Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Attention Span

You know, it's amazing how short my attention span can be sometimes.  For the last couple of weeks, I was focused on my knitting.  Yarn, needles, and projects were constantly on my mind.  I spent hours browsing the Ravelry pattern index for that pattern.  The one I had been dreaming of for that random ball of yarn that has been lounging in my stash.

Now, however, it's changed.  I've been spending the last week reading and reviewing stories and poetry on a forum that I joined last weekend.  I've spent that time I was spending thinking about knitting and have applied it to thinking about, and actually doing, some writing.  I finished a short story that I started on a while ago.  I've written random pieces as I was sitting there watching my dad and my brother having a catch in the backyard.  I wrote about move-in day last year in response to a story I read on the forum I joined.

I just need to figure out how to join the two of these things.  Rather than focusing all of my time on either writing or knitting, I should spend time with both during the day.  Maybe it would keep me more focused on each of them for a longer period of time.  But then again, I may need these spurts of obsession.  As much as I don't like big changes happening in my life, I need to keep mixing things up.  Maybe that's why I've been enjoying college so much . . . there's so much to do and so many interesting people to be around.

Speaking of college, I'm once again sitting at a residence hall desk as I type this.  I came back on Sunday to help out with a program for incoming freshmen.  I must say that it's good to be back, but it's weird seeing the campus so quiet.  It's rarely this quiet on campus and in the dorms.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

5K

For those of you who don't know, I started training to run a 5K at the beginning of the summer.  I know some people who might be surprised at this since, in high school, I was very anti-running when the running applied to me.  I've never had a problem with other people running (I have several friends who ran both cross-country and track in high school).  It was just the concept of me running that I abhorred.

So what caused the change?  There were several factors.  Part of my motivation was simply to get into shape.  Another was to see just how far i can go.  I may have played soccer and been on the swim team and been in the colorguard in the high school marching band, but I've never been the person who goes outside just to run around.

But I digress.  I feel like it was my cousin who got my butt in gear (or "get my butt moving" as a certain someone's parent would say . . .).  At the beginning of the summer, my cousin invited me to a facebook group.  She was trying to get a group together to do the Tough Mudder race this fall.  As I looked at the website, I couldn't help thinking about how much fun it looked.  The only problem was my lack of physical fitness.  So, I started looking up training programs for running a 5K.  And it's history.

I still can't run for too long, but I can run for a mile without stopping.  Or I can run for a half hour, broken down into six-minute intervals.  It's not much, but it's definitely a start.

Friday, August 6, 2010

Distractions

You know . . . I've sat down at the keyboard several times over the course of the last month thinking about what I should say here.  Whenever I sit down with the intention to write a blog entry, my mind draws a blank.  I start to type something and hope that it comes across as witty and clever, but I reread it only to find that it sounds bland and flat.  I know that it doesn't serve as an acceptable excuse, but I have been thinking about the blog.  As I go on a run or make the hundredth small Chocolate Extreme Blizzard with vanilla ice cream at the Dairy Queen, I think of the perfect things to say.  Yet, when I sit down at the computer, nothing comes.  Maybe it's just the inactivity of the summer, or maybe it's the heat (yes, we have air conditioning, but no it's not on . . . please don't ask me for the answer to that riddle).  Honestly, I can't really say.

However, I can say that I love planning for projects, especially when they're knitting projects and especially when I'm going patternless.  It just feels like this great adventure where I've got to apply all the knowledge I have about that craft.  Or having to learn new skills for the completion of the project.  There are always the rough spots, where nothing that I do seems to be working.  But if you think about it in the grand scheme of the project, those rough patches only make the finished project mean that much more. I've been working on some knitted jewelry designs for an Etsy shop that I'm hoping to open next spring.  Stay tuned for more!