Not Motivated

I'm having trouble getting motivated. I'm having trouble sleeping some nights. I admit that I am failing at getting stuff done. I am just feeling blah. This whole thing is making me a little paranoid - a tickle in the throat, shivers, aches - do I have IT? So far so good. I remind myself that I am lucky - I am able to go for walks. I am not restricted entirely to my house.

While I was out walking today at the local park I saw this sign that gave me a chuckle. The way I read it made me think we were no longer allowed to be amused! I wonder if that includes my garden as the chipmunk in it makes me amused.

I talked to my Mum on Saturday. She is doing well but I think that having to be inside all the time by herself is getting to her a little bit. It makes me a little sad that I can't do more. I think in times like this it's a real struggle being so far away. At least it is easy to chat and Skype.

I have mostly been taking photos, sorting photos or playing with photos lol. I think it takes my mind of all the negativity and keeps me amused. Obviously I should be doing other things. On one of my photography groups someone showed a photo they had played around with in Photoshop so I gave it a go with a daisy photo I had taken. I like the way it turned out!

I tried it with a landscape and played around. It looks pretty abstract. I could have fun with this lol.

I don't know much about Photoshop but this was easy and fun.

A Little Bit of This and a Little Bit of That

I seem to be jumping around on thoughts today. I managed to get out for a walk. Ice and snow are called for again tomorrow (we're under a Winter Weather Advisory) so I thought I'd get out walk and run some errands while I could. If I'm in tomorrow I can get more things done around here.

We had a somewhat enjoyable weekend. Yesterday we took a trip further up the lakeshore to see what Lake Michigan looked like. It was extremely icy. The beach was covered in ice as were both the walkways to two lighthouses we went to. I did not attempt either one. We walked a little way out on the ice but it was very bumpy with large balls and ice rocks so I stopped while I was ahead. I couldn't believe how crazy people were. One beach we went to a woman had her children up on top of an ice formation and one of them was sitting with his feet dangling in one of the large cracks while the other was lying on his stomach looking down the crack!!!! I couldn't believe someone would let their children do this! They were going to slide off the ice face down onto the iced over lake but the woman put a stop to that. It was about a 12 foot (3.65m) drop.

It was one of the big cracks that you can see.

We were quite a way away. It was a long walk/climb out to that formation which would have involved walking over lots and lots of ice.

I've been thinking more about cleaning/sorting. Has anyone done the Marie Kondo thing? I hope that's her name. I see that she does a show on Netflix, but I haven't watched it. Has it worked for anyone? I'm afraid that the 'sparking joy' would leave me getting rid of none of the books in my house!

Another thought running around in my head - has anyone tips about blocking knitting items? I have a couple of long cowls that (ends haven't been joined yet) are all curly at the edges and I thought that I should probably block them before joining the ends, but don't have any experience doing it. What do I need? I see there are some fancy blocks on Amazon but so far I've resisted. Any advise would be appreciated.

Still doing well on the spending. I was tempted to take a little trip to the craft shops and the book shop while out today, but I resisted! I thought about all the things in my craft room that still need to be used and thought I'd avoid temptation. I was 'good' last week too - instead of buying the series of books I wanted (two of which had 'fallen' into my online Amazon shopping trolley) I went to the library and borrowed them. I know this doesn't help the whole getting-rid-of-the-books-in-the-house thing, but I didn't add any more (at least not permanently).

Hope everyone had an enjoyable weekend!