Got a wild hair this morning so I cleared off some shelves in our owner’s suite closet to try and neaten them up and make room for things. Rearranged shoes so they all fit. Tried on pants and shorts, donating a bunch that no longer fit, and better sorting the remainder. Did laundry, including some of the shorts which had accumulated dust. The husband usually does the laundry, but I offered to take care of mine this week because his schedule is nuts and I’d be home today. Still need to sort some shoes and determine which should stay and which should go, but that’ll involve a consultation with the husband (he’s more a shoe person than I am).
Prepped training I’m giving tomorrow. Two classes – one to other attorneys, and one to our budget folks. Cleaned up work emails. Mailed off a package to a niece and filled the car with gas. Have discovered that the second-closest post office is the way to go. They’re friendly and quite helpful, unlike the closest one, where the folks have universally been surly and brusque (which is a shame because the closest one is walking distance).
I’m taking off for training for two weeks down in the middle of Virginia at the beginning of December and need to start preparing lists of what to pack.
Otherwise I just continue working. There’s zero I can do about the incoming administration’s plans, so I refuse to engage in stressing over said plans. Instead I’ve been spending time at work spreading what my best man refers to as my “calming Moose rays” – talking people off of ledges, listening to their worries, and trying to redirect them away from doom scrolling and obsessive news consumption.
The husband was out of town this weekend (still is, as of this writing, though he returns later today). I spent some of it straightening up some things around the house, and in the midst of that dug up some old mini cross stitch kits that I decided to attack. I’m pretty happy with the results. I did modify them slightly, in that I left off some smiley faces that the pattern developers probably put on there to make them more kid-friendly/kid-attractive (they were marketed as learn-to kits for ages 8 and up, and no I have no shame because I thought they were fun). They’ll look fun in my cross-stitch bathroom (we have a half-bath on the second floor that is exclusively decorated in the random cross-stitch I’ve done over the years). I dug out another kit I’d started but not finished, a sampler of sorts about coffee that’s all white thread on black fabric, but it was the end of the night yesterday so I only did a single thread before I called it an evening and wound myself down.
I think I’ve broken my yarn pull-ball winder. I suspect it’s fallen out of the closet one too many times and knocked something out of whack because last night the second ball of yarn in a row just thoroughly fucked up and did not wind correctly. Thankfully this time I managed to ‘wind’ it completely so I was able to then convert it to a regular round yarn ball without any tangles, but I’m definitely not a fan of those.
Finished the husband’s fingerless gloves last night, wound up fresh yarn, and cast on my first shawl. The shawl had an interesting garter tab cast on that had you knit up several rows, then turn the work to pick up stitches on the edge, then turn again to pick up along the cast-on edge (so it stretches out/bends the original few rows). I’m at the point in my knitting where I like to switch back and forth between “let’s learn something new” (the brioche hat, this new shawl) and “let’s do something easy” (the fingerless gloves).
Oh, and I finished the latest Wooble amigurumi this week, JoJo the Bunny. He’s so fat. LOL Next up is a fox, and hopefully I’ll get better at more consistent stitches with the practice.
In the meantime I turned 52 last week. I was thinking about that and about my work anniversary and realized that come December 1st this year I will have worked for half my life as a Federal employee. And don’t think for a moment that I won’t pull that out in meetings. LOL
I have never had such a hard time with a skein of yarn. Tried to wind it up into a pull ball and the damned stuff just would not stay in shape. There was much cursing and screaming involved because it fell and got completely tangled up. Ended up having to sit at the table to untangle it all and wind it into a traditional round ball of yarn, because that was the only way I could get it all to stay together. Gorgeous stuff, but what a pain in the ass. And there’s another skein I’ll have to roll up later, as I don’t think one skein will make both the fingerless gloves I’m going to make out of this mess. What a royal pain in the ass.
I have become that stereotype of the overweight male who has to wear too much work clothing so wants the temperature set to a reasonable 70-72. Which is what the temp has mostly been. But apparently last week they moved a new co-worker to the office next to mine because hers was too cold and she cranked the (shared between our offices) thermostat to 76, where it was when I came in today and boiled in my office (until I went and adjusted it down, because she wasn’t in the office). Apologized to our office manager that I was going to add another variable to her space allocation work, but let her know that long term this was going to be an issue. I think perhaps we could switch her with yet another coworker who, like me, wants it on the cooler side, and then she’d be in an office with a shared thermostat with another woman who wants it warmer. Why they shared the thermostats in the first place is beyond me, but there are many things about this office that escape me.
Finished the endless scarf yesterday, but not without some screaming. With 2-3 rows left to go I dropped a stitch and it quickly dropped down 6-7 rows as I was trying to stop it (I needed to turn the work to grab it properly). No one else was home, so I let myself scream in frustration. Managed to finally grab it and crochet-hook it back into place, along with much swearing. Bound it off, weaved in the remaining ends, and done.
Today I’m starting a short scarf, but one with a new-to-me i-cord cast on, and with a more detailed pattern that will involve more counting of rows. And bigger needles (US6/4mm, versus the US4/3.5mm on the endless scarf).
That’s about what I estimate I have left to go on the endless brioche scarf. I can definitely say I have brioche stitch down now, at 60 inches/152 cm or so of scarf done. About 2.5″ left to go and I can bind it off, weave in ends, and enjoy the softness of it all.
Did I mention it hit almost 100F/37C here today? Perfect scarf knitting weather. Ha.
Knocked out about 2 hours of knitting this evening while watching Atlas on Netflix. Not a bad movie, fun premise, good background noise for knitting. The lumos & lumos neck lamp I grabbed last year was a great investment for couch & TV knitting. Would definitely recommend it. If you do decide to order one, in my experiences buying from them (more than once; picked up some for my nieces) they always offered a light at 50% off after I checked out the original order, so if you’re looking to get more than one keep that in mind. And there are always coupons, so never pay the full list price.
Have been dealing with some shoulder/arm issues related to posture/positioning while gaming, knitting, and computing. Strengthening stuff has helped a lot with that. And since I’m finally getting back to being able to jump rope on the knee I dislocated last year adding the strengthening has been a natural progression. Making sure I move more often while doing those activities has also been key.
Work is going. I’ve used this relatively quiet pre-holiday week to clear out some longstanding projects. Haircuts over the weekend, and visiting with one of the husband’s new coworkers and his family. Then probably being a lump. And maybe, just maybe, finishing this scarf.
The last two weeks or so I’ve been on a ‘straightening up’ kick. Not consistently, and not every day, but I’ve gone into a couple of ‘okay, it’s time to fix this area’ moods. I’m pleased with the results, for the most part, but there’s always more to do. The problem with having hobbies and enjoying collecting things is finding ways to store and display said things without driving yourself crazy. Today I put some things I needed more readily accessible in better places, moved a table out of my office, found a set of crochet hooks I’d forgotten I’d bought and put them with the other needles, hooks, and notions, and made a mess of my work desk.
I finished another hat, the “ziggity slouch” pattern from Stephen West in Hazel Knits Ruby Love yarn. Like the last hat of his I did the yarn count for my gauge was off, so I had to cut the last repeat in half in order to have enough yarn to finish it. Nevertheless I like how it came out, and I’m looking forward to wearing it this winter. I was going to queue up another hat of his with a green yarn, but then he announced a new e-book of ‘small shawls‘, and the first one was the same Dustland pattern that I was going to use for the hat, so instead I’m going to do a small scarf/shawl instead. It’s going to use the same start for the blanket kit I have from him (an i-cord cast on) in miniature (3 versus 303) which I’m looking forward to trying.
Despite getting that set up, once I ran some errands I got sucked back into re-playing the Darksiders series of video games, because the studio teased a new game this week. I finished the first two games, but not the last two, so I thought I’d play through them all. I just finished Assassins Creed Mirage, making it a good time to plough into something familiar and fun.
Installed an AquaPurr water fountain for the cats in the little bathroom off my office. It’s the faucet they would beg me to turn on at various times, so now they can do it themselves. It took some wrangling to find the right size adaptor, but the owner of the company was very helpful via text and email and I got it all sorted. They like it, but I’m not sure they quite get that they can do in and use it any time without me needing to be there; I usually have to encourage them to get up on the counter and approach so the sensor turns the water on for them.
Crocheted Pierre the Penguin today, the second of the six Woobles kits I ordered for Prime day.
Focused on keeping my stitches looser, with the result that Pierre is a lot bigger than Kiki, though the instructions for the body were exactly the same.
