Sunday, June 29, 2008

My Name is Zelda and I'm a Magazine Addict

So where have I been? And what have I been doing?

First, a couple of name changes: Son #1 will be known hereafter as JazzBoy. This is what he is now interested in, and he has started to dress in his image of a jazz musician. So that Son #2 won't be jealous, he will be known henceforth as GameBoy. That is what he likes to do.

It can get overwhelming thinking about writing in the blog. I have to think about taking and transferring pictures and coming up with something interesting to say. But hey, it's my blog and I can do or not do what I want. I need to remember that.

So, what have I been doing. Well, I had finished the angel I was working on and also Dan's Christmas ornament from last year. Then I started working on a sampler called the Marquoir (which I believe means sampler in French). It's done in silk and only uses three colors plus the occasional accent of gold or silver metallic.

But I haven't worked on that in a week or so. What I have been doing is attempting, once again, to thoroughly clean my house. And I have started by forcing myself to read the pile of magazines going back three months. Here are the magazines I get, at least the ones I can remember:
Vogue
Vogue Knitting
Interweave Knits
Interweave Crochet
Interweave Felts
Piecework
Martha Stewart Living
Real Simple
Everyday Food
Bon Appetit
Body and Soul
Spirituality and Health
Tricycle
Parabola
Woman's Day
Beadwork
Stringing
Baking Sheet
Dell Logic Puzzles
BYU Magazine (free, because I'm an alumna, and they track me down and send it to me)
Figure
Hallmark
Handwoven
Herb Quarterly
Mary Engelbreit's Home Companion
NeedlePointers
O, The Oprah Magazine
Threads
Vogue Patterns
Spin-Off
LDS Living
Ensign
Friend
New Era
EGA Magazine (I can't remember the name)

I actually had to look up my subscription list (which I have to keep in order to manage these) to make sure I got them all. Is that not ridiculous?! But it's actually worse, because I recently let lapse the following:

Family Circle
InStyle
Allure
National Geographic
Discover
Knit Simple
Knitter's Universe
Sunset
Gourmet
Good Housekeeping
Astronomy
Night Sky
Salt Lake Magazine

I let these go, for a couple of reasons. Money, of course. But, can I say, I am so freaking tired of reading about politics in my fashion and science magazines! If I want to read about politics, Dan gets a couple of those, and there are several others out there. Since I was a Humanities major, I totally understand about biases in media. But what really irks me is the contempt for anyone who disagrees with the editorial opinion of the magazine. For that reason, I will be letting the following magazine lapse:

Vogue

Take that, Anna Wintour! And I can do without all the celebrity gawking, too. Here, I understand that if I want to look at fashion, well, celebs are the people wearing it. But I do not care one whit about their silly lives. They're people, no better or worse than the rest of us, just richer, and I have no need or wish to gawk at their private, or even not-so-private travails. Nor do I care about their opinions on anything.

Other magazines had to go because I was getting too many magazines on the same subject, so I kept only the ones that I liked the best. Knitting, or cleaning the house, mostly. And, sadly, for this reason, I have to let the following go:

Figure
Woman's Day
Real Simple
Hallmark
Baking Sheet

and, possible, Home Companion. That one will be hard to let go.

Since the great magazine purge, I have been feeling lighter and virtuous. Not so many magazines demanding to be read. Not spending quite so much money. But there's always more out there. And so, a few weeks ago, I gave in to temptation and subscribed to

Cloth, Paper, Scissors.