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By infmom, July 13, 2010 12:38 pm

Image by Marcin Wichary via Flickr

I have never been known for straightforward, logical thinking.  Just ask my family.    I failed the only programming class I ever took (although to this day I can read programs written in some languages and figure out where the problems are) and my brothers would regularly whup my butt at any game requiring an advanced-thinking strategy.  My mind doesn’t handle chess or checkers–heck, my son beat me at chess the first time we ever played.  He was nine years old.  I did not let him win.

However, I’m able to think in patterns and spatial relationships that my straightforward-thinking family members can’t handle.  No brother of mine ever beat me at 3D tic-tac-toe, although when we played the paper version I only won if I got lucky.  I’m very good at troubleshooting computer problems because I don’t expect them to behave logically and I understand when to search for less exact terms.  My husband, who made it all the way through college calculus without trouble and went to grad school in a demanding scientific field, regularly fumes at his computer because he expects it to behave in certain ways and of course it won’t.  I just wish he didn’t get so annoyed with me for coming up with the solutions.  I know; logical people don’t think illogic solves problems.  That does not make sense.

Why did I go off on this tangent today?  Because I recently discovered to my absolute astonishment that I can solve Sudoku puzzles.  The iTunes store was having a sale, and in browsing through what was available I found a free Sudoku app.  At first I wasn’t going to get it, figuring it would be hopelessly beyond my powers of reason, but then I figured what the heck, I could always delete it if I couldn’t handle it.

I tried an easy puzzle and figured it out without much difficulty and with only one or two false moves.  I did another one and another one and…. OMG I can do this!

I don’t do it logically.  I do it by seeing patterns.  I will never be a speed demon or a champ but I can do this.  I am now doing the medium-diffuculty puzzles and my average solve time is just a little slower than on the beginner ones, although I’m making a few more false moves per puzzle, usually because I’m not paying close attention to where the numbers are.  When I’m actually seeing what I’m looking at, I rarely make mistakes.

I mentioned this to my son last night and he said he wasn’t at all surprised.  Because for years now I have been playing an old DOS based logic game called Sherlock.  You’re presented with a grid and a series of graphical clues as to where various icons must go on the grid to solve the puzzle.  My husband was the first one to get involved with that game and when I saw it I didn’t think I could handle it either, but here I am, probably 20 years later and still playing it.  (If any of you might be interested in trying it, it’s still available from the programmer, Everettt Kaser, on his web site.)  I think I’m using logic to solve those puzzles, but I might not even know what real logic is.

I think once I get done with the ten medium-hard puzzles on the free Sudoku app, I’ll buy the full version so I can have lots more challenges.  Man, I feel so good about this!

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By infmom, April 22, 2010 11:39 am

Today’s project is the most elaborate, and the one on which I can provide the least in the way of exact instructions.  Strange but true.    This is because I took a plain bracelet emblem and wire-wrapped it, and explaining how to do wire wrapping is best left to someone who knows a lot more about it than I do.  Fortunately, there are plenty of books that can teach you the technique, and any good public library should have at least a few (or they can get one for you through interlibrary loan).  I used Wire Wrapping: The Basics And Beyond which provides clear tutorials for almost anything you’d want to try with a pendant.

For this project you will need a bracelet emblem of your choice (I used the gold titanium sleek stretch bracelet emblem), wire of your choice, a small bead or crystal, pliers, small screwdriver, and a jump ring.  Remove the bracelet as detailed in the previous posts, and if you’re using a bracelet with a chain, remove both of the rings.  Wire wrap the pendant in whatever style looks good to you, but be sure the wire does not obscure the MedicAlert graphics on the front or the essential information on the back.

Cut a piece of thin wire about 1-1/2 times as long as you want the drop on the bottom of the pendant to be.  Make a loop in one end, thread on your bead or crystal, and make a loop in the other end but don’t close the loop.  Hook this through the opening at the bottom of the emblem and then close the loop.  For the dangle on the bottom (which is optional) I took a piece of the twisted-square wire I’d used for the wrapping and wound it into a small, tight spiral with my pliers.  The end of the spiral was angled up and around to make another loop, which I slipped through the loop on the bottom of the crystal bead and then crimped closed.

Attach a sturdy jump ring to the top of the pendant, add a decorative chain of your choice (make sure it is sturdy and not delicate), and you’re set to go.  This is a MedicAlert emblem you can wear just as you would any fancy pendant.

If you’ve done “remodeling” work on your own jewelry, I would love to hear about it!

Next up:  Attaching a Medic Alert emblem to a large thrift-store bracelet.

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By infmom, April 16, 2010 12:58 pm

In the last post I showed how just replacing the original chain with a nicer one can make your bracelet look a lot better (well, if you don’t use cheap chain like I did, that is).  Today, I’ll talk about making a really dressy chain bracelet.

I started out with a plain stainless steel bracelet, Item #A492,  for this project.  There doesn’t seem to be a way to link directly to this on the MedicAlert web site.  If you want a gold bracelet, I’d recommend the Gold Titanium Sleek Stretchband, item #A706.

For this one, you will need your wire cutters and pliers for the chain bracelet, or your small screwdriver for the stretch band bracelet.  You will also need a length of figaro chain (or other small decorative chain of your choice) that is about three times the length of the existing chain, and a fancy clasp that accommodates multiple chains and hooks together.  You will also need small jump rings to attach the chain to the clasp.  I apologize for the somewhat blurry photo that accompnies this. I wasn’t able to get reasonable pictures with my somewhat ancient point-and-shoot digital camera, so I laid the bracelet on my scanner instead.

Begin by removing the existing chain, as I explained in the last post, or by turning over your stretch-band bracelet and prying loose the ends of the bracelet with your screwdriver.  You will also remove the ring to which the current clasp attaches on the chain bracelet (leave the other ring opened but still attached).  Lay the original chain out on the table, and measure three lengths of new chain.   The best way to get the measurement is to place the halves of the clasp at each end of the existing chain, and stretch the new chain out beside it.  The clasp I used for this bracelet has its center chain attachment a bit farther from the hook than the side chains.  I forgot to accommodate this when I cut the chain, so the center chain ended up being a tad too long.  This doesn’t cause serious problems so I left it as it was.

Carefully string your chain from one part of the clasp to the other, making sure you don’t get the lengths of chain crossed up on the way (and why do you think I mention this).    Wrap the bracelet around your arm and check to make sure the length of the chain is correct, and adjust it if necessary.  Again, you want to make sure the bracelet is loose enough that it can be easily turned over to see the information on the back.  With this clasp, you also want to leave enough space that the hook on the loose end can be fastened through the open end of the bracelet from underneath.  If you have started with a stretch bracelet, you will need to put a sturdy jump ring or split ring on the left side of the emblem, to secure the permanently-attached end of the clasp.

Once you’re happy with the length of the bracelet, make sure all your jump rings are securely fastened and your chains aren’t twisted, and there you go!  Dressy enough to wear on special occasions, if you like.

Next up:  How to turn a plain bracelet into a fancy necklace.

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By infmom, April 15, 2010 1:44 pm

The easiest thing you can do to make a plain bracelet fancier is to change the chain the emblem is attached to.

For this project you’ll need a small but sturdy wire cutter, two small pliers, a chain of your choice, a clasp, and, optionally, a fairly large and sturdy jump ring to fasten the clasp to.

MedicAlert chains are firmly attached, so getting the original chain off takes a bit of muscle.  Begin by cutting the jump ring that fastens the bracelet to the emblem (not the chain itself, just that one ring).  Twist the cut ends in opposite directions with your pliers (don’t pull the ends of the ring apart to open it up or you’ll never get it back together again).  As soon as the ring is open enough to slip the chain through it, do that.  You don’t need to open the link wide enough to get it off the emblem.

Once that’s done, lay the chain on a table and measure the new chain, with its clasp attached, to match the length of the old one.  If you want to make the bracelet tighter or looser at this time, you can, but if you shorten the chain make sure it’s still long enough that the emblem can still be flipped over on your wrist easily.

If your clasp is large enough, you can just hook it through the opening in the emblem.  Otherwise you will want to add a good solid jump ring to clasp to (nothing flimsy here, you want the bracelet to stay on).  Take this into consideration when you’re figuring out the length of your chain.

Once that’s done, slip the new chain into the opened jump ring on the emblem and twist the ends of the ring together again.  Twist them just a little past being even with each other and then pull them back into alignment.  That’s the easiest way to make it straight.

And there you have it.  As you can see in the picture, I used inexpensive chain for this modification and that turned out to be a bad idea, because the thin gold plating wore off quickly to reveal the dull brass underneath.  I’ve reworked this bracelet into something a lot more attractive and I’ll show you that in a later post.  The illustration is just to show you how a simple chain change can look.

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By infmom, April 14, 2010 2:31 pm

I’ve been a MedicAlert member since the mid-1980s, and I’ve changed my bracelets and necklaces often as time has passed and my medical conditions have changed.  I might go out without my Amex card, but never without my MedicAlert emblem.  My family can’t be expected to keep track of every single condition and medication.  Plus, if I’m out alone, the emblem gives people a way to reach my family members as soon as possible.

MedicAlert offers a wide selection of emblems and jewelry and there’s something there for just about everyone, but it’s a fact of life that their budget priced emblems are usually rather plain and their fancy emblems are usually rather expensive.  I don’t mean this as a criticism.  The purchase of memberships and emblems supports a fantastic organization.

But even if you’re on a budget there’s nothing that says you can’t have a fancy emblem too.  Embellishing your own emblems is surprisingly easy.  In the next series of posts I’ll give simplified instructions for making your everyday emblem look like party wear.

For these projects, you’ll need two small pliers, a small but sturdy wire cutter, and if you’ll be working with a stretch bracelet emblem, a small flat-blade screwdriver.  I’ll talk about other materials you’ll need when I describe the projects.   If you don’t have the tools on hand already, there are a bazillion good places to get them, from your local hardware store to Harbor Freight Tools to jewelry and craft suppliers like Fire Mountain Gems.  Just don’t get them from the 99¢ store or some other ultra cheap supplier–you don’t want to break your tools before you finish your project.

In the next series of posts I’ll go from simple to fancy.  You can re-imagine any of these any way you want.

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By infmom, April 12, 2010 11:17 am

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I talked a bit here about finishing my first novel and writing my second (which actually got finished before the first one did).  Of course, everyone who writes a book hopes to see it published.  The problem is that the publishing industry has gotten ever more insular and harder to break into, in the face of declining book sales and the rise of the internet.  If you’re not going to rival the current best-selling authors, especially with a work of fiction, the likelihood some publisher would bother with your manuscript, even with an agent representing it, is depressingly small.

However, with today’s technology, publishing one’s own works one’s own self has become ever easier.  The self-published author undoubtedly won’t be rolling in money as the result of his or her endeavors, but the self-published author will have actual books in print where the big-corporation hopeful most likely will not.

So I’m thinking about self-publishing.  I’ve gotten excellent advice from a good friend who published several books through mainstream channels and is now self-publishing.  He recommended high-end layout software for formatting the manuscript to send to the publisher, but I can’t afford anything like that.  I was wondering how to get the layout done properly when I picked up a book called Self-Publishing Fiction: From Manuscript to Bookstore and Beyond, by Gavin Sinclair, at the library.  And in that book was the answer:  Desktop publishing software!  Of course!

I did a lot of work with desktop publishing software years ago, using, believe it or not, a Commodore 128 and a program called GeoPublish.  Which stacked up quite well against high-end, high-priced Ventura Publisher in a review by Computer Shopper magazine at the time.    So I already know the basics and I’m sure today’s software is even more comprehensive and easy to use.  Since I’m happy with my Serif web page creation software, I ordered their PagePlus X4 from Amazon today.

Next on the list, a thorough investigation of print-on-demand publishers.   That route makes the most sense to me, since I won’t have to pay for books I can’t sell, and books printed by the reputable companies will be available for sale through Amazon and other booksellers.  And I’ll have to create my own publishing company, probably in association with my family.  But that’s a ways down the road.

There’s a lot of work yet to be done but I’m fired up about it already. 

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By infmom, March 22, 2010 2:18 pm

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Last night, I finished the manuscript for my first novel, Closed Circuit.  More than 20 years after I started it, and four months after I wrote its sequel.  No one ever accused me of doing things logically.    It’s not a FINISHED finished manuscript, if you know what I mean–I still have to go over it and see what still needs fixing.  And let a few trusted friends take a look at it and mark all over it.  But yeah, I got the story done, and I like what I did.

I printed it out today, since I do serious correction work best on a printed page, and gleefully went out and bought a nice binder to put it in (thank heavens for printer paper that comes already 3-hole punched!)  That will make it easier for other people to mark it up too.

Now, I’m in the process of designing the cover picture.  I don’t suppose that if I get it accepted by a publisher, they’ll keep the cover I designed, but what the hey.  I know what I want.  A combination of Photoshop and ink and I’m on my way.

Damn, I feel good!

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By infmom, March 18, 2010 9:05 pm

More than twenty years ago, I decided to try my hand at writing a romance novel.  Based on the content of the Harlequins I’d read (especially one flamingly ridiculous little number called Romance of The Rose) I figured, how hard can it be?

And in truth, if you can write, and tell a story, and format your story to fit within very rigid guidelines and follow the
formula, writing a standard issue romance novel isn’t that hard.  I know, because I did it.

The problem was, when I got done with it, I knew it was not the book I wanted to write.  The story wasn’t just about these two people finding each other again after all those years.  There were other people involved, and a backstory that needed to be told, and plot points that would not fit the standard mold at all.  Besides, in those days, romance characters had names like Blaise and Chanterelle.  From the start, I chose deliberately plain names for my main characters.  Well, that part wouldn’t have gotten my manuscript binned by the romance publishers, but not following the formula definitely would have–and this story rejected the formula with as firm a hand as a Harlequin editor would have.

So I set the manuscript aside for a while, and thought about it, and worked out another storyline that had to be woven in with the original, and brought in some new characters.  And started rewriting, till I came to a stopping point for some reason or other.  And there the manuscript sat.  I’d pull up the files from time to time and look at them.  I think I rewrote the first two chapters about five times each, but somehow I never got moving on the rest of the book.

I knew from the get-go that there had to be a second book that would tie up loose ends for some of the secondary characters in the first book.  I even knew the name of the second book and the name of the new character I’d bring into the small town I’d created.  Yeah, I knew all that, but I didn’t have the story beyond a very vague idea that we’d find out who the father of 10-year-old twins was, and who would complicate their mother’s life.  But last November, I decided to get off my literary duff and by golly write that sequel.  And I did.

So then I had a finished sequel to an unfinished first book.  And when I asked a few people to read my second novel, of course there were references to plot points from the first book that didn’t really make much sense because of course the first book wasn’t to the point of being readable by anyone else, yet.

So, a few weeks ago I dug in my heels and dug out that manuscript.  Looked at the dates on the files.  They were created in DOS Word, which I had to give up due to Y2K issues (pity, because it’s my all time favorite word processor).  None of the file dates were more recent than about 1994.  Shame on me.  (When I was cleaning up a pile of old floppy disks I found a version of the book from 1990… so yeah, twenty long years.)

So, I imported the whole mess into Word 2003, cleaned it up a bit, and exported it again so I could work on it with Scrivener on the Mac (my new all time favorite word processor).  And I started plugging away at it.  It was immediately apparent where I’d left off with the rewrite, because after a bunch of reasonably good chapters, all of a sudden I had a whole chapter that didn’t do anything, the subplot and new characters went away, and the main characters reverted to standard-romance mode.  Yuck.

I decided to at least go through to the end and tighten up what was there and put it more in line with the new storyline, and that job was finished two days ago.  Now, I need to get rid of that nowhere chapter, put in a new one that advances the new plot, and move along from there.

Bits and pieces of the backstory keep impinging on my consciousness from time to time, though.  Today, I edited some of the early chapters to bring that all in, in a natural way (if I do say so myself).  When I finished that, I was ready to dance on air.  Because all of a sudden I realized…  I LIKE this book.  If I hadn’t written it, I’d read it.  What a feeling!

No idea what I will do when it’s all finished.  Send it out?  Publish it myself?  Lots to think about.  But I do think it’s a good book, and thank goodness I wrote such a lousy romance novel and gave myself the chance to write something better–given enough time.

photo credit: dasjabbadas

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By infmom, January 5, 2010 11:10 pm

I keep telling myself I need to update more.  That’s one thing I’m going to work on this year, for sure.

So, like a lot of people, I resolved to do better on diet and exercise this year.  I got a little gizmo called a FitBit to help me with that.  It uses the same technology as a Wii controller and tells me in no uncertain terms how sedentary I am during the course of the average day.

So I have decided to change that.  Granted, it’s only been two days, but I’ve done OK.  I’ve gone walking in Griffith Park because I’m so freakin’ bored with our neighborhood that I don’t want to walk in it any more (after 15 years, yeah, you get burnt out).  For now I’m walking the same stretch of roadway that the December light show is on, a distance of about two miles round trip.  But there are a lot more walking trails to check out and I can see covering many miles before I get bored.

In a few months I am going to build myself a new computer.  This one’s at least six years old (I can’t remember exactly when I built it but I believe it was in 2004).  It still works fine, but it’s showing its age.  I’ll have to buy a new motherboard and CPU, new memory and new hard drives.  I’m already deciding which of my current software will make the transfer and which I won’t bother to reinstall.  I’m looking forward to the project.  I like building computers.

I need to do some serious work on my web sites and I think I should look around for different website software.  I have been happy with NetObjects Fusion, but I think the structure is more complicated than it should be and let’s face it, the templates it comes with are dull.  I am not yet to the stage where I can design the whole look of a site from scratch, though, so I need templates for the time being.   I’m looking around to see what the options are.

In November, I wrote a novel for National Novel Writing Month.  I am proud of that.  The book is a sequel to a novel I’ve been pecking away at for more years than I really care to admit.  My goal for the first quarter of this year is to finish that first novel, edit both books to make them a reasonable length, and then try sending them out for publication.  Or perhaps go the self-publish route.  There are a lot of ways to go about getting published, these days, and I figure I have piddled around way too long.  Being able to write a 55,000 word book in less than one month showed me in no uncertain terms that I can do this and I should be getting my fanny in gear and doing it.  Besides, then I’ll have the fun of telling people to treat me right or they’ll end up in my next novel. 

Even though it’s only four days in, 2010 is off to a good start.

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By infmom, November 14, 2009 5:13 pm

My parents, and my husband’s parents, grew up during the Depression, but they had vastly different experiences with it. While my inlaws were carefully taught to be frugal, to take care of their things, to not waste food, and never to get rid of something that was still good, my parents were insulated from all that. My father’s parents were wealthy, and while my grandmother went through a lot of hardships, my mother was tucked away at boarding school where everything they felt she needed was supplied.

Thus, my inlaws lived frugally, were as self-sufficient as possible and taught their kids that wasting food and throwing things out that were still good was something akin to a capital offense.  My parents were lah-di-dah about it all, and if things broke, they had no idea how to fix them, and were more likely to just go buy another one.  They also threw other people’s stuff out without a second thought if it got in their way. And it never would have occured to them to buy anything second hand.

When my husband and I married, our parents’ styles didn’t affect us as much as one might think.  For one thing, I was tired of my parents’ needless helplessness and utter cluelessness about money, and there was never a chance in the world I would follow in their footsteps.  I always assumed I could fix things, and I did all the kitchen stuff my mother wasn’t interested in, like baking and making jelly and so forth.

However, the business of “still good” and “don’t waste food” was a bone of contention.  I was not a member of the Clean Plate Club, and I saw no harm in disposing of food that was past its prime.  I didn’t just pick the moldy part off the bread or the cheese and eat the rest.  And while I was as frugal as possible (our financial situation dictated nothing less) I was not a fan of cobbling things together and making do.  When you’re as broke as we were, you do a lot of that, but there’s nothing that says you have to like it.

As time has gone by, and our lives have gotten steadily better,  I’ve been more and more adamant about not cobbling-together, and doing things right the first time.  I saw a book title that was appropriate:  If You Haven’t Got the Time to Do It Right, When Will You Find the Time to Do It Over? And yes, I sometimes toss out, or give away, things that are still good.  We donate bags and bags of books to the library and clothing and household items to the Salvation Army every year.  This satisfies my husband, because it means the items have a chance to be useful for someone else.

What got me going on this today?  Well, one of the things I am taking time to do right is fixing a longstanding problem in our kitchen.  When we moved in here, there was a battered, broken, stained, rotten looking ceramic soap dish (or more properly what was left of it) set into the tile backsplash in the kitchen.  I talked for years about knocking it out and replacing it with decorative tiles.  Even bought the tiles when we were on vacation in Arizona two years ago.  A few weeks ago, my husband dealt with the remains of the soap dish, and I installed my decorative tiles.  The only thing left to do on that project was to remove the ghastly, crumbling caulk around the sink (something else we should have done years ago).

My husband brought home a tube of name brand kitchen/bath silicone sealant that he’d scrounged from somewhere a week or two ago, with the idea of using it to caulk the sink.  Today, since he’s away for a training meeting all weekend and I have the chance to do the work on the sink my way (let’s just say our repair-work styles are mutually incompatible; I’ll talk about that some other day) I got at it with a razor knife and a screwdriver and scraped the last of that godawful old caulk out of there and left it to dry for an hour or so.

And then I picked up the scrounged tube of sealant.  There was an expiration date stamped faintly into the crimp at the end of the tube.  USE BEFORE 04/03, it said.

I got some more at Home Depot.

photo credit: van swearingen

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