If it’s your job to eat a frog

My day started at 5:30am.  I know there’s lots of people who get up that early, but I am so opposed to this practice that the whole idea of anyone who lives this way regularly fills me with pity.  Anytime after 7:30 seems reasonable to me, but Jen and I are starting our training rides now that it’s finally warm, and we have to get a 40 or 50km ride in before work, and that? That means getting up at 5:30am and I can’t tell you how noble it made me feel to set my alarm.  You know that feeling? That “A am such a good person” feeling? I was awash with it.

Now though, now I’m just tired, because at 5:30am my alarm went off, and at 5:32 I realized it was raining, and I spent the next minute lying there hoping Jen could hear the rain too, and hoping that she was lying in bed thinking “hell no.” Her text came at 5:33, and it essentially said “tomorrow?”   If she was here I would have kissed her on the mouth. So – there I was, awake at 5:30, and I decided to embrace it. (I also decided to overlook that the rain means I’m getting up two days in a row at 5:30, I’m happier when I don’t focus on details like that.)

As much as I hate getting up early, let me tell you something about it. It’s super productive. It’s early afternoon here, and my to-do list isn’t just finished, it’s obliterated. By the time Joe was out of bed at 8:30 I had half of it done and I’d done a load of laundry, and I’d packed (mostly) for my trip to the Buffalo Guild this weekend, and it was all I could do not to look at him as he came down over the stairs and not think about what a slacker he is. (He is not a slacker. He works very hard, but when you’ve been working for three hours while someone sleeps, it’s very easy to enjoy that feeling for a moment.  I didn’t say anything to him – just let the feeling live gloriously in my heart for a minute.) I’ve got so many things done that this afternoon, well – I can do as I like, and here’s what I like.

nunbatt 2014-05-13

Pretty, yes? It’s a nun-batt from Inglenook Fibers and it’s the thing going onto the wheel today. Wait, let me open that up for you.

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It’s a great colourway called “Tardis in flight”. (Check me! Spinning two Tuesdays in a row, by wool, I will have this done.) I’m going to spin it up into the next pretty skein for a Karmic Balancing gift, as the one from last week, that pretty seaglass green cotswald from Nistock Farms is now a finished skein.

yarndone 2014-05-13

It’s about 200m of a very pretty fingering weight, and I hope that Beth R loves it, because I’m mailing it to her house.  It’s not soft, but it is gorgeous, and strong and will make something hearty. (I really hope Beth likes it. Cotswald is a rare breed, and there’s fewer than 5000 purebred sheep in the world that claim that name, and that makes it a real treat to run into.)

Also today, I’m so close to finishing that freakin’ Color Affection that I can smell it. Every day I think I’m going to finish, but today might actually be that day, and I can’t wait.  I upsized it a little – sort of by accident, because I did that knitter thing where you just sort of glance at the pattern, and decide you know what it wants, and don’t check back in again until things seem a little wild? Yeah. That one.

obsessionnotdone 2014-05-13

It’s going to be big, I’m sure, already there are more than 400 stitches on the needles, and I think I’ll end up adding about 24 more before I cast off, and we’ll see what I end up with. The bind off is going to be a haul. One of those real endurance games that are best tackled with a glass of wine and something good on the telly so that you can’t really feel what’s happening.  It should be a productive day for sure… a very pleasant side effect of the early start, and I just have to remember there’s an early bedtime on the other end of it, because tomorrow, we ride at dawn. (I love saying that. It makes me feel like I’m in a cowboy movie.)

How about you? Did you get up early? Do you like it?