I had a nice holiday break, although I did a lot less reading and writing than I thought I would. I spent more time untangling yarn than I thought I would. I messed up when I went to convert the skein for my next crochet project into a ball, and created an unholy tangled mess. I finally finished untangling it last night. I learned a lot from the process, and not just "be more careful when rolling a ball of yarn" - but I've decided to make that the intro to my next newsletter, which comes out on Monday.
I can't really blame the yarn debacle for my lack of reading and writing, though, because I could have just walked away from the yarn for awhile. I think I was just in a different sort of mood.
I have been back at work for two days. The kids aren't back at school yet, though, so while I worked from home today like I usually do on Fridays, there was no rollerblading for me. I am not quite ready to leave the kids home alone together for an extended period, particularly when I wouldn't be able to quickly come home - once I'm halfway out on my rollerblade, there really is no hurrying the return!
I did get some quality desk-cleaning in, though. I started doing a little while I was waiting for something to load and realized that I was clearly in the mood to throw things out. I have some packrat-ish tendencies, so a good "just throw it out!" mood is not to be wasted. I took a break and worked through several piles of papers. I found Christmas cards from 2016 in one of those stacks...
Despite the long break from writing, I don't really have a lot of links to share with you. I really was just offline and not doing much! Here's what I do have:
I am very proud that two Annorlunda books made the Tangent Online recommended reading list this year - Arctic Adagio, by DJ Cockburn, and The Boy Who Was Mistaken for a Fairy King, by HL Fullerton.
Also, I am running a New Year's sale at my Gumroad store - use the promo code hello2020 to get 50% off anything in the store.
I feel like I should post something about the air strike that killed Qassem Soleimani. I found this Slate article useful. I don't think anyone knows what is going to happen next, and it will take a lot of evidence to make me think this was part of a well-thought out plan. We are in a dangerous place, but really, we've been in a dangerous place since we gave such an unqualified and ill-suited man the presidency.
Matt Yglesias sums up why I don't trust anything this administration is saying about the air strike (or anything else, really). They've proven themselves untrustworthy over and over.
I have been reading the news of the Australian bushfires and trying to get my head around the scale of disaster they are facing. Here is a write-up from the Sydney newspaper that includes coverage of the evacuation by sea of the town of Mallacoota and here is an opinion piece from an Australian climate researcher that gets at the heartache of what is being lost.
Here is a piece about the ancient Gondwana rain forests that are threatened by these fires. It looks like the ancient Wollemi pines in the Blue Mountains have been spared, at least for now.
Fiber arts goals:
(Okay, it is unlikely I'll ever be that good at embroidery, but that is some cool embroidery!)Kimika Hara, contemporary embroiderer from Japan #womensart pic.twitter.com/Wsy6Z8B52N— #WOMENSART (@womensart1) December 29, 2019
And here's some bunnies:
๐ 25th December 2019— Rabbit of the Day ๐ฐ (@RabbitoftheDay) December 25, 2019
๐ท Instagram/chub_bun pic.twitter.com/3hJEwhdrxY
I'm hoping to find a way to write more this year. I miss it. I'm still working on my goals for 2020, though - the Family Fun List post and the personal goals post will be along soon with all the details!
