Miscellany ahoy!

I could eke this out into a bunch of separate posts, but I’m going with the TL;DR approach!

Over the past couple of weeks I’ve let a few of my most important good habits slip and am feeling the consequences of it. Definitely less showing up here for one!

+++

I haven’t posted about this, but over the past year(ish) I’ve been struggling quite a lot in dealing with a particularly difficult colleague. Noxy reports to me on ProjectSulfur, but we’ve been peers and very friendly for many years, and I’ve been a strong advocate and ally for them in many workly situations.

On the surface Noxy is charming, charismatic and caustically funny, but after working really closely together it’s become apparent that deep-down Noxy is massively toxic**, attention-seeking, narcissistic, negative and kind of, well, aggressively terrible at their job. And mean, so very mean – that kind of revolting meanness in the form of “funny” comments about people to their faces.

The rest of the team are young, positive, enthusiastic and highly capable – but attitudes are contagious and it takes a lot of work not to let Noxy bring everyone down to the Noxy level. I’m countering with loads of good vibes and energy and quiet encouraging words here and there – and keeping it contained.

It’s all caused me to do a huge amount of soul-searching. Noxy and I were once very tight – was I such a terrible and mean person? Trusted sources say we diverged paths years ago – but ugh. I’m confident this unpleasantness has nothing to do with reporting lines, the same trusted sources have said it has all been there for a long time, I’ve just chosen not to see it.

Fortunately I’ve got support from leadership, and just need to get through the next few months until we deliver the thing when Noxy will no longer be my problem. But it has all been very wearing.

Which is why it is all the more important to maintain those good habits! In the past couple of weeks the whole thing has been really getting me down and impacting my relationships with everyone else. On Thursday I started back running (very badly – fitness is shot) combined with a short spin on the exercise bike and it’s already been pretty helpful.

+++

A few weeks ago, I took a leap into the unknown – and signed up to an online course offered by one of my favourite podcasters. It’s all about getting more in touch with yourself and similar glorious DFH^^ stuff.

There’s a strong emphasis on journalling, examining all manner of things, jettisoning stuff that isn’t serving you, getting more in touch with your body and your intuition. It does totally verge into the woo – but I’m very much enjoying it.

And the self-reflection that all those things bring is incredibly helpful and just what I need right now. I really want to move into the post-sulfur world with some intention, rather than just drifting into yet another role. This is really helping me zoom in on what I want and what I don’t.

+++

We’re hearing that it’s unlikely there will be any overseas travel permitted until mid-2021. So the two other trips we’d booked this year won’t be happening (no refunds yet as not “official”).

Ah well, it is what it is. Hopefully we’ll be able to make the trips at the end of 2021 or some time in 2022. Maybe some domestic trips in the interim? Who knows.

One day we may be able to actually see Joan in person again!

+++

** this is where Joan reminds me that she was an extremely early adopter of this view.

^^ dirty hippy

Some time ago, I forget when precisely – maybe 18 months, maybe 2 years – Don’s favourite pair of jeans started to show a bit of wear, so we decided to try an experiment to attempt to keep them alive and kicking (and wearable) for as long as possible.

Shockingly, these jeans were only a couple of years old at the point they started breaking down! This short podcast articles of interest: blue jeans is incredibly interesting listen on the history of jeans and denim – and how they are no longer quite what they were!

First up I patched the back pocket and re-stitched the pocket bags (the stitching on these was quite shoddy and his keys kept falling down his leg).

Then over the months as holes appeared, I progressively patched – until now almost the entire front has been reinforced.

But all that’s visible from the outside is a couple of stylish tears. I’m not really a fan of external patches, so my preferred method is big patches of quite sturdy denim on the inside with teensy hand stitches reinforcing the holes and the surrounds of the patch.

Of course what was once a lightweight pair of jeans now weighs rather a lot with all that reinforcing. Though Don claims they are still comfortable.

It will be interesting to see how much more life we can eke out of them, but I suspect the most recent patching will likely be the last.

200 days! Woo!

Despite (or because of) the very changed circumstances and move to indoor lyf, I have continued to resist the siren song of new clothing.

Sure I could really do with a nice warm hoodie or toasty cardigan, but I think I’m happy to power through another 166 days!

I’ve you’ve been reading along you know, you’ll know I’ve filled some of the loungewear wardrobe void with a couple of garments I’ve made myself.

✚ I really love these bright red pants. The crotch is a wee bit too deep, but the red makes me so happy!

✚ I am not feeling these pastel stripey pants. They’re way too much like pyjamas for wearing in the day – there is apparently a line between lounge and pyjama that I am not keen to cross.

✚ I chopped about 15cm off the elastic of toile fro Don’s pants and ADORE them. I should probably make a pair for myself in something other than an old sheet.

In horrifying (at least to me) news, I think I could be tiring of lounge pants during the day and may move a rung up the discomfort ladder to jeans on some days.

When we came to ThePalace(OfLove) from Glebe 8 years ago we brought this tiny self-seeded Moreton Bay fig with us in a pot.

That string of pearls plant is sadly long gone, but the tiny tree?

though it looks a little like i’m kneeling, i’m standing up

It’s still quite leggy and gangly, I’m hoping it will develop into something more bushy and attractive like it’s much smaller twin

Isn’t nature fascinating? Both baby trees were exactly the same size when we arrived. The only difference has been size of pots we’ve had them in over that time.

Now that winter is upon us (such as it is), we’ve had our portable unflued gas heater on from 6am to around 10pm every day and it’s been deliciously toasty in ThePalace(OfLove).

Don had been having a little trouble breathing for a couple of days and yesterday the kitties were a bit weirder than usual and avoiding their ordinary hang-out spots in the room with the heater. In the late afternoon Don realised that we’d not let any fresh air into the house for at least a week and opened everything up. He almost immediately could breathe more freely and the kitties resumed their usual lazing positions. Of course we’ve never had the heater on for such long stretches before, so had no idea we shouldn’t be doing that!

We headed to the hardware store this morning to grab a carbon monoxide monitor – just in case! For the non-locals, carbon monoxide monitors are not really a thing here, at least they haven’t been on my horizon other than mentions on the Information Superhighway in lands far away. In good news, it hasn’t gone off yet.

But yay! My first non-supermarket outing for 3 months!

While we were out, we grabbed amazingly good pho for lunch at eat fuh.

I really need to make sure I get out of the house a minimum of once a week because I’m a smidge concerned this could turn into a real problem. It’s not like I’m terribly concerned about catching covid-19, so I’m not entirely sure what the source of the resistance to being away from home is. Maybe I’m most comfortable when I have control of my environment?

Next goal – a little sun, a little more exercise, a little more reading, a little less phone in bed.

We kick over to three months in iso early next week. The fastest and slowest (and weirdest) quarter ever.

There’s been a very low number of deaths (102) here and everything is beginning to gradually open up, though social distancing is still very much recommended. As I mentioned in the last post, we’re still working remotely for the foreseeable future – fortunately most of us are totally happy with this arrangement. It’s still pretty unlikely we’ll be able to leave the country any time soon, so those end of year holidays are uncertain at best. We’re very fortunate to have health and jobs and a home and all that other privilege, if the holidays happen, they happen.

If I’m honest, I’m starting to become a bit reluctant to leave the house for anything other than the early morning walk and grocery shopping. I’m a happily-potter-around-home type person and I guess being indoors for long periods of time can make you not want to leave if you’re predisposed to that kind of thing.

Cafes and restaurants have recently opened for dining in – Don has eaten out a couple of times, I’ve been avoiding accompanying him, but I really need to shake myself out of this before it gets much worse.

Tomorrow I’ll force myself out for lunch.

xxx

In the last couple of weeks the (free) site hosting my blog images way way back in 2005 suddenly began sending assertive emails claiming I was violating their TOS by linking to those images. This was apparently designed to encourage me to pay for their quite terrible hosting services. To be honest I’d completely forgotten the existence of that account, but after some effort, recovered my password, downloaded and re-uploaded to my (paid) host and began the process of manually re-linking.

Whenever I’m next conflicted about continuing the blog, I hope to remember how brilliant it is to have this (admittedly rather superficial) record of my life.

This triggered a pretty wide-ranging digital declutter which I’d been putting off for a good while and which will likely last some time. I’d completely forgotten at least two flickr accounts and a couple of yahoo email addresses required for who-knows-what (flickr and ancient footy tipping I suspect).

I wonder if this is actually a useful activity or avoidance of I’m-not-sure-what?

Public holiday on Monday, so I took the opportunity to take a leave day last Friday to make a four day weekend.

Of course I had grand plans to do masses of stuff, but as ever this was probably less successful than I had intended.

I might not have done much, but it was glorious not to have to be “on” for four days.

Every work day at 9am since we’ve been remote it’s as if my relentlessly-cheerful, high-energy, smiley and positive switch is flicked – and there it stays for the remainder of the day. It’s really quite exhausting and I often want to curl into a ball in the evening.

I need to start managing that a little better because there is no sign of going back to the office any time in the next couple of months.

I mixed it up a little at lunch today and attended a freebie pilates class over zoom which was put on by one of the local councils.

It was fun and quick and I would definitely do again, though I suspect I will be quite sore by Wednesday – I’ve done almost the bare minimum of exercise in the last 10 weeks. And probably not much more in the prior 10.

I haven’t done pilates for a couple of years now but thankfully could follow along okay.

I think the real benefit of signing up for a live class is that I’m much more likely to show up for it, rather than dither about putting off working out along to a video. This is the case for most classes – exercise or otherwise. There’s probably some psychological things to unpack here!

I’m trying yoga later in the week – all low key and no pressure to do headstands!

Last weekend I spent quite a bit of time making a toile (some people call it a muslin, but I like saying “toile”) of a pair of pants for Don. For the non-sewists, this is kind of a mock-up of a garment using inexpensive fabric which you sometimes make to check size and fit. The toile lets you make adjustments to the pattern and avoid possible mistakes before cutting into your usually more expensive final fabric.

I chose the Fremantle pants pattern from elbe textiles. I’d planned to get the A0 size printed for about $5 per sheet, but reconsidered and glued the A4 sheets together while sitting in the sun, listening to a podcast. Once that was done, I traced the pattern out on tissue paper. This is mostly so I can reuse the pattern in different sizes, plus it’s much easier to adjust on tissue.

I pulled out an old single bed sheet for the toile. Instead of whipping the pants up really quickly (generally you’d smash your toile together fast), I decided I was going to make the whole thing properly. This would let me suss out the technique and get some practice in for the final garment. In addition to the sheet, I used some bias-binding tape I’ve had kicking around for years and an old pillowcase for the pocket lining.

The instructions were really clear and simple and it all came together relatively quickly. I was pretty pleased with my finishing. I still need to work on the curves with the overlocker though I’m improving slightly. I free-styled the bias tape finishing for the pockets and would totally do that again. I hated the technique for the waistband, so abandoned that and did what I’m accustomed to – I still need to add some rows of stitching to that.

Detail pix:

How wonderful is this label? Purchased from JosieButtonsAU on etsy

xxx

Don was golfing and not available for progress fittings. What could possibly go wrong?

go gently judging that background clutter!

Verdict: baggier than expected, but weirdly tight across the top of the knees when walking. Much shorter than expected (should have measured length and not relied on the photo!). The design of the slash pocket depth seems to be proportionally off a bit. The front pockets aren’t as deep as I’d personally like.

When comparing to a pair of Don’s favourite pants of similar style, the leg width is similar, but the crotch on the fremantle isn’t quite as deep as on the favourites – maybe that’s what’s causing the weird knee tightness?

Think a unisex style is likely to not give me the results I’m aiming for,so I’ll be trying a men-specific pattern. This took me about 6 hours to choose today – but I got 3 patterns for $12 so, score!

xxx

And maybe I can steal the toile for gardening / painting / cleaning / messing-about pants?

dear god, those upper arms!

Might need to reduce the length of the elastic in the waistband just a smidge!

Whatever happens with it, I really loved the process. This low-stakes sewing has been super-fun!

xxx

^ slight pivot and going with the day of the year, rather than the date. Also – where did those 152 days go?!

A little over a month ago when I was Enthusiastic about planting things, I ordered Dragon Tree and Stone Pine** seeds and just as I’d pretty much forgotten about them, this week they arrived!

Like the maple, the stone pine requires cold stratification – though for not quite as long. Both the dragon and the pine germinate in the 22oC range and as we’re about to hit winter, I briefly considered holding off starting the process, but nah – carpe the whatevs and get on with it! I’ll keep them warm somehow. I’ve mentioned before that Sydney houses are normally quite freezing – architects / house builders / developers appear to collectively believe winter is not a thing that happens here.

xxx

^^ you’d not think it, but oftentimes settling on a title takes approximately 15 times longer than the actual post

** I adore stone pine trees almost as much as I adore maples. On my very first morning in Rome on my very first overseas trip at the comparatively advanced age of 40, I was on the Palatine Hill looking over the Circo Massimo – there was mist, there were stone pines, there were ancient ruins – and I wept at how beautiful and amazing and magical and wondrous it all was. I totally hid this from Don, because at that time I totally had a vision myself as way too cool and worldly for such displays of emotion. Honestly, what an idiot. Now I freely weep at every possible opportunity.