reading and the art of procrastination

I am writing a knitting pattern for a magazine at the moment. My way of pattern writing is probably not the most efficient. I basically get something in my head, play around with a few swatches and then knit it up, taking notes as I go. Once the item is finished, I then "read" the finished article, along with my notes and write the pattern from that.

Problem is, I fall into a "no need to write that down, I'll remember what I did there" trap and of course I can't remember when the pattern writing time comes. So, having finished the article, I am now up to the tedious, time consuming, frustrating, writing bit.

As a result, I'm having a lot of early nights as I tell myself I'm too tired to concentrate on the pattern. Of course, I'm never too tired to read when I get to bed and as a result, the "to be read" pile has shrunk dramatically in the past few weeks.

In summary:

• The Boy in The Striped Pajamas. I have opinions about this book. Op.in.ions. Despite the book being written in a naive style, from the perspective of a child, I have trouble seeing this as a children's book as positioned in a well known Australian book store chain or as mentioned in The Age review. Possibly I am being overprotective of my children, but this is not a book I would be encouraging them to read in childhood. Teen / young adult - yes. Child - no.
  
  Apart from that,Neither the book nor the film did much for me. This could have been a really haunting, moving story, but didn't hit the mark in my opinion.

• The Other Queen. My falling out of love affair with Philippa Gregory continues. Not only does she bang readers over the head with reiteration of key facts and names (Sir William Cecil becomes Lord Burghley. Okay. We get it) but this one is just plain boring. Mary Queen of Scots, such an interesting historical figure is rendered two dimentional here.

• Kitchen Confidential. Before watching his travel / food show No Reservations, my opinion of Anthony Bourdain was that he was self indulgent, thought he was too cool for school and a bit of a knob really. No Reservations changed that opinion. I love it and thought I would love his book, Kitchen Confidential. Unfortunately it only served to reinforce my initial thoughts on Mr Bourdain. He is a knob.

• Next up on the list is The Road Less Traveled by M Scott Peck. I tried to read this book when Conor was a baby, but tiredness and baby brain just meant it never happened for me. This time I am only a few pages in but am loving it and keenly identifying (in others of course!) many of the personality issues he refers to. The bit about delayed gratification certainly hits the mark with my pattern writing shirking self.

See the pretty wool pic at the start of this post? More beautiful, woolly hand dyed goodness from Suse whose hand dyeing abilities far out weigh my photography skills.

** I drafted this post a few days ago and just re-read it prior to hitting the publish button. I read somewhere that people on low carb diets are prone to bad temper. It would seem so.