(mis)adventures of spindlerose

Getting away from the business travel grind

I made time to visit a favorite place tonight—Churchmouse Yarns and Teas on Bainbridge Island. It has been 5 or 6 years since I last poked around in one of the loveliest yarn stores on the West Coast. Usually, my business travel has no down time for a stroll in the rain, a ferry ride, and lovely yarn to fondle (and purchase—more on that tomorrow).

I always seek out good food while traveling. Marché's seasonal salad with house-smoked trout, cassoulet with lamb sausage and duck confit, and a dessert (fall fruit, sorbets, and an almond cone) that hit the elimiation diet craving for cookies and ice cream capped an already lovely evening. I did not think about work. I bought yarn for the sweater I'm obsessed to knit. I took pictures. I walked more than 4 miles. I read a trashy novel. In short, I took very good care of myself.

When you have nothing to say...

...throw up a photo of an adorable cat. I interrupted Toni's beauty sleep the other night by going to bed. Just before I disturbed her, I took a picture.

After a long morning of work and afternoon of travel to a colder place than I left, I'm ready to curl up into a tiny ball and sleep just like this. I only wish I had a tail I could tuck my nose under. Compared to San Jose, Seattle is chilly.

Actually, I can't believe I made it this far into the month of daily posts before resorting to sharing a cat photo.

 

Ten on Tuesday: Musicians I Would Bring Back from the Dead

Carole's Ten on Tuesday topic this week is a good one. I had a hard time deciding on just 10. There were a few top top choices, and then I got stumped trying to limit my list to just ten choices.

1. David Epstein. He taught me how to be a better orchestral musician and pushed my musical limits. He also made me cry during my first week at MIT. My first audition for the symphony was a disaster; I was so nervous I could hardly play. I still appreciate that he gave me a second chance and put me into the orchestra (in the very back of the second violin section). I would love another chance to perform under his demanding baton. Even more, I want a chance to say thank you for giving me that chance one more time.
2. Mozart. What would he have done with more years to compose? How would he approach music in the 21st century? I have the same questions about all the other great western art music composers.
3. Jascha Heifitz.
4. Vladamir Horowitz.
5. Clara Schumann.
6. Richard Rogers. 
7. Ella Fitzgerald.
8. Billie Holiday.
9. John Lennon.
10. Pete Seeger.
    

Now I'm inspired to dust off my fiddle, get the moth-eaten (oops) bow rehaired, and add making music back into my regular list of creative pursuits. In all that free time I have every week.

Sunshine

I have a suspicision that many of you need some warm sunshine this week. I snapped this picture back in April as I walked to pick up a cup of coffee before work one morning. The spring light and bright colors seemed like just the thing to brighten up the wall of text I posted yesterday. After nearly 12 hours at the office, I've got nothing else for tonight.

 

 

Goals

Research shows that writing down your goals (writing a blog post every day in November) and then telling people who can help you achieve them (all the readers who comment so I know I'm not just throwing stuff out there into the ether) makes you more likely to reach them.

At work, we have put this into action for the past year or so. At the beginning of every week, everyone I work with records 2-5 goals and the specific things we will complete to reach our goals. We make this record in a public forum—everyone can see what I'm planning to accomplish and I can see what everyone else is working on. At the end of the week we give ourselves a 1-3 score: no progress, progress but not finished, achieved. It does actually help me as long as I don't get too ambitious; I'm terrible about being realistic about what I'll be able to accomplish any week I'm traveling. If you have never really thought about goals, this Beginner's Guide to Goal Setting is a good place to start.

In my creative work, I have done this for many years by participating in the Productive Spinners group. For the past year or so, I've dutifully updated but made almost no progress. I enjoy seeing the diversity of projects the group members undertake, but I need to do a better job working on all of my projects.

My overarching theme for the rest of the year is to

Be less busy while to making forward progress on my creative projects.

Here is how I plan to get there.

1. Set weekly goals for work and home. Share the work goals at work and the home goals on this here blog. When I'm at work, start every day by focusing on one of my goals for the first hour or two of the day and the first hour or two after lunch. Get the big important stuff done before I start reacting to the incoming emergencies.

2. Reduce my screentime. Limit television to 1 show per weeknight and only the football games I care about on the weekends.

3. Spin or knit during that limited TV time rather than multitasking and reading Ravelry or Facebook at the same time.

This week's personal goals.

1. Write a blog post every day. Take a photo for at least 4 of them.

2. Spin for at least 20 minutes every day—on the merino-silk when I'm home and the Abby Batt while I'm in Seattle late in the week. This week, I'll remember to pack the spindle and one of the socks in progress to keep me entertained while I'm on the road.

3. Take care of myself by practicing yoga or doing back PT exercises daily—ideally first thing in the morning. If I get out of bed and do this the minute I wake up instead of dozing for an hour after the alarm goes off, it will be done before I'm usually in the shower.

4. Unpack 1 studio box or bin every evening I'm home. And this means unpack completely—find a home for the entire contents or get rid of it.

5. Move everything out of the guest room back in to the studio by the end of next weekend. Mom and Dad need a nice place to sleep when they visit for Thanksgiving.

If you want to join me in this exercise to be less busy and achieve more, leave a comment and share your plans on your own blog, or in the comment. We'll make a little community of friends commited to working on the things that matter and supporting each other as we do that.

Halfway

We're halfway through November. I've written fifteen of the thirty blog posts in NaBloPoMo. I'm halfway through setting my end of year goals. I don't have a whole lot to show for it yet—just some thoughts on paper. So no promised list tonight. Like the lava, making achievable goals is hard.

I was not busy today. I bought groceries and made onion-free veggie broth and pumpkin soup; sadly, the soup is just OK. I spun a little. I watched some football. 

And D and I rented a truck so we could move the last few things out of the garage at our old house and buy bookcases at Ikea. Now I'm tired from lifting and hauling and completely overstimulated from the trip to Ikea. Every person in the elevator to the garage looked completely beaten down by their shopping experience. It's time for some restorative yoga and then sleep.

Busy

An interesting article, The Disease of Being Busy, popped up in my Facebook feed this morning. I skimmed the first couple of paragraphs because I was too busy to read the whole thing when I first saw it. When I finally had time to read it this afternoon (while waiting for my flight home), it hit me in the gut. I have always been too busy. Every since childhood, I have overcommited myself to myself and to others. Some days I feel too busy to breathe. Lately, I feel too busy to take good care of myself; healthy food and exercise never make it too the top of my list. And all too often, I'm busy doing things that don't feed my soul. That don't plug me in to the world around me. That disconnect me from people who matter in my life. That don't make a difference to me, my company, or the world.

A lot happened this week to emphasize my own dis-ease. Suddenly, finding ways to becoming less busy, to make more space to connect frequently with the people I love, to take care of myself and my family, and to do more important work and less busy work at work is at the top of my list. It's time to chuck unnecessary things overboard. Random television and random surfing will be the first things to go. I think that cleaning my own house is going, too. It's time to limit evening and weekend television and internet time to just those shows and forums that feed my soul and encourage my creativity. It's also time to focus on just one or two projects at a time instead of half a dozen or more.

I'm also going to take a close look at how I spend my work days. I need to do a much better job of focusing on the 20% of activities that make the big impacts and stop doing the small stuff that is useful but doesn't make a big impact on the bottom line.

I will spend an hour or two tomorrow setting some high targets aimed straight at being less busy for the rest of this year. Six weeks should break the busy habit so I can spend my 45th year on more meaningful and important things. Come back tomorrow for those high targets and my concrete plans to hit them.

Business travel

Once upon a time, I thought that traveling around the country for work would be a grand adventure. After nearly nine years of frequent travel, I know better.

All I really want most weeks when I'm on the road is two consecutive nights of good sleep. A chance to enjoy local scenery would be a bonus.

I'm in Santa Monica this week. My hotel is two blocks from the beach. I glimpsed the ocean from a rooftop restaurant. I arrived after dark on Tuesday and then spent two days locked in a conference room with 20 other people teaching a workshop. The students were smart, fun, and engaged; I had a blast teaching them. But it sure would have been nice to visit the beach. If I wake up stupid early in the morning, I may head out for a quick sunrise walk, but I'm more likely to take advantage of a relatively late meeting tomorrow morning and grab an extra 30 minutes of sleep.

Today at lunch, I strolled along the 3rd Stree Promenade and took pictures of the topiary dinosaur fountains. Who knew that was a thing. Needless to say, it's hard not to smile when faced with a topiary dinosaur spitting water at you. It's not the beach, but I hope these guys made you smile.

Stuck. Or maybe finally unstuck.

Sometimes the muse leaves. Sometimes, my knitting and spinning mojo vanishes for months at a time. During those times, the blog goes silent, the demons of doubt lurk in my head, and I wonder why I keep sending money to Typepad.

Writers block (or knitters block or whatever block) happens to all creative people at times. As a writer, I've always felt like I'm in a perpetual state of block with glimpses of inspriation. When that inspriation strikes, I write well. I love the joy when the words flow effortlessly and my inner perfectionist editor is briefly silent. I just wish it happened more often.

The first 10 days of NaBloPoMo has reminded me that I need to write more. I need to practice this craft just like I practice knitting, spinning, and cooking. As Laurie said the other day, this (daily blogging) is getting harder and harder. Will it get easier with more daily practice?

I added the picture to spruce up the blank wall of text. And because it reminds me that inspriation is everywhere if I open my eyes. The first time I saw the Chihuli installation in the lobby of the Bellagio, I had to pull out my pocket camera (my iPhone), take a picture, and share it because the colors and textures stunned me. Looking at the picture again brings back clarity I felt when I framed, snapped, and cropped the picture nearly 4 years ago.

To be honest, I've been stuck creatively for the past few years. Three moves in 30 months would do that to anyone. It hurts because creating and making is central to my sense of self, so I lose part of myself when I'm not actively creating. Work has been challenging. Most of my daily brain has been dedicated to doing my job. There hasn't been enough juice left at the end of the day to knit a simple sock or scarf. Writing, designing, or even planning something challenging has been beyond me. It's been even longer since I've felt truly inspired to write. 

I do sometimes write when I'm stuck on an airplane. In rushing from here to there in a metal tube, I relish the unplugged silence that helps me plug in to my own voice. I have a few drafts of essays meant for the blog lurking on my computer, my iPad and in my notebooks that flowed into that silence. By the time I land and life pushes back in, I forget that I had a great idea for a post. I haven't reviewed or considered publishing on any of those, but maybe I should. I do have to write 18 more posts this month.

I don't have a good answer for getting through creative blocks. Open your eyes to inspiration. Get enough sleep. Keep practicing whatever it is that you do. Eventually, something good will shake loose.

This post brought to you by today's NaBloPoMo prompt. I opened my eyes to the inspriation in my inbox this morning. It prompted something good, or at least something better.

Ten on Tuesday: Collections

Carole's prompt this week is things you've collected. I'm dashing it off late because today was crazy, and tomorrow is going to be even crazier. I had dreams of taking a few photos to include, but that just didn't happen today before I dashed out the door to catch a plane.

In no particular order, here are 10 things I have collected over the years.

1. Spindles. Are you surprised? I'm afraid to unpack the studio and put all the spindles in one place. It may will be overwhelming.
2. Disney character teapots with matching creamers and sugar bowls. I gathered several during my 20s and early 30s. Now I want to get rid of them. Ebay is quite tempting.
3. Tin boxes. My first conscious collection. I bought an antique Schrafft's candy tin at a rummage sale with my allowance one summer. And then people started giving me interesting metal boxes. I still have a few stashed away storing sewing notions. I suspect that more are still hiding in a closet in my parents' house. After that first entry in my collection, I had a college internship in the Schrafft building in Charlestown, MA.
4. Books. Another collection that started early. All the moving lately and the rise of ebooks has me eyeing the boxes and shelves. And we donated, swapped, sold, or otherwise got rid of at least 1/3 of what we had before moving to California.
5. Yarn. I certainly don't knit it as fast as it comes in. At least it's mostly stopped coming in.
6. Business cards. A hazard of my job.
7. Roy Tabora paintings. D and I fell in love with his work on a visit to Maui a few years ago. And we bought two (small ones). As soon as our finances recover from the house purchase, we hope to buy more.
8. Friends. I now have friends from every period of my life scattered around the world. I love introducing them to each other and watching what happens. So far, it's always been good things.
9. Rocks. I was a kid fascinated by rocks. I still pick them up when walking on the beach or hiking. These days, I usually put them back, but sometimes an interesting rock or two finds its way home in my pocket it pack.
10. Trees. Our holiday decorations are mostly tree themed. Neither one of us are big fans of tchockes, so the collection is limited to a few special examples.

One picture from my flickr stream of one of those special holiday trees on our mantel in Natick lit by a gorgeous sunset.