Tutes Tuesday

Nope, not a knitting tutorial this time. My last couple of days have mostly been about The Last of Us. My son didn’t want me to watch the series before trying out the game.

I don’t play games above the level of solitaire and such. Maybe some hidden object games. But role-playing seems a bit too hard. Long ago, my kids had me play a Mario game, and I enjoyed watching the poor plumber jump. I didn’t get past that for laughing and making him jump more. The game was taken from me as the offspring said more needed to be done.

Well, yesterday, my son brought out his Playstation 3 for me to learn about The Last of Us game. The game is about a serious situation. I felt horrid hurting the actors. So I gave the controller back to my son. It had been so long since he played on this system; he usually plays on an Xbox. So he was having trouble getting the main guy, Joel, to climb up and join Tess. (I think that was her name.) I suggested pushing certain buttons, and it worked! Yay!

The story grabbed me right away, and I wanted to stop the game and see more of the story. Here is what we found. Cut out a couple days to watch these.

Then we watched the next one over yesterday and today.

I loved these and can’t wait to see the series.

While Dana had out the Playstation, he wanted me to try one of his favorite games, Skyrim. He thought I would do well with a few short trailers to understand the world and game. I won’t post all of them here. I wasn’t as impressed as I; I’m sorry, everyone, I don’t much like Lord of the Rings and High Fantasy. That is how it appears to me. But he has been telling me about this lady for a long time. Grandma Skyrim, Shirley Currey. She is my newest idol!

https://www.youtube.com/@ShirleyCurryTheOlderGamer

Here is the first one we watched, but I will go to her beginning and watch many of these. I like how she works with the vlog.

Oh, and the knitter in me can’t give up the idea that I hope somewhere she knits and knitted that cool sweater! She is SO cool!

Just Jot It January,

The prompt word for January 22nd is “seasonal.” Thanks go to Kaye for the wonderful prompt!

Please be sure to check out Kaye’s blog here!

For Just Jot it January, click the following link to see how you, too, can join in! https://lindaghill.com/2023/01/22/daily-prompt-jusjojan-the-22nd-2023/ It’s fun!

Linda spoke of how her writing was seasonal. NaNoWriMo, CampNaNo and Just Jot It January becomes her writing time. Me, too. It seems those programs help motivate me properly. I haven’t won every time. And sometimes, like last month as I tried another goal, I made no progress at all. But often I make the 50k. Even on the camps. That would probably not surprise my teachers. Most of my report cards had comments like, ‘Darlene talks too much in class.’

This year I’ve over-goaled my life with all the gifts I’m trying to make and so writing has fallen by the wayside.

And I still have to podcast and start reading aloud my books, starting with my memoirs. The area in my house I planned on using, suddenly has Diamond Paintings.

My recorder playing, piano and voice practice have fallen off.

There are only 24 hours in a day. Still!!! I stay up reading until 3 or 4. With my old dog waking me often, sleep also seems seasonal. Heat and smoke and bugs of summer, icy cold and snow of winter affects everything in our house. Where we hang out, how we sleep, either covered up over my head with warmth or sheet to keep bugs off. And all this affects energy and pain levels, ya know?

Maybe I need to organize my day better and my week to include everything I want to do.

Thank goodness for the treadmill. It still gets used most days of the week.

How does anyone get anything done with a job? I did do NaNo. But the rest of this, writing, knitting, especially learning new stitches, artwork, music, etc. Little got done. Too tired. Housework. Phew!

Seasons of our lives are as influential as the weather. Whew!

Just Jot It January, Constellation

Per Linda: Your prompt for JusJoJan January 2nd 2023, is “constellation.” Use the word “constellation” any way you’d like. Have fun!

Thanks, Willow, for today’s prompt. Click on her name to check out her blog.

Look at all those stars!

As Van Gogh illustrated it seems they are in motion. And they blink in and out. Magical. Even when we know the science behind the beauty. We are in awe.

As a young person, I gazed at the stars and learned the names of the constellations you would think that my favorite would be the archer. Sagittarius, after all. But I gravitated to the serpentine creature between the big bear and little bear. Draco. I could hear him call to me.

One day he joined the constellation of characters in my books. There are nearly as many dragons in the books I write as there are people. Dragons can teach, transfer in time and space, form living areas for everyone when the planet surface becomes uninhabitable due to meteors falling.

Best of all, dragons are a reflection of our inner being. That’s why my favorite dragon is Enelrad. Her mate is Sirch.

We can be brave and fly between bears (or the stars). We can fly between the constellations.

Someday I will be able to publish Haven’s stories.

Happy Halloween/NaNo Eve!

Not much time. I still am developing characters and world building. The family Pensées is nearly made. Popeye (papa), Paris (mama), Olive, Poppy, and now working on her twin, Pepper, the three offspring. Then I need a frienemy like Brutus.

I think they are currently on a spaceship but I’ll need a world. Lots to do before midnight!

Me

To everyone else:

Is It Really Thursday

This day has pretended to be anything but Thursday. Thank goodness my brother knew it was the trash is ready for tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I’ve been in password hell. My laptop went belly up. A new cell and Fire should help until we can get a new laptop. But every little thing needs a sign-in and new passwords. Maybe others do okay with all of that, but ADD/dyslexia of 2022 with all the two-step verification makes me wish for the simplicity of 1998.

I haven’t talked about the binges lately.

My friend and I between her two visits here and mine to her home, have enjoyed a couple shows. We really got sucked into The Umbrella Academy. I kind of hope there will be more, yet it doesn’t leave you on a cliff.

Stranger Things is on the edge of your seat exciting.

To calm down I’ve resorted to Bridgerton.

It’s kind of a nice change and you can’t take it seriously.

Ah, but as I’m busy with password hell or writing (I have gotten a little done but have no idea how much. I’m not working in yWriter so accurate word count, etc. can’t happen.) It’s back to old trusted noise of Outlander, Jurassic Park, The Walking Dead, etc. I figure I’ve shared them often enough. I can’t wait to get back to the history of  Doctor Who on Amazon. By the way, the others are on Netflix.

I think I’ll get back to my writing and TWD. I’m two weeks behind! Yikes! I’m filling in with trip memories. I’ll put them in the right journal later. I just need to write.

Thursday

Socks done. Now the hard part, getting them in the mail.

Dragon nearly growling off the page!

Not as much done on the writing. Pretty tired from stress, long drives, actual surgery, so I mostly vegged

Scrappy socks for charity.

Reading. I’m having to learn to track, or figure out which glasses help best. And I won’t know for a month. So Audible and Text-to-speech is still my friends. BUT, standing in front of the mirror winking first right eye then left eye, the surprise is that my left eye sees my reflection better than the old favorite my right eye.

My new big E. At first I couldn’t see the numbers with my left eye. Well, before surgery it was a blotch on the wall. It’s about 10 feet from my recliner. My ‘good’ eye, the right still sees it, even the second hand. But gradually poor weak but refurbished left eye sees the numbers now. YAY! This is quite the adventure!

Review: The 1619 Project: A New Origin Storyby Nikole Hannah-Jones (Narrator)

The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story

by Nikole Hannah-Jones (Narrator)

I can’t remember who recommended this book to me first. It might have been my church. Or one of my best friends. In either case, thank you! You see, I have always hated history classes. You had to remember men’s names dates and the wars they started or ended with men’s bigger guns. I did have a fantastic History teacher in college. He included music and arts in his lectures. Even still the history was just that HIStory. And only with this book did I see that it was white men’s HIStory.

 

This audiobook from Libby was all-inclusive. I think I need to add the book blurb.

 

  Duration: 18 hours and 57 minutes <– Just in case you have limited time.

 

“A dramatic expansion of a groundbreaking work of journalism, ‘The 1619 PROJECT: A NEW ORIGIN STORY’ offers a profoundly revealing vision of the American past and present.

 

In late August 1619, a ship arrived in the British colony of Virginia bearing a cargo of 20 to 30 enslaved people from Africa. Their arrival led to the barbaric and unprecedented system of American chattel slavery that would last for the next 250 years. This is sometimes referred to as the country’s original sin, but it is more than that: It is the source of so much that still defines the United States.

 

‘THE 1619 PROJECT: A NEW ORIGIN STORY’ builds on one of the most consequential journalistic events of recent years: The New York Times Magazine’s award-winning “1619 Project,” which reframed our understanding of American history by placing slavery and its continuing legacy at the center of our national narrative. This new book substantially expands on the original 1619 Project, weaving together eighteen essays that explore the legacy of slavery in present-day America with 36 poems and works of fiction that illuminate key moments of oppression, struggle, and resistance. The essays show how the inheritance of 1619 reaches into every part of contemporary American society, from politics, music, diet, traffic, and citizenship to capitalism, religion, and our democracy itself. This legacy can be seen in the way we tell stories, the way we teach our children, and the way we remember. Together, the elements of the book reveal a new origin story for the United States, one that helps explain not only the persistence of anti-Black racism and inequality in American life today but also the roots of what makes the country unique.

 

The book also features a significant elaboration of the original project’s Pulitzer Prize-winning lead essay, by Nikole Hannah-Jones, on how the struggles of Black Americans have expanded democracy for all Americans, as well as two original pieces from Hannah-Jones, one of which makes a profound case for reparative solutions to this legacy of injustice.

 

This is a book that speaks directly to our current moment, contextualizing the systems of race and caste within which we operate today. It reveals long-glossed-over truths around our nation’s founding and construction – and the way that the legacy of slavery did not end with emancipation, but continues to shape contemporary American life.”

 

There are so many contributors and voices throughout. It is poetry and prose of beauty included in the ugliest of actions against people.

 

I found I couldn’t read it as a bedtime book. I would either aim to keep reading or have nightmares/ So I used this as the background as I worked on my Diamond Painting. My hands were busy so my mind could engage.

 

I highly recommend this book. I would love it to be used in schools as inclusive his/herstory.