A Few Updates and Things

 A little of this, a smidgen of that.

• Margaret asked which credit card design I chose: I went for the mix tape, since it makes me laugh, and who doesn't need more of that in everyday life?

• I opened the package of Peeps I got right after Easter, and I just tried one and they're barely stale. I know it grosses some people out, but I like them stale, so that they're chewier, and if they haven't gotten that way in more than three weeks, they aren't going to. The formulation must have changed. No more Peeps for me, then. That's okay.
• Elisabeth wrote about a trip to PEI that her family took two years ago, and that made me think to pull out the lighthouse certificate I got on one of our trips there, when we went point to point on the island. Actually, Mom and I each got our own cert, with our names written on them (I erased mine to put it up here). I wonder if they still do this? I am forced to admit that 1996 is a few years ago now.

• After complaining about non-soft "soft" toothbrushes, I tried this Colgate ultra soft one, which has a head that's less bristle-y and almost more like foam, kind of, and found it to be much less of a problem for my delicate mouth. I'm also going to try the one that Elisabeth suggested recently, Curaprox, and see how they compare.

• I mentioned in the post about my new cabinet that I bruised my foot getting it in, and wow, did I ever! It's a bit swollen, and turning nice shades of black and blue; Tuesday night it was so sore and achy that I sent a message to my doctor asking if it was true that a foot isn't broken as long as you can walk on it. (Her answer: generally yes, but come in if you want it checked out. I'm giving it a little more time to see if it gets better or worse.) I will spare you any photos of it for now, but trust me, ow. Still worth it, though! But it's slowing down my yarn re-org progress. I'll keep icing it, rest as much as possible, and hope for the best.
• Speaking of the yarn re-org! It isn't done, as I'm slowed down by my foot and also by the cleaners due to come tomorrow, but I'm so happy with what I've done so far. After a few changes-of-mind, I have all fingering-weight yarn along here:

• Mmm, well, I guess I should clarify: all of that is fingering yarn. It is not all the fingering yarn I have. Ahem. My personalized retirement yarn store plan is coming along nicely. Further updates as they happen.
• Someone in the building is having their condo gutted this off-season, and the jackhammering started today. It is so loud. (They like to do such noisy work in the summer, "when no one is here." Ha, says the no one who is in fact here.) So loud. Just so loud. Thankfully, they did stop around 4, at least; it could actually have been worse.

I think that's all the "I should blog about this" things I was thinking of, but if I missed something, ask away!

Fifteen Years? How?

My dad died this week in 2009. Which somehow seems like it was yesterday, and yet also like it was a hundred years ago. As I have felt ever since, according to some of my blog posts since then.

• A Year Later, if you can believe it
• It seems impossible--feels impossible--that it can have been two years since my dad died, but so the calendar tells me. Isn't time the strangest thing?
• It's an impossible amount of time both ways, since it somehow feels like he just died, and that he's been gone forever.
• Ten Years. Ten Years?

I have a photo of him on the wall above my desk, and sometimes I will look up at it, inviting him to join me in rolling my eyes over some work thing, or reminding him that he hasn't pulled off a big lottery win for us yet. Any time, Dad!

Look at This!

Look what I got!

Isn't it beautiful? I found it on Facebook Marketplace, for just $60. (Not my first purchase through FBM, but this is even better than the last one.)

And think of how much yarn it will hold!

There is a very faded sticker on the back, which says Matter Brothers, and the original price of $769.99. How long ago was that, I wonder?

As soon as it was in the door, Maggie was sniffing it very great interest. She knew the sellers had a cat, I guess.

(You can see the black Ikea square thing in the background behind her, which is where I put the chest; the new spot for the Ikea thing is below.)

Sniff, sniff, sniff! Happily for me, I can't smell anything other than a faint wood scent. I have a fairly good sense of smell for a human, but not like hers must be.

It fits perfectly here.

And will hold SO much yarn! You may have noticed that I've bought a lot this year, and it has to go somewhere.

There are a couple of scratches on the top, but nothing serious.

It's solid, without being so heavy I can't move it myself. Not easily, mind you (says the bruise on my foot), but I moved it.

And the Ikea thing got moved next to another one that was on the opposite wall. I think it will work there!

Less than an hour of driving to get it, sixty bucks, and a little sweat equity. Well worth it! Time to start playing around with yarn arrangements.

 Do you have any fun bargain stories to tell?

Thinking About Starting to Get Ready

I'm at the very early stages of planning a trip up to Boston* next month, and if you know me, you won't be surprised that after flights and telling friends, my next thought was what knitting to bring.
*By which I really mean New England, not the city itself

My current project is going well---it's the Beachy Keen shawl that I mentioned I might do---but the stripes mean I need 7 balls of yarn to work on it for more than a few rows, so that's out for travel knitting.

It's coming along well, though!

It took a bit of time to get a hold of how to do the trickiest rows, but it's now social knitting. Just not travel knitting.

However, Dawn Barker, the doyenne of assigned pooling projects (like the Roam shawl I did in 2022), has a new pattern out, called Swell, and I thought it would fit the bill. Like the edge of Roam, it mimics linen stitch, which I like the look of, and I have two skeins of an assigned pooling yarn from Wonderland that I could use.

I started it now, even though I'm not traveling until late May, because if it didn't work as travel knitting, I would still have time to figure something else out. But it's going to be just fine.

So that's one thing crossed off the list---just one thing, but an important one!

What the what?

I have an appointment on Monday with my gynecologist for an annual exam and to discuss menopause. 

I went to check in online.

Page after page of questions, some of which have the previous answers carried over and some do not.

On one page, I had to put a zero in for number of pregnancies AND number of full-term births AND number of preterm births AND number of abortions AND number of miscarriages AND one other thing I forget. Of all things not to carry over, I think to myself---though I suppose a patient could have had more of any of those since their last visit, but at age 55 and when I'm coming in to talk menopause, hmm?---and go on.

A few pages later, there is this:

As you are pregnant or have recently had a baby, we would like to know how you are feeling. Please select the answer that comes closest to how you have felt IN THE PAST 7 DAYS, not just how you feel today.

...what?

I am not pregnant, because I never have been, as I just told you. I'm not answering a whole list of questions about my mood over the last week related to being pregnant or having a baby.

But of course it wouldn't let me go back, to see where on earth it got that idea, so I guess I'll have to finish checking in at the office. Sheesh.

Dishing on the Dish

I recently had a little fun crafty excursion with some women I know locally, to a glass-making place, where we all decorated glass pieces: bowls, plates, a cheese board, and in my case and a few others, something they call a swoop dish. This is a plate divided into four quarters, which is first put in the kiln flat to melt everything in, and then kilned again over a mold to make it swoop. Thus, this is what I made:

And the overhead view:

It was great fun picking small pieces and moving them around, considering the effect, moving them again. Because unlike painting, you can change your mind! (At a quick search, I can't find that I wrote about doing a painting session, but I did do that, twice, with friends a few years ago, and while it was interesting, I found it very stressful, trying to keep up with what the instructor was showing us, and not being very good at the actual painting part. I tried the second time to see if I would relax and enjoy it more, but no.)

I started with these four squares, because the colors appealed to me.

Then I picked through the many little bits they had, laying them out.

Moving them around. 

Adding and removing and tweaking.

And finally, I settled on this. (If the layout is working right, that is the pre-firing on the left, and the finished piece on the right.)

It's an interesting learning experience, seeing what works better or not as well. I can see a few things I would do differently, if I do it again, and I'd like to! But I'm very happy with my dish.

Do you see the letter C? What about the outline of Florida? Anything else?

That Was Worth a Phone Call

This morning I was looking at a bill from the podiatrist who I saw recently for a little problem with my toes. I was surprised by how high it was, so I went to my health insurance website to look at the benefit statement that would explain it from their side.

They broke the visit down, as they like to do, into three parts: the office visit, the X-rays, and the actual treatment. For the first part, they covered it minus my copay, fine; for the second, they "covered" it but said that it had to count toward my deductible, so I had to pay the adjusted amount for that, which pffft but fine; and the third part it said they didn't cover at all. 

I went down to the footnote to find the code that explained why, and it said, and lord knows I quote, "Your plan does not cover routine foot care or associated expenses."

I mean. What? "Your plan does not cover routine foot care" at the podiatrist? The one I picked from their website, which said he was in-network? In-network for what if it doesn't cover treatment? "You can go see him, but he can't do anything" hardly seems to have a point.

I called them, and the very nice woman I spoke with agreed that that sounded wrong; she looked here and clicked there and finally said that, yeah, no, that ain't right (not a direct quote, obviously). She said it should have been covered, and either she could send it back to the claims department to fix, or if I had 5 or 10 minutes then, she could adjust it while I waited. I chose that, of course, and after listening to the jaunty hold music for a while, she said it was fixed and should show up in about 24 hours.

Whew! So that's $65 back in my pocket. As well as relief from the utter ridiculousness of thinking that they agreed I could see a podiatrist, but he can't treat me. Because that made my head want to explode.

Health insurance in this country is such a scam, I tell you what.

Opting Out

My dad died in late April, and in the US at least, Father's Day is in June, which meant that in that first year, I was dumped headfirst into the massive marketing push that reminded me constantly and repeatedly of my loss. It made a hard time in my life that much worse.

Back then, I don't think any companies offered you the option to bypass specific marketing, but some of them do now, and I am here for it! 

So far, I've received two emails asking if I want to opt out of Mother's Day messaging, and I don't, but I so, so appreciate the offer.

Thank you, Sok-It! You make good products and you get this.

Thank you, Garrett Popcorn! I love your caramel crisp, and also you rock for understanding this.

I Bought a Thing

I was in the city yesterday, on a little adventure I'll tell you about later, and I had a nice browse around an interesting store that was full of stuff. And things. Furniture and linens and lamps and pillows, and jewelry and candles and doors and just things.

And I bought a thing. A thing with, or of, shell.

Hard to get a sense of scale, isn't it? Here it is with my hand.

So it's large! For a shell, anyway. And the side is sparkly shell.

And the bottom is more of the same. So pretty!

And it opens up! To hold who knows what.

Because no, I don't know what I'll put in it. But I had to have it.

Wouldn't you?

Help Me Choose

I got an email about my Discover card, offering me the choice of new card designs, and I clicked through to take a look. There are so many options! And of course many that I don't want. But more than one that I do. What do you think?

a) NHL. Now, if it was the Bruins? Sold. But I don't know that the NHL logo grabs me.

b) But maybe the Stanley Cup?

c) Pride. you know I love a rainbow, and supporting Pride appeals to me.

d) Mix tape cracks me up, but I'm not sure it's enough to want it.

e) Scenic beach, part one.

f) Scenic beach, part two.

g) Palm trees?

h) Like the mix tape, this one gets me in the nostalgia. I had one very similar to this!

i) They have more dogs than cats, but the cats don't quite grab me. Maybe the big kitty?

Too many choices! How would you vote?

An Enthusiastic Bath

No, not me: Maggie! She was going wild on the footstool last night.

But my favorite shot was this one.

Is she missing a part, or does she have one too many? Put together wrong? Part spider? Discuss.

And the Hunt Was Good

On the day after Easter, I completed my usual post-holiday hunt, and this is what I brought home, for half off.

• Ghirardelli caramel bunnies (because caramel, of course). 
• Traditional Peeps, of course--none of this flavored nonsense--and today I slit the bag open so that they could become properly stale, because that's how I like them.
• Junior Mints Eggs, which look different but taste just like regular ones.
• And the wild card, which Engie mentioned having tried, lemon KitKats. Surprisingly good! Not much like the regular ones, to me, but I liked them just the right amount: enough to happily finish the bag, but not so much that I'll be sad when they're gone.

I was sorry not to find Cadbury mini eggs, thought not surprised. Next year I'll buy some for full price, I guess.

Do you like Easter candy? What are your favorites? Did you try anything new this year?

Library: Fail and Succeed

I finished my strong reading month* of March with another win, a Sharon Shinn fantasy novel called Troubled Waters, which I very much enjoyed. 
*I finished 20 books in March, of which only 8 were re-reads. A whole dozen books I liked enough to finish! 

I looked it up and was pleased to find that it's the first of a series, but was less pleased to discover that my local library carried books 1, 3, and 4. Where is book 2??

Fortunately, I recently renewed my reciprocal borrowing from the library system north of us (I love that I can borrow from them, but you have to renew it every January, which is kind of a pain). And as it turns out, they have book 2 in both physical and e-copy. I got it electronically, which is much easier as it doesn't require a trip up (it's an hour to the nearest branch) to get the physical book and then another trip to return it. 

I requested the physical copies of 3 and 4 from "my" library as well. Then it will be back to the farther library, electronically speaking, for book 5, which just came out last year. So much fun to look forward to!