A Dress for My Mother

Mom made a comment about her 18" doll being naked.  She is used to make sure clothes fit before they are sent to other dolls.  I decided that I needed to do something about that so I crocheted her a dress.  I started out with a vision of a dress with a rippled top elbow-length ruffle and a full ruffled skirt.  That isn't even close to what I ended up with although I love the final results.  I hope to get a pattern written for this since it turned out so nice.

Dress with ripple cape

Back of dress

Dress

So what do you think?

Where Has the Time Gone?

Good grief, it it already August 2014!  Where has the time gone since my last post?

Well, much of 2013 was spent holding the hands of some friends who had an unbelievably bad year.  We also had more than our fair share of deaths.  It got to the point that when Mom said, "Well, I have some bad new...."  I automatically replied with, "Who died now?"

I knew it was a bad year when the doctor asked me what had been happening since the last time I saw her and I asked, "How many funerals had I been to when I saw you last?"

I spent much of my time knitting, crocheting, and crafting.  I have taken up card making.  I make the cards and give them away.  I almost never use one of the cards I make but I sure have been having fun!  It is amazing how my cards have changed since I started.  They still remain quite simple and without much embellishment.  I do like dimension in my cards.  I think it takes away the mass-produced look.

I hope to get some pictures of some of my projects posted here for inspiration for others, especially since that is why I started this blog!

Last Time in Our Lifetime

Today is the last time that any of us will see the month, day, and year all be the same numbers - 12/12/12.  The next time this will happen will be New Year's Day, 2101.  Do you remember any of the other MDY dates that have happened in this millennium?

01/01/01 - The first day of the new millennium - This was also a "special" date for computer programmers since the date is the same in binary.

02/02/02 - Groundhog Day - Nothing really special about this Groundhog Day.

07/07/07 - The largest mass weddings in history and, conveniently, a Saturday - Many couples thought that being married on this date would bring their marriages luck.  I wonder how many of those marriages survived...

08/08/08 - The Opening Ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics - I learned that 8 is considered a lucky number in China.

12/12/12 - The last time we will see this phenomenon.  Today is also a special concert for raising money to help those affected by Hurricane Sandy.

Make this a day to remember.

My Questions for the Presidential Candidates

Ok, I know this is late, but it may inspire you to start tackling this at a local level, which is where it needs to begin anyhow.

Question #1:  What are you going to do about education?  I know, science and math has been a min focus and we seem to be doing better with that, but the language arts and, especially, the creative arts have suffered.

As far as the language arts (reading and writing), you can read my last post to see part of why I think they are important.  The other part of it is that students don't have any idea how to TALK to one another.  If communication doesn't happen through a keyboard, they are clueless.

Playing music, drawing pretty pictures and creative writing really are important.  These are the types of things that stimulate creativity.  First of all, being creative causes neurons in the brain to grow, which help you think better.  More importantly (because other activities cause neuron growth), creativity is what solves problems. This is especially the "thinking outside the box" part of problem solving.  This is the type of problem solving that it took to figure out a solution to get Apollo 13 home.  This isn't "plug-and-play" type problem solving that is being promoted now.

Creativity is also what is used to invent new things.  Where would we be today if no one had been creative enough to think of replacing bad organs or joints with new ones?  Organ transplants and joint replacements would not exist.  What if no one had ever come up with the idea for plastic!?  This is science, but this is also creativity.

Music, art, and creative writing also get us to feel.  These help us project our opinions about things and share those feelings with others.  Wouldn't it be great if we were able get out or anger and frustration by putting it on paper, canvas, or into music instead of these shootings or other abuses?  (I wonder, if schools started putting more music an art into the curriculum, would violence drop?)

Music, art, writing, and some other things are what come together to make movies and video games.  Even if you don't enjoy the other things, most of us enjoy movies or video games.

We discovered that focusing on language arts and music didn't work, so we are going to try focusing on the other side of the spectrum.  We will discover that that doesn't work, either.  Here is a novel concept - let's try BALANCE.  We need the math and sciences but we also need the language and creative arts.


Question #2:  What are you going to do about continuing education?  I heard about setting up and improving training programs for new careers, but what if I don't want a new career?  What if I just want to learn something for the heck of learning it?

In at least the cases of some community colleges, if you take a class just because you want to, it doesn't matter how well you did, how much you learned, or how much you enjoyed the class.  In fact, how good the class was has no bearing on the college.  Simply the fact that you were in the class and didn't go on to get a job or transfer to a university, the college failed with you.  This will affect how much money the college gets from the government.  If you have an exceptional liberal arts college, no matter how good the programs, instructors, or classes; the college is likely to rate as a poor college.

Why is education viewed as a means-to-an-end instead of an opportunity to improve yourself?  Do you remember School House Rocks! from TV?  Their motto was "Knowledge is Power!"  They were right.  The brain, like any other muscle in the body, needs to be exercised.  Learning can do that.  On top of that, if you know how to do something, you don't, necessarily, need to depend on someone else to do it for you.  You can also, possibly, apply that knowledge to something else (creativity...).

When I was really young, I learned to ice skate.  One of the first things they teach you is how to fall.  They teach you to go limp.  Naturally, you would tighten up your muscles when you started to fall, but by going limp, you are less likely to break a bone.  Several years ago, I was hit by a car.  I was thrown into the air.  That training (education) from many years earlier, kicked in.  I was told that I looked like a rag doll with arms and legs flopping around.  One witness told his dispatcher that I had been killed.  When the emergency crews got there, I was standing on the side-walk, being quite embarrassed.  I ruined a pair of nylons and skinned up my toe.  (My shoe flew down the street.)  I also had some pretty good bruises on my hips.  I was rather sore, but limped away from the scene.  I didn't even mess up the skirt and blouse I was wearing.  I should have gone to the ER and made sure there wasn't any internal bruising, but I didn't.  Physically, I pretty much got off scotch-free.  I can be pretty certain that if I had tightened my muscles (natural instinct instead of training), I would not have been nearly as lucky and probably been in really bad shape.

Let's imagine you took CPR through a college and ended up using it to save someone's life.  I don't think that person or the family would consider the college that offered the class a failure.  What if you used something that was learned in auto-shop to help a stranded motorist?  Knowledge IS Power.

Please, support your school's/community's art and music programs.  Also, support your local colleges.  Even though job training is important, remember the value of being a life-long student.

Good Reading and Indie Publishing Advice

One of the things I have enjoyed this summer is reading.

I have read a number of good books, and several bad ones as well.  The one that sticks out is The Old Man & The Monkey by George Polley.  It is about an unusual friendship.  It demonstrates how well animals can bond with humans and detect and share their feelings.  When I was done, I actually mourned that the story was over.  That is a sign of a powerful book!  I know it is available on Kindle.

As far as the books I was disappointed in, they all had similar problems and could have easily been good books.  Indie publishers are getting a bad name because of a few simple things that aren't being done.
1.  Use your spell-checker.
2.  If writing non-fiction, make sure that your information doesn't contradict itself.  It would also be nice if it was actually correct as well.
3.  You MUST have a proof-reader, preferably one that speaks English and knows at least some basic grammar and punctuation rules.

I get so frustrated when I have this urge to get out my "red pen" and correct the book and send it back to the author.  It is even more frustrating when the errors are so bad that I can't even figure out what is trying to be said.  I like doing puzzles, but not when I just want to loose myself in a good story.

There is a lot of good technology that makes writing easier, but nothing can take the place of a pair of human eyes!  There are things that a computer just can't pick up because it doesn't get the meaning or tone of the story.

It doesn't matter how good of a writer you are.  There are mistakes you will never see because you ARE the author.  It is just a fact of writing.  A good proof-reader will help you take a good story and make it great.  Proof-reading may even take a bad story and make it great.  Read the acknowledgements of any book and you will realize that writing is actually a "team sport."

The moral is:  Before publishing, proof-reading is a MUST!

Thank you to those authors (and their teams) who helped make my summer enjoyable by writing good books.

Discovering Your World Through Animals

You can learn or notice all kinds of things by watching pets, especially new ones.

Early in the summer, we brought my brother's corgi to live with my parents.  The corgi couldn't do the stairs at my brother's house anymore.

The corgi had always lived in areas with numerous lawns.  We stopped in New Mexico for the night.  Corgi got out of the car and looked up at me like, "Where's the grass?".  I pointed to a weed and told him that was his option.  After looking at the weed, he looked up at me like, "You have GOT to be kidding!"  He has since adjusted to Arizona and using a weed no longer bothers him.  It had never occurred to me how our lack of vegetation might seem unusual.

There are some great authors who write from the perspective of an animal.  C.A. Goody is one of these.  Charlie and the Rodent Queen is a prime example of the world from animals views.  In this book, you get to see a hamster from a cat's view and a cat from a hamster's view.  You even get to see what is happening from the dog's view.  Unfortunately, she is busy doing her own thing and doesn't even realize this discovery is happening.  She is like most of us.  How often do we miss what is going on around us because we are busy doing our own thing?

If you are up to a challenge, put yourself in the place of an animal and at least think about something from the animal's perspective.

I have found that this exercise has provided me insight to my world.  It has also calmed me down when I was furious at a cat for doing something he shouldn't.  "But, Mommy, I was just trying to help.  You said your plants needed watered."

9/11 - Emergency Preparedness Day

We are all likely to have some kind of an emergency in our life and we all need to be prepared for the small emergencies that are likely to hit us.  I am talking about the kind that won't make the evening news.  Identity theft, house fire or break-in, computer crash, auto accident, or a health emergency are just a few of the emergencies that happen every day.

Are you prepared for an emergency?  Today is a good day to do some simple things to help protect you and your loved ones over the next year.

Home First Aid Kit:  Replace any items you have used.  Remove and replace expired or damaged items.

Auto First Aid Kit:  Replace items you have used.  Remove and replace expired or damaged items.  Check for items that were damaged by the summer heat or the winter cold.

Pet First Aid Kit:  Replace any used items.  Remove and replace expired or damaged items.

Home Safety:  Check flashlight and spare batteries.  Check fire alarms, entry alarms, carbon dioxide alarms. Clean the keys on the key pad on your entry alarm.  Is it time to change the locks (who has keys)?  Are your escape routes and meeting points still good (do you remember them)?

Auto Safety Kit:  Replace items that need it.  Check that duct tape and those flash light batteries.  They don't do well in our Arizona heat.

Credit Card Safety:  Check your credit reports and make sure they are accurate.  Check your aluminum foil in your wallet that surround both sides of your cards.  (Aluminum foil keeps the cards from being scanned without your knowledge.  Both sides of the card have to be protected.  This is VITAL if you carry only one card like when you go to the gym.)  Do you have contact information to cancel the cards if they get lost or stolen?

Computer Safety:  Change internet passwords.  Update your virus protection software and do a virus scan.  Back up any data you don't want to loose.  If possible, store that back-up away from home.

Personal Documents:  Does anything need updated?  Will?  Insurances (life)?  Power of Attorney?  Driver's License (get that SS# removed)?  Passport?  Medical Records (that list that you are supposed to carry with you)?  Does your family know where to find this information and anything else they may need if something happens to you?  Do you know where this information is for your family members?

Telephone/Cell Phones:  Are your cells ICEd?  Do you have emergency numbers current?  Poison control?  Non-emergency police?  Doctors?

Physically:  Any doctors or tests you need to schedule?

This is really a basic list of things to do.  These will help you be prepared or protect you from more common emergencies.

If you need information on any of the above items, there is all kinds of help on the web.  Just do a search.  If you are interested in being prepared for larger emergencies, there is all kinds of help for that as well.

I hope you don't use any of these preparations, but if you end up needing them, you will be glad you did!