Felicity is not finished. I woke up on Friday with an epiphany regarding that bloody hat: I'd accidentally skipped the last round of increases and now need to rip back eight rows. Which I should have done right away, but didn't, and we'll talk about why in a bit.
One of the reasons the ex-husband and I did not work out is because we brought out the worst in each other's personal habits. I have a tendency towards slobbiness, he has the strange male blindness to dirt. We both have hoarding issues ("NO, we cannot throw out the five fishing rods, I might go fishing again one day."), and our three bedroom, three story townhouse - which should have been more than big enough for a family of four or five - felt cramped and unhappy. I struggled to clean up, but aside from the occasional emergency (my family coming to visit, the landlord coming by), I was doing it on my own. Ex-husband would do things as instructed, but would never of his own accord actually clean anything, including a dish. I, being one of those people who has difficulty concentrating in a cluttered space, would start try to clean and organise, but in a very stressed and distracted way. Tears were common. It got to the point where I was coming up with excuses not to come home at night, because I hated the way I felt when I was in our house.
So, fast-forward several months. When I moved into my own apartment (on my own for the first time ever!), I threw out a lot of stuff. Probably an entire box truck's worth. It was incredibly hard and I cried a lot while it was being done. It didn't appear to make much of a dent, since the apartment is still kind of cluttered, but I'm working on it. I made the decision last week to put some of my books into storage (I will never be able to bring myself to get rid of books, but storage I can handle), and trade my huge recliner couch for a smaller model. It's a start, and I feel good about it.
Even better is the list I made. It's got entries for the next four or five weekends: things to do. It culminates in my apartment getting painted. I'm pretty much on schedule with it right now, and it's already made an improvement. This week's tasks were to measure all the furniture to decide how to rearrange it for cosy spacing, removing the garbage that was stored on the balcony for convenience (old air conditioner, broken picture frame, plus the balcony's evil green astro-turf carpet), clean out the bottom of the china cabinet (still stuffed full of miscellanea from moving), and clean out this big white cabinet (also stuffed full of miscellanea from moving) which I'm probably going to have to get rid of because I've got no place to hang it. Items one, two, and three are done (two by the good offices of Boyfriend, who cleared the whole balcony in less than 15 minutes, including pulling up the evil carpet and sweeping it all off), and in cleaning out the china cabinet I was able to pack away all my cds and various computer peripherals and extraneous electronics. Freed up a lot of bookshelf and table area. I also decluttered the crap out of my desk. Next week when I rearrange the living room I'll also need to re-organise all my computer cables, but at least the surfaces are clear.
I'm also into day two of not smoking, and I recognise the twitchy, irritableness that's making me touchier than usual (I'm generally pretty irritable to begin with), so Felicity will wait until that fades. I was originally going to leave her until I'd finished my to-do list, but job-things delayed that, and now I don't want to be trying to do something so delicate when anything even whiffing of going wrong will make me freak out. I'll cast on for the scarf I wanted to do to match instead. It's knit on straights instead of in the round, so will be much less frustrating (she said, blithely. Murphy looked on in deep amusement.).
The other things keeping me from blogging this week are a bunch of work-related things, a series of nagging infections (the kind of fun infections that can, in a woman's life, spring up for no reason whatsoever. I used to think male genitalia were less well-designed than female. I now think both of them are bad jokes), and a visit from a dear friend who was in town to find an apartment this weekend. Yet another Montreal ex-pat to keep me sane. He'll be driving up with all his stuff in two weeks, and I'm very much looking forward to having him around again.
One of the reasons the ex-husband and I did not work out is because we brought out the worst in each other's personal habits. I have a tendency towards slobbiness, he has the strange male blindness to dirt. We both have hoarding issues ("NO, we cannot throw out the five fishing rods, I might go fishing again one day."), and our three bedroom, three story townhouse - which should have been more than big enough for a family of four or five - felt cramped and unhappy. I struggled to clean up, but aside from the occasional emergency (my family coming to visit, the landlord coming by), I was doing it on my own. Ex-husband would do things as instructed, but would never of his own accord actually clean anything, including a dish. I, being one of those people who has difficulty concentrating in a cluttered space, would start try to clean and organise, but in a very stressed and distracted way. Tears were common. It got to the point where I was coming up with excuses not to come home at night, because I hated the way I felt when I was in our house.
So, fast-forward several months. When I moved into my own apartment (on my own for the first time ever!), I threw out a lot of stuff. Probably an entire box truck's worth. It was incredibly hard and I cried a lot while it was being done. It didn't appear to make much of a dent, since the apartment is still kind of cluttered, but I'm working on it. I made the decision last week to put some of my books into storage (I will never be able to bring myself to get rid of books, but storage I can handle), and trade my huge recliner couch for a smaller model. It's a start, and I feel good about it.
Even better is the list I made. It's got entries for the next four or five weekends: things to do. It culminates in my apartment getting painted. I'm pretty much on schedule with it right now, and it's already made an improvement. This week's tasks were to measure all the furniture to decide how to rearrange it for cosy spacing, removing the garbage that was stored on the balcony for convenience (old air conditioner, broken picture frame, plus the balcony's evil green astro-turf carpet), clean out the bottom of the china cabinet (still stuffed full of miscellanea from moving), and clean out this big white cabinet (also stuffed full of miscellanea from moving) which I'm probably going to have to get rid of because I've got no place to hang it. Items one, two, and three are done (two by the good offices of Boyfriend, who cleared the whole balcony in less than 15 minutes, including pulling up the evil carpet and sweeping it all off), and in cleaning out the china cabinet I was able to pack away all my cds and various computer peripherals and extraneous electronics. Freed up a lot of bookshelf and table area. I also decluttered the crap out of my desk. Next week when I rearrange the living room I'll also need to re-organise all my computer cables, but at least the surfaces are clear.
I'm also into day two of not smoking, and I recognise the twitchy, irritableness that's making me touchier than usual (I'm generally pretty irritable to begin with), so Felicity will wait until that fades. I was originally going to leave her until I'd finished my to-do list, but job-things delayed that, and now I don't want to be trying to do something so delicate when anything even whiffing of going wrong will make me freak out. I'll cast on for the scarf I wanted to do to match instead. It's knit on straights instead of in the round, so will be much less frustrating (she said, blithely. Murphy looked on in deep amusement.).
The other things keeping me from blogging this week are a bunch of work-related things, a series of nagging infections (the kind of fun infections that can, in a woman's life, spring up for no reason whatsoever. I used to think male genitalia were less well-designed than female. I now think both of them are bad jokes), and a visit from a dear friend who was in town to find an apartment this weekend. Yet another Montreal ex-pat to keep me sane. He'll be driving up with all his stuff in two weeks, and I'm very much looking forward to having him around again.
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