... a new rotary cutter blade!
It's amazing how much easier cutting patchwork pieces is with a sharp blade. But each time the blade gets nicked, and/or starts to dull I end up persevering with it long past the point that makes sense. Especially when I still have a spare in the cupboard!
Getting hold of replacement blades hasn't always been easy though I have to say. When I first emigrated here I discovered that the brand I have wasn't available here, and the nearest equivalent had a different shaped hole in the middle so couldn't be substituted. So I eeked out the blades I had with me for as long as possible and stocked up on return trips to the UK. Finding new ones is now much easier, not only can you buy just about anything online these days, but the brand I have is now imported. Sure I can't get the ones I want here in Kaitaia, but I go to the main cities often enough to be able to stock up if I don't want to pay postage (and it gives me a good excuse to visit the quilting shops!). But still that mentality of having to make do with a dull blade is a hard one to break (it never once occurred to me to buy another rotary cutter of the brand that was readily available!).
I've read a few articles and listened to an essential oils conference podcast recently that have mentioned inherited emotional DNA, and how emotional trauma is passed on down generations who can find themselves with a seemingly irrational fear of something, or habits like hoarding. The expression 'the fruit never falls far from the tree' has long been used to describe such hereditary traits that science is only just starting to be able to explain. The endless debate of nature vs nurture has developed an additional twist. Is my squeezing every last drop of usefulness out of something even to my own disadvantage due to my many experiences of living within a tight budget? or some deeper ancestral experience of living with a scarcity of resources? With Scottish and Yorkshire ancestry (amongst others) it is perhaps unsurprising that there might be an element of 'short arms and deep pockets' in me; but perhaps those traits are due in turn not to simply being 'tight wi' tha brass' but from a past of shortage, after all both populations are also known for their friendliness and looking after their own which doesn't really stack up with the image of being penny pinching.
A friend of mine has recently been posting on Facebook about her DNA test results which include all manner of health indicators, and as I type my Mum is waiting to get her DNA results which hopefully will tell us more than we already know about our ancestry. So it probably isn't surprising that my mind managed to make the jump between dull blades and DNA! But it also fits in with some work I've been doing on counteracting thinking errors (primarily shoulds/oughts and mind reading!), and this too was echoed in another of the conference podcasts I listened to, often the ability to name an issue goes a long way to being able to deal with it. It is much easier to break a habit that appears to make no sense when you can identify why you do it that way in the first place, once you've identified the thinking error/issue behind it you can start finding a positive way forward instead.
So when my currently nice sharp rotary cutter blade starts to dull I need to remember to tell myself it's more important to change to a sharp one that won't stress me out when trying to use it, rather than dwell on that fact that I didn't used to be able to get a new one easily and so I ought to 'make it last'! Now if I could just get a round blade sharpened I'd be even happier....
Showing posts with label sewing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sewing. Show all posts
Saturday, September 10, 2016
Tuesday, August 30, 2016
a story of life
Well after 5 years and almost 4 months the last of my stuff made it's way from Pukepoto to Kaitaia. I now have my captain's chair in my room, and additionally I now have a new (to me) cabinet that has a drop down cupboard door that acts as a desk. So now when I'm working from home I'm no longer either sitting on my bed or the sofa with my laptop on one of those bed trays that one of Phyllis' sons made for a school project around 50 years ago! Not that I have any plans to relinquish the tray, it's still going to be very handy, but ergonomically it isn't a cunning plan for lengthy use.
It was a bit strange really to bring away that last bit of my stuff, I lived there for four years and a month - so less time than I've been here, yet somehow it feels like it was way longer. Probably as so many big changes went on in my life there. I went from being on a visitor visa, to a student one, to a working towards full registration one, to permanent residency. I bumped into someone I used to see quite often in the years I was living at Pukepoto in the Post Office yesterday, he was posting off new passports for visa stickers to be added and we commiserated over the hold and amount of funds the Immigration has (had for me now!) over our lives. Marking the passage of time by what visa I have held seems perfectly normal. Not that the last five years have been 'samey', I got my citizenship and Kiwi passport whilst living here after all!
I put this photo of the chair and 'desk' on Facebook earlier, quickly downloaded off the camera, with no edits. When I came to put it on here I was about to crop it down, then really took note as to what was around the edges; my 'Triennial mug' on the shelf behind the glass door which has been used for pens etc for probably as many years now as it was used as a mug; my rather faded Guatemalan patchwork bedspread bought in Flores the one time I got to go to visit one of our overseas projects when I worked for an international development charity; my old purple dressing gown which apart from being wonderfully warm and snuggley is a reminder of the importance of being able to wear what you choose (long story...); and the first patchwork quilt I ever made... my first ever patchwork project is the photo too - the cushion cover on the chair was made from a Liberty patchwork kit I got when I was about 11 or 12, it got completed about 10yrs later! So a snapshot not only of the present, but of many chunks of my past, and the journey that led to me being here with them, and once I'd thought about them that way I couldn't bring myself to crop them out.
All too often details round the edges get cut off to improve the aesthetics of a picture, but they can provide a supporting narrative which is easily lost. What to cut out and what to keep.... the decluttering dilemma in a nutshell! As a (very part time) genealogist the idea of keeping things for posterity that tells the story of a people has a huge pull, and very much shaped my hoarding years. But I've learned to let go of 'stuff'; photos of everyday life can tell a lot of a story, without having to keep boxes and boxes of stuff to prove it happened, although I'll certainly be hanging on to my multi-stickered passport for a few years yet! So I'm going to try to remember that when editing photos, sometimes historical value is more important than art! Now if only I could manage to combine the two more effectively...
It was a bit strange really to bring away that last bit of my stuff, I lived there for four years and a month - so less time than I've been here, yet somehow it feels like it was way longer. Probably as so many big changes went on in my life there. I went from being on a visitor visa, to a student one, to a working towards full registration one, to permanent residency. I bumped into someone I used to see quite often in the years I was living at Pukepoto in the Post Office yesterday, he was posting off new passports for visa stickers to be added and we commiserated over the hold and amount of funds the Immigration has (had for me now!) over our lives. Marking the passage of time by what visa I have held seems perfectly normal. Not that the last five years have been 'samey', I got my citizenship and Kiwi passport whilst living here after all!
I put this photo of the chair and 'desk' on Facebook earlier, quickly downloaded off the camera, with no edits. When I came to put it on here I was about to crop it down, then really took note as to what was around the edges; my 'Triennial mug' on the shelf behind the glass door which has been used for pens etc for probably as many years now as it was used as a mug; my rather faded Guatemalan patchwork bedspread bought in Flores the one time I got to go to visit one of our overseas projects when I worked for an international development charity; my old purple dressing gown which apart from being wonderfully warm and snuggley is a reminder of the importance of being able to wear what you choose (long story...); and the first patchwork quilt I ever made... my first ever patchwork project is the photo too - the cushion cover on the chair was made from a Liberty patchwork kit I got when I was about 11 or 12, it got completed about 10yrs later! So a snapshot not only of the present, but of many chunks of my past, and the journey that led to me being here with them, and once I'd thought about them that way I couldn't bring myself to crop them out.
All too often details round the edges get cut off to improve the aesthetics of a picture, but they can provide a supporting narrative which is easily lost. What to cut out and what to keep.... the decluttering dilemma in a nutshell! As a (very part time) genealogist the idea of keeping things for posterity that tells the story of a people has a huge pull, and very much shaped my hoarding years. But I've learned to let go of 'stuff'; photos of everyday life can tell a lot of a story, without having to keep boxes and boxes of stuff to prove it happened, although I'll certainly be hanging on to my multi-stickered passport for a few years yet! So I'm going to try to remember that when editing photos, sometimes historical value is more important than art! Now if only I could manage to combine the two more effectively...
Monday, February 15, 2016
UFOs and Phds....
My name is Anna and I'm a crafter.... mostly sewing, but sewer looks like something the drains empty into and let's not go there! (I don't feel as though I qualify as a seamstress - to me it implies a level of professionalism I don't have)
So why the Alcoholics Anonymous style start? Well if you don't know you're unlikely to be a crafter of any sort! There aren't many who can take up such a past time without a level of addiction creeping in, whether it is collecting the most amazing stash of fabrics, wool, threads, buttons, paper, inkstamps etc. or simply keeping every little last scrap of something 'to use later'. There is no question about whether it might be useful, you already know it will be, and can probably list several examples as to how! Whether you'll ever get round to doing any of them however is an entirely different matter indeed.
I decided ages ago that I wasn't going to buy any new fabric for as long as I could hold out. Re-purposing old clothes etc was fine, but having read a couple of articles about the environmental impact of new cotton I wasn't going to buy anything new when I had such a huge stash already in my cupboards. The theory was this would also help me reduce the size of my stash as I was determined to use what I had already in hand for projects as they came up, another aspect of my downsizing. This was going really well, and I made a plaited rag rug out of a big bag of old clothes for a Christmas present which cleared a considerable amount of space in my cupboard. But then someone saw what I'd made and said longingly how they'd always wanted a rug like that, and they had just the place for it, but they'd prefer different colours.... they'd get around to making one one day. Well when that person is a friend who has done so much for you it is hard to resist the idea of making them one for their birthday, but I don't wear the colours in question very often so don't have the right coloured old t-shirts etc, so a bundle was bought from the Salvation Army 50c box and the gap in my cupboard is full again! At least until I've finished the next rug anyway.
I recently completed my mission to get rid of the plastic in my sewing cupboard - well the boxes and bags the fabric was in anyway, I'm not planning to ditch my quilting ruler and such like in a hurry. The bonus of making fabric bags to hold the stash being I used up some of the aforementioned stash in the process and the bags fit in the cupboard better than boxes etc so I can fit more in. So the pile of material that had been in a bag in front of the cupboard now fit inside it, woo hoo! And that bag could now get repurposed to hold the overlocker which really needed something strong with handles, excellent. But that bag was also my work-in-progress bag, my collection of UnFinished Objects and Projects Half Done which then needed a new home.
One of the PHDs in question was the makings of a fabric basket with a hand pieced patchwork panel that I'd started on just over a year ago. I'd originally intended it to be part of a duvet cover, but then decided the colours didn't really work with what else I had in mind to use. So when various fabric baskets I'd made for presents over the last year or so had proved to be a success I decided I'd incorporate it into one for me. But finishing a project for me has kept falling down the 'to do' list in favour of assorted birthday, Christmas presents etc and had just sat there along with several other similar tasks. So with a new year, and on a mission to clear my backlog of UFOs I got on with it. After all I can't leave a pile of UFOs sitting loose in my room, I'm bound to lose something crucial if that situation lingers!
But you know how it is, good intentions and all that. Well I got sidetracked. But what I got sidetracked by were all the other UFOs and PHDs, who once they were out in the light of day got new life. So now I finally have that new duvet cover and pillowcase made with the other fabrics that the piecework panel didn't work with! A couple of things waiting to be mended have been, a few projects that had only got as far as being a pile of material and a pattern have been put away again until such time as they are actually needed, a pair of old silk trousers has been repurposed into a summer nightie, and a fabric 'bucket' has been finished and found a use for (the original intended recipient having long since got something different for their birthday!). And now I'm back to my task basket and it is almost completed, with only a couple of UFOs left on the pile to go in it when it is done.
So, my goal is to make those up too before starting anything new, and not to let the pile get so big again. It has been quite rewarding clearing the clutter. A different kind of clutter, but certainly a very visible sort given where the pile usually sits. It has been an insightful process too as I can see how my priorities have changed over the time the UFOs etc had built up, for example several of the projects I simply put away again (having not reached the stage of putting scissors to fabric) were clothes I was planning to make. I probably will make them still, but not until I need them! I've reduced my wardrobe volume considerably in the last 12 months, and I've yet to find myself stuck for something to wear. Others were for 'things' that I don't especially need, but I'd really liked when I'd seen the idea in a magazine or sew4home.com Perhaps they too will get made one day, but not until I have a need for them. It has been reassuring to find I was putting stuff away without feeling as though I was giving anything up or being sacrificial. It just didn't feel like it was important to make those things in the near future, and I probably got just as great a sense of satisfaction in clearing them away as I did from getting the stuff that had been started finished!
It all feels like another step towards proving to myself that Tiny House living is an achievable option. Although when it comes to laying out material to pin on patterns, or pinning the layers of a quilt together I'd still need a big floor space - another reason to live as part of a community with some large communal space!
So why the Alcoholics Anonymous style start? Well if you don't know you're unlikely to be a crafter of any sort! There aren't many who can take up such a past time without a level of addiction creeping in, whether it is collecting the most amazing stash of fabrics, wool, threads, buttons, paper, inkstamps etc. or simply keeping every little last scrap of something 'to use later'. There is no question about whether it might be useful, you already know it will be, and can probably list several examples as to how! Whether you'll ever get round to doing any of them however is an entirely different matter indeed.
I decided ages ago that I wasn't going to buy any new fabric for as long as I could hold out. Re-purposing old clothes etc was fine, but having read a couple of articles about the environmental impact of new cotton I wasn't going to buy anything new when I had such a huge stash already in my cupboards. The theory was this would also help me reduce the size of my stash as I was determined to use what I had already in hand for projects as they came up, another aspect of my downsizing. This was going really well, and I made a plaited rag rug out of a big bag of old clothes for a Christmas present which cleared a considerable amount of space in my cupboard. But then someone saw what I'd made and said longingly how they'd always wanted a rug like that, and they had just the place for it, but they'd prefer different colours.... they'd get around to making one one day. Well when that person is a friend who has done so much for you it is hard to resist the idea of making them one for their birthday, but I don't wear the colours in question very often so don't have the right coloured old t-shirts etc, so a bundle was bought from the Salvation Army 50c box and the gap in my cupboard is full again! At least until I've finished the next rug anyway.
I recently completed my mission to get rid of the plastic in my sewing cupboard - well the boxes and bags the fabric was in anyway, I'm not planning to ditch my quilting ruler and such like in a hurry. The bonus of making fabric bags to hold the stash being I used up some of the aforementioned stash in the process and the bags fit in the cupboard better than boxes etc so I can fit more in. So the pile of material that had been in a bag in front of the cupboard now fit inside it, woo hoo! And that bag could now get repurposed to hold the overlocker which really needed something strong with handles, excellent. But that bag was also my work-in-progress bag, my collection of UnFinished Objects and Projects Half Done which then needed a new home.
One of the PHDs in question was the makings of a fabric basket with a hand pieced patchwork panel that I'd started on just over a year ago. I'd originally intended it to be part of a duvet cover, but then decided the colours didn't really work with what else I had in mind to use. So when various fabric baskets I'd made for presents over the last year or so had proved to be a success I decided I'd incorporate it into one for me. But finishing a project for me has kept falling down the 'to do' list in favour of assorted birthday, Christmas presents etc and had just sat there along with several other similar tasks. So with a new year, and on a mission to clear my backlog of UFOs I got on with it. After all I can't leave a pile of UFOs sitting loose in my room, I'm bound to lose something crucial if that situation lingers!
But you know how it is, good intentions and all that. Well I got sidetracked. But what I got sidetracked by were all the other UFOs and PHDs, who once they were out in the light of day got new life. So now I finally have that new duvet cover and pillowcase made with the other fabrics that the piecework panel didn't work with! A couple of things waiting to be mended have been, a few projects that had only got as far as being a pile of material and a pattern have been put away again until such time as they are actually needed, a pair of old silk trousers has been repurposed into a summer nightie, and a fabric 'bucket' has been finished and found a use for (the original intended recipient having long since got something different for their birthday!). And now I'm back to my task basket and it is almost completed, with only a couple of UFOs left on the pile to go in it when it is done.
So, my goal is to make those up too before starting anything new, and not to let the pile get so big again. It has been quite rewarding clearing the clutter. A different kind of clutter, but certainly a very visible sort given where the pile usually sits. It has been an insightful process too as I can see how my priorities have changed over the time the UFOs etc had built up, for example several of the projects I simply put away again (having not reached the stage of putting scissors to fabric) were clothes I was planning to make. I probably will make them still, but not until I need them! I've reduced my wardrobe volume considerably in the last 12 months, and I've yet to find myself stuck for something to wear. Others were for 'things' that I don't especially need, but I'd really liked when I'd seen the idea in a magazine or sew4home.com Perhaps they too will get made one day, but not until I have a need for them. It has been reassuring to find I was putting stuff away without feeling as though I was giving anything up or being sacrificial. It just didn't feel like it was important to make those things in the near future, and I probably got just as great a sense of satisfaction in clearing them away as I did from getting the stuff that had been started finished!
It all feels like another step towards proving to myself that Tiny House living is an achievable option. Although when it comes to laying out material to pin on patterns, or pinning the layers of a quilt together I'd still need a big floor space - another reason to live as part of a community with some large communal space!
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
progress
I've mentioned before my plan to downsize my stuff with the ultimate aim of fitting it all in my room (bar kitchen items) rather than a sizeable amount of it still being 8km away where I used to live, not to mention the stuff still in Scotland! The latter of which will just have to stay put for now, but the nearer stuff in theory at least is possible to get here, once there is space to put it in.
Slowly but surely I've been plodding away a box, drawer, shelf at a time. Some stuff has gone to op/charity shops, some has been gifted on or added to the EcoCentre Trading Table, some clothing simply reclassified as craft material. Granted reclassifying clothing doesn't get rid of it, yet, but it does take up far less room squashed in a bag of material rather than neatly folded up in a drawer or hung in the wardrobe!
I've finally reached the point where thanks to some hanging shelving I can now fit all my clothes in the wardrobe and get rid of a chest of drawers - they are going to a friend in need of furniture. So soon at last I'll be able to have my 'American Cabinet' here, rather than it sitting in the garage in Pukepoto.
It is a very well travelled piece of furniture. It was a wedding present for my grandparents, who were married in the States in 1930, hence it's name. It was a wireless cabinet, but at some point my Grandad removed the wireless and it took on life as a general cupboard. It always used to smell of Grandad's St Bruno tobacco, and as it was where the dominoes and playing cards were kept it was a cupboard I knew well as a child. They moved up and down England and Scotland with it, as I did I, and then finally it came here in 2007, two years after I did. Hopefully it has forgiven me the +2yrs it spent in storage as I got it refurbished once it had reached Auckland.
It is an awkward size and shape, and not the most practical piece of furniture, but no matter what else I might manage to part with in my mission to at least potentially fit into a Tiny House, the cabinet will hopefully manage to stay with me. In my various doodlings of possible floor plans there has always had to be a space for the cabinet along with the Captain's swivel chair, which is also still in Pukepoto. If I can fit other things in too then great, but currently the bottom line of downsizing definitely still includes both of those, I'm hanging on to them 'as long as (I) canst'!
I've now also completed my second photobook - this time my complete set of Yorkshire Friends Holiday School photos from 1986, '88 and '89. Of course now I need to figure out what to do with the photos! I've posted an appeal on the YFHS Facebook page and hopefully someone will want them - a set of the scans is already in the HS archives. I've been slowly re-homing some of my YFCC photos from '87 & '88 (as far as I've got so far!) sending wee bundles off with letters to F/Friends who are in them. It is nice to be writing real letters again, they were such a huge feature of my life back then that it seems appropriate. Tracking down postal addresses (preferably without asking the intended recipient) has been interesting though - I hadn't realized just how many people I don't even have an email address for these days, I always use Facebook to contact them!
So the next step is collect a couple more boxes along with the cabinet. You never know, I might actually manage to reach my goal before I have a deadline of having to move hanging over me! Yeah right...
Slowly but surely I've been plodding away a box, drawer, shelf at a time. Some stuff has gone to op/charity shops, some has been gifted on or added to the EcoCentre Trading Table, some clothing simply reclassified as craft material. Granted reclassifying clothing doesn't get rid of it, yet, but it does take up far less room squashed in a bag of material rather than neatly folded up in a drawer or hung in the wardrobe!
I've finally reached the point where thanks to some hanging shelving I can now fit all my clothes in the wardrobe and get rid of a chest of drawers - they are going to a friend in need of furniture. So soon at last I'll be able to have my 'American Cabinet' here, rather than it sitting in the garage in Pukepoto.
It is a very well travelled piece of furniture. It was a wedding present for my grandparents, who were married in the States in 1930, hence it's name. It was a wireless cabinet, but at some point my Grandad removed the wireless and it took on life as a general cupboard. It always used to smell of Grandad's St Bruno tobacco, and as it was where the dominoes and playing cards were kept it was a cupboard I knew well as a child. They moved up and down England and Scotland with it, as I did I, and then finally it came here in 2007, two years after I did. Hopefully it has forgiven me the +2yrs it spent in storage as I got it refurbished once it had reached Auckland.
It is an awkward size and shape, and not the most practical piece of furniture, but no matter what else I might manage to part with in my mission to at least potentially fit into a Tiny House, the cabinet will hopefully manage to stay with me. In my various doodlings of possible floor plans there has always had to be a space for the cabinet along with the Captain's swivel chair, which is also still in Pukepoto. If I can fit other things in too then great, but currently the bottom line of downsizing definitely still includes both of those, I'm hanging on to them 'as long as (I) canst'!
I've now also completed my second photobook - this time my complete set of Yorkshire Friends Holiday School photos from 1986, '88 and '89. Of course now I need to figure out what to do with the photos! I've posted an appeal on the YFHS Facebook page and hopefully someone will want them - a set of the scans is already in the HS archives. I've been slowly re-homing some of my YFCC photos from '87 & '88 (as far as I've got so far!) sending wee bundles off with letters to F/Friends who are in them. It is nice to be writing real letters again, they were such a huge feature of my life back then that it seems appropriate. Tracking down postal addresses (preferably without asking the intended recipient) has been interesting though - I hadn't realized just how many people I don't even have an email address for these days, I always use Facebook to contact them!
So the next step is collect a couple more boxes along with the cabinet. You never know, I might actually manage to reach my goal before I have a deadline of having to move hanging over me! Yeah right...
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
wibbley wobbley timey wimey stuff
How did it get to the be the end of June already??? The obvious answer is one day at a time, but I'm sure weeks disappear when I'm not looking these days. I'm not sure if it is yet another fibromyalgia quirk or simply old age, but my sense of time has never been quite so abysmal as it is at the moment. Not only has my 'within five minutes maximum' sense of clock time gone completely out the window, but I'm forever being caught out by things suddenly being next week (or worse, last week!) when I was quite sure they were ages away still.
Okay so my lousy track record of getting birthday presents to arrive on time does not back me up in terms of evidence of once having had a good sense of where I am in the month. But that hasn't been though lack of awareness of the impending birthdays arrival, just my inability to get things in the post at the right time. Just to prove how fickle life can be though I successfully got two birthday presents to arrive bang on time this year that have historically arrived late on a regular basis - but that was due to luck more than anything else!
I regularly find that things I thought were a couple of days or so ago were actually over a week ago, especially things like how long it was since I last took my turn in Lexulous games or when an email came in. I suppose it hasn't been helped by having had a few weeks a bit shorter on energy where the amount I can do in a day shrinks somewhat.
Given the lack of energy I've spent quite a bit of time over the last few weeks working my way through the Dr Who back catalogue (2005 onwards) whilst handquilting. It has been interesting pondering on the complexities of living through the same events as someone else but in a different order (as per the Doctor and River Song). I've also been following conversations in a Facebook support group about CFS/ME/Fibromyalgia etc about various symptoms people have had - many of us have the same diagnosis but experience symptoms in many different orders and combinations. It isn't a linear condition, it goes round and round, and up and down with no apparent reason. On the plus side it means that you won't necessarily get any worse than you have been before, but then again just because things are improving doesn't mean symptoms won't come back, or that something else won't turn up instead.
There is also the issue of trying to remember that whilst today might be a good day, making the most of it and running round doing all the things you can squeeze in whilst you have some energy isn't that great an idea as it'll most likely come back to haunt you. Possibly tomorrow, or the next day, or next week even. It's like the condition itself doesn't really have a grasp of how time works in the real world out there, and it too forgets that actually that 3hrs gardening wasn't yesterday after all but three days ago...
Ah well, even if I don't know if I'm coming or going some days at least I know I'm not alone with that, and there's usually someone online who's been there done that already to reassure anyone they aren't losing the plot. And I've still got several seasons of Dr Who to watch :)
Okay so my lousy track record of getting birthday presents to arrive on time does not back me up in terms of evidence of once having had a good sense of where I am in the month. But that hasn't been though lack of awareness of the impending birthdays arrival, just my inability to get things in the post at the right time. Just to prove how fickle life can be though I successfully got two birthday presents to arrive bang on time this year that have historically arrived late on a regular basis - but that was due to luck more than anything else!
I regularly find that things I thought were a couple of days or so ago were actually over a week ago, especially things like how long it was since I last took my turn in Lexulous games or when an email came in. I suppose it hasn't been helped by having had a few weeks a bit shorter on energy where the amount I can do in a day shrinks somewhat.
Given the lack of energy I've spent quite a bit of time over the last few weeks working my way through the Dr Who back catalogue (2005 onwards) whilst handquilting. It has been interesting pondering on the complexities of living through the same events as someone else but in a different order (as per the Doctor and River Song). I've also been following conversations in a Facebook support group about CFS/ME/Fibromyalgia etc about various symptoms people have had - many of us have the same diagnosis but experience symptoms in many different orders and combinations. It isn't a linear condition, it goes round and round, and up and down with no apparent reason. On the plus side it means that you won't necessarily get any worse than you have been before, but then again just because things are improving doesn't mean symptoms won't come back, or that something else won't turn up instead.
There is also the issue of trying to remember that whilst today might be a good day, making the most of it and running round doing all the things you can squeeze in whilst you have some energy isn't that great an idea as it'll most likely come back to haunt you. Possibly tomorrow, or the next day, or next week even. It's like the condition itself doesn't really have a grasp of how time works in the real world out there, and it too forgets that actually that 3hrs gardening wasn't yesterday after all but three days ago...
Ah well, even if I don't know if I'm coming or going some days at least I know I'm not alone with that, and there's usually someone online who's been there done that already to reassure anyone they aren't losing the plot. And I've still got several seasons of Dr Who to watch :)
Tuesday, May 26, 2015
accountability
Earlier today I opened up my blog 'dashboard' amongst other internet tabs as a reminder that the month was slipping past and I really ought to write another post soon. Finishing one of the half written ones would be even better, but a new one would do should the inspiration come along.
It's getting towards the end of my day and I was starting to close down pages and winding things up for the night when I clicked on the blogger page and spotted that Charlotte had written a new post, so I read it, as one does, and realised that there was a certain synchronicity between what she'd written and what I'd been thinking about today. So in a 'think it, do it' burst of energy here's my tuppenceworth.
I'm sure I've mentioned before that for the last couple of years or so I've been aiming to write one blog post a week on average, something I've fallen woefully short of but on the other hand after a run of decidedly lean years my yearly total is better than it had been! Why blog? When I first started blogging I was in the process of emigrating and being Resident Friend in Wellington - both of which provided plenty of material to write about. Since then life has become far more everyday and the things that used to stand out as being new and different, ie Kiwi, are now very much the norm and I struggle to find examples now to explain how things are different from the UK because I've lost track of what isn't said/done there! Generally I'm reminded with a crash and a bang when I go back though.
But anyway, why blog? Part of it replaces the journals I used to write - stream of consciousness stuff that fills a stack of notebooks that at some point I probably ought to ceremoniously burn to protect the innocent. Yeah well not all of that sort of stuff ends up blogged by any means, after all there are libel laws, but aside from it being a way to update friends and family what is going on in my life blogging replaces the personal accountability side of the journalling. It used to feel like once I'd written an idea down it had to be followed through on, or at least attempted. It was a way of recording where my thinking was at on various issues, what progress I made, how many times I went around in circles on something etc. Like my commitment to blogging once a week on average - I'd set that challenge to myself, but once I'd mentioned it in a blog post I felt like I really had to try harder to stick to it!
Today has been a day of little tasks, small steps in various commitments that I've made to myself, some on here, some not yet. If all I manage each month is a record of some of those little steps then I'll feel more accountable for them, it adds an incentive to work at them. However I'm also aware that should I slip and not manage very much for a while (entirely possibly healthwise) it would be very easy to just not blog rather than face the fact that I've not achieved what I think I ought to be able to (and yes that is the subject of the half written blog post I haven't managed to finish yet!), so I have to be prepared to be honest and say I'm having a crap week, but that's okay, they happen. They happen to everyone, but most folk are better at not beating themselves up over it... for me that is work in progress, and hopefully I can record that progress when need be.
So today's small steps: I made some small cloth bags to use for bulk bin goods that I buy from the health food shop. I have some larger ones soaking in a bucket of oxygen whitener - they are old flour bags that are probably older than me! My plan is to give them a new lease of life, once they've been washed... This is all part of my ongoing process of removing unnecessary plastic from my life and gearing up towards this year's Plastic Free July.
I fixed the hem on a towel from the EcoCentre which had come undone in the wash - making things last, and it was repurposed in the first place, being quarter of the one large towel that there was there. Much better than buying new or using paper towels.
I did some work on my current quilting project - I've managed to make this one entirely from my existing stash of materials, part of my longer term plan to reduce the amount of stuff I have in my cupboard.
I sorted out some children's picture books to pass on to various f/Friends children when I see them later in the year. They are books I'd acquired when teaching but don't really need to keep, they have no particular sentimental value so will be much better off in a new home. Again part of my downsizing plans.
I scanned a load of photos - I've started on my project to turn a shelf full of photograph albums into photobooks which will take up far fewer shelf inches/feet. They are also photos that I'll put on Facebook once I've cleaned them up/rotated them etc as they are old YFCC ones - as Marion pointed out at YM I don't put many current photos on Facebook just ones that are 20yrs old to embarrass everyone! Not that I think they are embarrassing... but then not many of them are of me.
I made up a crock of GF flour mix - I have a couple of flour recipes I try to keep made up in bulk so I don't have to faff about with tablespoons of this that and the next thing when baking. I make the vast majority of my food from scratch rather than buy ready processed stuff. I have the time, and mostly the energy. Making a big casserole today was also part of that process - several days worth of meals made in one go. I just need to remember to put some aside in the freezer for a bad day rather than just eat my way through it all week, no matter how tempting that might be!
I also did some more work on getting the YM minutes ready for the printer, and did some Quaker networking, but the latter of those is probably another post in itself...
There were other things too, but pumpkin time is calling and I've an extra stint at the EcoCentre tomorrow as someone is away, so no chance of sloping off back to bed. Whilst not quite a record of creativity in the sense Charlotte was meaning this post has put out there some of what I'm working on in life at present - hopefully doing so will not only act as a record of where I'm at, but add an extra dose of accountability to myself more than anyone else, to keep track of progress and serve as a reminder in the not so good weeks that whilst I may not be able to do as much as I'd like in life still at least I can still do some things and change my life for the better.
ps sorry this is a bit rambling but if I start trying to edit it either I'll be late to bed or this won't get posted tonight, both of which I'm trying to avoid!
It's getting towards the end of my day and I was starting to close down pages and winding things up for the night when I clicked on the blogger page and spotted that Charlotte had written a new post, so I read it, as one does, and realised that there was a certain synchronicity between what she'd written and what I'd been thinking about today. So in a 'think it, do it' burst of energy here's my tuppenceworth.
I'm sure I've mentioned before that for the last couple of years or so I've been aiming to write one blog post a week on average, something I've fallen woefully short of but on the other hand after a run of decidedly lean years my yearly total is better than it had been! Why blog? When I first started blogging I was in the process of emigrating and being Resident Friend in Wellington - both of which provided plenty of material to write about. Since then life has become far more everyday and the things that used to stand out as being new and different, ie Kiwi, are now very much the norm and I struggle to find examples now to explain how things are different from the UK because I've lost track of what isn't said/done there! Generally I'm reminded with a crash and a bang when I go back though.
But anyway, why blog? Part of it replaces the journals I used to write - stream of consciousness stuff that fills a stack of notebooks that at some point I probably ought to ceremoniously burn to protect the innocent. Yeah well not all of that sort of stuff ends up blogged by any means, after all there are libel laws, but aside from it being a way to update friends and family what is going on in my life blogging replaces the personal accountability side of the journalling. It used to feel like once I'd written an idea down it had to be followed through on, or at least attempted. It was a way of recording where my thinking was at on various issues, what progress I made, how many times I went around in circles on something etc. Like my commitment to blogging once a week on average - I'd set that challenge to myself, but once I'd mentioned it in a blog post I felt like I really had to try harder to stick to it!
Today has been a day of little tasks, small steps in various commitments that I've made to myself, some on here, some not yet. If all I manage each month is a record of some of those little steps then I'll feel more accountable for them, it adds an incentive to work at them. However I'm also aware that should I slip and not manage very much for a while (entirely possibly healthwise) it would be very easy to just not blog rather than face the fact that I've not achieved what I think I ought to be able to (and yes that is the subject of the half written blog post I haven't managed to finish yet!), so I have to be prepared to be honest and say I'm having a crap week, but that's okay, they happen. They happen to everyone, but most folk are better at not beating themselves up over it... for me that is work in progress, and hopefully I can record that progress when need be.
So today's small steps: I made some small cloth bags to use for bulk bin goods that I buy from the health food shop. I have some larger ones soaking in a bucket of oxygen whitener - they are old flour bags that are probably older than me! My plan is to give them a new lease of life, once they've been washed... This is all part of my ongoing process of removing unnecessary plastic from my life and gearing up towards this year's Plastic Free July.
I fixed the hem on a towel from the EcoCentre which had come undone in the wash - making things last, and it was repurposed in the first place, being quarter of the one large towel that there was there. Much better than buying new or using paper towels.
I did some work on my current quilting project - I've managed to make this one entirely from my existing stash of materials, part of my longer term plan to reduce the amount of stuff I have in my cupboard.
I sorted out some children's picture books to pass on to various f/Friends children when I see them later in the year. They are books I'd acquired when teaching but don't really need to keep, they have no particular sentimental value so will be much better off in a new home. Again part of my downsizing plans.
I scanned a load of photos - I've started on my project to turn a shelf full of photograph albums into photobooks which will take up far fewer shelf inches/feet. They are also photos that I'll put on Facebook once I've cleaned them up/rotated them etc as they are old YFCC ones - as Marion pointed out at YM I don't put many current photos on Facebook just ones that are 20yrs old to embarrass everyone! Not that I think they are embarrassing... but then not many of them are of me.
I made up a crock of GF flour mix - I have a couple of flour recipes I try to keep made up in bulk so I don't have to faff about with tablespoons of this that and the next thing when baking. I make the vast majority of my food from scratch rather than buy ready processed stuff. I have the time, and mostly the energy. Making a big casserole today was also part of that process - several days worth of meals made in one go. I just need to remember to put some aside in the freezer for a bad day rather than just eat my way through it all week, no matter how tempting that might be!
I also did some more work on getting the YM minutes ready for the printer, and did some Quaker networking, but the latter of those is probably another post in itself...
There were other things too, but pumpkin time is calling and I've an extra stint at the EcoCentre tomorrow as someone is away, so no chance of sloping off back to bed. Whilst not quite a record of creativity in the sense Charlotte was meaning this post has put out there some of what I'm working on in life at present - hopefully doing so will not only act as a record of where I'm at, but add an extra dose of accountability to myself more than anyone else, to keep track of progress and serve as a reminder in the not so good weeks that whilst I may not be able to do as much as I'd like in life still at least I can still do some things and change my life for the better.
ps sorry this is a bit rambling but if I start trying to edit it either I'll be late to bed or this won't get posted tonight, both of which I'm trying to avoid!
Tuesday, May 05, 2015
ebbs and flows
I have a tendency to use my bedroom floor as a filing system. I may not have inherited my looks from my mother but I certainly got her habit of filing things in piles! The sort that make perfect sense to the one who creates them, but look like a chaotic mess to anyone else...
After several weeks of there just being a narrow path of clear carpet from the bed to the door there was, for a short while, an expanse of green carpet visible. Quite disconcerting really, I kept looking round wondering what it was I'd forgotten about. That's the problem with tidying up, things get put away and then oh so easily forgotten.
A bag of stuff has gone to the op shop, and the bag of stuff heading to kindergarten has finally been delivered (a major achievement - some of that stuff had been waiting over a year!). But I still have several piles waiting to be dealt with, some which have achieved a greater degree of permanence than others - if I put the Worship Group reading folders out of sight I totally forget I'm the one who has to keep them up to date and circulating, so they stay leaning against the bookshelves ready to receive anything that comes in straight away.
There is a growing pile of stuff that I really have to remember to take with me to Yearly Meeting this week which is rapidly filling up all the empty carpet available, and there's a pile of correspondence waiting to be dealt with. Most of that has been sitting there far longer than I like to admit.
However the 'to be sorted/filed' has mostly been dealt with and that was what had made most of the difference. Well that and tidying up various sewing projects and putting the material no longer needed back in the cupboard!
There is a definite tidal feel to it all, especially as some piles grow and diminish but never quite go away. And after I've been away it certainly looks like a tsunami or tropical cyclone has passed through when I've got back!
I was referring to some of the piles as my 'guilt piles' - they sit there staring me in the face in the hope that eventually I'll get around to dealing with them. But usually all they achieve is making me feel guilty for not having done so. It was realising that waking up every morning to the sight of them was getting me down that prompted the latest blitz on them, and I did indeed feel a lot better about it all once I'd done so. I've made some progress with the letter writing too, well okay I've put stamps and addresses on envelopes and postcards... one small step at a time!
Someone else will be sleeping in my room whilst I'm away at Yearly Meeting so there is further incentive to deal with a few other things that are waiting to be dealt with. So I guess I'd better stop procrastinating and start packing my rucksack so I can see what of the remaining piles can be dealt with before I go... it is all very well knowing that what love requires of you may not be great busyness, but a certain amount of tidyness seldom goes amiss!
After several weeks of there just being a narrow path of clear carpet from the bed to the door there was, for a short while, an expanse of green carpet visible. Quite disconcerting really, I kept looking round wondering what it was I'd forgotten about. That's the problem with tidying up, things get put away and then oh so easily forgotten.
A bag of stuff has gone to the op shop, and the bag of stuff heading to kindergarten has finally been delivered (a major achievement - some of that stuff had been waiting over a year!). But I still have several piles waiting to be dealt with, some which have achieved a greater degree of permanence than others - if I put the Worship Group reading folders out of sight I totally forget I'm the one who has to keep them up to date and circulating, so they stay leaning against the bookshelves ready to receive anything that comes in straight away.
There is a growing pile of stuff that I really have to remember to take with me to Yearly Meeting this week which is rapidly filling up all the empty carpet available, and there's a pile of correspondence waiting to be dealt with. Most of that has been sitting there far longer than I like to admit.
However the 'to be sorted/filed' has mostly been dealt with and that was what had made most of the difference. Well that and tidying up various sewing projects and putting the material no longer needed back in the cupboard!
There is a definite tidal feel to it all, especially as some piles grow and diminish but never quite go away. And after I've been away it certainly looks like a tsunami or tropical cyclone has passed through when I've got back!
I was referring to some of the piles as my 'guilt piles' - they sit there staring me in the face in the hope that eventually I'll get around to dealing with them. But usually all they achieve is making me feel guilty for not having done so. It was realising that waking up every morning to the sight of them was getting me down that prompted the latest blitz on them, and I did indeed feel a lot better about it all once I'd done so. I've made some progress with the letter writing too, well okay I've put stamps and addresses on envelopes and postcards... one small step at a time!
Someone else will be sleeping in my room whilst I'm away at Yearly Meeting so there is further incentive to deal with a few other things that are waiting to be dealt with. So I guess I'd better stop procrastinating and start packing my rucksack so I can see what of the remaining piles can be dealt with before I go... it is all very well knowing that what love requires of you may not be great busyness, but a certain amount of tidyness seldom goes amiss!
Saturday, April 18, 2015
plain dress
At WGYF 2005 there was a special interest group about plain dress and it's place in modern Quakerism. Had I been a participant rather than the somewhat preoccupied administrator I would've gone to it. I did manage to get a few interesting conversations with those who had been though and it has since been a topic that rumbles around in the background for me and occasionally prompts further change in how I approach the issue.
Whilst there are still some Friends who wear traditional 'plain dress' mostly in the USA (think Amish style clothing and that is close enough, oh and 'dress' means how one dresses rather than just an item one wears!), there are many more who have adapted what it means for them and typical of modern Quakerism, they've made it their own. So for some it might mean only wearing certain colours such as green, or black & white; for others just buying secondhand clothing; or having a small wardrobe of garments that all go with each other; or just buying a few good quality items and making sure they last; only buying fair trade/handmade/tailor made/made in their home country items etc.
Going through Thailand to Burma with my uncle Jack in 2004 to visit refugee camps full Burmese refugees coupled with the fact that for three months I'd lived out of a rucksack made me totally re-evaluate my possessions when I got home, and how much I actually needed to get by. One village headman of a community of displaced people we met only had the clothes he stood up in, and Jack was pretty sure it was the same t-shirt he'd been wearing three years earlier when he'd last been there. It made the amount of clothing I had back in the UK seem obscene.
Several clearouts and eighteen months later I emigrated. There's nothing like drastically relocating to effectively change your shopping habits! There's also nothing quite like having a fixed amount of money to last an indefinite amount of time to make me more prudent with it either. Want didn't have a hope, need took precedence.
For the first few years I treated myself to one good quality merino top each year from the sales bought with my birthday/christmas money. Over the years that broadened to include other things I needed to replace, such as finally buying some new jeans that actually fit well rather than just working my way through various pairs of 'near enough' ones from op/charity shops, each time getting a good lasting item - it had to be fairly plain from a certain range of colours so it would go with more things I already had, of a cut that I'd be prepared to wear for years, physically durable and preferably something that could be mended easily, or re-soled when it came to footwear.
For many years, dating back long before I went went travelling in 2004, I'd had a 'something comes in, something goes out' policy when it came to clothes, and often took more to the charity shop than I'd brought home (and only once came close to buying back something I'd donated!). That policy has continued, and once I stopped needing a set of 'play clothes' for wearing to kindergarten I've cut back my wardrobe even more. I end up wearing more different clothes these days as now as I can see what is there far more easily!
As I was in the process of consigning several former kindergarten tops to the recycling pile (to be repurposed through crafting etc) and thinking about clothes, I spotted a challenge on a local 'green issues' Facebook page I get notifications from - someone was challenging herself to buy only secondhand clothes this year with the exception of underwear, did anyone want to join her? By now I'd heard a couple of friends say that this was what they did already so I figured that given I had a clean slate on that score so far this year (having only bought underwear new) why not, I'd give it a go.
In many ways this is an easy year for me to do this. In relatively recent years I've replaced my winter coat, winter boots, several tops, and most pairs of trousers/jeans with ones that will hopefully last me for years. I've been making quite a few of my clothes for some years now and especially over the last two years I've generally tried to use what cloth I already have rather than go out to buy new. I've yet to decide where making things fits in the current scheme - remodelling things I have and using cloth I already have or buy from op shops I think is safely within the scope of the challenge as it is based on not consuming new stuff. It does mean though the roll neck merino tunic I'd been planning to make became a dilemma as I hadn't yet bought the fabric! Darn it... ah well, chances are I wouldn't have gotten around to it until next year anyway... I'll just put the pattern to one side, do the challenge as it stands this year and then set my own guidelines for the future.
Aside from a testament to simplicity and environmental reasons I came across another good reason for reducing one's wardrobe - decision fatigue. The more things you have to chose from the bigger a decision it becomes and when your head has enough else to deal with thank you why add needless pressure. Given the way my head has been for the last 16 months I'm all for giving it any extra breaks I can.
Additionally as I read more and more articles about tiny houses, and have more discussions about making living in shared accommodation and/or an intentional community (possibly in my own tiny house) a long term plan, the more incentive there is to downsize my stuff even further. My current aim is to get all my belongings in one place, although getting the rest of my books here from Edinburgh is a tad more challenging than the rest of my boxes etc from Pukepoto which is a mere 8km up the road! My aim is to fit everything except kitchen stuff in my current bedroom, if I can do that I'll be doing well. So there's another reason to ensure I only keep the clothes I need to if I want to be able to keep even half of what is still currently in storage!
I don't think there is the same issue here as in Western Europe of donated clothing inundating the market in African countries making it nigh impossible for local production to thrive, we don't have the same quantities of donated goods plus higher costs to ship them anywhere. But it still bears thinking about when deciding what to do with surplus items. However pretty much anything is better than them becoming landfill. Our local op shops sell sacks of rags made up from donated clothing etc not fit for sale as received, mechanics seem to be the main users of these plus they get used for animal bedding etc. I'm trying to use up as much of my own cloth 'waste' but it's good to know that I have another option if supply outstrips my ability to use it up!
So as with most things trying to implement a testimony to simplicity of clothing is a complex issue, with many things to consider. No doubt my journey will continue to meander along with varying issues taking their turn as the predominant one. But for now I'll continue to refine my wardrobe down to a smaller collection of things that can easily be interchanged, but without buying anything that is new for the remainder of 2015. I'll let you know how I manage at the end of the year!
Whilst there are still some Friends who wear traditional 'plain dress' mostly in the USA (think Amish style clothing and that is close enough, oh and 'dress' means how one dresses rather than just an item one wears!), there are many more who have adapted what it means for them and typical of modern Quakerism, they've made it their own. So for some it might mean only wearing certain colours such as green, or black & white; for others just buying secondhand clothing; or having a small wardrobe of garments that all go with each other; or just buying a few good quality items and making sure they last; only buying fair trade/handmade/tailor made/made in their home country items etc.
Going through Thailand to Burma with my uncle Jack in 2004 to visit refugee camps full Burmese refugees coupled with the fact that for three months I'd lived out of a rucksack made me totally re-evaluate my possessions when I got home, and how much I actually needed to get by. One village headman of a community of displaced people we met only had the clothes he stood up in, and Jack was pretty sure it was the same t-shirt he'd been wearing three years earlier when he'd last been there. It made the amount of clothing I had back in the UK seem obscene.
Several clearouts and eighteen months later I emigrated. There's nothing like drastically relocating to effectively change your shopping habits! There's also nothing quite like having a fixed amount of money to last an indefinite amount of time to make me more prudent with it either. Want didn't have a hope, need took precedence.
For the first few years I treated myself to one good quality merino top each year from the sales bought with my birthday/christmas money. Over the years that broadened to include other things I needed to replace, such as finally buying some new jeans that actually fit well rather than just working my way through various pairs of 'near enough' ones from op/charity shops, each time getting a good lasting item - it had to be fairly plain from a certain range of colours so it would go with more things I already had, of a cut that I'd be prepared to wear for years, physically durable and preferably something that could be mended easily, or re-soled when it came to footwear.
For many years, dating back long before I went went travelling in 2004, I'd had a 'something comes in, something goes out' policy when it came to clothes, and often took more to the charity shop than I'd brought home (and only once came close to buying back something I'd donated!). That policy has continued, and once I stopped needing a set of 'play clothes' for wearing to kindergarten I've cut back my wardrobe even more. I end up wearing more different clothes these days as now as I can see what is there far more easily!
As I was in the process of consigning several former kindergarten tops to the recycling pile (to be repurposed through crafting etc) and thinking about clothes, I spotted a challenge on a local 'green issues' Facebook page I get notifications from - someone was challenging herself to buy only secondhand clothes this year with the exception of underwear, did anyone want to join her? By now I'd heard a couple of friends say that this was what they did already so I figured that given I had a clean slate on that score so far this year (having only bought underwear new) why not, I'd give it a go.
In many ways this is an easy year for me to do this. In relatively recent years I've replaced my winter coat, winter boots, several tops, and most pairs of trousers/jeans with ones that will hopefully last me for years. I've been making quite a few of my clothes for some years now and especially over the last two years I've generally tried to use what cloth I already have rather than go out to buy new. I've yet to decide where making things fits in the current scheme - remodelling things I have and using cloth I already have or buy from op shops I think is safely within the scope of the challenge as it is based on not consuming new stuff. It does mean though the roll neck merino tunic I'd been planning to make became a dilemma as I hadn't yet bought the fabric! Darn it... ah well, chances are I wouldn't have gotten around to it until next year anyway... I'll just put the pattern to one side, do the challenge as it stands this year and then set my own guidelines for the future.
Aside from a testament to simplicity and environmental reasons I came across another good reason for reducing one's wardrobe - decision fatigue. The more things you have to chose from the bigger a decision it becomes and when your head has enough else to deal with thank you why add needless pressure. Given the way my head has been for the last 16 months I'm all for giving it any extra breaks I can.
Additionally as I read more and more articles about tiny houses, and have more discussions about making living in shared accommodation and/or an intentional community (possibly in my own tiny house) a long term plan, the more incentive there is to downsize my stuff even further. My current aim is to get all my belongings in one place, although getting the rest of my books here from Edinburgh is a tad more challenging than the rest of my boxes etc from Pukepoto which is a mere 8km up the road! My aim is to fit everything except kitchen stuff in my current bedroom, if I can do that I'll be doing well. So there's another reason to ensure I only keep the clothes I need to if I want to be able to keep even half of what is still currently in storage!
I don't think there is the same issue here as in Western Europe of donated clothing inundating the market in African countries making it nigh impossible for local production to thrive, we don't have the same quantities of donated goods plus higher costs to ship them anywhere. But it still bears thinking about when deciding what to do with surplus items. However pretty much anything is better than them becoming landfill. Our local op shops sell sacks of rags made up from donated clothing etc not fit for sale as received, mechanics seem to be the main users of these plus they get used for animal bedding etc. I'm trying to use up as much of my own cloth 'waste' but it's good to know that I have another option if supply outstrips my ability to use it up!
So as with most things trying to implement a testimony to simplicity of clothing is a complex issue, with many things to consider. No doubt my journey will continue to meander along with varying issues taking their turn as the predominant one. But for now I'll continue to refine my wardrobe down to a smaller collection of things that can easily be interchanged, but without buying anything that is new for the remainder of 2015. I'll let you know how I manage at the end of the year!
Wednesday, February 04, 2015
power-less
I'm sitting here listening to the rain (blessed rain!) and the thunder rolling around wondering if the power will stay on. This time though I've thought to have the laptop fully charged, as is my phone!
Last Sunday was a slightly different matter though. It was one of the usual planned power outages for line maintenance that we get here about once or twice a year. There is only one main power supply line to the Far North, although they are in the process of building a loop line round the East Coast. The construction and linking up of this being partly why the power outages are for so long and seem to come around more regularly than they used to. So at 8am prompt the power went off, to be reconnected just before 5pm.
After weeks and weeks of drought conditions the rainy weather finally had reached us a few days earlier and has hung around since. So on the one day in the summer when nice weather outside really would've been handy, it rained. Almost all day! Well we managed about 3/4hr in the garden in the afternoon before the light drizzle returned to big splodges of rain again. But nice as it would've been to be out there doing more the ground so desperately needed the water so we couldn't complain, and it was filling up our new water tanks nicely! Yes we could've carried on out there and just got wet as it was hardly cold, but unfortunately then your insect repellent gets washed off and oh boy are those mozzies loving the dampness...
Had we had power I would've been proofreading/editing articles for the Friends' Newsletter as it was our deadline day for contributions for the next issue. I would've been working on Documents in Advance had any new material come in (which it hadn't as it turns out, despite the Jan 25th deadline for much of it! Yep, herding cats again...), and I would've been joining in Monthly Meeting in Mt Eden (Auckland) via skype and no doubt doing some hand sewing throughout that. But no power so no internet, I hadn't remembered to charge up the laptop before the power went off, and thanks to the rain it was too dark for hand sewing without straining my eyesight.
Fortunately we'd organised to have Meeting for Worship here that morning, and the much appreciated return of the camping stove on it's usual long term loan after it's trip camping a couple of weeks ago meant we could even have a fresh cuppa rather than rely on thermos flasks! But even with chatting over a cuppa and munchies that only took up 2hrs of the day....
I had so many things I'd planned to do but didn't like more gardening, hand sewing and letter writing - the old fashioned pen and ink way! But somehow that didn't happen. A couple of hours got lost in books; I made a start on some cucumber pickle (then left it to sit overnight with salt on the veg drawing out the liquid, it turned out rather well if I do say so myself); I went through my wardrobe and ummed and ahhed over a few items that I hadn't worn in ages but that is because I haven't needed to look smart, and I guess I'd better assume that might need to happen again one day! I pulled out a couple of sleeveless tops I want to use to make a pattern from (a combination of the two styles) and got as far as putting them with the material and pattern-paper (aka lunchwrap!), but then got sidetracked trying things on, working out how much to shorten a dress I seldom wear to a tunic length, and making another cup of tea...
In short a day without power was easy enough to get through for me. It did make me reflect once again on how life would be oh so different without it either at all or on a rationed basis. When I spent the night at Edith's in Nairobi after the World Conference of Friends in 2012 the power went out about four or five times that evening, and that was considered normal. I guess you adapt. When so much of my life relies on having an internet connection to the rest of the country, and indeed the rest of the world, life would be radically different without a reliable power supply.
It was probably good to have a day where I had to take a good long break from the computer, although had I any say in the matter I wouldn't have picked that particular day! A gentle reminder to make sure I do so more often perhaps? Of course a fair amount of computer time is required every day at the moment, but as my hours at the keyboard increase I need to be mindful of work/life balance, especially when the distinction between 'work' and things done in my 'free time' gets a bit blurry. So for the next week or so I'm making a conscious effort to set time aside away from the computer each day to do something that I'm doing because I want to rather than because I have to! So whilst today's visit to WINZ doesn't count even though I was out of the house and away from the screen, going to Lorna's for the weekly mah jong session most certainly does. And the more of those things that don't require electrickery the better.
Last Sunday was a slightly different matter though. It was one of the usual planned power outages for line maintenance that we get here about once or twice a year. There is only one main power supply line to the Far North, although they are in the process of building a loop line round the East Coast. The construction and linking up of this being partly why the power outages are for so long and seem to come around more regularly than they used to. So at 8am prompt the power went off, to be reconnected just before 5pm.
After weeks and weeks of drought conditions the rainy weather finally had reached us a few days earlier and has hung around since. So on the one day in the summer when nice weather outside really would've been handy, it rained. Almost all day! Well we managed about 3/4hr in the garden in the afternoon before the light drizzle returned to big splodges of rain again. But nice as it would've been to be out there doing more the ground so desperately needed the water so we couldn't complain, and it was filling up our new water tanks nicely! Yes we could've carried on out there and just got wet as it was hardly cold, but unfortunately then your insect repellent gets washed off and oh boy are those mozzies loving the dampness...
Had we had power I would've been proofreading/editing articles for the Friends' Newsletter as it was our deadline day for contributions for the next issue. I would've been working on Documents in Advance had any new material come in (which it hadn't as it turns out, despite the Jan 25th deadline for much of it! Yep, herding cats again...), and I would've been joining in Monthly Meeting in Mt Eden (Auckland) via skype and no doubt doing some hand sewing throughout that. But no power so no internet, I hadn't remembered to charge up the laptop before the power went off, and thanks to the rain it was too dark for hand sewing without straining my eyesight.
Fortunately we'd organised to have Meeting for Worship here that morning, and the much appreciated return of the camping stove on it's usual long term loan after it's trip camping a couple of weeks ago meant we could even have a fresh cuppa rather than rely on thermos flasks! But even with chatting over a cuppa and munchies that only took up 2hrs of the day....
I had so many things I'd planned to do but didn't like more gardening, hand sewing and letter writing - the old fashioned pen and ink way! But somehow that didn't happen. A couple of hours got lost in books; I made a start on some cucumber pickle (then left it to sit overnight with salt on the veg drawing out the liquid, it turned out rather well if I do say so myself); I went through my wardrobe and ummed and ahhed over a few items that I hadn't worn in ages but that is because I haven't needed to look smart, and I guess I'd better assume that might need to happen again one day! I pulled out a couple of sleeveless tops I want to use to make a pattern from (a combination of the two styles) and got as far as putting them with the material and pattern-paper (aka lunchwrap!), but then got sidetracked trying things on, working out how much to shorten a dress I seldom wear to a tunic length, and making another cup of tea...
In short a day without power was easy enough to get through for me. It did make me reflect once again on how life would be oh so different without it either at all or on a rationed basis. When I spent the night at Edith's in Nairobi after the World Conference of Friends in 2012 the power went out about four or five times that evening, and that was considered normal. I guess you adapt. When so much of my life relies on having an internet connection to the rest of the country, and indeed the rest of the world, life would be radically different without a reliable power supply.
It was probably good to have a day where I had to take a good long break from the computer, although had I any say in the matter I wouldn't have picked that particular day! A gentle reminder to make sure I do so more often perhaps? Of course a fair amount of computer time is required every day at the moment, but as my hours at the keyboard increase I need to be mindful of work/life balance, especially when the distinction between 'work' and things done in my 'free time' gets a bit blurry. So for the next week or so I'm making a conscious effort to set time aside away from the computer each day to do something that I'm doing because I want to rather than because I have to! So whilst today's visit to WINZ doesn't count even though I was out of the house and away from the screen, going to Lorna's for the weekly mah jong session most certainly does. And the more of those things that don't require electrickery the better.
Sunday, January 25, 2015
what canst thou say, and do?
Somehow I managed to find myself on an email list this week to whom a discussion document was circulated by the Futures Committee (a national Quaker committee looking at issues around global change etc and what we can do about it). It was addressing issues around climate change and what we as Quakers were called to do collectively and individually.
"Can we work together to develop ways in which we can cope with this daunting challenge and bring it on board as a part of our everyday life? Can we develop ways of expression that makes the story accessible to our community, even to the extent of changing our priorities and world view? Can we develop ways of taking the message outside the Quaker community and help other organisations to “break the silence” in such a way that it enables them to address their challenges more effectively?"
And if Quakers can't stand up, speak out and take action on this who will???
So here's my tuppenceworth for now.... For many years I've been slowly chipping away at 'bad' habits, rethinking my consumption patterns, decluttering so I need less space, taking part in 'Plastic free July', weighing up the pros and cons of various travel options etc etc. It is, as the document says, a daunting challenge, as nothing is ever straightforward. We've reached the point now where the carbon footprint of keeping the internet functioning internationally is becoming significant, so skyping instead of flying somewhere isn't necessarily always the answer! This doesn't mean we shouldn't be trying to work towards zero carbon travel, or finding more sustainable means to keep the worlds' servers cool, or that we should all just jump on a plane anyway regardless. It's about weighing up the pros and cons and each doing the best we can. And that is where the importance of support comes in and sharing different ideas and experiences.
One of the choices I have control over again in my life is food shopping. For several years I wasn't the one doing the shopping so I had less say in the matter, but over the last four years that ball has been back in my court again. Eleanor's recent post covers some of the dilemmas and thought processes that I've worked through over the years. I have to say simply cutting out a lot of processed/pre-packaged food from my life makes supermarket shopping much quicker again! Luckily my life is such that I have the luxury of time to cook all my meals from scratch and I don't have to convince anyone else to change their habits to match.
A couple of years ago I switched to buying organic raw milk from Rainbow Falls Farm over near Kerikeri. It gets delivered to local drop off points, ours is the health food shop, in glass jars which are returned each week and reused. I could get non-organic raw milk more locally (fewer food miles) but I'd have to collect it from the farm which is way further than I could get to under my own steam, so I'd need a lift in someone's car... I decided to get raw milk as unlike pasteurised it doesn't make me sick (literally if I consume enough!), and it replaced the soy or rice milk I'd been buying. Pricewise it was comparable with what I was already paying per litre even though compared to ordinary milk it is more expensive. The soy/rice milk came from Australia (more food-miles) in tetrapaks (not recyclable locally). I had to balance that against the down sides of dairy farming, even organically, and the ethics around animal farming. Oh and the fact that medically adults simply don't need to consume the liquid intended for baby cows, and indeed there are plenty good reasons for not doing so!
A couple of years ago I switched to buying organic raw milk from Rainbow Falls Farm over near Kerikeri. It gets delivered to local drop off points, ours is the health food shop, in glass jars which are returned each week and reused. I could get non-organic raw milk more locally (fewer food miles) but I'd have to collect it from the farm which is way further than I could get to under my own steam, so I'd need a lift in someone's car... I decided to get raw milk as unlike pasteurised it doesn't make me sick (literally if I consume enough!), and it replaced the soy or rice milk I'd been buying. Pricewise it was comparable with what I was already paying per litre even though compared to ordinary milk it is more expensive. The soy/rice milk came from Australia (more food-miles) in tetrapaks (not recyclable locally). I had to balance that against the down sides of dairy farming, even organically, and the ethics around animal farming. Oh and the fact that medically adults simply don't need to consume the liquid intended for baby cows, and indeed there are plenty good reasons for not doing so!
But, I like some yoghurt on my porridge, it is one of the few ways I consume probiotics (although Marion would argue that the quantity in yoghurt is negligible I reckon it is still better than none!), and the paneer I occasionally make tends to get used instead of tofu which whilst I can buy Kiwi made (and from a company that pays a Living Wage!), the beans still come from Australia.
One alternative is make my own almond milk which I have also done, especially over the winter when the cows are dried off, but generally almonds aren't grown commercially in this country so they too are shipped in from who knows where and I can't really afford large quantities of organic nuts, so who knows what nasties are involved in their growing?
Another alternative is use coconut cream, and water it down for using as milk. Yes I can get organic, but organic or not it is still in tins (recyclable at least) or in tetrapaks, still comes from the South Pacific if not further afield, and those food-miles have crept right back up again...
So, as with Penn and his sword, for now I'm sticking with my one litre of organic raw milk a week as long as I can!
I came across another interesting dilemma recently, it was an infographic (which of course I now can't find, but this is similar) about the environmental cost of alternatives to plastic bags. Basically cane, and for us here harakeke (flax), baskets are best. If locally sourced, sustainably harvested, and handmade they come up trumps in terms of mileage, water usage, and production/wages/working conditions are hopefully at least liveable with, given that handcrafts are seldom lucrative sources of income! Cotton/calico bags often come at a higher ethical price than you'd expect - producing cotton involves a lot of water, and cotton often comes from factories paying very low wages and with poor working conditions etc...
That made me think about my main hobby of sewing, as I tend to use mostly cotton fabric. For a many years I've tried to use what I have rather than buy material specially for a project, but that has primarily been for financial and space reasons - I have a lot of material! It isn't that I buy a lot, it often gets given to me, plus there are old clothes, linens etc that can be re-purposed but meanwhile take up room in my cupboard/under the bed, which kind of goes against the whole not collecting 'stuff' idea! So when no matter how much I tried the different options on hand and there still really wasn't anything suitable in my stash for my current project, I headed to the market and bought a second hand duvet cover (for a whopping $3!) which I unpicked to use for the extra material I needed. Re-purposing something already out there rather than buying new. Another ongoing project is making a ragrug doormat out of old t-shirts, leggings etc and some long since inherited fabric of a similar ilk. My challenge for that is not to buy anything at all for it. I might need to start putting the word out though if I'm to find any brighter colours for it!
A lot of the changes I, and many others, are consciously making in our lives harkens back to the way our grandparents' generation lived. But for us it is through choice, rather than necessity. Sure I could buy imported fruit and vegetables to ensure I had the same variety available to me year round, but actually I'd rather just eat fresh tomatoes from our garden in the summer and autumn that taste like tomatoes than eat the watery alternatives the rest of the year. Here in the Far North the growing season is year round so I could have lettuce every day of the year (if we water it through the summer!) if I really wanted to, but we still have seasons where some stuff grows better than others and I like that changing variety. I'm sure I'll be sick of beans soon, but that's okay, I'll have plenty of months without them before long! Yes I could have half a dozen scooshy bottles of assorted cleaning fluids in the cupboard, but you know what? I'm discovering that there's precious little you can't get clean without some combination of white or cider vinegar, baking soda, washing soda, salt and lemon juice.
There are some good local websites for Kiwis also working towards a more sustainable life, whether for economic or sustainability reasons, a couple I keep track of are Wendyl Nissen's (whose book A Home Companion I really enjoyed and I use her recipes for cleaning/toiletries regularly) and Lyn Webster's 'Pig tits and parlsey sauce' - she's also written a similar book. Lyn moved up here not that long back, hopefully our paths will cross at some point!
None of us are wanting to sound sanctimonious or self-righteous about the changes we have made. As Ben Pink Dandelion said in his 2014 Swarthmore Lecture giving up the Bentley can be a challenge, especially these days when our lives are no longer under the scrutiny of Elders making sure we're being 'proper' Quakers living out our Testimonies! (He wasn't joking by the way, he really did have an old Bentley!). Both Britain YM and the YM of Aotearoa New Zealand have made a commitment of working towards sustainability and included it among out Testimonies. Australia YM calls it 'Earthcare'. Whatever we call it, it is becoming an increasingly important part of our Quaker journeys, and as with any other aspect of spiritual journeys they aren't all the same; they twist and turn around each other, often covering some of the same ground but in a different order (or direction!). Sharing our journeys towards a more sustainable life, as with sharing our understandings of god, the inner light, what we do in the silence of Meeting for Worship etc adds different perspectives, strengthens and enriches our collected witness; and helps us get to know each other better in that which is more mundane as well as eternal.
Our lives are all different and what might be easy for one can be a huge challenge for another. What is important is doing what we can in our own lives, making the changes and the commitment to keep that a process rather than just recycling the milk bottles and considering that's the end of it. There's always something more that can be done... by sharing our stories hopefully we'll inspire each other and provide some moral support along the way, especially when it all starts to look 'too hard' to make any further progress.
There are some good local websites for Kiwis also working towards a more sustainable life, whether for economic or sustainability reasons, a couple I keep track of are Wendyl Nissen's (whose book A Home Companion I really enjoyed and I use her recipes for cleaning/toiletries regularly) and Lyn Webster's 'Pig tits and parlsey sauce' - she's also written a similar book. Lyn moved up here not that long back, hopefully our paths will cross at some point!
None of us are wanting to sound sanctimonious or self-righteous about the changes we have made. As Ben Pink Dandelion said in his 2014 Swarthmore Lecture giving up the Bentley can be a challenge, especially these days when our lives are no longer under the scrutiny of Elders making sure we're being 'proper' Quakers living out our Testimonies! (He wasn't joking by the way, he really did have an old Bentley!). Both Britain YM and the YM of Aotearoa New Zealand have made a commitment of working towards sustainability and included it among out Testimonies. Australia YM calls it 'Earthcare'. Whatever we call it, it is becoming an increasingly important part of our Quaker journeys, and as with any other aspect of spiritual journeys they aren't all the same; they twist and turn around each other, often covering some of the same ground but in a different order (or direction!). Sharing our journeys towards a more sustainable life, as with sharing our understandings of god, the inner light, what we do in the silence of Meeting for Worship etc adds different perspectives, strengthens and enriches our collected witness; and helps us get to know each other better in that which is more mundane as well as eternal.
Our lives are all different and what might be easy for one can be a huge challenge for another. What is important is doing what we can in our own lives, making the changes and the commitment to keep that a process rather than just recycling the milk bottles and considering that's the end of it. There's always something more that can be done... by sharing our stories hopefully we'll inspire each other and provide some moral support along the way, especially when it all starts to look 'too hard' to make any further progress.
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
a patchwork life
Last summer I got given some patchwork fabric squares, fat quarters and eighths for Christmas/birthday presents. They sat in my cupboard all year as whilst I had some vague ideas I couldn't quite figure out what to do with them. As nothing immediately sprang to mind and given I was having a hard enough time keeping on top of the projects I already had to do I didn't exactly give the matter a lot of thought I have to admit.
Then as I started packing for Summer Gathering I realised that I could do with some hand sewing to take as I expected to spend a lot of time sitting quietly rather than rushing around being busy. I could've taken my rag rug project as Sue did, but it and the stuff I'm cutting up is a bit bulky and I was trying to pack light. Having seen the glorious technicolour of Sue's that she started at the previous Summer Gathering I'm rather relieved I left my rather dull looking version at home! The problem with using old clothes up for projects and trying to avoid buying anything for it is that you end up with the colours to use that you wear, which in my case meant a lot of black, brown, grey and dull greens with occasional brighter items thrown in. It's actually perfect for it's intended purpose which will be a doormat but that is somewhat beside the point. I did come home resolving to add brighter colours somehow!
Anyway having ditched the idea of taking the rug I needed something else so started looking again at the material I'd been gifted. I had some paper templates from an earlier piecing project so roughed up an idea for starting some stars within septagons and decided I'd figure out what to do with them later. Sometimes a project needs to just grow on it's own.
I thought I had taken far more templates than I'd need but I almost ran out by the end of the gathering and I had just short of 6 completed stars to bring home. I had a night in Auckland on the way back staying with old friends. Whilst dutifully admiring 7yr old Lucy's rotating disco lightbulb she'd saved up her pocket money to buy (it was pretty cool I have to admit, just not very good for reading by!) I caught sight of her patchwork duvet cover her mum had made. Of course! I'd been thinking I needed another duvet cover and the colours I had were perfect for my room - my friends know me well.
So I now have the beginnings of a plan and it is starting to come together. I'll need to get some extra fabric to make it work, but I'm still a way of reaching the stage where that is necessary, I can continue to work with what I've got. I started listening to Dune whilst I sew, so I've been working my way through my 100 Big Reads list at the same time - two birds with one stone!
On Facebook I saw a photo a friend had shared of a patchwork quilt she's started for her daughter and she mentioned the months of thinking, choosing and planning that had gone in to it. It made me reflect on this project's journey and I started seeing parallels between it and my life in general. When the 2Es (as our YM co-clerks are known) visited in February on their way to the Waitangi we discussed the plans for our YM venturing into the relatively uncharted waters of having a paid employee. Instead of having a secretary like Australia YM the plan was to start small and contract out various tasks. As my health was rapidly heading downhill at that stage and my confidence was going with it I couldn't see how it could be something I would be successful in applying for given the number of folk with far better DTP skills than me. However I chipped in with my experience of being a sole Quaker employee responsible to committees etc and how that had worked as they gathered information ready for our Yearly Meeting and the next stage of the process.
Since I was made redundant at the end of 2012 I'd been trying to figure out 'what next?' Yet other than being at home, taming the garden, doing more 'urban homesteading' and working towards a more sustainable life all I could come up with was working for Friends again. Which is a bit tricky in a Yearly Meeting that doesn't employ anyone! So I needed another idea, but none arrived however Phyllis did fall and need a hip replacement so I became a full time homebased carer for a while which did allow me to be at home, work on the garden etc etc etc. Be careful what you wish for! I wouldn't wish an emergency hip replacement on anyone.
After that I reluctantly did a bit more teaching even though I was fairly convinced it wasn't good for my health, and as if to prove a point that is when I really started to go downhill towards the end of 2013. Part of me wanted to hang on to the belief that the right job will turn up, but after a year and then some it was hard to keep that faith and financially it was becoming more of a challenge to hold out. So there I was with some concepts of what I wanted to do, but no ideas as to how to pull it together and make it happen. So like the fabric, the idea of working for Friends got stashed away for now, occasionally taken out and looked at with vague plans but nothing jumping out at me as the way forward.
Ironically being ill levelled out my finances as I started getting benefits to top up my small regular income. And by the time the fixed term job putting Documents in Advance together and other YM papers was advertised my health had improved enough to be able to apply in the hope that by the time it started I'd be properly up to it.
When the job started I just had to go for it and hope I could make it work. Luckily for me at the time (although possibly not for me in a fortnights time when the deadline rolls around!) not many contributions came in early so I had time to set up some systems and get my head around what needed done before actually having to do it.
It took several weeks to get the contract sorted, especially as one of the Monthly Meetings (mine as it happens!) decided to have a session considering guidelines for YM being an employer. So in the end my contract was signed with the caveat that this in no way was to be considered a template for future contracts without taking into consideration the current ongoing process of establishing best practice.
So we had the equivalent of the first strip of the quilt sorted out, what would happen next to be built up around it was very much still up in the air.
Whilst at Summer Gathering a group of us got together to consider how to go forward with a project that had been dormant for the last few years, but was still seen as an important part of our history as a community and there was a strong wish for it to continue. Could it be added to the secretarial role? someone asked, well not as it stands just now, but that doesn't mean it couldn't be in the future! Already Friends are starting to see ways of expanding the original role, extending the pattern yet within the existing colour scheme. What we're still waiting for is that collective lightbulb moment of seeing exactly what it is we need to be creating out of the bits and pieces we have to choose from.
It is going to be interesting to see how things develop this year, will the project get shelved after the first stage until the same time of year roles around again? Anyway whatever happens with the paid work at least I have some idea what I'm doing with my sewing for now! And having now finished Dune I wonder if I can tackle another book from the list whilst I'm at it?
Then as I started packing for Summer Gathering I realised that I could do with some hand sewing to take as I expected to spend a lot of time sitting quietly rather than rushing around being busy. I could've taken my rag rug project as Sue did, but it and the stuff I'm cutting up is a bit bulky and I was trying to pack light. Having seen the glorious technicolour of Sue's that she started at the previous Summer Gathering I'm rather relieved I left my rather dull looking version at home! The problem with using old clothes up for projects and trying to avoid buying anything for it is that you end up with the colours to use that you wear, which in my case meant a lot of black, brown, grey and dull greens with occasional brighter items thrown in. It's actually perfect for it's intended purpose which will be a doormat but that is somewhat beside the point. I did come home resolving to add brighter colours somehow!
Anyway having ditched the idea of taking the rug I needed something else so started looking again at the material I'd been gifted. I had some paper templates from an earlier piecing project so roughed up an idea for starting some stars within septagons and decided I'd figure out what to do with them later. Sometimes a project needs to just grow on it's own.
I thought I had taken far more templates than I'd need but I almost ran out by the end of the gathering and I had just short of 6 completed stars to bring home. I had a night in Auckland on the way back staying with old friends. Whilst dutifully admiring 7yr old Lucy's rotating disco lightbulb she'd saved up her pocket money to buy (it was pretty cool I have to admit, just not very good for reading by!) I caught sight of her patchwork duvet cover her mum had made. Of course! I'd been thinking I needed another duvet cover and the colours I had were perfect for my room - my friends know me well.
So I now have the beginnings of a plan and it is starting to come together. I'll need to get some extra fabric to make it work, but I'm still a way of reaching the stage where that is necessary, I can continue to work with what I've got. I started listening to Dune whilst I sew, so I've been working my way through my 100 Big Reads list at the same time - two birds with one stone!
On Facebook I saw a photo a friend had shared of a patchwork quilt she's started for her daughter and she mentioned the months of thinking, choosing and planning that had gone in to it. It made me reflect on this project's journey and I started seeing parallels between it and my life in general. When the 2Es (as our YM co-clerks are known) visited in February on their way to the Waitangi we discussed the plans for our YM venturing into the relatively uncharted waters of having a paid employee. Instead of having a secretary like Australia YM the plan was to start small and contract out various tasks. As my health was rapidly heading downhill at that stage and my confidence was going with it I couldn't see how it could be something I would be successful in applying for given the number of folk with far better DTP skills than me. However I chipped in with my experience of being a sole Quaker employee responsible to committees etc and how that had worked as they gathered information ready for our Yearly Meeting and the next stage of the process.
Since I was made redundant at the end of 2012 I'd been trying to figure out 'what next?' Yet other than being at home, taming the garden, doing more 'urban homesteading' and working towards a more sustainable life all I could come up with was working for Friends again. Which is a bit tricky in a Yearly Meeting that doesn't employ anyone! So I needed another idea, but none arrived however Phyllis did fall and need a hip replacement so I became a full time homebased carer for a while which did allow me to be at home, work on the garden etc etc etc. Be careful what you wish for! I wouldn't wish an emergency hip replacement on anyone.
After that I reluctantly did a bit more teaching even though I was fairly convinced it wasn't good for my health, and as if to prove a point that is when I really started to go downhill towards the end of 2013. Part of me wanted to hang on to the belief that the right job will turn up, but after a year and then some it was hard to keep that faith and financially it was becoming more of a challenge to hold out. So there I was with some concepts of what I wanted to do, but no ideas as to how to pull it together and make it happen. So like the fabric, the idea of working for Friends got stashed away for now, occasionally taken out and looked at with vague plans but nothing jumping out at me as the way forward.
Ironically being ill levelled out my finances as I started getting benefits to top up my small regular income. And by the time the fixed term job putting Documents in Advance together and other YM papers was advertised my health had improved enough to be able to apply in the hope that by the time it started I'd be properly up to it.
When the job started I just had to go for it and hope I could make it work. Luckily for me at the time (although possibly not for me in a fortnights time when the deadline rolls around!) not many contributions came in early so I had time to set up some systems and get my head around what needed done before actually having to do it.
It took several weeks to get the contract sorted, especially as one of the Monthly Meetings (mine as it happens!) decided to have a session considering guidelines for YM being an employer. So in the end my contract was signed with the caveat that this in no way was to be considered a template for future contracts without taking into consideration the current ongoing process of establishing best practice.
So we had the equivalent of the first strip of the quilt sorted out, what would happen next to be built up around it was very much still up in the air.
Whilst at Summer Gathering a group of us got together to consider how to go forward with a project that had been dormant for the last few years, but was still seen as an important part of our history as a community and there was a strong wish for it to continue. Could it be added to the secretarial role? someone asked, well not as it stands just now, but that doesn't mean it couldn't be in the future! Already Friends are starting to see ways of expanding the original role, extending the pattern yet within the existing colour scheme. What we're still waiting for is that collective lightbulb moment of seeing exactly what it is we need to be creating out of the bits and pieces we have to choose from.
It is going to be interesting to see how things develop this year, will the project get shelved after the first stage until the same time of year roles around again? Anyway whatever happens with the paid work at least I have some idea what I'm doing with my sewing for now! And having now finished Dune I wonder if I can tackle another book from the list whilst I'm at it?
Monday, December 15, 2014
on a mission
No, it isn't dark and I'm not wearing sunglasses...
However, apart from the usual repatriation of of certain confectionery items and one CD that has become something of a tradition, I have been spending the last few weeks trying to meet my own goal of giving only hand made items for Christmas. Admittedly I have only got close to achieving this thanks to the efforts of my lovely friend Sue at SuperVery, but it feels very satisfying none the less.
I'm afraid you're not getting any more details than that as the chances are at least some of the recipients will read this before Christmas and I know for a fact there is no way at least one of them could get this far through a post then close it down if she thought there would be a clue as to what is in the parcel! Sorry Mum...
It all started off thanks to a couple of things doing the rounds on Facebook, one was variations on a theme of shop from local independent stores/make/swap/etc presents and the other was a campaign to boycott Amazon due to their very poor working conditions/wages and tax avoidance.
I've used Amazon UK over the years to avoid paying postage twice when sending books/cds back to the UK as we don't have much available locally in the way of books/music here so as often as not I'd bought them online. So if I'm buying online anyway it makes sense to buy online in the country they're heading to! Given it has become something of a tradition for me to send someone a cd of a Kiwi band/artist each year for Christmas that was the first crunch test. However my trusty music guru Thomas, who happens to be in Villainy, gave me a link with this year's suggestion to the ecommerce platform that the artist is selling through, sorted! Proving once again it's not what you know but who you know that makes all the difference.
So, with a pile of presents being made for Christmas, plus some belated birthday presents to complete I've been a bit busy of late, hence the lack of blog posts. But with the last two presents needing posted completed today I thought I'd post something before I got completely out of the habit again...
I've been extremely grateful to have had the energy to even attempt this, and whilst I've over estimated my brain's capacity to think a few things through at times I've got there in the end. My quick-unpick has had a lot of use of late, and a few measurements ended up being something other than originally intended as "it's good enough" won over the prospect of 'Merry July'.
Whether I'll manage to get my annual Christmas epistle sent out before Christmas Eve for a change still remains to be seen. As the saying goes, miracles I can do, the impossible takes a little longer...
However, apart from the usual repatriation of of certain confectionery items and one CD that has become something of a tradition, I have been spending the last few weeks trying to meet my own goal of giving only hand made items for Christmas. Admittedly I have only got close to achieving this thanks to the efforts of my lovely friend Sue at SuperVery, but it feels very satisfying none the less.
I'm afraid you're not getting any more details than that as the chances are at least some of the recipients will read this before Christmas and I know for a fact there is no way at least one of them could get this far through a post then close it down if she thought there would be a clue as to what is in the parcel! Sorry Mum...
It all started off thanks to a couple of things doing the rounds on Facebook, one was variations on a theme of shop from local independent stores/make/swap/etc presents and the other was a campaign to boycott Amazon due to their very poor working conditions/wages and tax avoidance.
I've used Amazon UK over the years to avoid paying postage twice when sending books/cds back to the UK as we don't have much available locally in the way of books/music here so as often as not I'd bought them online. So if I'm buying online anyway it makes sense to buy online in the country they're heading to! Given it has become something of a tradition for me to send someone a cd of a Kiwi band/artist each year for Christmas that was the first crunch test. However my trusty music guru Thomas, who happens to be in Villainy, gave me a link with this year's suggestion to the ecommerce platform that the artist is selling through, sorted! Proving once again it's not what you know but who you know that makes all the difference.
So, with a pile of presents being made for Christmas, plus some belated birthday presents to complete I've been a bit busy of late, hence the lack of blog posts. But with the last two presents needing posted completed today I thought I'd post something before I got completely out of the habit again...
I've been extremely grateful to have had the energy to even attempt this, and whilst I've over estimated my brain's capacity to think a few things through at times I've got there in the end. My quick-unpick has had a lot of use of late, and a few measurements ended up being something other than originally intended as "it's good enough" won over the prospect of 'Merry July'.
Whether I'll manage to get my annual Christmas epistle sent out before Christmas Eve for a change still remains to be seen. As the saying goes, miracles I can do, the impossible takes a little longer...
Thursday, November 13, 2014
aliens in my head or just another day?
Today Jane and I breathed a huge sigh of relief. Finally, after about a year, the Kaitaia TimeBank banner to be used outside the EcoCentre, at working bees, market stalls etc., has been finished. It didn't take that long to make relatively speaking, but there was about a 9 month gap between cutting out all the lettering and starting on the main panels.
The main reason things stalled was because my brain just wasn't up to figuring out the logistics of the banner which goes on one of those freestanding pole things. Should the pole go up one side or the middle? Should the lettering be from top to bottom (so you tilt your head to read it) or go across-ways? How do I make it so it will cope with the high winds of the Far North and not get ripped to shreds in a few weeks? If I put a pole pocket down the middle which seams can I sew before I turn the thing from inside out to the right way out and which have to wait until after?
Gradually I've plodded through the list. Jane, bless her, did the applique work which at least saved me that headache. Today saw the final piecing together of the two panels to make a single banner. It is a sign of how much I have improved over the last few months that I even tried. How often I used my quick-unpick is a sign of how much further I still have to go... I nearly had the whole thing sewn together complete with pole pockets etc before the penny dropped that the three lines I'd just sewn meant I now couldn't turn it the right way out - d'oh. I shouldn't have been surprised though. Earlier in the day, whilst working on another rather time-delayed project, I'd ironed several metres of binding in half the wrong way out before I realised what I was doing.
Common sense is something I've usually had a reasonable supply of. In various circles I gained a bit of a reputation for pointing out 'the bleeding obvious' to those who had somehow completely overlooked it. Until this year I could never fathom how people could miss such things. I really do feel handicapped without my usual capacity to see what's staring me in the face. Similarly towards the end of my time teaching I was finding my usually long patience had shrunk and I was snapping at kids in a way that shocked me when it happened. It felt like someone else controlling my tongue. I'd be horrified at myself at times and apologized straight away to whichever poor child I'd just bitten the head off. It was an eye opener to me to realise that this is what life is usually like for some people; that frustrated verbal response before thinking. Thankfully I didn't have to deal with an instinctive physical response on top, the flash of uncontrolled emotional response was bad enough.
For whatever reason I haven't had that flashpan response to children happen again since I stopped teaching week in week out at the end of 2012 and I am extremely grateful for that. I know one of my colleagues got the sharp edge of my tongue a few times when relieving last year. Our methods of teaching were completely at odds with each other and I wasn't in a space to be able to just let stuff go that in a better state I would've had the wisdom to just leave be.
The more my physical health improves the more obvious the anomalous state of my brain and emotions becomes, and reflecting back, the more I realise how long ago the changes started to become apparent. A lot of it is quite simply hormonal and due to going through peri-menopause of which several doctors, nurses and specialists have all agreed I've been having a lousy time of. The fact that most of the more obvious symptoms seem to fluctuate in sync with how tired, run down, and otherwise not well I am does give me some hope that 'this too shall pass' and normal service shall be resumed at some point. Hopefully some point sooner rather than later.
Spending a lot of time with those a generation or more older than me has meant I have been around regular discussions about those in the community slipping into states of advanced Altzheimer's, or senile dementia. I do wonder at times about the similarities between the way my brain feels mussed up and those conditions, although those I know with them aren't really in a state to compare notes. But in a week when 'today, tomorrow and yesterday' have got completely mixed up (what do you mean that if I re-read an email on Tuesday that I got on Monday that refers to 'tomorrow' that means today and not Wednesday??? In my defense I was expecting it to refer to Wednesday due to an earlier conversation); where I've given someone an answer only to ask them the same question back 10 minutes later; where I can't even get to the compost heap and back without forgetting what I was doing before I set off bucket in hand, I do have to wonder just how well I'd do in those assessment tests right now! But whilst I might be struggling to know what day of the week it is or how the heck it came to be Tuesday again already (but not today though!) I did figure out that Granny would've been 110 yesterday without even having to think about it. Admittedly remembering it was Tuesday before it got to 1.30pm would've been far more useful given Granny has long since gone beyond birthdays, whereas the pay office needed my timesheet posted yesterday and I was supposed to be somewhere else at 12...
I have to take heart though from the fact that I have more than one thing going on to keep track of, and that I do have a life again that doesn't simply consist of endless medical appointments and not much else. I don't mind unpicking seams half as much now as I used to as at least it means I had a go at sewing them in the first place, and I spotted the mistake before it was too late to change something. I still haven't quite plucked up the courage to attempt to unpick a counted cross-stitch I started some months ago and somehow managed to get the centre line in the wrong place, despite carefully (I thought...) counting the holes twice to make sure! Some mistakes are easier to fix than others.
Given what feels like personality transplants and my brain short-circuiting at times over the last few years I can understand why there have been people convinced they've been abducted by aliens in their sleep etc. It wouldn't need much mental instability, paranoia, certain drugs, or living amidst a culture of fear, scaremongering and some really dubious red tops 'journalism' on top of my own kind of experiences to really freak folk out. It's freaky enough at times as it is when I have a perfectly rational medical explanation for it all! Mind you when I had the third pregnancy test done on me this year irrespective of me pointing out that whilst I dropped biology at school as soon as possible, I did know enough to know without a doubt that I couldn't possibly be, there was that back of the mind thought 'But what about the Midwich Cuckoos?' I'm still debating whether aliens would be preferable to angels proclaiming or not... Thankfully the tests all agreed with me that I wasn't, so that all remains hypothetical!
So life trundles on. The 'guilt pile' is slowly being tackled and whilst new things inevitably get added to it at least I've not been looking at them all year. Another sewing project is close to completion, and only 6mths late this time so there is actually a chance of folk getting handmade Christmas presents after all. I'm not going to say when they'll get them mind, that feels far too much like tempting fate!
The main reason things stalled was because my brain just wasn't up to figuring out the logistics of the banner which goes on one of those freestanding pole things. Should the pole go up one side or the middle? Should the lettering be from top to bottom (so you tilt your head to read it) or go across-ways? How do I make it so it will cope with the high winds of the Far North and not get ripped to shreds in a few weeks? If I put a pole pocket down the middle which seams can I sew before I turn the thing from inside out to the right way out and which have to wait until after?
Gradually I've plodded through the list. Jane, bless her, did the applique work which at least saved me that headache. Today saw the final piecing together of the two panels to make a single banner. It is a sign of how much I have improved over the last few months that I even tried. How often I used my quick-unpick is a sign of how much further I still have to go... I nearly had the whole thing sewn together complete with pole pockets etc before the penny dropped that the three lines I'd just sewn meant I now couldn't turn it the right way out - d'oh. I shouldn't have been surprised though. Earlier in the day, whilst working on another rather time-delayed project, I'd ironed several metres of binding in half the wrong way out before I realised what I was doing.
Common sense is something I've usually had a reasonable supply of. In various circles I gained a bit of a reputation for pointing out 'the bleeding obvious' to those who had somehow completely overlooked it. Until this year I could never fathom how people could miss such things. I really do feel handicapped without my usual capacity to see what's staring me in the face. Similarly towards the end of my time teaching I was finding my usually long patience had shrunk and I was snapping at kids in a way that shocked me when it happened. It felt like someone else controlling my tongue. I'd be horrified at myself at times and apologized straight away to whichever poor child I'd just bitten the head off. It was an eye opener to me to realise that this is what life is usually like for some people; that frustrated verbal response before thinking. Thankfully I didn't have to deal with an instinctive physical response on top, the flash of uncontrolled emotional response was bad enough.
For whatever reason I haven't had that flashpan response to children happen again since I stopped teaching week in week out at the end of 2012 and I am extremely grateful for that. I know one of my colleagues got the sharp edge of my tongue a few times when relieving last year. Our methods of teaching were completely at odds with each other and I wasn't in a space to be able to just let stuff go that in a better state I would've had the wisdom to just leave be.
The more my physical health improves the more obvious the anomalous state of my brain and emotions becomes, and reflecting back, the more I realise how long ago the changes started to become apparent. A lot of it is quite simply hormonal and due to going through peri-menopause of which several doctors, nurses and specialists have all agreed I've been having a lousy time of. The fact that most of the more obvious symptoms seem to fluctuate in sync with how tired, run down, and otherwise not well I am does give me some hope that 'this too shall pass' and normal service shall be resumed at some point. Hopefully some point sooner rather than later.
Spending a lot of time with those a generation or more older than me has meant I have been around regular discussions about those in the community slipping into states of advanced Altzheimer's, or senile dementia. I do wonder at times about the similarities between the way my brain feels mussed up and those conditions, although those I know with them aren't really in a state to compare notes. But in a week when 'today, tomorrow and yesterday' have got completely mixed up (what do you mean that if I re-read an email on Tuesday that I got on Monday that refers to 'tomorrow' that means today and not Wednesday??? In my defense I was expecting it to refer to Wednesday due to an earlier conversation); where I've given someone an answer only to ask them the same question back 10 minutes later; where I can't even get to the compost heap and back without forgetting what I was doing before I set off bucket in hand, I do have to wonder just how well I'd do in those assessment tests right now! But whilst I might be struggling to know what day of the week it is or how the heck it came to be Tuesday again already (but not today though!) I did figure out that Granny would've been 110 yesterday without even having to think about it. Admittedly remembering it was Tuesday before it got to 1.30pm would've been far more useful given Granny has long since gone beyond birthdays, whereas the pay office needed my timesheet posted yesterday and I was supposed to be somewhere else at 12...
I have to take heart though from the fact that I have more than one thing going on to keep track of, and that I do have a life again that doesn't simply consist of endless medical appointments and not much else. I don't mind unpicking seams half as much now as I used to as at least it means I had a go at sewing them in the first place, and I spotted the mistake before it was too late to change something. I still haven't quite plucked up the courage to attempt to unpick a counted cross-stitch I started some months ago and somehow managed to get the centre line in the wrong place, despite carefully (I thought...) counting the holes twice to make sure! Some mistakes are easier to fix than others.
Given what feels like personality transplants and my brain short-circuiting at times over the last few years I can understand why there have been people convinced they've been abducted by aliens in their sleep etc. It wouldn't need much mental instability, paranoia, certain drugs, or living amidst a culture of fear, scaremongering and some really dubious red tops 'journalism' on top of my own kind of experiences to really freak folk out. It's freaky enough at times as it is when I have a perfectly rational medical explanation for it all! Mind you when I had the third pregnancy test done on me this year irrespective of me pointing out that whilst I dropped biology at school as soon as possible, I did know enough to know without a doubt that I couldn't possibly be, there was that back of the mind thought 'But what about the Midwich Cuckoos?' I'm still debating whether aliens would be preferable to angels proclaiming or not... Thankfully the tests all agreed with me that I wasn't, so that all remains hypothetical!
So life trundles on. The 'guilt pile' is slowly being tackled and whilst new things inevitably get added to it at least I've not been looking at them all year. Another sewing project is close to completion, and only 6mths late this time so there is actually a chance of folk getting handmade Christmas presents after all. I'm not going to say when they'll get them mind, that feels far too much like tempting fate!
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