Monday, February 02, 2009

Those Darn Rodents

Well, I guess we’re in for more winter weather now that both Punxsutawney Phil and Wiarton Willy saw their shadows. Though what a couple of pampered groundhogs back east have to do with the weather out here on the west coast, I have no idea! Looks pretty winterish still out there anyway. David Suzuki (you might have heard of him, local lad) calls it “global weirding” rather than “global warming”. Apparently the phrase was coined by Hunter Lovins (co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute), but whoever came up with it – it works for me. What else do you call it when we’ve had the worst winter snows in my nearly 60-year memory. The weather is screwed up. Whether that’d due to human intervention or just a natural wobble in the earth’s climate patterns, I hope it gives us a wakeup call. Business as usual isn’t working. Obviously.

Speaking of business as usual, I seem to be having trouble concentrating these days. More than my normal flitting about is occurring. While I’m trying to do one thing my mind starts to wander elsewhere and I feel like I’m not accomplishing much of anything. I’m not sure what to do about it, if anything at all. Maybe it’s the weather or maybe it was the odd later shift that T-Man has been on for the last month. He’s back to the early shift today so we’ll see if that changes things for me as well. For starters I got up an hour earlier than I have been recently. It was easier without him snoring gently beside me inspiring me to go back to sleep! At least he’ll be home in the afternoons again. Though today I have a Dr’s appointment right about the time he’s due home.

A symptom of my extra flitting is that I haven’t finished a few projects that are sitting around waiting for me. This includes my pencil case which I need to have by Thursday for my Spectrum Study Group meeting. It seems that sewing projects are the least likely to get completed in a reasonable amount of time. I used to love sewing and I’m happy enough to do it once I get started. But the impetus to do it just gets pushed to the end of the line for some reason. Maybe I need to schedule a regular period to sew in and then see if I extend the time on my own. That’s the trouble when I don’t have a deadline to work to. It’s much easier to put something aside if it’s not got a due date. So now that the pencil case has a deadline, I’ll be much more likely to get it done. I hope.

Which brings me to the spinning I’ve been doing for a lace scarf. I haven’t had a spinning project recently so it’s been quite pleasant to spend a few hours on the wheel each day. Here’s the silk/wool I’ve been working on:


Turning it into this:


There’s more than that on there now! Sorry I didn’t include anything for scale but those are the little lace bobbins for my Victoria wheel. Tori has been behaving herself even though her wheel is warped and she wobbles some. She isn’t throwing her drive band or anything really naughty. It’s very easy to just treadle away on this fine stuff. The lace flyer is working out very well and I’m glad I got it a year ago to add to Tori’s functionality. I still haven’t quite decided if I’m doing Nancy Bush’s Triinu Scarf or designing my own. I’m starting to lean toward designing now. But first I need to finish the yarn so I can dye it and swatch it.

I’ve been listening to podcasts while spinning and I realized how far behind I am on my favourites. Oh well. They aren’t going anywhere now that I’ve downloaded them and it doesn’t really matter if the discussion occurred a year or more ago, does it? Not to me anyway.

My favourite quote for the moment:

“The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.”
- Geoffrey Chaucer

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a great quote! I need to read Chaucer.

Louisa said...

Chaucer was a way cool dude! Though kind of hard to read in the original Middle English. :) A more modern translation reveals that people haven't changed much.

Note that I had an English Lit teacher who was a Chaucerian nut. She played us a recording of the Middle English version and I remember thinking it made our language sound quite lovely! But we could barely understand any of it. Though I can still pronounce "Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote, The droghte of March hath perced to the roote, And bathed every veyne in swich licour, Of which vertu engendred is the flour" It's lovely...