Mistr

I am going to try spinning it by itself and in blends. It looks a lot like pearl cotton, so I may try for a finer weight. I want to find out how strong it is when spun. Silk is immensely strong as well as having a lovely sheen. My idea was to add silk to the alpaca yarn to make it stronger while retaining the softness. This gives me something new to play with. Solidarity. I know that I have not needed the stuff for years. It could be donated, recycled or thrown out. Or it is buried treasure and I will be happy to rediscover it. Some things should go to the historical society. It is just a question of being willing to take the time. I read a bit more last night and it continued to be disappointing. I already know to wash up the dishes as I am cooking. I do not get extra dishes dirty without a good reason. In a perfect world I would not leave things to soak in the sink overnight. In my world, I try not to leave them more than 48 hours. It is a short book so I am going to read some more of it. Maybe the later chapters will have useful tips. I will let you know. ------------------- I talked with the young people again last night and they are not coming to the wedding. Elf had to go to urgent care yesterday. Things will probably be fine, but they are not good right now. Cleo is too unsteady to walk not hanging onto something or someone. It took me about 15 minutes to go from being disappointed to realizing that them staying home will make the trip better for me and Dumbledore. We do not need to get up early on Saturday so that they can have breakfast with my brother who lives on the east coast. He is hosting the groom's party on Friday, so he is thrilled to get more sleep Saturday morning. Dumbledore can do things on his own while I am spending time with my mom. This will make everyone happier. We are going to Ikea on Sunday to look at possible new furniture for the living room. We can take our time and not worry about Elf and Cleo waiting for us in the restaurant. I will have to answer the "where is Elf?" questions, but that is a small price to pay for a much rosier attitude towards the weekend.

YAY! I am so happy for you!

I am glad that the salad kits are working for you for lunches. I had half a salad kit with grilled chicken for lunch today. Like you, I have been getting different flavors for variety. Batch cooking chicken breast has been a staple for my household for the last few years. I find that brining chicken breast (1 Tbsp sugar + 1 Tbsp kosher salt + 1 cup water; scale up as needed) makes it come out much more moist. Plain chicken breast tends to be dry. Other things that are easy components of dinners: baked potatoes or sweet potatoes cous-cous or rice pilaf (comes in a box with flavoring packet, or you can make from scratch with your favorite spices) pork chops (batch cook and freeze) meat loaf (batch cook and freeze in single portions) frozen veggies - I think it is worth it to get the organic ones. The flavor is noticeably better. I like having mix-and-match protein, vegetable and side dish for dinners. YMMV I hope you can get some rest and reflection during your time off.

Progress is happening. Dumbledore purchased the wedding presents. I found a dress that I can wear. I figured out the mistake I made in the accounting software and got my checkbook to balance. I cleaned the kitchen compost bin. I started reading A Monk's Guide to a Clean House and Mind by Shoukei Matsumoto. So far, I am not impressed. I understand how his advice would apply if I was living in a monastic community where the work was shared by a group of people. In theory, I can see how getting up early and having a clean house to start the day would be a fine thing. In real life, chances are good that if the house is clean first thing in the morning, Elf will have made a mess in the kitchen by the time I get home. Yesterday was better than some because Dumbledore put away clean dishes from the dishwasher and loaded the dirty dishes. He also took out the trash. The young people have not been doing their chores. Getting everyone in the community on board with the effort is something that Matsumoto takes for granted. My problem is not that I dislike cleaning. My attitude is just fine. My issue is triaging all the things that need to be done and staying on top of the things that will make the biggest difference. This is why the boxes in the garage have sat there for years. They do not interfere with daily life and it takes a lot of effort to sort and get rid of things. That effort could be spent getting rid of cobwebs or scrubbing the floor, which would cut down on visual clutter in a space I see every day. Elf tried to tell me that they do not want to go to the wedding this weekend because they are still exhausted all the time. I pushed back, saying that all they have to do is be awake for breakfast on Saturday and the main event Saturday afternoon. They do not need to talk to people or get up and dance. They can sleep in the car on the way there and back. They can sleep in the hotel room most of the time we are out of town. This is no more effort than staying in their room at home and napping, with the occasional break for meals. I am going to hold the line on this one. It is my side of the family and I want Elf to be there. I want Elf to be a real part of our family, even though Dumbledore is close to giving up on that. Cleo is optional, but she is really not safe on her own right now. She is having too much trouble with vertigo. She is being tested for POTS this week. Cleo is doing a better job than Elf about communicating with us. I am not sure how she is feeling about being a member of the household. She does not have any other options. That has to color her perception quite a bit. I feel like we have taken in two badly traumatized strays. I want them to recover so they can go back to the wild and live on their own as functioning adults. No one knows how long that is going to take. I also feel that it is important for them to exercise agency in dealing with their situation. They are adults, not children. So I am doing what I can to make my daily life sustainable without counting on them for anything. It would help a lot if they talked to Dumbledore more so that he was happy about having them as part of the household.

Good for you and H taking a much-needed evening off. That sounds lovely. 💓

One of the newer people on my team was a tenured professor. He gave that up for an industry job that lets him use his professional expertise in a position that is actually 40 hours a week. No weekends or overtime, no committee meetings. He is brilliant and we all feel lucky to have him. It says something about academia that it no longer provides a good environment for brilliant people to teach and do research. Yep. This is why I am so happy that Dumbledore gave up being an adjunct professor. I swear he was spending more on supplies and going out for coffee with students than he was making. He is vastly happier now. I am really glad to hear that. I love that you are exploring a new model of sharing philosophy with a broader range of people.

No, no, no, solidarity is not a good description. Stubbornness. We both have a firm belief that the other person can live up to their press releases and we are going to make this work, dammit. That said, we have been actively working on building a good relationship for a long time. Things are now to the point where I worry about something bad happening instead of worrying about how to fix things. --------------------------- Monday worked out better than I expected. I did a familiar core workout. I felt my abs engage and work without protesting. Work continues to have more volume of tasks coming in than I can do. I am trying to do a bit more triage so that the older things do not come around to bite me. Instead of being overwhelmed I am refusing to look at the whole list of things I should be doing. Maybe not the best approach, but it's what I have at the moment. I was looking forward to going to my spinning group to connect with people. That was great. The host gave us a tour of her extensive garden. She keeps bees and chickens too. As we walked over to the hives, one of the group noticed a swarm of bees on a tree. They were just hanging out, coating the trunk of a small tree. Not flying around or doing much. Luckily, the host had an empty hive. She suited up and moved the bees into the hive. Most of us went inside for that part, just to be safe. I brought along a bag of silk roving to give away. I bought it a long time ago. This is the roving that I discovered has noils in it. Great if you want textured yarn. I want smooth yarn, so out it goes. Chris was delighted to see the bag of silk because she wants to do silk dyeing. I told her she could just have it, but she didn't feel right about that. It turned out she just accidentally purchased a wholesale quantity of pearl-infused cellulose fiber. This was the first time I had heard of such a thing. It is white and shiny. I took home a good chunk of it. I'm looking forward to seeing how it spins up and how it blends with alpaca.

Dumbledore once came to visit me at work and snuck up behind me while I was concentrating on something. My desk was in stop where people had to walk behind me a lot, so I was used to ignoring them. Dumbledore leaned over me and said "Boo". I was so startled that I levitated from my chair and hit him in the nose with the top of my head. He tried to look hurt, but he was laughing too hard. 😂 Your situation sounds frustrating on several levels. Would it help to make a list of things that would make your life better? This could work much like your to-do list from work. Some things would be simple, like buying voice-cancelling headphones. Others would be more complex, like doing art or getting your bike fixed. Having a list would let you have some small (or bigger) wins every day.

You are absolutely right about a lot happening in the last several weeks. For myself, I'm glad to have this week to keep working on my challenge. The same things are happening all over. The US academic model is falling apart as the student population plateaus and is projected to decline. Everyone has known for years that the graduate school education model was a Multi-level Marketing scheme. Each professor trains 10-30 graduate students over their career, but there will be only one or two job openings in academia that the new PhDs could fill. Some fields direct their graduates to jobs outside academia, but most pretend that they are preparing students for academic careers. Now there are so many unemployed PhDs around that universities are using them as grunt labor (Adjunct Professors) to teach courses, allowing the administration to get rid of tenured faculty. It has always been a challenge to get tenure, but now that option is just plain disappearing. There may be some smaller private schools that still hold to the previous model of higher education. Everyone I know in academia is reporting that things are getting worse. There are still good reasons to get a graduate degree, but an academic career is no longer one of them. I'm not sure what your long term plan is. You may want to consider how the current climate is going to affect it. I hope you can find a second job that is less stressful and lets you put some of your financial worries to rest.

I am so glad for you having peace in your house again. Reflection is good. My sympathy on the struggles of debt reduction. We are working on that too. If everything just worked and didn't wear out, we would be in much better shape. Plus wanting to visit friends and family. I don't feel like I am buying extra stuff, but I am sure spending a lot on keeping things going. Having both Elf and Cleo unemployed makes it harder.

I did quite a bit of cleaning this weekend. I did rather less goofing off than I would have liked and did not even start several things on my list. This is triggering the scream-and-run anxiety from when things were much worse. Really, it will be fine. I just have trouble seeing that right now. Things accomplished: Laundry Cleaned kitchen sink and stove Victory over dishes! Cooked split pea soup from the ham stock I made last weekend Swept the floors Went to aikido on Friday evening and Sunday morning Went out with Dumbledore for a good dinner and quiet time at a coffeehouse with live guitar music. We realized after we got home that it was our anniversary (42 years !?!?!?!?!) Dojo planning meeting Wrote up notes from planning meeting. I am now officially the Secretary. Before I just took notes. Took home the doorway curtains from the dojo, washed them, and put them back. Brought down the summer clothes bins from the attic. Zen I am not going to list all the other things on my list because it will make me stressed. A couple things that are bugging me: - I did not finish the library book that is now overdue. Someone else wants it, so I can't renew it. I will just have to check it out again later. - I did not get out my dresses and see what still fits and would be suitable for the wedding I am going to next weekend. - I did not buy the gift to take to the wedding next weekend - I did not get to bed on time any night this weekend, in spite of efforts to do so. I'll see what I can do to handle things today so that I feel more on top of things. I may just buy a packet of pollinator mixed flower seeds and put those in the veggie bed for this summer. Gardening is one of the things not making the cut right now.

Aiieeee, that sounds painfully familiar. Although I mostly relied on chocolate, not ice cream or whiskey. I feel like I am only a few steps on the path to healthier strategies. There is less chocolate.

What will you get to see in France?

Can you set up a fan to air out the basement (and let it run while you are elsewhere)? Cleaning a basement is bad enough without having to deal with dust and the smell of musty things.

It is great to hear you sounding happy and excited instead of tired and frustrated. I hope everything goes well and you have fun with the game tomorrow.