elanya

Well, I guess that was a fairly productive evening, though I'm not sure I'd count it as being especially creative. I baked brownies, did two loads of dishes (before and after baking ;), did some handwashing, and mended two pieces of clothing. I may have found a way to stop getting dropped off IRC, but that will require further testing.

I would have done more mending, except I had to set up my sewing machine, which lead me to sorting through a few more boxes of things I hadn't yet unpacked, and also going over some things in the manual. In the end, I fixed the hole in the crotch of my yellow wrap pants and put elastic back in the sleeve of the muslin peasant blouse I made in about grade 9 . The second was harder (though neither were actually hard), since I had to fix the channel. I'm now thinking of replacing the elastic in the other sleeve as well. It doesn't have the same problem that made the first sleeve's elastic break, but now they don't stretch the same and I am positive it will annoy me. Another time, though. It is too late for my poor tired eyes.

I also go a few pieces of artwork put up on my walls today. I didn't get much further than my Giant Hazel before I ran out of thumbtacks, though :/ I can'r put up my one framed picture either, because I seem to have 'misplaced' my hammer. Grr.

More things to add to my shopping list, I guess. Tomorrow, I need to make bread, finish the Armada book, and do some other readng. I need to do laundry, but I think I'll save that for Sunday so that I can accomplish something productive while I'm playing/watching Perseity. Now I just have to hope it doesn't pour rain. Like it is supposed to do all week.

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Why do I write these things? I know that there are a lot of people who couldn't give a rat's ass about what I've been doing with my evening. I does seem that I seem to write either really mundane or really frivolous stuff in here, for the most part. Why? Well, initially I did a lot of my 'what am I doing with my day' stuff for people who I *know* are interested in my daily activities, but who I didn't necessarily talk to in person often. I'll note that I first started this journal when I was in England. My mom used to read it, and I think that my dad still does from time to time. Possibly some other relatives peek in on occasion (excluding my lovely sister who I just *know* never misses an update ;)

Lately I've also been trying to think of it as a writing exercise. I don't know how successful I've been with that part. I've been trying to balance good writing with remaining conversational. I am still inconsistent with this approach. It is partly a matter of time - some of my updates are more rushed than others. I've been trying to do better at proofreading my own work without having to let it sit for multiple days. As I said a while ago, I've been trying to do better with my typing as well, with less success. The more conscious I am of my typing, the worse it gets, if you can imagine that :p Also, I have decided that if I am going to use smilies as punctuation (and really isn't that what they do? Think of them as specialized exclamaition marks, right...) then I don't also need other punctuation to end my sentences. I have even started keeping my Harbrace College Handbook for Canadian Writers by my desk that I can have help in judging if I should be using an elipse, a colon, or just restructuring my sentences. I need to stop using superfluous 'that's.

A third reason that I write in this thing to help myself organize myself. This include organizing my activities on a daily basis (planning what I might do the next day, or in the afternoon, or what have you) and also organizing my thoughts. Lists of things I *have* done count in this category as well: they let me see what I have accomplished so that I can get a better grasp of what I still need to do.

Sometimes, I just write things I hear or read that I think are neat. For example, I just realized the ship in this song is called The Speedwell, which was the name of a Privateer/pirate ship of buccanneers that had a rather coloured voyage into the pacific, that I can't recall all the details of. However, this occurred in the days of travel journals, and in on of these, a member of the crew recounts the shooting of an albatross which some scholars say was the inspiration for Cooleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner".

..bedtime!