Knits

I know, I should be spacing this posts out so not to have great big gaps, but I’m all chatty from being cooped up I guess.

Actually, I’ve got a few thoughts on how my year is going. One word to sum it up is Crap. I know there were almost 4 months of the year before my sister died, but really only about two of those happened without the life events starting up so I have sort of forgotten about January and February — can’t really tell you a single thing that happened other than a couple of work-related meetings.

The start of March was all a bit weird with trying to figure out if I was going to the US and when, getting my new visa and passport back, packing up my life and storing it, and then leaving. It was a blur. Once I arrived in the US, well as I said previously, the time went dreadfully slow, especially in the beginning, but also at light speed. It was and always will be a weird moment of time. My year began in May when I returned to the UK.

I’m confused that it’s already July — I somehow missed the spring and the various markers in the calendar to let me know the year was progressing. I’m in a new job in a new city and feeling very unsettled. Just when I was beginning to feel a bit more secure in my job and get caught up I missed a week of work (combination of 2 days vacation and 3 days sick) which makes me feel very anxious and like I won’t catch up. I just feel like so much is slipping through the cracks right now.

I have so many emails I haven’t returned, projects I want to work on (knitting and otherwise), but some how I have no time. I come home and I piss around on the internet and then I realise it’s 8pm and I haven’t started dinner so I do that or I eat a bowl of cereal. Then I piss around a bit more and suddenly it’s 1130 and I should really be getting into bed. Too many of my nights go like this right now. I just lose track of time doing NOTHING. Seriously, nothing.

I know part of it is that some of the projects require me to sit and not necessarily concentrate, but be more work-like yet my current set up at home does not allow for that; it’s uncomfortable and inconvenient. There are so many things I want to be knitting. I want to finish a pair of freakin’ socks! I hate seeing all those WIPs in my Ravelry notebook. (A few aren’t going to get touched until I move and can unearth them.) Yet, I signed myself up for a KAL and it’s not like the sun will fall from the sky if I don’t start or complete said object this month, but I’d really like to give it a try. I’d also like to get my cardigan underway. And my mom’s blanket.

I think I need to do what I do best and make a list of all the things I want to do or need to do. It will actually make me feel less stressed about it, but then I am also likely to forgot things unless I keep that list visible as I taught myself years ago to write things down or else I’d get stressed out trying to remember too much. Now I have the problem that I barely remember anything if I don’t write it down.

I’m actually taking full advantage of all the personal and professional development courses my new employer offers. There are some things I’m required to take (things on annual appraisals and participating in interview panels), but there is a slew of other things I’ve signed up for: speed reading, memory and mind mapping, and I may sign up for the time management one if it’s not all about making Gantt charts.

Much of this post has been brewing for awhile now, but Debbie’s recent post on her Summer Wish List inspired me to put it out there — make myself accountable really. I want to do other things OUTSIDE the house like take an art or photography course, volunteer some time some where, but I am being lazy about it in some ways. I have found some courses I’d love to take, but they are not local and would require 90 minutes on the bus each way on a Saturday morning. I honestly don’t think I want to sign up to that. I want to start swimming again (I have been saying this for 2 years) especially since I don’t cycle daily now.

I really hope I can start living a life I want to live instead of just floating through it doing the bare minimum required of me…

All photos from Brussels.