Friday, October 7, 2016

Blog Birthday: Nine Year Review

L'astronave is nine today!

I thought I'd do a little retrospective and write a thoughtful summary, but looking through the archives yesterday, mygod, there's so much (2,236 posts, to be precise).
So I just copied the first line(s) of the first post each year, and chose a photo or two to represent the year. Even that took several hours. 
Here's my hop-skip-jump through the past nine years:

Year 1 began Sunday, October 7, 2007.
 First line of blog post Sunday Morning:

"One of the things I have missed most about blogging (it's been two years [since I shut down my first blog, flightless parrots]) is having a place to keep found words--things I overhear, for instance, or bits and pieces of writing--like a nest where magpies keep objects that catch their fancy." 
 ___________
Here's my bookshelf that year--the one I just (now = 2016) repainted white-gray. Maybe it looks like a magpie's, but actually I'd purged most of my (many) books.

                                               ___________

Year 2 began Tuesday, October 7, 2008.

First line of blog post  
. . . 365 Days, 438 Posts:

"Sometimes you can untangle yourself, unlike Robert Mitchum's character in Out of the Past (left, with Jane Greer, 1947)."


This year I make my first live-action movie, the 8-minute Orestes and the Fly. 

      v  Screencap of me with bink, Fly, costumer, and co-producer.
 ___________

Year 3 began Wednesday, October 7, 2009.

First lines of blog post 365: Marimekko Psycho:

"I'd forgotten there's a Finn Style store on the second-story skyway downtown. 

Yesterday I popped in for the first time and saw a Marimekko poppy shower curtain for $5, down from $49 because a worker had cut a tiny slice in it, opening its packing box."

Right: working on geography book for teens about Finland, in front of the wall that I just painted brown.
I'd painted it sea-green that year for the little movie I was making with bink (based on a Finnish saying, herring are too small for Christmas dinner).

Also made the best of my movies (5:30 min.), with bink:
The Disinherited (A Comic Sci-Fi Western).
 ___________


Year 4 began Thursday, October 7, 2010.

First line of blog post Blog Is Three:

"When I started, it'd been almost five years since my mother killed herself, and I was still dragging her death around."
 ___________
 
The next summer, I walked the Camino de Santiago with bink and Mz.

When I got home, I did something I'd always wanted to do: 
<  jump off the Lake of the Isles bridge.
_______________________________________

Year 5 began Monday, October 10, 2011.
 First line of post
My Eulogy for Susan Barrett Newhall, (1934–2011):

"Over the past few weeks––starting, in fact, around the time Barrett went into hospice––my friend Mz and I have been reading out loud the children's classic Charlotte's Web."


That winter I made Tiny Rhino's Moving Advent Calendar, almost every day for 24 days before Christmas filming a number, something to open (to mimic a calendar window), and a reveal.
This is one of my favorites, with a clip of Sufjan Stevens and the laundromat I used to go to:



 ___________

Year 6 began Friday, October 19, 2012.

First lines of post Grant Driven:
"After 3 months working as a nursing assistant in a nursing home, I pulled my wrist tendon so badly, I had to quit. I also inherited some money from my favorite uncle, who died this spring. (R.i.p., Uncle Tony.)"

wearing wrist splints
__________

Year 7 began Monday, October 7, 2013.

First lines of blog post Staggering to the finish line:
"I turned it in !!!
The ms of the sanitation history book (for teens).
Whew.
I feel like I ran a marathon."


The series of vegetables + spacecraft I water-colored this year are some of my favorite things I've made.
 ___________

Year 8 began Tuesday, October 7, 2014

First lines of post Year Seven, Day One:
"Today is l'astronave's seventh birthday and my first day of my new job: I leave in an hour to go lead activities with seniors [living with dementia] ...and toddlers."
 ___________

Year 9 began on Friday, October 9, 2015.

First lines of post Think Like an Astronaut:
"I've been reading astronaut Chris Hadfield's memoir An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth.
His advice for Humans on Earth is to be prepared for anything,
 . . . and enjoy it."


I start making outfits for rescue stuffed animals, like this Mountie jacket for Black Bear from the Salvation Army in west Duluth.
 ___________

Year 10 begins today, Friday, October 7, 2016.

7/12th of the way through my Year of Living Fannishly, working on getting physically stronger, and hopingtogod we in the USA don't wake up on Nov. 9 to a bloated tangerine as president...

8 comments:

Michael Leddy said...

Is 2007 really nine years ago? That far back? I will take your word for it. Congratulations on being here all that time, and I'm glad I found your blog in 2013 (after Tweezerman), though I would have guessed it was further back.

Marimekko Psycho : great! Those words are probably nowhere else together.

Sufjan: I'm a fan! And thanks for the music credits on the film. I thought that was Gillian Welch, but I would have gone off to look it up. I remember the Young Tradition from Sing Out! magazine.

Fresca said...

I love my Tweezerman nail clippers Michael: thank you for that tip back in... 2013? Really?!

Truly one reason I did this post was because I wanted to make "nine" feel real to me. And actually, it did--I was bowled over by how much stuff I've posted.

I discovered a lot of music from looking for sound for movies and vids. Good work!

The Crow said...

Happy Anniversary! I'm so glad to know you.

Fresca said...

Thanks, Crow! I'm glad to know you too--and happy you are still around the blogosphere.
Hey---it's Rice Pudding season!

ArtSparker said...

Happy Blogday! Just reading another book I might send to you if you haven't read it, Wanderlust by Rebecca Solnit. Actually a lot like reading blog entries in book form.

Frex said...

Thanks, Sparker!
You recommend good books--A Sense of Direction about 3 pilgrimages, which you sent me, is one of the best books I've read this year.
I looked up Wanderlust and see its subtitle is "A History of Walking"--that sounds great!

bink said...

Fun retrospective! All the movie stuff--I miss it. Your Advent calendar pieces were so great...and we hit great heights with our films too.

Fresca said...

BINK: I thought the same thing:
why did we stop making movies!?!?
And then I remembered--I'd freaked out about directing them.

But I could try something small--wanna?