Computers have always been an obsession for me. I learned to program in FORTRAN in high school in Japan in the 60's (not very well, I might add). My husband bought us Radio Shack Color Computers (COCOs) when they first came out. I can remember spending hours programming, writing the code for green circles, intricate designs, music. I spent months on my 286 trying to get to the center of the pyramid in an early written word only, no pictures game. Jump to now, we live in a fairly isolated part of the Southern Oregon Coast and if I didn't have my internet connection I'd be batty. But I miss my DOS!
In reading Google News one day earlier this year, I saw an article about the incredible amount of "Twittering" that had occurred during an interview with an apparently vocally reluctant Facebook creator. So I had to check that out. Since Ravelry had by then become a major source of info for me, I looked for Twitter there, found Ravelers who were also Twittering and I was off. Then Twitter was really OFF - just as I was getting the hang of it! I re-grouped, googled Twitter in an attempt to find a replacement. Came to Plurk and within a day found most of the people I had found on Twitter. I am a happy camper.
I kept reading items from Eliza and Steph mentioning the "Plurkett Hencircle". Checked it out and joined. I like the idea of farmgirl living and sharing a sisterhood of knowledge. It is interesting to look at the path to women's spirituality that Barbara Walker (the saint of knitting stitch dictionaries) took in later years.
I looked into ordering the book by MaryJane but in reading the description at Amazon, it rang bells to me. I have the copy of "The Encyclopedia of Country Living - An Old Fashioned Recipe Book" by Carla Emery that my mother gave me in the early 70's when I had my first child. I find I needn't buy another book, I have the original. It is well worn, loved, and even though I never plan to actually butcher a cow, make root beer, or make savory soybean patties, it is comforting somehow to know that I could and have the instructions should I ever need to!.
I tend to go off in tangents in my creativity/homemaking. I am the original "little red hen" and like to do it all, from start to finish. I don't throw anything away, love handwoven linen dishtowels, still have all my mother's knitting magazines, and as a rule my eyes are too big for my stomach. I have been thru the canning/breadmaking/sewing all the clothes/ change my own oil/vast vegetable garden phases. I do dip back into them on occasion. But my current obsessions are fiber and old roses. And I got a rock polisher for my 35th wedding anniversary, one of the BEST gifts ever!
I have had sheep in the past, still have a bit of their fleece. We had chicken in the past, I loved having chicken. But the fight with the raccoons here would just be too much for me to handle. I have knitted and crocheted since my grandmother taught me on those summer visits to South Dakota when I was a pre-teen. I learned to spin in a course I took at my local community college, the first night of which was my 40th birthday. I have been entranced since. I spin, weave, dye, card, comb, crochet, knit, knot, but I DON'T tat! Saving something for my old age! I love books and seem to be collecting them with a real fervor lately. I make almost all my meals from scratch and have a cookbook collection to beat the band, but that doesn't mean they are always wonderful. And every once and again I actually do give the 100 or so roses I have a shot of magnesium and alfalfa and they bless me with such wonderful blooms. Right now I am finishing up cooking their petals in an iron pot to make rosary beads, just because I can.
I believe in family farms, and would love to adhere to the 100 mile rule, but that is very difficult where I live. Or, at least in my case would involve a diet of largely huge quantifies of lamb, cranberries, blueberries, wild blackberries and salmon (with the occasional fast growing vegetable thrown in).
I'm in! And at 59 I wager I'm the oldest Plurkette! What a distinction.
