It occurs to me that I am living by weather at the moment. Is it going to get cold enough that I have to go down to the basement and turn on the space heater to keep the pipes from freezing? Will there be ice? Or god forbid, will the power go out? Still it’s gorgeous here. I went outside a couple of days ago when it was snowing and it was like magic. Plus we only got a couple of inches so it was a piece of cake to shovel. I mention all of this because one of the things I’m planning to make is a weather afghan; you crochet or knit one or two rows or a two-color block for every day of the year, coding them for the high and low temps. All I have to do is figure out where I put my worsted Brava, and I’m ready to go. In the meantime I’m still making hats and scarves like a mad woman. Two more hats and a scarf since last we spoke. I have no idea why I’m obsessing on hats and scarves; I don’t wear either. I think it might be the instant gratification, or as near to instant as doesn’t matter. That feeling of having finally accomplished something. Unfortunately, not a book.
Argh.
What have you been up to lately?
I had today off. I’ve been rewatching Harry Potter. I decided to make a run to the Food Lion, earlier. I was wearing sweat pants, t-shirt, socks and shoes, but the temp outside was mid thirties with a breeze. I could have layered up – instead, I broke out my state-issued winter coat. Toastie! Second time I’ve worn it since it was issued, so toastie. Also one box of red baron individual pan pizzas, to which I will add bacon and pepperoni and extra cheese.
I came back with stir-fry fixin’s, beef and chicken. Stuffed pork chops, which I’ve eaten. Two twelve packs of diet root beer and one of caffeine free diet coke. For the dotter I picked up a gallon of milk (2%, I think), a couple of DiGeorno Rising Crust frozen pizzas, and some cans of nuts. In other words, I’ve done nothing notable.
Worked out and made plans for the future. I’m not trying to mother you, but are you allowed to shovel with your heart condition?
My heart condition is over. My function numbers are all well within normal range and my heart is back to normal size. They don’t know why it went out or why it came back. But I am careful, and as I got to the end of my walk and started on the driveway, I met my neighbor Allan shoveling me out from the street. I have very good neighbors. So we talked about dogs for awhile. VERY good neighbors (g). And it was only a few inches. It’s when it gets upward of five or six that it gets dangerous, which is why I sometimes shovel during snow storms. Two passes at three inches is better than one at six.
I’m good.
This is the most amazing, marvelous, wonderful news!!!! I’m so incredibly happy for you!
Fantastic!
I finally got into my sewing room. I was talking to a friend about an upcoming quilt show, and debating whether I should enter additional quilts. I pointed to the one I started back in June that I was disappointed with, but she convinced me that many people would like to see it. So, I’m halfway through putting the binding on it.
I also had some scraps from a previous quilt that I had collected with the intention of making a mini quilt. I’ve put the top together, coming in at less than 20 inches square. I’ll try to quilt it and bind it this coming weekend. Here’s what it looks like so far
https://www.instagram.com/p/B7nv9zvBV73/
I’ve pulled out my box of 109 mini skeins and have been making crochet squares from them. I had started back in August or September, but have been more diligent now that the big blue afghan is done. It’s a nice in-between project – I just have to be careful to put everything back away to keep random yarn out of kitty gullets.
On the PT front, I’ve been healing really well. I’m not using the cane indoors – just for security outdoors.
Stay warm!
Gorgeous little quilt. Getting back into quilting myself after years doing other things and enjoying it. Get that little guy done and entered!
Gorgeous quilt, my favorite colors. (Actually ALL colors are my favorite, but you made those be my favorite for the moment.)
That’s a beautiful quilt! I can’t imagine why you didn’t like it.
I like this one! I had a problem with a larger quilt because I wasn’t careful cutting it out which resulted in minor imperfections. I’ll take another picture when I’m done with the binding. Most people won’t see anything wrong with it unless they are right up on it (which I am). And, we are always our own worst critics!
I am really not doing much of anything, which is weird. I hate January. I need to get on the crafting and I just don’t feel like even doing that much.
Cleaning in preparation for family seeing our place for the first time! Which means I dusted the bookcase for the first time in 11 months, kid you not.
Sorting my desk papers and scanning what I can, ditching what I can.
Repaired a crochet blanket! Made a few boo-boos, but it’s back in working order!
In order for today, energy and time willing: continue sorting papers since I’m slow, clean the garbage can since it smells, clean out the pantry to rearrange. I am cleaning the dishwasher now, so that’s done. Iiiif time, the fridge.
I also have two crochet blankets in working on, so it’d be nice to get some rows on those!
For Christmas, my son gave me an “I Need to Unplug” journal (pot, meet kettle). I’m filling the pages with splattery palette knife paintings–such a mood boost!
But I have to keep reminding myself that everything I do doesn’t have to be perfect, or “useful.” My brain is getting the message: last night I dreamed I was in high school, swapping an advanced math class for beginning piano.
What a great dream!
A weather afghan is a very attractive scheme. I don’t think I have enough yarn in enough different colors (though I won’t need to steal from the baby afghan until midsummer temperatures hit) but the idea of a weather hat–or should that be Weather Hat? like Sorting Hat?–is intriguing.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B7oPUvZluga/
I made my dog bed! If I were going to spend money on it, I would have bought a used double duvet cover, the queen is huge, but since this cost us exactly $0 in new expenses I’m happy with it. Even the thread was free as it was given to my by my MIL when they moved to their apartment. I used about 6 different colours to free up some bobbins that were only partially full so it was a win all around.
It has nine pillows laid out in a:
1,2,3 1
1,2,3 2
3
pattern but since the ones on the end are in width-wise instead of lengthwise they match.
I am also going through my kitchen drawers and pulling out stuff to take to the thrift shop my next trip to that town. I was able to put aside 3 sets of sheets and several random pillow cases to also be donated. I was going to use the cases in the dog bed but it didn’t feel right to use them when I could just cut up a very well-used flat sheet and tablecloth that no one would really want. I remember shopping for things at thrift stores and hated that people donated stained, dirty, and nasty-looking stuff.
I shoveled out a path to the front sidewalk and then shoveled that. I admit I pushed a lot of the snow onto the street but the town is due to clean our street soon and the grader and front-end loader will have a much easier job of moving all that igloo snow (hard packed so you can chop it into blocks and then pick those up with your hands) than I would have.
I also did a bunch of paperwork when there was no paid work. It will save me time later and made me feel productive.
We also had a lighter than average snowfall this past weekend . It could have been taken care of with a broom. On Monday when the temperature was about 19* I looked out the window and saw not one but three heads bobbing in the water. They were all in wetsuits. They must be in training for some event. An hour or so later I saw a couple of row boats. Those I know are training for the annual Snowrow event coming in February.
MJ reminded me of a gift one of my grandchildren asked for and received for Christmas. It was a DNA kit for the dog. We saw the results and have been looking to see which one is most her. She is 25 % each Australian Shepard and cattle dog (definitely a herder) wanting to know were each of her kids are. In descending order there is pit bull (I can see it in her eyes), border collie, Shar-Pei, terrier, boxer and last of all supermutt. I like to think of the supermutt as circus dog for her ability to balance on all four paws on the arm of the sofa and point her snout out the window keeping watch.
I’m working on not losing my mind re: real estate stuff. Doing okay some of the not, profoundly less so the rest of it.
Ah well. One moment at a time.
Doing nothing except staying warm and going to meetings. Also making treats for the dog.
It has been unusually sunny in southwest Ohio this winter. Seeing the sun in November/December/January is great.
I’m currently taking an Instagram for Authors class. IG is my favorite social medium–all pictures, no politics. My feed is almost exclusively flowers and I’m working on making my profile page look like a rainbow (red, orange, yellow green, blue, purple).
The world needs more blue flowers.
Bluebells! My favourite.
A dear friend has moved into his father’s house after his father went into a rest home. Last night, we cleared out the kitchen pantry cupboard. Threw out masses of expired food in filthy packets, scrubbed the shelves. Sad but satisfying. On Saturday, we’re going to attack the rest of the kitchen and then reward ourselves with the Star Wars movie. Baby Yoda!
And I decided to draw a cat a day, on the theory that practice is a great thing. And creativity makes me feel good. That lasted 4 days, till my evenings got chocker full with things like people visiting and cleaning cupboards. It was fun and I must restart it at the weekend when I have some time again.
This is the second time I’ve heard of this weather afghan. Sounds like a fun project!
I’m making an excel spreadsheet of review sites. Sent out a bunch of requests. Two people said they’d review. One did. It’s slow going.
Weather is supposed to warm up for the weekend. Upper 40s in Central NJ. I’ll take it!
I started a daily 100 project, that will overlap with DailyFeb20, but keep going before and after. Same general projects though – embroideries in tiny (lasercut) frames. The frames for the 100Day project are all in units of 1.5″ so they’ll go together in a sensible and useful fashion. The first one is here:
https://www.instagram.com/p/B7omGvHAuu7/
What I’ve seen on Pinterest lately is a sky scarf: you use six or seven balls of yarn in blue, white and grey colors and knit two purl rows each day in the color the sky had at a certain time of day. There were various scarves and they all looked really nice. A Florida-based one would probably have a lot more blue rows than one knitted on a North Sea island but I like the concept.
I filled in one gazillion forms for the psychologist, then got rejected because I’d written among other things that I have low energy most days, and apparently that’s not her thing. Turns out finding a new psychologist outside of the psychologist group where I was before is difficult. So ugh. 🙁
Aaanyway, went to judo again last Monday and it was fun! Having pain almost everywhere again and loving it. It’s not as massochistic as it sounds. 😉 And I made cheese sauce today that was goooood.
Saturday New Friend was here and we went to the city and bought an adorable puppy plushie for her to hug now that she’s single and feeling miserable and alone. I was happy to discover that my need to buy all cute plushies I come across has calmed down a lot. We also went for dinner at a wok restaurant together with Sven, and ate like wolves, which is definitely a good things since all three of us have been eating very badly the last weeks. That’s definitely work, that is! 🙂
Much to my delight, i discovered that the audio described movies & series site I mentioned last week also had “The Good Place” with description! So I’ve been binging that the last days. It was great to see/hear, when I rewatched season 1, that it did work out fine even without description – there wasn’t much I’d missed the first time around. I’m halfway through season 3 now. Only fly in the ointment is that I heard from New Friend that Netflix now has season 4 for streaming, but Audiovault doesn’t (yet anyway) so I’ll have to be patient when I’m done with S3… (also because I don’t have a Netflix account.)
Other than that, nothing special. Am on sleeping pills since 1,5 week and the new ones I started with Sunday seem to slowly turn my brain to oatmeal… So I’m gonna go back to watching The Good Place now. The Good place makes me feel good. Exactly what I need right now.
I’m struggling a bit with feeling down. Also wrestling with editing translations of Japanese illustrations covered in text, much of which is running vertically, or is in chunks that read right-to-left. They’re getting more and more impossible as I go through the book. And trying to come up with stage directions that’ll identify each chunk of Japanese scattered around is starting to do my head in. I’m about to resort to printing some of them and editing in pencil. It’ll be a nostalgia trip.
I planted my raspberry canes today, and fetched a barrow-load of manure from the allotment muck heap to mulch them. Despite having had a bath and washed my hair (and clothes), I’m still smelling faintly of manure. I heeled in the strawberries and potted on four baby wall shrubs. Am rather hoping the fruit trees don’t arrive until next week, since I’ve got the dentist tomorrow (root canal and prep for a crown) and a friend coming for the weekend.
What is it with the root canals? My agent is scheduled for one and I’m getting one in February.
Super not keen for any more dentistry! I’m 5 and-a-bit weeks post having an implant placed and have just been given a $7000 quote for (unfortunately needed) braces for my husband. I wish any of my children had considered that field of study!
Still v jealous re raspberries!
Probably late, (decades experience in healthcare), shaving cream and/or toothpaste get rid of most poop, (manure) odors. I could go into details, but nobody really wants to know. Sorry I don’t write or crochet. This is my only gift to share.
That’s a really useful gift. Just wish I could work out where the smell was coming from – but it’s now tomorrow, so I’m hoping it’ll have gone.
I went to the gym today. Trying to strengthen the body. Sorted out a couple of drawers. More stuff for the hospital auxiliary. Work. Reading. Working on getting full nights sleep; between magnesium supplements and one melatonin, it is working.
Getting there, closet by closet, drawer by drawer.
I was working on the never-ending weekend to-do list, and a 12 week lifestyle challenge that I joined last week, butnon Saturday that all got traded in for a spontaneous blood infection, so now I’m just working on getting better! Which is going well. 😊
I haven’t done much this month except work. Big project is done and I can now get back to knitting a scarf for my MIL and making cards. I put on my pjs as soon as I got home, so tonight I’m taking it easy.
Stop making hats and make more books. (Says the woman who isn’t getting much writing done herself.)
Finished proof edits on the SMP nonfiction goddess empowerment book and revision edits on the current Llewellyn book. Lots of edits, not so much writing. Still, part of the job.
Working on my taxes. UGH.
Fighting a minor plague, which at least seems not to be the flu.
Chasing around the demon foster-fail kitten, who at almost six months seems to specialize at turning things off (she runs across the top of the humidifier on a regular basis, by leaping from a nearby chair, and just tonight managed to turn off the computer and everything else by running over the power button on the battery backup/surge protector as she chased after a toy).
My dogs sit on the surge protector if it falls off the window beside the bed and manage to turn it off fairly regularly.
And yesterday I read the first 50K of a friend’s book that she was stalled on and told her how to fix it and she said I was a goddess. She may have just been being polite, but I felt good. Especially since people often drink to excess after my critiques.
You ARE a goddess. (But you’ll notice I don’t send you any of my books to critique. I already drink enough…)
When I got the last batch of kittens, now two and sort of grown up (ha), I eventually had to hang the power strip for the television off the back of the TV stand. Which was also new, because the old one had open shelves which they raced through and plowed the contents of onto the floor on a regular basis.
I don’t have time to craft and won’t for a few months. I think I need to start making lists of what I want to create when I do have time.
There was a time when I knit lots of matching sweaters for nieces and nephews. Then I broke my wrist… and after it healed I could only knit for short periods. I wonder if that is still true. If so maybe I should go back to embroidery.
Weather here would give you a very interesting afghan. They had a particularly ferocious hail storm on Monday in Canberra. Nature followed that with a nice, calm, ‘ok, we’re all done here’ Tuesday (oh, you gullible fools). Wednesday was a sudden fire, from ignition to ‘it’s too late to leave’ in about ten minutes and today is 42 degrees C (107.6F) with horrendous winds and apocalyptic-red dust storm. I’ve just heard they lost an airtanker at a fire near home. Trees are down blocking roads and the power went out, are we approaching the end?
Work wise, not really. Pack, unpack, watch the forecast and the fire apps. Ooh, I did make Apricot Paste, that’s work.
We are heading to Sydney for the funeral of a family friend who perished in the New Year’s fire down the coast, it will not be a good day.
I was hoping the rain had calmed things down a bit – obviously not. Do take care of yourself (I’d think that’s your main work at the moment).
We had a little over an inch, others had more. Nothing short of weeks of steady rain will solve this. We haven’t burned, but our dams are dry, the inch had our creek back up for a couple of days but it’s gone now. We have no grass/feed for stock and since the fires the prices on what’s available have skyrocketed. Drought used to last a year, maybe two, this is so much more
Oh, heck.
I remember a couple of documentaries talking about how the water table had been depleted in parts of Australia, and have been wondering whether this could have dried out the land there and maybe affected the likelihood of rain – a kind of desertification. Although that seems less likely in the eastern hilly areas. In other words, whether some really drastic new approaches to living there are needed. But I’m really not well informed
I live in the eastern hilly area. We live about 30 miles (as the crow flies) from Mount Kosciuszko, Australia’s highest point. My mother has been single handedly lowering our water table for the garden for the last couple of decades. Apart from looking pretty, she’s doing her bit for insect diversity.
My grandad (1919-2015) said the rainfall changed after they built our huge hydroelectric scheme. Others suggest the dying of flora (leading to huge fire fuel burdens) is due to cloud seeding operations carried out by the hydro. I don’t know anything. It’s always been hot, it’s Australia.
People choose to live in among the trees. I understand why, but if that’s what you want your construction methods and fire mitigation plans need to be more. Construction costs in the burned areas are definitely going to exceed what people are prepared for as building standards are altered due to what is being learned.
They found the plane (50km from home, as the crow flies, opposite direction from the mountain), all aboard died. They were three US citizens here waterbombing for this awful fire season. Those poor families
I’m so sorry. This is just beyond terrible.
I have discovered (at my age!) that I love woodworking. My dad helped me build a desk about a year ago, then last summer I built a bookcase headboard for my bed, and I am currently almost finished with an extension table for my sewing machine. I love the patterns of the wood grain, and the lovely amber of the finish. And I find running my fingers over the almost glass smooth surface of the finished project to be weirdly pleasing. I have six or seven projects I want to start on next. I’m trying to pick just one.
Sounds brilliant.