What I’m Writing: Uncharacteristically, nothing formally at the moment; I’m waiting to hear about two book proposals, one for a serious new project, titled “Everyday Annunciations,” being considered at Liturgical Press, and the other for a children’s picture book based on my sweet yearling kitten, titled “How Flora Learned Her Manners,” which is currently out to three publishers specializing in that genre. If good news comes, I need to be ready to jump back in! But of course ideas for article-length work that have been back-burnered have been jumping on my head, and I’ve been making promising notes. One is a knitting piece for the magazine Taproot‘s fall issue (theme, “Stitch”) now in incubation stage, the other an Advent piece-in-sketch-draft for St. Anthony Messenger based on a talk I gave to my parish, Holy Spirit of Pocatello, last November. If you’re someone who wants to write, let me suggest that it would be good for you too to cultivate a roster of projects at various stages, from vague gleam-in-your-eye ideas (keep a notebook!), to work-in-progress, to things submitted. It’s hard to wait, yes! But the hopeful in-between time such waiting imposes can be a wonderful space to foster the next thing–and that way if the news is bad (perish the thought!) you’ve already started down a promising new path.
What I’m Reading: Peter Wohlleben’s The Weather Detective, a nonfiction book about how to read weather signs and thus grow better at predicting the weather. Though as someone who spends a lot of time in the mountains I already know some of this, I’m finding much new and fascinating here. Caveats: this book is written from the perspective of somebody living in Europe (so our weather patterns, bird species, etc. will be different), and focuses strongly on implications for gardeners. Nevertheless, thanks to it I now know more clearly what topics google for my location and have started to adapt what I’m learning to “noticing” in my locale–and you can do that, too. Rest assured that a lot of its technical-but-readable background is immediately applicable anywhere (am loving the section on clouds, in particular).
Something Beautiful in My World: I’m really enjoying the satisfaction of designing this little Aran sweater for the beautiful and spirited Nora, one of my many unofficial goddaughters who is about to turn five. It’s still winter in Idaho (more snow is predicted this week, though it’s backing off a bit in volume), so she’ll have time to wear it before the weather gets too warm. Note the bobbles; I’m usually not a fan of them, thinking of bobbles as too cutsie, but, hey, she’s FIVE! For you knitters, the yarn is Malabrigo worsted in Dusty.
