Of Moose And Men
The Best Laid Plans Of Both Often Go Astray

I decided for a variety of reasons to switch from my Apple watch as my daily watch to a Garmin watch instead. I’ve long used Garmin for sports-specific efforts, or step tracking, but not as a daily watch. One of the things the Garmin does in the morning when I first wake up is give me a readout on level of effort, recovery, etc., and it includes a suggested workout for the day. This morning it told me it was happy with my level of sleep (news to me, since I was up and down with a certain female cat who couldn’t decide where on me she wanted to sleep), and recommended a 45 minute base building run. I audibly snort-laughed when I read it. Thankfully the husband was already awake. I turned that into a 45 minute walk on the treadmill, instead, which felt good. Also had my first successful test of listening to an audio book while walking; the previous attempt I was later told by the husband was a dreadful audio book so he wasn’t surprised it didn’t work. I have never been completely sold on them, but decided to give it a go when a news email from someone I followed mentioned the book series (The Codex Alera by Jim Butcher), which I have read several times now, and that they had enjoyed the audio books on long drives. One chapter down.

High FODMAP load kind of day for me. The “sourdough” from the grocery store was not true made-with-a-starter sourdough, so the reflux is not happy with me. Ah well.

Work was relatively quiet. Cleaning out emails and suggesting responses to some things, mostly. I have an actual meeting tomorrow (the scandal!) to check in with a colleague about some language the agency has been using to advertise some programs that needs to change. Whee. Housekeeper is coming tomorrow, and we have friends coming over for dinner. And hopefully a tool to detect and fix faults in Xmas light strings is arriving and will work as advertised. Much preferable to replacing a pre-lit tree.

Got a ton of books for Xmas, so trying to sort & prioritize those. Also have a massive backlog of comic books, dating back to the training at the beginning of this month (I would estimate a couple dozen in queue).

Walked on the treadmill this morning. Waiting for a big Amazon order to show up “by 10pm”. The husband is downstairs trying out one of his Xmas gifts from me, an adult, exercise version of the 90s “skip it” toy. It sounds like he’s having fun, and is out of breath from it.

I’ll hop onto the work computer tomorrow to monitor stuff and clear out my inbox (so many reminders and news items await), but leave the out-of-office on so people don’t bother me. Glad I figured out how the ‘delay sending’ thing works in Outlook so I can have stuff go through on Thursday if I write anything up tomorrow.

I’m definitely my mother’s child – found a third batch of misplaced stocking stuffers this morning (she regularly forgets where she stashed Xmas gifts, and would find them weeks or months later). Really need to do a better job finding a consistent place to put those. These will get handed off when we see them next month for a family event.

My knee is still not at 100%; some days it’s 95, some it’s 80. Likely need to up my game on strengthening exercises. In the meantime I’ve been walking on our treadmill at some point during the day, and taking the speed up into more aerobic territory, according to my Garmin watch. Probably could’ve walked outside today, but I was trying out old hiking shoes from the closet that I hadn’t worn in forever and I wanted to be at home in case I needed to bail and switch shoes. The hikers did fine, probably better than my usual Timberlands for an extended walk, so I’ll keep them in the rotation.

We went out for the last haircuts of the year this morning, then hit the mother ship of our local comic store for stocking stuffers. On the way there the road was blocked so we decided to hit a Barnes & Noble and let the blockage situation work itself out. We were forcibly reminded of why we don’t hit physical stores the weekend before Xmas. It actually wasn’t that bad, and I’m glad they were busy as I hope that helps keep them afloat, but it reminds me of how devout church goers must feel when the CEOs (Christmas-Easter-Onlys) show up at the holidays. It also reminded me of working at a mall in graduate school, when they made us park off-site and shuttled us over, which I was initially annoyed at, but then grateful for when we could get out of the satellite parking a lot faster, even with the bus, than one could leave the garage.

Stocking stuff picked up. Finished the brim on an elf hat for the husband and started on the body. The green yarn pull ball for the body is behaving a lot better than the brim; the white brim yarn kept catching and was just a nightmare to pull out until I finally managed to pull the bit that was catching out of the middle and undo it.

The in-laws arrive tomorrow afternoon, so the husband was baking up a storm. Ginger cupcakes with gingerbread men and vanilla frosting. Sandwich cookies (chocolate with vanilla frosting inside). And I think he has more planed, but that’s all that got done over the last two days. Good stuff, but I’m finding that I have less of an appetite for a ton of sweets. I’m trying to steer him toward snacking size cakes when it’s just us (aka a single layer in an 8×8 pan) so we don’t have, say, an entire 9″ two-layer cake with frosting staring us down.

Two last things to wrap, and one last thing that’s to arrive Monday, then done.

On Sunday I’m taking off for the middle of Virginia for two weeks of training for work. Haven’t started a packing list yet, but I know I’ll be doing a lot of laundry (and perhaps some ironing) in preparation. Business casual attire. It’s also finally going to get cold in this part of the world, so perhaps sweaters will be in order. Not that I own many of those; they tend to be too warm for me in most indoor environments.

Hit the grocery store relatively early this morning, where it was busy but not overwhelmed. No wait at the deli counter, and a normal wait at the checkout line. Might have to do one more trip before I leave to stock the husband up on non-perishable foodstuffs.

We decorated the interior of the townhouse for Xmas. Three trees up (two in the living room, one on the top floor), lego villages, etc. We’ll hang the exterior lights tomorrow or Friday. Tomorrow we’re continuing a new Thanksgiving tradition and spending the day building a big lego set (Barad Dür, to go with the Rivendell set we built last year), though it’ll likely take us more than the day to build, depending on how dedicated we are. Simple fare is planned, nothing fancy, lots of carbs. Talked him into a snacking cake sized dessert (8×8 inch pan, single layer) rather than something huge; should fit in the toaster oven while I make melting potatoes in the regular oven.

Yarn store didn’t have the color I needed to complete the hat, but they’ve ordered some for me (it’s one they carry regularly). The husband picked out a green for a version of the same hat, and while I’ve wound the yarn I haven’t started it yet. Will take the yarn with me to Virginia, along with a Woobles advent calendar I purchased earlier this year. No lack of projects at this point.

Been knitting a Santa hat the last couple of days. Chunky yarn and an easy pattern (1×1 ribbing for the brim, and all knit stitch for the body), so it’s been knitting up quickly. Unfortunately the pattern underestimated how much yarn I’d need, so I’ll have to run down to Dupont to get another skein of the red for the body so I can finish it. Might get three more (2 red, 1 off-white) and then I’d have the option to knit a second one if I got the bug.

We got our photos done for the Xmas cards this morning. Then home for a brief rest and off to see Wicked, Part 1. It was really, really good. They went back to the book to flesh out some more of the stories, and it felt like a movie, and not like a stage show that was badly adapted to moving pictures (like so many movie musicals do).

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.

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

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.