Quietish

I spend quite a bit of time thinking about and/or complaining about my lack of time and my inability to do everything I want to do. I’m often frustrated that I can’t keep up with all of my interests. Last night however, I was surprised to sit up and realize that the “regular” day I had been having was actually very productive.

I started the day by trying a new hairstyle with Jamie. Tall pigtails right in front to keep her out-of-control bangs out of her face. Once she was at school, Cian and I got some coffeeshop time as well as knitting time. I had finished some fingerless gloves the day before and celebrated by starting a new shawl project.

The afternoon was relaxed but also managed to not be lazy. When I’m home with the kids I do things here and there, but yesterday I also managed to grab up the guitar and practice a bit several times. I had a cat in my lap or a dog in my lap at various points. Oh yes, fuzzy puppy/kitten time is indeed essential. I also had kids in my lap or sitting on my legs here and there, too, naturally.

I cooked dinner. For the third time this week. I will wait while you regain consciousness.

After dinner we had family TV time (which is actually pretty unusual for us). Pokémon. I cross stitched. CROSS STITCHED, people! I did maybe 2 square inches of stitching in all of 2007. This is huge!

With the kids in bed, I fit in my nightly walk accompanied by an audiobook. I came back and stitched some more.

What I did to deserve a day with more hours, I don’t know. When I spend some time drawing and writing in the next few days I will have everything covered this week. Who knows, I may even feel like I have something to post about.

I have a really full life without even trying too hard. That is exciting to me, and I hope that I can make a habit of not worrying too much about things and letting them happen.

Happy 2008, everyone!

So what am I up to lately? Not a whole heckuvalot.

As usual, my knitting is crawling, the summer is crawling, and I don’t feel like I’m getting enough done. It’s the same sorta stuff, so I’ll refrain from whinging about it.

No new knitting or crochet finishes to show, because I’ve actually been breaking up the knitting time with (GASP!) things like reading and housework. When you recover from that completely boggling news, come back and see the pics.

Been working slowly on a Ganseyish sweater for Cian. Using some information from Beth Brown-Reinsel’s Knitting Ganseys book, and some Plymouth Galway Highland Heather.

It’s a nice, leisurely knit actually, and if I weren’t the type to always be wanting to finish and move onto something else, I can see that it’d be worth savoring. If you’re the savoring type, that is.

I deliberately left the sweater home when I went to Sit n Stitch last night, so I could put a little work on the sock that I have been neglecting horribly for what must be months now.

I also have a scarf that I haven’t worked on all week. I’ll get it done at some point. I like it, even if scarves aren’t my favorite thing to spend time on.

That’s about it, really. It is odd that I don’t even feel like knitting more today. Instead I think I’ll go read. Mmmm.

Hi there. How are you? Good? Good.

I kept feeling, all day today, that I should get on here and write. About what, I didn’t really know. I clearly continue to have no clue, as I’m several sentences into this post and still haven’t alluded to a topic.

Letsee. Knitting, yes knitting. Do I have progress? Nope. Nothing to report. I have spent a couple of hours a day on that super-secret project that seems to have quit growing at some point. I did knit on Hedwig1 for a couple of hours today and I am now in the toe, now that I think of it. So yeah, I am almost done with a sock. Go me!

No, I don’t have a picture. And it’s too dark to bother with that now.

So, reading. I’ve been excited about my resolution to read more. In my minds eye, I’m reading my books so fast that the pages are flying out of their bindings. To my real eye, however, I’ve made no progress on my current read since I added it to my sidebar last week sometime. I do want to read though. Really, I do.

At the moment I feel like I’ve been too busy to get around to things I intend to and, at the same time, wholly unproductive to the naked eye.

Perhaps I have an unrealistic idea of what can be accomplished in the span of a week. I haven’t really thought that my expectations were very high, but maybe I should rethink that. I would feel pretty good if I could spend some time at least weekly:

I rarely get them all in. Even if 5 minutes of an activity were to be counted.

Anywho, I’m not really trying to complain. I’m actually pleased with most of what I’ve accomplished this week. Although I am frustrated by the stove top that is impossible to return to the bright-white I know it can be.

And I suppose I’m not a complete slacker. I did 2.5 miles last night, so I’m:

Walking through a deeply cloven track between tall trees, singing. (15.5 miles)

What on earth am I talking about? CLICK

I’m off to get a coupla more before we get recording for CraftBorg, Episode 13 tonight.

On Tuesday, the kids and I made a trip up to The Gourmet Yarn Company to meet Candi Jensen, who was in town to sign her newest book Knitting Loves Crochet.

I had looked through it briefly when it first appeared in the bookstores, but I think I wrote it off as a book of pretty things that were not exactly right for me. (Read: too frilly and/or too small.) Then one day the week before, I went into GY and found that they had received a couple of the finished pieces from the book. I tried them both on and they fit. I was surprised and thrilled. I bought a copy for myself as well as the copy I intended to give away on CraftBorg.

Shelly met us up there so she could get some kid-time and keep them from destroying Margaret’s store while I had my copies signed. (Thanks again, Shelly *mwah*) The kids enjoyed the snacks that were out and enjoyed the company enough that they kept fairly quiet. This made me very happy.

Candi is incredibly nice and easy to talk to. I didn’t stay very long, but when book-signing time officially started, Candi and those of us that were already there sat around on the comfy couches and chatted. It was lovely and I wish I could have stayed longer. And now I am looking forward to starting in on the tank pictured on the cover!

Cian enjoyed himself too.

I arrived early to SitNStitch last night as usual and made my routine swoop around the magazine and New Release racks while I waited for my Jalepeno-Stuffed Pretzel to get done.

As you probably know, I have enough unread books on my bookshelf and/or on my to-read list and don’t particularly need to add anything to them at the moment. Nor am I one to buy a book I had never previously heard of on a whim. Not that I don’t enjoy a nice random book here and there; I just rarely have time to partake in such a way.

That said, I found this book yesterday, read the back, skimmed 1/2 way through, and took it home:

Journal
The Short Life and Mysterious Death of Amy Zoe Mason
Found by Kristine Atkinson and Joyce Atkinson

This book will appeal to many of my arty friends for the same reason it did me. The authors have chosen to tell this story in the format of an art journal. The pages inside are all scans of the pages from an altered book. The premise is that they found this altered book/journal inside of a desk that they picked up at a thrift store. They read the journal and then did some more research afterwards to find out what happened to the artist who created it.

As you can tell from the subtitle, Journal is a bit of a mystery. I really enjoyed reading it and, pushing the idea that something bad would happen to the back of my mind, simply focused on the story the actual scrapbook was telling me and tried not to let the foreknowledge spoil it. If you intend to read this book, I would recommend doing the same. Take in the artwork and the text, and let that do the storytelling. Then you can read more by looking at the authors’ website: Amy Zoe Mason

if one insists on calling it progress. Peacock Feathers Shawl has been a WIP for awhile, and I often am asked how far through it I am. I usually say something like “I don’t know,” as it is worked from the back of the neck down and it is somewhat hard to tell.

Recently though, I’ve been saying more like “I dunno, but it seems like I’m pretty far into it.” I’ve had to rumple it up to fit it onto my lap and knit it.

Yesterday I finally sat down and checked the progress more deliberately, borrowing a technique from Grumperina.

It seems I have a way to go, which is alright because I enjoy working on her but not alright because I have a bunch of other things I want to be doing. Like rereading the SOUE books, or many other things that I’ve been meaning to spend time on. I suppose the only thing there is to do is to employ my typical method of just doing what I feel like the most.

Well I look now and see it was only one day I skipped, but for a bit it felt like I had been neglecting the blog.

Anywho, what I did over the holiday (Labor Day in the US):

Slept in.
Stitched on Fortunate Traveler (progress pic coming soon!)
Worked on a pattern for some cute toddler socks (pattern coming soon!)
Stalked Callie and watched her closely.

Speaking of Callie, meet Meeper:

He insisted on some screen-time and I gave it to him because he’s put up with a lot between watching Callie get to eat special food and dealing with crazy puppies periodically running around his living room.

Today I have to catch up and do yesterday’s Learn Everything page before then doing today’s.
But most importantly, I need to run (run, run!) to Barnes and Noble and buy The Beatrice Letters.

when they plan to be locked in a hotel room in the (middle of nowhere) Ft. Smith, Arkansas with little kids and no car for a week.

A: The following…

1. books
2. toys
3. puzzles
4. PS2

Of course.

5. HP and the Philosopher’s Stone for bedtime reading.
6. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Chess
7. a chessboard

In other words, geeky stuff.

8. Fortunate Traveler

9. Castle Sampler (it’s Justin’s)

10. Jamie’s unfinished sweater

11. sock for Cian

12. Branching Out that they’ve been working on here and there for their Grandma, but had not posted yet.

13. Peacock that is too big to spread out enough to get a good picture of.

and most importantly…

14. their whole stinkin’ desktop because they hate the laptop that is available.

Leaving tomorrow for Ft. Smith, as you may have surmised. I obviously shall have access to email and stuff.

I have been craving a change, for the betterment of my health and appearance.

For most of this year I have been attempting to create a habit of exercising often throughout the week. At first I tried and tried to spend big chunks of my evenings down in our apartment complex’ “workout room.” It is such a small room though, and between my ability to become bored and antsy quickly when I’m doing one thing for any length of time and the awful music they insist on blaring throughout the clubhouse at all hours, it became obvious that it wasn’t going to be easy to keep on with that.

So then I tried walking. I like walking. And while the boredom thing kicked in again pretty quickly, around the same time I also discovered podcasts. Suddenly I had no problem walking for any length, because I also had something occupying my mind.

It has become increasingly obvious that I am a raging-multitasker. If I am not doing two things at once –killing two birds with one stone, etc– something inside me feels that I am wasting the time. There are too many things I want to get done to simply watch tv, for instance.

So the podcasts helped. I was getting in my daily activity, and I was keeping caught up on all the shows that I could easily get behind on. I also hate being behind on things.

Then sometime in April I began thinking about how hard it was to work on all the crafty things I wanted to, keep up with the housework (ha, what a joke!), socialize, and also find time to read. We talked a bit about this on CraftBorg: Episode One, and the obvious answer to getting in a bit of reading was to turn to the Audiobook.

This, my friends, has been the key to my success. For weeks now I have been going out walking many nights out of the week. I walk long and hard. I sweat. Instead of returning early because I get bored or am just lazy, I am to be found pressing on around the local “lake” and muttering to myself “just one more chapter.”

One more chapter usually ends up being several. So far I have chosen books that I am completely in love with. I think the trick is to continue to choose my books carefully, being sure not to get something that might prove to be uninteresting to me. Can you guess what I’ve been listening to?

Oh yes, Jim Dale is my buddy. I’ve been through these twice since April. I would have started the following books after the first go-through, but for awhile I had trouble procuring them in unabridged form.

I’m in the middle of The Hobbit at the moment. When I finish Fellowship, I’ll proceed on to The Two Towers and The Return of the King of course. Exciting, can’t wait!

Yay for healthiness! Yay for reading!

So, anyone posting Sunday Self-Portraits? I noticed that Amy posted hers early. That’s ok; I’m glad to see it. Tripods are indeed good, btw, but one can find ways to get by without them.

Edit:
Ok I’ll just make a list.
Kelly
Amy
Roberta
Cindy
Julie

I intended to spend the whole weekend reading. I envisioned pages and volumes on fire from the sheer speed and vigor in which I read them. I always mean well anyway. I finished The Last Battle in a short few hours on Wednesday, but didn’t get to pick up Eragon until Friday.

Despite the fact that they never go how I expect, I seem to insist on viewing weekends as easy-going regular days that happen be ones with Justin home. By the time we do what usually is much-needed shopping, clean up some, go to church, do something fun with the kids, and find something to eat, I have not found a comfortable, quiet stretch of time to just sit and read or knit or whatever I planned to.

So maybe I’ll finish my book sometime during the week…