This morning’s project was one of those woke up with the idea and had to do it right away ones. It had been flitting around in my head like a moth at a lightbulb for some time, and today it was just time.

I’d ordered little money-clips from Muji a while ago and never quite knew what to do with them, since I’ve already got my wallet situation sorted. And when I was in London, I visited Muji (later horrified discover they’re now owned by Wal*Mart), and bought a file folder that, instead of being manila paper, was made out of the material they make jean-tags from. I never ended up using it, and my maker’s eye has been leering at it for a while, picturing ways to cut it up like a butcher sees dotted lines on a cow.

The project was in two parts (thanks to a mismeasurement on the first attempt!): I made a little wallet/folder for cards (I have a punch that makes cards a little smaller than business cards, so this fits these), and the other thing I’ve made — the thing I’ve wanted for a while — was a belt-case for a book, in this instance my calendar.

I cut a wee hole for the money-clips, which now work as belt (or whatever) clips. The cases are held shut with magnetic snaps. I got those a while back, a package of magnets with peel-off adhesive backs. The problem is that the magnets are so strong that they pluck each other off the surface they’re stuck to! Cyanoacrylate to the rescue! (Except our little tube of superglue was full of an almost-solid rubber. Those things just don’t last in a drawer, no matter what kind of complicated entry system has been attached to the top.)

Is it too geeky to wear a book on my belt? In Canada, people are more inclined to wear their mobile phones in a case on their belt; you don’t see that so much here in the UK. (So I must confess that it looks pretty nerdy to me.)

I’m typing this because I made an agreement with myself to keep the computer off today. Yesterday I kind of fell apart — which I’m allowed to do from time to time, but I don’t want to make a habit of it.

Craig is away for a couple of days, and I’m not used to being in this house by myself. I get the irony, given that I go to work in Canada for weeks at a stretch and leave him here.

The first night, I didn’t want to sleep in our bed. I don’t know why, it just didn’t seem like the thing to do. And having the place to myself sort of feels like a big stretch of play-time, so sleeping in the living room was kind of like sleeping in a fort. Except I’m a grown-up, and our couch is too short for me to stretch out on, so I slept on the floor. Not comfortable.

So I was already at a disadvantage when I woke up yesterday, red-eyed and a bit headachy. I ended up watching movies and playing a video game for hours and hours — which really doesn’t make one’s head feel any better.

Oh yeah, I also made a “DIY Book Press”, painted the shading into an instruction book to go with it, photographed it, posted it to my webshop, then added a bunch of stuff that I sell to my Etsy shop. I also spoke with my folks and my brother and sister-in-law on Skype. To the inner critic, though, all of this was for nothing because I also wasted time. Like I’m not allowed to have any down-time. (We’ve had words, the critic and I, and have come to an agreement about that.)

Last night, I slept in our bed and really enjoyed it. Not so much determined but wanting today to be different, I got up, got dressed in proper clothes (not the ‘day pyjamas’ I wear around the house), and went for breakfast at the pub. I finished making all the little cards for this year’s projects, then left when they turned up the volume on the enormous tellies throughout the place for some stupid sport or another.

The idea with these cards goes like this: there are domains, which are the major categories of my activities — air (systems and structures), earth (foundations, travel), water (connections, relationships, health), fire (results, products, promotion, celebration), and wood (arts, tying everything else together).

Underneath these are specific kind of activity, general categories like writing, making, art, money, and so on. Then, in each of these, are projects — a project being something that can be completed. (I have to remind myself of this one, and not set myself up with projects like “Figure everything out”.) On each project’s card go the individual tasks involved. At the beginning of the week, I’m going to review all these and add a few of them to my weekly game-plan (not to self: a few). I’ve also come up with a one-day planning sheet, because at present I’m just wandering in and either expecting myself to do everything, or else I have absolutely no idea. Either way, same result: nothing happens. Or, to be more fair, things happen, but at random, and I have a hard time acknowledging or appreciating them.

All of this, of course, counts as activity in The Game, my time management board game. Does this sound tedious? Overwrought? I enjoy making up systems and all the forms for carrying them out, and I’m committed to getting stuff done because it’s important to me to do the things I’m uniquely able to do and not just consume the finished works of other people or, worse, corporations (this is the critic’s big problem with me goofing off).

To that end, I’ve decided to re-read one of my novels — like a reader, not with an eye to editing it. That may sound wanky, but it struck me today that, as I try to get my head back into writing, this would really help me recapture the possibility of it. I’m re-reading Michael Chabon’s The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, which is certainly inspiring — he’s a master both of fun storytelling and wonderfully dense and evocative sentences — but that inspiration will only take me so far. Should I end up wanting to write like him? I have to write like myself, so the sooner I cut to that, the better.

It’s time for dinner. After my Slob Day yesterday (which was fine), I set about cooking a bunch of stuff for me to eat during the week so I don’t just eat popcorn. (I will also eat popcorn, which, for the sake of my diet I have declared is not a grain or high-GI food or any of that.) So tonight it’s salad with a yoghurt vinaigrette topped with baked parsnip and sweet potato crisps. I also made muffins, snack bars, and a strawberry pie that I really hope will eventually set.

Edit: It’s now Monday and I’m entering all this into the computer. One thing that struck me this morning as I filled out my daily plan was that all this business with the project cards completely ignored goals as a structure. Asking myself about this, it seems that I fully believe I can complete any project, but when I look at big goals I’m consumed by doubt. Hm.

It occurred to me that throwing my laptop loose into my (often overstuffed) bag may have contributed to its problems, so yesterday afternoon I took a deep breath, carefully followed instructions (inasmuch as I am able to) from a book I picked up in Toronto called The New Handmade, and made myself a laptop bag!

Change purse, version three: this one actually works and doesn’t leak out its contents!

Ahh, Sundays! A big stretch of unplanned time — my favourite thing. I could really use a month of Sundays.

I had another go at sewing. I started with making shorts from a pair of cargo pants. That was always my mother’s trick when my brother or I put a hole in the knee of our jeans. In this case, I got a hole in the trousers from a drop of sulphuric acid — you know, as you do. (Craig and I took a jewellery-making course last year so we could make our own wedding rings, and sulphuric acid is used to clean off the silver after you’ve been blowtorching it.)

Result!

I also put a hidden stitch in the side, because I was forever having to hike these up: a size 32 is baggy on me now, so now they also fit much more comfortably.

As they said during WWII, “Make do and mend!” I’m looking forward to getting to alter and salvage a lot of things now that would have just been waste.

My ulterior motive in doing this was to also get some pieces of fabric to work with. The bottom parts of the legs gave me some nice canvas material to use, so I set about trying to make a better version of the change purse.

The first try came out okay, but the material was too bulky, so the second version ended up as a puffy cube that didn’t fold closed well. (The image this one brought to mind for me was “executive killer whale”.)

I used a button my friend Lisa gave me at Christmas to hide the mess I made while inserting a magnetic snap.

In spite of what I just said about waste, I decided this one was a write-off — sorry, a “learning experience” — and tried again. This time I thought, “Stick to what you know” and made a little fabric envelope. (Imagery-wise, this one is uncomfortably death-camp-ish.)

Sewing that Velcro on after the fact was a b@™*ch, and gave me a couple of chances to use the seam ripper that Lisa also gave me.

I put the button on again, this time to make the thing look a little cheerier:

It’s a mess. I’m well aware. Again, though, it’s my mess.

I have a habit of doing this, jumping into a new skill at the deep end because there’s a particular result I want, rather than going through all the lessons from the beginning. At this point in my life, I’m okay with that. It’s how I learn, and I do keep learning.

(I credit my client, Strategic Coach, with instilling that idea in me, that my abilities and my way of getting things done are the perfect ones for me, and there’s no one else I should be trying to be. Last month marked my thirteenth anniversary of working with them, and with each passing year I’m more impressed with the people I work with there and the things the organisation achieves. And I’ve been working with them longer than I went to school — gosh!)

~

I’d got up early in the morning because a friend of ours was scheduled to drop by for tea later, so I made a skillet apple pie for us to eat, along with some muesli bread and then some pancakes for breakfast. In the evening, for supper, I made parmesan aubergines baked in a tomato sauce — mmm!

All of these recipes came from a miracle of a cookbook my mum gave me for Christmas — low-carb, gluten-free, sugar-free dishes that keep turning out really, really well. Instead of making bread that resembles crunchy dog treats, I’m now producing spongey, sliceable, toastable loaves!

Our friend Donald came by in the afternoon, so Craig and I took a break. It turns out he was our first foot, and he’d just happened to bring a bottle of whisky. I’m not generally one for the whisky, but this was an occasion, celebrating a new year with a friend who’d lost so much in the last. He’d brought Clynlish, which is made in a town called Brora, not far from here (relatively speaking), and poured out a measure for us all.

We toasted then had a sip. What a complicated experience for my mouth! A celtic knot of fire wrapped itself around my tongue. When the liquid had gone down my throat, I breathed in and my mouth filled with the chimney-smoke from a peat-fire. Then my belly warmed up like someone had turned the furnace on in a cold house.

I still can’t say I like the stuff, but it’s a lot more interesting and real than, say, vodka and Coke (blyeech!).