We’ll get to an update on our book projects in a moment, but first, we’re holding a
Contest with Prizes!
(Note: The contest is over and the title chosen!)
I have to come up with a better title than “newsletter.” What do you think? The Peschel Press Gazette? The Peschel Dispatch? The Irregular Peschel Bugle? Write to me at [email protected] and tell me your thoughts. The goal is a clever, catchy title that gets subscribers to open up their email and read my scintillating thoughts.
I’m thinking over the possibilities as I write — stream of consciousness, don’t you know — so let’s sweeten the deal. The winning name for the newsletter will earn the lucky winner a Peschel Press cloth market bag, a Peschel Press bookmark, and a Peschel Press face mask.
If we don’t like the submitted names, someone will still win! We’ll write all the entries on little slips of paper, put them into a bowl, mix them up, and have Dear Daughter (aka Skye Kingsbury) draw the lucky winner.
I make these items myself so you’ll get what I pull from my supply of market bags, bookmarks, and masks. For those of you who have never seen one, the bags are made from heavy-duty remnants dug out of my stash and are sized to hold two (2) gallons of milk. The straps are usually, but not always, black webbing. For you sewists, I wrote a book on the subject: Sew Cloth Grocery Bags: Make Your Own in Quantity For Yourself, For Gifts, and For Sale.
They are very nice bags. Washable, repairable, endlessly reusable, and since they are washable, they’ve got the same chance of carrying Covid-19 cooties as your clothes do.
The bookmarks are also made from cloth. I make these out of satin remnants and a variety of lace. I used to sew elaborate, prizewinning costumes for the offspring for Halloween along with superhero capes for birthday gifts. The offspring outgrew the need, leaving me with a lifetime supply of satin scraps in every color of the rainbow along with miles of lace.
The face masks also come from the stash and are two layers; the fashion face and a white cotton lining. They are shaped, with an 18-gauge copper nose-wire to make them fit better. The copper nose-wire makes the mask washable since it won’t rust like a repurposed pipe-cleaner will.
Eventually, when I write Utility Sewing, I’ll cover sewing cloth bookmarks along with window quilts, superhero capes, lining drapes, turning sheets, and other thrifty projects that are rarely discussed in sewing books.
I’ll address face masks as well; we might be wearing them for a long time to come.
Like most sewists, I’ve acquired a huge stash of fabric. Bill discovered how large it was when we re-carpeted the basement and he had to move all the Rubbermaid tote boxes (the photo doesn’t include those in the closet).
Since then, thanks to gifts from friends (never say no), my stash has grown. I am (I swear!) slowly using it up. The bookmarks eat lace all by themselves. After I sew a few thousand more, I’ll empty the drawer full of lace trim. Face masks are using up some of the stash as well.
It’s not a bad thing having a stash. I shop my stash before I set foot inside a fabric store. It keeps the stash under control, saves money, and forces me to be more creative with what I already own.
Those are useful skills for trying times.
Book News from the Press
“The Cases of Blue Ploermell” by James Thurber (223B Casebook Series) is still being written. Bill has annotated the cases and is writing essays about Thurber’s early life and writings, the Yellow Peril stereotype, and journalism in the 1920s. He’s been diving into the research on Thurber’s life, and discovered that he, too, indulged in fake news, albeit a minor crime.
The story came from William L. Shirer, a newsman who later wrote the best-selling “The Rise and Fall of Nazi Germany.” They worked for the Chicago Tribune’s Paris edition, Thurber would have to rewrite a story based on a few words of news sent by telegram. He’d receive news of a speech by President Calvin Coolidge that ran: “Coolidge to Legionnaires Omaha opposed militarism urged tolerance American life.” Thurber, according to Shirer, would sit down and bash out on the typewriter, “a column and a half of the finest clichés that had ever resounded from Washington … And most of which, I have little doubt, Coolidge actually used.”
On those days when there was no news, Thurber would make up a speech by Coolidge out of whole cloth. “Once he had Coolidge addressing a convention of Protestant churches and proclaiming that ‘a man who does not pray is not a praying man,’” Shirer said.
He also had to use his imagination to write about Admiral Richard Byrd’s 1926 flight across the North Pole.
Some things never change.
We’re aiming for publication by the end of the month, which would have been in time for the recently cancelled Scintillations of Scion event in June.
After that, he’ll move on to “Career Indie Author,” a business book aimed at writers who want to make a living from their art. It’ll be accompanied by the “Career Indie Author Quotebook,” a compendium of great advice from great writers (as well as a few artists, politicians, sports figures, and even, heaven forfend, Bill and Teresa).
After all, what’s the point of compiling a quotebook if you don’t add your own pearls of wisdom?
Teresa, in her guise as Odessa Moon, is nearing the end of the first draft of “The Vanished Pearls of Orloff,” the third volume in the Steppes of Mars series. That won’t appear for awhile, but if you want to start reading, we have an early version available at both Wattpad and Archive of Our Own.
Living By the Pantry Principle
Not everyone sews, but everyone does eat and so everyone does need a pantry. Then, during trying times, you can shop your pantry and never set foot outside your house.
I’ve been a big pantry-keeper for decades because it saved us money. Buying shelf-stable groceries on sale or stocking up on paper-goods, laundry soap, and toiletries when the price was right meant making Bill’s paycheck go further.
Almost since we got married back in 1993, our long-term goal was financial freedom. You can’t get there if you spend every penny and then some. Hardcore thrift has gotten us to where we are today: debt-free, fulltime writers. We are NOT rich and won’t be unless The Steppes of Mars series hits big and Hollywood comes calling. We scrape by, but we have choices today because of the choices we have made since 1993.
It’s tight. It’s not easy. But it can be done. The central focus always has to be “do I need to spend this money” and “do I have a better use for this money.” Decades of living on less meant that when Covid-19 flew into our lives, I didn’t worry about running out of food or toilet paper. I always keep weeks of supplies on hand in case I can’t get to a store or I don’t like the price of what’s available.
There is, by the way, a huge difference between stockpiling and hoarding.
Remember your Bible stories. I’m thinking about where Pharaoh asked Joseph to interpret his dreams about fat cows and lean cows, fat ears of grain and empty ears of grain. Stockpiling is what you do in times of plenty. You pile up shelf-stable goods for the lean times, which always come.
If you were in the grocery store in January of 2020, faced with a huge sale on toilet paper, the answer should have been obvious: buy enough toilet paper to last you until the next fabulous sale arrived. Buying four big packages wouldn’t have made a dent in that entire, piled-high aisle but it would keep your household in toilet paper for weeks. There was plenty for all.
Today, if you walk into the grocery store and are faced with toilet paper, buy one package, just like the sign says so everyone else can get some. Buying more, when there isn’t enough to go around, is the definition of hoarding.
Because I stockpiled when the price was right and there was plenty to go around, I don’t need to buy toilet paper. I leave the scarce toilet paper on the shelf for someone who needs it more, just like I leave the scarce peanut butter, sugar, rice, and cooking oil.
The Red Cross and FEMA recommend that every household store food, water, paper goods, sanitary supplies, and what-have-you, so when disaster strikes, your family can still eat. How much should you store? A week is the absolute minimum. After that, it depends on how much storage space you have. What should you store? Only what you and your family will eat.
I NEVER recommend storing wheat berries or MREs or stuff like that. If you don’t grind wheat berries into flour right now, you won’t do it when you lose your job and have to eat what’s in your cupboards. Also, you need a grain mill, something most of us don’t own. We don’t. If you like Campbell’s chicken noodle soup and you eat it regularly, then whenever it’s on sale, buy a few extra cans until you never have less than six cans on hand at all times. That’s the essence of stockpiling.
I could go into great detail on the subject and I have. I wrote a book on basic preparedness, new ways of thinking, food storage and pantry management. It’s called Suburban Stockade: Strengthening Your Life Against an Uncertain Future.
Doing all those thrifty things, saying “no” so we could afford to stock up on peanut butter and toilet paper when they were on sale, is letting me leave peanut butter and toilet paper on the shelf at the grocery today for someone who needs them more. Stockpiling during times of plenty ensures you have food and necessities on hand during the lean times.
When I wrote Suburban Stockade in 2017, did I expect a worldwide pandemic? I most certainly did not. I expect and plan for the usual disasters that most households experience: job loss, serious illness, extended bouts of terrible weather. Everyone is susceptible to those things. None of us have to worry about a warband of mutant zombie bikers charging over the hill or that the volcano at Yellowstone will erupt. That won’t happen. But you can lose your job or get creamed by some idiot running the red light or shiver in the dark while you wait for the power to come back on after the ice storm.
Those are the real disasters, not an enemy-generated electro-magnetic pulse or a sudden ice age. Having a full pantry, bought on sale, means you and your family can still eat when you don’t have money or are deathly ill or grocery stores are closed. Or when the entire world shuts down because of a weird new flu from China.
As things slowly reach a new normal and grocery stores slowly fill back up, think seriously about your pantry. Stockpile in times of plenty (but only with what you use regularly) so when strange times arrive, you can eat. It’s one less thing to worry about.
Thanks again for joining us! Think about a better title for the Peschel Press newsletter. If you think the name should stay the same, tell us that too. You’ll have the chance to win a market bag for your groceries, a fashionable face mask for public forays, and the bookmark to hold your place in that torrid novel.