Talk About Tuesday

 

*slightly insane laughter here*

Well... my plans for yesterday were for naught, and boy have I had a week since Thursday.

On Friday, my mother found a large crack in her windshield, which was very stressful for her, and even though the replacement is going to be covered by insurance, trying to find someone to do it was rough. Tomorrow is the best anyone in the state can do without her driving to another county or six. She spent the rest of the day manic and cranky. Understandable. I would be, too.

On Saturday, I was so exhausted by... life? I don't rightly know. But I was exhausted enough that I did exactly nothing creative. Which guess what?

Is exhausting.

Sunday was also exhausting, which was weird because I didn't do much besides crochet a glove and then realize that the pattern I'd been using was worthless. Uh oh.

So I replaced the pattern with one from YouTube and I'm working based off of that. It's going better. I think.

Sunday also saw me realizing that I had nothing for Monday, so I started going turbo mode and....

Further exhausted myself.

So I've basically been slowly spiralling myself into deeper and deeper exhaustion to the point where the muscles behind my ears are sore, which sucks because I'm a side/back sleeper and those muscles are pressed against my pillow the whole time I'm trying to sleep. Bread before bed no longer works - we no longer have oat bread. Thus, I remain sleepless.

Well, not entirely. I am managing a few hours a night. I'm hoping that frontloading my day with caffeine will lead to a crash tonight and I sleep until a normal hour tomorrow, waking refreshed and ready to paint or doodle.

Speaking of painting & doodling, if anyone wants a say in the category this week, feel free to leave a donation on my Ko-Fi with a message containing which one of the following subjects you'd like to see:

Animal

Vegetable

Mineral

Location

Geometric

Word

Dedbert

I have some ideas, but I'd love direction.

So yes, no crochet two weeks in a row. I'm very disappointed in myself. At least my art has been consistent!

I hope to get some more crochet done today, or at the very least I'd like to detangle Gordon once and for all.

And I also want to maybe write a page or so in one of my manuscripts.

There is one more thing I'd like to mention before I give my tentative plans for the next week or so, and that is this: I've discovered a silly new way to lightly exercise.

I call it "VGCIA".

Which stands for Video Game Character Idle Animation.

Basically, if you're waiting for something to finish - a scanner or printer, the toaster, the microwave, a kettle, etc - you assume a position with your feet spread apart shoulder-width, and then you pretend you're a video game character in idle animation. Just find a repetitive motion that sways a bit and keep that going while you wait. I did this in a semi-crouch yesterday watching toast brown in my toaster oven and it was like squats but more fun.

I kept my eyes on my toast, bouncing and swaying slowly from left to right until the muscles right above my knees started to burn a bit. Then I adjusted my stance until I could feel a different set of muscles in my legs working. Eventually, I put my chin level with the counter and had my arms akimbo like a spider so my biceps could feel it.

My toast didn't burn and I felt like I'd gotten a nice light workout.

I'm a fairly stationary person, but that's not healthy, so I like looking for small ways to keep my body in motion. I know I looked patently ridiculous the whole time I was waiting, but honestly, if anyone in my family didn't think I was a weirdo already, they've been paying even less attention to me than I thought.

I'm pretty open about the weird.

Anyway, if you guys have any other suggestions for stuff to do that is like exercise but can be fit into times when people are naturally getting up and moving around, I'd love to hear it! I saw someone post something on Twitter about a set of arm/wrist stretches they do before playing Splatoon, and that seems like a good idea, so if you've seen anything else like that, please let me know!

As for the rest of the week, these are my goals:

• Make art tomorrow & Thursday, have the blog posted before 4pm Eastern on Thursday.
• Detangle Gordon finally.
• Finish these gloves.
• Finish one of my shrugs.
• Start work on a possible cross stitch project? We'll see.
• Write at least 350 words in one manuscript. Not picky about which.
• Compile next month's prompts for whatever Inktober alternative I'll try!
• Next Tuesday I'll be back here to blab.

Today will mostly be me fiddling around with things I need to get done, some writing, and probably a sketch at the very least. It's cloudy and humid (87%) and warm (68℉/20℃, but probably feels a good 20% warmer due to humidity), and my cat is being super demanding and wants to go for a walk.

I think that'll do it from me today.

Go Enjoy Something!

FC

Fiber Monday - Slowly But Surely

 

In Which Work Proceeds Very Slowly

It's been... quite a week since Tuesday. I'll talk about the whys and wherefores tomorrow, but suffice it to say I have not been in the most creative of moods, and because of that, I've only got a couple of lil horn nubs on my stocking project to show for it. I plan on working on it more, but for now, I just have to apologize for going radio silent after Tuesday (unless you're on my Twitter account, where you got to see me live Tweet my frustrations...).

I look forward to getting back to work on my creative endeavors this week, though.

I learned some new tricks with my Bonkbubble art!

I came up with a new story idea I won't be working on for a while!

I even, as mentioned, got started back up on the stocking project!

But all that has only been in the last 48 hours, and I'm still catching up on my lost sleep (yes, I know that's not actually a thing, but my body's pretty good about letting me know how much rest it needs, so I'm going by its requests!)

I'll talk about more general life stuff tomorrow, so for today, let me just say:

Work proceeds as it can, and right now, the pace of the work is slower than usual.

If you're in a generally-warmer climate and facing the winter storms today, I'm very sorry that you're going through it, and it's 100% ok to be freaked out. Please try to put towels/blankets over your windows and under your doors to help insulate, bundle yourselves up, and don't drive if you can help it.

If you're up North and you're used to the inclement winter weather, please don't poke fun at your southerly neighbors - they don't have your experience, and I'd like to remind you that every year some yahoo or another who's lived in snowy conditions their whole life will inevitably fail to remember that 4-wheel drive does not mean "invincible in snow" and gets themselves and/or others hurt.

In short, be kind to each other, please!

And Go Enjoy Something!

FC