I had an experience a few weeks ago, that made me realize something about men; this mainly has to do with a man’s reaction to a woman’s tears. Before I get into that though, here’s something that you may not know about me: I’m a crier. I cry at everything. Sappy commercials, corny birthday cards, and the ever-present (especially around the holidays) Hallmark movies – they get me every time! I’ve accepted this about myself, and have learned to live with it. I’m aware that there are certain things I just shouldn’t watch if I don’t want to end up a weeping mess… For instance, the moment I hear the beginnings of that Sarah McLachlan song from the ASPCA commercials, I know to change the channel – there’s no way I’m watching that one again.

Well, while surfing the interwebs a few weeks ago, I had somehow ended up on the website for an animal shelter – we won’t go into how that happened. As fate would have it though, I was re-directed to one of their pages that told the story of a very unfortunate puppy. I won’t go into the details here because I’ll probably start crying again, but here’s the link in case you’re a glutton for punishment; word of advise though, don’t click on it unless you’re prepared to donate something to help the poor baby out, because I definitely couldn’t leave the website until I did.

Anyway. So here I am, tearfully reading this horrible story, when I look up and realize that I’m no longer alone – one of the men of my acquaintance is standing in the doorway, just stopping in to say hi apparently. Then he sees that I’m crying. I’m pretty sure that I’ll never forget the look on his face; if I could compare it to anything at all, it would be the look on someone’s face when they witness a car accident, and realize they’re the only one that can help. He’s walked in on something awful by the looks of it, and now he’s taken responsibility in a way – leaving the scene would result in some sort of “failure to render aid” penalty. So, what to do? This has probably gone through every man’s mind at one time or another, when it comes to a woman. “What do I do??”

Honestly, I would have been perfectly fine if he had “left the scene”, so to speak. Obviously I wasn’t having some sort of personal crisis that required immediate attention – I was also pretty embarrassed to have a witness to my emotional moment; part of me was wishing (as he most likely was as well) that he would just go away and pretend that he didn’t see anything. Of course, he didn’t do that; he squared his shoulders and sat down opposite me, taking the time to make sure that I was okay. He probably heard a lot more about my opinions on animal cruelty than he really wanted to, because once I started to tell him why I was crying it all just came flooding out, but he sat there and listened. He must have seen pretty quickly that this wasn’t something he could fix for me, which I’ve realized now is the natural instinct for most men when they’re given a problem – the old “why are you telling me about this if you don’t want me to fix it?” conundrum. The thing is, most of us women are pretty capable of fixing our problems by ourselves. We just need to be able to vent our frustrations, and then we can figure out what needs to be done. I applaud the man that understands this, and will sit down to listen (no matter how uncomfortable he may be) when all that we need is an ear.

May you always be as old as your tongue, and a little older than your teeth.

-Gin

I started making crossword puzzles for different publications about four years ago, and have found it to be a very entertaining (not to mention challenging!) way to make a little extra money in my spare time. Not that I have a lot of spare time anymore, what with all of the book folding, embroidery work, spending time with boyfriend/friends & family, etc… Yeah, I’ve definitely been slacking lately on the crossword front. Luckily, I seem to have retained most of my useless knowledge which is so helpful when constructing those wonderful puzzles that so many of us love to hate.

You’d probably be surprised at how much “hate mail” a cruciverbalist such as myself actually receives. Not that it’s really hate mail, per se. In my case, it’s more like occasional Facebook messages from frustrated friends who are currently trying to solve a puzzle, and are blaming me (and through me, the person who actually created the puzzle they’re working on) for their inability to do so. Of course, they’re usually half-joking anyway, but whatever… I can call it hate mail if I want to. :o) On the flip side of that though, I also have friends that will sometimes text me with a difficult clue that they just can’t figure out, and they actually appreciate my strange crossword puzzler’s mind.

That being said, let me get to the point of all of this crossword puzzle talk – crossword clues! I’ve been posting clues on Facebook for a few years now, and I’ve decided to start posting them on my website instead. There is a section on the website menu under ‘Pages’ where they will be located, and I will try to put new ones up every day… Okay, the key word there is try by the way. :o)

Good luck, happy solving, and may your nose never be conquered by a band of marauding sea pirates.

-Gin

So I’m not one of those people that can be idle for very long; I tend to have at least a few creative projects up in the air at all times. One thing that I generally look for in choosing projects though, is completion time – I’m a fan of instant gratification, so I don’t particularly like projects that take too long to complete. Of course, I have been working on one of my mom’s embroidery designs for the past 6 months… In my defense, it did sit in the back of my closet for 4 of those months due to major procrastination (not to mention intimidation – too much tiny detail, Mom!!) on my part.

By the way, I get most of my creativity from my mom. She currently designs embroidery patterns – redwork is the type of embroidery that she prefers. I’m breaking some rules and doing my current project in brown instead of red. I’m such a rebel. Here’s a link to the website where she sells her patterns; I’m working on pattern #285 – the scarecrow. Now picture him in brown. Much better, right? I’ll definitely post a pic when he’s finished, but I’m pretty happy with him so far; fingers crossed that I’ll get him finished before Halloween!

As far as projects with shorter completion times go, my newest hobby is folding books. You may or may not have seen these around lately – I’m definitely seeing more and more of them pop up on the interwebs. For those of you that have no idea what I’m talking about, you’re in luck! I have pictures! To briefly explain though, I take an old book (preferably one that nobody wants anymore; Reader’s Digest Condensed Books usually fit the bill for me), and I fold the pages to make letters, words, or even images. It’s a fairly complicated process that I had to figure out myself, because there are basically NO tutorials out there that I could find. I did locate one that would work for very simple designs, like stars, hearts, and basic geometric patterns… Not really anything that I was interested in making though. So yeah. Had to sit down and figure that out.

Now that I’ve done that, I’ve developed a pretty easy system that works well for me, and guess what?! If you decide you want to learn how to fold books, it could work for you too! I’m currently working on making easy-to-follow patterns that I intend to sell to anyone who wants to buy them – I also plan on making some patterns available to readers of my blog, so keep checking back for updates! I’ve also made custom books for people in the past, and could probably be talked into doing that again if you prefer the super instant gratification method – the one where you just pay someone to do the work for you. :o) And honestly, sometimes, that’s the way to go.

Alright, I’m going to call it. This, my first ever blog post, has now reached an end. I tried to keep it short and sweet, and if it’s really neither short nor sweet, well, cut me some slack, okay? I did try, and that should count for something.

May your socks never be stolen by a tribe of Papuan cannibals.

-Gin