My office is a work in progress, but I think it’s becoming more pleasant. Things got out of hand while #2 son was living in this room over his semester break, frankly, but I spent several hours yesterday cleaning out files, picking stuff up off the floor, removing stray socks, and otherwise getting things in hand.

I have a new markerboard currently in an impressively organized state. It may not last. For the moment, though, it helps me to feel calm about my work. I’m not worrying that things will get lost and forgotten, something which has happened before and which therefore preys on my mind.

I’m also trying to capture data better this year. We tried to make good goals for our business this year, but we were foiled at every turn. What’s our conversion rate? We don’t know. Where do our leads come from? We don’t know. How long do our clients stay with us? We don’t know. How many clients do we need? We don’t know. What should we do to continue increasing growth at our desired level? Obviously, we haven’t a clue.

It was frustrating. More than frustrating, really. It kept us from accomplishing our goal of setting some goals.

Making my office a nice place to work is a reasonable goal, though. Last year I bought a nice desk and file cabinet and the year before that I bought a good chair, and I’ve now put some organizational stuff up. Good strong bookcases would be an improvement — they’d keep me from having to worry that all the books were about to fall on the floor, another thing that has happened.

Indeed, the whole point of my efforts is basically to make my office less stressful so I can enjoy my work.

I think that this afternoon, after church, I’ll sew up cushion covers and a good coaster for my tea cup, deal with a few remaining messes, and the office will be a thing of beauty.

Ideally, I would then be inspired to move on to my bedroom and do the same there. We’ll see.

The Nantucket Jacket continues. Nothing much happening with it,  but I am at least knitting regularly. I also made decoupaged clipboards for my office walls, having seen the idea on Pinterest.

The idea is to create snazzy clipboards and hang them on your wall in a group, where they will organize all your bits of paper and stuff.

With style.

I spend a lot of time in my office, including workday #6 for this week today, so it should be an appealing place, a haven and a source of inspiration. I’m working on that. I have nice furniture, interesting and pretty objects on the shelves, plenty of books, a candle with a crisp wintry scent, and once I get some nails in the wall I’ll have these clipboards up, too.

Pinterest is a good place to find ideas and inspiration. It’s a fairly light-minded place, like Facebook, and in fact my new Facebook timeline has Pinterest on it.

Twitter is serious — not for everyone, I know, but for me and most of the people I follow. It’s the place to keep up on industry news and announce job openings. Linked In is dull, the result not only of being all about work but also of being mostly about self promotion. You can’t really expect a place where resumes are the central focus to be entertaining.

The spring term is well underway, I’m getting stuff crossed off on my whiteboard, and choirs have started back up. We’re singing Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky in Master Chorale — a 1938 Russian film score. You can watch the film at the link. It starts with a violence warning and interminable credits on a background of crumpled paper. Fields of skeletons open the film. I don’t know what’s up with the story, because the whole thing is so dull and unattractive that I tried to skip through and find the parts with the singing. When I did so, there was a weird guy holding up a baby whom he seemed to plan to throw into the fire. At that point, I quit watching.

When I was a child, we learned that the Soviet Union was a dismal place where people waited in line for ages to get poorly made shoes and heavy bread. I don’t recall being taught about human rights violations or economic systems, just that it was a super unpleasant place. It was probably movies like this that created that impression.

Still, it’s fun to sing, and relaxing. I’m also thinking of joining a hiking class. It’s for people my age and older, so I should be able to keep up. I usually hike with my kids, who spring gazelle-like (well, the boys do) from rock to rock and make me feel old. If the hike consists of spry 60 year olds, I should be fine. They’re going to some beautiful places.

First I have to quit working on Saturdays, though.

I got to sleep in till 6:30 this morning, and I feel like a new woman. Nonetheless, I’ve spent the three hours since then relaxing and haven’t bothered to get dressed yet. I spent most of yesterday on the sofa, too, watching movies and grading papers and doing some knitting. There are worse ways to spend the day, but also better ways. I have more grading to do today, plus my Aussies to write for, but I haven’t given up the idea of cleaning house, or hiking, or sewing.

One thing I did yesterday was to go shopping at Walmart. I don’t know whether any of you have ever done this, but I’d guess probably so. I haven’t shopped at Walmart for years, but we’re currently working with companies related to them in various ways, so I figure I should at least be able to understand what they’re talking about. Accordingly, I went to the local Walmart for my grocery shopping.

I didn’t enjoy it. I was trying to find it cool and intriguing, like shopping in a foreign city, but really it was crowded and confusing. When you ask workers where to find things, they react with astonishment and then say things like, “Pens are in the garden center,” as though that provided geographic information (or even made sense).
 
They don’t have a lot of the things that I normally buy, and yet they have all manner of odd things unrelated to grocery shopping stuck right in your way, so you have to pass through all the make up to get to the milk.

They have a section that looks like a bakery with lots of different kinds of bread, but no loaf as more than 2 grams of fiber per serving, no matter what color it is. The produce section is colorful and appealing, but everything must be bought in pre-packaged lots.

So okay, it didn’t mesh with my workflow, as we say around the office. It was clean and well stocked, assuming that you want what they’re offering. They actually have few choices, but they make it look like they have lots of choices. That’s a talent.

It took me twice as long as usual and cost just as much, but the volume I ended up with was larger, #1 daughter tells me. I don’t know. I got confused.

Probably I shouldn’t have gone there for grocery shopping. I should have gone for something less goal-directed so I could have enjoyed the process.

The pictures here are of the Nantucket Jacket, or rather of one skein of Highland Wool on its way to becoming a Nantucket Jacket.

I love the color and the texture, the pattern is simple once you get it set up, so you can easily do it while conversing or watching a movie, if not while reading, and it’s a nice piece of knitting.

I have some qualms, though. It looks asymmetrical to me, for one thing. For another, the larger sizes become larger simply because there’s a lot more of the seed stitch, and that seems to make the cable sections appear rather crowded together.

I’ll keep going anyway, hoping all will be well in the end.

 
  I fed my family properly once at least before #2 son left for college: homemade lasagne, homemade bread, and steamed mangetout peas.

I also hemmed up a bunch of horrible 1970s golf pants the boys took a fancy to. See them strobing in the photo below.

Since then, I’ve gotten an inch or two done on the Nantucket Jacket, gotten my classes well started, and crossed a few things off the list on my markerboard.

I haven’t caught up on my sleep, unfortunately, and #1 daughter tells me I’ve been angry and mean. Not good. The little rash I might have mentioned is getting worse, too. I’ve managed Wii fit a few times and cooked a few meals, but I’m still working my way back to normalcy.

I spend an awful lot of time striving for normalcy. Sigh. Not much of a goal.

We’re also just getting around to setting goals for the business for the year. It’s been too busy to manage a meeting.

We lost a big job,and I was upset about that, but it might have been a blessing in disguise, really.

So today is our goal setting meeting, plus grocery shopping, housework, grading, and — I hope — a nap.

I’m also hoping to do some sewing. I had started a SWAP at the end of last summer, and gotten quite a few things done:

• a kakhi skirt
• kakhi pants
• a two-piece print dress
• several tops

I have a jacket half finished. I hope to add a lining to it today. It’s a really lovely lightweight wool, and I should be able to wear it through the spring, but it’s too light to be happy as an unlined jacket.

I’d also bought the fabric for all the pieces of the SWAP, and it would be nice to sew up a few more of the pieces I had planned before it gets too warm to wear them. I have too much else to get done for this to be a proper PSD, but I can think about it at least.

I’ve reached the point — and I’ve been here before — where sleep deprivation has become the main thing about my life. I know there are people all over the world who get up in the wee hours of the morning, and presumably they don’t all go around in a state of exhausted misery all the time. I don’t know how they do it.

My house is a mess, I’m eating any old thing that happens to be lying around at mealtime (including fast food that the kids go out for when it becomes clear that I’m not going to create lovely meals for them), I’m getting to gym class once or twice a week only, I’m being bad tempered about things like large, well paying jobs coming in, and I actually missed a meeting.  I haven’t been to church since Christmas. I look — oh, I don’t even want to think about what I look like.

Eventually my husband’s schedule will change, or maybe I’ll learn to go back to sleep, or I’ll get good at napping or something.

#2 son goes back to his college tomorrow, and #1 son and I both start back to school as well. I have to get my courses built this weekend, and I have to figure out a schedule. I have to clean my house, too.

I’m beginning a new knitting project. There is no reason for this. I have plenty of half finished projects. But a friend at church made the Nantucket Jacket from Interweave Knits which you see pictured here, and Elann had an amazing sale on discontinued colors, and I don’t have the energy to figure out where I was on any of the unfinished projects, so I have a new one. I downloaded the pattern, so I will have to sort out the issues with my printer today (or perhaps put it on a jump drive and take it to Kinko’s) and get it started.

The discontinued color in which I am making this is Cedar, a very nice green. I like the blue green family, and my eye color is in this family, so I figure it’s probably becoming.

It is not among the trendy colors for the upcoming season. One of the big colors for fall was teal, which is not at all dissimilar to this shade — it is, at least, a blue green. The spring fashion colors are showing a very pretty almsot sage green instead.

I can get my Nantucket Jacket knitted up really fast so it can get in on the tail end of the teal craze. I can make it at a leisurely pace and wear it when that color returns to the trendy side. Or of course I can ignore the trendy colors entirely, since I usually continue wearing not just colors but actual garments until the have holes in obvious places.

These are the colors for spring. The neutrals are gray and khaki, though they’re named Driftwood and Starfish, and those are pretty basic colors for me. The deep blue is a great color, too, and I think it could be worn as a neutral. I’m g. lad to see the end of all the chocolate browns; brown is a trying color for me.

The color of the year is Tangerine Tango, and it’s paired with a warm golden yellow. Cabaret is a deep pink, so we can sneak in all that hot pink from last year. Cockatoo is a nice blue green, and I plan to watch for a jacket in that shade, or a lovely wool which I can make a jacket from (or at least add to my collection of jacket fabrics I’m afraid to cut up and ruin). Then we have two purples: a darker blue purple and a pale pinkish one.

All in all, it’s a pretty collection. I think a spring SWAP in Cabaret and Sodalite Blue would have much the power punch of red and black, without the severity. Starfish and Cockatoo would let those who’ve been loving aqua or mint with brown carry on the combination for another season. Gray and purple are a nice combination for those of us who have gray hair, and also for blondes.

I may go back to sleep now, in hopes of having a better day today.

Yesterday I got up at 4:00, as I’ve been doing all week, and drove my husband to work. I came home and worked for a few hours: catching up at my educational site, getting my online classes set up, completing a large proposal which I will now worry over till I hear back.

I went grocery shopping, spending large amounts of money on fresh produce, almost none of which we ate yesterday, and on lean protein and stuff like milled flax seeds — again, not what we ended up eating.

#1 daughter and I had our annual meeting — or tried to. She gets frustrated after an hour, and neither of us really had our reports in order, so we spent much of that hour looking things up and making calculations. We therefore made essentially no progress toward goals or decisions.

We grabbed a sandwhich and then went out in search of cleats and bicycle tubes. #2 son needs new cleats, which we were not successful in buying, and #1 son needed bicycle tubes, which we we sold by a postmodern babe in a bicycle shop so cool that #1 daughter and I  both wanted to by things even though neither of us owns a bike.

In and around the search for cleats, we went to import and gift shops and to the outdoor sporting goods store where #1 son works. We were discussing #2 son’s study abroad plans and buying things like a hiking guide, high-protein pasta at five times the grocery store price, and green tea with rose petals. We had all been watching Portlandia, so it was impossible for us not to feel as though we had been transported into the comedy. Eventually, we had to talk about that, too.

We finished the evening with burgers, chips, and football on the TV. #2 son and I made a cheesecake from a special low fat high protein recipe. It was expensive and time consuming, but it tasted nothing like cheesecake and we’ll probably feed it to the dogs.

In some ways, the whole day — though enjoyable — was filled with not following my New Year’s resolutions. I didn’t get 8 hours of sleep, I didn’t stop working on the weekend, I didn’t set SMRT goals for the business, I didn’t exercise or eat right, I spent no time in creative endeavors. I bought a hiking guide and wholesome foods but didn’t hike and ate relatively unwholesome foods.

Between 1/1 and 1/7, I exercised several times and strove to eat right, though with limited success, and I lost one pound. Yesterday I didn’t exercise and I ate normal stuff, and I am now four pounds over what I was on 1/1. I also have a headache and a sore throat and I’m cross.

Above you can see #2 daughter’s roasted tomatoes. They are being served with oil-drizzled French bread, but they’re still a more wholesome alternative to chips and dip.

I’m trying to follow Jonathan Bailor’s The Smarter Science of Slim, and failing dismally. Bailor advocates an even distribution of protein, carbohydrates, and fats, with a focus on non-starchy vegetables and lean protein. Breakfast can be an omelet with vegetables and ham, lunch can be a nice salad with chicken, and dinner can be fish or lean meat with lots of vegetables. Fruit for dessert. No calorie counting required, just swap starches and sweets for chicken or fish and produce. In his terms, give up inSANE foods and eat all you want of SANE foods instead — SANE here standing for foods which are high in Satiety (filling), low in Aggressions (tendency to be stored as fat), high in Nutrition, and low in Efficiency (amount of fat storage potential per calorie).

So last night’s dinner included lean meat and a wisp of lettuce, both of which are SANE foods, plus “wheat” hamburger buns, baked beans from a jar, and chips, all of which are inSANE foods.

As I say, I’m trying. Yesterday did involve buying things associated with my goals rather than actually doing anything toward those goals, but today I have a house full of SANE foods and a map to local hiking trails, so I can easily do what I’ve set out to do.

I was talking yesterday with a client who was one of my first clients, and still occassionally hires me to do something or other. She’s 60 now, and was telling me about her various plans for the year. They include a Mediterranean cruise which will finish up with a stay in Southern France for a couple of weeks. Her problem is that there’s so much to do, it’s overwhelming. She has all these interesting business plans coming up, she’s been going to the gym and lost 52 pounds, she does 5-cities-in-5-days speaking tours, she’s learning a new computer language, and she has trouble fitting in time to knit.

That’s how I want to be at 60, though I hope I can find time to knit. Elann is having a sale, speaking of knitting, on full bags (10 skeins) of discontinued colors of their Peruvian Highlands wool. Some of their discontinued colors are favorites of mine, like celadon green and antique rose, and they work out to a couple of dollars a skein, so I snapped some up.

I’m going to knit a sweater or two. In fact, I have a SMART goal about that. I’m fortunate to do creative work, but in recent years that seems to be where all my creativity goes. I am therefore planning, in 2012, to return creativity to the nonwork parts of my life by scheduling time for needlework, music, and gardening, as well as by taking time to cook creative meals.

I’m also going to lose 10% of my body weight by eating more vegetables and protein foods instead of sweets and starches, and by continuing to exercise regularly but at a higher intensity, as well as adding active recreation to my weekend agenda.

This week the 52 Changes book has me working towards 4-6 servings of vegetables a day. I’m shocked that it’s hard for me to accomplish that. I like vegetables. But apparently I don’t like them as much as I think I do, or at least not enough to cook them at every meal. I’m heading out to the grocery store, and planning to bring back bags of salad and frozen vegetables in hopes that convenience will help.

How are your New Year’s Resolutions coming along?