A Stitchy Month

We’re properly into the second half of the year now. This month had a huge focus on the arts. I had a lot of stitching to do, I listened to a lot of audiobooks and we took a little holiday.

Read on for my monthly recap, where I take a look at the areas of my life that are important to me, that I’m working on or trying to improve.

Reading

Another five book month! I’m burning through audiobooks at the moment. I’m trying to walk more and have also done a lot of stitching so I think that helps. I keep picking up new books though, instead of finishing the ones that I’ve had on the go for a while.

Finished

• Circe by Madeline Miller. I remember there was a lot of hype around this book, but I honestly didn’t really think much of it. I struggle with the retellings. IN particular I found this one to just be a series of anecdotes. This happened, then this happened. Then this happened. There was at least some connecting threads, but I didn’t feel anything for the characters, there was nothing that drew me in.
• The Empire of Gold by SA Chakraborty. This was a really enjoyable series. The ending came pretty quickly and was fairly satisfactory. I’m not sure I’m entirely happy with how all the relationships ended up, but I respect the choice.
• Daring Greatly by Brene Brown. I gave this four stars when I finished it earlier in the month when I finished reading it, but now I can’t really remember much of it.
• The End of the World Running Club by Adrian J Walker. I really liked this one, it combined two of my loves - post-apocalyptic media and running. Actually, I wouldn't say that I love running, I just like it. Kind of. The only downsides is that I don’t believe someone could run that much so soon, and how focussed it was on “for my children”. That’s not a motivation I relate to.
• Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi. I think this is the first in a series, but I won’t be continuing. This was too YA for my tastes. It was pretty predictable and nothing particularly stood out to me.

In progress

• Winter’s Heart by Robert Jordan. Still no progress .
• Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake. Still no progress.
• The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov. Over 75% through now, into the last quarter.
• Do Hard Things by Steve Magness. No progress, waiting on my hold to come up. Still about a 6 week wait, I’m 7th in line.
• The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C S Lewis. No progress. I had to return and now waiting for the hold to come up again. Haven’t been listening to sleepy time books lately and this is more of a slog than enjoyable.
• This is Your Brain on Music by Daniel J Levitin. Had to wait for the hold to come though, just borrowed again the other day so will try and power through it.
• Wizard and Glass by Stephen King. Read another section on reaching 75% of The Master and Margerita. I love this series so much, and reading it along with the podcast is such an awesome deep dive into it.
• The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald. This is a re-read, I’ve read it before. This time I’m listening as it’s released by Steve Parker Audiobooks each week, as well as listening to an analysis podcast.
• The Staircase in the Woods by Chuck Wendig. I got this as a (very) early birthday present and it felt rude not to start it straight away. Liking it so far!
• To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Had a gap in audiobooks being available and this was free so I started it. I did read it when I was in school, but I don’t think I paid much attention. Planning to listen to an accompanying podcast as well. Eight chapters in and I’m really enjoying it.

Health

Haven’t had too many headaches this month, which has been nice. I’ve started a health tracker spreadsheet, because there has been a few niggly things that I wanted to track properly so that I had good data to take to a doctor if I needed to go. It’s actually been working really well as more of a habit tracker to keep my on top of taking vitamins and drinking water and I think I’ve overall felt really well this month. I’ll see if I can keep adding to it without it becoming a burden to update.

So far I’m tracking vitamins and fibre supplements, whether I have a headache and what I took for it, how much caffeine and water I drink, how well I slept, if I exercised, step count, whether I’ve pooped, any stressful or significant mood events, any other notes for niggly pain or issues I’m wanting to keep an eye on and what I’ve eaten. I’m not calorie counting, just noting what I ate, not how much. I’ve also just today, added in weight. I have been staying away from the scales, but something made me step on them and, as usual, the number upset me. I had expected some increase, but not as much as what I saw. I’m going to go back to weighing myself regularly again until I find a balance of food intake that allows me to at least maintain and not gain.

My mental health has been good. A little stressed at work. I also realised after the fact how much it was weighing on me to finish my needlework pieces. Once I was done it felt like a huge weight off that I didn’t know I’d been carrying.

I’ve been snacking a lot and that, plus less training, has contributed to the weight gain. We went to one Muay Thai class and S reinjured himself so we’ve been away again. I’ve been keeping up with parkrun, but I’m finding it hard to see any improvements there. I guess carrying an extra five kgs is going to make it harder to get better though. I have been consistently walking to work almost everyday. Not so much walking home, but I’ve doing it more since I started the health tracker.

Writing

I was pretty happy with last month’s writing prompt, even though I didn’t get it done early. It’s already 2 weeks away from the next due date and I still haven’t started.

Still didn’t go to writer’s group, but I think I will in August. They have a guest speaker, and I want to find out about their plans to start a zine.

Book of Stitches

There was a big focus on stitching this month for me. As well as the colour challenge piece, I also found out about a local gallery that had an open call for artists for a fundraising show. I was able to repurpose an old piece, but it still needed about a day or so of work to get it ready, which took away from working on Blue.

I updated my Mad Hatter piece and now it’s currently on display for the week, and on sale for $200. If it sells, I will get half of that, the rest is the fundraising part for the gallery. I had it up for sale for $50 on Etsy, so even if it doesn’t sell, I’ll put it back up on Etsy again. I think it looks a lot better now as well.

I finished Blue for the colour challenge exhibition. In the end, I’m not happy with the framing, it didn’t turn out like I wanted, but I don’t have time to change it. I’m still going to enter it and chalk it up as a learning experience.

I’m considering undertaking the formal modules available through the NZ Embroidery Guild. I think the only costs are $20 for the course book and then postage to send off your pieces for assessment. I didn’t get 100% clear answers on that though, so I’ll see if I go ahead with it.

Etsy has been doing quite well on its own the last two months, it’s making me keen to actually do some work on it.

This month’s (last months’s) stats are:

Views: 177 (190)

Visits: 103 (108)

Sales: 4 (5)

I still want to publish my cross stitch starter guide, as well as some other pieces looking into my process for creating my recent pieces.

Finances

There was a bit of nonsense here this month. I had an unauthorised transaction on my credit card (which was supposedly locked…) and even though they notified me and I said it wasn’t me, it still went through. I disputed the transaction and they confirmed it wouldn’t be charged, but then it was. I’m still trying to sort it out, but now my credit card has and extra $1700 or so on it that I hadn’t planned for. As soon as they reverse it (I’m not even considering the possibility they won’t at this stage), I’m going to take money out of savings to pay it off fully and close it. I don’t want this to happen again.

I burned through most of my recent savings by taking us on a little holiday for S’s birthday. It was fantastic, but everything just costs so much here.

Work

Work is a bit tough at the moment. I’m still making sure I’m only there 40 hours a week and not letting it take up my headspace outside of that. But when I’m there, it’s tough. I’m being asked to do things I’m not really familiar with, as well as deal with some people issues. And I’m just finding it really hard to focus and stay on task. I don’t really know that there’s anything I can do about it. Trying to find a happy medium between performing at a sufficient level to not face disciplinary action, but not burnout over trying to be the best at everything.

Goals for the next month are to be more careful about what I’m eating, especially mindless snacking, do some Book of Stitches stuff that isn’t needlework itself, keep up with the exercise and health tracker. See you in a month!