Sunday 22nd February - 1st Sunday in Lent

Wikipedia, creative commons

 In some Christian traditions the Sundays in Lent are seen as 'Little Easters' and therefore a break from fasting.  So although the elapsed time in Lent is 47 days, there are only 40 fasting days, reflecting Christ's 40 days in the wilderness after his Baptism. 

The Lent course I read every day written by Andrew Dotchin always takes a break on Sundays. I don't know if he takes a break too!

I'm on the fence here. I haven't given up chocolate or biscuits; but I guess I shouldn't take a break from being kind, thoughtful, considerate, prayerful! So I'll stick with keeping my Lent resolutions on Sundays.

I'm pondering the sort of things that would make a '52 tiny changes to improve your Christian life', rather in the line of the '52 tiny changes to quiet your mind' book by Kelly Dugger. They would really have to be tiny... nothing too strenuous like 'get up at 5am so you can read and study and prayer for 2 hours every morning', for example! That's SO not never ever going to happen in my life.

Let's try anyway, maybe just one tiny change for each Sunday in Lent.

Change no 1

Sometimes I say a prayer before meals, sometimes I don't.

I've got a huge collection of graces from the comments to a blogpost last year. Now I'll try and say grace more consistently. Sometime soon I'll track back through the comments and gather them together. 

 (I forgot today before getting stuck into my porridge. Never mind, lunch and supper will give me two more chances to remember).

Saturday 21st (I think) February - running

Don't get excited... not real running,... I can't remember when I last ran about a dozen steps, and that was on a downhill gradient! Although sometimes I do manage a brief moment of trotting on the spot.

Today has been a mix of running quite fast just to stay still... 🙃 I think Ang called it a 'cascade of tasks'. 

Going to find some paperwork I managed to tip my sewing tin onto the floor; trying to put the paperwork away (I did find the Grant of Probate in quite a sensible place) I ended up tidying and sorting a couple of shelves of filing...

and I've shoved everything back into the sewing tin....

Going to cook lunch I discovered some alien slime in the bottom of one of the fridge drawers hiding under the potatoes (ok, ok, should have cleaned the drawers earlier in the week, how time flies when you're not paying attention)... 

said drawer is all nice and clean, the veg is washed and dried and back in the fridge...

and I carried on with cooking lunch at the same time...

After lunch I did one of the planned jobs for the day; Three packages ready for posting, each with appropriate contents (including 10 pages copied and pasted and printed from the Internet for a friend who doesn't have a computer) and a quick note in each package... 

But the afternoon was really taken up with running with my current obsession; The Stitch Sampler. 

I sat there with notebook and pen and thought and sketched and came up with this;

I'm currently interested in Quilt as you Go as an 'as and when' portable project. So combining QAYG with the stitch sampler seemed like an idea worth exploring. 

It might come to nothing,  but it's a thought. Using an old duvet cover which has grey and white striped fabric for the sampler side, and the reverse of the quilt with a grey and white swirly pattern for the backing/border should work. The stripes will help me organise the stitches neat(ish)ly.

I've got a retired mattress protector to cut into wadding squares.

Here's how I think it might work; (Ang will notice I've corrected the number of squares the I'llneed; sums was nevermy strong point in spiteof doing maths at university!)

So here I am at half past eight, with half an eye on the men's curling final wondering where the day went!

Friday 20th February - learning through Experience

 Over the past couple of months it's become  more and more obvious that I need to be more considered in how I expend my energy through the day. Otherwise 'getting things done' in the morning results in me turning into a flopped heap all afternoon!

As part of cutting myself some slack at the moment, I'm not moving heaven and earth to blog every day, which is why I'm missing a day from time to time.

One almost non-negotiable, however, is to try to achieve a figure of 2000 on my step counter, however I arrive at it - chopping veg, playing the piano, walking, or just marching on the spot.

My 'journey' from Nazareth to Jerusalem has moved along a couple of miles. The view isn't very spectacular, much as I expected as I appear to be travelling along a main road, with no view points or places of interest. I don't expect these hills have changed much in 2000 years,

but the other side of the road is certainly modern!

.....

About that learning from experience;

I've learned a useful lesson from getting the crazy stitch book.

 I already follow the blogs pintangle.com and stitching life.uk, and it seems to me that all I need to do is get a piece of fabric and some threads and a few bits and pieces from stash and make a start. 

Pintangle teaches all the stitches in the free weekly 'tast' - take a stitch Tuesday -  posts, and 'The Stitching Life' gives a framework for creating a piece of daily stitching.  

By buying a book or a kit I'm just being lazy and buying stuff I don't really need, and that ultimately is not what is good for me.

I think at some stage soon I'll assemble a few bits and pieces in my (yet to be created) 'analogue bag' of pick up and go crafts to do my own, as-and-when, rather than daily, sampler.

Right. Now to finish today's 2000 steps along my virtual journey and see where that takes me!

Wednesday 18th February

The oak tree at the bottom of the garden

Yesterday was bright and sunny, appropriate for Shrove Tuesday, Mardi Gras, Carnival day. Also good, because it was dry, and not too cold. 

Today is a complete change, cold, grey and raining. Very suitable for Ash Wednesday!

For Lent, I've decided to follow 'The Jesus Trail' on the Conqueror virtual walking app. It's a 39 mile route around the places Jesus would have known, although 2000 years have changed most of them beyond recognition, thinking about it!

This is the church of the Annunciation in Nazareth where the Angel came to Mary with the message that she was going to bear a son... how hot and sunny it looks! This is where the route begins... this church was built much later, of course.

....

I succumbed and sent off for this stitchbook, sold by hobbyart.uk

It's been appearing on my newsfeed for ages. I watched the price come down, and eventually I chose the small book. It's a dinky little thing and I wanted to love it. Each page is set up to be stitched as a sampler of all kinds of embroidery stitches, something to go into an 'analogue bag' along with some needles, thread and thread cutter.

BUT, and it's a huge issue, every page, every single page, is solid with spelling mistakes. What is going on? How could this happen? So, sadly, I'm going to request a refund. 

Ah well. I did consider trying to make my own version, but I think I really don't want to invest that much time and effort. 

Some reflective music for Ash Wednesday... Andras Schiff playing the slow movement from the Italian Concerto by JSBach.

Monday 16th February - I do love a

great flashmob;

Waltz no 2, Shostakovitch 

I've never had the luck to experience a flash mob... one day, some day...

Meanwhile we're half way through February, it's been sunny all day, and we're set for over 8 hours of daylight now.

I've been designing my 'cooking area' this morning before we start creating next level plans with the architect overseeing the whole project.

My cousin's dishwasher is actually two pullout drawers under her draining board - wowsers!

You can get them with just the top drawer or with two drawers.

If you have two drawers they can be operated separately. So we'd fill the top drawer with a small load, no more stooping down to stack and empty the bottom rack. But there's always a cost... mega ££££. One can dream.

(My elderly neighbour tripped over the open door of her dishwasher, gashed her leg and 

scroll quickly away now if you are of a sensitive nature

 and there was blood everywhere. So I'm always careful how I move around ours when it's open.)

On a more cheerful note;

Einsame Blumen, Schumacher op 82, played by Mitsuko Ochida.

Apropos of nothing at all, my mother always wore 'Mitsuko' perfume...

Saturday 14th February - 52 tiny changes week 6

What happened to weeks 2, 3, 4 and 5? I had done week 2, but maybe not shared it.

There's more to each chapter than the bald suggestion; I find KDs additional ideas, suggestions on how to implement it, explanations and prompts very helpful. 

Unsubscribe as you go - in other words, unsubscribe from newsletter type emails you are no longer interested in receiving as they come into your inbox. You know the sort of thing; 'subscribe to get 10% off'. Then it's everlasting special offers...

But as for weeks 3, 4 and 5...

'Write it down'; choose a single place for lists and things you want to remember  - note book or phone app or whatever and stick to it. 

'One task at a time'; quit multitasking - it isn't actually more efficient most of the time.

'Mute the background'; either you're watching it, or listening to it, ot you're not. Even if you think it's just in the background, the sounds/music/changes still grab our attention. 

So I'm trying to catch up on these. Either I'm watching a programme or listening to sonething, or I switch it off (unless someone else wants to watch of). No more scrolling or reading or playing games at the same time. (The exceptions are straightforward knitting and simple sewing)

This week it is

'Declutter one surface that you see or use every day and commit to keepingit that way'. Was she reading my mind? I was getting close to The End Of My Tether because of four surfaces in particular. 

The dining room table (perennial one, this). The last time I cleared it in a hurry, I  should add, I did so by piling everything up on my worktable. So now neither were usable. The same could be said of my swivel table and footstool.

I'm now relaxing, with a pot of tea, in a glow of satisfaction and calm having cleated All Four Surfaces. I'm officially an over-achiever! It didn't take long. So why did I avoid doing it before, and will I be able to keep them clear (shaking my head)

These are the 'after' pictures.

Relaxing music

'Somewhere near Cluj' from  the anthology Spectrum2,