First, a pretty picture: I’m currently spinning some Louet Northern Lights in the Cactus Flower colourway. It’s my first foray into spinning dyed fibre, and it’s fascinating me. I probably wouldn’t have chosen this to spin, but it was a test done with fibre on hand, and it turns out it works rather well for a project I had in mind. More on that later, though. Show and tell first!
Okay. Now for the less than cheerful stuff.
I seem to be at a pretty bad fibro low. The cold/flu thing that tag-teamed me through September really kicked me hard, and getting back on my feet is a very long drawn-out process that’s not much fun at all. It’s also that time of year where I’m restless, but don’t want to leave my office. I want to be out being distracted by things, but I don’t have the energy to either do it physically or mentally, since dealing with People At Large requires a heck of a lot of energy. And as I no longer have the car, going out via public requires more time and physical energy as well.
So I’m spending a lot of time flipping dully through stuff on the internet hoping for inspiration, researching spinning and testing stuff out because it relaxes me and doesn’t draw a whole bunch of energy from me, and getting frustrated because I can’t work. Work is… draining. It’s at the point where I’m not being fulfilled by it, and it’s just a paycheque. Which is not a bad thing, because I never set out on this particular freelance gig seeking fulfillment; it was always intended to be just a paycheque, because money is good. It’s just really hard to open these documents and run a review on them, because most of the time they’re poorly written and poorly laid out, and that’s really depressing. I have to muster up a huge amount of energy to deal with them, and that’s draining on a whole other level. What would probably fulfill me more is actually writing, except that whole finite amount of energy and currently low levels means I need to direct the energy towards paying/deadlined work first. I feel exhausted just thinking about writing my own stuff, and not terribly inspired. What I need to do is rethink how I handle these assignments. Maybe read through them entirely before starting to pull out the broken elements for the report, then handle the report at the end rather than starting with it at the beginning of the read-through, because it slows things down.
Cello is feeling kind of sloggy at the moment too, because I’m trying to internalize a whole lot of stuff that’s coming up in lessons, mostly about technique, and as a result a bunch of other stuff is breaking down. This is not unusual; very often we have to unlearn things, or take things apart in order to reassemble them properly. I know this intellectually, but my emotional awareness just sees things I was playing decently now being played horribly and piles on the self-confidence crisis. Orchestra is a slog too, because I’ve been dealing with the take-apartness issues (I’ve played everything on this program before, so why can’t I do it now?), the past month I’ve been ill and unable to focus properly, and I’m experiencing issues with bringing things up to tempo. I can play them sub-tempo at home, and I’m not up to speed yet at rehearsal, which, let me tell you, is frustrating and embarrassing when you sit second chair right in front of the conductor. (I am very specifically not looking at the Beethoven, here. I know, I asked for a Beethoven symphony; I’ve changed my mind. How about some Haydn? Or some Boyce?) So rather than being excited about cello the way I was in the spring and early summer I’m dragging my feet.
There’s a wedding this Saturday for which I’m trying to muster up the enthusiasm to attend. It’s Thanksgiving, which means there will be a visit to the in-laws. Perhaps that’s part of my trouble; we usually visit my parents at this time of year, and maybe not going is messing with my seasonal pattern.
Ultimately it all comes down to being frustrated because I don’t have enough energy to handle everything I need to handle. I want to go out; I stay home because I know that if I go out I’ll exhaust myself for an undetermined period of time. I can’t focus on work. Cello is at a not-rewarding point.
The one good thing that’s happening is spinning. I am so thankful I discovered it at this particular point, because it’s productive and creative while being not overly demanding energy-wise. I just started my first spinning with colour experiment (see above), and it’s brilliant. Ceri got the fibre as a sample when we took our spindle class together in May, and found it while she was looking for something else during the crafting weekend. The bag of roving was a bit garish, but I test-spun it and lo and behold, it’s exactly my goddaughter’s favourite colours: hot pink, deep greens and blues, and some purples. The colours soften and blend so much during the spinning process that the single is quite attractive. I’m so glad, because finding a yarn for the wrap I wanted to knit for her as a Yule gift was becoming quite a trial (not that I was looking for a colourway with all her favourite colours in it; this was pure serendipity). I’m spinning a fairly fine single, and fingering weight (what the pattern calls for — well, actually it doesn’t, it calls for laceweight, but I’m knitting a heavier wrap so I’ll be using fingering weight) will be no problem at all. Thank goodness my beloved LYS Ariadne Knits had another couple of the small 2oz bags in stock; they’ve got those aside for me, and all together that will be 6oz and more than enough (she said, crossing her fingers and looking sternly at the spinning wheel, which is totally innocent). Of course, once it’s spun up and plied I’ll have to knit the thing, which is another kettle of fish entirely. I am also planning to knit a hat with earflaps for the boy, so we shall see what all these good intentions bring.
Originally planned as a weekend away in Alexandria, this weekend was revised when two of the original hosts had to bow out due to health issues. Ceri hosted it instead, we tweaked the meal plan a bit to reflect fewer people, Mousme couldn’t join us till Sunday due to what began as alternate plans and was revised to a shoulder injury… but we stayed true to the original vision of the weekend and had much fun. 
Four loads of laundry done (okay, the third’s drying, the fourth’s in the washer), the freelance polishing is almost complete, and the sun is actually out today. I feel slightly more human, though folding the first two loads of laundry wiped me out for a good half hour.
Like it says, the boy’s monthly post has finally been finished and posted 
I am working my way through polishing the freelance thing, taking plenty of breaks because I’m exhausting myself thinking through sentences. One of my breaks was to engage in a meme going around called the Handwriting Meme. I’m not big on memes and quizzes, but this struck me as really interesting. We read e-mail and people’s online journals all the time, and we rarely see their handwriting. I wasn’t specifically tagged by anyone (and good thing, because I hate that) but at least two people whose journals I read threw it open to anyone who wanted to play along. So here, for the record, is mine. Click it to embiggen so as to make it readable.
A Princess of Landover by Terry Brooks
So this cold that I thought I was over? Feels suspiciously like the flu. I’m croaking from coughing so much, it hurts to breathe, I have a perpetual headache, all my bones hurt, and I need to lie down a lot. I suspect that I won’t be going to orchestra yet again, which is frustrating because I missed it last week due to the beginnings of this, and then got somewhat better before being utterly wiped out by it today. I’m worse tonight than I was last week, and I’m annoyed about it because one of the reasons I stayed home from the last rehearsal was to avoid getting sicker. At the moment I’m considering attending for the first half of the rehearsal, if nothing else.