Enthusiam

Well, the mindful blogging was a big bust. I simply cannot write that way (on or off the internet). I have to edit, refine, rethink, retool, cogitate and then some before anything goes out under my name. I didn't blog for over three months which was more than enough time to come up with a new enthusiasm: OpenCourseWare! The BOCES GED teacher at the jail where I work mentioned it while we were discussing Macintosh iBooks. He said that MIT had started it in a big way by putting all their courses online so people could audit by internet to obtain cultural enrichment. I checked it out and discovered that it wasn't just MIT. John Hopkins, Tufts University and a handful of others have decided to make some of their courses available online. I found one at Utah State University entitled Anthropology of Religion. The syllabus includes the text name, video lectures by Dr. Crapo (the text's author), other images and quizzes.

So, in the intervening blogless period, I've explored the online used textbooks store (I can't believe how much textbooks have gone up in price since I was in college!!). After securing the text, Anthropology of Religion: The Unity and Diversity of religions, I jumped into Chapter 1. Things have changed a great deal since I went to Eisenhower College in 1969. Besides giving a host of recommended readings, there is a list of recommended websites to peruse. I've been busy checking them out while trying to locate some of the recommended readings in the two public library systems I have access to. I could only find Carl Sagan's book, A Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. I went back to alibris.com and found books by Emile Durkheim, Benson Saler and Victor Turner. Although I couldn't find the exact book by Bronislaw Malinowski, I was able to locate another appropriate book at the Internet Sacred Text Archive.

There's nothing like letting enthusiam rip. I decided to see how students now are taking notes and found NoteTaker by Aquaminds Software Corporation. There's a bit of a steep learning curve that comes along with the month-long demo. The interface isn't as intuitive as I would expect. But, anyway, I'm happily taking notes, listening to the lecture and reading my eyes raw - all for not a lick of credit, just the joy of learning.

Your start-up disk is almost full

That's the message I've been getting ever since I somehow managed to sqeeeezzzee OS X Panther into my very old (circa 1999) iMac. Besides giving me a real incentive to think about buying a new laptop, that phrase, in another setting, gives me a visual of my mind being full of stuff. So much stuff. Busily thinking about other stuff. Other stuff in the past. Other stuff that hasn't happened yet - but might. As Yoda might have said, "...never your mind being where you are..."

What this seems to be leading to is a way to use this blog as a form of Writing Practice ala Natalie Goldberg's book, Writing Down the Bones. Since I threw out my back and haven't been going to Curves thrice weekly, I seem to have time to restart my mindfulness meditation practice. At the minimum these postings will serve to encourage me to continue with daily sitting practice (by noting when I have done same) and, at the sky's the limit, perhaps allowing me to finally write real truths as I experience them in writing practice.

I've found myself listening to podcasts by Zencast and have done 15 minutes of sitting both yesterday and today. I've been listening to Writing Down the Bones on my iPod and consider this a first attempt at writing practice.

Wish me luck!

Women's Rights

Photo credit: Women's Rights Historical Park

Today's blog is in honor of the Women's Rights Convention which took place on July 19-20, 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York, not far from where I grew up. I attended the now defunct Eisenhower College in Seneca Falls, which served as the repository for Women's Rights historical items until Congress authorized the Women's Rights Historical Park in 1980. A Report of the Convention can be found here and a link to the National Historical Park website here.

For those that like their history fictional, Miriam Grace Monfredo has written a mystery entitled The Seneca Falls Inheritance which deals with life just prior to the Convention in 1848 and blends historical figures, such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, with the mystery's main character, spinster librarian Glynis Tryon.

Sharing good gazebo fortune

It's still hot and muggy here in rural, upstate New York. I'm grateful that we have a window air conditioner in the bedroom, but that can be so confining. (And, there are only so many things one can do in a bedroom!) Consequently, I've been spending time in our shady gazebo. It's nestled into apple, cherry and pine trees, with honeysuckle and raspberry plants behind. There are large trees further behind that shade it from the sun for much of the day. If there's a breeze, it catches it and the windchimes play. I've frequently found myself going out there with a good book to escape the heat in the house. There are wetlands a little further behind, but it's screened from mosquitoes. I've found myself being very grateful to have such a book nook at the far end of our property.
I've been sharing my good fortune with a fat and feisty woodchuck. You can see the hole he insists on keeping right below the door to the gazebo. I spent some time tossing all the stone back down that he had worked so hard to throw up, but each day I returned to the gazebo, he had cleared his tunnel all back out. My husband said that the woodchuck had chosen a highly defensible spot - no predator can sneak up on him there. It's also very dry. So, as long as he doesn't expand the hole to human size, we have a truce and peace reigns in the back lot.

A different kind of Cat

It's been hot and humid, sweltering, stick to your chair weather for some time in upstate New York. Not at all conducive to cogitation with a computer keyboard in my library/computer room. (The only room in the house with air-conditioning is the bedroom - more information than you asked for, I know.) Tonight I've plugged in a portable fan, turned it on high and am basking in the baking breeze while I blog.

I've been remiss with my blogging. I started out so well, with such good intentions. Now days, even weeks, have passed between postings. Mea culpa. Life happened in the interim with good days and bad and those in between.

June 30th was one of the exciting times. My husband and I were passengers on the second "maiden" voyage of the Cat, the Rochester to Toronto fast ferry. From what I later read, there were 358 aboard including Rochester luminaries and, apparently, at least 20 members of the media. Everyone aboard had a chance to be interviewed. My husband spoke to WHAM and in the excitement of the interview, we forgot to say that it was our wedding anniversary. (Awwww!) The accommodations were delightful; the food the nautical equivalent of airplane fare.

As we were a bit late in leaving, the Captain cranked the engine speed up to 55 miles per hour. The resulting wake was amazing. We made excellent time, arriving in Toronto nearly on schedule. And yes, we plan to ride the ferry again.

Anyone for dream interpretation?

Zeke, the oh so perfect appearing basset hound shown in my first blog posting, woke me up at 5:30 today, barking and scratching to be let into our bedroom. After I opened the door, I was able to fall back asleep - but the dream that then ensued was very vivid!

The dream: For some reason I found myself at a college reunion where I knew no one. I was sitting at a table for four and the pleasant looking professor in tweed next to me intoduced himself and then asked my name. When I told my name was La Vaughn Rynearson, he said, "Rynearson, like the flea soap?" Before I had a chance to respond, an officious gray-haired lady appeared and said the reunion was over and the tables were needed elsewhere. She immediately picked up our table and walked off with it, leaving us to put away our folding chairs. With little or no transition, I found myself leading my long-departed red Honda CRX on a leash up a steep, slippery, snow-covered hill. It took some coaxing, but eventually the car crested the hill. The next thing I knew, I was in a resort hotel and had knocked down a portion of a display of items for sale in the hotel store. I wandered around and quickly found myself lost. (It didn't help that the hotel layout seemed to resemble a spiral snail shell.) I suddenly discovered that I had misplaced my purse and thus my keys to home, car and work. I found a friendly face (one of the correction officers I work with in jail) and she directed me to the lost and found department. After locating my purse, I went about my business only to discover that I had somehow, again, misplaced my purse. This time, I explained the siutation to my supervisor at work, but she didn't seem to think it was a real problem. As soon as I could, I got away and determined I had left my purse in a building that could be seen across a muddy field. I slogged through mud past my ankles that spattered my clothing until I reached my destination. I must have looked like a something the cat dragged in, because the hotel employees didn't seem to want me in their lobby. That's when I woke up very grateful to discover that my purse was safe and sound on my bedroom bureau.

WHAT on earth could this mean (aside from an indication that I have a more than slightly over-active brain)? If you'd care to offer an interpretation, please feel free!