Wreck it Wednesday: Wreck This Journal Updates

From the Preface: 
Warning: During the process of this book you will get dirty. You may find yourself covered in paint, or any other number of foreign substances. You will get wet. You may be asked to do things you question. You may grieve for the perfect state that you found the book in. You may begin to see creative destruction everywhere. You may begin to live more recklessly. 

NY *hearts* Boston

A message from New York to Boston projected on Brooklyn Academy of Music 

via Twitter  Mike Hayes ‏@michaelhayes 15 Apr

Today's Horoscope

If a project you are working on needs your attention, you must deal with it before you can focus on anything else.

It would seem your attention is required in a few areas, so you need to work out what your biggest priority is -- the most urgent of your responsibilities -- and do that first.

So, basically ... this might explain the sporadic postings better than I can. Life can pull you in a bunch of directions. Sometimes to best focus on some things, you have to not do other things -- like blog.

All's well. Just really busy.

Stay tuned. I'll get back to this eventually.

Wreck it Wednesday: Wreck This Journal Updates

From the Preface: 
Warning: During the process of this book you will get dirty. You may find yourself covered in paint, or any other number of foreign substances. You will get wet. You may be asked to do things you question. You may grieve for the perfect state that you found the book in. You may begin to see creative destruction everywhere. You may begin to live more recklessly. 

 

Maybe I should have colored the outside of the book BEFORE I started to wreck it? What a silly idea!

Re "four-letter words": I decided that words were going to be positive, for the most part.

Write a list of more ways to wreck this journal.
 
1. Drive a car over it.
2. Take out to target practice/shoot it up.
3. Burn a few pages/use for kindling.
4. Decorate pages to make bookmarks, leave in library books.
5. Turn a page into a postcard, mail it "return to sender.'
6. Cut a page into a snowflake.
7. Put a page into an auto three-hole punch and make a pattern.
8. Mark a page a cosmetic rendering of your face.
9. Create a treasure map, antique it.
10. Mark an autograph page.
11. Have a conductor on your train, "click" a page (aka punch like your train ticket.)*
12. Use a page as a fan (folded up)[like an accordion].

*Each of the MetroNorth conductors have different shapes on their ticket punch. It would be fun to have a collection on a page.

Quote of the Day

via here

I will love the light for it shows me the way. Yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars.

- Og Mandino

Auntie Nettie's Attic Merchandise 2013 - March

Wait, what! ... It's April? What happened to March?

March apparently marched to it's own rhythm and marched right on by.

What did I do? Let's see, (she says, while flipping though her planner). There seem to be notes about:

~ Housekeeping;
~ Working late;
~ Lots of working lunches with colleagues. It's how I make sure I have face time with people, get away from my desk, and actually do some brainstorming and gossip with them.;
~ Television catchup;
~ Crazy weather (but not really for March). I would actually appreciate the weather letting me "work from home" more often, please Mother Nature; 
~ An unfortunate weekend of plumbing issues. I am NOT going to get into that future, but, it, um, wasn't fun.;
~ Baking--lots of cathartic baking for half the month, and then, not so much;
~ The inhalation of too WAY much Diet Coke and junk food;
~ Work projects up the wazoo. (Read above as I am a stress eater.); 
~ The annual tax appointments. (YAY for refunds! Now maybe I can make my blog books for the last two years!);
~ Lunch with some of the chicks from the Caramoor Crew. I miss most of those guys.;
~ Attendance at a vocal arts recitals featuring my favorite work-study student in the history of my time at the Big J. (And I don't particularly LIKE opera, and I'm willingly listening to an opera singer sing in different languages. WE LOVE YOU LINDSEY!) - and;
~ Fun times with Christine at the:
- Christmas Tree Shop in Danbury, CT,
- Orchid Show at the New York Botanical Garden, 
- Stew Leonard's,
- with my Wreck it Journal, and
- with her Flat Kaden and my Shushing Librarian. S.L. was exhausted by all the fun and had to rest at this conservatory bench and get her energy back.
 

I was out more than I was in ... and the crafting project I managed to finish was time consuming. Here's the one project for the entire month of March. I can't say that April is on track to be much more productive. This pattern takes a while, especially to do a crib-sized blanket. 

ANA 2013-12: Light blue Diamond-patterned crib cover

(1 14 oz. skein Loops & Threads Snuggly Wuggly #03300, Baby Denim, acrylic)

  Still outstanding? You know it.

UFO/Public Enemy Number 1 
Multi-colored, multi-fibered bane of my existence, started back in 2010.

I need a long couple of weeks, so I CAN FINISH THAT STUPID AFGHAN and reopen the shop. I need to take pictures and write text and get all of these things up on etsy.com, do some marketing, and start moving them on out of the Attic.

In the meantime, if you see anything from past entries that interest you, please let me know and I'll send you dimensions and pricing.

Poem of the Day: Beim Schlafengehen

Beim Schlafengehen

(Going to Sleep)

Now that the day has made me tired,

my longings shall be accepted kindly

by the friendly, starry night

like a weary child.

Hands, stop your activity,

head, forget all of your thoughts;

all my senses now

will sink into slumber.

And my soul, unobserved,

will float about on untrammeled wings

in the enchanted circle of the night,

deep and thousand fold to live.

From Richard Strauss' song series Vier letzte Lieder, text by Hermann Hesse
Translated by Heather Engebretson, soprano


Context for the worried parental unit: I attended a Liederabend, a vocal arts recital by one of my work-study students, a young and upcoming soprano. This is the English translation of a Strauss song featured on the recital (not the soprano mentioned above). It caught my attention because sometimes I have a problem going to sleep - turning my brain off from its busy-ness, and shutting down my other senses. My hands sometimes twitch like I'm still typing, and I need to enter a meditation trance to calm them and my mental activity. The words seemed to echo this state and I wanted to remember how relevant it was to me not long after I heard the song.

(Good grief Mom. It's not a call out for the shrink)