Five Favorites for this Fall Friday

Well, OK technically Fall doesn't begin for another couple of hours, but - details, details.

What a week.  I mean, WHAT. A. WEEK.

I really really really had to think to come up with five things that made me happy in the last week.  But I found them, and here they are.

1.  Vegetarian sloppy joes.  The Tim made some the other day for dinner, and they were sooooo yummy!  And it's kinda funny, because when I used to eat meat, I wasn't really that crazy about sloppy joes, because the ones I had always seemed kind of greasy.  But these were most excellent.

2.  Talking to a friend I haven't seen for a while for a nice long time.  Last weekend, I had a phone conversation for a bit more than an hour with a friend who I haven't really had a chance to talk to for any length of time for about 4 years.  We e-mail back and forth, but nothing too involved.  It was fun and so nice to talk to someone who "gets" things that no one else does.  And that's a lot coming from me - someone who HATES to talk on the phone for the most part!

3.  Taking a colleague out for a belated birthday lunch.  One of the scientists who works where I do had his birthday at the beginning of September.  Every year at my birthday time, I inform him that he is taking me out to lunch.  To his credit, he always does.  So I took him out for lunch yesterday, and we had a good time.

4.  Weird but amusing dreams.  I've had a few dreams this week that were even stranger than usual, but what I could remember from them was really funny.  I woke up laughing twice, because somehow even as the dream was occurring, I knew it was ridiculous.

5.  The show "Difficult People."  I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but we watched the episode for this week last night, and there was a particular part of it that made me laugh so hard, I could barely breathe.  Even The Tim was gasping.  So stupid and so funny.

I hope you've found some good things this week.  Everyone needs to find at least one, right?

We do not have any specific or elaborate plans for this weekend.  The weather is going to be stupidly hot and humid, so I sincerely doubt there will be any activities that require spending any amount of time outdoors.  Does that mean I have to clean the house???!!!

Have a good one.  Happy First Day of Fall!  And if you are lucky enough to be enjoying fall-like weather, enjoy some for me too.  :-)

The Good, the Bad

Hello there - I meant to write a post in the past couple of days, but got waylaid by some other stuff that needed more immediate attention.  But things have settled at least for the moment, so let's discuss some good things and some bad things, shall we?

Good things first!  On Saturday of this past weekend, I bound off the Scattered Wishes shawl!  Here it is in a state of unblocked, unwoven ended-ness:

Sunday morning I wove in the ends, and blocked it later in the day.  Stay tuned for an upcoming FO post about this one.  Here it is, folded up waiting for blocking:

It's not perfect on the lace border, but it's just fine as far as I'm concerned.  I fudged a couple of things but it's not that noticeable, and even if it is, you have to be mighty close and looking at each stitch to tell.  My plan to only do two rows of the lace whenever I sat down to work on it was the answer to my problems with the lace.  I'm waiting for a nice day when I can get a really good picture for a project post on it.

Another good thing over the weekend:

Sticky buns!  A bakery near our house has these on weekend mornings, and every once in a great while we treat ourselves to one.  These were nice and warm from the bakery, and soooooo yummy!  We are suckers for good sticky buns, let me tell you.

So the weekend was successful.  I am also not that far from finishing the pair of socks I'm knitting - I'm at the decreases for the heel gusset, and then will be able to sail along on the foot and toe, and another pair will be in the books!  Then I can start on my project for Dee and Vera's Fall KAL.  I need to finalize what I want to knit, but it's narrowed down to three possibilities, so I'll just need to decide what works best with the yarn I want to use.

That's all good.  :-)

Then there's the Bad.  Sigh.  Earthquakes and hurricanes.  With not even a breather in between!  This morning on the news, the death toll from yesterday's earthquake in Mexico City was already in the hundreds, with a lot more searching to be done.  I've never experienced an earthquake of any note (gratefully!), but I can only imagine the fear and horror.  

There are wildfires in the west, some barely being controlled, that are destroying forests, lands, homes, and habitat.  Some areas have been suffering from drought and so fighting the flames becomes even  more difficult and unmanageable.

And then, Hurricane Maria heading right for my beloved Puerto Rico makes me incredibly sad.  I keep thinking of the horses, chickens, iguanas, and other animals on Palomino Island.  My hope is that they were able to move the horses somewhere else that is safer, but I also realize they do not have a ton of resources to work with, and will concentrate on people first.

Places right on the water will be especially hard hit, and likely destroyed.

And I keep wondering how people will survive and rebuild.  I know they will want to, since it's their home and their lives, but they are having so many financial issues to start with, there isn't a lot of anything else to use for a jumping off point.  

It's overwhelming when there is just one terrible thing happening - but there have been two earthquakes in Mexico in only a few weeks, and then Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and now Maria all in a row.  And OK, technically, Hurricane Jose has been riling up the waters and flooding along the East Coast, which is not good, but at least it's not as destructive as the others are/have been.  

We can only do so much to help, but it's better than nothing.  And we don't even have the example of compassionate leadership for direction and comfort to make us feel like can and do and will help.  Instead we are stuck with someone who wouldn't know what compassion and empathy were if they were standing in front of him personified.  It boggles my mind that people can exist who are like that, but we have our very own shining star in that arena.

Ugh.  It's up to the rest of us to do what we can, however we can, and when we can.  We're the ones who need to act and do a Good Thing.

Extremely Ravell'd

Ha ha, see what I did there?  (Hey work with me people, I need to amuse myself however I can these days.)

Anyway, it's Unraveled Wednesday, and this week I actually have some stuff to share, so I thought I'd go ahead and post.  Sometimes there is nothing different to show you than the same old thing from last week, so I'm often uninspired.  But this week I felt like progress had been made.

Below are the two projects I am currently knitting.  On the left is the cuff and almost all of the leg on my second Solar sock.  It's an enjoyable knit, and once you get into the rhythm of it, you can make a lot of progress quickly.  It's when you haven't picked it up for a while that you find yourself knitting along and then you realize you've screwed up and have to unknit a few rows.  Then you become annoyed with yourself.  

On the right is a bunched up shot of my Scattered Wishes shawl, which is no nearly finished, that it makes me nuts.  Why, you ask?  Because the last 26 rows are lace, and as you know if you have read this blog more than twice, lace and I have a complicated relationship at best.  Having said that, I am currently at Row #20, which is farther along than I've gotten before, so perhaps the end is in sight.  Even using lifelines, I have frogged and restarted this section more times than I can remember!  I LOVE LOVE LOVE this project, and even hope to knit another one, but this last section is killing me!  I am determined to be the victor in this battle though.  ;-)

Lately I have not been able to read anything very complex or involved, so I recently finished two quick cozy mysteries, and started this the other day.  Edna O'Brien is one of my favorite writers, and this is a collection of short stories, which is perfect for me right now.  I just started this, but the couple of things I've read so far, I've really enjoyed.  I love her way of seeing things and describing people.

In other news, I went to a trunk show at Loop last Sunday for Backyard Fiberworks, and I have found another true love yarn brand (yeah, because I needed something else to spend my non-existent funds on, right??).  The colors she had were truly gorgeous - lovely combinations, and solids that were so saturated, they almost didn't look real!

She had three samples knit in her yarns that I was insanely crazy about:  5190 Miles, On the Spice Market, and Torquata, which Alice - the dyer behind Backyard Fiberworks - was wearing.  These are all lovely as shown on the pages linked here, but seeing them in person, in the combinations she had, made me actually want to knit them!  For the last two, she had sets of minis for the pops of color, and then you just add one skein of yarn for the main color, as she said, "Just from your stash, unless you want to spend more money!"  She was wearing her version of Torquata, and I think that may be an upcoming project for me, once I can save up to buy one of the mini-packets (they weren't that expensive, but I am currently very broke! ... and, since Loop will be starting to carry her stuff, I won't have to pay shipping).  Anyway, it is always fun to see yarns that are new to me, and to see how a different color combination can change your whole experience of something.

That's it for today's blathering.  I'm happy and relieved to see/hear that so many of my blog friends in Florida are safe, even if slightly inconvenienced by Irma - inconvenience is always preferable to injury.  One friend IRL who moved to Florida last year, said that her 3-year-old thought sleeping in a closet was so much fun, he didn't want to go back to his regular bed - he wanted to know if they could have another "raining party" soon!  I guess it's good he wasn't traumatized, but I'm pretty sure no one is hoping for another raining party anytime in the near future ...

Take care, all.  I'll be back  again soon.

Five Favorites for This Friday

Even more than usual, TGIF!! (By the way, have you seen Kym's new way to interpret that?  I may have to give that a try myself in the future.) 

Thanks for all of your kind and supportive words over the past few weeks.  This week has been particularly brutal, and so I need a favorites post to keep me from just losing it altogether.  So let's see what we have to think about that has been good over the past week.

1.  The weather.  The actual weather outside - not in my head!  It's been a lovely week here in Philadelphia.  Tuesday was the least enjoyable to me, since it was warmer and more humid than it has been recently.  But other than that, the days have been sunny, warm but not too warm, with  nice breezes and overnight temperatures that require a sheet or lightweight quilt to be comfy.  Particularly given what other places are dealing with, it's been perfect.

2.  Our trip to Nockamixon State Park on Labor Day.  It was such a nice day, and though there were lots of people around, it was not crowded in the least.  We saw and petted lots of pups, laughed at some of the kiddos at the pool, and enjoyed watching the birds of prey flying around.  We saw hawks, buzzards, and even some brown eagles.  Even better, none of them were interested in us!

3.  Kim's Knitters Hunk and Knitters Chick contest.  It's just gotten underway, and if you haven't been participating, you should.  Not only is it fun to see who is nominated and vote, but I find it fascinating to see who is involved.  So many people nominate their faves that you truly see a crazy range of people.  

4.  Kindness.  Seeing how people have been going out of their way to actually do what they can for others with all of the hurricanes, wildfires, flooding, and even earthquakes happening.  So much of our daily lives has been overtaken by the horrific actions of the current administration in DC, that it was rewarding to be reminded that most people, when given the opportunity, have true kindness in their hearts.  

5.  Farm stands.  On our way home  this past Monday, we stopped at a farm stand and bought some fresh corn, a cantaloupe and some peaches.   We are still enjoying all of them, and they really and truly are so much yummier than what you can buy at a grocery store.  

Hopefully there has been at least one thing this week that has made you happy.  And here is wishing all of us a good weekend!  For those of you anywhere near any of the terrible weather, I hope that you and yours will be OK. 

Take care, everyone.

Shortest To-Do List Ever!

This week's Think Write Thursday had a different kind of twist to it, since apparently participation is not what Carole and Kat were hoping.  I understand that, since I am not always a participant.  Sometimes I seriously just don't want to put the time and effort into a topic that doesn't grab me, and other times I truly forget altogether.  So they asked us this week to think about Three Things Thursday, and share three things from our To-Do List.

As you probably know I love lists, and I have To-Do Lists that are a) very long, b) unrealistic, and c) lists of To-Do Lists *for* my other To-Do Lists!  (Ridiculous, I know.  So.Many.Lists.  Oh well.)  But I can certainly share three things that are in the top of my brain (and its own list) right now, so here goes.

1. Find another job.  This has been on the top of many lists for a long while, but recent events have made it even more necessary for me.  The real kicker was yesterday, when I asked if someone could please empty the trash in the library, since our usual person is on vacation this week, and nothing had been picked up since last Thursday.  The solution: *I* am now collecting the library's trash.  I am not too good to do this, or a snob who thinks that people who collect trash are somehow not worth thinking about.  Rather, I am angry that this is the solution they came up with.  The powers-that-be decided outsourcing the building maintenance would be a great idea, so there are very specific things that the cleaning service will and will not do.  I could go on, but suffice it to say that apparently adding someone else's duties to another employee when someone is out is not part of the contract.  Which is stupid.  Anyhoo, I am very hopeful that something happens sooner rather than later on the job front for me.  Because especially very soon, it will only get worse for a long while before it gets any better.

OK, sorry for the mini-rant.  Moving on.

2.  Clean out one closet.  Yes, all of the closets need to be cleaned out, but you know, baby steps.  Surely I can get one out of the way.  Theoretically, it will help remind me not to just throw stuff into closets willy-nilly, and cut down on the need to do it again whenever it becomes Another Big Thing.

3.  Finish - or just even get closer to finishing - seaming a sweater.  My Custom Fit sweater was finished and blocked months ago.  A couple of weeks ago, I seamed the shoulders.  That's it.  If I would actually finish seaming it, then I could knit the neckline, and then I could actually WEAR it.  And the weather is only going to get cooler in the next couple of months, so I don't have the well-it's-not-like-I-could-wear-it-in-this-weather-anyway excuse.

To some extent, the first item is out of my control - but the other two could actually - hopefully - happen.  Yay.  :-) And I could do them this weekend ... or, I could do this:

I won't.  But ... I could ... and it would greatly amuse me ...