Yesterday's Loveliness

7:20 am

                Funny how I really am in this morning pages habit. It’s a good one, if only I were as strongly in the morning running habit so that I would actually look forward to it. I didn’t run yesterday and I felt a bit guilty, but that is all. Not as if I missed it.

                Yesterday in general was lovely. I decided to really go with how I felt. I meditated morning AND afternoon, I ate precisely when I felt like it, I even took a small nap in the middle of the day. My belly felt and feels much better. And how did I end the day? With a double-dip ice cream cone, what kind of good idea does that sound like for someone with digestive issues? But it was ok and I felt fine all night. Of course I was not as stellarly “productive” as I might have been. I did lots of small stuff. I finished the gray angora – three small skeins spun, plied and wound off (they and the others need to be washed, dried, weighed and labeled). I did a little bit of research on places to stay and hike in NH when I (now, it looks like, we) are there this weekend (and let me add that that kind of online research can sure suck up the time!!). I did a tiny bit of research on where I could get the black fleece processed, which is what I might end up doing. I tried washing a bit of it, and it looked pretty good, but when it came out of the wash and was dried, it is absolutely full of chaff. I might try combing that, but the reality is that I find combing very tedious. And if I then want to blend it with angora, it would mean combing and THEN carding – very tedious indeed. And I did some bits of “finishing” work – mainly sewing ends into things that have been sitting around waiting for that. It seems the headbands I have been making lately end up with a lot of ends…  And I started to work on the hat I made for a friend a million years ago that stretched out and she can no longer wear. I decided to pick up the stitches on the edge – but only half of them because there are 106 (!), so I’ll pick up 54, maybe add a few, and knit a new band with about 60 on pretty big needles (she has a large head, so I’m hoping that will work). I knit it with some angora. Except now that I think of it, angora has no memory/stretch, so that might not work so well. Maybe I should use some angora/wool ply that is especially stretchy. I decided to wait until I have carded the lumpy brushed fawn angora that I have set out, ready to go, and use that. But now I am thinking I should make one skein of that plied with some nice springy Suffolk or Dorset. Well it will all be an adventure of sorts.

                I also talked to said friend for a while on the phone, and to my sis. She, unfortunately, has kidney stones and is waiting for them to pass. Like waiting for someone to cut off your finger. Like waiting to give birth, except with no nice baby at the end, just some stupid “stones” that I don’t suppose you even get to keep. Maybe she should ask for them and make earrings from them… what a gruesome thought!

                What about today? It would be very good to continue my “go with my body’s flow” technique, so I will try. I do have some “must do” kinds of things, like – call Julie about the rabbits and getting them registered, call Warren Wilson about what the next step is with the loan. I’m sure there are others that I can’t think of. And I suppose I should try the running again, though that I hardly “feel like” doing.

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A Day of Quiet

7:20 am

                The house to myself today, all day. G is at the farm working – harvesting veggies and getting happily filthy, K is at work – all day for a change. I am determined to follow my needs today; to listen to my body. I am not going to push myself, but take it easy and see if that makes a difference in my belly issues. And I think I will try to get back to the routine of meditating am and pm. Of course, the frustrating thing with that is, between meditating, morning pages, and trying to exercise in one way or another, there goes the day. Well. We’ll see. But for today anyway I will try to take it a little easy. Especially since this weekend is going to be full, first of all of driving (to pick L back up) and then it is the 4^th and Mom will be here which is stressful. And then of course the next day is more driving as I must bring her back home. So Sat through Tues will be pretty shot. And oh boy, the weekend after that is the Crafts on the Common fair. I guess it would make sense to get things ready for that. Like trying to put together kits that I keep thinking of. Hmmm.

                The sun room is looking very nice. All cleaned out and vacuumed. In fact, both K and G commented on how nice it looks. Kind of interesting that a clean sunroom is one of the few things that gets me nice compliments. And what does it even matter to them, they do not use it? On the other hand, if I make a hat/scarf/mittens/fancy skein of yarn, I get no compliments. I guess if what I want is familial regard, I should spend my time cleaning instead of making stuff. Familial regard is nice, but not worth it. Maybe it is just that they are so used to seeing lots of made things, and not at all used to seeing places cleaned up. Anyway, I spent all yesterday and Monday sorting through everything. I managed to come up with a couple of fleeces – one alpaca and one fine black wool – that I do not want. A friend says she’ll take the alpaca, I may bring the wool to spinning. The other option would be to send it off for processing. It has quite a bit of VM in it, so trying to work with it myself is just not worth while. Maybe I’ll look into the commercial processing option, which means I should ask some of the spinning groups about good processors. My cleaning also made it very clear that one thing I do NOT need for a very long time is any new fiber. I think I could spin what I have for about 5 years or more before I used it all. And I should not buy roving if I teach any more classes (“if” since J-Term has been abolished; but I’ve been thinking about teaching a class through Leisure Services, it just means getting an application in by Feb if I want to do that in the summer). Instead I should card up some of the nice Romney that I have. I find it kind of coarse for the spinning I like to do these days, but for beginners it is perfect. I also have quite a bit of rather coarse stuff that I ought to spin up for L to use, since she likes the more natural wool stuff, colored is best, and doesn’t mind if it is coarse. She just doesn’t want all the angora in there.

                I think I will meditate, eat yogurt for breakfast (I think maybe I will stick with yogurt all day, which means I had probably best make some more), do some stretches, but not run this morning. Then I will work on the gray angora, finish that up, and maybe even start spinning the green stuff that is all carded and ready. Oh, the other thing I discovered is that I have quite a bit of stuff that is already carded and ready to spin. And tons of dyed stuff waiting to get blended. So at least for a while this summer I think I will not do any dyeing. Maybe later in August.

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Cleaning

7:30 am

                I’m glad that I am going to see the gastroenterologist today; I woke up feeling kind of cruddy and most definitely low energy. I got a lot done yesterday, but I was kind of dragging. And Sunday when I went to run I could barely make it. I kept getting stitches in my side which usually doesn’t happen and I ended up walking a lot of the way.

                As for “getting a lot done,” what that means is that I actually managed to pull about half of the sunroom’s contents out and sort stuff. I vacuumed and “dusted” if that is what you call wiping off a year’s worth of crud. I had to put it all back in last night, so to continue I’ll need to pull it back out, and keep going by also pulling out all the boxes of fleeces. I need to open each one and check for moth activity. And sort them so if there are any I do not want I can get rid of them. I am going to get rid of the alpaca that I got a bunch of years ago in CT. I used some of it once and did not like it – too itchy. I will see if my friend wants it, and if not, I’ll probably bring it to the spinning group next week and see if anyone there wants it. Speaking of my friend, she told me last week when I went there to spin, that she had decided she should sell her drum carder. I thought of making her an offer, but figured she would want more than I was willing to pay. Then while cleaning out, I came to the realization (surprise!) that I still had her carder from January when I used it. Oh dear. Well not a huge problem, since she says she can no longer use it and hadn’t missed it, but I think part of her bringing it up was to hint that she hadn’t gotten it back! And I didn’t get the hint until yesterday. Anyway, I decided to propose that I buy it for $200 and then it is still around if she ever wants to use it, or if she finds something she’d like me to card for her. And she is fine with that, so that is good. I sent a check right away, since I am so bad about remembering things like that (and like returning things). Of course it also means I must store it. I found a place for it, but things are definitely tight in there and it would be good if I found a fleece or two that I just could get rid of. Good news is that I did not buy any fleeces this year.

                Bunny news: two more litters! Both white buns had their babes, finally, since neither kindled in the spring. Angel had 6 and they are looking good and robust. Chrysanthemum had 7, though they are looking a bit wimpy. We’ll see how it all goes. So I have 3 litters right now, and several more bred.

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Shakespear!!!

8:30 am

                I do not feel bad about it being so late and me just getting up because of the very long day I had yesterday – I needed the sleep. For one thing I went yet again to the play – went first on Friday night, and again last night. Hampshire Shakespeare – Taming of the Shrew and it was FABULOUS!!  I was very unsure about it, I’ve heard of it, knew a bit about it, and it never sounded very appealing, being about a feisty young woman getting put “in her place.” But they did a fabulous job, and part was due to the way they gender-bendered it. All the women’s parts were played by men and vice versa, and it really worked. One advantage in fact: usually there are more women available to take roles than men, so they usually have some women in the smaller men’s roles, like pages and such. No such need this time. There are only a handful of women’s roles anyway, and there were plenty of men to take them, and plenty of women for all the usual male roles. Anyway, the actors did a fabulous job (did I say that already?), especially the woman who played Petruchio, Kate’s suitor. I think the second time around it was even better, because although not surprising like the first time, I was able to catch more dialogue, and notice more nuances. Their next play is A Winter’s Tale which I know nothing about; I’ll have to read up.

                The rest of my day involved driving driving driving to get L back up to way northern Vermont to meet back up with her friend to continue canoeing. It was straight up 91, nearly to the border of Canada, and a long drive, but not too bad. In fact the drive up was wonderful because I finally had a chance to visit with L which I haven’t had for a long time, not since my visit to Maine in March. I find that we have such interesting conversations and I’m able to talk so freely with her, sharing thoughts and ideas a mile a minute in ways that I cannot do with anyone else. And it is not like either of us hogs the conversation. She seems genuinely interested in what I have to say. With so many other people it is mainly me listening to them. And I end up kind of comatose, as if I can’t think of anything to talk about. Why is it that with L it is not that way? Or is it because I see her so rarely, and if we were together a lot it would be different. After all, even with Mom, when I have not seen her for a long time, I can be quite chatty. It’s just that after a short time, I lose my enthusiasm and stop. Maybe because she really does not seem very interested in whatever I am saying. Am I just not very interesting to most people? Why am I interesting to L? Do I not express myself well and others get frustrated? I so quickly fall into the mode of asking about their stuff and then listening……

                Another “interesting” thing (did I already write about this?) – my belly has been feeling cruddy. I felt better yesterday, but that may be because I only ate yogurt, rice cakes and peanut butter for most of the day. Then come evening I ate a doughnut on the road, stew at home and some kit-kat during the play, and this morning I felt crummy again. Well, tomorrow I go to see the gastroenterologist. My primary care doc suggested it because of the test that showed a very small amount of blood in my stool, and now I am glad I am going because of feeling not so good. My biggest worry is that I might have Crohn’s Disease which would obviously suck, but it would be at any rate good to know if it were so. And start to deal with it in whatever way one does.

                Today – maybe I can get in some spinning. I actually managed to finish carding the darker, grayish green stuff, so that will be nice to spin. It is a nice day today, so I suppose what I really should do is major cleaning of the sunroom. Oh and more good news - I managed to figure out the quicken stuff so that I have not lost 4 months worth of data entries. Now I just have to catch myself up since March….! So that will be a job. I think I’ll need to do a bit each day and just plug away at it.

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My Day

8 am

                I’m hoping sitting here at the computer and writing will help me clarify my day a bit. Let’s see, at 9:30 someone is coming to see the bunnies, possibly to choose one that she wants. She was most interested in an agouti and the closest I have is a fawn agouti, so I don’t know if she’ll want that. Then at 11 is the tour of Mead art museum that I thought would be nice to try. I must call to find out if pre-registration is needed. And if I go, I should leave by 10:30 and walk up. And stop at the library after to get All Quiet on the Western Front. I can either walk or take the bus home, and get home around 12:45. A friend is supposed to call about my going over there to help her with the fair finances, so let’s say I go there at 1-2 or 2:30. Then what? Well Hampshire Shakespeare is at 7, and supper has to happen. I have that beef heart in the fridge that must be cooked – when? And if not that for supper, what? There are meatballs left, or even better I should get some fish which I can pick up after working on finances. I’ll drive to meet her at the Manor House, so after that I should stop at Whole Foods, and the bank – any other errands? And somehow in all this I must: call the college about the tuition payment; try to figure out what the hell is going on with Quicken. My theory – I have Quicken 2007 and the new version is now available. I think they designed it to self-destruct in various ways so that people “have” to buy the new one.

                I went to N’s to spin last night which was nice. I decided to start in with the kind of course white fleece that I have. The idea being to spin it up, knit a bag to felt, then try needle felting on the bag. We’ll see how it goes. One problem is that I washed it, but the color is kind of a nasty off-white. I don’t know if the felting process will clean it better.

                It’s 8:15 now. If I plan to walk into town to the museum, I think I will not run, instead I will do some stretches, then feed buns, give Tigger his pill (K apparently cannot do it), get ready for the bunny person.

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