Hello again

I waited and waited to get some decent pictures before posting; but friends, I felt lonely. Here is the news. It is summer now. I haven't settled into the productive routine I had planned out for myself. I am not used to so many cafe shifts. Days of exertion and too much sun have left my body complaining. My sit bones are bruised from my bicycle, my hands are swollen from digging, my arms are sunburned, my back aches. So far, the potatoes are planted and the beds are dug. Seeds have been purchased. I'm reading Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. We ordered a lawnmower and bought blueberry bushes to plant under the giant evergreen. I finished my dress and pair of plain socks. Tim and I spent the past two days in Calgary. The verdict on the micro-culture three hours away? Calgary's hipsters are slicker, cleaner, more expensive, and less collegiate. Less like young lumberjacks and fishwives. Calgary's restaurants are disarmingly good. Calgary contains more cyclists, more hills, more flowering trees. Calgary's streets are nonsensically numbered. Astonishingly enough, it's the first time we've been away together. Sitting in unfamiliar parks, bicycling a Google maps route, and walking into cafes where for once we were the ones who weren't sure of the lining-up and table busing procedures, I realized how much I want us to strike out on our own. I want us to make a city our own. I want to make an adventuresome and ambitious start. Did I tell you we are thinking about Germany? 

For now, there is so much work to do.

I just wanted to say hello

Hello! If you can believe it, we had more snow this weekend. Friday, my bus driver made converstaion by asking me if I was ready for another 20 cm. Yesterday morning, I was bundled up in my imitation Uggs, parka, cowl, wool socks, and mittens. Snow was still falling today when I woke up at 5:30, but now, 12 hours later, I've just come in from my first tiny bike ride of the year. Things are melting fast, especially on the roads.

Tim made lentil curry and coriander rice, and I made a salad with cucumber, yogurt, garlic, and dill. After supper I slipped outside, pulled my heavy green cruiser out of the garage, put air in the tires, pulled her over the remnants of a drift in the driveway, and hopped on. It's still too slushy, sandy, and salty to ride Annalena. My green bike's pedals are smaller and less grippy; I can't fully extend my legs when I push down on them. The handlebars are so wide that I steer like I am playing Mario Kart.

I'm always surprised by how much I change every winter. Every spring, I find myself timid on the roads once again, running out of breath more quickly than I remembered, forgetting what I do in the face of an oncoming car in a residential street, self-conscious about how my bum looks when I stand up to pedal. Within weeks I'll be cycling in traffic again. I'll be on a racing bike, in far less clothing. My winter self can hardly believe it.

Tonight I have two British medieval morality plays to read for Tuesday--my second-last final exam. Tim and I are making strawberry ice cream. The grocery stores here are already trotting out fresh strawberries, though they hardly taste on their own and need sugar. It's a false, forced seasonality I don't love--it's somehow un-Canadian, at least for this province where we all know winter still hasn't finished with us--but we got four pounds free last week.

April, come she will.

Resolutions in March

- learn to make my own happiness (because it is not Tim's job, and because circumstances will not always be peachy)

This month, this has meant reading quite a lot on emotional eating, giving myself permission to stop eating food I'm not enjoying, buying a bracelet, sleeping when I'm tired, showering in the middle of the afternoon, baking myself a birthday cake, having little conversations with the Simps, buying tulips, starting Guns, Germs, and Steel in the middle of the semester. 

- complete one wearable sewn garment (hello brown paisley dress)

- master fair isle knitting (in order to make things such as this)

Finally! Progress. This is a Kate Davies cowl pattern called 'Hazelhurst'.

- remove makeup every night (this has never, ever been a habit--now that flossing is down, it's time)

I would say I'm at something like 60%?

- reach goal weight once and for all (140 pounds)

See first item above.

- pay back money owed Tim (so very close)

- pay off student loan (not so close)

- repair book cubes (damaged in the move last spring)

- further improve backyard (especially firepit, but also hope for fruit trees, removal of gravel, chopping of hoary huge evergreen)

- write something (anything) every day (this should be at the top of the list)

- learn more about math and computing (calculus, number theory, Python)

- publish in at least one magazine (which means submitting)

The Blue Hour came out with their first print edition, and were kind enough to include my poem from January.

- give excellent presents (better than last year)

- apply for at least one "real" job (something outside the service industry, something challenging, something that utilizes my skills)

- properly repair bathroom ceiling and baseboards (and begin to learn about renovating a house)

We have a plan. Now to buy supplies.

- play the violin again (Vivaldi's "Winter")

- learn more about baking bread (to begin: read the lovely book Laura got me for Christmas)

Rye sourdough is proving a challenge. I have a live starter, but my first two loaves did not rise well. I bought some whole rye flour, since I suspect that part of the problem is the dark rye I've been using. We'll have another go this weekend. 

- get a tattoo (at last at last)

Progress here too. Now to scrounge up several hundred dollars. Tips.

- put more of myself into relationships (especially that relationship with one Tim Put)

- use my nice things (and remember that I have many)

It was jam our friends made last summer (thanks Mel and Jessie!), my own chocolate mint tea, marzipan which had been sitting in the freezer for a year, cloth napkins from Emily, Christmas shower gel, a hand-wound clock unearthed from the "keepsake" box and set ticking.

- make and repair more, and buy better and less (I need a darning egg)

The keepsake box contained another clock, an Alice in Wonderland clock my parents gave me when I wasn't even a year old. The battery-powered mechanism wasn't working, so Tim ordered me another one, and new clock hands. They arrived today. Also, five years later, we ordered a  Blendtec.  No more semi-disposable 30-dollar affairs.

knitting things + more of the famous windowsill + new plant

The grey? is a sock. One of Hermione's Everyday Socks, actually.
The Ikea yarn has by now become three inches of legit fair isle. I'll show you tomorrow. 

Sometimes I feel apologetic about unintellectual knitting. 

But this is silly.

Notice the new and tiny tropical plant,
and the gemstones. They're on their way to becoming something else.

Today I'm making toasted-almond-allspice-and-marzipan biscotti for Easter.
I'm also writing my second of four final, final papers.
I'm trying to eat only food that tastes good, and I actually want
--less than I thought. To quote Geneen Roth,
"No one's hunger is bottomless".
I'm wearing pants for the second time in eight months.
They're army green; they sit low on my hips and cinch at my ankles.
After the last snowfall, it's gotten warm and the whole city is a lake.
I am wild to ride my bike again.
I'm bracing for the mountain of good work there will be to do once the snow is gone.
Last week I bought this from this talented woman.
I've received two letters as well. Plume and Glynis--thanks thanks thanks.
Heath emailed back. Plans are developing and I have a pile of money to secret away.
I am tired. But the daylight is growing.
I fully intend to wear shorts this summer.

And how are you? I would love to hear your day's news.

resolute: tattoo

- get a tattoo (at last at last)

Wednesday, I emailed this artist to start consulting on a tattoo to be done here. Heath's only the best in Edmonton, and this shop is where almost all of our coffee and bicycling friends have gone to get tattooed. 

some ludicrous green shoots

When I brought my birthday roses into the kitchen to salvage what was left, I saw this:

This week has happened in spite of. I had to write a term paper which I didn't want to write, was sure I couldn't write--which seemed so pointless that it seemed a case in point of all the reasons why, beyond this degree, I cannot continue with academic English. There were, though, these roses. And yesterday I bought Tim a peace offering pie and walked to the downtown library to pick up a stack of books I had on hold. I hadn't even reached the automatic check out before I realized that I was juggling no less than five books on emotional eating--and a bakery box. Justina came over in the evening, with beer. I taught her how to knit, carried on about different types of cast ons and the wonder of Ravelry. (I must stop waiting for my life to start, or get good.)

Quagmire Rules

That horrible season is already upon us, again. There are three weeks left in the semester proper, and nothing looks pretty--not me, not our apartment, not Edmonton, not our treacherous sidewalks. The late March blizzard  breaks me every year. After two weeks of sun (you forget that a ray of sun can feel warm) and rivulets, we have wind and over a foot of new snow.

It occurred to me last week that while my ordinary-time eating habits are actually quite good, the quality and quantity of food I consume during days or weeks of extraordinary stress is probably enough to account for at least half of the weight I would like to permanently lose. Also, no matter what I tell myself to the contrary in the woe and frenzy of the moment, drinking powdered hot chocolate and eating toast and cereal every two hours does nothing for my research essays. These end-of-the-semester bouts of emotional eating must stop. 

Here, then, are some Quagmire Rules. 

1. 1 L cold water first thing in the morning (before coffee, before breakfast) 

2. Black tea with milk and sugar = reviving treat, not default liquid

3. If not hungry for proper meal (vegetables, protein, nicely prepared), not hungry

4. Three meals + afternoon tea, not eaten in bed or at desk

5. Powdered hot chocolate will never taste like it did fifteen years ago (save the calories to make real cocoa)

6. General feeling-gross and depression better solved by shower or nap than sugar 

7. Eat off of a plate, drink out of a nice cup

8. Time does actually exist to cook supper and exercise

9. Save sweet things (ahem, banana muffins) for afternoon tea (not breakfast, not out of the pan)

10. Eating right before bed or to stay awake = not fun
11. Vitamins

ETA: I turned 22 last week. On my birthday morning, I was in the middle of a plank when I looked up and saw myself in the mirror. I looked strong. I looked attractive. I looked fine. I am reminded that I've come a long way since I spent my sixteenth birthday making myself vomit in the shower. I'm also reminded that some of the things I'm still dealing with are the residual effects of having had an eating disorder, and that I need to keep addressing these issues (at first I wrote 'working through this shit')--gently, but conscientiously. 

from Mrs. Dalloway

"When people are happy they have a reserve"

Resolutions in February

- learn to make my own happiness (because it is not Tim's job, and because circumstances will not always be peachy)

It was paying to get my hair cut. Painting my toenails. Walking in the cemetery. Making a good effort at work. Spending time with friends, in spite of that fear that I am socially awkward. Drinking beer while making supper. Singing--which I hadn't really done since moving in with Tim. 

- complete one wearable sewn garment (hello brown paisley dress)

I actually have all the cutting and marking done. 

- master fair isle knitting (in order to make things such as this)

This is for March.

- remove makeup every night (this has never, ever been a habit--now that flossing is down, it's time)

Something of a fail. Must get back to this simple thing.

- reach goal weight once and for all (140 pounds)

Indulge me while I digress for a moment. The more I think about this, the more I realize that what I want for my body is a hell of a lot more than a smaller number on the scale. I want to be really strong. I want to be able to run when I feel like it. I want to take a bike trip this summer. I want to feel good after eating. 

I am becoming attracted to the idea of more serious lifting. Since Christmas, with a lapse in the middle of February, I've been doing both strength training and short bouts of cardio. I feel amazing after lifting free weights, holding a long plank, actually feeling my chest touch the ground during a push-up. I adore my biceps. Today I squatted for the first time, holding one of the dumbbells Tim uses on his arms. 8 hours later, my whole body hurts in a very, very good way. 

- pay back money owed Tim (so very close)

Closer. Almost.

- pay off student loan (not so close)

- repair book cubes (damaged in the move last spring)

- further improve backyard (especially firepit, but also hope for fruit trees, removal of gravel, chopping of hoary huge evergreen)

- write something (anything) every day (this should be at the top of the list)

Like washing my face: so easy, so hard. I must, I must. And notes for poems too. 

- learn more about math and computing (calculus, number theory, Python)

- publish in at least one magazine (which means submitting)

- give excellent presents (better than last year)

My friend Amelia got married. I bought her this book. If that isn't a good present, I don't know what is. 

- apply for at least one "real" job (something outside the service industry, something challenging, something that utilizes my skills)

- properly repair bathroom ceiling and baseboards (and begin to learn about renovating a house)

I watched Tim repair a window frame, and watched Tim's Dad rip up three layers of lino and lay down tile. I have a lot to learn.

- play the violin again (Vivaldi's "Winter")

- learn more about baking bread (to begin: read the lovely book Laura got me for Christmas)

As you know, this is going well. I'm through the first chapter on basic doughs. I've started the sourdough chapter. 

- get a tattoo (at last at last)

- put more of myself into relationships (especially that relationship with one Tim Put)

It was continuing to talk. Trying very hard to nip passive aggression in the bud. Not spoiling Tim's birthday with impossible expectations, but leaving a miniature cherry pie at Transcend for him to find when he opened the cafe. Making friend dates.

- use my nice things (and remember that I have many)

It was yarn that had been "stashed" for a while, turned into a cowl and a sweater. Hoarded coconut milk turned into rice pudding, and saved butterscotch chips turned into cookies. A tiny handsewn notebook filled with grocery lists. A perfume bottle emptied. 

- make and repair more, and buy better and less (I need a darning egg)

Tim's sweater is done, after trials and tribulations. I'm in the middle of a mildly overwhelming repair/restoration that I hope to blog about this week. As mentioned, I repaired my rubber boots. 

starting and finishing

After I had to rip back the entire yoke on Tim's sweater (those blasted shoulders!), I wanted to knit something less heartbreaking. And so: the cotton candy running cowl.

Reading Week, so far. I am trying to do everything I ever put on hold in order to finish a paper or go to bed on time. The bread experiment progresses splendidly, and I am working on the brown paisley dress. Tim and I have been on a walk. I'm trying to root four little aloe vera cuttings; upstairs, my father-in-law is starting to paint the walls dove grey and lay porcelain tile. On Monday, mending a tear, we managed to superglue my fingertips to my yellow Tretorns. I walked to work in full light this morning.

Fourth recipe in Bread Matters--baps. 

Saturday, February 16, 2013

February is the oddest month. Last year in March I said, "It's February's fault". Much like last year, I've spent the past week arranging for new tenants upstairs. Right on cue, we have renovations on the brain again. A dear friend is getting married on Monday. For me at least, this is the month of new beginnings before I feel ready.

But--joy!--the Reading Week break starts today. As a student, I am granted the privilege of catching my breath. Today I am going to start the final (read: most terrifying) part of Tim's saddle shoulder sweater--the saddle shoulders. Knitting Without Tears is on the bed beside me, and it is now time to plot my attack. Have a lovely day, readers.