TdF Day 3

Day 3, finished 2oz of Sea Glass for my sweater. 30oz to go....

TdF Day 2

I didn't have much time to spin since I was working all day, but I did make some progress:

Tour deFleece Day 1

Tour deFleece? Yes, Fleece not France. Who needs France when you have wool? No, really! It's an invention of some Ravelry folks who thought it would be fun to spin during the race. After all, what bikers do is spin.

Funny:  Larry saw a Groupon promotion for spinning classes and got all excited for me. Until he opened the link. Apparently stationary bike riders are called spinners.

Anyway, the TdF started, yesterday, June 30 and finishes on July 22. The purpose of this parallel spinning 'race' is to challenge yourself. So here are my challenges for this year:

1. Spindle spin a sweater lot of yarn-if I spin 1oz a day I will have 23 ounces, theoretically that is enough for a sweater for me.
2. Improve my longdraw-I will do this while improving my support spindle skills.
3. Improve my support spindle skills-spin supported for 15 minutes a day.

I will be (hopefully) posting pictures of my daily progress here. Since I will be spinning mostly in the evenings I will take and post my pictures the next day. So here is yesterday's spin:

About 1oz towards my sweater:

A half an ounce on a support spindle, still a new skill for me:

Top 3 Mistakes to Avoid When Grocery Shopping

I hate shopping, especially grocery shopping. I try to get it done as fast as possible. Lately, I've been able to tear my list into quarters and give each child a section. The last one to complete their portion gets to unload the cart, wait in line and bag the groceries. Of course the kids have found that they can sneak items that I would never buy into the cart. We can usually be in and out of the store in under half an hour and about 20% over budget.

Budget: N. An estimate of costs, revenues, and resources over a specified period; Money for a particular purpose. V. To plan allotment of funds, time.

Having spent most of the past year sick and unemployed our budget has been shot to hell. I have become a maven at penny pinching and cost effective meals. This is a good thing, but it has cost me time, not that I didn't have any being unemployed, but still.

My goal over the next few months is to find ways to continue to save money in the kitchen while getting me out of there quicker. The first step to reaching my goal is to lay down some rules. Shopping rules. Let's face it, the shopping is not going to go away, but there are three things I can do to make it less painful to my wallet and my time.

1.  Never shop without a plan. A plan, a menu plan. And write it down. It doesn't have to be super detailed, it can be as simple as Monday-chicken, Tuesday-pasta, Wednesday-fish.... Just saying I need 5 dinners for 5 people isn't going to cut it. Write down the days of the week and plug in meal ideas. You don't have to stick to the exact plan while cooking, things happen. Wednesday your sister could show up and she doesn't like fish. So swap out Thursday's dinner. Easy as pie. Mmmmm pie...... Besides, if you don't have a plan you can't make a shopping list. Which leads me to the second mistake.

2. Never forget your list. You need a list. A written list. Trust me, you can't remember it all, there are too many things vying for your attention at the store to keep it all in your head. Inevitably you will forget something causing you to have to make another run to the store. This not only eats up precious time but it leaves you open to putting more things in your cart that are NOT ON YOUR LIST. Having a list allows you to shop deliberately, consciously. It's harder to get distracted when you have your list in your grubby little paws. Speaking of distractions, let's look at mistake number three.

3. Never shop while hungry. Hello! Obvious right? Yet I still go to the store when I'm peckish. It's embarrassing to get to the checkout with half a bottle of iced tea and an open package of cookies. Not only that but when I shop while hungry I put things in the cart that ARE NOT ON MY LIST and therefore NOT ON MY BUDGET.


Let's talk meal planning next week.

Yakira

More Lists

Back in March I wrote a ramble about lists. It was partly serious and partly tongue-in-cheek, and I've been thinking a lot about it. My shopping and errand lists have a better chance of completion than my task and chore lists. It's pretty obvious why, after all, who wants to clean?

Recently I've been ill. I'm better now but I had a week long stay at the hospital the last week in May. The biggest runoff problem from this, aside from feeling crappy, is that I've been unable to work. Without my 20 hours a week we are a financial train wreck. Social Services has pulled through and we've got food stamps but food stamps doesn't pay the rent or feed the dogs and cats.

So what does this have to do with lists? It has a lot to do with lists. Lists help prioritize. Lists help you see the whole picture. Lists can remind you of what's really important in the long run, the people you love and who love you.

I've added a donate button to my blog for you generous souls who can and want to give. All donations will be kept private and will only be used for rent, utilities, necessities and the animals.

Yakira

Lists

List-N. a number of connected items written or printed consecutively, an area for jousting tournaments or other contests V. (of a ship) to lean to one side

There were a whole bunch more really interesting definitions for the word list. For instance, did you know that in Old English list is related to lystan which means 'to be pleasing to'. A list is also selvage on cloth or thin strips of wood used as an edging.

I digress.

I make lists. I love lists. I make grocery lists; I make To Do lists; I make goal lists; I make chore lists; I make storage lists; I make wish lists; I make task lists; I make lists for other people;  I make lists for myself. The list just goes on.

I've heard all my life how wonderful and satisfying it is to cross something off your list. I've tried it. It does feel pretty good. But I think I have some sort of Oppositional List Disorder, OLD. Once I've crossed a few things off my list I get distracted, maybe distracted is the wrong word, more like deliberately distracted, or refocused, or perhaps defiant and oppositional. My list just sits there unloved and unused. A blatant reminder of how I continue to fail to cross things off of it.

My lists pile up too. I just cleaned out the car for Pesach and found a pile of lists shoved in the door pocket like unwanted step children. In the bottom of my knitting bag were several task lists and errand lists crumpled and despondent. I walked past the bookshelf in the dining room and was ambushed by another pile of lists that leaped off the shelf hoping to fulfill their ultimate purpose and find favor in my eyes.

Yet it's not all lists towards which I manifest OLD. My grocery lists are a piece of art. They are ordered by store, and aisle; there are ranks for budget considerations and meal planning; holiday meals have their own section. Oh beautious shopping lists! It's my To Do lists, task lists, chore lists and other action oriented lists that languish, pile up and remind me of my constant failure.

And it's not like I can't follow directions. I can follow a knitting or sewing pattern from step one to the finish, without a single mistake. I can put together an Ikea bookshelf like nobody's business. Recipes, piece of cake!  Everyone of these things is nothing more than a detailed list of instructions.

So where is the breakdown? When does a list become my antithesis? At what point does my OLD kick in? Am I the only Human Being for which lists do not work?

I reviewed a few of my lists just to get a feel for where the breakdown was. I had the cleaning supplies for the cleaning lists, no problem there, I just dislike cleaning and would rather be knitting. There were a few task lists that required something else be completed before the list could be accomplished, like acquiring boxes or moving furniture. That only made the list longer so I can see where the glitch was, I would rather be knitting. My errand lists were usually pretty well completed, except for the things that came after the craft or yarn store.

I'm starting to see a pattern here.

I'm going to go peruse Ravelry while I think about this.

Some Finished Stuff

I am enjoying knitting with my hand spun so much! I haven't felt the urge, no, compelling need to purchase yarn for over a year. Don't get me wrong, there are tons of lovely yarns out there calling my name, I just haven't felt the all consuming desire to own them.

This shawl was knit with a combination of hand spun and mill spun yarn. The colors in the hand spun moved so beautifully through the stripes that each row was a delight to knit. I knit this in record time, less than three weeks. Then it sat for three months, still on the needles, because I ran out of hand spun yarn. And all it took was about 20 minutes of spinning and another 20 minutes of knitting to get the damn thing bound off. Go figure.  It's done now and too lovely for words. I've listed it for sale in our Etsy store so go take a peek. There are more pictures there too.

In a fit of whimsy, I crafted a jellyfish with some scraps of hand spun I had leftover from other projects. I fulled it in the washing machine and it turned out totally adorable, if jellyfish can be called adorable. It's also listed for sale on Etsy.

Black lace, who doesn't love black lace? It's feminine and sexy and just a bit naughty. The yarn is from Dream in Color. If anyone wants to gift yarn to me, these are the folks to get it from. There is not a single base of yarn or a single color of theirs that I do not love. This is also for sale.