Is the creative me really a monster? Sometimes she is as insatiable as the sea monster who threatened Andromeda… but not as vengeful as the mother Beowulf slew. But last week, which had me in the office more than at home, awakened her with a roar.
On the needles: J’s micro triceratops. This is a frustrating project because it’s all stops and starts and weird bits and pieces that shout “You’ll have to weave in all these ends later!! nah nah nah!” every time I pick it up. I started some wash cloths, because I needed a project that could be continued, without loose ends, without any pattern-checking or casting on and off. And could be done without the children wondering if I’m knitting it for them. (None of them would ever think a wash cloth was for him. Or her.)
In the sewing room: T-shirts waiting for freezer-paper stencils. J had some sadness a few weeks ago when Sam culled the drawers of all that was too small, and O inherited his wyvern shirt. I can’t find the same wyvern silhouette, though, and I’m wondering if a T. Rex will be a good enough substitute. (I’m leaning toward Yes.)
On the laptop: I’m working on a WWI-period novel. I wrote the first fifty-thousand words in the spring and summer and then had to lay it down for a bit. A bit turned into weeks, then months, and now I find myself thinking about it every waking moment. I can’t focus on the children’s questions, or Uno, or spelling , because I’m wondering how many hours the American Red Cross Home Hygiene and Care of the Sick class took.
In the kitchen: swimming always throws a wrench in my cooking creativity, because on days I try something new, they eat very little. (They always make it up at breakfast, though.) So I try to cook favorites on their swimming days, which also happen to be the days I’m home. How many days a week can we eat pizza? Five? Great.
Learning As We Go 