{"id":6046,"date":"2014-06-03T04:25:36","date_gmt":"2014-06-03T11:25:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michellejolin.com\/wordpress\/?p=6046"},"modified":"2014-06-02T20:45:38","modified_gmt":"2014-06-03T03:45:38","slug":"dont-just-stand-there-make-something","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=6046","title":{"rendered":"Don’t just stand there, make something!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Any time in my life when I have spare time, and things on my mind, I can use a distraction. Not so much an external stimulus type of distraction like seeing friends, but something to keep my mind focused on something other than the inside of my own brain. <\/p>\n

A lot of the time, it’s reading. Lately I find that reading stimulates more writing which leads to more thinking, which can be too much, uh, thinking. There was a proper sentence in there somewhere. Let me know if you see it. <\/p>\n

So what to do?
\nSome people meditate. Some people pray. I make something. <\/p>\n

This weekend, I cleaning out the spare room and found a lot of fibery things I’d not done anything with. So I got out my spinning wheel, pulled some merino out of a bin and made some yarn. It is a little rustic, and I am out of practice…but it will make a useful and beautiful something or other. Probably a hat. I make a lot of hats. <\/p>\n

Right now, I am trying to work on this green one. <\/p>\n

I was on a driving ban after a procedure so I was stuck at home. Spinning and knitting count as doing something productive, so I can do something totally unproductive at the same time without pretending to feel guilty about it. Today it was a movie binge: Maltese Falcon, Meaning of Life and Hard Day’s Night. <\/p>\n

And that means that I am not going to write anymore. I can’t write and watch the Beatles at the same time. <\/p>\n

So ta for now. <\/p>\n

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Any time in my life when I have spare time, and things on my mind, I can use a distraction. Not so much an external stimulus type of distraction like seeing friends, but something to keep my mind focused on something other than the inside of my own brain. A lot of the time, it’s … Continue reading Don’t just stand there, make something!<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-words"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7lr3R-1zw","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6771,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=6771","url_meta":{"origin":6046,"position":0},"title":"Don’t even think about it","author":"Michelle","date":"July 26, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Try to pose for yourself this task: not to think of a polar bear, and you will see that the cursed thing will come to mind every minute. --F.Dostoyevsky What's the flip side to overthinking everything? Trying not to think about a particular thing. Person. Event. Whatever. Dostoevsky called it.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Words"","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7864,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=7864","url_meta":{"origin":6046,"position":1},"title":"Shhhh, my mind is resting","author":"Michelle","date":"October 11, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Since I have been overthinking even more than usual this week, I am giving my brain a little vacation. Reading, mostly. OK, I know some people don't consider that resting, but I do. For the last several months, I really haven't been able to concentrate enough to read, so I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Words"","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10438,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=10438","url_meta":{"origin":6046,"position":2},"title":"The sound of silence","author":"Michelle","date":"November 7, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"If you need to assume anything assume that all silences from now on have grief in them. Rick Moody\/The Albertine Notes Silence is beautiful to me. To an introvert, and I think we've established my credentials in that regard, silence and solitude are\u00a0 nearly as essential as air and water.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Random thoughts"","block_context":{"text":"Random thoughts","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=20"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4348,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=4348","url_meta":{"origin":6046,"position":3},"title":"What if?","author":"Michelle","date":"March 13, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Several weeks ago, I read Stephen King's book \"On Writing.\" To summarize his recommendations for would-be writers: Read and write a lot. The reading being as important as the writing. Know your grammar. Don't be afraid to edit. Heavily. Don't use many adverbs. Avoid the passive voice. When you're writing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Words"","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":825,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=825","url_meta":{"origin":6046,"position":4},"title":"Inside Michelle’s Brain, episode 2","author":"Michelle","date":"August 9, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"With Fall just around the corner, I've been thinking and reading a lot about college football lately. I follow a lot of the Oregon Duck football team on Twitter, and they're all amped up about practice getting started. And they all got new iPads. There is a lot of talk\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "hmmm"","block_context":{"text":"hmmm","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=4"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7883,"url":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?p=7883","url_meta":{"origin":6046,"position":5},"title":"And on the seventh day, there was cooking","author":"Michelle","date":"October 13, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Cooking and company today. Ashley arrived from Eugene and moved into the spare bedroom for...eh...who knows. Until she finds a place of her own. Or doesn't and stays. Or whatever. We'll see. Before she got here, there was much cooking. I do this periodically on a Sunday. Cook several different\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Words"","block_context":{"text":"Words","link":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/?cat=7"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6046\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellejolin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}