Too Busy!

It was a crazy week, but I managed to get in some knitting. I finished the pattern and reached the sleeve divide. From now on, it will be all in the darker color and straight knit until I reach the ribbing at the bottom.

I had it on two needles so I could try it on, and I think it will fit. Now it's back on the smaller needle as I work my way down the body.

I've been working to get out the vote, and the election was Tuesday. It was a busy day! Some people were having difficulty find out where to vote, because their district had changed or the precinct had been moved. Some needed a ride to the polls. It was a bigger mess than usual, because the turnout was very high, even after an impressive turnout for early voting in many states. I was glued to my laptop for most of Tuesday, sharing voting information on social media. 

I really like our Representative and was happy she got reelected. She shows up regularly in town, so we can have an opportunity to talk with her about things that concern us. She responds to calls and emails immediately to let us know she got it and then follows up with a detailed reply about the issue and what she is doing or plans to do about it. Her predecessor wasn't good for much. When she was voted out, she was given a job in the Trump Administration but didn't last long because of complaints of alcohol use on the job. Her husband was banned from the office because of sexual abuse of staffers. It has been so nice having a Representative who actually represents us in Congress and doesn't create scandals.

Our governor was also reelected. I was happy about that, too. She has done a lot to get people in homes. She also put a stop to the proliferation of data centers until companies can figure out how to solve the many problems associated with them. This was a big issue. Her opponent voted against the bill in the state legislature to pause data centers, which our governor signed. Now she (the other candidate) was claiming to want to pause construction, too, but she was late coming to that policy. We've had a rough couple of years, but our existing governor has worked hard to alleviate the problems we've had.

I spent some time on social media after the election recruiting people to staff phone banks to call people who had issues with their ballots, a process called "ballot curing." This is very rewarding work. People whose ballots couldn't be counted because of some issue with following the directions for how to handle the envelope, were missing a signature or had a signature that didn't exactly match what was on file, or if the voter had moved, the precinct had changed since the last time or for some other reason, like they didn't bring their photo ID and had to cast a provisional ballot. These calls are easy to make, because people are very grateful to be able to get their ballot accepted.

The squirrel has given up on the bird feeder, but the birds have found it. We had to refill it midweek. There are mostly small birds, but we did have a flicker hanging onto the feeder and eating the seeds. A lot of seeds fall to the ground, so some of the birds hang out on the ground and pick through the grass to get what they can. It's fun to watch them.

I still had to cook this week. Charlie brought home a bag of potatoes, even though we had a bunch of them in the fridge, so I decided I needed to cook some of them. I'm really enjoying the convection microwave. It's a perfect size for the smaller amounts of things I usually fix. Electricity is cheaper to operate here now, too, because of the solar farms and hydroelectric plants.

Another activity that kept me busy this week was practicing for our bell choir. Our performance was this Sunday (yesterday). We each had two bells and only needed to ring them at the right time. Our music is marked with red (for the bell in the right hand) and blue (for the left). I have difficulty with anything where I have to know right or left, but I pinned a red bow on my right glove and a blue one on the left, which helps me remember which hand is which. I don't read music very well, so I had a difficult time until I found the piece on YouTube. I practiced as I listened to the music. The music helped me remember which bell to ring and when. We made some mistakes, but the congregation really liked it.

We got to ring the bells during the recessional, too, which was much easier, because it was a hymn everyone knew. I was able to practice with the hymn on YouTube. I'm starting to get the hang of it. Now I'm looking forward to the next time we perform.

I have a lot of difficulty responding to comments to my blog posts because of technical issues beyond my control (my lack of understanding of how things work). Message me on Facebook, Ravelry, BlueSky or Spoutible if you need information.

If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon or B&N and search for Mandy's Little Science Lessons: Stories from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart". Every click on the page for the book makes it more likely they will keep a good supply in their warehouse and stores. If you are outside the US, you may have a separate website for these retailers. If you have a copy of any of our books, including Emil, Mariah, Classic Tales Retold, Our Favorite Verses, More Classic Tales Retold or Billy: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, please leave an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them. 

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: Still the Speculoos Sweater and ready to start on the Rose City Yarn Crawl's Mystery Knit Along. 

What's on my iPhone: Listening to WTF America?! by Ben, Brett and Jordy Meiselas. 

What's on my sewing machine: Still doll clothes. No progress again this week. I really have to get the things done this week.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: In Mariah's Play, Billy finds Mariah memorizing her lines for a play at school. He wants to know what it's about, and she explains that she was chosen because the play needed diversity. Studies have shown that teams made up of people from different backgrounds, religions, races and genders are better at solving problems than teams with people who are all alike. This applies to dolls, as well, and that's what the play is about.

What's my tip of the week: Here's my recipe for roasted vegetables.

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog, and they are reproduced in print with a few changes.

Book #7 is available in BookBaby's Bookshop right now. Amazon, B&N and other booksellers has it available for presale. The release date is October 27th.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less, only 8%, because the vendor gets a cut. My author's page at Book Baby is here. Scroll down and click on any of the books that interest you. Find my books at Barbara's Bookstore as well, or ask your local library to order the books.

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

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Time for Changes

The weather has been cooling off.  We've been using our fireplace. The pups are appreciating the cushion in front of the fire.

The man finally came to blow out the sprinkler system. Everything has changed in the front since last year, but we showed him our diagram of the new front yard, with each sprinkler/drip head marked, and it was easy. We won't need to water anything until spring.

I did get some knitting done this week. I have only five rounds to go to finish the colorwork. It will be straightforward after that.

We had our Madroña pop-up meeting party on Tuesday, during the World Series. It was fun, as always. It was nice to see everyone, and I could keep an eye on the game while we chatted and sipped.

I was cheering for Milwaukee. The reason is rather convoluted. I grew up in Boston and was a fan of the Boston Red Sox and the Boston Braves. After we moved to California, the Braves moved to Milwaukee, and I kept up my creds as a fan. During the 1957 World Series, I listened to the game during lunchtime at school on my new little transistor portable radio and while moving from one class to the next. (The games were during the daytime back then, and there were no playoffs.) I knew the names of all the players and was thrilled when they won. Later, when they moved to Atlanta, I continued to cheer for them. This year neither the Red Sox nor the Braves were in the series, so I had to pick a team I wanted to win. Since the Brewers are in Milwaukee as the Braves once were, that was enough of a connection, but we also have family in Wisconsin, so that was another reason. It was fun to watch the teams play. 

We got a bird feeder for the backyard. It's designed to foil squirrels. Little birds that don't weigh much can sit on the little perches and feed, but if something heavy pushes down on the perch, it sinks, closing a little door over the opening. We have squirrels that visit our backyard. This one thought he could foil the system. It didn't work, but it was amazing to watch him try.

I have been looking for a solution to the problem of not being able to hear well enough to understand bits of the sermon. The fact that our priest is from Mississippi should be no problem for me, because my mother was born and grew up in that state and had a pretty heavy accent, especially if she had just been talking on the phone with one of her sisters. It's just a word here and there I can't hear, and those words often seem to be important, based on the reaction from the congregation. I tried an app last week that's supposed to help hard-of-hearing people understand what others are saying. I found I couldn't use it at all, because it requires internet. We have to turn off our WiFi during the service, because it interferes with the streaming of the service, so that didn't work. I found this one that doesn't require WiFi. It transcribed what it thought our priest was saying, but it missed more words than I did, simply skipping them, and it changed some words into others that changed the meaning, so it may not work for me. It made the kind of mistakes AI often does. However, I'm going to see if this app has the ability to choose different accents. It has different languages, so maybe. I'll have to play with it.

It was All Saints' Day or All Souls' Day on Sunday, so we sang a fun arrangement of "When the Saints Come Marching In." I guess we did OK, because we got some applause, after some clapping in time to the music.

We had bell practice after coffee hour. It's still difficult for me, but I'm getting better.

Also this week, I had to make a trip to the Social Security Adminstration to (finally) straighten out my name problem. I was allowed to use "Peggy" as my name back in 1965, although all my other official documents have my name as "Margaret." They locked me out of my account this year because of the discrepancy, so I had to visit the office in person with my drivers license and official birth certificate. (No marriage certificate/license was needed, which is good because I only have the one the minister provided, which is unofficial.) Social Security was able to accomplish the task quickly. The clerk who helped me at SSA in Bend told me they have several people a day come in with this issue. She recommended that I contact my bank to let them know that my name would be different on the next payment.

Saturday night was Halloween. We placed Victor in the small window next to our door with a sign next to the doorbell with big letters that read: "Beware! Victor loves sweets!" The trick-or-treaters really seemed to enjoy it. 

We had a lot of youngsters stop by. Some of the younger ones not only got a treat; they also got a copy of the book that Victor appears in: Our Favorite Verses.

Johan wore his costume to school on Friday. He was the Phantom of the Opera.

Of course, we had the time change Saturday night/Sunday morning. I've been working the dogs up to staying up later at night and sleeping later in the morning, so I'm hoping they won't be getting me up at 5:00 AM. Church on Sunday was a combined service at 9:00 AM instead of 8:00 or 10:00 AM. It felt like 10:00 for those of us in the choir, so it was a nice way to ease into the new time.

This morning, the dogs and I woke up at 7:00 AM. I can live with that!

I have a lot of difficulty responding to comments to my blog posts because of technical issues beyond my control (my lack of understanding of how things work). Message me on Facebook, Ravelry, BlueSky or Spoutible if you need information.

If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon or B&N and search for Mandy's Little Science Lessons: Stories from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart". Every click on the page for the book makes it more likely they will keep a good supply in their warehouse and stores. If you are outside the US, you may have a separate website for these retailers. If you have a copy of any of our books, including Emil, Mariah, Classic Tales Retold, Our Favorite Verses, More Classic Tales Retold or Billy: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, please leave an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them. 

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: Still the Speculoos Sweater and ready to start on the Rose City Yarn Crawl's Mystery Knit Along. 

What's on my iPhone: Listening to WTF America?! by Ben, Brett and Jordy Meiselas. 

What's on my sewing machine: Still doll clothes. No progress this week.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: It has become a tradition to rerun this poem on or before Halloween. Here's Victor the Vulture, patterned after Poe's "The Raven."

What's my tip of the week: Worried about phishing emails? Check the email address of the sender by hovering over, clicking next to the name given or viewing the full header (methods vary by device and email service). Often phishing email come from addresses that sound nothing like the business they claim to be from, but some are sneaky and use something similar with one letter off or .net instead of .com.

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog, and they are reproduced in print with a few changes.

Book #7 is available in BookBaby's Bookshop right now. Amazon, B&N and other booksellers has it available for presale. The release date is October 27th.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less, only 8%, because the vendor gets a cut. My author's page at Book Baby is here. Scroll down and click on any of the books that interest you. Find my books at Barbara's Bookstore as well, or ask your local library to order the books.

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

<a href="https://www.bloglovin.com/blog/7365001/?claim=kkvctsdtf4n">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>   

Surpassing the Impossible

We journeyed through the Impassible Wilderness on Friday and returned alive! Actually, the only threat was that we might enjoy ourselves, and "Wildwood" exceeded all our expectations!

We decided to watch it at McMenamins Old St. Francis School Theater, for a different venue. The seats were almost all taken when we arrived.

We were able to see well from the seats we found, though. We got a selfie, so we could document that we had been there, in case we didn't return home.

I have to admit to having been blown away by the film. The series of trailers put out by LAIKA had prepared us for the experience, but seeing it on the big screen and with all the scenes in sequence was almost overwhelming. The puppets used are easily distinguishable from real people, but by a few seconds into the film I forgot to be overwhelmed by the complexities of stop-motion film making and became immersed in the story. I laughed. I cried (there are some sad moments). I was frightened out of my wits at times (there is violence). It was only after the film was over that I really thought about––and was amazed by––what it must have taken to manage the complexities of "filming" a stop-motion cinematic masterpiece like this. I know how they did it, because there are YouTube videos (like this one) that explain how they made the puppets, how they give them different facial expressions, and how they managed to make them appear to move, but knowing this only made me more amazed. The facial expressions gave each character a personality of their own. The scenes that included multitudes of characters flowed with the turbulence typical of real situations where each "person" moves independently.

After it was over, I also started wondering what part Peter and the other visual effects technicians played. Nothing appeared to be computer-animated. I thought about this as we watched screen after screen of the visual effects credits. They went by so fast, I had to resort to taking photos of each one, hoping to find Peter's name somewhere. I went through the screens after we left the theater and found this one. Can you find Peter Stuart?

Here I zoomed in on it, if you can't read it. 

Charlie stopped in the restroom as we were leaving on our way through the lobby. While I waited for him, a couple with a young man I assumed to be their son came out of the theater. I had seen them there and noticed them, because I recognized that the young man had Down Syndrome. We started chatting about the film, and I happened to (ahem) mention my connection to the film and was able to answer some of their questions about LAIKA. I showed them the photo of the screen where I had found Peter's name. The man wrote it down, and then they asked if they could take our photo with their son. Charlie had come out of the restroom by then. We posed for the photo. We all shook hands with each other and then left.

Saturday I mentioned the film on Spoutible and BlueSky. Someone on Spoutible said they really had to see the film now, because it's "Spoutible-adjacent." Last night that person told me they had seen the film, it was amazing, and they had applauded Peter. They also said others had stayed for the credits and applauded at other parts of the credits, so they suspected they likewise had a connection to the film.

Peter and his family went to see the film the same day we did (the first day it came out). Alexa wore her new sweater, made (presumably) just for the occasion, because crows play a rather important role in the film. The pattern is Ravenswood by Catherine Waterfield.

The boys went along to see the film. I wouldn't recommend taking very young children to this one. It's rated for age 11 and up. A baby would probably sleep through it, though.

I did get a little knitting in this past week and finished a few rounds. This photo was taken from the center back of the sweater, which is the beginning of the round, because that's where I left off when I took the photo. I really need a longer needle now. The stitches keep wanting to fall off the needle tips unless I extend them out of my work a lot when I put my knitting down.

My book comes out officially on Tuesday. Tomorrow! 😅 I hope it sells well, but I still have a lot of work to do to try to promote it, like adding it to lists on Goodreads. If you get a copy, please leave an honest review wherever you bought it or on Amazon. Many people resort to reviews when choosing books.

Speaking of reviews of sorts, I was browsing through the doll groups on Facebook, as I often do, and I came across a mention of a person sending a doll in to the doll hospital, so I mentioned that Emil and Holly enter the stories by way of the doll hospital; Emil because he couldn't see or hear, and Holly because she couldn't use her legs. Both were helped at the doll hospital by receiving a piece of special equipment: Emil's special glasses and Holly's wheelchair. I mentioned the fact that the two of them are pen pals, because Holly lives with a family far away from us. I got a rather exciting reply from the original poster.

Yes, I'm referred to in the stories as "The Writer." We never know where the ripples will end up when we throw a pebble into the water. We don't always hear about someone whose lives we have touched by some action we take, whether good or bad. When we do find out, it can be memorable.

So tomorrow the new book will begin being shipped to buyers. If you want to help the book, please look online and see if you can find it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Thriftbooks, Walmart or your local book store. If you want to read it but don't care to own it, you might ask your local library to get it for you. It's suitable for children, even very young ones because of all the pictures (photographs of the dolls in action) and can grow with the child, even providing topics of discussion with others as the reader grows older. My books also are appreciated by doll collectors, who secretly perhaps like to imagine their little charges coming to life and having adventures.

As if all that were not enough to keep me busy, it's election season. Election Day is next Tuesday! We have the usual signs in our newly redesigned front yard.

We filled out our ballots Monday and Tuesday (there were a lot of things to research and discuss) and I dropped them off at the drop box near the library. There was no line, but there was a steady stream of cars driving up to the box, stopping for a voter to deposit their ballot, and then moving on. I got out and took a selfie. Our ballots: more ripples in the water. We will find out who wins each of the races we voted on, but where will our impact go from there? Future generations will be affected by what we do and how we vote.

Saturday we went to the symphony. A violinist named John Fawcett played the solo violin part in the Violin Concerto No. 1, Op. 26, by Max Bruch. He was amazing.

He received a standing ovation that went on for some time and consented to come back and do an encore. The encore blew us away. It seemed improvisational, striking chords of Dixieland jazz and Bluegrass. Somewhere in the middle, he worked in Amazing Grace, which I took to be a tribute to those killed at our Silver Rail Elementary School on October 15th.

Here's the program.

Fawcett discovered the violin as a toddler at a Bluegrass performance. Imagine if someone had taken it away from him and told him not to play with it! He might never have learned to play the violin. He started lessons at the age of five. Now he performs all over the country and teaches others to play. (Ripples again.)

On Sunday, we had the children with us during the church service, so the music was aimed at the young ones. Most of them had come in costume, and some of the adults were wearing costumes, too.

I had bought a transcribing app from the Apple App Store a few days before, so I could read the sermon as it was spoken, like closed captions on Television and in videos. However, I found out when I tried to use it that you have to have internet for it to work. I had turned off my internet, as I always do, because it interferes with the streaming transmission for the people at home. I'm going to have to return the app and try to find another one, one that doesn't require internet to function.

After church, we had our bell-choir rehearsal. I'm still struggling, but I think it's getting better. I will practice this week. It seems impossible, but hard work often makes the impossible possible, and sometimes things that are the most challenging turn out the best.

I have a lot of difficulty responding to comments to my blog posts because of technical issues beyond my control (my lack of understanding of how things work). Message me on Facebook, Ravelry, BlueSky or Spoutible if you need information.

If you have a few minutes and are willing, please go to Amazon or B&N and search for Mandy's Little Science Lessons: Stories from The Doll's Storybook by Peggy Stuart". Every click on the page for the book makes it more likely they will keep a good supply in their warehouse and stores. If you are outside the US, you may have a separate website for these retailers. If you have a copy of any of our books, including Emil, Mariah, Classic Tales Retold, Our Favorite Verses, More Classic Tales Retold or Billy: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, please leave an honest review on the websites, especially if you bought from them. 

Where's my blog: If you want to follow my blog, go here and sign up to follow.

What's on my needles: Still the Speculoos Sweater and ready to start on the Rose City Yarn Crawl's Mystery Knit Along in January. 

What's on my iPhone: Listening to The Girl in the Spider's Web by David Lagercrantz. 

What's on my sewing machine: Still doll clothes.

What's in The Doll's Storybook: In this week's story from The Doll's Storybook, we find Mariah interviewing Emil about what it was like to start out with a disability and Billy perhaps finds a future vocation in All About the News.

What's my tip of the week: In the movie "Cinderella," Cinderella's mother tells her to have courage and be kind. It's good advice. If everyone would follow that advice, the ripple effect would make this a better world.

Where are my books: The stories in each book first appeared in the blog, and they are reproduced in print with a few changes.

Book #7 is available in BookBaby's Bookshop right now. Amazon, B&N and other booksellers has it available for presale. The release date is October 27th.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less, only 8%, because the vendor gets a cut. My author's page at Book Baby is here. Scroll down and click on any of the books that interest you. Find my books at Barbara's Bookstore as well, or ask your local library to order the books.

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

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