No Strings Attached

Posted By Kathleen David on January 19, 2012

I read a lot of stuff on the Internet. Sometimes I wander off and read what others point out to me. Other times I find stuff on my own. There are a couple of newsletters I take a quick look through to see if anything interests me. If so I go read in more detail.

Recently I read through a couple of mental health articles in different places that had about the same conclusion, positive thinking doesn’t work for everyone. And that made me feel better about being me. I have known for a long time that positive thinking only gets me so far before niggling doubts about the positive thing I am thinking about.

I think it goes to that everyone is different and reacts to different stimuli in different ways.

For me cleaning is a form of meditation but it doesn’t work all the time. I also find myself cleaning when I am seriously angry and don’t really have any other outlet for my fury. So there is a weird dichotomy there.

One of the articles had some suggestions about other things to try when one ends up in that downward spiral looped thinking which I find myself doing. One is to list 5 things that make you happy right there and then. It will change as time and circumstances change but it does make one stop and take another look at ones life.

The other thing I was glad that the article emphasized was that feeling sad or down is not a bad thing. There are occasions in life that not feeling totally happy is the right response to the situation. Which makes me less guilty when I do feel down and there is a real reason for it. I honestly don’t think we were suppose to be happy 24/7. It would be nice but it is not that practical. My goal is even keel which works well for me.

Another article did a good job of pointing out that we are not cookie cutter people. Each person has ways of dealing with things that work for them. There are techniques that can be taught, like time management and organizational skills, that can help but one needs to find what works for them.

One of the reason I started the grateful line in my blog was to remind myself what I do have even when the walls seems to be tumbling around me. And sometimes it can seem kinda stupid to me to be thankful for say peas but I like peas. I enjoy eating them and they are one of my comfort foods especially frozen. What I have come to realize over the years is that there is nothing stupid about being grateful for something. It means something to me and it makes me feel better maybe about myself or my situation. Right now the challenge is trying not to repeat myself.

So I think what I am saying is find what works for you. It may make no sense to anyone else but if it makes you feel better, then it works right?

I am grateful for articles that make me think and give me useful information.

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Posted By Kathleen David on January 17, 2012

Except for my professional costuming work, most of what I do is recreations of other people’s designs or I take a 2-D drawing and bring it into three dimensions. This is because most of the conventions we do these sketches at are media conventions.

Before the Internet, yes children there was a time before the Internet, it was pretty challenging recreating a costume. You had the movie or TV show to go on and for photo reference, if you were lucky, a couple of fuzzy pictures in a magazine like Starlog. If you were really lucky there might be a book on the making of with photos you can use for reference.

Now we have the vast resources of the Internet and there are more magazines with photos. Also more films have making of books, which I would have killed for earlier in my career. But we still had ways of figuring things out and making it look right.

Historical patterns is something else that has changed a lot. Even Halloween patterns didn’t really exist until the late 1980s in standard pattern books. If you wanted to create some shapes, you would have to draft your own, Franken-pattern from existing looks (hard for the fashion of the 80s) or hope that Folkwear had a pattern for it. Now we have all kinds of patterns and patterns that can be used for other things.

I remember a time before fleece when trying to make puppets was the never ending hunt for the right kind of velour or another kind of fabric that was fuzzy and stretched the right way. Antron fleece is still the gold standard for puppets but you can use the fleece for them.

Fabric is always a challenge in costuming. You have to decide if you are going for screen accurate or costume accurate. The lighting used television, stage, and screen changes colors a lot. For example the 8th Doctor’s coat reads different colors under different light in the TV movie but is, in person, a greenish brown or a brownish green depending on who you talk to. I, for the longest time, thought it was brown. My X-men coat is a prime example of trying to find fabrics to fake the look from the film which was made from UK materials. (Honestly I am still jealous of your stretch fuzzy furs.) I think I did pretty well.

I find costuming a heck of a lot easier now then when I started. New fabrics and new building materials have made things much easier. Patterns are easier to find now that the big pattern makers realized that there is a market for historic costumes and it is a large one. There are still a lot of challenges in recreation which is why I enjoy it but it is nice that I have more of a shot at getting it right now.

I am grateful for everything that has made it easier to recreate costume designs.

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Posted By Kathleen David on January 16, 2012

I am moving Sherlock to Wednesday since I haven’t seen the last episode and I woke up thinking about what I am writing about today

Today is a day where we remember a man who had a dream, which is was good dream and many people have worked hard to see Dr. King’s dream become a reality. And we, being humanity as a whole, are better off than we were when Dr. King was working for basic human rights. But there are many that still don’t have even the fundamental human rights laid out in The Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations.

I asked Caroline who Dr. King was and she said he was a great man who wanted people to be equal. I asked her what equal meant and she puzzled her way through the word and what she thought it meant. I think because I grew up in Atlanta Dr. King was more prevalent in my schooling. We talked about human rights and how some people aren’t treated as people, which she found horrifying. She has a rough idea of what slavery is but doesn’t understand how anyone could have thought that was a good idea and right now I am fine with that as her understanding. I know her understanding will expand as she gets older.

And on this day to celebrate a great man, I think we need to consider those who don’t have what so many of the rest of us take for granted including access to a basic education. I am privileged in that I received a good basic education that allowed me to go to the college of my choice and pursue a career (well careers) that interested me. But many children in the world don’t have that chance. The ability to read, write and do simple math is a gateway to so much more. And we have all heard the excuses as to why fundamental education is impossible for (insert group here) but those are only excuses. The ability to read opens doors to all kinds of possibilities. The ability to do math allows one to speak a universal language since 2+2=4 is true in any country on this planet and undersea as well.

So on this day let us consider Dr. King’s words but let us also find ways to let his dreams become our reality.

I am grateful to everyone who has worked for the rights of humanity.

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Posted By Kathleen David on January 15, 2012

One of my resolutions for the year was to be more organized. To do so I put a small notebook in my jacket to write things down to do or needs to be done. I need to remember to make sure I have a working pen with me so when those things come to mind I can write them down. This week I accomplished some things and didn’t get everything done on the list but I thought about it a lot. So some of this moves to the next week and we try it again. I am not beating myself up that I didn’t get more done but I am examining both what I did do and what I did instead to make sure I am not just wasting my time on useless activities. Some recreation is fine and necessary for mental health but too much and one can waste a lot of time.

This week I want to add some writing and reading to the mix. By reading, I mean books or the Nook equivalent not surfing around the Internet. By writing, I mean on a short story or that thing I started in November. I need to be more disciplined about these things in general.

I did keep my exercise promise to myself so that’s a plus for the week. Now I hope I can do it again next week. Exercise helps me a lot. I just have to be careful about injury.

So I think this is how this blog is going to play out for the week. (Which will change at my whim)
Monday is going to either a NWR for Sherlock up to now or Football Monday (which I haven’t done in ages)
Tuesday is going to be Crafty Tuesday
Wednesday is going to be whatever is on my mind day
Thursday I think is going to be Reflections which I started last year
Friday is going to be whatever is on my mind
Saturday will be whatever Saturday is going to be
Sunday will be another weekly check in for the State of the Kath

I am grateful for things that help me to achieve my goals.

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Posted By Kathleen David on January 13, 2012

Happy Friday the 13th. I am betting Churchy La Femme is hiding under a rock somewhere.

I was thinking this morning about the comedian Jack Handy who wrote these pieces that were featured on Saturday Night Live and other places called “Deep Thoughts”. It would start with Phil Hartman saying “And now, Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey…” and Handey would over very pleasant music usually easy listening new age kind of stuff and a really pretty background would say some of the most absurd things. You had to listen carefully to make sure you really heard what you thought you heard like to me, it’s a good idea to always carry two sacks of something when you walk around. That way, if anybody says, Hey, can you give me a hand? You can say, Sorry, got these sacks. – Deep Thoughts (Saturday Night Live) copyright Jack Handy.

We have a lot of Deep Thoughts here at the David household. Just something that seems to be going one way and then totally goes another. We are a household of what if and other strange tales but that’s how our brains work. Peter and I do very well bouncing ideas of one and other and pointing out the flaws in one idea along with a suggestion for improvement. We never dismiss an idea unless it is a really bad idea.

There are phrases that I have used that I never thought would pass through my lips like “Stop attacking your sister with your dragon” or “Caroline, what did you do my ray gun now? or “Put down that lightsaber before you put someone’s eye out with it” or “Where’s the one ring?” If someone was listening in at the conversations we have at this house, I think they would be very confused. It makes sense to us which it probably all that really matters.

I am grateful for Deep Thoughts.

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