In a completely astonishing development, tonight BabyKitty (who you may recall does not know how to love) sat on my lap for 25 minutes.

This is completely unprecedented and caused widespread astonishment!

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If you thought vegemite and cheese hot cross buns were an abomination**, I give you …

Special Burger Sauce Hot Cross Buns – with special burger sauce and pickle pieces.

🤮

At least with vegemite, one could argue that it is a kind of weird (yucky) national icon. And vegemite and cheese is an actual (yucky) thing. I’m fairly confident the same can’t be said for Supermarket Brand burger sauce.

The humanity!

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** which of course they totally are!

A bit of a crafty day today.

Don and I attended our third and final pottery class this morning. Don loved glazing. I love glazing less – being a bit scarred from underwhelming past glaze choices.

I do think that is finally it for me and pottery. Not that I don’t like it, it’s quite fun – but I’m not really passionate or wildly enthusiastic about it. I had such wonderful visions of RetiredMe being fully actualised at the wheel. Time to develop alternatives! WWPD? **

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Inspired into more crafty endeavours, this afternoon I started making two very tiny books that I’ve been thinking about for a long while (out of head and into hands!).

I have a decent amount of bookbinding material and various scraps leftover from classes – I usually bring all my scraps home, however tiny. Despite these supplies at my disposal, I’ve made precisely no complete books at home and it has been many, many (many!) months since I made even a text block.

This was another activity where the sleepy neurons have been dragged into action. I am good at text blocks, but beyond that I needed to dig into the recesses of my brain to remember what comes next.

There’s quite a lot of process (these books will take a few days) and I need quite a bit of practice if I’m to get value from all these classes I’ve signed up for this year!

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I think perhaps Q2 (and maybe Q3) could be all about taking the next action on projects I’m daunted by.

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** What Would Penelope Do?

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I’ve knit scarves before, but never a shawl. I’ve thought about it, started one maybe 6 years ago – knit a few rows and very quickly abandoned it.

I have no idea why I’m compelled to give them another try, but here we are.

I downloaded the Be Kind shawl pattern yesterday afternoon and knit a few rows, got lost, and frogged; knit the same few rows, got lost, frogged. Went to bed. Today I knit the same few rows and a little more, got lost, frogged …

After the 6th re-start I added lifelines, so at least I wouldn’t need to pull back to the beginning.

My challenge was that because I hadn’t knit this sort of thing before I couldn’t visualise where the instructions were taking me, so I eventually I drew diagrams and made checklists, which made a huge difference!

This is definitely good for the brain, I can almost feel the sleepy neurons slowly dragging themselves to work.

But I’m very pleased I chose an “easy” garter stitch pattern!

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Rather than prepare a monthly update on my 23for23 intentions, this year I’m going for quarterly. And HolyGoodness this is the last year I will be doing an annual [x]for[y] – there are way too many items to keep track of. Though I still do love lists with a fiery passion, they can be confined to other areas of my life.

In case it is not obvious, or works differently where you are:
    Q1 = January-March
    Q2 = April-June
    Q3 = July-September
    Q4 = October-December

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The end of daylight savings has really knocked me about and if I track back through the blog archives I see this is a common theme for March/April – so perhaps seasonal/equinox change? I was absolutely thrumming with energy and good vibes – until I wasn’t. So this review may have a slightly more sombre tone than reflects the whole quarter.

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01. BE MORE PENELOPE!
⭐ I think so. Mostly. I had some realisations about maybe not being quite ready to step into OldLadyPenelope shoes just yet. I can lean hard into Pre-nelope though.

02. Half arsed is better than no arsed
⭐ Daily blogging for an extended period has really helped with not overthinking and just showing up. I still get stuck in my head a bit.

03. Disrupt the routine (monthly)
⭐ Movies, symphony, pottery class, audiobooks for commute, revisiting Japanese lessons for commute. Picking up knitting again. Little very tiny things like a lunchtime library visit and catching the tram home.

04. Choose the loving action (be kind to self)
⭐
+ I’ve said no often and stopped myself powering through when it felt like things weren’t working (morning pages for example).
+ I’ve been comfortable to sit with indecision/uncertainty instead of powering through.
+ I unsubscribed/unfollowed a bunch of legacy stuff (not you, dear reader) that didn’t align with where I’m at any more.

05. Financially support creators I believe in
⭐ The usual Patreon subs. I’ll likely make a bulk bandcamp purchase in Q2.

06. Share more of what I love or find interesting
⭐ Started strong in January, but I haven’t done much subsequently. Focus area for Q2.

07. Use the things or let them go
⭐ Getting quite good at this one! Many donations to Sewing Basket, the charity shop and Park Library. Space to breathe!

08. Morning experiments
⭐ My efforts at Morning Pages were not very successful, but experimentation is the thing here – not find-a-thing-you-will-do-forever.

09. Monthly hike (or equivalent)
∅ NOPE! Way too hot and humid for comfort.

10. Yoga with Adrienne in January
∅ Abandoned more than once. I really don’t know why I am resisting yoga, because I love it. So why am I not doing it? What if I don’t actually want what I think I want?

11. Build physical strength
⭐ New physio. Have foot rehab exercises. She says she’ll have me back to running in a month. Ha! I think my leg/ankle is the least of my worries there – my fitness is appalling.
I’m missed a couple of early Q2 days rehab. Back on the train now.

12. Complete 5 items from the 60before60 list
⭐ 1/5 and one of the biggest – #36 complete (#15 on this list)

13. 6 films at Golden Age Cinema
⭐ 3 films:
+ Emily the Criminal
+ Triangle of Sadness
+ Tár

14. Read 12 fiction books. Limit all self-improvement books
⭐ No self-improvement!
+ Ann Patchett: These Precious Days
+ Sheena Patel: I’m a Fan
+ Rachel Cusk: Second Place (audio-book)
+ Bret Easton Ellis: Glamorama (audio-book)
+ J. P. Pomare: Home Before Midnight (audible freebie)

15. Achieve next big financial goal
⭐ We paid off the mortgage in March. ThePalace(OfLove) is now 100% ours.

16. Wean self down to 1x coffee per day
∅ I’ve reduced the strength of my cups though, which my innards seem very pleased with.

17. Travel: 2 overseas trips + 1 local trip
Scheduled:
+ Europe x2 (Q2 and Q4)
+ Hobart scheduled in Q2 to celebrate #15

18. 1x new craft class (that isn’t book binding)
⭐ Pottery with Don! We had a lot of fun together.

19. 3x book binding classes + 1 open day session
∅ None in Q1, but booked one and on waitlist for others (in Q3 and Q4)

20. 1x skillshare class
∅ Identify whatever the blocker is and remove it. I have this extra-long-weekend ahead of me, surely I can find something to watch and learn?

21. Blog every day in January
⭐ YES! And so it continues – for how long, I cannot know.

22. Spend money on myself without guilt #treatyoself
⭐ Mostly I think.
+ I did not hesitate to buy a $50 skein of yarn for example (okay, maybe hesitated a bit).
+ Acquired some not-inexpensive shirts for hiking.
+ I would love to buy some clothing, but options available are really very underwhelming. I need to 1. Drop at least one dress size. 2. Go to Japan and buy All The Things.

23. Bring in more joy!
⭐ This was totally working, but current low energy and mood makes everything appear viewed through a bit of a grey lens. I am very confident the joy and positive energy will return (this realisation seems like amazing progress).

♥

I spent a nice evening practicing some garter stitch using this gorgeous squishy Rowan sock yarn in the colour ocean.

I was not really vibing my practice stripes combo for the cowl I was planning (As an aside, I’d very much like to improve my colour coordination abilities). The Rowan is combined here with Eki Riva Supreme superbaby alpaca in (I think) charcoal dark grey^^ – which is just magical. It’s all very soft and gorgeous, even though I don’t much like those colours together.

So thought to maybe knit the Be Kind shawl from the Rowan. I’m not a huge fan of garter stitch garments, but I think could look lovely. Maybe.

I like to think I’m the kid of person who can wear elegant shawls. Alas I’m more realistically the kind of person who becomes tangled in an elegant shawl and falls down stairs.**

Will have more of a think in the cold hard light of day!

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^^ grey looks pretty terrible on me, why do I persist in buying it in any form?

** to be fair, the last time I wore one, I fell up some stairs.

I think I can safely say that I’ve avoided catching the COVID from Don. This is absolutely astonishing!

Sure once he tested positive we wore masks indoors in common areas, didn’t eat together and tried to keep to ourselves – but we were sleeping in the same bed! Who can know how these things work?

Thanks vaccinations!

I’d expected to be laid up in bed taking it very easy at this point. I’m very glad that I’m not, but it does tell me that I need to schedule in some high quality laying-about-taking-it-easy time.

I haven’t been ill, but the past two weeks have all been a bit exhausting. Perhaps over the upcoming extra-long Easter weekend.

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I noticed some tiny black lumps on the white windowsill of the NotCraft room this morning and thought “they look like caterpillar poops, but surely they can’t be?”

They’ve been no new plants introduced to that room for long while and the window has insect screens fitted, so how would one gain entry?

But it could be a caterpillar, and it was.

The cunning beast had been having a good chomp on the spider plant.

No idea what type he was and the internet was pretty unhelpful with identification. He did try to spit green goo at me when I removed him from his feast, but I assume most, if not all, do this.

He was subsequently relocated outside to the “nature” strip which consists of some poorly performing grass, scraggly weeds and patches of bare earth. I’m sure he will be very happy there.

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When you leave your desk for 10 minutes!

I don’t normally care to do work-work in the NotCraft room, because I don’t want to infect my cosy space with negative waves.

I made an exception today because I was not at all keen to work in a mask at my usual dining table spot.

We’ve been masking it up in common areas of ThePalace(OfLove), but it’s masks off in non-shared areas – so my beloved NotCraft room is now the office for the week.

I’ll need a smudging stick to cast out any lingering work demons when it is over.

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It rained a good deal today, so much that the supermarket aisles were an obstacle course of buckets, and I had to drive through a small shallow lake to leave the car park**.

We will not speak of the random drips we could hear hitting various parts of the NotCraftRoom ceiling during the worst of the rain.

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** I’m still testing negative and am extremely masked in public.

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