etc.

That last post was post # 1,001 here at etc.. I don’t often spend time at the dashboard in WordPress (it’s the summary page you see when you login to your WordPress blog), but today I did and this little statistic poked its head out of the general mess and waved me down. Hello, little milestone.

Starting Monday, I’m off for two weeks. Since it follows on the heels of a long weekend (Canada turns 138 tomorrow, happy birthday, friend!) I am, in fact, looking at 17 days of clear, blue nothingness ahead. General plans include:

• getting the studio/study up to snuff (likely not as grand as originally hoped/planned, I’d be happy with a clean, workable space at this point)
• doing taxes (delinquently late taxes)
• having our eaves replaced (not by us)
• doing librarian things (I have three talks and one course coming up in the Fall and all four are in similarly fuzzy & amorphous stages of planning. A wee bit of thinking, research, and writing should soothe the nascent anxieties, I think.)
• making a cat or two (a fabulous librarian pal has commissioned a bunch of cats modelled after personalities in 1920s Paris (Joyce, Hemingway, Alice B., etc.) — “Left Bank Cats”. I can’t wait to get started! Such a brilliant idea, wish I had thought of it.)
• reading
• knitting (remember when I used to do that?)
• otherwise ignoring the productivity demon.

So much for clear, blue nothingness. Still, I anxiously await.

Feast day of both Peter and Paul. Yes, that Peter and that Paul.

Last week, I received an e-mail from someone unknown to me, who gravely reminded me that I had not said anything at all about the saints lately, and would I please recommence with the daily lessons in hagiography, thank you very much. And so, Nicholas, my apologies. Today’s lesson is delivered in your honour. Such, as it is.

Lately, I have felt that I have lost some of the magic here at etc.. I feel a bit like I’ve had a productivity demon looming in the background, driving me to create, create, create, so that I have something to show you at the end of the day. I think part of this might have something to do with the shop, which I have been feeling awkward and anxious about of late. Should I be doing things to “promote” the shop? Should I be fiendishly creating so that it is bursting at the seams with irresisitable goodness? Should I be doing more “marketing”? (There’s that language of commerce again). What I really need is a stern reminder of why I decided to open the shop in the first place: simply because I was amassing more “stuff” than I knew what to do with and having a little corner of my site where people could opt to buy that stuff (or not) would justify my endless doing & creating and, in some very minor way, also justify the endless experimentation I’ve been doing, with all the genres and raw materials I’ve been jonesing to experiment with, lo these many years.

There. I feel a bit better now. Promotion, productivity, marketing, be damned.

I’ve been reading a bit lately. An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears, to be exact, a book which I commend to you without hesitation. It’s grand. If you like a haughty mystery set in Early Modern England, that is.

I’ve been having a ball with a pile of fabric I recently scored off eBay. None of it was bought with much purpose in mind (although I have had a hankering to make more bags since the last moderate success), and I didn’t think any of it would coordinate with anything I had at home, but as I unwrapped and unravelled the bundle, a few natural couplings came together and I simply couldn’t resist sewing up a few bags. Six are up in the shop.

It’s been warm. Hot, in fact. I was up early this morning, feeding the garden a bit of water, and skipping delightedly around the lavender bushes, which have grown substantially since we put them in and are now emitting a very distinct lavender fragrance. I can’t wait for them to flower so I can snip a few buds and bring them into the house. The mister is worried.

Thanks for all your kind comments and e-mails about the Cuba pictures. Will let you know when that third gallery is up and running (I’m a bit nervous about getting the pictures back since I used a film format I’ve never tried before. Anyway, mini surprise, for all of us).

It’s been a bit of a cat sweatshop at my house this week. I owe The Glitter Workshop four cats and I had hoped to have them in the post before we went away, but I ended up running out of time and couldn’t manage to put it all together. I’ve had these critters cut and their accessories knit for a couple of weeks, so the past few days I’ve been on a strict sew-stuff-sew schedule in an effort to get them done. I think part of my problem is that I get far too much pleasure from what I think of as the “design-create” process, which, in less ambiguous terms means I design and create each cat, start to finish, and usually feel very uninspired (and uninspiring) when I try to use more of an assembly-line process. It means I’m less productive, of course, but I’ve stopped beating myself up about it and have managed to convince myself that I’m taking a more “holistic” approach and that’s OK. Huh.

Anyway, four of the six cats are off to Wisconsin and two will be up in the shop soon. I just have to decide which two.

Later: Carly and Lewis made it to the shop. The other four are heading south to pursue their dreams.

In the mood for images of island bounty? Here you go! I have two of three galleries up. The third will be up sometime next week, when I get the rolls of real film back (real film! what fun!).

I wish I had grand, eloquent tales to tell of our 7 days on an enchanting island (Cuba really is enchanting, I’m just not feeling particularly eloquent), but instead I have a brief, unembellished round-up of the week to offer instead. Don’t let this uninspired summary fool you into thinking we did not have a good time; we had a very good time, we are very well-rested, generally well-bronzed, and pleased to be home. Now you read on while I leave you for my mojito and an afternoon nap (oh no, wait…).

Saturday: arrive 4pm to clouds, rain, a bit of sun. Bus to resort, check in, lots of singing and dancing in the lobby, check out room, unpack, buffet dinner. Hot. Humid. Mojitos.

Sunday: wake up 7:30am to singing birds. Look over at crack in curtains, see sun, smile. Big buffet breakfast. Hot. Humid. Get beach towels, hit beach. Snorkel lovely reef 100 meters off beach. Beach volleyball for the mister. Burgers for lunch on beach. Hot. Nice breeze off water. Move to pool. Nap under umbrella, mojito in hand. Room, shower, dinner at Cuban restaurant. Room, HBO, sleep.

Monday: wake up 8.30am. Look over a crack in curtains, see sun, smile. Big buffet breakfast. Hot, sunny. Hit beach, swim in ocean, read on beach. Mohitos by 11am, lunch, afternoon nap. Hot, humid. Move to pool. Pool volleyball. Room, shower, buffet dinner. Table tennis with the mister. Room, mojito, sleep.

Tuesday: wake up 8am. Look over at crack in curtains, see sun, smile. Big buffet breakfast. Table tennis with the mister. Hot, humid. Beach, swim in ocean, read on beach. Beach volleyball for the mister. Lunch, read on beach. Mojitos, nap. Room, shower, Mexican dinner. Room, read, mojito, sleep.

Wednesday: wake up 7.30am. Look over at crack in curtains, see sun, smile. Big buffet breakfast, buy bottled water, board bus to Havana. Walk old Havana, mojitos at Ambos Mundos Hotel, bus tour of new Havana, stop at Revolution Square. Back to resort, swim, shower, dinner, mojitos, sleep.

Thursday: wake up 8.30 am. Look over at crack in curtains, see sun, smile. Big buffet breakfast. Hot, humid. Beach, swim, beach hockey for the mister, fruit for lunch, mojitos. Shower, table tennis, dinner, mojitos, sleep.

Friday: wake up 9 am. Look over at crack in curtains, see sun, smile. Big buffet breakfast, early morning snorkelling. Beach reading, mojitos. Lunch, nap. Shower, mojito, dinner, mojito, sleep.

Saturday: wake up 8 am. Look over at crack in curtains, see sun, smile. Big buffet breakfast, beach, swim in still morning water, read. Shower, pack, check out, mojito, lunch, mojito, bus to airport, wait, beer. Fly home.

Tomorrow: pictures! Bless you for reading that through.

You’ve been so busy while I’ve been away! I have stories to tell and pictures to share and blogs to catch up on and deliriously happy cats to play with and e-mail to respond to. I need more time! More soon. Or soon-ish.

Forgive me, for I am a bit distracted. I have been doing very little sewing, minimal knitting, and very little of anything else at all. Apart from noodling around the interweb, looking for sarong patterns, and hoping that my recent eBay-fabric-splurge is waiting on my doorstep for me when I get home so I can make one.

Did I say sarong? Yes. Yes, I did. You see, I will be needing a sarong soon on account of the fact that the mister and I leave for this place on Saturday.

Ouf, garage sales are exhausting. We had everything out and priced by 10 am (opening time) and about 60% of our stuff was gone by 11:15. Another 35% dribbled away between 11:15 am and 3:30 pm, at which point we packed away the remaining odds and ends, threw them in the car, and drove them over to Goodwill. We did better than we had hoped to, although for most of the day I felt a bit bewildered and off-kilter from the general indignity of having neighbours and strangers pawing through our stuff (I don’t think I will ever get over that awkwardness, whether it’s my own garage sale, or someone else’s that I’m at). But now, six hours later, we are clean & fed and living with considerably less clutter than we were yesterday, and I’m at the point now where the bewilderment has passed and I’m mostly just happy to know that all the stuff we no longer needed or used has found a new purpose.

Tonight, I am knitting. Little scarves and little dresses for little cats, and a few rows of Kyoto (remember Kyoto?) as well. I thought I should throw that in there since I know I am on the verge of getting myself kicked off the Knit Bloggers ring. I know I am!