I want to build a house. I often become distracted by new projects as you might have gathered from my last post. New interests assert themselves now and then, and then they are all I can think of for weeks. And yes, for one fleeting moment, the blog was one of these interests. I started designing templates and imagining the most poignant blog in the blogosphere, but well, hmmm....anyway.

So now building a house has strangleholded my imagination, preferably out of earth - earthbags or strawbale or cob. The only problem is the land, the building codes, oh and my wee lack of building skills. I love the idea, though, of sculpting a house as I would a teapot, creating my own shelter as a piece of art. I took a hand-built teapot class a few years ago, and made five lopsided, and yet sort of attractive, teapots. No, this does not mean my house would be lopsided and sort of attractive. Teapots are hard, okay. The point is I like working with clay.

I was thinking that Americans who were like me 200 years ago - and by that I mean, ahem, varied in their interests - might have had the upper edge. Afterall, on the frontier, people had to build their own houses, make soap, milk cows, garden, take care of babies, etc. I think I'm just having trouble adjusting to this new-fangled specialization of labor thing.

On a happy note, I hit 48,000 words yesterday in the novel I'm writing. The typical novel is between 60,000 words and 100,000 words, so I still have a long road in front of me (not to mention the editing process, where I'll probably delete many of those precious 48,000 words), but it sort of feels like I'm getting somewhere at this very moment, so hurray for that!

Oh yeah, and I'm taking a Spanish class and trying to learn how to sew. I didn't have much patience for knitting or crocheting, which everyone else seems so enamored with these days, and for some reason - to be honest, I sometimes wonder what that reason was - sewing sounded like fun. It is a little fun and a lot hard. The directions on the "very easy" pattern I'm trying to use confuse me to no end. "Bias tape, what's that? Oh okay." "Pin the what to what?" "Oh damn, I should have cut that piece on the fold?" I've now become extremely impressed by the craftsmanship required to create all clothing. Yes all. Even halter tops and mini skirts.