Or trudging. The meanings are very close. It’s winter. I may not have the kind of deep snow I grew up with in winter, but mentally for me, it’s still the same.

Most of my plodding the past couple of weeks has been in getting the machine embroidery files cleaned up. I get so distracted, though. It’s rather tedious work, but I need to see the file, so I have to use large (sometimes extra large) icon mode. That’s a really fast way to fill your thumbnail cache, which tends to freeze up file explorer. I run the disk cleanup frequently, but after several cleanups, the only thing that helps is a restart. I also discovered it’s not a good idea to do all the work on the external drive. My older external drives connected to my desktop have no problems, but these physically smaller, virtually larger drives I use with my laptop over heat and one burned out. So . . . I end up waiting for files to copy back and forth at the beginning and end of each section. While waiting for the cleanup or copying, I too often do something else on the computer and, being so totally ADD, realize a couple of hours later that the process I was waiting on has been completed for a long time. (I deleted games from my computers, but jigsaw puzzles are just a click away. And Facebook is a Black Hole, as is Pinterest.)

The other main distraction of the filing is seeing the designs. I get ideas. Oooooh, I could use this for . . . Wheeeeee, this one would work with . . . Hmmmmm, I wonder if I could combine these with . . . This leads either to a complete cessation of the filing, or some mis-filing. This wouldn’t bother me too much if I were actually getting up and following through on the ideas, but 99.99% of the time it’s all in my head. .0075% I makes notes somewhere. I actually follow through only .0025% of the time.

. . . Talking about distraction . . . then I looked up and saw a set of boxes that were given to me yesterday and thought I should see if they will work for what I accepted them for.

They do!

Thread snips
Spool threads (Gütermann) & metallics
Yarns & Flower thread
Anchor floss spools, craft thread & sewing thread  
Perle 3 thread 
Perle 5 thread 
Small WIPs 
Perle 8 and Perle 12, and a couple of fine knitting/crochet threads (maybe = 10?)

A not-too-distant-future project is to recover the big footstool they are sitting on so that it’s color matches the red in the sofa behind it. When I realized that it’s just an empty wood box with a cushion on top I decided to put a solid bottom on it (instead of just Pellon®) and hinge the top. That will create a place to put the above boxes plus a small basket of tools and a box of DMC floss, instead of letting it all litter the coffee table and floor next to it, as it has been doing. Because I invariably do most of my hand embroidery here in the living room.

Then it was dinner and the Olympics. I watch only the figure skating and snowboarding. I glance at the non-racing skiing. (It’s like the snowboarding!!) The rest I just listen to as Iqbal watches. Now I’m trying to decide if I want to do more filing or make more puzzle pieces.

Such an exciting life I lead!!