It’s been forever, I know.  I’d apologize, but the delays have been largely functional, and where I’m at, the ‘net is often spotty at best.  (Right now, in fact, I’m horking it off a neighbor.  Ahem.)

I’m still in Greensboro, obviously.  Lots of reasons for that.  I’ll go into them later, maybe, at some point.  If I could just stay here, I would, but I’m out of cash, and half this month’s IYSSC shipment still needs to go out.  So I’m sucking it up and going back to the metal box in Iowa for a while, just to get that taken care of.

(And try not to go crazy in the process.  CrazIER, at least.)

Anyway.

I haven’t just been sitting in North Carolina eating bonbons and watching trash television or anything.  I’ve been busier than before, largely because I’m working really hard on singletasking.  Multitasking doesn’t seem to work for me, and that frenetic, slightly-insane feeling that I get every so often seems to be connected to and directly relational to the number of things I’m trying to do at once.

I know.  Go figure, right?

So I broke all my projects down and started doing one thing a day, starting this past week, and it’s working much better as long as people respect my schedule and don’t try to hijack me with other project emergencies (which doesn’t always happen, but thus is life.).

Since this is a catch-up post, I thought I’d show off a few of the things that have happened during or moved forward while I’ve been here.  (Because I’m nothing if not an egotist.  Ahem.) :)

Oak River’s the new evolution of Happy Housewife.  Right now, there’s only the halloween masquerade ball available, but that little bit above’s the Main Street, which I’m hoping to have live (with the used bookstore and post office and antique store) sometime in the next couple months.

The whole concept is that it’s interactive — like a game.  Storytelling and perfume all in one.  It’ll make more sense when you see it.  I can’t wait.

Just a couple of the fun ones from the masquerade:

See what I mean?  Fun.

Then there’s this new one:

There will be a ton more things on the site this coming Tuesday, but the gist is this:

In ‘99, I was working for a little transcription company that was transcribing all the California Heritage Quilt Project interviews.  If you don’t know what that is, which you probably don’t unless you’re a quilter, one of the CA quilting guilds came up with an oral history project to preserve the lives of CA quilters for scholars and historians.  They interviewed a whole mess o’ quilting folks about their history and such, and I believe they even had some kind of exhibition with quilted objects from the interviewees.

I was talking to a friend of mine in CA at the time, and he mentioned that his roommate for the week was a quilter, and it sparked the memory of the project — some of the interviews were pretty run-of-the-mill, but some of them were really, really interesting, and it struck me that nobody’s really collected the lives and stories of knitters in their own words.  Not just the *famous* ones, or the “important” ones, but JUST KNITTERS, who use sticks and string to create things both functional and beautiful.

A couple of emails and some feedback from the Library of Congress’ Folklife Center later, the domain was procured and the resource-amassing began.  There’s a ravelry group (look for “knitlife”…can you link to a specific ravelry group?) for it, if you think you might want to volunteer as an interviewer or interviewee or something after the fact.  (Transcriber, audio engineer, writer, designer — I can use all kinds of help, I’m thinking.)

AS IF THAT’S NOT ENOUGH…  :)

Last month or so, while I was thinking about what Oak River needed by way of locations, the idea of a coffee shop kept coming up.  And I’d just seen in the local Starbucks that they give away grounds for gardens and whathaveyou.

The two ideas congealed in my head somewhere (because that’s what ideas do in here), and we experimented a bit with sterilization/drying of grounds for use in scrubby soaps and sugar scrubs, came up with (what we think is) the best. recipe. ever. for both whipped lotions and cream-based soaps, and I formulated five “flavors” of coffee-scented oils that we put in every one of the Recaffeinated Bathworks products.  Caramel Macchiato, Vanilla Latte, Cafe Mocha, Black, and for the non-coffee-drinkers, Blended Green Tea.

We’re still working on lip balm perfection and new labels (the new logo kicks serious tail), and I’m building quite a bit on the site (on Mondays, my ORT/Recaf days), but it’s all up over at Recaffeinated Bathworks now.  (Only the shop link and the about link work so far.  Next week….)

Okay, so…as long as I’m listing just about everything (other than L&V and IY, which I think most of you know about and which have updates coming later in the month next month, but not yet.  And the Gaiman project, Fates Three, which we’re keeping mum on until we release the first freebie pattern.) there’s this, too:

Ostensibly, this is why I was in North Carolina this time.  I talked about it a little when it was starting, but now that the initial trip’s done, I’ve been writing patterns (and enlisting help in writing paterns for design concepts) like a mad fiend for this.  And writing, in general.

There’s a ton of information about it over on The Mountain Sole Project’s website, along with blogs that I’m *still* catching up on.

So there’s where I’m at at the moment.  Prepping to go back to Iowa, working like a dog on stuff, trying to resist the urge to just mainline my Starbucks to stay upright. :)

I plan to blog more often as part of my singletasking plan, even if just to keep track of stuff for my own records.  My focus on life in general is doing this weird shifty thing that I’ll explain later this week or next, and it spawns a lot of bloggybits that I haven’t had a chance to write up.

I have a list.

Is that anal?

(Don’t answer that.  I know it is.) :)