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Welp.

Made some of the administrative changes on this that have been lingering since last September.

Usual pattern: Attend XOXO. Realize I have neglected blog. Start it back up. This time, realize that I want to change hosting plans. Get partially through that process. Have little to no muscle memory on doing this. And then basically my life blew up in the fall, and it hasn’t really stopped feeling…

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The 50 bucket list

One of the things about having a birthday late in the year is that my brain tells me, “Oh, it’s 2019, you’re turning 48 this year.” By the time November rolls around, my brain has me convinced I have already been 48, so I must be turning 49.

So it doesn’t feel too early to start planning a by-the-end-of-my-50th-year bucket list. (I will think of a less morbid term.)

Play cello well. I have…

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Resolutions

On New Years Eve I was contacted by someone I had quite deliberately stepped away from. We had an intense friendship, and in one flash, I realized that it was intense because I was putting so much work into it, and it would always carry this dynamic, and it would never carry me.

In that flash, I lost every bit of intuition and hyper empathy I had. I felt it slink out of my cells, into the ground.…

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Simplest meditation

Breathe out: let me be generous

Breathe in: let me receive

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Deep delightful surprises (XOXO)

Two of them, so far today:

I recalled and skimmed through my old blog! I had forgotten how often I posted. Not surprisingly, posting just about ceased when I joined social media ten years ago. (And the baby pics! Wow!)

And I realized, internalized, finally really felt that one of my gut-level assume-it’s-true social fears is total, utter bunk. I have always believed and expected that people I…

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Opening night, XOXO

Last night was the opening of XOXO. It’s my fourth time at the festival, and my second as a civilian who gets to see All The Things.* I usually struggle with explaining what XOXO is, except that is a gathering of people who do creative things within the realm of the internet and want it to be a place for good. It’s also a gathering of 2200 people (wow, the expansion!) who simultaneously are in…

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Fiber Map for XOXO

A link to a G’Map of yarn and fiber stores in PDX,

Some have closed since XOXO 2016: Happy Knits, Knit/Purl. Backstory came and went before I could investigate.

Fiber Rhythm, on SE Division at 11th in the Ford Building, is on vacation until Sept 13. They specialize in yarns for machine knitting and weaving, and do carry hand knitting yarn as well.

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The college tour

In the past ten days we took our son across the country to see six colleges. The list comprised of two renowned schools in his field and four Ivies.

Some observations:

The saying “It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity” is real, and even realer when it’s both. I grew up in New England, lived in the mid-Atlantic for several years, and heck, multiple trips to southern India were more comfortable.…

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Twenty.

Today is my twentieth wedding anniversary.

If you had asked me a year ago, two years ago, three years ago if I was celebrating (which you wouldn’t ask, because of course why wouldn’t you just assume so), I probably would have said yes.

Unless I knew you well, and then I would have said through gritted teeth, “dreading.”

In the past year I’ve been working on this. Well, maybe working on me.…

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Cheap dreams Found this at my library's book sale and couldn't resist it. I haven't cracked the box open yet, but I have had stress dreams about money for the past few nights.

Into the woo

I recently started reading Christiane Northrop’s new book, Dodging Energy Vampires: an empath’s guide to evading relationships that drain you and restoring your health and power.

I’m a little bit younger than the generation of women who found Dr. Northrup to be the relevatory Mother Supreme Of Menopause. As a selector of adult non-fiction, I knew her new titles would be well-received. And having…

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For someone hanging around this many WP buttons…. I really should be more active with this, eh?

More than the parts

Most of the time, I select fabric just because it catches my eye. Sometimes, there’s a purpose. Next month is XOXO, and for me it marks a year of sewing in earnest. I decided to make an XOXO dress to celebrate. I gleefully ran around the fabric store to pull the bits together. And then when I started on it at home… Woozy. Confusey. And what was I thinking? It was the first time in a while that I…

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Did Donna Karan ever put up with this nonsens?

I suspect not. My next cat will be named Tim Gunn.

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Cute selvedges FTW I love the little extra design bonuses. Reminds me of messages scratched into the dead space on records.

Hemming and hawing

I’ve nearly completed this dress: It’s nearly floor length. I couldn’t do anything but throw heaps of that floral fabric into it. I put an extra panel in the skirt back to make it even fuller. The print reminds me of blouses my American grandmother wore. What’s keeping me from finishing? I am convinced that somewhere out there is the perfect floral lace trim that needs to peek out from the…

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That start phase

Today I pieces out a dress combining these two fabrics: It was when I took a photo of my partial stash that I noticed how well these work together! I also started the next stage of this shawl, a Doodler by Stephen West: This photo is the completion of phase one; a cable begins across the top in stage 2. I got the row-before-cabling set up. And I went to an Intro to Synths class at S1 Synth…

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