Feather In My Cap, Two

yesterday's feather... in my cap

I wanted to show this feather again, in better light, not in a panic to get it posted so using the picture from the middle of the night under the lamp.

And in addition to the feather in my cap here, I want to celebrate some other feathers in my cap.

First of all, I'd like to say that, once I recalibrated my 100 days challenge to the day I actually STARTED my challenge (June 14th) I actually discovered that today is the 74th day. And that makes me perfectly even with my challenge, in fact, I'm going to be ahead when I count all the creativity of the last couple of days.

So for number 75 I am going to tell you that I have just finished the third revision of chapter one in my novel. That makes me uneasy, because I don't think it is ready yet. I think I need to go back over it. There's so much I had to do to the new chapter 1 once I deleted the whole of the old chapter 1. It's still rough around the edges and there are moments of too much exposition and other moments where it is totally en media res. Now, I generally like starting in the middle of the action, but I haven't managed the balance between en media res and helping my reader know what is going on. Actually, now that I think about it, I think I should stop trying to get all the exposition in and make it truly en media res. That might make me feel better. The next time I go over it, I'm going to think about just dropping the reader in the middle of things and letting them come to know that this girl is not "just a girl." I think I might change the title of the chapter to "just a girl," too.

So this is a double feather in the cap. First because I have actually managed to get to the end of chapter one. Second because I am actually counting my writing as one of my things for my creative challenge. I said at the beginning that I wanted to count all my output, not just certain things. How can I not count writing a novel? That's just crazy.

So. Although there's no picture, just take my word for it.

Chapter One. Just A Girl, or El Lobo and The Wolves

approx 28 pages in Wolf Run

75/100 in 100 days creative challenge, day 26 August everyday

Woo Hoo! Go me!

Name Cards

recycled menus and Pitt Artist Penn, 4" square. 8 cards, plus 4 cards for Ivy (not shown)

76/100 in 100 days creative challenge

Gabriel is starting kindergarten in a few weeks and he is terribly excited. When we got the placement list, we read him all the letters from the school and his new teacher as his bedtime story.

He also has decided that he wants to learn how to write his name. He is at a little bit of a disadvantage over Joe and Tom, though, since his name is so long. And he isn't quite ready to write out all his letters. We tried some at the beginning of the summer, and he wasn't really enthused about the big task ahead of him. So I decided to break it down a little.

Learning to write is a big challenge. He wanted to write his name, but that's a bit much, so I wrote out a card with his name spelled in capital letters and lowercase letters. Then I wrote a card with each of his name's letters and I gave him the cards and told him to match the order.

Dadum!

He did it. Very quickly. He is almost ready to read and write and it is just about time for him to start kindergarten and get away from pushy mama always trying to get him to do something with a crayon.

Okay, so it's his accomplishment. But it's my project. Thus #76.

Feather in My Cap, too

felted wool, wool blend felt, acrylic paint, thread, embroidery floss, metal pin backing

77/100 in 100 days creative challenge.

I forgot to tell you yesterday that I had already made another feather. I didn't post it because the photo was simply unacceptable and I had to wait for day light to take a better shot.

One lesson I learned about these feathers? Commercial felt, wool blend or acrylic, takes the acrylic paint much better than does the felted wool. When I make more feathers, I think I'll go straight to the store bought felt, although it's not as charming as the idea of hand felted repurposed wool. Oh well. We need to work with reality here, not just the charming ideas of how we'd like things to work out.

And that draws my post to a close, nicely.

The theme for today, folks, is to give yourself credit for what you actually do and accomplish. And also to pay attention that your ideals or goals are not outstripping the reality of where you are and what you are ready for. If you're a part time waitress/part time stay at home mom of two kids without help, don't then think that you should also, without startup capital, be running a full time professional enterprise all by yourself and up there with the big boys.

Don't beat yourself up for being who you are, and being where you are on your journey. You are who you are and you are right where you need to be.