I carved my first pumpkin today. :)

There is nothing on earth that could make my immediate world any better. I've come from my job interview-- which really couldn't have gone better, not at all-- and I feel very happy about it, and I've just completed Winter's Light and now I'm sitting looking over the woods and it's raining so hard. It's all so beautiful and green and raining and the temperature is perfect, not too hot, not too cold, and here I have all the tea I want to drink, and my beautiful home, and the knowledge that soon I might have a job. These moments are special.

I finished the poet shirt today to good end! Tomorrow I intend to make a pair of tights for Hennessy from my tan trouser socks, and a green vest. Maybe even the matching hat, too, if I've got a bit of extra time. I picked out some old jewelry I can restring as beads for my angels' clothes.

My angels. Oh, lord, not much time goes by that I'm not thinking of them! Thoughts of them make all my worries passe. Job interview? Bah. Pap smear? Hah. With Bess and Hennessy coming into my life, everything else is sweeter.

I had to make myself release and not touch again the shirt once I finished it. I got that obsessive feeling, like: this should look better! maybe if I...! So I let it go and now I can see that it's just perfect. The best I can do at this point in my dolling. I'm terribly worried it won't fit him. Yesterday I just knew it was a size too small, and now I fear it's a size too big.

Well, I'm proud of myself for making anything. I can see that, with practice, making miniature clothes really isn't so hard-- just requires honing some slightly different sewing skills. And it's definitely instant gratification. 2 minutes to cut out the patterns, 5 minutes to sew them together! And... five hours to correct/seam-rip/otherwise redo all the mistakes I make. No exaggerating.

Poet shirt #2. It's amazing how a small detail can throw a whole project off, sigh! Luckily the second time around, the sleeves look much better and the whole assembly is going a lot faster... but for one little thing. The collar matching up to the shirt. When I cut out the shirt, there was this fold of fabric tucked under on one side, so that one side is 1/4" wider than the other. My eye can't even detect the difference, but I can't match the collar up to the shirt because if I center it, one side will be longer than the other. I'm still wondering on it.

Meanwhile the collar itself is proportionally too small for the shirt. How this could have happened I have no idea. I made new patterns, this time expanded to 500% instead of yesterday's 400% and it certainly looks the right size, but it's dwarfed on the shirt. Oh, well. Who cares? I'll just make a new pattern.

And I have nothing to eat but corn and cream cheese so I'm eating that and it's a bit sickening, esp. combined with the smell of Fancy Feast I just gave Princess-- who displayed a bout of temper I have not yet seen in her! The little girl warded Henry away from her food for a while (of course I gave them separate bowls of it but that lasted about 5 sec), hissed and all. And while she was waiting for it, he came in and she wasn't at all afraid of him. She was totally consumed with the need for Fancy Feast. It was so cute.

I realized today how closely Love's Shadow and Winter's Light truly are. LS is really the darker side of the story, and WL the lighter, making the titles so perfect! I realized as I came closer today to ending the monstrous 332-page WL some truth about LS and added a paragraph onto the end of it. I scarcely think that will explain what I realized, but it's at least a start. The thing about my writing is-- whatever wicked thing I want happens. I knew Nichol shouldn't be with Luther because he's a serial killer... even within the confines of my story it can't happen, in that world. Nichol knows it can't, but still she loves him. And so I make the story carry on... and I wondered if perhaps the story was only half-written... and I needed to write a sequel. I think I do. Just as LS is the sequel to a story I wrote long ago-- and in this strange world my characters never quite find what they're looking for, so a sequel is always needed. WL is more boring in that way. Madeleine is the least wicked heroine I ever made-- and Luther is a more conventional villain, and his weird little peculiarity that showed up today is almost harmless. Really, his harmlessness is perhaps what keeps Madeleine's heart from stirring. I'm not sure. But writing... this is what I always wanted. This is the best way to live. I'm so glad this is my life.

And we ordered my dollfies!!!! OMG!!!! Bess and Hennessy will get a site soon, very soon!