Tag Archives: Life & all that Jazz

November 20, 2025 · 2:58 AM

Life and All that Jazz: Advent

Ready or not, here it comes! In a week, our annual Advent market begins. Every year, I have a large selection of crafts; what I bring changes from year to year, but some things have become regulars due to popularity. A few months ago, people started asking me if I was going to bring this or that. One thing I introduced a couple of years ago was a huge hit: Gnomes with attitudes and sunglasses. By this morning, I’d made 29; then someone asked if they could buy 10 (!) – so I spent the afternoon making gnomes – and sold 3 in advance today, so I guess I’ll be making them until the market (and likely beyond, because last year I pre-sold special orders to deliver before Christmas). But this is only one of the items I’ll be selling. (And, of course, they’ll all get a nice hair styling when they finally come out of the transport box!)

Another hit is “Spitzbuben” – a two-layered cookie filled with jelly and dusted with powdered sugar. A friend and I spent the morning making hundreds of these cookies; I’ll need to fill, dust, bag, and tag them next week.

Other popular items include notebooks – I make them in every size from a few centimetres to A5, with sewn signatures, spiral bindings and more. Mixed media gift cards, bookmarks of every description, decorative folders, and cloth shopping bags – all handmade. There are a dozen more items, but you get the idea!

As you can imagine, it’s a lot of work to prepare – not just making the items, but putting together price lists, printing price tags and/or signage, packing up display racks/cloths/pieces, packing a toolbox with markers, tags, scissors, screwdrivers, pens, cash, et al. So far, our hall is already lined with boxes ready to transport – because my craft room is like Tetris right now… I need to move out what is ready to go so that I can get other things made! The working space on my craft table has shrunk as boxes of various projects demand my last-minute attention, plus space for the sewing machine for last-minute gnome “kits”.

I enjoy the market, the contact with other crafters and customers, and I enjoy making other people happy while moving my stock to free up room for more creativity afterwards!

Please comment below if you take part in craft fairs, or if you go to one or more in your local area! If you participate or if you go, what kinds of things do you sell/look for?

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December 4, 2024 · 1:04 PM

Life and All that Jazz: Renovations

The past two weeks have been crazy! Our church recently moved into our new building, so we had a two-day open-house celebration, and on Sunday the mayor spoke, as well as regional church leaders from the Catholic church, the Protestant (State) church, and a few regional leaders from our church’s denomination. We were directly or inadvertently involved most of the time. As we are both active in our church, we’re often there; with the Advent season, more so than usual. Below is a photo of our new church, with the playground in progress. It is already a huge attraction in the town!

Also, the work on our balcony finally began in the last week of November! If you don’t know already, we discovered extensive water damage back in April (actually, it’s been ongoing for 4 years, but every time we’d have a repairman, he’d fix one thing and say, “that was the problem – all done.” Fix. Fix. Fix.) In April, we started the ball rolling with extensive repairs – but it got lost in the works as our management company had personnel changes; someone took our file home for work, then either went on vacation or was let go (unsure which came first). The summer flew by, and finally, in September, all the ducks were in a row – insurance, neighbours’ consents, etc.

Our balcony was ripped up, the privacy glass walls removed, scaffolding set up, and repairs began – but last week, they discovered a problem that brought work to a stop: The wood underneath our balcony window was basically compost. Now, the specialist for window repair has been brought in; an offer will be made, but all tradesmen go on holiday from the 20th of December, which means things cannot be ordered/received/scheduled… until late January 2025. Sigh. It means we cannot even go onto our upper balcony until possibly March… Scaffolding will be removed and re-installed when it’s needed again.

With all of that going on, and workers coming and going, I haven’t had any time to even think about creative writing apart from the novel I hope to wrap up (first draft) before Christmas, so that, over the holidays, my beta readers can read and give feedback.

In all of that, my sewing machine died (at least I could do crafts of some kind between workers, phone calls and appointments); I’ve been wanting to replace it ever since, but I haven’t even had time to go three streets over to the shop! After our church’s celebration, the organizer had a box full of out-of-date flyers for the event; she was going to throw them away when her son suggested giving them to me (I have a bit of a reputation; so far, I’ve also inherited four craft rooms…). When I’ve had time in-betweens, and couldn’t focus on writing because of noise (drilling, hammering, etc.), I’ve been making notebooks from the flyers, covered with scrap paper. I took a batch on Sunday; most were handed out at the welcome station! More, ready to go!

This morning, for the first time in ages, I’ve been able to think about blog topics once more! So keep an eye on this space for another blog this week. Thank you for your patience, and keep learning, keep being curious, and if you’re a writer, keep writing!

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January 5, 2024 · 7:12 AM

Winter Visitor

I’m curious to know how many of you who read this have had Covid once or multiple times. If you’re okay with sharing that, please comment below.

I first had C-19 from March 2020 to November 2021, so “Long Covid”. Since then, I’ve had two other strains, and continue to have what I refer to as “flare days” – those days when energy suddenly takes a nosedive, joints ache and a splitting migraine suddenly shoots up from the base of my skull (and no medication has ever made a dent in those headaches – they’re 24 hours long).

It’s difficult to know if those tiny little viruses have just made my immune system oversensitive to winter bugs, or if it has to do with other health issues, but whatever the cause, I’ve been sick for 3 weeks flat. I’ve spent most of my time and energy coughing and breathing. Before it began, I had half of an interesting blog written, and I will post it as soon as I have energy enough to focus on research and complex thoughts again.

As you can imagine, being sick over Christmas and New Year put a damper on social engagements; fortunately, we didn’t have many appointments to cancel. Our Christmas was a quiet one; my husband and I exchanged gifts, but this year we did something different: We re-gave gifts. In the past, for instance, if we received several books at Christmas, we might not have had time to read all of them; I chose a few books I knew my husband would enjoy and dropped them into eco-friendly cloth gift bags (I made a variety of sizes that we use instead of wrapping paper). It was fun to see what each other chose. My husband raided my craft room and gave me random craft items! We enjoyed the fun, without the need to find, buy and add new items to our home.

I hope you had a healthy and happy Christmas and New Year’s Eve / Day! I hope you’ve not had the “winter visitor” of flus, bronchitis or Corona (other than the Mexican beer kind!), and that you stay healthy through the rest of the wintery season (if you’re in the northern hemisphere – if you’re in the southern, enjoy the warmth before your rainy season kicks in!).

I will post as soon as I can finish the article! In the meantime, just for a smile:

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December 18, 2022 · 9:53 AM

Of Marathons and Brick Walls

That title fairly describes my life over the past few months. Anyone who’s published a book will know what I mean by marathon. But is mine published yet? Nope. That’s where the brick wall comes into the story.

Back in the summer, my publishing platform, Smashwords, merged with Draft 2 Digital (D2D). The books would eventually be migrated, they said. But I took the opportunity to apply the things I’ve learned over the past years to my already-published books, trimming and tweaking what are still essentially the same stories, with every word counting. Three of the four were done. Or so I thought. They are successfully released as e-books, but the paperback has been a huge headache.

D2D now offers the option of paperback books, which Smashwords didn’t have, and I was relieved to have that format again. Their claims were that they could simply apply the e-book file to a paperback version, and would create a full book cover from the e-book cover I provided, or I could upload a full cover myself. I chose the latter because the former was simply taking the main colour of the front cover and slapping it on the back and spine. With some tweaking to my inside document, I gave the okay for an e-book release and ordered paperback proof copies.

Oh. My. Goodness. Everything that could be wrong with a book printing was there: No gutter margin adjustments (“gutter” refers to the inside margin at the spine of the book; you should be able to read the entire line without breaking the book spine!); the spine of my design was partially wrapped to the front cover; the cover colouring was way off; the size of the actual book was too large (not the standard size which I’ve always chosen); there were orphans and widows all over the place (those refer to “abandoned” text, such as “Dear John” on the bottom of a page with the rest of the letter on the next page, or a single line at the end of a chapter on an otherwise blank page); centred elements were NOT; the divider images, clear on every other printing I’ve ever had, are fuzzy. The list goes on. Brick walls.

What it all means is that, as much as I’d worked toward a pre-Christmas release, it will now likely turn into a late-2023 or early 2024 release! I will have to reformat not one, but five books for their paperback versions. Picture five brick walls to surmount that you weren’t planning to face at all. It was work that I had hoped D2D’s claims would relieve me of. But I guess the old adage is still true:

If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.

For a few days, I was in shock at the poor quality of printing (and the first proof book took weeks to arrive), and I wondered why I was putting myself through this. I seriously thought about just throwing in the towel on writing. But I know myself; I’ll give myself a few days, and then I’ll be spit-fire again. And then D2D will be getting comprehensive feedback on their paperback program (in all other ways so far, I’m satisfied with their service and tools). After that, before I can move on to the next story, I’ll be working for months getting re-releases and my new release ready for paperbacks.

In all this time, I’ve heard that real life has gone on outside of my library (where I write). I had a craft stand at our annual local Christmas market, which meant weeks of preparing when I wasn’t writing. Someone usually cleans our house (me), does our shopping (me), and cooks our meals (me). I’m also part of the decoration trio in our church, which has meant regular stage design changes and creating elements for that – some as simple as wire figures, some as complex as giant wheat stalks.

And I’ve heard the rumour that Christmas is coming! Somehow, with all the editing, graphics, publishing and not publishing lately, I’ve not gotten into the season’s mood yet. But now that the Christmas goal has been ripped away, I’ve allowed myself time. Time to breathe. Time to think about and write something other than manuscripts and blurbs and bios. It’s not that I’ve forgotten this blog, and it’s not as if I’ve had no ideas for it – I’ve had dozens; I’ve just had no time to pursue them, and if you’re like me and don’t write them down as they come, the ideas flit away like startled sparrows. So, I’ll start writing them down – and when I need a break from the editing marathon, I’ll investigate those ideas, and start sharing them with you! Thank you for hanging in there in my long silence!

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September 12, 2022 · 4:07 PM

Finally Back!

Hi everyone! As I mentioned in my last blog in June, I thought I’d solved the problem of accessing my blog; but after that, I was blocked out until 10 minutes ago! Finally, I got the help needed; until now, every time I’ve logged in and started to do anything, it would log me out again. I figured it was a clash between WordPress and some other app or program, but I couldn’t figure out the connections. Now it’s sorted, and I’ll know what to look for in the future if it happens again.

Since my last blog, life has hit a bump or two in the fast lane: We caught Covid a second time just before our summer holidays. Since that time, I’ve had frequent Covid migraines, which are a different monster than the usual species of migraines in that there’s nothing you can do about them – no medicine works. They start at the base of the skull and shoot into existence in a flash sometimes, and then they hang on for up to 24 hours. Not conducive to focus or creative writing, so I’ve used what time I can in my craft room to get things done toward a Christmas market at which I sell things every year.

At the same time we had Covid, we had a very sick senior cat that ended up needing surgery to remove a few impacted teeth; antibiotics and pain medicines both ended just in time to hand over cat-sitting without the extra complications before we headed out for much-needed holidays. She’s now doing better, though her diet is mostly soft food – which seems to suit her just fine.

Summer holidays this year were spent in our own back garden, so to speak, here in Switzerland. We rented a small motor home and spent most of our time in the French-speaking area for a week. After that, we’d planned to take day-trips out from home; we managed to get in one or two until my right knee decided to blow out; that took a few weeks to heal, so I was basically house-bound, but we’ve got a nice, large flat to be stuck in, if need be.

July and August flew by in a blur, and September is following suit. I’m hoping to get my next novel out before Christmas, but with the delays of migraines and life catching up to us after summer holidays, it’s been a challenge to block out the world and focus on graphics and all the technical bits and bobs that go along with launching a book.

Now that I can access my blog again, I’ll take you on a few virtual tours around Switzerland next!

I hope this finds all of you well!

Spiez Castle: View from an arrow slit in the tower

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October 27, 2021 · 12:57 AM

Seasonal Changes: Advent’s Coming!

Life and all that jazz have been happening at a full stop here this past month: My husband, whose immune system is weakened by chemotherapy at the moment, caught the flu at work, and was down for nearly 2 weeks; though I managed to avoid it a week, it finally caught up with me and within a few days had dropped into my lungs (it’s not Covid-19 – I already know what that feels like!). So this month, I’ve been out of action except for coughing and sleepless nights. Ergo, no blogging. I haven’t had enough brainpower to think about any topic for more than a few minutes. I’m now on the mend, with a vaccination cure for bronchitis on the go. Now that I slowly have more energy returning, I’ve come out of that “zone” – that tunnel vision that focuses only on the most elemental priorities, like health – and realized that October is nearly over. Advent is on the way! [I know that, for Americans at least, Thanksgiving is in focus before Advent, though we don’t have that as a traditional festive day here.]

The last few days have been Indian summer here, so we’ve been getting ready for winter and seasonal changes. I’m taking advantage of the sunny balcony to spray paint crafts. I’m starting to think about advent calendars, stocking stuffers, and Samichlaussäckli. I’ve gone through my crafts inventory for the annual Christmas market, where I sell things, and I’ve planned the annual baking day with a friend to make things for our families as well as for selling at the market.

I’ve talked about how minimalistic most Swiss households are decorated, so I won’t have much preparation where that’s concerned. But one thing I do begin to prepare now is the advent calendar. Our advent calendar the past few years has been a decorative ribbon strung along a wall, with small Christmas stockings hung with numbered wooden clothes pegs. I’ve made the stockings (pictured below), and they can double as silverware holders on a decorative table at Christmas – that’s assuming we can have guests around that time, Covid notwithstanding. I’ve also made matching wine slip-coasters (shown) and matching wine charms to go with each glass’s stocking.

It’s getting harder to find good advent gifts; we have everything we need. Larger gifts go under the tree or in a larger stocking, but what are small gifts – about the size of a lip balm? Somehow, every year, I manage to find 12 each that are practical or fun: mini toiletry items, erasers, pens, fun magnets or post-its, small liqueurs for my husband (though this year, that’s a no-go due to chemo), rings or earrings, sampler perfumes or aftershaves and, of course, one individually-wrapped chocolate in each (something like Ferrero Rocher or Raffaello– something that won’t leak, like Mon Cheri).

In the midst of all that, as my energy returns, I’ve been sculpting the ending of my current manuscript (science fiction). That takes a level of mental focus that has been fleeting this month, so I try to catch it when I can and have the grace with my health situation not to stress when I can’t. When I can’t write, I at least have the energy to do something crafty.

While writing this, my curiosity has been building, so now come the questions to you!

Do you have an Advent calendar? If so, what’s it like? Do you have gifts, or simply opening doors with an image hiding behind them? If you have one with gifts, did you make it yourself or buy a store-bought themed calendar? Did you grow up with a culture of Advent calendars where you live/lived as a child? I did not, so I’ve thoroughly embraced the Swiss tradition, adding my own twist of stockings (which are not common here, though the idea is catching on slowly).

I’d love to read your answers in the comments below!

Happy preparation for the coming seasons!

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August 21, 2021 · 4:34 PM

Life & All that Jazz: Musical Chairs

Credit: Musical Chairs Greeting Cards | Fine Art America

Have you ever played musical chairs? If yes, you know that feeling: Everything’s going along, the music’s playing, and suddenly it stops – you have to change your plans immediately or you’re too late and out of the game.

In a way, this describes the past few months for me: If you’ve read my past few posts, you’ll know that my husband was diagnosed with colon cancer in March. Life had been running relatively smoothly up until that moment, the music purring right along. Then screech, it stopped, he had surgery in April, and a piece of colon had to leave the game. The music had started again: After six weeks of him recovering and us thinking things were on track for a smooth ride, screech, the music stopped and we had to take immediate counter-action. He was in and out of hospital with infections, problems with the stoma, ups and downs, changes of plans several times (sometimes several times in 24 hours), and the stoma (thankfully) finally had to leave the game. Every time he was in hospital, because of Covid regulations, I was the only one allowed to visit him, which meant that every other day I took an hour’s trek there, maximum one hour’s visit, and another hour to reach home again. For three weeks, the music played along as he healed from surgery and began to regain weight bit by bit (he’d lost around 12 kgs. by then, not one of which was “extra weight”, I might add). Then the chemo started; we had everyone and their friends praying, worldwide, that there would be no dire side effects, and into the third round, that’s exactly what’s been happening – basically nothing! Nothing negative, I should say; all he’s really felt is a bit “blah” on the third day in, and a bit of tingling in his fingertips, and that’s it! PTL!

In all of that, I was holding the fort here; trying to keep friends and family updated, keeping the house clean and making sure we had food in the cupboard in case my husband got his appetite back, and then cooking whatever he felt like eating at the time. We had three weeks of holidays (here in Switzerland, we’d refer to them as UHU [Ums Huus Uma] Ferien, meaning “around the house holidays”; in English, one term is staycation): We took day-trips out as my husband had energy for: We took a day trip on Lake Zurich, with lunch on the lake; we had a picnic at a local bird sanctuary park that has mainly storks and ducklings; we took driving tours, went to a pocket-sized zoo, and then, as his energy returned, he started going on small (for him) hikes, then longer ones, as well as longer bike rides, building his energy and his appetite again.

As his energy improved, mine took a breather! I’m sure all of you can relate – at some point in your life, when a pressure is removed, your adrenaline subsides and you suddenly start feeling like you’re deflating. I’ve had several Covid flare-ups in the past few weeks, which hasn’t helped (I had a mild case of Covid-19 back in March 2020, and after months of bone-deep exhaustion, it started tapering off, with flare-up days happening less frequently now, but still rearing up occasionally). So far, vaccination has been a questionable option for me because of other health considerations; but more research is required – if it will eliminate flare-ups and the other long-term symptoms, I might just get it over and done.

All of this may help explain why I’ve been silent here for a month. I don’t like it – I’ve been having withdrawals; but when I haven’t had the energy to dive into an interesting topic for this blog, I’ve tried to work on my current novel’s manuscript (though on flare-up days, I can kiss any creative endeavour goodbye!). Now that life is starting to settle into some semblance of a routine once more, I hope to meet with you here more often again!

In the meantime, take care, and stay healthy! I will see you very soon, so keep your eye on the blog!

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May 4, 2021 · 3:27 PM

Life & All that Jazz: Peace in the Storm

It’s been a few weeks since I posted; right after my last post, our lives got turned upside down, so I wanted to take a moment to explain what’s been going on, and why I haven’t been present recently:

At the end of March, my husband had to find a new general doctor, as his former doctor retired; because of the full check-up, they found a tumour in his colon. It turned out to be malignant. Since that moment, everything has been moving either lightening-speed or at a snail’s pace, with nothing in between… He had a round of radiation therapy, and then surgery, after which he was in the hospital for several days; now he’s at home, and what should have been a 6-week period with a stoma will now be much shorter, as he needs to have that reconstructed before any chemotherapy can begin…we’ll know more after a consultation in a week, so this week is an emotional and mental limbo. Through it all, we are at peace; we have dozens of people around the world praying for us, and we know that our lives are in God’s hands. Our lives are always in God’s loving hands; often, we humans think we have things in our control, but that’s an illusion. The healthiest person in the world could get hit by a train tomorrow. There are no guarantees of a long, healthy life on this earth; that’s why it’s important to know where you’re going after you leave your mortal frame behind. If you haven’t thought about that, I’d encourage you to do so. Most westerners are taught that death is an uncomfortable topic, and so most people avoid it; in other cultures, death is considered a part of life’s cycle, which is closer to reality than ignoring the topic as if that would make it go away. My husband and I are Christians, so for us, mortal death is just a one-way ticket home, so to speak. Death is something we don’t have to fear – not that we’re eager for it to come, but I think you understand what I mean. Our hope rests in Someone greater than us who has our very best interests at His heart; it doesn’t rest with doctors, though we can trust God to guide their hands, decisions, discernment and actions. Even if your life philosophy doesn’t agree with mine, I’d encourage you to consider my perspective.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been in this kind of situation, but I find that for me, while normal energy is going elsewhere, I still need to keep my hands and my mind busy. While keeping one part of my mind on my husband and where he’s at in the flat, or if he needs something, or if I can entice him to eat something, the other part of my mind is too distracted to focus too much on creative writing. I don’t ever want to post a blog just to post something; if it’s not something I’m interested in personally – if it doesn’t grab my own attention, or if it’s not from my heart – I won’t post. Quality over quantity has always been my guiding motto. So instead, I’ve been cleaning – in German, we would say entschlacken, or decluttering. Our library is now nine grocery bags slimmer of books; we still have over a thousand, but these are books we read, or antiques, or first editions, or hardbacks. What I could find on Kindle got physically eliminated if it didn’t fall into those 4 categories. Besides decluttering, I crochet – right now, I’m making small toys for a Christmas gift campaign that our church participates in each year; we package up 200 boxes with toiletries, school supplies, warm hats and scarves, and toys. It gives me a goal to reach before December and keeps my hands busy.

Hopefully, in the coming week, I’ll find the creative juices to take you on our next virtual tour. In the meantime, stay healthy, stay safe, and be the best version of you.

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September 26, 2020 · 12:29 PM

Life & All that Jazz

It’s been nearly 2 weeks since I wrote, so I thought I’d catch you up on why: At the end of last month, one of our cats, 12 years old, was diagnosed with breast cancer; I didn’t even know that was something cats could have, but the vet was confident that she had some time left – as long as she ate, and felt like living, we’d make her as spoiled and comfortable as possible. She’d lost a lot of weight, so we were given a few cans of “recovery” food to help her gain weight; they were barely touched. That was a Monday; by the following Friday, it had gone into her lungs and she went downhill rapidly. Less than a week after the diagnosis, we had to say goodnight for the last time. So I haven’t really felt like writing much lately. Our other two cats* had sensed that Gandria needed more space than usual (she was always more of a loner than the other two, who always seem to be synchronized and near me – as I write, they’re both asleep in boxes on my desk), so when she finally left our home for the last time, they accepted it smoothly. She was part of our family for 12 years; anyone who’s lost a loved pet knows what that feels like. [* Amendment, 10 January 2021: In the image below, the middle cat, Caprino, passed away yesterday after a 6-week battle with kidney disease, diagnosed end-November…]

From top to bottom: Gandria, Caprino & Allegra

Even though I haven’t written here, when I’ve had the focus, I’ve been working on my current manuscript, a science fiction novel. It’s nearly done as far as the second draft goes; after that it’s the long process of editing, perhaps re-writing scenes, and then the long haul of technical formatting and preparing the manuscript, covers, blurbs, etc. for publication.

Besides all that, I’ve been in the kitchen: I’ve always had a good supply of reserve foods on hand for that surprise visit or for those times when I’m too focused on writing to go to the store (I don’t like shopping). When the lockdown hit earlier this year, we were better off in that respect than many, but I began to notice certain areas that could improve. [I wrote about it a bit in my article “Preparedness”, as well as here.] One thing I want to get away from in our eating habits is the one “convenience” food we allow at lunch times when my husband has home office days: Quick Lunches (those plastic one-meal pots that you just add boiling water to). It turns out that there are a lot of great recipes for in-a-jar meals; they just require a few extra skills like knowing how to dehydrate cooked ground meat safely, or how to dehydrate sour cream or pre-cooked beans. Many of such recipes are coming out of America, where they assume you can just run down to your local Walmart or Costco and pick up dehydrated meat; fortunately, there are others out there who’ve figured out how to save expenses and make their own and shared that knowledge online. What I don’t have, and wish I could find for sale online with delivery to Switzerland, is a Food Saver vacuum packer with an adapter for canning jars. But I’ll just have to figure out a way with what I’ve got, because it is what it is.

I’ve also been canning more – things like tomato stews, jams, etc. These kinds of meals are not just for us; we’ve got families in our church that are struggling through issues, and being relieved of meal planning and prep is a relief for them. I plan to collect the recipes I find most accessible for Swiss cooks, and post them on my recipe blog so that they can access them and we get an organized distribution chain going. In doing so, I’m also aware that I’m probably the only one with dehydrators, so I’ll be providing some of those ingredients for others to pack up – which means that I’ve got some prep ahead.

Whatever you’re up to, I hope you’re well, staying healthy physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Taking care of ourselves is vital; it’s the only way we can then also help care for others.

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December 5, 2019 · 1:40 AM

A Crafty Life & All That Jazz

I can’t believe how fast the month has flown by!  Life took over – more like, it grabbed me by the neck and took me for a wild ride – and writing took a back seat; it sat back there, observing, taking notes, and waiting for the first opportunity to grab the wheel again.

Dilbert -Head will explode

Meetings, challenges and dealing with the messy bits that make up a full life took most of my time this past month. English classes; singing students; somewhere in there also comes housework and grocery shopping. Our church held a bazaar, and I was counted on by the organizers to bring a variety of crafts (I have a bit of a reputation). I spent two days baking with a friend; I spent nearly two weeks organizing and supplementing my crafts to sell, including deciding on prices for each (and we all know how easy that is…). I had dozens of Scherenschnitte (some in frames, some without); plarn (= plastic yarn, made from upcycled plastic bags) purses and baskets (including two baskets made out of an old air mattress); each plarn bag, including glazed cardboard buttons, has a unique tag recording how much time was spent, and what materials each is made of. I also had beaded bookmarks, wine charms, tin embossed Christmas ornaments, a bowl full of surprise gift bags, and three kinds of cookies (Spitzbuben, Bretzeli, and savoury cheese cookies). The crafts also required props – tags, packaging cards, a hanging display rod, and a display bowl and wine glass (both paper-maché), etc. etc. Whew. You can see why it took me two weeks! I now have a few special orders that were sold at the bazaar which I need to make and get sent off in time for Christmas.

Somewhere in that busyness, someone moved in with us; she’ll be with us for at least the next three months, and I’ve been helping her deal with the official business of moving (deregistering from Zürich, registering here in our town, etc.), and also settling in as far as finding her way around the town, public transport, and our home.

All the while, in the back seat, writing has been breathing down my neck; but it’s not the only thing, and it hasn’t been the loudest by a long shot. I have responsibilities in our church that require phone calls, organisational meetings, organising people who have lives of their own, too, leading the church services (two per Sunday morning) at least once a month, and sometimes getting things pushed uphill – empathies for Sisyphus.

I have dozens of ideas to share with you; it comes down to eking enough time to do a topic justice. But life is slowing down a bit more once again, so I look forward to letting writing climb back into the front seat! I’ve started working again on my next novel, and keeping an eye out for a topic that wants undusting. Keep your eyes open – I’m back!

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