Summer's Approaching, so Goals

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I kind of hate the word "goals".

It's too formal.  It makes me think that things are set in stone, which makes my inner Rebel go all I don't THINK so.  I haven't come up with a better word yet.  Intentions, maybe.  (Though that word's loaded for me, too.)

Regardless, I have Stuffs I Wanna Do This Summer, and "goals" is about the only way to put it, so...there we are.

So without further ado:

Stuffs I Wanna Do This Summer

(with "summer" being defined as "until the rain is below about 55 degrees-ish", since summer in the PNW can be...unpredictable.)

1. Two camping trips minimum.
   I have a powerful need for some tent and tree time this year.  In the past two summers I've been here, logistics have been an issue.  This year, not so much.  So I'm taking the dog and heading out to somewhere green at LEAST twice.  In fact, I'll need to set those dates here very soon, just so I can post about them for some accountability.
2. PNW 101 List.
   While I haven't been actively working the list since I made it (again, logistics of having an elderdog that can't be left alone for very long and can't go with me, etc.), I have been checking things off of it.  This summer, I want to tackle it like a linebacker, and maybe place a few letterboxes (or find existing ones!) while I'm out there exploring.
3. Blog more regularly.  (1x week minimum)
   This is largely for me and, obviously, has already started.  I keep a paper journal, but I like being able to put my pictures somewhere with my witty observations about life and local travel.  (Ha! Ahem.)  Plus, I feel like writing in public has more accountability.  So there, writer's block.  Chew on that. :)
4. WONDER/WANDER (zine)
   This is secondary to the actual wandering (as defined by the wander society, see the link above), but with the Every Day Everyday thing, I've kind of fallen in love with layouts of sketching and writing together.  I want to document my summer wanders and put them together into some kind of publication.  Probably a zine, definitely called WONDER.  I'm aiming for a Septemberish completion date.
5. Bind all the Things 
   I've been working on binding all the books that I had stuff for, largely to use up the materials I'd been hoarding during my Weirdo Prepper-Adjacent Moments after the tornado.  I've got most of them cut and assembled, and most just need either a cover design and/or stitching.  I'd like to get all those done in the coming weeks, and throw them on etsy.  I need the space. :)
6. Finish Outstanding Writing Projects
   There are a few.  Plus, I'm in a competition that I'll talk more about once I've got a few challenges under my belt.  But my list of Things To Write is longer than my compiled Time In Which To Write Them at this point, and the balance throws off my mojo.  Time to buck up and just finish some things that have been started.
7. Letterboxing!
   I will totally be writing entries about this at some point.  Now that I'm back out here where hiking's an actual Thing, (and the logistics stuff is cleared up, natch) I've been 'boxing like a mad fiend.  I love that it gets me out of the house and walking, and enjoying the amazing PNW wildlands.  I'm aiming for a P(lace) count of 75 (I'm at 53 now), and a F(ind) count of 150 (I'm at 130 now).  Those goals are more than doable.  I may need to adjust them upward, even.
8. Start Using My Stuff.
   I have a bag of stuff here that I wanted to use for particular projects (and, to be honest, some of it just because it was shiny).  Once I'm done with my paintings (another entry, coming soon), I want to dive into the Bag o' Awesome and do what I can with it.  I may love making All The Things; I may not.  But I want to try it so I know for sure.  (It's stitching-related, for the record.)
9. Bike 100 miles.
   Jezebel and me....we've got a date.  I'm getting her tuned up as we speak, and then it's on.  100 miles doesn't sound like a lot to a "real" cyclist, but for me, who can get winded walking to the fridge to get another ice cream sandwich, it's a lofty goal, but a reachable one.  Again, I might adjust that up if I blow it out of the water too soon.

So there we go.  Nine things while the sun shines.

(Of course, the sun shining thing is kind of malleable up here in the trees, but you get my drift.)

I have some other stuff that's kind of minor -- reading a certain amount, establishing routines, finishing challenges.  But for the most part, my biggun's are there.

What are you guys doing this summer?

More/Less

No matter how well things are going, they can always go well-er.

So when today's prompt came up, I thought I'd get all listy with it for a bit, here.

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO MORE/LESS OF THIS MONTH:

1. More mindless drawing/less mindless Facebooking
2. More shopping at farmer's markets/less shopping at McDonald's.
3. More wandering/less busy-ness.
4. More reading/less...well...facebooking.  
5. More snuggling with Bella while listening to good books/did I mention the Facebook thing?

So there may be a trend here.  Ahem.

I'm really trying to cut back on the time I spend just mindlessly scrolling.  I mean, I love social media.  It's how I keep track of what's going on with my friends and family.  But when it starts to be a matter of just clickclickclick scrooooooollll get-angry-at-memes scroooooooollll click click click, I think I've reached the point of usefulness exhaustion.

(I don't, however, blame Facebook for this.  I see way too much of that.  My problem isn't Facebook, really, it's the desire to tune out of my own life and be entertained by the dopamine hit of external stimulation.  It's my own problem.)

I've got, like, a million things I want to do this summer.

Maybe I'll write about that next.  I have a list and all.  I always have lists.

I'm thinking a little non-screen time might be just what the doctor ordered.  (And yes, I see the irony of talking about it to a screen.  But you get my drift.)

Storytime Tuesday: Why I Don't Sew.

When I was in college, in my very late teens or very early twenties, I tried to sew.  To quilt, actually.  I loved all the designs and the colors and the creativity involved, and I wanted to make those things.

What I forgot is that I can’t sew.  I injure myself and others when I attempt to sew.  I’m supremely bad at it to an almost ridiculous degree.

So, once, I was making a secret santa gift for someone at work.  I worked at MCI at the time, in a cubicle, like thousands of other corporate drones, and we’d drawn names for the holidays.  I got my supervisor’s name (but no pressure!), and thought I’d make this neat little quilted woven star ornament thing for which I had a kit.  I thought nothing would say “I’m thinking of you and how much you like kitschy little country things” than a hand-quilted calico star thingie.

Honestly, all was going well for a while.  I got the first nine-patch done, and went to go cut the strips for the upper part of the hearts, when the rotary cutter (a spinning wheel of razor-sharp death used by quilt wizards to cut through many layers of fabric at once) skipped up over the hard plastic ruler and through my middle finger.  Seriously.  Through it.  Finger, nail, and bone.  I almost cut it off.  As it was, there was a rather large fingertip-sized flap of was-finger hanging there.  The pain didn’t set in right away (probably because I severed the nerves in it, too, come to think of it), but the blood — oh, the blood, y’all.  There was more blood than I thought I had in my arm, much less my finger.  

I ran to the kitchen.  (About three steps.  My apartment then would make tiny house living look like residing in a mcMansion.)  I held the finger under the tap to make sure there wasn’t any fabric gunk caught in it.  Which is when the pain decided it was, in fact, coming to this party, along with a whole NEW rash of blood.

I went down.  It’s the first time I’ve ever passed out, that I can remember. It was brief, maybe a few seconds, but my eyelids slammed open to find that now, not only was I bleeding on my floor, but I was apparently bleeding everywhere else, too.  I grabbed a roll of paper towels and wrapped about half of them around my finger and then my hand.  I mummified that whole hand in towel.

About that time, my carpool friend arrived.  Apparently, she’d been honking downstairs and I’d missed it in that whole hacking-off-my-finger/bleeding-to-death thing.  I yelled for her to come in, and she stepped over puddles of semi-dried blood in the living room.  Are you okay? It looks like there’s blood on your….holy crap!

By this point, my kitchen looked like I’d taken up the hobby of filleting babies in my spare time.  I’d had to sit back down on the floor (in my own blood, by the way), because when I stood up, I was starting to see stars out the corners of my eyes.  I weakly told Pamela (my friend) that I thought maybe I shouldn’t go to work and should instead go to a doctor.  She agreed.  I didn’t have a phone (these were the olden days, before cell phones, and I didn’t want a land line until after the semester was over, because I’d planned to move closer to work then, and there was no point in paying the then-outrageous sum to move your number to another physical location…), so Pamela offered to run down the five-ish blocks to the local payphone to call in and tell our supervisor, Terri, what was going on.  I wrapped more towels around my hand, which by now had bled through the first batch and was dripping down my arm again, and nodded, still feeling like this was all some kind of surreal dream.

A few minutes later, Pamela came back.  She’d told Terri about the finger thing, but Terri was dubious that it was a missing-work-level injury.  (Note: I never missed a day before this, with the exception of one blizzard and one case of pneumonia.  But, y’know…suspicion of the supervisors.)  She said I could go to the doctor, but I’d get written up for the absence.

Sigh.

I didn’t bother to change clothes.  I was covered in drips and spatters, my hand still mummified in paper towels and one hand towel that I figured I could sacrifice.  Pam made me sit on a plastic bag,because I was still dripping, and, incidentally, getting paler and paler by the minute, feeling more and more like I might pass out.

We got there with barely a minute to spare before the shift started.  I walked into our bay of cubicles and proceeded to fall over on the floor, leaving a nice little blood pool next to my head.  I woke to Terri, elevating my arm while one of the guys in our pod pushed a rolling office chair with me in it toward the company nurse’s office.  She was apologizing over and over.  I thought when Pam said “cut her finger” she meant, like, a little cut or something and you were just being dramatic.  NOT THAT YOU HACKED OFF YOUR FINGER.

Way to bury the lead, Pamela.

Anyway, the apology made me feel slightly vindicated, and a whole lot like a badass.  Not even the threat of blood loss would keep me from my duties!  ::arms akimbo::

Long story short (heh, a thousand words later…which is probably still fairly concise for me, come to think of it…), I ended up with something like seventeen stitches in three layers.  The company nurse was all WHY ARE YOU HERE AT WORK OMFG and Terri explained that she told me I had to come in (which she probably admitted for liability reasons), and they took me to an urgent care on the company dime.  

And in a few weeks, I gave Terri her secret santa present, complete with bloodstains.  Because story, that’s why.  To be fair, she never questioned me again, so some good did come out of it.  

And this?  This is why I don’t sew, people.  It’s just one example.  There’s also the time I actually sewed through my index finger.  And the time I broke a needle, which flew off the machine and came maybe a quarter of an inch from J’s eye.  And the time I got my hair stuck in the bobbin.  (I still don’t know how it happened.)

Some people are cut out for things, and some people aren’t.  And when the universe chops off your finger and tries to blind your husband, it’s time to take the hint that maybe this particular thing isn’t for you.

I’m listening.

Also this.

more story

This.

Unexpected Discoveries

I'm doing my supposedly-annual digital clear-out right now.

This is where I go into my hard drive(s) and ditch anything that's been sitting there for so long waiting to be read/used that I barely remember where it came from or why I saved it to begin with.

Let us just say that this is a much lengthier process than I'd like it to be, since apparently, my hard drives are just waiting for Matt Paxton and the Hoarders team to show up and be appalled by my stacks of dead-mouse-ridden PDFs and .zip files.  

I hold on to stuff.

This is my takeaway from this so far today.

I hold on to stuff.

I shouldn't be surprised, considering what my closets looked like six months ago, but I'm still kind of shocked that I'm finding multiple copies of free online magazines and "reports" from opt-in mailing lists that I fully intended to look at when I had more time.  Someday, I'll remember that "when I have more time" is my mind's code word for "NEVER!  NEVER, I SAY! (maniacal laughter)".

The good bit is that I found some writing that was way more done than I remembered it was (yay!), and a couple old PDFs that *I* made that I'd forgotten about.  Stories that were waiting to be told.  Notes for other stories.

It's like discovering a forgotten country up in here.

The Power of Story: My Word for 2017

I'm an artist and a writer.

Which means, at heart, what I really am is a storyteller.

My family would tell you that I've always been a storyteller, in fact.  Sometimes, that meant I'd make everybody laugh at the communal dinner table (the good aspect of it), and sometimes, it meant I had elaborate excuses as to why I popped the screen out of my bedroom window and snuck out for the night (entertaining only in retrospect.)*

But those kinds of stories aren't the only ones that affect our lives.

We have so many myths that direct what we do that we're hardly even aware of them.

Societal stories.  Religious mythologies.  Family tales.  Our own stories, taken through our own lenses.  Stories we've read, stories we've watched or listened to, stories that are told around a campfire at night.

Some of them are true.  Some of them are cautionary tales.  Some of them are damaging and distracting and stop us from living.  And some of them raise us up through personal and societal inspiration, letting us live life more fully.

In 2017, I'm still exploring.  I'm just exploring Story.

I'm not completely sure how that's going to look yet, but I'm looking forward to seeing all the ways that Story manifests itself in my life, and harnessing some of the transformational power of Story for myself.

This guy, Donald Davis, nails it on the head in this talk.

Bring on 2017.  I'm stoking the campfire.

*For the record, that screen was totally damaged because one of my friends tried to light a wasp on fire with a lighter and some hairspray once.  Popping it out as a means of escape was totally just me trying to get it fixed before my parents noticed.

Also, there may have been boys out there in the night.  I admit nothing.