When You’re Ready

 

 I’ve wanted to read A Brief History of Time for a long time. However it meant choosing between satisfying my curiosity and remaining a member of a community that I loved and that loved me. Choosing between mother and a physicist that showed up on PBS occasionally was an easy choice in the beginning. As the decades past I must have visited with ABHOT dozens of times in bookstores and libraries, but praise Barnes and Noble they finally put out the right edition at the right price and I quit resisting the irresistible. I had already accepted Stephen Hawking as a teacher thanks to his excellent PBS series. I’ve let the book sit around for what seemed an appropriate amount of time, but now it's time to read it. Stephen Hawking is an excellent teacher, deftly creating the illusion of understanding. Mine is the illustrated edition and it does add a lot to the text. I wish I had read it way back when I had to make my birthday cash stretch. My comprehension at the advanced age of 51 is not what it was, but that’s ok, ABHOT waited for me this long, it won’t mind if I return to it regularly.

Thank you, Stephen Hawking, for writing it down and putting it within reach.

Bagging It!

 Efficiency always interests me. About a year ago I started a system that allowed me to carry my personal work with me wherever I wanted to go. It involved cheap plastic project bags and a large bag that housed them all. The whole thing was great except for the wear and tear on the bags and their contents. The time had come for a more permanent solution. These bags are the best system for the moment.

The first bag on the left houses my bullet journal, commonplace book and accoutrement. You don’t need to be that into your bullet journal, but I’m down a size and my productivity as I make a life pivot is going up. It’s worth a bag with a specific place for markers and stickers and such.

The second bag is for my cross-stitch. I make endless mistakes on my cross-stitch, but for some reason they are interesting instead of stressful. Figuring out how to fix things is relaxing, plus there is all those beautiful threads, fabrics and patterns. I don’t do a lot that doesn’t serve some practical purpose, so cross-stitch is a nice change of pace.

The third bag is my reading/writing bag. I am currently writing a history through literature curriculum that requires reading a lot of texts. I have each text assigned to a project bag, and I have the notebooks where I write down the lessons tucked into the bag with a clipboard with storage, my casual reading and a set of fine tip markers for brainstorming. The clipboard serves as a convenient writing surface when I want to work on my novel or other writing projects.

The last bag is the biggest bag Land’s End sells. I put all the other bags and my iPad into it, and I am ready to go no matter which muse should strike.

The only problem I have at the moment is the weight, but for now it’s worth it.

Solemn Man

Do you miss your Mommy?

She was mummyfried to make a point.

Teasus! I want to begotten.

Heart fooly recored,

Wail song,

These beautiful airs of god.

Real Bodies

The new trend toward including larger bodies in magazines, catalogs and store manikins takes so much stress out of shopping. I want to high five the manikins in the store. I love the feeling that I am beautiful too. The greater variety and kinds of clothes available for larger women is a plus too. Everyone wants what is on the model and now everyone can have it. 
 

Work in Progress

 

My fellow cross stitch enthusiasts would say that this is my WIP. I wouldn’t know anything about such hip jargon if it weren’t for a return to cross stitching and Floss Tube. I liked cross stitching a lot when was young, but children and cross stitch do not belong together so after long thought I kept the kids. 

In any case, I went back to stitching and I have finished two projects, a panda and a sea scene. I am a “monogamous stitcher” which means I only work on one project at a time. It also means I should finish things faster, but I usually only manage one or two “strings” a day.

I’m about halfway through my current project which is from Emma Congden’s pattern book, Cross Stitch for the Soul. I chose this nautical saying so that I could start a collection for a beach wall, but the soul improving properties of my daily stringy meditation is taking affect. It comes to mind readily when I face difficulties. Sometimes the pattern is the difficulty. I have made so many mistakes, but I’ve decide to stitch on instead of “frogging” the mistakes out and doing it over.

If you’re looking for a hobby, cross stitch is fun and cheap. Check it out on You Tube. It’s a huge and fun community.

All By Myself

 That is an empty, Double-Stuff, family-sized carton. I am proud to say I ate them all myself, and even prouder to say they were a little stale at the end! I’ve been conducting some experiments in changing how I eat, why I eat and eventually what I eat. I’m making progress as the surprising evidence shows. I had great ideas that I worked on periodically, but they all failed until I discovered and adopted Bullet Journaling. I will probably make a post about Bullet Journaling on its own, but for now I suggest you google it. There are great websites, You Tube videos and books—particularly those by Ryder Carrol who invented the whole thing.

Bullet Journaling made my behavior patterns visible, measurable and changeable. I have markers and stickers and a list of rewards I hope to earn with my new behavior, but my favorite change is wearing a new size. Oreos were a good place to study my eating habits because they are so deeply engrained and touch so many aspects of my life. Before I couldn’t leave a box of Oreos alone. They are tied to so many little moments of happiness that letting them pass or not fully enjoying them was very difficult. The more I am learning about what reasonable calorie choices are the more I am happy with two Oreos instead of the perfect four. My kids might trash a box in a few hours, but Nabisco will make more. I do think realizing that this was not the last Oreo I was ever going to eat makes not eating Oreos easier. These are some of the little lessons that are changing my thinking. It’s good to say “to a reasonable level” instead of “no” or “yes”.

Apollo

eye saw this thing about you

cannot remember when

“say it” cannot be wanted

know I’ve been your friend

too quiet with all this keeping

yew is a hard bow to bend