Yes, I Am That

Things continue to be things, don't they, both out in the world and here at home. 

For the latter: The roofers are still here (of course); regular thunderstorms and heavy rain most days send the cat into hiding; the demo noise from above is so loud that my mother and I have both, at times, looked up and thought, They can't really be about to come through the ceiling, no matter what it sounds like...

I ran across this picture book cover online, and while I haven't seen inside, it sure does sum up my recent mood.

You Can Say You Knew Me When

Apparently I'm on the path to prosperity here. Untold "financial benefits"!

I can't imagine why this was flagged as junk, can you?

Today Was Difficult

Today would have been an excellent day for something fun to come in the mail, but alas, nothing did.

Today was, well. A day in need of such redemption.

A couple of 'did I mention it yet' things first: one, that the unit above us is gutting their place, meaning demo and noise and all that jazz, with them hopeful they'll finish in November. Two: that I started going to water aerobics class again last week (I decided I was ready to try it, given the small group, pool location outside, and that masks are required in the building [though they aren't enforcing it: this morning, the woman at the desk wasn't wearing one, and when someone asked her, she raised her travel mug and said it's hard to drink tea with a mask on, which ... is really missing the point]). Forgive me for not checking the archives myself, but this headache...

So, the noise upstairs started yesterday, and I re-learned that yeah, the noise-cancelling headphones do help, though they're not the most comfortable things to wear for long periods. This morning, they started up before I went off to swimming, and during class, my head started hurting (coincidentally, I expect), and that's been all day. 

And the demo noise. They can't be right over my head the whole time....

And the roofers are still here. Not only are they still here, even though they are supposed to be "really for sure we mean it this time" almost done, but today they took up part of the side roof edge that was finished, damn it, finished, and tacked plastic wrap over it, which hello, hurricane season, really?

As my mother says, sometimes you have to laugh or else you'd cry.

The Latest Had-to-Knit-It

A few weeks ago, I ran across a knit shawl on Instagram, Tweed Boomerang, that just called to me. In normal times, I would have tried harder to hold off on starting it, since I have multiple active* projects going right now, that I'm happy with, and want to make progress on. These days? Eh, start it if you want to!

*As opposed to the multiple projects that for one reason or another are in time out.

I put up a photo of the yarns I'm using at the end of this post, and then I don't think I've mentioned it since; they are a skein of Socks That Rock Heavyweight, which I bought at Rhinebeck in 2012, in the colorway Saffron, and then two skeins of real mystery, in the sense of 'Is it really camel yarn?' I bought these two skeins at Coveted Yarn in 2010--look, I blogged about it at the time! I never realized, when I was starting this blog, how often I would use it to look back on when exactly something happened. And as you can see from the label, it really says that it's camel fiber. Are you going to argue with Robert? I'm not!

The shawl is not a complicated one, which suits my current brain power well. It starts at the point of the triangle and gets wider, and after a while with the main color, you start striping in the contrasting color. I'm making it nice and big, so it works out well that although the pattern calls for 100g of the main color, I have 200. Big and cozy and squishy!

This is from a few days ago, so it's bigger now, but progressing nicely.

In fact, I can no longer spread it out fully on the needle, so next time I photograph it, I'll have to slide it onto a longer needle so I can see how big it really is.

Enjoying a Day Off

I had an appointment today that, since it's over an hour away, I decided to take the day off work for; it's a good mental health break, as work has been busy and annoying for, oh, a while now (Pro Tip: Everything can't be a top priority; that's not how it works). My mother came with me, and we went to lunch afterward. Out! At a restaurant! Like crazy people living the wild life!

So we went to PF Chang's, a favorite of ours, and sat on the outside patio (outside still feels safer to me than inside). They had removed some tables to space them farther apart, and the staff wore masks. We wore masks on the way in and out, and did gloves/hand sanitizer. These are things that are different from before, and like any trip out of the house these days, it all felt both familiar and very weird.

But, y'all, it was So Good. The food tasted wonderful--was it always that good? Or did months without it make it seem better? Sitting outside, blue sky and sunshine, watching the world--I mean, it's a mall parking lot, it's not exactly a bustling city-scape or anything, but just to have something different to look at after being endlessly home, and seeing the people, and all. I don't know how to explain how good it felt.

And the joy of taking a Friday off is that now, I have two more days off. Ahhh.

To You!

Happy my mother's birthday to you! Have a virtual stack of scrubbies.

Up, Down, Up

For a Monday, I started the day in a decent frame of mind. It helped that a friend who knows me well sent me a great typo (I know, a bit weird perhaps, but it's one of the ways to my heart).

See?

Do you see it? Here, let me help.

They since corrected it, but it made me laugh, a good way to start a Monday. And, knowing that I had a yarn order out for delivery didn't hurt my mood either! As well as a virtual stitch and bitch tonight.

Unfortunately, it wasn't long after work started when a headache rolled in, which really took the wind out of my sails. The quality of my current project is not high, shall we say, and though I get breaks from it when the shorter pieces come in, getting one that used "fasten" to mean "make faster/speed up" (though I have seen it before) didn't help either.

Still, at least it was a good squishy-mail day!

And hopefully the headache will go away soon.

Mesmerizing

Five minutes of do-you-believe-that's-real-and-alive from the bottom of the ocean. Soothing and mesmerizing.

A Few Things

I've run across a few things recently that I though were worth sharing. On Facebook:

Also from Facebook:

I came across a website, Good Black News, via this story, and decided that following it would be a good thing. 

Finally, for Pride Month, I thought I would dig out some of my rainbow or similar yarns, and was quite pleased with the result:

One of my knitting friends expressed concern recently when I mentioned finding yarn in the stash for my latest project, since I have explained to her my theory of yarn buying as retirement planning. I was able to reassure her that one project from the stash is not like cashing out my 401(k).

Which is not, of course, including the three yarn orders I placed last week...

Something Mundane

I was reading a blog post from The More, The Messier in which she mentioned loving her office chair, which made my ears perk up because mine is pretty bad (it's old, and probably dying), and as my back has been bothering me lately (not only from the chair, but it has to be contributing), I asked her what kind of chair it was. Turns out it's from the Container Store, and here's where it gets a little weird. 

The page she sent me to said it wasn't available for shipping, and also it's not currently in stock at my 'nearest' store (which is 90 miles away--and I'm not going to the east coast any time soon, even though I'd like to try it out. With everything else happening this week*, it's almost possible to forget about the whole global pandemic, deadly contagious virus situation, isn't it? Just me?). But when I looked more, there are other colors the chair is available in--and just one of them is available to ship. I wonder why dark green is special? It isn't just that it's in stock: most of the colors show not in stock even at Miami, but Taupe and Steel Blue are available for curbside pickup, just not shipping.

*I'm just going to keep mentioning that Black Lives Matter, by the way, because they do.

It's weird. And actually, I really don't want to mail-order a chair (for over $100 [though I have a coupon, which takes it down to $90]) without sitting in it...so we'll see.

While I'm here, can I complain about Blogger's new, "improved" interface? We all know I don't like change, but it isn't just that. Previously, for example, if I wanted to insert a link, I would highlight the text I wanted, click the link button, paste-and-enter, done. Now, after I highlight the text and click the link button, I have to click on three different things and mouse to the ok button. It's not that it's impossible or anything, but why did they make it harder?

Time for a Cat Break!

Miss Maggie would like some attention paid to her cuteness of last night, please. Enjoy.

Helping clean the dinner dishes.

Staking out the lap.

Settling down.

"No, I don't hear anyone saying anything about getting up to get ready for bed."

"Look how cute I am! You can't disturb that."

"I mean, I have bunny feet!"

"Hmm, are you allowed to touch the fur? Let me sniff."

"Yes, you may. Go ahead!"

A Look at How I'm Doing

I put together a few images to show how I am right now.

Trying to channel this:

Feeling discouraged like this:

Wishing that this wasn't seeming so far from current reality:

And struggling through the day like this:

How are you?

For future reference:

The Yarn Mission has good info, not all of which I've gone through yet, but including a link to The Neighborhood Fiber Company (which I ordered from, yes I did).

Mary Ellen told me about Books & Crannies, a black-owned bookstore in Virginia, and I placed an order there, too.