Tag: intention

Monday, Monday

PiaChit Chat

Woke up, no headache, with the weirdest sentence in my head. While still in a fog it seemed deeply profound to me, so I decided to repeat it until I could write it down. Now I’m all, WTF? “We operate in the narrow strip between tranquility and normal life”. Um, right….. Who? 😕

I’m feeling a bit odd after last week’s various exertions, not anxiety but something close, like not knowing which foot to put down first. Thinking about some of the topics that came up here as well as related talks on friends’ blogs. You all know who you are, thanks for being so amazingly in sync!

monday04
What’s wrong with this picture? I’ll tell you. I neglected to ask for a gap in the middle, so that I don’t have to trundle all the way around this row and back up the other side to get to the veggies behind!

So, what the hey do I do now that I have no chores and no headaches? Let’s make the most of this week, shall we? Paint, weave, spin, the list is long. Doesn’t matter which one I begin with, really, what matters is getting on a roll and stay. Heal. The LYS is having a sale later. With cake. (I shouldn’t eat the cake). First I’ll be waiting for the postman to bring me an extra loom, usually they are here early on Mondays. Ooops, I promised myself to do one load of laundry! No biggie. Just one look on the used items page to search for a jack loom, then I’ll get my butt out of this chair, it’s 08:19, I’ve been reading enough interwebs. Closed nearly all my tabs, job well done! 😉

  • monday01Used loom ads check – check
  • Laundry in machine – check
  • Winding hanks of yarn into cakes while glaring sternly at the driveway to reveal postman – 1 down, 10 to go, noticed the time. Because these things can be done when I’m tired, painting cannot.
  • Postman delivery – what, no?!
  • Clearing worktable – new tablecloth, no more RED!  – check (incidentally, how do you unwrinkle a plastic cloth, you know, the kind with fabric on the back? Oilcloth? Left it folded up all w-e… And it stinks….)
  • Having leftover potato salad and a tomato for breakfast, in front of the window. Did not conjure up the postman.

Time: 09:50

The thing about chores is, I don’t really mind them, as long as I get to do my other things. I do not want them to be my second full time job however.

  • Hang laundry – check
  • Read blogs – check

10:42

  • monday02Trying to get restarted on the micro canvasses, pretending to ignore stink from table cloth. Pick 6 off the wall I wanted to finish next, can’t really remember what I meant to do. Do something else just to get the paint flowing? Hungry. Ha, go away procrastinator, you ate already.
  • Need more whites, running out soon. Shut up.
  • lervad01Read in the garden instead? This sometimes helps, because if my brain is scattery it will try to get out of reading by throwing images at me. Not today, however.

12:25 Postman been with loom and gone. I can put on painterly clothes now and not scare anyone.

  • lervad02Yarn shop open, not in the mood. Money saved.
  • List and plan weaving projects, find yarn, get brain reorganized – tomorrow? Play with new loom!
  • Mend torn bed sheet – later
  • Brush and walk the dog – in a minute
  • Photo lupins take 1 – check

15:30 Tired. Using blog post to procrastinate. Get off and hunker down with some task, any task, now! Something easy, no stress. 2 hours, then dogwalk.

All in all a pretty scattered day with too much web clicking so far – but I’m happy to be on my feet and ignoring the floor and various other surfaces 😉 It always takes me some time to change gears even when I know I simply need to do it, not think it. I’ll get up to speed eventually.

Question is, if I’m too preoccupied with the loom to focus on the painting and simply need to give in and have a go at that first. It’s the same type that I already have but with a much finer reed, I’m hoping it will be suitable for my purple warp. And it’s always nice to be able to sample things even if you have a slow project on one loom. I have plans to turn in into an optional multishaft loom too.

lupin

Resistance

PiaChit Chat

appleblossom05Oh yes, why am I surprised? Today is my first day without chores in, like, a month, and what do I do? Wake up with a headache. Can’t read, can’t enjoy the lovely sunny day outside, no painting, spinning or anything. I can’t remember doing anything physically challenging yesterday either, which could aggravate my spine. If I believed in such things as outside forces of Fate I’d say that I’m not “supposed” to enjoy myself too much with activities that nourish me. Just as I had every hindrance available to make me stop horseriding… (which incidentally worked, now that I’m out of money and my bones all beaten up) And there I was, all certain the thread collection was a little sign!

Sigh, I suppose I could wash the bed linen and s**t… Really, I could have done that WHILE I was weaving! <shaking fist in the air> 😉

Perhaps it’s time that I begin work on my next Keyword, Listen. To my body even more, although I’ve been trying hard to pay attention to it (some claim I should say “her”, but I’m not really down with that), but now also to my subconscious, my Self, everything around me. It’s really, really frustrating to want something badly and look forward to it and then not get it. I deserve a break! I’m not sure I’ll ever be content with a life purpose of cleaning woman, so I need to find out what else to do if I can’t pursue the things that light me up. What path haven’t I noticed yet? In the meantime I’ll probably fight back and do my things in tiny, tiny bits if that’s what I get, but wouldn’t it be nice if I figured out what this Resistance is really all about once and for all?

How do you talk to your Resistance? Apparently kicking and screaming isn’t doing the job, LOL.

So…

PiaChit Chat

lilac

This is another one of those days where I have a number of blog drafts sitting around, but can’t get to the end of them because stuff is missing. (I can’t tell you of a loom I did not get to buy for instance because somebody else beat me to it) But I need to keep in touch or I’ll go missing entirely I think, there’s definitely something to staying in the flow, not just with art, but with blogging too. The more you do, the more ideas happen as well.

Busy week here preparing for an insurance inspection, ditto meeting and generally a very tiring May. My journal has ONE page in it, that’s how little I’ve been “me” instead of janitor/general manager/headache monster. Trying to reset myself now, mentally and physically, by doing very little, my brain is boiling a wee bit. Definitely hoping to get back to work on Monday, and I know I’ve said that about some previous Mondays as well, but this time I mean it or I’ll murder somebody. I don’t even care if they deserve it. 😉

Anyway, we were out of dog food and old ladies get special low calorie senior kibble, so I had to drive to town today and decided to try a marathon run of my long accumulated shopping list. No more room on the whiteboard. Only forgot to look for two things and didn’t get one other which was not available, so all in all I feel very efficient and also accomplished enough to relax about granting myself some me-time. So much for resetting, but I did that most of yesterday at least and haven’t done much else today either. I may not be able to get artsyfartsy on weekends, but I think tomorrow will be for a couple of projects where I just have to point. Rhubarb pie might happen.

so02

Only yesterday I was thinking about how it would be nice to have various shades of bright thread to make scrap blankets/quilts from old clothes. Well, first stop on our tour was getting a new cover for painting on the dining table and what did they have at the checkout counter? A little junk basket of very marked down threads… Thanks a bunch!

so04

Second score was a new hedge trimmer. The one I’ve been using for the last 12 years is a bit weak and I often have to hack my way through if I need to trim close. My arms, shoulders and back just aren’t up to the job anymore, so we agreed last year that I’d get a better one. Tried various types and the really good ones were also too heavy, so I hope I’ve found a good medium variety. Why doesn’t the large person in the household cut hedges? Because he is not a garden freak and I’d go bonkers having to supervise the job. He could theoretically use this one too, but it wouldn’t work the other way round; which means I’d have to be a major nag to get it done. Not my favourite situation at all. And, well, I kinda like doing it. Especially after.

so01

I’m going to try fishing line for helping with my selvedges in weaving. Do you think this will be strong enough? I obviously didn’t have a chance to pull it before buying…

I also bought a piece of wood. Maybe another day I’ll show you what I want to make from it. It amuses me no end to prance around the hardware store, try things out and pick what I want, with a guy in tow just carrying the stuff!

so03

My saori jacket is not making a lot of progress, oodles of design errors and remakes. I was picking out buttons the other day, haven’t found the perfect set, but decided on “good enough”. This pile I received from Melanie in Toulouse along with chocolate and two lovely scarves, how’s that for a score!? Maybe some day surprise packages will go out in the opposite direction, but for now that’s a secret.

buttons01

And that’s about it from the cottage this week. The lilacs are looking spectacular at the moment, but so far I’ve forgotten fresh photos of them. Lucky for me, they look just the same as last year. I’m going to try my very best to be a little bit interesting in the near future.

Bumbling about (again)

PiaChit Chat

appleblossom03

Can’t seem to find my feet this week, although it was long anticipated for having 4 long days with a totally quiet house. 😉 Serves me right for making plans. Mind you, nothing prevents me from carrying them out, besides myself!

I started with 2 headachy days, then I noticed something was wrong with one of the kittens. At 6 in the morning just as the car was about to leave the premises. It happens a lot around here, has for years, I must have the sickest pets on the planet. And I worry every minute of the day(s) until it’s over, big issue or small, feeling a hurt deep inside. There must be some lesson in this for me, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what it is. Except to stop worrying, but all my rational thoughts fail to make a lasting impression so far. So that’s one thread of distraction, pulling a whole wad of strings with it. In fact I got so wound up with all the hasty new arrangements, crashing traffic rules to get to the train unexpectedly etc. I could not face the act of shopping for my 4 day isolation, having the car and all. Well, there’s coffee…

appleblossom01

It’s a cold week, so I have to pile on clothes. Another distraction for my already scattered mind. Getting covered in cat hair from all the healthy ones suddenly lining up to sleep on me whenever I think of standing up to practise varnishing a picture (try doing that covered in hair!) Change sweater, repeat. Don’t indulge them I’m told. But if, then, why do I even have pets? (I do know why they want me, I’m the warmest dry spot in the house after a romp in the rain)

When I worry I also begin to doubt everything. Why I do any of the things I do, how I pretend to imagine there is even a path and a purpose to be revealed. I still want to do them, but I question my motivation, my skills (always), and most of all the importance. It makes no difference in the world if I make pictures all day or just eat cake. Tomorrow I could win the lottery or die and anything in between. And some days I find that highly exciting and motivating, when I worry I’m certain that what WILL happen tomorrow is in fact absolutely nothing. You know, the old “all is vanity and chasing the wind” theme. (of course, most days nothing really does happen, at least on its own accord or any differently than the day before)

Sigh. Last week I began writing a very enthusiastic blog post about my progress in keeping up the creative work every day, eliminating excess activities to give me focus, succesfully ignoring noise and distraction, having talked down some of my fears and self criticism. Ha. Can you spell H U B R I S ? Well, at least I’m getting instant feedback on some issues. XD No need to even go public with it first! But now I’m telling you anyway to make the humiliation complete, like.

How do you like them apple blossoms?

appleblossom04

Sunday debate

PiaChit Chat

“We should do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian Darwinian theory he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors and people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.”

― Richard Buckminster Fuller

Let this sink in for a little while and note how it makes you think and feel. Then ponder my questions below or make up your own.

yellow

  • Do you find the idea repulsive, a lazy person’s manifesto?
  • Attractive but an impossible dream? (after all we need a roof over our heads, and somebody must collect the trash etc.)
  • How many people do you think enjoy having a steady employment vs. those who thrive on “having ideas” regardless of income but feel miserable in “some kind of drudgery”? Would it in fact even out without much hassle or would everybody want to be artsy fartsy useless buggers?
  • Would you feel exploited if you did in fact enjoy your day job, to finance the artsy fartsy buggers? And why, if you’re actually enjoying it and they wouldn’t?
  • What, in your opinion gives a person the right to exist and be happy (and have a roof over their head etc.)?
  • How could we even implement this without becoming a population glued to the tv and smoking weed 10 hours a day? Let’s pretend there was just food for everybody, what would happen?
  • Wealth distribution – can we rethink and redo, or are we doomed and determined to do what we’ve always done?
  • Which questions didn’t I think of and how would you reply?

I’d love for you to share your sentiments below and feel free to discuss amongst yourselves too. Just keep it civil, please.