Today's Knitting is Brought to You By Sleep Deprivation
I had grand plans when I woke up to Get Stuff Done. The world is technically still on holidays, so this is the perfect time to sneak in some good, long writing and weaving sessions. I managed both yesterday. (I was the only human moving in the house for the entire morning. I watered the plants and set up the mister for the chickens, then hit the workroom and didn’t come out for four hours. It was glorious.)
Unfortunately, I slept like absolute crap last night. The weather was obscenely hot yesterday - 37ºC at 5pm - and I sleep on the west side of the house. It was barely down to 28ºC by bedtime, even with a good southerly breeze and a fan pointing directly at me. I kept waking up, tossing, turning, and generally having a terrible time of it. Even some lackadaisical morning gardening and a decent coffee didn’t help.
So I scrapped the “Get Stuff Done” plan, in favour of the far more restful “dick around the house reading and scrolling social media” backup. On the plus side, I finished Sweep of the Blade (Innkeeper Chronicles book 4) by Ilona Andrews before the library took it back. On the minus, I either wait six weeks for my hold on the newest book in the series, or I experience sweet, sweet instant gratification via my Amazon credit.
One nice thing about reading is that I can work on (some) knitted projects at the same time. All the other fibre stuff I do requires my eyeballs to keep things on track. So one of the vests I’m working on finally saw some love for the first time in months.
It’s about five inches longer than it started today, and right about the time I need to stick the live stitches on a thread and try it on for length. I suspect it will still need another inch or three - I want it a touch longer than my current favourite vest, so it hits the top of my jeans/belt properly and keeps my back a bit warmer. I also haven’t given much thought to the edge (though a nice simple 1x1 rib is always a good option).
Once that’s sorted it’s just armbands and a neck band, weave in a few ends, and enjoy one less WIP on the pile. (Shrinking the size of Area 52 is one of my goals for this year. It’s gotten really quite out of hand, and it’s stressing me.)
I’m slightly concerned about the sizing, too, but at this point I’m not averse to felting it down to size if it’s a touch too large. The weatherproofing would be helpful since it’s destined to be a house vest, and house vests often end up worn in the cold, windy rain in around here.
Speaking of WIPs...
After a ~5 year break, I’m back to using Habitica for day-to-day task management. While the vast majority of my project/task management happens in Obsidian (love that app), I found I needed some distance between “everything that I ever need to do, whether today or five years from now” and “stuff I need to get done within the next week or so".
Both my needs and attitude towards task management have changed a lot over the last few years, so I was hesitant to go back to it, but for right now it meets 95% of my needs. It helps that the elder child is old enough to start learning to manage their own stuff, instead of me. The gamification (especially the pets) is catnip to them. Our little two-person party is doing pretty well for a perpetually-stressed adult with too many responsibilities, and an ADHD homeschooled tween with no sense of time.
And, because I just can’t fkn help myself, I joined a Guild. Just one. I learned my lesson from last time. Overwhelm is the shortest path to a quick death for any system. Of course, I have no sense of restraint, so I joined the New Years Resolutions guild. As the name implies, it features monthly challenges to help you plan, set, and work on yearly goals. I traditionally have a few of those, so *shrug* decided to tag along for the ride. Which leads me to...
#HabiticaResolutions
One of the tasks for this month’s Challenge is to post your goals on social media. Historically, I like to keep things close to the chest, since what I decide to do with my life is between me and me. But, in the spirit of experimentation, I decided to give it a go this year. (There’s a version of the Challenge that doesn’t have the “post to social media” task, so you can opt out of it if you really don’t want to share.)
Thus, my goals for this year:
Finish my current novel/write at least 50,000 words of fiction
Work on improving my writing skills via further education
Publish at least one blog post a month
Spend ~2.5 hours per week working on my weaving skills
Finish at least 12 WIPs (1 per month) from Area 52
Make some clothes for me, not just for the kids (at least 2 items)
Yesterday I wrote a touch over 500 words, and spent not quite 1.5 hours weaving. And now I’m throwing a blog post out there. (Tumblr totally counts, right? It’s easier to use than “real” blogging platforms...) So while I’m bummed that I didn’t have the super productive day I envisioned this morning, I’m still happy with how things are going.
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