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This is Eglentyne

 

I am Dani Smith, sometimes known as Eglentyne.  This blog is one of my hobbies.  I also knit, sew, run, parent, cook, eat, read, and write fiction.  I have too many hobbies and don't sleep enough.

The title up there makes it sound like this is a knitting blog.  And it is.  Sometimes.  Mostly I talk about whatever is on my mind, and since I'm a knitter, knitting is sometimes on my mind.  When I can find my mind, scattered among three children, a spouse, some tropical fish, and a creepy frog.   

Books are frequently on my mind.  Almost all of the books I mention on this site come from my local library because 1) I love my local library and its smart librarians, and 2) I don't have enough money to feed my reading habit (or the insatiable reading habit of the three Sonars) with purchased books.  If the books come from another source, I'll let you know.  

I put together the images and the words on these pages with thoughtfulness and love.  If you would like to quote small passages, please feel free to do so as long as you attribute them to me and link back to this site.  If you would like to repost large sections or whole posts, please contact me for permission and verification.  I can be reached via Twitter (@eglentyne) or by email (eglentyne at gmail dot com).  Thank you for respecting my intellectual property and for promoting the free-flow of information and ideas.  If you're not respecting intellectual property, then you're stealing.  Don't be a stealer.  Steelers are ok sometimes, but I really don't like thieves.  

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    Entries in It Looks Like I'm Doing Nothing... (39)

    Tuesday
    15Sep2009

    2 x 2 x 3 x 3

    Posted on DateTuesday, September 15, 2009 at 2:17PM

    Yep, I did it.  I went and had a birthday yesterday.  Apparently I'm six-years-old.  Or maybe that's six squared?Don't let the melty-looking cake fool you.  It was the best mocha-chocolate cake ever.  


    Eglentyne X36 (sporting a brand-new Cibola High School t-shirt) and Sonar X9 (worried that the cake is going to slide off the table)

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    Friday
    10Jul2009

    Welcome to Old Friends and New

    Posted on DateFriday, July 10, 2009 at 3:38PM

    The shift from Blogger to Squarespace has taken me longer than anticipated.  I'm trying to work through a few technical issues, including the domain and comments.  Those of you familiar with the blog over at Alert the Pizza will see that all of my old ramblings are here.  I've spread out a bit and added some new features as well.  I hope to be around here more often in the hopes that I can get my writing muscles back into shape.  

    Coming soon: Our Summer Vacation, Updates on the Sonars, and a Running Rundown

     

    Sonar X4, Sonar X9, and Sonar X6 in the Japanese Garden at the Rio Grande Botanic Garden in Albuquerque, NM, July 2009 (click to embiggen, it's worth it)

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    Wednesday
    11Feb2009

    Sonar X-Toothless

    Posted on DateWednesday, February 11, 2009 at 1:39PM



    A photo of Sonar X5 from a couple of weeks ago (I'm catching up), revealing a gap where his first lost tooth used to be.  

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    Friday
    26Dec2008

    The December 23rd Post

    Posted on DateFriday, December 26, 2008 at 12:50PM

    I know.  Too many posts on one day.  Why not just make one big post and be done with it.  Because it's my blog and I'll do it how I want to.  Besides, I've been sick in a house full of people for days and I'm feeling just a little silly and gratuitous in the sudden quiet.  


    And because a serious face would be neither possible nor desirable:


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    Thursday
    11Dec2008

    Recent Lessons

    Posted on DateThursday, December 11, 2008 at 1:58PM

    Lesson 1: Occam's Sewing Razor


    When the squeak on the sewing machine becomes so maddening, and the top thread is breaking every five minutes, before I stick my head into the partially dismantled, Running sewing machine, I should consider making sure that the needle is installed in the correct orientation.  That didn't solve the squeak.  Still had to stick my head in the machine to find that.  But now I Know.  

    Lesson 2:  My eyes are bigger than my hands

    I am enamored of the art of much knitting.  Sometimes I see a really incredible design and I must try it.  Often it's about Trying a particular technique, a particular decrease, a clever little design element.  Lately (i.e. for the past several months), the projects I have fallen in love with have been either large or complicated (or in two cases, both).  This all by itself slowed down the knitting considerably.  On top of that, I got myself into a sort finger/hand/wrist/arm/shoulder spiral that is difficult to get myself out of.  This brought the knitting to a screaming halt.  So there are three lovely, but oh so far from finished, big and/or complicated projects staring at me, begging to be finished, but I can knit no more than a few minutes a day, if that, without bringing about the need for icepacks and narcotics.  

    This is not fun.  This is not right.  It has also led to more sewing than knitting this Christmas season.  

    Also, these projects are also intended for other people.  Other people who know about them and hope to actually hold them in their hands someday.  I feel an obligation to finish them, which makes the knitting feel more like Work than like this cool hobby that I do because I get a little thrill from taking a long piece of string and knotting it just so over and over (and over and over) and Voila! Clever, three-dimensional, useful object!

    So I have learned that I really do prefer simple designs that I can hold in my hands, carry in my wee bag.  That aren't huge.  This is what I really really prefer.  Now, if I can just get through the big complicated things, so I can get to some small simple things.  

    Lesson 3: Should vs. Could, a lesson from Billy Jean King

    I saw some round-table discussion on You Tube or something.  Oh, I remember, it was from Oprah, and O was chatting with Billy Jean King, Maria Shriver, and Gloria Steinem.  I forget what they were talking about, but Ms. King said that one of the ways she overcomes stress and guilt and all such self-defeating sorts of thinking is to replace "should" with "could" when it pops up in her head.  I.e. I should scrub the fingerprints off of the lightswitch plate in the kitchen.  vs.  I could scrub the fingerprints....  "Should" is a do it or feel bad about it kind of word, whereas "could" is a word of potential and, more importantly, choice.  As in, I could choose to do it or not.  

    I was thinking that the holidays should be happy.  Ding ding ding.  The holidays 'could' be happy.  Which is a weird one, because either one suggests that the holidays aren't actually happy, when really they sort of are, but they're also sort of stressful.  But the source of that stress may be trying to live up to some idealized fantasy of what it 'should' be.  If we consider the idealized fantasy as something that 'could' be if we had infinite time and resources and and and, it becomes much easier to let that ideal go and still be satisfied with what the holidays actually are.  Which in my case, is a time when I get together with at least some of the people that I dearly love, or at least touch base with many of the important people in my life.  

    More people 'could' choose to not worry about whether they have the most perfectly decorated tree, or the most Christmas lights on the block, or the perfect gift, and just look around and breathe in what is already around them.  More people could.  Yes, indeedy.  

    *smooch*

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