A project finished

Nothing to do with socks or crafting, but more satisfying in many ways.

Recently I received a present - a book that I'd dropped hints about wanting to read. Once I had it, I read it within a few days.

The Happiest Refugee is a memoir by Vietnamese-Australian comedian (and much more), Anh Do.

The style is anecdotal and this adds to the understated drama of the events that it covers. Much of it is funny, even in the midst of (or maybe because of) great hardship and tragedy. But what a story! I was left with a sense of a really amazing person and an equally amazing family.

Margaret Throsby conducted an interview on ABC Classic FM with Anh Do that can be downloaded from here.

Cheap frills

I have a friend who is a fashion fiend. She spent some time in Japan in the last little while and has well tuned antenae for fashion trends. Anne says that frills, especially neck adornments, are more popular than ever.

Also peplums. Basically frills attached to or just below the waist line. Fine if you have a waist!

Frills are quick to knit in some ways, especially if you have a scarf in mind , but can be tedious in others as the stitches are doubled or short rows are employed to provide curves. Here's a useful tutorial on different types of knitted frills.

Some days it goes well

and some days words only squeeze out one by one. Write two, delete one.

I'm writing a piece for an online journal - review of a non-fiction book. I have done a lot of preparation - maybe too much, but it has taken me about three days to generate a draft that looks anything like the end result that I have in mind. I'm way over the word limit and still I'm still doing write two, delete one. I started again three times thinking that it might all begin to flow if I just blurted it out afresh. Nup!

The deadline is looming but I have checked the email, put on a load of washing, tidied the house rather than sit down and grapple with it again.

Some pieces are like that.

Goodbye Solitaire, goodbye Freecell

A year well advanced and not much finished off. Maybe I'll change it to The Years of Starting Again and Again and Again.

This morning I started resolutely. I deleted Solitaire and Freecell from the main computer. Freecell - one word or two? I'm resisting turning on the laptop to find out. Already I'm amazed at how many times I've had the urge to play those games. Instead, I browsed websites that have Getting Organised/Organized as the subject.

On one website, in the context of cleaning and decluttering, I discovered a link to a video that shows you how to clean windows. And a link to another one that shows you how to clean an oven.

I wonder who watches things like that.