Peg Kerr's Journal

Week 20: Twelfth
Once again, we gather around the table to celebrate the end of Christmas.



Yes, yes, this card should be named 'Twelfth Night' But I am limiting my card titles to one word. Not quite satisfactory, but I couldn't find a one word that would substitute (unlike finding "Hogmanay" as a substitution for "New Year's Eve.")
Again, this card was an experiment with different media. The table cloth and napkins are tissue paper, the forks are cut from aluminum foil. And the plates are from the foil wrapped around the Hershey's Kisses we had inside the miniature stockings.
We did indeed manage to gather around the table this year, although it was a Twelfth Night dinner this time rather than breakfast. That's just the way the schedules worked out.

Week 21: Severus
He was the bravest man I ever knew.



This was the week that Alan Rickman died, and I made this card in honor of him and in honor of one of my favorite of his performances. Once I started thinking about Severus, I started making connections between his situation and mine (and not all of them are flattering, to say the least). This gets into personal stuff, so Elinor Dashwood will leave it there for now.
It was the last day of the previous week, January 9, that was Severus Snape's birthday. Rowling deliberately chose that day because it was the feast for the Roman God Janus, the two-headed god who guarded doorways, looking both into the past and into the future. An extremely appropriate choice for the ambiguous Severus Snape's birthday, and an appropriate thing for me to ponder, as I think about my career--where it has been as well as where it is going.

Week 22: iPod
I lost my iPod in the snow and felt helpless without it.



At least by process of elimination, that's where I figured it wound up. I never got it back. I held out a week, gritting my teeth, and then I bought a replacement. Screw the fact that I am unemployed. I need one to organize my life.

Annoyingly, I found out when I upgraded to the next model, that I can't synch it on my iMac. The software on my desktop Apple is too old. Planned obsolescence is pretty damned annoying.

Week 23: Three
There are three things I do to help myself.



This was a tough week. Again, Elinor Dashwood will not provide many details. The three stones represent three stepping stones, the sort to keep you above the water you would drown in otherwise (I tried and tried to find an image of three stepping stones, but for a variety of reasons, what I found just didn't work. So I used an image of stacked stones). The stones represent three things I do throughout the week for self-care. The stones are carried by a manatee, and if you haven't found the site Calming Manatee, really, what are you waiting for?

I know what the next card is (Card 24) and I worked on it today, but I had tremendous trouble with figuring out the right fixative to use. I had an image with words superimposed over it. I printed the words on waxed paper, but every fixative I used just smeared or blurred the words. I have an idea for how to fix the problem, but it involves a trip to the store. So I started working on the next card (Card 25), and finished it, too. I worked on the cards OUT OF ORDER! I felt SO GUILTY! And I will not scan and show this past week's card until I finish the card for the week before.

This means we are almost halfway through the year! (It also means it's been half a year since I've had a job--groan). minnehaha K. impishly suggested that we could swap decks and I would do the rest of hers and she would do the rest of mine. I firmly vetoed this idea. But then she made the clever suggestion that we would each do the jokers of the other person's deck, one at Week 26 and one at the end. Which I think is a really cool idea.

The girls have their new 80 GB iPods.

They are very happy.

I have a new larger 160GB iPod (my old one was a 30 GB).

I am very happy, too.

Here's an intriguing site I plan to explore some more:

Open Culture gives you easy access to hundreds of free, smart podcasts for your iPod. Download them, synch them, and put that iPod to good educational use.

Audio books, foreign language drills, university lectures . . . oh yeah. Lots of good stuff here.

I have been experiencing a sort of deep contentment lately. It feels even a little bit like it has been bordering on a sort of mania. I have been short on sleep the last two days, and I resorted to caffeine in the morning both days; perhaps that has something to do with it?

Three times a day, whenever I can manage it, I go out for a walk over the Stone Arch Bridge (fifteen minutes at mid-morning, a half hour at lunch, and fifteen minutes at mid-afternoon):



On the shorter walks, I go halfway across, turning around at the commemorative steel placard at the midpoint, and on the longer walks, I go all the way across and take a turn in the park on the other side before heading back. I take my iPod and earbuds and choose a podcast, or sometimes something fast and upbeat to encourage me to pick up the pace.

The sky has been gun-metal gray the last few days, but oddly, that has not had the least impact on my mood. Today, I chose Entrain's "Dancin' in the Light (Tarbosh)" and strode quickly down to the river as I always do, dodging the construction workers working around the old Whitney Hotel site. By time I had gotten to the river, I was fighting the urge to incorporate the rhythm of the drums in my walk. I stole a quick look behind me. No one was close by. What the heck.

I turned up the volume slightly, and started letting my hips really sway to the beat. Soon, I changed my pace, in time to the music: Step, step, step-hop-step, step, step, step-hop-step. Gulls wheeled over the surface of the water below me, and I felt a fierce joy well up in me, as if I could take off and fly with them, too. At the halfway point across the bridge, I was definitely dancing.

My blood felt carbonated in exhilaration. My step, step, step-hop-step became faster and faster, close to a run, as my heartbeat speeded up, and I threw my coat open, swinging my hands from side to side. I took deep, hungry gulps of the cold October air (almost too delicious to bear) as I looked up at the sky, laughing. At the end of the bridge again, I stopped to do some karate slow kicks: front kick, roundhouse, side kick.

I barely was able to keep myself from blowing a kiss to the construction workers on my way back.

My steps slowed a bit as I entered my building, but I still danced in the elevator until it stopped at my floor. I stepped off the elevator reluctantly, my cheeks red and, I'm sure, my eyes as brilliant as Elizabeth Bennett's.

The sway of my hips on the way back to my desk was utterly dangerous.

Now that I am getting to know and enjoy my shiny new iPod, I have started enjoying podcasts. I have particularly been enjoying PotterCast, put out by the Leaky Cauldron, which I have been downloading for free from iTunes. I've listened to one or two of the Mugglecast podcasts from Mugglenet, but I haven't enjoyed it quite as much. Is there any as good as PotterCast for Lord of the Rings fans?

Your favorite podcast to recommend?

Oooh, shiny! I bumped in some birthday cash from my family to get the 30 GB model.

Have loaded with eleven days worth of songs.