I miss my hair

For two years now, I've been on a sad journey without my beloved 20-year hairstylist Giuseppe, who moved away. I got a referral from friends with great hair, but their stylist wasn't able to work any magic on me, and I tried a random stylist who did a passable job but spent the entire hour telling me I looked old and should a/cut my hair short b/start colouring and c/straighten my unfashionable curls. Fear kept me from booking another cut for months and it wasn't pretty.

Then my sister found somebody wonderful who does a beautiful job on curly hair. I went once and he reshaped my seriously messed-up lid. I went again and we tried a new look with less length. Last night I went again and came home with a flapper bob.

It's a very good haircut and everything but you know, I miss long hair. You can tie it back from your face, and your neck doesn't get cold, and you don't have to go every 6-8 weeks to get it trimmed. Somebody who looked at me in horror this morning pointed out that I will never, ever be able to make it long again but I beg to differ. I figure on about a year, maybe a year and a half, most of which I will no doubt spend comforting myself with chocolate and hair clips*.


*ohhh! I can felt a flower with leaves to sew to a hair clip!!

Today's Top Ten

It's like I have whack-a-mole game in my head, including such favourites as:
10/ shingles, the kind that itch people you like
9/ whether there is any chocolate in the house
8/ shingles, the kind that may or may not keep your porch dry
7/ how wonderful Ray is for sticking with the porch roof repair
6/ what Barbara Walters was thinking when she polished her list
5/ how much I'd like to be eating chocolate RIGHT NOW
4/ how good I feel for resisting knitting yesterday
3/ and working on my horror story instead
2/ and for finding a second Nov. 30 deadline
1/ and having an idea for a second story too

And now I will go out to the post office and mail the mid-November submissions*.

* by way of the bakery so I can pick up a fresh warm chocolate croissant.

Dreams and preserves

A squishy brown wrapper arrived yesterday, and inside was a mother lode of yarn called 'Dream.' I'd been dreaming of getting started on the projects I had in mind for it, but as I cast on the stitches I decided that it's called Dream because you dream of being done with it. By bedtime I had worked through a little more than half the ball--enough to try on what I'm making with it--and changed my mind. It's going to be a dream to wear.

In between stints with Dream, I worked on the story about my grandparents and decided it's as much about canning as it is about them. And that me wonder - why on earth have I never been drawn to canning? It's got everything - a big mess to make and clean up, hours of commitment, a result that could be purchased from somebody else with far less inconvenience, and a complete distraction from writing. Plus I really, really love home-made peach jam.

That bug may yet bite me. In the meantime I still have hopes for bridge and lawn bowling: for a few years now they've been inching their way up from what? to meh to intriguing. If I ever run dry on diversions it's a safe bet one of them will hit irresistible.

Definitely interesting

I hadn't written in about a week and when I started revising yesterday I remembered why: knitting is easier. You get a quicker return on investment, too. Knit for two hours, you're gonna see serious progress. Write for two hours, you might have the same piece with two new words in it.

That said, it felt good to cut away the second story thread in the piece about my grandparents and focus on one perspective. Or it will do when I find said perspective. That's another thing about writing. You can spend a lot of time just considering where you should stand to get the best view. I tried something new and rewrote in the style of this blog. Tonight I'll have another look and see whether it's working.

But this afternoon, I'm gonna knit. I need to see some progress in this day!

And just to make things interesting...

Binnie wrote me yesterday about another literary competition (with a deadline this week.)

And after writing about Gramma's shortbread yesterday I got thinking about her... and I do have a piece about her that would fit into a competition category with a little work...

And then another friend mentioned she's taking the day off to write today...

And the hat I was knitting is coming along pretty fast, which bodes well for the other three I'm supposed to do before Christmas...

... so I'm gonna try writing today and see what happens. I can pretty much guarantee that I'll also knit and do laundry and stare out the window and hunt around for some chocolate and think about shoes, but after resisting the last two deadline opportunities I'm too weak to hold back from this one, and it just seems meant. On the other hand, I did just burn some muffins while typing this. Sure hope that's not the meaningful sign for the day.

A short story about short bread

I've got 40 making days to Christmas, and 14 knitting projects plus shortbread duty. I know... nobody eats that stuff, right? Well, they eat what my mother's made forever. Nothing goes better with tea and a book in a snowstorm.

Mum uses the recipe my dad's mum taught her, which means my family has been making these cookies for around a hundred years now. You have to use very cold butter, and she squishes and squeezes and pummels it into the sugar and flour that pretty much make up the cookie. She taught me to pack in as much flour as possible, though I suspect this has more to do with impressing friends with your stamina than with flavour. In the end the dough is too soft to roll out and cut with the special cutter, so you have to put it back in the 'frig for a while. Basically, you're looking at a three-day job if you're making gifts.

I have a tendency to carpal tunnel and limited time, so I cheat. I use the mixer so the butter doesn't warm under my hands, and I form the dough into a roll for slicing. They still taste way better than any other shortbread I've tried. It might be the rice flour, but I like to think it's some special magic from my Gramma.

A wonderful, awful idea*

Of course you know the whole knitting thing is me being a tortured writer compelled to communicate ideas and emotions while burdened by the need for productivity--if not in writing, in action?

Okay, so, I am SUPER EXCITED about the whole Christmas knitting idea! I had a feltable wool feeding frenzy yesterday, my list in one hand and two full tote bags in the other** and was happy until I got home and it dawned on me just how many projects I've signed myself up for. Don't ask me for a number because there is no way I'm gonna risk my inner calm by counting them. And since I've been sick and mostly sitting for a week, the outside has been sweeping itself into the house a little every time the door opens--instead of knitting, I should be dealing with the resident leaves and maple keys, not to mention all the swirls of scraps of paper that keep descending on me.

It's the perfect scenario for the discovery that I need 5.5mm double pointed needles and some non-felty wool for another scarf I just thought of plus needle felting supplies, don't you think? Yes, I'm making excuses. I just really want to go see a naked sheep.

* apologies to the Grinch, or rather Dr. Seuss
** I admit, I bought some winter white that could be Kool-Aid dyed, but I'm not going there! No way!