Not a Cold Shoulder But More Annoying

Hello there.  I hope your weekend was OK or at least not awful.  Ours was pretty uneventful, which as a relief after the fiasco that was last week.  Though on Saturday morning, I woke up with searing pain in my left upper arm and shoulder.  At first I thought I must have stiffened it up in some weird sleeping position, but it just didn't let up no matter what.  Grrrrr.  I kept trying to work it out, but frankly it hurt too much and at a certain point I gave up.  Sunday it was less sore, and then - seriously - all of a sudden, it hardly hurt at all and I could move it much more easily.  This morning there is a slight tinge, nothing else.  So I have no idea what that was all about, but I'm glad it seems to be clearing up, because it was annoying at best.

I didn't have a lot of plans for things I was planning to do, but since I was for all intents and purposes (as opposed to "intensive purposes") unable to do a whole lot, I decided that meant I should just read and do crafty things.  Makes sense, right?  By the end of Saturday, I had a sock finished, and by the end of the day yesterday, I was halfway down the leg of sock #2.

 

On Saturday afternoon, I finished the wording on my cross stitch project, which pleased me.  

Now I will have the border and the outlining to do.  That will probably take a while, because it involves counting and a lot of blank space, and I'm not really good at that kind of thing.  But I'm enjoying the project, and I'm the only one who will know if/where I mess anything up, so it will be done one way or the other.  

Shortly after mentioning having started Wild Game last week, I abandoned it.  I didn't like the people, and didn't like the story, and so forget spending any more time reading it, you know?  On Friday, I started Seaview House and I have to tell you, I'm finding it highly entertaining.  It's a domestic comedy/comedy of manners and I don't know if it's really that good, or if I'm just in the mood for it.  I'm about halfway through, and purposely trying not to finish it any sooner than necessary.

A local photographer posted this photo on Facebook, showing the moment a lightning strike over the Philadelphia skyline during a crazy storm on Saturday night.

I find this breathtaking.  Fortunately other than LOTS of rain, we had no other negative effects from this storm or from the remains of Hurricane Isaias earlier in the week.  I know some friends in the 'burbs are still without power, but in the city we lucked out.  I think since most of the power lines are underground, we don't suffer outages as much as places where trees fall onto power lines, etc.

It sounds as if this week we are back to hot and humid and overall ICK.  The other day on the local news, they said that there were 3 days in July when the temperature was not 90 degrees (F) or above, and that was a record.  I am not pleased to be living in these record-breaking times, let me tell you.

Hopefully in spite of any weather issues, we'll all have a week that goes well.  Part of me thinks, "Well, it can't be much worse than last week," but of course I know only too well that it can.  So I'm just going to hope for a normal, boring week where things are fine.  If it goes better than that, it will be icing on the cake (oooh, cake!).  Take care, friends!

Fascism and Knitting

Two things that are NOT the same, by the way.

What a week this has been.  Ugh.  I am often dismayed/disappointed in my country and/or its leaders, but currently, I'm embarrassed and ashamed.  And I don't want to feel that way about my country.  I know people that I think are pretty horrible, who are narrow-minded and prejudiced, and who are suspicious of every single person who is not "American" like they are.  And you know what?  Those people are examples of good character compared to those in charge these days!  A friend in Ireland sent me an e-mail, saying, "I thought there were checks and balances?  What are they, and why aren't they being used?"  I've got no good answer right now.  But I'm not about to sit back and let this happen.  Fascism is never good.  Ever.  I'm one person, but I'm not alone, thank God.

(used with permission of the creator)

In order to keep myself from making myself sick, I have been actively working to do and think of other things.  Like how much I love animals, and my own kit kats in particular.  When one of them is purring in my lap, the world seems much better.

Also - knitting keeps my mind occupied with something happy.  Between the world these days, and the fact that I am not as mobile as I usually am, I'm knitting up a storm (well, at least for me).  And I'm making pretty good progress on the projects I mentioned in my last post.

This is sock #1 of my Winter Berry Socks, and as you can see, I only have the foot left before this will be finished.  I love the yarn, and the resulting socks will be wonderful to wear around the house when it's really cold outside, but after this pair, I'm NEVER EVER using this pattern again!  It's written in a really annoying, folksy way that makes the simplest of instructions difficult to understand.  I know it's been around for a while, and lots of people love it, but not me.  I'll probably power through knitting these just to be done with it!

My Bluegrass Baa-ble Hat is going better:

My only problem with this was that when I printed the pattern, it was hard to tell the difference in the shading of the squares for the colors, and it was so hard to even see because it printed out so small.  (I downloaded the pattern back when it was a freebie from Shetland Wool Week; maybe the paid-for version now available has better formatting.)  But The Tim enlarged the chart and fooled with some of it, so now I can see what I'm doing as well as figure out what's what.  The trickiest part so far for me was the rows where you used three colors, but I'm past that now, and back to two colors per row.  Phew!  I just hope it fits after all of this, but if not, I'll have a lovely gift for someone with a smaller head than mine ... ;-)

In other news, this was an "exciting" weekend for me!  I originally had an appt to get my hair cut the day after I got the cast on for my broken ankle, and I  had to cancel, not just because I was in bad shape, but because there are a bunch of steps to get to the salon.  So I optimistically rescheduled for yesterday.  The Tim dropped me off, and I made my way up the steps with my crutches to get my hair cut, then he gave me a ride home.  I feel so much better!  (You get good at steps quickly when you live in an old Philadelphia row home.)

Then about an hour ago, I made my way to the CVS around the corner and got some stuff I needed all on my own!  Granted, it took me about half an hour, and I made sure to come home and sit and have a cup of tea afterwards, but nonetheless it was a good feeling.

It truly is the little things, right?

Here's hoping we can all have a good week, even if only by finding the little things to enjoy.  Take care, everyone, and let's keep going.