On Ancestry, Blanket, Weather, Taxes

At a glance, I can't find that I wrote about it, but last year, I gave my mother one of those DNA testing kits (I went with 23andme, choosing kind of at random), and she did that and got her report, then turned around and gave the kits to me and my brother for Christmas. So we did the spit-in-a-tube part and mailed them in, and the results have just come in. It's pretty interesting!

While I was waiting for the report, I thought about how I wished I could have my father's results, too, which is obviously impossible now (and I don't think these tests were available, or at least common, before he died). Interestingly, though, I came up as almost exactly 50% Ashkenazi Jewish (from an ancestor born between 1910 and 1940), so there he is!

I mean, I still would have liked to see his, to see if he got more of a breakdown, but mine is a clean split, almost exactly half Ashkenazi and half northwestern European, which is very much my mother's side (she got 98.4% on her report). It's interesting to poke around in the reports and (if you opt in to it) look at potentials DNA relatives--I have 1100+, none of them particularly close, but who knows, I may dig into it more and see how it plays out. I don't really know much about what I can do with it yet.

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Thanks mostly to Olympic-watching, I have made great strides on the baby blanket, and should be done soon, or at least in plenty of time to hand it over at my next haircut a week from Thursday. I like how it's come out, but will also be glad to be done with it. Especially the navy yarn, which is a bear to fix mistakes in. I have found the double decreases that are central to this pattern to be easy to do, but an absolute killer to undo when I have messed something up.

Of course, I will have enough yarn left to whip out a few hats, so there will be a little more blue in my future. But only in simple baby hats.

And maybe I can do the decreases in the red or cream parts.

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I haven't mentioned the weather much lately, which is your clue that it hasn't been too terrible. It's still been winter, hat-gloves-shawl-cowl-layers, sweating and freezing at the same time, but not as bad as a month or so ago. And not too much snow, which I am very much appreciating. I dislike the cold enough. No need for snow to remind me why I'm glad to be moving to warmer climes.

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I just finished doing my taxes. Now I need a drink and to calm down from the spike to my blood pressure.

Next year? I'm paying someone to do it. It's already such a hateful, stressful process, and that's when it mostly goes well. Add selling the condo and moving to another state, and there is No Way I'm doing it for myself. Kind of a relief to know that now.