A book for my cousin

With my recent bookbinding, since I hadn’t done the oriental binding style recently, and didn’t have instructions, Dad recommended I make a blank book as practice before tackling the one I wanted to keep. That sounded like a very good idea to me. I thought it turned out pretty well. {Smile}

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/345229127658026820/>

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In fact, I thought it turned out well enough to give away. One of my cousins loves handmade things. Even better, she’s an artist herself, so she can always use another sketch book. So I wrote to her, told her about it, and asked if she’d like it. I also asked if she’d like me to try to color the strings with a permanent marker, since sort of white strings don’t stand out well against offwhite covers. I told her which colors of permanent markers Dad and I had found that currently have working ink in them. {GRIN}

She very much wanted the book, and chose blue strings. I thought she liked blue. {BIG GRIN}

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/345229127658279201/>

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I think that looks even better. I showed it to my cousin, and she loves it. Now I just have to get around to mailing it. {SMILE, wink}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

P.S. Clicking the pins will take you to bigger pictures. Clicking again, to even bigger pictures. {Smile}

A.E.B.

Books I’ve Bound

I uploaded a picture of two books I’ve bound to Pinterest and Facebook last week. I meant to mention that here sooner. Maybe it’s just as well I didn’t; a conversation recently started on Pinterest is taking an interesting turn. I had no reason to direct you to it earlier, but it might be worth a peek. {SMILE}

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/345229127658132057/>>

In any case, these are the two books I’ve bound that I’ve kept and recently found. Most either stayed with the library that owned the, or went to friends and relatives as gifts, but not these two. {Smile}

The one on the left is bound in Occidental signature style. It's the very first book I bound, so it has a couple of errors I don't make anymore. Fortunately, they don't show much in this picture. {GRIN}

The one on the right is bound in my best guess at Oriental side-sewn style. I wish I could find instructions. I'm sure they'd save me some trial-and-error learning. {chuckle, lop-sided Smile}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

Again?

I just found myself in an... Odd conversation for the second time. Well, they're almost identical conversations, which seems unusual when I really don't think the gals involved have ever met. I mean, they live on different islands here in Hawai'i when one isn't off on the mainland. I don't think they go to the same states on the mainland much, either. {look Up}

Anyway, both friends know I bind books. So when I mention doing more with some story I've written, they both suggested that I self-publish by printing and hand-binding books myself.

Ah... ignoring the problems of distribution, I couldn't even recoup the cost of materials without out-charging a Print-On-Demand publisher, because even they work on a larger economy of scale than any hand binder could reasonably hope to. Charging for labor too would just make the price ridiculous. {look Up}

{Chuckle-snort} Oh, I know it sounds neat, but trust me, the economics just do not add up here! {AMUSED GRIN}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

My birthday

Well, this has been a nice birthday so far. {Smile}

It's been particularly food-oriented. My parents and I had Portuguese sweet bread buns for breakfast. (Yes, they really are bread and really are sweet, unlike some other "sweet bread." {wink})

Then I had a long and leisurely lunch at a nice restaurant with a couple of friends. Talk about a surprise! I've read about birthday lunches with the girls, but I'm not sure I've ever been to one before. Certainly not as the birthday girl. It was such a nice treat! One gave me lotion in a shopping bag with a very cute kitty on it, and the other gave me a card as well as lunch. I had coconut limeade and a mushroom burger, while my friends had wine and I forget which main courses they ordered. We shared cucumber sushi, Italian herb bread, and passion fruit ice cream. (Um, have I mentioned recently that Hawai'i can be quite cheerfully blatant about multiculturalism?) And we talked a talked... we left the restaurant two hours after we got there. {chuckle, HAPPY SMILE}

For dinner, my parents and I had pork with apples for the main course, with buns, sparkling cider, and chocolate cake for dessert. I chose them, and was very happy with the results. My presents are mostly still in the mail, but Dad did give me a book I'd noticed about Nainoa Thompson, who may have helped start the modern Hawaiian Renaissance when he brought back Polynesian navigation and canoe-building techniques as re-creational Archeology. That should be interesting reading. {SMILE}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

{chuckle}

Mulluane asked an interesting question on her Old Bat's Belfry blog ( http://oldbatsbelfry.blogspot.com/ ) yesterday. (Over here: http://oldbatsbelfry.blogspot.com/2014/01/fun-fridays-let-your-imaginations-fly.html ) She asked what job we'd like to have in heaven.

I said librarian, and apologized for not being more creative and original.

She asked me to save it, and come up with another answer. My first answer was the right one for me. I just explained why in a follow-up comment:

"{blink} I don't think it would be much of a heaven if you didn't have stories to keep you entertained, or if you couldn't finally learn the answers to the burning questions you always wondered about.

If you have enough stories to keep everyone entertained with all their different tastes, and enough information to answer everyone's burning questions, including the highly technical ones of specialists within their fields... well, you'll have to store that information somewhere. Libraries started with wooden boards, clay tablets, and papyrus scrolls. They moved to parchment and vellum, then started cutting the vellum and binding it into books. Then they started getting audio visual materials and computer files. Every last type has been collected, organized, and preserved by libraries. Even if they stored al this in the minds of assorted residents, they'd need a very detailed catalog to tell you which resident to consult about what.

But I bet they don't, because who wants to have to drop whatever they're busy doing to answer a question every time someone thinks of it? So they'll have some way to store both stories and information that saves everyone from interruptions. Then it won't matter whether they store it books, or clouds, or stars, or atoms; they'll still have to store those materials, and organize them, and help folks find the specific information and stories they want when they want it.

The folks who do that will be librarians by definition... and I'd give anything to be one of them. {SMILE}"

I'm not sure what either she or David, the other fellow in the discussion so far, will think of that, but it really is the truth. {SMILE, wink}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

{sigh, wipe eyes}

When am I going to stop tearing up when "Amigos Para Sempre" by Andrew Lloyd Webber plays? It describes so well the kind of close friendship that lasts a lifetime. {pause}

That's the kind of friend I lost last summer, when cancer took her far too soon. {wistful look}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

Holidays {Smile}

I probably should have said this sooner, but both Christmas and New Year's went well if quietly. The Christmas Tree never got as many ornaments as meant to add, and the mochi never got baked. I really need to find traditions that are closer to my own talents. Then again, you may have noticed that this year's story hasn't been sent yet, either... You'll get something when I get something done. Currently it's stalled. {rueful Smile}

However, the tree did have some ornaments. Dad fixed a nice dinner on Christmas Eve from steak, potatoes, and cake an aunt sent. (She's noticed that Dad complains that he can't find reliably tender steak in Hilo. In fact, we gave up on non-ground local beef after one batch was so tough, all three of us complained about how much exercise chewing was... {wryly amused smile}) Then there was a nice breakfast followed by present opening the next morning, followed by present reading for Mom and Me, since we both got a lot of books. {Smile, wink}

New Year's was surprisingly quiet this year. There weren't nearly as many fireworks as previously, not even the "novelty fireworks" you don't need a permit for. (You need a permit for every 5000 firecrackers in this county. They aren’t expensive compared to the fireworks budgets of the people who want them, but they're a nuisance to get. I guess that's one way of making people cut back. {lop-sided smile})

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

Happy New Year

I hope you're having a good start to the New Year, whether you're shooting off fireworks, pounding mochi, watching a ball or something else drop, or whatever. We're doing well. I hoped to bake mochi (Japanese rice flour pastries) tonight, but I'll just have to do that tomorrow. No, baking it isn't traditional, but I'm not Japanese. {wink, Smile}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

Merry Christmas, etc.

 

Merry Christmas! I hope you had a good time, if you celebrate it, of course. {SMILE}

 

If you celebrated Yule a few days ago instead, I hope you had a good time then. {SMILE}

 

If you're still ramping up to the really big bash on New Year's Eve, I hope your preparations are going great, and you have a really good time next week. {SMILE}

 

And if you're doing what a few neighborhoods in my town do: started your party a little before Christmas and plan to keep going until after New Year's, I hope your party is going well, and continues to do so! {BIG SMILE, wink}

 

If you didn't do anything above, I hope you've still had some good days, and continue to do so. {SMILE}

 

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

 

Ouch

I was just Telling Chicory thru her blog that I feel like a four-legged stool with only three legs. When things go good, I’m okay, but it doesn’t take much to make me tumble. (Emotionally speaking; my permanent vertigo is neither better nor worse than usual. {cross fingers}

Anyway, I’ve taken another emotional tumble for little reason. Ouch! {WINCE}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin