Summer's Almost Gone

Sadly, it's quite possible that today was the last time we went for a swim this year. It's getting increasingly cold, and the water is increasingly hard to get into. Still, after you've sweated out a good deal doing some manual labour (I piled all the firewood in neat(ish) stacks today!), there's nothing like shocking yourself with a cold, cold swim in the river.

The dog can't be persuaded, though.

Summer's Almost Gone.

A Lazy Day for a Neurotic Mind

It's very hard to do nothing. Surely you know the feeling. You've got a million things to do but you just can't bring yourself to do them, so you just waste your time wishing you had an absolute need, or better still, an urgent must to do something. But you don't. The deadlines seem far off, the chores seem daunting, and you just do nothing. You spend a lazy day and at the end of the day feel weirdly exhausted and less than fulfilled.

Here's what I did today.
I cooked. I cooked a lot. Three meals for the children, two meals for my husband. I baked. I had some jam that had gone sour, and I used that. It didn't turn out right, but then again - normally I wouldn't even bother. It's just that we're down to the last eggs and flour. Oh well.

All this running out of money thing has hugely improved our diet and our eating habits. It can't be overstated, it's nothing short of a miracle - seeing my kids at the table at mealtimes and clearing off their plates without so much as a complaint. They're eating chicken, they're eating pork chops, they're eating anything I give them and thanking me afterwards. Ever since I've stopped buying convenience food like cereal or yogurt, or cookies, or cottage cheese desserts, they've come to eat "normal", healthy, proper food. I am concerned how to keep this rhythm going after next week when I'm getting paid. But there's a downside - I have to spend a lot of time cooking and even more time - planning.

I also did the laundry. It's all piling up in the bedroom again, but at least it's dry - lately we've been having much more rain than sunshine, so I had to wash at least one load today. It's supposed to be hot and sunny next week - hopefully I'll get to washing blankets and airing the pillows.

In the afternoon I took the kids exploring. We rode our bikes to an eerie little place some 4 kilometres from our home - there are little gardens and sheds, and almost no people at all, apart from quite a curious man who was working in his garden and looking ever the fence all the time to see if we hadn't come to steal some strawberries or beans. But we hadn't. We had come to explore and to have a picnic. And the dog had run all the way with us!

And then we came home, catching the first large raindrops, and sat down to watch a very nice Swedish family movie "Nils Karlsson Pyssling" together. I loved the book (it's quite a short story) as a child, and I was glad to see that the boys loved the movie which is done quite close to the original. I can never enjoy a movie if I don't have something to knit or sew, so I spent a good while rummaging around the room for an embroidery project I had begun years ago, but I couldn't find it (surprise, surprise), and the boys suggested that I should crochet them some slippers. I've made dozens of those from some leftover yarn, and they don't last long, so I had already decided not to make them any more, but the temptation of doing something with yarn was too great. It's been more than a year since I've knit anything at all. Partly because I felt no need for knitwear, partly because the kids had entered a phase when Mom-made things seemed a bit, well, humiliating, and partly - because I had actively tried to do something that involved less sitting down and more moving around. So I was quite scared to pick up the needles (or the crochet hook, for that matter) and to decide what to make. But I'm so very glad I did. That simple Mary-Jane slipper pattern seems to have broken down some "knitters block", and I foresee many more leisurely projects in the coming days. So it's been a wonderful day after all.

No News - Good News

Absolutely incredibly exciting days, a huge number of people, a lot of partying, some dancing, some heart-to-heart conversations, some girl talk, a lot of food, a lot of rain, and these two days - a lot of work (at last!). I've been thinking about my life a lot lately.

I really, really, really hope it's sunny tomorrow. The laundry is getting wetter and wetter once again, and there's a really unpleasant stale smell in the house because of all the laundry I've been trying to dry inside. My husband has therefore turned on the heating. But there's nothing like the smell of clothes that have been dried outside in the wind. I swear I can even smell the difference between a bed-sheet that's been dried on a sunny day or a cloudy day.

Excitement: 9, Boredom: 3

No Progress, No Excitement

As the researchers have found, in order to feel happy we need to know what we want and to feel we are progressing towards that goal. So there are two ways to be unhappy - not to move towards a goal or not to know what we want.
I have to say, I more or less know what I want. However, I've often thought that hard work makes me less happy than rest and relaxation. I must have been quite wrong, and today was a perfect proof of that.
The things I consider my goals are getting thin, rich and fulfilled. The fulfillment goal is kind of vague and hazy, it varies a lot and can depend on many things. Sometimes gardening makes me feel fulfilled, sometimes it's meeting people or doing other things I love. This day, however, was spent on quite mundane tasks, since it was cold and raining outside. I sewed some buttons and hooks, and mended some torn clothes. I replanted a whole lot of tiny lobelia and petunia seedlings, dealt with the dishes and kids, and so on. The only thing even remotely brave and exciting was pruning my poor oleander that was completely out of control. I had been afraid to prune it for months, since it had the new growth which would bloom in summer. But it looked so spindly and weak, and covered in mealybugs that I decided to go against all advice and prune it in spring, not in September after blooming. Here's the "after" picture. I have to say, sorry and pathetic though it looks, it's much much better than before.

That is not my idea of excitement, though, and I didn't do any money work, either.
I'm wasting my time before going to bed now, and I know how I could still make this day exciting in the last hour that's left of it. I have a children's book in the making that's just begging for the second chapter, but for some reason it's been more than 9 months since I wrote the first chapter. I haven't been able to get down to writing because it's so exciting to write that it's utterly overwhelming.
Or I could just go and wash my hair, and deem this day completely unexciting, if not just downright boring.

Excitement: 2, Boredom: 1.