Shopping and Prepping

With my brother due to arrive Saturday afternoon, I took Friday off work, and Mom and I had a long list of things to do on Friday and Saturday up to going to the airport.

This was complicated when Mom fell in the night, and I found her on the floor Friday morning. She did not appear to have broken anything, but I called for an ambulance anyway to check her out. She reluctantly agreed to be taken in to the hospital (“But my son is coming in on Saturday!”), and they decided first to admit her, and then to keep her for a few days while they try to figure out why she fell, or more to the point, why she keeps falling. She isn’t too happy about it, but is not currently demanding to leave against advice.

So I have been doing what I can to get ready. On Friday, I ran a bunch of errands, including to the Grove for oranges to juice. Today was the grocery store, and I told myself as I pulled into the parking lot, “It’s going to be a madhouse, have patience.” It helped that I immediately got the first parking spot in the row (thanks, Dad, my personal parking spot ghost), but it was indeed crazy in there. Especially in the deli, where there were at least five employees but only one handling the walk-ups. The others all seemed to be doing the sandwich side or other orders, which made for a long wait. But overall people were good about it, and there are worse problems in life these days.

Now I’m taking a break before heading to the airport. I will probably post while my brother is here, but if not, happy (American) Thanksgiving, and I’ll catch you later.

Last: What I Brought Home from NY

Finally wrapping up my trip to NY last month, here is the overview of what I got there. Overall-haul photo from Apple Festival:

Close-up of cute sheep ornament:

Yarn that my aunt bought me for my birthday, with the accidentally coordinated knitting in the background:

This apple is painted on a stone. Can you believe it? Penny for scale.

This sign at their booth with more on this art:

Three tiny "quilted" wood magnets, again with penny for scale.

Two lovely-smelling soaps.

This cute bowl cozy; we love these for warming things up in the microwave.

And here it is in the background of another purchase, the easy-to-apply Happy Feet Balm.

My heels get so dry sometimes, and I dislike the mess of applying some treatments for it. This way, it's on my feet where it belongs, not mucking up my hands.

Other than consumables (mmm, maple cotton candy), that's it! A very good time was had.

Not a Hoarder, But Definitely a Packrat

My brother is coming for Thanksgiving week! He's done this the last few years instead of coming for Christmas, and we all have a good, relaxed time. 

Since my home office is also our guest room, I have to clear things out in order to have room for the airbed. And of course I don't mind when the result is someone I love coming to stay, but that doesn't make it not a production, because I am a Keeper of Things.

[I used to say I was "a bit of a hoarder," but when I learned more about actual hoarders, I came to realize that isn't the right description for me. I used to watch and love the TV show Clean Sweep, but when Hoarders came on, I saw the difference. Hoarding is serious and very sad. And not me.]

I am certainly a packrat, though, the queen of keep-it-in-case, a Keeper of Things. I do work on this tidy-up project more than once a year, but in the same way that I will fill a larger handbag if I have one, my STUFF expands to fit the space available.

He gets in on Saturday, but we had the cleaners come Tuesday, so that was my initial target for clearing some space. I thought that I had taken Before pictures a while ago, but the only ones I can find are for the garage, which is a separate clean-up project. So all you get is After, but you can imagine the space filled with boxes and totes and paperwork and various knitting paraphernalia. All over every surface.

Is it perfect? No, far from it. But it's so much better.

Look at all that clear floor space! We won't look in the closet, though. I'm setting myself the goal now to have everything in the closet gone through and assessed before next Thanksgiving. Doesn't mean the closet will be empty, but what's in there will be intentional. I just added a reminder to my calendar.

In related news, my desk drawers are also overfilled to the point of impacting their usefulness, so I decided to multitask during boring, why am I even in this meeting? work meetings, and start on clearing them out. They don't need to be empty, mind you, but I want to know what's in there, and be able to get to what I want.

First up, in about half an hour Tuesday, this drawer started here:

Was emptied:

And is now here:

It's better! I will admit that I didn't go through every single thing, but I did a quick sweep, tossed or moved some things, and that's good enough for me today. I know myself, and if I push toward a goal that's too hard, instead of powering through, I will lose steam, decide it's not happening after all, and give up. Much more fun to read a book, you know?

Slow and steady is the key for me. Know thyself.

Goldilocks Goes Shopping for a Handbag

I have written before about how I am like Goldilocks when it comes to handbags: I want certain things a certain way, or a certain size, and waaaayyyyy more bags do not fit my requirements than do fit them. Thanks to that blog post, I can say I have been using this bag for almost two years, and while it is Just Right in many ways, there are a few things that are Just All Wrong, and that boiled over recently and put me into "must find new bag now" time.

I mostly have liked carrying the bag I have. It has pretty good functionality for what I want, it's only slightly too big and thus prone to overfilling, and it's only a little too soft, making it want to slump over. I do love the pockets, and of course the rainbow.

But. The main problem with it is that the places where the handle clips onto the bag, both ends are metal, so they go clink-clink all the time. And sometimes, when I put it down in the car just wrong, it goes clink-clink-clink-clink-clink-clink-clink-clink until I move it. Or until I lose my mind. Which point apparently was closer than I thought.

So on Saturday, I went into Marshall's, and had a full-on Goldilocks run through the handbags. Too big, clinks, too big, too small, clinks, too big, too small, too small, too stiff, too floppy, and so many weird or ugly-to-me ones that I thought about taking pictures for a photo essay, before deciding that I was already going to be there long enough.

In the end, this was the winner:

It looks big, too big, but it fits over my shoulder perfectly, and the top part really isn't going to hold things in, so I won't be as prone to carrying too much. There's a small zip pocket on the outside, which should take my sunglasses.

The inside is mostly open, which means I have room for (from the top):

• the small bag holding a shawl to wear
• the small bag holding a sock knitting project
• the small bag holding tissues, pills, and other small items
• the crossbody bag that I use in place of a wallet, which holds all the usual wallet items, and also my phone and car key, if I just want to run into a store quickly

There is a pocket to the right that has a packet of tissues and a pen, and there's a small zip pocket to the left, which I'm not sure what wants to be in. Then under all the other bags is a small pouch that holds a few things I don't often need but may want, like a band-aid or sanitizing wipe.

Finally, each end has a zip pocket that reaches in along the side of the bag. I guess it would hold a few pieces of paper? Not sure what else.

Suggestions?

No clinking!

End of the Trip: The Day of Endless Travel

I never did get around to posting about my long day returning from my trip up north in October, though I started drafting this weeks ago. I do want to share some of the pictures, so...here we are, a month later.

My return travel day was already going to be long, though not as long as if I'd picked an itinerary with a 5-6-hour layover, what's up with those? Instead, I chose a route with a layover of 100 minutes, which would get me out of Syracuse at a decent hour and into Florida manageably late.

However, the layover was in LaGuardia, which had had numerous weather-related delays and cancellations the day before, and apparently wasn't over it. I was at the airport but not on my first flight when I got the notice that the second flight was delayed, and then the first flight was also delayed. Which meant I got to spend quite a while at Hancock airport.

They had a few small "shops" with just basic food/drink options, not the bigger ones that have travel items and tourist shirts and so on, and they had scanners instead of human checkers. You put your item on the scanner and the display says "Thinking..." but in my opinion, thinking is not what it's doing. It's scanning.

However, it did at least register what I was buying correctly.

Since I had plenty of  time, I tried finding the mythical place with a comfortable seat, a table, quiet, and not freezing cold. This spot was good on the first two, not on the last two.

But at least I got some knitting in before moving on.

The Middle Ages Brewing restaurant had some fun ads.

I tried this empty gate, but it was cold and had a tv going, so not all that quiet.

Still, I sat and listened to the start of the Bruins matinee before it was time to go closer to my gate: they kept switching how late we were actually leaving, and I didn't want to miss it if they pulled the time way in.

It did get pulled in a bit, actually, and finally we were on board and going.

I noticed that the track lights above me were not all white, and tried to get a photo, but the camera didn't know what to do with it. I promise, it didn't look quite this rainbow to the naked eye!

We made it to LaGuardia without any more drama, and I had time to eat and do some leg-stretching. I liked the sign over the food in this store:

As I had on the way up, I had a good chicken lunch at The Grille, and a delicious cookie from Magnolia Bakery.

It felt like forever until we boarded, but eventually I was back on a (very uncomfortable) plane, picking another movie I'd seen before but was willing to watch again. This time, I went with the hockey classic Miracle.

Some fuzziness as we went up into the clouds.

Finally back in Florida, it was about 10 PM when I walked out of the airport, and was immediately warmer than I had been the entire trip! It was so nice to be warm again. When the shuttle got me to my car and I got in, one of the first things I did was take off my shoes and socks. My feet were very out of practice with being en-shoe-d for days at a time (plus I've always preferred to drive barefoot).

An hour's drive home, and I dragged in and was in bed about 20 minutes later, thanking Past Me for being smart enough to take the following day off work.

All right! Now all I need to do is show what I brought home from that weekend, but that can wait until next time.

Heat (or lack thereof)

Let the record show that I turned the heat on this morning.

Despite yesterday morning's low, we didn't have the heat on yesterday. It was cooler in the house than we normally keep it, but not that bad. This morning when I got up, it was lower still, though, and when it went down another degree, I gave in. There are limits to how many layers I will wear.

Mid-afternoon, I turned it off, and we'll see what the temp does this evening and overnight.

Newman says we'll get through it together.

Brrrr; Depressing Library News; Good Cat News

While I understand that my cold weather is not your cold weather, Florida did have record-breaking cold overnight Monday into Tuesday. This was what I had at 8 this morning:

Brrrr! In Florida, that doesn't merit a frost warning, but a falling iguana warning:

The local weather person shared some fallen iguana photos on Facebook today: it really does happen.

Now, by mid-afternoon, it was more like 60, and probably in the sun it felt decent. But inside, not in the sun, I was layered up. 

Brrrr.

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I've written before about how I have not only a library card for my county's library system, but reciprocal borrowing through the next county's library. Since I read more and more ebooks, I love having two cards* to use: I read an absolute TON, increasingly so this year, as escapism, and I do buy some, but I would be bankrupt if I bought them all. 

*Technically, I have a third: there's an org called the Queer Liberation Library and signing up for that gave me another 5 loans a month from Libby, nothing to sneeze at. 

I was therefore crushed, and I mean CRUSHED*, to get an email from the other library system saying that they are changing the reciprocal borrowing program to eliminate ebooks. Almost the only thing I use it for! (The closest branch to me is an hour's drive, so obviously I'm not making that trek on a regular basis to borrow physical items.)
*Now, a few days later, I'm starting to get over the shock, but that just means I changed the title of this post from "Kind of Heartbreaking" to "Depressing" Library News. Dial it down, there, ccr.

In the email, they note that they offer a non-resident card that can be used for ebooks as well as other things---for $60 per year. Sigh. 

I get it. I do. But ow.

So my Libby borrows would go from 35 a month to 15, and Hoopla from, well I don't know because it tells me how many more I can borrow this month but not for any amount of googling can I find out how many I get per month, why is this a hard question, ugh.

Ahem. I go from more to less, basically. And I probably will suck it up and pay for the non-resident card, since I can afford $5 a month to read 20 books. But, you know, ugh. Change.

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I took Newman to the vet for his checkup, and though he wasn't pleased about the experience, he was a very good boy, and got a mostly clean bill of health. 

"Why does this take so long? I guess I'll watch the TV."

He needs dental work ($$$), and they're testing to make sure the worms are completely gone, but he's at a good weight (about 12 and a half pounds, he's not a lightweight) and there were no red flags. They also trimmed his claws: I'll do that going forward, but for now the needles are gone and he can make biscuits on me without making me shriek. 

Which makes both of us happy.

Triumph!

A month or two ago, maybe longer, I bought a new shower head; I had noticed that mine was acting a little drippy, and figured I should replace it before things became catastrophic. Then of course, I put it aside and didn't do anything about it. But today I decided it was time, and gave myself the you-can-do-it (and if not you'll call a plumber) pep talk.

I turned the water off, that much I know how to do, and I got the old one off; I was pretty sure I would be able to, since I actually put it on, back when I moved in and found the then-current one needed replacing. This new one is a different style, and instead of just having the piece that goes in the bracket or can be handheld, the new one has one of those but it's surrounded by a holder that also sprays water. That sounds weird. Well, I don't know the terminology, but it looks like this:

So the shower head part connects to the wall thing, then the handheld connects to a hose and hooks into it. You can have water come out of one, the other, or both.

Long story short, I tested it out and it works and I like it! It even feels like better water pressure somehow, so win-win there. 

Thank you for letting me brag about accomplishing this fairly simple thing. Have a Newman picture. Or four.

New Wallpaper

It's too perfect.

A Little Scattered

Sometimes there are enough different things I want to write about that I somehow manage not to write about any of them. Fortunately there are no blog police and I adhere to my initial thoughts from when I started the blog, which is that I have to write for myself before anyone else. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that anyone else wants to read what I write! But it starts with me.

So, a few things with little detail and in no particular order. First, yes, those who guessed (or suggested) I open the yarn advent starting on November 1 instead of waiting until December, you win, that's what I'm doing. So far there have been beautiful blues revealed and I couldn't be happier. I took a picture yesterday:

Continuing on the yarn theme, my cousin L (who is actually married to my second cousin, to be specific; they've lived in this area longer than I have) was on a trip to Germany this summer and was inspired by all the yarn stores to bring me back yarn. She was in northern Germany, and said every village had a yarn store, and the larger town she was in had three, and she simply had to bring me back some. She has often commented on my knitting photos on social media, and apparently she showed some to the woman in the yarn store, to give her an idea of the level knitter I am! Look at this bounty:

Rainbow! Cashmere!

Naturally, I want to knit her something in thanks. I picked the Clove Hitch scarf pattern, as she said a scarf for Christmas trips up north would be nice, and she said her favorite color is teal, so I'm using these two from my stash.

It's hard to see in the picture, but they are slightly lighter and darker: it won't be a huge contrast, but I like it so far. Much better pictures to come, I promise, but I have started and so far, so good.

That's all well and good, I hear you say, but don't you have any cat photos? Newman? You know, the new guy?

Do I have any photos. Ha. Boy, do I. Here are a few.