Yarn Hangover, Bread, and What I Want Out of Life

Sorta sings, doesn't it?

Thank the LORD yarn crawl 2019 is done. I was busted by the time I got to the last two shops, but then I had my car battery go out -- when the hell did car batteries go from $50USD to nearly $200USD? And why? This one lasted half the time of the $50 jobbie in my last car -- and Rex has been to and fro the vet's, and all manner of money shit and shenanigans have gone down.

And today is St. Patrick's Day, and I made stew, and bread, and Mom made corned beef, and bread pudding. And I ate way, way too much of just about everything, and the stuffed feeling I have from the food is about the same feeling I have when I think of my stash.

I will be skipping the June fiber festival, methinks. Yarn producers in my home state will just have to make bank without me. 

Which takes us to bread. I have been trying to bake a yeast loaf for years. Apparently the fact I cannot raise a yeast loaf means I'm a witch. If only I weighed less than a duck, too! So today I made a soda bread, which just reminded me that I have, for years, had a goal to make and raise a yeast loaf. I have the bread flour and two different types of yeast (quick rising and regular) and honey, if I want a honey-sweetened loaf. Now I just have to, you know, do it.

I think I'll clear a day out of my schedule next weekend to devote to the art of bread making. People have been baking risen breads for centuries! My own father is a retired baker! He is shamed by my lack of success in bread making! I must regain family honor and actually raise a loaf of bread, and then bake it into submission. I shall not fail you, ancestors. I will make a loaf of yeast bread.

Which leads to the 'what I want out of life' bit. I miss the days before all-consuming social media in my life, you know? When I actually wrote and baked and cooked dinner and did stuff. I miss that. I didn't realize how much head space digital media took up until I started thinking about abandoning it. Maybe if I hadn't gotten into Facebook and Instagram, I would have actually managed to raise a loaf by now.

And it's pernicious. You start to think that your presence there is important somehow, that you are necessary to the people you follow or watch. But on the whole, it's not. They'll tick along without you.

Humility is a thing, you know. And it's an understanding of how insignificant you actually are in the grand scheme of things. It's amazing, really. Being so small means that you can vanish here, turn up again there, do anything you want because even if I run away tomorrow -- pack my little hobo bundle on a stick and take Rex away to Somewhere Else -- there will be people to pick up the slack. I'm not irreplaceable.

I need to let people take up the slack. I've gotten in the bossy bitch habit of pushing things through because I think I'm the only one who could possibly do things, and it's more stress than I need to put on myself.

So I'm 'running away'. I'm ditching a lot of social media, going back to knitting and baking and reading and writing and trying to cope with having a dog that's smarter than me.

And honestly, no one will mind. No one but me, and I don't mind any of it. I'm looking forward to the peace and quiet, and I think it will only do me good!

FML

Well, I still have a job. I'm conflicted about it -- it's stressing me right the hell out, and it's not meeting my needs anymore (and that's totally my fault), but. It pays well, and the bennies are fabulous. I guess I need to figure out how to meet my work needs elsewhere? I mean, lots of people work jobs that don't inspire them just for the money. And the work I need to do to feel purpose doesn't pay (and I work for a not for profit -- think about what i'm saying here and weep), so unless I hit the lottery, I need to learn to suck it up, do my job, and just deal.

It's also the height of yarn crawl season. But I have a job and it pays money, so...yay?

AND WE'RE ONLY HALFWAY THROUGH.

I'm going to be so poor, aren't I? But...yarn makes me happy. Yarn and Rex and Olaf and home and tea.

Which leads me around to the topic I need to write out. Life, living it, what I want out of living it, and where I want my focus to fall. I follow lots of dogs on Instagram, and lately two of them have become sick with cancer and are either still keepin' on keepin' on, or have been let go for their comfort and happiness, and it's ridiculous how much I'm grieving over dogs I've never met, never will meet, and how this grief is distracting me from the dog I have sleeping right next to me.

In order to preserve my mental health (stop laughing), I'm going to have to stop with the Instagram, like I stopped with Facebook. I can't handle it; the immediacy and false intimacy of seeing into people's lives that way.

I mean, I'm sorry for those dog's humans. But it just reminds me that I need to focus on Rex, and enjoy Rex today, because tomorrow is no guarantee.

Even though he just let out a fart like you would not believe, he is my sweet baboo. I want to enjoy him -- and my life, such as it is -- while I have him (and it), and I don't think modern social media is conducive to that. She writes in her blog, but let's be honest, I'm my only audience. No one reads blogs anymore. So it's more like a journal, a place to organize my thoughts, and therefore is a safe space in which to write them, air them out, feel the shape of them on my fingers and understand if they fit me or not.

Humans are visual beings, and I think it's that window into the other people's lives, the photographs, the videos...they give you an immediacy and a feeling like you know them. But you don't. You can't, not at the level of interaction Insta or FB give you, you have to reach out and communicate in other, deeper ways, but that illusion is still there. And I think it is that illusion that is what is distracting me from the joys in my own life.

Even if that joy just farted AGAIN. Ugh. What are we feeding him?!?!?

Unexpectedly good.

I freehanded some Alfredo sauce tonight. I'm shocked that it was actually quite tasty. Considering I did it to get rid of some of those chunks of snack parmesan cheese, I am quite pleased.

Granted, Alfredo is one of the simpler sauces to make. I just have to take what reassurance that I'm not a total loser.

No jump cut today, I don't have much to report. Other than I am probably getting fired within a month, but whatevs. I can tell my burnout is bad because while I'm sad about it...I'm not really. I do need to get my resume together, and I'm going to give them a presentation about precisely where my burnout came from (as if they'll care), but otherwise, I'm pretty cool with this.

Which makes me sad, because I really loved it there. I should have known better than to take that promotion.

Anyway, above you see some yarn! Lorna's Laces Sport Merino. V. v. pretty, isn't it? It was on clearance, and I just had to rescue it. I should have had them cake it up, actually, because the urge to just knit right in is very strong. It's so soft and warm and pretty, all things I really need right now.

I do have my Amish swift....

Holidays Got Me CrayZay

I hate the holidays. Have I said that before? I hate the holidays.

Although I took two weeks off work this year, and it was helpful. The Rex had his surgery (now he has his second bionic knee), everyone came to the house, ate all the food, I caught a cold and slept for four days straight, and then I bought some yarn.

Crazy, right?