Monday, December 12, 2011

I really wore myself out last week because my head was convinced that I was back to full strength while my body very much was not. I did a lot of walking, especially around the newly enlarged mall in Belconnen, partly to get new lights for my Christmas tree. Putting the tree up was part of my mind set of being on the road to recovery so, although it's a bit late, it's up and that's what counts. Fortunately the Imp shows no interest in the tree or its ornaments, although I never put anything breakable or edible on the bottom. I have had a cat that ate all the straw ornaments so I am cautious.

The weather is stuck in some other time dimension. We've continued to have rain (thunderstorms yesterday) and it's only around 20C and not very sunny. I've said it before but it's still true: this is not normal for Canberra in December. The garden loves it. The beans are blooming. So are the tomatoes but the weather doesn't suit them.

My BBBBs have been American Jezebel and Language Death and they have both been too
stimulating and I haven't been sleeping. The David Crystal book inspired me with his rationales for multilingualism, including that being bilingual stimulates your brain. I have studied a long list of languages but the only one I feel comfortable in taking up again is Spanish, partially because it is an "easy" language. It's not hard to pronounce, it seems closer to Latin which helps me out, and I did study it intensely as recently (ha) as university. I have more years invested in French (5) but I can still read it with the help of a dictionary. So I got some simple Spanish stories for my Kindle and a dictionary for my iPhone and am going to try reviving my Spanish neurons. Even tho I taught Swahili in grad school, not much of it remains in my brain and I have little opportunity to use it. At least with Spanish I can read labels on stuff imported from the US! For those who only know me in the Swanknitter persona, I got a masters degree in Linguistics & Non-Western Languages, specializing in African languages and before that studied Latin, French and Spanish. Lack of jobs in the field shunted me into library work. I love learning languages, but they are like puzzles to me; once I figure out how they work I lose interest so rarely become fluent without constant exercise. My new BBBB is Foreign Devils on the Silk Road, which follows on from previous BBBBs about Central Asia. My Kindle book is another Neal Asher Ian Cormac novel, Line War.

My dear MIL is coming for a visit over Christmas, which overjoys me. I haven't seen her in over a year due to my knee. Once I got the word on the cataracts, driving to Sydney to her new home seemed beyond me and would put off a reunion till sometime around June next year. So seeing her over the holidays is the best present ever. Each year without the Bear is hard. I hope someday it won't be so raw.

I finished the handspun sock yarn for D. and It turned out really well, with the colours lining up almost exactly in plying. I finished a pair of Opal cotton socks last night and bought up 2 more balls of it (since I found out it was discontinued and I really like it). The last pair was grey/blue/pink and the next pair will be coral. I am spinning some brown wool of unknown origin but those blankets deserve stripes. I finished spinning what I think was 4 oz. of wool/silk/mohair blend in autumn colours. Have no idea what I'll do with it!