Friday 16 April 2010

The Way I spend my days - Take Two

A while ago, I posted about working the mornings on the computer and spending the rest of the day, after about noon-ish or so, on the tent.

Well, with the tent emergency, this has changed a bit. Now I spend some time in the morning at the computer, but I try to manage an hour or so of work on the tent before the clock's hand points to high noon. And then I just stay put and sew on. Where before, I took an hour's break to potter around in the garden each afternoon, I'm now only making breaks to brew some more caffeine-containing hot motivational drink, get rid of said drinks' residue, and have a quick bite to eat when the hunger gets too strong to ignore. And where before I'd call it a day when the most patient man arrived home from his work - at around six or so - he now sits down together with me and takes up needle and thread, and with some break for food, quitting-the-tent-work time is usually not happening before eleven.

I'm decidedly feeling the strain on my hands now. I'm trying not to lever myself up from the floor with help of the hands because it gives me discomfort in the wrists. The two fingers that somehow get most contact with the needle sport a funny selection of spots on the fingertip skin from abrasion or almost-pricks, and I feel my back from sitting bent over the tent for so long. But I am also privileged to the first-hand experience of two caring, helping people that sit down with me, one for at least an hour in the afternoon, one for a few hours in the evening. They take some of the load off my back - and, at least as important - they give me the feeling that I'm not alone and they are wonderful company to stay motivated to sew.

And all the strain is leading somewhere. The sewing I had planned for yesterday actually went faster than expected, and day before yesterday was an extremely long sewing day* and thus saw a lot done as well. The tent is now not very far from being functional, though I'm still refusing to fully believe that until it stands in our garden and we are cutting the wood structure to length.

Now... I think there's a spot on the living room floor waiting for me...

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