Anna Scott Graham's Blog, page 26

Pressing (and revising) takes longer than sewing (and writing)

What a colourful little quilt this shall be!

I'm nearly halfway done with the above quilt top; three and a half inch squares are futzy, also mindless. Six rows are currently stitched together, another two waiting to be attached, that leaves nine left, which I'll tackle this weekend. But I am taking special care while ironing the seams open, spritzing them with my spray bottle to make sure they lay as flat as possible. That's a plentiful amount of open seams for the back, and smoother is better when I make that quilt sandwich.

Yesterday as I stood at my ironing board, pressing and pressing and pressing, I considered how so much time is spent standing there as opposed to sitting at my machine. If I'd been told that when I first started quilting, I'm not sure I would have believed it, lol. Then I pondered how writing is similar, at least for me, in that a first draft spills from my brain onto the keyboard, but much effort remains to shape it into something I'm comfortable publishing. Quilters don't often talk about how many hours they linger at their pressing stations, but I bet I'm not the only one to come to such a conclusion.

I don't use the steam function on my iron, in part that Humboldt County is already so humid, I'd worry my iron might get icky inside. Instead a water bottle lives near the ironing board, but in the last year or so I gave up spritzing as I pressed seams, not sure why other than it was ONE MORE STEP in the pressing process and at that point I just want to SEW and not IRON. Maybe I've mentioned how when I began quilting a decade ago (fodder for another entry) I didn't even own an iron. My daughters thought I'd been taken over by aliens when I told them I was getting both an iron AND an ironing board. But even then I had no clue how many hours I'd be standing at that board. I just thought I'd sit at my machine, blithely attaching one fabric to another, the mystical ironing fairy sprinkling special dust on the seams. I was such a novice back then, again fodder for a later post. And the same could be said for how I got into writing.

Ten years of quilting, over sixteen of noveling; that's a chunk of time spent doing things I love. Which includes ironing and editing, although I like editing more, but I can't excise either from their respective pastimes, so pressing and revising go hand in hand, in a manner of speaking. Books and quilts don't magically pop out of thin air, but anything worth doing well requires behind the scenes efforts that aren't flashy or glamorous. We don't see all the training athletes endure, only what they exhibit on the court or field. But they must enjoy it as much as I love reading over a story for the umpteenth time or yet again placing the iron over seams, guiding it slowly so adjacent seams aren't disturbed.

Little tricks of various trades that I have come to appreciate as much as the thrill of awesome prose or pretty fabrics placed side by side. I'd much prefer to stand at my iron than train for a marathon, just saying, but that's what makes me happy. Grasping the necessity of all parts of whatever hobby or joy keeps the perspective where it belongs, that nothing worth doing happens overnight. With that, time for me to get to some revisions, hehehe.

Facepalm

 

Grateful and grimacing at the same time, such is life as one gets older.

Last night I sewed four-inch squares onto the sixth row of my Cornflower Quilt. I lamented the five missing squares, but didn't stew obsessively, as I have another quilt requiring hand-stitching as a distraction until I am ready to deal with those absent squares. Yet, as I headed to bed, laying that sixth row under the fifth row, I sighed softly, wondering how long I could put off basting five more squares to complete that part of the quilt.

Dressing for bed, I was grateful for our relatively warm winter temperatures, many Pacific storms leaving Humboldt County drenched but not chilly. I snuggled under blankets, closed my eyes, receiving a tender goodnight kiss from my hubby. He turned off the light, departed the room, leaving me with some last musings for the day. I considered how I could sew triangles to the first row, filling in gaps before conceding those five missing squares were truly beyond my possession. Or I could do the same to the last row and....

Facepalm. The last row DOESN'T REQUIRE FIVE BASTED SQUARES. The last row ONLY NEEDS TRIANGLES. The last row NEVER HAD FIVE BASTED SQUARES TO BEGIN WITH. 

Wow.

WOW!

Uh, yeah.....

Recently Past Me is overcome by mild comfort and a stupefying sense of embarrassing stupidity.

Future Me is giggling uncontrollably a few feet away, smirking as well, although she smiles tenderly, knowing at one point she too had been driven nearly insane by what in the hell had happened to the missing squares that were never missing to begin with.

Present Me is.... Grappling with how aging assails a reasonably sane individual with less of their brain than what they had days or weeks ago. I won't go into months or years, that level of acuity belonging to Past Me, who is rolling her eyes HARD at the rest of us, assuming something so inane could never happen to her.

Laugh it up honey, Recently Past Me growls. You have no friggin' clue what waits ahead.

Future Me shoots Recently Past Me a snarky gaze. Be careful there with that anger. It's not that big of a deal.

Recently Past Me grimaces. Not a big deal, are you kidding me? How could I have forgotten there was no need for another set of squares! I've basted triangles for the perimeter, why didn't I see those missing squares weren't required, how did I....

Get over yourself, Future Me barks. Now all you have to do is baste the remaining triangles, then sew the whole thing together!

Meanwhile Present Me is grateful for their bickering because it puts a little necessary space between where I was last night, realizing I was never missing any squares in the first place, and recounting the tale here, ahem. Present Me is also VERY GRATEFUL that no longer do I need to search for said squares, as they never existed in the first place. LOL. Um....

LOL, Recently Past Me hollers. LOL? Are you serious?

LOL, Present Me grunts. Because life is too short to beat myself up for forgetting that I didn't need those pieces in the first place.

LOL, Past Me guffaws, pointing her finger at the three of us a wee bit older than her.

Lol, Future Me shrugs. Now, let's all move on. As someone use to say, getting old ain't for sissies.

How true that is, Present Me sighs, closing this post as well as the case of the five missing squares.

A quilt for recovery and other assorted bits

 

Bright and busy! A mostly AMH quilt ready to assist in recovery.

At the end of last year I started a quilt top to send to a dear friend who would be having knee replacement surgery soon. Where have the last four weeks gone? That surgery has taken place, the quilt in her possession, and here it is, the twenty-second of January!

I enjoyed sewing up that lap quilt, large rectangles that came together easily from Anna Maria Horner's Fluent collection, with a few extras added from my stash. It was machine quilted, as I wanted to send it quickly. I spent much of yesterday afternoon at my machine, quilting another project, but I'll add some hand-quilting to that as soon as I finish attaching the binding, also by hand.

Also by hand are more stars! This batch consists of kites around a hexie, which I found in need of basting in my Flock of Stars tote. I kind of thought I'd concentrate on the stars, once I had the Cornflower Quilt completed, but those FIVE MISSING SQUARES (ahem) are still missing. Sad Face. Instead I'm faffing around in the evenings with The Hawk as well as hand-stitching a little star here, a little star there, some Lavender blocks thrown in for good measure. Nice and easy, nice and all over the place to be honest. But seeing my sewing is about pleasing myself, as long as I don't LOSE ANY MORE BASTED PIECES all's good.

Last night's fun; Kaffe Fassett jelly rolls are the inspiration for these stars in the making.

Sewing these stars has truly been a pleasure, in that they come together so quickly, lol. That I need over ninety of them isn't an issue; I just rummaged through some scrap totes, collecting more fabrics to cut at some point. I tend to spend an hour or so making upwards of a dozen stars in the choosing prints manner, then putting them in plastic bags, leaving them in the corresponding tote. Those pictured above were what I found waiting from a previous put-together session, buried under fabrics awaiting perusal. The five missing squares were NOT among those prints.

(Not to belabor those missing squares, but what irks me most about their absence is that invariably they will turn up AFTER I baste five more squares and sew them into place. Then what will I do with five basted four-inch squares? I do not know....)

Anyway.... It's not raining today, I took a walk after lunch. Now I'm writing this post, then I will.... Sew some stars! Stitch basted squares that have not gone missing. Maybe fix a decaf coffee. Perhaps edit The Hawk. It's a new week, the last full one of January. That's a little wild to consider, 2024 just muscling its way to being February. In February I'll concentrate on releasing a novel, maybe even two, hehehe. And hopefully those missing squares will have turned up by then. If not, I'll baste five more, then immediately sew them in place!

When the journey slightly alters

 

So I'm still looking for those five missing squares. Above is how the quilt looks now, draped over the bed, another quilt underneath it, kind of obscuring the essence, but you get the idea. I basted a bunch of triangles for the borders, still plenty left to do. This Cornflower Quilt is coming together on its own time, and I'm not going to argue with it, missing squares be darned.

Last night I read three chapters of The Hawk. My goodness I am enjoying this tale! But all that reading cuts into my evening sewing time, as well as a fantastic episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. "By the Pale Moonlight" takes place in season six, well into the Dominion War, and if you are keen on great drama and magnificent performances, have a gander at what Avery Brooks and Andrew Robinson produced, truly stunning television. But awesome distractions aside, I've started hand-sewing in the mornings while my hubby has breakfast. I've already eaten, because I'm on day nine of my antibiotics, needing to get something into my stomach before I take amoxicillin, ahem. My cold had morphed into ear infections, can't recall the last time I took antibiotics, much less for an ear infection! Anyways.... I've been stitching blocks for the Lavender quilt, also some six-point stars. I'm so bad at sitting idle and am very grateful for small sewing.

Conversely, the novel front seems to stand tall, what with two sets of revisions happening, both series weighty. I'm reading Book 4 of the WIP, pleased with what I'm finding. When I finish this tale, I'll.... Probably start back with Book 1, but not just out of boredom. That novel is almost ready to enter the formatting phase, whoa! Probably one final read-through for grins and giggles, then I'll make a copy of it, and turn it into a document capable of becoming an ebook. I've done this many times, am pretty comfortable with the routine, even if routines around here have been shaken, yet not totally stirred.

I've been giving thought to my life as a writer, in the What does it mean to me? vein. In the Is this a career or a hobby? query, since I did query this series, but did not receive any responses other than Thanks but.... Thanks but is what the majority of authors hear, yet for over the last decade, pushing fifteen years, authors wishing to get their stories into the public eye have had the means to do so by releasing their novels electronically. Bypassing agencies and traditional publishers, writers have altered the previous manners of how books reached readers. Despite Amazon's wish to gobble up the indie markets, plenty of channels exist for readers to find books, and there are lots of people like me, writing for the pleasure of it and not shoving those stories in a bottom drawer or chest. Yay for independent publishing!

But what does that mean for Present Me? Well, pretty much the same as it meant for Past Me, and probably Future Me too. I've queried other novels, no takers. Yet I keep writing. I keep revising. I'm giving The Hawk another look because the rights to it belong solely to me and I can take time out of my evenings to read through it, then at some point it will be reformatted and re-released. That's a pretty spectacular notion, that a writer can put out their own books! It's like a dream, because years before self-publishing meant spending money to have one's novels printed, then all the trouble to market and distribute them. What I do costs only my time and the effort of who makes my covers. Otherwise, I can publish my books for free, an ISBN number included.

This isn't some cheerleader routine for indie publishing, more of a thinking out loud kind of post. The kind that dials back the years to when I first started writing, assuming back then that this was going to be my career. I was going to be a writer. I was already a wife and mum, also the daughter of a man whose health was precarious. But the kids were entering high school and college, we weren't living in England anymore, homeschooling over. Writing became what I did, long before I entered the quilting gig. Writing was what I'd long wanted to do, and how blessed was I to fall into it just as ebooks were becoming an option. Writing remained not quite a job, but certainly an obsession, lol, as the kids graduated high school, all in college, my dad learning he had cancer. Everyone's life has these sorts of peaks and valleys, but what we choose to do with our free time, regardless of its abundance or absence, remains within our possession. I chose to write, and despite not falling into what most people view as success (getting an agent, signing with a publishing house), I have continued to spin yarns, then put them out where anyone can enjoy them.

If following your dream matters, then do it. Don't be discouraged by lack of support or avenues of recognition. Don't let age be a hindrance; I was forty when I wrote my first novel, and that was seventeen years ago, hehehe. Sometimes five squares go missing, making a project's completion seem impossible. But perseverance will lift you over the hurdle, clearing the way for your dream to reach completion. Maybe this post is about celebrating the journey, not that it's over, just that right now my usual path is full of little detours. Or perhaps it's altering permanently. Maybe I'll squeeze in evening edits from now on, sewing in the mornings, although I am REALLY DONE WITH THIS ANTIBIOTIC, 'nuff said. Whatever happens next in my writing realm, I'm grateful to still be full of novelistic notions and to have a place to put them that isn't a dreary bureau drawer or cloistered closet shelf. I do have a chest, but it's stuffed full of linens. Better to dust off a manuscript, shiny it up, then set it free.

Liberate your dreams; the world always needs more stardust and rainbows!

A novel journey

 

For Christmas I received the above pictured journal. It's not my typical decorative choice, but I saw it in a local bookshop and pointed it out to my husband, who took note of my affinity for it. I didn't know what I would write in it, but something about it called to my heart, and suffice to say my hubby was glad for the gift idea.

After we returned from our Christmas sojourn, I scribbled a few entries, nothing more than trying out various pens and pencils. It sat to my right on the sofa where I hand-sew, quietly trying to muscle its way into my evening routine. It wasn't having much luck until I started my nightly edits on The Hawk, where I decided to loosely keep track of the revisions. Magical realism figures heavily in this book, so this particular journal seemed perfect for the task.

Those edits are going more quickly than I first imagined; a couple of nights I've read through three chapters, merely because the story is so captivating, lol. I haven't read through it in a long time, forgetting parts of the plot. I had considered placing this story under the genres of women's fiction and fantasy: historical, yet to my pleasure last night's chapters concentrated on a man's memories of serving overseas during The Korean War, not really a women's fiction sort of element. Perhaps I'll leave one qualifying genre as literary fiction, but include fantasy with a sub-category of historical.

In addition to mulling that over within my journal, I'm keeping track of the word count chapter by chapter; I excised over forty words within the first chapter, but less than a dozen in subsequent chapters, a fascinating discovery. I'm also taking note of the outside temperature and time of day, merely in that as I continue these edits, the seasons will alter, ha ha. It's been great at the beginning of each evening, then amid the revisions, to denote this or that sense as I immerse myself back in a era many decades past, as well as a hint to the life I was living when this was written, in a world full of hope, change, and dashed expectations. Yet the story continued, and boy did it continue! Currently I'm at the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, so unaware of what sneaked up on me later, not merely the length of the novel, but the breadth.

I think that's why I'm scrupulously taking notes of this experience, needing a touchstone of what this book meant to me in the crafting, and how it continues to affect me as a person and author. I consider it my first seasoned novel, in that as I wrote it and rewrote it, my skills with prose gained strength, plotting techniques improved; they certainly should have for how long I honed those skills, hehehe. I'm enjoying this immensely and am thrilled to have such an insightful purpose for a journal that aligns to its aesthetics, otherworldly themes right up this notebook's alley.

I'm hopeful one journal will do the job, but if I run out of room, another trip to the bookstore won't be a problem. Maybe tracking this journey is a story in itself, which is probably indeed the case. Writing a book is one path, revisiting it another. Delving into it a decade later is even more compelling, and I can't wait for this evening to see what happens next!

Sometimes small is best

 

Amid stitching black squares to long rows of Cornflower blocks, I've been dabbling in six-point star blocks, kite blocks, and Lavender Quilt blocks, all of which are petite and easy. I find mixing up the EPP is how I enjoy it most, not feeling tied to just one project, especially when on the downhill slide of a hand-sewn quilt where the whole thing is kind of tricksy in wrangling it all over my lap.

Don't get me wrong, it's GREAT to be at this stage of the Cornflower Quilt, but with those five missing squares still hiding, I'm not in a huge hurry to reach that last row and need to cut fabric and baste more squares.

Anyway, so yeah, I'm dropping in quick small blocks in the evenings, vibrant colours brightening my world that has been super soggy, over two inches of rain falling yesterday. Also lifting my days have been some marvelous books by Elizabeth Rowan Keith, a fantastic writer I have had the privilege of knowing for over a decade. Recently she released a novella and a collection of short stories and I curled up on the sofa this weekend with both. The Lie is set in the 1940s and Keith captures the era perfectly; I was transported to the Midwest during World War II, feeling the pinch of want, the beauty of simplicity, and the uncertainty of how a deception could alter more than one life.

Minutes: Conveniently Short Stories is a collection of short stories and poems spanning a gamut of themes;  humor, pathos, mischief, and the macabre. Keith doesn't mind poking fun at herself; she also lays bare her soul.

These two books are available on Smashwords in a variety of formats and I highly recommend both, especially if quick reads are your preferred genres. Because sometimes small is best in reading as well as sewing!

Embarking upon quite a project

 

Okay, maybe two of them, lol. The English paper pieced block above is from Jodi Godfrey's Ice Cream Soda pattern, the large version of the design. The inner and outer fabrics were Christmas gifts from my eldest, the red kites a perfect scrap from my collection. Forty-some blocks are necessary for this quilt, but it's a long-term project that I hope to cajole my grandkids into sharing with me. Or maybe I'll find myself making these beautiful blocks in snippets of spare time, especially since the five missing basted squares have yet to be found.

(Whatever five squares. You can't have traveled far.)

But hand-sewing isn't the only hobby on my mind. Morning edits are going well with my current series, and I've incorporated evening edits into the routine. For months I've been mulling over The Hawk, a book I started over ten years ago, finishing in the spring of 2018. That novel has quite a place in my heart, written during a great shift within my personal life as well as my authorial path. It began as the humble notion of a short story, turning into a multi-part series that kept me grounded as my father endured chemotherapy, then his premature death while both my daughters enjoyed their first pregnancies. Death and life intermingled during the five years I wrote The Hawk, which I completed just weeks before my mother died in 2018. I remain grateful to have reached that story's conclusion before Mom died, because I don't honestly know how I would have returned to a story so steeped in familial connections.

Maybe you're wondering why I'd return to this novel; it's a good question, and is related to quilting. As I started writing The Hawk, I was just dipping my toes into sewing. Yup, ten years ago I made my first quilt. It's crazy when I consider how old my grandchildren are, poignant that my father never knew them and the few years those youngsters shared with my amazing mum. During those five years of marvelous peaks and desolate valleys, I taught myself to make gorgeous quilts while always coming back to a tale that kept stretching itself, and me along with it, to heights and depths previously not experienced. When time permitted, I dived into the story. When I needed a far simpler joy, machine piecing and quilting filled the bill. Ironically I didn't start EPP until right before Mom died, but more about that in the upcoming weeks and months as I focus on those ten years of sewing.

Yet in all honesty, no matter how much I love fashioning quilts, spinning yards of yarns comes first. In revisiting The Hawk, I am not merely editing or revising, but re-releasing the novel close to how it was first published in novel-length segments. Initially the installments were more like novellas, but I've parsed it out to ten books, which is far more inviting than the three-volume version currently available.

Ten books, wow. In five years I wrote ten novels' worth of a saga that originally wasn't more than a good short story plot. But characters and ideas have a way of muscling their agendas into an author's head and my heart certainly needed that fictional outlet. I don't know when I'll release Book One, hopefully in spring. Until that occurs, The Hawk is available as a three-volume collection, if I've piqued your interest. And maybe by then I'll have found those five pesky basted squares. More on that when they turn up!

A day filled with unexpected thrills

Snapped last night before I realized what was missing! (A basted square halfway attached, but others remain elsewhere...)

I know I'm not feeling good when I'm too weary for editing. A debilitating head cold has finally drawn its line in the sand. Dude, don't play games with me. I might feel crappy, but seriously? Especially on a really SOGGY day here in Humboldt, a king tide making the ground squishier than usual. Whatever the elements, nature and viral, here I am limping along like a forgotten sock soaked in the rain.

And.... I can't find five basted squares for my Cornflower quilt! I had the sewn rows and their accompanying stacks of squares laid out on the guest bed and after completing a row last night, I placed it with the other two, then gathered the next row and squares and.... What the heck? I don't know what I did with them, but my husband checked around and he didn't see them either. Basted paper pieces just don't walk away on their own, ahem, but that seems to be the case, unless I did something really stupid with them which at the time I thought was brilliant. Insert face palm emoji HERE.

Sometimes this is the way of things. The Meh way. The way that makes me close up the manuscript, make a few cups of tea, then hightail it back to the office to write this blog because at this moment I don't have the mental wherewithal to work on writing stuff or the emotional bandwidth to hunt for the missing basted squares. LOL! That leaves you, dear readers, with the dregs of Present Me.

Present Me would much prefer to be reading through Book 2 of my series. Or stitching together row #4 of my quilt. I did throw a load of wash into the laundry, so I'm accomplishing something, but that's pretty low on the What I'd like to be doing right now totem pole. Again, occasionally this is how life occurs, grinding to a nearly complete HALT of all the fun, exciting, necessary things we would prefer to be engaged with.... Um, well, let me back that up a few because I do like writing blog posts so this morning isn't totally a wash. And if taken in a MUCH LARGER CONTEXT than me, myself, and I, this rainy day in my neck of the woods is fine. War isn't raging around me, truly vicious weather isn't pounding at my home or breaking it into pieces. When considered alongside the wider world view, I'm fine. Sick and missing five basted squares, but just fine.

Perhaps being cognizant of that is enough to turn this meh day into something over which to be celebrated. Within the safety of my dry, unsullied home I can write this post, then maybe later search for those missing paper pieces. I *might* even open an old manuscript, poking around within its solid narrative for any errant commas or hidden misspellings. There will be Christmas placemats to put in the dryer (which actually just occurred!), lunch to microwave, Christmas placemats to put away after they're dry.... A day filled with unexpected thrills is how I could rename this post. Maybe I'll do that right now.

Okay, so if you've gotten this far, the original title was A Meh kinda day. But you know what? Meh is in the gut of the beholder. I still feel crappy, but the bandwidth for joy has increased! Not that I'm going to restart the hunt for missing paper pieces or return to Book 2, but some therapeutic blah blah blah here has enhanced my appreciation for the little things. Wishing you a similarly happy day, insert smiley face HERE.

Not too much technology necessary

A heap on the sofa, where I'm current sitting. This blanket, in need of the binding attached, is the quilt equivalent of my current computer headache.

My husband and I joke that I am actually the techie sort, self-publishing novels for over a dozen years now. I don't think of myself as a techie gal, preferring the artistic side of noveling, quilting too. But someone has to format and upload manuscripts, post blog entries, etc, etc, etc. That someone is me.

Past Me, Future Me, and little old Present Me, lol. I don't know how long I'll be in this indie author gig, in that I'm happy writing my stories. Full disclosure is necessary here: I queried my latest series, got no takers. I'm fine with that, in fact I'm somewhat relieved. Maybe it's liberating in the consideration of these novels being what they truly are, my heart and soul. I could wax a whole lot more lyrically about it, but suffice to say, I'm grateful for the opportunity to write a book, then release it into the wild.

Storytelling is an ancient art, e-books a recent invention. I had a contentious relationship with my biological mother, but I clearly recall her typewriter at the dining table, a story about a person named Sam typed out on some kind of paper, maybe onion skin? I don't recall seeing her typing, but the memory holds. (She also was a seamstress for what that's worth, nature and nurture always bopping into one another throughout our lives.) I wanted to be a writer once I realized obstetrics would take a lot of schooling and severely clash with my squeamishness, ahem. But I didn't ponder self-publication or the internet, personal computers or mobile phones. I wanted to tell stories, I guess because I felt I had something to say or an interesting way to say it.

I've been hampered lately by my techie tools, trying to sort out how I write all these sagas, the manner of which has become a behemoth in itself. But this morning as I read through the first novel of my upcoming series, I was caught up in the characters, the dialogue, the prose. And I was pretty dang pleased with my efforts, even if how to release this book remains a bit vague. Sure I wish an agent (or two) would have requested the manuscript. It's a mix of sci-fi, women's fiction, and new adult romance, perhaps too wonky of a mash-up for agents in this current state of genre affairs. But it makes me happy and the outlets exist for indie publishing and why not? Years ago writers were stifled by the inadequacies of how to get their stories into the hands of eager readers. No longer is that an issue.

I'm writing this post seated on the living room sofa near the fireplace, my laptop charging as I type. This is nothing like how writers of the past conjured their muses, white-out and old typewriter ribbons and stuck keys to mess with their workflows. How many people wrote books without any outward acknowledgement, too many to count. The freedom that is indie publishing is here to stay, small voices able to speak their two or ten or eighty-nine cents worth of whatever matters to them.

Meanwhile I need to figure out some techie solutions. I'm grateful the writing is solid even if the equipment and genres are all over the place.

Rarely heard but liked

Snapped at the Pacific Ocean on 1 January, 2024.

Listening to a playlist tonight, the title of which is the same as this entry. It starts off with "Passing Through Air" by Kate Bush, which leads to "Edge of Seventeen" and "Stand Back" by Stevie Nicks. Basketball is on, the Knicks and Bulls, a fire popping near where I'm seated. It's a January evening, 2024, a new year having dawned. I read five chapters of my latest manuscript this morning, machine-quilted a lap blanket this afternoon, and now it's time to ponder what all this might mean, if anything, as music plays, a fire sparks, and minutes slip past in the very early stages of the next year of my life.

I was thinking about my life, 2024, and how chill this year has begun. Chill as in mellow, also cool, rain and gray skies the norm. Music has been blasting, well, playing at a chill level, for my ears aren't happy if the tunes rawk too loudly, lol. Past Me stares hard, cranking it to 11 while Future Me nods, noise-cancelling headphones secure on her head. I try to straddle those gals, listening to music on my phone but not turned up much past 3.

So 2024. Wow. That's nearly a quarter-century past 2000, and in another quarter I'll be in my eighties. DUDE! No joke, but yeah, a couple decades slip by and suddenly I'm, uh, edging toward the senior discount. Yet I don't feel that aged, well, not tonight. The shoulder is feeling good, a small cold edging back, although seventeen is so far away I can't really imagine what that was like. Okay, I can fake my way through it in the fiction, but there's no way in this world I'd ever want to be that young again.

Yet.... Songs I listened to twenty, thirty years ago hum from my mobile, and in writing this post, I'm bobbing my head and shoulders to the rocking rhythms, tapping my feet as the music fills my heart with incredible joy. Stevie Wonder's "I Was Made To Love Her" is next, these songs finding their way onto this playlist when I was making a different one, hence I dumped several fave tunes under a title that doesn't make a lot of sense for a blog entry, but that's just the mood I'm in tonight.

Kind of funky, like "Master Blaster", also by Mr. Wonder. Kind of contemplative, kind of thrilled that here I am again, dipping my toes into another calendar year. Several people I knew personally and through others died last year. That made me introspective as well as sorrowful, amazed at how precious and precarious our existences are. Rolling that through one's head and then slamming into January, I found myself grateful to be celebrating another new year, also cognizant that getting another twenty-four or twenty-five of them would be quite a blessing.

That's not often pondered in one's thirties, or even forties. But now pushing sixty, dude! It's pretty in my face no matter how many old songs I listen to or love stories I write or even quilts sewn together. The truth of the matter is if I get another twenty new year's I'll be older than either of my parents managed. What do I want to accomplish in the next couple decades? Finishing my current novel series would be great, ha ha. I want to make a Wandering Wife quilt, as well as complete the many EPP projects I have going, LOL.

Travel would be nice, but not essential; all our years in Britain fulfilled my yearning to see other parts of the world. I'd LOVE to visit Yorkshire with the kids and grandkids, but that's a pretty tall order. If any/all of them get back to that lovely island with or without me, I'd be pleased. I don't have an actual bucket list, rather I appreciate the surprises I might never had dreamed up on my own, like living in England, or dwelling in Humboldt County.

I'm very happy publishing my novels, sewing quilts, and hopefully I'll dabble more than last year in the garden. Maybe I'll listen to a wider range of albums, or to be honest, digital music, than I usually do. I have some good books to read that my eldest daughter has suggested. And of course there's time to be spent at the beach, admiring the waves that lately have been enormous! I could also stand to lose twenty pounds, but....

But honestly this post has rambled far enough. The Knicks are winning by six with three minutes left in the third quarter, the playlist ended several minutes ago, although I played "Passing Through Air" once more for good measure. Whatever your rarely heard's but liked are, enjoy them this year. You never know when you might listen to those gems again.