Gardening (For The Non-Gardener)

Some people like to garden. You know, with a lovely plot of soil outside where you can grow anything from string beans and tomatoes to flowers and whatnot. The idea is lovely, and conjures up images for me of Beatrix Potter watercolor illustrations. Well, maybe it's not so romantic in real life, but it's nice…

I Don’t Function on “Yes, and…”

It hit me this morning just what an intolerably long time it has been since I've gotten on here and actually finished a post. Because like any good blogging person (something which I am not), I have been on here many times to write a few sentences, hit the backspace button, and try again with…

Gentle Reader…

Disclaimer: This was a post written somewhere in the middle of July in a tiny little apartment in Tokyo, and was well on its way to being posted when I panicked and decided to proof read it "just one more time." Please forgive the delay, and humor me if you can by imagining that you're…

On Copying, High School Reading Lists, and a Good, Old-Fashioned Rant

High school reading lists. We all deal with them, we all come across them, we all know the names of certain books because they are on these lists. Intrinsically I have nothing against these book lists, except that I think the literature on them is built up to far beyond what it's actually worth (we…

I’m back!

I'm back! And I assure you that in the time that I've been gone, I have not fallen off the face of the earth. I've only been sitting very quietly in my corner of it surrounded all around by a wall of study books. I'm challenging myself to write this post (or at least the…

Valentine’s Day Plates

  I am very sorely lacking in red things to wear today. I realized this between classes this morning when I decided that two hours of Caesar would go over much better out of a nightgown. As a child, I loved wearing bright, funny-looking colors. Blue dresses over bright yellow leggings? A perfect go-to. Floral,…

Where’s the Queen?

I grew up with rock music. My father is, through and through, a rock listener. There's no other way to state it. I grew up trotting my little stuffed dog around the living floor listening to AC/DC blasting through the room. My dolls were married to the cranked-up tune of a Motörhead song rather than…

Mousy Stitches

I've made a couple of posts in the last couple of months that recap multiple projects at a time, so I thought that it might be nice for once to write an entry that had only one project as its focus. My dress. I decided at New Year's last year to make myself my very…

On Superficiality

I've been struggling with the concept of superficiality a lot lately, and most especially with trying to figure out what is it exactly that makes something superficial. I'm definitely the type of person that sits on the side observing a group for a long time before actually buckling down and joining whatever it is that…

Summer Knitting, Summer Sewing, and a Bucket of Water

Hello, hello! My goodness, it really has been a while, hasn't it? The last you heard of me I was feverishly knitting and wondering if I might perhaps be better off if I redirected my sudden fervor for the craft in some other direction. Well, I'm back with reports on the current knitting status, the…