Monday 29th January

We've been going through the freezer, doing a full inventory.  It shouldn't be such a big job as it is just three drawers, two-and-a-half drawers really...

Step One was listing contents and dates for each drawer. There were a few, but not too many surprises,  and for once everything was labelled and dated.

There are an alarming number of things that need to be eaten during February. I'm glad we found them all now instead of later. The other strange thing was that these items were mostly stashed in the bottom drawer; the top drawer would be easier to get at.

So, Step Two was shuffle the contents. Now, all the veg and short date food is in the top two drawers and the resting the bottom two drawers. And we have an up-to-date list!

What will happen is we will have a grocery delivery in a few week's time and everything will get stuffed in wherever it fits.... things will be moved about.... and chaos (the natural state of all types of storage) will once more return.

I wa the lucky one; I sat on a stool taking notes, while Himself kneeled on the floor and slowly froze his fingers.

Knitting 

I finished knitting the first side of the poncho, in that the wool ran out. I was aiming for something rectangular,  roughly 20" × 30". What I got was more nearly a square.. 

I have ripped it out and started again; fewer stitches (60 instead of 70) on larger heedless (7mm instead of 6.5mm). I'm getting 6 rows to the inch instead of 8, and I prefer the look of the knitting this time around.

Last remnant of version 1, laid on top of today's start on larger needles.

Drawing 

This week, maybe for several weeks, I'm going to work through Mark Kistler's Drawing book. I've done this before,  back in July 2021. This time around I'm going to use the aquarelle water soluble graphite pencils rather than a soft ordinary pencil.

I also want to have a really good go at learning to draw people, so I'm having a look at '5-minute sketches - people' by Peter Scully.

This first picture is from 2021;

Here are today's pages;

Moderating my vocabulary 

I am congratulating myself; after giving a very difficult piano lesson. 

e student had not been listening (again), hadn't looked at the work set (again), wasn't doing as I asked (again), and finally started just 'playing through' the piece (again). If it had been a face to face lesson I would have seized the music off the stand and thrown it on the floor. Instead, I picked up a random book and flicked through it until the noise ceased, waited a bit, looked up and asked if they were ready for a bit more of the piano lesson, or should we stop now?

We had a 'discussion', did three minutes of useful work, and then that was the end of the lesson.

Normally I would have gone into the kitchen afterwards using 'language', but this time - mindful of getting into practice for Lent, I managed not to!

Supper, chocolate o'clock, and chill out time. It should be okay as long as I don't watch or read any news tonight.