Librocubicularist- Jan. 2016

This week has actually been fairly productive. We had a really nice Sunday out. Visited one of our favorite restaurants with my brother and sister-in-law, then stopped by the newly reopened Central Resource Library. The new MakerSpace is awesome. They have all sorts of new equipment that I want to try out. I know I've mentioned that I have a tendency to suddenly switch projects when I get an idea for a new one and the MakerSpace makes is a huge distraction. They have a new laser cutter and a vinyl cutter. I don't know how to use either machine or even the software to make designs for them but I'm tempted to drop everything and research it. Think of all the possibilities . . . . We could make our own decorative wall decals, or etch more cups for Pi day favors, or 3D print basically anything. They also have a sound booth and green screen which is interesting even if it's not the sort of thing I'm excited about.

I spent most of Monday working on an embroidery project and finished some much needed housework Tuesday after work. I had hoped to get more stitching done yesterday but ended up just wasting time on the couch because I was feeling a bit under the weather. Hopefully today goes better and I get some things done after work. Now on to the books...

The Aeronaut's Windlass by Jim Butcher

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This is the very first of a new steampunk series by Jim Butcher. As the first of a series there's a lot of introduction to how the world works. My husband and I both really liked this book and intro style stories are his favorite. We both liked the fact that new information about the world is explained by characters as part of the story instead of just laid out solely for the reader. I also like the fact that it seems to be a futuristic steampunk world instead historical. There's a bit of magic thrown in to balance the new technologies.
The airship battles seem to be very well written. It was easy for me to visualize what was happening and how the airships were moving. Another thing that made the fights more interesting was the fact that the good and bad guys seemed to be fairly evenly matched. In fact overall the good guys lose in the book, which I think will make for a better story moving forward with the series. I also appreciate the fact that some things about the world are left a mystery to be discovered in future books.
My favorite thing was the cats. I like that the cats can talk but also that people have to learn to speak cat not the other ways around. I feel like the organization of cat society reflects how cats would actually set things up.




The Sketchnote Handbook: The Illustrated Guide to Visual Note Taking by Mike Rohde

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I think the idea behind Sketchnotes is great. Basically doodling while you take notes helps to activate the visual areas of your brain so that you can better remember things. It also encourages more active listening because you have to focus on big ideas in order to have time to translate them into drawings. Right now I don't really have a lot of use for note taking. I do sometimes take notes on things I read but it's not the same as notes at a lecture. It makes me wish that I had heard of this back when I was still in school I think that it could have been really helpful for me. The book uses sketchnote style to explain how to make sketchnotes as well as showing examples of notes by a variety of artists. It also stresses that even if you aren't artistic you can still make sketchnotes using simple shapes to create basic objects.


Aftermath by Chuck Wendig

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Aftermath is part of the Journey to the Force Awakens book series so it details events after the Return of the Jedi. The main plot of the book involves a secret meeting of several remnants of the Empire in effort to determine what their next move should be. There are a variety of subplots that eventually all become tangled together. One involves a bounty hunter after Imperial marks, another a rebel who just happens to return home to visit her son at the same time the Imperials arrive. The story was a bit slow moving for me, it takes a long time for all the story elements to come together and until then it makes reading a bit choppy.
There are also a series of interludes that further break up the story. While the interludes are mostly unconnected they serve to highlight some of the problems facing the New Republic during this time. They are also trying to map out how to move forward to create a stable government without repeating the mistakes of the Empire. For instance how to keep the planets of the Republic safe without maintaining a heavy military presence.
The best part of this book for me was a droid. One of the characters has an old battle droid that he programed to be a bodyguard. His name is Mr. Bones and some of the interactions with him are awesome and hilarious. Overall I didn't enjoy this book as much as other Journey to the Force Awakens books that I've read, for me Mr. Bones was what made this book worthwhile.


The Narnia Cookbook: Foods from C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia by Douglas Gresham

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


The Narnia Cookbook is a collection of recipes for dishes served in the Chronicles of Narnia series by C. S. Lewis. There are two parts to this book, the first is the recipes themselves, second the descriptions of each written by Douglas Gresham.
As far as the recipes go I didn't find anything really exciting. For the most part they are fairly traditional fare that I already know how to make such as scrambled eggs or roasted potatoes. A few others, such as Eel Stew, I just have no interest is making. That being said, from a kid's perspective, even if the dishes themselves are familiar learning how to make them could be a new and interesting adventure. In addition to that the recipes are specifically designed to be cooked as they would have been cooked in Narnia so they use very few processed ingredients or appliances such as mixers or food processors. It would be a great way for kids to more about where their food comes from as well as basic cooking techniques.
The commentary that accompanies each recipe was my favorite part of the book. Gresham, Lewis' stepson, discusses a variety of topics including: which recipes were favorites of Lewis, origins of words and dishes, difference in ingredients in our world vs Narnia, and what type of Narnian creatures prefer each dish.
There is also a small section at the back that lists typical menus for various Narnian meals such as tea with Tumnus or a State Banquet at Cair Paravel.


The Curious Nature Guide: Explore the Natural Wonders All Around You by Clare Walker Leslie

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


The Curious Nature Guide is a great book for anyone wanting to reconnect with nature. It is filled with beautiful nature photos and sketches. It is organized into sections titled Begin, Discover, and Connect and each offers ideas on how to explore the natural world around us. The Begin section offers the most basic suggestions like simply taking a few minutes to list everything you can see and hear around you. My favorite idea in the whole book is from this section, making color schemes for each month or season based on what you see out your window. (I have a lifelong obsession with paint swatches and for some reason this sounds SUPER fun.)
Discover involves more involved observations such as naming plants near you, looking for animal tracks, and tracking the weather. If you've been reading my blog for a while it'll be no surprise that my favorite part of this section involves cloud watching.
Finally the Connect section offers suggestions on how to track your observations in a nature journal as well as share them with others. This section also includes suggestions to appreciate nature though nature inspired music and art.
The entire book is peppered with nature facts and quotations and lovely inspiring artwork that makes me wish I could keep that kind of beautiful nature journal. I really enjoyed the entire thing.

Rain + Snow = Craft Day

I'm a bit disappointed in myself because I haven't accomplished much lately. I've had plenty of spare time but not much motivation. That is partly due to the weather, it's been grey and cloudy here for quite a while. We had snow two days last week but not enough to do anything besides makes the roads bad for a few hours. 

Taken to remind me even grey skies have some beauty

The weather today was fantastic. Sunny and 45 degrees. We had a lovely day, lunch at Lidia's for the end of KC restaurant week, some shopping, and a trip to the newly reopened Central Library to check out the Maker Space. I snapped this cardinal while we waited to be seated.

I hope to be more productive tomorrow. Since the forecast calls for a mix of rain and snow my big plans are to stay home and craft. I finally found all the fabric squares I was going to embroider for my quilt and am going to get started on that. We are also starting to plan for our Pi Day party so I'm trying to come up with ideas for invitations and favors to craft.

Midori Style Notebook DIY

I like notebooks. I really like them and often find cute little notebooks that I'd like to buy. But I don't because for the most part I like bigger books for journaling in. The journal that I use right now is a homemade coptic stitched books that is about 5x8. It's great when I feel like I have a lot to write and has extra tabs so that I can add in pictures or other memorabilia. The problem is that it's much to bulky to carry around for regular everyday use.

I've been seeing a lot of stuff on pinterest about bullet journaling and I decided that I might try making a small book to keep track of my work schedule and jot down notes about stuff when I'm away from home. What I finally decided to make was a Midori style notebook that was about the size of my phone. It's small enough I can stick it in a back pocket if I want but most of the time stay in my purse without taking up a lot of extra room.

There are actually a bunch of other posts and videos about making this type of notebook so I'm just going to give a really brief explanation of what I did.

First off, gather some simple tools. I used a piece of vinyl I've had hanging around for a while and some sparkle elastic that matched. You'll also need scissors, a ruler, and something to punch holes in the vinyl (I used an awl.).

 

Start out by deciding what size you want your finished book to be and cut a piece of vinyl that is double the width of the page plus a half inch by a half inch taller than your pages . For example, I wanted to be able to use 3.5 x 5.5 Moleskine notebooks so the vinyl I cut is 8 x 6.

Mark the center both in the width and height. Also make a mark a quarter inch from the top and bottom along the centerline. Punch a hole right in the center and then on either side of the top and bottom marks. I used this post from The Gadgeteer to see how to string the elastic. You can use the awl to help push the elastic through the holes.

Once you are done all you have to do is insert your notebooks. So far I just have a bit of plain paper that I cut to size and folded in half.

It's actually a very quick project that seems like it will hold up well over time. Now I just have to see how well it works out for me to actually use.

Airship Rough Draft

We spent most of the weekend running errands and catching up on some much neglected housework. In spare moments around those errands we talked about the plans for the airship. After some discussion we have blocked out a rough layout. The size isn't totally set and we haven't even added in passages or stairs from level to level. Most likely it will be adjusted to be narrower and more streamlined.

Most of the areas are only roughly blocked in. For example numbers 6 and 7 on the passenger level map above just show the areas where crew and passenger quarter's will be, they don't show how the space will be broken down into smaller rooms.

My sketch of the exterior isn't very good. It looks kind of like an old space shuttle but the actual ship was built for a member of the elven royal family so it should be streamlined and pretty and somewhat natural looking. But that gives some kind of idea of how all the levels line up and connect. We actually have already discussed adding pilots' quarters to the bridge level so they are closer to the bridge when needed. The airships in this world are magically controlled and can only be piloted by trained members of the Navigator's Guild so it makes sense to have at least two on board.

Shipwright Plans

I am a bit behind schedule this week due to the fact that about half of day Monday was spent taking care of a flat tire. Luckily it wasn't nearly as cold as it had been over the weekend, but mean that some of my errands got pushed back to other days. Such as taking down our Christmas decorations. That also ended up taking extra time because I wanted to snap a few photos of our special ornament for this year to scrapbook later. I found exactly the right one, a passport to commemorate my husband's business trip to Canada. (Also his first international travel and first time flying ever.)

Making the airship for my husband's game has moved to the top of my to-do list. Now that the holidays are over they should be starting up soon. Since this entire story arc revolves around the party receiving their own airship he wants to have a sturdy reuseable ship plan before that happens. Right now we just have a very rough idea of the layout. We started with a list of rooms/ areas that it needs to have and have been looking at plans online for sailing ships and spaceships. Just for fun I also looked up plans for Spelljammer ships, which are surprisingly useful if you ignore some of the bizarre animal shapes.

Because regular ships don't include spellcaster's quarters

It also helps that we both just finished reading the Aeronaut's Windlass by Jim Butcher which has some pretty cool airships. Which happen to be powered by crystals similar to what my husband envisioned when he started developing his world a few years ago. Only a small portion of the story actually takes place on board but the airship battles are very well written, taking into account a ship's ability to tilt sideways and make attacks from both above and below the enemy. If you're interested in steampunk style stories you should definitely check it out.

Speaking of Spelljammer..... I'm going to leave you with this picture of everyone's favorite miniature giant space hamster Boo.

Game Review: Beyond Earth

With the holidays over it's time for me to get back into making new things and I have several projects in the works. First, my husband is preparing to start a campaign that centers around an airship so we are working on model/ floorplan for that. I am in planning stages for some organizing jobs around the house, a string art project, and ideas for rebinding a book. I also found the fabric I misplaced for my quilt squares. Unfortunately none of those will be finished to show you guys any time soon.

As I mentioned in my New Year's post I have a very vague resolution to play more video games and I've started by playing Civilization: Beyond Earth. My husband and I both enjoyed playing Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri and this seemed like a new version of that and we thought we'd try it. So far I have only played a few games with no victories yet. As in other versions of Civilization there are a variety of ways to win a game. I've been focusing on the Transcendence victory because that was my favorite way to play in Alpha Centauri. Each game I've started has ended closer to victory but I'm not quite there yet.

Obviously there are a lot of similarities to older versions. It picks up where regular Civilization leaves off, sending people out to colonize space. It uses the same turn based system as basically every Civ game before it. You follow the same steps of founding cities, building up units, and researching new technologies. The factions are not exactly the same as those from Alpha Centauri but there are certain similarities, war like factions, backstabbing factions, etc. There are some things missing in the main game but included in the expansion, which we didn't buy, including building cities on water and the ability to convert alien units to your faction.

So what's different? Virtues, Quests, and Affinities. Virtues are earned by increasing the culture in your cities. There are four categories: Might, Prosperity, Knowledge, and Industry. Each virtue gives a bonus related to that category and you can earn synergy bonuses from concentrating on a single category or level. For example choosing multiple industry virtues will grant a 10 percent bonus to production in all of your cities.

Quests come in a several different varieties. The first are random quests that come up at various times in the game. When you finish a quest series you gain rewards based on the decisions you made. There are also certain quests that come up in every game and give you affinity points based on your choices.

Which brings us to Affinities. There are three: Harmony, Purity, and Supremacy. Depending on the type of victory you are working towards you will need to raise the corresponding affinity. You can do this by earning affinity points from quests and virtues and researching particular technologies. I've been focused almost exclusively on Harmony which is needed for a transcendence victory. Purity and Supremacy don't match up as exclusively to a certain victory there is a bit of overlap. Various levels of affinity also give you bonuses so it can sometimes be advantageous to raise more than one. There's also a change in the look of your units based on affinity which is kind of cool.

Overall I've had a lot of fun with it so far. It's a little tricky to find the right balance of faction abilities and virtues to speed you towards victory. There is a city health rating that replaces the unrest mechanic from Alpha Centauri and the various bonuses and abilities can affect that score. You have to find a balance that keeps your cities healthy, your research and harmony levels increasing, while also maintaining enough energy to support all your units and produce wonders.

Sick Day

I have nothing exciting to post about today because I have been sick. I woke up unfortunately early Tuesday morning and was sick. I spent all day in bed, I was only awake for a three hours the entire day. I was feeling well enough to go to work Wednesday but not up to any crazy crafting frenzy to be able to have a project to post about. Sorry guys.

New Year's Thoughts

Generally speaking if I feel like I need to make a change in my life I implement it asap instead of waiting around for something like new year's resolutions. However, New Years is still a good time to stop and think about what worked and what didn't from the previous year. 

This has been a pretty good year for us. We actually had a Valentine's Day celebration when it's usually just another day. We went camping and had the big Pi Day party in the spring. We had a great anniversary and I got lots of cool projects done. 

Going forward I want try and go out more, both with my husband and with friends. We went out to a couple of museums and movies and it was great. We have some regular game nights with friends but it would be nice to spend more time with them as well. We also keep meaning to send out Christmas cards but never seem to have addresses so I'm starting right now to make sure we have them for next year. It's the beginning of trying to keep in touch with some of our out of town friends. Although it doesn't involve going out I also want to get back into playing video games. It's actually been a while since I've played much. I'm already off to a good start because we bought Civilization: Beyond Earth during this year's Steam sale. I also want to try and finish a variety of half completed games that I've started over the years.

My second focus is to work on getting our house organized and fixed up. We have some repairs that need to be made as well as general lawn work that needs done. Our house could also use a very general decluttering and reorganizing, starting with my craft supplies. I've mentioned before that I have craft supplies spread out through at least  three separate rooms in the house. My first goal is to get everything organized and into one space. Which will hopeful help with my final resolution for the year.

While I haven't always had inspiration or time for projects this year I have really enjoyed the ones I have completed. I also feel like I've pushed myself to improve some of my crafting skills. Even though it feels like it took forever to finish I'm really proud of the Star Wars dress I made. It had all sorts of things that I had never done before. I actually took time to alter the pattern slightly for better fit, I used boning for the first time, and sewed with tulle for the first time among other things. I'd really like to continue to challenge myself and improve. Maybe take a class and learn new things. I already have a project in mind that will let me try out some bookbinding techniques that I've never tried before.

All in all I'm excited about the upcoming year.