Travelling write along…

Paige Nick is having a good day

...and so is The Bookery. Thank you to everyone who clicked to win money for the cause. The link to Ms Nick's jubilation is here.

Me, Home Affairs, Paige Nick and Bookery

So I spent this morning at my local Home Affairs and they found me. Easily. Even showed me a print off of where they are at (not far...but there is positive forward movement). I am very glad to see a PRINT OUT and not just hear 'It's fine.' One thing I've learned in the past two years is what you are TOLD is often not the same as planet reality.

In more charitable news, Paige Nick of the blog A million miles from normal (and a lovely book by the same name) is a fan of the charity Bookery. If you are a book lover, then this is the charity for you. She is also trying to win money for the charity via pricecheck. I don't know if the voting is restricted to SA peeps, but it let me click on the button without any pesky signing up or other bothersome things. So even if you are without a cent today, give Paige a click and help her win some cash for the cause. Okay? Okay!

Bobby Brown's Little Friends

Spoiler Alert! Spoiler Alert! Do not read on if you haven't already read the short story, Bobby Brown. 

I'm never sure how much I should say about where, how and why a story came into being. But in the case of "Bobby Brown" I feel a moral obligation to tell you a bit. As many of you already know, Bobby Brown himself was inspired from a painting. That was, on the whole, the start. I had nothing more. A name in my head, a man and his guitar and there ya go.

Then I keep getting asked about the dictionary gimmick. The day I heard Matthew died, the man who painted the painting, I went to my writer's group. During the meeting a member raved about the book The Elegance of the Hedgehog. She loved the language, the big words. Lamented that modern writers don't use enough of the language any more, that words were dying out. 

The trouble is, language, while beautiful, can also sound pretentious and put readers off. Too much fun with a thesaurus and readers give up, not wanting to spend quality time with a dictionary, when all they wanted, in fact, was to read a damn good story before bed. The two are not always the same. Thus, while I listened to the woman read out the words she loved all I could think was, "the only way many of those words would work would be if the definition was included right in the book."

!

Why not? Don't think I used a single word she mentioned, but I rather enjoyed thumbing through the dictionary. All those options! I confess, I changed my mind more than once.

But the real point of today's post is to expound upon Bobby's little friends. Given the spirit of the story, it seemed a bit hypocritical to not highlight a place or two. The place Bobby visits is fictitious, but yes, these homes do exist, and they are always in need of donations and volunteers. Admittedly, I've never visited or volunteered at such a place. But I have met people who have volunteered at Little Angels, and Tertia has blogged about House of Grace from time to time. So now, you know about them, too.

My fiction is always fiction, not a reworked story of my life. But yes, from time to time bits of life get woven into the story. It is important to balance what you know, with what you don't. What is more fascinating, however, is how much of my life, after a story has been written, has turned into that of one of my characters': such as writing a book on a woman dealing with an unexpected pregnancy and then, the very day we began talks to potential publishers of that exact book, discovering I was, unexpectedly pregnant with my first child. And now the ending of "Bobby Brown" is coming true, in its own way, with me writing to you about Bobby's friends.

Perhaps I should be more cautious about what I write...

Writers and handbags

Last full day of school today before the five weeks of World Cup madness begins! This includes all SA children being on Winter Break the whole entire time. Chaos? I think so. Could be fun. Could lose my mind and not remember a thing. Or I'll remember it and my love for the beautiful game shall be severely tainted. Only time will tell.

In the meantime, I'm off to a writer's meetings since it is local and none of my children are sick / injured / in hospital. Which is a marvellous thing, indeed. Consequently, I'm ignoring writing about other writers' works, since I'm going to go hang out with a bunch of 'em. 

That said, another SA writer posted a little something on her blog the other day that caught my attention so I thought I'd repost a bit of it here, too - The Handbag Project.

In short, rape survivors often have to leave their clothes with the District Surgeon. A difficult situation during an already traumatic time. The handbag project gives them a clean pair of underwear, a handbag and something to try to lift up the soul. Keep in mind, it isn't just handbags, backpacks are welcome too, as many rape survivors are also men and children (both boys and girls).

The complete details sent to Damaria Senne can be read here, which contain the information of what you can do and where to send it if this is something you'd be interested in. There is also an FB page. 

Please, take the time and have a look if you can. Every little bit helps.

I think it is winter

Hospital life has its lulls. The void cannot always be filled with TV or books (although I try very hard to cram as many books into my life, believe me, I do). Thankfully, my carpal tunnel seems to be less of an issue and I could knit. Not very much, but it wasn't complicated knitting. Knitting I could drop in an instant: if a beep went off and my daughter's line needed to be straightened, throw up bucket needing to be grabbed, or to stem the flow of some crazy nappy leak. Knitting in the round: rhythmic, easy and full of comfort. 

To all you folks warming up in the lovely rays of summer, spare of thought for the newborn babes shivering, sometimes in a cardboard shack. It's winter in Cape Town and there are so many babies that could use a woolly hat, jersey (sweater), or itty bitty booties. If you have a few spare moments, from time to time, it would be wonderful if you could cast on and send these fluffy delights to:

Bosom Buddies
PO Box 2748
Somerset West
7129
SOUTH AFRICA

For more information click: Bosom Buddies

Cautious about Haiti

Haiti - what a heartbreaking mess. A catastrophe in a world where the word is overused.

Money is pouring in and...and I have not donated a cent.

I'm still thinking about it. And I know that what I just said is a hugely unpopular statement. But hear me out.

Husband put it one way, "There are poor and starving right out our front door."

Okay, not exactly on my doorstep, but drive for five minutes and I'm sure we'll see a few, or many. 

I don't like to play the "whose poorer" game. It isn't nice. But that doesn't mean I toss money into every basket put before me. As I've aged I've lost my innocence in donating and begun to see how some money works harder than other money. How help can hurt. How...money doesn't always get to where it is supposed to. How sometimes giving is more about being trendy than actually caring about people's plights.

Haiti needs help. No doubt about it. Country probably needed help last year, too. But right now the country is desperate. Donations are pouring in and...

Is the aid even getting there? That was my first question when all the pleas began.

The answer appears to be, some of it. And the fighting, the chaos, not in Haiti, but between outside countries and aid agencies is heartbreaking to read. People are dying and the goods are not even getting to them.

And when it is getting to people, it is often to the strongest. Pregnant women, women burden with small children, children, elderly - when food and supplies are simply "plopped" onto the ground  - these people will see none of it.

The security situation worsened, with some looters fighting with rocks and clubs for rice, clothing and other goods scavenged from debris. In places the embryonic aid machine did not even try to organise distribution. Aid workers tossed out food packets to crowds and US helicopters took off as soon as they offloaded supplies, prompting scrambles in which the fittest and strongest prevailed.

"They are not identifying the people who need the water. The sick and the old have no chance," Estime Pierre Deny, ­hoping to fill a plastic container with water amid a scrum of people, told Reuters.

But please do not misunderstand me - I am not asking you to not give.  What I am trying to encourage is for you to think about how you are giving and to whom. For example, The Yarn Harlot and many knitting organisations are promotion Doctors Without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières.

The Yarn Harlot makes two very good points about giving to this organisation. One: how to make your donation work the best:

There are directed donation sites set up for Haiti on all of their websites, but I'd like to take a moment to ask you to please make your donation "undirected".   Money given to a specific fund can only be used for that area and making sure your donation is undirected helps them a lot.  It lets them keep serving other crises that continue to happen while the world watches Haiti, and more importantly, it allows them to be first responders.

Two: Yes, Haiti is terrible, but so will the next tragedy and the tragedies occurring daily right under our noses.

after this there will sadly be another need, and donating to the general emergency fund means that when another bad thing happens, they'll be ready from the word go.  (Also - let's not forget that there are about a thousand other places in need that just aren't getting air time.  While we're all worrying about Haiti, there are still floods, famines, wars  and malaria happening in other parts of the world, and MSF is serving those folks too.)

Also consider, where is this donation money going to come from? If a person decides to skip the restaurant or the movies this week to give - fantastic. If a person has been looking for a cause and this spoke to their heart and that money was already around - great! Honestly, I think the outpouring of people's generosity is beautiful; and, I'm thrilled so many care about people outside their normal sphere.

But if that money donated to Haiti normally helps, say,  your local soup kitchen, or homeless shelter - then hold on a moment. Don't take from one hungry mouth to feed another.

And finally, try to find out about whom and where you are giving. There are a lot of people pledging to donate half their profits etc... and while that is great - not everybody is as nice they seem. Taking an extra few minutes to think / research about who is behind this "pledge" can make the difference.

So no, I have not made a concrete decision regarding Haiti. But...I'm still thinking about the guys down the street, too. And the fact that the already generous aid is backlogged has slightly depressed me, to say the least.

*Please excuse the font. Trying to change it to a more readable font was screwing up the rest of the formatting and the links.

Over-the-shoulder-bolder-holders

Or maybe that only describes mine when I'm nursing. . .

Some of you may have noticed a comment in my last post from a lovely lady named Mel thanking me for my bras. Don't know what you were thinking - but I'd like to elaborate for the greater good.

To all you retired nursing mothers out there: there are many women would would adore your used nursing bras.

No, really. Huge need, few donations. 

A donation - the cost of postage - and you'll know it is directly benefiting a woman (and her baby).

Bosom Buddies
PO Box 2748
Somerset West
7129
SOUTH AFRICA

 

Tertia Albertyn

You have probably already heard of her: She is one of the most well known bloggers in South Africa, and author to:

So Close, By Tertia Albertyn whose blog is here, Book - US, SA and Abe Books

This non-fiction work follows Tertia's trials through the difficult world of infertility. It is blunt, funny and breaks your heart, all at the same time.

High literature? No.

An important book to read? Yes.

Wish I read it when I was younger, would have saved me from sticking my foot in my mouth many of times.

Will every reader agree with her choices? Probably not. That isn't the point. Pull the beam out of your own eye first before looking at the other persons, never know till you've walked in that person's shoes -  and all that good stuff.

As to how I stumbled across her book - while actually locating a copy was random, my hearing of it was not.

My first baby came about in a rather surprising fashion. Write a book about an unexpected pregnancy, find agent, discover you are unexpectedly pregnant despite working very hard to prevent such occurrences.

Due to that little fact, when it came to try to obtain child number two, we thought it would be easy. Not so much. In the grand scope of things, it did not take long - 8 cycles. On the other hand, give our age and everything else (already having one) it caught us off guard. By three months into the whole thing, we were less than amused. By cycle 7 I was starting to wonder if something was wrong.

During that time another friend was undergoing similar circumstances. She passed on the link to Tertia's blog. Thus, I became an avid reader. (On a brighter note, our second children's birthdays are only a few weeks apart, just like our firsts. Odd how life works out.)

Thus, from getting pregnant on both ends of the spectrum - utter shock to utter relief - I can safely say that in general, people say some dumb and insensitive stuff no matter where you are in the reproductive world.

I was ready to smack the next person who told me my first was "a gift from God," and I won't even go there with what was said to me during "trying for number two."

The End.

Oh...

And before anyone asks: Yes, that is a jpeg of her book, I emailed her and asked if she would so kindly send me one.

She emailed me back - wasn't that nice?

I thought so, too.

I do not own a copy of this book. I picked it up at the local Methodist Church library, of course. I believe the cover of their copy is in pink.

And yes, her sister is the woman who runs Bosom Buddies - incestuous little country - yes?

(I'm kidding - the incestuous comment, that is. The fact that they are sisters, is true.)

Knot Knitting Write Along....

Think we may have over done the puns...

Since my last knitting post I have accomplished this:

Yep, that's it. Bosom Buddies better not be waiting by their post box ...sheesh.

Is that all you have on the needles?

No. I also have this:

But I haven't touched any of it since my parents left from their visit...in June...

I miss knitting. The problem is that I have too much to do during my "child-free" moments, and my knitting is not up to snuff to knit most of it while children are awake. I can do the baby hats, but again, I have other things (like blogs) to do then, too - oh, and associate with the children...

I had hoped to wear those scarves in the pics this winter. It is winter. Not looking good. I have done both patterns before, for other people, they turned out nicely, then I decided I'd like to have some for me.

Maybe next winter?

I also thought I would give Kat Coyle's Eyelet Skirt another go. (Two different links there). Given my slow pace, thought I'd start now so I would have it for summer. Obviously, I need to pick up the pace.

Another go - do you mean you already tried it once?

Yep.

See:

Err...while hard to tell with your crappy pic, that looks like either
A - a very short skirt
or
B - a tube top

How very observant of you. Yes, it ended up as a tube top. Even bought special bra so I can wear it. Tried to take inspiration from Julia's Nautical Top (scroll down to second post for best view) when I realized it was all going wrong. Um, may have to get over my shyness and come out of lurk mode to ask her how she did her ribbons, as I'm struggling.

Okay, so not a skirt. Why? Did you swatch?

Yes, I did swatch, but I tried to be clever and used bamboo. And before you ask, it is because cotton and I often get into a tussle when it comes to knitting. However, it turns out that bamboo doesn't behave the same way as cotton. I know - brilliant observation. Some people may use a sophisticated vocabulary and explain about ease and drape. I am not sophisticated - as my knitting reflects.

So there you go, no skirt. So bought cotton - caste on - and then as you see from the pic, got interrupted and then some small person began to unravel what little I've done.

I need a knitting holiday.

*Stats for people that like these things:

The coloured needles are Interchangeable Circulars from Knit Picks. There are many places that sell them, including in the UK, google it.

The metal ones are Addi Turbo Circulars. Again, you can buy them from many places. However, they are one of the few things that are actually easier to get in the UK and often cheaper, than in the US. This may have to do with them being German made.

I have no idea what you can get in South Africa. So far, despite meeting many knitters, I have been extremely unimpressed with the yarn and needles on offer.

As to the debate between DPNs, regular needles and circulars - I don't have a huge opinion other than the fact that I have small children. My small children seem to destroy less of my knitting when it is done on circulars, regardless if I am knitting flat or on the round. When I do have to switch to DPNs I live in fear that a small person is going to go blazing off with one of those bad boys and leave my knitting to unravel.

Patterns:

Scarf on left is Branching Out and the one on the right is Lace Ribbon.

Both are easy introductions to lace style knitting.

Yarn:

Scarf on left is in a discontinued mohair blend. The one on the right SWTC's soy silk.

Bamboo top that should have been a skirt, is the SWTC's bamboo.

The cotton is a denim cotton I have never heard of, but all I could get at LYS. The wool is the only wool I could get with out other stuff in it a LYS.

I try very hard to make sure that things I knit for children do not have synthetics (ie "other stuff") in them. This is despite the fact I let my children wear fleece. While I can't say for certain that everything I have wool wise is 100% wool, I try. And when I do not have wool, I try to make it cotton. I am especially picky when it comes to the stuff being sent to BB.

Before you ask - it is because wool is doesn't burn well. Cotton does burn, but at least it doesn't explode or melt. Ever put a match to petrol? Bad stuff. Petrol is used to make most synthetics. I don't want things I make to burst into flames and/ or melt to burns making the wounds worse. Mummies that don't have much money often cook on open flames. Babies near open flames...There are some things guilt wise I simply do not want (or need) on my conscience. A baby hat that melts to some kid's head is one of them. Thus ends my public service message.

PS - I paid R10 for a ball of 100% merino, so please don't leave comments telling me it would be cheaper to knit with acrylic. 4 baby hats out of a R10 ball - think I'm doing well. :-)

Bye-bye my wee hats...

Posted to Bosom Buddies yesterday:

My knitting slowed down considerably as my son grew healthier. I'll leave you to your own conclusions about that one.

The pixie esq hats are a variation of the Meathead pattern. I have no idea how you get the pattern now, as it was a fundraiser for a woman's friend that suffered a terrible tragedy. But if you are interested, you could always ask the creator, Larissa. Her blog is here.

The other hats are the result of two years of tweaking the Umbilical Cord Hat pattern...thus, these latest ones look nothing like the original design. The original design is great, but involves a long icord at the top - cute on older babes - but worries me on infants.  If you are interested, the pattern can be found in the book, Stitch 'N Bitch: USA, UK, SA.

I am going to keep doing these for BB on and off. It provides a brilliant break between my more challenging (for me) projects. Lately, I've been telling local knitting friends that I am the slowest knitter ever. But since I put my lace knitting aside, I realised that, actually, I've improved tremendously since I first began to knit in January 2006 (New Year's resolution). Early in 2007 when I first knitted the Meathead pattern for my daughter it took me almost four days. This time it took me less than 3 hours for each one.

So not only is this endeavour going to help a few cute babies get through winter a bit easier, but it has helped boost my knitting confidence, too. Brilliant.