Free-associating on Friday

The only time I have had for stitching this past week has been the hour between breakfast and getting ready for work.  It's a pleasant hour with a mug of tea, the local radio's morning drive time program and a project from my current stitching bag.  I've gone a little off goal while waiting for my Tokens and Trifles cards to arrive ... I fear the shop I ordered them from did not have them in stock, as I was told, and that they had to order them.  In the meantime, I have been working my way through some small and nearly finished projects in the stitching bag.  I figure if I can't work on goal, at least I can work on projects that will swell the list of 2012 finishes.  That's how Riona's Book Nook saw a cross-stitch finish earlier in the week, though the final sewing finish will likely come today. And Wednesday & Thursday mornings, I picked up the Prairie Grove Peddler Lighthouse Candle Mat again.  I figure just four more hours of steady stitching ought to see that project ready for a sewing finish.  I am hoping to get that accomplished today, as well ... another opportunity to play with my new sewing machine.  It is a miserable and overcast day, and I really have very little to do besides catching up on housework, one or two errands, and sitting around this afternoon waiting for a delivery. So another cross-stitch finish will be most welcome.  I am feeling a bit disappointed in myself this year with my rather paltry 8 finishes thus far.  I console myself with the notion that most of the class projects and 2010-11 WIPs that I have made it my goal to complete this year, are BAPs of the first order.  And after all, they will take longer and be fewer in number but no less satisfying for all that! But I foresee going off-goal every so often to do a quick little small or medium sized piece just to keep from feeling like I am on an endless treadmill.  I do seem to crave variety and tangible progress in my stitching, being fairly equal parts process stitcher and project stitcher.

At work, Thursday was a busy day preparing for the two Confirmations coming up on May 12 and working on the registration mailing.  I want that in the mail by Monday morning, Tuesday morning at the latest.  There seem to be a thousand details to manage and juggle as I move through the usual May chaos of final exam schedules, progress reports, sacraments and registration at this time of year.  And, though I am more comfortable in the routines after having been on the job 18 years now; conversely, I have less energy and seem to be worn done more at the end of the day.  It's getting harder and harder to find the will to stitch of an evening ... not good since, I seriously need to do some exchange stitching.  Well, I will have some solid blocks of time this weekend that I can devote to stitching on the exchanges.

On the gardening front, I am hoping that the weather will warm and stay warm, that we will have seen the last of the frost warnings and that I can spend at least part of Sunday working on my second large planter box.  Recently, I turned the dead leaves with which I half filled it several weeks ago and exposed the rich leaf mold forming beneath the surface.  I am amazed at how quickly it is composting down into honest-to-goodness soil.  It's breaking down beautifully.  I am getting such pleasure from the process.  I may even celebrate by buying myself an genuine composting fork with which to work.  Currently, I am making do with an ice breaker that I use rather like a giant mixing spoon.  Oh, to think that rotting leaves could make me so happy!  Taking the kitchen waste out to the composting bin has become a morning routine.  I save all the vegetable and fruit waste, all the tea leaves and coffee grounds, all the egg shells, etc. in a mesh strainer set in the corner of my sink.  But I think I have hit a new low, or high, in my enthusiasm for composting.  Yesterday at work, I tucked the banana peels from my fruit serving back into a Tupperware in my VB cloth lunch bag to take home for the compost pile.  I may not be completely normal but at least I am never bored.  Bor-ing to others, perhaps, but never bored myself.