Thursday, June 08, 2023

Busy, a Little Crazy, Not Quite Crazy-Busy

Life has been a bit much since I got back from my trip. Jumping straight into month-end busy-ness at work made me feel like I couldn't get my feet under me properly, and even the three-day weekend, while wonderful, did not get me ahead of things, just keeping up (barely).

Then this week, my mother had cataract surgery--it went very well, thank you--and it did add some stress and to-do things to my week. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I'm here to do it! But, you know, some stress involved. This morning, I was unreasonably angry about something that was really not much of a thing, and I thought, wow, I'm not even on steroids, why am I so upset?

Yeah, steroids. The ENT gave me steroids to take, if I choose to, for four days, to help relieve sinus pressure (I have fluid in my ear, apparently), but so far I have not been able to convince myself that I can stand to be more short-tempered than I normally am, which is what happened to me on steroids last year. I go back to her in two weeks, so we'll see if I do it before then. I've been taking the other prescriptions she gave me, at least I'm doing that much. 

Oh, and when I go back, they're going to give me a hearing test! I'm not sure I've had one since grade school, as I haven't yet reached the "what? what did you say? is my hearing going?" stage of life--not quite, anyway.

One piece of not-bad-news-at-all that I must not forget to share: while I am absolutely not counting my chickens while they don't have headaches (how's that for a mixed metaphor?), I have been having very few headaches recently, and given how I had been having them more and more frequently, this is (provisionally, knocking on wood) very, very happy news.

Long may it last.

Monday, June 05, 2023

Yarn x Three (Stores), Plus Pre

In addition to all the fun I had on my trip north, seeing friends and eating great food, I managed to visit three different yarn stores, and did not leave any empty-handed. (I want to get this up quickly [finished is better than perfect], but if you have any questions on the yarns/colors, let me know.)

The haul looks like it was chosen by two different people with very different color taste.


Two skeins of Feliz, in a colorway that makes me think of sea glass.

Two skeins from Wonderland, in also muted colors.

Then we hit the sale rack and got these fun lightweight skeins of Viento.
Chainette!

Look at all the colors in this mini of KFI Indulgence

And then I picked up this skein of Serena. It was next to a skein that was multicolored, and I remembered that I had some of it in multis at home, and I thought it would coordinate well.
When I got home and and pulled this out, it wasn't as great a match as I hoped.
But then I realized that I pulled out the wrong multi. This one is much better!
I don't know yet what it will be, but that's okay.

After all that, I had no plans to buy any yarn, but then this popped up on Instagram as a preorder.
Just gorgeous!
Being patient is not something I'm good at, but this is worth waiting for.

Bought anything pretty lately?

Saturday, June 03, 2023

Herself

Maggie was napping on my lap this afternoon.

And then she had a bath.
And then she realized I was taking her picture while she had a bath.
And then she pondered how she came to live with someone who would take a picture of a cat in the middle of a bath.

"Rude!"

Monday, May 29, 2023

Sunday, By the Hour

Inspired by a recent post from NGS, I decided to do an hourly photo post about my day, and of course I wanted it to be a weekend, since 8 photos in a row of "Here I am working at my desk" don't really fit the theme, you know? So here's Sunday. (With, as it turned out, many pictures of Maggie instead. Oh, well, I stay true to myself.)

7AM, wishing I was still asleep, but Maggie is very happy to be settling down on my lap for a nap after her (second) breakfast. 

On work days, my alarm goes off at 6:30, and some days I'm awake-ish before that, other days not. I used to always be asleep when it went off, and hit the snooze button a few times, but I appear to have moved on to a new phase. Oh joy. I want to sleep late, damn it.

By 8, Maggie was letting me know she was ready to be fed again. Yes, she is spoiled.

"Well? Come on!"

At 9, I was at my desk, trying to chip away at the long list of small things I needed to get done after my trip. Noting the books I read and the days I had headaches, opening the mail, and on and on.

(I never promised they would all be interesting photos!)

At 10, after a shower, I was back at it, this time photographing the yarn I bought on my trip, in order to blog about it, and enter it in Ravelry.

Three yarn stores, and it looks like two people with very different color taste did the buying! But it's all for meeeee...and some of it was on sale.

By 11, having had a bit to eat, and tucked Maggie under a blanket (her idea, of course) for her next nap, I was straightening out the sweater-in-progress, officially half done as I'm halfway through the yarn. Next step, start the sleeves!


Well, technically, the next step was to wind the rest of the yarn. Which I did while listening to the recording of last week's Live from the Workroom, with Franklin Habit (you have to be one of his Patrons to see the livestreams, but it's a nice little group, lively chat, and I enjoy it).

At noon, while wondering how it could possibly only be noon and wishing I was a person who could nap, I updated the calendar for next week; Mom and I keep two weeks on the fridge, to coordinate who's doing what when. 


By 1, I've fed the cat again, and taken care of a few health things.


My doctor wants me to check my blood pressure at home now and then, so I have finally started tracking that (so far, it's fine), plus it was time for my depo shot. My GYN lets me do it myself at home, and frankly I don't like doing it at all--I don't mind needles if I don't have to look at them, but you can't give yourself a shot without looking--but it beats having to tweak my work schedule by half a day for a visit that takes under five minutes until you add the drive and the inevitable wait. So I've been doing it, and gagging. Why yes, I love being closer to my 55th birthday than the 54th and still not being done with this shit, thank you for asking!

Fun fact, once they sent in a prescription for the vial instead of the pre-filled syringe, and the (very nice) person at the pharmacy told me that they could sell me a needle and I could....and I nope-nope-noped out of that at once. Apparently the PFS is the very edge of my tolerance for this stuff. 

After that, I settled down on the couch, thinking that I might have another cat-lap opportunity. But she didn't take her chance, and a few minutes later, I looked up and saw this:

She wanted to be elsewhere, clearly. I helped her find the way underneath the blanket on the love seat. So that makes four different places she's napped, so far this day.

At 2, I was catching up on the supplements from the local paper that had piled up.

Done and recycled!

At 3, I was back at the desk, with the sidekick cat now keeping me company.
She watched me for a bit, then turned toward the window. A change is as good as a rest, I guess. She does like watching (and listening to) the birds outside.

At 4, I was back on the couch, reading. I've been re-reading the Peter Wimsey books by Dorothy Sayers, most of which I remember only parts of the who-done-it, and I love Peter. It's restful reading. I own a few of the print books (just kept my favorites when I moved), and have bought a few e-books and am borrowing the others from the library. 

Foreground: library book on tablet. Background: Maggie as a lump under yet another blanket (It's actually a cozy jacket-thing that is too warm for down here most of the time, so it lives on the couch where Maggie can crawl in when her whimsey takes her).

At 5, I went looking for Maggie, who had gotten down from there, and found her on Mom's lap.

Very pleased with herself. If you haven't been counting, this was her sixth nap spot of the day. The girl sleeps around. I performed what we refer to here as Cat Removal Service, so Mom could get up.

Shortly after 5, she returned to the start of her day, and got back on my lap.

She was still on my lap at 6, but by 7, she had moved to a blanket on the floor.

At 8, guess who was where again?


At just after 9, we were in bed. She frequently wants me to be in bed, on my side, so she can lean against my legs and have a bath before bed.


The other night, in fact, she was washing me as well as herself.


I usually go to bed closer to 9 than 10; I wake up too early, whether I want to or not, to stay up very late. I put on an audio book and play a few rounds of solitaire on my tablet before setting the timer on the audio book to fall asleep to. I listen to books I'm familiar with, so they won't grab my attention too much to fall asleep, and they seem to give my brain something to hang on to, instead of the array of random thoughts that otherwise crop up and push sleep off.

Anyone else listen to something (not like white noise) to fall asleep to? I suppose people who don't re-read books wouldn't want to, perhaps. I get into certain series and stick with them for a while: Martha Wells' Murderbot books, and her Raksura series, are frequent ones. Lately I've been listening to Katherine Addison's books, The Witness for the Dead and The Grief of Stones, over and over. I can not WAIT for the next book in the series!

Saturday, May 27, 2023

Movies and More Movies (Ratings, that is)

Goodness, has it really been two months since I put up some Boston Globe movie ratings? No wonder there are so many. Well, let's get to it, shall we?

Nothing worse than wasted profanity, right?
Oh, that dude!
Sounds more like violins than violence to me, but then I never was into Mario.
Yikes!
Good to know.
Oh, but here are the violins!
Can't help it!
Nice wordplay.
And here!
Phew, more profanity!
And more! It's everywhere.
Had to share the start of this review: one star, ouch!
Not just profanity.
I really do hope that peacock is CGI or something. No animals were harmed...?
Hmm, "on the whole"?

Have you gone to the movies lately? What did you see, and how was it? I haven't gone in a while, but I can report that a friend saw Air and loved it.