The Cult of Ellen

Almost a year since my last post. Wow. The blanket I was crocheting in that photo? As soon as I'd finished it - before I'd even sewed in the loose ends - Newton ran up and stole it. Pretty much, "Thanks, mum! New blanket!" and so for the last year, it has been his blanket. He curls up on the sofa beside DH, gets tucked up under the blanket, rests his chin on DH's leg and watches whatever DVD is on the tv. (Favourite film: The Thing; favourite TV series: episode 1 of Walking With Dinosaurs or any wildlife series; seems fond of werewolf films but looks at us like, "Why won't you change into a big dog and run around with me?")

The Pittsburgh Penguins went on to win the Stanley Cup for the second year in a row, and are currently second in the Metropolitan Division, with only 5 games to play before the playoffs start for the 2018 Stanley Cup. They aren't playing very well at the moment for whatever reason, but they know how to bring it when the stakes are high. Playing tonight, so fingers crossed!

Health-wise, I'm not brilliant. Still got ME/CFS, still struggling. I'm taking a mindfulness course at the very wonderful Cedar Foundation in Ballymena which helps immensely with anxiety and depression. I sold a short story to Schreyer Ink Publishing, which appeared in Twilight Madhouse Vol 3. Yay!

Currently, I'm designing knitting patterns. My first pattern is up FOR FREE: it's the TARDIS Phone Sock! Copyright of the TARDIS is, alas, not mine, so go forth and knit, my pretties! My second pattern, a cabled scarf, is with a test knitter at the moment and awaiting feedback. And I'm working on turning an Elizabethan blackwork pattern (as seen in a painting of Queen Elizabeth I, on the cuff of her shift) into a double-knitting pattern. Easier said than done! I'm persevering, though, and someday soon I will have my pattern figured out and I will knit it! Mwa ha ha! And then, you know, I'll put it up for test knitting and I'll put it up for sale on Ravelry, and two people will buy it, but that whole few pounds will be a tremendous validation and make it worth all my time, yes it will indeed!

I was going to get new tyres on my car today but I cannot find the locking wheel nut key. Argh! Tomorrow I shall ransack the car, the barn, the hallway, old handbags, goodness knows where it is since Kwik Fit and a local garage don't have it. I suppose I could ask the mechanic who worked on it 2 years ago if he knows where it is, but I very much doubt he has it either. *sigh* Which reminds me, I need to buy a socket set anyway as the heavy gates on the yard keep working their bolts a bit loose from the pillars. Eh, never mind, I'll get it sorted before the car's not legal to drive. Suuuuuuuure...

Welp, that'll do, going to go knit some more of a bed jacket for mum in glorious merino/silk yarn. Happy fingers!

I have a thing about notebooks. Whenever I see them in the shops I have to have a look over them. I don't know why - maybe I'm expecting to find one mythical, magical notebook that'll fill with writing and drawings without me having to do any work at all. The thing is, notebooks aren't just the sum of their contents (or lack thereof) - notebooks are amazing combinations of potential, emotion, place, history, community.

These are my current notebooks (I have a drawerful upstairs): ( Notebook Photos )
So there you go. Notebooks. A hope, a promise, a memento, a legacy. (My father-in-law has diaries going back nearly 70 years - his own stack of little notebooks.) They connect me with family and friends, with the inside of my own head, with the past, and they hold promises for the future. They also remind me that even though I cut the grass (yesterday), I still need to hoover the stairs.

This evening I let the dogs out into the field next door. They ran around and played football and Newton did his best impression of a gazelle on the Serengeti. The swallows swooped overhead, the grass hasn't yet been cut for silage and I had Gilbert and Sullivan on my iPlayer radio. Naked Wines came through - it's my 39th birthday next week and I've been saving up since Christmas to buy a case of wine. It was meant to arrive on Monday but came today, so this evening I'm enjoying a glass of Kimbao merlot with some Thornton's espresso chocolate from AnnaMae (a relative-in-law). I'm taking this oasis as the refuge it is before I wade back into forms and life in general next week.

Oh, in case you're interested - Jonathan Cape are having a call for open submissions throughout June. Go read the guidelines and submit! I'll be sending in the first 50 pages of Squirrels in Space just to see what they say. Good luck!

Posting three days in a row? Surely not! Today, I feel a sense of accomplishment. I finished sticking pages in the book I've written for my nephew and I trimmed the edges, so it's ready to be parcelled up to post off tomorrow morning. It's called "Where's My Tractor?", and I picked up a little board book from a charity shop, which I've very cheekily stuck my pages over.

( Where's My Tractor? )

So, there's that, which is a good reason to feel accomplished, I think. Other reasons are that I got up at 11, despite falling asleep around 4am (again!), prodded the pups, visited my in-laws, did a yard pickup (3 large dogs have 3 large bottoms and leave lots of large 'presents'), went to Lidl, put away the shopping, peeled and cooked a pan of roast veg, made a pan of veg soup, fed the dogs, unstacked the dishwasher, and knitted most of a cowl. I've even made my not-unsuccessful way through today's 5 minutes of Italian and French practice (DuoLinguo really is an awesome app) and made another Kiva loan.

Cue much tiredness! In a couple of minutes I'm going to kick the dogs outside for their last wee and give them their dentastix (best tasty ever!) and go to bed, where I'm hoping I'll actually fall asleep earlier than stupid o'clock, so tomorrow I can get up and Do More StuffTM.

Here's hoping tomorrow won't be another tired day! I need to go get the Tesco shopping, post Dan's book, pay the vet bill off and pick up more Loxicom for Planck, then head round to the council offices and pay Planck's dog license renewal. There's always more to do! G'night, y'all!

( It's legen- wait for it... )

wait for it... DARY!

Oh, now I remember what I meant to say! Duh! I'm on tumblr, under the username ellenscult. As usual. Another day, another sandbox, but this time with more animated gifs!

( Your scheduled dose of wtf: )

The state of my inbox: around 65 emails

( Blink. Blink. Yawn. )

State of my inbox: around 80 e-mails.

Today's reading:

• Not Allowed To Eat by PrincessPatrice. NCIS
• And I'd Buy A Big House Where We Both Could Live Ch25, by Shinkonokokoro. Avengers
• The Traveler's Heart by ?. Harry Potter
• Until She Shines, by Verity. SGA
• To Be A Man Ch4, by Cernicalo. The Sentinel

( Good Morning, World! )

Anyway, happy extra bank holiday day to those of you here in the UK, and don't work too hard, everyone else!

( Reading List )

E(again)TA: And now it's raining. Bah, humbug!

WriteCamp '09 is over. In roughly half an hour, I'll be heading out for parts north, namely Nottingham, for FantasyCon.

For anyone who's interested, my stats are: just shy of 6k words written - 1 story finished, 2 others worked on, & 3 pieces of 30 Minute Drunken Flashfic (posted over on the_proofreader. This isn't a huge amount for me, but it's a good start. I've also finished proofreading a novel and judged 5 entries into Hub's Bootstrap SF competition.

As for tourist-y things? I have done naaahtheeeng. Ho hum! Right, I must go rescue my pot of tea before it gets utterly stewed, since a thermos of tea is essential for a long drive. How terribly british! (It's raspberry tea.)

This evening, I'll be back with ravenlas. Thank goodness. And maybe, just maybe, a decent night's sleep.