Latest book project!

Latest book project!
Originally uploaded by bburbank

Finished! I really like the braids on the spine. You can't tell from this picture but this book is really tall and skinny and opens flat which makes it great for lists or daily journaling. I took careful notes and made myself diagrams so I can reproduce this project. I should try right away before I forget all the little tricks I learned making this one.

Living for the weekend

This Friday I was in one of those terrible mood funks I couldn't escape no matter how hard I tried. Ben came home and found me grumpy, tired, and frustrated and said just the things I needed to hear at just the right time. The main gist of his message was that we are going to stop living life in limbo, settle in, and enjoy ourselves! Stop acting like we might leave any moment (that attitude keeps stopping us from doing so many things from traveling to cleaning to participating in new activities to making friends). With that, we spent the rest of the weekend trying to remedy that trend.

I finished my bookbinding project (picture coming soon), watched three movies, started a new book (Vincent Van Gogh recommended it to me!), took long walks, reconnected with family, played in the new kiddie pool with Jho, cleaned, baby-proofed and organized Jho's room, reconnected with an old college writing partner, played Magic cards with Ben, and today we bit the bullet and went to Universal Studios! I needed that.

We are also planning a trip to Maine to celebrate our friends, Chris and Leslie's, wedding. I haven't traveled since our trip to Japan and I am so excited at the prospect.

Live, Jess. Don't just plan to live.

Idea

I think that life is best lived paid attention to. I really like making books and I like writing about what I see and experience and collecting mementos to help me remember what I've seen and done. I had a fun idea of binding pretty books with matching boxes and include with them a pair of little scissors, a gluestick and some tape with a note from me explaining the book's purpose. I think the binding I'm currently using would be great for this type of journal. Maybe I should use it that way as an experiment.

Week #3, Goals

1. Finish my book binding project...for real this time!

2. Sew baby sling and get to the point where I could thread and use the sewing machine without Mel's help.

3. Read - which book? I have so, soo many that I want to read. I'm thinking my next EL Doctorow book I borrowed from the library, although I have Zola and Joyce waiting for me on my iPhone and I have Paul Theroux and the Roald Dahl book Jenny lent me and Thunderstruck and Austen. The list never shortens, only extends.

4. Get back to creative writing, at least my 3oo words a day.

5. Greeting cards, Jess. Get a few messages on some index cards, already!

Progress, Week #2

Wow, not much progress this week as far as my weekly goals. The days go by waaaay too fast. Just two weeks in and I'm back to my age-old question, do I let myself do what I feel like doing, even if what I feel like doing is not doing things that feel too difficult? I mean, I don't have to do anything. But I always feel the need to do something and I have aspirations of doing lots and lots of things. This week I felt like reading, so I did finish the book, The Yellow House and thought about art a lot, which felt good. I remembered how much I love Humanities and Art History. It made me want to read tons of art history books.

I also made some good meals and spent some quality time with family. Jenny came over for dinner and Adam came up! I learned how to play Magic cards and actually found that I enjoyed it! I played video games and found myself wanting to actually get on a basketball court and play a game. Weird! I tried to work on my book binding project, but found that I did the next step wrong and had to rip out the binding. Boo. I find with so little time to dedicate to any one project I end up doing a sloppier job than I would like to. I made patriotic brownies for the Fourth of July and made videos of Jhonen with my iPhone. Tomorrow I think Mel and I might get out the sewing machine and make the baby slings. I'll post pictures of the results! I think for my next sewing project (if there is one...we'll see how tomorrow goes...) I want to sew myself a cute apron. I wore one while I made the brownies and felt very housewify, in a good way!

So, the question is, if I'm going to ignore my weekly goals and do whatever the heck I want to anyway should I continue writing weekly goals at all?

What Do I Want?

I'm dealing with issues of want this week - not really wanting what I can't have, but wanting things to happen that I have no power to make happen and wanting things to happen that I do have power to make happen, but I don't.

Wanting things makes me superstitious. If you just wear your lucky socks...maybe if I pretend not to want it, I'll get it this time....don't jinx it by talking about it...this one didn't come through because it wasn't supposed to....it will happen at the right time, it's just not the right time yet.

Wanting is why I'd have a really hard time being a Buddhist. And also why I should be one.