Life's a Stitch

Not much progress in the rib department. It is a slow area of the body to heal as they don't get any rest due to the need to expand when breathing and occasional bodily induced setbacks such as sneezing and coughing. A workweek in Toronto, complete with 4.75 hour flights and luggage lifting, slowed the progress. Enough whining. Thanks to all for the good thoughts. 

A fair bit when it comes to project progress. Those 4.75 hour flights helped with the growth of Seraphina, now halfway done:

Progress? After thirteen years without TV in the house, not sure what possessed me, but we've joined the rest of the world.

I know what did it. A call from the cable company, explaining that for the same price we pay for phone and internet, we could have all that plus cable with free equipment including PVR. Further temptation was six months of a 50% discount that could be used to buy a fancy shmancy TV. 

Negotiations regarding placement in an unobtrusive space produced a TV room in the back of the house. C is in heaven, he has his video valium back. ME? I'm guarded. The one who doesn't appreciate the drone and flashing lights, still has a quiet house despite the intrusion of progress. I do have to admit though, I was an eager participant in watching the hockey game. 

I could have called this one Oops I Did It Again, but that it far too common a blog post title, usually referring to a project the second time around. Not for me. I Did It Again refers to falling while wearing perfectly sensible shoes travelling on foot at a reasonably moderate speed. I'll turn a long story into the Reader's Digest version, as one of my former bosses used to request of staff.

Police incident, downtown. Man wielding sword, cops in pursuit. Bus behind police tape unable to turn around. I'm on bus. Three shots. Rubber bullets, how Canadian. Didn't work, go figure. Taser used, ineffective, Tackle him! Man down. Still on bus, ringside seat.

One more hour, let off bus. Finally! Let's grab a cab, step off sidewalk, woman down. Prone on Georgia. Street that is. Maui Memories. What's wrong with me? People screaming. Someone help her. Disbelief. Even pavement. Very graceful?! Ultimate embarrassment.

ER, x-rays, purple elbow, injured chest wall. Very painful. Morphine.

The end.

P.S. Six days later, doing better. At last.

Please excuse my absence. Grant writing season has been extended this year like our endless winter into spring. And my personal life has been wrapped up in paperwork excitement, the good part of which includes a group purchase of a place in warmer climes. More on that when it's a done deal. 

I cleaned out a closet tonight. Not a real closet, but it gave me that cleaner closet feeling going through my Ravelry "favorites." I am not good at following that guideline "if you haven't used it in two years…." Still, after my enthusiastic cull, I have enough in that Ravelry closet to last many lifetimes.

On to the real closets. We have a retirement plan of action that includes starting mine a year ahead of C in which time I will get the house in order for selling. A year is optimistic, so four years out, to make the job easier, we are sifting through the remnants of an active family of five. A family so consumed by work and school that it seems we forgot to plan a second life for outgrown clothes, read books and loved toys. We just stuffed them under beds, in closets…

Which leads me to the stash. C rearranged the knitting/computer room last night. He emerged with a look of understanding, one I don't associated with my knitting addiction.

"Ah," he said,"I now know why they call it a stash." 

My nervous laughter, "Why is that?"

"Because it's stashed everywhere: under the bed, in the closet, every drawer, in hampers, rubbermaid containers, in baskets, some of it still it their shipping boxes."

He admitted he has no room to talk with his piles of wood, inside and out, awaiting their turn, so to speak, on the lathe. 

I do know I'm not as bad as some in my knitting group. There's one whose stash has grown so large that she's rented a storage locker. You know who you are. But the prize goes to two other sweet souls, who have rented a "studio" in an industrial part of town, primarily for stash management. 

I'd be interested to know, where do you keep yours? Any unusual strategies? The microwave? The doghouse? 

What is that look? What are those eyes saying?

And what are these eyes saying:

That's Chompers, my daughter's cat, and that glow on the floor is really from his eyes.

 

More colours of spring:

Evening cherry trees in my son's neighbourhood. They're a month late!

Another Crescent Moon and Zauberball.

Vancouver's famous Elms of East 6th Avenue. Save our Elms!

Pattern: Citron  I'm #6785 to post this on Ravelry.

Yarn: Malabrigo Lace (1 skein) and I'm 13,975th to use this yarn on Ravelry. Nothing like being late to the party.

Modifications: Knit a wider, heavier border to keep it from rolling. Looks like it worked.

Thoughts: Meh. Underwhelmed with the finished product, the yarn (and to think I was so desperate for it at the time) and the eyelets created by the increases. The plus side is that it's so light you hardly notice it's there keeping you warm. I give this one a C+.

Apologies for the delay, I'm still here, buried under grant writing deadlines. Working in the non-profit world of severe funding cuts, my job has degenerated to filling out forms – funding applications and their subsequent accountability forms. It's not as fun as it used to be. The good part? The people I work with makes it worth it. 

And I'm back from a quick trip to Edmonton to share in the excitement of a first house purchase by my daughter and her husband. We were joined by my other daughter who had just finished all her last exam for the coursework part of her Master's in Medical Physics. A lot of joy packed into that weekend. 

Two steps forward? Thanks to a cortisone shot in the wrist, I'm knitting a bit again. And of course, two recent finished projects count as forward movement. Here's one, the crocheted scarf:

Pattern: Scarlet Evening Shawl, written in Russian by Julia Michanka. It comes with an excellent chart and photos, so Russian is not a prereq. 

Yarn: Zauberball Crazy, Tropical Fish colourway, 1 skein.

Modifications: Completed 4.5 levels of squares, reserving 20 gms of yarn for the added shamrock fringe. 

Thoughts: Quick and easy enough, a perfect 450 yard sock weight project. It comes out to nearly an equilateral triangle, not my favourite shape for a shawl, but I made it small enough that folded over a bit along the top, and wrapped around the neck, it gives the look I want. Will definitely do this one again.

Two steps backwards. Does this pain you?

Before and after:

Really, it doesn't hurt me too much. I wasn't wearing the sweater as the cabled trim was too heavy and it hung all wrong. Plus I hated the seam where the trim met, right smack in the middle of the back edge. What pains me is this:

All those little teensy balls as the result of indiscriminant scissor snipping. Oops, that wasn't a seam stitch. And why is it that you end up with one less skein than you started with? The seaming couldn't have taken that much. All's well, I found the discontinued Tahki New Tweed on e-bay and it's a Mr. Greenjeans in progress. I guess that would be a Mr. Oatmealjeans.

I did it. After many years of good intentions I am officially Diet Coke and caffeine free. Both cold turkey. My method? Remember that bout of food borne illness? As long as I wasn't consuming anything, good or bad, it was an opportunity to quit some vices and not notice the withdrawal symptoms. This was a BIG step for me. For many years Diet Coke was my breakfast drink of choice. And lunch. And dinner…

As a person who used to work in addictions I know that something has to be substituted for the offending chemicals. Nothing drastic as newfound religion or a career change for me. My substitutes are club soda, an occasional diet ginger ale, and a morning decaf espresso. I should note in all honesty, a perfectly reasonable amount of red wine is still in my repertoire of vices.

My other accomplishment was blocking two projects in one weekend:

More on those projects later. Unrelated question: Has anyone tried Great Valley Ancient Grain medly from Costco? I bought some last night and realized the back label with cooking instructions is missing. Does anyone know how to cook them –  as in the water to grain ratio? Great Valley has no website.

Next time they predict a La Nina year, if I'm still living in the in the rainforest I'm running the other way. There was way too much rain for my brain. When the clouds lifted from the sky and the fog from my head, there was still snow on the Lions.

The cherry trees started to bloom:

And the magnolias popped:

My favourite harbinger of springtime is the song of the Varied Thrush. Make sure you click on the "listen" button. Thrushes are here all year round, but when the cloud lifts from the sky their police whistle call multiplies.

 

Meet the Zauberball. Translates to Crazy Ball and the colour translation is Tropical Fish. To complicate matters, this particular style is called Crazy Zauberball, meaning Crazy Crazy Ball. It fits:

I had always wanted to try the Zauberball, but couldn't justify the going price. Blogless Masha and I lucked into two balls in the sale bin at Hellen's in Mount Vernon, WA. It reminds me of Kauni yarn, only much softer. This ball is magically turning into a crocheted scarfy/kerchief version of the Scarlet Evening Shawl. Don't let the Russian writing scare you, the diagram and photos are easy to follow.

I am appropriately crazy about this yarn – very high in the just one more row factor.

Isn't this a clever invention? Just in time for April showers, a birthday gift from my daughter. It saves lots of time toweling off Ms.Grace in our rainy climate.

Look, her belly hair is coming  back! No more post ultrasound nakedness. She looked so embarrassed with that pink piggy tummy. The best part is – she's healthy.