After dithering about this for a long time and getting side-tracked on pattern, I finally just got down to it and completed the easy as pie scarf.

I finished the actual knitting a couple of weeks ago, but decided to do things properly and ordered some blocking wires. (which I figured I’d use again at some point).

The wires arrived this week and today it was all systems go.

Pre-blocking:

I soaked for about an hour, then sat on the floor of Bessie’s room for a good while and threaded the wires through the edges. I’m not going to invest in blocking mats, so used a yoga mat to pin to.

I knew about two errors in the lace which I figured I could live with, but it was only when editing these pix that I discovered I’d crossed one of the cables the wrong way. ACK! Especially frustrating after I ripped back about 50cm to fix an incorrectly crossed cable. Ahhhh well, too late to do anything about that now (though It is taking all of my powers not to hurl in into the bin right now).

I think we can happily call this one done!

xxx
While writing this I realised that wordpress is not pulling in my externally hosted images, but is grabbing them, hosting them and doing a fair bit of compression – hence some fuzziness, particularly with the darker ones (I’m really not that bad at taking photos!). This doesn’t entirely please me.

This morning I drove Don to golf (1 hour round trip), drove out to the horror which is Costco with Joan (2 hours total driving) and then collected Don from golf (1.5 hour round trip**). All in horribly pouring rain. Fun!

After this I was completely exhausted and was forced to rest and read and knit a bit.

Saturday traffic in the Inner West is an utter nightmare – it takes hours to get anywhere (even places ordinarily less than 20 min away). This often leads me fantasise about moving somewhere regional/rural. The only problem with that idea is that I’d actually have to live somewhere regional/rural.

xxx
** later in the day means more traffic which of course means a longer trip.

In a crazy twist I still (mostly) avoided the internet again this evening, though I did look on ravelry for a new knitting pattern. The blocking wires arrived this week, so I can finally wrap up the easy as pie scarf (hurrah!). No luck on finding a pattern that spoke to me, though the oblagon scarf/wrap is a little tempting (possibly because the accompanying photos are quite lovely) and I think I can use yarn I already have.

Don was out at a work thing and Joe/Frank at work, so Joan and I sat around after dinner and watched the minimalists documentary on netflix. Tended to be more about various people’s philosophy of minimalism rather than a “how I live a minimalist life” – we’d have much preferred the latter. Show us your pristine surfaces and empty spaces!

And I finished reading The Sea, The Sea which I liked rather a lot. I think that makes the second Booker winner I’ve read (ever) #luddite

I now feel really quite relaxed.

This weekend I intend to embark on a new knitting project (to be decided) to accompany television watching and such.

I will also make a cake in my lovely new oven (which I should also post about – the oven, not the cake, but maybe also the cake).

I’m going to start my attempts at the splits (#18 on my 50 list).

I’ll go for a bike ride with Don.

I may drag out the overlocker to hem some pants.

And I will not think one little bit about SML.

xxx

Interestingly, I’ve barely been on the internet after work for the last two evenings.  Maybe it has stuck as a habit. Sadly it hasn’t led to anything fabulous or wildly creative.

Why I continually set myself challenges of deprivation – okay, not strictly deprivation by dictionary definition, possibly more denial.

In the last six months I’ve given up (for various lengths of time):
➕ alcohol
➕ chocolate
➕ internet in the evening
➕ reading online news
➕ twitter
➕ frivolous spending

If we venture further back we’ll find several other examples, but I think it is a relatively recent phenomenon – like in the last 2-3 years.

What’s all that about?

Fortunately February is a short month, but it was more because of delightful coincidence than clever planning that I chose this for my no internet month.

I had expected this challenge to lead to all manner of fabulous, creative and productive things magically happening in the evenings – and that I wouldn’t lose great chunks of time to who-knows-where.

Naturally it didn’t quite pan out how I expected.

At first I was getting in the occasional after work run, a bunch of knitting (so much that I finished the scarf**), occasional reading and a whole lot of television watching. After I completed the scarf, mostly it was just sitting around mentally exhausted in front of the television in the evenings. If I’d been decisive enough to settle on another knitting project I would have done more sitting around mentally exhausted in front of the television while knitting.

After standing outside on the footpath after work trying to wrap up a blog entry, I had to make an exception to the ban for a daily blog and instagram post pretty early on. I really couldn’t fit everything into the morning, and I was okay with that. It was relatively easy to maintain discipline around you can do only these two things in the evening. I didn’t feel deprived because I could catch up in the morning – this probably led to me reading less because by then I’d forget what I wanted to look at.

I hadn’t realised how much time I spend reading blogs until I saw the numbers of unread posts stacking up. I did unsubscribe from a couple that weren’t really doing much for me [verging into hate read territory]; from a couple of design blogs that post about 20 updates per day; and from pop sugar health and fitness – too diety, too instagram fitspo, too many conflicting messages [own and embrace your cellulite, 5 easy steps to get rid of your cellulite], too pervy on dudes [icky and hypocritical].  No huge loss on any of those.

I’m not about All Value Add All The Time – but wow, I just waste a whole lot of my time on non-value-add activities – that aren’t productive, that don’t make me happy, that are simply the result of habit.

What next? I’m going to attempt to be more discerning about what I consume, I’m going to plan some no-pressure activities for after work (they’re not just going to appear if there is a void) and I may try for two non-internet nights a week.

xxx
** waiting on blocking wires to finish it up (hurrah!)

Not strictly a blog post-title, but:

LIFESTYLE EXPERT!

From my morning routine (which is mostly of full routines featuring a-glass-of-water-with-lemon, yoga/mediation and journalling).

Fortunately by Friday last week, we’d filled those roles we’d been recruiting for my team. No more dealing with agencies – hopefully for quite some time!

I’ve been struggling a little with imposter syndrome since we made these appointments – they’re quite senior, very professional and polished people and will be reporting to me. Me?! This is just crazy.

One of these roles has been filled by someone very experienced and will be paid more than I am (and not just a little more). I’m not really sure how I feel about this – one the one hand, market rate; on the other – you report to me and are paid much more than I am.

Ah, it is what it is (but you’d better believe I’ve noted this to Bobs). 

Now I just need to remember to pretend I’m a grown-up and that I know what I’m talking about.

For a very brief and wonderful moment today, beloved chobi cam came to life!

I don’t know what prompted me to plug him in, but I did and got some terrible photos. It was very exciting.

I plugged him in and he died again shortly afterward.

I am quite tempted to buy a replacement 3.7v 120mAh battery on eBay for $10, but the battery may not even be the problem, so I really should just let this go. 

But it is only $10 …

newkitty watches birdies on the ipad

Even though I’ll have to do some work over the weekend, I’m extemely delighted to see the back of this week.

It can get a wee bit fractious with a full house – we definitely all need to learn to communicate a little better. And possibly moar hugs.