Liner Notes: July - Xanadu/The Fall/Dancin'/All Over the World

If you were looking for your girlfriend, who just told you she's a muse, and you're rollerskating around L.A. and come across a mural that depicts her and her eight sisters, what would you be wearing? 

If you answered, "Since I might have to jump into the mural and be transported to Mt. Olympus (maybe?) and confront Zeus and Mnemosyne (the mother of the muses) about taking my muse girlfriend back to the "real" world, I'm going to go ahead and wear my tiniest red shorts," congratulations, you're Sonny Malone in Xanadu. 

Here's the song "The Fall" in the movie.

Here's the song only.

"The Fall" is my favorite song on the Xanadu soundtrack It's part of the ELO (Electric Light Orchestra) portion of the album and is a severely overlooked song in the larger picture of the soundtrack. I love pop/rock ballads, and this one is a banger. If you didn't catch all the lyrics while listening to the song, you can read them here. They're so good! There's longing and regret and desire - this song is everything I want a good love song to be. Now, I was 13 or 14 when I saw Xanadu for the first time, so my thoughts about love and love songswere limited to my devotion to my first five true loves*, teen comedies, love songs my parents listened to, and the drama of going to high school in the 1990s, but I feel like I had a very good understanding of what a love song should be even though I had never been in love. 

(*Emilio Estevez, Lou Diamond Phillips, Keifer Sutherland, Christian Slater, and Andrew McCarthy. Yes, I'm aware this list includes half of the cast of Young Guns II.)

This song is just past the midway point of the movie. After all the fun of the songs "Dancin'" (featuring the band The Tubes) and "All Over the World" and the love songs and the weird/unnecessary animated sequence, Kira reveals she's a muse and Sonny has a meltdown and we get to "The Fall." Sonny decides to jump into the mural and tries to get Kira back. We don't really know what happens and Olivia Newton-John sings my other favorite ballad "Suspended in Time." Next week, we'll see what happens next

The fabric isn't the easiest to work with but it was easier this week. I was able to finish it in the week and am on track to finish "Xanadu" next week and then use the last week of July to embroider the title piece and assemble everything. Wild that July is over in two weeks. 

Here's this week's entry - The Fall:

The Fall lyrics

The song title will be in red.

July 12

July 13

July 14

July 15

July 16

July 17

July 18

The finished version of The Fall

Magic and The Fall - up next Xanadu!

Leave Comes to an End

I'm going back to work on Monday. It's wild to think I haven't been at work in six weeks. I do remember my password so there's that. I probably have 400 emails. Wish me luck on Monday. 

I finally feel like me. I've never had surgery before so I had no idea what to expect during recovery. As I've shared previously, the first four weeks were a lot. I don't know how I would have gone back to work when I could barely focus on something for longer than 15 minutes. I needed these last two weeks to start getting myself back to "normal." I still have some aches but that's normal for where I am in recovery. My body is still recovering internally so I'll probably still experience some pain or other changes and my full recovery continues. I have my last follow-up appointment at the end of the month so we'll see how everything is doing then. 

What's more interesting to me is that I can physically see a change in my body. I've probably been dealing with fibroids for a few years without knowing they were there. It wasn't until they caused other things to happen that I was diagnosed. I lost 10 pounds before the surgery (no idea how that happened) and the swelling has finally gone down enough for me to see myself. My whole abdomen/stomach area is smaller; I think the fibroids were pushing things in weird ways. It's wild to see that much of a change in my body with their removal. My clothes are fitting differently and I feel so much better. I don't wake up in pain anymore. It's fucking fantastic!

Anyway, I'm always available to talk about my experience with fibroids and having a hysterectomy. Everyone's experience with both is different and that is the one thing I can't stress enough. I needed the time to recover, but maybe you bounce back in three weeks. Cool. You do you. That's the most important part of recovery from any surgery or major medical procedure: you do you (and maybe listen to your doctor(s) and nurses). 

WIPs, Books, and Other Small Joys

I'm making progress on the Jonathan Adler bargello piece. Today's errand: I need to get a snap frame to use in place of a traditional hoop. This type of frame makes larger needlepoint projects easier to work on. Since I'm newer to needlepoint, I don't have that type of frame and the plastic canvas doesn't fit in a wooden hoop. Anyway, even without a snap frame, I've made excellent progress on the piece. 

I may start working on the mushroom shadowbox piece this weekend or another smaller needlepoint project I have. I like having a few projects to work on at the same time since each one requires different attention and focus.

I was so excited about the artist trading cards (ATCs) I made a week ago and was getting ready to mail them when I realized the envelope was missing. I thought I put it on my desk after packing everything up but it was gone. I think I may have accidentally thrown it away with some junk mail. I don't know. I've looked all over and can't find it. Anyway, I decided to make a second set of cards and got them mailed out this week. This set turned out beautifully. 

I did a little thrifting this week and visited the Friends of Sherwood Hall Library book sale and found some fantastic books to add to my vintage craft book collection. I need another book shelf. 

Celebrity Needlepoint features celebrities like Ann B. Davis and Betty White talking about needlepoint. It's fantastic. The Vogue book is the 1970 edition. 

I thrifted this great dress but the sleeve annoys me so I'm going to try cutting it off and making it a short sleeve dress instead. 

Vera Bradley and Kate Spade for $9 total - I love finding high end bags that have seen things and now need me to love them. 

Can you believe it? I'm planning a double feature tonight: Young Guns II and The Warriors.

If you're looking for book recommendations, I would suggest Weyward and The Bread of Angels. I finished both books this week. I also picked up Emilia Hart's other book, The Sirens, this week and am excited to get started on it soon. 

My new TBR pile - I started Harvest Season yesterday and then I'm going to read the book about Judy Blume. 

While I was working on this week's stitch journal entry, I decided to cover my ort jar in stickers. I don't know why I didn't do this sooner. I've been using this jar for years and now it has a personality. 

The personality: women in her late 40s with adult money who buys and collects random things that are whimsical, rageful, and help return her to her true state of being. 

Bea has had another good week of being both a menace and adorable. I think it's going to be interesting to see how she reacts to me going back to work next week. She's got so many new napping spots so I think she'll be fine. Don't tell her she has to get her vaccines next Saturday. 

Absolute menace. 

Bea and I hope you have a wonderful weekend and approach it with the same level of enthusiasm and weirdness that is "All Over the World" from Xanadu. Gene Kelly would want you to live it up.