Promises of blustery weather today. High winds, cold. I guess winter has arrived. It is a beautiful morning with Maxfield Parrish skies, and branches reaching heavenward. Shady and I both have sniffles. I have a headache, and cannot vouch for my dog. So, that is where we are.
We have Bruce here--full of ideas, conversations and insights. He is a great guest and we always love having him. Mandy is due here in a week or so for a month's stay and possibly doing a bit of work for us which could be fabulous. So, its a full house this holiday which makes me pleased as I can cook the way I know how, for thousands, and know that it will be consumed. As much as I am really going to hear about it, we are having turkey again tonight with the lovely opportunity of stock, tomorrow.
I finished another pink wreath (much like the one posted yesterday) and refined the green and patterned one I first posted. I am stringing the beads for the next one, all white and yellow as the theme I am building the strands on--so by the end of the weekend, I should have a half dozen to give as presents. Should be nice. These are presents I hadn't counted on having, so I can give them freely as there is no plan around them. I cannot let this wreath making cut into my advent calendar picture making which, until now, it hasn't. Just need to stay disciplined on that. But, I am seriously thinking of the whole Etsy thing and may set up a business that I will have Kitty and Alex work as the fulfillment office for. There seems to be interest and momentum, and it could be a good lesson in "if you can't find a job that works for you, make a job up" thinking that I believe in. Plus, you can run a fulfillment business in front of the television which makes the work oh so much more entertaining.
I am reading Twitter tweets, blogs and Facebook notations that my Hartford friends are really feeling the pinch these days. The combination of papers, theme project and the looming thesis can be intense but doable if one sticks to a rigor of getting one thing done and moving to the next. I think this pressure is a good thing as it is training to continue to multitask post graduate and helps (along with the pure exercise of writing) you to define what is important. Specifically, what is important to you....and to use your time wisely so as to get to the meat of what makes you tick. My feeling in the graduate school scenario, the pain is what forces growth. But then again, isn't that how we push forward in life?
I need a push to start reading Dante. It seems that Dante is one of those authors that people who go to prestigious schools read in their teenagedom. I have not cracked it open and will. I was totally inspired by a show we saw at Mass MOCA with an artist doing their extrodinary dioramas/ vignettes of people in everyday lives interpreeted from Dante quotes. There was such a lovely richness to the language and the ideas that I am taken with the bits I have read and want to continue with it. I just need to get the steam up from the less than smart books I am reading, to move to this classic. I dont know if there is a cuddliness that is needed in the late hours in Dante's work--so I will need to start it with the early morning coffee and gauge how I am going to attack it.
Onward to felt balls, ink pens, credit cards and the concept of "Smokin' Hot".