Before you can get yourself out of a rut you have to know you're in one. Sometimes it just takes time, or an event.
I've had a lot on my mind lately. Namely that I have finally decided my retirement horizon. So now I have to make all the things happen to make it happen. And I'm scared as hell about a lot of it. So that's been using up a lot of my brain cells.
My normal avoidance procedure - sewing - has been at a standstill while I waited for red and blue fabric to arrive. I ordered it ten or more days ago and then neglected to pay attention to the shipping method when I checked out. The shipping was FREE but it was the slowest possible method. (Sound effect of Lynne banging her head on the desk.) It arrived yesterday, and after work it went through the washer and dryer. I'll start ironing it later tonight.
I had grand plans for the past weekend. I know that if I don't post a blog at least once in 7 days I'll start getting emails and text messages wondering if I'm OK. I had planned to write a post but what I did on Saturday wore me out so much I was taking a nap on Sunday afternoon that went into evening. (translation: I moved some stuff and went to the dump and was so sore on Saturday night I tumbled into bed about 9 after taking two Advil and slept a good 12 hours. Then on Sunday morning I spent an hour planting stuff in my front garden. I don't get up and down as well as I used to. Getting old sucks.)
I had a lovely conversation with my son on Mother's Day.
And had several conversations about my birthday and my mother's upcoming 90th birthday. That is a blog post in an of itself and will happen later. Much angst, lemme tell ya. I, however, will be spending a glorious week in sunny California this summer with my son and DIL and granddaughter. It will have been four years since I have seen them and I cannot wait.
And I have been reading. I am pretty sure I told this story once before, but I am going to tell it again:
I always have a book going. And I can read about a page a minute, so you can do the math. The average paperback of 240 pages will take me roughly four hours, and no, I do not speed read. Anyway, back some 20 plus years ago I was in the cafeteria at work eating lunch and reading. The CEO was at the other end of the table, having his own lunch and reading the Wall Street Journal. One of the mechanics sat down and after a minute said, "Hey Lynne, when are you going to finish that book?" Before I could even formulate a thought, the CEO piped up, "What do mean, Norm? That's her third one this week." I didn't know what surprised me more, that fact that the CEO noticed or that he COUNTED.
Years ago I read all the Joe Leaphorn mysteries by Tony Hillerman. Joe Leaphorn was his Navajo detective situated in the southwest. Hillerman is long gone, but his daughter Anne Hillerman, has picked up the major characters, Leaphorn, Jim Chee and his wife Bernadette Manuelito. I read her first couple in paperback and then lost track. She has just released the eighth of the series, so I went back. I already had the first two in my Kindle (I have literally over a thousand books in my Kindle. I know this because I recently edited them). I ordered the third in her series, and set about reading the first two to refresh my memory. I read them each in a day, and then read the third on Saturday, while I was lying on the couch resting.
I also do the Wordle every day, and I do The New York Times Spelling Bee, and I get to Queen Bee every day. (Because you know, I'm persistent like that.) Queen Bee means you get ALL the words. No small feat. And yes, I am showing off.
I want to make a quilt for my boss before I retire. He wears khaki slacks and a dark shirt every day. It's so dark I have to be two feet away so I can tell what color it is. Dark Brown, Dark Blue, Black. That's it. He's so quiet and he keeps to himself. I've worked at the same company with him for 20 years and I hardly know anything about him. He has a girlfriend, loves his elderly cat (and dog) and likes to fish. And he reads too, but I don't know what. I mention this because I have to figure out what color. The other day he walked by and I realized his shirt was BLUE (dark blue). I said, OH, It's BLUE! and he turned around and looked at me. I told him I was going to make him a quilt before I retired and that he had no say in the matter, but I had to figure out colors. "For you, I think, blue, greens, browns, colors from nature. Nothing bright, nothing bold." He smiled, nodded and said, Yeah.
Well that's all well and good but I do not want to make a too dark quilt. But then I thought about that again and I wondered if I could do that (answer: yes). Then I thought what would the quilt look like aside from the colors, and I remembered he liked fishing, and that made me think about water. And that made me remember camping with my family, sitting at the edge of a lake, looking across the lake to the mountains and sky beyond. Now we all know I don't make picture quilts, but that's as good a place as any to start. He might actually like ocean fishing better, and that's an all bluish color story I might like even more. So I have to roll that around in my head for a bit.
It sounds a bit weird, but I think you have to have to know what you want to say before you get started. The details might change, but that basic IDEA, that THING YOU WANT TO SAY stays the same. At least it does for me. Because, as we all know, if you don't know where you're going, you will wind up someplace else.
Me? I'm going to bed.
