Author Archives: Annie

About Annie

Welcome to the Curious Mind Garden. My name is Annie, and this is my little patch of cyberspace. I post about things that interest me, and I find a lot of things interesting. :)

Creative Check-in

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Happy Holidays!

I feel the need for another creative check-in. I continue to struggle during the school term to make consistent time to be creative. However, over the winter break, I seem to have made up for lost time. As an aside, I also notice how much more content I feel with life when I do take time for creative pursuits.

So, on with the update:

Blogging: I haven’t been posting much of late, as this blog evidences. However, I’ve been accruing a long list of blog topics, which is a good start. More importantly to me, I have taken on Movable Type’s CSS code and managed to redesign both of my blogs. I genuinely enjoyed the challenge of discovering how to manipulate the code to get the look I wanted, and my blogs feel like they are really mine once again. I’m excited to start writing again.

Book Reviews: After taking a hiatus from reviewing for the Sacramento and San Francisco Book Reviews, I have a lovely stack of nine new volumes on my desk, some of which appear on my bookshelf widget. I’ve also signed up to review for the new Portland Book Review when it gets up and running.

Knitting: I am proud to say that my yellow Warm Bundle baby afghan for Project Linus is off to a solid start. Having mastered some new stitches and gotten a feel for the pattern, I think I should be able to make steady progress now.

Photography: For the past few years, my steady sidekick has been my Canon PowerShot S1 IS.  Lately, however, the lens has been sticking just long enough for me to miss my opportunity to shot pictures. My anniversary, birthday and Christmas all fall within several weeks of each other. This year, my husband decided to splurge and surprise me with a new Nikon D5000 D-SLR with AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-55mm and Zoom-NIKKOR 55-200mm lens. During this winter break, I’ve been spending a fair amount of time reading about digital photography and testing out my new toy. And someday, if I can master its dozens of features, you may once again see my photography here!

Children’s Book: No, I haven’t actually started writing the book yet. I have a list of good ideas and a small stack of writing manuals as guides, but that is as far as I’ve gotten. However, I’m including it on my list because I’ve decided to make getting a draft done a real priority, rather than something I’d like to do someday.

 


Second Draft: Swirling Leaves

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Swirling Leaves

Wash the car. Vaccinate the
dog. Brown the meat. Rotate
the tires. Grocery shop.
Vote. Don’t forget the
milk!!  Prune and
compost. Simmer the
stew. Pay the taxes. Make
the bank deposit. Dentist
appointment tomorrow
at two. Renew the
library books. Pay the
gas bill.

Pet the cat.
Hold the boy.
Be.
 

First Draft: Swirling Thoughts (Working Title)

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Swirling Thoughts

Thoughts swirl like leaves in a fall breeze.
Wash the car. Vaccinate the dog. Simmer
the stew. Buy new tires. Shop for
groceries. Vote. Pay the
taxes. Don’t forget
the milk!!  Prune
and compost.
Deposit the
check.
Store
hay.

Hold the boy.
Pet the cat.

Creative Check-in

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I’ve decided to start a series of posts called “Creative Check-ins” as a way of keeping myself honest to my goal of having a creative life. Basically, these posts will summarize what I’m doing to nurture my creative side.

This past weekend, I finally made a solid start on a new knitted baby blanket for Project Linus. I am attempting Warm Bundle in Leisure Arts’ Tea for Two Baby Afghans. While I don’t think the pattern is particularly complex, I have a knack for complicating matters. I’ve started this pattern once or twice in the last year without success, but this weekend I finally figured it out. That said, I came up with two extra stitches on my last row, so I’m going to have to backtrack a bit to get it right. Still, I can finally see myself finishing it, so that must be some sort of progress.

Beginings of Warm Bundle
I’m also delighted to report that I’ve started taking piano lessons, as of this morning. My sons’ piano teacher kindly offered to give me two lessons a month. I started playing piano as an adult just after my first son was born, but couldn’t really pursue it once my second and third sons arrived. So, I’m a complete novice. I realized today that I have so much to learn, but I love a challenge. For the next two weeks, I’ll be continuing working through Level One of Alfred’s Basic Adult Piano Course Lesson Book and attempting to master the second exercise of Hanon and (Everything I Do) I Do It For You in Fun with 5 Finger Pop Hits. It’s a start.

Piano PracticeFinally, I am taking a poetry workshop with an amazing woman, Julia Connor. My assignment this week is to write an object poem where I give an object a back story and see if I can create a poem from that. I will also read Stone by Charles Simic for what it says about imagination.

And that’s exactly what I am off to do!

Yosemite – October 16 -17

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The Beloved and I snuck away for a weekend away from responsibilities (read: children) a few weeks ago.

Because we didn’t need to accomodate little legs, we were free to try different hikes in Yosemite National Park. Here, we climbed to the top of Sentinel Dome and had a gorgeous view of Half Dome and the valley beyond it.

Half Dome from Sentinel Dome

Half Dome from Sentinel DomeThe valley from Sentinel Dome

the valley from Sentinel DomeI’m dying to paint this scene I photographed on a walk to Mirror Lake. I’m not sure why. It might be the mysterious black spot in the rocks?

on the walk to Mirror Lake in YosemiteOverall, it was a wonderful weekend.

Peaceful Weekend

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Now that the summer heat seems to have finally passed, we are taking a renewed interest in the great outdoors and working on our property.

This weekend, we cleaned out one stall of the barn so we can fill it with a hay for the winter and composted a large pile of old hay. We also cleared the vegetable garden. It felt so good to see progress outside after feeling trapped inside by the summer heat.

We discovered a few issues that we need to address. Bermuda grass is attempting to take over one of my raised vegetable beds so I am looking into an organic solution. So far, I’ve read that spreading corn gluten as a pre-emergent and spraying vinegar on the existing plants may help, but not at this time of year. At the moment, I haven’t found any solution attacking the rhizomes besides digging. 

We are also looking into a granulated rattlesnake repellent. I need to research whether it’s nontoxic, effective and cost effective. By now, the rattlesnakes are hibernating, but it would be fantastic to have some sort of a control mechanism in place by the time they re-emerge next spring. 

Today, the drizzle is keeping us inside. It’s a wonderful day for practicing piano, homeschool prep, writing and blogging, knitting and cooking.

Overall, it’s been a wonderfully peaceful and restful weekend.

What Brings Me Joy?

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So, Scary Mommy and SoyJoy would like to know what brings me joy.

I’ve spent a couple of weeks thinking about the moments that have given me joy, and they are fairly diverse. Sometimes, I have felt joy in being so swept away by words and images on a page that I’ve forgotten where I was. Other times, I have reached the peak of a mountain, drenched in sweat and with muscles aching, and dissolved into the breathtaking view. Far too often for my husband’s liking, I’ve acted without much forethought to help an abandoned or injured animal, and I felt joy just because I did what I needed to do. More often, I’ve gotten lost in watching my three year old as he intently focuses to solve his puzzle on my living room floor. He has brought me joy in knowing that, although I helped to create him, he will somehow be greater than the sum of his father and me.

So, I think what brings me joy are the moments where I lose my sense of self in something greater than myself.

This post is part of SOYJOY‘s What brings you joy contest. Learn more here.

Napping

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Recently, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m the only one in my house who doesn’t get to nap.

These were taken within minutes of each other.

Wylie and Stormy ~Wylie & Stormy napping
Kiwi ~
Kiwi napping

Moxie ~
Moxie nappingAgain, I insist that I want to be one of my cats in my next incarnation.

SITS 31-Day Problogger Challenge

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For the next 31 days, I intend to participate in the 31 Day Problogger Challenge through SITS. (I have a blog badge on the right for anyone interested in more information.) I am taking the challenge to enliven my blogging once again.

Today, the challenge requires I create an elevator pitch for this blog. Curious Mind Garden records my creative and intellectual life. It is meant for me. If others read it and become interested or inspired, I am delighted. If it allows me to connect and form a community with other creative, thinking people, that is wonderful. However, its primary purpose is personal. 

Did creating the elevator pitch change Curious or the way I think about Curious? Yes and no. Formulating the answer helped me articulate what I’ve known in a vague way from Curious’ inception. However, putting those thoughts into words allows me to see more clearly the direction of this blog.