Needle and ThREAD: Stitching for Literacy

The Needlework Nutshell is going to be late this month. All is well; it’s just late.

One of the Microtus voles (as opposed to the red-backed voles); I would guess a meadow vole. Voles are mice with short tails. The grassland around the lagoon bustles with these.

At the lodge in Aialik, of course. A mostly recreational trip this time, though Mike did install a door and took measurements for two new projects which he’ll execute here at home.

‘Tis the season to fill the freezer, so we fished…

…for halibut.
Looks like Denny and Mike are working pretty hard for it, no?
It weighs in at a nice manageable and oh-so-yummy twenty-three pounds.
You’ll have to imagine the work involved in hauling in this ninety pounder. I had it on the hook; Denny lassoed the tail; Mike gaffed it. On the count of three heave then watch out for the flapping. Don’t charter boats shoot big halibut before they bring them into the boat? Um…yes, yes they do.

We also shrimped.

A winch? You mean a woman who dresses up in Civil War-period costume and waits tables in a Gettysburg restaurant? Why would we need one of those? Five pots on three 600-foot lines, pulled up by hand, mostly by Mike.
Little by little, shrimp by shrimp, morning and evening…
…the catch increases.

Mmmm!

Now we need some salmon.

From the bookmarks collected by Accents, Inc. in Louisiana during the 2009 Bookmark Challenge.

The Monday “What have you done lately?” accountability post, where I announce my Needle and Thread: Stitching for Literacy program promotion goal for the week and fess up on last week’s goal.

Last week my goals were to discuss Big Picture plans with TNNA’s marketing consultant and to pitch a bookmark article and pattern to a magazine.

Um…I’m still working on it (she says sheepishly).

This week, my goal is to share recent news and ideas with participants and non-participating shop owners. Specifically, I need to send a message to participants and post news on a message board.

That’s easy enough. I can do that and finish last week’s goals. Right?

Thanks to Bev for pointing out last week that Cross Stitch and Needlework is promoting the program in their magazine. Yay!

What’s on my mp3 player? The Wish List, by Eoin Colfer.

The Wish List opens with fourteen-year-old Meg Finn dying. As she drifts through the tunnel to the afterlife, her aura glows purple–a 50/50 blend of red (bad–go directly to Hell) and blue (good–go directly to the Pearly Gates). This highly unusual circumstance results in her being sent back to Earth, not as a living human, but as a sort of ghost. Her actions during her return will tip the balance and determine her final destination.

This story was especially relevant to me because one of my critique partners is writing a ghost story, and our group briefly discussed whether ghostly possessions were appropriate for middle-grade readers. Meg possesses a body during her return.

Another critique group member is writing a YA story about the afterlife, the journey to it, and the characters in it. It’s good to see what’s already been done.

The story was good, but what I liked best was the writing, i.e., the way the story was told. Fine threads of humor wind around parts that might be gruesome, shocking, scary, or depressing. Colfer had me from chapter one: I smiled and chuckled as Meg died. No kidding.

Much of the humor is subtle and dry; for instance, the kinds of people who populate Hell. I suspect some of it would go over the heads of young readers, but some of the funny details might stick with readers and generate ah-ha moments in the future when they are better understood. No one can say Colfer writes down to his audience.

This is a great book on audio. The characters are Irish, and the reader’s accents sound perfect to my admittedly untrained ears.

The deck zucchini is doing much better than the garden zucchini.

Three guesses and the first two don’t count.

I’m spending a lot of time in the yard and garden. A couple of weeks ago, we had some fill and topsoil brought in help transform the yard from an obvious work-in-progress to something more pleasant to look at. Eventually. I hope.

While I allowed the local dirt-bringer and -mover to move some of the material for me with a handy-dandy dozer, I opted to have five loads (those would be dump truck loads, or roughly 50 yards of material) dumped in piles for me to move by hand–and shovel, rake, and bucket.

Two loads of fill, three loads of soil.

Now, I’ve moved truck loads of dirt and gravel before, but five of them? Even Mike thinks I’m nuts this time.

I know better.

I think of my yard project of the subplot of my summer. The main plot is the novel I’m writing. It’s an old NaNoWriMo project that’s been simmering on the back burner. I don’t know exactly where I’m going with either plot yet, but I have a bunch of material (dirt and rough draft), some vague notions of how the material might be rearranged and shaped, an endless supply of energy and determination, and just enough faith to keep me optimistic.

In the front yard, there are a couple of ginormous wild rose bushes and eensy-weensy blueberry plants that I want to save and encourage while building up the level of the ground around them. The dozer would have mashed and buried them. The side yard will be strawberry and raspberry beds and gravel paths.

Yes, fifty yards of dirt is daunting (so is a 60,000-word story), especially when I don’t have a concrete plan, but every day I move some dirt. With each bucket I dump, I see where the next one might go, and then the next, and the one after that. Bucket-by-bucket and shovel-by-shovel I discover where the plot is going.

It’s a big job, but it’s an adventure, and I’m having fun. I’m not the least bit crazy.

It’s funny. I took an extra week off from blogging just because–because I didn’t feel like it, I guess. As soon as I got started again, I thought, Hey, this is fun! In the past two days, at least a dozen possible blog topics have come to mind. No, I haven’t written them down, so, yes, I will forget them. Probably already have.

The fact is, I like journaling. I enjoyed in it eleventh grade when Mr. Clark made us do it in English class. He was years ahead of NaNoWriMo, believing in the benefits of quantity regardless of quality. He counted the number of pages we wrote, but didn’t read them, allowing us to write about anything or nothing at all. I still have that journal.

I journaled through all our years of caretaking and on long trips. In part, I wanted the record for my own benefit, but I also shared the journals with family.

When I’m stuck on a story, I journal, either as myself, working around and eventually through the problem, or as the character.

I brainstorm on paper.

Someone once said, “I don’t know what I think until I write it.” That could have been me. Putting something in words–an experience, a memory, a problem–forces me to think through it, to define it in words. Sometimes I don’t know what I’m thinking or feeling until I’m forced to give it words.

All this to say it’s good to be blogging again!

The Monday “What have you done lately?” accountability post, where I announce my Needle and Thread: Stitching for Literacy program promotion goal for the week and fess up on last week’s goal.

Two weeks ago, my goal was to take a look at the Big Picture of what I want to accomplish this year so that I can break it into doable chunks. I did, and I have a list of ideas and something like a plan, but I will need to revisit it, and, of course, I’m always open to suggestions.

For part of my Big Picture, I made a list of people I would like to contact, sharing info about the program and discussing ways they might get involved. I also brainstormed ideas for more things I can do locally. We’ve got the Anchorage library event down pretty well, so I’d like to see if we can’t hold another at a Mat-Su Borough library, and I’d like to do something personally with the local school. It’s tiny, so that shouldn’t be too hard.

What about you? Can I persuade you to reach out to a local school, library, scout troop, sports team, or youth group, and offer to teach kids to stitch a bookmark? Contact me if you’d like to give it a go, and I’ll help get you started.

Bookmarks from the Accents, Inc. collection. If you’re in the New Orleans area, stop in and see Gayle.

Over the weekend, I learned from fellow designer, Phyllis Dobbs, that the Needle and ThREAD program was mentioned in Mike Hartnett’s Creative Leisure News newsletter. Yay! We can thank TNNA for that; they share our press releases.

Which leads me to this week’s goal: I have a tremendous resource in the TNNA marketing consultant, and I’d like to discuss with her my Big Picture plans.

Since I skipped a week (gasp!), I aim to double up this week. I’ll also contact Gloriann at Cross-Stitch and Needlework about the DNA pattern and a possible bookmark article. They have joined the Challenge and plan to collect bookmarks from their readers.

The first week this blog was dark, I was out and about, kayaking, watching glaciers calve and create mini-tsunamis, peering down deep crevasses and trying hard to not fall in, etc. The second week this blog was dark, I have no excuses.

What does it take to jump start my summer blog writing?

That’s easy: a really good book.

What’s on my nightstand? The Year We Disappeared: A Father-Daughter Memoir, by Cylin Busby and John Busby.

This book was recommended as a companion to the June readergirlz pick, Sweethearts, by Sara Zarr.

The Year We Disappeared is the true story of the Busby family in the aftermath of the not-fatal but devastating shooting of John Busby, police officer, father, and husband. Chapters alternate between John’s and his now-adult daughter’s, Cylin’s, experience.

As readers here know, this dual perspective is something I’m drawn to, and it is used to great effect here. As a reader, my experience is broadened and enhanced by seeing the story from these two angles. By seeing the effects of the incident on Cylin, we better understand the conclusion John eventually draws. And by seeing John’s experience, we know exactly how hard it was for him to come to that conclusion. The two perspectives demonstrate the complexity of the issues and the far-reaching consequences of what might seem like small actions when they are isolated.

The injustice of the case is galling. I cannot imagine having to swallow what John had to swallow. The courage and fear of the Busby family is hard to grasp. Knowing what John knew and seeing what Cylin saw paints a vivid picture.

The story all by itself is a worthwhile read, but connecting it to the other books in the June readergirlz collection is fun and fascinating. Check out Cylin’s thoughts here. I guess this kind of connecting is what book clubs do. How fun!

Hats off to John and Cylin Busby and to the readergirlz.