Juggle jiggle
It's time to resign.
Not from parenting.
Not from paid work.
Not from blogging or gardening or sewing.
Not from cooking or cleaning.
Not from doing the night shift with poorly and nightmare-spooked children.
Not from the Green Prescription exercise class which I actually liked.
Not from spending time with my elderly cousin.
Not from daughter stuff, especially given Dad has an operation coming up.
But it is time to face the fact that I can not fit the Blackball working class history project into my life. I'm waiting on an email from my co-curator for the care workers' exhibition and then I will decide whether to resign immediately or as soon as the exhibition is completed. It hasn't been an easy decision but it is the only tenable one.
So. Yesterday I sewed. I ignored all other claims upon my time and worked on my crepe dress. I reached that amazing pinnacle of multi-tasking which is that I could sew while the children were chatting or playing around me. I remember reading online of people sewing around their very young children and lacking any clue how that could work. Were my children the only ones drawn magnetically to my foot as I pressed the accelerator pedal? Did these other people not have tiny fingers creeping around to the pin tin almost constantly? How did they actually think while they warded off invasion?
But finally my children have gotten big enough and I did sew while they hung out in the same building, sometimes even the same room. It was good therapy for a week in which 'hectic' and 'sleepless' featured as a losing combo far too often. I have cut the fabric for the Colette Crepe and sewn the bodice. The fabric is a blue and white sheet and I think the bodice shows I cut a size too big. The pattern says that Colette sizing is snug and in between sizes should go up a size. So I did and cut a straight 16. Only many of the reviews say quite the opposite and it turns out they are right. Because it is a wrap top I should be able to wrap it to fit, but I will cut a 14 in the shoulders at the very least next time. Also, the bust and waist darts go up and over/across the bust apex, which seems a little odd. My current thoughts are to cut a 14 and to make the darts shorter on version 2. Assuming I get to a version 2, which would be a very good idea given I paid $33 for the pattern. Some time this week I shall finish the skirt part and get the first version to wearable stage, if the sewing gods shine down upon me with sun rather than rain.
There is an asparagus shoot in the garden. This has never happened before. I am slowly learning to put my most expensive and longest investment plants in the spots of best sun and drainage. Slowly.
I learned yesterday that if I start to make hummous and then find there are no ripe lemons of limes anywhere on the property or in the house, then apple cider vinegar will make a perfectly reasonable alternative.
I'm not spending a lot of time with cooking books lately, but just for idle pleasure, I read Elizabeth David's Summer Cooking while I ate my lunch today. I've not made a single one of her recipes ever, but I think her books are worth owning for the prose alone. On decorating platters for a buffet: "You are, after all, preparing a meal, not decorating the village hall."
Garden progress. Asparagus as aforementioned. We have eaten green and purple broccoli from the garden this week. The kale continues to sprout and flower, but we continue to eat the leaves which still taste good. I've weeded out the russian kale from the red mesclun. Russian kale grows to an enormous and rather bland-tasting size. The word 'tree' was not inappropriate last time I grew russian kale. I am planning on letting the bulls blood beetroot grow to eat the roots, and the giatn red mustard to go to seed as I would like to grow more of it in future. There appears to be mint growing again down in the bog garden by the neighbour's rusting and not quite falling down fence. Only it doesn't taste of mint. What is the point of that? Time to rehome the rhubarb and grow mint there instead. Leeks are ready to eat in the garden. So is cornsalad, which grows like a weed. But it is rather tasteless. I much prefer miners lettuce, which is taking over part of the herb garden. It is keeping the area around the bay tree moist, which I think is not so good for the bay tree. So much to learn. Not everything likes to exist in higgledy piggledy cottage garden style.
I love the red cyclamen. It gives me pleasure every single day. Blood red cyclamen. I am on the lookout for more. The pink primulas are doing nicely as well. I might boost their numbers as well. Why are these plants looking so good? Well you might ask. I believe it is because they are not regularly assaulted by a rugby or league or soccer ball.
We had our first double yolker egg of the season at breakfast this morning. Interestingly given their identical diet, one of my breakfast eggs was yellow and the other quite distinctly orange. These were separate whites. Two different colours within a double yolker would be too bizarre indeed.
Not from parenting.
Not from paid work.
Not from blogging or gardening or sewing.
Not from cooking or cleaning.
Not from doing the night shift with poorly and nightmare-spooked children.
Not from the Green Prescription exercise class which I actually liked.
Not from spending time with my elderly cousin.
Not from daughter stuff, especially given Dad has an operation coming up.
But it is time to face the fact that I can not fit the Blackball working class history project into my life. I'm waiting on an email from my co-curator for the care workers' exhibition and then I will decide whether to resign immediately or as soon as the exhibition is completed. It hasn't been an easy decision but it is the only tenable one.
So. Yesterday I sewed. I ignored all other claims upon my time and worked on my crepe dress. I reached that amazing pinnacle of multi-tasking which is that I could sew while the children were chatting or playing around me. I remember reading online of people sewing around their very young children and lacking any clue how that could work. Were my children the only ones drawn magnetically to my foot as I pressed the accelerator pedal? Did these other people not have tiny fingers creeping around to the pin tin almost constantly? How did they actually think while they warded off invasion?
But finally my children have gotten big enough and I did sew while they hung out in the same building, sometimes even the same room. It was good therapy for a week in which 'hectic' and 'sleepless' featured as a losing combo far too often. I have cut the fabric for the Colette Crepe and sewn the bodice. The fabric is a blue and white sheet and I think the bodice shows I cut a size too big. The pattern says that Colette sizing is snug and in between sizes should go up a size. So I did and cut a straight 16. Only many of the reviews say quite the opposite and it turns out they are right. Because it is a wrap top I should be able to wrap it to fit, but I will cut a 14 in the shoulders at the very least next time. Also, the bust and waist darts go up and over/across the bust apex, which seems a little odd. My current thoughts are to cut a 14 and to make the darts shorter on version 2. Assuming I get to a version 2, which would be a very good idea given I paid $33 for the pattern. Some time this week I shall finish the skirt part and get the first version to wearable stage, if the sewing gods shine down upon me with sun rather than rain.
There is an asparagus shoot in the garden. This has never happened before. I am slowly learning to put my most expensive and longest investment plants in the spots of best sun and drainage. Slowly.
I learned yesterday that if I start to make hummous and then find there are no ripe lemons of limes anywhere on the property or in the house, then apple cider vinegar will make a perfectly reasonable alternative.
I'm not spending a lot of time with cooking books lately, but just for idle pleasure, I read Elizabeth David's Summer Cooking while I ate my lunch today. I've not made a single one of her recipes ever, but I think her books are worth owning for the prose alone. On decorating platters for a buffet: "You are, after all, preparing a meal, not decorating the village hall."
Garden progress. Asparagus as aforementioned. We have eaten green and purple broccoli from the garden this week. The kale continues to sprout and flower, but we continue to eat the leaves which still taste good. I've weeded out the russian kale from the red mesclun. Russian kale grows to an enormous and rather bland-tasting size. The word 'tree' was not inappropriate last time I grew russian kale. I am planning on letting the bulls blood beetroot grow to eat the roots, and the giatn red mustard to go to seed as I would like to grow more of it in future. There appears to be mint growing again down in the bog garden by the neighbour's rusting and not quite falling down fence. Only it doesn't taste of mint. What is the point of that? Time to rehome the rhubarb and grow mint there instead. Leeks are ready to eat in the garden. So is cornsalad, which grows like a weed. But it is rather tasteless. I much prefer miners lettuce, which is taking over part of the herb garden. It is keeping the area around the bay tree moist, which I think is not so good for the bay tree. So much to learn. Not everything likes to exist in higgledy piggledy cottage garden style.
I love the red cyclamen. It gives me pleasure every single day. Blood red cyclamen. I am on the lookout for more. The pink primulas are doing nicely as well. I might boost their numbers as well. Why are these plants looking so good? Well you might ask. I believe it is because they are not regularly assaulted by a rugby or league or soccer ball.
We had our first double yolker egg of the season at breakfast this morning. Interestingly given their identical diet, one of my breakfast eggs was yellow and the other quite distinctly orange. These were separate whites. Two different colours within a double yolker would be too bizarre indeed.
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