Ask a Busy person

Have you every heard that saying about if you want something done ask a busy person?

F never understood that.  It has been explained to us that busy people are imagined to be good time managers.

Some busy people should learn to say "No, my time is full already."  Maybe the sensible ones do.

Some people simply seem to be able to fit those extra requests in somewhere - or they are good at delegating.

F's kind of busy, but it is a sort of 'old-fashioned' busy.  She buys most of my food in packets, but hers (with the exception of cheese) is all prepared and cooked from wholefood ingredients.  That actually takes an hour or three a day of chopping and grating and grinding and soaking, mixing, beating, sautéing, simmering, baking, basting..... Then there is all the cleaning up afterwards.  She refuses to install a dishwasher.

We do have a machine for washing clothes; she isn't standing on the edge of the sea beating stuff on a rock.  When she is working in office clothes, the ironing takes a while.

Sorting the recycling.  Going the extra mile (on bike or foot) to buy things that don't generate any waste for recycling.  Picking up rubbish on the street and on the beach.  Fishing rubbish out of the sea.

Neighbours had their phone camera out....

Taking dictation for my blog - and reading to me the ones that we follow.

There is gardening, and sewing, knitting and daily exercise, work of course, and there should be language lessons and time to play music but that gets overlooked.  People come by to get clothes made, adjusted or mended, and that seems to have become a more regular thing. People have been dropping in clothes and fabrics for reuse or 'upcycling'.  There are the 'meet us for some guerilla gardening projects' invitations and the 'will you crew in our yacht race this weekend' requests.  The trouble with yacht racing is it takes her away for a whole weekend and I don't approve.  It messes with my mealtimes.  She has started turning those down.

I sat on those silk pieces that came home a couple of weeks ago and delivered a lecture: "seriously woman, what are you going to do with this stuff?  You have just spent the last 6 months devoting yourself to reducing the fabric stash."  It seems to have worked.  One sari got given away whole, entire, one piece, unmodified - and the recipient was totally chuffed to have it.  Brilliant.  One is in the process of being cut up and turned into skirt lining.... for a skirt out of the silk that remains from a patchwork silk bedspread (donated at the same time) that was made out of strips cut from worn out saris.  

I say 'remains' because the donor of said silk, wanted some table napkins made, edged with one of the colours extracted from the patchwork. That extracted (and napkins duly made and delivered), the heavier bits were also extracted and turned into gift bags and pieces of gift wrap fabric (a project which F assures me also used up another 4 pieces from her own stash in linings etc, along with ribbons and a few beads).  

There are some non-silk off-cuts in there too... we've never seen watermelon on a sari.

The remains of the silk patchwork are an ace away from becoming a colourful skirt (over the lining made of a piece of sari) and then being turned into a clown outfit.  The proposed outfit will also have a couple of contrasting plain waistcoats (and a small 'bowler' hat) made of other pieces of our stash so F has convinced herself it was all worthwhile in the end, even if somewhat of a digression from her drive to empty our own cupboards.  If we can get a photo of the finished 'clown', I'll post it later.

She has just received instructions about a 'return to the office'.  That might bring some rationalization to the mad pattern of our days.... but I suspect not.