TannieSpace

I used one of my hemp sproutingbags to store some sweet potatoes. They liked it so much they started to grow.

I made the first drawing in August of 2009, of my precious toy. The second one I made today. Months and months of not drawing...

I spent 15 minute batches clearing and cleaning the desk and it went surprisingly well. The windowsill had (a lot) of dirt on it and some dead bugs, so I let my all-purpose cleaner do its magic -- spray on, leave for 10 minutes or so, and then wipe off. Works like a charm.

I'll have to figure out what to put where, for easy access, and I want all my creative stuff together. This means I need room for my pens, notebooks, yarn, needles, camera and such, and possible my seed-collection. It would make sense keeping that all together...

I've spent a few 10/15 minute dashes clearing out the desk. I got rid of some stuff and put other stuff in a better place. Found some sketchbooks in the process. I've almost got it cleared out and might even buy a chair tomorrow.

The side part slides in, very handy.

I bought a crochet-pattern on Etsy for a bull terrier and made it. My youngest sister has a bull terrier and a Bernese mountain dog, and I made this one for her. I hope to find a nice pattern for the Bernese so I can make that too, or I'll adjust an existing pattern to make it look like it (for a mobile charm for instance). Hopefully, she'll like it.

TG said 'Rude dog!!' :P (Now, who remembers Rude dog? Come on now, raise your hand!)

Hidden on the left part of that photo you may (or probably not) see my desk. I have stuff on it and under and next to it. Though I did tidy up the rest a bit (really!), my desk has remained a collection of... things...

I don't remember if I've ever really used it.

Right now I barely do creative stuff, and I wondered. Do I need a desk? Do I need a dedicated place in my flat to burst out into creative outbursts? A place away from my sofa and laptop. A place only for creative stuff (with a nice view of the park, I may add). You'd think I could do without, that I could do creative stuff everywhere. Do I use this as an excuse to not do anything creative (because the desk has so much stuff on it, I couldn't possibly do anything really creative), or do I deny myself a calm area for my creativity (because I don't get myself in that mode linked to the desk)?

I think my brain will implode soon. Advice needed!

p.s. I don't even have a proper chair and I would really need a proper chair...

I've had a hard time trying to get into some form of stability. I had a bad cold after Christmas and I thought it went away, but it came back. Whenever I feel ill / weak, eating doesn't go well either, which in turn makes me more weak and causes highly undesirable weight-loss. I take my (many many) vitamins and take my medication, and make my food and try to handle it all. Unfortunately, I haven't felt happy or stable for quite a while.

I don't seem to have the energy to do much, fun or needed, which results in TG doing my laundry, which makes me feel bad for not doing it myself. I do want to do fun stuff, but I feel so (physically) tired and my head just doesn't want to work straight. I so very badly want to do fun stuff and crochet and draw and be creative, but most of the time it feels like the button for my creative juices got stuck on 'off' and I don't know how to turn it on again. It makes me sad.

I've comforted myself by watching other people's drawings and bursts of creativity, and sort of feeding on that. I especially look forward to Michael Nobbs' 4th Beany and have splurged a little on some new crochet-books (I only had a twenty year old one...). I need to re-think my attempts to get some sort of schedule, I think I've based it too much on my old ideas of myself. I need to stop hanging on to the idea that I can actually do all those things I could do, before. I need to start over with many things, basically starting them at '0' again and see how far I can get.

I miss bread and pasta etc. I found gluten-free pasta and bread, but it just doesn't taste the same. The gluten-free baguettes however did work very well in my cheese fondue (I'll get some more). I've also eaten a lot of roasted vegetables, which go down extremely well, and I rarely feel ill after eating them and they taste good (big win). I haven't yet figured out how to optimise my eating, and I wish I could use the freezer more for that but somehow, that hasn't worked out so far. One of these days I'll get it though.

In the meantime, there's always tea. Tea fixes everything.

I've had problems crocheting with my right hand for a while, because my wrist and elbow often get inflamed. I decided to try my hand on some left-handed crocheting. My first try went slow and turned into a wobbly square (pictured on the left). I made one with my right hand (pictured on the right) because I couldn't quite remember the pattern. It turned out I made a mistake in the pattern so I did another one with left (pictured in the middle) which went a lot better.

After a break I made a hexagon, which also went pretty well. Really pleased with how easily I switched to using left, even though it goes much slower (the hexagon took me an hour) but I suspect it'll improve over time. I also need to relax my hand a bit more.