So anyway, how did that one August project to recover from that horrid cold land?

Well, I’m much healthier than I was, so that’s a win! But I’ve still a little ways to go.

The consensus is that the horrid cold everyone succumbed to this year has been particularly difficult to shake. I still have a lingering occasional cough and tightness in my chest (as I suppose asthma would feel?) – emphasis on occasional.

In retrospect I really let my fitness slide this year. I went from doing a fair bit of regular activity (regular walk each day, yoga a couple of times a week, exercise bike) to pretty much nothing. This got worse when we moved offices and it became a bit too far to walk part way to work. I kind of noticed the decline, but also kind of didn’t, so it snuck up on me.

I’m convinced this lack of exercise had quite a bit to do with getting sick (and catching germy public transport everyday – ugh) and not bouncing back very easily.

So last week I took a couple of concrete small steps. 5min on the exercise bike each evening. Two very small runs around the block in the morning. Walks where I can. Eating lunch. Keeping up with the fruit and veg. I’m trying to be sensible about it which is entirely against my nature. Previously I’d just throw myself at stuff and burn out. I’d like to build something sustainable(ish) but a bit less extreme.

This is one of those areas that will be interesting (for me, less you!) to look back on from 2027. Did this stick? Did I manage to build in daily activity? Am I healthier? How many more horrid colds did I catch?

3000 days.

Some days (or was it weeks?) ago my faithful, darling seven year old laptop began misbehaving.

First, it was killing ThePalace(OfLove) wifi each time I pressed the on button. Then it was not keen to let me log in. I could log into the administrator account, just not my own.

Cue much (much!) research and tinkering. I eventually resolved the log in issue by creating a new account. Though of course that isn’t really resolving it, is it? More a work-around. This seemed to fix the wifi-killing issue too, so I can only assume it was all some sort of devicely cry for help.

I am less distressed about this than you’d suppose because I still have access to all of my files. But I have backed everything up and am now on laptop-death-watch.

Of course I could just run out and buy a replacement, but I’m kind of bloody-mindedly seeing how long I can make this one last.

xxx

According to my day counting app, tomorrow will be 3,000 days until I’m 60. That’s a whole lot of days, but at the same time, is really not very many days at all.

Because I love any and all projects, I’m going to try a tiny project to mark the time. This is nothing more earth shattering than daily blogging. If nothing else, it will be interesting to observe if blogs are still kicking in late 2027.

3001 days.

I was randomly placed on the jury roll for NSW late last year.

Since then I’ve been called up for a 13 week trial, a 26 week trial and a 24 week trial – all of which I’ve fortunately been excused from with a supporting letter from Bobs. The gist of the letter being that SML is small, I’m leading Project Sulfur during this period and there is no-one else to replace me.

project sulfur – visual representation

Based on the experience of others, I knew the summonses were going to arrive with increasing frequency until I turned up at court. And sure enough, earlier in the week I received yet another letter – for another 24 week trial. Seriously who has a life that they can take almost 6 months from?

This time the compelling letter from Bobs did not work.

I received word on Friday afternoon that “my reason was not accepted”, so I will be turning up late September begging and pleading to be put on a shorter trial. In addition to the career damage in missing 6 months of a project (sulfur is a BIG opportunity for me), there’s significant financial disadvantage if I am put on any trial that lasts beyond 10 days. SML is required to make up the difference between my salary and the very meagre jury stipend for that period, but beyond that one is expected to survive on very little.

I could definitely get into a hysterical spiral here about all the other issues this will cause, but I’m trying very hard to be zen about it. Hah! just writing that made me spiral a bit.

I’ll prep all I can with more supporting evidence, but in the end this one is in the lap of TheUniverse!

I expect I will spend a good amount of that late September day in tears and/or hyperventilating.

pretty delighted by this photo – my afternoon commute

After a break of 180 days (coincidentally the same day I hit 1000 days on the no drinking), last week I decided I’d give instagram another bash.

While I infinitely prefer blogs and endlessly carp on about missing the old days of blogging, I do very much like keeping up with my Imaginary Internet Friends. And unfortunately the majority have mostly abandoned blogging, but are reasonably active on the ‘gram.

I’ve greatly culled the list of people I’m following, set myself to private and am eschewing hashtags. I’ve also kept notifications disabled.

So far I’m managing and feeling positive about it – whether this vibe continues will be interesting. Well, interesting to *me* – undoubtedly rather less interesting to *you*.

If you’re into an endless stream of cat photos and miscellany (but let’s be honest, mostly cats), I’m mme_carolbaby.

xxx

As part of all that reflecting I’ve been doing, I’ve really want to prioritise getting back to doing more creative *stuff*. I’ve lost this in recent years – looking back through the archives I once did all manner of crafty things, where did that all go? I’ve somehow developed such bizarre perfectionist tendencies which make it difficult to commence anything.

There’s been WAY too much focus on worky work in recent years and I’m now experiencing a lot of that pretty standard mid-life questioning of “what is my identity outside of being a mother and wage-slave?”

Anyway, I’ve made a small no-pressure list of things I’d like to explore over the next year or so and stuck it to the noticeboard next to my desk. I made a great start with the kintusgi class and I’m keen to do more. I’ve abandoned the monthly facial in favour of craft-classes and supplies. It was exceptionally lovely treat for those seven months, but I’m keen to move on to something different. And hey, I’m old and wrinkly, and I live in a very harsh climate. Pretty much nothing I do is going to turn back any tides – and I kind of want to use those $ expand my brain a bit.

The list:

+ cabled jumper of the dastardly pattern
+ a mary walker phillips-type knitted piece
+ patchwork quilt made from quirky tea-towels
+ another flouncy skirt
+ another bagggy dress
+ more kintsugi
+ more embroidery
+ resin class
+ glass class
+ ceramics class
+ drawing class
+ boro class
+ silver class

I’ve discovered textile artist which is full of astoundingly talented contemporary textile artists. I’ve found this incredibly inspiring and have lost a good amount of time reading. I mean look at the work of Amanda Cobbett – dazzling!

Now I need to get on and do something!

Minor sobriety milestone today!

I celebrated with a short walk and a very excellent pie at the pub (and the purchase of a lamp at ikea).

celebration pie

It has been a long (long!) time since I’ve felt like consuming anything alcoholic, but I do enjoy these little celebrations of significant dates.

(Even felt remotely human for a while there – nary a sniffle or cough – perhaps the end is in sight?!)

I’ve now entered the second month with this cold.

I’m much (much!) better than I was, but still have the occasional cough, runny nose and husky chest (channelling my inner darth carolbaby). And a Giant cold sore (second of two Giant cold sores). And cuts and nicks all over my hands which are taking an age to heal. And my skin is horrifically dry. In essence, I’m falling to bits.

GAH!

I speculated during the week that stress is manifesting itself physically, which I guess is preferable to being a mental wreck. I don’t actually feel at all stressed, but perhaps I would if I was not ill.

Rather than wallow in it, I’ve attempted to do very gentle things to slowly improve my health. Last Saturday for example, I took a gentle 45 minute stroll around the neighbourhood. This felt glorious during and after. Unfortunately the next day my cold symptoms returned with a vengeance – so perhaps even gentle strolling is too much.

killer slow stroll last weekend

Possibly allergies to pollen and such? I’m giving it another week before I head to the doctor.

I think this inability to recover is what I get for ever-so-slowly letting exercise fall by the wayside. First I abandoned running, then weekend cycling, then the daily 100 pushups|situps|squats, then cycling to work, then yoga, then the exercise bike, then walking to work. You get the idea. That and my formerly quite disordered eating have left me much (much!) less healthy than I realised.

Last week Vincenzo and I recently re-instituted a health and wellness challenge in our team and dragged out the template we used from July 2016.

A sample of my activities from one of the weeks:
+ Run > 5km
+ Bike ride > 40km
+ 100 push-ups

You what now? My mind, it boggles – 3 years later and this level of activity seems completely inconceivable.

My sole focus for August is to become well! And perhaps ramp up to some gentle activities in September.

what a naughty adorable poppet (<3 that phone camera!)

Momentary appearance from my not-literal sick bed** to reflect on those soft-core July intentions.

Given that I was unwell for half the month (just as recovery is in my sights, I’m struck down again – it is Very Tiresome and has happened twice now) and that I was aiming for chill, I did reasonably well.

Though if I’m honest I forgot about half of these – I’ll carry them over into August – along with GET HEALTHY!

+ get out in nature minimum 3x per week
NOPE! The weather has been spectacular and I did get out for a few excellent lunchtime walks, but not with the frequency I’d hoped. Illness did rather put paid to that toward the end of the month.

+ endless embroidery: complete year 13 | frame it!
YES! It’s hanging on the wall next to the bed and I’m delighted by it.

+ knit one row of jumper per day
Started, knit 5 rows of pattern, stopped, repaired cable crossing wrong way. Stopped again.

Realised that pattern is not entirely the same as the photograph – the pattern has the diamonds starting at the point after the ribbing, the photograph mid way. I prefer the photograph. Other than that, I’m finding the pattern in quite challenging in other ways (outlined here). I’ve a mind to write it out as I would prefer to knit it – that would probably be good for my brain.

+ sit for 2-5 minutes each day and write Japanese notes
NOPE! I absolutely will get back to this.

+ one night per week without internet
NOPE! Though I have had some nights where I’ve sat quietly and read a book, it’s not been in any formal, structured way.

xxx

** I have lost the whole zen “this enforced rest is a gift! what an excellent time to relax and reflect!” and now am somewhat (a lot!) grumpy and slightly champing at the bit to get moving about.

ARGH! How can I have another cold already? Or possibly a recurrence of the same cold?

TheUniverse obviously thinks I need a little more enforced rest and Thinking time, so who am I to argue? So a bit more on those Thinking Thoughts …

In those recent “what will we do in our retirement?” discussions with Don, I mentioned I’d like to spend time taking all manner of creative-type classes. Later after thinking on it, I realised it was kind of dumb to wait to do anything about this. Apart from the fact that we’ll have significantly less disposable income in retirement, wouldn’t it be better for me to begin investigating activities I might like to do now? Why wait until #2026 to start?

And I did precisely nothing about following it up.

And then I read the end of procrastination which cemented my thinking. Enjoy the journey! Devote time to the the things that align with my values! Carpe the whatevs and take action now instead of waiting!

And still I did pretty much nothing to progress it.

FINALLY after a whole lot of Sick Day Thinking and inspired by the excellent anyresemblance’s recent flower arranging class, I signed up for kintsugi at my local Community College.

All the materials, including the pre-broken plate, were provided, so I just needed to turn up after work on Wednesday evening with an apron to protect my clothes.

I’ve never done any sort of craft class before, so I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect (and was ever-so-slightly concerned that I’d be the only old lady). But I really, really enjoyed it! It was a great and diverse small group of people and really positive and enthusiastic vibe.

We used a modern kintsugi method with epoxy, putty and brass powder (the traditional method uses lacquer and takes many, many weeks) and were encouraged to take pix of our progress – but obviously I needed no encouragement to whip the phone out.

The highly summarised steps below – there was quite a bit of un-photographed digging and scraping:

first step – file a channel into the edges of your broken plate

second step – 2-part epoxy your plate together and washi tape around the channel

third step – fill the channel with 2-part adhesive putty

fourth step – paint 2-part epoxy over the putty and sprinkle with brass powder

fin

Let’s just say I’m not going to win any kintsugi awards any time soon, but I am so very glad I went!

We got to keep the tools and brass powder, so later in the week I grabbed some supplies (including wee plates to break) to practice on with the idea that if I improve, I’ll sign myself up for a proper class using the traditional method.

supplies

I now also have quite a list of other classes I’d like to try – from resin, to weaving, to enamelling, to drawing, to boro, to soap making, to glass platter making.

I’m so accustomed to teaching myself to do things, but I could definitely really get into this more structured creative learning!

If you’re running low on coat hangers, check your baby girl’s recently decluttered cupboard before running out to purchase more.

Finally (finally!) after 20 months, I’ve completed the endless embroidery! I wrapped up the stitching last weekend, framed it today and I’m pretty happy with the result.

HURRAH!

Well, kinda sorta completed it. Obviously being an endless embroidery, it will technically never be finished. My plan is to remove it from the frame on each anniversary and complete that year. So I don’t have to dig it out in September, I’ve cheated a bit and gone ahead to the end of Year 13. That’s 4,749 days or 4,749 tiny hearts!

The background to this project is in this ancient post. Executive summary: a tiny heart for each day since our first date, kind of inspired by the utterly brilliant work of Rieko Koga and Christine Mauersberger.

Yes, it’s very, very sappy. But hey, I totally own my sappiness – though my past self would be kind of appalled at this.

Getting to this point took quite a bit of patience and attention; sewing hearts in careful groups of ten stitches so I could keep count; getting through many audiobooks; stitching at the beach, at my desk, on the bed, the couch; recovering the red hearts when half of them fell out; realising I’d added an extra day to three of the later years; only stitching in daylight because my eyes are old; only stitching wearing glasses because my eyes are old; protecting from interested kitties!

On with the pix-or-it-didn’t-happen (though I don’t think the photos really quite do it justice).

The linen is quite light and delicate and I’ve left it crumpled. It reminds me a bit of an elderly map – which I guess you could say it kind of is if you’re of that way of thinking.

frame – without glass only for the photo

gold heart to mark the wedding!

red heart to mark anniversaries!

When I learned to embroider as a wee girl it was considered vitally important that the back was as neat as the front – so for this project I took the opposite approach.

back – i quite like this side too

I didn’t fix my starting or ending stitches either and left the threads loose which is also against the embroidery law. This subversive approach is what led to those single red hearts dropping out – quite the nightmare to repair!

Despite the tiny dramas, I enjoyed this so much that I’m planning my next embroidery project. This one will be based around trains from our three trips to Japan. This project is likely to be endless too, because we’ll definitely be returning. Fortunately I’ve recorded all that train data because, well that’s what I do.