going the distance

Tags

anxiety, average speed, baby steps, bipolar disorder, depression, forming healthy habits, getting creative, getting healthy, hypomania, knitting, life, limits, mental health, mental illness, moods, motivation, sleep, slow and steady wins the race, stress, stress management

this is a tiny stretch this week, maybe? just hang with me

My friend Wendy sent me a link to this article the other day that talks about getting shit done. It’s a great article and you should totally read it. If you’re lazy, I will summarize.

Are you familiar with the fable about the Tortoise and the Hare? The hare is a big ol’ smack-talking fool who just knows that he can beat the tortoise because, well, tortoise. But the tortoise takes his time and just keeps on trucking and ends up beating the hare by keeping to his slow but steady pace. The idea behind “average speed” is pretty similar. Sure it’s great to make an all out push to do a lot of something all at once or do it harder/faster/whatever than other people. But if you can’t maintain that pace then what good is it?

James, the author, says that committing to a more normal pace that you can sustain for a longer haul actually produces greater results because you get a little something done on a much more consistent basis.

Consistency kids, that’s where it’s at. Slow and steady.

So you do something, say exercising, and right now you do ok with doing it once a week. James suggests that you try “graduating” up to twice a week. Once that becomes easy and routine, graduate up to three times, and so on. Again, it’s about establishing consistent habits that you can maintain on a regular basis. And being gentle with yourself when you have an off day. (LOVE that he includes that!)

Now, how does this apply to mental health? I can think of LOTS of ways…

• Perhaps you are not always so consistent with going to bed at a time that allows you to get the amount of sleep your body prefers. Start with a plan to stick to your bedtime two nights a week and graduate yourself up from there. (I tend not to be so careful on Friday and Saturday nights, but deviating even then can cause problems for me. Know your body and what it needs for sleep and then adjust accordingly.)
• Perhaps you are feeling overwhelmed by the physical stuff in your home and this is causing anxiety. Make a plan to spend to spend 10 minutes three times a week to work on an area. Set a timer if you want to. You can continue doing this until you no longer feel the anxiety (because enough stuff is gone) or you can graduate to longer periods of time or more of them.
• Perhaps your mental health care provider (and maybe general practitioner) is recommending exercise as a way to help with anxiety or other health issues. Start with a specific amount of time, maybe 15 minutes, or if you’re into the Fitbit thing you can set a goal for yourself of a specific number of steps every day. As that becomes easy, graduate up to more.
• Perhaps you, like me, have Bipolar Disorder and miss the creative bursts that often accompany mania. (trust me, that is the ONLY good thing about that demon) So work on developing a habit of creativity that you can call on anytime. Pick your outlet (drawing, painting, knitting, writing, cooking, playing a musical instrument, making jewelry…) and set aside 10 minutes every day to do it. You could pick small projects to work on like just doodling, a pair of earrings, a portion of a scarf, learning a new chord on the guitar, the thing isn’t the important part of this. The act of setting aside the time to let your brain purposely be creative is what’s creative. In my experience, the more you tap into it with purpose the easier it gets.

Part of what appeals to me so much about this whole idea is the routine and consistency. For me to get something important done it really has to be a part of my day to day life. I don’t typically have to do a big whonking chunk at once to feel successful so long as I do a little every day. It really is like the my friend WeeGee says,

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

 

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gearing up for…?

Tags

28 day challenge, crocheting, cross stitch, finishing stuff, getting back my mojo, goals, knitting, motivation, projects, pushing myself, sewing, stress management

Ok, let’s get a few little updates/reminders taken care of…

Next Friday is the second Summer Drawing Challenge. The prompt this time is flower. If you want to join the fun try to have your drawing ready by then.

My getting healthy personal project is coming along nicely. In spite of eating out twice this last week and having a bit of candy I still managed to lose 1lb. I’m quite pleased by this. I have been on the treadmill twice so far, once for 20 minutes and once for 30 minutes. I need to get a new pair of walking shoes before I get back on as the ones I have are hurting my feet. That’s on the schedule for either later today or tomorrow morning. The Fitbit is helping with this immensely.

Anyone who is interested in doing a 28 Day Challenge, don’t forget that we’ll start on Monday, June 1. I would encourage you to be finalizing your project selection and to start making your list of the 28 one-hour tasks you’ll need to complete to get your project done.

I am not going to be quite that structured with mine this time, but I have a reason. These are my four started projects that I’m going to try to finish and my general plans to do that.

crocheted vest

What you see is the pictures I found of this lovely little vest, but I couldn’t find a pattern, at least not in English. So I’m winging it. The yarn was a gift from my knitting pals when I first went into the hospital back in 2006. I’ve already made a knit sweater out of it, but I wanted something I could wear any time of year.

I’ve started the back and I’m maybe 1/3 of the way done with that. I need to finish the back section and then figure out how the sleeves/collar are constructed. I honestly think if I just sit down and do this it shouldn’t take even the whole week I’ve allotted for it.

knit shrug

I started this shrug much earlier this year. The way I do these is to start in the middle of the back using a provisional cast on and then work down the sleeves. I tend to make the sleeves as long as I have yarn for, but I might not do that this time. Part of the issue I’m having with this is that I decided I wanted to add some shaping to the sleeves, which is great, but it’s been so long since I picked it up and I didn’t bother to write down what I was doing, so now I’ve completely forgotten.

This is probably damn near 1/2 done and would probably only take 4 or 5 days of concentrated effort.

black and white vest – sewing project

I realize that you really can’t tell anything about this project just from the pic, but you should be able to see how beautiful the pattern is on the fabric itself. This was inspired by a gorgeous vest I got when Mom and I went to Pella. Very flowing, soft fabric, incredibly flattering. I decided to look closer and see if I could reconstruct it. Turned out it’s just a rectangle of fabric with the raw edges covered in satin bias tape and then two arm slits cut in the middle, also finished with bias tape. So that’s what I’m doing. I have the tape pinned on 3/4 of the way around the outer edge already. I need to finish that pinning, sew it, and then do the arms. In all honesty this should be the fastest project of all of them, maybe 2 days.

dragon cross stitch

This one will be my problem child.

I honestly can’t remember when I started this, though it’s entirely possible that it was pre-Dx, so 2006? Maybe? I went through a phase where all I did was cross stitch and blackwork projects. I was smart enough to keep everything together so, as long as my hands cooperate, there’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to finish. My biggest concern with this is that I have no fucking clue how long he’ll take. Because of that I’m really thinking he’ll be last.

So here’s the order I’m planning to attack these in:

1. black and white vest
2. knit shrug
3. crocheted vest
4. dragon cross stitch

And I might actually see if I can’t get the b/w vest cranked out this weekend since that was on my list of goals for this week anyway. I’d still do the other three projects for my challenge and I’m still quite certain that it’ll be challenging.

Anyone else out there with me?

let’s never ever do that again

Tags

bipolar disorder, family, kids, knitting, life, limits, mental health, mental illness, school, stress, work

Holy fucking hell, are we done yet? Hey Universe, answer me already, are we done yet? You know, DONE????

Back to the beginning I guess…

On Friday at work I had non-stop stuff. If I remember right I got one pee break. ONE. I got home and thought I’d get some time to start doing house stuff before the weekend really started and the kid got here. Yeah, then the basement flooded. Again. Fortunately it wasn’t as bad this time, but still, not what I had anticipated. So we went out to the hardware store and got a set of shelves to put my craft bins on so that they won’t get soaked again if this happens again. We also hit the craft store for Easter bits for the kid and then the grocery store for some last minute (or so I thought) supplies.

Yesterday morning we got up and Mom called the plumber to come clear out the pipes. In order for that to happen I had to pretty well demolish the closet. Fortunately he was here by about 9 and it didn’t take that long. Josh and I got the mess cleaned up while Mom went and got my grandma. We also got the shelves put up, my jewelry armoire moved, and shit moved around in general. It actually looks pretty good AND now all of my craft supplies are next to the fridge where I’ll see them more often.

Anyway, we finished everything up and flew out to my sister’s house to dye eggs with the girls. We came home, stopped at the nursery so I could get another violet, hit another grocery store for the truly last minute bits, had dinner, and pretty well crashed.

Today was pleasant, though a bit loud. We went to Josh’s dad’s house since we had the kid and there is always way more noise there than I’m used to. But I did take a washcloth with to work on and actually got about halfway done, so that was good. I’ve been helping Josh try to get some of his homework done while working on my portfolio. If I’m not mistaken I smell Totino’s frozen pizza in the oven. Nothing like a gourmet dinner after a long weekend.

I’m going to try to post a little more often, but no promises. And I seriously need to catch up on reading. If I can just get through the next 4 weeks I’ll be golden.

where the hell did I leave off?

Tags

family, gardening, getting creative, goals, knitting, life, moods, motivation, normal, projects, random shit that falls out of my brain, school, sick, sleep

Oy, what a week it was. I still don’t feel completely well, and I haven’t been sleeping great, but I’m sort of on the mend finally. The lack of sleeping is making for a wicked lack of energy though, and I’m about ready to just take a bit of a dirt nap and hope I sprout again.

I have the homework that must be ready for Tuesday done, so that’s good. I do need to finish the last of the bits yet, but the no energy thing has made that hard. I have been knitting and I finished the small book I was ready. That’s been about it as far as relaxing activities in the evenings.

Speaking of which, I didn’t realize until yesterday that I completely blew off doing the weekly goals post this week. I kind of suck. Anyway, I will try to get back on that horse for next week.

I have decided that once I get this semester behind me I’m going to be done with school, at least for awhile. There are so many other things I’d like to be able to devote time to and I’m getting kind of burned out again. Plus, it’s not as though I need more education to do my job. I’m not ruling out the possibility of ever going back, but I do plan to take at least a year off. And what I may do is see what kind of fun I could have over at the community college with their classes.

This summer I plan to work with Mom as much as possible getting the yard the way we’d like it.

That was the way the big flower bed out in the backyard looked last year. This year Mom has decided to have the deck (not seen in this pic) expanded so we had the landscaper who lives down the street shrink this by about half. This isn’t a great time of year to be fucking about with moving bulbs, but we didn’t have much choice. Smack in the middle of the bed was a fountain. My dad had run electricity out to it below ground when they had it installed. Unfortunately it hasn’t happily held water for a few years now. No matter what Mom has tried to seal the basin with it just wouldn’t stay filled. So, I had the brilliant idea to use the base, which was entirely too fucking heavy to have moved, into this…

It needs some moss and probably a few small plants yet, but not bad for a start. We’ve been trying to decide what all we need/want for the new deck and what we’ll be able to grow this year. Next year she’s talking about having raised beds built along the fence. But one bit at a time.

We did get one strawberry pot from the garden center today and a bag of 14 Lily of the Valley bulbs. We’ll have to wait a few more weeks to plant the bulbs but we wanted to make sure we got some. Those will be going into a very small bed by the front door.

I’m hoping that my little corner of the world returns to what passes as normal really fucking quick. This whole being out of sorts bullshit is not cool.

I’m back, sort of

Tags

family, getting creative, kids, knitting, life, love, moods, motivation, projects, random shit that falls out of my brain

Holy flying squirrels wearing trench coats…

I managed to get the chunk of homework that absolutely had to be emailed by Friday afternoon done. I also got most of the laundry done, ran to the pet store, the grocery store/pharmacy, and the warehouse store to get crap for Josh. When Mom got home she and I ran to the nursery and picked out a beautiful African violet for me. I want to show you a picture but I didn’t think to do it while there was natural light and it still too dark here. Her name is Guinevere. Then we all went out to my fav Mexican place for dinner and margaritas. And then to Target to finish getting gifts for the kid. (her birthday was last weekend)

Saturday morning, my actual birthday, I got up and went with Mom to drop off her car for some maintenance at the dealership and then she and I went for breakfast. From there it was off to get pedicures, back to the nursery to look for some other plants we want for around the yard. It’s looking like we’ll be doing most things in containers this year so I wanted to get Lily of the Valley bulbs for a small bed we have in front of the house (had to put our name on the list as they haven’t come in yet), we got some Hen & Chicks for in the planter around the mailbox, and we found out that the terra cotta strawberry pots won’t be arriving for another 2 weeks. At least now we know. The Hen & Chicks are hanging out in their little plastic pots in the sunroom until it’s warm enough to plant them outside.

We had lunch at Red Robin, which for those of you who don’t have those they are a slightly upscale burger place that has amazing onion rings.

That ridiculously purple drink is a prickly pear lemonade and it was to die for. Plus, free refills. AWW YEAH.

When we got home we spent some time trying to play in the back flower bed. Mom is wanting to have it redone so that we can get the deck redone and have more room to sit and maybe eat out there. But that end of the bed is full of bulbs. The iris were easy to move as they sit close to the surface but when we tried to move some of the tulips we couldn’t get down far enough to actually get the bulbs. So we’re holding off on that for right now. The guy who is supposed to be reworking the bed hasn’t come yet anyway.

Our next project was to put the garage back together. Josh had done some projects out there, Mom had had trouble finding some things, and we decided that we needed to make a few changes. So we sorted through and discarded the crap, moved a few bits to new homes, and put the snowblower under the deck. Hopefully we don’t regret that, but I did have Josh leave the big shovel out. I also used my snazzy little label maker to put labels on all the drawers of the tool chests and the top of the workbench and the potting bench are almost entirely cleared off. The workbench now has two nice sized baskets for holding potatoes and onions (the garage is insulated so it stays pretty cool out there year-round) and all that’s sitting out on the potting bench are two small extra pots and some yard waste bags.

yes, we’re still talking about Saturday…

We finally all got cleaned up and went out to dinner to celebrate the birthdays.

I like this pic of Josh and I but I need to remove the woman sitting at the booth behind us. When you look at this full size, if you do, you’ll see what I mean. But dinner was lovely. Josh cleans up nicely.

Yesterday Mom and I got the housework done and I came down with a cold (I think). And I had a little time to sit on my ass and knit. I’m still working on the shrug and yesterday I got this sneaking suspicion that I’d gotten to the half-way point. I had Mom measure my back and then help me measure what I’d knit so far and it was spot on. So I joined for the sleeve. It shouldn’t be too much longer before the first half is done. Yay!

My sister called yesterday morning and invited us over for dinner. She was cooking lasagna and A had insisted that they get a birthday cake for me. According to her you just cannot have a birthday without a cake and candles.

One of them is 7 and the other is 5 so now Aunt Erin is 75. Nice, right? We had a good time and got to meet their new puppy. It was a very pleasant evening.

Josh left before we did and when I got home I found these waiting for me. I haven’t gotten flowers in ages. I really do feel pretty damn spoiled.

Today I have an appointment with shrinky-poo, then I’ll come home and work frantically on homework and then at 3pm Josh has an appointment with his psych doc that he’s asked me to go with for. And then of course tomorrow I have to go back to work, which is kind of the suck.

I’m still not caught up on reading everyone elses posts yet, but I’m working on it. I think I’m caught up on comments, at least I hope I am.

well that didn’t last

Tags

anxiety, bipolar disorder, crochet, getting creative, knitting, life, limits, meds, mental health, mental illness, projects, random shit that falls out of my brain, school, stress, the world is full of fucking idiots

Some experiments go great and you learn amazing things that propel you forward in wonderful ways. Other experiments leave you a crying mess and beg to not be repeated for a really long time. Anyone care to guess which direction my experiment went?

Yeah, back to my previous daily allotment of gabapentin, at least for now. Stress is a BITCH, yo.

Anyway, what seems to have helped immensely was having today off work. Mom and I did oodles of stuff together and had a wonderful time. One of my friends on campus who is also a knitter told me about two new yarn shops in town so we went and visited one of them. It was lovely, simply lovely. I went in with the idea that I would just check it out, see what they had and whether it would be worth going back sometime. I came out with this…

this ball is enough for a pair of socks, or in my case, a crocheted shrug

better look at some of the gorgeous colors

I’ve made this pattern twice before in different colorways and love it. When it’s finished it looks like this…

Sonata Shrug

Single row repeat that uses a size K hook so it works up fast and looks like a million bucks.

Tonight we went to the community playhouse to see a musical version of Little Women. We walked out during intermission, it was just awful. It was campy and way too condensed and really just terrible. I don’t understand how anyone thought that would ever be a suitable story to make into a musical.

Tomorrow will be spent doing housework and other assorted chores and then Sunday will be a big ol’ mess of homework. I’ve got a sizable piece I need to have ready to turn in on Tuesday. Yee-haw.

you just never know

Tags

bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, crochet, getting creative, knitting, life, mental health, mental illness, moods, motivation, projects, random shit that falls out of my brain

It always amazes me that some stuff I post on here generates cricket noises and some explodes in a glorious way. Yesterday’s post about wearing the pretties I’ve made exploded to such an extent that I felt compelled (read:  guilted into by a certain nameless someone) to create a whole separate page to showcase the Stuff I’ve Made. I was shocked and amazed to realize that since starting this blog I’ve put up more than 72 pictures of various projects. (72 was the final number that made the cut) So even though I’ve got my laptop today and access to all of my photos I didn’t have to upload anything additional. Whew.

But that really wasn’t what I had intended to blog about today. Here goes…

My mental health is actually pretty stable right now, and it has been for a good while. The last time I was hospitalized was in February of 2010, and that was the worst damage I’d done to myself. As in it was so bad that shrinky-poo wasn’t sure if I’d done myself permanent brain damage or not.

But since then I have completed my Master’s degree, completed a full year of DBT, gotten married again, made huge strides at work, started more grad school, handled the death of my father fairly well, and really come into my own as a grown woman. (given that I’m 38 3/4 it’s about fucking time!)

So I’m quite proud of myself for being more than just a diagnosis. But I work at that, every day. Bipolar and Borderline are diseases, just like diabetes is a disease, and they require management, just like any other disease. I have to be mindful of what I’m eating, if I’m drinking or putting other chemicals in my body that could be problematic, how much sleep I’m getting, whether I’m leaving myself enough time for recreational activities, etc.

Having a mental health diagnosis means having a full time job, usually on top of our regular jobs. But for me it’s rewarding to know that I’m keeping all of my proverbial balls in the air like my “normal” friends do even though a lot of the time it’s harder for me to do so.

Here’s to you, my mental brothers and sisters, and all the hard work you do. May we ever find a little peace of mind and a cozy place to relax.

a goal I didn’t set that I did set and am totally nailing

Tags

crocheting, DBT, goals, knitting, simplifying, trimming my wardrobe

Anyone who’s been hanging around here for long will no doubt have realized that I’m on a mission to declutter and simplify my life. I’ve trimmed my wardrobe down several times in the last 6 months or so, mostly because I had been notorious for buying clothes “just because.” I feel good about the progress I’ve made though if I’m entirely honest I would say there’s still more work to be done.

I am also a fairly avid knitter and crocheter. I went through a phase, last year maybe, when I knit FOUR sweaters within a short span of time. I’ve also knit and crocheted several shrugs over the years and two shawls. And I rarely wear any of them, but because I made them they had escaped the great purge.

So the goal that I set for myself this week, without really realizing I’d even done it, was to wear one of those items to work every day. And so far I’ve done it with ease. On Monday I wore an emerald green mohair knit shrug with beads. On Tuesday I wore a lime green/deep purple striped knit sweater. Today I wore a crocheted shrug made in sock yarn that shifts through several shades of green. Tomorrow I’ll be wearing my Recovery Sweater which is knit from a very posh boucle yarn in shades of purples, mossy green, and browns with a metallic thread woven through. I’m thinking on Friday I might wear my cropped knit wool sweater that has pink, purple, and green in it.

I guess my point with all this is to say that I’ve finally realized that there’s no sense in making garments for myself if I’m never going to wear them. I know what my style is like so I know what kinds of wearables I really would wear and I definitely know by now what colors look good with my skin and (current) hair color. And all of the things I have are things I really do love, so they deserve to come out of the cedar chest and see the light of day.

The best part is that I feel good wearing them because I know how much love and hard work went into making them and I know that it shows.

In the world of DBT this is part of what I do to Build Mastery. Knitting and crocheting are things that I’m good at and doing them makes me feel good. When I finish a project and can wear it to work I feel even better.

What are things that you do to make yourself feel good?

and then there was the one time when I fell on my ass trying to carry too much to the car and my husband watched and just drove off

Tags

drawing, knitting, my husband the jackass, start of the semester woes

That’s the drawing I’ve been working on. It’s not even that impressive, just larger than what I tend to do. I wanted to work on it more last night but I’m shaking pretty bad these days. Smooth lines are not forthcoming.

So I worked on this instead. It’s the very start of a new knit shrug. I wore an emerald green mohair shrug to work yesterday, 3/4 length sleeves, and decided that I really should make more things I can wear and wear more of the things I’ve made. That shrug should be pretty jewel-tone stripes judging by the way the yarn looks in the ball and is working up so far. I’m not doing anything fancy with the stitches on this, the yarn is plenty pretty enough. The green one has a very subtle bead detail at the cuffs, but I think I’ll leave this one plain.

So anyway, today is the first day of class for me. I had a ton of crap to carry out to the car this morning and I was running late. The running late thing really isn’t my fault anymore, it’s Josh’s. I took my shower last night so my entire “getting ready” time this morning was like 20 minutes. But he parks behind me and can’t be bothered to drag his ass out of bed until the last damn minute anymore. I couldn’t tell you the last time I actually showed up to work on time.

At any rate, I had my backpack, a canvas grocery bag full of supplies, my coat, and my cup of coffee that I was trying to get through the door and then close the door to the house behind me. I didn’t make it. I lost my footing trying to bend back to grab the doorknob and I went down, ass over tea kettle, and twisted my ankle pretty good in the process.

Josh was sitting in the Honda in the driveway with a very clear view of what happened. As I sat there crying he backed out and drove off. Needless to say it has not been a swell day.

And it’s finally gotten busy here, like ridiculously busy. But I guess that’s good. It’s meant that I haven’t had time to lament the fact that there’s no time to smoke or pee.

just because I can

Tags

crocheting, knitting, random shit that falls out of my brain

I’ve finally finished capturing the other 123 charts for that rotten project and my brain is goo. So, since Fish of Gold and I started a bit of a conversation about knit frogs vs. crocheted frogs, I thought I’d shared some pics of a few of my favorite knit and crocheted pieces I’ve made. Why not…

Rat-sputin included for scale

This is a knit towel made with yarn that changes color on it’s own. This is a combination of garter and stockinette stitches.

Knit washcloths, my very favorite pattern ever. These are done entirely in garter using short rows to achieve the petal shapes. This is done as a single piece that has one seam.

This little valance bit is a special kind of crochet known as filet. It’s made of size 10 crochet cotton (think kite string) and uses the chain and double crochet stitches. The designs are made by alternating solid and open mesh blocks.

My award winning felted hat. This began as a knit hat made entirely of wool yarn that was then purposely shrunk.

The back view of a striped sweater I knit for myself ages ago. This one is all garter and was super easy.

christmas bunnies

These were crocheted toys I made for the little girls one year.

Fingerless cabled mitts I knit for Mom last year.

The first pair of socks I knit for myself. All of those cool color changes are just the yarn. The pattern for these is really pretty basic.

Sonata Shrug

This is a shrug I crocheted for myself that I really love. I actually made another in another colorway that turned out just a nice. This is another really easy pattern. It’s just a big rectangle, one row repeated over and over, and then you tack the corners together to form the sleeves.

Interestingly enough, I didn’t have to upload any additional pics and there quite a few I had in my library that I skipped.