The Beauty of "Loafing"

Well, there was indeed some free time for me in the month of January. And I used it to both loaf about and to get busy cleaning up the home and to pursue all sorts of good things.

Firstly, I can now do a mediocre job at single stitch crochet. I've made a pot holder, a pouch for my glasses and a scarf. Next is a headwrap. Excitement! I love it because with a hook and $2 in yarn, you can make tons of stuff.

The Christmas decorations are down and in their place, though not as lavish, are a slight nod to Mardi Gras (sadly I won't be attending this year, but am hoping to get back down to visit Mom and the city of New Orleans for St Patty's) and to stupid crappy dumb whatever icky Valentine's Day (because I'm a romantic, but an embittered one). I got a bargain of $1.50 a curtain from Boomerangs for their linen sale and now the living room and kitchen have a little extra pretty pop of color.

I stopped being a full time high school English teacher almost ten years ago, so it was time to go through the storage box of all my notebooks and lesson plans and teacher materials and throw away the useless stuff. I still kept a few things, because I like how I structured the dissemination of materials from my classes and wanted to keep the framework of good ideas. I don't think I'll ever stop teaching, whether helping community college students find materials in their library or doing creative writing units with elementary school kids or who knows what.

After a longer than usual hiatus, the jewelry making resumed. I tend to do a lot of necklace beading while watching Red Sox games. And last season, with Bobby V leading the Kangaroo Court, I wasn't really into watching them sink lower than I'd ever imagine. I brought it out when I wanted a change up from crocheting.

For books, I did not acquire many new ones, for a few reasons: I have a million purchased ones to catch up on already and I have a bunch that I requested from the library. I will write about them in another post, but for whatever reason, there's a million titles that are French-oriented.
I did do a little bit of editing of the manuscript I've been most intently working on, and I also worked on organizing more of the other ones.

I also watched tons of movies and shows on Netflix. I will also leave those for their own separate post.

While doing lots of creative loafing, I've also had a job interview, put in a for a bunch of jobs, cleaned the storage area on the porch, cleaned out my car, cleaned up the living room, cleaned out the fridge and have been reading two books about career building. Because right now I'm starting to think I might needd to radically rethink what I want to be when I grow up. That may be why I'm almost, but not quite, getting what I'm seeking. That might be the message sent...hmm...