School's Out

 Ah, here we are, yet another month has passed me by. But hey, I'm not going to worry about it. I mean, I'm gonna be honest with you- why should I? Who am I doing this but for me? And me was overwhelmed for a while, ok?

See what I did there? A little different tactic. Less apologies, more assertiveness. No long winded excuses. I must be feeling good! It must be..

~~~SUMMER BREAK!!!~~~

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So hey, yeah, I'm on vacation and feeling marginally better than I was a week or two ago (see angst here), though not as good as I thought I would to be honest. When I finally left school that last day I thought I would be filled with elation. Not since I was 16 have I had this much time off of work. Surely I should be ecstatic! 

Alas, that is apparently not how my brain works and instead of bliss, I was hit with a tidal wave of guilt and panic. I just felt... weird about it. Luckily, I have a friend who also works in a school I can vent to because this is the sort of thing you feel like a complete asshole complaining to any other working stiff about. I don't feel bad about having an issue with this but I'm acutely aware that there are far worse problems to have.

I've spent some time reflecting on it (because what better way to get out of a brain funk than to take a deep dive into all the stuff that could possibly be upsetting you) and I think I was just more burnt out from my job at the psych hospital than I realized. The sluggishness and apathy I've felt have been annoying and troubling to me but while working full time, it's easy to attribute some of that to being tired and preoccupied from working. I'm realizing now that it goes a little deeper than that.

There are lots of things I'd love to do with all my free time this summer but I've spent most of my time so far in something of a daze. I've been doing a lot of cleaning and tidying. I did a puzzle in record time. Basically, I just can't sit still and commit to something. 

At the very least, despite all the introspection and inability to figure out how to spend my time, like I said at the start of this post, I'm still feeling pretty good overall so it's my hope that the fog will clear and I'll get into something soon. In the meantime, I'm attempting- when I can pause my aimless wanderings long enough- to fill up on inspiration as much as possible so when I'm finally in the mood, I'll be bursting with possibilities. 

What do I do when I'm taking a break from having to do things but don't want to not do anything for the entire summer you ask? List time!

• Walk. Obviously exercise makes you feel better so I've been trying to go out for a walk everyday. It's been HOT here though (but not quite as hot as the pacific northwest- ugh, sorry guys!), so I haven't been great at that but today I did make it out. I foolishly failed to bring water so I arrived back at my apartment feeling a little woozy and dripping in sweat with a tomato-red face. Allow me to hit you with some TMI -  I then stripped off my clothes and stood naked while drinking water in my bathroom, waiting for my shower to get to the right temperature. Glamorous.
• Wow, I really hate being hot.

• Listen to podcasts- I've mentioned that I listen to podcasts before and I pretty much listen to the same ones on that list still but instead of listening on my way to work, I've been listening on my walks or while sitting on my porch, possibly cross stitching. My latest favorite and new addition is Levar Burton Reads where my man Levar Burton reads then reflects on a short story. It's FANTASTIC. He's a great reader (which I already knew from my Reading Rainbow days) and they add just enough sound effects to make the storytelling even more immersive without going overboard. Plus, his brief discussion of the story at the end is always interesting and insightful. Today I listened to him read "Vaccine Season" by Hannu Rajaniemi and it was amazing.

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• Read. My book numbers are going to be horrible this year but I already have a couple more to add to the list!

• Watch crafty YouTube. I haven't really been a huge YouTube watcher but recently I stumbled across a number of crafty channels and I can stop watching them. They make me want to try so many new crafty things!!! Most of them deal with model building but I'm working on putting a list of suggestions together, so stay tuned if you think that might be your thing.

• Continue working on stitching projects in progress. Sure, they're not new and exciting, but I feel good working on something and that just clears out more space for NEW projects.

• Video games. I'm toggling between Animal Crossing and Quest For Glory: So You Want To Be A Hero, an adventure game from 1989 (though I'm playing the 1992 VGA version) at M's suggestion as the Quest For Glory series of games were his favorite growing up.

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That's basically it to be honest. Throw in a sprinkling of wedding planning related activities and hanging out with friends Friday and Saturday and you've pretty much got my first week down. I think I might tackle organizing my Craft Horde because that always makes me want to make a complete mess of it again by starting like 5 projects at once but we'll see. 

I'm going to sign off for now, but first I'm going to leave you with the song you KNOW I have to include in this post, it's 100% required.

PS:

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Man, lots of gifs today, huh?

I Read: The League of Frightened Men

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Aaaaas hinted recently, I managed to finish a book in my absence though my reading, like basically all my activities, has stalled out just a little. Nevertheless, I couldn't fully abandon my last read as it was yet another amazing Nero Wolfe mystery.

If you aren't familiar with Rex Stout, you can read my post based on the first Rex Stout book I read which I have conveniently link to above; alternatively, you can click on the Nero Wolfe wiki link I also conveniently linked to for you. Either way, The League of Frightened Men starts with that same amazing cast of characters in that same orchid-filled New York brownstone.  

Wolfe and Archie meet a murder mystery writer, Paul Chapin, who has set a group of men on edge after announcing that he has committed a murder (but offering no further information) after two of this group had recently died amidst mysterious circumstances. This group, The League of Frightened Men, appeal to Wolfe to successfully tie Chapin to these murders so that they can no longer fear for their lives. 

They had cause to suspect revenge from Mr. Chapin following an accident years earlier while they were all attending Harvard. In a sort of hazing ritual, they forced Paul Chapin out on a window ledge to open the window of a room that was locked but he fell, injuring his leg and causing him to walk with a severe limp the rest of his life. While they attempted to atone for the accident, Chapin continued to carry a massive chip on his shoulder and, even as years pass, will not let these men forget the terrible thing they did, ultimately culminating in the events that transpire over the course of the book.

This is an excellently twisty turny plot of a book, weaving many different lives into an interesting psychological study of guilt and pity and how one event in your youth can affect your whole life. As a warning, I will say that it as a lot of ableist language, often describing Chapin as a "cripple" and various other negative terms focusing on his disability. Despite that, I find the plot very engaging and surprising and I'd highly recommend it.

Next up, I've started another nonfiction book because after every nonfiction book I read, I eventually forget that I have a hard time getting into nonfiction books and then I stumble across one I find extra interesting and the cycle starts again. It seems it was a quick turnaround this time.

Star rating: 4.3/5

2021 Book Count: 7

No Excuses, Only Comics

It's been a month but I don't have any excuses, only comics.

Yup, that same ol' story. So much to do, I don't want to do anything. But swiftly coming up is the end of the school year and, then, my wedding. 

Exciting things though right?! The school year is wrapping up (a mere 4 weeks left) and I've made the decision to take the summer off. Though I have saved the money necessary to do this and of course I'm looking forward to it, it also fills me with anxiety. What if [dramatic pause] Something Happens that drains my savings? And like I said, there's that whole getting married thing I'm doing in August which I want to make all sorts of things for, aside from the normal prep work.

Long story short, I'm feeling a little overwhelmed and that usually means I shut down. And nowadays, that specifically means I play a lot of Animal Crossing. Its a good de-stressor but it certainly doesn't make me feel like I accomplished anything productive. While I do need to keep myself on track, one of the big things I'm working on is not beating myself up for taking little downtime. Sure, don't let it get out of hand, but as long as I'm getting my basic things done when I need to get them done, who says I can't sit on the porch with my Switch for a while?

The following photo is from when Lucy looked into my soul and told me something I hadn't realized about myself:

Girl YES I know what you mean.

I haven't been entirely stagnant though, I promise. Projects are sloooowly but surly coming along, including this one, another set of cross stitches based on Asimov's Laws of Robotics,  AND I've been working on a way to mingle my jewelry making and cross stitch hobbies. Like I said though, slow going. Same with reading though I recently finished another Rex Stout mystery which I plan on sharing soon.

Anyway,  I hope to get back on track and out of this low energy slump I'm in. Only time will tell but I'll keep thinking about it...

I love Poorly Drawn Lines, check it out.

Progress

A while ago, I mentioned that I was starting a new project. I'm happy to report that I didn't just say I wanted to start a new project but I did, in fact, start it. If you recall, the pattern is essentially nine tile-like squares with  coordinating designs. For this post, I decided to take a picture after I finished each color thread. 

All outlines are done in this shade of green, which I am not mad about because I love green. I think this is one of the colors I had to substitute to because I didn't have the specific color the pattern called for. This one seems a bit brighter though so I think I prefer it.

After finishing this outline, the real enjoyable part starts which is when you just fill in the outline with all the other colors, no constant pattern checking needed. It's like coloring in one of those adult coloring books but, um, you know, stitching.

This extra calming project has come at a particularly good time for me, as schools let out for April vacation and it was a little crazy during the run up to this point. And, in true Ashley fashion, I'm still unable to fully relax now that the vacation has begun.

I've begun wedding planning again and am reminded that I'm not good at wedding planning. I suppose it's not wedding planning specifically that I'm terrible at but making a high volume of decisions within a short time span. I'm only good for like, one decision a day, two if I'm feeling a little spicy.

When I have something important to do, I have a hard time relaxing and allowing myself to fully enjoy fun things when I'm not actively working on it. While logically I know it's about balance, you have to also do Fun Things in addition to Important Things so your brain doesn't explode or whatever, I still find myself vacillating between doing The Thing and moping around trying to convince myself to do something else while still somehow not getting anything done. 

This inevitably leaves me feeling like I'm wasting my vacation. Though I'm fully aware that worrying about wasting time only creates more wasted time, I still find myself focusing a lot of my brain power perfecting the art of that that very specific form of worrying. One of my many talents.

This is why I spend much of time stabbing things over and over. Something about it, especially working on a project like this, really calms me down. I think the key is that it takes just the right amount of brain space- enough to keep my worries at bay but allow them to work themselves out in the back of my mind, if that makes any sense.

Now that this piece has gotten me back in creative mode, I've slowly started to combine my need for creative relaxation with wedding planning- because of course I have to make stuff for the big day- as the perfect way to fully unwind. I've also got a project based on Isaac Asimov's Laws of Robotics going because despite just now talking about how stressed I am, I felt the need to just completely overburden myself, per usual.

Aaaaaand there we have it! The finished square. I love the colors and can't wait to crack on with the other eight squares. Aside from all the other things I'm stressed about, I've also been putting a lot of thought into what I want to do with the rest of my life (job-wise) for some reason, so I'm sure this'll be done soon enough as I try to maintain my comfortable base level of panic without reaching critical mass.

On that note, I feel the need to share that I got a beer midway though this post because 1) look at this can. Look at it. I love it, it has more of a shiny metallic shine in person and is 100% why I grabbed it off the shelf in the first place and 2) it was a delightfully bitter-but-not-too-bitter black ale, recommended if you're into that sort of thing. I've never had it or anything else from Ten Bends for that matter, but apparently it's out of Vermont and most of their cans are gorgeous. Sure it doesn't matter but art for arts sake is what keeps us sane so I'll take it where I can get it.

On that note, cheers!

I read: Guards! Guards!

 

Yesterday, I had my second round of vaccinations. I'm thrilled to have them done but, like many, this means I felt like complete shit today. I would describe the feeling as being similar to having drunk too much cheap wine the night before, except instead of having had a fun night with friends, I got stabbed.* 

I'm not complaining though- aside from the benefit of, you know, being vaccinated, I got a day off work where I could wrap myself up in a quilt and do absolutely nothing productive whatsoever, guilt-free. I created a nest of blankets on the couch with my laptop, Switch controller, sewing, and book within easy reach. 

And therein we come to the real point of the post which is, I finished my book. 

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With all my extra free time today, I finished reading Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett. It's one of my favorites because it's the very first appearance of The City Watch, the top Discworld storyline in my opinion which 8 out of the 41 Discworld novels are based on. In it, a would-be ruler of the [in]famous city of Ankh-Morpork decides to take over by summoning a dragon  of the extremely large and fire breathing variety, which isn't supposed to- shouldn't- exist. To no one's surprise, there's some serious repercussions to this. To everyone's surprise, it's up to the small, ragtag, usually ineffectual Watch to save the day.

As with any Pratchett book, I enjoyed it thoroughly and would recommend it to anyone and the only reason I didn't give it a full 5 star rating was because Nothing is Perfect and I will never be able to bring myself to give anything a 5 star rating.

Star rating: 4.8/5

2021 Book Count: 6

*I'm already feeling much better and will be back to work tomorrow. Don't let the potential for a fake hangover stop you from getting vaccinated!

An Orgy of Bridges

Ahhh another lovely weekend outside on the books. Look at us go! Walking miles through nature! And no one is forcing us at gunpoint! Astonishing! 

I will say now though that this story ends with margaritas and chimichangas. Life is about balance after all.

Saturday was forecasted to be unseasonably warm and sunny so we felt that it was out of our hands, we had to get out there. We decided to make a day of it and head to southern New Hampshire to revisit an area filled with trails we had hiked before, Beaver Brook in Hollis. There's a whole network of trails so I left the map reading to M, as I have gotten lost in a parking garages. 

These particular trails are some of my favorites. They're labeled as moderate, not excessively strenuous but definitely a workout, and lots of interesting things to see. Some hikes are a boring slog through trees but this one had enough variation in terrain and views to be interesting.

For instance, there's a lot of bridges. As I've discussed before, bodies of water never fail to draw us in but you know what's even more exciting? Bridges. No idea why, but if I stumble across a narrow set of planks built up over some murky water in the middle of the woods, the trail suddenly becomes ten times more interesting to me and I spend a significant amount of time standing on them taking pictures and staring into to water looking for creatures.

Look! Another one! But with railings!

Also exciting was finding the most poorly hidden geocache ever. I've joined some people on searching for these before and they're a real search. Like, they don't make it easy. We stumbled across another poorly hidden stash but I failed to record that one. Someone dropped the ball here but I didn't have the heart to mess with it.

An orgy of bridges!!

What really got me was how truly beautiful the day was. I did such a photo dump here because I couldn't stop taking pictures of the lovely ways the bright sunlight caught the surroundings and reflected off the water.

We even made a new friend, this turtle. Yes, that is a turtle I promise, we saw him move and everything. It was a pretty big guy who looked like he's been through some serious battles but came out the other side ready to snap off any curious fingers. ...We left him alone.

We also spotted some wild chairs in their not-so-natural habitat. We did not stop and now I'm regretting it- I'm anxious as ever!

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In total, M estimates that we dragged ourselves through about 7 miles of forest. I was sore for a couple days after but I was feeling pretty proud of myself for lasting that long without complaining, a real feat for me.

And yes, to refuel from the day of actual real-live physical activity, we went to get some chimichangas and a couple blood orange margaritas (mojitos for M). Totally worth it- they tasted even better after all that fresh air.

New Adventure, New Project!

I've been moping along for a while, wishing I had a good cross stitch project to dig into but not having the energy to find and start one. I had an extra day off this week though, so I decided to visit a local needlework shop, see if that could fire up the ol' inspiration. I've been trying to make more of a conscious effort to shop local/small whereever I could anyway so it felt like a good way to spend some time on my bonus day off. 

I really can't believe that it'd never occurred to me until recently to see if there were any such shops around me. I wasn't expecting a ton of hits and there's certainly more yarn shops than needlework stores but I figured there would have to be some around Boston at least. I'm very glad to say however, I was pleasantly surprised to find one with a much easier commute (though there are more out towards Boston of course). So, on Friday I headed out to The World in Stitches in Littleton MA (they don't have a website but they do have a Facebook page you can check out).

I always get nervous when I first visit a new small shop like that. First of all, I get very nervous about parking- I panic if there's inadequate parking and I have to search for it or parallel park (the HORROR). Then, there's the near certainty that you're going to have to interact more with the people IN the shop, which is hit or miss and especially awkward if I find the shop doesn't live up to my expectations and I want to leave quickly. 

That nonsense aside, I'm super glad I went. The shop was, to my overly organized self, kind of in disarray and it was small and a little cramped, BUT that means it had a ton of stuff to look at. I was a pretty overwhelmed to be honest so I only bought a pattern, but next time I'll be more prepared to look around. I noted that they had a lot of thread I don't usually see and would be very interested in, including silks, hand-dyed cottons, and metallics that look like they may not be terrible to use (does that even exist?!).

Nerves aside, it was still a worthwhile trip because I'm pretty excited about the pattern I ended up buying. There was quite the selection of patterns (TONS!) but the colors really drew me in to this one. Once I looked closer though, I realized it was exactly the kind of thing I felt like stitching. Patterns like that- actual patterns, not, say a picture or something- are, to me, extra satisfying to work on. Plus, being able to complete one square at a time really ups the satisfaction levels. 

I didn't have all the threads it called for (only about half maybe) but I knew this was a situation where I would have plenty of similar colors to switch out with no issue. Really, I could've chosen a whole new color palette if I wanted but like I said, the current color scheme is what drew me to the pattern in the first place.

The woman who owned the shop, Randi, was extremely nice and helpful and not overbearing at all (another small-shop related concern of mine). She was able to tell me a little about the designer of the pattern and answered a couple questions I had. I later looked up this designer to check out the rest of her work and it was a Bad Choice because now I know where all my money is going forever. SO MANY AMAZING DESIGNS! Seriously, so many beautiful patterns, check it out for yourself. 

I've already started it and it's a joy to work on just as I predicted. It feels really good to be excited about starting a new project. Getting comfortable on the couch, watching something good (or not good, depending on my mood) and getting into a stitching groove... it's so relaxing to me and such a calming influence that when I'm not working on something more immersive, I feel at a little bit at a loss. 

It took a while to get to this point, I've been in a funk for a while, but it sure feels good to be back. I thought about giving it a rest and wait until I was feeling more inspired, maybe try out something new in the meantime, but instead, I followed a fellow stitcher's advice and stitched up something small and silly to get help me back into the groove. I'm glad I did because that, combined with yesterdays adventure, and I'm feeling better already.

Luckily, recently there was a conveniently timed "stitch or dare" event in one of my stitching groups where three different people gave me a stitching challenge and I had to pick one to complete. Of course I chose "grumpy animal of your choice" and decided to do a small (that's a 3 inch hoop) tribute to that snake I almost stepped on the last time I went hiking. Sorry buddy! I'm sending it off to a friend who's always trying to harass snakes when we go hiking. 

Well, I'm going to get back to my project! Have a fantastic weekend!