Carrots

1 podcast interview and two audiobooks later...

It's a sad state of affairs when I find myself resorting to carrots in order to progress on this beading. Not edible carrots, mind you, but the sort of carrot dangled in front of the recalcitrant donkey to get it to move forward with its load. I'm still unsure why a task once enjoyable to me feels like such a burden to get rolling and one for which I haven't the patience to stick with once I sit down at it. Where did the me go who could get lost for hours in the quiet meditative embrace of handwork?

But that is my reality at the moment so I am looking beyond my usual tricks which fail to work right now. In a moment of equal impatience for sitting through a lengthy podcast (I have things to do besides sit here!), I decided to try combining a session of beading with a session of podcast listening. I wasn't sure it would work as I've noted, to my dismay, that I can no longer do two things at once; I either lose the train of what I am listening to if my hands are engaged or find my hands have stopped moving as I concentrate on what I am listening to. But maybe since the beading did not require decision-making or even close attention, this could work. After all, it is one of the reasons I purchased a laptop to use in the studio, so that I could listen to music or the radio or possibly audio books while working.

It worked amazingly well, the interview being a sort of distraction while the beading making me feel productive. However, I don't have a line-up of podcasts waiting to be listened to (I'm more apt to have short videos to be watched). I thought about audio books, as I have a good friend who does a lot of her sewing while "reading" with her ears. But I wondered if I could truly follow the plot of my usual character heavy and convoluted plotline books without finding that my hands had stopped moving. Or that when I put in the next disc a day or two later, I'd have lost the train of the story line, no way to "flip back" to review.

At this same time, I'd started another book series quite by accident. I did not realize that the free books I'd snagged at the library were the first in a series of five. Wasn't even sure if they would appeal but they looked promising. The first one turned out to be a quick read with an uncomplicated plot and interesting characters I could relate to. Thought provoking but not overly so. And leaving me anxious to continue the story in the next book. Yes, in many ways I'd rather be reading these days than plying my needle. As I checked my library for the 3rd book in the series, the first thing to pop up was an audio version. Hmm - might this be the perfect book to listen to while beading? Five cds, each an hour in length, of a story I couldn't wait to continue - but could only access in the studio when I beaded - yes, it was the carrot I needed to settle me down and keep me beading beyond a few minutes. In fact, there have been times I've beaded beyond the minimum 1 hour cd, if I couldn't wait for the next installment. Or beaded slightly longer after a cd went silent in order to finish a section.

I'm hoping I won't always need a carrot like this, but for the moment, it is doing the trick and killing two birds with one stone. I'm finally making good progress, seeing my vision taking shape. Also breathing a sigh of relief as I finish up the areas those trade beads were earmarked for. I came a little too close for comfort to running out!

All that's left of the 4 strands of trade beads