Gary caught me working on this and when I told him it was a new blog post, he said, “Finally!” I had “resolutions” for 2024. Some of those plans fell apart and some went better than I dared hope and shifted my goals. Toward the end of the year I began making plans for 2025. Those have shifted too.
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I was asked what I write. The answer is complicated.
There has been plenty to write about and I have been getting some of it down, typing away at my computer.
Continue readingMany things have happened that got in the way of blogging, but the gist is: Facebook, a minor medical issue that got complicated (not mine and mostly okay now), and developmental editing of my novel. Reading. And now NaNo.
I am told I should explain about NaNo. National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is November. It is online, motivational (for me), free, as private or public as you want it to be, and I’ve done it before a few times. Each morning this month, I write on my laptop—the laptop I am using to write this long-overdue post—and then I post my progress on the NaNoWriMo website.
Gary waits quietly in the other room.
Continue readingIt is the middle of the night after the second day of the Pacific University MFA program residency. So far: five crafts talks and two faculty readings, but I skipped the second student reading last night in hopes of getting a better night’s sleep. [That last is not going well. I should not be awake.] Yesterday, I ran in the morning, napped twice, and so much has come on so quickly, I feel simultaneously sated and drained, inspired and exhausted.
When you live more than five miles from the nearest small and overpriced grocery store, fifteen miles from the nearest full grocery store (also overpriced), and thirty-five miles from Costco, shopping during the pandemic simply played on your habits of shopping rarely and large.
Shopping locally in our tourist economy meant the our monthly drive to a large city farmers’ market and even the city stores considered overpriced were relative bargains for us. Whole Foods prices were in line with or lower than what we found locally and better quality and more variety.
Now that we spend nights In Portland, we have three or four favorite grocery stores within easy walking distance. We love New Seasons, Fred Meyer is cheaper for some things, and there’s always Zupans when we want something special. But the habits of nearly forty-five years without easy access to such stores are still a powerful influence. The toughest to overcome is the most recent: ordering online.
Buying too much and ordering online are hard habits to break. Yesterday I made a vegetarian lasagna that turned out really well. I’m not pressed for time as I was when I was teaching and I am not cooking for two growing boys as well as ourselves. That lasagna will provide meals for Gary and I for three days…
During the recent perilous weather in the Pacific NW, we stayed home and I cooked from what I had in freezer, fridge, and pantry. I also ordered the organic whole wheat noodles I used for the lasagna. I have five more boxes of flat noodles in my drawer and six pounds of whole wheat angel hair pasta. I’m set for a while.
I finished a warp this month and plan to begin another this week. The overall goal is to use up much of my yarn stash, but then I ordered a skein of yarn a couple weeks ago. That gorgeous bright handspun fits in with a warp I was planning, but interferes with the important goal of cutting back my yarn stash.
I need to buy less.
It feels like I’ve done this before. Haven’t I vowed to cut back on purchases? Haven’t I actually done that from time to time?
February needs to be a no-purchase month. Food is okay. No clothing, no yarn, no fabric, no books. I have plenty of everything. I can afford to swear off all unnecessary purchases. It’s a short month. My pantry shelves look leaner and tidier from not shopping much this month. My beach closet is very lean from a recent culling. I need to continue making progress with the yarn and quilting fabrics. I can resist Liberty cottons and batik’s for a month. I can. I probably can.
Cutting back on purchases is like cutting back on food. I can recall eating as a child until my stomach hurt. And I was a thin child because I walked and ran everywhere. It’s different as an adult. It’s different as a retired adult in nasty weather where I go out but for an hour instead of three hours, and I eat because I cooked too much. I learned when I shifted over my diet to a healthier balance in 2020, that feeling a little hungry is a good thing.
There are projects waiting for my attention, and I really could learnt to cook for two if I troubled to do it. I have more books in my to-read stack(s) than I ever have had in my entire life. I can cut the shawl to make a pillow cover. I can put on the neutral warp. I can cast on the sweater I promised myself a dozen years ago—the yarn is right there. Ideas for quilts swimming about in my head do not require any fabric other than what I have stored.
April will be Camp NaNo and I will work on short stories. Between now and then I can make progress on projects: three more warps if I am quick, a knitted something, and two sewing projects. With discipline, I can avoid purchasing anything other than food for four weeks. That’s what I’ll do.
I will not buy yarn, a rosebush, black wool pants, more socks, food in bulk, magazines, books, fabric even though it love it and it’s on sale, a new chair or two, a used table for Gary’s coffee (he’s using the window-ledge in the new living room configuration), knitting notions, or anything I cannot consume within a week. I promise.
It works for me to make a promise.
I have made New Years Resolutions since I was young, really young. I weighed 114 in high school, but most every year my goal was to maintain that weight, or often to lose weight. And I did it after my first child but not the second and not ever again. Soon I had more important goals, more pressing concerns, and more significant ideals than my weight.
I baked my very first chocolate babka today, January 1st. Without a recipe! Half the twisted loaf was gone inside five minutes and there were only the two of us! This is not on my list of goals for 2024.
&PRIDE Press 