4 Jan 09 - Day 4

Let's start with the first one I finished. On January 2nd, I completed the 8th task on my list; I learned to knit with double-pointed needles.

I knitted a hat for Knit One Save One.

I have a real inferiority complex about my crafting. On the one hand, I do beautiful work. I'm fast and competent, and I donate my pieces to things like Soldiers' Angels and Save the Children, so it's important that my work be inexpensive, strong, sturdy, and washable. So I use chain store acrylic yarn almost exclusively. (This hat, incidentally, was knitted with wool.)

When I go to knitting groups, especially the one at Loopy Yarns, I feel like I'm playing at something other people are doing for real. As if I were calling myself an actress and holding myself up beside Glenn Close and Gwyneth Paltrow because I played in Oliver in high school. I see the people using expensive wool and silk and mohair and making socks and sweaters and scarves, and I feel like I might as well be making potholders with fabric bands.

So several of my goals for Day Zero are related to knitting. One is to learn to use double-pointed needles. Another is to knit or crochet myself a sweater. (I currently own only two things I've knitted: a hat and a cowl.) Another is to knit a pair of socks. I actually have a pair I started knitting with two circular needles; I finished the ribbing and got scared when I got to the heel.

Part of this is about valuing myself, and keeping something beautiful that I've made for my own use. (I do deserve to have nice things.) Part of this is about trusting myself to have nice things. (I still feel guilty about losing a ruby ring as a child.) Part of it is about trusting my skills and talents as well as expanding them. (I do it with fudge; I can do it with yarn.) And part of it is about celebrating my own contribution. (No one else may want me to make them a cowl, but the one I have helps keep me warm, and is beautiful.)

I've been wanting to try double-pointed needles since I started going to meetups in May. I actually had the nerve to try it in early December, and ripped out my work three times. I finally sat down on Friday and tried something different. I started from the bottom and worked my way up. Parts of it were a pain, and I much prefer crochet, but I did it.

Onward.

My List - A Work in Progress

1. Assemble small bookcase
2. Assemble medium bookcase
3. Assemble large bookcase
4. Replace laundry box with rolling cart
5. Organize yarn bins and post projects
6. Put up coat hooks
7. Mend or get someone to mend the sweater and fleece jacket
8. Learn to knit on double-pointed needles
9. Organize computer
10. Organize office, including books in the corridor
11. Organize books on new shelves
12. Hook up TiVo
13. Install Office on new computer
14. Take boxes and suitcases up to the storage area
15. Put up Susan's postcards in the office
16. Send checks to ESS.
17. Crochet contest blanket (yarn ordered from Joann's)
18. Knit a pair of socks
19. Buy plastic crates for top of fridge and nightstand
20. Crochet or knit myself a sweater
21. Make myself an idea board (and get rid of catalogs)
22. Learn to Tunisian crochet
23. Lose 52 pounds (down to 300)
24. Take a sailing class (wait for summer, obviously)
25. Rent, and maybe buy, a kayak, and go kayaking on the river
26. Learn CPR
27. Take the Lizard Ridge class and knit at least one panel in real Noro
28. File all my filing
29. Take a skydiving class (this requires me to lose over 100 pounds)
30. Clear my inbox

2 Jan 09 - Day 2 - Why I'm Here

This blog is about my Day Zero list. Day Zero challenges you to complete 101 things in 1001 days.

I found out about this site on New Year's Eve, so to me it smacked of resolutions. You know the standards: lose weight, get more organized, get out of debt, save for X. I know the ones on my list year after year (lose weight, for starters). I couldn't think of 101 things I felt I had to accomplish that were that size, and moreover I felt that if I could come up with the list, I would never be able to accomplish it in only 1001 days. Yes, that looks like a lot, but it's not even three years. Where would I find time to read the Torah, New Testament, Book of Mormon, and Koran? How could I take a review of Geometry and Organic Chemistry? How could I plan my dream trip to Peru and Jordan? How could I possibly learn to speak Russian and Arabic? (OK, we're getting into pipe dreams here. Why not resolve to negotiate world peace?)

But a friend suggested I start with 20 things, if I couldn't come up with 101. And suggested I start with, as a sample, "Clean out the vegetable drawer in the fridge." And suddenly I realized that one of these things could be as easy as finally assembling the bookshelves I bought three months ago, or learning to knit on double-pointed needles, or getting some hooks to put by the door so I have a place to hang my coat.

These sound like trivialities, but how often do we get hung up on trivialities? I'm one of those people who never learned how to be neat, and it's a constant source of irritation. Whatever isn't occupying my attention at the moment is free to sit wherever it happens to be, until I have a path to the door and stuff scattered everywhere else. This scattered stuff never grows to be unconquerable piles of things, such as you see in the worst hoarders, where people can't even open rooms of their house anymore. But I've sometimes wondered how wide the gap between me and those people are. And it has not escaped my attention, that when the guys on COPS go into a house to answer a call, the place looks like my place could if I didn't force myself to neaten up once in a while. I don't like the idea that I live even a little like that.

Being messy and disorganized saps the attention and the time. I do spend time hunting for things and I have bought things I already own because I've forgotten I have them. Or I have to re-purchase things because I can't find things I know I own, like the darning needles I bought tonight. And then there was the time I found an earring (costume, but loved) in the bag of recyclables as I was on my way to the bins to get rid of them.

Today I vaccuumed the corridor. Just the corridor, not the apartment. I did it because I needed to do it before I placed the bookshelf I had assembled. And it felt good. Not draining because housework is mindless. It felt good to take care of myself in that way. And it looked nice when I was done. And I felt bad that I had bought such a cheap vaccuum that it couldn't do the edge (no attachments). Vaccuuming isn't a chore; it's an act of self-care, like washing my hair or brushing my teeth. I'm not particularly enamored of toothbrushing, but I do it twice a day because I like the way clean teeth feel, and I hate the way dirty teeth feel. I wash my hair so it's soft and pretty, and so my forehead won't break out. And I will vaccuum regularly now because I suddenly understand that it's one of the things that makes me feel better when it's done. And not the relief that it's done and won't need doing for a week, but done because it makes my apartment and my life a little prettier.

Tomorrow I will post about my list of things, at least the starter. Most of it will seem mundane compared to the samples on the Day Zero site. But they are important to me. And along the way in accomplishing them, maybe I will come to understand why I am 42 and don't clean house regularly. I know my behavior isn't optimal. Maybe I will learn why, and how to become what I think I should be.