Archives for June 2008

Pictures of my finished Storyteller Stole

June 30, 2008 by Susanne 8 Comments

So, today the sun was shining again, and I finally managed to take picture of the finished stole. It only took me ten days… (I wrote aboug the stole and it’s transformation in another post. That’s where those of you who want to know can also find the information about pattern and yarn.)

I found the pattern when I followed a link to the Hanami stole I had seen on somebody else’s blog. It’s by the same designer. The swirls and ornaments appealed to me instantly. I wanted to knit this stole for myself.

It’s called Scheherazade, and I thought of mine as my storyteller stole. Telling stories seems to be more important to me than I have recognized in the past. So this stole became a symbol to me.

While knitting I imagined myself on stage, singing, and wearing it. Not very practical, but then.

Of course it’s a writing talisman too

I wanted to write about last weekend for the whole week

June 27, 2008 by Susanne 6 Comments

Sorry, for leaving you hanging with the promise of a picture before disappearing. (In my last post I promised a picture of a finished stole.)There has been a lot of teaching this week which is good but a bit time-consuming, the weather has been a bit crazy so that every time I had the time to take a picture it was raining (in between the rain it was blazingly hot), and then, in the evenings, I absolutely had to watch soccer, of course. You know, the German national team has reached the finale of the Euro 2008. I’m not much into soccer otherwise but these games are really exciting.

Apart from that there’s the usual craziness that is June and July, kindergarten summer party tomorrow for which I spent one morning cutting out cardboard squares and attaching pieces of string to them while the other mothers talked about how disappointed they are that there kindergardeners are neither interested in playing tennis nor golf. I reminded myself that this was a good networking opportunity and told everybody that I’m teaching voice, guitar, piano, and recorder. I don’t know if I left a favorable impression though, I was un-showered, and without make-up since I planned to work-out later that day like every morning, and somehow these mothers and I never clicked. For the party I will have to bring the cucumber salad, and I volunteered to supervise the “Sackhüpfen” (sack race).

I also volunteered (I don’t know what has gotten me, I’m not the volunteering kind, usually) to scan the kindergarten group photo and photoshop something on it before having it printed on tees as gifts for the kindergarten teachers.

I wanted to write an elaborate post about the things I do for my son but then, here you have it in a nutshell: I hang with people that feel like aliens to me, I spend my time and energy on things I find boring and confusing, and I’m smiling all the time while I do it. I’m secretly hoping that it will rain tomorrow, though because then there will be the play, and the buffet but no sack race.

Last weekend I spent a most enjoyable day, and I have thought about the fact that I spent the best portion of that day all alone for the whole week. I feel seriously unsocial. I thought I’d spend a whole weekend bonding with my son, well, either that or arguing with him the whole time, because my husband was visiting a friend, and then, what happened was that my mother-in-law knocked at the door in the morning because she wanted to take my son to the museum. Off they went and suddenly I had a day to myself at home. I know myself and so I was certain I’d spend the day surfing the net, eating too much, and feeling terrible afterwards.

Instead I pulled out the sewing machine, and spend five hours on it, barely stopping to pee and drink tea. I even skipped lunch. I made myself a new knitting bag because I was coveting the Charming Handbag from Amy Karol’s book “Bend-the-Rules Sewing”, and also I was sick of the way my lace knitting in its plastic bag looked on the kitchen bench all the time. If you want to see hundreds of these bags, you can click here.

This is how the bag hangs int he kitchen when not in use.

I made the bag bigger by enlarging the template by 150%, I put a pocket in that is big enough to hold my lace charts (which makes the bag quite stiff), I lengthened the handles so that I can put them over my shoulder, and I added a button closure and a loop through which I can thread the yarn. If I were making it again I’d make the handles broader, and maybe use facing on them. Also I find that I really like bags that can be zipped up. I tend to lose things from open bags. Which is not an issue with this one as it’s destined to wander from kitchen to TV, to backyard, and back only.

Bag from the outside. (The color is truer to life in the picture above.)

Interior view. (Sorry for the bad pictures, every time I pick the camera up it starts to get cloudy or rains.)

I also finished reading “Spook Country”, and I enjoyed it so much that I promptly started reading “Pattern Recognition” for the second time. Sometimes I forget how much I love William Gibson’s books, and they keep getting better and better. Also I knit something like 130 rows of the Mystic Meadows stole since Friday. It is getting into that state where it’s annoying me for not being finished yet because I want to cast on for the next two shawls. So I’m trying this new tactic of not starting something new but taking that “being annoyed, and a bit bored”-energy to finish something first. Which leads me to furiously knitting lace while watching soccer. Which isn’t recommended usually, especially for beginning lace knitters.

So, how was your weekend? Wait. It’s already the next weekend, isn’t it? Any plans?

Transformation

June 20, 2008 by Susanne 6 Comments

September 09, 2007: Downloaded pattern for Scheherazade Stole.

November 30, 2007: Wollmeise Lace-Yarn in “Campari Orange” arrived.

March 31, 2008: After ten days work.

June 17, 2008: Blocking

I have to keep you in suspense for the final result because I was to busy to take a picture today. But I promise one soon.

I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up

June 20, 2008 by Susanne 6 Comments

Of course I thought I would have it all figured out by now. And I do have a job. A job I happen to like. But then, I always seem to get restless after a while. I have already written about how I feel like I’m pulled in several directions at once, how the things I like doing just don’t go together that well.

Which reminds me that I had promised you a post about the things I like. I have been thinking about it for weeks now but all I can come up with is “Raindrops on roses, and warm woolen mittens, …” (and I just found that I misquoted it, I’m horrible at remembering song lyrics) Every time I try to write a list of things I like I end up with something like this, and it feels totally arbitrary.

So. I’m almost 41 now, and I keep thinking about what to do with my life, where it’s headed, and I still don’t know. Music is important, I now know this, because without music I get depressive. Sometimes I also get depressive with music but without it I always do. I know that I want to sing more, and make up songs, and improvise, and that I want to perform again. I only don’t know how or where or when or with whom. And I find that it feels a bit pointless to hum to myself at home, and so I bought myself a new recording thingie that is sitting on my desk and gathers dust. (I actually recorded something and started to write a post about this at the end of, um, April. Well.)

Last year I had this feeling that I should become a tarot reader. I bought tons of books, and three more decks of tarot cards, bought a spiral notebook, and started learning the meaning of two tarot cards each day. For about a week or two. Because while I enjoy pulling cards and doing readings for people with the oracle cards that I have, I never can remember the meanings of the cards. I always have to look them up. And while I feel pretty good about drawing cards for people it then occurred to me that people might want to know about serious life-issues, and I didn’t feel up to the task. Also, learning while I go along might work for the things I usually teach and do but for this I felt that I needed a better foundation. I haven’t abandoned the thought, though, it’s just one of the things that is swirling around in my mind.

Then there’s the knitting. It has become quite important to me again over the past year (which you might have noticed), and so I started thinking along the lines of, “Maybe I should teach knitting classes.” or design knitting patterns again and see where that leads me. That’s my latest spleen, and so I have started drafting a plan for knitting classes, and have run into my old obstacle of not being able to promote myself. I just can’t do it. I have all these plans, and enthusiasm, and I know people would love the classes but when I put it all to paper it becomes stiff and hollow and brittle. My husband has been going over my draft to help me, and now it’s up to me again.

Then, the designing. As I have said before, having ideas is never the problem for me. (And I thank God for that.) As soon as I decided that I wanted to design something there were a few ideas popping up. I even bought yarn, and I have thought about them constantly. Now all I need is a couple of days to really do something. And, most important of all, I need some space in my head for that.

Just in case you’re wondering why I, all of a sudden, think that I can design knitting patterns, well, back in the eighties when I lived in a small town I pretty much made up all my own patterns. Not always successful but then, these days, I actually knit gauge swatches and such, and on top of that I’m totally willing to rip everything back until it looks like I want it to. The only thing I’m a bit nervous about is that in the eighties sweaters were just rectangles, and these days they are supposed to fit a bit more tightly. On the other hand, from what I see these days, baggy sweaters might be back again soon. And designing fitting sweaters only means doing a bit more math. Which, strangely enough, is not a problem, it only takes a bit more time.

I also would like to teach creativity, and work as a coach but I have this feeling that I need to grow a bit before doing that. The other thing I’d like to do is improvised music. So I’m planning to teach circle singing, and waiting for the opportunity to improvise with others.

Then there’s the writing. I like doing it but I still have to read my two NaNoWriMo-novels. (That still sounds weird, my two novels. Lately someone asked me what I had been doing, and when I told her “I have been writing more, there’s the blog, and I have written first drafts of two novels and a screen play.” it sounded really weird to me. But then, it’s true nonetheless. It won’t do me any good, though, until I do something with what I have.)

I know that this is pretty much the recurrent theme of my blog, my lack of focus on just one thing. So, I have decided that I’m unable to do just one thing, and go in all directions at once. Which is fine, only now all these things in my head keep canceling each other out. Where to start? I start each day with a plan to do one of the important things, like, “Today I’ll be working on my concept for knitting classes!” then procrastination happens, or housework, or blog reading, or exercise, or family, and soon it’s “I’ll do it on the weekend when I’ll be having more time.” (That one’s always good for a laugh.), and so the weeks go by one after the other.

So, this, of course, will be the weekend when I will be:

Doing some extra thing with my son like going to the zoo, or riding our bikes.
Sew a dress, and about three bags.
Knit about 250 rows on Mystic Meadows.
Clean the house.
Do all the laundry.
Design and knit a pair of socks and a men’s sweater.
Finish my plan for knitting lessons, write a CV to go with it, take a new picture of myself, write accompanying letter, and mail it off.
Sleep for at least eight hours straight each night.
Cook something not fast food-like.
Read half of “Shadowplay”, “The Mindful Way through Depression”, a third of “Spook Country”, “Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames”, and re-read “Mindful Knitting: Inviting Contemplative Practice to the Craft”. (I sense a theme here with the self-help books.)
Watch two games of soccer because of the European Championship.
Write my monthly story for the writing group.
Mix the improvisation I recorded.
Record some more.
Write one or two blog posts.
Do yard work. (If you knew me in real life this one would be ROFL-worth funny.)

While I’m at it, I could also teach my son how to swim. Or something.

These are not really my plans for the weekend but then I might have taken on a bit more in my life than I can reasonably do. Do you know anybody who hasn’t? Which of the things should I drop? I know, the answer is housework but my husband doesn’t like doing it all alone. And I don’t blame him. So, any advice? I could quit blog-reading of course but that isn’t really an option, isn’t it?

My “pretend that your a healthy person”-non-diet

June 16, 2008 by Susanne 3 Comments

First, thank you very much for your comments on my post about feeling fat. I responded to some of them, and found that maybe I should write a bit more because so many questions had come up. So, this post is about the things that worked for me in the past when attempting to change my eating habits and lose weight.

As for the question of the bathing suit I have to confess that I exaggerated for dramatic reasons, I actually own a bathing suit that fits me, and has done so through weight loss and gain for years. When I bought it in 1998 or so I weighed about 67 kilos and it fit me even in the first stages of pregnancy until I reached a weight of about 85 kilos. Right now, of course, I hope to be able to fit into my new bikini again though it will certainly be a bit tight this summer.

I have, as probably most women in the first world, a long history of weight gain and loss. I also am still suffering from an eating disorder, namely compulsive overeating, though I’m much better now and still haven’t given up on healing. In fact, that’s my word of the year for this year: healing.

I still believe that it is possible to just eat, and maintain a nice and healthy weight. I don’t believe in diets. They don’t work. I also don’t believe in any diet foods, in avoiding anything; now it’s carbs again, some years ago it was fat, and I’m just now too lazy to figure out which diet craze will have a comeback after the return of the Atkins diet (I know, it’s totally different nowadays, and it’s called low carb. Whatever.)

What I aspire is a life where food, and my looks, and the question of whether I still fit into my jeans aren’t that important. And I know that it can be done. My great role-model in this is Geneen Roth who spent deacdes on the diet-carousel, was anorexic at one point, and nowdays just eats and stays the same size.

Sadly, I’m not one of those people who read a book, get the idea, and then are changed forever. For me, everything I change has to be a practice. I stumble, I fall, I start over, I stumble, I do great, I fall,…

So, without making this into a mega-post, I just give you a list of the things I changed in the past, a list of things that worked.

I learned to love exercise and to do it regularly. I don’t do much, about 15 to 30 minutes every other day. And I do something I like doing. Something that’s easy to fit into my life. Going for walks, doing yoga with a DVD, things like that.
I slept more. In fact that was the change that gave me the most benefit of all. By only changing my bedtime so I got enough sleep, I lost weight. I swear. So now I only have to do that again, ahem.
I ate more real food. I found that there were three main reasons for my binges: a) I was tired, b) I really was hungry but didn’t allow myself to eat something real, and so I ate snacks upon snacks, c) I craved nutrition that I wasn’t getting, like when I’m eating only cookies they will never make me feel satisfied.
I sometimes stayed hungry for a bit. I was eating something like five meals a day before but then I decided that if I get hungry at 11 am, and I’m having lunch at 12, I maybe don’t need a midmorning snack.
I don’t graze. Either I eat or I don’t. No shoving of tiny little things into my mouth.
No food after dinner. Apart from that one piece of chocolate (it’s a big piece of chocolate, don’t worry). I might, occaasionally eat crackers in front of TV but only very occasionally, and not the whole carton.
In the evening I can have either a beer or a piece of chocolate, not both. I altered this rule later so that I’m not allowed alcohol during the week because I became worried about alcoholism in my family, and also about my son seeing me drink beer or wine with every meal, every day. And yes, it does count if you do it after they sleep. I try to model the behaviors I want my son to develop. Not only becausee it’s good for him, it’s good for me too.
I think about my mid-afternoon snack in advance, and buy groceries accordingly. It’s no use to think I’ll skip it, especially on teaching days. I need it, and so there has to be something for me to eat. Mostly I go with a handful or two of nuts and raisins.
Drink enough water. Apart from a cup of black tea in the morning, and those weekend beers, I drink water and unsweetened herbal tea. Somebody asked me about switching to alcohol-free beer. While I occasionally drink that it a) doesn’t taste that good, b) still has much more calories than water or tea, and c) is a very un-natural thing and I try to avoid these as much as possible in food.
I also stopped eating sugar last year, well, mostly and when I do I prefer brown sugar over white. But that had nothing to do with losing weight, I did it because I felt addicted to it. It messes with my feeling of whether I’m hungry or not, it makes me hyper, and I feel better when I don’t eat it. (I feel like a hypocrite typing this since I just had a lovely piece of cake, I’m sitting in a café right now. So, I have cake about once or twice a month. I do better without absolutes. I also savour every bite when I eat something like that. Last year we went out and had ice cream for my birthday. It was a very pleasant experience made more special by being the only ice cream I had all summer.)

To show you how much of a difference these tiny things make, and also the fact that I’m using my bike more often instead of the car and such, I have lost two kilos since the beginning of June. Without suffering, without battle, just like that. I know that you can’t do that always, I’m living proof for that, I’m the one who gained and gained over months despite knowing what to do.

What also helps me is realizing that ultimately it isn’t that important. I could just stay this size forever, and there’d be no harm in this. But also, my life doesn’t end because I don’t eat potato chips every day. There are more important things in life, much more important things, and that’s something I want my son to know not only because I say so but because he sees me living it.

Story of the Month: Elena

June 11, 2008 by Susanne 2 Comments

Every month I’m writing a story as homework for my writing group. And then I post it here:

“You must be so happy!”, her mother exclaimed on the phone. “Must I?”, Elena wondered to herself. Since she knew better than to respond with “Why do you always tell me what to feel?”, she managed an almost convincing “Of course I am!” before she excused herself.
That part, the excuse, had become much easier these days. Interestingly you could have obligations by the dozen, or really valid reasons for something but it seemed that nothing was as valid as saying, “You know, with the baby…”

That seemed to be one of the few things that were easier now. Most things were much more difficult, of course. Before she hadn’t known that one could crave sleep so much. That being hungry could make her that aggressive, or how fiercely she’d protect her baby.

Her baby. It still seemed weird. Like a stranger yet familiar as her own limbs. Clearly a part of her and yet, totally different.
If only the baby would sleep. She looked at the pile of parenting books on her bedside table, next to a gigantic bottle of water, three cartons of nursing pads, and the book she was reading. Well, trying to read. Something not baby-related .

When, before her daughter was born, she had read that it took about eight hours a day to care for a baby, she had laughed inwardly. That couldn’t be true.
What the books didn’t say was that those fictional eight hours were spread out all through the day. Alternating twenty minutes of baby-care with ten minutes off. When she had read that babies slept about eighteen hours a day she didn’t know that she’d have a daughter who never slept more than twenty minutes at a time. At least it felt like she didn’t.

She thought of last night when Mark had carried the wailing infant through their apartment for three hours while she got to sleep with earplugs. That had been the best sleep she’d had in two weeks. Who knew how refreshing three hours of uninterrupted sleep could be? Or that one could be tired enough to doze off while holding a conversation just because the other person didn’t say anything for five seconds? And that one could be resilient enough to hold the baby, feed the baby, burp the baby, rock the baby, change the baby, carry the baby, and go without food, drink, or anything for ages?

That was something at least. Who would have thought she could do that? Despite the fact that she really considered trading the baby for a vacation. Alone. Only her, a comfortable bed, and room service.

Until she was separated from her, if only for an hour, and she missed her, and worried if Mark was treating her right, and then she knew she’d rather die than let anything happen to her.

Maybe that was what her mother meant by being happy? Though her mother didn’t seem capable of feelings that fierce or even remotely passionate. Maybe that first months really became all foggy after a few years and then you only remembered the moment when you held your newborn in your arms, marveling at it, this whole new life that was part of you and your loved one.

But then, that was another one of those lies. The “happiest day of your life”, that was wedding day, wasn’t it? Maybe all these people suffered from amnesia.

Elena remembered everything. The awkwardness of the ceremony, the fight they had the morning before, how everything went utterly chaotic, and how they were really glad when that day was over.

Maybe other people meant something different by “happy”. Maybe those people lived by making up a story in their head of how it should have been, and clung to that for the rest of their lives.

Elena stopped walking through the apartment because little Anna had finally fallen asleep in the sling. She sat down, the baby heavy on her, pulling at the fabric on her shoulders. She had her book right here, next to her favorite chair, tea at the ready, still warm in the thermos. She put up her feet that hurt after walking for almost an hour, inhaled that sweet baby smell, felt the warmth of the sun on her legs, and took a sip of tea, careful not to spill anything on her daughter.

“This is happiness”, she thought, “this moment. Soon I’ll feel uncomfortable again, something will be wrong, but now, this minute, I’m happy.”

She opened her book, looked for where she had stopped reading the night before, and dozed off.