Time...we are a-wasting....

This is my very first blog ever. I don't know whether I will actually blog or not. I suppose I'll try it out and see. That's how I make most of my decisions anyway. Trial and error. Research and analysis go hang....that takes too much planning and effort, i.e. wasted time. I want to put my effort into the here and now. I dig instant gratification. It's Mint! (Just saw Super 8 - what a great movie!!)

A Katydid is a bug, related to a cricket. This is a Katydid...

katydid nymph

I named my blog Katie-Did. This me, Katie....


Katie-did - not a nymph, prefer to be related to mermaid...

Recently, I've got a lot of time on my hands. It's like I've gotten a pay raise, but with time. The boys are with their Dad all summer, Derek's working in Hot-lanta all week, so it's just me, Charcoal Charlie the tripod dog and Boops the grouchy, recently-diabetic kitty-cat. He's a fatty-lumkins.

Boops

Charcoal Charlie posing with his boy, Nigel

I'm taking a world history class to take up some of this new-found time. I wish they offered the text book on audio-cd.  Why do academics make history so BORING?? It's not boring, it's the delivery. They have me confusing ancient Greeks with ancient Romans and dreading Charlemagne. How did I get to be 40 and not know ANYTHING about Alexander the Great, Augustus (Octavius) Cesar or Byzantine history???  And, do I really need to know it if I don't know it by 40?

I'm strongly considering possibly exercising with this new-found time.  The community pool is open and there's never anyone there. I could go and swim laps. If I do, I want to use my mask and snorkle, and maybe my fins. I'll call it snorkling practice. I really just want to be able to breathe. And cover a bunch of laps. I will be a bad-ass. Maybe I'll drop a few pounds and get skinny.  I can't go do it now though, a thunderstorm is brewing and I don't want to get zapped.  Then all my time would be up. Not good.

The thing with having all this time on my hands is I can't decide what I should do with it. I end up wasting it watching Weeds. I dig Weeds. It's Mint! I just finished watching the whole last season. I can't wait to see what Nancy (a/k/a Nathalie') does next...she's a total sociopath, but I love her anyway.

I'm also feeling rather artistic lately with all this time I've found. I've decided to create my own book plate. No, I can't just go buy a ready-made one and add my name to it or print a silly sticker. I want to design and produce it myself. I want it to be a reading mermaid.  This is my latest drawing of it....
 

Katie's Custom Bookplate

Then I decided I wanted to do a carving and stamp of it.  This is how it turned out....


This is all because I love my books. If I loan my books out (which I almost never do because I love them and I WANT THEM BACK), they will have my name and my mermaid stamped in them. Then the borrower will return them because I've put MY art and my name in them, right???  Right??? Uh, hmmmm.... maybe I will just buy another copy of that book I love and want to keep, stamp it and then loan it. Then I'm only out about $7.50, get to use my cool artsy-fartsy stamp I made and still get to keep my friend. I get a little pissy about my books in case you didn't notice. It's because I love them.

Speaking of books, and I could spend a lot of time discussing books, I'm currently reading A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness.  Cool book. Vampires and Witches and Magic and all that jazz. Not Twilight-y. I can't stand whiney.  I'm also reading a couple of other books, and review the books I read on Goodreads. If' you're interested, look me up there.

Anything this is wasted effort represents wasted time.
Ted W. Engstrom

Because, if one is writing novels today, concentrating on the beauty of the prose is right up there with concentrating on your semi-colons, for wasted effort. Neil Gaiman

I really should be studying, but will probably go watch another back episode of Weeds. All this extra TIME has polarized me into inaction.