Four o'clock is teatime and other rituals

There are a few pages in one of my notebooks where I jot down things I feel I 'ought to' do daily (and another section for 'weekly', and one for 'monthly') in order to have a good day insofar far as my own actions and choices can influence it. It has grown to quite a substantial list, and if I were to run through this list every day, it would leave me exhausted and frantic, but I like to write things down when they occur to me or when I come across advice that I think might be useful to incorporate, and it serves as a choose-from menu rather than a to-do list.

The 'daily' things range from kitchen tasks such as 'clear all the dishes, make kefir and soak almonds before going to bed' to work-related activities, for example doing a daily sketch and using paints in some form.

We all know what we can do to be happier, healthier and better people, but so often we choose not to do those things, at times to the point of sabotage. 

Some items on my list have become habits by now, such as doing yoga (almost) daily and going for a walk or working in the garden. Others I dip into and then might forget for weeks or months until I return to them. What I am likely to forget or ignore I try to tie to another activity, until it becomes a habit to do B while doing A. For example, I stand on one leg while brushing my teeth or filling the water filter (balancing on one leg is one of the easier exercises I should be doing  two or three times a week for my patellofemoral pain syndrome) and having all the windows in the house open for the four minutes the coffee is brewing.

Recent additions include washing my eyes every morning (an ayurvedic practice I didn't know about) and drinking matcha tea every afternoon instead of every now and again. I cannot say whether my eyes are actually more refreshed, but I love the strange feeling of splashing cold water into them, and just thinking of all the green in matcha tea gives me a boost when drinking it.

My daily painting these days can be for hours on days I work from home or quick sketches with acrylics when time is short. I finally, finally am going through all the photographs I took of the view from the chalet, where I lived for almost seven years, and from our new house (with a very similar view, as it is just seven minutes further west and on a similar height) and making them into small paintings.

White walls, small lights

  
Wall lights and art on an as yet unpainted wall - the beautifully delicate dried flower 
hanging in the first photo was a gift from a friend; the drawing is by me. 
The wonderful painting of Roundstone in the second picture is by Jaany Ravenscroft.

My workload varies throughout the year, but at the moment I work six days a week, including two days I don't get home until 9:30 and 10pm respectively. Unsurprisingly, the week feels much calmer when I am organised and prepared. The lack of the latter has resulted in near-disasters (not in the grand scheme of thing, but in the actual hot-flush-panicky moment) recently, and I am determined to prevent anything preventable from happening again and sail through the days enveloped in serenity, that elusive quality.

I mentioned the Pomodoro technique in a couple of posts. It is great for staying focused on the task at hand. For the bigger picture, i.e. knowing what to do when and planning ahead, I have found the perfect diary system - the bullet journal. It is genius and simple. It works. And it has the added benefit that over time you get to recognise the things on your to-do list that aren't that important and you become aware of your patterns, having a visual representation of them.

So I am getting things done. And other things are left undone, like painting rooms in the house. After an initial enthusiastic DIY burst a few months ago, the energy deserted us. I just about keep on top of the general housework. The garden still brings new unexpected joys - a yellow-flowering bush, the last of the raspberries - before going into winter mode, but I stopped consulting The Gardener's Year in September. I feel like hibernating. And we quite like the first-coat white on the walls.

Print racks: for artwork - and for records

Print rack in the studio (painting w-i-p on the right by John)

 Print rack for our small but growing record collection

A friend of mine, one of the lovely women from my Saturday class core of regulars, gets all her work on paper mounted, which is a great way of keeping it safe, and has built up quite the oeuvre - I am trying to convince her to have a solo show. She told me she had bought print racks to store and display them and recommended these ones from Jackson Art (shipping to Ireland is free. They also have bigger metal ones, the types you see in galleries, but I thought I would start small).

Since the skinny drawers I have can only hold so many mounts, I ordered two print racks, and John had the idea to repurpose one of them for our records. It makes it much easier to see everything and search for a print/drawing/record, because you can 'leaf' through them, and they display the artwork and records nicely.

It may not be feasible if you have a huge record collection, as my friend does, in which case you would need several of these, and they do take up more space than a corner of a shelf. But for our humble collection it is perfect.

Our studio is coming together, and this addition has made a big difference. Even though in the studio I am a neat freak just like everywhere else (a hindrance, no doubt - no creative chaos here), I like being able to see what I have - most of my materials are on open shelving and in open containers -, and these racks fulfill both requirements, the tidiness and the visibility.

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Reset - fruitfulness

A couple of months ago, when I was feeling particularly overwhelmed and flustered, a friend gently reminded me of the Pomodoro Technique, the virtues of which I had extolled in the past. It was the same friend who had given us the kitchen timer that gave this technique its name. I was still using the system on and off (setting the alarm on my phone), but her comment made me realise that I needed to make it my default way of working.

This week I am working from home mostly. It is not quite back-to-school for me yet, as I won't be starting work in the Uni again until the end of the month, and I won't be teaching before October, but there are various things I want to get done before returning to the externally scheduled part of my work, and these quiet days at home are a chance to do that and also look after the garden. So here I am with the kitchen timer instead of the phone beside me (although I am not sure whether the ticking noise will become a nuisance. It is supposed to add a sense of urgency, but I don't want to view this as a race against time), and it has been going well. 

I am finally (finally) revisiting the Pirates poem that I illustrated years ago, and hopefully it will be a physical book soon. Having given away several of the drawings and not taken good-quality photos of them, I had some sort of block about redrawing them, but it is high time, or the author's children will be adults by the time this gets published.

For my Pomodoro breaks I mainly do housework, which tends to be the biggest procrastination tool for me when working from home. I can avail of the bursts of sunshine to get clothes dry outside and race out to take them in when the next inevitable downpour starts. Today I also made use of some garden goodies during a break, making apple sauce and preparing beetroot for tonight's dinner.

For the longer breaks or the mornings and evenings, going for a walk or a run is a non-negotiable, and as of this week I have made yoga a daily habit. My sister got me started again when I was in Germany, and I was embarrassed to see how much of my flexibility has suffered. In the past year other things had taken over, between the new house and the garden, and my haphazard routine often meant I would only do ten minutes on the mat. Better than nothing, but it wasn't what I wanted. So now I put on Yoga with Adriene every day and do at least half an hour. I used to teach myself with books (I have never been to an actual class), as I thought I preferred peace and quiet and following videos would just be another version of screen time, but being guided is so helpful and ensures that I show up.

In mounts and frames

 

Even though I have most of my illustrations stored quite safely in portfolios, I am always relieved when I mount one of them and slip it into a protective plastic bag or wrap it in florist foil (after panicking about damaging the mount). It is so satisfying to see them well-presented and smoothed out. Generally I am not that precious about my work (twice now I have lost piles of drawings and paintings to leaks/burst pipes, and  the second time I just shrugged it off), but the neat freak in me loves to see everything ordered and safe.

Some of the illustrations for Amie's book are off to new homes, which prompted me to get organised and sort out mounts. I seem to be in mounting and framing and hanging mood - we have been rounding up all the artwork we want to hang and creating clusters and 'gallery walls' (a big chunk of one wall in the corridor) displaying work by friends as well as our own. 

John is obsessed with maps (who doesn't love a good map?), so we are hoping to get a few framed, for example a print of the 1651 pictorial map of Galway he was given and Tim Robinson's beautiful Burren and Arann maps (my aunt bought the Burren map for me, and I always thought it was a pity to just have it folded up in drawer).

It may seem laughable how excited I get about little things like mounting artwork (see also tidying the shed and sorting out a kitchen drawer), but as India Knight said in her column last week (about losing yourself in a hobby in times of crisis), "It is so important to remember the comfort of ordinary things" for "whenever we feel discombobulated by life."

MITs and simple pleasures

 lemon-blueberry-cake

soaps

gardening

It is rather difficult to work from home when the weather is as good as it has been for the past week. In fact, I cannot remember the last time it rained, and this is the west of Ireland. I keep making excuses to get up and do something that involves fresh air and sunshine (such as finally peeling off the foil on the new door frames, which clearly states "Remove immediately after installation"... oops.).

In an attempt to tick off at least some of the items on my to-do list, I have dug out one of those productivity tips I had stored away in a corner of my brain, which is to set the three most important tasks (MITs) of the day first thing in the morning. While I always have a million things I ought to do swirling around in my head, determining and writing these three down - and, crucially, thinking of them as 'most important' - helps me to focus. I have two sets of threes, one for work (both the Uni work and my freelance work) and one for everything else (these days, at least two of that second set are house- or garden-related, and the other one tends to be something to do with correspondence or organising, for example meal planning or scheduling things). It is so simple and works so much better than my overfilled and overwhelming diary (which I still keep, but I now try not to stuff sheets of paper covered with more scribbles into it).

I know I always go on about aromatherapy, but there is such a strong link between smells and wellbeing, and, perhaps accentuated by the sun, I am noticing them much more, and 'stop to smell the roses' throughout the day. The soaps pictured above were housewarming gifts, including a cinnamon soap from Germany, and they smell and look amazing.

We had friends over for lunch on Friday and Sunday, and I ended up making the same cake twice. I used to make this lemon-blueberry cake a lot a few years ago, but this time I made it with coconut sugar, which gives it a darker, more wholesome appearance (even if the health benefits over white sugar may not be that considerable). I love using citrus peel in baking and cooking (grating lime peel onto stir fries is a favourite).

 The garden is bursting with activity. You can watch things grow; the neighbours' dogs and cats visit; and we have added a bird bath (another gift) to the bird feeder - a safe distance from the cats' reach. I spent a good chunk of my work-from-home Friday weeding, which has got to be one of the most therapeutic tasks there are. The specks of orange in the photo above are calendula, which is not a weed, but we have tons of it (I need to ask my mom for her recipe for calendula balm), and a couple fell victim to John's polytunnel tidy-up.

New home | kitchen work-in-progress

 old chairs, painted

a still quite bare kitchen work-in-progress

 hot press corner, very much a work-in-progress

Work on the house (or Operation 'Add Charm to a Bungalow') is progressing very slowly. Winter doesn't seem to be the best time to get things done. Apart from painting furniture and moving things around from one temporary location to another we haven't done much. I did one paint job late at night and was rewarded with a streaky-looking lacquer coat the following day (see third photo above).

Because chalk paint has a very low VOC content and doesn't require much preparation work, I have been painting almost everything that needed painting with chalk paint. We are doing a lot of make-do-and-mend, and painting things can make such a big difference. We are keeping the kitchen that came with the house for now (but will take off all the hanging cupboards and put up a shelf or two instead) and painted it with Annie Sloan chalk paint, mixing 'Old Ochre' and 'Original' 50/50. The handles I painted a colour we got as a test pot in a DIY store, a pale lilac. There were also a couple of old chairs in the house, and a friend gave us another two. I painted them grey and pink, this time with chalk paint from Woodie's DIY, which was cheaper than the Annie Sloan and almost as good. Their range of colours is completely different, so I will probably buy from both brands again. Having said that, a small amount of chalk paint goes a long way, so I might not have to buy any more anytime soon.

For the black mosaic tile backsplash I got magenta tile paint, though we are also thinking of collecting larger ornamental tiles and creating a new backsplash at some stage.

The hot press is built into the kitchen wall and had the finish that is still visible around the doors in the last photo above. I painted the doors a light grey and took off the handles to make it look more like panelling and less like an inbuilt cupboard. For the frame we want a contrasting colour, but since we haven't decided what colour the wall will be eventually, we are going to wait.

Meanwhile this corner has become our favourite place to read and talk and drink wine. When we have visitors we pull up a small table and more chairs. We really depend on the stoves now that it has got colder. The sitting room (where the other stove is) heats up much faster, but a lot of life happens in the kitchen, which doubles as our office/studio at the moment. This is one reason we are going to knock down part of the wall between the two rooms. Large open-plan style wouldn't necessarily be my favourite (I quite like the cosiness of individual rooms, and open plan often feels cold, especially in Ireland!), but some sort of in-between makes sense.

*As always when I mention brands here, I do not receive anything in exchange for recommending or linking to things.

Apple bread

Usually I wouldn't go near anything Christmassy until December 1st, but this week is the last week of the current term of my classes, so I wanted to bake something to go with our early Christmas coffee. One thing I made was Apfelbrot, a staple in our family in the lead-up to Christmas. It is a rustic cake/bread, moister than stollen, lighter than fruit cake and beautifully fragrant.

There are a lot of variations of this, and I have experimented with different nuts - chopped roasted hazelnuts instead of whole ones; almonds; mixed nuts minus the peanuts, as I felt they wouldn't work that well - but here is my aunt's recipe (which I just realised happens to be dairy- and eggfree):


   Apfelbrot 

• 750g apples (peeled and grated)

• 250g sugar [I use less, around 200g]

• 250g raisins

• 250g whole hazelnuts

• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

• 1 teaspoon ground cloves

• 1 heaped teaspoon cocoa powder

• 1 dessert spoon dark rum

• 500g flour

• 5 teaspoons baking powder

1. Mix the grated apples and the sugar and let stand for at least six hours or overnight.
2. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius (160 for fan-assisted ovens).
3. Put the raisins in a sieve or colander, rinse vigorously under a fully opened hot tap and drain. 
4. Add the raisins, nuts, spices, cocoa and rum to the apples and sugar and mix to combine.
5. Mix the flour and baking powder and sift onto the apple mixture. Mix to combine.
6. Pour into two medium-sized loaf tins. Bake for 45-60 minutes.

With the oven in our new house we have noticed that everything is cooked much sooner than expected. After years of having an oven where you had to add at least 20 minutes to the given time, this still surprises me every time. So I would advise checking after 45 minutes.

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Speaking of preparation, this year I even managed to buy a diary (Moleskine; the price seems to go up every year, but it is the best weekly planner I know of) before January. I am one of those sad people who get antsy and panic when they enter the new year without a diary (and yet I almost always end up leaving it until mid-January). So between the baking and planning ahead to such an extent that I have a planner for planning ahead I feel a bit more ready for the winter months.

Warmth and centre

"I have always lived in houses with a chimney, that's also very important to me. 

Always fires because it gives warmth and centre, it gives light. 

I always had animals, cats and dogs." 

(Juliette Binoche in a recent interview with The Sunday Times Magazine)

As the little house I have been renting for the past six-and-a-half years (where did the time go?) begins to show the signs of the extremes in the Irish weather (cracks, damp, failing to heat up properly), I have been tempted to think in terms of need and want (complete first-world problems) rather than gratitude for what I have. I still love this place, but when I came across the above, it brought into sharp focus that the structure she talks about is missing - I felt the absence of a fire, the absence of pets. Both will come when they are supposed to, I'm sure, or maybe they won't, and that'll be ok, too, if it has been ok for the last six years or so.

After the three weeks of the cosiness of blazing fires in my mom's house, I am finding it hard to adjust again. I have been walking around with a hot-water bottle tied to my body; we attempt to curl up under a blanket on my way-too-small hard couch, and when I am on my own, I retreat to bed early because it's the one warm place (after the addition of a hot water bottle). Then I think I am missing out on so much of life by going to bed so early, and I blame the cold. Yes, ALL the procrastinating and ALL the stress is due to living in a cold house.

And yet I love spending time at home. So I am shifting the focus back onto the good things, of which there are plenty. The flowers on the table (each time I am as touched by this gesture as on the first occasion, and I photograph every bunch) are my centre in the absence of a fireplace. Or the gigantic candle with the tall flame on my coffee table, a mini fire. And I am making small, mostly inexpensive changes, because change is good, and while I don't agree with the 'update your home decor every season and buy tons of new stuff!' mentality, I do believe in Feng Shui, and I have found that some of the objects and arrangements that have been the same for years feel stagnant or are actually disintegrating into a state beyond a welcome wabi-sabi aesthetic. New bedclothes (a generous gift), the aforementioned candle, thick towels, buying prints of artwork by friends and framing them.

Even just rotating my books has helped clear some mental clutter and the feeling of being stuck. And mending clothes, sewing on buttons, finally refilling my fountain pen, polishing the coffee jug - nothing earth-shatteringly important, but it makes me feel more grounded. It may all be yet another way of procrastinating (this is how I am spending the limited time I have at home during the busiest time of the year), but it is just what I need, a form of domesticity meditation.

Feeding the muse

my sister's windowsill

My sister is serious about crafts. Whenever I met up with her recently, she would have a new elaborate project going on, while I would still be knitting the same never-ending wrist warmer. We want to participate in various crafts fairs, so there is a deadline of sorts approaching, and I am hoping it will motivate me. My sister knits and crochets every day of the year, whereas I seem to take a break during the summer (an exception is cotton and silky yarn - wool just feels wrong in the warmer months), but now I am slowly getting into it again. One reason for the slow pace is having to prioritise other work. Once again I have spread myself too thin with commissions and my own projects and can feel panic tingling at the edge of my awareness.  

What I tend to do in such times is shut myself away from the world, thinking I need time at home both to work solidly and also to recharge for the next burst of productivity. In a talk she gave with her writer mother-collaborator here in Galway last year, the illustrator Polly Dunbar said her friends were used to not seeing her for weeks on end when she is in the depths of working on a project. 

I recognised my own work tendencies in that. But ideally I will find time for everything that is important in any given week - people, work, leisure, exercise, rest. I realise I am actually more productive when I make time for friends and for attending things. This week was packed full with activities and events I thought I wouldn't have the energy for but that ended up energising me. These two musicians (and wonderful people) were a heart-warming part of a fireside soirée that included a panel discussion based on Jean Cocteau's contention "The arts are essential - if only one knew what for". They talked about being subversive and how everything we make is art ("cleaning one's kitchen really well") and children being the most incredible artists of all - topics I feel passionate about. A friend invited me to see the beautifully shot Renoir and I have resolved to go and see more films from now on. With the internet and a DVD player you have endless inspiration available all the time, but there is something about going out and seeing something live or on a big screen surrounded by other people that makes me feel more inspired and more alive than anything I absorb via my laptop.

I still haven't found the magic solution. While I saw friends and went out and did things, I somehow forgot to make space for the essential task of buying groceries, so I lived on peanut butter sandwiches and meals out (and of course those lovingly cooked for me). I've been feeding the well of inspiration but neglected feeding myself properly. There was also very little meditation and yoga; they were replaced by almost daily glasses of wine, which is a rather inadequate substitute.

Summer

Five paintings are now in the hands of a very capable framer, and suddenly my studio looks very empty. This brought on the usual cleaning frenzy I get into once something is completed. I probably get way too bothered about disintegrating food in the fridge and a pile of old newspapers, but I am not going to fight it - I need order and calm around me, and while all the tidying and organising may be procrastination, I have come to see it as an important, therapeutic part of my routine. I also baked spelt bread. Between the cleaning and the baking, I feel on top of things.

I slept twelve hours, uninterrupted, last night and the night before, and this worries me a bit, but I am not going to fight that, either. Maybe I just need to slow down. It has been a hectic, turbulent and emotional few weeks, and if I only react by sleeping a lot instead of getting sick, which used to be my response to all sorts of stress, then that's ok.

As much as I like teaching, it's nice to have a break from it, and since it is the only strictly time-structured work I do, I can mostly decide my schedule myself for the weeks ahead. I still wonder whether I actually would benefit from more structure in my life, but I love the freedom I have. It almost feels like my summer has started already.

I don't want to over-plan it, but I have been thinking about how I would like to spend this summer, and there are some plans that need to be made, such as travel arrangements. It will be a mixture of work and play, and thankfully the two often overlap and merge. Most importantly, I want to spend the summer in a way that means it won't just pass me by. That sounds vague and is still quite vague to me. It involves living with the season, doing summer things, eating summer foods, and hopefully spending a lot of time outside. Sleeping less might be necessary! (And it would help if temperatures went above 16 degrees again...)

Working from home and what works for me

Children's novelist Katherine Rundell said that she ties herself to her chair with shoelaces and forces herself to meet deadlines by writing 1,000 pound cheques to the BNP, which she gives to a friend with the instruction to mail the cheque if she hasn't written her book by a certain date.

I wouldn't go to such extreme lengths when it comes to self-discipline, but sometimes I think I might have to.

At the moment I have various projects to work on outside my paid work in a real workplace (and even when I don't have any specific projects, collaborations and deadlines, there is my own art practice). I can decide the hours and where I work - the 'where' tends to be my house. The times are never fixed, but I have found that setting aside an afternoon or even an entire day and keeping it free for working from home is important; otherwise I might easily fill it with other things. Both the location and the flexible hours are a luxury for which I am very grateful, but you do need a lot of discipline to make it a satisfying and productive endeavour.

I cannot rely on those instances where I end up at my desk or easel as if guided by an external force. I have wasted too much time waiting for the right frame of mind - it is discipline, rather than muse, that will yield more results. So here is a list of all the things that I find helpful, and I need to remind myself to try them all before giving up the next time I just can't seem to get going.

- Exercise outside first thing in the morning. Somebody told me a faux commute helps to make us go into working day mode. And it gives you energy. If you don't go outside before you start work - especially if the weather is nice - for the rest of the day you will feel you are missing out by staying indoors. Knowing I have already got my dose of Vitamin D and fresh air makes it easier for me to concentrate.

- Dress properly, but comfortably. Actually, the perfect work outfit varies quite a lot for me. Occasionally I feel I need something tight and constricting (a corset!) because it means I sit upright and makes me feel more alert, confident and inspired. Sometimes it has to be soft yoga pants and no bra. If I am up very early, I might stay in my pyjamas or put on a bathrobe and exploit that working-from-a-dream-state transition from sleep to being fully conscious. Most of the time, however, an outfit that I could get away with in the world outside (and facing unexpected visitors) but that doesn't make me feel uncomfortable is the best solution. Hair/face/body care is also important. There are days when I don't brush my hair until 4pm and wonder where that underlying sense of unease is coming from.

- Have enough food in the house and know what you are going to eat. If I don't know what to have for lunch, chances are my thoughts will be spinning around the theme of food instead of focusing on the task in front of me. I also make sure there is a lot of healthy food around. If I have haphazard "meals" of muesli, bread and chocolate, everything deteriorates - I feel bad, unhealthy, guilty, and these feelings make their way into my work, and thus the spiral of self-loathing begins (worst-case scenario).

- Tea, tea, tea. In a teapot and/or thermos jug, not individual cups of tea, the repeated preparation of which would be an interruption and distraction (I drink a lot of tea, so this is a big deal). Edited to add: Green tea, jasmine green tea or white tea for the first half of the day, herbal tea for the afternoon and evening - too much caffeine would make me hyper.

- Often I prefer to work in silence, but depending on what the work is, music, a radio show or a podcast can be stimulating as background noise as well as a source of information.

- A tidy, clean environment. I am very domestic, so working from home is dangerous in that I easily get distracted by things that need to be done around the house. I often succumb and then justify it by saying I need order around me so I can focus. So it is best if housework is done beforehand, ideally the previous evening.

- Allow disturbances and interruptions (especially if it is a welcome interruption. And you never know where it might lead; spontaneity can be a good force), but don't let the phone, e-mail and doorbell control you. I do not have to be available 24/7. If somebody sends me a text message, they cannot expect me to reply straight away. I still get stressed out by text messages that seem to demand an instant response, but I now often just ignore my phone for hours (the message tone is always on silent, anyway) - it is very liberating. For a long time, I felt I had to be available and flexible because most of my work is flexible, but then I realised the amount of time that allowed said flexibility in my work was getting less and less because I was so flexible.

- Make a list and tick things off. I write down the smallest, most trivial tasks, as well as things I have done already, as I get such a buzz from being able to tick something off. Identify at the beginning of the day what will be most important (but still feasible) and make sure it goes on that list.

- Schedule short breaks. Knowing I am only going to spend x amount of time on something makes it less daunting. And the breaks are little rewards. I might set my alarm to ring in an hour's time, and within that hour I really have to work hard, but afterwards I am allowed to indulge in 15 minutes of reading/eating/whatever I fee like doing.

- Meditate at some stage during the day. Or do yoga/Alexander Technique/progressive muscle relaxation/...  This is when I notice how tense the muscles in my face have become and that I wasn't breathing right. I always feel calmer, more relaxed, refreshed, happier and overall better afterwards.

- There are lots of pockets of time scattered throughout the day that can be made better use of. I used to think 15 minutes was too little to get anything done and wouldn't want to start something and then have to abandon it. I still struggle with the latter, although it's astonishing how much can be achieved in a week by doing a little every day. It might just be prepping a canvas one day, but that small thing means when you come back to it all the preparation is done already. 15 minutes are also plenty of time to do one short admin-type task, such as writing an e-mail. Sending an e-mail I've been meaning to send or writing and posting a letter makes me feel so much more productive and on top of everything, and it sets the tone for the remainder of the day.

- Don't worry if nothing outwardly productive happens. Staring into space does serve a purpose, too. Daydreaming is important. If I am too rigid I only get stressed and can't think of anything. Some of my best ideas just seem to emerge from my subconscious after periods of inactivity. Trust that things will happen in their own time.

Wooden boxes

Last year around this time my flight back to Ireland was cancelled due to snowstorms. While we've been spared the ice of previous years so far, there is a storm raging outside right now - hailstones and snow included -, and I am holed up in a room upstairs in my mother's house burning lavender oil to get rid of the headache I got in response to the changing weather. Running is cancelled today, as is, sadly, a trip to see my older sister and her husband (due to the weather, not my head).

My holidays are coming to an end. I didn't get to read all the books I'd planned to, and I didn't finish the illustrations I am working on (and haven't started the new ones - well, there are still a few days left), but I am content. Spending time with my family is my priority.

While I used up all the yarn I'd brought with me, I haven't tackled any of the more complicated patterns and ideas that are gathering in my notebook. Instead I got distracted by storage for craft supplies.

At home I have a perfectly sized box to store long knitting needles, but my mum has this cute wooden box for circular needles (the cover slides off), and another one for crochet hooks, and I am inspired to make something similar:

 

They must be from the 1970s. I love how they are decorated. They are functional and pretty - I always aim for both with practical things. I don't think I own a single item of plastic storage. 

While most of the stuff in my house doesn't require elaborate storage solutions because I keep it to a minimum, my art and craft supplies are growing and therefore I frequently reorganise my space. If I keep things in containers that are nice to look at, they can be displayed - I store a lot of food in kilner jars on the kitchen counter, for example, and they are decorative as well as practical. I also like having things within easy reach and view, especially when it comes to art and crafts materials - that way I will use them more, and the added benefit is that I feel more creative in a home that displays the tools needed for creating.

Cautiously optimistic (intentions for 2012)

I feel a bit torn about sharing plans and resolutions, here as well as offline. I find myself talking about some "project" I am working on and I worry it sounds pretentious. But I like the accountability that comes with sharing. I often tell people about my plans and dreams, in the hope that it will give me more of an incentive to actually realise them instead of having to admit failure or defeat. But I don't really care if I have to do the latter - I have become more gentle with myself. It also helps not to have a strict timeline - all those things I wanted to do years ago may be part of a (never actually expressed as such) ten-year plan, in which case I still have a year or two...

A lot of my long-term dreams have come true. I always wanted to live in Ireland, by the sea, and that's what I'm doing (the donkey in the garden hasn't materialised yet, though, but there is a field full of them just around the corner). I wanted to work as an artist, and although I'm not a full-time artist, I am happy I am working in the arts and grateful that I get the odd commission, and I find teaching fulfilling and inspiring. But in the last few years I have felt a bit stuck, stagnating, and although I realise that it may have been necessary, a time of healing, this year I have felt ready to get out of it.

Some years I didn't make any resolutions, and I can't say with certainty whether making any would have changed anything, but I found that this year it helped me to have some words to guide me.  I wrote them on the first page of my notebook and checked in occasionally. For me not making any feels like there is no structure; time just goes by without the thrill of new beginnings and fresh starts.

For 2011 I wanted to focus on the areas of health, work (the freelance part), relationships and fitness. I did get my health back in order, and I started exercising seriously as opposed to half-arsed. I got my own website, though never developed it (and haven't told many real-life people), and I started to work on something that I hope will turn into part-time work someday (small steps). I also connected with people more. 

So this year I want to continue with and build on all of the above.
As well as:

- Get better at working from home. Dedicate a portion of the day to working on commissions, etc., and stop telling people I'm flexible and available.

- Keep running and swimming and vary my routine more. Maybe sign up for a race or two. And walk more. Also finally acquire all the appropriate gear I need for these activities. It took me years to get the few items I own. I love clothes, but workout clothes were never a priority for me. Now that I have realised that not having any clean running clothes can easily stop me from going for a run, I will get some more - and I might even get walking boots (for hill walking).

- Get my hair cut professionally at least four times. For years I never went to the hairdresser, arguing that with long hair you didn't need to. I cringe when I look at old photos. Bad hair days aplenty. And although my sisters are quite capable, when I finally discovered the benefits of having your hair cut professionally it was a eureka moment, as I became aware that this was one important part of self-care and self-respect I had ommitted for so long, a simple ritual of changing your outer appearance and along with it something within (yes, I feel quite strongly about the transformative powers of having someone take care of your hair).

-Follow the skincare regimen that seems to work at the moment (involving oils - more soon) and start wearing SPF again

- Draw every day, anything

- Daily meditation, yoga or progressive muscle relaxation (I did well for a while, but fell off the mat in the last couple of months)

-Similarly, deep breathing every day - so important for overall health and calm, and so easy to forget

-Send more snail mail. I have a proper fountain pen and a small stationery collection. It's one of life's pleasures to receive something in the mail, but it has become so rare.

- Eat sugar-, dairy- and wheat-free most of the time, but treats are allowed.

- Be a better friend (see snail mail, but also to those around me - make more of an effort. I have lost touch with several old friends, and I am to blame for the most part. I know this is bound to happen after living in three different countries, but I could have been better at correspondence. Recent e-mails from people I haven't seen in years have moved me, and I intend to write more and see the friends who live near me more often)

-Maybe start cohabiting

So nothing major, no huge adventures planned (although the last thing on the list feels huge to me), but all these small things feel like steps in the right direction, and most importantly, they feel right.

Slightly neurotic planner thoughts

A new year, a new diary (the planner kind).

I know people (and I am sure there are a lot of them) who don't have a planner, and I both admire them and cannot believe how they function. I would love the freedom I imagine comes with not having a diary, but in my case that would soon translate into panic and anxiety. I have to write everything down. And I'm not even a person with a crazy schedule. My life is quite simple.

Even though I like to think of myself as well organised, I am not very good at diaries. It used to start with the timing of buying a new one - I'd always forget and would spend the first few days of January feeling unanchored due to the lack of a physical manifestation of the structure of my days. Then there would be the frantic hunt for an appropriate diary, made difficult by the fact that most people buy them in advance. Also, I always need one with one week on a two-page spread, as I have to be able to see the whole week. I can't imagine working with a day-per-page view - I'd lose the whole picture (even though I try not to think in terms of weeks). Anyway, the weekly diaries are few in numbers come January.

So this time I was prepared and bought one, my first Moleskine diary, in the middle of December.

 new versus old

And with it I have found an even better type of diary. It has the week on the left page and a whole page for notes on the right. This is genius! Because it's not like I have so many appointments every day - most of what I write down is something I either need to remember or I need to do at some stage, but not necessarily that day, ideas, random thoughts, etc. All that can go on the right page now, including a general to-do list, which I used to transfer from one day to the next if the tasks hadn't been ticked off.

To illustrate the craziness that is my brain, a typical two-page spread in my old diaries used to look like this (and I have blurred it not because there is anything that absolutely needs to be kept private, but because I am embarrassed by the things I take down):

I really hope that this is a thing of the past. I will still write down ideas during the day that I will then transfer into my other notebook, which I don't carry in my bag (and which has categories), but I expect it to be less chaotic.

The other great thing about this new diary is that it is very small and light. My last one was small, too, but before that I used to carry an A5 diary around with me, and that meant even more mad scribbling (and more weight in my bag). I am proud I was able to downsize.

Oh, and it has a pocket and adhesive labels for all kinds of (and some strange) things you may want to mark:

 

[As always when I post about specific brands, Moleskine does not know I am singing its praises, and I am not getting paid for this.]

Coming home for Christmas

 Santas running - in Ireland, not Germany

I arrived in Germany on Sunday. I come here twice a year for three or four weeks. It always feels strange coming home to my old home, and then also going back home to Ireland. I would prefer to see my family more times during the year even if that meant shorter visits, but this makes more sense, and I am so grateful I can do it.

The reason I am able to spend such large chunks of time here is because my work in the college is not full-time. Which doesn't mean that I don't work while I am here - there are commissions and then my own work, and with so much time on my hands I am able to dedicate several hours a day to creating. And with my laptop I can work from anywhere in the world. So far I haven't done any work, though; it always takes me a few days to settle in.

I got a bad cold just before I left Ireland (just when it had struck me that I hadn't had a single cold all year), so the journey was a bit miserable, but I wore lots of layers (being stuck in an airport last year taught me to wear more clothes), and the lavender oil I always carry with me helped me to sleep a bit on the plane - I rub it on my temples, the back of my neck and my wrists and it becomes a protective cocoon of calm.

We had snow on Tuesday, but now it is just wet. Yesterday I wrapped up and went for a half-hour run, and it was actually perfect running weather - I didn't mind the rain at all. Until I realised that there's a huge hole in one of my trainers. No wonder, they must be at least five years old - I left them here when I was about to get new ones in Ireland. The years go by so fast and whenever I come back here it hits me that both people and things have got older.

So once Christmas is over I will buy a new pair of trainers and leave them at my mum's house. Since I spend so much time here I figured it is easier to just get certain items twice and leave one here, especially when it comes to running gear, cosmetics and art materials. It has taken me all this time to establish some sort of routine. In the past travelling was always haphazard and chaotic. I must admit, I have been doing this for nine years -I moved to Ireland in 2002-, but only recently have I started to find ways to make it all go more smoothly. I guess I never thought about it much, but now I like to have certain routines so I can focus on the important things.

I wish I could just travel with hand luggage and be free, and I am getting closer to that ideal: this time my suitcase was five kg lighter than in the summer, and this was with heavier winter clothes and including presents! I did bring books, the ones I am currently reading, even though there is no need really, as my mum's house is full of books, so there is no shortage of reading material and unexpected discoveries.

I have come home to huge soft square pillows (Matt reckons this is a German thing), Christmas cookies, Lebkuchen and Stollen, the darker, melancholy landscape with dense fairytale forests and creeks, and precious time with my family. Every visit I appreciate it more.

Organising craft supplies

Just as I was beginning to feel smug about my almost super-organised home and the lack of need for storage solutions, I realised that my craft supplies had become one big tangled mess, literally - I spent an hour detangling wool.

My inner minimalist has to accept that being creative means having stuff in the house that's needed for making things. I struggle with this. I guess if I had a big studio I wouldn't worry about it, but with limited space even the amount of paintings I have sitting around tends to stress me out (that's one reason I like to give them away). Now that I am also knitting and crocheting like mad, i.e. on a bigger scale, there is more stuff that needs a home.

As long as there is a place for everything, I can relax. Though I do think that I might benefit from being more the creative-chaos type - perhaps my neat-freak tendencies make me produce less. I am lucky to have one room in the house that I use as a studio, and it has helped tremendously to have my paints, etc. within reach - and sight- instead of stored away. And paints and coloured pencils actually look nice, too.

I need to be able to see things in order to use them, otherwise I kind of "forget" about them. For example, if I keep certain spices at the back of a cupboard, they will rarely make an appearance in the meals I cook. But since I don't want them to clutter up the counters and haven't got a spice rack (I love beautiful glass jars on display), the solution for now is to have them in a drawer with labelled lids. I also store my essential oils like that:

...and some silicea sneaked in there, too...(Click to enlarge images)

So when I realised that my knitting and crochet supplies situation had gone out of hand, I decided to put some of them in a drawer, too. I would love to have them on a shelf, colour-coordinated, but I need to make space first. I am looking at you, CD shelf, in case I ever digitise my music collection...

Bigger balls of yarn and the piece I am currently knitting are still in the canvas bag that was housing the whole mess, but I put smaller balls and works-in-progress, as well as yarn ball bands and notes, in the drawer. When I open it I can see everything. I guess I just have to remember to open it.

Speaking of yarn ball bands, I now also write down everything I make and how I made it in a notebook and stick the bands on the opposite page:

That way I have all the information in one place. I know this may not be the genius idea I feel it is, and most people probably do this by default, but I used to be pretty sloppy about these things and throw out the bands. Keeping the bands is important, as they contain lots of information you might need - name and colour, in case you need to buy more, care instructions, material, weight, gauge, etc.

My knitting needles and crochet hooks live in this nice box, which is displayed in an open shelf:

 All this seems to work for now. The next area I need to tackle is my paper collection. It's in a pile in a drawer. The problem with a pile is that you only see the top. I am thinking some sort of overlapping system. Or a folder. I will do a post on it once I have figured it out.

Weekend rituals

 In Kinvara

Even though I aim to not live my life in terms of workdays/weekend blocks and try to enjoy Monday as much as Saturday (at least Monday evening), I quite like to get certain things done at the weekend so the week ahead is as easy as possible. That includes:

Around the house:
- tidying and cleaning, obviously
- getting laundry done (very important for exercise - running out of clean towels or running gear would be a nuisance)
- watering and, if needed, feeding my plants
- putting enough tea lights from the big bag that lives in a drawer in the spare room into one of the kitchen drawers for easy access (strangely satisfying)
- making soup for the week
- taking all the rubbish out, including the recycling

Technology:
- going through stuff I bookmarked on the computer throughout the week
- recharging phone, iPod, camera batteries
- deleting text messages and e-mails

 Body:
- steam facial and/or facial oil massage
- hair removal
- mani/pedi
-some sort of hair treatment
- a bath with Epsom salts/baking soda and essential oils (my favourites at the moment: rosemary for aching muscles, eucalyptus when I feel cold or sniffly, and always lavender)

I rarely do all of these things, and I don't have a list like the one above that I frantically go through. I don't usually do my grocery shopping at the weekend, as I prefer to go during the week, when it's less busy. One thing I would love to do, but somehow never manage, is to decide what to wear the following day before going to bed and lay the clothes out, so I don't waste time in the morning being indecisive. I suspect one reason I cannot seem to do this is that I don't know in advance what I will feel like in the morning. And I am a great believer in the power of colour and like to dress according to the chakras - red for grounding, blue for communication, etc., whatever I feel I need most that day.

Getting ready for autumn

 Indian spice box

work-in-progress

 fan - redecorating my bedroom

This week has been about organising/planning/decluttering/cleaning. Maybe it's the transition into autumn (autumn clean?) or simply more procrastination, but I do hope this whole endeavour means I am making space for getting things done or at least for feeling better/lighter.

My books now live in colour harmony (see last post). This has made me rediscover old favourites and it's a nice change.

I am tidying up all the folders on my computer - it makes such a difference. It always bothered me that everything was so chaotic and that I had held on to so many pictures and other files that I don't need.

It seems to be contagious - Matt has been busy getting rid of things, out of his own free will. He discovered he had an Indian spice box hidden somewhere inside a cupboard and put it to use. I love the colours. I used to have all my spices on the kitchen counter (they fit under the windowsill), but found it looked too cluttered, so now they live in a drawer with labels on the lids. I need to be able to see what I have - I tend to forget about things if I can't see them. 

The days are getting shorter and it is still a bit dark when I get up. I finally joined the gym again after a one-year break and went for a lovely early-morning swim (only 15 mins) and sauna (an hour?) yesterday, which also meant I did not get stuck in traffic on my way in. I worried about spending so much money after my long unpaid summer, but it is an investment in my health, after all.

I haven't really been spending money on stuff and haven't felt the need. When I go into town I find the shops overwhelming. I did buy a book and tights and I am planning to get a hand blender (although I love being old-fashioned in the kitchen and mixing everything by hand, and I don't want to accumulate too many kitchen gadgets, but certain soups and smoothies call for a blender) and a warm dressing gown - I wore my last one to death. 

Weekend plans include:

-run, swim and sauna 

-work on some illustrations

-get ready for teaching in October

-pick blackberries and sloes (they are abundant where I live) - I find I don't tolerate alcohol very well these days -after a few sips of wine I find it impossible to drink more-, but I love a homeopathic dose of homemade sloe gin in the evening

-make this cake

Books by colour

With way too much time on my hand (convalescing, so leaving the house or anything too exhausting, physically or mentally, wasn't an option), I decided to re-organise my bookshelf, by colour.

I spend a lot of time in my house and therefore a lot of time looking at the objects it is filled with. Since I am a neat freak -and it's getting worse-  I thought arranging my books by colour might be a good idea and look less overwhelming. Although I hasten to add that books on shelves don't really qualify as clutter in my opinion. Books are good.

Before:

And after:

I think I might still tweak it a bit here and there. My house is full of colours, but I don't like it when there is too much primary colour action going on. This "after" image is actually the toned-down version of what I attempted first, which was much bolder. 

I was a bit hesitant, because my books were organised by genre/subject before, and that does seem to make more sense. But I am a very visual person, and I actually think it will be easier to find a particular book, as I always know exactly what the cover looks like. I also like how this system juxtaposes completely unrelated material and how the colours play off each other. I do not like all the black. Nor do I like the black leads creeping from the speakers, for that matter. Also, from now on I will rotate the books whose covers I display.

I moved some art books to my art room and put some books I am unlikely to ever read again into a box for the charity shop. So it feels a bit lighter now, too.

Facts about my books:

-Most of my books (well, at least the spines) are white, black is second, blue is third. I only have one book with a purple spine -there are very few purple books, when I think of it.

-I own quite a few books I haven't read yet, though I've had them for years and look forward to reading them.

-Now it is not so embarrassingly obvious at first glance just how many self-help and esoteric books I own!