I Finished Something!

How about that? It turns out that if you stop casting on new projects, and dedicate time to working on just one, it actually gets finished. Who knew?

Here it is pinned out and blocking:

This is pinned:

The overall size, spread out:

Compared to before its bath and block:

It looks like it will be a good size. I made this before, in a lighter yarn (Ravelry project page; also blogged about it), so this should be a bit bigger, as I wanted.

Pattern: Seashell by Nicola Susen (free on Ravelry).

Yarn: Adorn Luxe by Three Irish Girls, which is a fingering weight; 2 skeins in colorway Fire Dance.

Now, what to focus on next? Because I still have a bunch in progress.

Brrrr; Yay

Brrrr.

I'm cold.

I know, I know, it isn't cold here relative to a lot of places right now. But we've been running 5-10 degrees below normal for the time of year, and the time of year is not normally a hot one, so for us, it's been cold. 

Yes, we could turn the heat on. But how high do you want to turn it? It's really expensive to run (compared to the a/c). While we can layer up, that's what we do.

But I'm tired of wearing layers. I don't own enough warm clothing, so I'm wearing the same few things over and over. Long-sleeve shirt under sweater or sweatshirt. Long unders or leggings beneath sweatpants. Socks and slippers. Shawls and cowls and scarves and gloves, hoods and hats.

I'm cold. Mom and I don't like to keep it too cold: in hot weather, we set the air conditioning down to 78. Now it's running 70-75 inside here (which feels much nicer outside, in the sunshine, than it does at my desk). Brrr.

I'm cold. Today I put on warm leggings, and then sweatpants over them, then put a blanket over my lap, and was still cold. The socks and slippers worked to keep my feet warm, the shirt and sweater and scarf and hood kept my torso fairly warm, but my legs/hips/lap were cold.

(Maybe I need snow pants? Or something like these sherpa-lined pajama pants from Lands End, which sound delightful [sadly not available in my size]. Or something else, but what?). 

And every time I got up (bathroom, cat, food/drink), I had to unwrap and rewrap.

Brrr.

Yay

However! On the bright side!

I had a couple of vacation days left over from last year that I needed to use in January. We get Monday off for MLK Jr Day, and I wanted to be off for the inauguration on Wednesday (please let that go smoothly), so I'm taking Tuesday as well, and thus have a blissful five days off in front of me. Marvelous. Reading, knitting, relaxing, no alarm clock, and hopefully lots of sitting in the sunshine. Come on, sunshine!

That’s About It

Yesterday was a pretty good day, but I got my period again today (at least this one was four weeks from the last, instead of three), and I feel spectacularly crappy. As I said to my mother earlier, I feel like I’m eight months pregnant with a bowl of angry snakes.

Please let this be running its course. I am too old to deal with this shit any longer.

On the 39th of December 2020

What a year this week has been, hasn't it? Exhausting. As if the first week back from vacation wasn't long enough, let's add serious attacks on our democracy and a strong sense of impending doom.

Sigh. 

Well! To take a moment away from the current clusterfuck that is America:

I suppose technically, since it arrived yesterday, it isn't in my future, but hey, knitting with it will be! Yankee Dyer had a 50% off sale, and I fell into it with these six lovely skeins of Yankee Breeze, which is 50-50 merino-cotton, in colorway Lagoon.

I happen to have a single skein of the same yarn in colorway Sunshine, and they go together beautifully.

One of my knitting friends had mentioned the Blooming Vines pattern, a versatile pattern with multiple length and sleeve options, and I especially like this version, by Ravelry user jbjudyjude, which I am using as an inspiration. I'm thinking tunic length, and perhaps elbow sleeves. Lots of possibilities, and it makes for happy thinking. For a change.

I Am Not Surprised

I am appalled. Horrified. Even shocked. But not surprised. 

Armed, violent, destructive homegrown terrorists broke into the Capitol building because they believed the lunatic rantings of the president and his sycophants, or because they saw something in the situation to profit from, or for some reason even more beyond my understanding than those two.

And instead of facing the heavily armed, threatening National Guard presence that largely black protesters have faced as recently as last year, there were a few Capitol police, who either were completely overwhelmed, or who appeared to be complicit, letting them in. And escorting them out afterward. Not arresting, not enough of them. Letting them go.

I am tired. So tired. Figuratively and literally (I was awake for 2+ hours in the middle of the night last night, for some reason).

I am wishing most strongly that they would invoke the 25th, though it doesn't seem to be happening, or impeach him--again, but will that do anything more than the first one did?

I don't know. I just don't know.

Herself

Isn't she just the cutest thing?

 

Never Seen That Before

Back to work was never going to be fun, but the report I started today is ... ahh ... not very well done (though at least it's short). And it contains a mistake I've never seen before! 

The reports have citations to a variety of sources, most frequently articles in medical journals. These articles might have one author or might have many, might even have "The so-and-so Study Group" listed as an author, but I'm not sure I've ever seen one with no authors listed, which was the case with one of the citations in this report.

I was suspicious from first glance that something was weird about this article, because of the authors it listed. If an article is written by Mary Jones and Sarah Smith, it would be listed in the bibliography as "Jones, M. and Smith, S."; this one, in that format, said "With, T. and Agents, I." 

Now, there are plenty of names that seem unusual to me; the biblio can be a strong reminder that there are more names than are dreamt of in my philosophy. But With and Agents?

So I looked up the article, and along with a puzzling lack of authors listed at all (which is vanishingly rare and weird), there was this phrase at the beginning of the article: TREATMENT WITH IRON AGENTS.

Oh, dear, no. So that's where it came from. but, oh, so wrong!

What I've Done on My Winter Vacation

No alarm clocks. As much sleeping in as cat and biology would allow. Staying up late without paying for it the next morning.

Lots of relaxing. Days of not getting much done, peacefully.

Lots of cat lap time with sweet Maggie.

Watching hockey, real live hockey on TV. The NHL isn't back up yet, but the World Juniors has been on for the last week, and watching actual hockey has been great fun.

Knitting.

Meeting for lunch on a weekday.

Reading; tons and tons of reading. Unabashedly pushing, as I mentioned before, Jonas Jonasson's The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared (Amazon link), which I and then my mother loved.

It was his first novel, but it turns out he has since written more, which I have requested from the library--and the movie of this one! There was a movie! How did I miss that title, five years ago?

Anyway. Vacation. It has been marvelous, and if my dad wants to pull some strings from the afterlife and send a winning lottery ticket so I can quit working, now would be an excellent time for that, dad. Just saying. I'm rested and refreshed, and yet still not excited for work on Monday.

Bits at the End of the Year

I've been on vacation for a week now, and it's been marvelous. I'm not sure when I last had this much time off from work without any travel, and it's so relaxing.

Well, I did go up to town yesterday to meet a few friends for outdoor-lunch-and-knitting.

The sun wasn't out for long, so this makes it seem nicer weather than it was. There was a huge hanging plant overhead, fortunately seeming very secure on a massive chain.

It was grand to be out and see a few faces. Also got a lot of knitting done. Bruins socks!

Tonight on zoom knitting, I got past the heel. Not bad, considering I started it on Monday.

I came in from an errand the other day to an ibis welcoming committee. I love seeing them around. 

I had a gift card from my birthday, and one of the things I bought was this book, which I finished reading today. Wacky and hilarious; I highly recommend it.

Maggie would like to know why you are upside down.

I mentioned that I ordered the Bruins calendar and got this instead:

I'm happy to say that take 2 was more successful.

And I can have my Bruins on the wall again. Though now that Chara has moved on*, that's going to be one weird month to get through. He was a Bruin for 14 years, so I kind of forget what the team was like before.

*Not that I'm blaming him at all! The team wasn't willing to commit to giving him the minutes he wanted, and Washington is lucky to get him, even at the old-for-the-NHL-age that he is.

It seems fitting to end with this.

Happy new year, or at least goodbye and good riddance to this year. Hopefully 2021 will just keep getting better.

A Little Christmas Assortment

Here are some things I've taken pictures of in the last day or two.

Mary Ellen made me this perfect-for-2020 ornament. 

Which actually matches well with the Christmas card I sent her, great minds thinking alike.

She also found this charming little sheep.

My cousin sent me these buttons, perfect for 2020 as well.

I wore some nicely seasonal socks.

And worked on my nicely seasonal knitting.

Maggie inspected her present from my brother; she was later seen tossing it up into the air and leaping after and upon it. Winner!

And then there's this:

Doesn't look much like the Boston Bruins calendar I ordered, does it? Fortunately, that's still in stock, or so they say; I guess I shouldn't count on it until it arrives and I see what's in the envelope this time. Cross your fingers for me?

Christmas Eve

It's been a quiet, pleasant day here, and I hope you can say the same. My day included sunshine, a dip in the pool, making cookies, and Christmas music. It also included lots of lap time with this girl.

It's not the day I ordered, not with my brother (safely) in California, but it's still a good day. And after all:

Someday soon we all will be together
If the fates allow
Until then, we’ll have to muddle through somehow
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now  

Christmas Adam, and Vacation At Last

Off work until January 4!

I was originally taking this much time off over the holidays for my brother's visit, and of course he isn't coming now, but inasmuch as that is true, and sad, I am still mightily relieved for vacation to be here. What a year it's been! And what a month for work December has been. It's going to be grand to really disengage from that. I'm not sure, honestly, if I've ever had this much time off without travel involved (or being laid off, of course, but that's different).

Not only was today my last work day before vacation, but my boss told me to take off early. I did finish up what I was working on, as I was close enough to done with it that I didn't want to have to pick it up again in January for the sake of an hour's work, but I spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in the sunshine, starting to relax.

It was grand. Happy holidays.

Survived Another Week

This was my last full work week before vacation--I work next M-T-W and then I am off, off, off until January--and it was another doozy, but here I am at Friday night at last. 

The period has not made my entire week awful, which is some slight comfort. Monday was simply dreadful; Tuesday was better only by comparison; Wednesday didn't get bad until mid-afternoon; and Thursday and today were nothing, though I did and do feel like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. We shall see what happens next.

I had a very adorable cat on my lap last night, leading me to stay up much later than I intended to. But seriously. So cute.

I eventually could not stand my full bladder, deadened butt, and sore back any more, and ousted her. She was not pleased, but decided that my bed wasn't such a bad place to spend the night, if I insisted. As I did.

Ahh, weekend!

Bleah

I mentioned back in October how crabby I was to have gotten my period (at age fifty-fucking-two, just saying); I didn't blog when I got it again in November, though I was just as unhappy about it. And then, just over three weeks after that? Here it is again. This is such bullshit.

Assuming it happens again in January, and there's no reason to think it won't, I'll make an appointment and see if there's anything that can be done. I get that at my age, they don't want to keep giving me birth control, but this just keeps happening, the terrible cramps and backache and trying to concentrate on work while slumping forward and groaning, and I can't, I just can't with this. Especially not if it's going to be one week on and two weeks off.

A Quick Watch

Well worth two minutes of your time. I did not see the end coming!

During this holiday season — find your reason to exercise.

Happy Holidays 2020...pic.twitter.com/8m99sQAWzo

— Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@RexChapman) December 13, 2020

Did you? 

Christmassy Knitting

No, not knitting Christmas gifts! I mentioned that I had gotten some Christmas-colored yarns, and this week, I cast on for a Drop Stitch Scarf (ravelry link). And I am loving the results!

Maggie, as you can see, is less impressed. But as long as she can still have the lap, she won't object too strongly.

It will block out a bit, and show even better, I hope, but I like it just fine as it is, too.

My original idea was to alternate blocks of this yarn and the red-and-white yarn, but now I'm thinking perhaps I will do half as long a scarf as I want it to be in this, and make the other half in the other. Might be fun! What do you think? Other ideas?

Still Here

I thought I'd pop in and say nothing's wrong here; I spent four lovely blissful days last weekend, doing a whole lot of not much, not feeling like blogging, and then this week work has been kind of hellacious and sitting at the computer in the evening is the last thing I want to do. But I'm fine, we're fine, and I hope you are fine, too.

Have a Maggie picture.

Two Years Today!

Guess who has lived here for two years as of today? Miss Maggie! She is pleased to continue to honor us with the gift of her presence.

Here are a few of the photos I've taken of her in the past week, to commemorate the occasion.