More Crafty Diva Kat Videos!

I mentioned in my last video post that there would be another needlework one soon, that featured a better shot of the husband's Christmas gift, and this is it.  Remember, no telling!  It's been hell trying to work on such a big project and keep it a secret around here.  He obviously has figured out that he's getting a stitched present from all the furitive stuffing of parts in bags and shuffing of things around when he gets home early or unexpectedly!  But then, he knows at least one of his gifts every year will be hand made, so it's not that big of a surprise.  Last year it was a scarf I designed as a gift for my dad.  When he saw it, he was so jealous and wanted it for himself.... so I wound up making him one too, hah!

Book Review - Born in Our Hearts: Stories of Adoption

Born in Our Hearts: Stories of Adoption by Filis Casey

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This heartwarming anthology of adoption stories made my heart ache. I desperately wanted to take so many of the children home and love them forever - I could feel the impact they made on their adoptive families, and the love between those children and the people of their forever homes shone through the pages beautifully.

The book ended with a rather startling - for me, at least - tale involving an adoptive mother and her new son having an encounter with the Dalai Lama in a botanical gardens during one of his visits to the United States. It spoke to me more deeply than many other things have and oddly felt like a kind of reassurance that we're on the right path, my husband and I, in pursuing adoption ourselves.

For those not in the know, we converted to Buddhism several years ago, and the peace, awareness, and acceptance it taught us carried us through some of the worst times in our lives with some measure of life still in us. I greatly respect the Dalai Lama and read his teachings with the devotion of an avid student, so this blessing... it said to me something more personal that it was here, in this book, on this day.



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Book Review - The Millionaires

The Millionaires by Brad Meltzer

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Have you ever read a book and thought, "This would make a great vintage Tom Cruise action movie." Not current Tom Cruise, mind you, because he's too old to be a great Oliver (the leading character) now, but in his "The Firm" era he'd have rocked this role.

Speaking of which, if you like books like "The Firm", you'll love "The Millionaires." It's full of upper-crust rich folk banking intrigue, Secret Service agent action, and even a little bit of Disney imagineers and a race through the happiest place on earth to put the icing on the cake. Oliver is a bit player at a bank for the wealthy, an associate working under one of the partners, slaving away in hopes of one day making it into an Ivy League business school for his MBA in a bid to "save" his family from a mountain of medical debt.

One of Oliver's responsibilities involves wire transfers of unclaimed accounts, which are transferred over to the government. A stray fax with some inconsistencies pointed out by younger brother Charlie - an underling at the bank and notorious "Good Time Charlie" of sorts - sparks an idea. What's a perfect crime? When no one knows a crime took place? Who would know, then, if unclaimed money went missing?

If you like action, mystery and intrigue, I recommend this one highly. It's very entertaining, and led to several nights of staying up late to catch just a few more pages.



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Needlework 1: Starting Threads

In which you get to see a tiny shot of a Christmas present I'm making for my husband.  There's a much better shot in the next video in this series, which I made tonight and should be posted in a few days.  I'm worried about finishing it in time but I think he's going to love it.  No telling him what it is, now!  He's been banned from watching the videos already!

Learn to Crochet 2

Creatively Techie

Probably akin more to this

My husband and I are both creative souls, but in vastly different ways.  I write creative and not-so creative things.  I create beautiful things.  I sing.  He programs computers to do his bidding, codes long strings of letters and numbers that look like something that happens when I bang my head on the keyboard, and he makes pixels do interesting things on small screens.  He also complains that sometimes, when he talks about work, I glaze over.  I have this image of myself with my mouth drooped open, a tiny rivulet of drool headed down to my chin, with a vacant, after-the-lobotomy-in-one-flew-over-the-cuckoo's-nest stare.  I hope it's not quite that bad.

The truth is, when he starts talking in acronyms I know I'm in trouble.  I know a lot more about computers than many of my friends and family do, so when he talks about setting up permissions on his server I'm good.  When he goes into coding talk, I'm completely lost, but attempt - usually - to look as though I'm still paying attention.  Mentally, I'm preparing a shopping list for the craft store in my head.  Oh, right I need to get more of the 931 embroidery floss and I should look for a nice fluffy yarn for that scarf for Mom's birthday, maybe some homespun?.... Then I glance over at him and am getting the glare.  I've glazed over again.

Still and all, the talk has made some sort of a difference to me.  Recently, some of the basic templates at one of the companies I work for were redone.  Everyone else went "Meh, it looks mostly the same."  Me?  I went "Oh my god, look at all those rounded corners, that took hours!"  Because yeah, it does.  Not on graphics, but on tables and style sheets, those rounded corners are a real pain to get working correctly.  How do I know?  There was a Saturday devoted to that on the new website for my husband's IT business, Effortless IT.* You see, I finally convinced him that always giving away his services is counter-productive.

Just as I'm about to start giving away my own services, by creating free teaching videos for crochet instead of being paid for classes and lessons.  I do this with a higher intent in mind, of course.  As mentioned in a previous post, I am working on building up my application to become an "Expert" at DMS. I am still looking for ideas for future videos, by the by, if you have any suggestions.

The fun part of it all is, my creative outlet has become writing about a computer network/IT guy much like my husband.  In fact, very very much like my husband.  The wife in the story might even be kind of like me.  Her dad is definitely my dad. While the story is fictional, the people are people I know. It's the first time I've written something truly lifted from real people since a crazed fan/stalker thought sure my fiction was "real" back when I was in college and managed to look up and call my parents somehow to talk to them about it.  Talk about creepy.. and the only similarity in that case was that my story was about a girl who went to the same college as me. If you're interested in an excerpt, click the "Read More" below.


Do you write about real people in your fiction, slightly altered from their own reality?  Has it ever had repercussions for you?

*[[Thanks to learning when the glassy eyed stare starts, he's getting really talented at talking about tech subjects in a way that non-techies can understand.  Check out the blog on his site to see what I mean.]]

Learn to Crochet 1