Versatility

This post is cruel of me because the product of which I will speak appears to be available only very locally. I'm guessing the principle applies anywhere though so I'm gonna go for it! It was that or more driving talk and I'm trying really hard not to bore people with that all the time.

Okay, so: I have discovered a new granola, and I've made Something Interesting with it.


Not strawberries and yogurt, because the instructions for that are right on the package if I hadn't thought of it already. Though I must say it's is pretty delicious, now that I've eaten it.

I like granola a lot, but I know myself: it's because of the sugar. Most granola has a ton of honey and stuff in it sticking the oatmeal together.

This granola is gluten free and minimally sugary. There's no oatmeal - it uses quinoa instead, plus a lot of nuts and seeds to go with the dried fruits. But what's especially interesting is that the quinoa is kind of flaked. You pour this stuff out and it's going to blend right into its new environment, sticking to everything.

Which is what gave me the idea. The other day I was craving one of those salads you make with chopped apple, grapes, nuts, and mayonnaise-like salad dressing, but I had no grapes. Or walnuts for that matter.

That's when I remembered the granola. Nuts, raisins... would it work if I blended the apple pieces with the mayo stuff and shook the granola over it?

Yes, yes it does. It is awesome, and I even served it at a lunch with guests this week and they are still speaking to me.

In fact I think I might have some for lunch again today... but first, I gotta see whether there are any more strawberries, because I want seconds on breakfast.

Coraline

Shopping: it's a side effect of test prep. I mean, I have to drive someplace, right? and then I need a reward for getting out there. Yesterday's was Coraline.


Guess what I did last night while in denial about everything else that needs to get done before Friday?

I thought I would watch for the story elements, because my writing mentor recommended it to me back when it came out, and I also thought I would stare at the little clothes I saw a video of the making of, around the same time. But mostly I just stared with my jaw down. It's almost all textiles! and there was just so much to see.

I can't wait to try it with the 3D glasses it came with. But I guess I'd better get all the before-Friday stuff done today first.

Don't panic: be somebody else

"Nervousness is okay," my driving instructor told me on Monday. "It's a normal human reaction. Panic is not okay."

I thought that was a good window onto a healthy life - you can't really help nerves (I've tried) but you can function through them, perhaps even more effectively owing to the attention you give to whatever is making you nervous; panic is just paralyzing and not at all helpful.

He also pointed out that even if you don't personally need a particular skill, you can still use it to serve others. If you know how to swim, for example, you can save a life. So too with driving, helping out elderly neighbours or getting somebody to the hospital.

I like the idea of service, because you get so much more out of that than you put in.

The nerves vs. panic thing, too. It reminded me of my high school acting efforts, which were persistent if not brilliant, because I always seemed to do better with a good dose of stage fright.

I didn't try to go on with it because while I was super at memorizing lines and saying them expressively, I really, really didn't like the idea of becoming one with the character. I found it frightening not to just be myself. This isn't a problem for me with fiction, even when the character whose perspective I'm writing from is saying or doing things I find unsettling; somehow, I can spin out many different personalities through my fingers and never lose sight of me.

Unfortunately, right now it would be helpful to lose sight entirely. A Mary who doesn't worry about a thing but just gets on with it - that's what I need to be.

Instead I am being a lopsided Mary who worries at lot and creates even more potential for that by getting on with it anyway. 'It' being the booking of two appointments with two different driving instructors, one Saturday and one Sunday, both for highway driving (but both in my own car this time.)

After I did that yesterday, I went out and parallel parked perfectly on the first attempt, and then I bought groceries just to remind myself how nice it is not to have to walk them home, and when I got home I decided it's not worth all this stress just to have my license.

But I'm going to try anyway. Maybe I'm not any of those other Marys, but just my own worst enemy?

Progress report

Because I know everybody else is on the edge of whatever seat s/he is currently occupying about this whole Mary's Driver's License saga, I thought I'd point out that today marks one whole week since I started putting myself into the car on a daily basis.

Admittedly, prior to these 7 days, I spent 3 years avoiding all opportunities to drive, so I'm far from accomplished. Still, I have made some progress. I can now

change lanes (as opposed to shrieking, signaling, and darting down the nearest side street)

make a three-point turn (though imperfectly) and

... h'mm. I can't actually think of a third thing. Drive aggressively? Is that a good one or did I pick up another bad habit while overcompensating for giving away my right of way?

Okay, let's count making an appointment for the actual test instead. May 27. That's about 30 days away, I think.

I also think 30 days is nowhere near enough. After a brief surge of confidence, plummeting optimism over the past two days of driving practise has me questioning whether I shouldn't just cancel the test altogether and let my license go.

I'm not quite sure what happened. On one of the days, I drove with a white-knuckle passenger whose navigation skills were sadly lacking, and narrowly escaped becoming part of a quite serious accident that happened about three minutes before I made a left turn into the site of it.

On the other, I drove my instructor's car on the highway, twice, even though I never did get the hang of his gas pedal and couldn't accelerate at all comfortably. I experienced moments of sheer terror in which I thought I want to stop the car right now and walk home which is just about the worst thing to think while driving in the extreme left express lane on the highway.

That one lesson alone further complicates the question:

Do I take the test in my instructor's car, which has a brake on the passenger side and a big sign on top that says Student Driver and might therefore make my examiner more comfortable or

Do I take the test in my car, which I know well, even though its turning radius is less than ideal and its visibility marginally less good, because I will almost certainly drive better in it?

Stymied by that decision, I'm not sure whether I will try driving today or not. I should. But I have a lot of other stuff to get done and out of the way and today is a good day to deal with them; also, I think I need a break after so many days of stress.

Maybe I need to keep getting back on the horse.

Or maybe I just need to eat a lot of chocolate.

Yard sale

I had most of Friday off, and it was super sunny and nice out, which kinda undermined my intention to get the taxes done (the Canadian deadline for those is April 30: looming.) When I spotted an old Singer sewing machine in my neighbours' back yard while I was taking out the recycling, well, that was pretty much that. I mean, I am a procrastinator.

They're moving, you see. To England. And they were having a yard sale on Saturday - this was the setup. And I was going to be away most of Saturday, and I am a yard sale addict, and it's pretty tough for me to resist a look at an old Singer, so I called over to see if I could do an advance shop.

That's how I managed to come home with this:


because the Singer turned out to be the same model as the one I have already. However, there was another sewing machine on offer:


It's not a Bernina, but it should give me some flexibility on the zigzag and decorative stitching front while I save up for one.

And - icing! I spotted this lovely little cup nestled in a box.


Yep, same pattern. When you're lucky, you're lucky.

Just like life

Life is scary sometimes, isn't it? I mean, when you're young and you look ahead into your 20s and 30s - where will the job come from, the place to live, the person I really want to have children with? How am I going to find a way to do what I really love and get paid for it?

You can imagine those things all you want, but you won't know - you can't come close to finding out - until you're actually out there, living. And when you're in there living, you have to be able to look around and recognize that everybody else is, too. You have to know you have a right to be out there, and even if your path is different from others', you need only to follow certain unspoken rules of conduct to move freely through the masses.

Yesterday I had my first driving lesson in a little over four years, and it was just like that. Everybody has the lane they're sitting in, the space they occupy, and they all just have it granted to them. You just have to move along the road the way everybody else is, and make your turns when everybody's agreed you're next, and change your lanes when the car behind you fills the correct percentage of your rear view mirror, and then - voila! - you'll be where you were going.

Jerry agreed that I will need a ton more practice before I'm ready for a road test. I need to get out three or four times a week, he says, for at least an hour each time.

Really? I asked. I was thinking, like, every day for at least an hour.

Ummm, yes, that would be good, he said.

I need to brush up on the basics like full stops and tighter right turns and oh MAN, lane changes, and then I need to focus on a whole lotta parking. But my main problem is confidence, as in, I have none. I give my right of way too freely, I wave other cars through. I panicked and darted off to a side road when he wanted me to make a lane change on a super busy one.

Accepting all this, I made another appointment with Jerry and then went inside to book my actual test (end of May) and to sit glumly, worrying.

After supper I got back into my car and this time, instead of taking back roads, I got myself into a stream of traffic and took the nearest busy one - the one with the lane changes and the cars chronically parked in patches along the side. I changed lanes twice, and when I came to the place where I nearly had an accident last week I paid closer attention, and when I got to four way stops at almost but not quite the same time as somebody else I took my right of way and let them wait.

And you know what? I feel better.

Well, a little better, anyway.

Balance

A friend told me years ago it's important to balance the body and mind - to be active as well as educated, to put it another way. This was news to me, since I was happy just to sit with my nose in a book for days on end, but when I started getting really active (as opposed to just walking everywhere) I did notice the difference.

The last few days I've faced up to another kind of balance: creativity vs. practicality. When I'm making things, my mind is so full of ideas I block out what's around me and eat cheese sandwiches for weeks.

Just now though, forced by tax season to take a break from all that and look around me, I can see how much has been falling apart on the administrative front. Catching all that and sorting it out, I'm noticing that I'm not snacking all the time, and I feel better. Also: I've been able to make opportunities to practice driving, which I still don't like but am getting slightly more comfortable with.

The trouble is, this is a lesson I've learned many times before, and no matter how I try, I just can't seem to balance creativity with anything. It's all writing or all designing all the time, or else it's healthy living-in-the-moment.

Maybe I just need to accept this about myself - and build in admin. breaks more frequently than once or twice a year?