Ravelled Sleeve of Care

My sleep is all over the place. I'm typing this around 6.30pm and can barely keep my eyes open. However if I stay up then around 10pm I'll be as lively as a spring lamb and be unable to sleep until around 3am. Then I'll end up napping in the middle of the day. But if I go to bed now then the chances of me being wide awake between midnight and 4am are ridiculously high. Grumble. 

I had four hours sleep last night and I was up at 5.30am. I did all sorts of admin up to around 9.30am. I sorted through a load of emails, checked in on my social media and went through the birthdays on my author Facebook page. I pretty much accept everyone there, so now I have a gazillion friends who I don't really know. I've decided that every day I'll go through the birthdays and if they haven't posted for a couple of years then I'll unfriend. Yesterday I went from 72 friends having birthdays to just over 20 after doing this. There weren't so many today, as a lot of people put 1st Jan as a default, but I unfriended someone who I didn't really know and who hadn't posted since 2018. I'm sure that they can find me if they want. I started trying this to keep under the Facebook friends limit, but it's been fascinating over just two days. By the way, if I unfriend you because you don't post or I've slipped, if you're not too offended, please drop a message or put in a friend request. I don't want to lose good friends. I'm just trying to avoid scammers and inactive accounts.

I'm failing with a scarf. I was trying the Lamar scarf pattern and I made a right mess with it. It's ages since I did any cables and knitting 6 stitch cables in rib was a little more than what I'm used to. I managed to drop a load of stitches and pull some out and there was no way I could pick up again. I hadn't got far, thank goodness, so I thought that instead I would knit the scarf from the Mission to Seafarers scarf instead to donate. The Seafarer's scarf is cast on 40 stitches then knit 200g and cast off so I cast on 40 stitches and settled down.

Then I wondered about going up a size. I was knitting the double knitting with the correct size needles, but plain knitting always drapes better if you use a larger needle. I'm considering ripping it out and trying again with the Lamar Pattern but with four stitches in the cable instead of six. I think that I can make the numbers work. I may leave it to one side with the rest of my gazillion unfinished projects and go back to my blanket.

I'm signing off before I start sleep typing.

Hugs and good health to all. 

Happy New Year!

I'm back after taking some much needed time to think about my priorities. It's still a work in progress, but I'm always going to be a work in progress and at least there's a little movement. 

To catch up, bear is now a legal adult. He can now buy a drink in a bar, undertake a legal contract and get married without our approval. He doesn't seem in a rush to do any of that, but I'll keep an open mind. He got a pretty good haul of gifts from family and friends and seems very satisfied. He's studying hard but still finds time for some social life. A few days ago I took him to a party and I'm still recovering from the drive. The party was in the middle of nowhere with an hourly bus service. I was happy to drop him off, and I would again, but with the nights being early this time of year and the weather, well, it was an adventure. I found myself on unfamiliar single track country lanes, twisting and turning around blind corners, in the dark, with the mist coming down. The speed limit was 60mph but I had no shame in dropping to around 25mph when no-one was behind me. As it was, I was holding up traffic for part of the way because I couldn't see what was coming next and I wasn't going to speed up for the sake of it. I was so glad that he got the bus home!

Then there was the 'please pick me up' text at just past midnight after he went to a New Year's Eve party. The weather was foul with the roads running with water. I'd rather drive through that than leave him stranded and I'm grateful that he trusts me to pick him up. DH joined me as we had a few concerns, but everything is fine. 

I finished a blanket. I'm not trying to sell or donate this as it's full of holes and mistakes. I had a nightmare with it and I'm not sure why. At the end, I played yarn chicken and lost. You can see where I ran out of red and had to use a leftover strand of orange.

I've been looking at the 'pantry challenges' on YouTube #threeriverschallenge. It's full of people who grow their own food and have all sorts of wonderful things stashed. I'm not trying that and I already have my next delivery booked for the 3rd of January. However it's a good reminder and I'm planning to make an inventory of what food I have in and make some plans to use everything up. I have a 10kg bag of potatoes (around 22lb) which I'm determined to finish. Yesterday we had Bombay potatoes and they were amazingly wonderful. We've also had Mustard Potatoes from this recipe.  

Writing stuff - it's not much, but I've finally posted on my writing blog with a bit of chat here. 

Hugs and good health to all. 

Grumble

I caught a bug when I went into hospital to check out the potential blood clot. Now I can't stop coughing and everything aches.

I'm giving up and coming back in the new year.

Hugs and good health to all. 

I Found My Keys

Another quick post, just dashing through.

My leg has been particularly bad so I went to the doctor today. They ruled out the Peripheral Artery Disease but couldn't rule out a clot so I've just been to the hospital for five hours for a blood test and waiting around for the results. I got the all-clear, but it took a while. On the bright side, I got a load of knitting done. 

But I found my car keys. They were in my bag. That is the bag that I had searched many, many times, in a small pocket that not only had been searched but also had been used many times. To show how ridiculous that is...

... and to show how ridiculous it is with the comparative sizes.

I'm blaming the fairies.

Hugs and good health to all. 

Just a Quick Post

I've got quite a few bits done today. It's not like room makeovers or anything, but I chipped away at a few things. I made a start on shortening the curtains. They looked like this...

I'm trying to shorten them without taking the things down as it will be a nightmare to adjust, that is, given my hit and miss, 'near as dammit' attitude, it would be a nightmare for me to adjust correctly. I've got this far...

And I think I'm going to have to reconsider my strategy. I was wrestling with the fabric, but bear came home early and I was using hsi computer chair to sit in while I tried to pin the dratted stuff down. Once it's in place, I don't think it will take long to hem, as I've hand stitched hems before and it's been fine. 

Day Two of making lists has been okay. I've done more than I would have otherwise, but it's not revolutionary. I'm aiming for gradual improvement anyway. For example, I deleted or filed away around four thousand emails today. The 'sweep' function on Hotmail is incredibly useful. I need to tackle at least that amount on gmail and another hotmail account, but they will be slower as they both have more writing stuff which needs to be gone through appropriately. 

Thank you for all the wonderful kind wishes. I'll answer them properly tomorrow, but right now I'm nodding off where I sit and I don't want to skimp on the sincere thanks.

Hugs and good health to all. 

News!

Bear has got an interview with Oxford University! I cannot tell you how proud DH and I are. It's been all him. He's been the one studying and working hard to get there. Now all he needs to do is get past the interview.

I'll keep posting snippets about bear, but I'm going to try and cut back and avoid some details. Bear is going out into the wide, wide world and I don't want anything that I do affecting him in any way. He may be happy to share his daft mother with others, but he may prefer to be more anonymous. I've tried to be respectful about what I post, but it may not be comfortable for him in later years. It will be hard, because there's not much else going on in my life. I'm just going to have to make sure that I have other news. 

And speaking of other news, I've set up a folder to try and keep me on track. I got a cheap one from the supermarket and added some stickers. 

I've put together a hand written calendar and some repeating to do lists and I'm starting again from there. I think it will be useful if I can stick to it.

And speaking of sticking to it, I got a load of stickers ages ago and now I've got a great excuse to use them!

Hugs and good health to all. 

It Arrived!

The nice man and woman turned up when they said, took the old one, brought in the new one, switched the door and left after maybe fifteen minutes. It was wonderful after last time. I didn't want to take a full pic as the walls are in a bad state, but here's a close up.

We use strong magnet hooks on the fridge and hang all sorts of stuff from them. It makes life a lot easier. It's one of the reasons for wanting the size fridge that we got. It had to be small enough that we could leave the herbs and spices on top, but tall enough that we could hang all the graters and colanders and measuring spoons on the door. It's working nicely and I'm so relieved. 

DH made a very pleasant biryani for dinner. To be honest, we both had reservations. Our experience of biryanis comes from Indian restaurants and takeaways. Their biryanis come with flavoured rice, meat and a curry-style sauce. This was just meat and rice that was beautifully flavoured - link here. It tasted amazing, but it didn't feel what we expected. 

Now that the kitchen is put back together, it's been a relaxing day and I've got a lot of knitting done. I'm bracing for tomorrow. Due to a combination of getting deals before they end and needing certain products, I've got a delivery from Tesco and Morrisons coming tomorrow - though thankfully at wildly separated times. I would be mortified if they both turned up together!

Hugs and good health to all.