Thursday, November 06, 2008

Happy Thursday!!

Happy Thursday Everyone.

I'm not sure how this blog the day after everything happens is working. Are you confused? Sometimes I'm confused about what today is because I write these post at about 2:00 to 4:00 AM each night. Just before I head to bed. I'm writing about what happened earlier the same day and most of you read it the next morning.

I had some issues with the stitch count on the lace scarf but that was resolved and forging ahead well ahead of schedule for Christmas. No WIP pictures yet but soon.

On the reading front, I finished a book today.


Not really happy with Steinbecks style but it was interesting reading about the life and times of the people and the social economic layers of the characters.

I had wanted to read one book per week but either my interest have wained a bit or too many other things have interrupted my plans. The library has so many good books that I can't wait to read but the problem is what to read and in what order. I wanted to read "The Last Lecture" and I just received the notification that my request was filled. So I have that along with a Biography on Tesla, Short Stories of Marcel Proust, Carpathian Castle by Jules Vern. I'm leaning towards the Jules Vern right now but I'll decide later when I have time to read. I never knew he was so prolific of a novelist. I remember reading 20,000 leagues when my son was 4. (fifteen years ago) We took turns reading a chapter at a time. He was an amazing early reader and it was fun to see him enjoy the theater of the mind so early in life. We would stop when we came across a word that we didn't know and look it up in the Compact English Dictionary my parents bought me years before.

Next is to try and push myself to be more disciplined and focused. I do enjoy TV but there is very little that I really want to watch everyday. Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 PM 6 days a week when it's not being preempted by stuff I don't want to watch. House and Fringe if I'm home. OK I love Poker After Dark but that comes on at 2:00 AM. So my dilema is to be realistic but push myself enough to spin, knit, read each and every day and when that's under control also add the return of playing my guitar. I know I can easily fit in an hour of each. I have easily 9 hours to schedule this activity but I need to work this around fixing dinner, knit nights and various other distractions. Imagine if you could read a book a week, knit and spin 7 hours minimum each week. There is so much I want to read. Hundreds of books and so many projects I wish were in my grasp of knitting. The 50 pounds of fiber begging to become usable yarn for these projects. So many songs I wish I could play, or techniques that would make me a better player.

I know that these times are not that impressive to you power knitters. I know I could add an additional 3 to 4 hours a week of spinning and knitting over the 7 I'm already planning and this would be huge to me. Some of my knitting can easily be done while the TV is on and the spinning is always done with some white noise.

Here is a question to all my blog readers; Do you need to read with silence? Do you hunker down and turn off the TV? Can you have the TV on in the back ground and tune it out? I've been reading with my headphones on for years. Too many hours of reading on planes or at lunch where I drown out the background and enjoy the hard fast music of my favorite artist. My mind just compartmentalizes the music and I see the story in my mind and the outside world disappears for a while.

Well, it's after 4:00 Am and I should crawl into bed for a few hours.

8 comments:

  1. I'm like you. I usually can basically shut out everything around me when I'm reading, even in an especially loud lunch room.

    Although, at night when I'm reading in bed and my husband has the tv on, it bugs me. This is probably because I'm trying to watch the tv while reading even though I can't see it! ;)

    www.mscreate.typepad.com
    and plurkey friend.

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  2. I don't mind having background noise while reading. It doesn't seem to matter one way or the other. My problem is falling asleep before I finish even one chapter.

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  3. I can't work/read/function without at least a little noise. That's why I have headphones at work!

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  4. Anonymous3:54 PM

    If I'm reading, I need nearly silence. There can be a little bit of noise, but definitely no tv. I get too distracted by the dialogue. Music is ok, but only if it's instrumental.

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  5. Anonymous3:54 PM

    If I'm reading, I need nearly silence. There can be a little bit of noise, but definitely no tv. I get too distracted by the dialogue. Music is ok, but only if it's instrumental.

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  6. Anonymous4:32 PM

    I can shut anything out if I've got a book in my hands, including a howling child.

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  7. Anonymous6:07 PM

    I am the slowest reader ever and must have total silence- so I only read just before I fall asleep. After many years I finally figured out why- I act out/visualize everything in my head as I read and absorb each 'if, and, or but' as I go along. I takes a bit.
    -Jen

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  8. After taking public transportation for 30+ years, I can read anywhere, anytime. Of course, I can also sleep, anywhere, anytime!

    If I am doing basic knitting (i.e., no patterns), I can watch tv, talk to friends and sometimes even read (when appropriately propped up). If I am doing knitting that has some pattern change issues, I have to be sure and put enough stitch markers in or I make way too many errors. I use different markers for beginning of row, and from change in patterns to serious change in patterns.

    When I really want to read and knit, I listen to books.

    By the way, I read Cannery Row in high school and didn't really appreciate it until I saw the movie made with Nick Nolte and Debra Winger sometime in the early 1980s. It was one of those where I liked the movie better than the book.

    Good to see you back . . . hope everything is going well.

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