• Stringtopia
• Beth Smith
• Sara Lamb
• virtual Stringtopia (Ravelry-Link)
• Friend’s of Abby’s Yarn
• spinner’s party tool
• Lieblings-Wollgeschäft
• Fronkenshteek
• Weißfinger-Syndrom

Gestrickt habe ich:

• Skew: war wohl nichts

• plain sock: komplett fertig

• Francie: erster Socken, Zwickel fertig
• Viola: Maschenprobe gestrickt für Lauriel von Ysolda Teague
• Mossy Turtle: halb zusammengenäht
• Not a salt and pepper shaker: angeschlagen – zum dritten Mal
• Myrte ist gespannt

Gewebt habe ich:

• Striped Band

Genäht habe ich:

• nichts, aber den Rock, der hier schon ewig rumliegt, rausgezogen und anprobiert. Maximal ein Stündchen und er wäre fertig.

Zum Thema wurde erwähnt:

• Webbuch Handbuch Weben
• Woven Treasures
  
• Weaver’s Book of Ideas
• Slots and Holes-Video
• Kromski Harfe
• Ashford Webrahmen
• Glimakra
• Schacht Flip Webrahmen
• Gewichtswebstuhl, es gibt auch einen Wikipedia-Artikel
• englischsprachiges Blog über Gewichtswebstühle
• Wollinchen
• Big Bang Theory

Beautiful, isn’t it? And the colors are just perfect.

Gestrickt habe ich:

• Miraculous Whisper
• Skew

Gesponnen habe ich:

• orange-melierte Merino-Seide für Socken auf der Bosworth Featherweight
• rote Seide auf der türkischen Spindle von IST Crafts

Außerdem erwähnt wurde:

• der Podcast Handmade Fantasy
• die urbane Spinnstube
• Haarewaschen ohne Shampoo: ein Blogpost auf deutsch, eine Erklärung, wie man das mit hartem Wasser macht auf englisch und ein hervorragender Überblick auf englisch bei Crunchy Betty (ich kann das ganze Blog nur wärmstens empfehlen
• das Wollfest in Backnang
• das Wollfest auf Ravelry
• Monikas Blog
• Spinning Martha
• Knitting Spiro
• alle erwähnten Aussteller vom Backnanger Wollfest findet ihr hier

Und zum Thema:

• Melia
• Wheatgrass Truffle Cardigan (immer merke ich mir den Namen falsch)
• Featherweight Cardigan
• The Painted Tiger
• Knit, Swirl! von Sandra McIver und das Modell, das ich machen will, ist Shades of Grey
• The Enchanted Sole

For a few weeks now he has been talking about the fact that he has become “fat”. Now this is the boy who used to be on the skinny side. He had the usual stages of childhood, growing taller, then broader, then taller, and lately quite a bit broader. Add to it his fondness of sweets, and tendency to spend all his time in front of screens or books, well, yes, he has grown a little protruding tummy, but nothing major in my eyes.

After talking for a while we found that it was my mother-in-law who kept telling him he had been growing fat, and needed losing weight. Now, even if he were obese, which he isn’t I wouldn’t want him to start dieting.

The only thing a diet is pretty certain to make you is fat in the long run. Especially with people like my son and me. We are contrary. If anyone tells us what we’re allowed to eat or not, even if it is ourselves we’re bound to become all stubborn, and eat even more of the things we shouldn’t.

Now, you have to know that my mother-in-law is a person who still thought I was as slim as the day we met even after I had gained 20 kilos in the meantime. (That’s 44 pounds for those of you who don’t use metric.) She didn’t even realized that I had grown quite a bit bigger.

Now this woman is telling my son that he is fat. Why’s that?

With a bit of detective work we finally got it. There were two factors to it:

First, my son these days often has these massive eating binges at mealtimes. You know how sometimes even little children eat more than you? He sometimes does that. It doesn’t bother me because he doesn’t do it all the time, and for every time he eats like a starving teenager there’s another time when he doesn’t eat much at all. To me that’s a sign that he is in touch with his body’s need. Now my mother-in-law is of a generation that believes in portion control. She fixes dinner (with ridiculously small portions for a growing boy), and if he says he’s still hungry she thinks he can’t really be because there’s no dinner left.

Second, my son has this belly. His jeans have grown a bit too tight, and so his belly is sticking out. There are several things to this. Yes, he has become a bit stockier than before, and second he doesn’t really have the abs to have a firm belly. Which isn’t unsurprising in a boy his age.

I hope that the thing I’m telling him makes a difference. The thing is, I have seen this many times before with students. Once they are approaching their tenth birthday, some a little earlier, some a little later, all of a sudden children come up to me saying, “I need to lose weight, I’m fat.” And then they tell me that they are already weighing [insert some number between 35 and 40 kilos here], and that their friends are weighing less than that.

And then I tell them the things I always tell: Children grow in spurts. After every time they’re getting taller there is usually a time when they get stockier, and maybe even a bit chubby. Especially at this time when their bodies are almost getting ready for puberty. Just look at children between 9 and 12 and you can see it. A lot of them are becoming rounder, and heavier, and almost denser at that age. And then, a few years later they transform in front of your eyes, going from a child to a teenager.

If they start dieting at an age that young it won’t make them better looking, healthier, or even slimmer. Chances are they probably end up fatter, unhealthier, and screwed up.

I really hate it that this world is tending to a beauty standard that is unobtainable for most of us. I hate it that being a certain body size, and shape has been become the one indicator for being attractive, happy, and healthy. And I really, really hate it that my beautiful son, this charming, intelligent, witty, and funny 9 1/2 year-old thinks he’s ugly and fat.

Yes, I wish I were slimmer too. I have become pretty fat myself in the past few years. I would like to fit into size 10 pants, really. But I can also tell you that there are many, many things in the world worse than being fat. And that being fat does not equal being stupid, or a loser, or unlovable, or even unattractive. Yes, advertising and magazines are telling us so. But every single one of them wants us to feel bad so they can better sell us things, and ideas. They don’t want us to be happy the way we are because happy people don’t buy as much.

So I myself have been concentrating on becoming as strong, and fit, and healthy, and happy as I possibly can. And to find clothes that fit the body I have instead of pining for the size 10 jeans.

For my son we have talked, and keep talking. And I will have a stern talk with my mother-in-law later. And we are trying to help him lose the “have to have sweets after every meal”-habit that my mother-in-law installed, and help him to go outside and run around a little more. Because those are good things regardless of how big or small someone is.

I’m really, really pissed, I don’t know if you can tell. And I’m also sending you to the “Dances with Fat“-blog again, and to the concept of health at every size because obviously it needs repeating.

Stricken:

• Hopefully Enough Yard fertig gesponnen, gestrickt und gespannt, ich muss nur noch den Reißverschluss einsetzen. Ich hoffe, das schaffe ich nächste Woche.
• Fast Stings sind fertig und werden schon fleißig getragen
• Star Trek potholders fertig! Sind in Gebrauch und wir sind ganz begeistert:
• Somewhat Turkish fertig! Der zweite Socken muss noch gewaschen werden:
• Flight Path mystery fertig gesponnen und gestrickt. Ich bin sehr zufrieden, ob ich die Mütze tragen werde, ist eine andere Sache. Dies Designerin heißt Mary Scott Huff
• washcloth das Stricken ging natürlich ganz schnell und er ist auch schon in ständigem Gebrauch:
• Myrte fertig gestrickt
• Miraculous Whisper aus einem Lace Zauberball, den ich netterweise geschenkt bekommen habe
• neues Paar Skew, noch nicht angefangen, aber in Planung.

Weben:

• der Gurt für den Gurtwebrahmen ist fertig, hier der unfertige Gurt, an dem man aber gut sehen kann, wie der Webrahmen funktioniert
• ich habe einen neuen Gurt mit Streifen angefangen, völlig zweckfrei.
• und ich habe mir zwei Gatterkämme für den Gurtwebrahmen gekauft und kürzere Schiffchen, sie aber noch nicht ausprobiert

Spinnen:

• Garn für Flight Path Mystery KAL: 
• Indian Summer fertig gesponnen (dieses Bild zeigt nicht das fertige Garn, sondern dass, was am 1. April noch zu spinnen war)!
• orange-melierte Merino-Seide für Socken auf der Bosworth Featherweight weitergesponnen
• Baumwolle auf der Takli.
• rote Seide auf der türkischen Spindle von IST Crafts

Außerdem erwähnt:

• Anleitung zum Einsetzen eines Reißverschlusses in eine Strickjacke: Grumperina und auf deutsch von Judith
• Pullover, der aussieht wie Unterwäsche und mit T anfängt: Thermal
• Spin Knit Winter 2011 und Spinning Luxury Fibers
• Zwei neue Spindeln habe ich gekauft, eine unterstütze von Matthes mit Schälchen und eine russische aus Purpleheart von IST Crafts. Beide habe ich bis jetzt nur kurz angesponnen, mit Kamel und Kaschmir.

• As you can see (and I think I actually posted this exact same picture before) one end is tied to our kitchen table, the other end is tied to me (hence the name backstrap). I made it myself out of a few dowels, and a broomstick from the grocery store. And a ruler. It works very well, and is not as limited as one would think. Also it can be rolled up and stored in a bag in my closet. Yesterday evening I warped it for a striped band.
• I’m also looking at my new spinning wheel, which isn’t new at all, and slowly I’m learning about how to oil it, and put a new drive band on so that I can use it.
• I’m still running and doing yoga, only I seem to do it a little less often, mostly once or maybe twice a week.
• About two weeks ago I stopped using shampoo. I’m using baking soda and vinegar instead (not together, one after the other). My hair seems to like it. I’m still a bit on the fence about pouring cold water over my head.
• I seem to be going out a lot more often than I used to. About once a week I find myself heading to Munich to meet people. This week it’s tomorrow morning, and then again next Sunday.
• I’m still playing my ukulele every day. And I still love it.
• On a related note, last Saturday my husband and I went to a friend’s birthday party, and we did play and sing a few songs. It was a lot of fun, and the people seemed to like it. When they wanted yet another encore we played “Corcovado”, a song that we haven’t played together for years, and years, and that we hadn’t played at all, apart from when we taught it to students which is not that often.
• That song might have been the one where we didn’t make a single mistake.
• I leave you with a picture I took on Saturday:

1. I didn’t really know this about myself but I seem to not like being read to. I remember when I met my husband and I had these lovely visions of us reading passages of our favorite books to each other. Then he said he doesn’t like being read to. I was miffed. Then I found that I don’t like being read to as well.
2. It seems that when I only hear something it immediately starts to slip my mind. Like a 3-year-old. Tell me to do this and that, and chances are I forget at least one of them.
3. When I first found out about audiobooks I loved the idea. A friend of mine had just recorded her first novel as an audio book, and I put it on my iPod, and thought how brilliant it was to be able to knit and ‘read’ at the same time.
4. Then I started listening. And found that my mind started wandering. All of a sudden I had missed a whole paragraph. And then another one. And then I tried listening really hard. And then it happened again. And again. It doesn’t have anything to do with that particular book, I tried several others as well but I could never follow, I had to wind back too often.
5. While my attention often wanders, and I find that I’ve missed a passage in an audio book, at the same time they go way too slow. I kept listening, and thinking, “If this were a real, printed book I would have been two pages further by now.
6. I also don’t like the fact that audio books are often abbreviated. I think it’s been getting better with MP3s, but I distinctly remember the very first audiobook I got. The very same Winterkatze gave me a copy of “The Fifth Elephant” by Terry Pratchett as a German audiobook. She said the narrator was really good, and that she loved the book. Now, I had read “The Fifth Elephant”, of course, because Pratchett is one of the authors I buy every single book from. In hardcover. As soon as it’s out. So I started listening to the audiobook – then still on CDs – while puttering around the room. Well. I didn’t like the fact that it was in German. I didn’t like the narrator. He was doing funny voices. I don’t like funny voices when being read to. I didn’t like the translated names. But all of that is not really the fault of the audiobook. Or Winterkatze, nope, not at all. And then there came this passage. And I realized that something that I had liked tremendously in the book had been cut out. That was when I stopped listening to that particular audiobook.
7. I didn’t give up on audiobooks right then. Nope. I got myself a trial Audible-membership, and downloaded two more I think. I got something by the Dalai Lama on happiness which I’m slowly winding my way through, over the years. I also got “Getting Unstuck” by Pema Chodron, and two of the Yarn Harlot’s books, “At Knit’s End”, and “Stephanie Pearl McPhee casts off”. Plus a German book from the library. The happiness one and the German one were quite hard to listen to. The German one was abbreviated again, so it didn’t take quite as long. I still haven’t finished the happiness book even though I’ve had it for years and years.
8. The audiobooks I like best are the ones that are either lectures, like the “Getting Unstuck” one, or shorter, humorous essays like the Yarn Harlot ones. So the nearer an audiobook is to actual speech the better I can understand it. I have no problems at all listening to podcasts, by the way, only audiobooks. Also radio plays work better for me as well.
9. Trying to get used to audiobooks made me also realize that I often hop back and forth on the page when reading a ‘normal’ book. When I’m reading something I don’t find as interesting, I skip ahead, look how long it will be, and then go back to reading again. Also I’m a really fast reader. At my normal reading speed I just zoom along. Whoosh, and the book is done. Not so much with the audiobooks.

So, what about you? Book or audiobook, or both? I’m curious.

Knitting:

• Ebony Turtleneck
• Maplewings
• Vincent
• Checkerboard Socks
• Canopy
• Celtic Summer Socks:
  

• Wheatgrass Truffle
• Indogodragonfly
• Pogona
• Creativity Booster, Throat Chakra Scarf
• Sock Leftovers Blanket,
• Mossy Turtle
• Feminine Candy, the pattern is from Cat Bordhi’s “Personal Footprints“-book
• Star Trek potholders
• Rivendell socks
• Spinning Martha
• Glomerata
• Bloß keine Tomaten from the Sweet Tomato Heel book
• Feather, Foliage, and Pines
• Wooly Wormhead mystery KAL: Rubbish Mojitos , and Corella
• Fast Stinos
• Flight Path mystery
• washcloth
• Windschief cowl and hat
• hopefully enough yarn, little red in the city

Spinning:

• handgefärbte Merino
• melierte merino-silk on the Bosworth Featherweight
• Tiny Turkish Spindle from threadsthrutime
• Red Colonial top
• red silk
• Turkish spindle from IST Crafts
• SpinKnit Winter 2011, Sara Lamb
• First German Raveler Meeting special edition BFL
• Polwarth from the Painted Tiger, Fractal Stripes, first half done
• Indian Summer Corriedale
• Oatmeal BFL
• Mixed BFL
• spinning cotton
• merino for flight path (and a kilo is not a pound but two, sorry)
• new spinning wheel
• Winterkatze

topics:

• colors: Tini’s podcast twinneedle, the book about natural dyes in German: Färben mit Naturfarben. The book is pretty extensive, covers a multitude of plant dyes
• designing knitwear: the charting software intwined studio
• the perfect bag: the bag that’s too small, namaste laguna, go knit pouches, crumpler dentist’s wife
• knitting on the road
• Tour de Fleece
• operation turtleneck: custom knits (I told you the wrong thing about the ratio for picking up stitches. Usually, for a buttonband I pick up 3 stitches for every four rows, and for those sleeves the right ratio was 2 stitches for every 3 rows. Sorry.)
• It isn’t you, it’s the sweater
• what is this thing I’m spinning? Eiderwolle, Coburger Fuchs

other things I talked about:

• backstrap weaving: link to Laverne’s excellent blog, link to a weaving project of mine
• no knead bread
• how to make your own deodorant

I hope you’ll enjoy it. I also hope to be back with another German episode of the podcast (and the odd blog post) soon.

I really hope that being sick during Christmas break, and now this one won’t continue for the rest of the year. I wasn’t all that bad but all I wanted to do all week was sleep for 8 or 10 hours a night, then linger in bed, get up, do a little housework, have lunch, take a two hour nap, sit around doing nothing for the rest of the day, and repeat.

It’s nice to take a rest but I don’t really like coming out of a work-free week being more behind than before.

That week of feeling unwell is also the main reason behind the lack of podcast around these parts. And blog. I also spend way too much time on ravelry.

I had, as usual,  a long list of things I wanted to accomplish the last week, I wanted to get my new/old spinning wheel running, start a new sweater, play piano and guitar, and such nice things.

I think it might be time again to stop expanding and focus instead. I can’t start doing more and more things all the time, something will have to go.

One thing that seems to have gone already is the monthly writer’s meeting. Since last summer there have only ever been two or three of us meeting, and too often it had been me sitting around in a bar all by myself. So in December I stopped posting the dates for the meeting, and waited what would happen. One of the writers knew because I had met her on other occasions. At the beginning of February one other said, “What’s happening? I’m not receiving updates.” And I answered that I would love to continue the meetings but only if enough people were interested. That has mostly been it. We’ll see.

No writer’s meetings mean that I’m no writing short stories. Which is a bit of a pity. But then there are other writer’s meetings I could attend. Again, we’ll see.

I did continue to write on my current longer (hopefully novel-length) story, though. I’m at that point where it all feels totally boring and arbitrary to me but I think that might not be a realistic assessment but only my feeling that this has been going on for long enough, and that I’d like to start something new and exciting.

I almost thought about committing myself to blog every day for March but then I thought that might be a bit too much. Still, more than once a month might be a nice change of pace.

See you, and thanks for all the nice comments on my blog anniversary post.

I know I’ve been rather quiet here lately but that doesn’t mean I want to stop anytime soon. Even when I feel like nobody wants to read, I still can’t imagine not to write.

A lot of the discussion we used to have on our blogs has moved to twitter and Facebook but I still like to read and write in a format that’s just slightly longer. That can go a bit deeper, or show more pictures.

I often chuckle when I remember the time when I tried to make money from blogging. When I had ads on her and blogging started to feel like a chore. When I read blogs about how to do this successfully, from people to told me to keep a blog for each of my interests. A writing blog, a mommy blog, a knitting blog, a blog for the podcast, a blog for pictures, a blog for changing habits.

But I never wanted to do that. I’m one person, singular, with all the different things that I like and think about I still don’t have compartments in my head.

Last Saturday, my actual anniversary day, I spent the day showing my photos, reading stories, and singing songs at a pop-up gallery. An event that possibly never could have happened if it weren’t for the internet. Real people, meeting each other through the computer. (If you want to get an impression of the event you can read about it on Lia’s blog.)

I started out a little more than six years ago because I was feeling very lonely, sitting around at home with my son, and I hadn’t found friends in my hometown, even though I tried. And then, all of a sudden, there were all these people in my computer. And then it turned out that some of those computer people lived right next door.

I think that’s pretty amazing.

Thanks, my dear readers, for coming back here, even if I don’t have a regular posting schedule or anything. Thanks a lot, and here’s to the next six years or so.

First two pictures of flowers:

and more flowers:

Both taken at the botanical garden in Munich in 2006. From the same day I give you some turtles:

And some not quite as pretty turtles from three years later, same place:

Now for something completely different, a gargoyle, seen on vacation in 2010:

And now for something totally, and completely different, a still life from when I attempted to take 365 photos in 365 days:

There are some more landscapes but I can’t show them to you. They’re pretty on my walls, though.

At the pop-up gallery there I’ll also read three of my stories, probably Simplify (which I haven’t posted yet, oops), Kissing Edith, and Fear of Falling. If everything goes right there will be a little booklet for sale. For each story I chose a photo to go with them:

The story “Simplify” is about a woman trying to do just that.

This is the pictures for “Kissing Edith”. As you probably recall after all these months, Edith was a saxophone player.

And this is for “Fear of Falling” for obvious reasons.

So I hope you like the pictures, I know, it’s a bit much for one post but I had a hard time choosing. I still have huge prints of some more pictures that didn’t make the cut in the end.

Don’t forget to pop by on Saturday, if possible.

Today we met at a new location, a café that happens to be one of my favorite cafés in Munich. Twenty years ago I lived right around the corner from it.

We also made plans for a group show in mid-February. I’m very excited about that. I will definitely sing or play something, and I might even step out of my comfort zone and show a few of my photographs. Here are a few impressions from today’s breakfast (of course I only snapped pictures after everybody was done with their food, not before when it looked delicious).

I also got a new mug for my husband’s morning tea or coffee. His old one lost its handle a few months ago, and since then he has been burning his fingers every single morning. And he isn’t a morning person on the best of mornings, so imagine his mood with hurt fingers (musicians usually are very particular about their fingers – my first thought when something happens to my hands is if I’ll be able to play or not). When I gave him his present at lunch he couldn’t help but smile:

Gestrickt und gesponnen wurde:

• Glomerata komplett fertig! Und ich bin begeistert.
• feather, foliage, and pines, auch komplett fertig
• Hopefully Enough Yarn, eine Strickjacke nach eigener Idee aus handgefärbter und handgesponnener Wolle; die Jacke ist im Wesentlichen fertig, leider ist mir tatsächlich die Wolle ausgegangen, so dass ich die Knopfleisten und alle Blenden aus einer anderen Wolle stricken muss; und dafür muss ich erstmal spinnen
• Beige Mystery Hat braunes BFL auf der Bosworth Featherweight Spindel. Soll Sockenwollstärke werden für den Wooly Wormhead Mystery KAL
• Marled Mystery Hat, dreifarbiges BFL auf der Bosworth Featherweight gesponnen, das zweite Muster des KALs
• Fast Stinos für meinen Mann, die Ferse und der Zwickel des ersten Sockens sind fertig
• Somewhat Turkish, es fehlt nur noch die Ferse des zweiten Sockens

• Farbverlaufswolle fertig gesponnen
• Indian Summer die zweite Spule angefangen
• orange-melierte Merino-Seide für Socken auf der Bosworth Featherweight weitergesponnen,
• orange-fuschia-roter Merino-Kammzug auf der Bosworth Mini für die Strickjacke
• Baumwolle auf der Takli.

Des weiteren wurde erwähnt:

Petzis Spinnforum und das dazugehörige Lexikon (kann ich nicht direkt verlinken)

Winterkatze

Flight Path KAL

Maggie Casey’s Buch Start Spinning

Yes, I’m still alive and well but it seems I’m in something of a “recharge and hibernate”-stage.

I’m not even in the mood to write some 2011 wrap up.

All is well, and I’m looking forward to some hot tea and turning the heel of a sock.

I’m thinking about effortlessness, and belly dance, and ukulele songs, and spinning for sweaters, and love, and computer games, and reading, and I might drink the leftover prosecco in a minute.

See you.

Then I chain-plied them which means you make very big loops like crochet chains, and twist those in the opposite direction of how you spun them. I managed to cram all 108 grams of plied yarn onto the spindle (I put the tiny spindle into the pictures for size):

This is how the cob on the spindle looked after I pulled the spindle out:

And this is how the yarn looked after I skeined it:

I hope this makes your day a little brighter just like it makes mine every time I look at it.

I love it. Then I spent the whole afternoon winding it all into a ball for plying.

He had just started playing with a saxophone player we have known for years, and in the beginning it went quite well. After a while it turned out that the sax player wasn’t as comfortable with free improvisation as he had thought, and so my husband ended up alone again.

I, on the other hand, had been wanting to do some more improvisation for years. And had been looking for other musicians to do it with. I had thought about playing with my husband again, of course, but none of us was sure how that could go. Until about two or three weeks ago we decided to just try it. And it worked just fine!

So we decided on a date, invited a bunch of friends, bought potato chips, peanuts and drinks, set up about a dozen chairs, and had a concert at our house.

I’m really glad that so many people came to see us, and from what I heard and saw they did like the music too! It was a lot of fun, and it isn’t often that I say that about performing.

I didn’t sing much that evening, I was playing organ, drums, and ukulele in addition to singing. We changed instruments quite a bit so that things wouldn’t get boring.

At the end, after the encore one of the guests said, “And now I would like to hear the Les Paul with vocals.” And so we did. We had never tried that before because we thought it wouldn’t work. But that’s the thing about free improvisation, isn’t it? No need to plan everything ahead.

Emmy was nice enough to record that on her phone, so you can see and hear us too. Oh, and that weird look on my face near the end? That’s me realizing that the amp didn’t work anymore.

I was really fed up with all that flirting, and the cat calls, so I decided to get fat.

Just the night before I had been out, and there had been several guys touching my behind in the club, a co-worker had made googly eyes at me, and on my way home there had been the usual cluster of Turkish teenagers on the street who had called out to me.

I really had enough.

I don’t mind sex, not at all, it’s just that I prefer not to think about it while it’s not happening, and I would like to be able to have a good time without having to fend off all these guys.

Getting fat wouldn’t happen over night, I knew that, so I needed some additional help. How to become uninteresting to men? Or better yet how to become unattractive?

I had the whole weekend before me to think about it. First I went shopping of course. I needed fattening foods. And beer. And soda. I hadn’t bought that much junk food in years.

Next I thought about clothes. That was easy. No heels, no mini-skirts, no cleavage. No make-up. Though I have to say that in my experience most guys can’t even tell if you’re wearing make-up until you go for the very red lipstick. That’s something they all react to.

Fortunately I did have a couple of outfits that would work. Baggy pants, sweatpants, an over-sized hoodie that I love to wear on weekends, a couple of old t-shirts, sneakers, the Birkenstocks that I wear around the house – all set.

So I laid back on the couch for a weekend marathon of watching TV and eating junk.

It was a good idea that I hadn’t started on the beer yet when the phone rang. It was my mother. Of course it was my mother, it was Saturday so she demanded her weekly phone call.

„Hi mom.“

„Darling, why haven’t you called me, is something wrong?“

„Mom, it’s only early afternoon, nothing is wrong.“

„You sound weird. Are you eating?“

„Yes I’m eating mom, it’s lunch time after all.“

„You are eating properly, aren’t you?“

„Of course mom.“

„Are you eating something warm?“

„Of course mom.“

„What are you having?“

„Potatoes, hamburgers and green beans.“

„You should have made meatloaf. That doesn’t have as much fat.“

„Yes mom.“ I looked at the half-eaten bag of potato chips on the couch table.

„And how’s it going with that nice co-worker of yours? Has he asked you out?“

„We were out with a bunch of others yesterday, mom.“

„That’s not a date. But it’s a start. How did it go?“

„It was okay. I don’t know.“

„You really should try a little harder. It’s not healthy being all alone.“

„Mom, I like being alone.“

„Nonsense, nobody likes being alone.“

Then she went on about what her doctor had said, and that my aunt was mad at me for not sending her a birthday card, and then half an hour later I finally got off the phone.

I grabbed the remote to start the film again when the phone rang again. This time it was Laura. I had met her through work, and we went out together a lot.

„Hi Laura.“

„Hi. Look, I need you to go shopping with me this afternoon.“

„Why?“

„Because I need something to wear to the party tonight.“

„Which party?“

„Are you crazy? The party. Zach’s party.“

„Sorry, I forgot.“

„You really are crazy. So I thought we could meet in an hour at Starbucks. Maybe we’ll even find something for you too.“

„Um. Okay?“

„See you.“

Damn phone. Why did I always answer it? I was perfectly happy sitting here, eating chips, drinking soda and watching a movie, and then those people barged in calling me in the middle of the day.

I didn’t want to go shopping. And I didn’t want to discuss my eating habits or love life with my mother.

Still I got ready to meet Laura at Starbucks. First I thought about just going as I were but then I decided against the sweatpants, and changed into some jeans. No make-up, the hoodie, and sneakers. I didn’t know what to do about my hair. After trying a ponytail (too uncomfortable), letting it hang down (too attractive), a braid in the back (didn’t work with the hood), I did two pigtails. Not attractive at all but for some reason they made me smile. Pippi Longstocking in a hoodie. Since I wasn’t wearing any make-up I didn’t need to carry a purse so I just put my wallet, phone, and keys into my jeans pockets.

When I got to Starbucks of course Laura wasn’t there. I should have known it before she was never on time. I got myself a hot chocolate with cream even though I already felt quite full after all the chips and sweets before but I had to keep on with the fattening.

From what I saw my plan did work. Not one of the men I had passed on my way there had looked at me twice. I probably didn’t even register as female. Great. No smiles, now whistling, no one talking to me on the train, it was simply perfect.

I pulled out my smartphone and started reading a novel. Good thing I had that with me. Half an hour later Laura entered the shop. One couldn’t miss her. She went and ordered coffee without even looking for me first. She just assumed I would come to find her. Which I did. Even though I would have preferred to read my book. But that was no way to behave. I grabbed the rest of my hot chocolate and went over to her.

„There you are.“ she said looking me up and down, „What’s wrong with you?“

„Hi, nice to see you too.“ I said.

„No, really, what’s wrong? You don’t even wear makeup. Nice jeans, though, but the hoodie is really horrible. Looks like a tent on you.“

„Well,“ I looked down at my shoes, „well,“ I wanted to say there was nothing wrong but then it hit me, „Well, I guess I’m just not feeling that well. Maybe I should have stayed home.“ I looked up into her eyes, „but I didn’t want to let you down.“

„That’s really sweet of you.“ she said automatically, „are you sick or something?“

„I’m not sure,“ I said, „I’m probably coming down with something.“ I snuffled a bit.

„Don’t touch me,“ she said, „don’t touch me, I can’t afford to get sick now. You know what, you just go home and get better, I think I can manage on my own. See you.“ And with that she swept out of the door leaving me standing there on my own.

I waited for the bad feeling of rejection to come but instead I felt rather good. Giddy almost. I didn’t have to go shopping. I could just get back home, and do whatever I wanted. And I didn’t even have to look good while doing it.

I threw the rest of my hot chocolate away, and got out the door too. On my way to the subway I realized how good it felt to walk. Especially in these shoes. For years now I had always worn heels because they are so much more flattering. Of course you’re not expected to walk anywhere in those. And if you do you start hurting. But walking in sneakers was that much better. The hoodie felt like I had brought a blanket with me. Nice and comfy and warm. I pulled up the hood against the wind that had started to blow.

Walking like this was great. I could even walk all the way home. And that’s just what I did. And on the way no one even looked at me. I was just some person in the street, some uninteresting person in the street that no on wanted anything from.

And later there would be pizza for dinner. And beer. And ice cream.

Es gibt schon wieder einen neuen Strick- und Spinn-Podcast aus Berlin, Madis Wohnküche

Gestrickt und gesponnen wurde:

• Glomerata die Ferse musste dann wieder aufgemacht werden, aber jetzt ist sie fertig und die Anleitung hat jetzt wohl auch keine Fehler mehr
• bloß keine Tomaten, ganz fertig, fehlen nur noch die Bilder
• feather, foliage, and pines, angefangen, bin gerade an der ersten Ferse vorbei
• Hopefully Enough Yarn, eine Strickjacke nach eigener Idee aus handgefärbter und handgesponnener Wolle; die Armausschnitte sind fertig, und der nächste Teil mit horizontalen Brustabnähern. Als nächstes kommen die Unterbrust- und Taillenabnahmen.
• für den Pulloverkurs habe ich auch noch ein puppengroßes Modell für meine Jacke gestrickt, damit ich die Sache mit den Zu- und Abnahmen und den verkürzten Reihen für die bessere Passform besser hinkriege.

• Farbverlaufswolle wurde unwesentlich weiter gesponnen,
• Polwarth von The Painted Tiger etwas weitergesponnen, die erste Spule ist jetzt übervoll und die erste Hälfte versponnen
• Indian Summer beschlossen, nicht mehr auf der Spindel und für das angestrebte Projekt zu spinnen. Habe die Geschichte letzten Sonntag beim Spinntreff auf das Rad transferiert und spinne jetzt möglichst schnell über den Finger mit langem Auszug wie es eben kommt, Knubbel und alles
• braunes BFL auf der Bosworth Featherweight Spindel. Soll Sockenwollstärke werden für den Wooly Wormhead Mystery KAL

Des weiteren wurde erwähnt:

• Ysolda Teagues Little Red in the City,
• Winterkatze (ihr Buchblog ist äußerst empfehlenswert)
• Ravelry-Gruppe Schleswig-Holstein
• Petzi’s Spinnforum
• die Handspinngilde
• Sweet Tomato Heel von Cat Bordhi
• Wollsinnig
• Kombinationsstricken (englisch) rechte Maschen, linke Maschen
• NaKniSweMo

• Life is quite good, I have more students than I had in a long time, I’m busy playing the ukulele, teaching my knitting, and spinning classes, and have stepped up to do a bit more of the chores around the house.
• Today I’m packing for a trip to Frankfurt to visit Winterkatze and Katho for a couple of days. I’m going sans family and am looking forward to it very much. I’m also looking forward to coming back home afterwards.
• At the end of next week I’ll be meeting yet another friend I haven’t seen for some time.
• The weather is sunny, and quite cold, and I love it.
• This week I actually managed to go for a run with my husband. When I run on my own I always run in the hallway, and yes, I know that’s a bit weird. But last week, since I didn’t have to go on my own, we went out and ran though the woods, and had a great time. Also I’m just about as fit as my husband.
• I’m still tired all the time because I’m still not going to bed early enough. On days when I could sleep in I wake at 7.30 regardless of when I went to bed. One of these day’s I’ll manage to get at least 8 hours of sleep every night.
• The day before yesterday I started a somewhat crazy spinning project. I’m planning to spin for a hat on my spindle, and finish the yarn until next Wednesday.
• I’m very pleased to say that in the last two days I have managed to spin half the yarn I’ll need. I will take the spinning with me on my trip, and hope I’ll make progress while traveling.
• At the moment I’m not writing any fiction. Also I won’t be participating in NaNoWriMo this year. I do plan to start writing again soon, though.
• There’ll be another podcast tomorrow or so, and after that I’ll post the story I wrote for this month’s writers meeting.
• Now I have to see if the clothes I want to pack are dry yet.

See you.

• die urbane Spinnstube
• Wooly Whispers
• Twinneedles

News und Termine:

• großes Spinntreffen
• 3. German Raveler Treffen
• meine VHS-Kurse: Perfekt passende Pullover stricken und Spinnen mit der Handspindel
• Keltischer Sommer Socken/Celtic Summer Socks

Gestrickt und gesponnen und sonstiges habe ich:

• Topfbrot gebacken (Rezept bei Anke Gröber und hier der Link zu dem ausgezeichneten Buch “Nudeldicke Deern“)
• Deo gemacht (den Link hatte ich von Sallys Blog “Already Pretty“, der verweist auf das Rezept von How about orange; Link zu Reginas Blog (Ich habe für mein Deo 3 Esslöffel Kaiser-Natron und 3 Esslöffel Pfeilwurzmehl aus dem Bioladen vermischt, dann ca. 4 Esslöffel Kokosöl und 10 Tropfen Grapefruitöl. Einfach in einer Schüssel mit der Gabel verrühren, fertig.)
• gewebt hier der Link zu einer Anleitung, wie man mit dem Gurtwebrahmen anfängt, allerdings auf Englisch, aber mit vielen Bildern und Videos und hier ist Lavernes Blog, auch auf Englisch, eine wahre Fundgrube
• Ebony Turtleneck ist komplett fertig!!!
• Rivendell
• “Irgendwie Türkisch“, zweiter Socken bis ca. 15 Runden nach der Ferse,
• Glomerata
• Hopefully Enough Yarn, eine Strickjacke nach eigener Idee aus handgefärbter und handgesponnener Wolle 
• Farbverlaufswolle weiter gesponnen, wird schon.
• Polwarth von The Painted Tiger etwas weitergesponnen, die erste Spule ist jetzt wirklich so gut wie voll
• Indian Summer weiter gesponnen.

Hier der Link zum Zugsocking von Stuttgart zur Wollmeise. Und hier Fotos von der Operation Rollkragen, die dann missglückt ist:

My goal was to, and I quote:

Lose 10 kilos of weight or more.

Until the end of the year, and then I’d do it all again next year, and stay at something between 64 and 70 kilos for the rest of my life. At least that was the plan.

For once I really was on a kind of diet but it didn’t last long, and sweets and beer kept creeping back. Actually, I’m telling this as if they popped up in my house like weeds, and the only way to get rid of them was to eat them. But that’s not the case. Fact is that I brought those things into the house, and I did it because I happen to like sweets and beer. And maybe, just maybe I happen to like sweets and beer more than losing weight.

The connection between what I eat or drink, and my weight is weird at best. I’ve had phases in my life when I could eat and drink like a partying teenager and not gain a gram, and other times I would gain weight the minute I ate anything vaguely food-like. I have gained weight while exercising daily, and I have lost weight while not exercising at all.

In fact if I were to evaluate my past “weight-loss successes” I’d say the one that worked best for me was being totally unhappy about my love life, so much so that I didn’t want to eat anything (worked three times, I think), closely followed by the time when I just concentrated on thinking about my music instead of being fat. One time I lost weight because I was afraid that my teeth would fall out from lack of nutrition. That worked too.

I’m still quite sure that my body would want to be somewhat lighter if I just let him, but I’m also extremely sure that

• feeling bad when drinking beer is not the answer.
• buying clothes that are too small is not the answer.
• feeling bad while bingeing on gummy bears is not the answer.
• setting myself a goal of not drinking alcohol for the rest of the year, and then downing not one but two beers two hours later is not the answer.
• constantly thinking about how fat and disgusting I am is not the answer.
• buying yet more books about weight loss is not the answer.
• joining weight watchers is not the answer.
• thinking that everybody who meets me thinks, “Oh my God, I can’t believe how fat she is.” is not the answer.
• trying to take up less space is not the answer.
• not going to the lake because I feel too fat for wearing a swimsuit is not the answer.
• not having sex because I feel unattractive is not the answer.
• living for a soon-to-be-here future when I’ll be feeling fabulous because I’m thin(ner) is definitely not the answer.

So I did several things this year (apart from not losing weight): I did start to care for myself again. I went to a couple of doctors and other health people, I got diagnosed with asthma which means I am now treated for asthma and I’m no longer afraid of keeling over from lack of breath. I also got myself treated for my hormonal/mood dilemmas. And all of that came back to the fact that I had thought I should be a nice, sensible, grown-up, mother-person. I thought I should take a step back from the limelight, be nice and kind, and mindful and all Buddhist about other people and my family. I tried to vanish into the background, and only do my own stuff in the small corners of my life.

Well, obviously my body doesn’t like me to vanish. I bet my soul doesn’t like me to either. So it made up for my lack of real fulfilling life by making me bigger. More cushioning is more protection, and maybe my body thinks that if it makes itself big enough I would eventually notice it again.

So I had been feeling like a total failure with the losing weight, and everybody says that you are supposed to have goals, and then follow them through all the way. And I didn’t.

And then I thought that I should concentrate on making music again, and art in general because I obviously need to, otherwise I get sick. No kidding. So I joined a group of women who are making art, and we made goals again, and I wrote them down, and I tried to follow them, and I started getting a bit weary about all these goals.

And then I read “Walking in This World” again. And did commit to do the program. I haven’t really started yet because I’m so busy. But just reading that had me thinking. Maybe being sensible isn’t all that good for me. After all it hasn’t really worked all these years, so why should it now. And would it really be so terrible to stay as overweight as I currently am? Healthwise I’m good. Women with a BMI of 30 to 35 live the longest and are the healthiest. I’ll just have to gain a pound or two and then I’m there.

And I thought that setting myself up for failure is really foolish. Telling myself that today I wouldn’t be eating or drinking something or other. When I knew deep down that I’d do it anyway later. So I quit. I quit all my goals, even the “make music for at least 30 minutes a day” goal.

And then I asked myself what I wanted to do. And I got myself a ukulele. Because it’s so totally silly and ridiculous, and it’s not about being a serious musician, and a virtuoso, and practicing hours and hours each day. It’s just about fun. And I love it. I am feeling a lot less unhappy these days. I also started weaving, and I’m reading tons of books about all kinds of stuff. Life is great again. And interesting.

And then, and this is really important, I found Ragen’s blog “Dances with Fat“, and a few days later my copy of “Nudeldicke Deern” arrived, and I had this feeling again that the universe is trying to tell me something.

I’m really fed up with feeling like I should be somewhat different. I think I’ll go and play and have some fun.

The most interesting thing is that the mood in the house has changed for the better ever since I decided to just do whatever I love to do at the moment. I eat what I want to eat, I play the music I want to play, I read the books I want to read, and I’m not living my life constantly checking all the lists and crossing things off. It’s totally great.

And I have been practicing this song all the time:

I went to a friend’s party in Bamberg:

I went to another Creative Arts Breakfast Meeting

Rode my bike to a nearby “Biergarten”

Took my son to see the Smurf movie. Went there by bike. It was my first ever 3D movie. I think I prefer the 2D kind.

Went to a fellow writer’s birthday party, brought my guitar along and sang to songs for her.

Along with my husband and son rode my bike to the Andechs monastery again. We tried a new route that was brutal. I saw this for the first time ever:

After three hours of biking we absolutely had earned this:

and then we went all the way back home again.

Went to a writer’s meeting.

I had ordered a new spindle at the beginning of summer break and after only ten days it arrived. (I had ordered it because I found I need a medium weight one for the big sweater project I’m doing.) It’s a Bosworth Mini made of redheart wood, and it weighs 19 grams. It spend fabulous, and is very pretty.

Invited two of our neighbors over for barbecue. They’ve been living next to us for seven years now but this was the first time ever that we did anything together. We had a very enjoyable afternoon and evening. My son’s besets friend came over as well and stayed overnight. Since we started in the afternoon, and it’s impossible to have anybody over after lunchtime without offering cake in Germany I made this:

Then we did our very first space clearing ever. Before we had had the impression that the house was full of bad vibes from the people who lived here before us. Now we feel much better.

Then I got two packages in the mail. the first one is from LabCat from the US who tried to send this at the beginning of May because we did a swap. Well, after two months the package was back with her, German customs hadn’t wanted it to enter the country, for whatever reason. Since she spent the beginning of August in the UK she sent it again, and here it is:

And on the very same day I got a package from the “fiber fairy”. No, really. In the revelry group I love the most there is a tradition of sending people fiber anonymously. Mostly when they’re having a bad time. Imagine my surprise when Dan of Gnomespun fiber sent me a message telling me that he needed my address because the yarn fairy had wanted to send me a gift. Wow. And it’s gorgeous. I’d say that I can’t wait to spin it but actually knowing myself it will be some time before I’ll get around to it.

The another trip to the beergarden. Yes, we love it there. It’s in reasonable biking distance, it’s big and has gorgeous trees, the food isn’t too bad, and the beer is nice.

I always eat the same food there:

And there were so many wasps that my son’s soft drink needed a cover:

Next thing we bikes to yet a different beer garden again, this time the Hirschgarten right in Munich. We went about 15 kilometers, a little more than an hour. We met a couple of people there (not pictured here):

Last week it was unbearably hot, and we went to a nearby lake so our son could practice swimming, this time by train because it was just too hot to bike, and then, a few days later, we went to a nearby outdoor pool, by bike again.

Then the weather cooled off, and we were happy to stay indoors again, as that is our natural habitat anyways. Of course, next thing we’re heading to Italy for camping. In a tent. We’re already starting to pack, and then we’ll be away for a week or so.

And, very exciting to me, I did manage to publish my very first ever sock pattern on ravelry. You can go and buy it. It’s available in German and English, and it’s anything but dull. Cables, lace, intricate construction, and very enjoyable to knit if I say so myself:

Mehr und schönere Fotos gibt es auf Evas Blog.

Gestrickt und gesponnen habe ich:

• Ebony Turtleneck Vorder- und Rückenteil fertig, erster Ärmel Schulterkugel fertig, wieder aufgeribbelt, neu gestrickt, ersten Ärmel fast fertig, wieder geribbelt, wieder ca. 60 Runden gestrickt.
• “Irgendwie Türkisch“, zweiter Socken bis fast zur Ferse fertig, ruht unverändert,
• Sock Leftovers Blanket, ruht,
• Mossy Turtle, alle Teile fertig gestrickt, jetzt kommt das Zusammennähen und Ausstopfen,
• Spider Socke fertig
• Pogona komplett aufgeribbelt und Out of My Head angefangen und fertig gestrickt; muss noch gespannt werde n.
• Star Trek-Topflappen in Doppelstricktechnik angefangen, aber gleich wieder aus der Hand gelegt, muss geribbelt und neu angefangen werden
• melierte Merino-Seide auf der Bosworth Featherweight unverändert
• Farbverlaufswolle weiter gesponnen, lange noch nicht fertig
• Polwarth von The Painted Tiger etwas weitergesponnen, die erste Spule ist jetzt so gut wie voll
• ein Kilo “Indian Summer” auf meiner Bosworth Midi zu Wolle für den “Wiseheart Sweater” verspinnen. Gesamtergebnis bis jetzt ca. 170 Gramm:

Außerdem noch: Wie macht man einen Podcast?

Where I live now I have a ten to fifteen minute walk from the station, depending on which train station I get off. Usually it’s the fifteen minute walk because that means the train ticket is much cheaper. And I don’t mind the walking.

When I still lived in Munich I sometimes walked home for hours. Sometimes on high heels. You know how that goes, you are at a party, and it’s a bit out of the way, and you think you just walk to the nearest subway station instead of taking the bus because there aren’t that many buses in the middle of the night, and then when you arrive at the subway station the subway has just left, and that means you’d have to wait for twenty minutes, and so you decide to walk to the main station which is only thirty minutes away, and when you are there you decide that it wouln’t make much of a difference if you walked all the way.

Of course it helps if there’s someone walking with you. You talk and walk, two things that go together very well. But I also like walking alone.

There are women out there who don’t walk anywhere when it’s dark outside. For them each shadow must hold something evil ready to leap out at them. In all my years walking home after going out nothing has ever happened to me.

It’s usually pretty quiet then, there aren’t many people or cars around, and I can just walk home, think about the evening, maybe listen to some music on the way. Walking home makes a great transition between the buzz of the city and going out, and the quiet of my home.

My husband and I have taken to go to these free improvisation concerts lately. They start early, at 8, and they don’t last all that long so every time we go we plan to go for a beer afterwards. There’s a really great brewery next to the place where the concerts are; perfect.

And each time so far both of us just went out of the concert place, up the stairs, and then walked to the train station instead of taking the subway. We both declared that we’d rather go home soon. That meant walking for fifteen minutes to the train station, waiting for the train, taking the train, and then at the other end walk fifteen minutes again.

We have our best conversations while walking, and especially when walking home. Usually we then change from jeans to sweatpants, open a beer each, and talk some more but really, walking home is the best.

Waiting for the time I lose weight, waiting for the time I suddenly get a grip on my life, waiting for the night so I can get some sleep – the list goes on and on.

And while I’m waiting I’m sitting in front of the computer, reading blogs, checking e-mail, reading and writing on ravelry, checking twitter. I sit there and tell myself that later I’ll surely do something productive, finish writing that knitting pattern, play the piano, sing a bit, finish sewing that skirt, edit that story. And then the next student comes, and I teach, and part of me waits for the lesson to be over, and then comes the time I’ve been looking forward for hours, the one hour of glorious free time that I have all to myself, and I’m all set to do, whatever, one of the things that are so important to me, only first I’ll check e-mail, and twitter, and ravelry, and then I have to go to the bathroom, and then I get hungry, and then there are only ten minutes left, and there’ll be another glorious opportunity, two hours later anyway.

It’s not that I don’t get things done at all. It’s just that a lot of my time and energy goes into the internet equivalent of watching soap operas. And all the time I fool myself, I list the things that I achieve, and it sounds mightily impressive until you see me sitting here on this chair all day long, looking into my monitor.

“I don’t have time for that.” I say. And I’m right in a way but in a different way this is like my son telling me that he has no time to pick up his room because he has to watch his favorite show on TV. Because there are only 30 minutes in an afternoon, aren’t there?

So for quite some time now I have been fighting this feeling that I’m just waiting until my life is over. Until my husband is dead, or my son has moved out, or something. It’s like I’m waiting for some magical transformation of my life, and then, at that point, I will emerge from all the waiting with my life suddenly just the way I’ve always imagined it.

I started to meet with a bunch of other women who meet every other week to help each other reach their creative goals. The last time I went there I told them that it’s not the time that I lack. It can’t be because I have two hours each day to waste on the internet. And one of them said, “Only two hours? But weren’t you the one who put a timer on her router?” Yep. That was me. The timer cuts me off from the internet between 10 pm and 8 am. I also disabled the wireless so I have to be near the ethernet cable to go on-line. Still, that leaves me with a lot of hours to spend sitting in front of the monitor, doing nothing productive.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the internet, and e-mail, and ravelry in particular but the question is how I feel after a day of checking in with my imagenary screen-friends, when I haven’t sung or played, or written, or picked up my bedroom.

So each day I try again, I kick myself in the butt, pick up after myself, exercise, do something productive on the computer, tear myself away from the screen to live my life here, in the moment, right where I am. I turn the computer off, I pull the ethernet cable out, I carry my laptop to the kitchen where I can’t connect to anything but myself. And then I hope that this day I will manage to spend my time with something else but sitting, waiting, and wishing.

(I know that “Sitting, Waiting, Wishing” is the title of a Jack Johnson song, and when I first heard that I instantly thought that line describes my life very well at the moment. I did have to look up the lyrics, though (not the chords by the way, interestingly I know those almost by heart by now) and the rest of the song does not have much to do with me.)

This one I wrote not for the monthly meeting of our writer’s group but for something called an Anti-Slam. I was quite nervous beforehand. We had a time limit, not more than 10 minutes of reading, I didn’t quite know who would be there, and how they would respond to my stuff. And then there’s always the strangeness of being a German who writes stories in English. That made me insecure as well. I was the last to read that evening. I usually like to go first. So there’s nothing to compare me to, and I get it over with. But not this time.

Kissing Edith

I met her in a class on the peoples and cultures of Nigeria. It was one of those classes that are always full to the brim at the beginning of the semester, with only three students left at the end. I don’t really know if she stayed. She was sitting next to a friend, tall, dressed in khaki pants and a tight tee, her skin tanned and smooth, and her hair – dark blonde and very short. She seemed calm, and strong, and competent – all things that I longed to become. One day.

I did meet her again, at university big band. Me, sitting in the back with half a dozen other singers while the band played one instrumental after the other, and her, standing in line with the other saxophone players, most of them male. She wasn’t bad, not bad at all, a woman who managed to look elegant and graceful in wide pants and sneakers.

So we met twice a week for half a year at least, maybe longer. I don’t recall for how long exactly, this was back in the days when I was young and naive, only a few years out of school. She had a nice smile but she didn’t talk much – unlike me – and she had this sparkle in her eyes.

Back then, I was living from drama to drama, a budding jazz singer drifting from boyfriend to boyfriend. There was always the love of my life, just out of reach.

Though we talked here and there, we never had coffee. I would have liked to know her better but she was always with a friend, and always on her way to somewhere else.

The class on Nigeria went on. The following semester she wasn’t there anymore. Asked about it she said that she didn’t study cultural anthropology anymore. She still came to band rehearsals. Then she didn’t. My life changed, and it didn’t, always drama, always upheaval, always the elusive boyfriend, and always singing jazz.

I met her again, one night, at the jazz club. That jazz club, you know. Apparently she was working there at that time. She sat at the entrance, selling tickets, and we talked a bit. There wasn’t time, much, because of the other people behind us.

I don’t remember who went with me that night. Or which band played. It might have been that one time that weird New York hard bop band was playing. Or not.

Later that night she served drinks. Once she had a little break she sat down at our table. We talked. She was looking as stunning as ever. „I’m going to Linz to study jazz.“ she said. I asked her about the earring she was wearing on the left. „That’s Hekate’s double axe.“ she said, „It’s a feminist symbol.“ And she smiled, that charming smile of hers. Looking at me with a kind of sparkle in her eyes.

„Oh, feminist. I like that.“ I said.

I didn’t get it at that time. In fact it took me years. You know, that double axe is not really a feminist symbol alone.

I was young and naive. That’s my excuse.

These days that I’m neither. I wonder.

I’m feeling completely exhausted with one more week to go until summer break. I hope next week will get a little less busy.

These days I’m even too exhausted to knit or spin much. Or blog.

As usual it’s only a lot of small things. Bake a cake, go to a party, bake another cake, housework, students, teaching, exercise, move things from one place to another, meet people, meet some more people, talk to people on the phone, talk some more.

I’m really looking forward to summer break which is probably a mistake because I usually don’t like summer break.

On the bright side I’m reading lots of books, I’m exercising, I’m making music every day again, the never-ending turtleneck of doom is growing. I’m even thinking that I might finish it some day.

I think next week I’ll post the last story I wrote.

I know there’s a reason why I usually only post pictures in July but this year there was such a lot of rain.

See you.

Gestrickt und gesponnen habe ich:

• Ebony Turtleneck Vorder- und Rückenteil fertig, erster Ärmel Schulterkugel fertig, ruht,
• Keltischer Sommer Socken, ganz fertig, fehlt noch das schicke Foto und Fertigstellung des Musters,
• “Irgendwie Türkisch“, zweiter Socken bis fast zur Ferse fertig,
• Sock Leftovers Blanket, ein halbes Dutzend kleine Quadrate mehr,
• Mossy Turtle, ruht.
• Spider Socks angefangen, der zweite ist schon fast fertig.
• melierte Merino-Seide auf der Bosworth Featherweight unverändert
• Farbverlaufswolle weiter gesponnen, lange noch nicht fertig
• Polwarth von The Painted Tiger erste Spule fast fertig, genauso wie das Mal davor

Es wurde sonst noch erwähnt:

• Abby Franquemont

Das große Tour de Fleece-Projekt:

• ein Kilo “Indian Summer” auf meiner Bosworth Midi zu Wolle für den “Wiseheart Sweater” verspinnen.

Gesamtmenge:

flauschig:

die Spindel nach dem ersten Tag:

und nach dem zweiten:

And then somebody mentioned the book “Refuse to choose” that I read some time ago, and that reminded me about how I have wanted to do a map of my house showing all the works in progress that lay around everywhere. And since I don’t usually draw I thought it might be fun to take pictures instead. And then I thought you might like to read about that, so here we go (and since this is a very, very long post you might want to grab a cup of tea or something):

I started at the desk in my studio/office. This is the first sock for my soon to be ready for purchase sock design “Meadow Abstract”. I’m currently knitting the second sock, correcting errors in the pattern, and hopefully soon, I’ll translate the whole thing into English. (Underneath is some tax stuff, and random paperwork.)

Left side of the desk we have guitar tabs for “Road Tripping” a song I’m currently learning to play on the guitar.

This one was sitting in a bag right on top of my desk but it does look better like this, doesn’t it? It’s my current spindle spinning project. The fiber was dyed to go all through the rainbow, and I’m trying to preserve the colors while spinning.

On top of the spinning shelf inside the lazy kate there’s a ball of handspun Merino waiting to be swatched for a sweater, and underneath that some weaving that my son did, that I still need to hem. Don’t mind the green yarn on the bobbin, that’s not a project.

Too lazy to pull that out of its bag, here you see in the front my current wheel spinning project, also in the paper bag some red silk that I started spinning but don’t care about at the moment, and some cotton sliver that I started spinning on a suspended spindle. I don’t consider this a real project because I don’t care if I ever get that finished or not. It’s just for practice.

Big, huge, next spindle project. This is actually a sweater waiting to happen. My huge, big, scary project for July. (Two pounds people, two pounds of Corriedale.)

Piano. With some random sheet music. Playing the piano has been an ongoing project of mine since 1979. Still not finished. Probably never will.

Potholders to be. We’re down to only one pair so I bought some yarn today. After taking this picture I put it in one of the yarn storage boxes in the bedroom.

Pile on top of the stereo speaker: notebooks with stories waiting to be typed into the computer and eventually be published somewhere, book I bought to read for a book club that I never got around to open, and underneath the “Zen of Screaming”-DVD that I have been wanting to work with for about a year or so. Already watched it twice.

Stack of paper next to the computer: “How to make your own deodorant“-recipe that I printed out to have it ready for when I go to the health food store next time.

Next up the former guest bedroom, now the place where we watch TV:

Underneath the table there’s a basket with all my leftover sock yarn in it. Well, most of my leftover sock yarn. This will eventually be a blanket. Now to the bedroom:

Denim skirt to be sewn. I actually finished drafting the pattern, and cutting out the pieces on the day before we left for vacation but some time in the afternoon I finally listened to my husband’s advice, and didn’t try to finish it at all costs before leaving. It really only needs sewing by now…. (And no, I’m not a tidy person. This is draped over two dressers, actually.)

As I said. Underneath this mess is the dreaded mending pile. You see: the box the denim came in, the stuffing for another project that I’ll show you later, the finished sample for my soon to be released “Celtic Summer Sock”-pattern (need to fix errors, take fetching pictures of socks on my not-so-fetching feet, translate pattern into English, and such). Under those are my husband’s beloved Wollmeise socks that have a big honking hole in them, some brown yarn for a sweater I’m knitting, and some handspun Wensleydale. I don’t like the project I made out of it, and now I don’t know whether to rip or not.

Shawl waiting to be blocked.

Socks to wash by hand, table runner to be ironed to get wax out, apron to be ironed.

And off to the kitchen:

Green thread to sew the binding of my green corduroy skirt (that I have been wearing for ages) to the skirt itself.

Spindle with the part of the rainbow fiber on it that I’m currently spinning. Books to read on the kindle, episodes of Buffy to watch. (And lots of things to put away, oops.)

My corner of the kitchen bench in bad light.

Books and magazines that live on their own shelf next to the kitchen bench but I thought it would look better if I spread them out a bit. I have been trying to finish reading “Shadowrise” for ages, and the task is no less daunting for the fact that there is yet another part of that story to read after this one. I’m almost through with both spinning magazines, and some of these days I’ll educate myself about color in spinning so I can start dyeing fiber as well.

Spider sock in progress (lives in the red knitting bag).

Second “Meadow Abstract” sock, see above (orange knitting bag). Yes, my knitting projects are color-coded.

Mossy turtle in progress. That’s the project I need the stuffing for. Not all of the stuffing, mind you. It lives in the beige knitting bag that lives in the green knitting bag but that’s only temporary.

Beginning of sock yarn blanket. That I haven’t worked on for about two months. After taking this picture I transferred these bits, the crochet hooks, and the pattern to the knitting basket shown above.

Never-ending turtleneck sweater of doom. I have been knitting this thing since 2009. I’ve even started writing a song about it. I once was almost at the same point as I’m now, only the thing was too big. Now, after more than 1 1/2 years I’m finally starting to knit a sleeve. I need to calculate the rate of decreases now so this will only take a few weeks or months at least. For some reason I never get around to things like that.

After taking this picture I thought I had found all the works in progress but then I remembered. And went back to the bedroom:

This innocent looking broom handle will eventually become a backstrap loom. I now have everything I need.

Another project, I call it “Let’s get Susanne back in shape.” These are my running shoes.

For recording. This is a podcast waiting to happen, also improvisations waiting to be captured.

Four novel manuscript waiting to be finished. Well, okay, three because I don’t like the first one, and will never do anything with it.

Novel waiting to be edited.

You still with me? No wonder I feel a bit overwhelmed. I think I shouldn’t really start anything new soon. What do you think?

So we went to an open air theater and saw a production of Pippi Longstocking:

My mother’s roses on the living room table:

Our son got to play with my cousin’s Lego train set:

And my mother’s garden full of roses (I have a thing for roses but I’ll spare you the other rose bush pictures):

At the place where my parents live (not where I grew up but where my mother grew up), there’s a genuine castle on a hill right at the town center:

Castle entrance:

Inner entrance (whatever it’s called):

The keep (I think):

Courtyard:

Different view:

Where you get your tickets (we didn’t go inside this time):

Castle with sheep (You know I had to take that photo don’t you? And no, I don’t know which kind of sheep this is or where to get the fleeces, sorry.):

Castle from the other side of the hill (I know it looks as if there were a forest but there’s actually a park a bit further down):

And that’s it. I didn’t take the camera with me on the bike ride, I didn’t take any pictures while playing mini-golf (my son’s first time), and I totally forgot to take pictures most of the time.

Now I’ve one week left before resuming regular teaching, and I really hope to pop in here once or twice in the near future.

Gestrickt und gesponnen wurde dieses Mal:

• Ebony Turtleneck Vorder- und Rückenteil fertig, erster Ärmel angefangen (Hurra!!),
• Keltischer Sommer Socken, der zweite fast fertig, es fehlt noch der halbe Fuß und die Spitze,
• “Irgendwie Türkisch“, erster Socken und Anleitung fertig,
• Sock Leftovers Blanket, ruht immer noch,
• Mossy Turtle, desgleichen.
• melierte Merino-Seide auf der Bosworth Featherweight fast unverändert
• Farbverlaufswolle auf der Tiny Turkish 35 Gramm gesponnen, noch mehr als 75 Gramm zu spinnen, was etwas verwirrend ist, weil das ein 100 Gramm Kammzug war.
• Polwarth von The Painted Tiger erste Spule fast fertig, geht etwas zäh

Ansonsten wurde erwähnt:

• verschiedene Leute aus dem Spinnradclub
• Spiro und ihre Kammzüge
• Das Anna-Spinnrad
• meine neue Tasche
• GoKnit-Beutel

“Podcasting auf Deutsch”-Gruppe

Frohe Pfingsttage!

I wanted to write about vacationing at home some more, put up a story or two, and tell you all about how I’m failing my “one goal for the year”. And I will, eventually. For now I’m helping my husband prepare for a house concert, He will be playing here at our house tomorrow evening, and we’re getting everything ready while doing our usual teaching and stuff. There’s also a friend of mine visiting whom I haven’t seen for years and years. And I’m planning my knitting classes for fall. This is the picture I took today for my “Knitting perfectly fitting pullovers”-class:

See you.

• Oberbayern strickt
• Petzi’s [sic] Spinnradclub Forentreffen Süd
• WWKIP-Day
• iKnit – Ich habe iKnit gesagt und meinte in Wirklichkeit Knit Nation. Beides in London, das erstere ein Laden und das zweite eine bestimmt wunderbare Veranstaltung 15-17. Juli 2011
• Termin-Nachtrag: Leipziger Wollefest Ende Mai

Gestrickt und gesponnen wurde dieses Mal:

• Ebony Turtleneck jetzt wirklich mit Taillenabnahmen,
• Keltischer Sommer Socken, der zweite ist so gut wie angefangen,
• “Irgendwie Türkisch“, erster Socken und Anleitung fertig,
• Feminine Candy, angefangen und beendet, noch kein Foto
• Sock Leftovers Blanket, ruht
• Mossy Turtle, Körper ausgestopft, Augen angenäht, Beine gestrickt und halber Oberpanzer
• Creativity Booster, angefangen und fertig gestrickt, muss noch gespannt werden
• handgefärbte Merino fertig
• melierte Merino-Seide auf der Bosworth Featherweight fast unverändert
• Farbverlaufswolle auf der Tiny Turkish etwas weiter
• Polwarth von The Painted Tiger mit dem neuen Lace-Flügel angefangen zu spinnen, sehr schön soweit

Außerdem habe ich erwähnt:

• simplify your life
• Zen to Done
• orientalischer Farbrausch aus “Socken aus aller Welt“
• Flusi, das Sockenmonster (vergriffen)
• Flusi Sockenwolle
• die Kinderbücher, bei denen ich dachte, das Flusi-Buch gehöre zu gleichen Reihe
• Stringtopia
• gesponnener Rhabarber (Ravelry-Link)
• Day in the Park Backpack/Tote
• meine schwarze Handtasche
• das Buch, das ich gerade lese
• Laguna Bag
• Crumpler-Taschen (und der Link sollte zu der Tasche führen, die ich dann heute so ganz zufällig bestellt habe, ähem)
• Tom Bihn-Tasche
• Bree (manche Taschen sind wunderbar, andere überhaupt nicht)
• Mandarina Duck
• Wolle, die ich bei Spinning Martha gekauft habe:

We also, usually, tend to make big plans for projects of all sorts, and then in the end, spend all our time off work and school at home, each of us in his own room, doing things alone. Which is quite enjoyable but then we do like to spend time with each other as well. Even if we sometimes need a little reminder.

So this time we started Easter break even before it had begun by thinking about what things we’d like to do, and possibly when. And fit those things around the appointments that were already made in advance, like my writer’s meeting next week, and my husband’s rehearsal, and important soccer games that have to be watched on TV, and also out wedding anniversary next week. (I’ll be out that evening, at the writer’s meeting. Yes, it’s alright, I got clearance by my husband, and I plan to go out with him some day next week instead.)

Last Sunday we went on out first bike tour for this year. There was a sheep shearing fest at a local museum farm thing, called Jexhof. There were also quite a few handspinners there, representing the local guild. I have recently become a member but have never been to any meetings. So we unearthed the map with all the bike trails, looked up how to get there, decided we’d go late in favor of eating lunch at home first, packed some cookies, water bottles, sun screen, sweaters, and in my case a spindle and some fiber and set off.

When we told my mother-in-law about our plan she nearly fainted. For some reason she thought the museum was so far away it would take us about two hours to get there. Um, no, only a little more than an hour. That’s what we had guessed when looking at the map, and that’s how long it took.

The weather was fabulous, sunny and not too hot. I found that I get easily out of breath when biking uphill due to my asthma but recover very quickly. It’s still a bit weird to me, all the people we meet see a not-young, over-weight woman riding a bike, and gasping for air at the slightest molehill, and I’m the only one who knows that I’m actually quite fit. But I sure don’t look like it.

When we arrived at the historic farm there was a huge crowd. Everybody had brought the children to see the sheep being shorn. We went in anyways.

My son then went to climb trees and do other important things, while my husband was happy to sit in a quiet corner, away from the crowds, and I went to look for the spinners who were sitting in the other part of the yard where the café and most of the people were.

I actually did know one of them, a regular from the other spinning group I belong to, so I stayed and chatted, and watched sheep being shorn, and answered questions of the people passing by. “Look, that lady does crochet!” (No, she doesn’t it’s called spinning, dear.) that woman I knew before even gave me a big wad of Falkland top, very nice and soft and smooshy, and when I ran out of fiber I gathered my family, and we rode our bikes back home.

Sorry, I didn’t take any pictures at all. I’m a bad tourist. Still, it was a great day, very nice bike ride, and it felt like being on vacation for real.

And another sunny day here, I’m getting pretty spoiled, haven’t had to wear socks throughout the day for days on end now. (Weather report say we’re due to get low temperatures and freezing nights again starting Tuesday.)

We did mostly household chores like stripping all three beds which reminded me that we don’t own enough sheets for all of them. We need an extra duvet cover for my son’s bed because we gave him a bigger one than he had before. Having to sleep in the sleeping bag was averted, though, by doing the laundry quite early, and now everything has dried in the glorious sunshine to be put back on the beds again soon-ish.

I spun for about 40 minutes, and I read a bit, and I went for a walk, and I even played the piano for a short while, and now my husband reminds me that I had wanted to play guitar today as well which I’ll better do soon, before it’s time for dinner.

I was also asked about what my favorite kind of chocolate is, and all I could come up with so far is, “It depends.”  And so I have been pondering what kind of chocolate I like, and why, and how to categorize that in a way that another person could choose something I like, and it all has become way too complicated. I can’t even say if I like milk or dark better because it’s all about context, texture, and flavor. And there is a place in my heart both for very expensive and fancy dark chocolate and cheap candy bars. Nothing with liquor in it, though, I like my vices separate.

The thing is, I tend to think way too much about what I like, and why, and how to tell in advance because with all things – music, clothes, color, food – I keep meeting people who tell me, “If you like that you will like this.” and then I don’t. And then they point out that it has everything I said I liked, and they are right but I still don’t like it. And this puzzles me. And makes it really hard for the people I love to find suitable presents for me.

It’s like with colors. One can’t usually go wrong getting something for me in orange. And blue is always a bad choice. Unless it isn’t.

So I keep looking at things and thinking, “Why do I like this, and don’t like that? What is it about that that I like, and about that that I dislike? But then there was this other thing that I liked even though it has that quality that I usually don’t like but that time was different, but why?”

And I know that I’m over-thinking things – as usual – but I thought some of you might relate.

I think it might be spring fever.

Yes, I realized it’s mostly spinning stuff, and books, books on spinning even. So there is one book I need for research for the knitting class I want to teach next semester (“How to knit perfect fitting sweaters”), then one on color in spinning because I might have to take the dive and start dyeing fiber as well, there’s the next installment of the Foreigner series which I love very much, there is a new flyer and bobbins for my spinning wheels which will help me make very fine yarn (I hope), and then there is all that cotton and a new spindle which will help in spinning it because my equipment is more suited to spinning wool.

And all this stuff is making me really happy right now.

But I might better stop buying things for the moment.

Und schon wieder so eine lange Pause, tut mir leid, viel zu tun.

Gestrickt und gesponnen wurde dieses Mal:

• Ebony Turtleneck jetzt schon bis zu den Taillenabnahmen gediehen,
• Keltischer Sommer Socken, der erste ist fertig und das Muster geschrieben,
• “Irgendwie Türkisch“, der erste Socken ist fast bis zur Ferse gestrickt,
• Leafprints (dieser Link führt zur Seite des Musters, ein Projekt habe ich noch nicht angelegt)
• Creativity Booster, angefangen und fertig gestrickt, muss noch gespannt werden
• Sock Leftovers Blanket, ein paar Quadrate sind gehäkelt
• Mossy Turtle, ruht, daran ist nichts passiert, wird eventuell geribbelt

• handgefärbte Merino auf dem Rad
• melierte Merino-Seide auf der Bosworth Featherweight
• Farbverlaufswolle auf der Tiny Turkish

Dann habe ich noch erwähnt:

• Polwarth von The Painted Tiger

• Mystic Earth Stole
• Sandi Wisehearts Blog
• Eiki-Tuch (Eiki, nicht Eiku, wie ich fälschlicherweise angenommen habe)
• Intwined Pattern Studio (Software für das Erstellen von Strickschriften)
• Swing-Häkelnadeln von Addi
• Holz-Häkelnadeln von KnitPro

Ich hoffe, das sind alle Verweise, wenn nicht, einfach fragen

The children are all looking at the gorgeous ceiling to find saints that they know:

He really is very slow in dressing and undressing himself, and in getting ready for anything. He – like me – has a problem with transitions. He – like me – also has a problem perceiving time. He doesn’t really feel how much time has passed, or how long things are taking. This is a real problem when he needs to get ready for school in the mornings, when he has to get home after school, and when he has to get ready for all his extra-curricular activities. His teacher even wrote about it on his report card. How much she doesn’t like reminding him every single day to get ready, get dressed and get home. Even the women who volunteer to help the children crossing streets are getting annoyed with him because he’s always the last one, and they stay there waiting and waiting instead of going home.

We have tried a lot of things, counting, setting a timer, not doing anything and sending him to school without breakfast, but what I mostly do is this constant nagging. It’s totally automatic by now, and I guess neither my son nor me listens to it. It’s just an unpleasant background noise. Sometimes I wonder why I keep doing it since my son has turned deaf to it anyway but then I found I keep nagging because at least that’s a way to release some of my frustration. So I nag, nag, nag, and then I get angry, and tap my foot.

The other day, when he was telling us that the volunteer women had threatened to report him to the school we thought about how he could become better at this. His problem is that he is easily distracted, and so when he puts on his shoes and clothes after school, and chats with the other children he won’t do both at the same time. He either chats or gets ready.

All of a sudden I realized that he doesn’t have a way to measure how much time has passed. He doesn’t know if he is going fast or slow, he is just doing one thing after the other when it occurs to him. He lives pretty much in his head so the fact that he is still standing there in slippers while most of the other children have already gone home doesn’t register with him. And it doesn’t help that the friend who walks with him is about equally slow.

So we talked it all through and for the first time ever I asked him about the other children. He said there were quite a few who were as slow as him. And we asked, “And do they live as far away as you? And do they have volunteers waiting for them as well?” Turns out that those boys live just across the street from the school. So I asked him about the children that are getting ready much faster than him. And there is one boy, his best friend who gets ready very fast. So I told my son to watch him, and try to match him. And he did, and at least he is only late coming home from school, not extremely late.

The problem is that apart from us and the volunteers waiting for him, and getting worried because there might have happened something to him, he also has two days when he comes home, has 15 minutes to eat lunch, and has to leave for school again. Now, this was his choice. We told him not to sign up for those things but he really wanted to, and so we sit there, wait for him with lunch ready on the spot, and then tell him to hurry up because he’s late.

Evenings have been getting better, and then I remembered that that was when I told him the exact time when he had to be in pajamas, and then when the lights had to be out. Of course he couldn’t know. My husband and I knew that we wanted him to turn out the lights at 8.30 but nobody had bothered to tell him. The minute we told him he could look at the clock and see how many time he had left. Of course it helps that he can read time now. You can’t really do that with most younger children but with a second-grader you can.

So yesterday evening I sat him down and told him that he has to wake up at 6.45, get out of bed at 7.00, be dressed and ready for breakfast at 7.10, brush his teeth and get ready for school at 7.25, and leave a little later than 7.30.

Well, today it worked like a charm. He did struggle a bit, and then I know it’s quite a tight schedule, but he made it. I sat the clock next to him while he was putting on his clothes, and for once he realized that he does not have time to read or play in the morning. He could sit down for breakfast and instead of me telling him, “You’re late, you’re late, you should be brushing your teeth now.” he was the one glancing at the clock saying, “I only have four more minutes before I have to brush my teeth.”

I know that our schedule in the mornings is a bit too tight but I also know that neither my son nor I are ready to get up earlier than we do because that would mean to going to bed earlier as well. And having more time does not always lead to having less stress. I know that when I have the feeling to have plenty of time for something I often end up doing everything so slow that I have to hurry up in the end anyway.

Of course, now that it worked (once) I’m a bit angry at myself for not realizing this earlier. And I’m a bit afraid that this might be one of those things that work once, and then nevermore. But then I know that when I, as a grown woman, finally realized that catching the 7.05 bus meant leaving the house at 6.55, and that meant brushing my teeth and putting on makeup at 6.45, and that meant having breakfast at 6.15, and that meant getting up at 5.45, and that meant setting my alarm for 5.30 – that felt like a revelation to me. “You mean in order to catch the bus at 7.05 I have to set the alarm more than 1 1/2 hours earlier? Oh, that’s why my timing never worked. No wonder I had to rush and scramble every single morning. Duh.”

Duh indeed. I really hope that I will cease to resent the way my son – slowly and diligently – pulls up the zipper of his jacket. Or fastens and unfastens the velcro on his shoes not once, not twice but at least four times each time he puts them on. And I really hope that I can become more than a nagging device for him.

Well. That’s not how one loses weight. At least not me because this is not about losing a pound or two. So let’s see: I started out on January 1st with 89.9 kg, and the 1st of February saw me at 88.6. That looks great, doesn’t it? I should keep that in mind for motivation.

The problem is that then my weight went up again. At the beginning of January it was easier not to drink alcohol because my husband was skipping his usual glass of wine in the evenings as well. But now I keep finding reasons why tonight is a night where I’m entitled to just this one beer. Just this once, today. For almost a month or so. Oops.

Also in favor of pleasure now like donuts, or chocolate I keep forgetting the Goal. I keep forgetting that I was determined, and still am, to get to a weight where my knees don’t hurt, and where leaning down to tie my shoes doesn’t mean I pinch my stomach fat between my ribs and my thighs.

So while I haven’t done really badly so far I have to re-commit to this whole thing. Which I hereby have done.

Oh, and something that almost made me blow the whole thing? In the middle of February I read some sort of headline somewhere (I know, I’m all about diligent documentation) going like this: “I’d rather be skinny than have sex.” Really? Really? Not me. Nope. Definitely not. Of course that’s not a real choice. But if it were down to that I’d rather be fat. Also if I had to deny myself any pleasure at all. There is a reason I keep choosing the comfort of eating and food above being skinny.

So I hit a bump in mid-February and started to feel like it would never happen but – then I lost some more weight. Ha! I’m at 87.6 as of this morning. Which is 2.3 kilos less than on January 1st. And that even though I had half a liter of ice cream on Monday. And donuts today. But I tell you something: I won’t be doing that every day. That was the first ice cream this year so far, and I have vowed to not buy any more until May or so.

In February I thought I’d never lose any more weight and then I just carried on, and now I even look a bit slimmer. Not slim, mind you, but slimmer. One day I might have visible cheekbones again…

What about you? I’ll keep you posted.

Neuigkeiten:

• neuer Strickpodcast: Bei Hempels unterm Sofa – aus dem Leben eines Staubkoernchens
• VHS-Kurs: Spinnen mit der Handspindel

Gestrickt und gesponnen:

(Auch wenn ich letztens einen ganzen Stapel fertige Stricksachen fotografiert und die Fotos auf meiner Projektseite bei Ravelry eingestellt habe, gibt es von den nachfolgenden Projekten mal wieder keine Fotos.)

• Ebony Turtleneck
• Maplewings
• Vincent
• Checkerboard Socks
• Canopy
• Celtic Summer Socks (habe noch kein Projekt angelegt)
• irgendwie türkisch (dito)
• Tiny Turkish Spindle
• Blog Post von Abby Franquemont darüber, was sie als Handspinnerin immer in der Tasche hat
• IST Crafts
• handgefärbte Merino
• melierte Merino-Seide
• Kindle-Hülle von Sonja und Anleitung von SewMamaSew
• das Buch Färben mit Naturfarben

So I thought it was all due to me packing on weight, and not exercising much. But still, something was weird with my breathing, and I felt like somebody was sitting on my chest a lot. But then I really was out of shape. My mother suggested that I had high blood pressure. Nope, not the problem.

Then I found that I became breathless immediately when walking around in the cold. So obviously cold air doesn’t agree with me. And there was this feeling of somebody sitting on my chest that was certainly not usual but not really alarming as well. And I thought that I was short of breath because I was so out of shape. And I often cough when I smell something irritating like cigarette smoke, or perfume, or chilies. Nothing unusual there.

And over time I just got used to it. When walking outside for errands in the winter I just walk very, very slowly. I feel like a fool, mind you, overweight with all my bags, walking at a snail’s pace but at least then I didn’t have to be afraid to keel over from lack of breath. And when somebody is smoking on the street I change to the other side. And when somebody is smoking on the train platform (it’s not allowed but people do it anyway), I go to the other end. I got really used to this until finally I watched myself and realized that my life is really defined by these things. Changing sides three times on a five minute walk because there is somebody smoking in front of you is not normal behavior. Walking at a snail’s pace wheezing when you’re only 43 is not normal either.

Then I started jogging. It was almost exactly a year ago. Since I felt so ridiculous about it, and since I knew I can’t stand to exercise in the cold air I started jogging up and down the annex corridor. Yes, it does feel a bit weird, and yes, that corridor has only ten meters but still. You know those overweight people that you see huffing and puffing while being all red in the face? The ones where you can tell that they just decided to take up jogging after spending years on the couch eating potato chips? I knew I would be one of them so I started to run in the safety of my own home. That has the added bonus that I can stop at any time if I don’t feel up to it. That hasn’t happened often but still.

So after a few months of running I was still short of breath when walking up the hill to the grocery store, and I thought, “This is odd. I’m in better shape now than ever, so why is it so hard to breathe?” It isn’t always hard to breathe, mind you, when I’m sitting on the couch in front of the TV everything is peachy. But it was odd.

Then I taught this knitting class, and after one class I had to dash to the train station. There was a student whom I knew to be going in the same direction, and I thought we could walk together. And then she said that she had to walk very slowly because it was cold, and she has exercise induced asthma. I had never heard of something like that before but there are actually people who mostly get their asthma attacks when exercising, or walking uphill, especially in the cold. That was really interesting. Did you know there was a thing like that?

So I went to the library and got some books on asthma. And there it was: an asthma attack can of course be wheezing, and gasping for air but it can be as mild as having a coughing fit (throw a chili pepper in the frying pan and watch me), or the feeling that somebody is sitting on your chest. Duh.

So I went back to my doctor. He did the whole routine again: blood check, cardiogram, ultrasound, spirometry to check whether the lungs work properly, and everything came back normal. Since he is a cardiologist he looked at my heart twice, and everything was fine. I was slowly getting frustrated, there was obviously something wrong but all my tests showed that I’m perfectly healthy.

Then he did a spirometry while doing a stress ECG, and wham. I knew I’d feel lousy but I went for it. A stress ECG is not a pleasant experience. You’re taken to your physical limit so you always feel like you’re going to die even when you’re in good shape. So I sat on that ergometer pedaling away until I had the feeling I couldn’t breathe any longer. One of the weirdest things was that sensation that my muscles, and my heart were perfectly fine. I could have pedaled much harder, and my heart was far from beat. I only started wheezing, and gasping for air. The nurse asked me how I felt, if there was any pressure on my chest, and all I could do was nod vigorously. Then she fetched a doctor to watch over me while I finished the test. It’s an interesting feeling, working out like a maniac, topless, while hooked up to two machines with two people watching you intently because they’re afraid that you’ll have a heart attack or something.

So. Now I officially have asthma. When I told a friend she said, “Only you can manage to be happy about having asthma.” But that’s not the point. I’m not happy about having asthma, I’m happy that I have an official diagnosis with the possibility of treatment instead of the constant feeling that something is wrong. And I never could be entirely sure if I were a hypochondriac or maybe dropping dead the next minute.

After the first elation about the diagnosis and the shiny new inhaler, though, I started realizing that, yes, I now have a chronic illness. And while using the inhaler is great because for the first time in years I could just run without feeling like breathing through a tiny little straw; it doesn’t make the asthma go away. There is no pill to cure it, there is only better days, and worse days.

Still, at least now I know what I’m dealing with. And you know, I told you so the whole time. What I learned from this is this: when you know there is something wrong go to the doctor, and then go again, and then tell him, “I know you didn’t find anything last time but every time I walk uphill I feel like somebody’s sitting on my chest.” and then get some books, and talk to people, and go back to the doctor again. Because if I hadn’t thought that he wouldn’t find anything anyway I could have gotten that diagnosis far earlier.

I also have to-do-list software. Then I found myself, after running, checking “running” off in three places. And then I thought that my journaling had gone a bit too far.

I started to record all these things in order to measure improvement. I wanted to achieve certain goals and I started of actually measuring whether I achieved them or not. Otherwise one can think that one exercises at least three times a week only to find that, oops, a week has gone by, and then another. That’s all very valid. I also love my morning pages, so I sit down and write them almost daily. And then I don’t for a few days, and then I go back to them. No problem.

I do love putting my exercise time in my calendar, and with the toggle of a button I can see all the days that I exercised in one place, and then I feel all virtuous.

The food journal, that’s another thing. I have started writing down what I eat many times in my life. And I started again on January 1st. At first I was all good, but then I missed a day here and there, then a whole week, and now I find that I’m really not all that interested in keeping a food journal. I don’t count calories or anything. I just write down “1 piece of toast with almond spread, 1 glass of orange juice, 1 cup of black tea with 1 piece of sugar”. Of course food journaling can help when you want to know what’s going on but I don’t need to write down “ate a whole bag of potato chips because I was bored and angry” to see why I have gained weight. There are people who eat better when keeping a food journal, I’m not one of them. I have food journal entries laying around the house from years ago that go, “Was completely pissed and therefore ate a bag of chips, one bag of gummy bears, half a chocolate bar, and two beers. Feel lousy and bloated. Half an hour later: finished the chocolate.” (Just typing this makes me nauseous these days. I think I have come a long way.)

So I try to be good with the food journaling but what’s the point. It helps to show me that the treats I give myself are not exactly treats because they happen just about every day. These days I’m rather good with food, mostly, and so I will skip the food journal.

But you know, every time I write a paragraph here I remember yet another journal of mine, and add it to the first paragraph. It’s clear that the record-keeping has gone out of hand. I’m not quite as insane as that list of journals implies, though, because there are quite a few of these journals that I no longer keep. But right now I’m on the verge of giving up on record-keeping altogether. These journals were meant to be helpful for me, not something to occupy me all the time. I think I might get rid of one or two.

It’s not like I bought about twenty notebooks one day and thought, “From now on I’ll record everything!” I just bought a morning pages book in 1999, well the first of many. And I’ve had general notebooks even longer than that. I remember going into the one big store in the small town where I lived until 1986 to buy a notebook because my life had reached a level of complexity too high for keeping it all in my head. That was about the same time that I started using a calendar as well. Until then there was the family wall calendar for things like doctor’s appointments and that was it.

Let’s see – the morning pages stay because I like them. Having several general notebooks makes it a bit hard to find things later but still I like it. And I have a system. Sort of. So they stay as well. Also the knitting notebook, and the place were I record my reading. I started cataloguing my books when I had bought the same book twice one day. I hadn’t remembered that I already had it. The gratitude journal didn’t really work out for me. When I read back it only made me realize how unhappy I really was. the control journal for housework never really worked either. I do know that I have to clean the house at least once a week. I don’t really need a checklist because a look at the house itself will tell me what to do.

I’m quite attached to weighing myself daily. I even have an iPod app that gives me progress reports on how I’m doing with weight loss. I think I’ll keep that. Apart from that I think I might take some time off from journals. I have taken a bit of time off from trying to improve myself in all areas at once anyway.

So for now I’ll accept that I’m both journaled out and self-helped out. I take a break. And I won’t create a new task on my electronic to-do-list that’s called: take time off from journaling, repeat daily until further notice. I promise.

So happy belated blog anniversary to creative.mother.thinking. I don’t think the blog will mind that I’m late, it’s quite used to me and my procrastinate ways by now.

Five years is a long time. Especially in blogland. My posts have gotten longer and farther between, I am no longer posting about my son as much as I did before, there is way more knitting on the blog, also the podcast – but then things change, that’s the nature of life.

To be frank I’m never quite sure when my blog anniversary is precisely. I deleted my very first post which I posted about a year before my now official first post. I posted in German disclosing both my son’s name and the town where I live. This blog also wasn’t named “creative.mother.thinking” then, it was “diapers and music”. And it didn’t have it’s own domain.

And when I think about it the most amazing thing is that there are people who have been reading and commenting here for years now. Almost five years. All my imaginary friends who only live in the computer. This is amazing.

Who would have thought that there are so many friendly people out there? I was sitting here, trying to make friends where I live and not succeeding. And then I found communities on the internet. Making it possible to say that I’m not that weird, there are others like me out there. And some of them don’t live that far away and the circle sometimes closes again.

So thank you all for reading, there would not be a blog without you,

Susanne

So I set out to achieve happiness (or at least being happier) by changing small things in my life. Not a sweeping gesture, or major life changes, just small, simple changes. The plan was to add a new rule each month but in the end I only had these rules:

1. Go to bed on time. I already knew that this is a big must for me. The instant I get enough sleep I feel like a different person. The minute I’m sleep-deprived I’m all crazy, befuddled, and I never stop eating. Still going to bed early enough isn’t easy because it doesn’t work well with my work-schedule. Again I find myself needing nine hours of uninterrupted sleep. I can go down to eight if I must but anything less than that has me only half-functional. I get up at six because I need a bit of time to myself before getting my son ready to school. That means I would have to turn out the lights at 9 pm. My son’s time for that is 8.30. I would have to put him to bed, get ready for bed and that’s that. There are quite a few days when I work until 7pm. Get off work, make dinner, eat, put son to bed, and then it’s time for me as well. As a compromise right now I’m aiming for 10 pm. Still gives me eight hours of sleep but I can watch something on TV, or read.
2. Pick up after myself. Having a tidy, well almost tidy, home not only makes me happy but the rest of the family as well. As an added bonus it’s easier to find things. That bit of kicking myself to not leave my stuff strewn over the house really pays off.
3. Write 500 words of fiction at least six times a week. Also, surprisingly happy-making. Even if I don’t like what I’ve written, or feel stuck. There’s a small part of me that thinks when I’ve already been somewhat creative just after breakfast it’s a good day. Regardless of how the rest of the day goes.
4. Think about the things I love about my family, students, and friends. Really, really helpful but surprisingly hard. I still have a tendency to find fault and criticize. But when I manage to concentrate on the things I love about the people around me – I et instant happiness.
5. Exercise three times a week or more. Also much more mood-boosting than I would have thought. These days when I feel like retreating in a corner with a bag of potato chips and a book under a blanket I try to – again – kick myself, get my running shoes on and run for a bit. Even if it’s only for a few minutes I always feel better afterwards.
6. Play the piano every day. This I didn’t manage at all. I remember a time when I did, though, and even forcing myself to do scales made me happy over time. Not always while I was doing it. Today I did play the piano, and I really plan to do it on a regular basis again. (You have to understand that the playing I do while teaching doesn’t really count for this. It has to be fun piano playing, playing for me.)
7. Wear clothes that make me feel good. Definitely important. And I definitely need to buy new clothes soon.
8. Eat like a sane person who enjoys food. Still working on that one as well. But I can say from experience that eating real food sitting down at a table with loved ones makes way more happier than binge eating while sitting in your bed, hiding your chips under the covers. (Which, by the way, I haven’t done for year and years. I managed to gain all this weight without falling back into my binge eating ways.)

I can tell you that following these rules really made me happier. And even more so when I really did those things and a little less when I only wanted to do those things. I’ll get around to that tomorrow for sure, ahem. And I have to add “act the way you like to feel” to the list as well. Excellent advise, and works astonishingly well.

I already knew it but still, small things make a notable difference in happiness. Happiness is not a state of perfect bliss, one big moment like the kiss after saying yes on your wedding day. Which, by the way, is only a moment of true happiness in movies, at least for me there have been many kisses before and after where I felt happier. Many moments where I could focus on the kiss itself as well, not on the fact that two dozen people were watching me plus a video camera.

So the happiness project definitely works and I can only encourage others to try it as well.

The other thing this project brought home to me was that all my mental adjustments, and rules, and stickers, and behavior changes still didn’t cut to the root of my unhappiness. Throughout that year I found out that a big fat part of my unhappiness is – physical. And this time I don’t mean my weight, though I still think that I’m overweight because I’m unhappy. But I’m also unhappy because there are things wrong with my body. And as a wise online friend reminded me a few days ago, your brain is part of your body.

And that is why this year, 2011, I’m concentrating on getting well not by changing my attitude but by getting to the physical reason for feeling unwell. It might seem a bit mundane but still, those rules that you see above aren’t looking that spiritual either. And I already found out some things but I better make that into another post.

The great thing about all this is that one can indeed become a happier person by following quite mundane rules. You don’t need to find the man of your dreams and ride with him on your pink, sparkly pony into the sunset. You can be happy now, in the life you live right now. Don’t need a million dollars, nothing.

I mostly talk about all the projects I’ve been working on since August which you can find on my ravelry projects page. Sorry there are so few pictures.

I mentioned Tini because she gave me the idea for one of the topics, and

the Ouroborous Sweater by Debbie New.

Also there is a lot of mention of Wollmeise yarn.

But this year I thought I’d give it a try again. My one (not only but most important) goal for this year is:

Lose 10 kilos of weight or more.

I know. Pathetic, boring, and unexciting goal.

I thought I’d do it properly this time, think about my goal in advance, make it public, hold myself accountable, and such. Well, I did state it in December, I told my husband that this time I was adamant about losing weight, and that I would start January 1st. And I did. I made a few rules for myself because this time I am actually going on a kind of “diet”, and I did pretty well for about, um, two weeks. I will keep on trying, though, because defeat is not an option.

Now you might think why is my weight such a big deal? Well, for one I am heavier than I have ever been in my life. That would be quite okay if I hadn’t gained weight steadily for the past three years. While I might resign myself to be a somewhat overweight person, I can’t resign myself to be a really fat person in the near future.

I did lose weight between 2005 and 2007. My lowest weight in the past years has been about 70 kilos in the summer of 2007. this year on January first I weighed 89.9 kilos. And there were days when my weight was even higher. I could just see myself go over 100 in a few years. (And just for comparison that means that I went from a BMI of 23.1 to one of 29.7 which is quite overweight.)

Of course I had thought that if I just lived a bit better – getting enough sleep, exercise, and eat real food – that my weight might just drop by itself but it didn’t. Even adding running to the mix didn’t do it.

So after a year where I focused on becoming a happier person, I know want to focus mainly on becoming a slimmer person. My rules are:

1. No alcohol but on special occasions. (Like my husband’s birthday and such. I found throughout this month that there were quite a few special occasions which meant an average of 1 1/1 beers per week.)
2. No sweets but an occasional piece of dark chocolate.
3. No crackers.
4. No potato chips.
5. No grazing all afternoon or evening.

At the moment I just don’t buy any foods that I tend to binge on. After almost a month of this I did buy some gummy bears for my son again but I don’t get to eat any of them. I used to store some snack foods in my studio for afternoon snacks but I cleared them all out. Now I have to go to the kitchen, get myself an afternoon snack, and that’s it.

And yes, I feel a bit defeated because I need to do this, and when I succeed I want to do it for yet another year so that in the end I might just feel like myself again. Also I want to be able to wear dresses in the summer without my thighs rubbing against each other, and I want to be able to run without my knees hurting. I’m fine so far but of course all this extra weight strains my joints.

I’ll be using this blog to hold myself accountable but I won’t turn this into a diet blog. Just know that as of today I’m weighing 88.9 kilos, on kilo down. When I started this I had told myself that if I didn’t lose at least a kilo by mid-February I would have to join Weight Watchers.

While I’m happy to have lost any weight at all, I also found myself getting lax with my rules after about three weeks. One reason was that in the beginning my husband also didn’t drink any alcohol. But then he went back to his glass of wine in the evening. One reason is that I am obviously not able to stick to any rules for any amount of time. Well, that means I have to forgive myself and do better today. And tomorrow. And the day after that. For the next few years.

I just have to be all “only today” about it, otherwise I’ll be driving myself crazy.

I still long to be a person who just eats, and that’s it but so far it hasn’t worked.

[podcast]http://creativemother.de/audio/Handgemacht9.mp3[/podcast]

Gute Vorsätze allgemein:

• flylady
• word of the year (Das ist ein Link zu einem Post von mir, in dem ich über meine Wahl eines “Wort des Jahres” für 2009 schreibe und der Post enthält auch Links zu dem Blog von dem ich die Idee habe.)

Terminplanung:

• 3. deutsches Raveler-Treffen (15./16. Oktober 2011 in Frechen)
• großes Spinntreffen der Handspinngilde
• Backnanger Wollfest

Die nächste Folge wird eine Spezialfolge auf Englisch sein, aber keine Angst, das wird “Best of”, diejenigen, die nicht so gut Englisch können, verpassen nichts wesentliches.

Was ich gerade stricke und spinne:

• Cool Leave Mittens
• Sheldon
• Maplewings
• Ebony Turtleneck
• Schnappdrachenhandschuhe
• Vincent
• Second pair of handspun socks in perfect colors
• melierte Merino-Seide
• handgefärbte Merino

weiter wurden erwähnt:

• Tudora
• Threadsthrutime
• IST-Crafts
• Ouroboros Jacket aus dem Buch Unexpected Knitting
• Baby Surprise Jacket
• Enchanted Sole
• Frida Kahlo-Buch: “Self Portrait in a Velvet Dress: The Fashion of Frida Kahlo” und auf Deutsch gibt es das auch: “Fridas Kleider” (Schirmer/Mosel)
• Go WIP Go!-Gruppe auf Ravelry (deutsche Gruppe trotz des englischen Namens)

And I haven’t forgotten the blog or my readers or listeners, and I will wish you a happy new year properly next week.

I also know that I haven’t written an update on my year of happiness in months, and yes, I will wrap it up eventually. I also didn’t write my yearly “List of books I’ve read” yet, and I don’t know if I will but then you can go to librarything and look up my “books read in 2010″-list.

Christmas was very nice this year, with most of the traditional elements:

the food

the tree (a bigger one this year)

the angels my mother gave us.

I hope you have a quiet time as well.

Then I helped the mother of a three week old baby with her sling. About seven years ago I volunteered, people can get my phone number and make an appointment with me, and then I show them how to carry their babies in the sling. I keep forgetting that I’m on the list because so far only three people ever called me about that. It was nice to get to help someone but then I find that the baby thing is not my thing anymore. I really like to encourage the carrying and the use of a sling but I will remove my name from the list.

Then I helped my husband to cook, had lunch (excellent Greek food today, calamari, tsatziki, and kritharaki), had a fight with my son because he needed to hurry up to get back to some school activity, threw him out the door, and taught four students.

And now I’m sitting here, my last student of the day canceled and so I get to do All the Grocery Shopping, and maybe get a tree so that this Christmas we might have one that looks a little less sad, crooked, and Charlie Brownish.

By the way, this new format of blog post comes from me posting these little daily reports on a spinner’s forum where everybody just tells what kind of day they had. When I looked at that, and that it was quite long I thought it might make a good substitution for a real blog post. I hope you like it at least a little bit.

also de-frosted the cake, decorated the breakfast table,

and set all his presents out.

Today I got up extra early, snuggled a bit with said son (my favorite bit of the day so far), we had breakfast all together (for the birthday even my husband got up early). Then bringing the child and the cupcakes to school, all the while feeling guilty because my MIL was out shoveling snow, and then I felt bad again when the teacher asked if I would come and get the tray later. I thought my son would be totally able to carry a tray home from school, especially when it’s empty. (For the tray full of cupcakes, not so much.) Only later did I realize that in today’s culture where walking through the snow is considered cruel punishment most parents would have picked up both the child and the tray. It’s really weird that I have my mom guilt-moments at the exact time when I’m spending all my time and energy doing things for the son instead of me.

Then a bit of drinking tea and chatting with husband, then errands again, now I’m all set with buying presents. Then hanging up of laundry, and running for 30 minutes (indoors!), having lunch with my son and his friend. His friend is about the loudest talking kid I know. When I went to the annex to take a shower my husband said, “Guess what pitch our son’s friend’s talking is.” I said Ab. I was right. (This flummoxes me a little, and makes me proud.)

Then I made them both do homework, then I taught two piano students, then I started writing this and had a piece of birthday cake, then I taught four more students, and then was now.

I haven’t knit or spun any so far. Now I’m waiting for my last student of the day and then it’s beer o’clock.

Tomorrow I will host a Star Wars birthday party. So far I have everything I need for a cake with blue frosting, green colored soda, extra strong paper and elastic for making masks, and a list of game ideas. And origami paper for folding x-wing-fighters. I have the feeling that beer o’clock will come early tomorrow, and that I won’t be doing anything on Sunday.

I have been all bake-y lately, I even made my very first Stollen. Lactose-free and only a trace of fructose:

The end.

In Arbeit:

Cool Leaves Mittens

Sheldon

Maplewings

Ebony Turtleneck

Schnappdrachenmütze

Türkische Spindel von Threadsthrutime

und handgefärbte Merino.

Dann die Frage, was ist die Strickcommunity? Ravelry auf deutsch?

My ta da-list for today so far (that’s what you already have accomplished):

NaNoWriMo habe ich überstanden und mir meine “Gewinner-Urkunde” abgeholt, mein NaKniSweMo-Pulli ist fertig und ich war beim Adventsspinnen in Ohlstadt. (Ich kann leider nicht direkt auf das Spinntreffen verlinken, nur auf das Forum als Ganzes.)

Fertige Projekte:

• Handspun Vine Yoke Cardigan
• Silky Green
• Beety Curves (der erste Socken), More Beets (der zweite)

In Arbeit:

• Cool Leaves Mittens
• Sheldon

Liegt dumm rum und geht nichts weiter:

• Maplewings
• Ebony Turtleneck

Außerdem wurde erwähnt:

• Snapdragon Tam und Snapdragon Flip-Tops

• Türkische Spindel von Threadsthrutime

Des weiteren habe ich noch einen blöden Fehler gemacht, ich habe des öfteren von linksgerichteten Abnahmen geredet und dabei jedes Mal gesagt, dass ich die Maschen links zusammenstricke. Das war falsch, ich stricke die Maschen natürlich rechts zusammen, verschränkt oder sonstwie….

Last week I went to a meeting. I have recently joined a group of women who meet every five or six weeks to talk about gender and giftedness, and last week the topic was ‘jealousy’. And the woman who started this group had prepared a nice little paper, and on that paper there was something about tsav. Now I know that most of you will never have heard that word before, but I had, and I read the paper, somewhat distracted while thinking about what I wanted to order once the waiter came around, I read that and thought, “Wait a minute, that’s not what tsav is.” Tsav, by the way is a term that refers to a form of witchcraft and comes from a language spoken in the Cameroon Grassland. I wrote a paper on it back in the days when I still studied cultural anthropology at university. We went on, talking about jealousy in ourselves, and others and as a cultural phenomenon, and I found myself – as usual – talking, and talking, and talking, and I wondered why I was going all expert on this, again, and one or two days later the answer popped into my head in the middle of the night. I did, because I was the one with the special interest in psychology and sociology for years, and those women were working in science, or law, or architecture. That was why I kept thinking, “But why don’t they know how that works?” They didn’t, and they couldn’t.

I don’t go around reading books on sociology, psychology, or anthropology these days, but there still is a place in my brain where all these theories live, I only had forgotten about them. They are a bit dusty, they don’t get much use but they are still there.

Then the other day a student of mine asked something about music notation, I don’t remember what, and all of a sudden he got the twenty-minute lecture about how music notation evolved since the 9th century. Oops. I tried to keep it as interesting as possible but still, that was the result of having studied musicology at an institute that specialized in medieval music. (And for those of you trying to get all that university study straight, I studied music education with a minor in musicology, and cultural anthropology.)

And then, yet another day about a month ago, somehow, I was talking to somebody about knitting – I do that all the time – and some time later I found that I had talked for fifteen minutes without stopping about sheep. My friend was polite enough to say that he really had learned a lot about sheep that night. The thing was that we were in a group of people and one of us had bread rare sheep in the past so she had a lot to say as well.

And then, last week again, my husband and I talked about the part of Germany where I come from, and that part has been known for its linen in former centuries, and all of a sudden I found myself explaining how to prepare nettle for spinning.

Now, it’s not unusual for me these days to speak about fiber as you know, because I spend quite a but of my time thinking about it and working with it, and most of my students get an impromptu spinning demonstration at one point. After all the spinning wheel is sitting right there, but those psychological, and sociological things? I keep forgetting that they are there. Like my dissertation, I wrote about learning theories in music for ten years, and of course that’s not something I talk about a lot in daily life, but then sometimes, usually at parties I find myself standing there, talking to someone, and it all comes back.

The weird thing for me is not that all of that stuff is still there if a bit rusty or vague for lack of use but the weird thing is that there are these things I spent years of my life with, and now they are totally unimportant and gone.

And the weirdest thing of all is the jazz standards. I used to sing mostly jazz, and when you’re a jazz musician you spend a lot of time learning a set of standard tunes. Like when you’re studying jazz at the conservatory here you have to know about 150 tunes by heart. I never knew that many but still I knew quite a few. I don’t sing jazz anymore these days, and I don’t listen to jazz mostly but then I go to a concert, or I watch something on TV, or I sit in a bar, and there’s music in the background, and I think, “I know this tune. I used to now all the lyrics.” and then I have to sit and listen and think until I know the name of the song. And then I remember all those songs buried in my memory. And I wonder why I never sing them again. And I wonder if I could maybe just say that I’m a jazz singer again, get a piano player and a band, get up on stage, and with a minimum of preparation just sing for hours. I might.

And then I feel really weird because it’s like I’m cut off from my past. All these things that I started and then left behind, I don’t really know what to do with them. They do come together in a way, but they can’t all be present all the time. That has always been a problem for me, both the reason why there are so may areas of interest in my life, and why I am not really an expert in anything, or a master piano player. I keep fluttering from subject to subject. I sit in a jazz concert and long for something more avantgarde, I sit in an avantgarde concert and long for something a bit more groovy, I listen to rock and long for something a bit more edgy, I don’t know.

My husband once said that our task for the middle years is to bring everything together we started in our youth. We thought about what I had done so far, and he came up with the idea of music theater with fiber performance art. It didn’t seem very realistic.

Do you have forgotten pockets of knowledge as well?

I knew there was a problem there, and so we put a timer on our router. No WIFI between 11 pm and 8am. No checking e-mail before breakfast. What good does it do anyway. I remember one night I went to check my e-mail one more time before going to sleep and what I got was notice by a student that he wanted to quit. I got so upset that I dropped my iPod on the floor and the display cracked. My work and the rest of my life is quite tangled together, and no person in her right mind would want to check work e-mail at midnight. I also find that I’m much more productive in my writing if I’m not connected to the internet at the same time. Which is why I do quite a bit of that either in bed or in the kitchen where the neighbor’s WIFI is so strong that my own signal can’t get through.

Then I read “The Power of Less”. There wasn’t something in there I had never heard before but it was helpful in a few ways. And it got me thinking about how I use the computer and the internet again. And you know what I did? I disabled WIFI in the house altogether. My husband and I both have an ethernet connection at our desks. I have a laptop so I can use that to write wherever I want but when I want internet I have to go to my desk.

I also limit the checking of e-mails to three to five times a day. When I check e-mail I do it when I have time to answer e-mails as well, I check, I react to most of the e-mails that come in and then I close my internet program. My computer used to be turned on all day long. If I ran errands it would sit on my desk back home on stand-by. I no longer do that. There are a couple of times a day that I surf the net, and I still spend a lot of time there but I usually don’t go in blindly clicking right and left but I ask myself, “What do I want to do here? How long will I do it?” and then occasionally I’ll look up from my monitor and ask myself if there’s something else I should be doing instead.

The thing is, instead of feeling deprived by this I feel much better. I enjoy reading blogs more, not less, and I found that the computer on stand-by had a bit of a pull on me all the time. Like a party going on in the adjacent room. I feel as if there are a few less things to do, a few less things wanting my attention. No WIFI, and a different attitude towards the net has really made me happier.

The one thing that has dropped by in this is twitter. Twitter is really made for sitting in front of the computer mindlessly hitting refresh. I still read there, and post but very rarely. I often just open it to see how certain people are doing. If you send me a direct message on twitter it will reach me nonetheless because I get notified by e-mail. But other than that there’s just a little bit less chatter in my head. And I love it that way.

On Friday I got some news about a person I like very much that left me not much in the mood for anything. Since brooding doesn’t really help with anything, and there’s nothing I can do, I went out and met a few friends in the evening as planned but I only wrote 545 words. Saturday was about the same amount as crazy for the same reason but I did some writing. On Sunday I did meet my quota, well, daily quota despite spending the afternoon going to the pool with my son. So that was quite alright.

But then I found that going to the pool had been a very bad idea, especially with the sore throat I already had Sunday morning because then I got sick, and since yesterday I’ve been having a nasty cold. Nasty enough that I would stay home sick if I weren’t self-employed. My life being what it is I shuffle through the day barely able to think through all the snot. At least today is a light teaching day, and I intend to spend as much of it in bed as I can.

So, instead of having written 15,003 words so far as I should, or even more as I usually do, I have a meager 10,515 words so far. I’m also – nothing unusual about that – not happy with my story at all. I know from experience that only time can tell if it’s really that awful or not. I can worry about that later, once I have written it.

Since I’m feeling really bad, and am falling almost 5,000 words short, of course I thought about quitting. Nothing unusual about that as well, usually it happens somewhere in week two or three, and most often repeatedly thinking about giving up leads me to throw in a few monster writing sessions and finish early. But this year, of course again, I am so far behind, surely there will be no way to finish this without superhuman powers. Right?

Well, I just put my current number of words into my NaNoWriMo profile, and there’s a stats page telling me that if I manage to write 1,818 words a day until the end of November I will be able to finish anyway. 1,818! I know that’s a lot of words but that’s only about 150 more words per day than I would have to write if I weren’t behind.

You know what that means? That means, the thing that seems so overwhelming right now, that feels like I could never do it because I fell behind, that thing is no way near as big as I thought. Silly me.

And what do we learn from all this?

Do the math before succumbing to drama. Also, don’t throw the towel when you still have two thirds of the time before you.

Now I’m back to the keyboard for real writing. The day isn’t over yet.

Ferner wurden erwähnt:

• Virtual SOAR
• Judith MacKenzie McCuin und “The Intentional Spinner“
• NaNoWriMo
• NaKniSweMo
• Von meinen Projekten: Devon in Teal, die handgesponnenen Socken, Ebony Turtleneck und Maplewings.
• Neu angefangen: Handspun Vine Yoke Cardigan, Silky Green, Cool Leaves Mittens, nochmal Ebony Turtleneck (Ich gebe nicht auf!), Babysocken.
• Alle UFOs sind FOs: Toasty Pumpkin, Alien Algae, Psychedelic Liesl und Damson in Plum
• Frau Schlamusers Kommentar zu den sinnlichen Strickern
• Yarngasm
• Dornröschenwolle.

Außerdem ist mir dieses Mal beim Anhören das erste Mal aufgefallen, dass mein Podcast zischelt. Es gibt so einen hochfrequenten Nachhall, der daher kommt, dass mein Kopfhörer nicht ganz dicht ist und das Mikrophon mich von dort zusätzlich aufnimmt. Tut mir sehr leid, dass ist mir vorher nie aufgefallen. Ich dachte, ich hätte einen geschlossenen Kopfhörer, aber nein. Nächstes Mal nehme ich den wirklich geschlossenen Kopfhörer von meinem Mann, dann dürfte das nicht mehr vorkommen.

But then this is the first day of fall break (which lasts a whole week, ahem), and we’ll ignore the fact that it’s only two more days until NaNoWriMo, and that I still have to read through the first part of the novel I’m supposed to write the second part of so that I can make a list of things that happened, and people I wrote about. It would be especially nice to remember the spelling of my main character’s name.

I’m also currently doing a self-imposed round of spinning workshops. I suppose things won’t get boring any time soon, which is a good thing. I did take a few more pictures that I haven’t shown here, so get something nice to drink, lean back and let me show you what I did:

I recorded more podcast episodes:

I got out my sewing machine and made “treadle booties” for my spinning wheel. When folded the treadles tend to knock against the wheel which then leaves marks in turn. Majacraft recommends wrapping the wheel in a towel but that’s bulky and tends to slip.

My husband happened to run errands for once, and he remembered how much I love roses and got me these:

I looked around for pretty things to take pictures of and these were on my desk.

Trying to take another “artsy” picture, this is a table that my son arranged in his room.

I got a surprise package that was all wrapped up in Mozart galleys:

That confused me a bit because I have a friend who used to do research for the new complete edition of Mozart’s works, and that was what the package was wrapped in. It turned out that the package was a very belated birthday present that a knitterly friend had gotten for me in Scotland:

It is the most amazing roving. It’s from sheep that live on the beach and eat seaweed. They have a dual coats and the soft layer is gorgeous and really soft, and special. I might have to learn how to dye fiber for this.

I also spent a lot of time and energy finishing knitting projects that have been sitting around for up to a year. First, a new sweater (pardon the sweat pants):

Socks for my husband:

A shawl (another Damson by Ysolda Teague made from Drachenwolle):

Now on to my self-imposed (and self-taught) spinning workshop. I wanted to learn how to make really thin singles for lace because I have this gorgeous Blue Faced Leicester top that I want to make into a shawl. I started spinning from that top only to find that there is much to learn, and so I used something else I had sitting around. Here you see the fruits of an evening of spinning:

After two nights of this I decided to learn how to chain-ply it on the third night:

The pin in the picture above is a big pin but still, the yarn is pretty skinny. I know a lot more about spinning real thin now, I also think it might be a good idea to wait with the spinning of this until I can afford a lace-flyer and lace-bobbins. Not that they are a magic trick but I think they will make spinning lace yarn considerably easier.

I will go on and take pictures and post them here because I like it very much. I only stopped doing the “a picture a day”-thing because I have too many things I need to see to every day, and more often than not I was frantically taking a picture at 11.30 at night. Also my life is not very visually interesting, I sit at home all the time, and often when I do go out I forget to take the camera.

Every evening I prepare myself to spend the rest of the day sitting in the kitchen while my son sleeps. He is afraid alone, and our house is built in a way that in order to keep him company you have to either stay in the kitchen or the master bedroom. My studio and the room where we watch TV are both in the annex along with my husband’s studio, and so we take turns to stay near him.

I also spend my mornings in the kitchen waiting for my husband to get up. I’m the one who makes breakfast for our son and tells him to hurry up each morning. That gives me about two hours for myself until my husband – who works late on his music most evenings – comes over to have breakfast.

And all of that means that each day I’m carrying this from my studio to the kitchen and back:

Also my spinning wheel and fiber. I already got myself a small laptop bag because my old laptop was all scratchy at the bottom. That happens when you have breakfast or dinner, and set your laptop down on the kitchen table without cleaning it, and when you decide to watch a DVD you move the laptop back and – voilà – breadcrumb scratches.

Now I’m feeling a bit weird here. If I were working somewhere else but home, of course, it would be all very natural. Taking my computer, and my kindle, and my ipod, and a pot of tea and some snacks with me. But then I would have a bag to hold it all. But since I’m supposedly working from home I carry it all one or two things at a time, and all of a sudden this irritates me. “Just a moment while I get my spinning wheel and my computer.” I say to my son, and then I move back and forth, spinning wheel, empty thermos, computer, DVDs, the bigger knitting bag that I left in the “TV room” the night before. This is just ridiculous.

But then, making myself a designated “carry stuff to the studio and back” tote also seems a bit ridiculous.

What would you do?

• Tini
• NaNoWriMo
• Martina Hees
• Verena Stricken Winter 2010 (und das nächste Mal sollte ich mich vielleicht darauf beschränken, die Vorschau durchzugehen….)
• meine Projekte auf Ravelry

So this morning found me actually preparing for it. After overcoming the initial shock I thought that might be a good idea. Now before you get all crazy ideas, I’m not outlining or making character sheets or anything for the novel, that would just be weird, and neither am I cooking a month’s worth of meal in advance. I did in 2006 but it didn’t really work out the way I planned. In fact that month I spent more time cooking lunch than I usually do despite all the planning and freezing and assembling. Especially now that my husband cooks lunch eight times out of ten. (Okay, I’ll tell the truth: nine times out of ten, and that tenth time is usually Chinese takeout or something equally challenging to make). So here’s what I did to prepare:

1. Had a talk with my husband to tell him that I want to. Again. Now, my husband has never been happy about NaNoWriMo ever. I can’t blame him. At best it’s as if I’m never quite there, at the worst I’m totally stressed out about getting my word count done while being cranky and sleep-deprived, and totally neglecting my family and housework. I didn’t actually manage to have this talk gracefully in any way but I’m happy to tell that this time (unless last year) I managed to tell him first without telling anybody on my blog. He still isn’t happy about it but there isn’t much he can do. I also might have promised to do all the housework by myself until Christmas or something. (Which works really well, which is why I’m sitting here typing instead of hanging up laundry like I should right now.
2. Told my writing group that I want to do NaNo again. Sadly there’s only one other writer joining me. Everybody else is being sensible on me.
3. I unearthed last year’s manuscript because right after I thought, “I want to do NaNo again!” I thought that it would be cool to write a second part to my fantasy novel of last year. I thought it might be a good idea to read that before I start writing the next part if only to get my main characters name right. (It wasn’t Selina as I had thought, no, it’s actually Serena. I think. Maybe I should get a start on those character sheets, ahem.)
4. I started importing last year’s novel into my writing software (it’s Scrivener, by the way). Importing is easy but it might actually help to break the thing down into chapters and scenes so that’s what I’m working on right now. Also I’m making a list of characters. Just their names and who they are. I have quite a few of them by now and I’m starting to confuse them sometimes.
5. Made a plan. Now I’m well aware that time doesn’t grow on trees and so I know that for me to write roughly 2,000 words a day something else will have to go. My plan is to skip writing morning pages and spend that time (6.15 until 6.45 in the morning) working on my novel. Then, after sending my son off to school and my husband’s breakfast I’ll write another 30 to 45 minutes. If I do that it will bring me well ahead, about 1,000 words. Then I need another writing session, maybe after breakfast instead of checking e-mail, and another one in the evening instead of watching DVDs. Sounds great, doesn’t it? And still leaves me with enough time to sleep, eat, work, spend time with my family and exercise. (Wish me luck, please.)
6. Got into the habit of writing every day again. I had been doing so well with my “500 words a day” until mid-July but since then I’ve been struggling. But now that I’ve given myself a mighty push and a stern talking to I’ve started to work on my current story again, and I find that I enjoy that very much. The plan is to set that aside for November and start again either in December or maybe only past Christmas. We’ll see how wiped out I’ll be feeling come Advent.

Is any of you doing NaNoWriMo this year? Why not?

First the corner in my bedroom that holds all the crafting books and most of the yarn:

Looking into those boxes:

The biggest box holds sweater yarn, the medium one is mostly dk and sports weight, and the smallest one holds most of the sock yarn. Then there is the drawer that holds mostly the yarn of works in progress. Also, miscellaneous sock yarn, notions, fabric and interfacing. There is more fabric stash elsewhere, I have a box with 3 meters of canvas in another dresser, and a box with 3 meters of denim up in the attic. On top of the dresser is a plastic bag with yarn for a hat and mittens for my husband, and several pairs of socks in use together with the library books. (Since taking the picture the socks have been washed, I have installed a dirty socks basket, the hat has been knitted, and the rest of the yarn has been put into the drawer.)

Then there is the small shelf above the bed that holds all my handpainted sock yarn. Also dictionaries. (You might note that there are way more dictionaries than sock yarn.)

In my studio there are some bins with spinning fiber. There is also another, very small box that holds yarn and finished projects that I need to take pictures of for ravelry. Don’t panic, the yarn fits easily into the drawer in the bedroom.

Looking at these I think that I might not have enough yarn in the house. What do you think?

• Veranstaltungen: NaNoWriMo und Virtual SOAR (Dazu sollte ich vielleicht einen neuen Fred bei den deutschen Spinnern aufmachen. Hat jemand Interesse?)
• meine Projekte (wie immer), spezielle Erwähnung bekommt dieses Mal der handgesponnene Vine Yoke Cardigan (für den ich noch keine Projektseite angelegt habe)
• die Ravelry-Gruppe Go WIP Go! und der Kampf dem UFO-Teil
• NaKniSweMo
• Custom Knits
• und den Film How I Spin.

Mir ist dann erst später aufgefallen, dass ich die in der voherigen Folge versprochenen Stash-Fotos immer noch nicht veröffentlicht habe. Ich habe sie schon gemacht und sie sind auf Flickr zu sehen. Hier im Blog gibt es sie bald. Versprochen.

(Und hier sind sie nun: Stash-Fotos.)

I find that these “happiness reports” depend very much on how a feel in the moment I’m writing them. Which is what everybody will tell you, that happiness is fleeting and can’t be fabricated. But I still think there can be a thing like lasting happiness, and no, I don’t mean contentment.

Yesterday I had one of those dreary teaching days where I felt that every student was slow, and clumsy, and a waste of time, and then I remembered one of Gretchen Rubin‘s mottos, “Act how you want to feel.”, and I was so successful in telling myself how much I enjoy teaching, and what nice and brilliant students I have that by the end of the day I was positively beaming.

Now you might say, “But those weren’t you’re true feelings!”. I have to confess that I’m not that sure about feelings being true at any given moment any more. With all those hormones racing around in my body, and with things like being hungry or tired making such a huge difference it might be hard to get to the bottom of a situation. Slowly I understand what buddhists mean when they say that feelings aren’t permanent, and ever changing. I have days when something tiny like taking a nap or reading something or deciding to act how I want to feel can turn my whole day around. So, since it’s possible to do that why not use it to my advantage. And in my case I had the additional advantage that my students are really lovely people, and so I know that it’s me when I feel like I can’t stand to hear another mangled version of a tune that’s not that great to start with. I don’t complain, I know that comes with the job. When you’re teaching people how to play an instrument you mainly sit there all day and listen to people play things they can’t play well yet. And every time they master something you go on to the next thing.

I only have to remind myself to sometimes listen to some music that’s played by a master to remind myself where we’re all going with this.

But back to my report. As you know by now I made yet another list of things that I want to change in order to become a happier person:

1. Go to bed on time.
2. Pick up after myself.
3. Write 500 words of fiction at least six times a week.
4. Think about the things I love about my family, students, and friends.
5. Exercise three times a week or more.
6. Play the piano every day.
7. Wear clothes that make me feel good.

Usually I add something to this list every month. But this month I didn’t. I’m still thinking about the part where my mood is bad because of hormones. It’s now definite since my mood has been much more stable while I’m on chemical birth control. This is not a permanent solution since I have no desire to have a stroke in the near future but it helps isolating the problem.

1. Now for the part where I tell you how I did. There’s no surprise there, I’m doing mildly blah again. Still I feel better for trying:
2. Going to bed on time hasn’t happened much but as long as we were still in summer break I managed to get almost adequate sleep. It’s still the same, every day I have slept enough is much better than the ones I have after only six or seven hours. For the past few days I managed to go to bed almost on time, a step into the right direction. I’m also giving myself stickers for that again. (So far: 2 stickers in 8 days. There still is room for improvement.)
3. I have been getting much better at picking up after myself, and my husband just told me yesterday that he has the feeling that housework is currently divided equally between us. That is great news, Finally some improvement. Of course, right now I’m sitting here typing while he is cooking…
4. The writing of the fiction hasn’t happened. But again I managed to write today and on Tuesday. I’m hoping to get into the groove again.
5. The exercise has happened. Not exactly three times a week but at least two times. I also have been going to the pool twice already so that my son can work on his swimming skills. The first time I even managed to swim a few laps in the kid’s pool. There have been an astonishing number of times when I did my walk/run-routine for an hour or more. And I can proudly tell you that I can now not only climb stairs again without getting out of breath instantly, I can even run them up if I want to catch a train, then jog about 50 meters, and all of that without keeling over or thinking I’ll die the next minute. That thing alone makes me very, very happy.
6. There was no piano playing whatsoever apart from what happened while teaching, I’m sorry to say. But my husband and I played a couple of songs in front of an audience, and learning how to sing a new song and performing it with my husband made me very happy. I’d like to do a little more music with him in the near future. Without going back to trying to emulate a cover band if possible.
7. Buying new pants has made dressing much easier. The funny thing is that I bought both pairs a size too big. They don’t really look all that great but the comfort of un-pinching waistbands is almost worth it. One of these days I’ll even make myself a new denim skirt. I love wearing my corduroy one. The only thing I haven’t solved yet is how to wear a skirt with leggings and woolen socks while teaching without looking ridiculous. I don’t wear shoes indoors and I have yet to find a stylish slipper-boot. Maybe I’ll compromise, buy a nice pair of Birkenstocks and wear tights. We’ll see.

The other thing I have been doing is to think about the way I eat again. I have been starting to re-read “Outsmarting the Midlife Fat Cell. Of course I did remember most of what Debra Waterhouse wrote about in that book but seeing it again was very good for me. I found that some of my new habits that I started in order to lose weight were quite counter-productive. Also that I don’t exercise enough. And that my portions are way too big. The thing is, I have been going to eating frequent small meals, and drinking like a camel that reaches an oasis after weeks in the desert, and all of a sudden my weight seems to creep downwards again. We’ll see how that goes in the long run, especially since I still tend to counter exhaustion with too much food, but I’m optimistic.

So eating like a sane person who enjoys food is my new goal for October.

The other thing that I started, and you surely have noticed by now is my knitting podcast. It’s in German because there is dire need for a German knitting podcast out there. Doing it makes me ridiculously happy. Especially since people seem to like it. I have plans of doing a sort of “best of”-edition in English at some point, we’ll see when that might happen.

Phew, that was a long one, wasn’t it? Anybody else out there striving for more happiness by making rules?

Well, I managed to follow it back to a couple of fashion bloggers but was unable to find it’s origin, sorry. Nonetheless there are of course rules to this award which are to tell you about ten things I like, and to name ten more bloggers for the award. I will gladly show you ten things I like but I won’t be tagging anybody, sorry, I have this feeling that I have done enough tagging for the moment.

Because I’m sadly behind with the posting of my daily picture I thought I’d combine the ten things I like with that (for the rest of my daily pictures please visit my flickr):

1. homemade tortillas with guacamole
2. watching my son sleep (this was a picture he wanted me to take, he is actually posing)
3. blue skies
4. knitting a new hat for my husband
5. roses
6. beer
7. me
8. watching my son read
9. fiber
10. books

Erwähnt wurde:

der Textilmarkt in Benediktbeuern und WWSIP-Day in Hamburg

meine Projekte (Ravelry-Link): Ebony Turtleneck, Maplewings, Michael, Devon, Lotus Leaf Mittens, Struan

Stephanie Pearl McPhee

Tara Jon Manning über Stash – Destash (englischer Artikel in Knitty).

Die versprochenen Bilder von meinem Wollvorrat reiche ich auf meinem Blog nach. (Bitte hier entlang: Stash-Fotos.)

So, Saturday morning (more than a week ago) after breakfast I went over to my studio to “just check my e-mail” which usually is code for “plop down in front of the computer and lose myself in the depth of the webs for an hour or two”, and when I tried to turn on my laptop all I got was the grey screen of doom. The second attempt got me as far as the “grey screen with blinking question mark”. Bad sign, not good at all.

That was the beginning of 2 1/2 days of me sitting in front of the machine, trying things, doing research on my husband’s computer, rushing off to get spare parts, and dismantling and re-assmebling my computer. I didn’t sleep properly in days and found that there is indeed one thing in the world that makes me lose my appetite, and that’s a computer emergency.

Now, I am a bit embarrassed that my computer is that important to me, and I have indeed contemplated going analogue again, I’m not sure – for example – if my electronic calendar is really worth the hassle; but it was my husband who got me to ponder this question even further.

Let’s face it, we might think that computer emergencies are the exception, and fortunately they are, but I find that there are enough of them to warrant a plan on how to deal with them. This past hiccup caused me to spend about a week thinking about not much else, and I had to spend quite a bit of money as well.

Granted, not everybody has three hard disk failures in four years (and I won’t get another re-furbished machine, that’s for sure) but I had them. And there are quite a few more of the smaller crises like software updates going wonky, or user error, or mysterious ailments that cause half your calendar to disappear.

So I’m making some rules for computer emergencies for myself. And I’ll print them out and put them somewhere I’ll find them again. Before I write about those, though, there is something really important to remind you (and me) of – you’ve probably heard it before – BACK UP. OFTEN. When my first hard disk crashed I lost about half a year’s worth of family photos, digital music, and some other stuff. This time I was fortunate: the computer broke the morning after my regular Friday backup. I’ve been using ibackup, and that has been the only reason that computer failure didn’t turn me into a small ball of whimper. My new computer comes with time machine, and I really hope that works. So, the rules…

… when I get to my computer and something is wrong the main rule is: remember real life first

1. Do I have any pressing things to do like feeding my son or being somewhere else?
2. Have I taken a shower already? Chances are that fiddling with the computer will let me lose my sense of time completely. Yes, fixing the problem might only take twenty minutes but what if it takes two days? Which it usually does.
3. Do I have something to drink nearby? Have I been to the bathroom? Last Sunday I got so mesmerized by working on my dead computer that I only drank my morning tea and a small glass of wine with lunch. Nothing else.
4. Is it past six o’clock in the evening? Wait until the morning.
5. Tell my family that there is a computer emergency and ask them to come and look for me once and hour or so.
6. Don’t panic. It’s just a device, it’s not my life.

The other thing I did was that this time when I bought a new computer I got an extended warranty. So for the next three years whenever anything goes wrong with my computer I’ll go to the nice computer shop, bat my eyelashes and say, “There is something wrong with my computer, please fix it.” And I actually bought locally because of this for once.

I could have fixed the computer in the end but I would have needed a new hard drive (which I already bought), and on top of that a new keyboard/trackpad/top case-part because I managed to break that while installing the new hard drive. And yes, one should be able to install a new hard disk in a Macbook without opening the whole computer but you can only do that when the guys who installed the last hard disk (after the first one broke) put back everything including the white tab that you use to pull the broken drive out. So I would have ended up spending another 130 € on a four year old laptop with a broken optical drive.

So in the end I got a new shiny computer which I really love and have wanted for quite some time now. But it took me almost a week to restore everything, and there are still about three programs that won’t work. Of course, I bought those years ago, and now with the shiny new computer, of course, comes a shiny new version of the operating system.

Next thing I’ll have to get my audio interface work with the computer. Wish me luck.

1. Nimm das nächste Buch in deiner Nähe mit mindestens 123 Seiten. Take the book that’s next to you that has at least 123 pages.
2. Schlage Seite 123 auf. Open page 123.
3. Suche den fünften Satz auf der Seite. Look for the fifth sentence on that page.
4. Poste die nächsten drei Sätze. Post the next three sentences.
5. Wirf das Stöckchen an fünf Blogger weiter. Tag five more bloggers.

I had a little problem at first picking the next book to me. I’m sitting at my computer desk, and for once it’s almost tidy with no books. I turned around and there was the “Who killed Amanda Palmer” sheet music book, not right. Next to it a book about dying with natural dyes, still no help, it’s only one recipe after the other. Then a book on Bauhaus. Opened page 123 to see a print, no sentence.

I walked over to my other desk, and looked at the big shelf with “books to read” in desperation but then I spied it! “The Red Tree” by Caitlín R. Kiernan. It lay on my desk because I had just received it in the mail.

So, page 123, fifth sentence, and now I’m posting the next three. Seems we have landed right in some dialogue:

“And it’s not that ghosts don’t exist, it’s just that most people are mistaken about what they are or aren’t.”

I think I blinked, and let the metal folding chair rock back on two legs. “Okay, now you’ve lost me,” I admitted, and she laughed again.

And now I’m all eager to read the book but first I have to finish two others. Sigh.

Anybody out there who hasn’t done this already? I’m tagging Lia, De, Frau Schlamuser, Deike (who has to answer this in the comments for she has no blog), and Beck who surely will have one or two books next to her.

1. Actually go on vacation for about a week.
2. “Spring” clean the whole house.
3. Prepare knitting classes for fall.
4. Relax.
5. Teach my son to swim.
6. Edit my 2007 NaNoWriMo-first draft.
7. Paint kitchen.
8. Learn background vocals for songs to be played at friend’s birthday party in mid-August.
9. Learn how to bake bread.
10. Take a picture every day and post it on the internet. For details on this you might want to check out Sue Snaps.
11. Play the piano every day.
12. Sing every day.
13. Play the guitar every day.
14. Finish spindle spun sock yarn.
15. Spin yarn for Vine Yoke Cardigan.
16. Try my hand at doing a knitting podcast.
17. Renovate my blog so that it looks nice again.
18. Meditate every day.
19. Exercise.

Out of these 19 projects I did – eight.

1. We went on vacation for three days instead of a whole week because those there never were more than three consecutive days without rain. We made the most of what we had. Next year we might want to pitch our tent abroad, we’ve had enough of rainy Augusts for now.
2. There was quite a bit of cleaning and tidying of the house but there was no “spring” cleaning as such. Still, it looks much better than before.
3. I did start preparing my knitting classes, then I got distracted, there is still one book I want to read – maybe I should just accept that procrastination and mad-dash improvisation is my style and go for it.
4. I did relax. Yeah me!
5. My son knows how to swim! With the bad weather I didn’t know if he’d ever learn it but then I took him to a gorgeous indoor pool twice, and he did paddle several meters without help. He still looks a bit like a poodle while swimming but he’s clearly getting there. Yay!
6. Editing my first draft? What first draft? Oh, that draft – oops – that must be some where in that pile over there on the desk that’s buried in other piles. I didn’t even take it out once. Don’t know if that’s ever going to happen.
7. The painting of the kitchen was only a faint hope when I put it on the list. We have to have new wiring in the old part of the house, and we don’t want to paint the rooms before that, but we still don’t have the money (or time) to have the wiring done (or even to ask how much it would cost) so we might live in these unpainted rooms for decades. Who knows.
8. I did learn the background vocals, and performed them at said birthday party. For most of the songs I did not have a microphone because the percussion player hijacked it while I wasn’t looking, and so I could have sung anything, nobody heard me anyway. It still was fun but brought back memories of all the bad gigs I have played in my life *shudder*.
9. Bread didn’t happen as well. I wanted to make the famous “No-Knead-Bread” but the thing is you have to make the dough about 24 hours before you want to bake it, and that means planning, and having two days in a row where you have time for baking at the same time of day. That didn’t happen. I still have the flour sitting right there on the counter, and one of these days … I did make cinnamon rolls for the first time, though. They were delicious.
10. I did indeed take a picture every day, and posted it on the internet (not every day). I only forgot once.
11. Not much piano playing.
12. Not much singing either.
13. No guitar playing at all. Teaching on Monday will be great, Mondays it’s almost nothing else but guitar. My fingers will hurt like hell in the evening.
14. Spindle spin sock yarn is done. And it might even be fine enough.
15. I started spinning the yarn for the Vine Yoke Cardigan even though I’m still not that satisfied with it. I spin it to what I think is the right thickness, then I ply it, everything looks great, then I wash it and – bang – it’s twice as plump as before. I think I’m getting it right this time but I’m afraid I will spin it all up and then won’t be able to use it for the cardigan.
16. Knitting podcast is up and on the way.
17. Blog layout is still wonky, sorry.
18. Not much meditation happening but I did write morning pages most days.
19. I did quite well with the exercising, have been running and walking and riding my bike.

I might have to re-think my lists and goals approach one of these days. I still have the feeling that making lists is a good thing but then looking at them to see that most things didn’t happen – not so nice. I might have to check them off more often. Or something. The summer does feel like a good one. Despite the rain that fell most days.

A thing that wasn’t on my list but that happened is that we as a family did a lot of nice things together. We had barbecues, and bike rides, and we went camping and all. That was great. And we all had quite a bit of time puttering around the house as well. That was great too.

I usually opt for accurate memory of the day over artsiness so that may be a factor as well. Here are the last few days:

On Wednesday I did a ton of stuff and went to IKEA all by myself. By car. I played “guess the right exit” being hindered by having a road map that’s about 15 years old and doesn’t show all those fancy new autobahns they have built since then. In the end I got there and back with a ton o new shelves and things, like you do. This is something for my “new” stereo (it’s one of many in our garage that have belonged to my late father-in-law). Ii all started with an offhand remark of mine that my speakers really are crap, after which a neighbor and friend of ours came over with huge, enormous speakers. I had to get rid of one of the smaller shelves in my studio for them. Then we found that the new speakers sounded awful with the amp I had, and my husband lugged another one over from the garage. The new amp (and pre-amp) didn’t fit into the old stereo’s home, so I got myself a new one. Came back home, had dinner, and put the thing together. Mind you, I had had my camera in my bag the whole day.

More shelves. Thursday was the day I had a dental operation to have a titanium screw put into my lower jaw. It was actually less painful than I had imagined it to be but I spent most of the day sitting in my comfy chair watching old Fred Astaire movies (as far as I know there aren’t any new Fred Astaire movies, it’s just that I went on a “musical from the thirties”-binge while icing my cheek). Meanwhile my son pestered my husband hard enough to make him put together his new shelf.

A miracle happened. The day before my husband had gotten my son to help him tidy his room and clean up! For the first time in months (if not years) not only can you see the floor, it has been vacuumed as well. Instead of de-cluttering I opted for buying a new shelf and bins…

On Friday my son and I went to the local library, and here you can see why he truly is my son. He even likes the same books I liked as a child. This pictures was taken while he started reading his first ever Dr. Dolittle-book. (He had read it all through by the next day, ahem.) Here’s my bonus shot, library shelves (yes, I know I have a thing with shelves this week):

As you can see in the picture I took today, new stereo finally in place:

It sounds magnificent, now I only have to get back into the habit of listening to music through speakers. These days I put everything on my ipod and listen to it while I’m walking but that doesn’t really work for all kinds of music, and I think I stopped listening to music because the sound was so awful before.

On a totally unrelated note, I don’t quite know what to do with the fact that a lot of you don’t understand a word of both my new knitting podcast and the accompanying show notes. Maypole alerted me to the fact that all she could (almost) understand of my last post was “click here” (well guessed by the way). If I start the show notes with some explanation in English the podcast looks a bit weird on itunes, like a German podcast with English show notes. Translating the show notes on the other hand is a bit peculiar as well since everything is out of context.

Anyway, the things I mentioned on the podcast – apart from what I’m knitting on right now – is modern sword fighting, something I took a class on some years back, that tries to merge medieval sword fighting techniques with martial arts training; NaNoWriMo, which I’ve written extensively about, a couple of knitting patterns, and the “World Wide Spin in Public-Day” website. Come to think of it, the only thing I linked to that’s in German is the sword fighting thing.

I hope mixing things up here on my blog doesn’t bother you all too much. Of course I could go and put my “pictures a day” somewhere else, and the knitting podcast still somewhere else but I’m not posting much as it is.

So please don’t get angry at me for posting in a weird language from time to time. See, there is dire need of a German knitting podcast. There are tons of them in English, and pretty amazing ones at that, but looking for a knitting podcast in German right now is like looking for water on the moon.

(And now I’m trying to imagine what it would be like to listen to a podcast in a language I don’t understand at all. I might have to try that out some time.)

• Moderne Schwertkunst
• NaNoWriMo
• Cat Bordhis Video “Knit on the Go”, das man leider nicht mehr anschauen kann, sorry
• meine Projekte (Ravelry-Link), speziell die Cocoa Socks und Alocin’s
• das Sockenmuster Kawkawesque von Yarnissima
• WWSIPDay (World Wide Spin in Public Day)

“Handgemacht” ist auf iTunes! Bitte klick.

These are the things I have been working on:

1. Go to bed on time.
2. Pick up after myself.
3. Write 500 words of fiction at least six times a week.
4. Think about the things I love about my family, students, and friends.
5. Exercise three times a week or more.
6. Play the piano every day.
7. Wear clothes that make me feel good.

Again, I did some of these things, never all of them, and then there was something else which I’ll tell you about later. First, how did I do these past months?

1. I tell you, “go to bed in time” is still not really happening. I did worse, and then better, and then much worse, and now better again, but frankly, if I can’t get enough sleep during summer break it will get even harder once school starts again. This said, the link between getting enough sleep and being a happier person is totally clear to me. Even if I enjoyed myself staying up late and thought it would be totally worth it I’m still grumpier and without much energy the day after. If I manage to sleep nine hours I’m feeling like myself again. So this is still top of my list.
2. I’ve been doing a bit better with picking up and housework. My husband said he had the feeling that “sit” was my default setting, and he is right. By the time I get up from breakfast he has been down to the basement and over to the annex ten times already. So I continue pushing myself towards being a tidy person. I feel much better when my surroundings are pleasant and tidy so I will have to continue working on this.
3. I did really, really well with the fiction writing until mid-July. Then the madness of the two weeks before summer break hit, and I was stuck on my current story, and with one thing or another I haven’t been writing at all since then. I definitely need to get back into that habit, though, when I do it I feel much, much better. What I did do was start writing morning pages in earnest again, and that helps a bit. Still, fiction writing is fiction writing, and I quite like the story I’m working on so I will have to find a way to ease back into it.
4. Thinking about things I love about my family, students, and friends, well, it went very well with my family. As always I enjoy spending time with my son and husband, we really enjoy our time off from school. Having a little break from students is also quite nice for a change.
5. With the exercise I didn’t do as much as I wanted but even during the time when I thought I wasn’t exercising at all I managed to do something once or twice a week. Since the middle of August I have been walking and running at least three times a week. While I had managed to get my fitness up to the point where I could run for half an hour some time in spring I had to start all over again. Which I did about three weeks ago. So far I’m still in the “run for two minutes, then walk for three” – stage, and only barely make it through my one hour of work-out but over all it makes me feel much, much better. Being on the verge of becoming a runner makes me feel much more confident, and I love my body better. It might be overweight, pale, have chubby knees and varicose veins but it’s tough enough to run. Not for that long but if I keep up I will be able to run about 10k at some point. Me. I would have thought I could never do that. I’m just not built for running. Ha! Definite happiness boost there.
6. Play the piano every day? Who? Me? Somehow this gets pushed back constantly. One thing is that my piano is horribly de-tuned again, and I’m secretly waiting for heating season again when it will magically pop back in tune. I hope. If it doesn’t I will have to get the piano-tuner to come over again.
7. The clothes part. That one was weighing heavier on me than I realized. I managed to pack away all the clothes that don’t fit me anymore at some point but then I was left with a closet that was quite empty. I don’t have a pair of shorts, I only have one pair of jeans (that is sporting a hole), I only have one faded hoodie cardigan, and about five tees, most of those black with funny phrases on them. An outing with my husband in May to buy a suit for him resulted in me getting a pair of linen pants that don’t fit very well, and a coat that I really like. (We also got a suit for my husband. He is really easy to buy clothes for. Just today we went into a store and an hour later emerged with a winter coat, pants, two shirts and two t-shirts. The only things he tried on were the coat and the pants, and they just fit as well. I wish it were as easy for me.) But things are looking up, I went clothes shopping yesterday after not wanting to spend any money for months, and I got two pairs of pants, a new winter coat (I still had one that worked perfectly fine so I didn’t want to spend money on one, ahem. That one is seven years old…), a pair of yoga pants, everyday sneakers, and next week I’ll go to another store and get myself a couple of new t-shirts as well. I will continue to work on this because it really makes a difference. Clothes that fit do lift my mood tremendously. Also at some point I will have to learn that buying new shoes and coats every five years is not over-indulgence.

Well, it’s better to try and fail than not to have tried, isn’t it?

One thing that I realized through this project was that while all of these habits help making me happier they still didn’t help enough. Most days I was just sitting there depressed without energy. So I did some serious thinking and found that mostly the problem was my mood swinging back and forth almost daily because of hormonal shifts. And while things like getting enough sleep and exercise do help with that as well it’s still not enough. So I decided to go back on hormonal birth control for a short time. Just to make sure that it really was hormones. And, lo and behold, my mood and my energy levels have been much more constant for the weeks since I started that again. Now, I don’t really like the way I feel, it’s like a low-level meh-feeling. Not bad but not good either. I can’t take the pill for a longer time because I’m too over-weight and old for that. But for me this is proof that there is really something wrong with my hormonal system (and I know that thing is called peri-menopause), and I will make an appointment with somebody specializing in this kind of thing soon.

If I had to name the single most important thing on the list, though, it would be the exercise.

Hallo und willkommen, ich habe es also wirklich endlich geschafft, hier ist die erste Folge von “Handgemacht. Aus dem Leben einer strickenden, schreibenden, singenden Spinnerin.” Mein ganz eigener Strick- und Spinnpodcast. Die Gelegenheit für Leute, die mich immer schon mal stundenlang quatschen hören wollten.

Das Thema ist “Anfänge”, aber bevor ich soweit komme, erzähle ich erst mal ausführlichst von meinen aktuellen Strickstücken und Spinnprojekten: dem Ebony Turtleneck, So green, just like spring, Devon in teal (Es ist mir übrigens wieder eingefallen, die Farbe heißt auf Deutsch “petrol”.) und dann noch die Yarnissima-Socken, von denen ich später mal mehr erzähle.

Gesponnen habe ich Second pair of handspun socks in perfect colours, rote Maulbeerseide und Corridale, das mal ein Vine Yoke Cardigan werden soll.

Dann habe ich noch versprochen, U-Handblog zu verlinken. Sehr lesenswert, vor allem für diejenigen unter Euch, die auch nähen.

Last week was near perfect, I spun, and knit, and cooked, and read, and thought about projects, and even exercised.

Now I’ll bake a cake, give myself a pedicure, knit some more, and who knows, maybe I’ll even sew myself a nice sundress out of a curtain to wear to a brunch tomorrow so that – rather than feeling like a fat, badly-dressed idiot – I’ll feel like a fat, eccentric idiot who is fun to be with.

This – of course – is entirely reasonable and doable since it’s only afternoon by now.

See you.

I’ll be offline for a few days at least, maybe for the whole week. See you again after that. Oh, and wish us clear skies, please.

Played “Shores of California” and improvised a bit on my piano. It’s sadly de-tuned again, all this rain – sunshine – rain isn’t doing it any good but still. I found a nice little pattern that one day might become part of a song. If I ever remember it.

We had very tasty breakfast there with huge bowls of fresh fruit and yoghurt (not pictured; I usually forget to take pictures of food until it’s too late). But look at the nice Chinese tea sets.

This is what I looked at, and the following is a look at the weather:

(My friend isn’t a blogger so she was a bit surprised by me pulling out the camera. I only said, “I’m taking a picture a day at the moment.” and when I took the one through the window she said, “What are you taking a picture of?” “The rain.” I replied.)

It was a real treat to meet a friend and chat for hours, and afterwards I went and bought five different kinds of licorice. What could be better?

The lamps directly above my piano and desk where broken, and the lights made a low electrical buzzing sound all the time that came through my stereo speakers. After a day of teetering on a high ladder and another of changing the switches I have functioning lights again:

On Wednesday we rode our bikes to the Andechs monastery. This was the first time ever that our son rode along us on his own bike. We do this about once or twice a year but the years before he had either sat in the bike trailer or for the last two years we took the train and only walked a couple of kilometers. That bike ride takes about two hours, and I’m really proud to say that he made it. This year we took a different route than we had before which turned out to be a good choice. We mostly went on bike paths and dirt roads not like last year when we had to dodge trucks all the way. It’s quite a workout getting there but then you get this:

And also some pork roast but I was too hungry to take a picture.

Today was yet another rain day, and the big thing for today was this:

A piece of empty floor where there used to be a sea of toys. Our son actually picked up some of his things. We’re very hopeful that some time this month we might be able to actually vacuum in his room. Rejoice!

We had planned to go camping this week but since the weather is that bad we decided not to. Better to sit in your home high and dry than sleeping in a tent in the rain.

I should have taught a student but she never showed and so I spent the whole afternoon sitting in front of the computer doing nothing in particular. Only when I got up from my desk did I realize that a part of me was still somewhat waiting three hours later. I hadn’t even switched on the lights I had needed because of the rain.

There were things I had wanted to work on today but I never got around to it.

I was sitting in its shadow, my son playing.

I almost made this my picture of the day.

In the evening I had yet another small skein of yarn.

Beer is really essential to this, Abby said so. (And here’s a video of it.) To show you a bit more than speed I fiddled a bit and got this:

Apart from my new (to me) Majacraft Little Gem that I totally love you can also see the beer cup holder I got myself. It was a dire necessity because I kept knocking over my drink while spinning. I would always put it on the floor and then accidentally bump into it. Not good. We also tried a new brand of beer…

The weather was actually beautiful today for a change but I stayed inside mostly. Shame on me.

The slightly crazy look on my face comes from me trying to smile at the right time. While getting the picture real quick. Also, my glasses are dirty. (I can’t be expected to have everything under control, can’t I?)

For those of you who are interested in things like that you can read about the making of the cardigan on my project page, and a bit about the motivation for making it in “The Want“.

To celebrate the last day of school we made lactose-free pizza together. It’s really rare to meet all of us in the kitchen for cooking, and so that felt very special to me.

I’ve also come to realize that lunch feels special to me very often. My husband’s cooking is that good. – Mine’s not that bad either. And pizza is one of my very favorite things in the world. Homemade pizza with my family? Very, very good thing.

and this:

After all the rain we had it’s finally clearing up.

1. Actually go on vacation for about a week.
2. “Spring” clean the whole house.
3. Prepare knitting classes for fall.
4. Relax.
5. Teach my son to swim.
6. Edit my 2007 NaNoWriMo-first draft.
7. Paint kitchen.
8. Learn background vocals for songs to be played at friend’s birthday party in mid-August.
9. Learn how to bake bread.
10. Take a picture every day and post it on the internet. For details on this you might want to check out Sue Snaps.
11. Play the piano every day.
12. Sing every day.
13. Play the guitar every day.
14. Finish spindle spun sock yarn.
15. Spin yarn for Vine Yoke Cardigan.
16. Try my hand at doing a knitting podcast.
17. Renovate my blog so that it looks nice again.
18. Meditate every day.
19. Exercise.

Sounds all very reasonable and do-able, doesn’t it? [Insert mad laughter here.]

Summer break starts next week.

cake for breakfast

presents and flowers

cataloguing my Tour de Fleece yarns

looking at my presents again

after that there was teaching, frozen pizza and beer, a walk with my husband (special treat, my mother-in-law took our son for the night), and casting on for a new pair of socks in Wollmeise

On Sunday while waiting for the train I was struck by the thought that I really need to make myself a Vine Yoke Cardigan out of handspun. I got obsessed with the idea and spent all of Monday researching fiber. I wanted something that was a natural chocolate brown. Not too short-stapled so that it wears well, not too robust so that it’s soft enough.

Today I got the box in the mail. This ball of fiber is huge, it’s 1 kilo (not quite 2 pounds). I also bought the pattern. I’m looking forward to this like crazy but I guess going by my usual rate I’ll probably finish this in August. Next year.

This is what you get if you leave me on my own for the day. I took this picture in the evening after work, and that’s my blue tea mug there from breakfast, my stein from the night before and every pot that was used throughout the day. My poor husband.

After taking the picture, though, I cleaned it all up. I do do housework eventually but it might result in a dirty kitchen for most of the day. I’m still working on getting better at this.

My inability to cope with housework over the past two days was also due to the fact that I’m stuck at two creative projects I’m working on. Oops, make that three. I started to blast through one of the blocks though.

A quick feijoada, caipirinha again – this time with real lime – my husband might be a little obsessed at the moment. Maybe it’s due to the weather.

A friend dyed this gorgeous merino for me, and I will knit her socks. I got this on Sunday and haven’t stopped showing it off since.

Going to a spinning meeting at Starnberger See in the afternoon to eating falafel, attending a WeBe3-concert and meeting friends in M.unich. Wore my First Spring-scarf for the first time ever.