Bunnies, Snow and Exercise

7:50 am

                Well, between work snow and bunnies morning pages have taken a hit. And now that classes have started (yesterday) I just don’t know if I’ll be able to write at all. I got really spoiled this fall with class at 11. Now it is at 10 meaning I must catch the 9 am bus to get there in time. And really it is better to catch the 8:30 bus to get there early. But no class today, so I am not going in – plenty of snow. Oh and the other thing encroaching on my time is the running. I’ve really been very good about it. I’ve managed to exercise every day that I am at work, alternating between the treadmill, elliptical and now the stationary bike. And days that I wasn’t at work I made an effort to do something like a brisk walk. But now will come the crunch and it remains to be seen if I can keep it up once the grading becomes truly onerous. The good part is that I don’t feel like I have to rush home asap to be here for the girls. G is pretty self-reliant and I no longer even need to drive her places! So if I exercise after work and get home at 6:30 it is ok. Except that it means that getting supper done, plus bunnies is a killer and all doesn’t finish until late and I am exhausted. As ever, I must try to be as efficient as possible with things – definitely not my strength.

                I’ve been listening to some great audio while I run and do buns. I just finished 16 short stories by Chekhov, now I’m onto a book by Gogul. They also have an adaptation of Madame Bovary which I might try. The uploading is a bit tedious and takes time – there are lots of steps.

                I think today’s big focus (once bunnies are done) is going to have to be FINISHING that CSS Profile. Then I must get the FAFSA done. Ilse just sent out the tax forms to fill out, so I’d better jump on that. I sure wish there was something nice I could think about doing today, too. The trouble is that nothing appeals. Going out for a walk in the snow, spinning, knitting, none of it appeals. Sitting by the stove and watching the flames appeals. Oh I also must get all my stuff together for my trip to Temenos. I wish I knew where the backpack with the internal frame was, I think there is some sort of backpack in the garage and I can use that, it is just a short distance I must walk stuff in. I’ll bring some knitting, some reading, and my journal. And I’ll sit and watch the world of snow. 

Oh, and here's a photo of our thermometer the other day. And this was several hours after I had looked and it said -15.

All the buns made it through, I had the just-plucked one inside.

Visit my new Etsy Shop!! http://www.etsy.com/shop/twistedmysteries

Gym!

4 pm!

                I am not supposed to be writing Morning pages right now because I am at work and it is most decidedly not the morning. But this morning I had to get up and shovel snow so I could get G to the oral surgeon appointment for her wisdom teeth. Which, by the way, will cost $1500. But that is just how it is.

                So what I really need to be doing is writing a recommendation for a student, but I hate doing them. And even though this was a great student and it should be pretty easy. Still it is a job. Then I need to haul my a** to the gym to do my running. Yesterday I even tried the elliptical which was really HARD! I think today I will do the treadmill again and not worry about pushing too much. Maybe I can alternate treadmill/elliptical. Only once classes and labs start back in in force I may be alternating going to the gym and not going. Maybe going and running outside at home (especially as the weather improves). Well, this is reasonably lame; I guess I’d better start writing.

Visit my new Etsy Shop!! http://www.etsy.com/shop/twistedmysteries

A Good-for -Nothing poem

8 am

Another snow day! Rather it should be called an ice day since that is what it is. Sheer ice everywhere. I went out with the dog last night to walk around the block and could only do so because I wore my ice cleats on my boots. It is supposed to warm up today, so I am assuming that I will be able to get to work. But I might take the PVTA bus instead of slogging it out with the insight or camperbus.

Yesterday was actually quite lovely. I managed to get out for quite a long walk at Misty Bottom with my friend L and the dogs. She had snowshoes and I slogged along behind her. Frieda was mostly out front, but Tigger spent most of the time right behind L (between us) with his snout catching the full effect of the snow tossed up by the snowshoes. Pretty silly. I also managed to get in a bunch of spinning – the pink stuff. I have 1 more ounce of it to spin, then a few ounces of white angora to ply it with. And a couple of days ago I started knitting up a muff that I had been thinking of. It will be lined with angora and so very warm. Good for things like waiting for a bus. And I rescheduled Temenos to go for TWO nights in 2 weeks. WooooHooooo. I am very excited. And it gives me more time to actually get the stuff I need together. AND at the end of the day I did some fair stuff – I contacted the Girls Scouts and there is at least one cadet troop interested in learning some crafts and helping out at the fair, I made an initial attempt to contact someone about doing a bunny workshop (she is always hard to reach) and – major brainstorm of the day – I called my sister to see if she would like to do a kid’s workshop and she will do two on Sunday! So that felt very satisfying and successful.

                Today’s words:

Horn, winepress, good-for-nothing

I kid you not, that last one was actually right there in the dictionary where I put my finger!

Horn. Horny. Blow your horn, little boy blue. A bull’s horn powder horn. Horn of plenty. the man in Parade’s End blowing The Last post which I assume is some sort of tune played for the dead, like Taps.

Winepress? Wow. What to do with that? In the book (I was just reading, can you tell) they are using a cider press to make cider. Winepress makes me think of flousey Italian women stomping around on top of bits vats of grapes. With Lucy (I Love Lucy) in there too – wasn’t there an episode like that. So silly. Wine press. Pressing out the essence of the grapes to ferment into something precious and valuable. Pressing out the red life-force, like the grapes’ blood.

Good-for-nothing. Well that is me. Good for not a whole lot. Reading and making crepes that nobody wants to eat. Lazy, ne’er do well, a bum, a loafer, somebody with no ambitions or drive (that’s me!) kind of the opposite of the winepress whose goal is to squeeze out the essence, ready it for distilling. A horn can herald things – coming of the king, completion of the wine-pressing, banishment of a good-for-nothing.  Blowing one’s own horn. Even a good for nothing can do that. Little Boy Blue go blow your horn – but he was a good for nothing, sitting about in the hay rake, shirking his duties. The duties that pileup and overwhelm. The laundry and dishes and shoveling, not to mention the world-saving.  Is it enough, while the world ices over, to make crepes (that no one will eat but my own self)?

Is it enough to sort the clothes?

To feed the pets and stack the wood?

Is it enough to shovel snow from the drive?

Scrape the cars clean and read a book?

Is it enough to go to work and do my job,

Come home to eat supper and go to bed?

Or must we all do more?

Must we all find a way to gather and think and figure out what else to do?

Yes. We must gather.

That is the key.

Gather to think, gather to work, gather to find new ways.

It is not enough to sort the laundry,

My laundry.

Even if I wash it by hand, in a big tub by the wood fire.

Even if I hang it out on the line to dry.

Even if I dig the ground and plant the wheat

and turn the crank to make the flour for the crepes

with the eggs from the chickens in my backyard.

Even then it is not enough.

We must gather.

Share the wheat.

Wash the clothes together

not in the river, but together in the tub by the fire.

We must stand together at the clothesline

and hang out the clothes to flap in the sun.

We must gather to think, to work, to save the world.

               

Visit my new Etsy Shop!! http://www.etsy.com/shop/twistedmysteries

More Snow!

8:45 am

                Lovely lovely. I had all sorts of busy-ness planned for today and now it is snowing heavily and I will do none of it! I love that! Let’s see, originally there was a meeting scheduled at work at 9, meaning I was going to need to zoom around to get the bunnies et al done to get there in time. Then I was going to go to a lovely retreat place a bit north of here for the night.

http://www.massretreats.com/temenos.html 

But I would have needed to get all packed up, and it would have all been a huge rush. So instead I am doing nothing which is lovely. I have rescheduled the retreat for next weekend and decided to go for 2 nights which makes a lot more sense. I just hope the weather holds back that weekend since the only cars I will have available if it snows are the tiny insight and the unstable camperbus, neither of which are at all useful in the snow. – update/news flash! I just found out that K will not be working Friday, so I will have the car!!

                I wish I had remembered to bring the dog brush from work yesterday. I’m trying to card up this dog hair that has been awaiting my attention for months, and I need a fine dog brush to help clean off the cotton carders that I use. The new drum carder, which is much finer than my old one, worked great for an initial opening up of the stuff. Now I am using the cotton hand cards for a final process, but I need the fine dog brush. It would be nice to put a solid bit of time into that today.

                Another todo for today (besides continuing with the finances) would be to focus on a “game plan” business-wise for the year. In order to enter some of the fancier fairs, I believe I need to make myself official, so I need to look into that – becoming a registered business. And that means doing taxes and all sorts of headache that I would love to avoid, but perhaps it is time. It is also time to figure out how to easily take photos so that I can actually start to post things to Etsy again. Maybe I should invest in a good light. Or maybe I should move some of the massive number of plants I have in the kitchen bay window so more natural light will come in there and I could take photos there. I don’t need a huge place, just a small one to set up skeins and small knit things.

                One word for today:

 Broadsword

So what in the hell am I supposed to do with that? I guess a broadsword is one of those big fat things that people used way back when for whacking each other. Pleasant thought. Could it be as effectively used for whacking one’s demons? Worry – “whack!” anxiety – “whack!” depression – “whack!” broadsword. Flat sharp shiny.

She was small, not what you’d call a hunk, a brute or even especially athletic. But she hefted the broadsword in both hands and knew that if she had to, if the need arose, she could wield it. She could hew down anyone that threatened those near and dear to her. She would defend her children to the death. Would she also defend their world? Could she wield the sword to save the things they loved best? Maybe it was time to try.

Well that was interesting……

Visit my new Etsy Shop!! http://www.etsy.com/shop/twistedmysteries

Corgi in the Snow

Let's see if I can do this, post the video of the corgi in the snow:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrpS4S1-t3Y


Visit my new Etsy Shop!! http://www.etsy.com/shop/twistedmysteries

more prompts

9:20 am

                Depressed depressed depressed. So what is new? Actually now I feel a bit better than when I woke up, possibly because of doing my stretches, and possibly because while doing them I was listening to this amusing podcast by an Australian knitter:

http://sticksandstring.com.au/ 

 Now I just need to figure out how to put the podcasts onto my little blue player and also find the little blue player so I can listen to them while I do my running. The PlayAway about the Byzantine Empire has nearly finished. Of course, if I listened to the whole thing again it would probably be fine since I only half-listened to most of it. All those names of emperors!  

                Today I will have to do tons of nasty financial stuff and tackle the nasty piles, but first….

                Writing prompts for today:

Magnify, unable, strategy

Hmmmmmmm. “Her strategy was unable to magnify the problem.” “It magnified her inability to strategize.”

Magnify. Make bigger. Make problems bigger. Make tiny things bigger. Magnifying glasses for looking at cool stuff like bugs. I do have a very nice magnifying glass, one of the tiny 10x ones that is great for carrying about. Magnifying problems, worries, concerns. I certainly do that. Magnify them way out of proportion, something I’ve been thinking about lately because I’ve been feeling so anxious and worried and overwrought. Something I need to learn not to do because it makes life not especially fun, gives a nasty sad look to my face, probably is not at all good for my health.

Unable. Boy that’s a loaded one. There are many things I am unable to do. We are “supposed” to not think in terms of unable, but instead think positively: “Yes, I can!” and is the “unable” because I really can’t (run a 4 minute mile, ski downhill, get a job as a professor) or at least can’t right now given my current life, or is it because I don’t feel up to it somehow  (get  the garden set up to grow my own sunflower seeds and oats, have better friendships, deal with the woodlot and help Mom figure out her finances). Or does it all just feel so overwhelming???

Strategy. I suppose I should strategize on ways to get it all done. Or strategize on ways to make life better. Or strategize on how I can be more useful to the world.

These are all coming to the same old same old themes and are quite depressing.

Magnificat. Isn’t that something Catholic? Like what Mary said when god told her she was going to have Jesus? Like -  “oh thank you so much, that is great, you are wonderful.” Instead why didn’t she say “fuck that god old buddy – a baby out of wedlock? You think this guy Joseph is going to believe it is “god’s” baby. Oh sure.  No thank you.”  Magnificent. The world is in fact magnificent, one just has to find and focus on those parts. This snow we just had is in fact magnificent, once one gets past the shoveling part.

Strategies for coping: focus on the magnificent parts and on the able not the unable. Sounds very trite, but is worth working on. Magnify the able parts. Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative and don’t mess with mister in-between.

It’s funny. When we do our writing get togethers, I often do a lot of random writing and then I get freed up to write something like often a poem. But this is not working this way for me. I think it is the computer. It is such a different medium. Maybe I should try pen and paper again for mps and to hell with blogging….. people look at the site, but I think they are more interested in actual angora or spinning type stuff and not my ramblings. Something to think about.

Visit my new Etsy Shop!! http://www.etsy.com/shop/twistedmysteries