Skip to content

Small discoveries

Like happy little geckoes, we are settling into our new hollow log and I am learning new things about it all the time.  It turns out M and I aren’t the kind of sharp-eyed, high-cheekboned, young-and-ruthlessly-ascendant real estate moguls you might see on a polished reality TV show.  We’re more the kind of wool-hat-wearing, enthusiastic-but-basically-unobservant types you might see a heartwarming film based on.  Which is…something. (I do most of the wool-hat-wearing, truth be told.)  Evidence:

(a) Discovered our new house had a dishwasher well after our offer had been made/accepted/initial deposit laid.Who knew? Thing is, you couldn’t see it in the photos online and on the day of the Open House, there were too many people cluttering up the kitchen for us to really get a look in.

(b) In the first week after moving in, we discovered:

  • A skylight! In the kitchen!
  • A doorbell! (When someone rang it.)
  • A mirror on the back of the bedroom door!
  • A vegetable patch!
  • Where the fuse box is!

(c) A currawong stole one of my socks off the clothesline.  Swooped down, examined it, then picked it up and flew away, despite me dashing onto the back porch crying “No, stop, that’s my sock!” (as if the currawong would say “Oh, is it? Sorry, my bad.” and put it back).  This is, I think, one of the cutest and funniest things to happen to me ever. This may not be evidence in terms of my basic inability to evaluate real estate, but it is evidence of my basic inability to use pegs.

I want to just have a little gloat: having looked at a lot of Open Houses while we were searching, we knew as soon as we walked up the driveway that this place was a good one.  We were surly, cynical and tired — you might say I was wearing a particularly black wool hat that day — and as we drove over we agreed that this house would have to be something special to even tempt us.  And it did.  All that other stuff, the little details we’re only just discovering as we settle, are completely inconsequential in the face of the fact that the house resonates so strongly with us both.  It’s the house for us, no question.

Also, I think I’ve got a handle on why moving is so thoroughly discombobulating.  It’s not just the physical demands of reshuffling all your stuff, the packing and unpacking, etc. It’s the process of mapping your mind to a whole new physical context.  M’s dad pointed out that all the tiny jolts you hardly notice, like getting up in the night and not being 100% sure where the light switch is, are tiny disruptions to your resting mind that tire you out.  And that got me thinking about how we come to rely upon physical places as reassurances and as context.  I suspect most people have markers of some sort of boundary that reassure them and make them feel grounded.  For a lot of people, it’s their house, obviously, but for others — those with a turbulent home life, or sharing their home space with a lot of people, or with a different way of looking at the world — it can be a workplace or even their car.  Travellers fix on their hire cars or their tents or their backpacks or a talisman (like a teddybear or something) of some sort.  I think it’s a pretty natural impulse, when the stress of change or unfamiliar environments or excitement starts to shake up the mind a bit. It’s like finding the bottom of the riverbed after you’ve been turfed out of your kayak: once your get your toes in the sand, you know which way to go.So I started to see home as context, the place I’m surrounded with reminders of who I am and what I value — things like what food I keep on standby or the logical arrangement of toothbrush/toothpaste/hairbrush on my bathroom sink. And that’s why moving shakes you up so much: you have to realign all that stuff, relearn it, and get used to a reconfiguration of all those reminders.

I celebrated this breakthrough by redyeing my hair and casting on a pair of extra-thick boot socks. Reestablishing my context, indeed.

Tagged
2010 06 17 bethini chatter Comments (0) Permalink

FO Report: Silvery shiny sands

Well, I didn’t quite finish Silver Sands before the move, but I did a week later: we moved into our new place on Friday, and I finished them the Saturday of the week after — that’s gotta count for some sort of commendation, right? I’d settle for a poorly-printed participation certificate. Anyway, they’re gorgeous. This project has had a funny history.  I bought the yarn on a whim and began to regret it almost immediately.  I had begun thinking seriously about how much money I spend on unnecessary things, and to buy a swag of new yarn when I really, really had enough already, conflicted with that.  Plus, however beautiful and soft and tender, it’s a variegated colourway with touches of brown, and those are both things that are conspicuously absent in my wardrobe, though.  Painfully aware that I had made a mistake (and not a cheap one) with this purchase, I cast on a pattern that would at least do justice to the softness and the variegation — after all, there’s no bad yarn, just misplaced.  I settled on the Prismatic Scarf:

Soft start

And so I trundled along, knitting every row with moderately-gritted teeth, aware I was stitching away at a project I wasn’t ever going to wear — or if I did, it would only be out of a misguided sense of obligation.  But! Salvation! Mumini saw what I was up to and plotzed.  She couldn’t stop fondling the soft, fluffy yarn; she couldn’t stop eyeball-fondling the gentle stripes the yarn created; she looked envious — I’m no genius, but I figured out the next logical step.  Scarf for Mumini, with matching fingerless mitts:

Shadowy mitts!

Making up a mitt pattern to match the Prismatic Scarf was really straight forward: I just made simple fingerless gloves, with some 2×2 rib around the cuff, then stockinette on the palm and a variation of the Prismatic Scarf pattern across the tops of the hands (the pattern worked over lots of two stitches rather than three, as per the original); a simple horizontal thumbhole, then continue until you get bored and finish with some more 2×2 rib.  (More detailed notes in this previous post.) Once they were done (and in my haste, I neglected to photograph them), I finished the scarf, using up all the yarn I had and gleefully giving it away to the recipient right on the spot.  Looks mighty fine, and I’m glad I’ve found a welcoming home for it:

Yarn: Morris Quartet 8ply, a loosely-plied soy/wool blend which is extremely soft and fluffy and nice to work with.

Pattern: Prismatic Scarf, as mentioned, plus invented mitts to match. No mods.  Awesome pattern, too, which produces a nice, flat scarf.

Soft, lovely, and a welcome gift — from both points of view. I was glad to have someone to give it to, and Mumini was delighted to receive it.

Tagged ,
2010 06 13 bethini knitting Comments (0) Permalink

Shift

I have just moved house.  What a rigourously discombobulating process that is.  I always forget how much it shakes you (well, me) up. Transferring all your possessions to a new location doesn’t seem like a big deal on paper, but unpacking — being brought face-to-face with all the things you’ve bought or that someone has bought for you — can be a little confronting if you’re not entirely ready for it.  We unpacked, stared at, and then reboxed-to-give-away cartons and cartons of stuff.

M and I have been boarding with family for the past nine months, and most of our stuff was boxed up and stored while we were doing so, and I had forgotten how many obviously unnecessary things we had (note the use of the past tense). It was a bit surprising to find so many boxes waiting for us when the time came to move.  We sent a lot of things off to live with other people, a lot to charity and a lot to the dump. I’m glad we moved so much stuff along (and how I am coming to hate the concept of stuff acquisition), but I feel a little ashamed of how many stupid things I considered necessary or just cool enough to buy at different points in my life.  It’s not just a question of money — although we could lose hours discussing all the better uses of the money that was spent on unnecessities over the course of my life — it’s a question of consumption and greed and entangling my identity and time with useless, silly things.

I feel really good about how many of those useless, silly things are no longer mine.  It’s strange that possessions can have such a clinging, negative effect on you sometimes.  I haven’t got rid of everything: I like having a big pot for cooking and I like having a variety of books waiting to be read or re-read (although many will be forcibly marched on after reading). But when you start keeping things because you want to be branded with the values that you think other people will associate with those things, you run into trouble.  Put it this way: you can own every Le Creuset piece on the market, but if you’re a shit cook, your guests won’t be fooled for a second.

Tagged
2010 06 11 bethini etc. Comments (0) Permalink

F is for F(l)ail

I gotta ‘fess up — I didn’t finish all the Unfinished Business that I had hoped to before we moved house.  I’d like to tell you that it was by the skin of my teeth, that it was entirely due to bad luck and that I was *that* close to finishing all the knitting projects, all the unread books, all the unpolished writing projects I had simmering away, and the only reason I didn’t get them all done before the move, like I promised, was due to a completely unexpected panther stampede or something. But frankly, I suspect the writing was on the wall for this one for a loooong time. That’s the thing about self-imposed, arbitrary challenges, though: you’re too deep into them to see the wall, let alone read the writing on it.

Knitting

Had hoped to finish:

- Skew socks: DONE! Woo! Prompted me to renew my hope that all the other stuff would miraculously be done.

- Silver sands scarf and matching mitts: probably would have finished if I hadn’t gotten past the thumbhole of the second mitt and realised that I had written down the instructions with all the accuracy of a giddy koala and had to rip back nearly an entire mitt and restart.  Have since finished both mitts, although the scarf is still on the needles. But seriously, only a few rows left, I swear!

- Mermaid gloves: Nope. Didn’t even pick them up.

- Mossy Tendrils: *ironic braying laughter* Snork. Ah, you slay me. Finish all the above AND a sweater, however advanced in progress? Pah.

Reading

I feel like I made better progress with the reading frenzy than the knitting one. I think it’s because I can take reading to work and read in lulls or lunchbreaks; whereas bringing my knitting to work puts me on the edge of a rabbit’s hole of lost time and potential reprimands.  But, sadly, it was not to be. I was toying with waxing lyrical about how reading is an activity that deserves respectful patience and should not be bound by reading deadlines etc.: but frankly, any student up to their nipples in “Write 2,000 words on Great Expectations by next week” could tell you that, and I suspect I was just using it as a justification for my complete failure to meet my own deadline.  And ya know what? I don’t care that much.

So where does that leave you now, smarty-pants?

Knitting list:
- Mossy tendrils — found the bag, found the pattern, found my mojo: full steam ahead.  Mind you, full steam ahead on a sweater is still round-and-round-we-go-when-does-the-stockinette-end, but I’m definitely past the waist and hip shaping, so it’s just a little burst to the end of the body and then on with the sleeves.

- Silver sands — exciting developments! Stay tuned!

- Mermaid gloves — no progress. Hands have been cold lately, though, so maybe that will be enough to jumpstart me.

Reading list:
Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony
Things I Learned From Knitting
A Room of One’s Own
Five Quarters of the Orange
Tempests After Shakespeare
Sexual Personae

These, I emphasise, are only the ones I’ve started reading recently. If I were to do a true-and-honest list, taking stock of every book that currently has a bookmark of mine in it, well, I would probably have to go and lie down or quit my job or something (Scene: I ring early Monday morning: “No, I won’t be in this week, either…I found out I never finished reading The Name of the Rose two years ago. Who’d'a thought? Anyway, I’ll call you when I get to the end, okay?” Fade out to sound of ruffling pages.)

Tagged , , , ,
2010 06 05 bethini etc.
knitting Comments (0) Permalink

Silver Sands Mitts

I have been diligently applying myself to working through my Knitting List (an altogether different thing to a Bucket List, I assure you) in pursuit of the Big Pre-Move Challenge. Presenting; Silver Sands Mitts!  One down, a little bit of one to go.

I’m making the Prismatic Scarf, AKA Silver Sands, for my lovely Mumini: it’s nearly finished, so I’m using the last ball of that yarn to make some matching mitts — what’s left after the mitts are done will be used to finish/bind off the scarf.

Pretty silver mitts in the backyard

The mitts pattern was made up as I went along: fortunately, my Mumini and I have similarly-sized hands, so I can fit them as I go. It’s intended to match the Prismatic Scarf, so there’s a scaled-down version of the slipped stitch pattern across the back of the hands. The Prismatic Scarf pattern uses multiples of 3, so in the mitts I used multiples of 2.  Here, for your consideration, are the notes I made to ensure that I wind up with two identical mitts (I haven’t made a note of the gauge, I’m sorry to say, and the mitts are at home so I can’t measure them, and I am too impatient to post this to wait until I get home: I am clearly a master blogger):

Kicking off:

- Cast on 40 stitches (or however many you think will work for your hand/needle size — just make sure it’s a multiple of 4); join for working in the round Edited to add: I found 40 sts too tight after all — try 44 sts instead.
- Work in 2×2 rib for 18 rounds.
- From here, work half the stitches in stockinette (this will form the palm) and the other half in the same pattern used in the Prismatic Scarf except over groups of 2 sts rather than groups of 3.  Maintain these two patterns until the mitt reaches about 1cm below the first thumb knuckle, or wherever you would like your thumb to poke out.
Thumbhole:
- Work the first two stitches of the stockinette half of the stitches, then bind off 6 stitches for the thumbhole. Maintaining both stockinette and pattern, as appropriate, continue to the end of the round.
- Mega important alert: When you are working your second mitt, check your mitt to make sure that the thumbhole will put the stockinette section over the palm and the patterned section over the back of the hand — you will probably need to make one mitt with the thumbhole at the start of the stockinette section and one with the thumbhole at the end of the stockinette section.
- Maintaining stockinette/pattern, work back and forth for 4 rows.
- To close the thumbhole, recommence working in the round by casting on 6 sts over the gap, using a simple backwards loop cast-on.

Post-thumbhole

- Maintaining stockinette/pattern, work 12 rounds or as long as you would like your mitts.
- Switch to 2×2 rib all around for 8 rounds. Bind off loosely. Make another!
I’m currently up to the “Make another” step; they’re looking mighty fine, even if I do say so myself.  Hoping to knock this one off the to-knit list in short order, but just saying that out loud is probably enough to jinx me…
Tagged ,
2010 05 19 bethini knitting Comments (0) Permalink

Stuck (briefly)

I was doing really well with the whole Finish-Everything-I’ve-Begun challenge.  Really well!  Finished my Skew socks, then I finished reading Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma (excellent, fascinating), then When Books Die (charming, interesting, clever and stimulating). Congratulating myself, I turned to the Reading Pile and saw that behemoth. Hoo boy.  That up there is Camille Paglia’s Sexual Personae, which is so far interesting and compelling and, well, slow. There’s a lot to take in, both in volume and in complexity. It’s a bracing 900-or-so pages of narrow margins and small font and dudes, it’s not going to happen. In fact, it was giving me reader’s block. I kept picking it up, reading a page or two, thinking about what Paglia had to say, and then putting it aside and doing something altogether un-reading-related. I couldn’t commit to Sexual Personae because I knew it really needed a whole hour (or half-hour, at least) of sitting and thinking with it; it’s a particular kind of reading and it is too slow and thought-intensive to pitch against a deadline of only a fortnight or so.

Meanwhile, I was accumulating books that I really, really want to read. Behold the tower behind the mammoth:

See, we have recently set up a book exchange at work, which is a fancy way of saying we’ve set aside a couple of shelves in the library for people to drop off books they’re done with for other readers to grab, free of charge. I can’t stop checking it and I keep scoring books: not just randomly-interesting books, either (say hello to Portrait in Sepia and The House of Blue Mangoes), but books that I have meant to buy for ages and haven’t gotten around to, just waiting on the shelf for me to give them a loving home — Catcher in the Rye, The Blind Assassin, Five Quarters of the Orange, Midnight’s Children. How can I say no to these needy orphans? Their innocent, appealing faces, their compelling plots and barely-touched spines.

In light of these two considerations (the weighty impediment of Sexual Personae and the noise of the jostling waiting-in-the-wings collection), I’m shifting the goalposts for my Big Pre-Move Challenge.  Not by a lot, just enough to exclude Sexual Personae from the obligations.  As a coworker pointed out, I have proportionally read so little of Sexual Personae that, really, it couldn’t be considered “started” at all, and is therefore not an in-progress read.  I like the way my coworker thinks. But I’ve started Five Quarters of the Orange in its stead.  Oh, and The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, since I left Five Quarters at work and had nothing to read at home (nothing, I tell you!).  And, uh, A Room of One’s Own.  Does it count that I finished reading Howl? Probably not. Good read, though.

Original List, finished books removed:

The Waves
Frankenstein
The Omnivore’s Dilemma
Tempests After Shakespeare
Sexual Personae
When Books Die
Things I Learned From Knitting

Tagged , ,
2010 05 18 bethini etc. Comments (0) Permalink

FO Report: Skew

I finished my Skew socks!  One of the key contenders on the Finish-Before-The-Move knit-list, I love these socks.  I thought I cast them on the day they came out, but they’re from the Winter 2009 Knitty, so that surely can’t be right. Anyway, I love them.  I did not, however, love the process of trying to photograph them this evening. I don’t know if we have unusually yellow light bulbs around these parts, but it was a bit of a hassle trying to get a photo that accurately conveyed both colour and stitch pattern.  Regular sock knitters will recognise the feet-in-the-air pose:



Photographing-feet-asana

…which is pleasantly relaxing to boot.  This one below gives a better indication of colours, but not of fit — makes ‘em look all baggy.  These babies actually fit like a dream.

Skewed skews

At first, I thought they were going to be too long and bunch around the toes, but the pattern produces quite a narrow-fitting sock, so once I was up and walking around in them and not just laying around with my knees bent at weird angles trying to photograph them, they stretched in the right places and became perfectly-fitted socks.

Under Mozart's watchful gaze

Details:

Pattern: Skew by Lana Holden, who may, from the evidence I’ve gathered, be a complete genius.
Yarn: Araucania Ranco Multi, 1 skein; colourway: not sure, but if it makes you think of autumn leaves after rain, you’re probably close.
Opinion on them: Absolutely wonderful. Really loved these: can’t wait to dig my self-patterning yarns out of storage and see what the pattern makes of them. Meanwhile, I’ve got a few other projects on the Big Pre-Move Challenge (knitting) list to get through.

Tagged , , ,
2010 05 14 bethini knitting Comments (0) Permalink

Making magic and banging on while I do so

We’re moving house soon, and getting rid of as much stuff as we possibly can in anticipation of the process. Stuff like the breadmaker. M was the first to suggest getting rid of the breadmaker. I was initially reluctant, because I have always relied on it to do my kneading and rising. But I’m developing an aversion to any gadgets that can be described as a [noun]-[verb]-er — they always seem over-specialised and, in the case of the breadmaker, cumbersome and space-hogging. M spent a lot of time researching kneading techniques while I sipped cocktails and flogged the staff, and eventually had a few goes at hand-kneading with zero disaster.  Then he took the time to explain the process to me, using some butcher’s paper and fruit-scented markers.  Dudes, it is as easy as anything you’ve ever done in the kitchen. Cross my heart. Away with breadmakers and away with mixers-with-dough-paddle-attachments!  Take up kneading by hand, my breadmaking brethren!  It takes me about ten minutes to get from mix to a proper bread dough: ten minutes, people. It’s not hard, and, at the risk of getting a bit hippy on your arse, it’s kind of magical.  There’s a lovely moment where the mix really comes together, where you can feel the transformation taking place and you realise that the glutens have begun to develop and strengthen.  Suddenly your mix becomes tauter, silkier, springier and more cohesive.  It’s rather cool.

Building up speed!

I’m reading Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma at the moment and it’s got me thinking all about the transformative processes that take place in our food chain, permitting energy (calories) to be passed along to different participants in the chain.  At the most fundamental level, there’s the life cycle: decomposition breaks down into things like hummus; worms and fungi break down ended life — animal or vegetable — and all its stored energy into a form that permits it to be reused by vegetable matter. In the pastoral example in Pollan’s book, this becomes grass and other pastures, which becomes cow fodder. The cows turn some of it into cow meat, some of it into dairy, some of it into poop; flies come along and turn some of that poop into grubs, which chickens come along and turn into eggs and chicken meat; it’s all fairly miraculous, this waste-free process of use and re-use that transforms calories from one form into another. It got me thinking about what happens later: here’s me, a multi-celluar organism burning up calories to make fresh calories — in this case, I’m turning fruit, English muffins, cheese and tomato into bread:

Pound! Knead!

And then I leave the bread alone for a good long while, covered, in a big bowl.  You can rise dough at room temperature, unless things are abnormally cold, but I’ve discovered that sitting a bowl of dough on top of my fishtank hood is the best rising zone ever: it’s consistently warm, it’s broad, flat and stable, and I’m unlikely to accidentally knock anything into it, and I don’t have to operate a second, space-hogging appliance to get the dough warm and rising.  Breadmaker, you’re history.

It looks a bit like a giant potato.

I was inspired by this recipe for Apricot and Brie bread, which I came across via the most recent YeastSpotting from Wild Yeast. But! Big changes. You’ll notice, firstly, the absence of both apricots and Brie.  I wanted a much more savoury, herby bread to complement the French Onion Soup M was making for dinner: instead of apricot and Brie bread, I have rosemary and chive bread, with the Brie on the side (briefly — then sliced and spread over the hot-from-the-oven bread).  The thing that intrigued me most about the apricot and Brie bread I linked above was the beer in the mix: I happened to know that there was some leftover champagne in the fridge, so I made champagne, rosemary and chive bread! Sounded good, but champagne doesn’t seem to do much to the flavour of bread, not the way beer does.  I think next time I’ll probably just make a simple herb (and maybe onion or shallot) bread, and take care of the champagne myself.

I win at breads.

But I still think it was a pretty smashing triumph. Tasted good (albeit a little under-salted), and served warm with Brie and slowly-cooked French Onion Soup, it was heaven. This was my Saturday dinner. No, jealousy is normal: don’t feel bad.

Soft bread, soft cheese, warm heart

Tagged , , ,
2010 05 13 bethini foodin Comments (0) Permalink

Finishing II – Yarn

So I mentioned before that I’m using my forthcoming Moving Day (just under three weeks now) to light a fire under my reading list — trying to get all my half-read books completed before the day of the shift. Well, this is part of a broader plan to really get stuck into my To-Do box (which is more of a concept than an actual box) and finish a few things.  Let’s talk knitting: UFOs, front-and-centre! TENHUT!

Skew — One down, one to go: still looking awesome, still blowing my mind.  Still in a plastic bag stuffed down one side of the knitting basket/end-of-day-jumper-receptacle in my room.  These socks rock and I genuinely want the finished product on my feet, ASAP, but — well, there’s no but. I got distracted, put them to one side and haven’t finished.  No excuses: let’s get ‘em done.

Mossy tendrils — slow and steady progress, which is deeply uninteresting in terms of blog posts.  There’s only so many photos of dark green stockinette waist shaping I can justify.  I’m out of the shaping woods now, and have just a little plain stockinette, followed by the garter hem, to go on the body, and then it’s sleeve city. I love top-down raglans.  I am a happy citizen of Topdown Ragland!  The best part is, this is a good nibble project: stitch away while you’re waiting for dinner, squeeze in a couple of rounds while you’re chatting or watching TV — being mostly stockinette and garter, I can even work on it while I’m reading one of the many books on The Other List: so efficient! This is the only project on this list that could not have the word “languishing” used in its discussion — I haven’t rushed it, but I haven’t dawdled, either. Just whittled away, knit by knit.

Silver sands — scarf nearly done, thanks to a day of anxious waiting at the hospital a couple of weeks ago.  Unfortunately, and without having foreseen this self-imposed deadline thing, I promised the recipient of Silver Sands a matching pair of wrist warmers.  Seemed like a good idea at the time: now it feels like another thing on the Finish It Before The Move list.  Which it totally is, so at least it’s honest.  Cast on the cuffs last night, and had about three false starts before I finally got going on a size and structure I really like.  Now to persuade myself that I can “roar” through them and get the mitts done to match the scarf in short order; I’ve already started asking myself how long I think it takes to make a pair of wrist warmers, and the level of optimism implicit in my answers varies according to mood and weather.  Just after I’ve had coffee, I’ll say it’ll only take me a weekend, max, to do them; ask me again mid-afternoon and I’ll say it takes weeks and I was a fool, A FOOL, to have even started them. (I am decidedly less rosy and more sleepy mid-afternoon.) The scarf hasn’t been bound off yet, because I suspect I’ll have a bit of leftover yarn when I’ve finished the mitts and I will use that up as the last bit of the scarf.

See, when I decided to set out this list, I was all bouncy and thinking “Hey, this deadline stuff is great: what a good motivator for getting through all those UFOs!” but now I’m getting a bit uneasy about how much I may have signed myself up for here.

Mermaid gloves — sweet cheeses, I had forgotten about these. I cast these on in summer, determined to have them finished before the cold weather came.  One’s done, the other is lingering: I’m not even sure where I’m up to in the chart.  Actually, that’s probably what has triggered the lingering.  The figuring.  The figuring was the lingering triggering! I’ve put these down at one point, forgotten where I was up to, and decided the slight increase in mental challenge created by having to work it out is sufficient justification to put them aside.

I think that’s what appeals to me so much about this kind of deadline thing: a lot of these unfinished projects are unfinished because there was something that distracted me.  Nearly all of them have been paused, usually out of a slight increase in challenge, just long enough for a new project to elbow its way into my life. Silver sands was paused because I had to find/create a wrist warmer pattern; Skew and the Mermaid loves were paused because I had forgotten where I was up to in their patterns. Now that I’m forcing myself to finish things up and not permitting new projects into the arena (KNITTING PATTERN LOCKDOWN!), I’m realising that the challenges that present potential sticking points are very rarely worth sticking on.  That’s a bit embarrassing.  Huh.  I’m actually just easily put off.  Look, I didn’t sign up to this challenge to learn stuff about myself, okay? Certainly not embarrassing stuff.  Geez, get off my back!

Tagged , , , ,
2010 05 11 bethini knitting Comments (0) Permalink

Finishing I — Books

Moving house in a month — well, it was a month when I wrote this post, now it’s only three weeks — gives me the opportunity to self-impose one of my favourite challenges: a completely arbitrary deadline against which to stack my wits and energy. The challenge is to finish all the books I’m halfway through and all the knitting projects on the needles. I’m also working on a couple of writing projects I’d dearly like to conclude and, as ever, there’s trillions of “must get around to that” kind of jobs that haven’t been either interesting or urgent enough to hold my interest. Let’s talk books.

Halfway through and aiming to finish: These are the books I listed in that original post:

The Waves
Frankenstein
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe
The Omnivore’s Dilemma
Catcher in the Rye
The Blind Assassin
Tempests After Shakespeare
Sexual Personae

…but I have a couple of confessions to make. The first is that at the time of writing, I hadn’t actually started Catcher in the Rye or The Blind Assassin — I suspect the only reason I included them is because I had only procured them that day and was all giddy. The second is that I had actually already finished One, Two, Buckle My Shoe, so that shouldn’t be on there either.  Let’s try again:

The Waves
Frankenstein
The Omnivore’s Dilemma
Tempests After Shakespeare
Sexual Personae
When Books Die
Things I Learned From Knitting

This is the current, active list. I have a strong suspicion — some would call it certain knowledge — that there are other books I’m technically in the middle of reading, but they don’t count because I haven’t looked at them for ages and I’m certainly not going to start now. I’m playing a bit fast and loose with my definitions, but this is my arbitrarily-imposed challenge and I’ll do what I like. Now. This list pales into insignificance against my “Things I’m Planning To Read” list, on which reclines Catcher in the Rye, The Blind Assassin and many, many more. Like most readers, my appetite exceeds my capacity — my eyes are bigger than my belly, as Mumini says.

I have a third confession, since I’m in a soul-baring mood. I’ve already finished The Waves and Frankenstein! Woohaa! The Waves was incredibly enriching, life-changingly, mind-alteringly good and I loved it to pieces. The only reason I didn’t immediately restart it and begin A Room Of One’s Own to boot is that I knew I would be imposing this challenge and, well, I’m not that stupid.  Frankenstein was fun, but by the end of it I was ready for it to be over — I got fed up with the way that Frankenstein had tremours and bouts of ill-defined nervous illness whenever anybody so much as mentioned patchwork.

Next up: The Omnivore’s Dilemma.  Pretending not to think about: Sexual Personae and how very, very long it is.

The Waves
Frankenstein
The Omnivore’s Dilemma
Tempests After Shakespeare
Sexual Personae
When Books Die
Things I Learned From Knitting

Tagged , ,
2010 05 11 bethini etc. Comments (0) Permalink