Imagine…

Imagine you are sitting on a ledge.

There is nothing but air for hundreds of feet below you. Your legs hang into the abyss and, if you dare, you can lean over and see the ocean and a jutting wall of rock far below your toes. You can hear the waves gently pounding the rocks, rhythmically wearing them down and creating their own new, different shore lines.

The rock you sit on is rough. It has been worth smooth by the ages, storms, and other travelers. It’s cool to the touch. Behind you is a sweeping, green landscape. It smells vaguely of rain and you can hear, in the distance, tourists chattering happily and reverently. The sun is beating down on your head, warming you. A salty wind is ruffling your hair gently, tickling your ankles, reminding you that you’re sitting on the edge of the cliff, whispering in your ear that you are alive and the world is full of beautiful things.

A hand taps you on the shoulder and you turn to see your favorite person behind you, smiling. They sit slowly and scoot to the edge so that you two are sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, watching the distant ocean. You sit for a few minutes in companionable silence and know that, if you wanted to, you could stay here for hours, undisturbed by nature or other people.

Then your person scoots back from the ledge. They grab your hand as you scoot back, too, pulling you to your feet. For another second you stand, looking out over the horizon, breathing in the calming ocean scent. Then, together, you turn and walk slowly in the grassy field behind you and back into the ‘real’ world that you left only minutes before.

It’s like a trip through the wardrobe into Narnia, or down the rabbit hole into Wonderland. You just lived for a couple minutes in another dimension, another reality. You just lived a memory of someone else, just pictured yourself somewhere either you’ve never been or haven’t been in a long while. You traveled with me to the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland, one of the most magical places I’ve ever encountered.

Welcome back.

Beginnings and Middles but no Ends.

I keep a pen on or near me at all times.

I feel like maybe this is not actually an unusual thing. I just have ideas that randomly pop into my head, and if I don’t write them down immediately, I’m afraid they’ll be gone forever, lost into the ether of weirdness that is the inside of my head.

The maybe weird thing is that I have been doing this since, this writing-down-random-ideas thing, since I was young. My mom used to find little scraps of paper with one sentence scribbled on them, or even just a phrase or fragment of thought. Something that sounded like a poem but ended abruptly (probably because the beginning of an idea was all I had, and then I would abandon ship and leave the paper tucked into the corner of the couch cushion, middle of the floor, or bottom of a walmart sack).

This continues today. I have an idea; I must write it down. I write it down on the corner of a bill or junk mail, receipt, takeout napkin, or whatever is write-on-able and handy. Then I tuck it away somewhere for ‘safe keeping’ and totally forget about it. I have files on my computer saved with impressive names like ‘Stars’ and ‘Who We Used to Be’. I open the documents and it has one line written, maybe a handful, but almost never more than a couple pages. The story or whatever you want to call it cuts off in the middle of something or tapers to a dull ending, leaving my character standing on a balcony or sitting on a couch or even staring at a phone or a random fence (for no apparent reason – also, this is a real story dud that I actually wrote. WHY, fence? WHY?).

I have notes to myself on my phone that include snappy comebacks or great potential character names, possible chapter titles or poem couplets.

It’s like all these characters and places and random objects re floating through my ‘little grey cells’ just waiting for someone to come along with a needle and thread and string them all together, carefully, so there are no knots or dropped ends, and create some beautiful thing out of them. Like they’re all waiting for some Cosmic Knitter to come work them into a warm cozy story to wrap yourself up in an d snuggle down with a cuppa tea.

But no matter how hard I try, I can never seem to make all the pieces go together and smooth out right. There’s always some knot in the thread that keeps the next piece from gliding into place and I just give up, leave it in a heap (or Word document), and move on to the next poor unsuspecting fictional friend, ready to wreck their imaginary lives and then leave them in the middle of a furious text battle at midnight (again, this is a real story I abandoned).

Maybe one day, I’ll put them all together into a book. A book of first chapters, bad beginnings, and possibly some dive-in-at-the-deep-end middles. A Book of Beginnings and Middles but No Ends.

Maybe someday you’ll see my name on a library or bookstore shelf and think, ‘by golly, she finally threaded that darn needle.’ And maybe you’ll pick it up and take it home and sink into the pages just like you’d fall asleep, slowly at first, one page, then two, then all of a sudden –

The End.

Eggcorns

Happy Lunar New Year! This is one of my favorite non-American traditional holidays. I love celebrating it and have for six years now. I love getting traditional food, watching cheesy movies, wearing red, the whole nine.

I love it because traditional New Year’s Day is always a little…disappointing. The new year never starts as you expected it to or wanted it to, and especially the last couple years, my years have had a rocky start. I make resolutions and then spend about five weeks doing totally the opposite. But then Lunar New Year comes around and gives me a chance at a fresh start. It’s pretty great.

Plus the very first time I celebrated this holiday was with my best friend, and she drove all the way to Tulsa to get me Chinese food, so it holds an extra-special place in my heart.

This week, my google searches have been a little all over the place. I’ve watched several videos about linguistics, regional dialects and accents, and language origins. I learned that the word ‘rhotic’ refers mainly to how Americans/English speakers pronounce hard Rs before a consonant (hard) and at the end of a word (far). Only a nerd like me would find this fascinating and spend hours listening to accents trying to pin down the R sounds. I also learned a lot about glottal stops, fricatives (my personal favorites), and other linguistic terms. I love this stuff.

Then I pretty dramatically shifted gears and looked up glycerin tablets, James Whitey Bulger, and codename Trigon. These are actually all related; I watched several YouTube videos where ex-FBI agents broke down disguise techniques, Cold War-era spy equipment, and talked about the realism in spy movies (spoilers: most of them are very fake, but Alias actually does a good job).

One of the coolest things I read about this week is a thing called an Eggcorn. Yes, egg…corn. It’s a commonly misheard or miswritten/spoken word or phrase. The most common example of this is ‘for all intensive purposes’ where you should be saying ‘for all intents and purposes’.

By far the coolest/weirdest eggcorn is the term ‘card shark’. I think we’ve all heard or maybe even used this term. It refers to a card player who uses extreme skill or deception to win at poker. The term is actually card sharp…what?! I always thought it was referring to someone who could ‘smell blood in the water’ at a poker table! Turns out, it’s sharp – and often refers to someone who cheats.

The usage of sharp instead of shark is an example of an eggcorn that was so commonly misheard that the new term became the typically accepted term. Does anyone still say card sharp? I’d love to know. This does, however, make me nervous for things like ‘a new leash on life’ or ‘nip that in the butt’ or even ‘social leopard’… I really hope those don’t ever become the norm.

What are some of the eggcorns you’ve heard, and how have they been mis-said? And what have you been googling this week?

Bad at Storytelling?

I recently finished reading my first-ever Stephen King novel (it won’t be my last). I read Misery, which is basically about a writer getting kidnapped by his ‘number one fan’, who happens to be a total nutball. She is banana-pants, out of her gourd, insane in the membrane, and forces him to write her a book to save a character he had finished writing about.

It’s a little gruesome, eerie, and overall unsettling, but was very interesting. I googled the word ‘dictum’ thanks to the book – it means ‘formal pronouncement from an authoritative source’, in case you were wondering.

But one line really stuck out to me. It’s towards the beginning of the book, when Annie (the #1 psycho) is trying to get Paul (the writer) to tell her a story. He says he can’t; she gets mad. He then explains to her that, while most people who can’t write or can’t write well tell stories out loud, writers are the exact opposite. We write because telling stories is hard for us.

This idea has now been stuck in my head for over a week.

We (hi, I’m a writer) aren’t good at telling stories out loud. We trip over words, can’t find words, or get lost in the middle. We can’t deliver the punchlines because we’re thinking about the first part of the story, or the last part. We can’t get the words out, so we get them down instead; we put them down on paper, we rewrite and reorganize and rehash until it’s better than we could speak it.

I agree with this so deeply. I don’t have a bestselling novel (or any novels, for that matter) to prove that I’m better at writing than at speaking, but I know it’s true. I find it easier to get what I’m thinking across in visual, written words, than to speak it to someone. I think this is why I have written letters to people when I want to talk about hard things, why the idea of love letters is so beautiful to me, and why reading a book is so important to me. I learned the value of communication via written word and just value it so much.

This is not to say I don’t also love a good story. The people in my life who tell stories well – and there are several – I find amazing. I love the way they make me feel like I’m there, in the story. I love the hand gestures and facial expressions that come along with verbal storytelling. That’s definitely something you can’t get from a book’s narration.

I’m not really sure why I felt the need to share this my blog followers. except maybe because it’s been stuck in my head for so long, I felt like it needed to get out. I find it fascinating, and want to know if you all do, too. If you’re a writer, do you think you’re also good at verbal storytelling? And vice versa – if you feel your strength is verbal storytelling, do you also consider yourself a decent writer?

If you’d like to see what else I’ve been reading, you can follow me on goodreads right here.

New Look, Who dis?

well good morning.

it’s been a skinny minute.

I have been missing writing, and recently was talking to a friend who just started blogging again and was inspired by her to get back behind the keyboard. I decided to zhuzh my old blog up, give it a face-lift so to speak, and start here, where it’s familiar, instead of in a brand-new location on some other site. If I did that, I would lose all of you, my followers, and that’s just plain sad.

So let me give you a little rundown of what I’m hoping and planning for the new Bear With Me blog (previously Overratedly Normal). Please let me know which of these sounds best to you, and what kind of content you’d like! I am always happy to take a suggestion and always looking for inspiration.

I’m hoping to post at least a couple times a month, but more often if I’m able!

One of those options was talking about my random Google searches, and you’re probably like, ‘huh?’, so let me give you an example.

This last week alone, I have googled: dictum definition, Guy Fawkes’ Day 1605, Zachary Levi and mental health (Shazm 2 is coming, guys), betadine, vicious cycle vs vicious circle, the band CAMINO, and Egyptian mythology. This is actually a pretty standard few searches for me, so I could take a couple of those googles and talk about what I learned from them, what the words I looked up mean, that sort of thing.

This week, I’ll leave you with this: The run around and the runaround are different things; they have different definitions. Zachary Levi is an incredible human and one of my top 3 favorite actors ever. Stephen King is a great writer (just read my first-ever SK novel) but dude has a crazy and sick imagination and that’s why I googled betadine.

I look forward to talking/typing at you again soon, friends. It’s been too long. Let’s get coffee next week. ❤

Winter is…Coming?

You read that right.

Apparently, halfway through August is the proper time to break out the Halloween costumes, Thanksgiving decorations, tinsel, hot chocolate, and chunky sweaters.

I mean, it’s approximately 1,000 degrees outside, and yet every other post on social media is a recipe for pumpkin spice cupcakes or cinnamon-something bread. Everyone is posting pictures of snow falling, leaves changing color, super-excited motivational-poster-level encouragements, and talking about how excited they are to rewatch It’s A Wonderful Life seventeen times over the two weeks of Christmas break (which, in case you were wondering, is FOUR months away).

The very best of these posts, in my opinion, goes a little something like this:

Things I’m excited for:

-Hot chocolate -Sitting by the fire -Snuggling under a blanket -Chunky sweaters and scarves -Boots and flannel -Watching snow fall from my window

So…wait.

Let me just see if I’ve got this right…

The one thing you’re the most excited about for winter…is…

Being warm?

We actually might’ve moved to Hades it’s so hot, but you’re excited about HEAT in winter?

Sure, makes sense.

I’m not a fan of winter. It’s cold everywhere, heating the house costs a fortune, my fingers are always cold, and I hate scraping ice off my windshield.

Hear me out. In the summer, it’s hot, yes, but air conditioning and fans abound and stores keep their thermostats set on ‘ice cube’. I leave the office feeling like a Molly Popsicle every day. When you get cold, you can just walk outside and warm up, then return to the cool freezer-temperature office.

In the winter, if you get cold inside, that’s it for you. You can’t go outside; you’ll die of exposure in the Polar Vortex. Pipes burst, hot showers become a treat or a rarity, and the only food that sounds good is soup for 3 months.

And don’t even with that ‘You can always put more layers on when you’re cold, but when you’re hot, you can only take off so many things’ argument  – I’ve heard it all before and definitely don’t need that mental picture, thank you very much.

Winter may be coming, but it’s still a long ways off. Sorry, Oklahoma friends. We’ll all melt together, if that’s any comfort…

 

(Don’t get me wrong. My favorite season is fall; leaves change color, everything smells nice, allergens and bugs start dying, and I get to wear my favorite long-sleeve shirt again. I’m just saying that people getting excited about sledding in February when it’s 110 outside need to actually chill…☺)

Did Someone Say Books?…

Hey, friends, It’s been a minute, I know, but I wanted to share with you some of my absolute favorite books for the summer, in case you’re looking for some summer-reading-list-worthy books. Most of these books are several years old but just recently started getting a little of the attention they deserve. Most of these books I’ve read (or re-read) in the last year, as well.

I’ve included four adult books, two young adult, and one that I think it probably an adult fiction but really is good for all ages.

1. The Nightingale, by Kristin Hannah (Fiction) – This book is easily the best book I’ve read in years. The Nightingale follows two sisters in France before, during, and immediately after World War II. Vianne and Isabelle could not be more different or have different motivations to survive the war. Vianne is a wife, mother, and teacher who fights through impossible odds to provide for her daughter. Isabelle is a feisty romantic who risks it all for her country and her people. This book was slow to start but I flew through it once I got into the story, and I’m not ashamed to admit I cried through the last 50 pages. (This book does have some violent and graphic imagery, due to the time period, but it adds to the reality that was France during the occupation.)
2. The Kitchen House, by Kathleen Grissom (Fiction) – Set in pre-Civil War’s deep south, this book tells the story of two very different women; one, a white Irish girl who becomes an indentured servant to a plantation owner, and another, a black slave with quite the past. This book is so well-written and full of emotions. The characters become your friends and encourage you to care about their lives and their secrets, while the setting and time period are illustrated with beautiful descriptions.
3. The Paris Wife, by Paula McLain (Fiction) – This is a wonderfully romantic telling of Hemingway’s first wife, Hadley, and the years they spent together in Paris when Hemingway was first becoming a published ex-pat author. Obviously, not all is perfect and happy; Hadley was only Wife #1, so don’t think this ends happily. The Sun Also Rises, which is said to be a fairly autobiographical novel, was written toward the end of the pair’s stay in Paris. The book does end on a hopeful, albeit bittersweet note. The imagery and internal dialogue from Hadley make this book mesmerizing. I highly suggest this book for your summer travel companion. (This book has some brief ‘marriage’ moments, but from what I remember they’re easily skipped/glazed over. Other adult content is minimal.)
4. Circe, by Madeline Miller (Fiction) – I am fascinated by Greek mythology. The stories are so intricate and emotion-driven, and this is no exception. This is a thorough exploration of the ‘witch’ Circe’s story, from her birth to a picturesque sailing-into-the-sunset ending. As a lower goddess with no real power besides witchcraft and no beauty like the high gods, Circe turns to the mortal world. Through a series of events that lead to her banishment from Helios’ palace and placement on her own island, this story includes – but does not solely rest on – Odysseus, Jason and the Argonauts, the Minotaur, and more of the classic Greek myths. This book was a wonderful interpretation of stories most are already familiar with. (This book does have a few small scenes, some violence and a bit of language. Greek mythology wasn’t exactly PG to begin with!)
5. Love & Gelato, by Jenna Evans Welch (Young Adult Fiction) – Talk about an emotionally riveting read. This book follows Lina to Italy and her father, whom she’s never met, right after she loses her mother to cancer. Once in Tuscany, Lina finds her mother’s old journal and, with it, a mystery. With the help of her neighbor, Ren, Lina sets off to unravel her mother’s past and find her own happiness in Italy – with a little help from gelato, of course. This book is one of the best young adult books I’ve read in ages. The idea of grief is explored and put into words so perfectly, Italy is described beautifully, and though the mystery may be a tad predictable, the solution is happy and satisfying.
6. Children of Blood & Bone, by Tomi Adeyemi (Young Adult Fiction) – Magic, once a part of Zelie’s world, culture, and family, has been taken and replaced by a tyrant, who crushes the people under his reign. Zelie would have magic, if it weren’t for the new king. The king’s daughter, horrified by the things she sees in the palace, flees, dragging Zelie into helping her. Together, they set out to restore magic and create equality where none has existed for years. This book is a fast-paced adventure with a stubborn but intelligent group of leading characters, set in a world that is as dangerous as the magic Zelie hopes to restore.
7. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer (Fiction) – I read this book right out of high school and have thought about it often since then. This book was recently turned into a Netflix original movie, but trust me, the book is better. On a post-war island off the coast of England, a man sends a London woman a note after finding her name inside his favorite book. The two start a correspondence that revolves around books but includes so much more. This book is such a feel-good, warm-hearted story of the power of books, reading, and food. It’s hard to put down and, since it’s written in short letters from each character, is easy to fly through quickly. Definitely a good travel companion or beach-side read!

Well, there you have it, a few of my favorite books. Let me know if you’ve read any of these and what you thought, and if you ever need book recommendations, my inbox (and bookshelves) are always open!

Inspirati-nope, that’s a sneeze.

Inspiration is hard to come by most of the time. Usually, I stare at my computer for about 30 minutes or more before I really think of something to say or write about. Today is one of those days. I’ve got music playing in the background, snagged the perfect people-watching spot, and a cuppa good coffee, and still…nothing.

Normally, this would just be an average Saturday, but today I have a mission.

See, NaNoWriMo is coming up soon. (For those that don’t know, NaNoWriMo is NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth, where you try to write 50,000 words – the average novel length – in the month of November.) This means that October is brainstorming/outlining/prep month, and I would really love to actually have a thing to write in November and a thing to outline in October…but I have nothing.

I was trying to use today as a day to come up with at least the twinkle of an idea, some kind of spark to start the writing season off well, but instead I’m sitting here at a coffee shop freezing in the air conditioner (IT IS NEARLY OCTOBER please turn the air off) and wondering if my imagination is a bit broken.

Does anyone know an Imagination Repairman?

Hey, that would be a good story idea…

Have Wings, Will Travel.

I was in line for a while. Enough time to really start wondering if this was, in fact, a good idea. Did I have enough vacation time for this? Was I sure I could afford it? Did I pack my toothbrush?

My mom was in line with me and she talked me through it. “Just call your boss, ask her to check your time off. It’ll be fine.”

“But what if I get sick later this year and don’t have any time off then?”

“Then you’ll have to figure it out?”

She made some good points, so I pulled my carry-on closer and pulled out my passport. I was going to Europe.

It was kind of a whirlwind, the road there. A friend had called me just one day earlier and explained that a trip he was going on had had a last minute cancellation. The flight and hotel were paid for, if I wanted to take the person’s place, and the group would be small, only a few people. I said yes with no hesitation.

So there I was, in line at the airport, practically jumping up and down, ready to go.

And then I woke up.

What a disappointment it was to wake up in my own bed, with my luggage secure and empty in my closet. There were at least two very mournful cups of coffee before I was awake enough to really remember that I was, in fact, at work, and probably shouldn’t be imagining pubs and theaters in London and delicious food in Athens and on and on.

Man, but that was a good dream.

I Get All The Waffles.

I have never been a morning person. I probably will never be a morning person. I tried once and, while I felt awesome for being up before noon, it didn’t seem worth it. I’m also a caffeine-reliant introvert, so I tend to discourage people from talking to me before about 10 am, one and half cups of coffee, or a shower, whichever comes first.

So when I heard that a fancy new waffle place was opening in town, I was torn. It’s only open from 7am-1pm, which means I had to go either before work or on my lunch break. Since the grand opening was on the first day back after a holiday, I was even more torn – should I go in before work and get my week off to a good start (and get some coffee?) or should I sleep in so I can be a little more prepared for the first day back at work after a 3-day weekend?

I decided that waffles are worth missing a little sleep. It was a good decision.

This place serves gourmet, authentic pearl sugar Belgian waffles, and custom-roasted super strong coffee. It was awesome.

But, as I said before, I’m an introvert. Walking into a place with super friendly, talkative, attentive owners is usually a really awesome experience, but I was still half asleep. To be honest, it was a little overwhelming to be asked so many questions and given so much information before 8 in the morning. I can’t even remember most of what I was told because I was still waking up (why do I drive?…).

I got a regular waffle with powdered sugar and honey, that thing did not disappoint. Their coffee was also one of the greatest things I ingested all day. I spent most of the morning trying to make the waffle last as long as possible (it was altogether WAY too small and I more or less inhaled it. Literally. I choked on the powdered sugar because I was eating too quickly…). I will for sure be going back there.

Maybe next time I’ll go after I wake up a little more…

Writing Time

As some of you may know, NaNoWriMo (NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth) is coming up in November, and I’m starting to get more than a little nervous/worried about it.

For those of you who don’t know, NaNoWriMo is a month-long writing ‘bootcamp’ of sorts, in which thousands of people all over try to write an entire novel, or 50,000 words, in the month of November. To reach 50,000 words in the month, you have to write an average of 1,667 words a day, which is just over 3 1/2 pages, single-spaced. That’s a lot of writing every day.

I have attempted to do NaNo exactly twice, and only remember my story from the most recent attempt in 2013. I got about 12,000 words written before I simply ran out of story. It wasn’t really that I ran out of things to write on the story, per se, it was more that my novel-to-be needed research that I didn’t have time for, some character charting that I didn’t start early enough, and I had just started a new job so things were a little crazy.

I still consider 12,000 words on a single story to be a fantastic achievement, but it was by no means a ‘book’ or even really a novella. It probably would’ve staggered on for another 10,000 words or so and then petered off into abysmal, Metamorphosis-esque existence, and since I’m no Kafka, I decided to ‘kill my darlings’ and let the story go.

This year, I’ve set a slightly more realistic goal than 50,000 words. Since I’ve never written and finished a story longer than about 12 pages, I’m going to try to write a novella as my first real endeavor into authorship. So far, I have an idea, a couple of names for characters, the first half of a plot line, a couple of possible subplots, and absolutely no idea for an ending. I’m also pretty sure that everyone is already tired of me talking about writing and it’s only October, so apologies in advance.

If I tell you I can’t see you in the month of November, that’s why; I’ll be writing. I’m tired of not really feeling like a writer because I haven’t actually finished anything that resembles a hard-back book. It’s time to actually put my English degree and my knack for retaining weird facts to good use.It’s writing time.

Project Fall

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been trying to think about what I can post on here that will get me back in the habit of blogging. I had a couple friends give me some ideas, went through a couple other blogs to see how they handle regular posting, and then thought about how frequently I even have things worth posting on here.

I’m not going to promise any kind of regular weekly or monthly post – I’ll only disappoint – but I do want to try to post more often, and about things that I like writing about but people are also interested (as those frequently don’t overlap at all. I can be boring).

So, for this post, I wanted to share a little about what I’ve been working on, crochet-wise and in my free time. I took a pretty long hiatus from crochet because I moved and all my stuff was hidden in drawers or bags or mixed in with other things, but recently my little sister helped me organize what has basically become my craft room in my ‘new’ apartment (quotation marks because I’ve already been there for six months).

I finally have a storage system that I think will actually work set up for my miles and piles of yarn. My parents bought me this gorgeous shelf and some canvas storage bins for my 25th birthday, and the little bins are perfect for yarn.

Once I got organized, I was ready to start crocheting again with a vengeance. My first undertaking was a Pokeball, in honor of the release of Pokemon Go’s release in July. I am slightly obsessed with the game and have spent many hours wandering around catching Pokemon and leveling up. The game also helped me get to my step goal for my job’s monthly fitness challenge, since I did a lot of walking for both things.

Since fall is coming (hooray!), I decided to take on some fall-ish projects. My co-workers and I are having a department fundraiser for our Christmas project at work, so I volunteered to make a blanket for the sale (a horrible decision, really). Blankets take a lot of yarn and a lot of hours, and I’m afraid I won’t finish in time even though I have another two months before the fundraiser (it’s a lot of crocheting, okay?). The cool thing is that, for the first time ever, I made up my own pattern. I had used the same pattern to make my mom some cotton dishcloths, her favorite, and she really liked it, so I just expanded the stitch and kept going. Here’s the potholder and the blanket (hopefully you can tell which is which).

One of the girls at work just had a baby! He’s super adorable and tiny, and for the baby shower (which we haven’t had yet) I wanted to make him a stuffed animal. Since the shower and his room are elephant-themed, I found an adorable pattern for an elephant on Pinterest and just changed the color and a couple small details. I finished him on the day the baby was born! I named him Babar, after one of the greatest kids’ books. I think he’s pretty cute.

The last thing I’m working on right now is a shawl for myself, which is coming along but not even close to being done (and, of course, I ran out of yarn last night). I’ll post a picture of that when it’s a little closer to being completed.

Anyway, that’s my adventures in the crochet world for now. As fall gets closer and Christmas starts looming, I’ll probably be crocheting a lot more to get presents made and sent. Until then, I can focus on my own projects. I’ll probably be making another hat before too long, and my friend Grace has inspired me to learn to knit so I can make a cute cabled hat or seven.