- Kids back to normal school timetable today OMGWOW. Am torn between “woo yay!” and “oh crap,” because suddenly I have to revive my dozen weekly alarms (not just waking up, but managing the kids’ complicated school and hobby schedules), and not only that, suddenly I myself am expected to do stuff. The pressure is back on. No more excuses. And since there’s been one hell of an excuse for a rather long time, we have quite a lot to catch up on. Work and house stuff. Yeesh. Who has the energy.
- I also went to Sunday morning knitting group for the first time this year, and it was a bit of a disaster. Venues are open again but not really; social distancing rules mean very limited capacity, and that’s hard to plan for when you’re just meeting friends in a Starbucks, i.e. no reservations. (Yep, Starbucks sucks, but options are limited.) Anyway so social knitting isn’t fun yet, at all. Maybe when the sun comes out again and we can go to the park.
- I was randomly organising my Ravelry projects – as you do – and realised a few things about my knitting. First, I have this idea that I almost always knit for myself, but turns out, I make twice as much for other people. Smaller things, admittedly; baby gifts and such. But still. Second, a huge proportion of my knits for me are things that I made to primarily to use up yarn, or to try out an intriguing design idea, or both; they’re making for the sake of making, rather than to fill an actual wardrobe need. I’m a bit fed up with this. My stash is still totally out of balance; too many beautiful, irresistible skeins that aren’t really appropriate to make the kinds of garments I want to wear. And I have more than enough beautiful but random accessories. So, new goal: knit what I want to wear. Might be original designs, might not. Might lend itself to marketing collaborations with indie dyers, most probably won’t. But I should always be working on at least one thing that I actually need.
- Summer holiday is looming (so much for the long summer term, this feels like the shortest term ever!), Armin has a week off and we haven’t planned anything. It feels really bizarre to even think about holidays right now. But planning must happen! I am even less in the mood than usual. Why is it that I have this complete block about planning holidays? It just… isn’t something that we do. But we want to. Why is it so hard?
- Having a general wibble, again, about being useless and unemployable. I really wish I could just Not Care about not having a job – in the moment, it’s fine, more than fine – but not being able to get a job is so scary. And it’s not going to get any easier in the next little while.
Nos 35–38 of #52recipes: sourdough pancakes, simply as a move to use up some excess starter, but wow, what a great idea that was! Almost TOO light and fluffy. You could eat a mountain of them, and Max pretty much did. Charred cauliflower quesadillas (without the chilis). Also this potato frittata and this corn and cheese strata, and honestly, I’m pretty surprised myself as to how all this cooking happened. Strata’s a great way to use up stale bread though.
Woolly thoughts (and fuzzy logic) 