Ten on Tuesday: Top 10 To Do List

Well, I found that topic to be rather vague. I have several lists (I'm a list maker by habit). I love making lists of things I need to do. However, I find that the order changes depending on the immediacy of the project. I suppose that this is my top ten list of things that need to be done as of ... right ... now.

1. Clean the floor from where my old stove sat (hey, I pulled that sucker out and found: a wooden spoon - been missing for two years; a pair of kitchen shears - missing over one year; a piece of metal - have no idea what it is our where it came from which means I've never cleaned out from under my stove in the six years we have been here; five Legos; twelve packets of English Breakfast tea from England actually - so that's where those went; two quarters; a pile of sludge that looks like it came off a dirty grill.

2. Wait for my new oven to be delivered sometime today. Have I talked about me new oven? The flat top stove with the cobalt blue enclosed burner interior? It's being delivered sometime between noon and four p.m. (sigh)

3. Finish several projects for gifts for family members. I do have a feeling that I am going to be gifting people projects still on the needles.

4. Finish up several charity knitting projects that I have going on.

5. Reverse numbers three and four because I'm thinking that I need to get those finished before the knitted items for family members.

6. Go to the post office to mail off pocket zombies and nuns.

7. Move number six up to the number three spot because those need to get in the mail pronto.

8. Finish editing the manuscript on the book I'm considering releasing through Barnes and Noble's PubIt program.

9. Cook something in my new oven. I'm thinking some bread or a do-over of Thanksgiving with real stuffing and gravy.

10. Outline the new idea I have for a book. It's really cool with nuns and geeks and, um, why yes it was that funny little plot idea from the plot generator, but the more I think about it the more I think it would be completely fun.

Some of my favorite things

Unfortunately in the wonderful Richard Rodgers' song, it fails to mention anything about cookie baking day. I love a cookie baking day. Today is one of those days. I'm making several different varieties for a cookie exchange with my knitting group and since I couldn't decide which cookie I wanted to bake I'm making a sampling from some of my favorites. From very easy (butter, sugar, flavoring (I used orange) and flour) to more intensive time consuming ones that require one to actually decorate and paint the finished cookies. But it's one of my favorite things to do, so I don't look at it as work.

My first recipe called for me to roll the cookies in powdered sugar. This meant I had to get down my sugar rolling bowl. This is a pottery bowl that my mother made probably thirty years ago. I've retained ownership of it and its twin and when cookies need to be rolled this is the bowl that comes down. It doesn't matter if it is powdered sugar for mocha crinkles or cinnamon and sugar for snickerdoodles. It's all the same. This is the perfect rolling bowl. It isn't too deep, it isn't too wide and it isn't too large. It allows for perfect hand movements and is large enough to hold three or four little balls of dough without crowding each other. It is one of those warm and comforting objects that is ingrained in traditions. I am quite sure as my children move out of the house there will inspections made to make sure that this bowl doesn't leave with them. They will fight over who gets it at my death. And if, by some horrid chance, it breaks we will have a service to remember all the wonderful times we had rolling cookies in sugar in this bowl.

Knitting is not for the lazy

Well, not if you want to get anything done. There are fourteen knitting days left until Christmas (in case you didn't know). And I have a total of one project done out of four. Two I have to work on covertly because people keep hanging around or want to "spend time with me" which really puts a cramp on my being able to knit without them knowing what I am making. So all of this is going on and then I find out this week that several friends have had tragedies or bad news in their lives. That equates to charity knitting. Blankets and shawls and demise caps. But you know? I don't really mind. I may have to give a few gifts to family members that are still on the needles, but I think they will understand.

There is something about knitting an item for a friend who has lost a baby or a loved one. As you knit each stitch you think about what they are going through and how their lives are impacted by tragedy and you hope that each time that they wrap themselves in this thing you have made that they will feel loved and supported. For a friend whose grandbaby died our knitting group is making demise caps and blankets for the hospital that has tended to this family. Somehow you hope that the families that have to use these items will feel some comfort knowing that someone took the time to create a hat for their baby.

So in all this I am busy plugging away. I'm editing, so there isn't a whole lot of actual writing going on and because it is December and it is actually cold outside I have been baking cookies. The house smells all warm and good and it is easy to switch batches in the oven between rows of knitting and lines of editing. But there just doesn't seem time to do much of anything else. Maybe January will be easier.

Dental pain sucks

Just in case no one knew this little fact I wanted to be very clear that there is no pain in the world as horrible as dental pain. I would go through childbirth again to avoid dental pain even though you end up with a baby at the end that has to be cared for and fed and diapered and taught not to stick pencils up its nose. Quite a few years ago I had some dental pain that ended up in three root canals with crowns. The teeth that held the crowns were not stable and all three ended up breaking out. Now I am faced with the trauma of having to go in and have those three teeth extracted and having bridges built. Every time I go into the dentist they lie and tell me that the pain will go away soon and that it is "almost over." Last week when I had the temporary bridge created I was told that this appointment would be easy. To which I replied, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it does." I really hate dentists.

Don't get me wrong, I think I would have a great time at TGIFridays with my dentist or I could see myself having a dandy time knitting with her (if she did knit) or just going shopping for shoes, but I really don't like her as a dentist. I don't like her rooting around in my mouth and sticking me with needles (yet another phobia of mine thanks to a sucky childhood filled with doctors, needles and dentists). I even like the receptionist with whom I know I would have a good time with because she went to DragonCon this year and likes Neil Gaiman. I even like the dental assistant who has a very pleasant voice and pretty eyes. She's gentle and kind, but I don't want any of them poking around in my mouth.

The worst part of all of this is that I am in pain! And when I am in pain I don't want to knit, I don't want to write and I certainly don't want to cook because eating hurts too. I'm tired of "eating" pudding, soup, and things one sucks out of a straw. I have story ideas that float through my head, but just sitting down to formulate them hurts and so I make little notes that make no sense the next day. What? I had a story idea about an evil widowed stepmother who is marrying a hotel concierge and the quiet unnoticed stepdaughter falls in love with the new concierge that the EWS refers to as Charles Two? I'm not sure where I was going with that. And anything that requires more than stockinette stitch is just a bit too mind-taxing at the moment.

Can someone zip me to the future, have all my teeth fixed while I'm in some sort of weird unconsciousness and I wake up with a full set of functioning teeth that aren't killing me and no gum pain either? My family would appreciate it greatly.

10 on Tuesday: Holiday Movies

I find it rather funny that most of the 10 on Tuesday topics are difficult for me to do. I'm a list maker and love lists. It's how I cope with each day. I make a list:

1. Breakfast and tea
2. Shower and tea
3. Write 2,000 words and tea
4. Go teach a class (don't forget tea - students will appreciate you for it)
5. Do grocery shopping (stop at Starbucks for a cup of Joy tea)
6. Do dishes (do not drink tea or you will end up washing your cup and will lose said tea)
7. Make dinner and tea
8. Knit (um, yeah, there's tea here too)
9. Crawl into bed with a book and a cup of Chamomile tea
10. Get back out of bed and brush teeth and resist the urge to go make another cup of tea

I get these lists each Monday on making a list of 10 things for Tuesday. It shouldn't be hard, but for the life of me I can never make a real list.

So this week's list is 10 favorite holiday movies. UGH! There aren't that many that I truly enjoy, so rather than making a list of my 10 favorite holiday movies, I will make a list of 10 movies and at least one of them will actually be one that I enjoy.

10. Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer. Yes; the classic puppet-mation. This is a horrid story of a reindeer couple who are so embarrassed by their son's difference that they hide the fact that he is unique. He is taunted and teased by the other reindeer children. He is cast off as a misfit by the Jolly Old Elf. He is completely ignored and considered useless until they realize that they are doomed and his odd glowing nose is the only hope for Christmas because Christmas will be just ruined if the children don't get their boxes and stockings full of useless crap made in China not by happy singing elves in the North Pole. This would not be one of my favorite holiday movies.

9. Elf. This Will Ferrell telling is actually pretty fun and while I enjoy watching it once a year, I don't need to see it for 25 days 3 times in a row each day. It's a cute movie, but it isn't all that.

8. A Christmas Story. This is the one that involves a BB gun, a leg lamp and a group of Chinese restaurant employees singing Fa-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra. I can't begin to tell you what all is wrong with this movie. I have friends who think it is the most wonderful movie ever and I just don't get it. Although, I will admit that every year on Christmas we go out to watch a movie and then stop at our favorite Chinese restaurant for dim sum. I'm not sure if Chinese restaurants have always been open on Christmas or if they decided that A Christmas Story was a great promotional tool and started opening on Christmas because they knew people would watch this movie and want lo mein on the 25th of December.

7. The Santa Clause. This is funny and cute and entertaining. I love the premise of Santa being around for so long because of a "clause." I'll watch it if there is nothing else on. The sequel wasn't too bad either, but the third one was a hack and very lame.

6. The Holiday. I think I love this movie because I love the cottage that Kate Winslet owns and have this secret fantasy of living in such a cottage. It is also a good story and waking up with Jude Law beside me would not be bad either.

5. Home Alone. The original and only the first one. It was cute and charming, although how someone could not notice that they had left a child is beyond me. The sequel and the third and the fourth and the remake, well, no thanks. And maybe that was what happened with Makaulay Culkin. Perhaps if he hadn't been forced to be the cute, witty and adorable little kid for so long he wouldn't have turned out into the drug abusing surly man he is today.

4. Miracle of 34th Street. It's a classic. What can I say?

3. It's a Wonderful Life. Ditto. It's good movie making with a good story and a happy ending and ring-a-ding-ding an angel gets its wings.

2. How the Grinch Stole Christmas. It has to be the animated one that has the actual reading of Dr. Seuss's book and not the Jim Carrey version that just sucked all the childhood memories I had away and turned them into great gobs of gelatinous goo.

1. Love Actually. Of course there had to be an Alan Rickman movie on the list and this ranks as number one, not because it has Alan Rickman (he's actually not his most lovable in this movie) but because it just makes me so gosh darn happy. I love what Hugh Grant says at the beginning that people's last thoughts are not of hate, but of love and that love is all around you. I love stories told in vignettes and then finding out that all these little stories are inter-related in the end. Love is all around us.

Knitting with words

Because I am a knitter and a writer, I find that words and yarn tend to blend themselves well. This probably won't make sense to anyone who isn't a knitter. I find that when I write certain words lend themselves better because of the way that they sound or feel in the mouth. It is much like choosing a yarn to go with a pattern or a pattern to go with a specific yarn. It might be the most scrumptious Merino and silk, but it may make horrible cables or it might be the most fabulous lace pattern but the mottled yarn causes the lace to be lost amongst all the color changes.

In writing my NaNo for the year I wrote about knitters. This yarn and word mixture was even more pronounced for me. Now not only did I have to find the right word for the moment, but also the right knitting words. Words such as needles, cable, stitch, Malabrigo, wool, cotton all came into play. If someone is angry, the word cashmere is all wrong. She doesn't pick up a ball of cashmere and throw it against the wall. She picks up a ball of linen or a hank of black scratchy acrylic. Cashmere comes into play when he thinks about her or perhaps she remembers that disastrous first date while grasping a pair of fourteen inch long size US 4 Stiletto needles. That combination of words and what they represent varies from page to page and it is all important. I loved seeing that evolve in this book. The fibers that reflected the moment. The knitting actions that represented a feeling. Someone who is angry doesn't flit the stitches from needle to needle, but rather she picks at them or perhaps she is extremely angry and she stabs at her work.

In the end a sweater is born and a book awakens. It was a fun process. And now I have many ends to weave in, seams to sew, and blocking to shape it correctly. It's very sweater-like this book writing.

(Side note to all the non-knitters: you may find this true of your own interests outside of writing. I can't really give you any non knitting or cooking ideas, but you probably see it, if not consider it next time you sit down to write, especially if you involve those things that you love.)

I survived (and won)

Once again I managed to pull of the NaNoWriMo challenge and finished in at 63,785 words and actually managed to reach The End. It was a fun and wild journey with several days lost due to dental appointments and Harry Potter. My Big Goal to actually blog my way through NaNo this year failed on day three. That's ok. I figured one of a few things.

1. Those who were truly interested in my NaNoWroMo word count could always go check out my profile on NaNoWriMo or follow my progress on Twitter.

2. Those who weren't interested in my NaNoWriMo progress were probably relieved to not have to hear about my month long ramblings about how my writing was going.

3. Those who were irritated because I wasn't posting blog entries for the month of November could go find someone else to placate their need to read and I probably wouldn't know they weren't here anyway. And I'm OK with that because this is my blog and while I share my thoughts with other people, I'm not out to please anyone.

4. Those who didn't notice I wasn't posting well, you were probably writing right along with me and trying not to "waste" words on blogs but rather your own novels.

5. The knitters and the cooks had more time to do their thing.

But NaNo is over so I can get back to my regular blog entries and start editing my NaNo novel (after the first of the year). I've decided that I really need to work on revisions of my last novels and give my brain a break from Harriet and Carl and the lovely yarn shop I created.

Tune in tomorrow when I hope to talk about knitting with words.