Woggy #28: Modesty Blaise

Sometime last year, I was browsing the staff picks shelf at my favorite local bookstore when I came across Modesty Blaise, the original 1965 novel based on a comic of the same name and written by the comic's creator. I had about a year previous enjoyed the movie, which was (I've since realized) based on the novel. I was just in the mood for some good fun fiction, and it turned out to be amazingly better than I had even expected. Oozing with fab 60s style and awesome spytastic butt-kicking action I had expected. An amazingly progressive cultural attitude and extremely well-developed, truly feminist heroine I did not.

As the book mentioned on the jacket it was based on a popular newspaper comic series from the same era, I instantly wanted to read not only all of the remaining novels in the series, but also wanted to find out if in fact one could get any of these comics in readable form.

It turns out that there is not one, but a whole series of graphic novel compilations of all the various storylines of the comic. My husband got me the first of the series as a gift, and I tore through it right away. It was different storyline-wise from the novel, but all the basic elements that I enjoyed were the same, plus in graphic novel form, it was all the more interesting and stylish. I couldn't wait to read more but wasn't sure where I'd get the books. Turns out, my husband said, he got it at the comic book store.

I have mentioned before in this blog my ambivalent feelings regarding comic book stores. These feelings were not assisted by a pre-Christmas shopping trip to a large comic book store in the Charleston, SC area in search of some suitable age-appropriate comics for my husband's young teenage cousin. The owner of that establishment, as well as the establishment itself, reinforced all of my old collegiate memories and stereotypes (did I mention the giant chain-mail costume that was also on sale there? Or the cockroach crawling around on the bookshelves, or the COMPLETELY inappropriate comic the guy recommended for our young giftee... but I digress...)

As it happens, I do have a small comics shop right in my neighborhood. It's presence has been known to me since moving to Seattle. It is in fact one of the pleasingly "old-Seattle" establishments remaining in my neighborhood that leave me in a general way, enjoying the interesting cultural mix of grub-meets-fance that is present all around my neighborhood. I have even thought of going inside. And yet I have remained always outside the door.

So, it was with some relief that I agreed the other week to join my husband for a weekend outing to the shop, since he knew I wanted more books, and he also had a book he wanted to get. But fate was not in our favor. That weekend as it happened, was our local Comicon, which I realized would be probably the worst weekend for me to attempt visiting the local store, if it in fact was even open. So we made a rain-check for a future weekend.

Prejudgments notwithstanding, my desire to read these books is high, and I've got someone to help me with moral support, so I'm confident that I soon will have the next few books in my hands. And after that, there are many, many books remaining in the series, not to mention all of the remaining novels in the newly republished novel series, and I intend to someday read them all. This, I swear!

Things To Complete this Woggy Project:

• plan a visit to the comic store
• actually go to the comic store
• buy the next couple books in the comic series
• read the next couple books in the series
• repeat, repeat, repeat, until all have been read
• buy the next novel in the novel series
• read the next novel in the series
• repeat, repeat, repeat until all have been read
• kick mental butt with my fabulous breadth and depth of Modesty Blaise fan knowledge

Woggy #27: Guest Bath Floor

One of the earliest home improvement projects I took on after moving into my condo and getting married (which btw, was at least 7 years ago...) was decorating my guest bath, which in the case of my house is also the laundry room. If you don't count the flooring, the room itself has been complete for some very long time and must have been a success judged by the fact that whenever any of my guests who've been here before finds out that another one of my guests hasn't seen it, they always respond by jumping up and saying "Oh you've GOT to see the bath!!!" enthusiastically dragging said poor new guest, unawares and bewildered, down the hall. This is probably due to my unorthodox decor of "Space Station", inclusive of portholes with a view of Earth, a simulated sideways airlock, and a space monkey.

I can only hope everyone's enthusiasm for the space-like walls and ceiling have all these years kept everyone distracted away from the fact that the floors, which in general look pretty good, are nonetheless unfinished in just about every corner of the room, and have been practically permanently so for years now. Originally, I had tackled the flooring of both my bathrooms with a fervor to get rid of the boring white "builder's special" linoleum, constrained by the fact that I had read getting the bath floors redone was a pain due to various HOA regulations regarding something called a vapor barrier or something like that. I therefore decided that finding a flooring I could put on top of my existing flooring, one I could order in the mail and install myself, was obviously the ideal solution. And I was happy to find a nice industrial tiling that even came in the lovely space-station-y black I had been hoping for (seriously, only galvanized steel would have been more spiffy).

So began my flooring project, which I took on initially entirely without the assistance of my husband, since I not only had both the vision and the free time, I didn't want to have to wait for his available time nor did I relish the idea of working for hours in close quarters on such a project with another person.

I started with my master bath, and sturdy utility knife in hand, managed to customize the tiling in there to fit snugly from wall to wall, so that it is basically impossible to tell that the floor wasn't laid in the traditional fashion. The cutting was difficult work, requiring alot of brawn as well as precision, but it ended up being manageable in the small and relatively uniform space of that room.

By the time I was ready to move on to the guest bath, which was not only larger but shaped much more irregularly, I began to think it was probably necessary for me to get some assistance. I laid out all of the even, straight areas requiring minimal cutting, and then on an ambitious day I took on some of the tighter areas, still keeping things in the square-ish department, as the curved and skinny strips proved to be the most difficult parts to do. Once I got to this part, I talked it over with my husband and he agreed to help me with finishing off all of the corners and everything in time for the upcoming arrival of some house-guests (which always seems to work as a motivational factor when it comes to household projects).

However, time got away from us and the floor fell to the bottom of the list, until the guests were about to arrive and it became impossible to get it done in time. We just decided it would have to hold. Then when our guests didn't even seem to notice, we thought, hmm, maybe this isn't as urgent an issue as we thought? So it was put on the giant household to do list. And there it has sat ever since. Every year, when it's getting close to say, holiday time when there are many guests in the house, I always renew my hope that this project will actually get done, but really, it very stubbornly has years of inaction behind it that seem to work against any and all actual completion of this project.

This was a relatively neutral situation until we one day ended up needing a replacement of a fixture. Turns out the new one wasn't at all shaped like the old one, as can be clearly seen in the picture above. This, and the complete ridiculousness of how it looked I hoped would now work in favor of our quick completion, since we couldn't possibly let it sit looking that out of sorts, could we? (Turns out that yes, we could...) And thus my hope has faded with every year for any sort of easy solution.

Then this past holiday season, I received a robotic floor scrubber for a present. While it performed perfectly in all other rooms of the house, the first time I tried setting it on its own in the guest bath, the poor little guy valiantly did the best he could, but the traps laid in every other corner, not to mention the odd unevenness around our fixture, left it stopping and bleeping desperately for help at every fifth turn. In the end, it needed almost as much assistance from me if I had just cleaned the floor myself. At this, I resolved anew to get this floor completed, if for nothing else, for the peace of mind that I could let my Scooba clean the way it was meant to.

So I post this here now, hoping against dark hope that this project may someday (maybe even soon...) be completed, for the sake of happy Scoobas and content Space Monkeys alike.

Things Left To Complete This Woggy Project

• Find the stack of extra black floor tiles
• Get some new sharp utility knives and work gloves
• Find wax pencil or crayons for marking up tiles
• Schedule a day or a weekend to complete this project
• Recut and/or replace tiles around new fixture
  
• Cut and place remaining tiles around other corners and fixtures
• Stand back and contentedly look at lovely finished floor, victory beverage in hand
  

Woggy #26: Saga of Brave Mita

So I can't say I remember which came first, the fan website (of woggy #25 fame) or my fanfic, but sometime around the creation of one, the other soon followed and the two have been married ever since. Whatever its beginnings, the Animal Crossing fanfic called (in its entirety) The Heroic Epic Saga of Brave Mita is the first and only fanfiction I have ever written in my entire life. And following in the tradition of most fanfictions I have otherwise seen, as well as in fine woggy tradition, this story was earnestly begun with plans for the future and intends to someday have an ending but has not to this day actually ever been completed.

Somewhere around the time I began Hermita's fan website, I decided it had been so long since I had written anything that to write something less serious, just for fun, certainly wouldn't hurt even though in the past I might have thought of fanfiction as something that was beneath a serious, adult writer (which is probably why I had never tried it before). It turned out that unlocking my creativity unfettered into a fanfiction, with no serious purpose or hope of publication, was exactly the sort of thing I needed in my life to get my personal energies (specifically of the writing kind) flowing in a positive creative direction again after many years of extreme abandonment. Since it was a non-serious endeavor, I took to writing this story from the point of view of Hermita, an overly-serious and extremely earnest and self-important character I had created in the course of playing my favorite videogame. As such I wrote in a style I often had fun writing in the past but one I knew was a little over the top, a sort of 18th-century paid-by-the-letter over-wordiness, which I knew would be perfect for Hermita. This let me be as maudlin and overwrought as I wanted to be since, after all, the point was to be maudlin and overwrought. It was incredibly fun to write.

"Surely, I realized, Mother Nature was one kingdom where Nook held no court. Surely the trees would continue to provide their good graces without his interference. If bees were but the justice meted out for such dalliance, I agreed to the terms. I began to shake trees with abandon."

In addition to being fun to write, I also realized as my story was going along (and I started receiving really positive feedback from others, especially young others) that while this project was just something I had started for fun, and was, in the end, not a piece of writing I'd probably ever be able to even publish (being based on characters of a copyrighted game) it was still anyway something that felt important, with a dignity and quality and importance of its own that I had never expected. Through this fun endeavor I was able to not only tell the story of a videogame character and her adventures, but also found myself able to work through some personal demons of my own through the characters and their struggles, as well as being able to tap into, in a youth-friendly form, complicated struggles and issues that both individuals and societies have been dealing with since civilizations began. Things like slavery and political oppression, political and personal tyrants, overcoming difficulty and diversity with dignity, creativity and strength, and all sorts of other things I had really only jokingly imagined when I first began making a story and website of this character.

"Truth be told I wasn’t immune to the boiling of blood that my abuser was undoubtedly attempting to create within my personage, but I was with a great power of internal will able to hold such simmering to a temperature just below the point of conversion to steam and pleasingly, I was able to keep any visible signs of such agitation at bay via my studied concentration and genuine interest in the craft and manufacture of the incongruously exquisite timepiece. I assessed the facts of the situation, which were exactly that I was in no worse of a position than I was the last time Mr. Nook, so similarly rageful, had handed me the last shirt of similar type. He was, after all, entirely incapable of forcing me to wear the shirt, the same as he was utterly powerless to force me to un-agreed upon indentured servitude. "

After the first chapter or two was completed, alot of my Hermita-directed creative attention was diverted into the creation and upkeep of the website itself, as well as the occasional actual gameplay used as origin material for both the website and the story, I did for the most part make a pretty good effort to get out a new chapter of this story at the rate of about one new chapter per month or two. There were certainly longer breaks at times, but in general I had been pretty good at it.

However, it's probably been almost a year since I've written any new content for the actual story itself. I've written plenty of material for the rest of the website, alot of which will certainly be able to be used in future chapters of Hermita's story, should I actually allow the storyline to travel all the way through to its successful conclusion, but since you generally publish a fanfic in chronological order, and I had chosen to begin at the very beginning of her story, there are plenty of chapters in between that will need to be filled.

Now, since I am writing this story and updating it as if Hermita is writing it herself as her personal memoir, all of the stops and starts do make sense, since she is, fictionally speaking, a woman very busy with the duties of her revolutionary cause, not the least of which was her town getting bombed and having to go fugitive to escape to another land via hot air balloon, where she had to start reorganizing her cause and setting up a new home base in a new land. Storywise, she doesn't often have free time to just sit down and finish off her memoir. However, with my bringing both her cause and my (ahem, her...) website to a conclusion, both she and I will presumably have alot more free time to devote to the completion of her story.

While I did describe in woggy #25's entry that I plan to bring the site to a halt, I do plan to check up on it now and again to add any user-submitted content, but also to add chapters to her memoir, which is also housed right there on the site. Of course that means I've got to pick up the keyboard again and get going with her story. I do have the benefit of knowing already where her story is going, plot-wise. It's really all just a matter of spending the time to sit down and get it done.

Things Left To Complete This Woggy Project:

• complete woggy #25, at least in some reasonably conclusive fashion
• begin writing Chapter 8
• post chapter 8 to Hermita's site
• write and post next chapter
• repeat, repeat, repeat until the final chapter
• decide what if anything to do with the completed story
  

Woggy #25: Flower & Tree

As some of you may know, and others may be completely unaware, I have been running a fan website based on a character in the Nintendo game Animal Crossing for about three and a half years now. My upkeep of this site, as well as the population of my followers, has ebbed and flowed over that time, though until recently had been at a fairly slow and steady rate. I continued to provide content, and my most stalwart fans continued to follow me, with an occasional new fan showing up every now and then.

Round about August of last year, I decided that, while my site had served a pretty good run, and I still had a dedicated fan or two who was still following all my updates in earnest, it was probably time to retire from this endeavor. However, I resolved that I wasn't going to do it in the way I had often seen other sites come and go, which is to say that one day their creator just disappeared, leaving their site and any continuity it was following hanging in the air indefinitely for all internet eternity. Especially in the case of my site, where I had carefully laid out and been continuing to evolve a storyline of sorts. Specifically, I had created a pseudo political cause, with an archenemy and a rebellion which had been growing in its success and popularity. Certainly I couldn't just leave that hanging without some sort of positive, hopeful conclusion!

So, at that time, I wrote down specifically where I'd like things to head in terms of the storyline of my character and of the site itself. I broke things down to a manageable 2 or 3-phase update process, and initiated phase one. However, that's as far as I got, and my site has been sitting in limbo ever since.

I still have my notebook of bullet points sitting here, and a folder full of in-game photos I shot for use in my "last update". And I still intend to finish this someday soon, so as to give all of my fans a hopeful and inspiring ending, as well as creating a satisfactory point of stasis for the site, a position where it could sit frozen for all posterity and still seem like a complete "work" (if a website could at any point be said to be a "work" anyway). I feel it's the least I can do to all the years of effort I put towards this endeavor, and even more importantly, the least I can offer to all of the wonderful fans of my site who surfaced over the past couple of years, who supported me and my efforts more than I could have ever imagined.

So, with that in mind...

Things Left To Complete This Woggy Project:

• archive all previously posted interior designs
• add pdfs of all F&T blueprints to the ID page
• remove all non-sustainable material from F&T supporter page
• remove lyrics feature from music page, or replace w/ a Chad-made revolving widget
• remove comment box from music page
• compile all interesting comments from various pages, guestbook, etc. into a text file
• remove guestbook
• remove all shoutboxes & comment boxes
• add a "comments" section with comments from the saved text file
• create 2 FAQs for bottom of what's new page (1 for Pippi & 1 for Hermita)
• remove all non-ageless polls
• remove all non-ageless house ads
• archive any remaining news updates
• in place of news sections, put some more ageless text, including relevant links
• create final news updates for all relevant pages, and upload photos (archive if neccessary)
• post notices encouraging users to submit content and comments via ACC PT or gmail
• update members & supporters list
  
• Change home page to reflect changes
• Update What's new page with the latest changes (remove after a month or 2)
• Mail site members an update email, also explaining changes.
  

Updates: Woggies 19 & 20

Woggy #19 Complete: Mail & Info Sorter/Organizer

It's taken a while, but I can finally check the remaining items off of my to do list for this woggy. As with all things it hasn't turned out to work quite as perfectly as I had been hoping, and we are tweaking it here and there all the time, but mostly, I am very satisfied with how this system has turned out. Our inboxes are no longer cluttered with old things, everything has a place to go, and we are finally able to leave each other notes and reminders in a way where the other person actually notices it and does something about it. Hooray!



Woggy #20 Update: Home Inventory

I took advantage of having all my boxes of holiday decorations down to take care of a much-needed chunk of woggy #20. I photographed and wrote an itemization of all major contents of our holiday decorations. the photos have been uploaded to my computer, but I have yet to enter all of the information and research prices in the actual inventory program. But even without that, this is a major accomplishment. Since we have over the years collected quite a few fancier glass ornaments, some of limited edition, I can only assume these are important items to include in our inventory for insurance purposes, especially if we were to ever need to replace them. They are all fairly safely nestled in popcorn most of the year, but when one lives in earthquake country, you never know.

Things I can check off my woggy to-do list:

X take down holiday items and photograph them
X put holiday items back away
X upload holiday item photos & add to hall closet folder

Things Left to Complete This Woggy Project:

• research & re-enter all of the item details for the coat closet
  
• research & enter item details for holiday items
• photograph kitchen, dining area, living room, bedroom, garden, WIC, master bath, workroom, & workroom closet
• upload photos for all above rooms, and place in appropriate folders
• research and enter item details for all above items
• print out new household inventory
• adjust homeowner's insurance to new amount
• replace old inventory with the new one in our lockbox

Update: Woggy #15 Complete!!

Over the past several years, I've taken to the practice of sending myself on emotional/spiritual "retreats" These work much in the same way that official "retreats" at retreat centers work, except I just do them in my own home. Sometimes I plan them in advance, and sometimes I just take one when life is getting just a little too frazzled, when my mind and spirit have become lost or feel like they're scattered in a million directions, making nothing in my life work smoothly. Some last just for a day, others for a week, and one even for two weeks. But the goal of all of them is the same. Time to focus on spiritual and emotional issues, at the forefront of all other concerns.

With the whirlwind that always surrounds the holiday season, I have now made a specific ritual of doing a retreat each year right before the holiday craziness is about to descend, so that I can head into that season with a firm and solid grounding.

Over the past year or so, it has been during these retreats that I have made the most progress towards reading and finishing my Woggy #15, the book called Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life. And I'm happy to say that it was during my latest pre-holiday retreat that I was able to not only make time for and recover from an emotional slump in the previously mentioned Woggy #24 (my NaNo 2009 novel), but I was also able to finally finish reading Woggy#15.

The completion of this book is in my mind no small achievement. It is to me as significant and was as challenging as the task of writing a novel in one month, or my previous task of walking 70 miles on my own two feet. On a spiritual level all three of these tasks are completely connected for me, as they have all involved the same emotional and spiritual undertaking. They have each taught me the same lesson in different form.

But like the other two, while the tangible task has been completed, there is still plenty of learning and journey to go. I have read all of the words, I have done all of the main exercises. But many of the exercises are more of an ongoing process, which will not be truly completed for a year or more. And the lessons and discipline learned are ones I will need to carry with me on a daily basis in a conscious, mindful fashion in order for the learning and practice to be truly complete. This will continue until the day when all of these lessons are formed as intrinsic habits without my having to conscientiously consider them, if in fact such a day will ever come. Whichever may be true, I am thankful for having read this book, the process I've gone through and all that I've learned, and the continuing lessons I hope to carry with me into my future as a result of having read it.

"Life is a choice. The choice here is not about whether or not to have pain. It is whether or not to live a valued, meaningful life."

Update: Woggy #24

Yes folks, after four years of repeated perseverance, and thirty days of trials and tribulations, I have at last succeeded at achieving the previously elusive goal of achieving the NaNo challenge of writing a full 50,000 words within one month. I began my month not expecting I would reach it, then after a week of steady on-par progress, I became excited that I would actually be achieving it.

Then halfway through the month, I allowed life's duties to overtake the writing and fell behind. The week after that I grew despondent and was sure I would never, ever be able to finish a NaNo challenge, but from the depths of this pit I decided to just start writing anyway, little by little, hour after hour, day after day. And before I knew it I was not only on par but well above par for completing at the end of the month. Then, to my surprise, several days ahead from the end with just a mere 2000 words to go, I began fearing my success.

I stopped cold for a day and a half, afraid of what succeeding at this goal might mean. In the face of this I decided to use the same strategy that had got me through my mid-month slump, and just sat down to write with no thoughts of specific expectation. Before I knew it, I was looking at the NaNo "Congratulations, Winner" page, with two days to spare on the calendar. In shock at my success at first, I've slowly been learning to accept it (strange as that may sound), and I now look ahead to the next horizon for my book, which is finishing the novel.

By my calculations plot-wise, I am about half-way through the book, and therefore should have about 50,000 words to go. But if I managed that many words in under one month flat, I figure competing the first draft of my novel within another 6 months should be no trouble at all. All I need to do is get writing!!

Things Left to Complete This Woggy Project:

• determine a new more moderate daily and/or weekly word count goal
• create a chart for logging progress
• begin writing
• repeat, repeat, repeat until draft 1 is complete
• devise plan for revision process
  

Holiday break

Yes, yes, between NaNo and all the various household business that befalls a keeper of the home during the holidays, I've been away from wog. Have you missed me? I'll be back in action soon with lots of new posts, I promise!

Woggy #24: Moon Walk Novel

Yes, people, November is here again and that can mean only one thing (besides decomposing pumpkins and constant robocalls to all American voters, of course) and that is, novel writing time! I've begun my novel for this year on a good note if you consider the amount I wrote yesterday, or a bad one if you consider here I am on day two procrastinating my novel by making this blog entry instead.

In any case, for those interested in the subject of my novel: it is set on the moon, which instantly makes it "science fiction" even if it's really something else, because well, in case you hadn't noticed, we are not yet living on the moon in real life. One might think the normal definition of "writing what is not exactly the same as real life" could just be called "fiction", but seeing as all space-related imaginings have been deemed by some cosmic entity to be "scientific", I guess that leaves me with my "science fiction" novel.

For those interested in my day-to-day progress (as I do not plan on providing day to day updates here...) you can check my NaNo page, or (hopefully, if I get it working properly) you can check this nifty widget here:



Things Left to Complete This Woggy Project:

• write 1667 words
  
• repeat each day for every day in November
• after Dec 1, devise plan for continuing and completing the remainder of the novel
• etc., etc., to be determined after Dec 1
  

Update: Woggy #1 is complete!

While it's possible I expended as many hours involved in this project as I did on the actual trip it is commemorating, I am happy to say that much to my surprise, my BC trip scrapbook is finally, actually finished!

While I had been progressing on this project in a couple of fits and starts since my last official update here, the most significant work stoppage happened when I ran out of photo corners a couple months ago, and didn't know exactly where to I'd be able to easily get some more. Several trips around town on foot later, I gave up on the supporting local business angle and just ordered a bunch in the mail. By the time they arrived of course, my enthusiasm for finishing the project had ebbed.

So, all of the scrapbook project materials had been sitting in a neatly organized pile under one of our living room chairs for a few months before I picked it up again the other evening. By this point in time, the scrapbook project had two things going for it: one, the actual vacation itself had passed the year anniversary point, increasing my desire to finish it, and two, my husband has been away on a work trip, leaving me with large blocks of idle time in the evenings with no conversation or activity to fill them. The tedium part of the handiwork was helped by Mr. Erroll Flynn, Robert Osborne, and a bunch of their old friends. I emerged from a haze of sea voyages, royalty, and scrapbooking sometime later that night with a complete stack of pages, beginning to end, and a really, REALLY big mess on my living room floor.

All that was left at this point was to procure a more efficient means of hole-punchery than the little hand-held object currently in my possession. But things worked out in favor of that as well, as I already had some other shopping to do in the general vicinity of the office supply store (where I was surprised to find they had a huge array of hole-punching options for me to choose from). Last evening I finished off the punching and binding, and could hardly believe my eyes looking at the actual finished project. It really did come out much like I had originally envisioned.

So, now all that's left is the cleaning up part, which I suppose technically means this project isn't completely finished yet, but since I do actually plan on taking care of that in an hour or two, I'm going to go ahead and rule that part as virtually completed.

Update: Woggy #16 Complete!

The day before I left for my trip, a miracle happened: we received a call from the shipping company that our new bed frame was in town and wanted to drop by and see us. An even greater miracle: while I was busy hiking across the countryside of Pennsylvania, my husband defended the home front by fearlessly battling crate, box, and hex wrench to create the wonder you now see pictured here.

I came home to a completed bed! A years-long woggy has finally come to a close...

And hey, doesn't our new bed look great?!


Oh, and since we are all about process here at Woggy Enterprises, here's the in-progress view showing this woggy over the past couple weeks, prior to the complete bed pictured above...


Items I can check off my Woggy To-do list:

X wait for shipment of our bed
X put our new bed together
X say, "Hey, doesn't our new bed look great?!"

Went out for a walk...

Over the past month, I was preparing for, going on, and then recovering from, a very long walk. 70 miles, to be exact. My completion of this task could be said to have been a major woggy project of its own, had I the wherewithal in the flurry of my planning to actually have posted it here previously.

The full walk was originally supposed to theoretically be 55 miles, but ended up being about 80, ten of which I did not participate in on day 6 (of 8) due to foot issues. But if there's nothing we've learned here in woggsville, it is that incomplete success is success nonetheless. And as I did begin at the beginning, and end at the end, and I did actually walk seventy miles, which is more than most can claim to have accomplished, and overcame many personal emotional challenges along the way, I have deemed the whole of this experience to have been an unqualified personal success.

The walk itself was and is part of a larger art project thought up by my genius artist sister, who has a project website about it, a blog of her thoughts and musings, and a photo album. I encourage you to check them all out.

Woggy #23: DJ Dress

While on a visit to my sister in Phoenix, we were shopping in this nifty clothing boutique as we are sometimes wont to do, and I saw a t-shirt with a really awesome DJ and stereo graphic. The one I had spied was on the men's shelf, so I began looking around on the female shelf for its smaller more ladylike companion. But unfortunately, there was no ladylike companion (as apparently, there are either assumed to be no females interested in DJ t-shirts, or there are so many interested as to cause a run on the t-shirt shelf...)

I tried to resign myself to the fact that there was no DJ tshirt for me except, I couldn't bring myself to put the shirt down. I carried my ill-fitting shirt around the store, trying to fill the now DJ-tshirt-sized hole in my life with some other fine piece of clothing, but to no avail. My sister suggested I try on the t-shirt anyway, because, hey, maybe it wouldn't be such a bad fit. A hopeful trip to the dressing room proved this theory quite ridiculous. I mean, the thing was almost big enough to be a dress, for goodness-- and it was at that precise moment of course that the solution to my problem became clear. I would snip here and sew there, and turn this gigantor ubershirt into a fantabulous shirtdress.

When I got home from my trip, I planned out my new dress, and even picked a few fabrics out of my pile for consideration as additional yardage at the bottom. But of course, as often happens, it has since been sitting in my sewing cabinet as yet another UFO waiting for it's day of liftoff.

A recent visit to the most awesome indie craft fair this side of the Mississippi, if not the Milky Way, has me thinking all about my dress again, and hopes it will be finished someday soon. In reality, the amount of actual time and effort needed for this particular project should be quite small, it's really just a matter of getting to it. Now, if only I had managed to attend the adding LEDs to your clothing workshop, maybe I could have figured out how to wire it for actual sound...

Things Left to Complete This Woggy Project:

• try on t-shirt inside out
  
• pin shirt for alteration
• remove and even out pin lines
• stitch new side-seams and sleeve areas
  
• decide on bottom skirt fabric
• cut and pin skirt fabric
• sew skirt fabric to tshirt
• press and check for fit
• make any needed alterations
• consider pockets or other details
• add other details, if doing
• hang new dress in closet!

Update: Woggy #14 Complete!

I was beginning to think I'd never see the day, but it has finally actually arrived. I have updated my MOC page!

I was on my favorite forum the other day, where there has been a small discussion about Lego going, and from that I was inspired to get my pics of two of my most interesting original creations together. I realized the logical place to put them up would be my MOC page, and since I was already there putting the photos up, may as well update the home page, and add in those photos and that video I'd been meaning to update, and well, before I knew it, all of this woggy's remaining items were accomplished all in one fell swoop!

I can now check off my woggy to to-do list:

x find that Lego mosaic pic I made of myself for my profile page
x upload my profile pic to my MOC page
x change my front page message to something a little more timeless
x find and figure out how to upload my Halloween skull video, or change my caption
x upload my real-life MOC pics of my Valentine MOC, and change surrounding text
x upload, folder and caption my more recent MOC pics
x start hanging out on MOC pages more regularly and actually try becoming a member of the community...

Woggy #22: Driver's License

Since it's been a while since I've posted any of my "big" woggies, today I thought I'd bring up this trusty old gem. It's possible that even many people who know me well do not actually know that, despite my ripe adulthood, I still do not, nor have I ever had, a driver's license.

The reasons for me not having gotten this at the usual age are tedious and involve family dysfunction, but suffice it to say I never got further than studying for my permit and taking a rules-of-the-road class at school at that age.

Throughout college not only did I not have any access to any cars, but I also had no real need for a car, since in both college and grad school I lived in cities with excellent public transit, and never found myself at a loss in this department.

After school, living in the car-centric California, I finally decided to get a license, and got my permit. My boyfriend started teaching me, and I was very psyched about my new driving skills, which would no doubt be officialized any day soon. But, be it a result of time limitations, strange teaching techniques, or a general lack of aptitude on my part, we spent the better part of a year strolling around on local neighborhood streets before either of us thought it time for me to actually take the test. This was also largely brought on by an impending necessity for me to be able to share the driving for our looming long-distance trip north to Washington state.

I arrived at my first test day full of confidence and optimism, and could barely wait for my first licensed drive later that day. However, my personal assessment of driving skills turned out to be just a bit overrated (in other words, I failed miserably...) I was disappointed to be sure, but after a few hours I put it all in perspective. Just needed to brush up a bit more, and doesn't everyone fail their test the first time around? California is supposed to have the toughest test in the nation, after all.

With our trip plans moving ever closer, and our boxes beginning to be packed, we scheduled the next appointment we were able to get, which happened to be at a completely different office halfway across town, whose neighborhood I was completely unfamiliar with.

Compared with my first hopeful test experience, the second time around turned out to be much more traumatic and miserable than my first. Things started out hopefully enough, as I was sticking to my "oh, everyone fails their first time" mantra. Being a different and unfamiliar DMV office, I showed up plenty of time early, and got in line to have the needed paperwork processed before my drive test. This ran me into another completely unexpected problem, where I was absurdly told that my non-driver's ID, which had been issued in California, in the same county, just 2 years prior and still completely valid as a form of legal ID, was not sufficient identification for me to get my permanent license.

The bottom line of this bizarre administrivia would be that even if I did pass this test that I was about to take, that it would completely impossible for me to get an official California license until I provided them with my original birth certificate. Having only recently gotten out of school, this document was buried among boxes somewhere back in Pennsylvania, curated by my slow-moving and uncooperative parents, who would surely never get me the paperwork I needed anywhere near the time we were to be leaving the state.

Thus defeated and crushed of all hope by the paperwork Man, I numbly shuffled on to the driving test area, where I was immediately greeted by a gruff and unpleasant man who immediately began berating me for how late I was for our appointment. Arguments of how it was his department's slowness of movement that was responsible for my delay fell on deaf ears. So, things were obviously looking up.

Needless to say, as I pulled into my final parallel spot, my boyfriend jumping into the seat next to me to congratulate me on what he assumed would be my final victory, I broke down in tears and didn't even have the wherewithal to drive us back home. Since this appointment and attempt itself was already an eleventh-hour effort before our move out of town, needless to say I never walked back into a California DMV office again.

Once we settled in to our new urban home, I found little need to drive again, as almost everything I needed was within walking or bus range, and what wasn't could be handled by my boyfriend on the weekends. Once I finally regained possession of all my own legal documents again, I started to entertain the idea of trying to get a license again. I analyzed the situation thoroughly. I was maybe too absentminded a person to know how to drive, my boyfriend maybe an incompetent teacher, or maybe I was the most difficult student in the world? In any case I assumed that this time, I had best get professional help.

I spent some time looking into local driving instruction, but in the end I just sidled up for a new non-driver's ID card and gave up the fight. That was a few years ago now.

As the time has passed, I've realized that I do actually want a driver's license, and I don't have to let myself be defeated by such crushing past failures. I've even found an uplifting kinship with my similarly positioned Spongebob Squarepants, who as those of you who follow his adventures may know, seems locked in a perpetual inability to pass driver's tests, even though he has thoroughly learned how to actually drive. Like my spongey friend, I too hold hope that someday soon I will walk out of that office with a fabulous shiny license that will set me free on the streets and environs of Seattle, vehicle firmly under my capable hands. Like Mr. Squarepants, I may not actually know how this is going to happen, but a girl can certainly dream...

Things Left to Complete This Woggy Project:

• research local driver's instruction offices
  
• study for driver's permit test
• schedule & pass written permit test
• call & schedule driving lessons
• take driving lessons until they say I'm ready
• Schedule and take driver's test
• (repeat any of the above as many times as necessary)
• pass test
• complete paperwork and receive license
• take my first solo drive!
  

Woggy #21: Game Night Bag

My husband plays board games as one of his major hobbies, and belongs to two local game groups, which meet weekly for game-playing sessions. Attending these usually means bringing along at least a couple of his own board games, plus a snack to share. For years he made use of a sturdy old canvas market bag that we got as a member bonus for being members of San Francisco's KQED. Now we've been living in Seattle for over 10 years now, so I'm sure you can imagine the shape this bag has reached by this point in time.

Last year at the big local indie craft show, I saw some bags that were pretty similar to this and thought it'd be fun to give my husband a board-game-themed bag for him to use as a replacement for the dilapidated old tote he insisted on continuing to use. But, as it turned out, these bags didn't come any bigger than a large handbag, which is nowhere near the capacity needed to carry actual board games.

So eventually I began to wonder if I couldn't make him a bag myself. While I never could figure out how those craft people managed to attach a hunk of cardboard to a vinyl bag, I did eventually find a supplier for novelty game-themed quilt fabric, and bought enough to make some sort of sturdy large bag.

My husband thankfully has been enthusiastic about the idea, but while he was helpful in choosing the fabrics to use for his bag, he has as yet been not so forthcoming about his actual size needs for a bag. Once we can finally work that out, I can come up with some sort of a pattern and turn this pile o' fabric into the fabbest game bag this side of the Cascades.

Things Left to Complete This Woggy Project:

• get bag need measurements from Chad
  
• sketch up a pattern plan, including a plan for sturdy straps
  
• cut fabric to sew
  
• sew bag together
  

Woggy #20: Home Inventory

Any of the responsible among you will know it's a good idea for everyone to have a homeowner's or renter's insurance policy, which provides for you in case of unfortunate incidents resulting in the loss or damage of the insides of your home. One can always use the standard suggested amounts for families of certain size, and rely on one's memory when the day-after filling in of the paperwork is required (hmm.. was that 13 or 130 handbags I had..?) but these can in many cases be wildly inaccurate, and it turns out there is actually a better and more precise way of assessing this, called a household inventory. The very dutiful among us will actually follow thru on this in a manner that is more than just a small envelope filled with one or two outdated snapshots per room of your house and a handwritten note that says "Think that necklace Aunt Agnes gave me might be worth something. Get appraised." Doing so requires making a list of all your belongings, along with an estimated value of those items. However, even the most responsible among us can't really bear to go through this process more than about once every five years, as it is very tedious and laborious.

My husband recently brought it to our attention that the amount on our homeowner's policy had not been changed in at least 5 years, and perhaps that might be out of date considering all of the newer, higher-quality furniture and other things we had purchased over that period, to replace all the ones bought during or just after our years in college, when our finances and tastes were considerably less discerning. I tried to avoid the inevitable, but I knew that this could only really mean one thing, that it was time to dust off the old household inventory for an update.

Conveniently, there have been some technological advances since then and with the use of digital cameras and photo uploading now being second nature, and software to make the best advantage of this, the process has been made somewhat easier. And by somewhat I mean it is somewhat easier to carry a ten-gallon screw-top titanium jug filled from your bathtub faucet across the living room than it is to carry two wooden buckets of 5 gallons each on a broomstick from the town well.

So I have begun this task, and it is of course taking much longer than I had originally anticipated. I began with the three simplest areas of my house, which I knew would have the least number of items and complications. Going thru and finding prices, model numbers, and proper product names for these items alone has already taken me the better part of several afternoons of valuable summertime. One of which has already been completely wasted due to an unfortunate forgetting-to-save followed by a fatal program crash. I haven't had the courage or endurance to return since then, though I'm sure I'll be finishing that and moving on to all of the more complicated rooms of the house soon.

Oh, and by the way, I have had at least one reward so far for all my hard work.. Finding out my framed space-stamps sheet, originally purchased new for $20 to fulfill my nerdly cross-section of both stamps and sci-fi/space hobbies, is now apparently worth $225! Wow, it's like starring on Antiques Roadshow... thanks, Household Inventory!

Things Left to Complete This Woggy Project:

• research & re-enter all of the item details for the coat closet
  
• take down holiday items and photograph them
• put holiday items back away
• upload holiday item photos & add to hall closet folder
  
• research & enter item details for holiday items
• photograph kitchen, dining area, living room, bedroom, garden, WIC, master bath, workroom, & workroom closet
• upload photos for all above rooms, and place in appropriate folders
• research and enter item details for all above items
• print out new household inventory
• adjust homeowner's insurance to new amount
• replace old inventory with the new one in our lockbox
  

Update: Woggy #19

I have actually made pretty significant progress on this now. Just a few last minute things (which for me of course always take the longest to actually complete).

Things I can check off my Woggy to-do list:

x rip open all the new packages
x begin hammering, drilling, ratcheting, and hanging
x finish hammering, drilling, ratcheting, and hanging
x make labels for all the new bins
x sort everything into its proper place
x clean up the tools and other project debris

Things Left to Complete This Woggy Project:

• decide on how to permanently attach labels (and do it)
  
• amaze husband with dazzling mail and message efficiency possibilities
  
• school husband and self in proper use and upkeep of said dazzling system
• hope for the best

Summer

Yeah, yeah, 5 weeks... what can I say? It's summer for cryin' out loud. I've been busy with summer things. Pretty good reason, if you ask me.

Woggy #19 Mail & Info Sorter/Organizer

Mail sorting, message delivering and communication, and other such related issues have always been an extremely vexing thorn in the side of my household. While I understand these are not simple issues for anyone, they seem to be a particularly difficult issue for us, even though we are a tiny ole household of two.

Always one for analyzing a vexing problem and attempting to create efficiently working systems so solve them, this is one I have thrown my efforts most valiantly against in various goes over the past many years. Yet, while some aspects have improved over the various iterations, this problem has continued to plague us with its clutter, miscommunications and general untidiness. So I set out several months ago to (um, once again...) resolve this problem in a permanent fashion. And finally this time, I actually saw some hope that it'd really come together this time.

I researched products, I measured various inches, I assessed needs, I studied usage patterns, and many other probably ridiculous things until I had decided on a system, a set of products to make that system, and a blueprint for how that system would go together. I was very thrilled. I ordered all the necessary goods and waited with baited breath for my fabulous plan to come together.

As it happened, half of my order was shipped immediately, with the other half to arrive within 2 weeks. I originally decided I'd just wait until I had everything delivered to install it all, but as I unloaded my first set of boxes, my enthusiasm got the better of me. Within the ensuing three hours there were packages ripped open, holes drilled, screws ratcheted, nails nailed, magnets magneted, memos posted, and messages..., um..., messaged. Never mind this was only half of the system.

My enthusiasm still brimming, I left out all of the screwdrivers, hammer, drill, extension cord, etc. etc. to wait for the second shipment's arrival, where I was sure I would get to the finishing just as efficiently as I handled the first batch. Of course, things rarely work out exactly as planned.

I did manage on the day of the second shipment to put up a few additional items, which only required double-stick-tape to put up. the rest I left to do "tomorrow".

And so have they sat since then, waiting, waiting. Meanwhile, we have tried to become adjusted to our new half-assed system. This system, while better in a couple of aspects than the old one, is for the remainder of the aspects (namingly the where the heck do I put all this mail aspect) is much less adequate, about half as good as you might have half-expected this half-baked, half-completed system to be working. Old bad habits are mixing with new bad habits, and are threatening to tear down the fabric of my beauteous, wonderful system before it even has a chance to get started. So, I'm afraid the pressure is on, which of course may make this whole completion thing all that more difficult to manage.

In any case, I still have hope that any day now, I'll get the rest of this system put up, and everything will begin to magically begin working like the efficient dream I originally had. We'll see how this works out... I've got my hammer and step stool sitting at the ready for the moment it does.

Things Left to Complete This Woggy Project:

• rip open all the new packages
• begin hammering, drilling, ratcheting, and hanging
• finish hammering, drilling, ratcheting, and hanging
• make labels for all the new bins
• sort everything into its proper place
• clean up the tools and other project debris
• amaze husband with dazzling mail and message efficiency possibilities
  
• school husband and self in proper use and upkeep of said dazzling system
• hope for the best