On Why Life Is Stagnant

I've a prime example for you as to why things are a mess here (and by "mess" I mean scattered all over the place topic-wise). 

I can't manage to stick to one thing long enough, and it's happened again and I'm just not sure how to adjust. Like usual - this is par for the course.

It's not necessarily bad, but it leads to an awful lot of disappointment. 

You see, it started with hearing multiple people talk of the Little House on the Prairie series recently. I'd read it when I was younger and enjoyed it, and was looking for some easy reading to do, so I got myself a copy of the series and dove in. 

Which, as luck would have it, was actually perfect, because it was reading the first and second book that I managed to learn how to knit and read at the same time! And while the reading is being done on my laptop, it means I can knit on my blanket (more on that soon, I promise, I just wanted some more progress before I spoke of it more) and read at the same time - double productivity, yay! 

Well, reading the books is nice, but now I'm wanting to sew. 

The Mister was on vacation for the previous two weeks, and one of those days we went out to Goodwill and found a sewing machine, yay! It ran, the light even worked, and everything seemed fine. 10$ later, then a stop to JoAnn's for some fabric, needles, thread, etc, and we headed home. But I couldn't get the darned thing to sew - the timing was off, and no instructions online to fix it. It was a model from the late 70's and while Singer still had the manual online, it said nothing about timing, and nobody else on the Internet seemed to know, either. 

So, we returned it and I'm sewing-machine-less again. I've got fabric (well, a little less than 2 yards, anyway - thank you remnant bins at JoAnn's!) and everything ready to go, just no machine. So I've been debating trying to sew just, well, with a needle and thread. I know it takes forever, though, so I've not started yet. But it is tempting me far too much. 

And now back to reading, which led to wanting to have a garden. 

Or, you know, at least growing something, because I don't know if I even could grow anything. I've never tried, so I've no idea if I have a black thumb or a green one. 

What I do know, however, is that if I could grow something, I could can it (that I have done before) and then that would be awesome. 

But we live in an apartment, and the sun goes crosswise over our building, so nothing would get enough sun even being out on the back porch in a pot. 

So I'm dreaming of a house, of course, because in a house you can have a garden. 

Well, dreaming of houses means dreaming of being out of the city. 

Because, of course it does. 

And out of the city, well, wouldn't that be nice. I'm quite tired of being in town, not being able to get anywhere in a decent amount of time except for really early or really late. And while being out of town means it takes longer to actually get anywhere, I'd much rather drive on a back road highway than on the freeway. 

And that means being out and in the country or the woods. 

And that means space for a garden! And then a woodstove, because those are cozy.
We had one in the house we lived in when I was in high school and I hated having to go out and get wood. It'd be cold and miserable and too early on a Saturday and not at all what teenage me wanted to do. But now, well, I can look past that experience and say with weird certainty that I wouldn't mind it now. So long as, you know, the house wasn't too big so that the woodstove wouldn't actually heat the whole place. 

And then maybe, just maybe, there'd be hunting and we'd eat venison. Because that's delicious. And that'd also mean a freezer full of meat. 

And I could bake bread, though I've never done that before. But I would be willing to try it! And then have all those canned things, and so a real pantry of sorts. 

And then, well, there'd be more blankets and knitted or crocheted things, because that's what you do. And sewing. And just all sorts of stuff - anything, really, to avoid going into a town, because who wants to do that. 

...and then it all sounds so exiting and I say to myself "uh, yeah, sure." 

And then it's depressing. 

One, because it's never going to happen. 

But mostly because, well, it's far too easy to get carried away like that. 

I can't help it. It's an all or nothing kind of life for me, it would seem. I can't half-ass it, or I'll never do it. 

And that's how I am with everything. If i'ts not 100%, I don't care, and I don't put the effort into it. If I'm doing x-thing, my whole life needs to revolve around x-thing. 

If it does, I end up losing steam.

If it doesn't, I end up getting discouraged, thinking I need to do more, and then lose steam. 

Then, eventually (and more than likely sooner than later), I put it off and don't do it again. 

And that's where I am. 

Physically, stuck in an apartment I hate, in a part of the world I hate (as in, still close enough to Portland to be considered the metro area), with no plants or canning or sewing or general houseness. 

Mentally, stuck on an idea that won't ever happen and isn't even really feasible in the manner I've imagined it up to be. Torn between deciding to make what we have right now as close as possible and just giving up the whole idea entirely.

Either way, whatever happens, I'll be over it in, oh, I'm guessing another week or so. The mood will pass, I won't want anything to do with it again for a while, and it will have been a silly idea the whole time, I'll decide.
Then it'll be something else, I'm sure. 

~Havok