Yarn

A resurrected post from an old blog that I got in my inbox through one of those reminder email things, and still info I think is good to know!

notes for future crafting:
- you can make yarn out of nettles and it's similar to hemp yarn
- other fibers to find: recycled silk, banana, flax, bamboo, natural cotton
- yaks make yarn, too!
- added to sheep, goats, llamas, alpacas, rabbits, fuzzy cats, camels
- i wonder if hairy cows make down? or, like, buffalo or elk or moose or something like that?
- and alaskan musk oxen! (called qiviut)

info to find:
- how to spin all these renewable natural fibers myself / how much of each plant is needed to make a viable amount and still have growing populations?
- how to recycle things that have already been clothified into new yarn
- is there such a thing as a home-built mill? how do you do it?
- directions for building home-made looms
- directions for building home-made spinning wheels
- places to get these lovely things on the cheap to figure out how they work...
- how to raise yarn animals, how many are needed, and what else they can be used for (milk? maneure? meat? pest-plant control? oils, like lanolin?
random other things i don't know about?)

Video: Doctor Who Is A Religion

Help make the Ars Magica game a reality!

You may or may not know that I'm a writer and sometimes editor for Black Chicken Studios. We now have a new project, and we could really use a little Kickstarter love to make it real. What do you think?

Black Chicken Studios, working under license from Atlas Games, is delighted to present a new simulation role-playing game for the PC. After 25 years and 5 editions, Ars Magica will at long last be paid tribute in a single-player, turn-based video game. Authentic to the original, this is a faithful, beautiful, and accurate depiction of covenant gameplay and the RPG’s legendary magic system during a dangerous century in the Stonehenge Tribunal. With your help, we’ll bring Ars Magica: Years of Conquest and its tapestry of wars, intrigue, invasion and, above all, magic to life!

Quote - Eckhart Tolle

To complain is always nonacceptance of what is. It invariably carries an unconscious negative charge. When you complain, you make yourself a victim. Leave the situation or accept it. All else is madness."

- Eckhart Tolle, German born best-selling author.

Source: TheDailyLove.com email newsletter

Babysitter Tales - Ball

The baby, A2, and I were out in the carport to get some sun, and he decided he wanted to play a game. We had the basketball, but he gets bored with that because he isn't all that good at bouncing it yet, and he isn't strong enough or tall enough yet to make baskets, so he came up with a new game.

It goes like this:

He has two rocks, a big one and a small one, and he moves them up and down the stairs in some sort of pattern while I hold the basketball and wait on him. When they both get down to the ground, through whatever arcane logic goes through a two-year-old's head, then he runs over and grabs my skirt from behind and moves me back and forth and up and down the driveway until I'm just where he wants me to be. Then, he pushes on my butt with both of his hands and yells "go!" and I have to shoot the basket. Meanwhile, he runs around me and picks up this big stick with all these skinny little branches at the end and tries to catch the ball as it comes down, but he won't look at the ball when it's in the air because it's too sunny and so he has his eyes all squinched up and his head turned to the side. 

Then we start all over again.

We did this for maybe half an hour. Normally, the baby's repetitions get to me after a few times; I know he's learning things for the first time, but it gets tiresome. This, though, was actually fun, and he was so cute as he moved me back and forth just so.

It's the newest game on the block. Everyone'll be talking about it.

Musing: Do I have to trade not being depressed for being well-informed?

I'm under stress* and that probably makes me more likely to be depressive anyway, and also to be jaded and pessimistic, but I keep running up against this question. Watching and reading the news gives me panic attacks and stomach aches--I don't need to know the exact details of how crappy the world situation is to understand that it's crappy. But when I outright avoid the news for my own sanity, I miss the important world events that everyone is talking about, the things that actually do apply to me in some way other than just, say, making me horrified to be human.

And have you noticed, the people who are the best informed are also usually bitter--or angry all the time over everything--or half-crazy with drastic ideas on how to fix it? I don't want to be any of those things, and I have a tendency to at least the last one already, and it's a bad space for my mind to be in.

So I'm left with this: am i obligated to sacrifice mental balance to know what's going on around me? Because that's what the whole news system feels like it's telling me--if I'm happy, it's just because I didn't know that there was this new genocide, this new environmental collapse sign, this new political threat.

And I don't buy that. I don't think the purpose of the news is to scare people, though that seems to be exactly what they're aiming to do these days. I don't think I should have to daily consume exactly what I know will drive me off the wall when I'm already barely keeping it together with my own life. I don't think that internalizing someone else's biases is good for me.

But when I don't, it's like I've missed out on a huge chunk of the country's shared consciousness.

How do you solve this problem?



*We're moving. Again. And the babysitting hours are getting longer, which makes them harder. And I still have very little income and less and less in my bank account. And I'm getting over a cold. And I'm coming up on the deadline for my next fifty pages.

Om Yom - Peanut Layered Gooey "Bars"

This is a recipe I found on Pinterest somewhere and I just had to try it. You take a box of devils food cake mix, an egg and a half cup of melted butter and make a thick, like, brownie batter out of it. Spread it into a nine by thirteen greased and parable it for eight minutes.

Crush up pretzels until you have a cup or so, and throw that on top of the base, then a cup each of honey roasted peanuts, chocolate chips, peanut butter chips and Reece's pieces. Top the whole thing with a whole can of sweetened condensed milk.

Bake it for another fifteen or twenty minutes until its gooshy but set and let it cool as much as you can stand before you dig in. We didn't wait long enough and it wasn't the least bit bar like but it was delicious. Like, heavenly. A muddy wonderful mess!

Shonagonisms - Ten random facts about me

1. My favorite color is a very specific range of greens, so I tend to wear more blue because I'm less picky about it
2. I will willingly and cheerfully watch videos of cats getting stuck in small spaces for hours
3. I used to have such a heavy Scottish accent that when we visited family in the US, they couldn't understand what I was saying
4. I don't believe closets are the best way to organize clothes; I'd rather have a room without a closet and a wardrobe, a clothes track and a series of hooks on the wall
5. I would rather live in the UK than anywhere I've found here
6. I feel most at home when I'm in an airport waiting on a plane
7. I can't remember a damn thing without writing it down, and so I almost always have a pen and paper on me--and go a little bonkers when I don't
8. I am a sucker for sweets recipes that include sweetened condensed milk, especially things like Magic Cookie Bars and variations on them
9. I never thought I'd enjoy working out, but I actually do, and it weirds me out a little
10. I'm pretty sure that English needs more compound words for things that are always used together-- evenif, afterall, lastnight, etc

What ten facts about you will you share?

Pic: The Perils of Companionship from Hijinks Ensue

2012-10-10-the-perils-of-companionship.jpg (820×482): http://hijinksensue.com/comics/2012-10-10-the-perils-of-companionship.jpg

Monday Inspiration: Alice Walker

"Helped are those who create anything at all, for they shall relive the thrill of their own conception and realize a partnership in the creation of the Universe that keeps them responsible and cheerful."

- Alice Walker, author and poet.

This is part of a weekly series. Click the tag for more inspiration!

Info:

Alice Walker By Bloom, Harold (EDT) (Google Affiliate Ad)

Side Project: Adagio Teas: Signature Blend

Adagio Teas: Signature Blend: I made some custom mixes! Because tea is awesome and Adagio lets me do stuff like this. Come buy some and let me know what you think!

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Tiger Lily

by Samantha Holloway

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Hellboy

by Samantha Holloway

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Liz

by Samantha Holloway

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Abe Sapien

unavailable

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Mine

by Samantha Holloway

Roll Grizzlebeef

Delay

All my posts will be a day off or so because of my schedule this week!

Monday Inspiration - Gary Zukav

"When you welcome your emotions as teachers, every emotion brings good news, even the ones that are painful."

- Gary Zukav

Shonagonisms: Things to assume to make the world more interesting

• Everything vague someone says is actually all they are allowed to say before they give away national secrets (thanks, XKCD!)
• Those strange lights you see out of the corner of your eye when you're overtired are actually reflected off things in a close-parallel universe
• Whenever the internet slows down, it's because someone is borrowing your data to contact alien life
• Cats speak a tonal language that communicates over long distances and so have contact to all other cats with very little effort
• Beer really is a proof that God wants us to be happy
• Weird people are only weird because they're newly-arrived visitors from the future who don't quite understand how we do things yet
• Birds are constantly telling us everyone's secrets, but we just don't understand them

Friday Gratitude - 10-5-2012

(from: http://www.sistersrunningthekitchen.com/2011/06/be-grateful/)

Today, I'm thankful for:

• Being able to send off my first shipment to my first customer!
• Having most of the day to myself to do my own work without interruption
• Not having to babysit today, because while they're awesome, they're also exhausting
• My new mica colors came in, so I can start formulating the new nail colors!
• Binka didn't wake me up this morning, and someone else fed her, so I got to sleep in
• Fall weather is coming back, even if it's been warmer again
• A1 has noticed that trees change color and is amazed every day on the walk home from the bus stop, and so I'm amazed, too
• A2 likes to collect pretty rocks, and tells stories about each one, even though I can't understand a word he says
• No one has gotten hurt, despite A1's habit of jumping off of things and A2's new game of let's-run-into-traffic-because-it's-funny-when-Auntie-gets-scared
• I've started two new writing projects, and they're freeing up that tense feeling I get when I have to focus too hard and too long on one thing
• I have great crit partners
• When we have to move again, I get to have my own room again!
• Even though I can't afford to ship my stuff up here yet, I CAN afford to keep the unit safe and stored for another month
• All my shows returned this week or last week and now I'm spoiled for choice each night of the week
• Tea. I'm always grateful for tea.

What are you grateful for this week?

Non-typical tattoo

I find this utterly amazing.

(found on Pinterest)

Us in real life

• Me: I'm going to take up welding so I can go weld things with Nathan Fillion.
• Bro: During the Zombie Apocalypse?
• Me: Preferably before. Easier to bond that way.

Right Now

drinking water, even though I'd rather tea
appreciating being done babysitting for the day
watching Conan with Jennifer Garner and Tilly and the Wall
laughing because of Conan--he always gets me
eating Almond Joys
willing the day to last long enough for me to get rest before tomorrow!
waiting to go to the postoffice and mail my first sold nail polish set!
prepping to make more nail polish and launch a new line
opening to the wisdom of the Universe because I've been too closed off
sleeping hardly at all
remembering the ToDo list
brainstorming serials I could write for the writing blog
wearing tanktop and skirt, the at-home uniform
considering going to sleep early
making a mess with my micas
feeling headachy from the weather changing
getting tired!
loving life a little more every day I get to do something I like
having less than I need but more than I had
listening to the TV over my shoulder
crying no more
turning to look at the Cloud Atlas trailer
acknowledging that I still have a lot to learn--about everything
flipping my hair
enjoying possibilities I didn't have before
thankful for those same possibilities
joining the world again

(Taken from one of Elise Blaha's "Currently" posts, with much appreciation!)

Video: John Green on "What should I do with my life"

"Study widely and without fear."

Shonagonisms: Things that alarm me

• Alarms
• Babies crying
• Strange noises at night
• Remembering things I forgot to do
• First dates
• Reading poetry aloud
• Season finale cliff-hangers

Monthly Me: October 2012

Me at the start of this month.

This month's goals:

• Make the first month of the store a really good one
• Go outside more
• Decompress more
• Find a better place for November's Monthly Me
• Make a few more Doodles
• Try a new recipe

Monday Inspirations - Albert Einstein

Let's start each week with a little inspiration, shall we? This post is part of a series; click the tag to see more!

“If the facts don’t fit the theory, change the facts.” 

- Albert Einstein

Source: http://www.lifed.com/top-100-inspirational-quotes-to-live-by

Links

Culture: How to Harness Your Rebels

The Future: The State of Mind-Control Technology

Creativity: Four Lessons About Creativity From John Cleese

Urbanism: A Network of Elevated Bikelanes in London

Retro-Futurism: 100 Years Ago, French Artists Predicted the Future With Eerie Accuracy

Journaling: October's daily journaling questions

Life: An Open Letter To People Complaining About Politics

PodCasts: Baker Street Babes take on Elementary


Follow:

• Elise Blaha - She does journaling, scrapbooking, quilting, cooking, and living, and she's great. So many great ideas!