Liza

Jun 26 2011

Fits & Starts

in productivity

There’s this theory that if you do a little of something every day, eventually you’ll have accomplished a whole lot of it.  For example, BIC—Butt In Chair—stands for sitting your butt in the chair every day, regardless of whether you “feel like it”, and just writing.  The corollary is, if you do a little every day you’ll get in the habit of doing a little (or possibly more) every day, and so it’ll be less of a struggle to do every day.  Twenty-one days to create a habit, or whatever that number is supposed to be.

But then there’s also this theory, which is mine, that there aren’t enough hours in the day, and there isn’t enough energy in my body, to do a little of all of the things I want to do every day.  Writing, house-keeping, paying attention to my people, WORKING for money, gardening, brushing my teeth (ok, I manage this one every day pretty well), sleeping (if I could only do without…), knitting, listening to interesting & educational podcasts.  Etc.  Oh yeah, and READING.  I do a whole lot of that already.

So instead, I tend to binge on those things.  I’ll spend a weekend vegging because I’ve been pushing too hard for too long.  I’ll spend another weekend away Doing Something.  I’ll spend the next weekend catching up on housework* and maybe knitting and watching TV.  I’ll spend another weekend on a knitting or sewing project.  Another weekend caring for my garden.  In most cases I’m not devoting the whole weekend to that activity, but rather a significant portion of my energy.  Same goes for weekday evenings.  This past week, I spent a lot of evenings between work and paying attention to my significant other.  Other weeks I manage to write in the evenings.  Other weeks I manage to at least compose a few blog posts.

I feel guilty when I haven’t written several days in a week.  I feel guilty when Ben’s hat is sitting half-made for several months.  It was his Christmas present.  With any luck it’ll be finished by next Christmas.  I have a sweater I want to start making some day**.  I have tomatoes that need my attention, and kefir & yogurt to make at least weekly, and …

But maybe it’s not so bad to accomplish things in fits and starts.  I do make progress on those things.  I keep them all going, one way or another.  Not always “on time”***.  The thing is, it’s not that I’m slacking off.  OK, I’m not consistently productive on any one thing.  But that’s not my style.  Maybe it’s time for me to accept my style as the one that works for me, and stop trying to be the person who does the same things every day, or even every week.

And by the way, I’ve read 27 books so far this year.  So I’m clearly not slacking off on my reading.  :)

——

* Apparently it’s been four weeks since I last did laundry.  :-/  That’s long even for me.

** I have to buy yarn first.

*** See: laundry, hat.

mood: busy

location: home

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Jun 14 2011

I want to knit a sweater

in crafty

This entry is part 1 of 2 in the series Staghorn Sweater
pretty yellow cable-knit sweater

Staghorn Coat

And I’ve decided which one.  :-D

See how purty?

My mom bought me this fabulous book, POWER CABLES by Lily M. Chin, which is all about knitting different kinds of cables.  And this sweater is one of its patterns.  See how pretty?  I haven’t made anything from the book yet, and I want to start with this one.

Honestly, though, I have trouble following directions.  Recipes, assignments at work, patterns, I always notice when they’re just not quite right, and adjust them.  Not right for me, of course, I couldn’t say if they’re right for everyone else.  (Some people like celery, can you imagine?)  This pattern only offers one size, and I’m concerned it’ll be too big for me.  So I’ve decided I’m going to alter the pattern.  That means a lot more work upfront, but I hope it’ll look better on me in the end.

Now, it’s meant to be an oversized sweater, and I’m ok with that.  It’s just that I want it to look like it’s oversized on *me*, not like a hand-me-down oversized sweater.  Furthermore, knitted things have a tendency to stretch, so if it starts out too big, it runs the risk of getting only longer and baggier.  I think it’ll be the right size around my hips, but I want it to be a little more shapely, and I think I’d like to make it a little narrower in the shoulders.  So, I’m thinking of putting in darts on the side-seams, to decrease through the waist and then increase again in the chest.

I’ve never made a sweater before.  I’ve been knitting for over half my life, and I’ve wanted to make something like a sweater for years.  But sweaters are a lot of work.  It’s daunting.  And worse, I have just two options.  Design my own so it will fit right, which is a lot of work for a first-time sweater-knitter.  Or follow someone else’s pattern, which wasn’t designed for me and won’t fit me properly.  Or option 3: follow someone else’s pattern, but modify it to fit me better.  I’m hoping option three will turn out best.

mood: crafty

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Jun 13 2011

It’s OK to stay in bed and read all day.

in life

Being exhausted, achy, and miserable yesterday, I spent nearly all day lying in bed, reading (and finishing) NORTH & SOUTH by Elizabeth Gaskell.

I just couldn’t convince myself to get out of bed for longer than a meal.  Part of that was because I was miserable and achy, and part of that was because I’d totally fallen into the mid-19th century England that Gaskell described.  Fancy clothing, proper manners, class distinctions, people dying right and left.  Cotton mills, and strikes, and a passionate, scowly man who, despite being part of the upper-crust of his city, wasn’t quite a gentleman—not by London standards.  I was sucked into it, I had trouble imagining what in my real world could possibly be more important or more interesting than Margaret moving to a strange new town, than Thornton and his mill, or—I’ll be honest—whether Margaret & Thornton could manage to both like each other at the same time.

I felt lazy.  I felt like I was stealing time from the things I need to do–chores, keeping up with people, contributing to feeding my significant other and myself, watering my poor plants—and from the things I want to do—continuing projects I don’t have time for during the week, working on that story I’m in love with writing, writing blog posts because I like telling the world what it’s like to be me.  Etc.

But I LOVE to read.  I get absorbed into other worlds, other people’s lives.  I love it so much that I’ve taken up writing my own stories, because they don’t exist for me to read yet and I want to know what happens.  I love watching movies and TV, but I love books in this whole other way.  It’s immersive, not just visual and aural, but a truly engaging book will give me a whole-body experience.  I feel emotions and believe opinions that aren’t my own, because the characters feel and believe those things.  When I read for an hour at a time, it’s a nice pastime.  But reading a book all day—that feels like living the story.

That has its risks, too, of course.  When a story becomes more important than real life, is something out of balance*?  Is it escapism?  Or is it just truly enjoying an activity that isn’t bad for my health?

I don’t know.  But aside from the guilt, I liked spending all day reading.  And I felt less exhausted, achy, and miserable.  So it must be OK, right?

——

* Don’t they write creepy stories about books taking over a person’s life, a character sucking out the reader’s soul and living in her body?  Hmm…

mood: satisfied

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May 12 2011

writing update

in writing

I just noticed I haven’t posted about my writing in a while, and you might think I’ve quit.

Never fear, I haven’t!  I’ve been working slowly, but steadily, on the same New! Shiny! project I mentioned in January, THE LAST FAIRY GODMOTHER.  And it’s rolling along.  No angst, no bashing head into the wall, no pulling teeth.  I know what’s going to happen later in the story*, and so I keep writing until I get there.  My characters keep surprising me–there was a funny bit with a tea kettle I didn’t see coming–and a few things that showed up as throw-away lines have turned into plot points.  The coolest thing is that I’m still interested in the story.  I know that in a little while, they’re going to reach a whole new place and it’s going to be fascinating (to me) to find out who is there and what miscommunications will turn up.  I know there is plenty of room for miscommunication, and I know things will go horribly wrong, but I don’t know the details yet–and I can’t wait to find out.  I’m hoping it’ll be funny and meaningful, all at the same time, and hopefully not too much like watching a train wreck**.

At my current writing pace, I  might finish this (draft of this) novel in about 3 years.  o_O  I’m hoping to pick up speed somewhere along the way–NaNoWriMo would be an excellent opportunity–but in the meantime, it’s going along.  And I keep having new things to add to this story.  Until that stops, it’s all good.

—

* Not that I’m going to tell you, of course…

** Incidentally, you can spend hours watching train wrecks on youtube.  http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=train+wreck&aq=f.  I wish I were kidding.

mood: productive

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May 11 2011

Ahenobarbus

in life

I’ve decided I need to name something Ahenobarbus.  It means golden-beard, it’s a Roman name (in fact, anyone named Domitius Ahenobarbus was known to be of a noble family, during the Roman Empire), and it was one of Nero’s names.  He was born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus.  Not to be confused with his dad, Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus.  Nor to be confused with the name he was given when his mom remarried (she married the emperor, after he executed his third wife, who was Lucius’ cousin, for adultery, and then she arranged to have his aunt, her sister-in-law, the third wife’s mother, killed, too.  Oh and before all that, she [the mom, Agrippina the Younger] had been exiled for having an affair after her husband, Nero’s dad, died [cuz he was quite a bit older than her].  But she still managed to marry the emperor, and have him adopt her son.  And somehow her son became the next emperor, not the emperor’s son.  And then he, Nero, aka Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, had his adopted brother, the emperor’s actual son, killed.  And then, supposedly, he might’ve had an affair with his mom [ooh creepy], and later had her executed.  Or maybe he didn’t.), which wikipedia claims is Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus Germanicus, but I swear the teacher said it was Tiberius Claudius something Nero Caesar something else.  :-/  I’m a little confused* now.

Anyway, doesn’t Ahenobarbus sound like a great name?  A-HEE-no-bar-bus.  I can’t decide what it should be.  Maybe my new climbing rose**?  No, it’s a little too manly for a pretty climbing rose.  Umm.  My cell phone?  I dunno, calling it “Ahenobarbus” would take longer than calling it “my phone”.  :-/  Any suggestions?

But anyway, you should totally listen to this fabulous class I’ve been listening to, from UC Berkeley.  It’s a history class about the Roman Empire from several years ago, and the teacher, Isabelle Pafford, is funny and tells a great story.  And you know how I like a good story.  http://webcast.berkeley.edu/course_details.php?seriesid=1906978539 Have I mentioned how Berkeley podcasts classes?  I’ve listened to several now, and it’s better than actually taking the class.  Mostly because I get to hear the cool stories, don’t have to do any homework, and I can follow along at my own pace.  Go check it out!

—

* You aren’t confused, are you?

** I got an Autumn Sunset.  I thought the flowers looked like pretty skirts.  http://www.whiteflowerfarm.com/66645-product.html I’ll post a picture as soon as I remember to take one.

mood: entertained

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Apr 17 2011

Making Yogurt – Liza’s bastardized version of Indian directions

in noms

I’ve been making yogurt for a few months now, from a batch that one of my (wonderful) Indian co-workers brought me of her strain from India.  Just today, my best friend Sally took home some of my yogurt so she could start making it, too.  So, I’m writing down directions.

Here’s how I make yogurt:

  1. I make sure to keep at least a tablespoon of the previous batch of yogurt.  The instructions I was given were that one tablespoon is enough to make the next batch of yogurt, no matter how much you’re making.  I haven’t tried this too closely, I’ve been making 1-2 cups with one tablespoon of yogurt.
  2. I’ve been using a glass container, but you could use plastic or stainless steel (I hear Indian stores have fabulous stainless steel containers, but I haven’t managed to go look yet).
  3. Put the tablespoon of yogurt into the container, then fill the container with milk.  If I make two containers of yogurt, I use one tablespoon of yogurt per container.  I’ve been pouring the milk in cold, straight out of the refrigerator, but see my notes below about the proper Indian method.
  4. Put the container with the yogurt in a warm place.  I’ve been putting it in the oven with the oven light turned on.  I’ve also been using a thermometer to gauge the temperature in the oven (not in the milk/yogurt), and have found that it’ll go above 100°F.  I’m not very scientific about it, so I leave it in the oven with the light on for several hours, until it’s above 100°, then turn it off for several hours until it’s at 80° or lower, and then turn it on again, etc., until it acts like yogurt.  I after I turn the light off the second time, I’ll usually leave it in overnight.
  5. Once it’s wobbly like yogurt, take it out, put a lid on, and stick it in the fridge.  I haven’t been worrying about leaving it in the oven too long, and if I’m not sure it’s ready I’ll leave it in a bit longer.

My theory (and I haven’t done any research about this) is that yogurt bacteria like to be pretty warm to grow quickly.  It could be that getting the milk even warmer than that would be helpful, and then you might not need to leave it out part of the day and all night.

Proper Indian directions, per my coworkers who looked at my like I was crazy when I described how I’d made yogurt (I haven’t ever followed these directions*):

  1. Heat up milk in a pot until boiling.
  2. Take it off the heat, and let it cool off until it’s just warm.
  3. Pour the milk into containers, with a tablespoon of yogurt per container.  Put in the oven with the light on only if your home is fairly cold.  (I’m not sure about the technical definition of that, but I’d guess 70° is nearing too cold.)
  4. Let it sit for about 8 hours.
  5. Cover and refrigerate.

My theory about why my method is working just as well: Milk bought in the U.S. (>99% of it, anyway) is already pasteurized.  Boiling it is like pasteurizing it.  So here in the U.S. it’s an unnecessary step.  Therefore, the only actual need is to warm up the milk.  Maybe warming it on the stove or in a microwave would work better than putting it in cold, but it would take more steps before I could move on to the next thing in my day.  I’ll let you know if I ever try it.

What’s the difference between Indian** yogurt (or any kind of home-made) and store-bought?  Many things. First, home-made yogurt is made up of hundreds of bacteria that are good for your digestion, whereas store-bought uses just a few strains that each company has decided are the “best”, or maybe patentable.  Even the brands that advertise that they have live cultures only have a few very specific live cultures… and the strains may have been added in after the yogurt became yogurt.  Indian, or any kind of home-made, yogurt is yogurt because it was made with all of the strains of bacteria that were in the culture to start with.  (By the way, you probably could start yogurt from store-bought, as long as it’s the kind that has live cultures, but then it wouldn’t have very many strains of bacteria.  If you can find someone who has their own yogurt, that would probably would best.)

Second, home-made yogurt can vary quite widely in flavor, depending on what bacteria are in it.  The strain I have is a bit sweet, even when left plain.  Others can be very sour.

Third, because the beneficial bacteria in home-made yogurt are still alive and active, they don’t leave room for harmful bacteria to grow.  This doesn’t mean it can’t spoil, and I’ve been told to keep it in the refrigerator once it’s made (this also keeps it from getting more sour-flavored), but it’s less likely to go bad.

—

* I don’t follow directions well.  Also, I was given yogurt before I was given instructions.  And then I decided to try it, based on what I know about kefir and what I’d heard about yogurt.  I guessed wrong, but it worked anyway.

** Other cultures make yogurt, too.  Only my Indian coworkers have told me about it, though, so that’s my point of reference.

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Apr 16 2011

I rode my bike!

in life

Today was a beautiful day, and Sally came over and dragged me out on my bike to ride by my coast.  I didn’t freak out, I managed (with help) to re-inflate my tires, and I even rode down the hill that my house is on.  Last time I went for a bike ride, I walked down the hill, to avoid having to figure out traffic and a hill and riding all at the same time.  But I had my Sally with me, and we just powered on ahead, and it was fine.

The coast side trail we rode on is paved, nearly flat, and apparently goes about 3 miles.  And if you can stop panicking about balancing on this narrow little thing long enough to look up from the road, it has amazing views of the ocean and the hills.  It was sunny, and because it’s still spring there weren’t many pedestrians out (so I didn’t have to worry about hitting too many of them!).  Apparently there was a pretty strong wind, and of course it was with us on our ride south, and then against us on our way back home.

I started out very tense, very stressed, but once we’d been going a little ways I relaxed and was able to enjoy myself.  (I think, too, it hurts more when I’m stressed & tense.)  We didn’t go the whole three miles, because we reached a point where it was swarming with people cleaning up the beach and decided to turn back and stay out of there way.  Which was really just as well, because of that headwind.  The ride back was far more exhausting than I expected.

As soon as we got back to civilization (i.e. roads with cars), which is also where the hill starts, I got off and walked.  Sally rode back up the hill, and I was very impressed.  As soon as I stopped huffing and puffing.  ;)

And now, I’m lying on the couch, achy and tired.  Less than 6 miles*, and no hills, and I’m exhausted.

I need to do this more often.

—

* I checked google maps, and between my neighborhood, and the distance we rode on the path, it was about 3 miles out, and since I walked part of the way back, it was less than 3 miles back.  :p

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Apr 11 2011

The Mondays

in life

I’m suffering from a bad case of The Mondays*.  You know, when it’s not just a Monday, but it’s the Monday, when everything is going to go wrong, and it’s not even 10am yet.

Like that day when you came wide awake at 3 in the morning (having been having bizarrely normal dreams, that weren’t even interesting to reflect on), realized the heater was on for no good reason, and you had to go turn it off.  And then you laid in bed for half an hour, wide awake, before finally getting up (quietly, so as not to disturb your significant other) and taking your book into the living room to read yourself to sleep.  And when you finally start dozing off, an hour and a half later, you don’t actually feel sleepy, like “oh, being asleep will be so comfy!”, you just can’t keep your eyes open anymore.  So you go to bed, and do fall asleep, and then all of a sudden the morning rolls around!  Who signed up for this?  And you prop one eye open to see how bright it is out, and realize you were dreaming about people who could turn into cats**, and then fall asleep again.  When you finally get out the toothpicks (to prop your eyes open) and drag yourself out of bed, you feel so crummy that you don’t even want to make breakfast.  But then you notice that your kefir is way over-kefired***, despite the fact that just 10 hours ago it was under-kefired†, and you decide that’s ok, it’ll still taste fine in a smoothie.  And then you attempt breakfast, and then have to go lie down on the couch for an hour because you have no energy or brain function.††

Only then you’re trying to write an email to work, to tell them that you’ll be in late today, and then you remember that your phone hasn’t been syncing work email for a while (and even when it’ll pull email, it won’t send email, so people aren’t getting messages they should be getting, and you’re looking like a lame-ass), so you have to try half-a-dozen different mail apps to see if any will do better.  And then you realize it hasn’t been syncing your work calendar to your phone’s calendar, which it used to do.  And really you didn’t like the default mail app anyway.†††  So you spend your hour on the couch with your phone (battery quickly draining), trying to figure out if anyone else has had this problem, and what they did to resolve it.  And when you FINALLY get the thing working, it tells you that your company requires some crazy-strict restrictions on your personal phone, just because it’s connecting to work email–which you can almost understand, except that it gives power over your phone to some random geek who might push the wrong button and wipe out your phone‡.   But you accept the bizarre restrictions anyway, and wonder if that’s why your email hasn’t been working for all these weeks.  And then your phone’s battery dies.

Or maybe those things don’t happen to you?  And really, it could’ve been worse.  The world could’ve exploded.  I might have needed to be in right early, and too bad that I was brain-dead.  (And hey, I seem to have gotten my brain back.)

It’s still The Mondays.

—

* Yes, I just made that up.

** That was pretty cool actually.  The human/cat in question was able to walk over the (very hilly) highway 92 that I take to work every day, which is 8 miles long^, in just an hour.  Why it was doing that… I forget.

^ Right, it’s actually lots longer than that, but my section is about 8 miles.

*** In other words, it had been sittingout for about 48 hours, and had completely separated into whey and a thick, solid layer of soured milk.

† Still sloshy like milk, not thick like yogurt.  And it might have been longer than 10 hours ago, but it sure didn’t feel like it.

†† But at least the neighbor’s cat came over to keep you company.

††† It wouldn’t zoom in or out on the email body, and if the email was too wide for the screen, you couldn’t make it scroll over to see the rest.  Seriously?

‡ I’m a geek, I know how these things go.

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Apr 10 2011

Soon

in life

I’m cleaning my office.  It’s neck-high in papers, mail, and stuff that needs to be put away.  Or maybe dragged to the curb and shot.

Part of cleaning my office seems to include things that aren’t actually cleaning, as such.  Like, donating to charities that I want to give money to.  Or paying bills.  Or ripping those CDs, so I can put them in a box and put the box away somewhere, so they aren’t taking up space in my office.*

And it occurs to me that I have (usually) small piles of papers that need taking care of “not right this minute, but sometime soon”.  And the problem with that theory is that “sometime soon” doesn’t often come along.  Or when it does, it’s not technically “soon” anymore.

So, that implies I need to have a scheduled time that is “soon”, to take care of these things.  And “soon” should come around at least once a month.

How do other people manage this?

—

* Or, you know, posting to my blog because I’m having profound thoughts on the subject.

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Apr 08 2011

priorities

in life

I’ve been thinking about what’s important to me lately.  It’s become absolutely clear that I don’t have enough energy to do all the things I want to do or should do.  It’s frustrating.

So, I figured I should make a comprehensive list of what’s important to me (in no particular order):

  • My sanity
  • Having enough money to have food and clothing (i.e. my job)
  • My family & friends
  • My writing
  • Other creative pursuits
  • Becoming a better person

Honestly, “other creative pursuits” could probably drop to the bottom of this list, except when it relates to “my sanity”.

I’d be happy to drop “my job” off the list, except that I’d just have to replace it with some other source of money and/or food and clothing–which would probably take just as much time and energy as the job, so I might as well just stick with the job.

I struggle with “my family and friends”.  None of my family and friends gets to see me as often as they would like.  So, I think it ends up lower on the list than it ought–and so it definitely can’t fall off the list.

I think it’s pretty clear around here that “my writing” is a priority for me–but at the same time, it’s not as high on the list as it would need to be in order for me to become a professional writer.  I don’t write every day.  Sometimes I don’t even write every week.  *shame-face*  Maybe I’m just a hobbyist.  Since it’s one of the things I define myself by, I’d hate to relegate it to “hobby” forever, but … is it more important than the food & clothing that come with having a job?  Is it more important than my friends and family?  Is it more important than my sanity?

This is really the crux of my dilemma.  I put quite a lot of stock in “my sanity”.  I “need” 8-9 hours of sleep every night.  I “need” down-time, in which I’m not harassing myself about what I “ought” to be doing.  And when I get home, and the idea of figuring out how to switch my brain into thinking about something different–like, my current novel–is just so painful, I can’t even fathom it.  So I lie on the couch with a book, or a movie.  And then I get absorbed into the movie, or the book, and I don’t ever switch back into brain-functioning mode.

I wonder if setting a timer for myself might help.  Read for 30 minutes, then go pick up the notebook and stare at it with a pen in my hand for at least 30 minutes.  If the pen happens to scratch symbols onto the page, all the better.  I think that’s called BIC*.  When the 30 minutes are done, if I want to go back to the book or the movie, then I may.  Hmm…

This doesn’t resolve how to have time (and energy) for all those other things.  Like, learning to be a better person.  Spending time corresponding with the people who are interested in corresponding with me.  Knitting that hat I told Ben I’d make him for Christmas….

—

* I may have to remove the piles of paper from all around my office in order for this to work^.  And I seriously need a comfortable desk chair.

^ You say I’m procrastinating?  Who, moi?

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