Wednesday, July 14, 2010

And the Living is Easy

I don’t much like summer -- it’s too cold. Indoors, that is. Movie theaters and grocery stores really push down on the thermostat, often to the point where I wish I’d brought a sweater along. But my husband likes it really cool, too, in our apartment. Half the reason I take a nice, hot shower every day is to get warm.

One reason to like summer, on the other hand, is that travel is much easier. No icy roads, no nightfall at five o’clock. So it’s not all bad.

My routine doesn’t much change in the summer. I only rarely make needlework items as Christmas gifts -- my eyes are approaching a stage where I will need cataract surgery one of these days, and so my projects are aimed more learning how a particular form of needlework is done than doing it well, and the result is often not good enough to give as a gift. Well, with one hoped-for exception: I took a class on making Romanian Point Lace in Salt Lake City last month, and I bought a kit to make a Christmas present of it for the woman who bravely and gamely came with me on my Great Train Journey. Nine stops in nineteen days, whew!

I think most crafters ply their craft “out of season.” If you’re going to stitch a Christmas stocking for a grandchild, you must start it long, long before the stores put out their Christmas stuff -- in, say, May or June. (At the rate I work, it would be ready not by this Christmas, but the next!)

My writing routine is basic: sit in the chair, boot up, and write. So the weather outdoors doesn’t affect that part of it. My office doesn’t even have a window, which makes it easier to write a snowstorm into a book in July. But see paragraph two, above, for the part about traveling to interview someone or look at something as research.

Like many other people, my favorite season is autumn; that’s when the flowery promise of spring is kept. I seem to have more energy in the fall, and my outlook is optimistic for some reason. How about you?

4 comments:

Linda O. Johnston said...

Oh, but I love the coolness of air conditioning and, better yet, fresh air, Monica. I also used to love fall when I lived someplace where there really was one. But I agree that what's going on outside doesn't much affect a writing routine. All the best with your eyes. Fortunately, I understand that cataract surgery has become fairly routine these days.

Annette said...

I am a summer girl and believe me I know what a real summer is liked, because I live in South Louisiana, where we have summer from mid April to mid November. I think part of the reason I enjoy your Needleshop series so much is because of its setting in Minnesota. The weather is so different from where I live. I find it fascinating to read about those cold winters in Minnesota.

Betty Hechtman said...

I'm not an air conditioning fan either. However summer just hit southern California with a vengence today. The temperature was over 100 where I am and we got a shot of monsoon moisture that backs into the area. So right now I'm grateful for air conditioning.

Beadknitter said...

My favorite season is Spring when everything comes back to life and color returns to the world again. I love the spring flowers, the bright green leaves opening up, and all those pink trees that are blooming. The air smells so good in the spring too.