summer reflections

I haven’t written a blog post in a while and I thought I would fill you in on the reasons why! There are a few of them! But first, I need coffee. One moment …

Okay. Much better.

The summer ended up being a bit crazy. Although we weren’t able to get away as much as we’d originally planned, we decided to get the house in order and check off some of our jobs we’d been hoping to do. Namely, clean up the garage, clean out the office, re-organize our master bedroom and clean out the kids’ drawers of clothing. They are by no mean glamorous jobs to finish in the summer but it feels really good to have those rooms cleaned out – and I’ve set up a small home gym in our garage in all the empty space!

Besides the summer cleaning, we’ve spent as much time as possible with the kids. We took them to the zoo, parks, pool, and out for dinners and ice cream. There were lots of laughs and many moments of frustration from overtired toddlers. N feels it the most as she’s only just 3 years old and desperate to keep up with everyone. There were many mornings that we forced her to go back to sleep by one of us crawling back into bed with her – and it wasn’t me most of the time!

I’ve been getting up earlier than previously most of the summer. I’ve set my daily alarm for 5:50am, to which many of you are thinking, “Why would you do that?” The reason is being able to maximize the day a bit more. I often don’t want to get up but if I do, have breakfast (usually oatmeal and berries), I can go out for my morning run or weights in the garage well before the day has to start. J usually plays during that time or has his own breakfast and the house, for the most part, it quiet.

There’s not been much making. I knit a sweater for my friend Katrina, spun some yarn and hosted a couple of Live events on the podcast. But in terms of what I usually crank out in the summer months, this is nothing! The reasons are two-fold:

1. I wanted to be more active this summer. Instead of spinning in the mornings, I wanted to get up and go move my body. I didn’t necessarily have to go for a run, sometimes I biked, lifted weights or stretched. Getting up to sit at my wheel, though, was not an option.
2. There’s been a shift in me these past number of months. I’ve spoken about it a small amount on the podcast. I’ve started moving away from the notion of spinning or knitting just to make something or engage in the process. While the process is still incredibly important to me, I want to work on projects that last longer, are harder and require more of my attention over the next year.

In terms of the activity, I’ve decided to begin blogging about my experiences with engaging in fitness and nutrition planning. It took my saying to myself, What would help me stay accountable to the process? to begin actually writing it down. If you aren’t a fitness or nutrition person, please don’t think you have to follow my journey but I thought for those who are engaged in their own journey, that you may be interested.

In terms of longer, harder, attention-requiring projects, I’ve been planning a few spins of larger quantity. I have some Corriedale to comb that I never finished, a Clun Forest lamb’s fleece that I never spun and two pounds of a Mohair/Romney pin-drafted roving to spin. I also have 200 grams of line-rhetted flax I’d like to explore. These are all bigger projects and will require my time and attention. I’m thinking they will all be my focus for the winter months. In the meantime, I’m working towards finishing my CTA Bin spin before I begin one of those projects. I’m almost there – three more spins!

What have you been up to this summer? How have you focused your time and attention? I’d love to hear!