Stitched Up

My stiff neck has been giving my grief, I am not sure if this is my subconscious trying to give me a message or just the result of sleeping in an awkward position a few weeks ago or a bit of both.
I have been trying to stitch and I've finally found the right position courtesy of this great folding table I bought at OfficeWorks. It was only $20 on special. It is just the right size to hold my hoop and a variety of bits and pieces including the remote. It is light enough to move around and sturdy enough not to wobble. I am stitching again despite my lack of enthusiasm to do anything. I shall endeavour to do more stitching and less obsessing. I make no promises.

The Devil is in the Detail and DNA gets you everytime.

I have some big decisions to make in the next couple of weeks and I am humming and hahing and generally boring everyone stupid trying to make a decision on my future in my job.
I work for the government. For quite a while you would hear lots of jokes about disgruntled workers after there was a series of workers resigning via a gun. There is even a saying 'going postal' in American English slang, means becoming extremely and uncontrollably angry, often to the point of shooting people dead, usually in a workplace environment. I really understand how they would want to do that.
Who hasn't imagined that. It would be satisfying, in an only imagined and never followed through on way, to just take a gun and pop one into the head of your manager. Not that I want to do that because I don't have a gun and I changed workplaces and I didn't want to shoot anybody anyway. All though I did seriously consider for about 5 seconds running someone over but what can I say. It was my new car and I didn't want to get blood on it although there were quite a few other people in my workplace who would have helped me dispose of the body cause all you really need is a roll of chicken wire and some heavy weights so no embarrasing bits float off when you throw it in the river. Not that I've given it a lot of thought. They would have helped me clean my car but I watch NCIS and Abbey can always find a skerrick of blood and bang my ass is grass.
Those little details get you everytime. I quite like little details in my art life, I am going to get back to them soon. Life gets in the way though.
I am seriously thinking about demoting myself. I have been on a contract for the last year and the time is coming when I will have to bite the bullet and decide
if I stay at a lower level in a place where I am really comfortable or go back to the place I left last year.
I have been neglecting my creative side and I don't like that either. A Quandry indeed, my gut is saying one thing and my head is saying another. In the past my gut is usually right because sometimes my head is an idiot. I just need to get on with it. My neck is playing up too. Stiff necked isn't that another way of saying to stubborn for my own good. Maybe my body is trying to tell me something.
I need a little project that I will finish easily and quickly. Finish being the optimal word.

Multipotentiality

Multipotentiality

“An educational and psychological term referring to a pattern found among intellectually gifted individuals. [Multipotentialites] generally have diverse interests across numerous domains and may be capable of success in many endeavors or professions, they are confronted with unique decisions as a result of these choices.”

I can almost hear you thinking 'What the f... has that got to do with chickens?'

At last an affirming term for me and my life. I just found this website PuttyLike. I haven't read much of it but it seems to be calling to me. I've been sitting on my butt waiting for some divine guidance and where else would I find it than on the web. Oh and here is an awesome photo of a couple of chickens. Why a chicken...? Well since you ask that seems to be the method for my whole life. I scratch around looking for something and then when I find it I am off scratching around for something else.
But that is OK because I have a Multipotentiality personality. I am a Multipotentialite.
Try and say that 5 times fast.

The Bibliomaniac's Prayer

Eugene Field. 1850–1895

The Bibliomaniac's Prayer

KEEP me, I pray, in wisdom's way
That I may truths eternal seek;
I need protecting care to-day,—
My purse is light, my flesh is weak.
So banish from my erring heart
All baleful appetites and hints
Of Satan's fascinating art,
Of first editions, and of prints.
Direct me in some godly walk
Which leads away from bookish strife,
That I with pious deed and talk
May extra-illustrate my life.

But if, O Lord, it pleaseth Thee
To keep me in temptation's way,
I humbly ask that I may be
Most notably beset to-day;
Let my temptation be a book,
Which I shall purchase, hold, and keep,
Whereon when other men shall look,
They 'll wail to know I got it cheap.
Oh, let it such a volume be
As in rare copperplates abounds,
Large paper, clean, and fair to see,
Uncut, unique, unknown to Lowndes.

Bibliophilism

I cut back on the amunt of magazines I buy years ago. The reason, apart from a distinct lack of interest in what celebs are doing, is I hate to throw out any sort of printed materials. To the extent that when the Husband threw out some of my favorite books things got decidely tense. Divorce was threatened and he's still not game to throw out anything on paper twenty seven years later. I did sort of forgive him, well stop reminding him of his sin. I don't even think of it that often.

Bibliomania is the collecting, some might say hoarding of books to the point where relationships or health are damaged. Obviously I don't have that because we are still married despite the sin of throwing out a bag of my books I had carefully put behind my arm chair out of the way. No hoarding or obsessing would be not forgiving him eventually when I found out he'd thrown them in the rubbish while I was at work and the garbage truck had been before I got home and noticed the loss the minute I walked in the door. Not that I hold it against him.

When is it hoarding? Who decides what is hoarding? I'd hazard the guess it would be when your kids sign you up for one of those reality tv shows and some out of work TV wanna be is luring you away with a free trip to the biggest book store on Earth and horrible home invaders are packing up your stuff and having a garage sale while you aren't there. Not that I've thought that some day the family might do that to me.

I don't collect just any book that would be hoarding. I have standards. They have to be something I am interested in.
Mostly, of course sometimes the book is about something I might be interested in in the future. But if it looks interesting and it is a good price it would be silly to not buy it just in case right? That's definitely not hoarding.
So I'd rather sit inside and read than go outside, I shan't get skin cancer and you can buy Vitamin D in a bottle. Sometimes I read on the back verandah.
If I can still get in the front door then I am not a hoarder. I do feel slightly sick when I throw out the free local paper but I close my eyes and just throw it in the recycling. That's how not obsessed I am.
There aren't books in every room in my house. There are none in the bathroom, the toilet is a really uncomfortable place to read. I know, I know some people take a book into the smallest room. Please stop the excuses, if it takes you that long to go get a laxative. If that is the only place you can get some privacy you need to learn to tune the rest of the world out. It doesn't take long to learn to zone them out. My kids soon learnt to give me a nudge if they needed something important like first aid. Because they damn well better have been bleeding before they interrupted me. No, not really. Well alright sort of.

Bibliophilism is the love of books. Healthy love not sick porn love, no sticky pages in my books unless I get some of my breakfast jam on there and don't notice. A bibliophile is a person who loves books or collecting books. A bookworm cares about the contents, they love reading. We need a new word for that. One that expresses the true pleasure and normalacy of having a couple of thousand few books that you don't share with anyone because they just don't look after them. And sometimes forget to give them back or carelessly loan them to me which makes them mine, mine all mine.

(Deep breath, get a grip) It might be called bibliophilia by some but that sounds slightly rude to me and "Bibliophilism" sounds much more highbrow. The opposite of bibliophobia is abibliophobia. This is the fear of running out of reading materia. I don't have that problem I would just read something again or go online and buy something. Not have something to read that freaking terrifies doesn't worry me much at all.

So I get a little cranky if I don't get to have a little read while I am having my breakfast. Doesn't everybody have a book in their handbag, a couple of audio books on the ipod and a spare book in the car in case you break down somewhere. That's not obsessive that's just being prepared. You can only read a street directory for so long before it gets a little tedious.

Yes, OK I might be screamingly a little abibliophobic. But I am definitely not an obsessive book hoarder.
Perhaps there is a book on recovering from these conditions I could read. (I type and then laugh to myself cause that's a little joke sort of. Leave me a comment if you agree or know of that book).

I have no idea what I am doing - So I'll eat ice cream

As my previous blog post said I am at a cross roads. I should be doing something positive but I am not, I am spending my days reading and procrastinating waiting for some sort of divine guidance as to the direction I should take. There is a saying along the lines of if you keep looking over your shoulder at where you have been you can't move forward.
Wise words.
So I shall start looking forward. No more looking back even if I do end up going back. I don't really want to go back but then I am not sure if staying where I am is a good thing either.
Darn it... I really have no idea what I am doing so I am going to go and have some ice cream. Really yummy Cafe Grande - coffee with scorched almonds and grande marnier syrup. I haven't given a recipe for a long time so here's a really good icecream recipe Not for cafe grande but nearly as good no added sugar unless you chuck some in the apples if you do those instead of mulberries. If you want cafe grande icecream it is in the freezer at the supermarket.

Ice Cream

Ingredients
2 eggs
500 ml milk
375ml double/heavy cream
1 teaspoon vanilla paste (or according to taste)
¼ cup real maple syrup put half into the custard and then taste and add more to your taste
2 cups mulberries or berries of choice or (1 ½ cups of cooked diced apples and ½ cup chopped toasted pecans or walnuts and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon)


Pour the milk into a saucepan place on heat and bring the pan slowly up to boiling point

In a bowl, beat together the eggs and maple syrup until thick. Pour ¼ cup of the hot milk into the mixture of egg and syrup whilst stirring. Then slowly pour in the rest of the milk stirring all the time.

Pour the mixture back into the pan and heat gently over low, stirring until the custard thickens. DO NOT LET IT BOIL. Use a double boiler if you are not confident. Remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla extract. Leave to cool.

Whip the cream until it forms soft peaks (This is important). Fold the custard into the cream.
Put the mixture into a bowl in the freezer and let it half freeze. Beat it with electric mixer or put it into an ice cream maker. Refreeze.
Fold 2 cups of fresh or frozen mulberries (or the apple/pecan/cinnamon) through the ice cream before it goes hard. Place in small molds or a loaf tin lined with plastic wrap. Freeze until solid and then turn out and slice if a log.
Because this is low sugar this is a hard ice cream take it out of the freezer 10 minutes before eating to let it soften.

A Fork in my road

I have reached a fork in my personal road. I applied for the position I have been doing on a temporary contract for nearly a year and didn't get it. After a few lot of days of general foul moodiness I now know I have to get a grip and get over it. so I am at a fork in my road. I could turn around and go back to my old position I left last year.
I should say I left it because I was miserable there and it hasn't improved in fact the situation there is worse so I know I won't do that.
I could take a job at a lower level where I am. I would have a job in a place I really like with a good bunch of people.
But my pay packet will drop about $20 thousand dollars a year and that is a lot.
Or I can apply for a job on my current level in a place that is, apparently, about to implode. This couldn't be any worse than my old work place that has imploded. OK it could be worse because I could spend the time there kicking myself for leaving the place I like.

I have a bucket list that doesn't have much on it.
At the moment it simply has a trip to Europe on there. I am saving up for that cause I want to go on a Stitching and Stately Homes tour and they don't come cheap.
The other thing I would like to for my life to be easy. I am still working on that one.

On my daughters facebook page she had a link to The Bloggess who has a very funny blog and she had a link to Girl to Mom who has a F*ck It List, a list of things she never wants to do. I can really get behind that idea. I can put some thought into things I never want to do.

No 1. I really don't want to run my old manager over with my car. I just imagined doing it. I have a really good imagination and that was enough for me.

No 2. No bungey jumping or parachuting for me.

No 3. No bleaching or waxing of parts of me that never see the sun.

No 4 I will never watch Brokeback Mountain, The Hours or 6 Freaking years in Tibet ever again unless they remake them with aliens. I think all those movies would be better with aliens in them.

and then i pinched some from the other lists
No. 5 I don’t want to clean my house to spotlessness… it never lasts.

No. 6 I don’t want to be a stick figure… I love my curves (so does my husband)

No 7. I don’t care if my hair is done everyday… it’ll be messed up a few minutes after I leave the house anyway.

No 8. I don’t care if my husband and I are rich… our lives are rich with each other and our kids and grandkids.

No 9. I don’t care if I never own a pet… No matter how great they are, I have plenty to do and don’t want the animal to inadvertently starve.

No 10. I don’t care if I never have a threesome or attend a key party… one man is enough for me.

So now I know some of the things I don't want to do that's a start.

I am still here

Despite my best intentions I have become a woeful blogger. I seem to have little time for it. Work and family are interfering with my preferred activities of cooking and textile arts. I have finished my grandson's christening gown. He looked beautiful. No 2 granddaughter always says "hello beautiful boy" she says we have to say that so he knows we love him.

His gown is skill twill, handsomocked the peterpan collar and cuffs are trimmed with entredaux and the hem is trimmed with cotton lace. I am having a bit of trouble getting a good photo of it but I will try.
I am also working on a secret project I will tell you about it when I can.