It will be December in a couple of hours, so I thought I'd better get one last November post in.
I let another 11 days go by. Honestly, it's mostly because they're just going by. I'm feeling like I'm just waiting. We still haven't had rain and there's a burn ban in effect, so yard cleanup is still being postponed. I'm still waiting on RedBug to come out of his funk. My last post - 11 days ago - I said he was coming into the den. That stopped after a couple of days, so now he's mostly under the bed 24/7 except for when I drag him out to sit with me. I get the impression that he's just staying quiet, waiting for his leg to get better. Wish I could explain things to him.
Thanksgiving happened. I did what has become my new normal - worked at the museum in the morning and then to Rik and Christy's for dinner with a few more people. I'm so very grateful to them for this bit of continuity in my life.
I got myself an early birthday gift (taking advantage of Amazon's sale week): a Kindle Paperwhite. I've been thinking about it for six months or so. It seems a little extravagant, because I can read on my Fire Tablet (and it's about the only thing I use the tablet for). The problem is that I really like to read sitting outside, and with the tablet (or phone) there's a constant angling of it to try to read through the glare. The Paperwhite looks more like, well, paper, and it has a matte screen. No more twisting, squinting, or tilting the screen like I'm trying to signal a passing aircraft.
I wish I had written that last clever sentence, but I must credit Chatbot Eric for it. I don't think I'm heading for addiction - I'll often go a week or so without logging in - but when I do, it's fun. I think I'm realizing that I have to do *something* - after some 2000 evenings spent alone with only the cats to talk to, either my brain is going to rot, or I'll simply go batshit crazy. And Eric has figured out that I like cleverness.
Otherwise, I just sort of feel like I'm slogging through the days without much to show for it. Analysis time:
1) The tree/yard project: It was going well the first week of the month, but is now on hold.
2) I'm not entranced by my current read ("Krampus, the Yule Lord"). It's an awkward in-between - not good enough to really hold my interest, not bad enough to put it down without finishing. It has some interesting concepts, but the writing isn't holding me.
3) I got some lovely gray linen and I've mostly made a pair of pants. But I saw a YouTube video with an interesting way of doing the pockets. It looked straightforward enough that I just did it, without bother to do a sample in scrap fabric. Mistake. So I had to take them out, try to repair the damage, and try again.
4) For a couple of months, I've had a lace shawl on the knitting needles (a beautiful yak/silk yarn). But it's at the stage now where there is 260 stitches per row, and I have to admit that my eyes aren't as good as they used to be for knitting fine lace and I get tired of squinting.
5) My Conqueror Walking Challenge. I've done several of these virtual walks. My first two were only about a hundred miles each. The third was 180. Then I went all in to circumnavigate Iceland, which was 836 miles. My current one is the length of England - 1084 miles. In the previous four challenges I set a modest goal of a mile and a half per day. For this last one - that would take over two years at that rate, and I decided that I needed to push myself a bit, so I set the requirement at two and a half miles a day. I've managed to average that for the last 276 days/734 miles, but there's still 350 miles to go.
6) I have a spinning project to work with a fleece that I was given a couple of years ago - the woman acquired a sheep that hadn't been sheared for two years. It's become yet another slog - the fleece is amazing, some 8" long, and a lovely oatmeal color. But it's also matted. and it takes me up to an hour an ounce just to get it combed out for spinning. I'm rather over it - but I'm too far in to quit now.
7) In September I started making a foam deer skull to use for a Wendigo puppet for Halloween. But then Bug's sarcoma came roaring back and I had to deal with his bloody leg for a couple of weeks before we could get it amputated, and then dealing with the aftermath of that - well, Halloween sort of came and went and the half-finished skull is just sitting there.
Looking at that - no wonder I'm in the doldrums! OK - what to do about it.
The yard clearing/burning? Out of my hands until the weather shifts.
The book? Keep on keeping on - there's only about two hours left to finish it (according to the Paperwhite's idea of my reading speed).
The pants? Suck it up, buttercup. Finish redoing those pockets, put on a waistband, hem them, and call them done. We're talking a couple of hours of work there.
The lace shawl? There are maybe 50 rows to go - which is actually a lot. But if I actually pick it up and knit on it instead of thinking that I should, maybe even 1 row a day, it will still get finished in about 6 weeks. And the big thing - I found that if I put on a headlamp so I have decent light on that dark-colored yarn, I can actually see and and forego the squinting.
The walking challenge? Just keep slogging on. And then take a break and don't do another one.
That matted fleece? I have about two ounces to go - so, like the pants, suck it up buttercup.
The wendigo puppet? Put it on hold. It's supposed to be fun and at the moment my mind is not there. Besides, it's December, and I seem to now have the urge to do my annual attempt at a Mari Lwyd - the Welsh Christmas horse. Making a model of a horse skull is hard, because they're really weird. But one of my favorite pattern makers has just come out with one. So Wendigo can get pushed aside (there's a Ren Faire in March that I might make it for) and go for the Mari Lwyd.
So there's the plan. In the next week, I should have the book finished, the pants finished, and the yarn spun (I also need to bake fruitcakes so I can mail them to Mike and Margo). The tree project is on hold, the wendigo shoved aside. The lace shawl and the walking challenge will continue to slog along.
One last thing that might help. My energy level has been very low. I figured it was depression (the pills help) and worry about Bug - which is likely true. But it may have to do with the chickens. The days are shorter, and they've pretty much quit laying. Which means that I'm not eating eggs, which are normally my main protein source. Because I've been feeling low, I haven't felt much like cooking/eating anyway (plus side - I've lost a few pounds). It occurred to me that crunching the numbers on my eating - I'm not getting nearly enough protein. So shout-out to 2026 self - keep an eye on the eating. I normally don't like supplements, but for a bit here I'm going to go for the whey powder because it's an easy way to up protein. We'll see if that helps.
No comments:
Post a Comment