Archives for April 2009

Well, um – hullo?

April 27, 2009 by Susanne 4 Comments

It’s a bit embarrassing to write a blog post when you’re having blogger’s block but then if I don’t start posting again soon I maybe never will.

At first I was relieved that I had pulled the ads from my website so that I no longer am under the obligation to post two or three times a week, then I was tagged and wanted to do that very much but – I didn’t quite know how, and then – it all became a bit ridiculous.

So I have decided to just post anything to tell the few readers that are still hanging here that I’m still alive, everything is well, I don’t seem to be depressed right now (yay!) and life is good. Only a bit busy. Just a moment ago I counted how many students I have and it’s 33. No wonder I have the feeling of less spare time.

Also I have been going to bed on time almost every day, which is wonderful also but cuts into blogging time even more.

Also I don’t use my wifi anymore but the cable connection which means that I spent quite a bit of time knitting in the sun this weekend, without my computer.

So I leave you with pictures of our Easter breakfast (I know that was weeks ago, see how behind I am), and a promise to post again soon.

You can see that we’re more about the food than the decoration in our house. The stuffed bunny always shares breakfast with us, it’s my son’s favorite toy.

Self-baked lactose-free “Osterzopf”.

mindfulness might save my life

April 19, 2009 by Susanne 4 Comments

I wrote this two weeks ago, and never got around to finish it. Well, I’m less depressed right now but busy again, and I need the reminder – so I declare this finished for now:

Last Saturday, when I went to another “day of mindfulness” I had an epiphany, in fact I had several but I won’t write about them all at once. I hope. The epiphany I had was that mindfulness might be the one thing that will save my life.

It’s no secret that I do have a couple of problems, for example just two days ago I told my husband that I really have a problem with my weight, and he said, “You don’t have a problem with your weight, you do have a problem with your eating habits.” Point taken. I’m dealing with depression again, and with hormones, and with depression triggered by hormones, it’s a bag full of fun here. At least I haven’t had an “overdrive”-episode since I started knitting obsessively again. I think.

The realization that cultivating mindfulness is the key to change my unconscious habits is not a new one for me, I have been knowing that for years now. I also have experienced the benefits of being more mindful. It’s only that with my life so busy I keep forgetting to make that a priority. In the drama of everyday life I keep thinking, “I don’t need to sit today, I’ll do it again tomorrow, and anyway, I already know how to do this.”

Well, as with music, knowing this doesn’t really count, you have to keep practicing. And, like with music, it’s not something that you practice for a while, and then you know how to do it, and that’s it for the rest of your life. You have to go back to it over, and over, and over, and over again.

I’m currently reading“The Mindful Way Through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness again. And I’m finding it very, very helpful. Now all I have to do is practice.

“I should be writing more”

April 10, 2009 by Susanne 7 Comments

Every time we have a writer’s group meeting somebody says, “I should be writing more.” Most meetings you will hear that sentence uttered several time over the course of the evening, and sometimes every single one of us will have said it at some point. Yesterday even I said it. Only I said, “I really should be writing more, and I definitely should be making more music because being creative is where my energy and happiness come from.” Also I have this feeling that this is my calling as much as I resent it. But that’s not what I wanted to write about today.

We all have these things that we think we should be doing more of, or that we want to do more of. I bet that each of you has a list like:

write more on my blog,
write more novels,
write more songs,
spend more time with my child/children,
exercise more,
clean the house more,
spend more time with my significant other,
be more happy,
meditate more often,
spend more time with friends,
lose more weight,
spend more time in the garden,
finish more projects
get more sleep

You all know your own “more of”-list.

And now I’m wondering, what is it that I want less of? Because you can’t always put more and more and more into your days. They are quite crowded as they are, aren’t they?

In my case I have this feeling that I already slimmed my life down to the essentials. I can’t really do less. Of course there are quite a few things in there that I don’t like doing but the consequences of not doing them would be quite unpleasant. Taxes, meetings with relatives, kindergarten organizational stuff (I just spent three days looking for my son’s recorder that got lost, for example. Three days of mentally being tied up with a dumb piece of plastic. I’m glad to say that I found it in the end, but still.)

So, most things that I could do less of involve either things that are really necessary, or things that are really pleasant. The only thing I’m sure I want to have less of in my life is procrastination. It takes a lot of my energy and time, and it’s neither pleasant nor necessary. And I might be able to streamline my time at the computer a bit, and my housework and such. But other than that I’m at a loss. I also know that I will be thinking about this for the next few decades so there is no need to rush it.

What’s with you, what do you want more of in your lives, and what do you want less of?

It’s spring so I’m going into hiding

April 8, 2009 by Susanne 1 Comment

I don’t quite know why but this is so completely typical of me. It’s spring outside, marvelous warm weather, plants blooming, sun and color again after months of grayness, and what do I do? Sit inside.

Not even at the computer much, I basically spent my last two days spinning, and listening to audiobooks and podcasts. I’m waiting for Easter break to feel like days off but I have the faint suspicion that by the time I feel like I had free time it will be over.

Of course I had great plans, I wanted to sing, and play the piano, and write a bit more on my beach story, and tomorrow there will be writer’s group meeting again, I wanted to take a bit of time to think about my life, and what I want to change, and I wanted to write about the epiphany I had on Saturday, but all I find myself doing is things that don’t require me thinking, quiet things, restful things.

In a way I feel like I need a year off from everything but I really hope that I will feel better after a few weeks of sleeping enough and going for walks, and getting into meditation again.

I feel the need to apologize that I don’t read your blogs, or twitters, that I don’t answer letters, or phone calls, or e-mails. That I haven’t opened twitter the whole day.

I also haven’t done the monthly or yearly taxes, haven’t vacuumed or cleaned the bathrooms, I haven’t made the best of fair spring weather, haven’t gotten groceries for Easter, and can’t be bothered to look up the ingredients for our traditional Easter bread.

While I’m tired I have been good with sleeping, every day since April 1st I have slept eight hours or more. Except for the night my son was sick.

Life is good, my son is calming down a bit, my husband is happily recording drums to new songs, and tomorrow we will make pizza from scratch.

So, the only thing I have to show for the past days (and weeks and weeks before) is this:

And then I went to a spinner’s meeting and then was now

April 3, 2009 by Susanne 1 Comment

The last week somehow slipped through my fingers like nothing. First my son had the ear infection, I went to a meeting of kindergarten mothers, my son was well enough to go to kindergarten again, I went to a spinner’s meeting, turned my head, my son woke me up in the night wailing, “Mama, I have to puuke!”, and then was now.

The good news: my son obviously got sick only because he ate way too much yesterday. They had their Easter party in kindergarten. Of course. Right in the middle of Lent. (You can’t see me so you have to imagine me shaking my head.)

Anyway, the meeting. I had been a bit discontent with my spinning. I thought I was doing something wrong, the yarn doesn’t turn out as I want it, my wheel is making noises, I wasn’t getting anywhere, still trying to fill the same bobbin as in August, and so on. So when I heard that there would be a spinning wheel workshop at the first German raveler meeting in September, of course, my first thought was, “That’s great! I’ll take my spinning wheel.” Grand idea. My second thought, of course, was, “Are you crazy? Do you really want to schlep your wheel with you, on a four hour train journey to a meeting where you’ll teach two knitting workshops?” Um, no?

But meeting other spinners, preferably more experienced ones seemed like a good idea. Since I’m living near M.u.n.i.c.h I can find pretty any kind of group or meeting within a reasonable distance. So I turned to the internet which told me that there are two options nearby, one group is meeting regularly and is hard to reach, and one is meeting roughly every six weeks or so in Tutzing. And they had a meeting last Sunday. So I talked the whole thing through with my husband (“Do you really have to dash off all the time like a madwoman? Well, if you really must but I still want to be able to work on my music that day.”), then with my mother-in-law (“Could you please care for my son that Sunday because I’m going to a spinner’s meeting and my husband wants to work on his music?”), and everything went well and I decided to go.

Next came my usual bout of worrying and planning and writing lists: where’s the meeting, how do I get there, do I take the train or the car, when I take the train do I take my spinning wheel or only the spindles, what to take, what to wear, where to go, what to pack. In the end, unsurprisingly, I took the train because I’d rather spend 45 minutes knitting and listening to podcasts on a train than 40 minutes listening to the stupid radio while driving and getting angry about all the other stupid drivers out there.

Of course it was raining. And though my spinning wheel is quite small it is way too big for any of my bags or backpacks. I contemplated making a spinning wheel bag but thought that five days full of work with a sick child at home might mean that maybe the bag would not have been ready on time.

I spent the whole morning packing, putting fiber, and more fiber and all my spindles, and my three spinning books, and the last two issues of spin-off magazine, and cookies, and tea, and my ipod, and my “take with me”-knitting, and a screwdriver, and an allen wrench, and spinning wheel oil, and two different whorls and drive bands, and everything but the kitchen sink into a backpack, got totally confused because it was the first day of daylight savings time, and went off.

Everything went surprisingly well, the wheel is light and small and easy to carry (though I’d still like to have a bag for it). At the station I was met by two other spinners, and one of them even knew the way.

At first I felt a bit weird because I didn’t know anybody, and everybody else was excited to meet each other again but that’s always the same when you’re the new one in an established group. There were about eight people, most brought their spinning wheels, one even brought a drum carder. I got to see some wheels in person that I had only seen in pictures before, like the Tom Triskel, a Lendrum, and an Ashford Joy. I totally fell in love with the joy, it’s a folding wheel, it’s very cute, and it uses the same bobbins like my wheel. I’d love to have a travel wheel. And, of course, I totally need one, I already left the house with my wheel once. But then I’m forever judging spinning wheels by their appearance which is why I feel an urgent need to own a Schacht Ladybug.

The reason why I’m thinking about other spinning wheels is that I was discontent with my nice Kiwi. It seemed hard to treadle, I felt like it was yanking the yarn out of my hands, and – most important – it makes noises. Creaking noises. Wooden noises. A regular rhythmic “nyagh, nyagh, nyagh”-noise. I tend to be quite sensitive to noise. I can’t enjoy spinning when my wheel is loud like that.

That was one reason I went to the meeting. I hoped that somebody could help me with that. And one nice fellow spinner really tried, she even put something on my wheel, only it didn’t help. The interesting thing was, though, that after spinning for two hours or so the creaking stopped. All of a sudden my wheel was silent. Relief! Especially since my wheel was the only one making noises in the whole round of spinners there. Of course it didn’t last, an hour later it started again but at least I know that it doesn’t go on like this forever.

The best part about the meeting for me where the times when we all sat there in a circle, spinning in silence. And I loved the way my bobbin was filling up. At home I never spin for more than twenty minutes at a time. I found that about four hours of concentrated spinning gave me a bobbin almost full. This isn’t only because I’m new to spinning and a bit slow, it’s mostly because I’m spinning quite a fine yarn. I want to do a three-ply for a sweater.

I left a bit early to catch my train back, and managed to be back home in time for dinner. A very pleasant afternoon, more pleasant in retrospect than I realized while I was there. And it’s really nice to meet other spinners, to know that I’m not the only one.

I don’t know when I will go to another meeting, it certainly depends on the date, and on the rest of my life, but it’s good to know that there is such a place to go to.

I found that I’m not very eager to learn something new in spinning right now, or to try other wheels or carding, or techniques. I’m content sitting there and spinning the next 400 grams of merino for my sweater project:

And the next 250 of Wensleydale for a lace stole (on my spindle, I know it’s insane):

The only thing I’d like would be some hand-dyed merino/silk-blend but I’ll wait a bit for that, I don’t want to feel buried under fiber.

So, tomorrow I will be go to a meeting of a different kind, it’s time for mindfulness day again. And then there will be Easter break. With a bit more blogging, I hope.