1. I launched my newsletter last week! Ooh-er. I have a glorious total of 8 subscribers. I make a point of never checking my website stats – who’s reading, where you’re coming from, what you click, etc – so it’s a bit weird to know this. But it’s all good. A newsletter is not a blog. (What is my newsletter? It’s a small collection of links to stuff I’ve been reading or admiring or enjoying (no affiliate links). It’s also, well, news, of what I’m working on. I’m not going to keep punting it, but I will just a few more times, so bear with me.)
2. I have an uneasy relationship with social media – at least as a self-promotion tool. I truly, deeply love social media, but in a very unfiltered way. When I try to do “personal branding” online it gets weird for me. Hence the very unprofessional decision not to look at my stats. I think a lot about social media, who does it well (writers, crafters etc) or not and how one ideally “should” run one’s online presence. I have all the opinions and none of the results. I should worry about those results more than I do, but eh; I know from experience that would be blog death for me. And I really, really like blogging, so let’s not. Still though… every so often I think about those shoulds, and I wonder. (In fact I guess that’s where the newsletter comes from. What ho! An experiment! But a fun one that doesn’t require me to be less me, so yay.)
3. Another thing I have an uneasy relationship with is modelling my designs. I’m really, really, really awkward and uncomfortable. I just want it to be over, like, the second we start. So most of the photos feature my “stop pointing that thing at me” face. But every now and then it all comes together and we manage to get some great shots. That happened last weekend. We went to the local ruins (oh yes, we have local ruins; they’re near the lake, not to be confused with the local castle, that’s totally different),* the kids scrambled about and somehow no broken limbs ensued while I posed. It was only a little heart-stopping. (The 7-year-old is fine, but the 3-year-old follows where she goes and O MY HART.)**
4. One aspect of designing I really do like is developing my skills – be that grading (such spreadsheet! so numbers!) or figuring out new ways to communicate the pattern instructions. I’ve been deeply immersed in Excel this week, figuring out revised instructions for one of those messed-up designs I mentioned before, and it’s been ever so satisfying. Another levelling-up: translating a pattern into German! Yeah, so it was full of weird grammatical errors and peculiar word choices, but that’s what proofreaders are for, right? I’ll be able to show you that one really soon.
5. On a totally different tack: yesterday I managed to stay off the computer and actually go outside. Not just for my usual weekend run (about 11km, which is pretty good for me, although I do go very slowly), but down to the lake with the kids. We took our bikes, Elfling managed a longish and slightly hilly ride with no real complaints (Pumuckl rode in style on the back of Armin’s bike), and we were all rewarded with a swim. This counts as a super sporty outdoorsy day for me. If only I took the kids out like this more often, I’d feel way less mommy guilt.
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* Yup, this is me being an INSUFFERABLE SHOW-OFF. I love Switzerland.
**That’s not a typo, that’s Afrikaans. It has to be read in an uptight tannie voice. And no, I can’t explain “tannie”.
Woolly thoughts (and fuzzy logic) 
Congratulations on starting your newsletter.How interesting that you don’t like to take pictures with your designs. I am always looking forward to that moment when it’s time to document my finished objects. Sure there are many days when I wished for a better hair day (somehow my hair is very important in how I see myself) and regret that last ice cream and sometimes it’s very hard to tell the kids what they should try to capture but taking photos is really one of the perks of knitting for me.
I get it! I sometimes quite enjoy taking pics of my FOs, but for patterns there’s a lot more pressure. It has to show all the details, it has to give the right impression overall, and I have to not hate how I personally look. Now, my face has weird angles and I’m overweight, so… that part can be hard! (Not to mention getting the hair to co-operate. You know.) And Armin, my keen photographer, sometimes takes very flattering pics of me but he doesn’t think like a knitter. And between the two of us we badly need a better camera, that can handle low light, show off the details etc. So it’s hard ticking all the boxes.