Red Cedar

Well here we are, in another year and so far it’s been interesting even though I’ve barely left the house (grocery shopping yesterday was as social as I’ve been in ages). What would we do without the Internet to inform these otherwise shapeless days?

One thing I have been thinking about lately is the things I do want to shape my life in the next few months, and I spent the holidays after Christmas deep in planning mode, coming up with a schedule that involves time for writing, music, meditation, studio, exercise and so on. In this first week back at work, I’ve pretty much stuck to it, despite the avalanche of tasks and union issues I’ve had to deal with on my return. We’ll see how this goes as the shine of new commitments wears off.

Food: I’m back to meal planning after a haphazard holiday eating season. This was a bit of an Instant Pot week with Turkish Instant Post Split Pea Stew (which I ate for a dinner and two lunches) and our household favourite Chicken Biryani on the menu this week. I also remembered to marinate some sablefish for a couple of days and we had Nobu’s Miso-Marinated Black Cod on Monday night. This recipe is one of few ingredients to astounding effect – I can’t recommend it enough. After a couple of weeks of eating quite a lot of sugary stuff, we are right back to regular eating, which is still always a little bit decadent for the simple fact that we cook every night.

Brian has recently decided that we should be able to have dim sum whenever we want it, so he’s been on a dumpling-making kick. He’s been flash-freezing his treasured creations so that at a moment’s notice he can get out the steamer and serve up a variety of dumplings, rice packets, and barbequed pork – it’s really rather impressive. We had our first dim sum meal on New Year’s Day and holy doodle was it ever good!

Textiles: I cleaned the studio over the holidays and now I’m working on warping both looms. Warp chains are done, and I’ve started “sleying the reed” with the easiest of the two projects. I should have that warp on by Sunday. The other one (hundreds of more threads) will take me some time to complete. I am refocusing a bit on writing at the moment, and given the finite time available to me (damned work, always getting in the way), I have not had as much of it available for sewing and other fun projects. I have come to recognize that all my creative projects will happen though, I just have to be prepared for the ebbs and flows of interest and time, and not despair when I don’t get as far as I’d like to.

Fitness: I did not slack off during the holidays, mostly because we didn’t go anywhere and I had no real excuse to break my routine. I’ve fully incorporated proper rest days into my schedule in the last three weeks, and it feels like the right approach. However, there is a noted absence on the days I don’t exercise – it’s become such a part of my routine. I think I am getting stronger lately, but still need to set some new lifting goals since I’ve been floating for the last little while without setting my sights on anything except overall health. I would like to start driving my power lifts upward again, and get some run goals in place for 2021.

Work: Back at it this week even waged work is *bullshit* (oh, did I say that outloud? I really enjoyed the time off). I’ve returned to finish off the last interview in my hiring process and now I’m moving on to the next stages to compete the staffing. I’ve also got a lot of pressure to deliver a project plan, a content management plan and an internal engagement strategy on the big web conversion project I’m responsible for. Also, lots of union stuff. My focus this year is going to be less union stuff/mentoring other people to do it because I plan to run for one more 2-year term as president of my local (AGM in February) and then retire from union leadership. I keep telling people that, but they don’t seem to believe me, so it’s time to start stepping back and nudging other people forward.

Notable: To kick off 2021, I am relaunching my monthly mailing Comfort for the Apocalypse alongside a smaller Sunday (“small comforts”) edition!

I have moved to the Substack platform (which has tons of really great writers on it), registered a domain, and am working on the drafts of my January offerings.

If you were subscribed before, you still are. If not, you can subscribe at Comfort for the Apocalypse. These mailings are separate from this blog and includes more of my writing, recipes, books/links/listens worth checking out, and news from the studio – all built around the theme of living our best possible lives in these impossible times. You can read past issues at the link if you aren’t sure, and it’s totally free!

I’m excited to get back to writing in a structured format, and connecting with people in this way again. Even before the pandemic, I was struggling with the writing process, so it’s no mystery to me why the words dried up a bit over the spring and summer. But now that we’re here for the longer haul, I am finding my way into a new normal that includes this creative outlet again. This weekly blog post has been helping me find my way back to a regular output (no matter how small), and to planning around producing (if I don’t schedule things in, they don’t happen) – and I plan keep posting this and other material to the blog. My plan is to make lots of content happen this year as it’s not like I’ll be leaving the island much 🙂

I had a year-end post half-drafted last week, but returning to my laptop today, I cannot find it which means it must not have saved. And so ends 2020, though I can’t really blame the year for this, it’s really my fault for trusting the auto-save function.

Truth be told, though I missed out on some things this year, 2020 wasn’t terrible around here. It was quiet, for sure. We had to cancel a lot of shows and planned events. But I also benefited from skipping a ton of work and union-related travel, having Brian around more, and feeling fully accepted as a teleworker for the first time since I started working from home five years ago. I won some union cases, had the opportunity to manage my work unit for six months, read nearly 80 books, helped start a new non-profit organization, took up running, and got way stronger through the powerlifting habit established last year. I did see some friends, in smaller and more intimate settings, and I appreciated so much those moments when I did. I spent a lot of time in the woods, and by the ocean. I learned the contours of my neighbourhood one step after another.

Towards the end of the year I took stock of what had fallen away as well and started to reprioritize adding the things I’ve been missing back into my life. Writing, music, and meditation have all happened in 2020, but a bit too intermittently for any real development of my practice. I am recommitting to my creative and spiritual life in 2021 and have set aside time for all my disciplines in my weekly schedule (which means giving up goofing around on the Internet time mostly). When the first quarantine happened in March, I stopped using any daily planner, and with that, I let a lot of daily practice go. It’s been a reminder that if I don’t schedule things into my life, they don’t happen.

For the last six years I’ve done the Year Compass as a way to close out the old year and plan for the new. This year I haven’t been feeling it, so I’m not going to do it – however, I am sticking with the tradition of picking one word to carry into the new year. I have to be careful with this, as some of you know. The year I picked “Motion” I ended up making a sudden (and unexpected) move to Gabriola. This past year was guided by the word “Rooted” which I carried with irony from March onwards (not least of which because someone told me that in Australian slang, rooted means “fucked”).

This year it seems the words coming up most strongly for me are “re” words – as in “again” or “return to”. Rebuild, restore, recommit…. and finally I’ve settled on “Renew” because I feel that it most signifies my desire for the year to come. I would like to renew my creative and spiritual practice, which are increasingly entwined. I would like to renew the musical shows at Birdsong, not to mention my commitment to promoting musicians and music through launching a songwriting residency program. And I would like to inhabit beginner’s mind in all things, thus coming to each and everything as new again – a practice essential to survival in 2021 and beyond.

I don’t believe 2021 or the years that follow are going to be any “easier” or “better” but I do remain committed to living the best life I can despite what happens next. My New Year’s wish for all of us is to do better together and for each other as we step over the doorsill into another unknown year ahead. If 2020 taught me anything, it’s that we need each other more than ever – and so I am grateful for each and every day I spend with each of you. xoxo Happy New Year!

It’s not quite eleven in the morning and I am already thinking about tonight’s planned cocktail – The Jungle Bird – which I feel will counteract this dismal, pouring rain day just a tiny bit with it’s tropical themes. I’m in the wind-down towards the holidays, and just hosted the workplace holiday party on MS Teams which we spiced up by holding a trivia contest with gift cards as prizes. Sounds silly and small, but any levity seems welcome these days.

I really do feel like I’m sliding into the holidays and this week felt a bit like I was dialing it in a bit. I’m working right until Christmas Eve, but next week is bound to be quiet, and then I have the whole week after that off.

Food: I feel like I have barely anything to say about food this week. We ate well (fish cakes, pho, Indian leftovers, spaghetti) but the thing that really stands out was the soup that Brian made for dinner last night.

Earlier in the summer we won some cookbooks, including Gather by David Robertson. As it originates in Vancouver, the recipes in this collection focus on locally-available ingredients with a multi-ethnic influence – and included a curried soup with Peking duck. Though we can’t exactly get Peking duck on Gabriola, we did have duck stock in our larder, and so with a duck breast and panang curry paste substitute, Brian made a reasonable approximation of Robertson’s Thai Red Curry Coconut Duck soup. I highly recommend! Especially as the weather is so grey and dismal, this red and warming soup hit the spot.

Textiles: I’m still working on the Quadra Jeans, which would be almost finished except that when I got to the point of inserting the fly I discovered that I don’t have the right length zipper. Order has gone in for zippers, and some interfacing while I’m paying shipping anyways. In the meantime I started sewing a sweater out of some rayon/cotton blend in the stash. I am still in need of more wardrobe, and staples like easy pullovers would be nice to have at this time of year.

Did a bit of work on the big loom this week as I’m converting it to a new type of treadle tie-up. It’s a bit tedious so I only do a bit at a time, but I’m hoping to have that job done over the holidays if not before. Also plan to get one of my looms warped before the new year arrives. Weaving requires so much more time than I have in my everyday life, but I’m still trying to keep my skills sharp for a future in which I don’t have to work so much (or at all).

I’m trying to stash-bust some of my knitting yarns this days and so I started knitting this Aran-patterned scarf on the weekend.

Fitness: On Sunday I ran my longest distance ever (8.5 km) and ran continuously up the very steep Barret Hill for the first time (normally I walk about a minute of it). I can’t tell you how blown away I am by both of those things – and I’m thinking of going for 10 km before the end of the month just so I can say I did.

This week I’ve been experimenting with stacking runs and weight training workouts on the same days in order to get more complete “rest” days. Basically that means a short run (4 km) Tuesday and Thursday mornings during a break from work, and then upper body weight workouts in the afternoons of those same days with Monday and Friday reserved for lower body workouts. That gives me Wednesday and Saturday off completely as my longer run is usually scheduled for Sundays (as well as an afternoon walk with a friend). Not only does this give my body a break, but it should free up some time and mental space for other things on the days that I’m “off”. So far, so good. I really appreciated having Wednesday after work free this week, especially since I’m attending the online zendo on Wednesday nights now.

Work: Finished all the interviews and wrapped up the interview board reports this week, made some headway on my big project, started work on a related side project (retention and disposal guidance for web materials), but really lost my work steam by the end of the week. I’ve got a few more days of work before holidays, and they will be quiet so I’m hoping to get some project work done, but I’m also aware that it feels very much like the end of the year and I’m highly distractable right now.

Notable: It’s Mica’s 23rd birthday today! Feels hard to believe because that means we’ve been in each others lives for about thirteen years now – and also, she’s pretty much a grown up!

Other than that, we inch towards a very quiet Christmas at Birdsong. A few decorations and plans for some good feasting next weekend – but it’s going to be very quiet this year. It’s right now that I’m missing the large tables of friends and family we haven’t seen for most of the past year! I’m hopeful though that 2021 will bring gatherings again, drinking wine around the table after the dishes are cleared, sitting up late in the yard around the fire.

I had a small conniption this morning when I came to post and couldn’t find the blog post I put up earlier this week! It was a little reflective piece I’d been working on for awhile, and I *thought* I had published it – but I couldn’t find it in my posts or my drafts. At the same time, I could see that two people had commented on it (thanks Roger and Margy!) but couldn’t find it anywhere on my page. So strange. It existed but didn’t exist!

Turns out that when I posted it, the system backdated to when I started working on it (back in early November) and so it was down the feed a bit. I’ve corrected it now, so if you didn’t see it earlier this week, it’s right below the weekly update.

With that out of the way, I am really enjoying these weekly update posts. It gives me a little bit of time to review what’s happened, go through the photos from the week and think about my highlights. I’ve also become aware that quite a few people in my community read these and feel caught up with me as a result and I like that feeling of somehow being closer even though we are all physically distant right now. I’ve (very) recently started writing for real again and I’m hoping to return to the newsletter in the new year. I see now that the regular blog posts have helped un-stick something that has been gummed shut inside me since even before quarantine.

So… onto the update!

Food: Thanks to my friend Jenn for inspiring me, I’ve been baking with a lot more nut flours and other wheat substitutes lately. This isn’t due to any particular aversion or intolerance (I am rising regular sourdough as we speak), but because I’m trying to get a bit more protein-density into my nutrition profile. Using the vitamix, I make my own nut flour which means it’s a bit coarser than store-bought, but also a lot cheaper. This week I made some excellent granola-bar type things that are all nuts, oats, dates, and homemade raisins. Sometimes when I’m running, I keep myself going with the promise that I get to eat one of these awesome bars when I get back. Whenever I get around to posting the muffin recipe I promised a couple of weeks back, I’ll plug that one in as well.

And in a week of good dinners, the stand-out recipe this week was the Spicy Ginger Pork Noodles with Bok Choy – you probably need an NYT cooking subscription to view it, but I’m happy to share if you want to give it a try.

Textiles: This week saw the completion of my second over-sized shirt – pictured here, out in the wild. This is one size smaller than my last version and made out of a pretty heavy Shetland cotton flannel. With a thermal layer on underneath, it’s pretty much outerwear in our climate. Both the oversized shirts are now in regular closet rotation – making this a winner of a pattern.

In the featured photo above is the other thing I’ve been working on this week – blue jeans for Brian! Though I’ve done similar trousers projects, this is the first time I’ve attempted a classic denim jeans pattern, and the first time I’ve sewn pants for Brian. I chose the Quadra Jeans for this attempt, a pattern by Thread Theory who are based just a skip away on Vancouver Island! So far I’ve got both legs done, pockets, stitching an all. Next step will be the seat seam and fly cover. I’ve been using the Jeans sew-along on the Thread Theory site, and finding it crucial to expanding on the pattern which is in tiny print and sometimes a bit lacking in detail (as patterns so often are). Whenever I am choosing a complicated pattern, I look to see if there is a sew-along as they add so much more information and support to the process.

I’m really enjoying sewing the jeans – Brian tried on a mock-up version (quickly sewed the legs and seam to fit him), and they seem to be heading in the right direction size-wise. Jeans are fussy, but like all projects – taken one step at a time, totally do-able. These days I really like my sewing in one or two hour blocks. Enough time to make headway on a component of something, but not enough that I get achy and frustrated. These jeans are being constructed one hour at a time and are definitely a skill-builder for me.

Fitness: As noted last week, I’ve stopped going to the gym and started working out at home which is fine for now (not my preference but we do have good gear). I decided as part of that process to sign-up for a new training regiment called Stronger By The Day. Each week they send out four workouts (a version for those with access to gym equipment, and a version for those at home focused on bodyweight) which incorporate the power lifts (for those with gym equipment). I’ve done three days of those so far, today will be the fourth (deadlift day) and am really enjoying having someone else program my workouts for me! Cost is $10 cdn per month for the service, and it’s one of the first female-oriented workout spaces I’ve been in where the focus is on heavy lifting (as opposed to appearance focused; so many of the FB groups have as much discussion about cosmetic surgery as lifting which just depresses me). After the first two workouts Mon-Tues and my run on Wednesday I was so stiff! But coming back to lifting yesterday things had settled into place – so I’m hoping this last workout doesn’t wipe me for the weekend.

Work: This week was all interviews/all week. We are well into the interview portion of our job board and I have talked to so many people in the last few days! But we have some good candidates, and I feel that on going through this phase, that I designed the competitive process well. You never know until you start interviewing people if you are really going to get what you need from the questions you ask – but after a week of this, I can see that we’re filtering candidates appropriately and we will have a pool of good people to choose from in the end. In all other aspects of work I am behind so that’s a bit of a drag.

I also entered a competitive process for a higher-level than I’m currently at and will have to spend at least part of the upcoming weekend writing the exam for it. Because I don’t speak French, there is no chance I will be offered a job on my national team, but if I get in the pool at a higher level, it could help me get something that became available in Pacific Region. Having said that, there aren’t many jobs at this higher-level available outside of Ottawa. Such is the federal government.

Notable: This week I went into the community credit union to get a bank account set up for the new organization we’re starting here on Gabriola (the Gabriola Island Land Stewards Society) – and I was reminded of why it’s so great to live in a small community when I was helped by one of my gym-friends (Lynda!) who prepared a ton of the paperwork for us and had everything ready to go. While it’s true that rural living has its downsides (like the grocery store being out of everything all the time), I find all the transactional stuff much, much friendlier and easier to deal with. Given everything that’s going on the world right now, these little interactions are much more of a focus and I can appreciate them that much more.