Autumn Multitasking

 

Sunset from my balcony on Monday.  

For the most part, from Wednesday onwards, it's been an Indoors kind of week, though - very wet and windy outdoors, and even if I've managed to slip out for a short walk now and then, not really "camera weather". 

On Thursday I said "bye bye" to my piece of parkbench art in the cemetery. With only two dull brown leaves and a couple of shrinking chestnuts left, I decided to declare that exhibition over, and removed the last of it myself. ;-) (Cf my previous October posts.)

The autumn leaf collage on the inside of the door to my flat, safe from the elements, is still there for myself to enjoy though.

Photo from the cemetery on Thursday afternoon (during a break in the rain).

Photo I managed to snap from under my umbrella in dense rain on Friday (on my way to post a letter). The red leaves stood out as kind of luminiscent and begging to be photographed in spite of the weather - even if managing the phone camera with just one hand is difficult!

Indoors it's been a week of multitasking, from cleaning (Monday), ordering groceries (Tuesday), washing (Wednesday), receiving home delivery of groceries (Friday) and cooking (Friday/Saturday) - to (in between) sorting through old papers and photos to do with family history (never-ending project). 

I'm still in email communication on and off with the guy writing a book involving a couple of relatives of mine from before my own entrance into the world. (Cf my post from mid September - Elsewhere and in another Time.) And as I do most weeks, I've also been putting together a post for Sepia Saturday on my blog Greetings from the Past. The Sepia theme for this month is Portraits - which also sent me on a wild goose chase around my flat trying to remember where on earth I may have hidden a couple of photos in paper frames too big for the boxes and albums where most other photos are kept. (I still haven't found those, which of course will continue to drive me nuts until I do.) 

Illustration by by Microsoft Bing Image Creator

 

BTT: Multi-Tasking

This week’s Booking Through Thursday question from Deb:

Do you multi-task when you read? Do other things like stirring things on the stove, brushing your teeth, watching television, knitting, walking, et cetera?

Or is it just me, and you sit and do nothing but focus on what you’re reading?

(Or, if you do both, why, when, and which do you prefer?)

I do much of my reading “by ear” – listening to audio books. Sometimes I listen while doing routine things in the kitchen, or ironing etc. It also happens that I listen to a book while out walking. (Not so often since I started taking the camera everywhere, though.)

But holding a book and trying to read while stirring something on the stove… No, that goes beyond my multi-tasking capacity!

I often prefer silence when I read; but if there are other background sounds I prefer my own choice (like soft classical music – nothing that demands too much attention). 

When I started listening to audio books on tapes back in the 90’s one of the reasons was that it allowed me to do other things simultaneously. But then a neck/shoulder injury made me need a lot more rest just lying on my back “doing nothing”, preferably not even holding a book. I’ve also had increasing eye problems. So nowadays much of my audio book listening is done without multi-tasking. But I still regard it as sort of multi-tasking in itself, since it allows me to feel that I’m still “doing something” with my head, even when the rest of the body is resting!

In the picture you see my “bedside equipment”… MP3-player, CD-player, and loudspeakers that can easily be switched from one to the other (or to an old audio cassette player).

My latest discovery is that I can now also borrow “streaming” audio books online from my library. The advantage is that I don’t have to queue for new and popular ones. The disadvantage is that I do have to be online on the computer to listen to them.