Well, I will always have my scriptures with me if I plan on being away from home overnight. Beyond that the amount and type of reading materials I bring depends on a number of factors, including how long the trip is and how long I will be staying at wherever I am travelling to. In general, however, I'll have at least whatever book I'm currently reading plus two to five alternate book selections and possibly a couple of magazines. I may make concessions based on weight or space (paperbacks instead of hardcovers), but my travel reading material is not substantially different from my non-travel reading material.

I read a lot of fiction (most of it genre), but in a pinch I'll read pretty much whatever is close at hand that looks interesting. Usually this is something of my choosing, since if I have a bag with me I likely have at least two reading choices available to me. Right now my backpack has five or six different books in it and about four magazines, and I'm not even planning on going anywhere far away.

Current Reading: Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading by Maureen Corrigan; Witches Incorporated by K.E. Mills; Candle Man by Glenn Dakin

This evening was our first session of Mage (well, we had a character generation session last week, but that didn't involve any playing; it was explanation and tossing ideas about). So this evening we introduced our characters to the group, outlined some backstory elements (I still need to work on mine, but this happens), wrapped up a few lingering mechanical details, and then started playing. Session ran for about five hours, and we all had loads of fun.

When you get right down to it on the most basic level, we spent five hours stealing a spork from another group of mages. We now have enemies, and it promises to be loads of fun. Sadly, I will be missing the next session, but I've already come up with a plausible reason (well, semi-plausible at least): my character is a landscape designer when she isn't doing magic stuff, and she's working on a big contract in western Massachusetts. Her clients have an appalling lack of taste, for they want pink and purple striped roses in their garden, which already has a mess of...interesting flowers (many of which probably should invoke paradox, but they don't since they weren't made with magic).

I'm really looking forward to the next session where I can play.

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Things I've done in which I am well pleased: socialized with people, made plans for the long weekend which include outdoor activity, spent time with my family

Things that make me happy: taking walks, playing games with friends, fun stories, good books, knitting, having plans

When I was in public school, summer vacation seemed a nearly endless parade of unstructured, sun-drenched weeks punctuated by regular visits to the public library, swimming lessons, picnics in the park, and family vacations. Once I graduated from high school and moved up into college summer still meant a cessation of structured classes and homework, but I had the structure of work and household chores to fill at least portions of my days. Now that I am working full time I really only experience the relaxed summer schedule on a tangential basis; my morning commute does not require the same precision to negotiate traffic in a timely fashion, and bedtimes tend to slip to later hours.

This year, July and August went by rather quickly. I know I was doing things--time has passed, after all--but I cannot always say what, exactly, I spent my time doing. Oh, there are the general statements like "I went to work" or "I went to church on Sundays" or "I read a lot of books" but the little moments tend to slip away into the recesses of my brain, lost to hazy memory. Everything is still there, but rather inaccessible. So July and August went by rather quickly, and now it is September.

Two weeks ago (look, that was August!) the weather was hot and humid. I had very little energy, and I remember feeling quite grumpy and rather confrontational. This past week the weather has cooled immensely, leading to much improved mood and temperament on my part. It is still technically summer, but it is late summer, the summer that flirts with autumn. Autumn touches the air--especially in the mornings--turning it crisp, and the very first leaves are starting to change, faint touches of gold and rust amid the green.

School is back in session, everyone is adjusting to the more structured schedule of the school year, and I have a craving for school supplies, new books, and cardigan sweaters. Apples are ripening on the trees; signs advertising where you can pick your own apples will show up over the next few weeks. Berry picking is more or less over for the year, and a lot of the tree fruits (with the exception of the aforementioned apples) are finishing up as well. Pumpkins and non-summer squashes are still ripening, and the squirrels have yet to begin their annual "how about we see if we can bean the humans on the head with acorns" ritual.

I want to hold onto these days, days before the air takes on its biting winter chill, days when the light hits everything just so, adding a golden sheen. We are headed for the days where I want to spend my hours outside, exploring. Or inside sunlit rooms engaging in creative pursuits like knitting, needlework, and baking. We are heading to the days where the sky turns a brilliant blue as it is framed by majestic, fire-crowned trees and dotted with fleecy white clouds. Where leaves crunch and shush across the streets and walks, and woodsmoke starts to trace the air. I want to be out in the woods, climbing trees and breathing in the air, crunching leaves and reveling in nature around me. And when it gets a little chillier, or on those wild and rainy autumn days, I want to curl up under an afghan knit from kettle-dyed wool with a good book or maybe some knitting, watching the rain beat against the glass of my window and hearing the hiss of water on the roof. I want to bake apple bread and pumpkin bread and eat hearty stews and roasted vegetables. And I want to do all these things with family and friends.

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Things I've done in which I am well pleased: solved website issues at work, knit a doll-sized tam that looks really good, spent time outside walking every day at work on my lunch hour

Things that make me happy: the approach of autumn, gorgeous yarn, going to Pickity Place with my mom, good books, knowing how to cover textbooks to keep them looking good, cooler weather

I have been reacquainting myself with Dreamweaver this past week at work. When last I used the program (in a class at BYU several years ago) it was a Macromedia product in no away associated with Adobe. So there's definitely some ramping up needed to get to CS3 level. Thankfully it comes with a DVD of tutorial videos and some pretty useful help files, so figuring things out isn't that difficult. (It also probably helps that I've been working with HTML off and on since 1996....)

Dreamweaver is a very nice program. There's loads of functionality there, and it's readily usable by WYSIWYG designers and hand-coders like myself. I really like being able to switch between views, or use the split view to see the code and a preview at the same time. These are all things I really appreciated the last time I used the program, so it's good to see they've continued on.

One thing I don't really remember covering in my class, however, was just how Dreamweaver behaves when uploading files from your local site folder to the remote server location. We also didn't cover the creation and use of templates. So I've been learning the hard way how Dreamweaver is just a bit proprietary when templates are used. To the tune of "things break and dun work right if you upload a template-based file using any other program." (-.-)

There are several files for the site which are affected by this problem. Even more frustrating is the fact that I don't have an easy way to fix these files within Dreamweaver; the problem areas are largely in the non-editable regions of the pages. So I've been fixing them the long way, using VIM. Hopefully I will be able to upload the resulting un-screwed-up files and fix everything with little to no fuss. And oh, there will be protocols put in place to prevent further occurrences of this nature. Little things like "don't upload files with spaces in the names" and "if you create a new file based from a template using Dreamweaver or Contribute, upload it with the appropriate Adobe program(s) please."

I'm just glad I know how to fix these sorts of things, even if it does take a lot longer than I would like it to.

Currently Reading: The Depression Cure by Stephen S. Ilardi; several library books

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Things I've done today in which I am well pleased: solved problems at work, took a brisk walk at lunch time, talked with friends, picked up a new calendar/planner for my purse

Things that make me happy: cooler weather (finally!), learning new things, knitting, morning light, chatting with friends

Since my last post I have:

• Purchased a desk. It is a mission-style piece in red-brown wood, and I put it together myself


• Brought my computer from my parents' house to my apartment and set it up.


• Given myself a sore neck and back from hunching underneath desks fiddling with cables and cords


• Gone to work
  
  • Been named the editor and web master for the company's commercial site
    
  • learned more about XHTML, CSS, XML, and JavaScript
    
  • solved problems


• Gone to Connecticon
  
  • sold jewelry
    
  • made more jewelry
    
  • saw awesome costumes
    
  • visited with kogarashi, leachonlj, Wiggles, and Nudge


• Got interested in/fell in love with ABJDs
  
  • bought yarn to make doll-sized hats
    
  • learned more about my knitting gauge (tight gauge is hard to manage)
    
  • pondered doll-sized jewelry


• Read lots of books


• Did a lot of knitting


• Implemented an organizational plan for my beading/jewelry-making supplies


• Finally purchased a mattress for my bed to replace the old, far too soft foam mattress I'd been using

The weather has been very hot and humid this past week, and I haven't been doing so well with the heat. Hope it breaks soon.

Today I watched one of my neighbors wash his truck in the rain.

I still need to get my dresser from yumearashi's place.

I need to do my laundry too.

Menu planning should happen at some point. We have a lot of food here in the apartment, and we really shouldn't let it go to waste.

I'll be teaching the lesson in Relief Society this coming Fast Sunday. I still don't feel prepared.

My room still needs cleaning. This will happen at some point.

I want to spend my time reading and knitting. Or playing games.

I spent a most enjoyable week up in Bar Harbor, ME, with my family, and from the sound of things we had slightly better weather up there than was had at home (meaning we had two days where it was partially cloudy, rather than rainy). This was the first time I had been to Bar Harbor in seven years, so it was interesting to see how much I remembered and what things had changed.

We stayed at Blackwoods Campground, which is located within the boundaries of Acadia National Park (which is apparently the only national park in the Northeast United States). It took us at least seven hours to make the trip--a stop in Freeport, ME, to visit the L.L. Bean store probably didn't help our speed at all--so despite our best intentions we did end up setting up camp as it was getting dark. It also started drizzling somewhere along the line, but after we had the tents and tarps up.

Because Blackwoods is inside a national park you can't just pick up sticks and branches off the ground to use as firewood, and you definitely cannot chop anything off the surrounding trees. Instead you need to purchase, pack, or otherwise provide tinder, kindling, and fuel from a non-park source. There are many obliging sources of wood bundles all along the roads of Mount Desert Island, but with all the rain we've been having in the area for the past weeks finding dry fuel was a challenging task. The three bundles we purchased that Saturday evening were damp at best, and the combination of rain, general humidity, and lack of appropriate storage meant we were unsuccessful in our firemaking attempts until Monday evening (not even a scout’s "holy water" could convince a fire to start before then, and I felt the only reason the fire danger in the area was listed as Low was due to the lack of a "Good luck with that" category).

There was a break in the rain on Tuesday (30 June), so we took the opportunity that day to go biking on the carriage roads/trails all throughout the park. My dad and brothers went up Cadillac mountain (apparently the tallest Atlantic coastal mountain north of Brazil), but my mom, sister, and I are not in any shape to accomplish that. So while they were going up the mountain we did some driving around and sightseeing. We managed to do about fifteen miles as a family, which is pretty darn good in my book. On the wildlife front during the biking we saw (between all of us) red squirrels, snakes, a turtle, a loon, and a female wild turkey. Oh, and butterflies. I had one land on my back when I was stopped along the lakefront.

Wednesday was another nice weather day, and I went with my mom and sister to do some shopping (yarn shops, yay!) while my dad and brothers rented road bikes and biked the Park Loop, then attempted Cadillac again. It is apparently more difficult with road bikes than it is with mountain bikes due to gear ratios. We all had fun at our various activities, and we met up for dinner at a café that evening.

We had clouds but no rain on Thursday, which allowed us to eat on the tea lawn when we went to Jordan Pond. It was quite misty, however, and we couldn’t see the lake or the Bubbles (two domed mountains) at all. It was also rather chilly, and there was a roaring fire going on the gift shop hearth, with shoppers clustered around it to warm up. Sweaters, jackets, fleeces, and cardigans were the order of the day.

Prior to visiting Jordan Pond we went to Sand Beach (the only real sand beach on the whole of MDI) and Thunder Hole (a granite trough in the cliff face where the sea water rushes in, making a thundering noise). After our visit to Jordan Pond we drove up Cadillac and engaged in some “sightless” seeing, as the top of the mountain was completely wreathed in clouds and mist, so nothing was visible.

That evening we had foil dinners, for I insisted they be made. These were most excellent, since I know how to best prepare the various elements (potatos must be cut very small and/or very thinly in order to properly cook). Brad requested/suggested we include fresh garlic and kielbasa, and I was very glad he did. Both added excellent flavor to the dinners.

I quite like the climate of MDI as a whole. It is apparently quite similar to Scotland, and being up there left me wanting to curl up with either a Hamish McBeth novel or an episode (or two or three) of the television series. Unfortunately, neither thing has come to pass as yet; we are still working on unpacking and getting back into normal life patterns. Still, the apparent weather similarities between the two places has bumped a visit to Scotland quite a bit higher on my List of Places Anki Wants to Visit. Anywhere where I need to be sure to have at least one mid to heavy weight sweater handy during summer gets a pass in my book.

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Things I've done in which I am well pleased: Got all my laundry taken care of. Spent a wonderful week with my family in a relatively low-tech setting (no computer). Went grocery shopping and took care of my messes.

Things that make me happy: biking the carriage roads, reading good books, camping with my family, coming home from camping while still having fun, watching the fireworks, stuffed full omelettes, balsam pine sachets and pillows, my own bed

I have been in something of a holding pattern since my last post, meaning that not a whole lot has been done with regards to unpacking, organizing, and/or moving things from my parents' house to my apartment. I am more or less on top of both my laundry and my grocery shopping, but there are still some kinks I need to work out of the system. Schedule balance continues to be an issue for me, however it should even out somewhat once I get my computer at my apartment and an internet connection established there.

My Institute attendance for this month has been somewhat spotty. I am fairly certain I went the first Tuesday this month, but the second Tuesday I went with my father to the local bike shop to purchase a mountain bike for myself instead. Our family is going on vacation to Bar Harbor, ME, this Saturday, and I was the only one without a bicycle. While I am certain they have bicycle rental options for vacationers in Bar Harbor, I knew I wanted something more permanent than a rental. Something I would be able to use outside of a vacation setting. I also knew waiting until I was in Bar Harbor before getting on a bike would be a recipe for disaster, or at the very least discomfort and a not-so-fun vacation.

In knitting news, on the eighth of June I went to Eats, Knits, and Leaves with my mother and sister. This group meets every month at the (semi) local independent bookstore, and I always enjoy going because I get the chance to knit, see what other people are working on, socialize in general, and browse a well-stocked bookstore. The twelfth of June was Friday Night Knitting, and the thirteenth was Worldwide Knit in Public Day. I picked up enough of SWTC’s Terra (cotton/bamboo blend) to make a simple shirt, four skeins of Mirasol Nuna for another project, and one lovely skein of Blue Heron’s Rayon Metallic in a watery grey color that I have yet to pick a project for. I also picked up the pattern for the shirt I am planning to make and the pattern for a circular(ish) lace shawl that is made using sock yarn (which I still need to purchase). I finished two UFOs last month and made decent progress on several more. Working on my UFOs made me realize I really do need to branch out into areas that are not scarves. Nearly every project I worked on was a scarf of some sort, and there is only so much variation you get from those.

My last reading list update here was back on 12 March 2009, and since that point in time I have more than doubled the number of things I have read (or at least started). ( Read more... )

The bulk of the text of this was written at least a week ago. I leave for Bar Harbor tomorrow (technically later today) and won't be back until around July 4th. Computer access is likely to be non-existent, but I will have my telephone.

At this point in time, I am fairly certain all the books that were not in the attic at my parents’ house are now on the bookshelves in my apartment. There are probably some books still lurking in the boxes filled mostly with papers and other items I need to dedicate a couple hours to going through, but for the most part my books are on the shelves in some fashion. Organization is another thing entirely, but it’s also less crucial than the initial push to get boxes empty and out of my room. At present I am trying not to think too much about the fact that many of these boxes will be coming back to my apartment, filled with things I did not pack up in the first push. That way lies madness, and I really am liking the whole avoidance of crazy as a general rule.

One of the items I did not pack up in the first push was my computer. It is still sitting in my parents’ basement where it has been for the past four years, and when I want to use it I drive over there to do so. This may also seem rather mad to people, but really there was no point in making certain I had my computer at the apartment the very day I moved over. For one thing, I do not yet own a desk, so I would have no place to put the computer in order to use it. And, more importantly, there is no internet connection in the apartment yet, so even if I had my computer in the apartment I would need to go elsewhere in order to do most things. Since my computer is not a laptop I am rather limited in the mobility department--people give you funny looks if you tote around a desktop computer in a little cart wherever you go, and the wheels get stuck on things.

So for the time being, whenever I want to use the computer I have to drive over to my parents’ house. This can make for some interesting scheduling issues. It certainly tends to put me in bed later than I would really like, and it requires a little more planning than I otherwise would do. Still, on the positive side of things I am less distracted by my computer when it isn’t sitting there, and I tend to be more productive. Having my computer at my parents’ house also ensures that I am over there on a regular basis to see my family. You know, in case FHE, dinners a couple nights a week, and doing my laundry didn’t do the job properly (which, I am fairly certain, at least my sister feels is the case).

This past Saturday I made my first official menu plan and grocery list. Well, my first since graduating from BYU and moving back to NH, that is. I did not want to do any sort of substantial grocery shopping without both things in place because that way also lies madness, and a blown food budget. Even with the menu plan and grocery list I still forgot just how expensive the initial "stock up" shopping trip invariably ends up being. The last time I really had to worry about that particular aspect of things was something to the tune of seven years ago. It was also in Utah, and food prices are lower there than they are here.

The other thing I forgot was just how much time a grocery shopping trip can take up, particularly one of the "let’s stock up" variety. I figured that an hour would be more than enough time to get everything done. I mean, I had a list, right? And I was planning on going to the store I was most familiar with, which would cut down dramatically on time spent since I would know where everything was. All that planning and figuring on my part must have tripped an alarm in Murphy’s lair, letting him know I needed to be taken down a peg or two for my assumptions.

It took me three hours to get through that shopping trip from the time I left the house with my list to the time I got back with all the groceries and had everything put away. There were a number of things I neglected to put on my list (staples, for the most part), and I actually forgot to grab two of the things on my list--milk and orange juice--which meant I needed to go back into the store after I’d brought my first cart of purchases out to my car. Still, I did finish the trip, and now I have real food in my apartment, including at least a basic spice cabinet. This is by no means complete, but the initial outlay has been performed, at least. I have all the spices I know I’ll be using regularly, three selections of vinegars, and basic baking supplies.

On the entertainment side of things, I’ve seen Star Trek (and got my sister hooked, apparently), done a lot of knitting (finished one UFO and have made good progress on two others), finished listening to The Lord of the Rings (52+ hours of audiobook goodness), and read what many people might consider a ridiculous number of books (most of them were fast reads). I’ll post more about all of these things later, however.

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Things I've done in which I am well pleased: Grocery shopping and menu planning! Shopping for other things I needed, like laundry baskets and trashcans. Finished one knitting UFO and made good progress on others.

Things which make me happy: Getting things from the library, figuring out a schedule and routine, spending time with my family, watching really spiffy movies

I have made it a goal to unpack at least one box every evening after I get home. As most of the boxes are the smallish type from U-Haul, this is a very manageable endeavour; each box requires between fifteen and twenty minutes of time to sort out at the longest. Additionally, most of these boxes are filled with books which are more or less in the shelf order I was using before things were packed away, so most of my work consists of deciding which shelf or shelves the books will go on in my new system.

Last night I emptied five boxes, though one of the boxes did not remain empty--I am using it to hold items (books, mainly) I do not think I will keep in my collection. Still, even that box is mostly empty, and my shelves are looking much more homey. It is still a bit difficult to determine how much free space I will have on the shelves; I am following the same practices I always have for book storage, which may not be the most attractive, but they certainly are practical. Hardcover books may yet prove to be troublesome, but that depends entirely upon what my ratio of hardcovers (and trade paperbacks) to mass market paperbacks winds up being. It also depends on how I place the books upon the shelves. At present, however, I feel as though I have an almost ridiculous amount of space available (provided I do not think about all the books still in the attic at the house, of course).

The past ten days or so have definitely been...interesting. I had a wonderful time at Celebration of Needlework with my mom. We went to a lecture on sampler alphabets through history which was very enlightening in multiple aspects. I was unaware, for example, that the letter J was the last letter added to our modern alphabet, and that while we functionally had a 26-letter alphabet from the mid-1600s onward, scholars viewed it has having only 24 letters (with two variant forms) until the middle of the 19th century. I also learned the "rules" regarding the use of the long s, such as they are (Not that I expect to ever need to use those rules, since that character fell out of general use sometime around 1820).

We learned that the earliest book of needlework patterns ever printed/published came out in 1523, and as one of the handouts for the class we got a small sampler with letters from that time period. It was very interesting to see just how much printing and publication affected the styles of sampler alphabets. The lecture left me wondering whether or not needlework samplers exist for cultures which don't use the Roman alphabet to form their words. The closest we got to this was a sampler which had both English and Hebrew on it.

Beyond the one lecture neither of us attended any classes. This was a change from what we've done in past years, but both of us agreed that we should focus more on what we had already than taking classes which would generate more projects (especially since we still have lots of class projects from previous years that are not yet finished). Instead we spent time in the Stitchers' Lounge, and we wandered around the shop booths on Saturday. I ended up spending a little more money than I had intended to, but not much.

I'll have to look over what I purchased again, but my present recollection (not having anything in front of me) is that my tastes have become decidedly more flora-based, and I'm developing a penchant for working on projects which will be useful as well as decorative. This last may be an influence of knitting--one of the draws of knitting for me is the creation of items which will be used for something, not just admired as they hang on the wall. In both my needlework and knitting I continue to be drawn to fine and specialty fibers. I love working with them, and the quality of the finished product--regardless of what that product may be--is increased as the quality of the materials rises.

Since that weekend, however, I have not exactly had much time to stitch or knit. Work keeps me busy, and I tend to read on my lunch break (it is easier to manage food and a book than food and any form of needlework). Plus, I've been doing the whole "chicken with its head cut off" thing due to the moving situation. I really don't handle stress all that well, and moving is one of those naturally high-stress situations at the best of times.

On Monday or Tuesday I came home from work and went rummaging about in the attic for my linens and my dishes. I found most of them, but there is at least one bin which is still in limbo up there. Still, most of them is a good ratio, particularly since I do have enough to get by on (at least one complete set of towels, at least one complete set of sheets, etc).

Wednesday my father and I went to Ikea after work to pick up the furniture I was in need of. This was my first time being in the Stoughton, MA, store; they seemed to have more "display homes" than the New Haven store, and the order of things on the display floor seemed a little different as well. I really want to spend more time there when I'm not feeling quite so rushed and on a mission. There are a lot of really good ideas to be had there, but you really can't take them in all at once.

After we got the furniture we brought it back to my apartment, but we didn't start putting it together. By that time it was 11:00 at night and we were both very tired. We also knew that putting together furniture really isn't something you can do in a half an hour, or even an hour.
Thursday I was supposed to do more packing, but I watched several episodes of Eyeshield 21 instead. Not my wisest move, that is certain. I did do a little packing, but hardly enough to really qualify.

Friday was Friday Night Knitting, and I really needed that time to relax. Of course, that evening I did get just a little frustrated after FNK when my "best laid plans" did not come to realization--I wanted to get all my furniture put together that evening so things would be totally ready for me to move in, only it got late. I threw a little bit of a tantrum, a fact I am not exactly pleased to admit. It was not my finest hour, and stress and frustration really aren't an excuse.

It all worked out in the end, however. I got a fairly good night's sleep, and we did the moving on Saturday as planned. Three of the elders from my ward came over to help (a bit of a miscommunication happened there too, but it worked out nicely), and my family helped a lot as well. My dad spent several hours putting together my furniture while I was packing things into boxes and driving the boxes back and forth.

We finished for the day at 12:30 that night. Yeah...it was late. I am still tired from moving things around and getting everything organized. I am still living out of boxes, and my computer has not yet been moved over to the apartment. I also have not gone shopping (or planned menus) so I really don't have any food in the apartment.

But I have a bed to sleep in, I have boxes in neat piles in my room, I have some books on my shelves, and I am settling in. Things are going to work out.

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Things I've done in which I am well pleased: got functionally moved into my apartment, even if I am working out of boxes still. Managed to give a ten-minute talk at church, despite not having a whole lot of time to prepare. Got up on time for work this morning.

Things that make me happy: being able to relax some, getting things straightened out in my new apartment, learning, spending time with family