Getting busy.

Well, they say that if you want something done, go to someone who is busy to do it.

I met with the person who will be my advisor briefly the other night, and I will be going to see her for a one-on-one appointment, probably next week. I'll be getting my K-5 teaching certificate simultaneously with my Master's degree as a Teacher of Students with Disabilities. Keep your fingers crossed that I get an assistantship, which would waive my tuition and fees (and they are substantial), and get me a part time job with a stipend.

Plus, I just told my friend Gabrielle that I would rejoin the Friends of the Boonton Holmes Library to work on fundraising for the repairs and renovations the building needs.

I'm gathering up stuff that I would have put on Freecycle to help the Boonton Rescue Squad, which might be losing their Kiwanis funding, to help run a garage sale to raise money.

I've just started working on refinancing the house, via the HARP, to lower my mortgage; that's going to take a little time, too.

And I've been running all over creation singing funerals and weddings to make some money.

I'd rather be busy than not, though.

Jodi Picoult - House Rules. A review and disagreement.

When I saw it at Costco last week, I bought it. In hardcover. I wouldn't normally do that, but the jacket said the main character was an Aspie teen. How could I not??? I'd only read one other of her books, My Sister's Keeper, and enjoyed it, so I started right in.

Oh, Jodi, jumping on the autism/Asperger's bandwagon with not enough research. Or at least not enough in the real world.

Just a couple of pages into the book, it was obvious to me that Jodi had little actual experience with children in the spectrum, and what constitutes Asperger's. Her protagonist had withdrawn and gone non-verbal around age two, and it took many specialists working with him, a drastic change in diet, more supplements than even my ex takes (and that's a LOT), and constant monitoring by his mom to get him functional. His is mainstreamed, but has a sensory break room at the school with weighted blankets, special lamps, oh, you name it. His routines are too many to enumerate, and a break with one gets him stimming and panicking until a full fledged tantrum, complete with head-banging, ensues. His mother calls him high-functioning; I suppose he is, but this is a person who will never be able to live on his own. He will need someone to stand between him and the world for the rest of his life, which his younger brother talks about in one chapter.

Jacob is full-blown autistic. If any of you have read the books of Temple Grandin (or seen the movie), he is further along the spectrum, and less able to handle himself than she. A parent who has just received a diagnosis of Asperger's for their child who reads this will fall into despair at what lies ahead--with no good reason. I know quite a number of Aspies, some of them in my own family, who do not have behaviors that anywhere approach Jacob's.

Oh, and she talks about vaccines causing it. That article has been debunked. And while there may still be some debate on the massing of vaccines for an infant, it is not the definitive cause.

The plot itself was rather thin, which added to my un-enjoyment of the book, but I had to keep reading, hoping she was going to pull it all together in a satisfying manner. Nope. She tried to tie in Jacob's biggest obsession with the overall happening of the book, but it felt contrived, and left me confused as to why it happened at all.

I don't think I'll be reading anything else by Jodi Picoult. If all her other books are as heavy-handed, preachy, and poorly researched, they wouldn't be worth it.

Star Trekkin' across the universe.....

I finally saw the new JJ Abrams Star Trek movie the other night. Man, was I disappointed.

The movie itself was fun. I enjoyed seeing Kirk evolve (he kinda did, anyway), and it was gratifying seeing the characters appear here and there. I thought Karl Urban had mad skillz as McCoy; he obviously took the time to assimilate (heheheh) DeForest Kelley's mannerisms. He was my favorite part of the movie.

However, there were gaps and holes all over the place. Spock and Uhura? Really? Chekhov was already an officer when Kirk was a cadet? (He came across as the Wesley of the movie.) Red matter? What the heck is it, and why, when they needed a tiny bit, was Spock transporting that huge glob of it around? The physics of a supernova and of black holes don't operate the way they were shown in the movie, either. And of course, the changes to the canon: Kirk's dad and Amanda dying, and VULCAN GETTING BLOWN UP.

I had heard it was a reboot, and it was, in the manner of a comic book reboot of a favorite hero: new backstory, new reasons for the characters acting the way they do. I just didn't like the retooling.

Absolutely Alice.

My book group read Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, in honor of the new Tim Burton movie that has just come out. Incredibly (to me), several of our members had never read them. Seriously, how could anyone make it through childhood without reading them? Personally, they were amongst my favorite books in my younger years (the rest are for another post).

I had a boxed set of 33 1/3 rpm records of the great Cyril Ritchard reading AAiW, which had a hardcover copy of the book with Sir John Tenniel's illustrations. I knew that I listened to it a lot as a kid; but I had no idea how much, really, until I pulled them out about ten years ago to transfer them to CD, only to discover that I had literally worn them out with listening. I recently bought the mp3 from iTunes, and decided that it was time to introduce Rainer to Alice. So one day recently, while we were painting Lord of the Rings minis, we listened. I was thrilled when Rainer started chuckling, then cackling. We listened to the whole thing in one sitting. And I discovered that I remembered every musical cue, every rise and fall of his voice, every change in timbre. I loved it all over again. (I am determined to find his recording of Through the Looking Glass on mp3, too....)

Anyway. I was truly surprised when several of the folks in our group said that they disliked the book. I suppose I shouldn't have been, since everyone's taste is different; but since it was such a large part of my childhood, and so universal, it truly took me aback to hear their criticisms.

The most universal one was that they couldn't connect to Alice as a character; that they didn't care about her, she didn't develop. My answer to that was that the books were written as stories told to a small child as we would tell bedtime stories: what happens *to* them, not about them. That didn't cut it. The other complaint, which I answered with the same argument, was that there was no discernible plot. Heck, that just never bothered me. :)

I hear some not-so-good things about the new movie. I will go anyway, though, partially to vet it for Rainer who is concerned that it might be too intense for him, and partially for me, simply because it's Alice.

I'm lucky.

Writing about June's gift got me looking around at the other embroideries on my walls. Pics this afternoon. :)

Edited to finally add pics. I found my camera!

This is the first piece I started when the divorce began. It was therapy for me, a project I'd wanted to do for ages: The Drawn Thread's Lily of the Valley. Linen and silk, don't you know. :) I loved working all the different stitches.

'Kay. I'm trying to add more pictures, and Blogger is laughing at me....













Jenny made this for us as a wedding gift. The Ace of Cups, she adapted it herself. I kept it, cos, well, I just did. I was the only one who appreciated it. And I still do! :)
















I had started this for a few reasons. One, Rainer loves ships. :) Two, it was kinda going to be a 5 year anniversary present for Tom. But, well, things change, and I liked it way to much to let it go away. I'm trying to remember the designer, but it's escaping me. The only thing I changed was to use Needle Necessities overdyed floss in Spruce for the sea, instead of solid DMC.







This is June's gift: Elemental Cosmos by Witches' Stitches. (They've gone out of business. I'm sad.) I was truly surprised when she told me she'd made it for me, and when she gave it to me at DexCon last year, I made sure everyone saw it. :)









Medieval Mermaid, by yet another company whose name has escaped me. :) I just liked this one, and it made a very good travel project, since it was one color of floss (Caron Waterlilies Polar Ice) and whole stitches. I also swapped the fabric (which was supposed to be a sand color - ick!) for Silkweaver Expressions Desert Sky. I'm very happy with the results.












Rainer's birth announcement. It's a Sue Hillis design that had a cutsie verse at the bottom, so I substituted his birth stats instead. There's a counting mistake in it that I can still see all these years later.... :)

A new silliness.

So. I love color. That's why my living room is a deep, jewel-tone purple. That's why I love illumination and embroidery; so many to choose from! Color was not part of my life for a while; the ex didn't like me wearing makeup, and he chose all the paints and stuff for the house. All muted.

Which explains, I think, my recent nuttiness. I now have about two dozens nail polishes, maybe more, in every color of the rainbow, every level of shimmer and glitter (okay, maybe not the *really* outrageous ones). And since they're relatively inexpensive (the ones I got today averaged $2), it's a solution for my need for color that I can just about afford. So when I start posting about the fab shade on my nails, please just smile indulgently and move on to the part you really want to read. :) Seeing bright colors just makes me SMILE.

Which is why, when I look at the cross-stitch that June gave me, it makes me so happy. I'll post pics of it later; it's Witches Stitches Elemental Cosmos, and no one has ever done something that big for me before. I almost cried. It was in my stash, and I planned to do it someday, but now it's hanging on my wall, looking glorious. And the purple walls make a great backdrop.

Starting over....

Those of you who know me know that for a while I had a blog on LiveJournal. Unfortunately, my ex-husband found it, and got one of his friends (I never did find out which of the few he has) to go trolling. It was disappointing and hurtful, but there you go.

So, a couple of years later, I'm jumping here, hoping to start afresh and be left alone, except by those who actually *like* me. :)

I want to ruminate on all the things that are part of my life: embroidery, calligraphy, the SCA, books, music, current events, science, things like perfume, and of course, my wonderful boy. I don't know if I'll actually get anyone to read this, but it's not important; it's really for me, a chance to think out loud. I generally solve my problems better that way.

And so it begins....