Saturday, November 29, 2014

Well, I tried to give my money away...

I had been going on about Small Business Saturday a bunch yesterday and I tried to put my money where my mouth was, but I was denied.  I wanted to go to the bakery near my house and give them some support.  Seems like they took the day off though.  I'm pretty sure I did this exact same thing last year too.
I like going there because I have known about them from before they were a bakery you could just walk into.  One of the owners had a shop where she was only open to meet with people and she only did custom cake orders.  Well, add in two more people and they decided to try and sell some cupcakes out of her shop and be open to the public for a few hours a few days a week.  This was pretty successful and the people cried out for more store hours.  They did so well that they moved to a bigger shop and are opened almost every day of the week.  I also can't pick a favorite thing from them, but their pop-tarts are pretty awesome.  They don't skimp on the filling.  If you are in the area, make sure to stop by The Boutique Bakeshop and try everything that looks good to you.

I was watching The Knit Girllls podcast and they were talking about getting to meet Wendy Knits.  They talked about flying into Washington DC and it got me curious.  Turns out that she is also local to me!  Another person who lives in Alexandria!  First Tanis and now Wendy.  Do all the cool knitterly people secretly live near me?  Maybe something in this area just helps you to become all the knitter that you can be.

I'm having so many problems picking what I am going to be knitting next.  I want to try knitting the sock design I had thought of, but I also want to start a two color blanket.  I might just start the blanket and carry it with me until it gets too big and then start the socks.
Along the lines of things I want and should be working on.  I wish the Ravelry progress bar widget would allow you to pick and choose what WIPs(work in progress) to show.  Right now it just shows everything in progress, but some of the ones I have listed as an in-progress project is really just there to remind me that it is something I want to make at some point.  I know there is a queue and notes for that, but I had really meant to start them by now.  It would also list things if I was making anything for myself, which isn't really needed on here.


I was just watching about someone's meet and greet video.  I was laughing because if I ever tried to have one of those I would just be hanging out by myself.  At least I would have my knitting.


Interesting thing is that I don't know why I switched from calling that guy I live with his name to 'The Hubby,' maybe it is because it helps my word count?  It might also have to be because I have been reading a few blogs lately where they try and keep all names secret.  That habit might have just seeped into my brain.  So in case you ever get confused, 'The Hubby' and 'Bill' are the same person.
I don't think I have referred to him as such, but Mr. Jag is the one we joke is my boyfriend.  Bill was actually the first to make this reference.


Share that embarrassing story your relatives always tell about you.
This isn't very embarrassing, but it does explain a few things about me.  My dad likes to tell this story about when I was teeny tiny.
We were visiting friends of the family and as it usually goes, the little one gets handed around a little.  One person was wearing a necklace with a big hunk of gold on the end.  The second I got into her arms I put that thing in my mouth.  My dad tried to apologize for that but she waved him off.  It had become such an interesting shape because all of her kids had done some of their teething on it as well.
This explains my expensive tastes.  I might not have been born with a silver spoon in my mouth, but I did teeth on a golden nugget.


Go to the Merriam-Webster Word of the Day Web site (www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day), and write a story based on that word.
Vicious Circle aka my bad habits

    I keep trying to think of some story to write with this in it, but I just keep thinking of things that happen to me.  Like the cold thing to some degree; I feel bad for not knitting faster when it gets cold, but when it warms up a bit I don't knit faster, so I feel bad again once the temperatures start to drop again.
    I was also thinking about how it applies to my stories I work on.  I will come up with an idea that I really like, or have a dream that I feel would make a really good story.  I get characters described and information about them all written down.  I will dive into the beginning of the story that leads up to the main 'meat' of the story just fine.  There is where I run into some troubles.  Trying to think of the difficulties they will face will sometimes be hard, but not all the time.  The thing I have the most trouble with is the big thing they will have to deal with and how I want the story to end.
There was one story I did for NaNoWriMo a few years ago where I had to write two endings.  It was based on a song and in the end of the song everyone dies, but I didn't know if I wanted mine to end that way too.  I ended mine with everyone living at first, but then since I wanted to follow the song I also wrote an ending where everyone dies.
    Another story was based on vampires and one of them worked in a late-night diner that was being run out of a mobile trailer.  This was based on a dream and in the dream the couple who started the diner also hired a new boy and the vampire girl ends up getting attached to him and gets over protective.  She doesn't let him do anything that might injure him or put him in any danger at all.  I got as far as to describe how the diner was run, how she fed, and that there were people who hunted vampires in this world.  I talked about him a little, but I hadn't really fleshed him out at that point.
    One story I was really liking at the beginning came to be based on two things.  One was the movie where people controlled convicts like it was a video game, and the other was an anime where at one point two video game servers got crossed and some kids died because the other game was a shooting game.  It made me wonder about people getting mentally sucked into video games while their body did not.  I didn't know there was already an anime out there like that.  I had a main character that I still adore and I gave her a diverse group of friends.  She even got a younger brother who was too cute for words.  I gave the video game a name and based the game off of a book series that the main character loved.  I got them into the game and their first battle happened.  It was not good for them.
    This is where the problems started.  I didn't know what I wanted their bodies to be doing.  I also didn't know if I wanted them to be in the game all the time or not.  I was torn between their bodies acting on instinct to some degree and still going to school, or if I wanted them to be in the game only when they were asleep.  If they were in there when they were asleep they could strategize while they were on lunch break at school.
    I knew I wanted it so that if they died in the game there was no way for them to get back in.  I had also wanted them to know that what they were playing wasn't really a game but that some part of them had been taken to another dimension where magic was real and that they had to save or kill real living things.  I was debating sharing it, bit I would not be able to count those words since I wrote them back in 2009.

    I also have my vicious cycle on the more crafty side of things.  I keep thinking of new ideas and want to get right into it.  I go out and get a ton of items to use for this new idea.  Though while amassing all of these new items I think of a newer idea.  The first idea might get one or two items made if it is lucky, but mostly I just gather things.  After a while I forget what I had gotten the item for, so then it sits and sits.  This keeps happening and I have so very much in the way of crafting supplies as a result.  I have been trying to be good and looking for items that I already have to go with my new ideas, but my first instinct is to go out and get new things all the time.
    Though even when I'm not out buying things for new ideas it isn't like everything is a lot better because of it.  I will go around and find things in my house and gather them all together someplace, usually in the middle of the living room.  I put them there to remind me to use them for the idea I had.  They sit there and taunt me because I am trying to get the house more organized.  I am not a fan of cleaning at all, so I figure if I just use all the craft items I can, I won't have to organize them.  I then think of my new idea and since the ideas usually aren't related at all I have to go and gather all new materials.  Since I didn't make many, if any, from my first idea, all those items at just sitting there waiting for me.  I then push them to the side to make room for the new things.  Just keep repeating until the room is filled with little piles of stuff I don't remember what I was going to use them for.  Then the Hubby gets annoyed because our house has tons of stuff all around in random places so I have to try and work myself up to cleaning.  I will be going through one of the piles and come up with yet another new idea to make something with one or two of the items from that pile and it begins again.

I am feeling very disappointed with my brain tonight.  I have been sitting on that prompt for a bit.  All the words that popped up when I thought to use it was some really odd word I had never heard of before and most of the time also had to do with something religious.  When I saw what the word was today I got excited.  However, when I sat down to let inspiration hit me, I just sat there waiting.  I would like to blame all the craziness at work over the last few days.
I'm hoping there will be another good word tomorrow, but if not, I have another prompt in mind for the last day.  So will anyone miss my rambling and walls of text when we are done with this?  I know I won't miss another thing cutting into my knitting time, even if I have been having fun with this.


Today's count: 2,034
Monthly count: 48,440
Prompts used: 29
Words from titles: 149
Pattern words: 1,870
Other blog: 1,162
Pictures posted: 4 (counting only finished objects)

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