The Devil Inside

MAN that Bing Crosby is persuasive.

Yet oddly, in spite of having worked my way through at least 25 Halloween-sized candy bars yesterday, I weigh less today. Gwyneth Paltrow endorses 45 minutes' exercise a day plus 8 hours' sleep in her new issue of GOOP* and maybe that explains it. After a day-long special Halloween-prep episode of Headless Chicken, I ran from my computer and dove into bed a full 7 hours before I was required to be conscious again. Probably not the measured approach she was getting at but still. It's either that or being too busy to eat an actual meal on top of all the candy.

You won't catch me doing that today though. It's Halloween! I'll be buried in my storage room looking for the glow-in-the-dark horns on a headband I stored there last November 1st!


* for the record, I do not read GOOP. I read Jezebel.


* * * * * *

Okay, I can't find those horns anywhere, so I made this hat instead:


Happy Halloween, everybody!

You are temptation

UGH. The house supply of Halloween candy arrived last night right after I got another story rejection. And it was a stabby one, too.

Bing Crosby has been singing Temptation on a continuous loop in my head ever since, which makes me think about when I was a kid and my sister would play old songs on the piano for my dad and I to sing along to. (He was a gifted singer; she is a talented musician; I am... enthusiastic.)

Remembering that made me think about when I was a kid and my sister and I would spend the Christmas holiday watching old movies while frantically knitting the last of our presents. Movies like, you know, The Road To (insert place name here) starring Bing and Bob and featuring such songs as Temptation.

And that made me think about how much I wish Halloween was over so I could climb into a cave to knit Christmas presents and listen to old music. Then most of the candy would be gone and my hands would be too busy to eat it anyway.

Give that girl a hand!

When my fingertips start catching thread from things like, you know, denim, I know it's time for petroleum jelly and cotton gloves. The Treatment was even more urgent yesterday since my qiviut arrived two days ago (it's so adorable! $32 worth nestles right into my palm!)

Petroleum jelly is the cheapest, most effective, and either the safest or maybe not so much way to soften your hands. Also, you can use it for all kinds of weird things. Luring trout? Who knew?

Since it's made from petroleum, though, it isn't green, and if you're inclined as I am to avoid obvious chemical exposure it does seem less than sensible to put petroleum on your pores. I'm thinking I should try out this recipe next time I find myself using my hands to sand woodworking projects. Or if the writing is going well, I guess I could just buy some of this.

The writing is going well, incidentally: I reread the story I want to submit this week and I really, really don't hate it. It's not a competition winner by any means, but if the judges also deem it not-hateable, I will be a happy girl.

A Short Row to Hoe

Kathi and Karen kindly rescued me yesterday by explaining the hat complication as a short row. My non-knitting readers will have to take my word for it that this was comprehensible, or perhaps take photographic evidence* of my 3" progress on the hat last night when I should have been polishing my story submission.

November is national novel writing month!! It's basically the 3-day novel contest stretched over four weeks. I was so excited when I heard. I even have a terrific story idea I could use. But you know what? I'm not gonna do it**.

That's right. I'm gonna turn down a deadline. Me, Queen of Deadlines. Because I am seriously on a roll with my short stories, and because I'd rather be knitting for Christmas than writing a novel that in my rushed hands will be a poor first draft that may never go anywhere anyway, and because I have put writing first for so long the house is falling apart around me. Instead I will take it easy and use my spare time to make shortbread.***

* Sorry, I forgot to take a picture.
** I still have a few days to change my mind though.
*** More on my heartwarming shortbread story in a future post. Ha! Suspense!

Pick One

I have two free hours today and so many options! I could

1/ bake the bread dough in the 'frig
2/ find the white shirt I need for Halloween
3/ polish the story I'm submitting on Friday
4/ figure out what "wrap, slip the wrapped stitch, and turn" means
5/ so I can knit my winter hat
6/ work on my horror story
7/ drink hot chocolate and listen to the radio
8/ clean the bathroom
9/ boil eggs for lunch
10/ have a nap
11/ fold laundry
12/ think of some good breakfast menus

Okay, maybe I can pick more than one. I'll go with 7, of course, and... you sitting down? 6! I know, amazing, but it's been writing itself in my head and I can't wait to get it down.

Braaains... Braaains

I stayed up way too late last night reading Dr. Daniel Amen's Change Your Brain, Change Your Life by way of feeding my ongoing obsession with the way our brains work. I first became interested in Dr. Amen when I saw what an awesome public speaker he is. He's dynamic and inspiring and really knows how to work a crowd.

Reading his book, I'm impressed by how effectively he packages his ideas. He is a publisher's dream! Not only does he have a new concept for self-improvement that fits into tidy pockets with easy, concrete tips, he presents them it all a credible and compassionate way. This is definitely another reference book for writers.

It didn't take long to figure out which part of my brain might not be working its best; I bet anybody who reads this blog could figure me out pretty quickly too. But I'm not sure I want to amend my tendency toward serial obsessions because it's how I learn more. If I hadn't allowed myself to be reabsorbed by knitting, I wouldn't have found the Knitter's Almanac, and if I hadn't been so determined to get that, and also the 'bargain' of free shipping, I wouldn't have bought Change Your Brain. Now I know more about how people's minds work and what kinds of character traits go together, and that's got to help my writing, right? ... erm, right?

If you need me, I'm in the bread box

... and it's a seriously cute bread box: vintage 50s Lustroware in red and cream. But I digress.

Around this time last year, I became completely obsessed with all things kitchen. I replaced just about every cooking pot and tool in there and started asking questions about how ingredients work together to make magic in the oven.

A cooking-expert friend recommended a possible book that led me to a shortlist of three. The very best and most exhaustive one is Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking. It's too scientific for everyday use in my house, though. I liked my friend's recommendation--Regan Daley's In the Sweet Kitchen, which I had to buy for her chocolate recommendations alone. But the one that I chose to help me understand what I want to know is Shirley Corriher's Cookwise.

Today's Cookwise discovery: sugar is not in bread recipes to feed the yeast! In fact, it's got stuff in it that kills yeast. You can only pair about 2 tablespoons of sugar with one cup of flour, and sometimes honey kills yeast outright, depending on the nectar that's gone into it. Which answers my question about substituting honey for sugar in today's batch of bread. (no.)