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!

Christmas knitting

I'm still working on the garland for my tree and the ornaments and such, and have chosen the yarn for my Angel topper. I've decided to use this yarn:

For the wings (gold) and dress (green), and this yarn:

(the beige on the far right) for the head. I think I'll even give my angel hair, just so it doesn't look bald. Maybe...hmm, I don't know. Maybe the black of the Knitpicks acrylic. It will be pretty.

In the meantime, I've managed to dig myself out of the doldrums. I sat with myself and figured out what was bothering me, and once I reasoned it out, I was able to lift my mood. It's amazing what directed navel-gazing will do.

And now it's time for dinner. I am trying to feed myself when I feel hunger, so I need to get myself food now. Maybe I'll have bagels, cream cheese and salami. With a cup of hot chocolate on the side.

Warm and nice and filling. Perfect for a lazy Saturday night!

*heavy sigh*

It's been a long summer, and it's only just started!

 A dry gulch, leading to creepy woods. Total metaphor for my life right now.

I've been doing some work on long range goal setting. Kinda sucks because, you see, I hate the idea of long range goals. The word "goal" -- it's almost the archaic spelling for "jail", you know. Flip the vowels around to "gaol" and Bob's your uncle. I can't seem to separate the two in my mind, probably because of the mental gymnastics that allow you to read those stupid emails where they mix up the letters in a word to prove you aren't really reading words using letters, but more the shape of the thing.

Anyway, I dislike setting goals. There's a part of me thinks I'm just a terrible, terrible slacker, but then there's another part of me that knows I can be a very focused person. If I set a long range goal that I'm determined to meet -- for good or ill -- I get like a horse in blinders. If you don't look up while you're traveling, you miss some interesting possibilities.


If you really want to be honest, I think the major problem I have with long range goal planning is that, prior to the past three or four years, all the goals I've ever set were other people's goals for me. I never chose them. They were homework being set for me by someone else who thought I should or needed to want those things. Because I'm a pretty laid back person and didn't want to upset the people who chose them for me, I'd agree to them, set those goals and then never work toward them because I didn't really want to accomplish them in the first place. Then I'd feel worse about myself for lack of focus, not to mention the whacking great lies I was telling in the first place.... Lots of negative juju around goals for me.

I've found through experimentation that I don't mind short range goal setting, though. For instance, I don't mind planning one year out. That's fine, because those goals are less time consuming and I don't have to be so intensely focused. And even if they go badly, hell, it's only a single year. Not five. Or (Lord love a platypus) ten. And it gives me the chance to re-review my choices annually to be sure they're actually things I want to accomplish and not just static I'm getting from outside sources before I spend that decade on them.


So now I have a set of things I want to accomplish in the next year or so and am not calling them goals. They're just 'things I want to do'. Which, yes, are goals, but let me get all semantic up in here, ok? I just have to set a priority list (because some of them are easier and can be accomplished in the shorter term, while some of them are more in the style of ongoing actions I have to work to make habits, like flossing) so that I know when to start working on them. I figure when I've got my priority list sorted out, I'll be done with my useless introspection -- at least about goals -- for the year. I'll have to make another list next summer, but that's something that can be put off for 365, which is the best kind of slacking off there is.

So's you know, I didn't put knitting on my list of stuff I want to accomplish in the next year. I figure I'll do most of that (since it's fun) without the reminder on my weekly to do list. It's the scary stuff that really juices my oranges I'll have to nag myself about.

Courage; it's on the list of traits to develop. Wish me luck!

Deep Thoughts (without Jack Handy)

I've been watching a lot of CSI lately -- the ones they play ten in a row on cable tv during the day. The old ones, back before Grissom went off to the rain forest, before Warrick died, you know, back when it was good.

Ok, ok, it's still good, but I'm not sure I'm wild about Ted Danson. I'm giving him a little bit more rope before I call it. What, I have trouble with change! It's perfectly normal.

Anyway, apparently the people who watch daytime tv have certain things in common -- according to the marketing folks who buy commercials during that time slot.

1. Gas. Daytime tv watchers are a gassy lot -- a minimum of three commercials per episode deal with it.
2. Colds or flu. Odd how people who aren't working with the public during daylight hours get all those colds and flus, but apparently they do.
3. High school education, and they need more. Either an online degree through some bogus internet university or they're up for practical training in mechanics -- motorcycles seem to be dominant, but automobiles and boats are also popular courses.
4. They need a new cell phone plan. Or just a new phone. Something that accesses the internet, because you just don't have enough time to surf the webz when you're home all day, do you?
5. Heartburn. I guess this goes with the gas. Must be all the sitting, watching tv, ruining the digestive tract.

It's enough to depress a body who is watching daytime tv because she thinks George Eads is purty.*

Anyway, I've been being thoughtful lately. It's giving me a headache. Unfortunately, I haven't got much to distract me -- I mean, my new writing project, yeah. My Christmas knitting, yeah, but that's...three to six hours of my day (don't criticize until you've tried writing longer than three hours; it's worse than biting into an ice cream cone with the ice-pick-through-the-forehead type pain -- at least it's like that the way I do it, perhaps I'm doing it wrong). That leaves a whole other ten hours at the least to just sit with myself. Question the things I think are true.

I hate it. I wish I were less thoughtful as a rule. It's horrid, really. I'm exhausted, and I haven't done jack squat in the past week. And all I can think about is what if I'm wrong about this or that or the other? I've been wrong about things I thought before, why not this? If I am wrong, what does that mean about the way I'm living? What if it means I have to backtrack myself to a point where I'm eating crow all day in front of everyone? And none of that makes any sense unless you live in my head -- and I'm sure each of you is profoundly grateful you don't -- but trust me, even if you don't know exactly what I'm talking about I'm sure you understand the dread of being wrong and having to eat crow publicly.It's just the embarrassment of looking a bit of a fool. Or at the very least sadly deluded. Either way, unpleasant.

I hate being wrong. Particularly about this type of thing. Oh, everyone has the right to change their mind, but on this level, it makes me look stupid. Very, very stupid. For a girl who has built her sense of self around her intelligence, that's a hard tonic to choke down.

Gah. I'm going to bed now. A dozen hours of sleep might make this better!

*I will also confess, I've got a bit of a crush on Captain Brass, too. He's a total wise-ass. I love wise-asses. It's a weakness. Explains a lot about my life, really.