One thing you learn when you pick up a pen to write is that your mind is sort of like a committee considering a resolution. If you stop to examine this you would find at least a dozen different ideas in committee.
I mean until I write something down it is simply not real, it exists in the 'ether', a Greek term that is wholly appropriate! My thoughts come and go like little darting silver minnows, shiny for a moment and then gone forever. You might wonder about all this reflection and thought on the matter. Well, I haven't written on a personal level since I was a very young adult. With this website and the needlework I am again writing on a personal level. Once to share my joy of stitching with you and again to organize the instructions into some kind of usable product.
When I started this website my writing skills were somewhere in my early twenties although I had the experience of a forty something woman. Hence, the reason for rebuilding the website, somewhere along the way my writing grew up! I think differently than I did as a youngster. Experience can be a good thing! But much to my chagrin, my adult side decided I really do have to include a Stitch Dictionary , it will be evolving as I rebuild this website, so I ask for you patience once again. %^)
And I discovered another charming little thing about this old html editor, apparently for no reason it respells my words. You can not imagine how relieved I was to discover that. I really, really thought I was going senile and had lost the ability to spell. Turns out it's just another gremlin or ghost in the machine. phew!
And lastly, I hope you had a chance to watch the Olympics this week, the opening ceremony was beautiful and China is beautiful. What wonderful hosts they have been. Until next time, keeping stitching my charts! Linda, August 15, 2008
Okay, okay, okay! I know the new website is getting a little old and it isn't even up yet! Not my fault! The weather here turned horrible and all I do is water. The lawn stopped growing last week, very unusual in August or July. Half my garden died in June, the other half is dying now. I quizzed DH about that, since he is an authority on 'everything'. :) And it was decided that it's the heat, something about the heat triggers plant death. Not surprizing really, everything I had out there was for a much cooler climate, things like geraniums, pentas and hollyhocks.
But the zinnias and marigolds? I had tomatoes, they were a variety called 'the tomatoes that ate the garden'. They were monsters! Seven feet tall and not a bloom anywhere, they out grew their pots and kept toppling over and finally broke the pots, so DH replanted them during the last thunderstorm we had in June, but still no blooms and now they are fading soon to die. Altogether a bad year!But the little stream bed got finished late last winter and it looks just wonderful although the geraniums are gone now.
Got rid of the ironwork, the weeds, brought in more rocks and found a friendly little dragon. Lots better! There is plenty of shade there and usually that's a problem, but not this year! That little section of the garden is still pretty although when the temperatures hit 100 this week it started fading pretty fast. I think I saw the dragon blowing smoke! or steam?
Well that's it from Hades, 'er here. I am finishing up the charts for the Fall show at the Needlework Show in September and still slogging through the new website. Until next time, good stitching and try to enjoy the weather. Linda, August 1, 2008
Here I sit, 10 p.m. on a Thursday evening, tired as a person can get and what do I discover? I can't spell, now that was a big surprise! Should I continue knowing full well that about one out of every twenty five words will be misspelled? When did this occur? Or have I always been a lousy speller and my professors graciously let it go? I have a major in English and I sit here completly baffled with something, shame, consternation? I can not tell you one thing about grammar or sentence structure. I mean I could solve your child's algebra problems, all of them, before I could find the verb in a sentence. And now at this advanced age I discover I cannot spell! ARGH!
All the words I have spelled for my DH that he has proudly presented at work, did he discover that I could not spell decades ago and just continued to ask me because of love? How do I continue? I mean how do you know you are misspelling a word? And does Microsoft really know how to spell? As I sit here typing do I check every word, keeping my favorite dictionary under my right elbow, you know sort of like taking an oath, but the elbow gives you dispensation from the absolute truth. I mean I need something when I am as deep into this as I have discoverd myself to be.
I have a dictionary, several in fact and in several different languages, someone is always writing me in unfamiliar languages for clarifications about the website projects. My favorite is the Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition, copyright 1958. I could spend weeks in that book day dreaming about all the fascinating things it defines. But apparently I missed the spelling part of the book.
Well, maybe it's my advancing age, maybe after six decades or so the spelling section of your head retires. Wish it had notified me before it headed out to pasture. I mean really! Maybe I can find a spelling class somewhere that will give me the 'most used words' to practice my spelling regularly, then my head will come out of retirement. But how do I know that the list is spelled correctly? Maybe a teacher will double check my efforts. This is a conundrum! Is there a website for this?
At any rate I am still here trying to rebuild my website, learn the software, double check the spelling, fix the photos and so on. It's like patting your head and rubbing your belly at the same time, VERY HARD!
On a happier note, I got a new vacuum, the Ball from Dyson. It's just wonderful! The house is so clean and dust free and it's fun to use as it transform in an instant from rug vacuum to blinds vacuum to floor vacuum. No bags to buy and the filters pop right out and cleans up at the hose outside. I always thought if a man ever really wanted to give me something give me a vacuum that didn't throw all the dust up in the air and make the place stink. One that really trapped all the crud and got it out of the house. The Dyson does and it's small too not at all difficult to move around and use. I am so happy! Except for the spelling. %^( That's it for this time while I plow on with the website and new designs coming in September. More about them later! Linda July 17, 2008 P.S. Read this at your own risk, I didn't run the Spell Checker, too darned tired!
There won't be a stitch dictionary at this site as the new program makes it easy to place the stitch information right into the project. The only hitch is that I have to make the entire site before I upload it. I could have just translated the old site, the one you are at, but it's not that good as far as website go, so I made the decision to bite the bullet and redo the photos and charts so they load faster, and reorganize the entire site so that it is easier to navigate. I have about twenty percent done. ARGH! Please don't hold your breath! I don't want to lose you!
I keep thinking of better ways to do the site and therefore I am constantly redoing what I have already done. Sigh, I know I am just brilliant!
The really cool thing is that I am going to start a new series of classes, unfortunately Julia's Antique Sampler has been removed. It will not be back, sorry. It is ten years old and just a lot dusty. There are so many weird cross links in it that it is hard to fix. It takes way to much bandwidth and I am going to do something a little more interesting later this year.
That's it, I'll keep you posted, thanks so much, I really appreciate your visits. Sorry for being so slow. Linda June 2008
