January has been a month of reading. To be honest, I haven’t done a lot else. Knit 1/3 of a scarf. Finished up a sewing project I should’ve finished in November (the advent calendar - which, by the way, is totally super adorable), no baking, no intriging projects, nothing but cozying up and reading.

January’s a good time for that - unpredictable weather, harsh winds, chilly snow, so very little daylight, so very little warmth and energy. The rush of the holidays and the excitement of autumn long gone, I just sort of… curled up and rested all month long. I suppose I might have went into a bit of a hibernation like the bears. Is that so bad? All this month, I’ve been berating myself for it. Lazy! I’d write in my planner for the day’s events. Sometimes I wouldn’t write anything at all. Lazy, lazy, lazy.

But then I think of the animals that curl up and rest in the winter, and I think of all the furious knitting I did throughout autumn, and I think of the sewing and the crafts and the moving and the baking and the rush, and I think that perhaps a month-long resting period wasn’t so bad at all. Maybe it’s just what I needed.

I’m starting to feel the fires of creativity burn again. I want to sew, I want to knit, I want to /do/. I wanted to knit tonight, but it’s been a couple weeks since I worked on the scarf, and I’ve forgotten the pattern, so I’ll have to dig it up. Perhaps tomorrow.

But I read! Tonight I finished a book I would recommend to anyone who loves an enchanting story: The Thirteenth Tale, which is lovely and haunting and mesmerizing and too many other words to put down. If you have a love of books, read it! I also read On the Banks of Plum Creek - one of the Little House series books tonight, and those books always make me feel so warm and cozy and wanting to have a little house and a little family somewhere out in the middle of nowhere like that.

I read 14 books in January, and you can see which ones, and short, semi-coherent thoughts on each, on the 101 Things Booklist, linked to the right. Not bad. Approximately one book every 2 days or so. Not too shabby at all! A good way to kickstart my imagination.

Soon, it will be Imbolc, and then, I will pay homage to Brigid/Brigit, Irish goddess of creative inspiration, among many other things, and perhaps then, I will rise from this hibernation to return to life again with the growing light.

Okay, so one of my 101 Things in 1001 Days goals is to try 1 new recipe a month. I’ve done that, but I haven’t logged any of them. but this year - yay for 2007! - I will.

This month’s recipe came late. I may have tried a new recipe earlier in the month, but I can’t recall it. But this one’s definitely new.

Cheesy Chicken Rice Casserole!

Ingredients:

• 1.5 C rice - I used long grain white
• 1 C cooked chicken (I just used a can of it since I had that on hand)
• 1 can cream of chicken soup
• 1/2 large jar of Cheese Whiz

Cook the rice according to package directions. Mix in chicken, soup, and cheese whiz. Pour into casserole dish. Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes.

It was good, if a little plain. I even topped it with crushed up potato chips, but next time, I’d use something with more… zing, or crunch, or… something. Maybe some italian seasoned breadcrumbs. Or maybe I’d toss in a little chili powder. Or bacon. Something.

My rating? 5 out of 10 stars. Good comfort food, but it needs some dressing up.

I’ve been reading. Read 9 books this year already. They’ve all been good, except this last worthless pile of paper called The Two Minute Rule. I cannot believe the author, Robert Crais, has a dozen or so books published, because this was one lameass book. Did he ever get the “show, don’t tell” lecture? Because he needs to.

He also needs to get the “contrived endings don’t make for good endings” lecture, because this one made me gag. It made no sense at all. None. Nada.

I consider myself a writer. I write, after all. Lots. Never published a bloody thing, probably never will [frankly, I’m a chronic unfinisher], but obviously, I /could/. I mean, I could write this shit. Is that all it takes to get published? Words on paper, even if they’re deader-than-a-doornail words with no emotion, no feeling, no life?

Oigh.

So here’s my TT for the week - 13 Ways To Write Badly. This book didn’t violate all of them (though a good lot of them, I’ll say), and I could go on for a lot more than 13, but this’ll do.

Thirteen Ways to Write Badly!

1. Tell. Don’t show them anything - your readers don’t want to experience the story, they just want to hear it like news on the radio.
2. Introduce characters in the first chapter by first and last name, give them a point of view to tell their side of the story, make like they’re an important character, and then never look at them again. Ever. This gives your story an aura of mystery, even once the readers finish! Excellent!
3. Give everyone stupid nicknames and throw them around every now and then just for the heck of it. Readers love that shit.
4. Talk brand names. Who needs honest description when a brand name will do?
5. Contrive an ending. Your character was a bank robber? Make him rob a bank at the end to save the day, even if it’s unnecessary and more, outrageous. Excess drama makes for a bestseller!
6. Pitable characters are good characters. How can readers possibly like your character if they don’t pity them? Make sure your character is depressed, unhappy, and miserable, and then make sure he’s a complete failure, and then make sure he knows it and thinks it… often. That’s right.
7. And don’t forget to tell them so. None of that showing business. Your readers don’t wanna think! This is important here!
8. Flat, one dimensional characters are the way to go. Don’t put any more time into the characters than your readers will - a few thoughts on the matter is good enough. I mean, giving anyone but the main characters personality is a total waste of time.
9. Characters shouldn’t change. Not in the book, anyway. If you make the characters grow or change, people will just think you’re a crappy author because you couldn’t make up your mind.
10. If you must make them change, make it big changes. Instantaneous ones. No pressure needed. Just do it, and get it over with fast. Don’t make them dwell on it, or your readers will, too, and then you’ll be that crappy author who can’t stick with anything.
11. If you’re not writing about a miserable, pitiable character, make sure you’re writing about Superman. Everyone loves superheroes, because they can do no wrong and know everything.
12. If you don’t have a plot, put lots of drama into things - sex and emotion and turmoil and things that go round and round and round so nobody ever realizes your mistake. You’ll be fine. I swear.
13. If you DO have a plot, don’t make the above mistake. Plot should strictly be plot. No emotion. Don’t let those characters have feelings, or it’ll sideline you. Well, not many feelings. And for god’s sake, don’t show it if they do. A quick: “He was surprised.” will do the trick. Point A to Point B. Nothing more.

1. jenny 2. Julie Doe

3. bonnie 4. You're next!

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I guess I have to become a pirate once again. It seems allofmp3.com has lost the support of Visa/Mastercard, and I can’t friggin use my credit cards, for whatever reason, with clickandbuy, and now I can’t buy music.

You might say that allofmp3.com was illegal in the first place (not true - was plenty legal by Russian laws, though a new agreement will apparently change that come June 2007), or that there’s other legal alternatives, like… iTunes, Rhapsody, [insert other drm crap here]. But I can’t use any of those. Because I use Linux.

So I guess, if I’m going to listen to music, I have to pirate it. I hate the idea of pirating something I would willingly pay for - if only it were in a format I could use. And I won’t buy albums - I’m already deleting tons of mp3s off my disks just because they’re all the “extra” songs on the albums that I don’t like, and don’t want to listen to, and I don’t have the money to spend even $13 on songs I /like/ in a month, let alone $13 on a gamble cd filled mostly with crap I wouldn’t listen to if /I/ was the one getting paid. And besides, then I have to do something with the bloody cds and cases…

Geh. If music was available without DRM, so I could play it anywhere, and copy it to whatever computer/device I wanted, on any operating system, and it was under 50 cents a song, I’d bite. I could spend $5 a month on songs, or $10-15 every couple months, and I’d be happy. Hell, even if iTunes, which I think is overpriced, cut off their DRM crap so I could play it on my computer, I’d buy from them, even at the high prices. *sigh*

But oh well. A pirating I shall go.

Thirteen Tidbits About Me

1. I was always a control freak. As a kid, I used to get “rather upset” if I could not be “the most powerful/fastest/kickass” pony [yes, we played My Little Ponies] on the playground. I have not changed all that much. *laugh*
2. My first memory of my best friend isn’t of her at all. Rather, it’s of her little sister begging me on the playground not to ‘be mean’ to her big sister, A. I was baffled, since, while I was a control freak, I was not near mean, powerful, fast, or kickass enough to /actually/ kick other kids off the swings, even if I was in third grade.
3. I used to believe that I wanted to live in this little town forever, since I loved it so. Then, as a teenager, I hated it like my grandmother hates snakes, and wanted nothing more to leave. This lasted, actually, well into my early twenties. Then I moved back anyway, and found that while I still want to leave, it’s not so bad as all that.
4. I am a freak of nature. Read: virgin at nearly 25. This not really bother me [too much], but I’m starting to feel like an old biddy. Certain friends (A…) think I /am/ an old biddy. Not just because of the virginal chasteness, but because I actually act like one, too. Knitting, baking bread, buying appliances…
5. Actually, the words she used was “has no life”. This, she tells to my coworkers! As if they couldn’t tell. You don’t work the night shift and have a life anyway.
6. I have found the coolest song ever. It’s called Baba Yetu, and it’s this sweet tribal African Swahili music or something. Incredibly catchy. The fascinating thing is that the lyrics are actually a songful rendition of the Our Father prayer, and it is a great piece of music.
7. Speaking of Christian music, I still have a large collection from my teenage “listen to only pure, chaste, Christian stuff” phase, and surprsingly, I still like a lot of it. Spiritual music is spiritual music, and even if the names and faces and words don’t match my current ideology, there’s something incredibly reverent about some of it. And other songs are just plain fun.
8. On the other side of the coin, there are some really catchy raunchy rap songs that I can’t help but love to sing dirty with. Their ideologies aren’t mine, either (trashing women? Puh-leez, go back to your caves, you jackasses!) But what can I say, I’m a dual-faced tiger, and sometimes those beats are just sexy.
9. I do not shave my legs in the winter, except on occasion, like at Christmastime, when I might be doing something in some sort of outfit that requires it. I think I got this habit from the hippies at Evergreen State College.
10. I will probably be moving this fall to go back to college, though it’s not set in stone. I’ve been wanting this for two years, and yet… a part of me hopes it’ll all fall through and I’ll be “stuck” here for another year. I hate school. I hate apartment life. I don’t want to move again, for god’s sakes, I just moved last September! I want to have a garden, and I can’t if I’m gonna leave before I could get around to harvesting it. [Well, I could, and I will, but it won’t have most of the things I want to grow in it.]
11. I am secretly desperately afraid I’ll fail if I do go back to college, even though I know I am friggin smart and completely ABLE to do the work, it’s just that I am also friggin self sabotage master.
12. I have been wondering lately: what is WITH all the new ten trillion flavors of doritos? They’re all, like, the same. Spicy, Spicy, and More Spicy.
13. I have started a knitting project that has not gone belly up! It’s the Misty Garden scarf, from Scarf Style, though I got it out of Interweave’s Holiday Knitting magazine, not the book. And I’m not doing it in the same yarn, or even anything remotely close, but instead, I’m doing it in Elsebeth Lavold’s Silky Tweed, in a pretty pretty sage green. Very soft and cottony and silky and lovely. Maybe it’ll be a present for someone!

The tree is down, and in a box. Sure, the place is a Royal Freaking Mess, and I have tree lights scattered from here to there and half a pot of friggin DIRT on the ground since the cats knocked a dead plant over that should’ve been thrown out ages ago, and I’ve got my tree skirt on the floor needing washing, and my chairs all out of sorts, and more plants dying, and dishes piling up, and thank the gods it’s finally my Friday.

Because at last, my monthly Week In Hell is over with, and despite a rampaging headache and insomnia contributing to this complete Loss of Motivation, I HAVE to get shit done. I cannot live like this. I’m going crazy.

But at least the tree is down. That’s a damned good start, in my opinion. In the morning, I’ll haul out dead plants and vacuum up the dirt I should’ve vacuumed up four days ago, and I’ll do the bloody dishes, and I’ll feel at least marginally better. And tomorrow night, I can actually get some work done - laundry, cleaning out the fridge, and a more thorough vacuum job.

I’m starting to think I need to take up a patron housekeeping goddess to give me a kick in the rear, because my own inner housekeeper must’ve fallen asleep sometime in the last week.

This week, I decided to do something difficult. Really difficult. But I’m trying to be appreciative of what I have, rather than constantly lusting after what I cannot. So… without any further introduction, here is 13 Things I Love About Montana. Okay, maybe ‘love’ is a bit harsh for all of these. Hopefully, I’ll actually make it through to number 13.

Thirteen Things I Love About Montana

1. The night sky. I lived in Washington State for several years, and though I loved it there, I never really could see the stars in the sky. Here, I can. And I love it. All I need now is a telescope, or even a pair of binoculars.
2. The sunrises and the sunsets. Goes with the above, but I thought I should split it up. I’ll be lucky to get thirteen things on this list as it is! But god, the sunrises and sunsets are beautiful here.
3. That there’s four seasons here. Sometimes, they get all mixed up, and we get seventy degrees in the middle of what should be Cold Enough To Freeze Atoms, or a snowstorm over Memorial Day, but whatever. It’s Montana. The weather is unpredictable at best.
4. Bread does not mold as fast. On the other hand, it does go dry as a bone real quick.
5. The low crime rate. I have to say, this is a definite plus.
6. Everyone is friendly. (Way too friendly.) Super friendly. (IS this really supposed to be a plus?) And they all know each other, or know someone who does know you or the rest of friends and relatives. The six degrees of separation for people who live in Montana is closer to like, three degrees.
7. Charge accounts. If you don’t shop at a chain store in one of the few “big cities” in Montana, most every store will allow the town/county citizens to “charge it”. They’ll let you pay the bill at the end of the month, interest free. So if you don’t get paid till Friday, but your kids are starving, you can get food without robbing the bank, or your mother.
8. No Sales Tax. This should’ve been #1 on my list. That’s right, there is no sales tax! I love love love love love this, and having grown up here, hate hate hate hate hate sales tax with a passion. It’s cruel and unusual punishment, I swear.
9. Low cost of living. Things tend to be cheaper here. (Because nobody gets paid worth dick, but whatever.) Unless, of course, you shop at a small grocery store like the one in town. Then you’ll pay out your ass for simple things like milk and eggs, but whatever.
10. The scenery. Admittedly, we have a lot of gorgeous spots in Montana. I don’t live in one of them, but I know they’re here, I’ve seen them.
11. Lack of traffic. The highways and intererstates are fairly traffic free, except in the cities. Traffic jams are not so common occurances. You might make a 30 minute commute, but that’s because you actually live thirty miles away, not because you’re inching along at the speed of a snail.
12. The fresh air. While it smells like pig shit, or sewer lagoon (anything but this, please) on occasion, the rest of the time, the air is clean and fresh and healthy and so, so good.
13. It’s unique. Face it, there isn’t too many places like Montana. We’re the 4th largest state in the US, but we have less than a million people in it. We have an average of 6.2 people per square MILE. That’s a lot of space to yourself out here. A LOT of space. Our largest city is only around 90,000 people. We routinely experience 100 degree weather in the summer and -50 degree weather in the winter. We don’t get much rain, but we can get a TON of snow. We have lots of wind, but few tornadoes. We can buy fresh beef and bread (and in fact, most of us are beef ranchers or wheat farmers, and if you’re not, you know several people who are), but it’s hard to find decent fruit, and our idea of ‘fish’ comes in a box in the supermarket labeled “fishsticks”. We love to hunt and fish and hike and do outdoor sports, and we treasure our land, but there’s hardly any tree-huggers in sight. It’s a strange place, this Montana. A very strange place.

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So I put The Sock off for a while. My screwup is irritating, and once I showed it to A, novice knitter that she is, I knew it was impossible to continue without starting over. I don’t like to start over. At all. I mean, I’m sure nobody likes to start over, but I think I have a mild phobia of it. So The Sock is on the dining table, and in its place I picked up two balls of Twilley’s Freedom Wool and started on a scarf.

My mistake. You see, two balls of Freedom wool is not enough. I’m almost halfway through the first ball, and I’ve only got something like, 7-8″ of scarf. Granted, I am not doing garter stitch or even stockinette, but this is a drag. I fear I’m gonna end up with this skimpy assed scarf that barely fits around my neck. So I might have to start over on IT too. Did I somehow offend the knitting gods or what? I’m thinking about ripping it out and skinnifying it by a couple stitches to see what that does. It’d take an inch off the width and maybe give me a bit more length. Though I’m also second-guessing my pattern, bamboo stitch. With this fat wool, it’s rather dense. So maybe I’ll pick up my big fat needles and just do something lame like… garter stitch, with some lacey yarn-overs or something. I dunno.

I’ll definitely be using some different needles, however, because… these beautiful size 11 bamboo ones that I JUST got for Christmas are…. cracked. I was incredibly disappointed. I’ve emailed Clover, but if they don’t respond or help me out here, I’m gonna have to call my aunt who gave them to me and explain the situation and see what yarn shop she went to and call THEM. Hopefully I can avoid that by talking to Clover, though. I’d hate to tell her that she bought me a defective product.

I’m stuck on this sock, and I just can’t seem to make myself knit on. And I know why now. It’s because of The Mistake. Way back at the beginning, just as I was about to start in past the toe working in the round, I screwed up where the provisional cast on lay, leaving a row of stitches that were simply much too large. And it shows. Big time. And instead of fixing it, I just knit on, insisting that it’d be fine.

It isn’t fine, and neither am I. I don’t want to finish a damaged sock, and I don’t want to rip all of my hard, flawed work out. Stalemate. So instead of knitting - anything - I’ve stuffed it into my bag and left it there to rot.

How shameful of me. How depressing.

I’m gonna have to rip back. Like, frog the whole bloody thing and start again. Only then will my knitting despair end. I can just start fresh and do it over, and all will be well again. At least, it will, once I dredge up the courage to do what I hate most - frogging it.

Ask anyone I know - I hate to frog things, whether it’s knitting or sewing or even crossword puzzles. If I screw up, I’d really rather either plow on anyway, insisting it’s a small, invisible mistake, or throw it out. I’m terrible. Some deep-seated fear of… starting over? I have no idea.

But I know that once I do it, I’ll set the yarn aside to let all that negative energy fade away, and then, suddenly, I’ll feel better. Lots better. It happened with the stole. Same exact problem, actually. Provisional cast on screwup. Maybe it’s because I /can’t crochet/. Anything. So instead of crocheting, I used the figure 8 method with another needle, and that was, like, an ubermistake. No, that wasn’t really the mistake, though I admit that the inflexibility of another needle verses the flexibily of stray yarn was a pain in the arse. The mistake was in not tightening up the bloody stitches lots, lots more before I began. That was the mistake.

May I learn from it the third time around.

Tonight (or last night… both, really) is the January full moon - the Cold moon, or the Wolf moon, or whatever you’d like to call it. Tonight, being Wednesday night, not Thursday night. I put a moonstone into a jar of water and set it out in a windowsill to capture the moon, to make moonwater. It’s my third night of doing this - I prefer to get a full three days of the full/nearly full moon’s glory into my bottle of spring water.

I’ll then use this water in my rituals when I need a little extra kick. It’s good, I think, for blessing things, for consecrating them. It took effort to make this water, and that’s good enough for me. I would prefer to do this entirely in the dark, so that the water gets no other rays of light, except perhaps candlelight, but I suspect that’s difficult. There’s still a lot of ambient light around - streetlights, barn lights, and even sunlight during the first rays of dawn while I’m still at work and quite unable to rush home to remove it to a dark, shaded place. However, unpure as it may seem, I haven’t noticed that it’s any less useful to catch a bit of stray non-moonlight here or there.

In any case, this is the first time in months I’ve done this, and I only made a bit. I wish I had twelve bottles, and could capture moonlight for each month. Actually, this year, we have 13 moons - we also have a blue moon in May, and here, I intend to make a much larger batch of water, since this moon is rather more powerful than others.

Anyway. There you go. A bit of moon magic for you, straight from me.