Always a Bright Side

I'm typing most of this one handed, I can knit maybe twenty stitches at a time and I'm not in the best of moods. But I can still click, and I found this. It's perfect for those who like cats and have at least a small fondness for eighties rock. The best part starts after 30 seconds.

I laughed and laughed and laughed. And I've found a whole new genre of YouTube videos that can waste my time. I'm off to watch 'ZZ Cat - Well Groomed Coat.' Again. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Has Anyone Seen My Marbles?

I have officially lost the plot, gone doolally and am away with the fairies. Yesterday I started getting a craving. It was the sort of craving you get during pregnancy or when you have a monthly need for chocolate. I was desperate - to cast on a triangle scarf. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if DH decided that I needed an intervention. But I really, really, really, wanted to knit a triangle scarf. As I'm reaching my sixties, I'm willing to blame it on hormones, or lack of them, and part of me was fascinated at why I should feel this. The rest of me decided to turn over my room in search of some yarn cakes that I bought when bear was tiny, or even before. I think I may have donated them, but my room looked like a hurricane had breezed through and I couldn't find them. Instead I spotted some double knitting that I'd stashed ready for a sweater. I grabbed the yarn and a 5mm circular needle (US size 8) which are bigger than the 4mm the yarn asked for but give a better drape with garter stitch. I settled down, leaned back and loaded up YouTube.

Not only am I losing my sanity to triangle scarves, but I seem to be losing any sort of brainpower as it took me an hour and a half to cast on and set up a shawl. I kept trying different videos to get them to make sense. I felt better after I got going, though, and it currently looks like this.

The yarn feels lovely, snuggly, warm, and soft and you can't get in any more as it was a Marriner brand and they went out of business. I've got enough for a sweater pattern.

But I'm making some mental calculations. The pattern I have asks for 500g, as it's quite plain. You can find it here, if you're interested, but I want to make it two inches longer than the pattern. There are two issues with this. I don't want to get carried away on the really snuggly shawl and not have enough for an equally snuggly sweater and I'm not sure about the length of the yarn. The yarn called for in the pattern is sold in balls that are 345m long, while the yarn that I've actually got is 290m per ball. I'm not saying the yarn is thicker than average, but it feels like it's eaten a lot of big dinners compared to standard double knitting. I may be forced to knit a swatch for the first time in years. 

And then there's the needle issue. If I knit to gauge, which I've always done in the past, I need a 4mm needle and the best one for the job is currently occupied with the multicoloured scarf in hurdle stitch that I only started a couple of days ago. So I need to finish the scarf and hat before I get carried away by the soft snuggly sweater which, when finished, will allow me to know whether I've got enough left for an amazing shawl. My track record for finishing things is not stellar, but at least this time I have an incentive. 

Not only am I concerned about my mental capacity, or lack of it, but I've done something interesting to my arm. When I told DH that I hurt my arm turning over in bed wrong, he stared at me, shook his head and told me, 'well, you will go taking risks.' I think I may have pulled a muscle of some sort, but I'm in a lot of pain, can't raise it above my head and I'm very restricted. Last time I had anything like this, it eased off eventually, but I cannot tell you how unimpressed I am at the whole business. After an evening losing all sense of proportion over a triangle shawl, I planned to go out today and find a quite corner and sit and knit. This has always helped my mental health. Unfortunately, my arm is so bad that I daren't risk driving. 

I made this on Canva yesterday. I can knit for short periods, and moving around is uncomfortable, but I may be able to get some writing done without excuses to be elsewhere. This is a good quotation to have in front of me.

In my case, action inspires me to new knitting projects. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Slightly Mindful

I've got a few more bits done today. It's all little stuff, but it's better than I have been. There's lots of fiddly bits that aren't worth writing about. However, some knitting has happened. 

Do you remember the scarf kit that with a pattern that called for one 150g ball of yarn where you knitted from both the inside and outside of the ball, switching every other row? And I ended up with two 100g balls and some sincere concerns. Here's the old pic. 

I thought that I'd try knitting with one ball being the 'inner end of yarn' and one ball being the 'outer end of yarn' and settled down to it, but then I realised - the pattern isn't reversible. The scarf had a right side and a wrong side.

I fail at fashion, and I could never be bothered trying to get the scarf tied so that it only showed the right side. As such, I refused to try knitting that dratted pattern. Instead I got a reversible stitch from a knitting book and used that. They called it hurdle stitch, and it's two rows of plain knit followed by two rows of knit one, purl one rib. I've done this much so far.

I wouldn't mind a sweater in that stitch, but I could never face the maths that I'd have to do to adapt a pattern. I don't think that I'll use both balls for it, though. I think that I'm just under half way through the first ball, and the scarf is already 28 inches or around 70cm. I may make a matching hat. If I did it again, I'd cast on more stitches, as it's six inches or fifteen centimetres wide, but it's not bad and I'm really enjoying the colour.

I got a phone call from bear. He sounds snowed under with work but I think that he's doing okay. 

Writing stuff - I nearly forgot about sharing this on Facebook, but the latest instalment on my blog of the Guest is here 

Hugs and good health to all.

Not Being Mindful

My word of the year was 'MINDFUL' and so far I have failed to use it. I don't even want to think about how many knitting projects I've started and how much I'm dithering about writing. Not to mention how I'm easily distracted. Examples include a YouTube video that claimed that it was ten minutes and three ingredients for a delicious and healthy soup. There were eleven ingredients, if you count salt and pepper as one, it took a good hour by my reckoning and there was a large portion of double cream. It looked like a pleasant version of leek and potato soup, which I'm including because I've not much else to share, but I doubt that I'd follow their method entirely. Apart from anything else, they used fresh bread for the croutons and everyone knows that stale bread is better and that croutons are great for using up leftovers, not the current loaf. 

I also bought some yarn from Aldi. I do not need any more yarn, not a thread, not the tiniest, flimsiest hank. I missed the best part of the sale, fortunately, and they didn't have the colours I wanted in the quantities I needed. I took a quick pick but I didn't want to get in the way of other shoppers.

There was a lot, though, and I still came away with 200g of brown yarn. It hasn't photographed well, but this is the best match of the colours.

I never wear brown. Not ever. I refuse to even consider it. But this just seemed to call to me. It reminded me of autumn leaves on a grey pavement and so I picked up enough for yet another scarf. To be fair, it will look great with the plain greys, blacks and blues that I have in my wardrobe. I have no idea when I'll knit it up, because I'm already booked up for the next decade. Once again, I failed at Mindful. 

Mind you, I've been all over the place today. I've managed to smash my pint Pyrex jug, which is a feat. Those things usually bounce but it ricocheted off a counter and the blast radius was epic. It took a while to be confident that I'd got all the pieces up. And then I dropped a full but open tub of gravy granules, which was just as much of a nuisance to clean up. I think my mind was elsewhere, though I've no idea where. 

My eyes are feeling a lot better, though I still plan to make an appointment with an optician. I think it's my sinuses playing up. It's just that time of year.

Hugs and good health to all. 

Eye Strain

I'm not sure if it's eye strain or a cold in my eye. It's not painfully sore, but it's not comfortable either so I'm going to be brief before going for a nap to rest it.

We went out on Saturday to feed the crows and we were generous. It's been so cold that we want to give a helping hand. I wish I could feed in the garden, but with so many rats being attracted, it's not really fair on the neighbours. I'm hoping to plant some pyrocantha or firethorn this year. They are supposed to have lots of small white flowers in spring and summer for bees and plenty of berries for the birds in winter. First, a pic of the car park when we were feeding crows 

It was one of those bright, cloudless, icy mornings and was very bracing. Pyracantha, if I've got it right, looks like this stock photo.

Image from WikiCommons, taken by Renhour48 who has kindly placed it in the public domain

The ones planted around the edges of supermarket carparks are incredibly prolific with flowers and berries, so hopefully that will support some wildlife. 

I took the car in today to get the tyres checked. They were all low on air, but they thought that it was a combination of the weather and that she wasn't getting driven much. I'll just have to give her some longer runs. She'll get some driving this week, anyway, as DH has to go into the office to work. It will feel very odd being on my own in the house as there's been someone around all the time for so long.

Writing stuff - I'm being a little careful with screens, so not so much is getting done. The latest post from The Guest is on my writing blog here. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

I Do Not Regret It

 

I'm going to be writing loads, which means no pics to share, so I thought that instead I would share some of my impulse buys, and you can see why I may have issues. I can't remember how much the box was above, but I know that it came cheap. However I regret nothing about it (apart from the extra plastic sewing needles). I have wanted some chenille for a scarf for a while, as I want a soft scarf and this feels marvellous. I do regret the cleaning book that turned up in the same delivery as it was absolutely useless. I'd hoped to add it to my roster but instead it's confusing, full of tiny print, and barely fit to use to line a bird cage. 

Bear got to his campus safely. I know that because I had a single text, but that's fine. I know that he'd let me know if there was a problem. I'm sure that a lot of people who read this can identify, but it feels just a little off balance that he's not here. I burned one of the candles that he bought me for Christmas.

He found it in a shop local to him and it was lovely, made with pure beeswax, but it burned down into a puddle and I'll have to chip it out of the tealight holder that I used to contain it. I love that he thought of me when he didn't have to, if you see what I mean. He bought it a while before Christmas and it was so thoughtful. 

In other news, one of us left the fridge door ajar some time yesterday. I'm throwing out the bacon because it felt room temperature to the touch, but the cheese and the butter should be fine. Currently the fridge contents are around seventy percent condiments with a strong carrot contingent which I keep forgetting about - which is why I need a dratted 'use up' list.

And the tyre pressure gauge keeps going off. I'm taking it to the garage, just in case, because our road is so dreadful that there could be a slow leak in one of the tyres. It's happened before. However, it's likely that it's just the cold weather. Normally I get a minor service at this time of year. With our car only doing town driving, and now ten years old and counting, I want to make sure that she keeps going for as long as possible. However we've only filled up with petrol three times since her major service in June and there's still half a tank left from the last top-up. She was off the road for most of June and July with the airbag recall, and I haven't even done much shopping. I need to get back to shopping in person so that I don't lose my driving skills. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Tesco Delivered

I was looking at quotations to cheer me up after bear left for university and found this. 

I couldn't resist having a play with Canva. 

I'm getting settled back at the good computer on the decent desk and I thought that there wouldn't be much to talk about. Then Tesco delivered and I had a bonus. DH prefers Heinz beans, so when I saw a deal for sixteen full sized tins for £11, when the 'price they use so they can call things a sale' is currently £1.40 per tin, with sixteen at that price costing £22.40, I committed. But they were out of stock of the 2x8pack that was the deal, so I got 6x4packs, or 24 full sized cans of Heinz beans for £11 - around 46p a tin. If I'd had the energy, I would have done a lap of celebration around the kitchen. Of course, they'll likely last until March, especially with the half cans I got for the individual meals, which were also on offer. I am stuffing my shelves.

The Three Rivers Homestead YouTube channel hosts a pantry challenge every year around this time. The challenge is to live out of the pantry for one, two or three months without going grocery shopping. This makes sense for the homestead channels who spend their summers preserving their hard work in their gardens and fields. It also wouldn't hurt me to thin out the cupboards. Instead, along with the baked bean mountain, I got six very large bottles of Tesco tomato ketchup. I have a habit of treating food as a ketchup delivery system, and there was a coupon for 15% off. Coupons that apply to Tesco's own brand stuff are rare and while 15% isn't as good as some deals, I'll take the opportunity. Mind you, the legislation that bans deals on processed food seems to have cancelled the 3for2 promotion on jars of sauce that normally runs in the autumn, which is something of a blow. 

Now that I'm back on the desk and getting the lists going again, I want to add a page for 'food that needs using' so I can't forget, for example, to use up the bits of polish sausage that bear left in the fridge, or the fat free yoghurts that are allegedly good for me, came today on the wings of a coupon and I am uneasily aware will slide to the back of my mind. It won't hurt to use Tesco to look up recipes for all the stuff that's in my cupboards. Which means that I ought to do an inventory of my cupboards after Christmas. Which I may or may not get to when I'm not writing.

And if all else fails, I've got wonderful inspiration from the Weary Wolf, who did a food challenge where he had baked beans for every meal for a week, three times a day! I'm not sure I'm up to that dedication, but it's a resource.

Hugs and good health to all