Mundane tasks and working with our hands.

[Linna Heartbooger]

I've been itching to create this thread for AWHILE!

I think it's easy to underestimate how much keeping on top of washing and dishes and boring stuff like that contributes to your general wellbeing. No-one likes to feel overwhelmed. Keep up the good work!

SO true...

So, this thread is for anyone to talk about this topic however they want.

Loves and hates of mundane, boring tasks?
Hobbies where you work with your hands?
Go for it!

"This is something I'm avoiding doing" comments, so that people can jump in and be all encouraging?
Please, please use this thread for that!!!

Philosophical ramblings about the value of mundane work? I'll love it. It'll give me permission to ramble philosophically to!

My starter:
One task I always put off as though I dread it... hand-washing pieces of clothing that need special treatment.
In the end I usually enjoy the experience. (in addition to the reward)

[aliantha]

I'm seconding your hand-washable washing, Linna. For years, I would avoid buying garments that required hand washing, just because I didn't like to do it. And then I started knitting. Turns out that almost all of the really nice yarns are hand wash only.

For instance, the top I have on today. Yes, I knitted a summer-weight top! I wear it all the time. (I'll put a picture in the album.) The yarn is 70% silk, 3% cotton. Can't very well throw *that* in the washer. I try not to sweat it up too badly, so that I can wear it more than once between washings....

[Vraith]

Y'know...there's a pretty extraordinary and well documented connection between doing tasks that are repetitive/boring/automatic pilot and moments of insight/inspiration/creativity...knitting is actually one of the very good ones, Ali [I have a pretty high expectation that you already know that.]
And they actually have a lot of similar features [connecting to another thread] to meditative states/methods, especially the movement-oriented ones like tai chi.

[aliantha]

I do, Vraith, and you're right. Once you've got the mechanics down, it does become meditative.

Until you get to the end of a 200-stitch row and realize you zoned out so far that you screwed up the pattern on stitch 9, throwing off the whole rest of the row. Then, not so much....

I'm working on another summer-weight top that's nearly done. It's got a big honkin' cable up the front, with multiple crosses per row. I didn't realize 'til I bound off the neckline that I screwed up the cable about three inches from the top -- the cables are crossed the wrong way in one row. I'm torn between ripping out the cable and fixing it, or just leaving it alone and calling it a design element.

[lorin]

i am not the best housekeeper but I feel so much more calm when the house is clean.

For me the mundane tasks that I have come to enjoy are all self maintenance. As a child I was never taught good self maintenance so it was a learning experience. I find that doing these routine tasks make me feel much more stable.

Brushing and flossing twice a day.
moisturizing my skin
walking every night even when I hate it
Bathing before bed
Doing my toenails
Styling my hair
Make-up


Self maintenance is really about self care and self love. Finding the time to invest in yourself is not an easy thing for a person like me, who has issues with self worth. So each little step is an affirmation.

[Vraith]

or just leaving it alone and calling it a design element.

That one. You can pretend you're like the Persians and find a flaw necessary in every work.

[DukkhaWaynhim]

I find that the routine of cooking/baking makes me calm-focused. This is good, but the problem is I tend to eat the results afterwards. The food tastes great, but it doesn't taste as good as not-being fat feels. And I'm far too manly for knitting.

I started treadmill jogging/running in 2006, very slowly and working up from there -- and now find it an indispensable part of my routine. It is a mundane task, so I find myself mentally planning my day during a run, listing things to do, or reviewing things already done.

At first, it sucked, huffing and puffing every step -- but now I look forward to it, I crave the energy release, the feel of a good sweat, and the total sense of wellbeing generated afterwards. I sleep like a baby - almost every night.

I could do without the sore left foot, but I'm willing to put up with that.

dw

[aliantha]

I'll have you know, dw, that there's a group for male knitters in DC. I understand some of them are even straight. Although the straight guys might be in a splinter group.

And football player Roosevelt Grier used to do needlepoint. So there.

Vraith, you're right. I've showed the top to a couple of people -- Magickmaker and lorin, to be precise. Both of them said that if I hadn't asked, "Do you see anything wrong with this?" they would never have thought it was a mistake. I'm tempted to just leave it (after I reknit the sleeve edging because I don't like the way it turned out...).

[Linna Heartbooger]

...so it was a learning experience.

That's a really useful way of thinking about it!

It is a mundane task, so I find myself mentally planning my day during a run, listing things to do, or reviewing things already done.

Okay, this is useful for me to hear; I've recently come to the conclusion that people who want to be effective at what they do intentionally spend time:
A. planning and
B. evaluating.
I'm someone who usu. avoids those two things as much as possible; I'm seeking to change this.

ali- haha, "they may be a splinter group." You crack me up! Somehow, I dun think that encouragement is gonna be sufficient for dw.

[Holsety]

I do, Vraith, and you're right. Once you've got the mechanics down, it does become meditative.

Until you get to the end of a 200-stitch row and realize you zoned out so far that you screwed up the pattern on stitch 9, throwing off the whole rest of the row. Then, not so much....

To accept a flaw in the pattern is an homage to god. Remember that Arachne, for challenging Athena, was made a spider. In fact, in some versions she is made a spider because she defeated Athena in weaving off the loom.

[JazFusion]

I work with elderly clients in their homes with mundane tasks like cooking, cleaning, etc. The ones that are 95 years old and still walking around like they're 70 (big difference, actually) have one thing in common: they still do stupid, mundane things every day. It keeps you mentally stimulated, believe it or not.

One of my clients was a 94 year old WW2 vet who lived alone. I played cards with him from lunch time to dinner time. We'd chat, but for the times I wasn't around he'd be in the yard: pulling weeds, composting, finding sticks and cutting them up into wood chips.

I also wrote a Psychology paper in college about children in Asian countries scoring higher on intelligence tests and how that's linked to the abacus. They learn to compute with an abacus and what happens in the brain is it makes a much better connection than just seeing numbers. The brain actually works harder to remember, which makes a much deeper pathway for the axons to travel.

[sgt.null]

i like painting, sculpting, mixed media. julie says it is odd to watch me do collage, i am usually the most impatient man in the world. but when doing collage i become a zen master.

[aliantha]

Jaz -- During my mom's final winter, my brother told her not to go outside and shovel the whole sidewalk because she was getting frail and might slip and fall. So basically she sat in a chair for the rest of her life.

I do, Vraith, and you're right. Once you've got the mechanics down, it does become meditative.

Until you get to the end of a 200-stitch row and realize you zoned out so far that you screwed up the pattern on stitch 9, throwing off the whole rest of the row. Then, not so much....

To accept a flaw in the pattern is an homage to god. Remember that Arachne, for challenging Athena, was made a spider. In fact, in some versions she is made a spider because she defeated Athena in weaving off the loom.

The Navajo weave a special flaw into their designs -- a line of the center color, all the way out to the edge of the rug, so no one can be trapped in the design.

[DukkhaWaynhim]

Few deserve to be mazed.

[stonemaybe]

No task is mundane or boring any more, with my



Mine is the red one.

This year my kicks are mainly coming from gardening

[Frostheart Grueburn]

Aah, SCA...endless opportunities to develop one's crafting skills, whether it be metalwork or cobbling or boat reconstructions.

So, besides drawing, I make costumes for historical re-enacting and the like. This is a Varangian Rus' outfit; inner seams machine-stitched, outer ones hand-stitched. Embroidery and tablet-woven belts also handmade.

Don't ask, we had some mock-serious banter going on during one of this summer's many Medieval Faires.

[aliantha]

Nice, Zorm!

[Cagliostro]

I like doing dishes. My wife gets annoyed as she prefers the dishwasher, and I take away the dishes to fill the thing with and wash them by hand. I have what is probably an OCD thing with dishwashing and Rock Band instrument practice, which is whatever the amount of stars I get on the song, I will double the number and wash that amount of dishes. So if I did it for the top amount, which is 5 stars, I will wash 10 dishes. The payoff is that once I'm done with the dishes, I can just play as many songs until my time allotted to play runs out. So the better I play, the more time I have to play. I have several methods like this to make housework a bit more fun, although I find it very zen to do dishes.

Also, while I have never knitted, and would not be opposed to doing so, I have crocheted. My now ex-wife really liked the Tom Baker era Doctor Who, and said she always wanted a long scarf like his. Today you could probably easily order one on the internet, or hire someone to make you one through the internet, but in the early 90's, I figured I'd just learn how to do it and make one for her, which I figured would be a bit more special if it wasn't a complete embarrasment. I spoke to the motherly figure I worked with who did knit and crochet and she said she'd recommend just crocheting it. She gave me a brief instruction on how to do it after I picked up the proper equipment, and I found I had only retained a bit of it. I puzzled over it for a few hours, and finally figured out how to make it work. I showed this lady the final project and she said that I had done something other than what she had taught, but it worked out better than what she had shown me. She had first asked if I had knitted it. I have no idea what I did now, but after crocheting one for my wife, I made one for myself and my mom liked it enough that she asked me to make one for her. So for about a year, I carried all that around with me, and I have a memory of being at a kegger and crocheting throughout the party. I know I got a few strange looks, but I also got chatted up a bit by a few women. Sometimes it works to stand out a bit, gender roles be damned. And some women respect a man who can create.

[aliantha]

*Lots* of women respect a man who can create.

[deer of the dawn]

I have this nightstand, that while I'm not looking, piles itself up with papers, hair ties, earrings, pens, books, guitar picks and capos, flashlights (we have power cuts every day), water glasses, and sundry. I hate having to clean it up all the time. I'm a recovering "messy" and this is the last stronghold of chaos in my life.

I used to knit, crochet, and embroider. One night I got out this cross-stitch project and realized there was no joy in it anymore. At the time I was a wallpaper hanger and I had very small children and I cooked and cleaned and took care of animals and a vegetable and flower garden and played my guitar in church every Sunday and at a children's group on Monday and I needed to do something that did NOT involve my hands, dang it!!!

I did lots of reading over the next few years.