We lingered in the 50s throughout April cold, damp April showers, never once creeping into the 60s, and precious few sunny days. We’ve started seeing the promised May flowers and temperatures in the upper 80s.
Violets in time for Mother’s Day bouquets
Plants are starting to go into the garden spaces. We set up new planter beds up on the deck for herbs, finally replacing the smaller pots we lost in the 2020 August Derecho.
My tennis elbow persists, and it’s time to start the drastic measures. I went for a cortisone shot last week.
My doctor put me on light stretching and no repetitive activity. That takes out both knitting and crocheting, which I find inconvenient. Yarncrafting soothes the artist in my soul.
I need to schedule physical therapy again to continue working on this.
Or, if you’re patient, perhaps your preference is dandelions for wine.
Instead of picking up yarn and my hooks or needles, I’m using this gift of time to focus on building up my writing portfolio.
I’m also enjoying the perennials as they begin to bloom in my front garden. The early daffodils are almost gone, but the late spring daffies have taken their place. They’re blooming in abundance.
I think this is the most I’ve seen my white daffodils blooming.
Given it’s supposed to be in the 90s on Wednesday and Thursday of this week, I need to enjoy them before the heat gets them.
My reading list is coming along well for the month. I finished up An African American and Latinx History of the United States today, leaving two full weeks to finish The Conjurer, which shouldn’t take anywhere near that long.
Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick – Zora Neale Hurston Status: Finished
Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Man – Emmanuel Acho Status: Finished
An African American and Latinx History of the United States – Paul Ortiz Status: Finished
The Witch’s Book of Self-Care: Magical Ways to Pamper, Soothe, and Care for Your Body and Spirit – by Arin Murphy-Hiscock Status: Finished
Added: The Self-Care Prescription by Robyn L Gobin, Ph.D. Status: Finished
The Conjurer – Luanne G. Smith Status: Not Started
I wonder if anyone would be interested in my impressions of the books. I hadn’t intended to do reviews of any of the books I read, but if someone said they were interested I could do that.
I’m progressing along well on my cardigan, but I’m not sure if I will quite finish before the end of the month. I cast off the body on Friday and started the first sleeve on Saturday, but there’s still another sleeve to finish, ends to weave in, and buttons to sew on before it’s really done. If I continue to make good progress, I think it might be possible to finish by the end of the month.
I’ve tried the sweater on in progress and I’m happy with the fit of it thus far. This will be the fourth sweater I’ve ever knit for myself, and only the second that’s really fit the way I wanted. I think that’s knitting progress.
February’s Theme is self-care and I have to admit that I’m still struggling to build a self-care practice. Any kind of self-care practice. Everything gets put ahead of it for everyone else but me.
The thing is, I’m not just tired anymore. I’m exhausted. Depleted. Overwhelmed.
I’m tired from feeling like I’m not connecting at work, and I’m not connected to my work at this time. I’m still looking at derecho damage we couldn’t get repaired yet. I feel like I never have any privacy at home due to always having a guest around. I’m sick of the pandemic and never feeling like I can get out or go anywhere.
Maybe I need to go further and just turn off everything for a bit until I can build back balance.
Yes, I still am knitting. I’m loving this Walnut Heather yarn. It’s not black as my soul, but it is a perfectly lovely shade of dead tree. The bead on the bottom progress keeper is a little skull, but they’ve turned the wrong way. They must be shy.
I had intended to blog more about creativity as my theme for the year, but January found me with time challenges no plan to address them. Instead I focused on knitting, finishing the books on my reading plan, and reading for pleasure.
I finished the following books in January:
Pines – Blake Crouch
Wayward – Blake Crouch
The Last Town – Blake Crouch
Lovecraft Country – Matt Ruff
The Accidental Creative – Todd Henry
Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View – by Renée Ahdieh, Meg Cabot, et al.
Meditations – Marcus Aurelius (Original Translation)
Star Trek Picard: The Last Best Hope – Una McCormack
The Practice – Seth Godin
I picked The Accidental Creative as part of my theme of Creativity. I moved the Practice forward from where I originally scheduled it because it seemed a good partner to The Accidental Creative.
I try to read intentionally, at least in part. In January, Meditations was my intentional, educational read. I try to include a few of these each year, to keep my mind learning.
Some of my reads are purely for joy. The Pines series proved to be one of those reads. Star Trek and Star Wars are two of my loves, so I new they’d be easy and enjoyable.
I always take recommendations from friends to heart. Lovecraft Country was recommended by a friend who passed away two days after recommending it to me. Finishing it proved bittersweet because I’d already started it and was looking forward to talking to him about how much I liked it when I heard he was gone. It will forever be the book that I won’t get to talk to CH about.
February is Black history month and my personal theme is self-care. My plans for the month include getting my writing schedule under control, scheduling time for fitness and relaxation, and fully outlining my current writing project.
I’ve pulled the following books to the top of my virtual and digital to be read (TBR) piles:
Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick – Zora Neale Hurston
Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Man – Emmanuel Acho
An African American and Latinx History of the United States – Paul Ortiz
The Witch’s Book of Self-Care: Magical Ways to Pamper, Soothe, and Care for Your Body and Spirit – by Arin Murphy-Hiscock
The Conjurer – Luanne G. Smith
My educational book is the Paul Ortiz An An African American and Latinx History of the United States. It’s been in my TBR pile for a little bit now, and it seemed like a topical read for Black History Month.
The Zora Neale Hurston book is a collection of her short stories. It was recommended by a friend as a stunning example of short stories and has been in my TBR pile for a while now, so I’m looking forward to taking the time to read it.
I bought Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man because I’ve enjoyed and been challenged by Emmanuel Acho’s youtube series of the same name. It’s probably not going to be How to be an Anti Racist, but that doesn’t make it any less worthwhile to read.
The Witch’s Book of Self-Care fills the “theme of the month” spot. It’s a Kindle Unlimited read, which is part of why I picked it. I’ve already started it and I can tell it’s a little outside of my comfort zone, but I’m still hoping to learn something from it.
The Conjurer is the latest in the Vine Witch series of romances. It’s pure indulgence. A little Valentine’s Day fun never hurt anyone, right?
If all goes to plan, I’ll finish my cardigan this month, too.
I call this project Vector to Halloween. I started with the Vector pattern by Tanis Lavallée, but I’m striping it every two rows with yarn from Stitch Together Studio‘s 2020 Halloween advent calendar. Laying it on the table and photographing it this way, turned the stripes into a horizon of its own.
I threw my back out on Thursday badly enough that I went to the clinic on Friday morning to get checked out. A prescription and some instructions for physical therapy later, and my schedule for creativity has been slightly derailed.
