Monday morning things

* Doing the revisions on the paper that was accepted with revisions. Some of them are fairly easy and do improve the paper, some are trickier. In some cases the reviewer is asking for stuff I don't really know/didn't record at the time (for example: the people who owned the site back in the 1980s, at what rate did they stock cattle on it? I don't know, I don't even know the names of those owners! I have explained but that kind of thing frustrates me because I feel like "if I knew it, I would have put it in the paper!" but maybe people normally don't do those things? Maybe many authors are less diligent?)

* A lot of the stuff with revision is sort of getting out of your own head or letting your own ego shut up for a while. It's related to what I talked about a few days ago, the idea that "if someone reads something I wrote that's less than 'perfect,' it's an embarrassment to me and they won't respect me because they will think of me as 'the person who wrote that cruddy paper'" though then again, reviewing is SUPPOSED to be anonymous (though I know the names of both my reviewers on this one....). I'm sure this is something authors fight with all the time, dealing with editors who want to make changes, and in fiction, those changes may seem even less based-in-reason than the changes suggested to a scientific manuscript.

* I realized something the other day I should have known, but didn't think about: earlier this year I thought, "Wait, my take home pay looks less" then I realized, because of a clerical error, I am now on the "12 pays" plan rather than the "10 pays" plan. (Formerly, spacing my pay over 10 months made sense, as I got paid in the summer for summer teaching).

And then I realized this weekend: that means I WILL get a check the end of June and the end of July. So the budgeting I did this spring means I have a cushion. Which is kind of great, because I have more time this summer for having fun but now alsoandplus I have money for having fun.

* One of the "fun" things (FSVO "fun") is going to be moving stuff a bit in my bedroom and obtaining a good bookcase set up to house my G1 ponies (and if it's big enough, maybe even some/all of the Monster High dolls). I found this on a local furniture store website. I'd want to see it in person (it is almost certainly that pressboard junk, but maybe it's not too awful?). I want open shelves because they will look airier, and I admit the white has appeal.

Other option: try the Goodwill or used furniture places and if I find something that generally suits but is dark wood, paint it. (Then again: I am guessing most of the used places around here sell mostly pressboard stuff; the real wood things tend to wind up in antiques shops).

I don't think we have an "unfinished furniture store" (if such things still exist like they did in the 1970s where you could get decently-made, inexpensive, but real wood furniture and then finish or paint it yourself).

White metal would be another option but those tend to be "bakery shelves" for kitchens with mesh shelves, and I don't want something my Ponies' feet will go through.

* If I could be super draconian with my books I could probably clear one of my existing bookshelves and use that, but I'm not sure I can be that draconian. And the biggest bookshelf in my bedroom (and so, the logical one to house Ponies) is all my childhood books (left from my childhood) or books I bought that are childhood books I loved to check out from the library as a child, and I doubt I can bring myself to get rid of those. Or even move them to somewhere else, if I cleared other shelves....though I will need to be super draconian with my books at some point, I think.

(Again, another option: take the "I want to keep these but probably won't read them right away" books, box them up, and find a storage space.....not that I have MUCH storage space in the house, and I tend to be more of the mindset of "it's better to weed your possessions heartlessly than to rent storage space" and I think my garage would have too many critters/not be climate controlled enough for even sealed plastic tubs of books.)

* I also want to find some kind of small light wall-shelf thing (like the printers cases) that won't be too woeful to hang up; I have lots of "little stuff" I want on display (some of the things from the Doki Doki boxes, for example) but not enough free table space for it. Again, that's probably a job for the antique shops; I should just plan on taking a day some day and going to Whitesboro or some of the other small towns in the area that boast shops, especially places I've not been to recently (Ardmore has some antique shops) and see what I can find.

Probably I need to take a box every time I wind up with a box and fill it with books I could bear to part with, and just take loads to the public library for their sale. They seemed to appreciate what I brought last time. If I cleared enough space then I COULD make room for Ponies/Monster High Girls on an existing shelf, which would be nice. (Or if I got rid of the "back room storage books," I could move existing books I want to keep to there, and....that solves the issue too)

* I am also again playing with the idea of boxing up and storing/donating somewhere/selling my back run (from about 1999 to about 2007 or so) of Knitters' Magazine and also Vogue Knits - to free up room in my knitting storage area for the magazines and books I actually use. I don't know. I'd be more prone to donate or sell if I knew they were going to someone who really wanted them for the patterns and were going to use them. And I don't have them in any order or anything so I don't know if it's a COMPLETE complete run or if I've lost/given away a few issues here and there. But it would be nice from a decluttering standpoint to be rid of them.

* I also learned that the little local quilt shop (the new one, inside the car dealer) is, as I guessed, the daughter of the owner of the car dealership. They send out e-mails and this week's one was about painting and decorating the hallway in their shop, and the owner referenced her "sweet daddy" for helping her put up crown molding. (I am guessing she is somewhere in her mid 20s. I haven't called my dad "daddy" since I was about 10, but different strokes for different folks....)

I might want to get down there this week a I see they have the new "fairy frost" fabrics and if there's a color that works well with some of my existing pieces, I might want to get a chunk to use as sashing.

(Yes, I have the birb quilt to work on, but I have other ideas percolating in my head....for one thing, I want to do a (mostly) pink-and-grey quilt after buying some fabrics that are pink floral prints on a grey background. I am envisioning something simple like this one, only made larger so it's like a coverlet or a throw instead of a wall-hanging. I'd probably use white as the sashing there but I might want a "crackly" or glittery fabric for the outer border - which the Fairy Frost is)

* A friend of mine is going through some difficult times so I thought I'd send her a care package. I see she is working on a project where she needs large-ish amounts of four-ply yarn....and I had an idea. Not a "wonderful awful idea," but hopefully a wonderful loving idea....I have some tiny gift-type items (funny little erasers and the like) and I am going to make a "magic ball" by winding the yarn around them so she can either knit it up and reveal the tiny treats, or she can rewind the ball to get them all at once.

I dunno. It's something I'd enjoy so I assume someone else who is kind of like me would, too. I have my tiny treats to go in it (one of the nice things about getting Doki Doki boxes: you always have fun little things on the shelf for minigifts) and maybe I spend part of the evening winding up the ball. I'll have to go through my stash of fun friendship cards and pick out the best one for her.