Beyond My Control

Oh dear, another project

To prove I am both learning and not learning the lessons of last year, I have sort of fallen into a new project for 2011.

Projects didn't turn out so well in 2010, with abandoned blogs and still unfinished crochet rugs. So that lesson is not learned.

Also in 2010 I did very little reading, comparitively, but that's a lesson I am planning on learning.

There were two main problems with reading last year:

1. I was exhausted most of the year and therefore frequently went straight to sleep at night without picking up a book, something which it used to be physically impossible for me to do. (I used to keep a borrowed book on the bedside table in the spare room at my friends' place so that when I crashed there I had something to read me to sleep even when I'd had far too much wine.)

2. It wasn't that I didn't want to read, it's that I frequently struggled to find the book I was in the mood for. There were a lot of half finished books in 2010.

Late last year - on the back of picking up a few Penguin classics in Auckland airport on my way to the States - I started to fall into a pattern of reading classics. Old books that have survived the test of time. And it's been satisfying, and for some reason doesn't seem to suffer so much at the whims of my reading moods.

So I've decided to go with it.

The arbitrary date is 1960 (because the last book I read over the weekend was written in 1958). I'm going to attempt to go through the year reading only books written before 1960, and trying to avoid re-reads unless it's something from years and years ago that I really didn't appreciate at the time. But really, there's not much need for re-reads given how many classics there are out there. So many that I haven't read. And I have a Lit degree in my past, so it's not as if I'm starting off a low base.

At the moment: Mansfield Park.

I know, I know, Austen: easy. Except I have a mental block with Mansfield Park. I've read all of Austen's other novels more than once - my copies of P&P and Emma are particularly battered - but I've never been able to get through Mansfield Park. Or even have it register at all, judging by my copy of the book. I must have owned it for at least 10 years, probably longer, and was convinced on picking it up this time that I had only even made it through a couple of chapters. The dog-ear on the page HALFWAY THROUGH would seem to indicate not, even though I still have no recollection of the book at all. On this current attempt at reading it I'm now several chapters in - and quite liking it - but none of it is ringing a bell at all. None. I think that dog-ear must have been accidental. (Aside: I dog-ear the pages on my own books, but never ever on borrowed books.)

We shall see how it goes. Next up perhaps some Dickens, or Moby Dick, or The Three Muskateers.

 

 

That was unintended

Hmmm, so it's been over 2 months since I posted on this blog. 

I knew it had been a while, I had no idea it was that long.

Since January 30 there has been a great degree of 'can't be bothered', I admit.  There has also been lots of busy-ness.

First up, on the back of that last post, I sold my apartment on 10 days notice. 

As in 10 days between calling the agent and signing the contract. The bigger the decision - money-wise - the faster I'm likely to make it.  No point thinking too hard about these things, I have enough stress in the rest of my (working) life.

Sold with less than 10 days of keeping the apartment neat and clean and tidy.  For a price that was about as ridiculous as the current property market.  Not getting into the crass figures of it all, but my well sized, well placed apartment on which I had spent less than $1000, improvement-wise, in the last 5.5 years, sold for well above 50% what I paid for it. 

Second up, and a natural progression from First up, is that my Saturdays ever since have been spent looking at houses.  That can be amusing, and depressing, and false hope-building, and ridiculous.  But also good for combining exercise with other endeavours. I have participated, both in person and remotely, in a couple of truly insane auctions and I'm possibly one of the only people in the country going "interest rates up, interest rates up!" in an effort to at least stall prices.  I'm not crazy enough to either pay some of the current prices or think they'll actually come down, as opposed to stall.  Luckily I have somewhere else to live in the meantime.

Third up, work has gone truly berserk. Which, from the perspective of a small business owner is great, but from the perspective of a person actually turning out the work is exhausting.  You probably haven't noticed but over there --->    is a very short list of books read in the first 3 months of this year.  Partly that's because I have been working through the collected works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (no, haven't seen the movie yet), but mainly because for the first time in my life this person who 'cannot go to sleep without reading at least a few pages' has been falling asleep more nights than not without even picking up a book. This is a very weird state of affairs.

Fourth, the usual travel.  Didn't fly anywhere in January (miracle), but have been to Qld twice since for work and am there again next week.

Fifth, I finished knitting the baby blanket for my nephew. (Who is three months old next week.)  I must say it finished up really well, and now has a permanent place in his pram:

As to how this came about, I used a 'baby wool' which was a blend of wool, cashmere and micro-fibre and so, so soft, and this wash-cloth pattern x 5.

Sixth, prior to selling my apartment and stopping spending money in favour of saving like I'm saving for a first house again, I went to see a few bands.  But my list of the most annoying types of concert/gig goers still deserves it's own post (the one that's been in my head for a month). 

Seventh, other stuff which I don't remember right now.  May or may not come back to me.  We shall see.