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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 You Can Know Who Did It (7)

    Thursday
    29Jan2009

    Hey You Guuuuuuuuuuuuys!

    Posted on DateThursday, January 29, 2009 at 11:46AM

    Have you heard that the Sesame Workshop (the production company that has produced many great children's television programs, including Sesame Street, Dragon Tales, and 3-2-1 Contact, among others) has resurrected and revamped The Electric Company?  I fondly remember this show--that featured the likes of Bill Cosby, Rita Moreno, and Morgan Freeman, among others--from my childhood.  When I heard it was being rebooted, I was skeptical.  


    Check out this Then and Now spot and then come back.  

    Sonar X4 and I have watched two of the new episodes, and at first I thought it was completely cheeseball.  But I'm trying to keep an open mind and give it a chance.  The storylines and the acting are fully campy, but familiar features like the Sound-out silhouettes are there.  A number of celebrities have appeared already, including retired NFL player and sports commentator Tiki Barber.  

    After one whole episode, I started to warm to it.  The camp aside, the show, which claims to target six to nine year olds, does not talk down to kids, and pulls in a good variety of simple words and more advanced words when demonstrating a concept.  

    For example, in the episode we watched today, they were talking about "-ight."  They started with the standard words--"right," "light," "might," etc.--but went on to do "frightening," "bullfight" and others that pushed beyond the basics in a clever way.  They even joked about how it can be confusing that sometimes the sound is spelled "-ight" and sometimes it's spelled "-ite."

    But today, I was completely won over by this closing music video.  I defy you to not get a warm fuzzy feeling in your chest, or to not at least tap your feet.  I admit to doing the electric slide through the kitchen when I listened to the video a second time.  Shh, don't tell anyone.  

    So I'd say the show is worth a look-see (or a Plug in, if you want to follow the electricity metaphors), if it's available in your area, even if you don't have a young person around to share it with.  


    [Link to YouTube video of The Electric Company: Then and Now]
    [Link to YouTube video of "Electric City" performed by Wyclef Jean and Nikki Yanofsky]

    AuthorEglentyne | CommentPost a Comment |
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    Thursday
    06Nov2008

    The NaNoWriMo Post-Election Update

    Posted on DateThursday, November 6, 2008 at 10:42AM

    Proud to be an American

    Wow.  Just wow.  I'm still so excited and proud and relieved about the results of the presidential election.  Disappointed in the outcome of some local races, but I have a good feeling that things will work out for the best.  

    I want to hold on to this hope and enthusiasm and do Something.  I'm about as far from the White House as most of us, but I think we can all find some little way to Be Nice, Live the Hope and try to make our communities and our country and our world a better place.  

    For me, this starts small, helping out a little more at the kids' school, on the philosophy that every little thing we can do to make the whole school better helps all of the kids.  I'm also investigating volunteer opportunities at the local library.  

    What thing, small or large, can you do to help us all live in a better world?

    A Month of Literary Abandon

    In other news, we are in day six of NaNoWriMo.  For those of you who don't know, this is a crazy, month-long, writing extravaganza, in which people from all over the world try to write a novel in one month.  The goal is to write 50,000 new words during the month of November.  And this year is the tenth anniversary.  More than 120,000 writers from all over the world, many of them just regular schmoes like us who might never have written a thing in their lives before right now are whipping out blank sheets of paper or opening up text files and starting to pound out stories.  

    There are writing forums, a procrastination station, a very cool word-counting widget that lets you mark your progress, weekly encouragement newsletters from writers un-famous, famous and infamous.  Last year Neil Gaiman put in his good cheer, among others.  Brian Jacques, Meg Cabot, and Philip Pullman are among the list of notable Pep Talkers this year.  And at the end of the month, if you've written more than 50,000 words, you can verify your word count with the word counter robots and you get a lovely certificate and badges for your blog or web page, as well as the satisfaction of know that you did a hard thing.  

    Participation in NaNo is free, but The Office of Letters and Light, the non-profit organization that runs both NaNo in November and ScriptFrenzy in June, takes donations to cover their overhead costs as well as in support of the Young Writers Program.  YWP seeks to provide materials and support to get young people involved in writing as a valuable form of self-expression.  Their motto: "We believe in ambitious acts of the imagination."  The goal this year, in honor of the tenth anniversary of NaNo, is to get donations, big or small, from at least ten percent of participants.  They're up to 3.6 percent at last count.  

    In my personal novelling quest, I have achieved 8500 words so far.  My goal is to write 2000 words per day.  I missed goal on the first, which was a planning and mapping day for me.  I also missed goal on Tuesday (the election was just too distracting and exciting), but managed to make up a little ground yesterday.  The tickle of sinus congestion promises to be a challenge today, but I'm hoping to hit 11,000 before I go to bed tonight.  

    If you've ever thought that there might be a novel knocking around in the back of your mind, this is a fun and butt-kicking opportunity to start to capture that idea and get it down on paper.  It's totally not too late to start.  I try to write in 15 minute bursts here and there throughout the day (though mostly during afternoon naptime and after the kids go to bed), and on a good day I can spit out 300-400 words in each 15-minute stretch.  If you can manage to get a friend writing at the same time, it can be very motivational to have 10- or 15-minute Word Wars, races to see who can write the most in a short burst of time.  (Go ahead, suggest another metaphor for me to throw in that messy mix)

    I'm eglentyne on the NaNo site.  Send me an email to eglentyne at gmail and I'll add you as a buddy.  

    Writing with a friend--or 120,000 friends--or writing with a deadline can make the writing fun and really get the words flowing.  

    Give it a shot.  At least drop by the site.  And leave a fiver in the jar as you pass through.  

    AuthorEglentyne | Comment1 Comment |
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    Thursday
    23Oct2008

    Standing hose and What I do and What I don't do

    Posted on DateThursday, October 23, 2008 at 10:46AM

    "Let us enrich ourselves with our mutual difference."  Paul Valery, poet and philosopher (1871-1945)

    So I started making a pair of Kilt Hose for my uncle last Friday.  Kilt Hose are BIG socks.  Knee-high Man Socks.  These are knit on US Size 2 knitting needles, with sock-weight yarn and start at a staggering 108 stitches per round.  Breathe deep with me, because there is hope, as they diminish with the lovely curve of the human calf to a more manageable 76 stitches for the ankle and the rest of the (man) foot.  

    Here is what they looked like sometime earlier this week, with the cuff folded up.  Maybe about five inches total.  



    Here is what they look like this morning.  With the two inch cuff folded, they now come in at just a shade more than seven inches, and they still stand up on their own.  Pretty impressive since they're not knit in a tight gauge.  In fact they are squishy-soft and completely yummy to hold in my hands.  Any bets on how much longer they'll stand on their own?  Nine inches?  Twelve?!


    In other news of the crafting type, I am still elbow deep in Halloween costumes.  I came across this Suburban Kamikaze post the other day.  I love this--both the idea and the loving and irreverent sarcasm--and if a knight had been requested in this house, there's an entirely good chance that we would have sought an acceptable substitute for chain mail.  Like window screen maybe.  

    Before you go grumbling in your tea about Suburban Overachievers, I think a defense is in order.  

    It takes time to do these insane things that I do.  Time that gets deducted from other things, like sleep and eating.  I don't like giving up sleeping and eating, so the time that I take to make ridiculously large socks or insanely complicated Halloween costumes for small children that will be worn once and then relegated to the dress-up bin has to come from something else.  

    I have three kids.  Partner and I do all of the things that three kids need parents to do.  Including a lot of laundry.  When I'm not writing, I do sew, I do knit, I do walk an awful lot, I do volunteer a little bit at the school, I do bake all of our bread, I do cook weird things sometimes.  I like to color in coloring books with my kids and to build things with K'nex.  

    Whether I'm writing or not, I do not watch more than two or three hours of television a week.  I do not wear make-up, paint my nails, shave my legs, or color my hair.  For that matter, I do not blow-dry, curl or style my hair beyond combing it--sometimes with my fingers.  I do not ascribe to the consume-as-much-as-possible model of democracy and patriotism.  I do not believe in the "Bush Doctrine" (unless we're talking about sex).  I also do not iron, my house is generally messy, and I spend an absolute minimum time shopping for anything.  

    How much time out of the week do/would these things take me?  

    These choices obviously do not suit everyone, and that's great.  How boring would a world full of me be?  (Oh hush, you know it would be maddening.  After a while anyway.)  Every parent has limited time.  Every parent has to seek a kind of harried balance in one way or another.  Trade-offs will be made for the things you find important and happy-making and useful.  This is my balance point.  It teeters this way or that sometimes.  But so far it hasn't fallen over completely.  

    I won't kick myself with guilt over the things I do and don't choose, as long as you don't kick yourself with guilt over the things you do and don't choose.  And we can get together over kamikazes.  Or tea.  Whatever you choose.  

    AuthorEglentyne | CommentPost a Comment |
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    Tuesday
    30Sep2008

    What Kind of World Do You Want?

    Posted on DateTuesday, September 30, 2008 at 1:16PM




    Lovely song.  Lovely idea.  



    "History starts now."  


    AuthorEglentyne | CommentPost a Comment |
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    Sunday
    14Sep2008

    Not Done Yet

    Posted on DateSunday, September 14, 2008 at 11:30AM

    Ok, so I really really hoped that I was done with Ike.  But Ike isn't done with us yet.  Not by a long shot.  


    Partner's parents, northwest of Houston a couple of hours, experienced Category 1 winds and buckets of rain.  They're fine.  Their house is fine.  They are among the lucky ones.  

    They have been without electricity since early yesterday morning.  Their power company says it'll be somewhere between five days and two weeks (weeks!) until their power is restored.  Besides lacking the obvious luxuries like fridge and air conditioning, the pump on their well is electric, as is the overflow on their septic tank.  So the less obvious luxuries of bathing and flushing are out for a while.  They can cook on a gas stove, but have no way to keep food very cold.  The local town does have electricity, and the roads are clear and stores and restaurants are open and functional.  We have nonetheless encouraged them to come stay with us for a while.  

    Granddad works in the insurance industry, and will likely be busy for the next few... well, for a while.  

    On a psychological front, I can't let go of Ike yet.  I feel compelled to watch as the damage and casualties emerge, knowing full well that one of those splintered homes could have been mine but for a late curve to the north.  I feel compelled to grieve with those who have lost their homes, who may have lost neighbors and loved ones.

    I am fine, and lucky, and I know that this second-hand grief will pass.  It will pass for me much more quickly than for those in Houston and Galveston and elsewhere in east Texas and Louisiana.  

    I want you to do something for me.  Hug someone you love.  Call a friend you haven't seen for a while.  Count your blessings.  Do something to help someone.  

    AuthorEglentyne | CommentPost a Comment |
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